Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Scotland, World Cup, Football, Sport, Haiti football team
Title – Steve Clarke says pressure on Scotland has eased after victory in ‘must-win game’ | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ewanmurray
Link – Steve Clarke says pressure on Scotland has eased after victory in ‘must-win game’ | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T05:22:53.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/14/world-cup-scotland-haiti-steve-clarke

Steve Clarke suggested expectation weighed heavily on the shoulders of Scotland’s players after they laboured at times during the 1-0 win over Haiti . The game marked Scotland’s first at a World Cup since 1998 and delivered a first win since eight years earlier. The Scots top Group C after Brazil drew with Morocco . Yet with those teams, both ranked in the top 10 in the world, still to come there is an understanding Scotland will have to improve to realise their ambition of becoming the first team from the nation to reach the knockout phase of a major tournament.

“I am absolutely delighted with my players,” said Clarke. “Resilience, character had to be on the pitch tonight. There is no relief. Everyone told us it was a must-win game and we won. When you win a must-win game, you have to be happy with yourselves.”

On the challenges ahead, Clarke added: “We go into them with less pressure than everybody put on to us going into this game. If we defend as well as we did here, hopefully play a little bit better with the ball and create more, we will be OK. It’s not about raising the performance, it is about a different approach against a different opponent.

“Towards the end, you know you are 1-0 up and have something to hang on to so that is what you do. The players deserve a lot of credit. I thought Haiti were terrific at denying us time and space, which made it difficult. So the other characteristics that get you three points come out. That is why we are sitting here with three points and Haiti are empty-handed.”

Clarke, who hailed the “exceptional” Lewis Ferguson in midfield, had spoken before the game about his determination to enjoy this World Cup . Scotland, also under Clarke, have toiled at the last two European Championships.

“Sometimes I put myself under too much pressure but when you are in charge of a group like this, you have to appreciate what you have got,” said the 62-year-old. “They have never let me down. This for me is everything, I have always wanted to go to a World Cup with my country.”

Haiti’s head coach, Sébastien Migné, was as effusive as Clarke about his own team’s performance. “We are growing, we are learning,” he said. “On one hand I am very proud of what the boys showed. We rose to the challenge but that makes it all the more frustrating that we came up short. We know that with Haiti nothing is ever easy, we have to be resilient. If we had won, we wouldn’t have succumbed to euphoria so I am not going to call this a catastrophe either.

“From the beginning, we knew it was not going to be easy. Eight best third teams qualifying could have us through even with a win in the third game. Our opponents have a lot more to lose than we do.”

Migné said a number of his players were discussing their claim for a second-half penalty in the Haiti dressing room. The Haitians appealed in vain for a spot kick after the ball struck the arm of the Scotland centre-back Grant Hanley.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Women’s T20 World Cup 2026, Australia women’s cricket team, South Africa women’s cricket team, Women’s T20 World Cup, Over by over reports, Women’s cricket, Australia sport, Cricket, Sport
Title – Australia beat South Africa by 65 runs in Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup – as it happened | Women's T20 World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/daniel-gallan
Link – Australia beat South Africa by 65 runs in Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup – as it happened | Women's T20 World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-13T17:21:05.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/jun/13/australia-v-south-africa-womens-t20-cricket-world-cup-live

Geoff Lemon’s report

That’ll do from me.

Keep an eye out for Geoff Lemon’s report.

Phew, Australia look the business.

Tar-ra.

I’ve said that net-run-rate will be a factor…

After that, Australia’s is +3.25. South Africa’s is -3.25.

That’s hefty. With only two going through from this group that also includes India, that really could be crucial.

Now Sophie Molineux, Australia’s captain:

We were in trouble at the start. The wayside we bounced back and then climbed over with our bowling.

[Aggressive batting] is the way we want to play. They play their best when they take the game on.

[On Litchfield]. She’s amazing. She’s so skilful. Her game smarts are through the roof now.

I get a lot of hel [with field placings, match-ups[. With captaincy you have to go with your gut. It was a spin-friendly wicket. Sometimes it pays off, today it did.

Laura Wolvaardt understandably is wearing a long face.

Tough day today. I thought we had a decent first half. We lost our way with the bat. They bowled really well and outplayed us today.

I thought they were only a little bit above par. I backed us to go above nines. But lost our way.

It’s awsome to have [Kapp and Ismail] back together. De Klerk and Mlaba bowled well so that’s going well at least.

It was hard to get going. A frustrating innings. I felt they bowled well to me.

It’s nice to stack our line-up so we have power early.

Still a long tournament to go. We’ll put this game behind us as quickly as possible.

The Sky team have identified the Kapp run-out, thanks to Wareham’s arrowing throw from cow corner, as the turning point.

They’re right. South Africa were 81-3 at that stage. They then lost seven wickets for 26 runs in just over five overs.

It was so poor from a side that is much, much better than that.

Georgia Wareham is our player of the match.

Here’s what she has to say:

With our batting line-up you can play with a lot of freedom. I thought [Litchfield] was great the way she took on the new ball.

Depending on the day, we’re versatile [she’s talking about the four spinners]. It’s nice to be a part of that group.

I usually try to get myself out on the boundary so I’ll take that [catch] at extra cover.

South Africa bowled out for 107, Australia win by 65 runs

That is a shellacking! Revenge for their defeat to South Africa in the semi-finals two years ago. They have utterly dominated this one. A combination of aggressive batting despite the loss of wickets, outstanding spin bowling and inept South African batting.

This final wicket goes to Wareham who finishes with three for 13 to go along with a score of 32, a catch and a run-out.

South Africa fail to bat out their overs, falling in the 17th.

WICKET! Tryon c King b Wareham 9 (South Africa 106-9)

So soft! My word, South Africa have just folded here. They’ve lost five wickets in 18 balls for just 10 runs. Are they not bothered by their overall net-run-rate at all? This is a spooned slog straight to KIng – who fumbled but held on – to hand Wareham another wicket.

16th over: South Africa 104-8 (Tryon 7, Khaka 1) It’s all feeling a little drab. So much for the promised clash of titans. There has been a chasm between the sides but credit to Australia and their spinners. Gardner gets through another over and bags a wicket she deserves.

WICKET! Ismail lbw Gardner 2 (South Africa 102-8)

Another one goes! They’re falling like flies. A quicker, flatter, skiddier one from Gardner off a good length has Ismail trapped on her crease, shifting back and trying to work it off her pads. The finger goes up and she reviews, but umpire’s call on impact means she has to make her way off the ground.

15th over: South Africa 101-7 (Tryon 5, Ismail 2) Two in the over for King as South Africa circle the drain. King has been outstanding, miserly, flighty and aggressive with her lengths. She’s a wicket-taker, that’s for sure. Ismail gets off the mark with a couple. South Africa need to make sure they are not bowled out too quickly. If I was coach, I’d send the message out there to bat out their overs and not worry too much about the runs. Just pick up singles and twos.

WICKET! Jafta c Sutherland b King 2 (South Africa 99-7)

Two in the over for King! Phew, their net-run-rate is going to take a battering here. Jafta tries to take on the fielder down at long-on but she was never going to clear her. This is catching practice for Sutherland who pouches it without fuss.

WICKET! Reyneke c&b King 0 (South Africa 97-6)

Oh, how soft is that! Just a regulation leg-spinner that the 20-year-old Reyneke tried to steer into the on-side. She turned her bat too early and a thick leading edge popped up back towards King who completed the simple catch. South Africa are going down in a heap.

14th over: South Africa 96-5 (Tryon 4, Reyneke 0) Well this is becoming a bit of a romp for the Aussies. Apart from that Wolvaardt six down the ground, Molineux is giving nothing away here. She bagged the scalp of her opposite number and conceded just two singles at the top of the set. She closed it out with two dots to Reyneke who can slap it a long way. But the run-rate is now more than two a ball.

