Kevin De Bruyne transfer saga takes fresh twist with multiple offers
Kevin De Bruyne is still deciding on his future, principally between Napoli and Chicago Fire, although has still not ruled out a move to another Premier League club.
The 33-year-old had a 25-minute meeting with Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis, but it is understood negotiations are not yet as advanced as have been made out in Italy, with De Laurentiis saying De Bruyne had already bought a villa in the country.
While the new Italian champions have so far made the most attractive offer, De Bruyne is still weighing up a lot, and is also considering Napoli's manager situation. There is a feeling in Serie A that title-winning manager Antonio Conte may return to Juventus.
Napoli have at least significantly changed the situation from even a month ago. Before their interest, De Bruyne was on the brink of agreeing a move to Chicago Fire in MLS. He was nevertheless already having second thoughts due to the feeling that, once he leaves the top level of European football, he won't be coming back.
It is why he is currently unlikely to go to Saudi Arabia, despite long-standing interest, particularly from Al-Ittihad.
While Napoli is seen as the likeliest destination from the serious offers so far, De Bruyne is prepared to discuss options.The Belgian would not be against another Premier League or Serie A club.
De Bruyne made his 421st and, in all likelihood, final appearance for City as a late substitute in their last Premier League game of the season at Fulham. He could still be eligible to represent City at this summer's Club World Cup but he is not expected to be involved in the tournament in the United States.
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Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
US defense secretary warns Indo-Pacific allies of ‘imminent' threat from China
SINGAPORE — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressure from China, while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defense. He said Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing threats by Beijing, particularly in its aggressive stance toward Taiwan. China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade would look like of the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own and the U.S. has pledged to defend. China's army 'is rehearsing for the real deal,' Hegseth said in a keynote speech at a security conference in Singapore. 'We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.' The head of China's delegation accused Hegseth of making 'groundless accusations.' 'Some of the claims are completely fabricated, some distort facts and some are cases of a thief crying 'stop thief,' said Rear Adm. Hu Gangfeng, vice president of China's National Defense University. He did not offer specific objections. 'These actions are nothing more than attempts to provoke trouble, incite division and stir up confrontation to destabilize the Asia-Pacific region,' he said. China has a stated goal of ensuring its military is capable of taking Taiwan by force if necessary by 2027, a deadline that is seen by experts as more of an aspirational goal than a hard war deadline. China also has built sophisticated, artificial islands in the South China Sea to support new military outposts and developed highly advanced hypersonic and space capabilities, which are driving the United States to create its own space-based 'Golden Dome' missile defenses. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a global security conference hosted by the International Institute for Security Studies, Hegseth said China is no longer just building up its military forces to take Taiwan, it's 'actively training for it, every day.' Hegseth also called out China for its ambitions in Latin America, particularly its efforts to increase its influence over the Panama Canal. He urged Indo-Pacific countries to increase defense spending to levels similar to the 5% of their gross domestic product European nations are now pressed to contribute. 'We must all do our part,' Hegseth said. Following the speech, the European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas pushed back at Hegseth's comment that European countries should focus their defense efforts in their own region and leave the Indo-Pacific more to the U.S. She said that with North Korean troops fighting for Russia and China supporting Moscow, European and Asian security were 'very much interlinked.' Hegseth also repeated a pledge made by previous administrations to bolster the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific to provide a more robust deterrent. While both the Obama and Biden administrations had also committed to pivoting to the Pacific and established new military agreements throughout the region, a full shift has never been realized. Instead, U.S. military resources from the Indo-Pacific have been regularly pulled to support military needs in the Middle East and Europe, especially since the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. In the first few months of President Donald Trump's second term, that's also been the case. In the last few months, the Trump administration has taken a Patriot missile defense battalion out of the Indo-Pacific in order to send it to the Middle East, a massive logistical operation that required 73 military cargo aircraft flights, and sent Coast Guard ships back to the U.S. to help defend the U.S.