“The final we are very confident will be the most attended women’s rugby match in history, easily surpassing the 66,000 crowd that we saw in Paris 2024. I can confirm today that the final at the Allianz [Twickenham] Stadium will be sold out,” Women’s RWC 2025 chair Gill Whitehead told reporters.
Whitehead, recalling the last time England hosted the event in 2010, when the final was staged at the nearby Twickenham Stoop, the home of London club Harlequins, added: “The last time England hosted the Women’s Rugby World Cup, the girls played [the final] at the Stoop around the corner to a crowd of 13,000.
“I started playing women’s rugby 30 years ago and the prospect of girls running out of the tunnel, playing to the three tiers of the Allianz packed to the rafters is something perhaps I never hoped or thought I would see and it’s certainly what girls’ dreams are made of.”
England’s Red Roses have lost only once in their past 58 matches – a defeat by New Zealand in the Covid-delayed 2022 World Cup final.
Yet they have lost five of the past six World Cup finals to New Zealand, with 2014 – when England beat Canada in the showpiece match – their most recent global 15-a-side title.
Even though New Zealand and England have monopolised the final in recent editions, tournament managing director Sarah Massey said the tournament would be “unmissable” for fans of the sport.
“We’re ready to break records in attendances, viewership and engagement. This is going to be the biggest global celebration of women’s rugby that we have ever seen.
“We’re really pleased today to be able to announce that we’ve now sold 375,000 tickets across all those matches, surpassing all our initial ticket targets and really showing what this tournament is going to bring.
“That’s three times the number of tickets that were sold for the last Women’s Rugby World Cup. Our message to fans is, don’t miss out. This is going to be unmissable.”
Matches will also be held in Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, Northampton, Salford and York.
Actor Craig Robinson is known for playing Darryl Philbin on America’s version of The Office. He’s also appeared as a spokesperson for Pizza Hut, starring in commercials and telling everyone “no one out-pizzas the Hut.”
Robinson is from Chicago, a city steeped in pizza culture. From deep dish to thin-crust (popularly marketed as tavern-style), there are plenty of pizza options besides chains. It’s unclear if Robinson is playing a version of himself in the commercials, a version who should know better. Whenever I see Robinson’s friendly mug on screen, I search for signs asking for help. Regardless of the paycheck, surely someone is forcing him to say these words. I can’t accept that Robinson, in the words of former Bulls star, Joakim Noah, has become “Hollywood as Hell,” and that he has forgotten about his pizza heritage.
When a colleague forwarded me an early June announcement that Robinson’s former brand partner Pizza Hut was releasing a new style of pizza — the Pizza Hut Tavern, “with roots from the taverns of Chicago” — I wasn’t surprised. Pizza Hut’s Big New Yorker has been around for a minute. Civic appropriation is the Hut’s signature. And when the New York Times discovered tavern-style in 2023, I’m sure that catalyzed Yum! Brands’ pizza scientists. This was inevitable.
A Pizza Hut TV ad for tavern pizza features actors in what looks to be a green screen walking through recognizable parts of Chicago. A little kid, who’s probably from Crystal Lake or another suburb, screams, “Deep dish is for tourists!” It sets up Pizza Hut as the savior that will let Americans in on Chicago’s secret (without our consent), that tavern style is what we enjoy the most: “Sorry, Chicago, no one out-pizzas the Hut.”
I took the challenge earlier this week as I binged through all 10 episodes for The Bear ordering off DoorDash late at night without the guilt of Yum! Brands being assessed a service charge by the third-party courier. A double pepperoni, (a mix of traditional and cupped) plus mushroom. The medium costs about $26. I didn’t want to be bothered with a large for $4 more.
The pizza wasn’t the prettiest, but we ate it while watching Carmy spiral. It reminded me of grade school, and not in the way that some revere school pizza. It certainly possessed a cracker crust, one of tavern pizza’s defining traits. It took me a while, but I figured it out: The crust reminded me of the saltines served with milk and juice for snack — an unseasoned, bland cracker that stuck to the roof of my mouth. It was cut like a tavern pizza, into triangles and squares, but so are pizzas from St. Louis. It’s a good thing I didn’t order a large because we didn’t need more leftovers.
Tavern-style pizza is supposed to sport a cracker crust, and Pizza Hut picked a saltine to represent this trait.Ashok Selvam/Eater Chicago
The Hut’s effort was disappointing, but not unprecedented. Circa 1997, Domino’s introduced its Crunchy Thin Pizza, which is tavern-style in disguise. As a junior college student in Upstate New York, I ordered a pizza for dinner one night, excited to sample the new style. But my standards for pizza were already established as a youngster in Chicago. It’s hard to deviate from the “pizza you grew up eating” — PIGUE, a term Chicago food personality Steve Dolinsky coined. This is the pizza you know, this is the crust that brings you comfort.
I was so disappointed that I morphed into a pizza Karen and called Domino’s, empowered by their customer guarantee: “This pizza was neither crispy nor thin,” I embarrassingly recall telling a manager over the phone.
Bless that manager. She sent another pizza over. But the taste was no different. It was the recipe, not the execution. I was dejected. But I had learned a lesson that I would never learned inside a university classroom. The Domino’s pizza wasn’t designed to compete with Vito and Nick’s, Pat’s, Italian Fiesta, and Phil’s. These are great Chicago pizzerias with few peers. Robinson isn’t featured in the tavern pizza TV spot. I’m glad he was spared. Too bad my tastebuds weren’t.