WICKET! Wolvaardt c Wareham b Molineux 44 (South Africa 96-5)

Skipper gets skipper! Wolvaardt’s tortured innings comes to an end and with it, South Africa’s bets hope of chasing this down. The ball before showed a glimpse of what she’s capable of as she skipped down the track and unfurled a wonderful six over long-off. Was that her return to some sort of touch? Not quite. The next delivery was well timed but didn’t have the elevation. A diving Wareham at extra cover held on well.

13th over: South Africa 88-4 (Wolvaardt 37, Tryon 3) Another miserly over from spin, this time from King, who has been magnificent. Two dots and just five runs. I wonder if South Africa should count their losses and look to preserve their net run-rate? If they chase what is surely now a highly improbably victory, they could torpedoe their World Cup.

12th over: South Africa 83-4 (Wolvaardt 35, Tryon 0) South Africa’s captain will have to do something special if she is to drag her team to an unlikely win. She just can’t find her timing. She collected two twos before she heave Gardner into the deep on the leg side. If she hit it harder she would have got four. Instead, she called Kapp back for a second and watched on as the run-out was completed at the non-strikers end. That required rate is now 11.47 an over. It’s not over, but we’re getting close.

WICKET! Kapp run-out Wareham 12 (South Africa 82-4)

Kapp is short at the non-striker’s end! Wolvaardt drilled a slog off Gardner towards cow corner and both batters though that was a boundary. But it got held up in the breeze so they set off for a second run having taking the first at a jog. The throw was perfect and the diving Kapp couldn’t make her ground.

11th over: South Africa 77-3 (Wolvaardt 29, Kapp 12) There are two different games taking place. Just five from that Gardner over. Wolvaardt is really struggling against the slower bowling. Wareham is almost inside the South African captain’s mind, pre-empting what she’s about to do, keeping her quiet.

10th over: South Africa 72-3 (Wolvaardt 25, Kapp 11) Wolvaardt might be lacking fluency but Kapp is in the groove. She bookends this Sutherland over with boundaries. One a crunching pull, the other a ping off the back foot. Between that there’s a wide that is brilliantly grabbed bu a leaping Mooney as the over counts for 13. That’s better from the Saffas. Attached halfway, Australia were 79-4.

9th over: South Africa 59-3 (Wolvaardt 22, Kapp 2) The Wolf has been shackled. Australia have prevented her from unfurling her trademark cover drive and now she’s faced 21 balls for just 22 runs. Only two boundaries off her bat and one was a streaky edge. Australia’s spinners – including King who concedes four from her second over – have been brilliant.

8th over: South Africa 55-3 (Wolvaardt 19, Kapp 1) Just seven off that over from Gardner, who might have dropped a gimme on the rope, but is very tidy from her opening set. No boundaries and just a couple of twos for Wolvaardt who needs to find an extra gear now for her country. That required rate is now nudging 10.

WICKET! De Klerk b Wareham 25 (South Africa 48-3)

Against the run of play, Australia strike again! Just as the South Africans were building, Wareham, with her wrist spin, gets on to skid on and beats the innocuous stroke of de Klerk. It was a half prod off the back foot, not really a shot at all, and it hits the top of off. South Africa’s chase is falling apart in the face of miserly Australian spin.

7th over: South Africa 48-3 (Wolvaardt 13)

6th over: South Africa 43-2 (Wolvaardt 12, de Klerk 22) South Africa are ten runs behind Australia at the powerplay. Much of that has to do with Wolvaardt facing a mere 10 deliveries. She registered her first boundary in this over, bowled by Sutherland, with a swatted drive down the ground. Two balls earlier de Klerk scooped fine for four. Nine off that over is an improvement for the Proteas, but they need more.

5th over: South Africa 34-2 (Wolvaardt 8, de Klerk 18) King into the attack and she’s spanked for a six over cow corner by a slog-sweeping de Klerk. Except she should have had a wicket. That six was parried over the rope by Gardner who inexplicably made a mess of what looked like a routine boundary catch. Wolvaardt has only faced seven balls for her eight. Australia have done well to keep her quiet.

4th over: South Africa 22-2 (Wolvaardt 8, de Klerk 9) Wolvaardt gets very lucky as she tries to flick Garth over midwicket. It catches a thick edge which could have gone anywhere. Rather than nestle in the hands of an Aussie it flies over the fielders behind square on the off-side and trickles away from four. They needed that. The asking rate is now over 9.

3rd over: South Africa 16-2 (Wolvaardt 3, de Klerk 8) Wolvaardt has faced three balls and collected three singles. She needs more of the strike. De Klerk is kept quiet by Molineux for four dots but there’s a delivery that is sprayed a little down leg and the big-hitting batter stoops low and sweeps a wonderfully timed slog that clears the boundary. They’ll need more boundaries. This chase is already looking tricky.

2nd over: South Africa 9-2 (Wolvaardt 2, de Klerk 2) Two from two for the Aussies. Dercksen showed her intent with a delicious lofted drive down the ground but she was sent packing the next ball when Garth adjusted her length. de Klerk, promoted up the order, steered her first ball wide of Schutt sweeping the covers. A misfield allowed her to come back for a second.

WICKET! Dercksen b Garth 4 (South Africa 7-2)

Beauty! The ball before was over pitched and Dercksen lofted a lovely drive down the ground for a one bounce four. Garth dragged her length back and got it to skid on. Dercksen didn’t see it coming and had her off stump pegged back via her thigh pad. Australia are on fire!

WICKET! Luus lbw Molineux 1 (South Africa 2-1)

The captain strikes in her first over! Back of a length, skidding off the surface, Luus tries to pull it behind square. She’s too late on it and probably should have tried to hit that straigher. She misses, and just like the Aussies, South Africa are one down in the first over.

1st over: South Africa 2-1 (Wolvaardt 1)

Wolvaardt strides out with Luus alongside her.

Whatever was bothering Luus after that dropped catch is all good now. Maybe she was just embarrassed shelling a goober.

This is such a key partnership (duh, right?). They’ll get going against the Aussie skipper Molineux.

It’ll be a trial by spin for the Saffas. I think this will be beyond them. But who knows? We will soon enough.

Australia post 172-8

If South Africa win this they’ll need to set a new record for a chase in a T20 World Cup.

Such an odd innings. I always felt like Australia were behind the eight ball and yet they’ve gone and posted something pretty hefty.

Despite the regular loss of wickets, Litchfield’s 24-ball 50 and cameos from Perry (36 off 26), Wareham (32 off 22) and Sutherland (21 off 14) kept things ticking.

This final over from De Klerk – who signs off with 2-35 – bagged a wicket but also cost 10 runs, including a well-placed boundary from Carey through a small gap past midwicket.

Is it enough? We’ll find out after a break.

Sune Luus drops a sitter!

She should have held on down at wide long-on, but more crucially she is off the field straight away.

The opening batter requires some medical attention to a finger. How will that impact the chase?

WICKET! King lbw De Klerk 4 (Australia 167-8)

That is plumb! King reviews though I don’t know why. Unless she thought she hit it? It’s struck her on the back foot, right in front of the stumps. A full ball from De Klerk beats her swishing bat across the line and that is as out as out can be.

19th over: Australia 162-7 (Carey 8, King 4) Mlaba closes out with a very tidy 2-22 from her four overs without conceding a boundary. Her final over cost just seven runs. If South Africa chase down their target they’ll thank their leading spinner.

WICKET! Sutherland c De Klerk b Khaka 21 (Australia 155-7)

Khaka wins the battle! After getting walloped for a mighty six down the ground by Sutherland, Khaka holds her nerve. This final ball of the 18th is a little wider and a little fuller which means Sutherland has to reach it and can’t get under it. She makes great contact, but can’t clear De Klerk at mid-off. That’s a sharp catch even though it was straight at her.

18th over: Australia 155-7 (Carey 5)

17th over: Australia 147-6 (Sutherland 14, Carey 4) Ten runs off that over, including four for Sutherland as she clubbed a De Klerk bouncer behind square. It was a strange delivery from De Klerk because when she kept it full she proved difficult to hit.