-Mexico border. Hegseth was asked why the U.S. pulled those resources if the Indo-Pacific is the priority theater. He did not directly answer but said the shift of resources was necessary to defend against Houthi missile attacks launched from Yemen, and to bolster protections against illegal immigration into the U.S. At the same time, he stressed the need for American allies and partners to step up their own defense spending and preparations, saying the U.S. was not interested in going it alone. 'Ultimately a strong, resolute and capable network of allies and partners is our key strategic advantage,' he said. 'China envies what we have together, and it sees what we can collectively bring to bear on defense, but it's up to all of us to ensure that we live up to that potential by investing.' The Indo-Pacific nations caught in between have tried to balance relations with both the U.S. and China over the years. Beijing is the primary trading partner for many, but is also feared as a regional bully, in part due to its increasingly aggressive claims on natural resources such as critical fisheries. Hegseth cautioned that playing both sides, seeking U.S. military support and Chinese economic support, carries risk. 'Economic dependence on China only deepens their malign influence and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension,' Hegseth said. Asked how he would reconcile that statement with Trump's threat of steep tariffs on most in the region, Hegseth he was 'in the business of tanks, not trade.' But Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who is part of a congressional delegation attending Shangri-La, objected to pressuring regional allies. 'The United States is not asking people to choose between us and the PRC,' Duckworth said, in reference to the People's Republic of China. Australia's Defense Minister Richard Marles welcomed Hegseth's assurance that the Indo-Pacific was an American strategic priority and agreed that Australia and other nations needed to do their part. 'Reality is that there is no effective balance of power in this region absent the United States, but we cannot leave it to the United States alone,' he said. Still, Marles suggested the Trump administration's aggressive trade policies were counterproductive. 'The shock and disruption from the high tariffs has been costly and destabilizing.' China usually sends its own defense minister to the conference, but Dong Jun did not attend this year in a snub to the U.S. over Trump's erratic tariffs war. His absence was something the U.S. delegation said it intended to capitalize on. 'We are here this morning. And somebody else isn't,' Hegseth said. Asked by a member of the Chinese delegation how committed the U.S. would remain if Asian alliances like ASEAN had differences with Washington, Hegseth said the U.S. would not be constrained by 'the confines of how previous administrations looked at this region.' 'We're opening our arms to countries across the spectrum — traditional allies, non-traditional allies,' he said. He said U.S. support would not require local governments to align with the West on cultural or climate issues.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
In Poland, presidential hopefuls battle for young voters who don't like them
In a first round of voting on May 18, voters aged 18 to 29 overwhelmingly supported antiestablishment candidates who failed to make it to the runoff. They mostly shunned the candidates competing Sunday, who represent Poland's two dominant political parties -- Civic Platform, led by Tusk; and Law and Justice, the former governing party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The runoff pits Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw who is backed by Tusk's party, against Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist historian and former boxer supported by Law and Justice. Advertisement Coming only two weeks after a presidential election in Romania in which voters chose a centrist over a hard-right admirer of President Trump, Poland's vote is being closely watched in Europe and the United States as a test of right-wing populism's staying power. 'Don't let the globalists and unelected bureaucrats steal your elections, as they did in Romania,' George Simion, the defeated hard-right candidate in Romania, told a gathering in Poland this past week of the American Conservative Political Action Conference. Kristi Noem, Trump's homeland security secretary who also spoke at the event, endorsed the Law and Justice candidate. Advertisement What American and European fans of Trump see as a climactic battle between left and right is seen by many young Polish voters as an infuriating rerun of a decades-old struggle. 