Keyword – Games
Trefwoorden – Games, Role playing games, Culture
Title – The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales review – a playable love letter to Zelda | Games | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tom-regan
Link – The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales review – a playable love letter to Zelda | Games | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T11:15:01.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jun/18/the-adventures-of-elliot-the-millennium-tales-review

Y ou can’t help but wonder if developer Team Asano is in a private competition with itself to come up with the most ridiculous name for a video game. Following Project Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default: Flying Fairy we have this mouthful: The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales. It’s a playable love letter to the Zelda adventures of yesteryear rendered in the studio’s trademark glorious 2D-HD art style, melding evocative pixel sprites with modern visual effects.

From west Philabieldia, born and raised, our hero is adventurer Elliot. The antagonist making trouble in the neighbourhood is a king’s dastardly aide intent on summoning an ancient evil. The story is pure after-school-TV schlock, fully voice-acted but still unafraid to make you sit through reams and reams of text, and the action comprises treasure-hunting, temple-roaming and dispatching monsters. It’s part Chrono Trigger, part Oracle of Seasons as our almost obnoxiously upbeat hero journeys through the ages in order to solve puzzles, tip his fedora and of course, save a princess.

In each of the world’s four time periods, your surroundings change to suit the age you’re in, helping you uncover new abilities and the realm’s mysteries. While there is potential for a darker tale to be told, this is all stupendously saccharine stuff. It’s a world where everyone is pure of heart except for the mustachioed villain. Side quests have you saving cats and running errands for orphans.

Luckily, it’s a blast to play. What starts off as a straightforward exercise in Zelda worship later possesses a surprisingly deep and customisable combat system. Equippable gems allow you to modify your weapons and mix up your gameplay, boosting a sword’s critical hit ratio or adding flames to your arrows; combining these different fun effects can result in total grin-inducing carnage on screen later in the game. Even the weapons themselves are fairly inspired. Alongside your quintessential classics such as a shield, sword, bow and boomerang, there is a wildly swinging scythe and utterly devastating hammer.

Some friction is introduced by refreshingly challenging late-game bosses, but everything else on this adventure is designed to speed players along to the credits. With Breath of the Wild-esque temples spread out across the map, fast travel and constant hints about your next destination, Team Asano sacrifices retro mystique for satisfying forward momentum. A controllable fairy companion helps you solve puzzles by, for example, bursting into flame to light candles, but she also constantly remarks on each new dungeon and cave, advising you on whether it’s worth exploring. Such constant good-natured assistance may make Hollow Knight players scoff, but Asano has made the decision to keep the good vibes rolling, also ensuring that younger players are never hopelessly lost.

The Adventures of Elliot is not especially ambitious. It is a comforting balm during turbulent times. If you can stomach its occasionally nauseating earnestness, this rich fantasy world is a cosy one to retreat to. And despite my instinctive reaction to the off-puttingly cheesy dialogue, this charming world eventually began to warm even my cold, cynical English heart, thanks to some inspired dungeons and rewarding, customisable combat.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is out now; £49.99

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – History books, Italy, Religion, Books, Culture, Europe, Philosophy books, Inequality, Social exclusion
Title – The Guardian view on the death of Carlo Ginzburg: a historian who taught us to think about outsiders | Editorial | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/editorial
Link – The Guardian view on the death of Carlo Ginzburg: a historian who taught us to think about outsiders | Editorial | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T17:40:53.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/the-guardian-view-on-the-death-of-carlo-ginzburg-a-historian-who-taught-us-to-think-about-outsiders

R eflecting on the genesis of his most famous work, Carlo Ginzburg wrote that by immersing himself in the trial of a 16th-century miller burned by the Roman Inquisition, he turned a possible footnote into a book. Fifty years on, after being translated around the world, The Cheese and The Worms still stands as a supreme exemplar of historical research devoted to the lives of “the persecuted and the vanquished”.

Ginzburg’s death last week , at the age of 87, means that one of the last living links with a remarkable postwar generation of historians has gone. In its passion for reconstructing the fabric of lives previously thought too marginal to bother with, his writing had affinities with EP Thompson’s “ history from below ” movement and the Annales school in France. As the rise of 21st-century authoritarianism creates new generations of scapegoats and misfits, the approach of one of Italy’s greatest scholars speaks directly to our times.

In the preface to The Cheese and the Worms, Ginzburg wrote: “If the sources offer us the possibility of reconstructing not only indistinct masses but also individual personalities, it would be absurd to ignore it.” Examining the two trials of Domenico Scandella, known as Menocchio, an unusually literate miller in an Italian village, he duly performed an intellectual and cultural salvage operation.

The result was a gripping portrait of the defendant’s dangerously egalitarian views, which had been formed from a mishmash of peasant and pagan culture, religious chronicles and Boccaccio’s The Decameron. Menocchio’s fate was sealed when he rashly disclosed to the inquisitors his pantheistic beliefs and compared angels to the worms that emerge from rotten cheese. In a characteristically moving touch, Ginzburg noted that a childhood friend of the miller had desperately urged him “not to talk too much”.

The use of medieval and renaissance court records relating to heretics, witches and shamans influenced researchers of the history of women and oppressed minorities, as they too sought to read between the lines of documents written by the powerful. As Ginzburg noted with satisfaction, his works gained an enthusiastic reception in postcolonial societies, where imperial administrations had left treasure troves of official documents. During the 1990s, he deployed his detective methods to publicly contest the dubious conviction of the leftwing radical Adriano Sofri, who was found guilty of ordering the 1972 murder of a police commissioner during Italy’s “ years of lead ”.

In later life, Ginzburg came to realise that his commitment to history’s victims sprang from an impulse rooted in his own past and identity. During the Nazi occupation of Italy, his father, Leone, was tortured and murdered, and as a young boy Ginzburg was forced to disguise his Jewish identity and go into hiding. In a postscript to a 50th anniversary edition of The Cheese and the Worms published this year, he mused that this had been an internally suppressed connection.

As one of Ginzburg’s last pieces of writing, the postscript summed up the value of a legacy that can inspire us to think harder and better about today’s outsiders. In it, he recalled that Menocchio told his interrogators: “My mind … wished for a new world.” The state of the world in 2026, Ginzburg argued, “makes these words, pronounced nearly five centuries ago, more urgent than ever. Menocchio is with us, speaks to us.” The same will surely continue to be true of his own work.

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Milan fashion week, Men’s fashion, Fashion, Fashion weeks, Life and style, Italy, Europe
Title – Ralph Lauren bridges generations with menswear tie-up in Milan | Milan fashion week | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/chloe-mac-donnell
Link – Ralph Lauren bridges generations with menswear tie-up in Milan | Milan fashion week | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:21:21.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jun/20/ralph-lauren-milan-fashion-week-menswear-ties

For his second standalone menswear show in Milan, Ralph Lauren reverted to the accessory that launched his empire in 1967 – ties.

Skinny silk ties featuring subtle swirly prints were neatly knotted and used as the finishing touch to elegant pinstripe suits, while more brightly printed or striped cravats were whirled and worn like ties peeking out from under knitwear and rugby shirts.