Ismail has left the field with a knock to her finger. She’ll hope she won’t be needed with the bat.

16th over: Australia 137-6 (Sutherland 6, Carey 2) Mlaba bags the big wicket and concedes just six runs. Australia are still hurtling at more than eight an over despite the regular loss of wickets. So hard to say what a good score would be from here. Mlaba has one more left. That over might be the difference in this game.

WICKET! Perry b Mlaba 36 (Australia 133-6)

Played on! Perry might be the greatest cricketer of all time (IMO) but she was made to look ordinary there. A very, very slow ball from Mlaba is flighted up around a fifth stump line. Perry goes searching for it and loses her shape as she takes an ugly swiper away from her body. All she can do is find an under edge and drag it back onto her stumps. Great bowling from the South African spinner.

15th over: Australia 131-5 (Perry 36, Sutherland 4) Marizanne Kapp to Elysse Perry. Two of the all-time greats going head to head. This round goes to the Aussie who pulls a full toss up and over for four. She didn’t crunch it, but got enough bat on it to take it to the rope. A plinked drive down the ground is very straight so she can come back for two. A well-placed yorker is respected by Perry who just clips it for a single down to deep midwicket. Sutherland closes out Kapp’s spell with a steer for two in front of deep extra cover. Kapp’s figures read 1-28 from her four overs.

14th over: Australia 121-5 (Perry 28, Sutherland 1) A much-needed breakthrough for South Africa as Wareham was getting going. Two boundaries, one lashed through cover and the other scooped down to fine leg, was a sign of how well she was seeing it. She then hammered a drive but couldn’t beat the diving Wolvaardt who plucked a stunner. Sutherland was given out first ball, but survived the review. De Klerk’s part-timers have been more than handy.

She survives! The big noise came after the ball had passed her bat. That was willow on hard pitch, not willow on ball. Sutherland survives the review.

The finger goes up for caught behind! Sutherland reviews. Has she hit the ground or has she edged her first ball?

WICKET! Wareham c Wolvaardt b De Klerk 32 (Australia 120-5)

That’s a stunner from the skipper! South Africa really needed that. Wareham smoked this drive into the covers and it was past Wolvaardt when she stuck out both hands and managed to cling on. That’s her third catch of the innings and her best by a distance. Wareham was just started to climb through the gears having struck two consecutive fours. But she has to go for a handy knock off 22 balls.

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Culture, Anish Kapoor, Art and design, Art, Sculpture, Painting
Title – ‘I have a naughty schoolboy attitude’: Anish Kapoor reveals his latest epic creations | Culture | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dale-berning-sawa
Link – ‘I have a naughty schoolboy attitude’: Anish Kapoor reveals his latest epic creations | Culture | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T09:00:38.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/14/anish-kapoor-hayward-gallery-interview

I n Anish Kapoor’s 3,100 sq metre studio complex in south London, photographers, assistants and gallery representatives gather in an upstairs meeting room. The artist has a staff of 23 in London – 11 studio assistants, nine people in the offices, three stone masons at a yard in Battersea – and some have been with him for decades. When he’s in town, everyone wants a piece (“It’s like The West Wing,” says one gallery rep).

Anish Kapoor and his hazmat-suited assistant with some of the 31 parts of Ha Makom

The studio, which takes up most of a converted dairy factory, is an upstairs-downstairs warren. Each room is dedicated to a different kind of thing: large red installations; small black sculptures; exhibition layout models; lacquered concave mirror paintings; archival drawings. In the upstairs meeting room, there is a weekly calendar hand-drawn over eight sheets of A3 paper with, beneath it, a very long list titled “Unfinished Hayward Works”. And on the windowsill stands a curious item: a solid cylinder of concrete, excavated from the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery.

That cylinder was brought over by Kapoor’s old friend, the outgoing Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff, to celebrate Kapoor’s 72nd birthday in March, as well as their current collaboration. It is symbolic of the 1.5 metre-wide bit of gallery floor that Kapoor has just had drilled out in preparation for his career-spanning show, which opens at the Hayward this week. (Rugoff describes the cylinder as the perfect gift for the artist who has spent his life producing voids: “This is what happens when you do that.”)

Emerging from his office in a faded black jacket and scuffed trainers, Kapoor embarks on a rapid-fire walk-and-talk tour, shoulders slightly hunched, like a trail runner hitting their stride. “Honestly,” he says, “everything’s a total mess here. But it doesn’t matter. Come.”

The Southbank Centre was the first to give Kapoor a major show in the UK, in 1998. He is one of the few artists to be asked back for a solo show. “I’m both excited and a little terrified,” he says. Tellingly, the pieces he’s most anxious about, he says, are those the public know best.

Threading a path between bulbous shapes wrapped in protective coverings, Kapoor heads for a giant, red mountain-like structure, just below the peak of which he has carved out one of his signature voids – a dark rectangular aperture. The structure, he explains, is one of the 31 parts comprising a new piece, titled Ha Makom, that is destined for the Hayward. “It’s a huge work, huge work,” he says, gesturing all over the room. “There’s a part of it, there’s another.”

Works on paper from Kapoor’s archive

Next door is another even bigger piece. Ancestor is “a kind of meteorite form,” says Kapoor. “We’ve been at it for, God knows, four, five, six months. It should have been finished a month ago.” A group of hazmat-suited assistants beaver away at its holey, pock-marked surface, using what look like ice-lolly batons to apply a red-tinted mixture of sawdust and resin.

Kapoor has a track record of, as Rugoff puts it, “trying to do these things that are very difficult … He himself can sometimes seem kind of impossible. But it’s all in this service of producing things that are going to be very exciting experiences for people.”

The drawing and painting room; an oil-and-gold leaf work on canvas and an iteration of Dirty Corner

Coming to fame in the 1980s with a series of small, geometric sculptures covered in pure pigment, Kapoor’s international profile was established when he represented Britain at the 1990 Venice Biennale. There, he presented a field of large sandstone monoliths, into each of which was carved a small black hole – a tiny void. He has gone on to sink much larger voids into gallery floors, and dream up works of ever greater scale. He has made balloons the size of palaces (Leviathan from 2011), shot 12.5 tonnes of red wax, via cannon, into a corner of the Royal Academy (in 2009) and twisted 1,500 tonnes of steel into a sculpture, Orbit , commissioned for the 2012 London Olympics.

This expansive body of work has landed Kapoor some of the art world’s biggest prizes (he won the Turner prize in 1991 and the Wilhelm Lehmbruck prize last year) and as many civic honours (he’s a Royal Academician, a French Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a knight), and he was one of the nine artists, alongside Constable and Shakespeare, that the UK government put on British passports in 2015.

The drawing and painting room

With these plaudits – and his predilection for immense, sometimes overpowering spectacle – has also come criticism. People often either love what he does or they hate it. When Orbit was installed, some critics castigated Kapoor for what they deemed “a messy, meaningless, plutocrat’s plaything”, and “a vanity project”. The notion that his work flaunts wealth and elitism was only exacerbated by the exclusive licence he secured in 2016 to use Vantablack, a trademarked military-grade coating that is said to be the “blackest black”. “We should be able to use it,” one painter railed. “It’s not a paint,” Kapoor tells me today.

This distinctive – and divisive – ambition will now be on full display at the Hayward. Viewers will be greeted by Kapoor’s newest piece, All of Nothing, a red inflatable so large it cannot be seen in full from any vantage point, and this year’s Ritual Expiation, floor-based sculptures that resemble blood and guts floating in handcrafted metal trays. There are also iconic pieces: the confounding black void of Descent into Limbo; and Mount Moriah at the Gate of the Ghetto, an upside down mountain that hovers just inches from the floor.

