Sports, in brief

The Presidents Cup, a golf match between 12 Americans and 12 players from every continent except Europe, starts on Thursday at Medinah, near Chicago. [2][11]

The United States has won 13 of the 15 played, including the last ten in a row. [5][11][7] The International team's only win came in 1998, in Melbourne. [1]

The PGA Tour, the main men's professional golf tour, owns the event and runs both teams. [1] It picks the captains and the venues, pays for both sides and sells the tickets. [1]

The International captain, Australia's Geoff Ogilvy, says the event would be better with more separation between the two teams. [1] The team has no permanent chief executive, so each captain does that job for his two years. [1]

The PGA Tour's commercial chief, Dhruv Prasad, says selling part of the event to another golf tour is not being considered. [1]

Players who joined LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed rival league, cannot play in the Presidents Cup. [1][10] That cost the International team players such as Australia's Cameron Smith and Chile's Joaquin Niemann. [1]

LIV filed for bankruptcy protection on 8 September. [10] On Sunday Bryson DeChambeau, a two-time US Open champion who joined LIV in 2022, posted that he was coming home. [10]

Every player, captain and assistant captain on both teams is paid $250,000. [2] That comes to $25.5m across the three Presidents Cups since payments began in 2022. [2]

Seven of the world's top ten golfers are on the US team. [11] The International team has two players in the top 25, Si Woo Kim at 14th and Ryan Fox at 22nd. [11][6]

Scottie Scheffler, the world number one, has won three of his nine Presidents Cup matches, lost five and halved one. [5][12]

Sam Burns hinted he will partner Scheffler this week. [8] The pair did not win any of their four matches together in 2022 and 2023. [8]

Ogilvy's design firm rebuilt the Medinah course, a $23m job paid for by the club's members and finished in 2024. [9] He says his team's home knowledge will be gone by Thursday. [4]

Adam Scott, 46, plays his 12th Presidents Cup, equalling Phil Mickelson's record. [4] He has never been on a winning team. [4]

Why it matters. The International team has lost by at least three points in every Presidents Cup played away from home since 1996. [5] An early lead in Thursday's first five matches would be the first sign that this one is different. [5]

Remco Evenepoel of Belgium won the men's time trial, a race against the clock one rider at a time, at cycling's world championships in Montreal. [14] He is the first man to win it four years running. [14] His bike, helmet and racing suit cost over $100,000. [13] Gil Landim Gomes of Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa, rode an ordinary road bike and finished 24 minutes and 34 seconds behind. [13] Zimbabwe's Skye Davidson raced on her team manager's bike after her own broke the day before. [13]

Why it matters. Some in cycling want the championships limited to established cycling nations, and call gaps like this an embarrassment. [13] Gomes said he came to fly his country's flag. [13]

Zoe Backstedt, a 21-year-old Welsh rider, won silver in the women's time trial in Montreal, 40.11 seconds behind Marlen Reusser of Switzerland. [14] Backstedt could have raced again for the under-23 title she won last year, but moved up to the senior race. [14] Reusser kept her title on her 35th birthday. [14] It is only the third British medal in the event. [14] Backstedt's father Magnus once won Paris-Roubaix, one of cycling's most famous one-day races. [15]

Why it matters. The road races on the same Montreal circuit come next. [16] Demi Vollering of the Netherlands, who won the Tour de France Femmes in July, starts the women's race as the favourite. [16]

India won their first gold of the Asian Games in Japan on Tuesday. [17] Their women's team beat Sri Lanka by 147 runs in the Twenty20 final, cricket's shortest main form. [17] India scored 216 for 3 and bowled Sri Lanka out for 69. [17] Opener Smriti Mandhana made 79 and has become the first woman to score 11,000 runs in international cricket. [17] Pakistan beat Bangladesh for bronze. [17]

Why it matters. India's men nearly lost to Japan, the host country, in a five-over game shortened by rain. [18] Japan finished two runs short. [18]

Fariba Hashimi won silver in the women's road race at the Asian Games, behind Guo Li of China. [18] It is Afghanistan's first medal in cycling. [18] Hashimi once dressed as a man so she could train in Afghanistan. [18] She left the country when the Taliban returned to power, and she is now based in Italy. [18]

Why it matters. Hashimi said she hopes Afghanistan's next generation of women can compete for their country without fear. [18]

Yumeki Kojima, 17, won the men's 400m individual medley for Japan in 4 minutes 7.02 seconds, a Games record. [18] He broke a 12-year-old mark set by Kosuke Hagino, one of Japan's best-loved swimmers. [18] China's Yu Zidi, who is 13, has won two individual golds. [18] China's Sheng Lihao and Wang Zifei also set a shooting world record of 507.1 in the 10m air rifle mixed team event. [18]

