LONDON (AP) — England is looking for a new coach for its women’s national cricket team after Jon Lewis left his post Friday following poor results at the T20 World Cup and in the Ashes series.
Lewis had been in the job since 2022 and oversaw a drawn Ashes series at home in 2023, but England was eliminated in the group stage of last year’s T20 World Cup and lost the multi-format Ashes series to Australia 16-0 last month.
“While the recent ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and Women’s Ashes in Australia have been disappointing, there is no doubt about the talent we have available and we will look to appoint a successor shortly," said Clare Connor, deputy chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board.
"We must be ready for an exciting summer of international cricket and to challenge for two World Cups over the next 15 months, including the T20 World Cup in this country next year.”
The ECB said it would provide an update on a new coach “in due course.”
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
FILE - Head coach of England Women's Cricket Jon Lewis, May 16, 2024. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP, File)
COPENHAGEN (AP) — The Danish foreign ministry has changed its U.S. travel advisory for transgender people, following other European countries such as Germany and Finland who suggest they may face difficulties when trying to enter the United States.
The Nordic country wrote on its website that transgender people should contact the U.S. Embassy before traveling to the United States.
“When applying for an ESTA or visa to the United States, there are two gender designations to choose from: male or female,” the Danish travel advisory stated in an update Friday.
“If you have the gender designation X in your passport, or you have changed your gender, it is recommended that you contact the U.S. Embassy prior to travel for guidance on how to proceed," the ministry advised.
While the travel advisory does not explicitly mention the new U.S. administration, it comes only weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to define sex as only male or female and for that to be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies such as federal prison assignments.
The U.S. State Department has stopped issuing travel documents with the “X” gender marker preferred by many nonbinary people, who don’t identify as strictly male or female. The department also stopped allowing people to change the gender listed on their passport or get new ones that reflect their gender rather than their sex assigned at birth.
The head of the transgender group LGBT+ Denmark, Susanne Branner, told Danish radio RadioIII her group had reached out to the country's foreign ministry earlier in the week and asked for the update of the advisory.
She said there are a few thousand people in Denmark who have changed their legal gender and who might encounter unpleasant situations at airports when trying to enter the U.S. or could even be denied entry because their passports do not reflect the gender assigned at birth.
“If you are transgender or have an X in your passport, can you risk being denied entry? We would like concrete answers to this,” Branner told RadioIII.
Other European countries have also changed their official advisories for members of the transgender community in a reflection to the situation in the U.S.
The German foreign ministry put out an advisory earlier this month, telling “travelers who have the gender entry ‘X’ or whose current gender entry differs from their gender entry at birth” to contact a U.S. diplomatic mission in Germany “before entering the country and find out the applicable entry requirements.”
Finland, too, advises prospective U.S. travelers on its foreign ministry homepage that if their “current gender as recorded in their passport differs from the gender they were assigned at birth, U.S. authorities may deny entry. It is recommended that you check with U.S. authorities in advance for entry requirements.”
FILE - A rainbow flag is suspended at Copenhagen City Hall in Denmark on Aug. 11, 2021, marking the opening of Copenhagen 2021, World Pride and Eurogames. (Ida Guldbaek Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)