Picking my way through room after room in Kapoor’s wake, I am struck by the sheer volume of his output. He is a compulsive doer. Reaching an upstairs room full of painted, concave mirrors, he explains that he has always had two sides to his practice. “One: this stuff, for some reason, the world, the market likes it. And the other,” referring to the gargantuan pieces we’ve walked through downstairs, “which I’ve never sold, not even one.” What he’s after is that “ahhh” moment, when the viewer experiences what he wants the piece to do. These concave mirrors, for instance, are designed and polished in such a way that the painted image appears to be located not on their surface, but surreally hovering in the empty space in front of them. There’s also an optical illusion with the “black-black” works, as he calls them. Vantablack reportedly absorbs 99.965% of visible light, thereby making all depth invisible. The works around me are all 3D shapes. But look at them head on and all you see is flat blackness. Ultimately, Kapoor says, it’s all about pushing at that fundamental question of “Is it art?”.

Some of Kapoor’s concave mirror pieces

When asked if there are Vantablack pieces that don’t work, he replies: “Yes, but I’m not going to show them to you.” Similarly, when I ask if I can see the model of the Hayward show, he agrees on condition that no photographs be taken. The photographer duly stays outside as Kapoor leads the way to another room full of exhibition layout maquettes – small preparatory models – hastily crafted from rough-sawn plywood and styrofoam. “I’ve not shown the model to anyone, any journalist at all, ever,” he says.

This curious blend of freedom and control is brought into sharpest relief when we arrive in the drawing and painting room. “This is my space,” he says. Here, he works alone.

An entire wall is covered in quick line drawings, paint splatters and potential titles. The words and phrases on display run a surprising gamut – from the political (“War is won not by the pain inflicted but by the pain that can be suffered”) and the poetic (“Tongue memory”) to the downright meme-able (“I’m not making things, I’m manifesting them”).

Kapoor’s sketches, illustrations and notes in his painting studio

“I’ve always been dyslexic,” says Kapoor. He finds writing really hard and trusts sculptural form over language. Yet, language is central to unpacking his work. Ha Makom – the title of the new mountainous piece – means “the place” in Hebrew. It is used in the traditional phrase spoken when leaving the home of mourners sitting shiva (the Jewish grief ritual), praying to God to comfort them.“Makom in kabbalistic language literally means ‘place’. But it’s also one of the names of God. I like that strange overlap,” says Kapoor.

“It’s weird to have a Hebrew title,” he continues. “Especially now. But hopefully these questions go beyond.”

But using a Hebrew word is you, I say.

“Yeah, it is. It is me,” he replies. “I mean, I have deep trouble with the politics, revolting politics,” he says, referring to the current Israeli government. “But what to do?”

Kapoor has never shied away from politics. Recently, he collaborated with Greenpeace activists to install a large-scale canvas , splattered with blood-red paint, on a gas rig in the North Sea. He has also spoken out against voter ID laws, funding cuts to culture, Brexit and the UK government’s treatment of Shamima Begum. Today, he criticises the UK government’s approach to pro-Palestine protesters. As he puts it to me: “It’s illegal to protest pro-Palestine? Hello? Sorry, what’s wrong with everyone? You arrest them? It’s just outrageous. At so many levels, our ability to speak out is being curtailed: that idiot in America, that vile man in India, etcetera, not to mention Israel. What a shame.”

His relationship to Israel is complex. He was born in what is now Mumbai, India. His father, Darshan Chander Kapoor, an admiral and hydrographer in the Indian navy, was culturally Hindu. His mother, Hilda, born Hilda Murad Elias, was from a prominent family in the Iraqi-Jewish diaspora. His grandfather was the cantor in the synagogue in Pune and, for a time, in Bombay.

His parents were “wonderfully cosmopolitan”, he says with great warmth. “We grew up with this very strong sense of being Jewish and not being Jewish.” In spiritual terms, he has long been a Buddhist.

When he was 16, he and his brother emigrated to Israel. It was, he says, a “bafflingly disorientating and complicated” time. “We had been ‘the Jewish boys’ in India and then we went to Israel, my brother and I, and suddenly they called us ‘ kushi ’” – a racial slur. “I can’t tell you how shocking that was, to be, if you like, the ‘Black Jews’.”

Kapoor with his new piece Ha Makom

Fast forward to his arrival in the UK in 1973 to attend art school (first at Hornsey College of Art then at Chelsea School of Art and Design) and, here too, the distance between who he was and how others boxed him in was profoundly unhelpful. His early pigment works were understood through the exoticising lens of his Indian heritage. His Indian citizenship was also a stumbling block for some when he was chosen to represent Britain in Venice. In 2015, a controversial work he installed in Versailles, Dirty Corner, was repeatedly vandalised with fascist and antisemitic graffiti. He refused to remove it the second time, describing it at the time as “really violent” and “a scar”.

Despite this, Kapoor has consistently refused to let what he calls “psychobiography” define his work (he told the curator Nicholas Baume in 2008: “I’m not Tracey Emin!”) and has no time for the increasingly prevalent practice of art being read through the lens of personal biography.

Museums the world over have become obsessed, he says, with “this strange, I think, bit of bullshit” belief that you can only make work that pertains to your narrow identity: so, for example, that only female artists can make feminine art. “Phooey,” he says. “We can inhabit other states, in all sorts of ways. That is one of the beauties of human consciousness, and I think it’s a great disservice to trap the artist.” He goes to museums, he says, “to be surprised, to be taken aback, to be hopefully inspired with some wonder”.

Faced with a world on fire, people increasingly ask where all the radical artists have gone. Kapoor, as this retrospective makes clear, has never let go of the dream that art can be just that.

Kapoor with his London studio staff

Here he is, at 72, both making new work that is nothing like anything he’s done before and surprising himself with fresh seams in ideas he’s worked on for decades. The challenge, he says, is for an artist to somehow combine the personal (what he calls “my little story”) with a striving for artistic reinvention – and a rebellious mindset. He refers to the three words on the wall of his studio that he clings to most: disagree, disobey, disavow. “It may well be that that’s my naughty schoolboy attitude to things. But I do believe it’s really important. Disobedience sits alongside invention. It is radical, and I think it is vital.”

Anish Kapoor is at the Hayward Gallery, London, 16 June t o 18 October.

©Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2026

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Brexit, Economic policy, European Union, Politics, Europe, Economics, UK news, Business, International trade, Unemployment, Foreign policy, Global economy, Investing, Productivity, Government borrowing, Economic growth (GDP), Young people, Immigration and asylum
Title – How Brexit has made Britain poorer – in charts | Brexit | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/richard-partington
Link – How Brexit has made Britain poorer – in charts | Brexit | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T05:00:34.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/14/how-uk-economy-changed-since-brexit-vote-charts

As the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote approaches, the verdict on Britain’s economic performance is clear: voting to leave has resulted in severe costs for households and businesses.

The immediate recession predicted in the Treasury forecasts ordered by George Osborne – dubbed “ project fear ” by the Leave campaign – did not happen. The impact from the Covid pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Iran, and Donald Trump’s trade battles also cloud the picture.

But experts agree the long-term forecasters were on the money: the economy is significantly smaller than it would otherwise have been, trade has suffered, business investment and productivity growth have stalled, and families are on average thousands of pounds a year worse off.

Charlie Bean, a former Bank of England deputy governor, who reviewed the Treasury forecasts, said: “Osborne has a lot to answer for when he was basically saying, ‘Treasury analysis shows – look, there is going to be a deep recession tomorrow.’

“That was really misrepresenting what you could take from [it] and overselling it, obviously to try and win the argument politically. In hindsight, we had the vote and the world didn’t fall off the cliff immediately, and so the Brexiters can say [it] wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

“But the assessment of the broad long-run was in the right ballpark. We’re poorer than we otherwise would have been.”

Here are the charts highlighting the economic consequences.

The pound is below its pre-EU referendum level

The value of the pound swung wildly after the polls closed on 23 June 2016. As Nigel Farage appeared ready to concede defeat , the currency gained. But early leave victories in key locations, including Sunderland , prompted a 10% plunge in the pound on what was its biggest ever one-day fall.