Why it matters. China won 201 golds at its own Asian Games in Hangzhou three years ago. [18] Reuters says it may struggle to match that total in Japan. [18]

South Korea's team chief at the Asian Games, Lee Sang-hyun, asked organisers for a formal apology over transport and housing problems. [19] To save money, organisers housed athletes in hotels, wooden container huts and a cruise ship instead of building an athletes' village. [19][21] South Korea moved its men's basketball team into hotels after one hut flooded and the beds proved too short. [19] Their bus failed to turn up for a training session hours before the final against Japan, which they won. [19]

Why it matters. An organising official apologised for being slow to respond and called the missing bus human error. [19] Organisers also apologised after North Korea's anthem was played before a South Korean hockey match. [19]

Two members of North Korea's 180-strong team at the Asian Games want to stay in Japan and not go home, South Korea's Monthly Chosun magazine reported on Tuesday. [20] It cited an official from Japan's government intelligence office. [20] The report said the two prefer Japan to South Korea. [20] Their names and jobs in the team were not given. [20]

Why it matters. Reuters could not confirm the report. [18] Japan's government could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, a public holiday there. [20]

A US federal judge in New York threw out British tennis player Tara Moore's $20m lawsuit against the WTA, which runs women's professional tennis. [22] Moore tested positive for two banned steroids at a tournament in Colombia in 2022. [22] A tribunal first cleared her, blaming contaminated meat. [22] The Court of Arbitration for Sport, sport's highest court, then banned her for four years. [23] She argued the WTA should have warned players about the meat. [23]

Why it matters. Her ban runs until December 2027. [22] Contaminated meat is a known problem for players: the Mexican Open took meat off its players' menu this year. [22]

Bologna, a club in Serie A, Italy's top football league, sacked their coach Domenico Tedesco after four league games. [24] His team drew one, lost three and scored two goals. [24] He had been appointed in June. [24] Raffaele Palladino, who left Atalanta in June after seven months, replaces him on a contract to June 2029. [24]

Why it matters. Bologna are 16th in Serie A. [24] Last season Palladino's Atalanta finished seventh, three points above Bologna. [24]

Valencia, a club in Spain's top league, have stepped up talks with Javier Aguirre about becoming their coach, a source told ESPN. [25] Aguirre, 67, managed Mexico's national team three times, most recently at the last World Cup. [25] Valencia are in the relegation places with four points from six games. [25] They sacked their coach, Carlos Corberan, and appointed a new sporting director, Braulio Vazquez, the same day to find the next one. [25] A formal offer is expected within days. [25]

Why it matters. Ernesto Valverde, who was also on the list, turned the job down. [25] People close to the squad say the players see Aguirre as a coach who has pulled teams out of relegation fights before. [25]

Lancashire, an English county cricket club, removed Mark Chilton, its director of cricket, and David Thorley, the coach of its women's team, on Monday. [26] The men's team is second from bottom of the County Championship's second division, English cricket's long-form league. [26] The women finished bottom of their Twenty20 group. [26] The club's chief executive, Daniel Gidney, is also leaving. [26]

Why it matters. Members have complained all year that the club put money-making ahead of results. [26] Chilton had captained Lancashire and won the Championship with them in 2011. [26]

Jonathan Trott was named head coach of the England Lions, the England cricket team's second string, on Monday. [27] He replaces Andrew Flintoff, who left in August to coach Sydney Thunder in Australia's Big Bash League. [27] Trott coached Afghanistan until the Twenty20 World Cup in February. [27] He will take the Lions to the Caribbean, South Africa and Sri Lanka this winter. [27]

Why it matters. Trott has said he wants to coach England one day, and the Lions job could be a step towards it. [27]

The Columbus Crew, an American football club, fired Federico Higuain as coach of its second team, Crew 2. [28] On 23 August he refused to let go of a female referee's hand after a game, even when asked three times. [28] He also told her it was a man's game. [28] His league, MLS Next Pro, had suspended him for two games. [28]

Why it matters. The club said its standards for a team leader had not been met. [28] Its other coaches will run Crew 2 in the playoffs while it looks for a new head coach. [28]

Steve Belichick has resigned as defensive coordinator, the coach in charge of defence, at the University of North Carolina, where his father Bill is head coach. [29] He left as the university closed an internal investigation into the football team's culture. [29] The university called what it found isolated, not a failure of the whole system. [29] He has been on medical leave since 6 August and formally leaves on 27 October. [29]

Why it matters. Sources told ESPN the investigation covered sex between staff and players and drug use. [29] The team's general manager, Michael Lombardi, resigned earlier. [29]

