LONDON (AP) — British brothers Jordan and Cian Adams made sure to bring back little mementos from their day sitting among the VIPs at Wimbledon.
A program. The Royal Box seating chart with their names on it. A hat.
They’re creating and cherishing memories now with their partners because of what’s ahead. The brothers have a rare gene mutation that is all but certain to lead to frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Their mother, Geraldine, died from the disease in 2016 at age 52.
The brothers, who expect symptoms to begin in their mid-40s, ran 33 marathons in 33 days on their mission to raise awareness of the brain disease.
"We have been able to turn adversity into something quite hopeful by advocating for other people and trying to bring the dementia community together and hopefully that will be evidence to them that they can live positive lives too,” Jordan, 31, told The Associated Press in an interview.
It started at the London Marathon, where Jordan ran all 26.2 miles with a refrigerator strapped to his back — symbolic of the weight family members bear for loved ones with FTD.
The next day, they began their “Irish Challenge,” a marathon per day in each of the island’s 32 counties. Their mother’s family has Irish roots and 12 relatives on that side have died of the disease, they said.
The outpouring in Ireland for the “FTD Brothers” was overwhelming, with supporters joining in to run and root them on, appearances on national TV, and an invitation from Ireland’s deputy prime minister to speak to government officials about how they can better support people with dementia.
From the British side, Prince William wrote to congratulate them on their “inspiring journey.” The All England Club then followed with an invitation to the Royal Box, where the brothers and their respective partners watched the men’s semifinal matches on Friday.
They planned to be special guests of the Gaelic Athletic Association on Sunday for the national Gaelic football semifinals at Croke Park in Dublin.
The U.K.'s National Health Service describes FTD as an uncommon dementia subtype that is “highly heritable” and characterized by “changes in behavior, personality, language and motor function.” With a MAPT mutation — which the brothers carry — the disease is "fully penetrant," the NHS says, with the mean age of onset at 49 years “with a strong correlation with parental age of onset.”
The brothers' mother died at home in Redditch, just south of Birmingham, about six years after being diagnosed.
“It’s more of a guarantee that we’re going to get it," said Jordan, citing a 99.9% likelihood. “Rather than an if, it’s a matter of when.”
Both Jordan and Cian, 25, have undergone testing that confirmed the genetic problem. Their older sister, Kennedy, tested negative.
There is no cure for FTD.
“If I’m totally honest, and I’m quite brazen about this, I don’t believe that a cure will come in time for me and my brother,” Jordan said. “I’ve got the best part of 10 to 15 years before symptoms likely arise. ... We just want to move things forward in all different areas including vital research but welfare support and services is just as important and something that we get echoed a lot to us by the families and the people who we’re advocating for."
Working with Alzheimer's groups in Britain and Ireland, they've raised nearly 2 million pounds ($2.7 million) and remain focused on getting more government support for services so that “people living with dementia and their families don’t feel alone, don’t feel isolated and that’s just as important as finding the treatment and the cure," Jordan said.
Upcoming plans include running the Chicago Marathon in October and taking a group of people to hike Mount Kilimanjaro through their non-profit FTD Brothers Foundation.
The brothers were part of a Royal Box contingent that included actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Hugh Laurie. They chatted with West Indies cricket great Brian Lara and journalist/podcaster Louis Theroux.
“I’ve watched his stuff over the years," Jordan said of Theroux. “He asked what our connection was to the event. We opened up to him about that. He found that very interesting. Very humble man.”
Jordan said his family was “very grateful” for the All England Club's invitation in a bucket-list experience that their partners "can hold on to in those difficult times in the future when sadly we won’t remember them ourselves.”
“It seems silly, but we’ve collected artifacts and come away with a program and our little name placards and the seating plan for the day in the Royal Box and took away a hat each and things like that,” Jordan added.
“It’s things like that hopefully if we have families of our own, and we have children of our own, our partners will be able to show them that along with photographs of the day and show them what we were able to do in the face of adversity.”
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Adams brothers, Jordan and Cian, attend the royal box on day 12 of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States attacked Iran early Sunday over an Iranian strike on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left one crew member missing. Iran responded with attacks on countries in the Middle East including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman — the nation on the other side of the strait that Tehran has pressed to join in managing traffic there.
The fighting raised new questions as Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of their interim deal aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war.
The strait, a key route for the global supply of oil and natural gas and long considered an international waterway, has become the key sticking point in negotiations that seem in danger of collapse.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites. It said the attacks, heavier than in recent days, would weaken Iran’s ability to threaten shipping.
“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that a navy officer was killed. Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a main negotiator, wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”
The U.S. has launched three rounds of airstrikes targeting Iran in the last week over Iranian attacks on ships heading through the strait using a route off Oman, seeking to avoid the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.
The U.S. military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open Sunday. Iran said it was closed until calm is restored, and Tehran would consider targeting “additional enemy bases in the region” if it faced more attacks.
The U.S. military said over 140 ships had transited the strait over the past week. A multinational body overseen by the U.S. Navy said traffic continued “at reduced levels” off both Oman and Iran. It said nearly 140 vessels transited daily before the war.
About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began. Iran’s grip on it led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.
Missile alerts sounded across several Gulf Arab countries.
Qatar's military said it intercepted incoming Iranian fire, with explosions heard in the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Three people, including a child, were wounded as a result of shrapnel from the interception of Iranian attacks, Qatar's Interior Ministry said, giving no further details on their condition.
Missile alerts sounded in Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Kuwait's military also said it was intercepting incoming fire.
A day after Oman and Iran held talks on the strait, the Omani state news agency said drones struck sites in an area that sits on the waterway.
Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest the strikes, the first such move since the war began, calling Iran's acts “irresponsible.”
Three Iranian missiles struck areas across Jordan, causing minor damage but no injuries, Jordan's state news agency reported.
Sirens also sounded in the UAE, but the government said missiles did not cross into its territory.
A Cyprus-flagged container ship was hit by Iran and suffered “significant engine room damage,” the U.S. Central Command said.
Oman's maritime authority said it rescued 23 crew members but one was missing. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the missing man is an Indian national and it was working with Oman to locate him.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, overseen by the British military, said the ship had been hugging Oman's shoreline.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said multiple vessels “disregarded our warnings" and ignored instructions to follow what it called an approved route. One “was struck by a warning shot and brought to a stop.”
Iranian state media later reported U.S. strikes across the country, including southern Iran in the province closest to the strait and military sites in a province near Tehran.
The strait sits in both Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Oman on Saturday said it and Iran agreed to continue discussing the strait “at the technical and political levels.” Iran offered no statement about the strait being open to all, something sought by the Trump administration.
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach an agreement. A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss those talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran's top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.
Iran’s new supreme leader, still unseen since the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement carried on state television.
Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
A pro-government demonstrator wears an Iranian flag as she waves a religious flag in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man holds a poster of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a gathering commemorating him at a square in Tehran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A pro-government demonstrator wears an Iranian flag as she holds a religious flag in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators wave Iranian and religious flags in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A pro-government demonstrator waves an Iranian flag in a gathering commemorating the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a square in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