'You only get angry looking at system politicians,' said Jan Stachura, 20, a student in Tychy, a town in Poland's former industrial heartland in the southwestern region of Silesia. He said he had voted for neither of Sunday's contenders in the first round on May 18 and did not know whether he would even bother to vote in the runoff. His brother, Wojciech, 24, an IT manager, said he did not vote in the first round and probably would not on Sunday. Given the grip of the two main parties, he said, 'I don't believe my vote can change anything.' Tusk, 68, and Kaczynski, 75, first entered politics more than 40 years ago when Poland was still a Soviet satellite. After Poland joined the European Union in 2004 -- 15 years after communism collapsed -- they emerged as leaders of two hostile camps: one committed to embracing the values and rules of the European Union, the other infused with nationalism and fealty to the Roman Catholic Church. They have rotated in and out of power since, leaving Polish politics in a repetitive loop. Kaczynski accuses Tusk of being a 'German agent' more interested in serving Berlin and Brussels than ordinary Poles. Tusk has attacked his rival as a populist reactionary intent on dismantling democracy and withdrawing Poland from the European Union. Advertisement Trzaskowski won the first round barely ahead of Nawrocki. Whether Trzaskowski can prevail on Sunday depends heavily on how young voters who backed the far right and leftists in the first round cast their ballots. A widespread plague-on-both-your-houses feeling among younger Poles has brought unusual volatility to politics, said Tomasz Slupik, a political-science professor at the University of Silesia. Only 22 percent of voters under 30, according to exit poll data, cast their ballots in the first round for the two candidates competing on Sunday. Nearly 70 percent voted instead for far-right candidates and fringe leftists, with more than half of them supporting Slawomir Mentzen, a libertarian who is hostile to Ukrainian refugees, taxes, and the European Union. 'This might be the beginning of the end of Poland's party duopoly,' Slupik said. Young voters' disillusionment, he added, was partly the rebellious spirit of youth amplified by social media. But, he added, it also reflected a deeper erosion of trust across generations, despite Poland's booming economy and its emergence as a diplomatic and military player in Europe. The Polish presidency has no say in setting policy, but its veto power over legislation passed by the government allowed the departing president, Andrzej Duda, an ally of Kaczynski, to thwart much of Tusk's agenda. Victory for Nawrocki on Sunday would probably mean more trench warfare between the rival camps, hobbling Tusk's ability to govern and clouding his party's prospects in the next parliamentary election in 2027. Speaking at a rally for Trzaskowski in Warsaw last weekend, Tusk warned this would bring disaster, describing Nawrocki as a 'gangster' unfit for the presidency. 'Poland, wake up! This cannot be!' he said. Advertisement Anna Liebner, 29, a Tychy resident who manages fiber optic networks, said she voted in the first round for Adrian Zandberg, a leftist who came in sixth in the first round. Liebner liked some of his policy ideas, including higher taxes on the wealthy. Kamil Poczta, 30, an IT worker, said he, too, had voted for Zandberg in the hope of breaking the Civic Platform-Law and Justice cycle. Nonetheless, Poczta and Liebner both said they would vote for Trzaskowski. More uncertain is which way Mentzen's voters, mostly young men, will jump, though a recent opinion poll indicated that around 65 percent of them would vote for Nawrocki. If that turns out to be accurate, Nawrocki could well win. This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ex Bayern Munich Star Reassures ‘I'm 100% Fit' Ahead Of PSG Vs Inter Milan Champions League Final
Ex Bayern Munich Star Reassures 'I'm 100% Fit' Ahead Of PSG Vs Inter Milan Champions League Final Benjamin Pavard says that he's 'at 100% fitness' for today's Champions League final between PSG and Inter Milan. The Frenchman spoke to Italian broadcaster Sky Sport Italia, via FCInterNews, ahead of today's match. He gave his thoughts ahead of the biggest match of Inter's season. Advertisement Inter Milan defender Benjamin Pavard is in the starting eleven for today's Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain. The 29-year-old had been a bit of a doubt going into the match. Pavard has not played in over a month. He suffered an ankle sprain in Inter's Serie A loss to Roma in April, and has not played since. However, that has been enough time for Pavard to return. Still, the former Bayern Munich and Stuttgart defender missed Inter's last few league matches, as well as both legs of their Champions League semifinal tie against Barcelona. Therefore, it's natural for there to be some doubt as to whether or not Pavard will truly be ready for this evening's match. Particularly considering the match's enormous importance. Pavard: 'I'm 100 % Fit' For PSG Vs Inter Milan Champions League Final MUNICH, GERMANY – APRIL 08: Benjamin Pavard of FC Internazionale reacts during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 Quarter Final First Leg match between FC Bayern München and FC Internazionale Milano at Fussball Arena Muenchen on April 08, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by) Benjamin Pavard gave a reassuring update regarding his condition. 'I'm ready,' he said. Advertisement 'I've been taking care of myself,' continued the French international. 'And training with the rest of the group for a while.' 'Now I'm 100%,' Pavard insisted. 'It will be a great match.' Then, Pavard gave his thoughts on Inter's opposition in this evening's final. 'PSG are a great team,' he commented. 'They've shown that all along the way,' the 29-year-old went on. 'But so are we. It will be a great match.' Then, Pavard said that 'if we focus on the things we have to do, we can end the match with great satisfaction.' Meanwhile, Pavard said that returning to the Allianz Arena gives him 'a lot of emotions, certainly.' 'I've won a lot of trophies here,' said the former Bayern defender. 'Now, I hope to bring this one back to Milan.'