The New York Mets, a baseball club, gave Andy Green a three-year contract as manager on Tuesday, running to 2029. [30] Green took over as interim manager when Carlos Mendoza was fired at the end of June. [30] The team won 37 and lost 38 under him. [30] He had been the club's head of player development and was meant to go back to that job after the season. [30]

Why it matters. The owners, Steve and Alex Cohen, said Green brought discipline to the clubhouse. [30] Young players such as Nolan McLean kept improving under him. [30]

Deion Sanders, head coach of the University of Colorado's American football team, confirmed that several players have left the team. [31] He said they had behaved in ways that harmed the team. [31] Sanders said he had not been firm enough last year, and problems lingered until the season fell apart. [31] Linebacker Tyler Martinez said the team now needs to come together. [31]

Why it matters. Martinez said losing teammates this late in September is hard. [31] He also said it could help the team win. [31]

Todd Bowles of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tops CBS Sports' list of NFL coaches most at risk of being fired, after two defeats in two games. [32] Bowles fired his offensive coordinator and several other assistants after missing the playoffs last season. [32] Jim Harbaugh, whose Los Angeles Chargers have also lost both games, is third. [32] Teams usually wait a month: Carolina fired Matt Rhule after five games in 2022. [32]

Why it matters. CBS says replacing assistants is the kind of move a head coach makes as a last try before he is shown the door. [32]

Nottingham Forest won planning approval to expand the City Ground, their home since 1898, to 52,500 seats. [33] The local planning committee voted 10 to 1 for each of the two stages. [33] One stand, the Peter Taylor Stand, will triple from 5,000 seats to 15,000. [33] The work will cost at least 550m pounds. [33]

Why it matters. The owner, Evangelos Marinakis, wants a ground fit for the Champions League. [33] Forest's usual crowd today is about 30,000. [33] The club must still show how bigger crowds will cross the River Trent after games. [33]

Barcelona will play away from the Camp Nou, their stadium, for about half of next season while building work finishes, vice-president Ferran Olive told members on Saturday. [34] Members approved another 510m euros of loans, 300m of it for the stadium. [34] The club's total debts could reach 2.6bn euros. [34] The rebuild budget is now 1.8bn euros, three times the estimate in 2014. [34]

Why it matters. Barcelona already played away from the Camp Nou from May 2023 to November 2025. [34] The club hopes to be back for good in January 2028. [34]

The Buffalo Bills beat the Detroit Lions 41-31 in the first game at their new 2.2bn-dollar Highmark Stadium. [35] The cheapest resale seat averaged $569, far above any other NFL game that week. [35] The stadium has the NFL's smallest capacity and was shaped like a European football ground to keep the noise in. [35] About 12% of the people holding season-seat licences are Canadian. [35]

Why it matters. The Bills had the Canadian anthem sung at one of their games for the first time. [35] Toronto sits inside the 75-mile radius the league counts as the Bills' home market. [35]

FIFA, football's world governing body, said on Sunday that the last round of the second Women's Champions Cup will be played at Inter Miami's Nu Stadium in late January. [36] The competition brings together the best women's club teams from each continent. [36] Barcelona and Mexico's Club America have qualified, and no US club has. [36] FIFA picked the 26,700-seat ground for its size, its time zone and the mild winter. [36]

Why it matters. FIFA's football chief, Jill Ellis, said the aim is more competition for women's clubs week to week, not only for national teams. [36]

Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, wrote to its member countries on Monday saying he is open to talks about changing how FIFA is run. [37] It follows his dropped plan to sell 20% of FIFA's commercial rights, including the World Cup, to private investors. [37] Germany's football association president, Neuendorf, called the letter a transparent ploy to win re-election next March. [38]

Why it matters. Infantino's opponents have struggled to find a candidate to run against him. [37] Sources told Reuters he still has enough votes to win. [37]

French prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of Paris Saint-Germain, over a suspected conflict of interest. [39] It concerns talks in 2024 over the TV rights to Ligue 1, France's top football league. [39] Al-Khelaifi also chairs beIN Media Group, a TV company. [39] He and beIN deny any conflict. [39]

Why it matters. A source said he had stayed out of almost all league board meetings in the past year. [39] A preliminary investigation is not a finding of wrongdoing. [39]

Declan Rice and Cole Palmer have pulled out of England's squad. [40] The reason being given is load management, which means controlling how much work a player's body takes over several weeks. [40] Rice has played 76 games for Arsenal and England since the start of last season, including seven at the World Cup. [40] Marcus Rashford, Kobbie Mainoo and Tino Livramento have also withdrawn. [40]

Why it matters. Geoff Scott, a former performance director at Nottingham Forest, said a player who never rests can expect an injury. [40]