Sony has delisted Helldivers 2 in more than 170 countries that don’t have dedicated regions in PSN, which was the main argument against the change. These countries no longer have the ability to buy the game or activate a retail key. Steam is refunding the game even with more than 100hrs of playtime.
Civic leaders are disappointed a central Auckland commercial building site linked to a wealthy Singapore family remains undeveloped more than a year after buildings were demolished.
But Peter Wall, who works for the Kum family, said plans were being made and they are actively seeking an anchor tenant to turn the site into a vibrant commercial precinct.
The old Food Alley and ex-Yates building site between Federal St, Wolfe St and Albert St in the centre of Auckland CBD stands empty, most of its buildings demolished, the block fenced with barbed wire on top to stop people getting into it.
The Kum family, which also owns Auckland’s Hilton Hotel, had Ward Demolition remove buildings on part of the Auckland central-city block but work finished 15 months ago.
A large pile of bricks is on the Albert St side. Buildings that do remain are open to the elements and covered in graffiti, giving an unsightly effect.
Auckland Council’s Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson said it was very sad the site had been left in that state for so long.
“Auckland deserves better,” Simpson said of the 4371sq m block.
The Albert St site where buildings have been demolished in the central city. Photo / Chris Keall
Councillor Chris Darby, who commutes from the North Shore via ferry, said it was a blight on the landscape: “So much opportunity beckons with that site. It’s so disappointing to see promise not realised and a wasteland becoming permanent.
I spent the better part of my holiday break leaping from one real-time strategy game to another: a They Are Billions failed run here, a Command & Conquer: Red Alert skirmish there. I even dug up my physical copies of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth and its sequel from my parents’ basement. The liminal space between 2023’s late releases and 2024’s January rush provided the perfect opportunity to zoom out (literally and figuratively) and enjoy the act of telling tiny little people where to go and what to do.
At a certain point, my nostalgia morphed into curiosity. Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition’s Steam news feed has been more active than those of many newer releases, and I finally decided to take a closer look. It turns out, developer Forgotten Empires and Xbox Game Studios have been releasing new DLC, updates, patches, challenges, and seasonal aesthetics on an almost weekly basis since the remaster’s 2019 release. This cadence, coupled with the fact that 26,000 people were playing the nearly 25-year-old RTS on Steam, convinced me to take a detour. (I played on Steam, but it’s also available via Game Pass.) And not only is Age of Empires 2 still pretty damn good — like many, I consider it one of the best RTS games of all time — it feels more vital than ever in 2024.
To start, there are now 37 total campaigns. This count ignores the dozen discrete historical battles, the tutorial missions revolving around William Wallace, and the eight remastered campaigns from the previous game. (Did I mention Forgotten Empires also remastered much of the first Age of Empires and released it as an expansion for the sequel?) If, like me, you prefer narrative campaigns and skirmishes against the AI in RTS games, then Age of Empires 2 is tantamount to a single-player gold mine.
Image: Forgotten Empires/Xbox Game Studios
While I always hesitate to consider a breadth of content a quality in and of itself, it’s both surreal and encouraging to see this manynew missions, cutscenes, and unique units in Age of Empires 2 this long after its initial release. Forgotten Empires’ remaster plays like a dream, with a bevy of quality-of-life improvements (I’m looking at you, farm queues) and enemy AI that actually knows how to exploit your weaknesses and bait you into vulnerable situations. Sure, pathfinding is still an albatross around Age of Empires 2’s neck — chasing one scout halfway across the map with an entire battalion of cavalry will never be fun — but it’s a much smalleralbatross these days. I can actually maneuver an entire army across a river ford without half of it doubling back to find another crossing.
When it comes to a game that feels this good to play, I’ll take all of the missions I can get. I kicked off this particular stint with one Vlad Dracula (aka Vlad the Impaler) and his campaign to lead the Turks, Magyars, and Slavs against the Ottoman Empire. Each of the five missions in his storyline involve vastly different scenarios. The third, titled “The Breath of the Dragon,” is as challenging as it is thrilling, tasking me with capturing the central Wallachian city of Giurgiu before defending it from attack in every direction. Its placement on the banks of the Danube necessitates building up a naval presence and sailing to numerous small settlements working to supply the main Ottoman citadel of Darstor. When my Slavic forces finally entered Darstor, destroyed its fortifications, and demolished its castle, I almost had to step away to catch my breath.
Image: Forgotten Empires/Xbox Game Studios
My return to the 1999 classic begs the question: What about Age of Empires 4, the most recent entry in the series? I’ve been a fan of Relic Entertainment’s sequel since its 2021 release. That appreciation has only grown as the team refines and builds upon an already impressive foundation; I especially appreciate 4’s asymmetrical faction design, which makes playing the nomadic Mongols, for instance, feel vastly different than managing the complex dynasty system of China. Age of Empires 2’s civilizations, by comparison, feel much more uniform outside of their unique units.
But in its slick mechanics, its stunning art style, its wealth of creative missions, and its strong content cadence, Age of Empires 2 remains atop the pedestal it climbed almost 25 years ago. I haven’t even touched “The Mountain Royals” or “Return of Rome,” its newest expansions, as of this writing — but I absolutely plan to soon. The game’s ongoing health is proof that, given proper time and funding, a team can revitalize a classic in a medium known for its ephemeral works. I booted up Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition on the doorstep of 2024 in order to replay an enduring classic; I also found a vibrant modern game.
Is there anything more simultaneously terrifying and hot than being balls deep in your woman and she wraps her legs around your back and begs for you to be the father of her children? Thank God for birth control because I have not got the strength to pull out of a vixen.
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