EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Heavy rain and possible flooding were forecast for the area around MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where Norway and Senegal were scheduled to meet in a World Cup match on Monday night.
The U.S. National Weather Service issued a flood watch for parts of New York City and New Jersey that included Bergen County, where MetLife Stadium is located.
“Showers and potential thunderstorms with high amounts of moisture are expected to move through the area this afternoon and tonight,” the NWS said. “These showers will have the potential to produce up to around 2 inches of rainfall per hour. These rates could result in flash flooding mainly over urban and poor drainage areas.”
The open-air venue, which opened in 2010 and seats about 80,000, was constructed over steel pilings in New Jersey marshlands. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. EDT..
New York City Emergency Management issued a travel advisory.
“I’m urging everyone to plan ahead and give themselves extra time to travel safely,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement. “No destination is worth risking your safety. If conditions become severe, stay indoors and wait until it’s safe to travel.”
There have not been any weather delays during the first 11 days of the tournament.
At last year's Club World Cup in the U.S., six of 63 games were delayed by weather for a total of 8 hours, 29 minutes.
The start of England's friendly against Costa Rica on June 10 at Orlando, Florida, was pushed back one hour because of a storm and a June 5 friendly between Saudi Arabia and Puerto Rico in Austin, Texas, was suspended in the 21st minute because of weather and resumed about 90 minutes later.
World Cup regulations say “in the case of a match being abandoned as a result of force majeure after it has already kicked off … the match shall recommence at the minute at which play was interrupted rather than being replayed in full, and with the same scoreline.”
“The match shall recommence where play was stopped when the match was interrupted (e.g. with a free kick, throw‑in, goal kick, corner kick, penalty kick, etc.),” it adds. “If the match was abandoned while the ball was still in play, it shall restart with a dropped ball from the position of the ball when play was stopped. The kickoff time, date, location and any other matter shall be decided by FIFA.”
In addition, “FIFA has the right to cancel, reschedule or relocate one or more matches (or the entire FIFA World Cup 26) for any reason at its sole discretion, including as a result of force majeure or due to health, safety or security concerns.”
AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/FIFA-World-Cup
A general view of the MetLife stadium during the World Cup Group C soccer match between Brazil and Morocco in East Rutherford, N.J., near New York, Saturday, June 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
The justices, by a 6-3 vote, granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who had urged them to undo a federal appeals court decision that overturned the verdict. The three liberal justices dissented.
Prosecutors had been preparing to try the man, Pedro Hernandez, for a third time. His first trial ended in a mistrial.
The unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Hernandez’ murder and kidnapping conviction in the second trial because of how the judge had answered a question from jurors.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had called the basis for overturning the conviction “a slender reed” that essentially ignored a five-month-long trial with 66 witnesses.
The justices agreed, in an unsigned opinion, that federal courts should not second-guess state courts under a 1996 federal law that was intended to reduce federal court oversight of state criminal trials.
“The Second Circuit exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief,” the justices wrote.
Hernandez, 64, has been serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Bragg hailed the high court’s decision. “This office has remained steadfast in its pursuit of justice for Etan and the Patz family and will continue to stand by this important conviction,” Bragg, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Hernandez’ lawyers said they were “terribly disappointed” by the ruling. “We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit,” attorneys Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier said.
Hernandez admitted to the crime under police questioning, but his lawyers say he confessed falsely because of a mental illness that sometimes made him hallucinate. They emphasized that the admission came after police queried him for about seven hours before reading him his rights and recording the interview. Hernandez then repeated his confession on tape, at least twice.
Etan vanished while walking to his downtown Manhattan school bus stop on May 25, 1979. Hernandez worked at a nearby convenience shop at the time, but the Maple Shade, New Jersey, resident didn’t become a suspect until 2012.
Etan was among the first missing children ever to appear on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day.
Hernandez already has been tried twice. A jury deadlocked in 2015, and then a different panel of jurors convicted him at a 2017 retrial.
During deliberations, the 2017 jurors asked a complicated question: If they decided Hernandez didn’t confess voluntarily when he hadn’t been read his rights yet, must they disregard his other confessions? The then-judge responded simply, “the answer is no.” The jury went on to convict.
In overturning that verdict, the appeals court said the jury’s question should have gotten a more fulsome answer, including the possibility of discounting all the confessions.
Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report from New York.
FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen, June 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