Elsewhere, ties were used in place of belts; others came wrapped around bags, and even footwear came tied up, with the uppers of espadrille shoes formed of ties that had been spliced together.

For the American fashion house that has become catnip to gen Z, the focus on ties in Friday night’s show was a slick way of appealing to this younger cohort, who have recently discovered both the brand and the accessory for the first time, but without alienating its existing older customers, many of whom are octogenarians like Lauren himself and have been wearing ties since day dot.

While other key players in the fashion industry continue to grapple with a widespread luxury slowdown, Ralph Lauren is enjoying a renaissance. In May, its CEO, Patrice Louvet, announced that sales for the last fiscal year had increased by 15%, with revenue exceeding the $8bn (£6bn) mark for the first time in the company’s history.

While womenswear has been a key focus of this growth, the decision by the brand to join the men’s fashion week schedule in Milan suggests there is further momentum to be found in menswear too. The show that kicked off Milan fashion week on Friday night combined its dapper-driven label Purple with its more accessible Polo brand, which focuses on collegiate style classics.

Part of Lauren’s magic is worldbuilding and this time around he transported guests to the golden age of Italian sport. A gleaming 1920s mahogany speedboat plonked in the courtyard of his Milan headquarters – a sprawling palazzo in the capital that Lauren bought in 1999 – greeted guests including the actors Tom Hiddleston and Colman Domingo and the grand prix record-breaker Lewis Hamilton.

Textured knitwear in sea-salt whites, striped shirting in nautical blues along with reversible butter-soft leather jackets lined with cashmere captured a fantasy mood of zipping around Lake Como. Reflective racer sunglasses, deck shoes and squashy tote bags that could be easily stowed onboard added a purposeful touch.

Later came the Polo collection, which Lauren in his show notes described as the “next-generation vision of American prep”. This was luxury through the lens of TikTok fashion fans. For them, much of its aspirational appeal lies in the styling that can be easily riffed on as they rummage around secondhand platforms and shops.

Camo trousers were worn loose and baggy; colourful checked shirts were styled untucked; rugby shirts were patchworked together featuring motifs of flowers and crossbones, while neat blazers clashed with denim speckled with paint or visible mending created by using sashiko embroidery.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Iran, US-Israel war on Iran, US foreign policy, US military, Pete Hegseth, Trump administration, US news, Middle East and north Africa, World news
Title – Four months after the horrific Iran school bombing, fears grow that Trump and Hegseth will bury the truth | Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/roth-andrew,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tess-mcclure
Link – Four months after the horrific Iran school bombing, fears grow that Trump and Hegseth will bury the truth | Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T11:04:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/21/iran-school-bombing-minab-fears-trump-hegseth-bury-truth-investigation-findings

T he attack on a girls’ elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was one of the US military’s deadliest civilian bombings in decades. But nearly four months on, the Pentagon has produced no answers about why the military fired a Tomahawk cruise missile into a school on the first day of the war, killing at least 175 people, mostly children.

Some critics doubt that the Pentagon ever will, or will bury the results under classifications to keep the worst mistakes secret from the public.

As the US signs a shaky memorandum of understanding on a ceasefire with Iran, the secretive investigation into the attack has also become a test case for the self-styled secretary of war Pete Hegseth’s new approach to what he calls “warfighting”. As he said in early March, nearly two weeks after the attack, “our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it”.

Shortly after the attack, Donald Trump suggested that it was carried out by Iran. When it became clear that the strike used a US-made Tomahawk missile , he suggested that Iran also had access to the cruise missiles. It does not.

As he celebrated a ceasefire deal to open the strait of Hormuz last week, Trump signalled he was ready to write off the attack as a mistake. “It’s such a strange question to be asked at this date, because you’re talking about a long time ago,” Trump said when he was asked about the investigation during a press conference at the G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bains, France. “But nobody did that on purpose.”

It was at the beginning of what Trump has taken to calling a “little excursion” into Iran that the back-to-back or “double tap” strikes on the school building took place, killing mainly children under the age of 12. Officials have told media anonymously that the site was believed to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.

Mohammadreza Ahmadi Tifakani lost two children in the school bombing. His seven-year-old daughter, Hanieh, was killed, along with all of her classmates in the girl’s section of the school, when the first missile hit. According to witnesses, her 10-year-old brother, Sobhan, survived the initial explosion and ran back to look for his sister. He was killed in the second blast.

“I personally went to the morgue and identified both of them,” Tifakani told the Guardian in an interview shortly after the attack. “Sobhan was missing an eye, and half of his face was gone. His legs were broken. Hanieh’s skull was fractured but her face was intact. I recognised Sobhan at first glance, even though he was severely injured.”

Trump said last week: “Mistakes are made. The war is nasty.”

Several former Pentagon and national security officials expressed doubt to the Guardian that the US government would take responsibility for the deaths of the schoolchildren in Minab or even release the full report into the attack.

“It’s very rare that you would have a military operation and not have some incidents where there was a mistaken target and civilians are harmed or killed, but then there is a system for investigating, assessing accountability and taking responsibility” in those cases, said one former senior Pentagon official.

“Even without the civilian harm mitigation office, there’s a very clear process for this, and I’m very doubtful that the Hegseth Pentagon will follow through,” the former official added.

As part of Hegseth’s “anti-woke” crusade at the Pentagon, the military has shuttered or reduced units meant to review civilian casualty incidents and has more broadly indicated that decisions made in combat by “warfighters” would not be subject to such close scrutiny. The reduction in civilian oversight at the Pentagon under Hegseth may make it easier to skirt blame for the incident.

The incident is comparable to some of the worst mass-casualty incidents of past US wars, including the 2017 Mosul airstrike that killed at least 105 and perhaps more than 200 civilians, the 2015 Kunduz hospital airstrike that killed 42 people, and the 1991 Amiriyah air raid shelter bombing that killed more than 400 Iraqi civilians who were sheltering during Desert Storm.

Trump said last week that the investigation was continuing. US Central Command, when asked about the investigation, gave no new information. “We have no updates at this time,” a defence official wrote.

But media reports indicate that the investigation has concluded. Preliminary results said the attack came because of the US using seven-year-old targeting data that failed to indicate that the building next to an IRGC base was in fact a girls’ school. The New York Times reported last week that at least one analyst had alerted a colleague several years ago that the US appeared to be targeting what was now a school in Minab. But the targeting data was not updated, and military officials continued to revalidate the site as a legitimate target for bombing.

Tifakani said at the time he had little hope of accountability from US investigations or the world. Asked what message he had for legal institutions or investigators looking into the bombing, he said: “They are witnessing everything themselves. We saw what happened in Gaza and Palestine. Now the same tragedy has befallen our own children. No matter what we say to them, that will not change anything.”

Congressional inquiries into the incident have also been stymied. “The US strike in Minab is one of the most horrific episodes of the entire illegal Trump war in Iran,” said Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian-American congresswoman who represents Arizona’s third district. She said she had written to the Trump administration to demand answers about the strike and “gotten little to no response”.

