DUBLIN (AP) — Katie Taylor won an Olympic gold medal and headlined at Madison Square Garden. The Irish boxer's farewell fight might surpass those feats.
Taylor, who year after year tops the list as Ireland’s “most admired athlete,” will face undefeated Flora Pili before an estimated 80,000 fans at Croke Park in Dublin.
The 40-year-old Taylor plans to retire after the bout. It was always her dream to fight at Ireland's sporting cathedral.
“I'm still pinching myself that it's actually happening," she said this week. “This is an absolute dream.”
The title bout is important in other ways, too.
“We can be very, very proud as a nation. I'm not sure if there's any other country in the world where 80,000 people turn up for a female athlete,” Taylor said. “I'm so grateful.”
Taylor (25-1, 6 KOs) holds the WBO, WBA and IBF super lightweight (140 lbs) belts and will try to win the vacant WBC title when she squares off with Pili (12-0, 2 KOs).
In April 2022, Taylor beat Amanda Serrano at a sold-out Madison Square Garden in what was the first women’s boxing match to headline the arena. The pair have fought three times in total, with Taylor victorious each time, most recently in 2025.
Taylor won gold at the 2012 London Games.
Muhammad Ali touched down in the Emerald Isle in July 1972 for a 12-round non-title fight against Alvin “Blue” Lewis. It took place 16 months after Ali lost to Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden.
Ali stopped Lewis in the 11th round in front of an estimated 20,000 fans.
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Katie Taylor, center left, and Flora Pili attend the weigh-in at Trinity College Dublin, Friday Sept. 4, 2026. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)
Katie Taylor attends the weigh-in at Trinity College Dublin, Friday Sept. 4, 2026. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)
JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States ambassador to Israel condemned Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank again on Saturday, calling the behavior an “act of terror" as he visited with Palestinian American residents shaken by months of attacks.
Ambassador Mike Huckabee referred to such settlers as “terrorists,” a word that U.S. officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants.
“If there are squatters that come in and put up their own flags and take possession of something that does not belong to them, if they burn a car, if they torch a mosque, if they go into someone’s home and vandalize it, paint graffiti on the walls, that’s a criminal act. But it extends beyond a criminal act. It’s an act of terror,” Huckabee said during his visit to the village of Turmus Ayya, which has reported frequent attacks by settlers over the past year.
Such attacks have surged since the war in Gaza began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.
Huckabee also used the term “terrorists” last month after weeks of unrest in the West Bank town of Qusra, where settlers surrounded several homes including one owned by a Palestinian American. Days later, residents of the West Bank village of Bazariya said settlers burned a mosque and left a message on a wall in graffiti reading “Huckabee regards from the terrorists" in Hebrew.
“I’m glad they admitted it,” the ambassador said Saturday of the incident, adding: “I don’t think that’s what they intended to do, but I do think that they represent a very tiny minority.”
A week ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the actions of a “handful of rioters,” and the foreign ministry called the settlers’ actions “a disgrace.”
Netanyahu’s government is the most ultranationalist and religious in Israel’s history. It has presided over a surge of settlement construction in the West Bank. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal.
On Saturday's visit to Turmus Ayya, the ambassador began his remarks by making clear he was addressing U.S. citizens, who make up a small percentage of the roughly 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank but a significant part of the village's population.
“I’m very aware that a lot of the American people who live in Turmus Ayya and other communities across this region are not enjoying the life they deserve to live, not enjoying it in a peaceful way,” Huckabee said. “It’s a life that is disturbed by people who have created extraordinary challenges that are unfair and illegal.”
The U.S. Embassy can't investigate criminal activity, he said, but it can tell its host government “there are needs that need to be addressed, there are issues that cannot go unnoticed, and specific crimes and acts of terror that cannot continue without that country doing the investigation and adjudication that every person has a right to expect.”
Huckabee met with about 10 Palestinian American residents who described the impact of the violence on their lives and properties, the municipality told The Associated Press.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. The U.N. and much of the international community consider them to be illegally occupied.
Since then, the Israeli government has built nearly 150 settlements that are home to well over 500,000 Jewish settlers. Many settlements resemble developed suburbs.
Israel’s military operates in all parts of the West Bank, but rights groups have said the military frequently turns a blind eye to settler violence. The settlers are Israeli citizens, and Israel’s defense minister recently announced plans to fully transfer law enforcement among settlers to the Israeli police.
Palestinians check the damage to a mosque that, according to residents, was burned during an attack by Israeli settlers, in the West Bank village of Bazariya, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, as on its wall a Hebrew graffiti reads "Huckabee regards from the terrorists", referring to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