The collapse in the pound drove up the cost of importing goods, triggering an inflation shock that damaged the public finances and inflicted financial pain on households across the country.

Exporters – who typically benefit from a weaker currency because their products become cheaper for overseas buyers – failed to take advantage as uncertainty clouded trade appetite.

A decade later, the pound has never returned above its pre-Brexit level, hitting British holidaymakers in the pocket. From close to $1.50 against the dollar and €1.31 against the euro just after polling closed, the pound stands at $1.34 and €1.15.

UK growth has slowed

There are reasons why the Brexit recession never materialised: mostly because the Treasury forecast assumed an immediate no-deal departure, rather than continued EU membership until 31 January 2020 – before an 11-month transition period and other deals since.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility , the independent Treasury watchdog, the UK is on track to suffer a 4% hit to national income over a 15-year period.

At the decade mark, analysis by Nick Bloom , a leading British economist at Stanford university in the US, and others in a research paper for the US National Bureau of Economic Research, show that UK GDP per head is between 6% and 8% lower than it would have been without Brexit.

Based on performance relative to 33 other advanced economies, the analysis shows that Britain roughly tracked these countries closely until 2016, before a large gap in output opened up.

“The statistics are really clear: the UK has grown more slowly after Brexit than before,” Bloom said. “Is it because of Brexit? Probably. You can’t be absolutely certain, but I don’t see anything else that would open up this gap with the UK and everyone else.”

Trade has suffered from more border friction

Brexit involved erecting trade barriers, which has hit goods exports. The EU is still the UK’s largest trading partner : in 2025, exports to the bloc were worth £385bn (41% of all UK exports) and imports £474bn (49% of the total).

Since the end of the EU transition period on 31 December 2020, growth in UK goods exports has slowed relative to the G7. But service exports have performed more strongly. The OBR estimates this is because the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement Boris Johnson agreed with Brussels created more friction for goods than services. Exporters, in particular, face more red tape and border delays.

Bloom compared the situation to a shop moving from the centre of town to the outskirts: “You make it harder to get there and back, and not surprisingly there is less demand. And you add to the uncertainty by opening and closing all the time, and people don’t know if you’re there.”

Uncertainty sapped business investment

After a shock result, no clear plan from the government or leave campaigners led to years of infighting over just what Brexit – never properly defined, and often subjective – should be in practice. Amid that political turmoil businesses froze their investment plans.

As a consequence, investment is estimated to be close to 18% lower than it would have been under remain and productivity up to 4% lower, reflecting reluctance to invest in equipment and projects due to the uncertainty.

John Springford, of the Centre for European Reform, said: “The investment strike started in 2016 and continued through to 2021-22, and then it started to rise again once certainty about the trading relationship had been established.

“That has an impact on productivity. It means workers don’t have the best kit, and existing capital [equipment and buildings] is deteriorating, so you certainly assign some of the GDP losses to that.

“Brexit is more a story of stagnation, and a slow puncture, than of recession and rising unemployment.”

Employment has suffered

Unemployment in the UK fell after the Brexit referendum to among the lowest rates since the 1970s, before rising sharply during the pandemic. However, experts say this obscured underlying challenges.

First, wage growth has stagnated. Average real wages barely grew until picking up strength after the pandemic, and even given recent faster growth are only £43 a week higher on average , after taking inflation into account.

Britain emerged as the worst-performing country in the G7 for the pace of its recovery in workforce participation after the easing of pandemic restrictions, with rising ill-health pushing up economic inactivity – when working-age adults are neither in a job nor looking for one.

Young people have borne the brunt of weaker participation rates, including an increase in the number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neet) to more than a million, the highest level since 2013.

According to Bloom, employment in the UK is between 3% and 4% lower than it would have been under a remain scenario.

Brexit support has faded

Public support for Brexit has steadily fallen since the 52%-48% leave vote. Polling last month by YouGov shows 70% of Britons support a closer relationship with the EU without rejoining the bloc, its single market or customs union.

More than two-thirds think looser ties would be a mistake. A majority – 56% – would back rejoining the bloc outright. Support to rejoin is strongest among Green and Labour voters, and weakest among backers of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, of whom 83% are opposed.

Net immigration surged, but is now falling

Post-Brexit, despite the promises of the leave campaign and the Conservative government, net migration to the UK rose sharply, reaching a record high of almost 1m in the year to June 2023.

The war in Ukraine and pent-up demand for migration after the easing of Covid restrictions played a contributing role. But changes to migration rules after Brexit also had an impact.

Almost 90% of arrivals have been from outside the EU, while net migration from the 27-country bloc has fallen. Employers have struggled with staff shortages amid the loss of previously readily available EU workers, particularly in construction, hospitality and manufacturing.

Net migration has fallen further – dropping to 171,000 last year – amid tougher controls first introduced under the Conservatives that have since been tightened further under Labour.

Keyword – UK news
Trefwoorden – Ministry of Defence, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Military, Keir Starmer, NCA (National Crime Agency), Oil, UK news
Title – British armed forces intercept Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in Channel | Ministry of Defence | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/markbrown,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-elgot
Link – British armed forces intercept Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in Channel | Ministry of Defence | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T10:23:34.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/14/british-forces-intercept-russian-shadow-fleet-vessel-english-channel

British armed forces intercepted and boarded a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the Channel in the early hours of Sunday, Keir Starmer has confirmed.

In a six-hour operation, the first of its kind to be led by the UK, Royal Marine commandos and officers from the National Crime Agency boarded and took control of the vessel, Smyrtos, which was sailing under a Cameroonian flag.

According to the tracking website Marine Traffic , the vessel is now anchored off the coast of Dorset, near Weymouth. Authorities said it would be monitored for environmental or safety concerns.

British authorities say the Smyrtos is one of 700 vessels in a shadow fleet responsible for carrying 75% of Russia’s oil exports, which are under international sanctions. The fleet provides Russia with what analysts say is a critical lifeline, allowing oil to be sold and funds generated to continue its war against Ukraine.

The operation on Sunday morning was the first time the UK had led on such an endeavour, previously providing support to the French military when it carried out something similar in the Atlantic.

Writing on X, Starmer, said he had directed UK armed forces to intercept the oil tanker as it attempted to sail into the Channel.

“This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fuelling [Vladimir] Putin’s war in Ukraine that we will not let them hide,” the prime minister said. “I want to thank those involved, including our armed forces and law enforcement officers who keep this country safe 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”

Dan Jarvis, who became defence secretary on Thursday after the resignation of John Healey, said: “Operations like this require skill, professionalism and courage. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel and all those involved.

“Russia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin’s illegal war.”

The Ministry of Defence said the military operation had been supported by aircraft from the Maritime Air Group (chinooks, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat), an RAF P-8 aircraft, as well as the navy vessels HMS Sutherland and HMS Ledbury.

Calling it a “blow to Putin’s war chest”, the MoD said the operation had been “conducted in close cooperation with the French”. It said the UK was a leader in tackling the shadow fleet, having already placed sanctions on more than 500 vessels. “These sanctions are working,” the ministry said, with Russia’s oil and gas revenues falling by 24% year-on-year in 2025.

Starmer announced in March he had granted permission for the British military to board ships under sanctions that were passing through UK waters.

Writing on LinkedIn , the attorney general, Richard Hermer, said: “This government made clear that we would pursue Russia’s shadow fleet under the full force of international law.

“Russia relies on their shadow fleet tankers to fund their conflict in Ukraine, and this expertly delivered interdiction strikes another blow at Putin’s war machine. I pay tribute to the extraordinary courage and professional of our armed forces personnel, and everyone else involved.”

Speaking to the BBC, Al Carns, who resigned as armed forces minister on Thursday night, said: “While we were sleeping safely last night, there were marines and navy and air force personnel boarding helicopters, flying low level over the sea, rearing up before the ship, fast roping on to the ship, securing it, and then taking it into our territorial waters. An amazing operation, excellently prosecuted by our Royal Marines and others.”