“Donald Trump is hiding the truth from the American people and Congress, and deflecting blame to Secretary Hegseth, because he does not want the public to know the true horrors of what he unleashed on the Iranian people with absolutely nothing to show for it,” Ansari said. “I will continue to do everything in my power to get answers for the families of these girls.”

Wes Bryant, a former US air force special operations targeting expert and former chief of civilian harm assessments at the Pentagon, said his few remaining colleagues overseeing civilian harm reduction at the Pentagon had been prevented from seeing the preliminary results of the investigation.

“I believe Hegseth and Trump are both going to do everything they can to suppress this investigation,” he said. “So, even if there is one really sitting there, it’s not getting out any more, unless we have, you know, a brave whistleblower.” He added: “The amount of people with eyes on that report are going to be very small.”

He said strikes in Iran that had killed thousands of civilians were a sign of the rising “aggregate harm” that the US was willing to accept as part of a culture of that pointed to “pure negligence and recklessness, but also to a degradation of culture at senior leadership levels in the military”.

Early in his tenure as secretary of defence, Hegseth moved to close down or severely reduce civilian oversight of the Pentagon’s civilian harm mitigation and response, and a report released in May by the department’s inspector general concluded that the US military no longer had the people, tools or infrastructure needed to comply with two federal statutes requiring it to maintain a functioning civilian casualty policy and operate a civilian protection centre of excellence.

In September, Hegseth said publicly that he had done away with “stupid rules of engagement” for the US military as part of an anti-woke revamping of the Pentagon. In March, weeks after the strike on the school, as the US campaign against Iran continued at a fever pitch, he boasted: “Warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly.”

Observers have said the remarks and shuttering of key offices have limited civilian oversight at the Pentagon, with one former official saying the US “threw in the trash the whole mitigating civilian harm strategy”.

Niku Jafarnia, the acting deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said: “Hegseth himself has publicly expressed a lot of his scepticism around the amount of measures that we had in the military previously to mitigate these types of reckless errors and massive civilian harm incidents.

“He has publicly expressed scepticism about the value of constraints on fighters, and he has taken actions that have systematically weakened some of these protection measures that are supposed to ensure compliance with the law.”

Pointing to Hegseth’s earlier public remarks about “untying the hands of our warfighters” and ignoring “stupid rules of engagement”, she added: “I think we saw the effects of that on day one of the war.”

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Labour party leadership, Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham, Politics, Labour, UK news, Stock markets, Economic policy, Shabana Mahmood, Wes Streeting, Nigel Farage
Title – Burnham prepares for power as an emotional Starmer bows out | Labour party leadership | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pippacrerar,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kiran-stacey,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-elgot
Link – Burnham prepares for power as an emotional Starmer bows out | Labour party leadership | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T19:47:49.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/22/burnham-prepares-power-emotional-starmer-uk-prime-minister-resignation

Keir Starmer has finally bowed to intense pressure to stand down as British prime minister as he conceded that he was no longer the right man to lead the country, leaving Andy Burnham all but certain to succeed him.

In an extraordinary day at Westminster, Starmer announced a timetable for his departure after months of growing discontent among Labour MPs and cabinet ministers, many unnerved by the threat from Reform UK before the next general election.

As the new-elected MP for Makerfield made his way down by train to Westminster, it became increasingly likely Burnham would be crowned Labour leader without having to face a contest, giving him just over three weeks to prepare for government.

After Wes Streeting confirmed he would not challenge him for the top job, the focus among jubilant Labour MPs turned to Burnham’s policy agenda, his plans to take on Nigel Farage’s party and who might be in his first cabinet.

With his platform beginning to take shape, the Guardian understands that:

Burnham will begin to set out his likely policies next week with a series of speeches to demonstrate a big symbolic shift from Starmer’s government, starting with the economy and devolution.

He is considering appointing Ed Miliband as chancellor in order to challenge Treasury orthodoxy but has not yet made a final decision. Sources said Burnham was aware of the potential risks with business and the unions opposed to the move, but could be prepared to make the argument.

Shabana Mahmood is expected to stay at the Home Office after the former Greater Manchester mayor praised the home secretary for “facing up” to the big issues on immigration during the byelection campaign.

Wes Streeting could be appointed to one of the top cabinet jobs, but did “not come with any leverage” to discussions, with campaign sources rejecting his claims he had the numbers to run. Others have argued for him to be appointed chancellor to reassure the markets.

Starmer loyalists are still seeking a candidate who could potentially stand against Burnham – with it depending on whether Miliband was chancellor. Darren Jones has been touted as a possibility, and while sources said he was not organising a run, they stopped short of a categorical denial.

After spending the weekend with his family at Chequers, Starmer took the painful decision to set out a timeline for his departure, less than two years after a historic election victory, thereby kickstarting the process to select the UK’s seventh prime minister in 10 years.

“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” he said in an unusually emotional speech from a lectern in Downing Street.

“I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace. Every decision I have taken has been about putting the country I love first, that is why I will resign as leader of the Labour party.”

While Starmer had insisted on Friday that he would fight any leadership contest, conversations with cabinet ministers over his weekend and time with his wife, Victoria, shifted his thinking.

He has asked Labour’s ruling national executive committee to set out a timetable for a contest, with nominations opening on 9 July, and to be completed by the summer recess just a week later. Labour MPs would hold an in-person hustings regardless of the number of candidates.

But with no other Labour MP expected to get the requisite 81 names, and Streeting saying he would not challenge him, Burnham is set to take over unopposed, entering No 10 as early as 16 or 17 July.

In a message aimed at his likely successor, Starmer said he would do “everything I can” to ensure an orderly handover of power, despite what insiders have described as his earlier anger and frustration over Burnham’s ambitions. One friend said he would do so through “gritted teeth”.

In his resignation speech, he said: “I will also give my successor my full and unequivocal support, knowing they will inherit a Britain that is far stronger and fairer than the one I inherited two years ago, better prepared for the challenges ahead and better able to ensure the Labour party secures a second term in office.”

It was unclear last night whether Starmer would stay on as an MP once he leaves Downing Street, with some friends suggesting that he would feel duty-bound not to inflict another byelection on the country, while others believe he is unlikely to stay on for long.

In a statement shortly after Starmer’s resignation, Burnham – who has not spoken to the prime minister since before the Makerfield campaign – thanked him for his service.

“His decision marks the beginning of a transition and it is important that this process is conducted in an orderly and responsible way,” he said.

“I will put myself forward as part of this process. The country expects stability, seriousness and a continued focus on the issues that matter most and that is what it will get.”

To cheers from Labour MPs and jokes from the opposition benches, Burnham – who changed out of the T-shirt and jeans he was wearing when he left Manchester earlier in the day, dressing in a suit and tie – was sworn in as an MP.

Bond markets were muted on Monday, with the yield on 10-year government bonds – a key measure of government borrowing costs – falling slightly. But Burnham allies say he wants to do more to reassure investors given his comments about the country being “in hock” to bond markets.

