BORDEAUX, France (AP) — Belgian rider Tim Merlier won the seventh stage of the Tour de France in a sprint finish on Friday while race favorite Tadej Pogacar kept the yellow jersey.
Merlier was moved into position to attack by his Soudal Quick-Step team and timed his move well to clinch his fourth Tour stage win.
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Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, wearing the best climber's dotted jersey celebrates on the podium after the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey celebrates on the podium after the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, rides with the pack during the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 175.1 kilometers (108.7 miles) with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Belgium's Tim Merlier celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Belgium's Tim Merlier celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Belgium's Tim Merlier celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
“I'm delighted. When I launched my sprint I didn't know how far it was," Merlier said. “But I made it, thanks to the team, it was great work from them. After all the hard work two days ago and today it feels good to know I could repay the guys.”
Four-time Tour champion Pogacar finished safely in the main pack along with two-time winner Jonas Vinegaard, his closest rival. He maintained his lead of 2 minutes, 42 seconds over second-placed Vinegaard in the overall standings.
Pogacar reclaimed the yellow jersey from Norwegian rider Torstein Traeen with a typical attacking masterclass in the mountains of the Pyrenees on Thursday.
Traeen crashed in that stage and, although he completed it, he pulled out of the Tour after medical tests revealed multiple rib fractures and concussion.
Stage 7 took riders on a mostly flat 175-kilometer (109-mile) route from Hagetmau to the wine-loving city of Bordeaux.
In sweltering conditions hitting 36 degrees (97 F) during an ongoing heatwave in the country, Frenchman Baptiste Veistroffer formed a two-man breakaway with Czech Jakub Otruba. They were caught with 18 kilometers left by the chasing pack as teams looked to place their leading sprinter in position to contest the victory.
Veteran Mathieu van der Poel rode hard and put Jasper Philipsen at the front with 250 meters to go, but Philipsen could not sustain his attack and was overtaken by Merlier.
“With 600 meters to go I got boxed in," Merlier said. “But I told myself I would fight until the finish.”
Norwegian Soren Waerenskjold finished second and Eritrean Biniam Girmay placed third.
All three crossed the line in 3 hours, 44 minutes, 20 seconds.
Stage 8 on Saturday is also made for sprinters and ends in the southeastern city of Bergerac.
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Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, wearing the best climber's dotted jersey celebrates on the podium after the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey celebrates on the podium after the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, rides with the pack during the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 175.1 kilometers (108.7 miles) with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
Belgium's Tim Merlier celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Belgium's Tim Merlier celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Belgium's Tim Merlier celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Hagetmau and finish in Bordeaux, France, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A weeklong preliminary hearing concludes Friday for the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Prosecutors aim to show they have enough evidence against Tyler Robinson to proceed to a trial.
The 23-year-old Robinson is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. State District Judge Tony Graf is not expected to rule immediately.
The hearing resumed Friday with Robinson’s lawyers planning to call a final witness as they try to raise doubts about the prosecution’s case. The defense has previously challenged the reliability of ballistics tests on a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body and fought the release of a recorded interview with Robinson’s roommate, Lance Twiggs, as well as chat room messages Robinson wrote on Discord.
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Graf said after reviewing livestream recording that it’s clear the news media camera operator caught the issue first, about 14 seconds before the judge himself spotted it and asked that the exhibit be taken down.
“Compliance with court orders is essential in all proceedings,” Graf says, and protecting the constitutional rights of both defendant Tyler Robinson and Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk is “paramount.”
Transparency for the public is also important, Graf said.
Defense attorney Richard Novak wanted the judge to bar the news media camera from the courtroom for the rest of the preliminary hearing as well as for a Sept. 1 proceeding, when both sides will present final arguments over whether the case should go to trial.
But Graf said the camera can stay, as long as it doesn’t record video of any evidence presented. He later noted that the livestream’s audio can capture discussion about such evidence.
Typically, an announcement is made that an exhibit is going to be shown on the courtroom screen. That gives the camera operator a moment to redirect the camera or to wait a beat before focusing in, depending on what the judge has ordered.
But in this case, prosecutors showed the exhibit with no warning, news media attorney Michael Judd said.
Judd said the camera operator quickly realized what had happened and moved the camera away within about two seconds.
Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride agreed that the image should not have appeared on the livestream, but told the judge the text of the messages — if not the actual image — had already been made public in law enforcement documents.
Graf said he wants to review the livestream recording before deciding how to handle the violation.
Graf is taking a break to review livestream footage from Thursday, because a piece of evidence that was supposed to be kept from public view was briefly shown on camera.
The evidence — an image of written communication between Tyler Robinson and his then-roommate and romantic partner — has been published and is even able to be purchased as photographic prints, defense attorney Richard Novak told the judge. He said the publication violated Robinson’s fair-trial rights, and he wants the judge to issue sanctions, a kind of legal punishment.