Asked why action like this had not been taken before, Carns said there had previously been a Russian frigate in the Channel protecting some of those ships coming through. “It was about hitting the right parameters to make sure that everything from legal to the cargo met the requirements for boarding,” he said.

“We’ve actually helped lots of other nations do these boardings – America, France, and others. And I think now that the first one has happened, we’re probably going to see more, should the opportunity to present themselves.”

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Scotland, World Cup 2026, Football, Sport, World Cup, Haiti football team, Photography, Art and design, Culture, Boston
Title – World Cup 2026: Scotland return to big stage against Haiti – in pictures | Scotland | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-sport
Link – World Cup 2026: Scotland return to big stage against Haiti – in pictures | Scotland | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T03:10:28.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2026/jun/14/world-cup-2026-scotland-haiti-in-pictures

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup, England, Football, Sport
Title – Wedding parties, the Hand of God and Lineker – The Big One invades summer like nothing else | World Cup | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthewengel
Link – Wedding parties, the Hand of God and Lineker – The Big One invades summer like nothing else | World Cup | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T07:00:37.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/14/wedding-parties-hand-of-god-lineker-world-cup

T he connection between King Lear and the 1966 World Cup is little known, mainly because it affected very few people at a now defunct boarding school. I had been a surprise selection to act in the school’s production of Lear (yes, I played the Fool; yes, I was typecast). The day before one of the performances I fell and twisted something and was a doubtful starter for a part that required a lot of dashing about.

Matron prescribed sleeping pills. That night England were playing Mexico in that now-sanctified tournament – almost a must-win after a goalless start against Uruguay. I went to bed early, tucked my transistor under the pillow to hear the commentary, went spark out and only heard the result next morning: England 2 Mexico 0. The rest is national history.

Also, the invalid recovered enough to get a rave review in the Wallingford Herald and embarked on the dream of theatrical stardom which, sadly, had to wait for another 30 years before I made the big time as a Teletubby in the village panto.

The point of the above burble is that the World Cup, more than any other sporting event, is not just global but personal. It invades the English summer like nothing else. Brides with weddings planned for ages suddenly find themselves competing with must-see matches. Pubs empty if they don’t have screens. Wimbledon grumpily finds itself playing second fiddle. Ditto Test matches.

People across the planet remember where they were for their own biggest matches and who was with them. Olympics, forget it. Unless it’s held down the road, it never takes over like The Big One.

And surely every English teenager of that time remembers where they were on the Great Day: the Soviet linesman; Kenneth Wolstenholme: “It is now”; Bobby Moore’s smile. All in black and white. Imprinted in our memories like JFK’s murder and the moon landing. Even now, when we can’t remember where we put our specs, phone or car keys.

We might by now have a more nuanced view of that epic. The ineptitude of allowing the trophy to be stolen, which was followed by Joe Mears, the chair of the Football Association, trying to claim the reward for himself rather than the owner of Pickles, the dog who found it.

But my schoolboy innocence disappeared only when I read the work of the football writer Jonathan Wilson : Argentina and Brazil being given training grounds with no goalposts; the foreign press treated as muck; South Americans being picked on by European referees; Pelé being kicked (literally) out of the tournament. The voyage to Port Stanley had some of its roots at Wembley.

Ah, well. My family was never that football-crazy. But somehow the World Cup infiltrates itself everywhere. In 1970, my brother, Richard, arranged his wedding in a London hotel on the day England played Brazil in Guadalajara : the match when Gordon Banks made that save from Pelé. Barring fire alarms, no wedding party has ever dispersed so quickly. The bride and groom went upstairs to their room, but instead of the customary post-nuptial activity he insisted on watching the match. It still rankles a bit with my sister‑in-law. But they did have their 56th anniversary this week.

England skipped the next two World Cups, after Brian Clough described the Poland goalkeeper, Jan Tomaszewski , on TV as “a clown” at half-time in the crucial qualifying match for 1974. For clown, read genius. Next morning the Sun headline read “THE END OF THE WORLD”.

There followed the fatalistic years when English football – dull, grubby, violent fans – found itself challenged as the nation’s leading sport. When, in 1986, England had a sniff of success they were thwarted by Maradona and the Hand of God . By 1990, with three football tragedies fresh in the memory – the Bradford fire, the Heysel riot and the Hillsborough horror – with Mrs Thatcher trying to make it illegal to attend football without permission – England’s national game was at its nadir. Bobby Robson, the England manager, was being vilified in the pubs and the press in a manner that make Keir Starmer’s travails look like mere flesh wounds.

As in King Lear, I think I played something of a role here. The Guardian sent me to the World Cup in Italy, but gave me a break to cover Wimbledon, which suited me (and saved them money).

England were at first corralled on Sardinia to curtail the movement of their unwelcome supporters – Saint Helena might have been better. From the start, the journalists on the spot were talking about 1990 being the most boring World Cup of all. But stealthily England were worming their way through the ranks.

By the time they beat Belgium to reach the quarter-finals the nation was pricking up its ears. The next match was against the surprise package, Cameroon. I was due to fly back for the semis and final, but that night was watching quietly at home in north London. At half-time I put my dustbin out. A normally busy street was deserted, not a sound; everyone was watching.

Gary Lineker won the game with a penalty. Afterwards, our genteel local was in raptures. When I flew to Milan for the fateful semi in Turin, I was greeted by the verdict formed by my colleagues: “Terrible, terrible tournament”. I had to tell them: “You don’t understand. Back home everyone’s crazy about it.” Modern communications had not yet permeated Fleet Street. Those on the spot hadn’t a clue.

England lost the Gazza’s-tears match and the final – Argentina beating Germany – was indeed complete shite. But that was the real turning point, of (later Sir) Bobby’s reputation and football regaining its status as the unchallenged national preoccupation.

Beware you June and July brides; your big occasion might not be as big as you think.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – Los Angeles, ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), US immigration, Trump administration, California, West Coast, US news, US politics
Title – A year after ICE raids terrorized Los Angeles, a rattled city reaches for resilience: ‘It’s not the same’ | Los Angeles | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/maanvi-singh
Link – A year after ICE raids terrorized Los Angeles, a rattled city reaches for resilience: ‘It’s not the same’ | Los Angeles | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T11:00:43.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/14/one-year-later-los-angeles-ice-raids

Most people in Brian Gavidia’s life haven’t seemed to notice that a year has passed since armed federal immigration agents descended on their city.

In East Los Angeles , in the neighborhood where he was born and has lived his whole life, the scene this week appeared more or less normal. A family in formalwear settled into the big round table at the torta ahogada restaurant for a post-graduation celebration. The vendors selling fruit or flowers or perfumes were once again lining the streets.

“It makes me happy, to hear music playing, to see that little girl playing,” he said. “But also, it’s not the same.”

His mind still flashes back to the day that agents came to his workplace, pinned him against a gate and refused to accept that he was a US citizen. His skin prickles each time he spots a white van with tinted windows – could it be ICE again?

The raids last summer brought a massive influx of ICE and border patrol agents, as well as an unprecedented incursion of national guard troops, into Los Angeles, which is home to the largest undocumented population of any US city. Angelenos took to the streets in protest. Several immigrants died while being chased down. Lawyers scrambled to locate and help detained people before Immigration and Customs Enforcement swiftly transferred them out of state, or removed them from the country. Mutual aid networks sprang up across the region to help immigrants who were too afraid to leave their homes.

The raids also marked a turning point in the Trump administration ’s immigration crusade. The caravans of agents who swept through LA, seizing workers at car washes and garment warehouses and raiding churches eventually moved on to Chicago, Portland, Washington DC and Minneapolis, escalating their tactics at each stop.

One year later, Los Angeles has been left with some scars, some open wounds. Many Angelenos’ lives have been permanently changed.

Lorena – who stayed indoors for weeks as roving patrols made arrests along her street – is back to selling her tamales in Koreatown.