As part of that push, Burnham’s team have spoken to Jim O’Neill, the economist and former Conservative Treasury minister, about becoming his chief economic adviser should he enter No 10.

One of Burnham’s first moves in office could be to make a major devolution announcement, with some around him advocating for major fiscal changes, for example allowing mayors to set their own business rates.

While he will stick to Labour’s manifesto, he is expected to look at other areas where his government could be bolder.

Louise Haigh, who ran Burnham’s successful byelection campaign, will now run his transition team, with Miliband, former minister Miatta Fanbulleh and ex-Makerfield MP Josh Simons all working alongside her. Labour MPs Anneliese Midgley and Sally Jameson will remain closely involved.

After the announcement, Farage was the only opposition leader to call for a general election in the event Burnham takes over, saying the UK could not afford to “waste another week drifting from crisis to crisis”. Burnham has signalled he would not go down this route.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Argentina, Austria, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Argentina 2-0 Austria: Messi breaks scoring record at World Cup 2026 – as it happened | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dominic-booth
Link – Argentina 2-0 Austria: Messi breaks scoring record at World Cup 2026 – as it happened | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T19:19:30.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2026/jun/22/argentina-v-austria-world-cup-2026-live

Right then, the match report from Nick Ames in Dallas has now landed. So I will thank you all for your many emails and conclude this minute-by-minute.

The Lionel Messi roadshow rolls on, and on, and on. Has there ever been a better player in footballing history? Probably not. Can anyone stop him at this World Cup ? Well that remains to be seen. For now, Argentina are two from two and Messi has five goals in two – so it’s been a pretty strong start.

Thanks and bye!

The action barely stops. Our live coverage of France v Iraq has already begun and you can join Tim de Lisle for all the buildup.

Jordan v Algeria later on really gives both teams a chance to make a claim for second spot. Whoever wins it will be level on three points with Austria .

Ralf Rangnick’s team will be assured of second spot, whatever happens, if they beat Algeria in their final group contest.

An email has arrived from an unimpressed Samuel Dobson:

Apart from the England game (that was fun, wasn’t it?!), this is the second successive World Cup in which I’ve found myself lacking the motivation to watch any of the other games. Something about all the overt corruption, blood oil money, peace prizes, etc. this follows that glorious period in my life (ah, student days) where I tuned into every match at Germany 06, South Africa 10, Brazil 14. Messi piqued my interest enough for me to tune into this game. But it has been excruciating for the most part. Dare I risk another match?

England play again tomorrow Samuel, perhaps the Three Lions can roar you awake again!

Messi even had time to fire a late free-kick just wide as he searched for a successive hat-trick. Now that would have been ridiculous stuff.

He could have easily had three today, of course, let’s not forget he missed a penalty early in the piece.

FT: Argentina 2-0 Austria

It wasn’t overly pretty at times, but Argentina found a way thanks to their genius forward. It’s been an occasion that will always be remembered as the day Lionel Messi broke Miroslav Klose’s World Cup scoring record – and then added another goal to his tally for good measure. Five for the tournament in two games. Five!

Austria were competitive but unimaginative in attack and easily thwarted in the end.

The win means Argentina will surely go on to top Group J. Austria will need something from their final game against Algeria to be sure of progression to the knockout stages.

GOAL! Argentina 2-0 Austria (Messi, 90+5)

You cannot keep a good man down! Argentina have five goals in this World Cup and every one of them has been scored by Lionel Messi.

First Alvarez was denied, then Messi was denied himself. Then he found a way to squeeze it home to seal the three points.

90 mins +4: Sabitzer will throw this late free-kick into the mixer… and Danso’s header puts it into an even more dangerous area, with Wimmer trying to flick it goalwards with his head. That wasn’t far away at all.

90 mins + 2: Maybe it’s simply been a case of Argentina being solid enough in defence to keep out a limited Austrian attack.

Paredes is booked. Can Rangnick’s team conjure something up late on here?

Added time: As Argentina slow the game down and look to keep the ball, the fourth official’s board displays five minutes.

Gonzalez is tripped to win a free-kick for the holders deep into Austrian territory.

89 mins: There’s a ‘he is human after all’ moment from Messi as he hits a stray pass into midfield for Austria to gobble up and break away. Yet again, their progress is halted by a clever Argentinian foul. No momentum.

87 mins: Danso and others put their bodies on the line in a series of vital blocks by Austria . At the other end, they are finally throwing the ball into the box in the general direction of Arnautović.

85 mins: Even the commentators are urging Austria to be a bit more, er, urgent. And Rangnick is introducing the dangerous Carney Chukwuemeka into his attack. Good move, Ralf.

84 mins: There is an argument that Argentina are something of the Atlético Madrid of international football, many of them schooled in the Diego Simeone-inspired dark arts. The difference between them and Atléti is… they have Lionel Messi.

“Austria are so toothless,” writes Mark Horan on email. “And Argentina plays in a way that makes people hate football. All machismo bullsh*t while falling down at every opportunity.”

Tell us what you really think, Mark.

82 mins: Leandro Paredes is on for Argentina as Scaloni beefs up his midfield, with De Paul trudging off behind the net as Austria prepare to take a corner. Medina is taken off too after that booking, replaced by the experienced Nicolás Tagliafico.

81 mins: If Argentina play this like against the really top sides, they won’t win the World Cup .

There’s a prediction for you.

80 mins: Martínez has taken a bit of a bash in the head (emphasis on the word ‘bit’) and has stayed down. Arnautović did catch him as he tried to get to Laimer’s ball and the keeper smothered.

78 mins: I know there are a lot of Messi devotees out there, but the neutrals are surely screaming for an Austria goal to spice up the end of this match. At the moment, it doesn’t look overly likely.

77 mins: There’s a bit of a scuffle between Facundo Medina and Konrad Laimer, who both get yellow cards for their trouble. I’m struggling to comprehend that Medina is the first Argentinian player booked in this game… and that i took nearly 77 minutes.

75 mins: What’s the opposite of a classic? Whatever it is, this game fits into that particular category.

It’s taken nearly 73 minutes for Argentina to get a corner in this game. Here is that corner, which Messi swings in … and Nico Gonzalez will be annoyed he hasn’t headed that in.

He met it with a glancing near-post header, but it whizzed just wide of the far post.

71 mins: I thought by the way Austria began this second half that we’d see more impetus from Ralf Rangnick’s team. They’re quite well organised but, to me, are seriously lacking in end product.

We’re back under way.

Thank you to Mark Schmidt and Sandgk in my email inbox, who have clarified that referees can only take away incorrectly given corners , but cannot award a corner that’s initially been given a goal kick. There’s logic for you.

It’s the 69th minute, so it’s time for some hydration, which will take absolutely ages for no reason whatsoever. Boos from the stands.

Ralf Rangnick is rolling the dice now. Wanner, Posch and Alaba go off and Marko Arnautović, Friedl and Prass are thrown on. You’d think Arnautović would fashion himself a chance over the next 23 minutes or so.

67 mins: For what it’s worth I think the ref, Amin Omar, has largely done OK. There have been loads of fouls.

