The News

Tottenham Hotspur took on QPR on Saturday afternoon at Loftus Road in a pre-season friendly and here are our first half player ratings.

Ange Postecoglou switched up his team slightly from midweek with Pape Matar Sarr back from injury, while Timo Werner came into the first half side as did Lucas Bergvall with Dejan Kulusevski, Manor Solomon, and James Maddison on the bench for the second half. Archie Gray and Oliver Skipp continued as makeshift centre-backs against QPR, who finished 18th in the Championship last season under Marti Cifuentes.

Lacking quality in his final ball but defended solidly enough as the only player in his natural position in the backline. 6

Archie Gray

Another solid and composed display from the 18-year-old and he had plenty more to deal with this time. 7

Oliver Skipp

Made some important early interceptions and battled away throughout the first half with Jamie Donley

A bright start before a misplaced pass was cut out on the edge of Spurs' box and he was fortunate Porro bailed him out. Made another loose pass 19 minutes. Made a couple of tackles after that to regain his confidence. 6

Pape Matar Sarr

Back from injury and he made one early run that ended with a blocked shot. He was a busy present in the middle of the pitch. 7

Yves Bissouma

Looked strong and dominant on the ball. Curled an effort over the bar 16 minutes in but made no mistake with a fantastic goal, playing a one-two with Kulusevski before rounding the keeper to score. 9

Lucas Bergvall

A confident start, using the ball well, with his team-mates happy to give him it in tight spots. However, he went down in the 24th minute with an injury and was taken off, looking gutted. Hopefully it was just precautionary. 8

Brennan Johnson

Some wasteful early play before powering down the right past his man and teeing up Son for a big chance. 5

Son Heung-min

Playing in the centre of attack again he worked hard and had a big opportunity to open the scoring midway through the hall but shot at the keeper. 6

Timo Werner

Struggled to make an impact and had a late chance when he ran through but the keeper saved.

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 ScotRail has announced cuts to some train services as the rail operator issued a warning ahead of a weekend of sporting events.

The closing stages of the Open Championship in Troon take place on Saturday and Sunday, while Rangers square off with Manchester United at Murrayfield in Edinburgh on Saturday.

ScotRail said due to an ongoing ASLEF pay dispute and a temporary timetable put in place over driver shortages, services have been altered on the network.

The warning comes after weeks of disruption on Scotland’s railways, with services expected to be “busier than normal.”

ScotRail said 50,000 Open spectators travelled on Wednesday and Thursday with nearly 58,000 fans expected to attend the Rangers match at Murrayfield at 4pm on Saturday.

Customers not attending the football are being encouraged to consider travelling at quieter times.

Mark Ilderton, ScotRail service delivery director, said: “With a temporary timetable currently in operation and two major sporting events taking place this weekend, it is important we advise our customers of what to expect, and to plan ahead for their journey.

“Additional services will be available for The Open Championship in Troon, and we anticipate services for Edinburgh to be busier than usual before and after the football at Murrayfield.

“Customers should allow extra time for travel and check their journey on our mobile app the day before travel.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience this may cause to customers who have their journey impacted by service alterations.

“We know how frustrating this can be and thank them for their patience.”

Full list of changes to ScotRail timetable

On Saturday, July 20 customers are advised of the following changes to services:

• The Glasgow to Alloa service will be reduced from half-hourly to hourly, and trains will depart from Alloa at 45 minutes past the hour and from Glasgow at 49 minutes past the hour.
• Most services between Edinburgh and North Berwick will be withdrawn, with a bus replacement in operation for most of the day. Trains will operate at 6.39am, 7.16am, 7.53am, and 8.33am from North Berwick to Edinburgh and the 9.40pm and 11.14pm Edinburgh to North Berwick services will also run.
• The Glasgow to Newton service will be reduced from half-hourly to hourly with departures from Glasgow at 45 minutes past the hour and from Newton at 19 minutes past the hour.