The judge allowed prosecutors to display an image of the evidence on Thursday, but said it could only be shown to the courtroom gallery. Later, prosecutors put up a side-by-side comparison of that image with another photo, and the side-by-side view was briefly caught by the news media camera operator, who quickly panned away.
Tiani Shoemaker drove about an hour from her Salt Lake City home bearing gifts for Charlie Kirk’s mother and hoping for a seat in the courtroom. Security turned her away.
Shoemaker said she brought a hat decorated with the words, “love like a mother,” and a note expressing her condolences and admiration for Kathryn Kirk.
The note was to tell Kirk that “the whole world’s hurting because of the loss of your son,” Shoemaker said, adding that she wanted to be “a part of history.”
“This really is like the whole world is focused on little Provo, Utah right now,” she said.
Shoemaker said some of her friends and extended family members witnessed the shooting and were left traumatized. “They couldn’t even be in large crowds for a while. It’s really — it’s upsetting, you know?”
The judge said at the close of Thursday’s hearing that at the request of Kirk’s family, he would allow to be shown inside the courtroom an altered version of a campus surveillance video that prosecutors said shows Robinson crawling out to a rooftop “sniper’s perch” before shooting Kirk.
The unaltered video was previously shown. The altered version includes footage that zooms in on a figure that prosecutors said was Robinson and red marks that were added to the video.
Graf is again reminding attendees of his courtroom rules, including restrictions on electronic devices for many attendees.
Chris Palmer, Court Security Director at Utah State Courts, spoke outside the courthouse as people lined up again hoping for a spot in the courtroom. He warned them that people in the gallery should not make the parents of Charlie Kirk or Tyler Robinson feel uncomfortable by looking at them during the hearing.
“These people come here to get justice, and they don’t need to feel like they’re under a microscope from somebody sitting behind them or ahead of them,” Palmer said.
Joshua Carr of Provo, Utah, was among those in the gallery and said “People were pretty respectful.”
“I wasn’t seeing people turning their heads. Again, we have the — the public was there. We had the Robinson family in front of us, we had the Kirk family behind us.”
Billie Webb of Salt Lake City was among the people who slept outside the courthouse all night hoping to get one of the few public seats inside the hearing.
“I’ve tried to go every single day,” Webb said Thursday night. “Today I wasn’t able to get in once again. I did get in yesterday for the first time. I did get in yesterday for the first time and I am absolutely determined to be there tomorrow.”
“Showed up at 3 a.m. Today for this one. Still did not get in. I was 16th and there’s 14 spots. So I will be camping all night here today. Probably 12 hours. 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.,” she said.
Score. Friday morning, Webb got the pink wristband she needed for a spot inside.
People have been lining up early — sometimes sleeping outside the doors overnight — in hopes of getting a wristband for a seat in the courthouse this week. Only 14 wristbands are given out each day, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Chris Palmer, the court’s director of security, warned Thursday morning that tents and other camping supplies won’t be allowed as people seek a seat for the final day of the hearing Friday. He also warned against jumping in line or saving spots for someone else.
Earlier in the week, court security said it discovered some people had bought colored wristbands to try to sneak in.
One of Tyler Robinson’s attorneys, Michael Burt, tried to inject doubt into the prosecution’s case by challenging the reliability of ballistics tests on a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body.
Authorities sought to tie the fragment to the suspected murder weapon, but the results were inconclusive.
“Saying anything but inconclusive was inappropriate,” said Samantha Karner with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The defense earlier in the week had questioned the reliability of DNA evidence that investigators said linked Robinson to the scene. Experts say the science behind DNA testing is sound.
Robinson’s attorneys plan to have a second person from ATF testify Friday.
The prosecution ended its presentation Thursday afternoon.
After testimony in the preliminary hearing ends Friday, State District Judge Tony Graf will rule whether prosecutors have shown enough evidence to proceed to trial. But a decision from Graf won’t come immediately.
Attorneys on both sides say they’d like the benefit of seeing the court transcript of the preliminary hearing and want to submit written briefs before Graf weighs in.
That will take weeks to play out. Graf set oral arguments on the evidence presented in the preliminary hearing for Sept. 1.
Graf tends not to make immediate rulings.
Brandi Siciliani, right, and Billie Webb, second right, wait in line to get access to the limited public seating available at a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused of fatally shooting Charlie Kirk, in Provo, Utah, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
Judge Tony Graf speaks during a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, who is accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, at the Fourth District Courthouse in Provo, Utah, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Charlie Kirk's parents, Kathryn, left, and Robert Kirk leave the Fourth District Courthouse in Provo, Utah, Thursday, July 9, 2026, after a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, who is accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
Tyler Robinson, who is accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, watches a computer screen during testimony about comparison testing of bullets during a preliminary hearing at the Fourth District Courthouse in Provo, Utah, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
An image of a bullet casing engraved with the word "Catch!" is displayed during a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, who is accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, at the Fourth District Courthouse in Provo, Utah, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