Gregoritsch heads over the bar after good work by Sabitzer down the left.

65 mins: Argentina are absolutely incensed they haven’t been awarded a corner. It did look like Schlager parried away Messi’s shot. I thought VAR was intervening in such matters during this World Cup ? Apparently not.

64 mins: Some tigerish defending from Austria’s tough-tackling midfield keeps Messi and co at bay. He is drifting back into the game now, the little fella.

Another big cheer greets the arrival of Julián Alvarez. He and Nico Gonzalez are on, with Lautaro replaced.

This truly is the World Cup of ducks, isn’t it? More of a Dawn the Duck myself (admits it).

61 mins: One underrated aspect of this Argentina side, perhaps, is their defence. They don’t concede many and have been able to hold Austria at arm’s length for much of this contest.

As Argentina counter, Almada lays it off nicely to Enzo Fernández, whose shot is blocked.

59 mins: The next goal determines the outcome of this game, without a doubt (again I am Captain Obvious). If Austria get it, anything could happen. If Messi anyone from Argentina can make it 2-0, it’s game set and match.

57 mins: This could be doing them a disservice – I only saw highlights of Argentina’s game against Algeria, rather than the full thing – but they still seem like a ‘moments’ team, quite reliant on Messi pulling a rabbit from the hat. Very much like they were in 2022.

A huge cheer goes up. Not for Nicolas Otamendi replacing Romero, but for Shakira appearing on screen. Waka waka.

Sabitzer forces a decent save from Emi Martínez! That was a strong hit from the former Manchester United loanee, and (I think) Austria’s first effort on target of the game.

55 mins: Yet another Argentina foul, yet another opportunity for the referee to give them a card not taken … but this is a good chance for Austria here. Sabitzer stands over the kick.

Keyword – Global development
Trefwoorden – Global development, India, Extreme heat, Global education, Delhi, World news, Environment, South and central Asia, Climate crisis, Women’s rights and gender equality
Title – How India’s heatwaves are shutting schools – and pushing women out of the workforce | Global development | The Guardian
Author – Arsalan Bukhari and Naila Tabbasum in Delhi
Link – How India’s heatwaves are shutting schools – and pushing women out of the workforce | Global development | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T03:00:47.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/22/how-india-heatwaves-shutting-schools-pushing-women-out-of-the-workforce

O utside, the temperature has passed 41C (105.8F). Inside Sakshi Katyal’s city apartment, the air conditioner is blasting but it does little to relieve the stress of balancing housework and helping her five-year-old log in on a laptop to online classes. Her daughter’s school closed in May and Katyal is not clear when it will reopen. Probably not till the autumn.

Schools across Delhi and in about half of India’s 28 states have been ordered to close from mid-May until the end of June, when in many places the summer break starts. There is no official record of closures in past years but the Guardian has spoken to school officials who say the number of days schools are shut for because of the heat has risen sharply. The impact on families, especially on working women, has been huge.

Katyal and her husband moved to Noida, part of greater Delhi’s National Capital Region, in December 2025, to be closer to their daughter’s school, and to make balancing childcare and work easier.

“Till last year, everything was great,” Katyal says. “I had a great job and last year we even bought our apartment. The apartment meant more than property. It meant stability.

“Then one notification changed everything: the notification that my daughter’s school was shutting.”

Katyal had already left her higher-paying corporate role for a less demanding job to better manage childcare during repeated school disruptions. “Last year felt like a battle,” she says. Between June and September her daughter barely attended school physically at all.

In February, exhausted after months of juggling work and childcare, Katyal quit her job.

“My daughter would ask for food or attention while my manager was demanding reports,” she says. “Sometimes I would hand her a phone or switch on the TV just to keep her occupied.”

The family now survives on a single income while continuing to pay a monthly mortgage of about ₹50,000 (£390). “I already knew schools were likely to shut again because of the heat,” says Kaytal. “That’s when I realised I could not do this any more. Earlier, I managed everything on my own. Now, I have to ask my husband for money even for groceries or my daughter’s school fees.”

India is facing increasingly intense spells of extreme heat, with this year’s heatwaves beginning as early as April . Hundreds of thousands of parents in India are struggling with managing jobs and children as lives are disrupted by prolonged school closures linked to the high temperatures . And as childcare disproportionately falls to women, it is women who are bearing the brunt.

Nearly 15km away from Noida is Nai Basti, a densely packed neighbourhood in Okhla, south-east Delhi. Here 24-year-old Zeenat Khatoon lives in a one-room rented home with her two children. The entrance opens on to a narrow unfinished staircase, with clothes hanging from ropes tied along the walls. She cooks here, in the staircase outside her room, in 40C heat, on a small stove. “I don’t have a kitchen,” she says. Khatoon works as a domestic helper in two homes in Shaheen Bagh, earning about ₹8,000 a month. About ₹5,000 goes towards rent. Her seven-year-old daughter attends a nearby government school, and she hopes to enrol her son next year. But with schools closed, her daughter is at home.

Khatoon estimates that her daughter has been at home for roughly seven months in the past 12, with closures caused by heatwaves and pollution. “When classes go online because of heatwaves, I don’t even know if my daughter is studying properly,” she says. “I can’t stay home to monitor her. If I stop going to work, who will pay the rent, school fees and food expenses?”

She pays a local woman ₹600 a month to supervise the children and help monitor their studies during school closures. “To arrange that money, I cut down on groceries,” she says. “But I don’t want my children to spend their lives washing dishes or mopping floors like me.”

Across the city, another mother, 42-year-old Surbi Devi, who lives in a room in Saket with her disabled child, says she lost nearly a month of wages during last summer’s school closures. “What kind of policy is this?” she asks.

A labour economist, speaking on condition of anonymity because of workplace restrictions, says the disruptions are creating cascading economic consequences.

“The majority of women are being forced either to stay at home or move into precarious, lower-paying work because they have to care for children during repeated school closures,” the economist says. “This reduces household income and pushes some families closer to poverty.”

He says employers are losing productivity when workers miss shifts or leave jobs, especially in healthcare and service sectors where staffing shortages already exist. Children lose months of education, affecting future potential. “Unless schools, childcare systems and worker protections adapt to climate disruption, this will widen inequality and slow economic growth,” he says.

Urvashi Prasad, a former director at government thinktank Niti Aayog, who has worked on public health, says India’s climate response rarely accounts for women’s unequal burden. “Most heat action plans in India barely have a gender component,” she says. “We don’t analyse gender-disaggregated data to understand how climate policies affect women differently.”

She says informal workers such as domestic helpers, street vendors and agricultural labourers, and their children, are hit hard. “If we already know heatwaves and pollution will come every year, why aren’t we planning ahead instead of shutting schools at the last moment?”

A senior official in Delhi’s higher education department, who does not wish to be named, defends the closures as emergency measures. “Sometimes governments are simply trying to save lives,” he says. “Many schools lack the infrastructure to deal with extreme heat. We know online classes are not fully effective, but safety becomes the priority.”