Yurien, who saw her father outside his workplace in LA’s fashion district handcuffed, chained from the waist and ankles and whisked away by agents, is haunted by the image.

Noemi and her husband used to get ready together before she headed to work at LA international airport; now he calls her on the phone at 8am with a morning greeting – from Mexico, where he was deported last June.

Angelenos have adapted, they have adjusted and they have persevered, said Elizabeth Brennan of the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, a local advocacy group: “But if you start to look close, it’s like we have little missing teeth, everywhere.”

A lmost exactly a year ago – on 12 June – Gavidia was at work in his car lot when immigration agents rushed in, pinned him against the gate and asked him to name the hospital where he was born. His story became part of a class-action lawsuit challenging ICE’s racial profiling of Angelenos.

After that day, everything in his life turned upside down. Federal agents kept coming back to the neighborhood. Business declined, and it felt unsafe to work. He had to close his used-car refurbishing business and dealership. “For the first time in seven years, I had to look for a job, and work for somebody else,” he said.

He saw neighbors and childhood friends targeted by roving patrols, and he had to tell his nine-year-old daughter – who lives with her mother in Portland – she couldn’t come spend the summer with him, as she usually does. “It was painful,” he said. “But it wasn’t safe for her.”

He started to feel heartened in July after a federal court ordered federal agents to halt their indiscriminate raids and the racial profiling. Then, in September, the supreme court overturned the ruling . “I was devastated,” Gavidia said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, alongside a coalition of immigrant rights groups, are still challenging that result and have submitted an amended legal complaint. Gavidia said he wants to keep sharing his story until the racial profiling stops.

“I feel a responsibility,” he said. “I want us all to feel safe again.”

But it’s hard, he said, not knowing when that will be.

In central LA, a few day laborers were standing outside a Home Depot in MacArthur Park, looking to pick up odd jobs installing siding, or painting or landscaping. Some were chatting about how Donald Trump had just signed a $70bn funding package from immigration enforcement.

Immigration agents had targeted dozens of Home Depots across LA last summer – after Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s immigration policies – ordered them to sweep up undocumented workers.

On 6 June last year, masked federal agents came to the MacArthur Park Home Depot in a fleet of white vans, ambushed workers and whisked away nearly two dozen people. In August, despite a federal court order halting indiscriminate raids in the region, border patrol agents came back to the same Home Depot – this time, in a yellow rental truck. The driver told workers he had jobs to offer; then, masked agents jumped out of the back and started making arrests.

“Until the mandate of the president ends, we are going to be in danger,” said Frederico, 62, a laborer and security guard who was at the construction store looking for jobs. “It hasn’t been safe since then, and it’s not safe now.”

Frederico came to the US from Guatemala in 1998 and has been living and working in LA ever since. Fewer and fewer workers have been coming here, he said, and there are fewer jobs: “Businesses have closed, people no longer want to build, they no longer want to spend, to invest.”

A couple of miles away, in the fashion district, a few people peruse rolls of colorful fabrics and browse the racks of ready-to-wear apparel. Here, too, the shadow of the raids lingers.

June used to be a busy season here, said Antonio, 52, who co-owns a fabric shop with his wife, Alma: “Especially in this season, people are everywhere shopping. Graduations, graduations, parties, parties, parties.”

But the neighbourhood, which is home to hundreds of fabric shops, ateliers, tailors and clothing factories run by and employing immigrants, was one of the first to be targeted by agents last year.

In a single swoop on 6 June, agents arrested dozens of workers – many of them from the Indigenous Zapotec community – at Ambiance Apparel, a large manufacturer and retailer in the district. Fourteen members of Citlali Fermin’s family were arrested that day.

In the months afterwards, 11 were released after organizers and family members launched a public campaign called Lucha Zapoteca. “One was deported after he was coerced into signing documents under false pretenses.One decided to exit due to the inhumane conditions in detention Lastly, our last relative decided to exit after six months in detention,” said Fermin, who is also an organizer with Trabajadores Unidos Workers United.

Antonio remembers when that raid happened. He was at his store, finalizing a large order: 20 rolls of fabric, each of which cost $200-$300. That’s when news started to spread that federal agents had arrived.

Antonio’s client called him shortly after to cancel the order. Since then, sales have gone down about 85%, he says: “It’s a drastic change.”

It is not only Los Angeles that has changed since the raids – it’s the whole immigration system, said Melissa Shepard, director of legal services at the legal aid non-profit ImmDef.

Though it is uncommon now to see roving caravans of agents patrolling LA, people are still being detained. Often, this is at immigration check-in appointments. But Shepard and other attorneys and advocates said people are still being arrested in targeted raids, or as bystanders at raids.

She has heard of an Amazon driver detained after making a delivery to a military base. Jorge Nicolás, a senior organizer at a day labor center called Central American Resource Center (Carecen), said he recently witnessed agents chasing a laborer into a Home Depot, and taking him away bloodied and in handcuffs.

“The arrests never really stopped,” Nicolás said.

The number of people in immigration detention in the LA area spiked when the raids began last June. Before the raids, fewer than 1,000 people were detained in ICE’s Los Angeles area of responsibility on any given day; since then, the number has doubled.

At the Adelanto detention center, located in the high desert east of Los Angeles, detainees began a hunger strike in May to protest murky drinking water, moldy food and a lack of medical care. Many of those participating in the strike alleged that they were zip-tied, and threatened with teargas and transfers to other ICE facilities, according to ImmDef. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has denied there is a hunger strike.

“The state of dysfunction of the detention centers is alarming,” said Shepard. “They are being used as a deterrent and also as a punishment for immigrants.” Conditions are so bad, she said, that many detainees feel pressured to accept deportation and give up their immigration cases, just so they can leave the detention system.

For immigrants inside detention, it has also become exponentially more difficult to secure a release through bond.

The minimum bond amount is $1,500, but according to Shepard, judges are increasingly requiring bonds that are 10 times higher – at $15,000 or $20,000. Detainees have to pay the full amount in order to be released.

Jennifer Gutierrez, the executive director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (Clue), a southern California-based non-profit, said her organization raised and spent at least $1.5m to help 150 immigrants pay their bonds. “We’ve got a long list of applicants who are waiting for their bonds to be paid,” she said. The government holds the bond until after immigration cases are closed. But the court system is severely backlogged; of the 150 bonds the group has paid on behalf of individuals, she added, they’ve only gotten three back so far.

Gutierrez and Shepard were among dozens of activists, attorneys and Angelenos who testified at the People’s Hearing on Immigration Enforcement, a public forum led by Rochelle Garza, chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights.

“What we are seeing is a terrorizing of our communities,” said Garza, who held a similar hearing in Minneapolis in March and another in Chicago in May.

Underlying the conversations that day was a big, open question of how and when Angelenos would receive some reprieve or reparations for what they experienced. Gavidia was one of the people who testified. “I do believe a lot in America,” he said. “We’re not done fighting for our rights.”

Afterwards, he shared some good news: he was getting ready to restart his used car business. “I’m excited. We have to keep building.”

The Guardian is using first names in some instances to protect people’s safety and privacy

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Activism, Donald Trump, US news, Kamala Harris, US elections 2024, Republicans
Title – Door-to-door canvassing can be intimidating – but it’s also a source of hope | Saul Austerlitz | The Guardian
Author – Saul Austerlitz
Link – Door-to-door canvassing can be intimidating – but it’s also a source of hope | Saul Austerlitz | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T11:00:42.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/14/canvassing-democrats-voting

I n the fall of 2024, I spotted a middle-aged couple standing on their front lawn in Bucks county, Pennsylvania. I waved and gingerly approached. The woman, whose name appeared in my canvassing app, told me she had never voted in an election before, had never seen politics as relevant to her life. And her husband, she said, was a lifelong Republican. But after the return of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, it felt like it was time to take a stand. They were both going to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot in November.

On the other side of the street, directly facing their house, were two of the biggest Trump 2024 flags I had ever seen, along with a life-size cutout of Trump on a third lawn.

