The Brief

CHICAGO — For the past five weeks, a bar in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood has become one of the country's biggest World Cup watch parties, with lines stretching around the block for the biggest games.

This is all the doing of Chicago's Major League Soccer club, the Fire. By the time the final whistle is blown on the World Cup between Argentina and Spain on Sunday, an estimated 60,000 people or more will have come through at some point in the summer for a taste of World Cup fever.

This watch party and others like it around the country are one piece of Major League Soccer's efforts to capitalize on this World Cup summer here in the U.S.

Hosting the 1994 World Cup was transformative for the sport of soccer in the United States. World Cup fever led millions of children to sign up for youth leagues. Many Americans saw games aired on TV for the first time. And it led directly to the creation of Major League Soccer, as the establishment of a top-division men's professional outdoor league was a condition of awarding the U.S. the tournament.

Since then, the league has done decades of work to grow its fanbase and stature in the world of soccer. MLS kicked off in 1996 with 10 teams; last season it reached 30 teams, the same number as Major League Baseball and the NBA. In the early years, only a few dozen games were on TV each season; today, every game is televised on Apple TV.

Now, MLS hopes that 2026 can be just as transformative as 1994. The question is: how?

FOX Sports host Rob Stone (L) and MLS Commissioner Don Garber speak at the MLS "The Next Chapter" Press Conference on July 16, 2026 in New York City. With the World Cup ending, the MLS motto is: "Thanks world. We'll take it from here"

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The Costco free sample experience

The Chicago Fire had a puzzle to solve. The FIFA World Cup was coming back to the United States — and with it would come a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use the world's largest sporting event as a potent accelerant to grow its fanbase, like harnessing a cart to a rocket ship.

But Chicago would not host any games, having sat out the bidding process at the behest of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who found FIFA's demands for expensive renovations to the city's premier stadium, Soldier Field, too much to ask of city taxpayers.

"At the end of the day, this is the biggest sporting event in the world that takes place once every four years. And it's not happening in Chicago," said Dave Baldwin, the Fire's president of business operations.

"And we had a decision to make," he said. "One was to just bury our head in the sand and just watch on TV like everyone else, or the other one was to really rally behind it, put some dollars behind it."

In the end, the Chicago Fire put just under $3 million to build up the space at the bar, called Recess. It is massive, with ample space indoors and out. In the center of the patio stands what looks like a jumbotron plucked from an arena nearby and set down on a platform, with all four sides showing that day's game. Around the space are Chicago Fire decorations, sign-up sheets, contests and team merch for sale.

"I compare converting non-soccer fans to soccer fans to my experience when I go shopping at Costco, which is I never knew that I needed 800 teriyaki meatballs, but I was walking through the line, I had a chance to sample, and I said, 'Oh my gosh, this is amazing,' and I go buy one of those giant boxes," Baldwin said. "I have met very few people that come out to a match and don't want to come back."

As the MLS season kicks back into gear, 22 clubs are running a promotion called "First Match on Us" or "Next Match on Us," with free tickets for first-time attendees.

Casual sports fans view soccer differently today than they did in the 1990s, said Brian Bilello, the president of the New England Revolution, one of the teams participating in the promotion.

Bilello played a key role in bringing World Cup matches to Gillette Stadium, the home of both the Revolution and the New England Patriots. The stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, also hosted France and Brazil in a pre-World Cup tune-up friendly in March. The Revolution saw the World Cup as an opportunity to attract fans who aren't diehard soccer followers, but rather the Boston sports fan who simply had yet to try a Revs game.

"One of the most important fans that we need to grow collectively in our league is that core sports fan that also likes soccer. In 1994, I don't think those fans were open to that. They were just like, 'Ah, soccer sucks. I don't like soccer,'" said Bilello. "That doesn't really exist as much anymore."

Lionel Messi of Inter Miami CF in action during the MLS match against the New England Revolution on April 25, 2026 in Miami, Fla.

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The Messi effect

This week, Major League Soccer rolled out an ambitious, eight-figure marketing campaign called "Thanks World, We'll Take It From Here." It includes a star-studded commercial that aired during both semifinal games and will run again during Sunday's final, which is expected to be watched by tens of millions of American viewers.

The centerpiece of the ad is Lionel Messi, the 39-year-old global superstar and captain of the Argentina national team. In 2023, Messi left a wildly successful career in Europe to join the MLS club Inter Miami, a blockbuster move that has already paid dividends for the league as a whole, with attendance and viewership up since his arrival.

"There were a lot of people that thought he was coming here to retire, and it's been the opposite," said Camilo Durana, the league's chief business officer. "Rarely do you see him getting subbed off. He wants to play the 90 minutes. He's intense. He wants to win."

Messi's performance in the World Cup has been another advertisement for MLS, Durana said. Argentina will play in Sunday's final against Spain; a win would be its second consecutive title with Messi at the helm, and he's in the running to win the Golden Boot race for most goals scored in the tournament. Messi has scored eight times and is in second place behind France's Kylian Mbappé, who has 10 goals.

"What Messi's arrival did — and what this World Cup we believe will do — is it'll encourage more players to come," Durana said.

Players are the other big audience MLS is targeting with this World Cup. Even as its quality of play has improved dramatically over the years, MLS is still dogged by a reputation for being a tier or two below Europe's domestic leagues.

MLS was directly involved in the U.S. bid for this World Cup to ensure that its teams' facilities would be front and center in the hosting plan.

Each host stadium was paired with nearby soccer facilities for visiting teams to train in the days immediately preceding each game; MLS worked to ensure those venues were, as often as possible, MLS team stadiums or training centers. (Other venue training sites included Division I college soccer facilities, municipal sporting complexes and one NWSL stadium, the Kansas City Current.)

Additionally, each World Cup team chose a base camp in North America to stay and train between games. Many chose MLS facilities. That included high-profile teams like Argentina, which stayed in Kansas City to train at a Sporting Kansas City center, and Brazil, which trained at Red Bull New York's state-of-the-art Columbia Park Training Facility in New Jersey.

Argentina's team trains ahead of its World Cup round of 32 match against Cape Verde at Sporting KC Training Center in Kansas City on June 29, 2026. MLS was directly involved in the U.S. bid for this World Cup to ensure that its teams' facilities would be front and center in the hosting plan.

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The goal was to show top-flight players from around the world what life could be like in MLS.

"Players talk," said Durana. "Often, before a player is transferred, they ask around and ask people what they think. So it's really important for us that players have great experiences as they experience the World Cup."

Many American soccer fans still prefer watching higher-tier European leagues like the English Premier League or Germany's Bundesliga. But improving the quality of players in MLS could lead to higher-quality competition — which then would draw more fans, MLS hopes.

"Major League Soccer players scored 10 goals in the group stage, and so I think that validates everything that we're doing, and it shows the quality that we have on the MLS pitch," Durana said.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.

The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.

That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.

The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.

“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.

South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.

This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.

The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.

One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.

At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.

Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.

In 1986, the city closed water wells contaminated by the neighboring Cooper Drum site.

EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.

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“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”

EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.

The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.

So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)

We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.

During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.

El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.

In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.

Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.

That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.

So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.

The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.

GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.

What happened?

GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.

Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.

All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.

What about the compensation fund?

This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.

What's next?

At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.

What's the community reaction?

Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”

A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.

He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.

In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.

B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.

Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.

In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.

The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.

The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.