The strain is visible in all sectors. India has fewer than 500 paediatric cardiologists for a population of 1.4 billion. Noopur Goyal, 44, a single mother in Noida, is one. After 16 years of medical training, she works with children with life-threatening heart conditions. But her schedule can collapse because of a school notification.

“How do I work properly on shifts?” she asks. “Suppose I have an important case tomorrow and my child’s school closes. What do I do?” As a single mother, every disruption falls on her shoulders. “My child is barely going to school for six months of the year,” she says. “You rarely hear a man saying, ‘I can’t go to work because my maid hasn’t come.’ But women have to say that all the time.”

In a country already struggling with shortages of specialised doctors, climate breakdown is beginning to reshape careers, households and futures – one closed school, one missed shift and one impossible morning at a time.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – Los Angeles, California, US news, West Coast, World news
Title – LA firefighters battle warehouse blaze amid concerns over billowing smoke | Los Angeles | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/roque-planas,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gloria-oladipo
Link – LA firefighters battle warehouse blaze amid concerns over billowing smoke | Los Angeles | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T00:08:45.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/21/los-angeles-warehouse-fire

California’s governor has declared a state of emergency for the city of Los Angeles , as firefighters struggle to contain a stubborn warehouse blaze that has raged for days and blanketed parts of the city in smoke.

Gavin Newsom announced he was directing state agencies to provide “additional assistance and resources” to help battle the fire, located in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights in east Los Angeles.

“We are coordinating closely with our local partners, deploying specialized expertise, and pre-positioning critical supplies so communities have the support they need both now and throughout recovery,” Newsom said in a statement.

The blaze broke out on Wednesday, after the roof of a 500,000-sq-ft cold storage facility in Boyle Heights caught on fire. Firefighters extinguished the flames quickly, but lingering dangers within the building have made it difficult to completely stop.

Firefighting efforts continued on Sunday as the blaze burned into a fifth day. Officials confirmed they had confined the fire to “one side of the large building”, according to an update from the Los Angeles fire department. No evacuation or shelter-in-place mandates have been ordered.

Smoke has continued to waft away from the building, after the wind into other areas of the county. Residents of east Los Angeles have expressed concerns about the persistent smoke and the potential health risks. On Sunday, a haze hung over large parts of the city and landmarks such as Dodger Stadium , and the air quality index (AQI) in the region fell in the “moderate” category.

Leo Miguel, a manager at the Yia Caffe in Boyle Heights neighborhood, told the Los Angeles Times that smoke from the fire has disrupted his business.

Miguel described the air as smelling “like chemicals and plastic”, adding that conditions seem to be getting worse. “I don’t think it’s getting better,” Miguel said to the newspaper.

Newsom’s statement follows an earlier state of emergency announced by the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass. Council member Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, said in a statement : “This emergency declaration is crucial because Boyle Heights is not just responding to a fire. Residents have lived through days of smoke, shelter-in-place orders, disruptions to daily life, and ongoing questions about what this means for their health and wellbeing.”

An ammonia line had ruptured during the initial firefighting efforts, making the blaze more dangerous. Ammonia, a commonly used commercial refrigerant, is highly flammable and can emit toxic fumes.

Officials initially ordered local residents to shelter in place due to the air pollution and the possibility of ammonia contamination. Los Angeles city and county have opened smoke relief centers.

“The city and county have opened spaces for families seeking relief from the smoke, and we will continue working around the clock and doing everything possible to put this fire out completely,” Bass said.

Firefighters have been forced to retreat and try to contain the conflagration from a safer distance, while using airdrops of water from helicopters to help put it out. Foam within the building has continued to slowly burn, according to the Los Angeles Times .

Some Boyle Heights residents with health conditions have reportedly already left the area. Ashley Campos, 18, told the LA Times that she and her family evacuated after smelling fumes in their home, which is located about two blocks from the warehouse fire. Several people in the Campos family have pre-existing health conditions, including epilepsy, asthma and cancer.

Dodger Stadium, the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is also blanketed in smog, as seen in video posted to X . “The smoke from the nearby Boyle Heights warehouse fire has enshrouded Dodger Stadium in an acrid, nasty haze,” posted Ben Bolch, a reporter with the California Post. “Not sure I’d want to sit here and watch as a fan, much less play the game, unless conditions improve.”

Meanwhile, community organizations are handing out masks to Boyle Heights residents as air quality continues to suffer in the area. Centro CSO, a grassroots organization in the Boyle Heights area, posted pictures of their respirator drive to X.

Once the fire is completely put out, officials will have to remove some 85m lbs of rotted food. Officials have said they are working on the biohazard challenges potentially posed from spoiled foods such as bread, poultry, pork and beef.

Newsom’s statement said that the state has made more than 5m N95 respirator masks available for distribution, as well as air purifiers, bottled water and other supplies to assist with the emergency.

“The warehouse fire has produced significant smoke and particulate matter that may affect air quality in surrounding neighborhoods,” the statement said.

The Los Angeles fire department chief, Jaime Moore, said in a news conference on Saturday that they have taken care of the hazardous materials portion of the blaze and now they are working on the biohazard challenges.

“We have 85 million pounds of frozen food inside of this facility and the way the building has been laid out, it’s very difficult for us to get in there because there’s zero visibility inside,” Moore said. “Our firefighters are not able to just go in there and start moving pallets.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Keir Starmer, Donald Trump, Politics, UK news, US news, World news
Title – Backing Ukraine, staying out of Iran and riding the Trump rollercoaster: how Starmer handled foreign affairs | Keir Starmer | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dan-sabbagh
Link – Backing Ukraine, staying out of Iran and riding the Trump rollercoaster: how Starmer handled foreign affairs | Keir Starmer | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T17:52:42.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/22/how-tensions-with-trump-dominated-starmer-premiership

K eir Starmer inherited two wars and a country disconnected from the EU when he arrived in Downing Street – and that was before Donald Trump crash-landed at the White House and undermined the foundations of the UK’s most important alliance.

It was a context that would have tested any prime minister, though in many respects Starmer negotiated it carefully. But longer-term questions of Britain’s security remain unresolved, and the UK’s place in the world is less certain.

“I wouldn’t be the first person to say that Starmer would be a great diplomat,” said Olivia O’Sullivan, a foreign policy expert at Chatham House. “But what we’ve seen is that the US is not prepared to play such a decisive role in European defence and security – and it’s not clear if enough action has been taken in the light of that.”

Though the ageing Joe Biden and Starmer overlapped for six months, it was the relationship with Trump that was dominant. At first, the Labour prime minister appeared to have struck an unlikely rapport with the Republican.

It was helped by Starmer publicly handing over an invitation to Trump from King Charles for a second state visit when he came to the Oval Office in February 2025. “This is unprecedented,” Starmer gushed, and Trump accepted there and then.

During the ensuing state visit last September, with Trump kept tactfully out of London , the US president muted a disagreement with Starmer over Palestinian statehood – and the two seemed largely in agreement in condemning Russia over Ukraine.

It was a moment of relative harmony. Trump began his presidency dramatically favouring Russia and lambasting Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy , in the Oval Office. European leaders were left aghast at the possibility of Kyiv being abandoned.