I have now been canvassing regularly for Democratic candidates for almost 10 years, and I will be honest: that first door still feels intimidating. The thought of knocking on a stranger’s door and asking them to talk politics makes my hands feel clammy and my heart beat erratically.

You arrive with a few dozen names and addresses listed on a bespoke app, a comfortable pair of shoes for walking, and a good lunch. (Canvassing makes you hungry.) Mostly, you leave behind flyers and door-hangers, but every time you canvass, you might connect with someone who had been hoping, whether they knew it or not, to talk with someone just like you.

We show up as canvassers to engage in good-faith dialogue with strangers about what a better tomorrow might look like. It is grounded in the belief that conversation can be powerful, that hearing from a neighbor who has given up their afternoon to show up at your door could prod you into action.

Newcomers on one of my group’s past canvassing trips would get on-the-fly tutorials in passenger seats and on sidewalks, offering hands-on canvassing guidance: don’t put flyers in mailboxes (it’s illegal); skip doors with scary dogs or Maga flags; develop a one-to-two sentence introductory patter, then listen for clues as to what the person at the door might care about. Canvassing could be stressful but was not hard, and newbies could become adepts after two or three Sundays. And our work played a small part in flipping a New York City congressional seat from red to blue in 2018, and winning the gubernatorial and Senate races in Pennsylvania in 2022.

Try as we might, we could not close the deal at every door. I still think regularly about a Bucks County man I met in the fall of 2024 who told me that he could not imagine his state supporting Donald Trump, but he refused to cast a vote for Kamala Harris . I wish I had done more to convince him to hold strong for democracy.

Some of the Democratic party’s collective confidence about the efficacy of canvassing has been shaken after 2024. Does the door-to-door approach still work when Republicans are successfully using digital strategies that seem to bypass the doorbell entirely? Those questions feel valid, particularly in a country where so many have fallen prey to the lures of Trumpian authoritarianism. My hope that a silent majority of Democrats and sensible centrists revolted by Trump, like my Bucks county couple, would carry states like Pennsylvania in 2024 proved illusory.

I believe in canvassing nonetheless because I see it as one of the strongest weapons we have against creeping autocracy. But might I suggest it, too, as a kind of spiritual workout, exorcising the demons of negativity and despair and the misguided belief that all our fellow Americans are beyond redemption, or that the future has already been written?

For those of us who have been feeling unmoored by the state of the country and the future of US democracy, those doors are where our ideals meet unforgiving reality. If we want to build a better future, we will have to do it right here, surrounded by unfriendly dogs and intrusive Ring doorbell cameras. Knocking on someone’s door is not the same as being in community with them, but it is a similar act of optimism, grounded in a belief that there might still be a shared American language not yet corroded by the toxicity of homegrown authoritarianism.

Each time I canvass, about halfway through my designated round of 40 or 50 doors, I start to experience a sense of contentment that I encounter nowhere else. In this moment, at this door, I know where I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to do. When I hit that last door, I find myself letting out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

What’s giving me hope now

The other night, about 40 people crowded into my living room to listen to some witty, politically-minded country folk songs by the great Oscar Owens of Gangstagrass. Oscar was playing at our fundraiser for Movement Voter Project, an organization that supports grassroots groups in battleground districts and states. Campaigns tend to burn money at staggering rates and leave no usable infrastructure behind. MVP supports the kind of slow, year-round work that actually builds winning coalitions for November and far beyond.

Saul Austerlitz is the author of How to Assemble an Activist

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Culture, Music, Pop and rock, Australian music, Punk
Title – Lydia Lunch: ‘There won’t be a funeral. You’ll never find my body’ | Culture | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andrew-stafford
Link – Lydia Lunch: ‘There won’t be a funeral. You’ll never find my body’ | Culture | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-13T20:00:25.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/14/lydia-lunch-interview-10-chaotic-questions

What’s the most chaotic thing that’s ever happened to you on stage?

I’m still waiting for that. Maybe it’s the most chaotic thing I’ve ever put forth from the stage. Once a quite drunken man called out a rather rude remark for me to suck his you-can-imagine-what, so I invited him up to the stage and cracked him in the neck with a blackjack [club]. He fell to his knees and I told him to suck it himself. I’m always prepared!

You’re in Australia to perform the songs of Suicide. Can you tell me about the impact Alan Vega had on you as a performer?

They were one of the first concerts I saw when I arrived in New York at the age of 16. I think it was the mania and musical schizophrenia from one song to another, from Cheree to Dream Baby Dream to Frankie Teardrop. I liked that confusion of emotion. Also, that thousand-yard stare that Alan Vega had, screaming into the void as he did. They sounded like no one else.

You’re also playing a series of shows with [Beasts of Bourbon and the Cruel Sea frontman] Tex Perkins. How did you first connect with him?

I don’t really remember when I met him, but I was always a fan of the Beasts of Bourbon , and when we did the Shotgun Wedding tour [in 1994, with Rowland S Howard] we covered Hard for You, which Tex and I might do on this tour. I just find him adorably funny, sexy, raunchy, everything rock’n’roll should be.

You have a long history with that lineage of Australian rock performers, Rowland most notably . What do you miss most about him?

Look, missing people who have left so much in their wake is just a western form of selfish greed. As opposed to missing, how about celebrating what there was? I’m just glad I got to celebrate his life with him. Most people don’t get that much of an opportunity. We only are greedy for more for ourselves. The dead don’t give a shit.

He has a laneway in St Kilda named after him now, as does another of your Australian associates, Spencer P Jones . What do you think of this trend of posthumously naming places after musicians who may not have received much material reward in their lifetimes?

Well, they might not even receive it postmortem – think of someone like [novelists] Hubert Selby Jr or Henry Miller or any number of dead geniuses. But it’s better than having a fucking hamburger named after you.

OK, since you mention it, if you were to have a sandwich named after you, what would be in it?

Well, first of all I don’t like sandwiches at all, so I would never allow a sandwich to be named after me. I think that bread is a trick on poor people, unless it’s highly nutritious or Danish. So perhaps it would be a sandwich with no bread, but a divine interior. Something meaty, juicy, big and bouncy, just like me.

You’ve built a career on the art of shock and provocation. What’s your most controversial pop culture opinion?

Well, excu-uuse me! I wish you’d rephrase that, because I don’t find anything I’ve done shocking, but I’ve got no opinion about pop culture. It’s an existential vacuum that sucks everything into it that has not a brain cell left for itself. The internet wants other people to air their dirty laundry, as if it was some kind of sacred sacrament? I don’t pay attention to that shit.

One of the early records I owned was Drunk on the Pope’s Blood, your split EP with the Birthday Party. What have you made of Nick Cave’s transformation into the world’s greatest agony uncle via The Red Hand Files?

NO COMMENT!

Could we see Lydia Lunch become the world’s greatest agony aunt? I would pay for this.

I do write a column for the Idler , a British magazine. But back when the internet used to pay for you to write, I had a sex advice column called Tough Love, where I used to write both the questions and the answers. There was one that went: Dear Lydia, I’m making Thanksgiving dinner for friends, and I’m wondering if I could get salmonella if I ejaculated into the turkey. I don’t remember what the answer was, but the question was certainly delightful.

You said before that the dead don’t give a shit but, if you’re going to have one, what song do you want played at your funeral?

There won’t be a funeral. You’ll never find my body. When I’m ready to take myself out, I’ll be gone in a flash. I will not die in my sleep – that’s an absolutely horrible way to go, if you ask me. I’ll just evaporate somewhere, hidden away from all eyes, watching as my body goes back to wherever it once came from, which is the ether.

Lydia Lunch is performing the songs of Suicide and Alan Vega in Melbourne on 17 and 18 June; Brisbane on 20 June; Sydney on 21 June; Adelaide on 24 June; and Perth on 25 June. Lydia Lunch and Tex Perkins are performing at in Melbourne on 19 June; Brisbane on 20 June; and in Parramatta on 27 June