It is almost a guarantee at this point that Michael Soroka will make his long-awaited season debut for the Atlanta Braves this week vs. the Oakland Atheltics.With Michael Soroka being a healthy scratch ahead of his Sunday start for the Gwinnett Stripers, it almost certainly signifies that he wil...

Max Verstappen survived a rain shower and the looming threat of Fernando Alonso to secure an impressive victory at a one-sided Monaco Grand Prix. Verstappen, who beat Alonso to pole position by just 0.084 seconds, kept his cool in the slippery conditions to lead Sunday’s 78-lap race, which lasted nearly two hours from start to finish, as he secured his fourth win of the season. Alonso finished 27.9 seconds behind the Red Bull driver with Esteban Ocon third for Alpine, as the Frenchman claimed only the third podium of his career. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell took advantage of the rain to cross the line in fourth and fifth respectively for Mercedes. Sergio Perez started last after he crashed out of qualifying and finished 16th following a terrible race for the Mexican driver which included five pit stops. With Perez failing to score, Verstappen extended his lead in the standings from 14 to 39 points after six rounds of 22. A dreary race suddenly burst into life on lap 51 as it started spitting at Casino Square, through Mirabeau and on the entry into the tunnel. Verstappen held a 10-second lead over Alonso but, despite the rain, Aston Martin hauled the Spaniard in for his first stop of the day and elected to send him out on the dry rubber. However, the spots of rain became heavier and Verstappen – now on 52-lap old slick tyres – had to tippy-toe his way back to the pits. “I have to drive super-slow because my tyres are f*****,” said Verstappen. The Dutchman briefly lost control of his Red Bull on the entry to the tunnel, grazing the wall, before safely making it back to the pits to bolt on the intermediate tyres. Aston Martin’s call to send Alonso out on the dry tyres afforded Verstappen some much-needed breathing space, with the Spaniard back in on the following lap for the intermediate rubber. He managed to hang on to second, but was now 22 seconds down the road. A lap earlier, Mercedes and Alpine had been the first to move from dry to wet tyres, propelling Hamilton above Carlos Sainz and Russell ahead of Charles Leclerc. Ocon remained in third. Sainz then became the first of the major players to spin – losing control of his Ferrari under braking at Mirabeau, kissing the wall, and dropping him down the order. The rain continued to fall and the chaos continued. Russell was hit with a five-second penalty after he ran off the road, and rejoined in front of Perez, causing the two men to make contact. Lance Stroll hit the barriers twice and Haas’ calamitous decision to keep Kevin Magnussen on slick tyres backfired as the Dane crunched the wall at Rascasse. Up front and with Verstappen in control, Russell put the power down to ensure his penalty would have no effect on his result, and called on his Mercedes team to allow him past team-mate Hamilton to help his cause. “I am just stuck right up Lewis’ gearbox here,” said Russell, but the Mercedes men did not trade positions. Russell took the chequered flag 10 seconds clear to keep fifth. Leclerc finished sixth, one place ahead of Pierre Gasly, with Sainz eighth and Lando Norris ninth for McLaren.

Defenseman Kristian Rubins scored his second goal 1:22 into overtime to lead Latvia to a 4-3 victory over the United States and earn a bronze medal at the ice hockey world championship

Max Verstappen cruised to victory at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, his fourth win in six races this season as he extended his lead at the top of the drivers' standings.

A TikTok make-up artist is facing backlash after recreating herself in blackface as the basketball legend Kobe Bryant. The NBA icon died in a tragic helicopter accident in 2020 and has remained an important figure in the basketball world ever since. In the video the make-up influencer @easy_baobo, who has recreated herself as other famous faces such as Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth Olsen and Tilda Swinton, wears a Los Angeles Lakers basketball jersey and applies a fake nose and facial hair to mimic Bryant's look. The video was actually first shared twice back in May 2022 and has 190,000 and 28,000 views respectively. In the second video, she added a caption that read: "Kobe is forever in my heart. Limitation makeup not imitating people just respect." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Although the video is now 12 months old it has since resurfaced on Twitter where it was shared by the account Daily Loud, where is has received more than 43 million views. As you can imagine the story has sparked quite a debate as to whether this recreation of Bryan is acceptable or not. One person on TikTok wrote: "I see the vision but no." Another added: "No no no. I understand the reason, but no." A third said: "Why is this still up?" However, people were more receptive to the idea on Twitter and recognised the talent involved. One person said: "I feel like this is just a form of art with zero malicious intent." Another wrote: "I feel like she’s just displaying her makeup art talent. Blackface is really a reach here….” A third added: "I call it talented make up artist that’s all I see … we need to stop . Good job." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Lucy Bronze has hit the ground running for Barcelona, winning Spain's Liga F title and reaching the Champions League final for the fourth time in her career, in...

It's time to fasten your seatbelts.