On his way back from that bruising visit to Washington, Zelenskyy was due in London for a European summit. But he was also flown by helicopter to visit the king at Sandringham in Norfolk. The short trip, approved by Starmer at Ukraine’s request, visibly demonstrated British support for Kyiv at a critical moment.

When Zelenskyy visited the Oval Office again, in August, Starmer was one of several European leaders who flew in alongside him. It was just days after Trump had met Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and the US president had appeared convinced that Ukraine needed to be told to give up territory to end the war quickly.

Strength in numbers worked: the Russian demand briefly favoured by Trump drifted from the agenda, and has not been revived since. Peace in Ukraine would have to be lasting, fair and just, Starmer said as he headed into the meeting.

Russian intransigence prevented further progress on Ukraine, so Trump moved on to Venezuela and then Iran, at which point the goodwill evaporated. The UK was not informed in advance of the almost certainly illegal US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, which began with the killing of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Within days, Trump was complaining about an initial refusal by Starmer to allow the use of RAF bases for bombing Iran. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said in early March, beginning a month of jibes, as the bombing of Iran continued to a limited purpose for 38 days while oil prices soared.

Starmer refused to rise to the petty bait, avoiding a deeper split with the US – while refusing to join in with the war Trump had started, other than to allow attacks on Iranian missile launch sites from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

“President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest,” Starmer told MPs in characteristically wordy fashion.

Sir Peter Westmacott, a former UK ambassador to the US, argued that “foreign policy has been an area of relative strength” for Starmer, and that the prime minister had got off a strong start with Trump, “though the president’s failure to consult with allies or justify his war with Iran left him with little choice but to stand aside”.

Keeping out of the Iran war was also popular with a British public alarmed by Trump’s reckless behaviour, though it did nothing to help Labour’s overall poll ratings. Relations with the US leader were eventually smoothed over by approving the king’s visit to Washington, New York and Virginia in April.

“As a Labour prime minister he would never naturally have been on side with Trump, but he hasn’t let it knock him off key positions on issues like Iran,” said Peter Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser. “Plus, he’s avoided outright rows with Trump – as well as carefully deploying the king.”

Britain approved the building of a large new Chinese embassy, despite a series of spying rows, allowing Starmer to visit Beijing in January. Not much was gained from the trip, beyond an agreement to allow Britons 30 days of visa-free travel, and the obligatory cut on whisky tariffs. Nevertheless, the UK hoped for “a more sophisticated relationship” with Beijing, Starmer said.

Starmer tried to pursue a reset with the EU , describing Britain as “very much a part of Europe” at a Blenheim Palace summit in July 2024. But he had given himself little room for manoeuvre by having decided not to try to reverse any part of Brexit. Labour’s manifesto committed the party to staying out of the single market and customs union, and not to reintroduce freedom of movement.

A few days after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel in October 2023, Starmer, then in opposition, said in a radio interview that the country “does have that right” to cut off electricity and water to Gaza. Later, a Labour spokesperson said he had meant to say that Israel had a right to self-defence, but the comments lingered all the way to the election, where the party lost a handful of safe inner-city seats.

In government, Starmer’s positions on Israel and Palestine were more an exercise in domestic politics. Labour suspended most, but not all, arms sales to Israel in September 2024 and recognised Palestine as a state a year later , with France, Canada and Australia. The limited measures had no effect on an aggressive Israel determined to prosecute destructive wars against Hamas, Hezbollah and finally Iran.

The paucity of independent British power was demonstrated by the three-week struggle to get a single warship , HMS Dragon, to Cyprus after a Hezbollah drone hit the RAF base at Akrotiri. A 20-year minesweeping Royal Navy mission in the Gulf had been quietly abandoned at the end of 2025, just before it was needed.

It emphasised how far the UK’s armed forces had been run down since the end of the cold war. The problem was nominally recognised by the prime minister, though he struggled to respond to pressure to increase military budgets in a more uncertain world. Starmer had been surprised by Nato’s plan last summer to increase defence spending by £30bn to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 ; the UK was one of the last to sign up.

Instead, Starmer would only commit to increase defence spending modestly, by about £5bn to 2.6% of GDP by 2027, taking the money from the UK’s aid budget. “That is not an announcement I am happy to make,” the prime minister said last February, though any talk of restoring aid spending soon disappeared.

Though the prime minister said in February that Britain “needs to go faster” on defence spending, it was not accompanied by fresh commitments. A six-month row about future military spending burst into the open this month with the sudden resignation of the once-loyal John Healey as defence secretary , because Starmer had only offered £2bn more to lift defence spending to 2.68% by 2030.

John Foreman, a former UK defence attache to Moscow, said Starmer was “bounced into increasing marginally defence spending but then not funding promises” as well as exhibiting “a habit of talking big but doing little”.

There were repeated virtual or in-person meetings of the “coalition of the willing” postwar stabilisation forces for Ukraine or peacekeeping in the strait of Hormuz. In neither case was there a deployment, though on the strait, it is a promise his successor will immediately inherit.

Though Starmer forged a strong relationship with France’s centrist president, Emmanuel Macron – “we have to show that pragmatic politics is the way the results that matter,” Starmer said when his French counterpart visited last July – talks for the UK to join a €150bn (£130bn) EU defence fund failed over the sum Britain would pay to join. France led the objections.

Starmer had tried to rebuild a more positive relationship with the bloc – “slowly but surely building with the EU,” he said at the G7 summit earlier this month, amid talks of a future mobility scheme for young people in the UK and EU.

But though Starmer was clearly pro-European, the ambition was limited. The prime minister insisted that the UK should not “look backwards” to Brexit – and in a final irony, a planned reset summit next month was postponed in the wake of his resignation.

Sophia Gaston, a foreign policy specialist at King’s College London, said it was Starmer who as prime minister “found himself in the hotseat” after “successive governments have run down the nation’s vital defences”. But with the US unreliable and Britain still detached from the EU, the strategic dilemma is greater.

“Modest, incremental improvements simply don’t cut it,” Gaston said.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, World Cup, Football, US sports, Sport
Title – Maybe this World Cup will bring the best out of the US, not the worst | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/barneyronay
Link – Maybe this World Cup will bring the best out of the US, not the worst | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T04:00:50.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/22/world-cup-2026-us-united-states-usa-co-host-nation

O ne of the best parts of following football across the world is the way it drags you into special places, local shrines, objects of profound cultural connection. The US, of course, has these holy spaces too.

The queue of pilgrims in Philadelphia on Thursday morning stretched down the sun-blasted steps to the plaza at the bottom. Edging forward, the people in their ritual colours approached the figure at the top, arms outstretched in supplication, in a state of hushed deference. Called finally for his moment of communion, the man at the front of this line straightened his Ronaldinho shirt, clenched his fists above his head for the ceremonial Insta pic and shouted: “Adrian! I did it.”

This is of course the Rocky statue, the most popular public visitor site in the cradle of US history, and the only place in town for thousands of Brazil and Haiti fans, visiting for their Group C fixture and looking for the chance to grab a little pure Americana.

The Rocky statue is all about those clenched fists above the horizon, cradling the high rises below, holding America’s first city in his human-sized hands. I have a theory about the US and hands. So many of the great self-mythologising American creations have been hand-sized. The Hamburger. The .45 Colt. The baseball mitt. The onanism industry of Big Porn. The chocolate chip cookie, which was produced so workers could carry them to their fields and factories.

All of these creations are designed to fit the hand, in a way that is scalable and democratising, with the suggestion that this vast and brutal land can be cut down to human scale, that you can hold a piece of it in your palm. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. The settler’s dream is nonexclusive. All you need is a pair of hands.

This is of course not true. The US is also a violently stratified place, built on slavery, with centralised power, vicious edges and a recent history of blood-soaked economic colonialism. As opposed to, say, just being about doughnuts. But that’s the thing with dreams. They’re deceptive and confusing, but they may have just a little bit of truth in them.

This theory goes on to conclude that the moment the US began to lose the run of itself and fall into cultural decline was when it lost this connection to hand-sized scale. Suddenly the US is assailing its citizens with food so big you can’t even hold it, the vast and tumorous burger that explodes all over your face, the bin-bag-sized packet of crisps, the three-gallon container of vanilla Sprite. It’s out there inventing ways to further alienate not just itself, but the entire world, handing power to a weird coterie of tech gods, shifting our shared existence into a limbless digital space.

The end of the US won’t lie in political revolution or tanks on the hill. It’s choking to death on a basketball-sized M&M behind the non-wheel of your self-driving car, while on the White House lawn a cloud-based AI president tosses a virtual non-football around with its armless robo-offspring. And before you raise a hand to rail at this wild anti-US Euro propagandism, you might want to look down. You don’t have any hands.

What does this have to do with the World Cup of Mexico, Canada and the US, 11 days into what we have been assured is the greatest event staged by humanity? It is customary at this stage to assess proceedings on the football side. Attendances, goals per game and host-nation logistics will be graded and frowned over.

It isn’t hard to compose a list of don’t likes. Bad: the wretched and mendacious mid-half advert break . The boggle-eyed posturing of the Fifa president . The fawning over irrelevant celebrities. And the good: American cities , American stadiums, the warm and functional diaspora feel, and the games themselves, which have been breezy and fun.

But this World Cup was never really about all that. As with the last one in Qatar, it will be a success on its own terms whatever happens. These are: to make $14bn (£10.6bn) via the marketing of 300 hours of television content; to turn its face away from the pre‑converted saturation of Europe and to reach into the world’s greatest leisure market; and to shore up Gianni Infantino’s unassailable war chest before his acclamation for a third term .

As such, this World Cup has always really been about the US, and the wider question of what you should feel about this place and what it actually is: still the world’s most powerful cultural and economic force, but newly hostile and inward-facing, and now out there battering the world’s favourite shared spectacle into its own shape.

The World Cup in the US has so far revealed one interesting and unexpected thing. Travelling across the country in those opening two weeks from California to Texas to New York, it seems deceptively simple. But here it is. Maybe the World Cup will actually bring the best out of the United States, not the worst.

And yes, nobody actually believes the standard big-sport guff about connection, unity and hands across the volleyball net. London 2012 did not transform the nation. The opening ceremony optics – Paul McCartney breakdancing on top of a giant cheddar cheese – did not create a newly confident and inclusive Britain . There is no legacy, unless you extend this to include becoming much more depressed and angry in the years that have followed.

But maybe this World Cup will be different. Not just because this is a sport that literally models ideas of connection and togetherness. But because of the specific nature of the US’s alienation from the rest of the world.

The most notable part of being here is the confirmation of just how much people around the world do reflexively despise the US now, or regard it solely as a frightening and hateful entity, an agent of only bad things.

There are sound fact-based reasons for this. The US entered this World Cup having recently murdered the head of state of the second-ranked team in Group G, not to mention offering support to a conflict of annihilation in Palestine. The Trump administration is toying with crashing the world economy. The ICE immigration militia is persecuting its own population. Even the World Cup itself is an act of economic violence, priced out of any sensible human scale.

But hatred of the US as a single entity is also a confusing idea, albeit one that fits a certain monotheistic world view, where there can only be devils and angels. It involves demonising as a single failed entity a hugely diverse and varied nation with elements of every kind of people and every kind of culture, the great human experiment, with all its freedoms and flaws; and doing so based on the actions and pronouncements of a few governing Maga Republicans.

If America has become this single thing in so many people’s minds, it is perhaps because this is the way we experience things now. Everything is flattened, foreshortened, turned into sound and noise. Never underestimate the effect of the hive mind, that constant third space we carry around with us. This World Cup is the first global event to take place so deep inside that online space, experienced in peeled-eyeball detail through a screen as a set of images and shouted ideas.

This is how our flow of information works now, and indeed how Donald Trump took power, flooding the zone, shouting the simplest message above the noise. The US may feel like an expression of violence simply in its daily existence, an endless amplification of human talent, greed, desire, cruelty, where nobody is ever really in charge, they’re just out there riding it like a runaway bronco. But the US is also not Trump. Seventy‑seven million people voted for him, 272 million did not. A nation of 350 million people with more than 100 significant immigrant cultural groups cannot be one thing.

The US is the world in a very large and varied grain of sand, endlessly rich in all its beauty, energy, flaws and vices. To hate this is a baffling idea. If you don’t like America, what do you like? This is what humans are.

And like everyone else, Americans are oppressed too, right here in their own nation, by a tier of unelected technology overlords, and by an angry and divisive regime. This is a place that has been poisoning its own people for a hundred years, if not with violence and division, then with food, drugs and mental sludge.

For what it’s worth, the gathering of people under the banner of Fifa’s horribly compromised World Cup has provided a reminder of other things. Meeting people in the real space : this is pretty much an act of revolutionary dissent, a refusal to accept the loss of scale.

The reception at this World Cup from everyday people has been warm, anecdotally, and on the immediate evidence it is also striking how often people here want to talk about how their country is viewed by the rest of the world, to apologise and explain, to rage against Trump’s isolationism.

Who knows, perhaps the basic mechanics of sport can help point to something else. So many teams model the exact opposite of separation and division. The diaspora XIs of Curaçao and Cape Verde, for example, which are literally telling you what countries are, how they got this way, how they have interacted with the world, and who are now out there sharing moments of theatrical joy and agony, bumping into each other, coexisting.

Does this have any actual value? Nobody really knows. But Egypt and Iran will play in Seattle at the end of June on the Friday of the city’s Pride celebration, two nations where any kind of diverse sexuality is illegal, but who will just have to lump it and take it in; and this is the best of sport, making people confront each other in the real world space, to appreciate that they are not simply cyphers or hostile entities.

Football isn’t going to unite the world but it may just hold up a useful little hand mirror. This is a show that still provides a model of the best, not the worst, of what the US is supposed to be: a place on the human scale, an idea that fits into your hand. And a reminder that feeling hatred for this place, like hating anywhere else, is to fall into the trap of those who seem very happy to weaponise it.