On Sunday, July 21, changes to services are as follows:

• Edinburgh to Tweedbank will operate every three hours rather than hourly. Departures from Tweedbank to Edinburgh will be at 9.47am, 12.48pm, 3.47pm and 6.48pm and from Edinburgh to Tweedbank at 11.13am, 2.11pm, 5.12pm, 8.11pm and 10.10pm.
• Edinburgh to North Berwick services will operate every two hours rather than hourly and the first service from Edinburgh will be at 9.37am and the first service from North Berwick will be at 10.24am.
• Edinburgh to Dunblane will operate with two services every three hours, rather than hourly, with the first service from Edinburgh at 9.35am and the first service from Dunblane at 9.45am.
• Glasgow to Cumbernauld will be withdrawn and bus replacement is “not possible”.
• Glasgow to Lanark will operate every two hours rather than hourly with the first service from Glasgow Central at 10.20am and the first service from Lanark at 11.21am.
• Wemyss Bay to Whinhill will be served by a replacement bus to allow onward connections on the Gourock to Glasgow service.
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A faulty software update from cybersecurity vendor Crowdstrike crippled countless Microsoft Windows computers across the globe today, disrupting everything from airline travel and financial institutions to hospitals and businesses online. Crowdstrike said a fix has been deployed, but experts say the recovery from this outage could take some time, as Crowdstrike’s solution needs to be applied manually on a per-machine basis.

Earlier today, an errant update shipped by Crowdstrike began causing Windows machines running the software to display the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death,” rendering those systems temporarily unusable. Like most security software, Crowdstrike requires deep hooks into the Windows operating system to fend off digital intruders, and in that environment a tiny coding error can quickly lead to catastrophic outcomes.

In a post on Twitter/X, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said an update to correct the coding mistake has been shipped, and that Mac and Linux systems are not affected.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Kurtz said on Twitter, echoing a written statement by Crowdstrike. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Posting to Twitter/X, the director of Crowdstrike’s threat hunting operations said the fix involves booting Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE), deleting the file “C-00000291*.sys” and then restarting the machine.

The software snafu may have been compounded by a recent series of outages involving Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, The New York Times reports, although it remains unclear whether those Azure problems are at all related to the bad Crowdstrike update. Update, 4:03 p.m. ET: Microsoft reports the Azure problems today were unrelated to the bad Crowdstrike update.

A reader shared this photo taken earlier today at Denver International Airport. Credit: Twitter.com/jterryy07

Matt Burgess at Wired writes that within health care and emergency services, various medical providers around the world have reported issues with their Windows-linked systems, sharing news on social media or their own websites.

“The US Emergency Alert System, which issues hurricane warnings, said that there had been various 911 outages in a number of states,” Burgess wrote. “Germany’s University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein said it was canceling some nonurgent surgeries at two locations. In Israel, more than a dozen hospitals have been impacted, as well as pharmacies, with reports saying ambulances have been rerouted to nonimpacted medical organizations.”

In the United Kingdom, NHS England has confirmed that appointment and patient record systems have been impacted by the outages.

“One hospital has declared a ‘critical’ incident after a third-party IT system it used was impacted,” Wired reports. “Also in the country, train operators have said there are delays across the network, with multiple companies being impacted.”

Reactions to today’s outage were swift and brutal on social media, which was flooded with images of people at airports surrounded by computer screens displaying the Microsoft blue screen error. Many Twitter/X users chided the Crowdstrike CEO for failing to apologize for the massively disruptive event, while others noted that doing so could expose the company to lawsuits.

Meanwhile, the international Windows outage quickly became the most talked-about subject on Twitter/X, whose artificial intelligence bots collated a series of parody posts from cybersecurity professionals pretending to be on their first week of work at Crowdstrike. Incredibly,Twitter/X’s AI summarized these sarcastic posts into a sunny, can-do story about Crowdstrike that was promoted as the top discussion on Twitter this morning.

“Several individuals have recently started working at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and have expressed their excitement and pride in their new roles,” the AI summary read. “They have shared their experiences of pushing code to production on their first day and are looking forward to positive outcomes in their work.”

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 Two people have died in a listeria outbreak across 12 states in the U.S. that is likely linked to sliced deli meats, according to the CDC.

In total, 28 people have been infected and hospitalized with the disease as of Friday in an outbreak that began in May, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The listeria infections have been reported in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts.

The two deaths were reported in Illinois and New Jersey, according to the CDC. The agency also noted that one pregnant woman got sick with listeria and remained pregnant after she recovered.

People who got sick reported to state and local officials that they ate "a variety of meats sliced at deli counters" in the month before they got sick. Officials interviewed 18 people, 16 of whom said they ate meats sliced at a deli, and found they most commonly ate turkey, liverwurst and ham. The sliced meats from deli counters came from a variety of supermarket and grocery story delis, according to the CDC.

The CDC said it is comparing foods people who were infected ate in this outbreak to foods people ate who got sick with listeria but were not part of an outbreak, and found that the people in this outbreak were "more likely to eat deli-sliced turkey and liverwurst."

"This information suggests that meats sliced at the deli are a likely source of this outbreak," the CDC said. "However, at this time CDC doesn’t have enough information to say which deli meats are the source of this outbreak.

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