It is a chilling statement uttered with the most flattering of intentions: “We’re dealing with a freak.” Those are the words of boxing promoter Ben Shalom, speaking over Zoom, pacing back and forth in a room that appears to have just a few small windows – just below the ceiling, along the back wall. You’d think he was a military commander fruitlessly planning how to take down Godzilla, but the Boxxer chief is in fact on the side of the monster in question here. And that monster is Adam Azim. It might seem an odd way to describe the 5ft 11in, 20-year-old super-lightweight, but put a pair of boxing gloves on the Briton and the results really are terrifying. “I remember when I was four years old,” the monster tells The Independent while lurking in a hallway inside Shane McGuigan’s gym. “My dad made me learn the basics at the back of the garden in Slough, he got me a speed ball in the garage. He used to put weighted hand wraps on me and make me do shadow boxing for like 20 minutes straight. Even when I was punching the speed ball, he used to put ankle weights on my legs and hands. I was very fast when I was young.” He is even faster now, his speed perhaps his greatest asset at this point in a fledgling professional career that is expected to grow into a captivating one. “When we saw him for the first time, we knew he was special,” says Shalom. “Everyone in boxing was talking about Adam Azim for a long time. We knew that a lot of promoters were going to be looking at him, and that we needed to secure him for a long time, because we believe that he can be literally one of the biggest stars that the country has seen – a household name. “We want him on the screens all the time. He almost reminds me of Amir Khan in 2005. Those were some of my earliest memories of boxing, Amir was boxing every couple of months on ITV and drawing huge audiences. We want to emulate that and take that to a new level.” Azim is still just 8-0, but with six emphatic knockout wins. “He looks at a lot of the world champions and believes that he would beat them in his next fight,” Shalom says, unquestionably serious, his eyes shark-like. “And Shane believes that. This is not a joke. “It’s high-risk, low-reward [for opponents]. I cannot tell you how feared this guy is; there’s world champions right now who would no way take a fight with him, even on a full camp’s notice, and I know that for a fact. We’re dealing with a freak, we’re dealing with a talent that you don’t see very often.” There is almost something humorous about the contrast between Shalom’s – clearly credible – observations and the unassuming way in which Azim speaks. He is, after all, just 20. But his life is not that of the average 20-year-old. Azim, like his highly-touted, 22-year-old brother Hassan, has been reared to be a champion. We discuss his love of action films – “The Raid, The Raid 2, all the Mission: Impossible films, I’m into DC and Marvel” – but that is the only extracurricular pastime that Azim allows himself. And it has been that way since he was young. Well, even younger. “I didn’t go out much,” he says. “I was always dedicated to boxing. I’d go swimming, cinema, or just chill out at a mate’s house. I didn’t really get to go out and explore, which... You’ve got to make sacrifices in your life. “Even now, I could go out and do a lot of stuff, but I’m just dedicated to my craft, because you can’t switch off in boxing. Footballers can do that because they have a team. All I really do on a weekend off is go for a walk, go round my mates’, or go to the cinema. That’s the same routine I’d done when I was younger. I ain’t gonna change it now, because you don’t wanna go the wrong way. I’ve got a goal to achieve, that’s all I wanna do.” Was there ever a threat of Azim going the ‘wrong way’? “I only went to secondary school for three months, because I was messing about, and my dad actually took me out and made me do home schooling so I could focus on boxing,” Azim says. “I believe if I’d gone to that school... I don’t know what I’d be doing now. My dad did the right thing, I thank my dad a lot for that.” Azim does seem genuinely grateful to be on this path, and to his dad for setting him on it. “He got me where I am today. He noticed I had that fighting spirit. In my family, our cousins and uncles are all fighters. I was meant to be a fighter – I can just feel it, you know?” Shalom agrees. “All he wants to do is fight; he would do it for free, he absolutely loves it. I’ve never met someone as focused as he is. It’s sometimes hard for Shane to calm him down. “It does take a lot for someone to become a star in boxing, there are so many elements that you can get wrong, [but] he’s made some really good decisions early on. His dad knows the game inside-out, and they’ve been preparing for this moment since he was about six years old. It literally is something that they knew was gonna come; they planned meticulously for the last 15 years. “You see tennis stars who’ve been taken around the world since they were young, they were almost bred to be No 1 in their sport. I really believe that’s how Adam has grown up. “He’s also a person who wants to stand for the right things and be the face of British boxing. We think he’s gonna be the one who really becomes synonymous with British boxing over the next five to 10 years.” You’d be a brave man to bet against a monster like this. Read More Built to survive, Dillian Whyte is fighting back and still here Dillian Whyte: ‘I was disappointed to lose to Tyson Fury, but if I lost 10 quid I’d be disappointed’ The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings Boxxer’s Ben Shalom: ‘I sacrificed my twenties, I sacrificed absolutely everything’ Leigh Wood and Chris Billam-Smith win world titles with victories over familiar foes Leigh Wood given message by trainer Ben Davison after controversial stoppage

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Mauricio Pochettino has signed a three-year contract to become Chelsea's new head coach, sources have confirmed to 90min. The Argentine will be joined by his usual backroom staff and an announcement will be made by the club in due course.

Rain has delayed the toss for the Indian Premier League final between defending champions Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings...