Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – US taxation, US news, Trump administration, New York, California, Illinois, West Coast
Title – Trump’s Department of Labor claims without data that states defrauded government | US taxation | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/michael-sainato
Link – Trump’s Department of Labor claims without data that states defrauded government | US taxation | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T13:12:55.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/17/trump-administration-state-fraud-claims

Keith Sonderling sent letters to 53 states and US territories demanding action to “combat waste, fraud, and abuse” within the unemployment insurance program, threatening to withhold administrative funds from states for the first time history.

“We are officially putting governors on notice,” said the acting US secretary of labor. “The American people will no longer tolerate the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars – no state should allow it either. If states allow it, they will suffer the consequences. This department is no longer afraid to use every lever available to ensure taxpayer money is protected.”

The agency did not provide data on fraud or alleged fraud in unemployment systems, but highlighted three Democrat-led states – California , New York, and Illinois – and made claims about each.

They say California owes $20bn to the federal government for a loan during the Covid-19 pandemic. California has struggled paying off the loan, as they did with a similar federal loan received during the 2008 economic recession, due to the current setup of how employers are taxed to fund unemployment. The unemployment payroll tax system in California has been unchanged since 1984 at a taxable wage ceiling of $7,000 on a workers’ wages and maximum tax rate of 5.4%, leaving the state with insufficient funds to cover its unemployment reserve while legislators on both sides of the political aisle have been working to try to resolve the issue.

The Department of Labor also claimed that New York loses an estimated $2m per day in unemployment insurance fraud and improper payments, but did not differentiate between the two. They also cited that Illinois has improper payments of $320m, at a rate of 14%.

Improper payments are not fraud , rather are most often cited as due to antiquated technology, with an estimated improper payment rate of 14.9% across the US.

While New York, California and Illinois have high improper payment rates compared to the rest of the US, several Republican states also have leading improper payment rates. Florida is reporting a 36.43% improper payment rate, more than double the rate in California at 16.85%, based on data from 2021 to 2024 .

“Fraud is still a problem and it hasn’t gone away since the start of the pandemic but this press release is part of the problem, why the fraud isn’t going away,” Michele Evermore, senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance, told the Guardian.

She noted that states should be able to seek help from the US Department of Labor instead of being blamed solely for the issue – with threats.

“No state wants to pay fraudulent benefits to criminal actors,” she added. “It should be an all of government, all of society response, instead of calling out governors they have a political beef with. It’s not the right way to soberly and stoically deal with a problem that everybody faces.”

Sonderling appeared on Fox News on Wednesday morning to discuss the letters.

“I will essentially cut off the states’ administrative funds and then they won’t be able to administer this unemployment insurance due to the fraud,” said Sonderling, who then claimed Democrat governors are the states with the highest fraud, without citing any evidence or data to substantiate the claim.

In May 2025, the Department of Labor sent letters to state unemployment agencies requiring them to return any unspent funds allocated in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a move criticized by unemployment experts for the disruption it would cause to states in the midst of modernizing their unemployment systems and efforts to fight fraud.

Estimated fraud during the Covid-19 pandemic in unemployment insurance across the US between April 2020 to May 2023 was between $100bn to $135bn , according to the Government Accountability Office, though the Department of Labor argued the estimate was overstated.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Keir Starmer, European Union, Brexit, G7, Politics, UK news
Title – Starmer warns against ‘looking backwards’ to Brexit after rivals back UK’s return to EU | Keir Starmer | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alexandratopping
Link – Starmer warns against ‘looking backwards’ to Brexit after rivals back UK’s return to EU | Keir Starmer | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T16:00:38.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/17/starmer-brexit-return-to-eu-g7-summit-labour-manifesto

The UK and the European Union should not waste time “looking backwards” to Brexit, Keir Starmer said on Wednesday, as he comes under pressure to reconsider rejoining the EU.

The prime minister reaffirmed his government’s manifesto commitment to not re-enter the bloc, but said there had been “real progress” with the relationship, which was “slowly but surely building”.

Starmer’s potential leadership rival Andy Burnham said last September he would like to see the UK rejoin the EU in his lifetime .

Wes Streeting, the former health secretary and another likely leadership contender, said in a speech last month that he would like to see the UK back in the bloc and called for a “new special relationship” with the EU.

When asked by reporters at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains if he would express a similar desire to rejoin the bloc, Starmer said he remained committed to “a clear manifesto commitment in terms of not rejoining the EU”.

He added: “That’s why we’ve gone for the closer relationship that we’re building. We’re slowly but surely building with the EU.”

On Tuesday, Starmer confirmed that the UK and EU would hold a “reset” summit on 22 July.

The summit, which will take place in Brussels, has been delayed several times, with talks deadlocked over a youth mobility scheme allowing under-30s from each respective territory to work, travel or study in the other.

As a result, some had speculated the summit would be postponed until the autumn.

António Costa, the president of the European Council, said: “Close EU-UK cooperation is essential for our shared European security, resilience and prosperity. We are working closely together to make our upcoming second summit on 22 July a success.”

Starmer said he had been “very clear” that he wanted a closer relationship with the EU. Listing his G7 summit achievements, he said he had held a “very successful” bilateral meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and taken part in meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders over the future of Ukraine.

“One of the reasons that we’ve been able to make such good progress with the EU is, firstly, a joint recognition by myself and EU leaders that we shouldn’t spend the whole time looking backwards to Brexit and going over and over the Brexit vote,” he said. “We should look forward to what a relationship with the EU looks like.

“And the second [reason] is, we agreed that we wouldn’t do diplomacy by shouting into megaphones. We actually do it in a professional, quiet way, and we’ve made real progress with that.”

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Literary criticism, Books, Culture
Title – The Uses of Utopia by Joad Raymond Wren review – can the ideal society ever exist? | Literary criticism | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/stevenpoole
Link – The Uses of Utopia by Joad Raymond Wren review – can the ideal society ever exist? | Literary criticism | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T08:00:49.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/16/the-uses-of-utopia-by-joad-raymond-wren-review-can-the-ideal-society-ever-exist

B y definition, utopia cannot exist. In 1516, educated readers of Thomas More’s Utopia would have appreciated a tension between two possible derivations of this novel word: the Greek “eu-topos”, meaning good place, and “ou-topos”, meaning not a place at all. It might have been a compact warning that one should never attempt to turn utopias into reality. Those who have tried usually witnessed the model societies they founded devolving into grungily dysfunctional communes, weird sex cults, or both.

In this richly diverting intellectual history of the idea, we begin, as we must, with Plato, and the zany prescriptions of his Republic (“we should neutralise the poets’ influence on mothers”). Passing in silence over the potentially utopian aspects of Jesus’s thinking, we arrive at More’s utopia, where “nothing is private”, and so “the common affairs be earnestly looked upon”. The great Renaissance scientist Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis portrays a utopia of rational scientific experimentation – which, Wren suggests ingeniously, might have inspired Wakanda in the Marvel Black Panther films. The 17th-century duchess Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World imagines the author as a goddess elected by a world of human-animal hybrids who like science. In the 18th century, Sarah Scott’s Millenium [sic] Hall imagined an ideal society of women without men, as did Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland during the first world war.

Some patterns emerge: many utopias employ a framing device in which the narrator is accidentally or fantastically transported to a new land, and then subjected to reams of expository monologue about how it all works. Families are often abolished, with children raised in common. And in Edward Bellamy’s 1888 fantasy Looking Backward, Wren explains straightfacedly, “there are no law schools or lawyers, abolished here as in most utopias”.

Families are allowed, though, in Voyage en Icarie, by the 19th-century French socialist Étienne Cabet, which envisions a sternly regimented communism. In 1849 Cabet founded his own model society, Icaria, in Illinois. Alas, after a few years, “Cabet’s citizens were hoarding possessions; they indulged in vices including hunting and fishing, swearing, tobacco and alcohol; the women wore makeup, jewellery and perfume.” Cabet’s solution to this disgraceful state of affairs was to insist on even stricter rules, and to make himself president “for four years instead of one”. Just so does utopia always threaten to turn into dictatorship.

It is odd, then, that Wren never mentions a famous reckoning with the concept of utopia. In 1974, the American political philosopher Robert Nozick published Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which argues that the only morally permissible state is a “minimal” one that guarantees property rights and security, and enforces contracts. People should be free to build whatever forms of association they like on top of that, as long as membership is never coerced. But for Nozick utopias are always coercive because not everyone will agree freely with their values. “It is helpful to imagine cavemen sitting together to think up what, for all time, will be the best possible society and then setting out to institute it,” Nozick writes. “Do none of the reasons that make you smile at this apply to us?”

Many features of the utopias in Wren’s splendid catalogue, after all, are rather sad. In Gilman’s Moving the Mountain, “There are almost no pets, as they’re wasteful.” In Voyage en Icarie, “The decorative prints are full of useful information, as opposed to pointless landscape paintings.” The Victorian artist William Morris, in News from Nowhere, describes an elite “samurai” class, his society’s natural nobility, who “must not act or sing … they can’t play or watch competitive sport.” But inasmuch as utopias are primarily “organic machines for thinking about the premises of our thought”, Wren argues, they are more like science fiction – and some indeed have been science fiction. He mentions here the 1970s “anarchist utopia” of Ursula K Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, but probably the most popular strain of utopian fiction over the last few decades has been the epic series of Culture novels by Iain M Banks, which posits fully automated luxury communism in space among a pan-galactic society of augmented humans.

Still, things regularly go awry in this ideal society, from attack by intolerant fanatics, to rogue AI utilitarianism, or unfeasibly ancient alien artefacts. The best utopian fiction therefore ends up implicitly anti-utopian as well; at its highest level of practise, perhaps, utopia vanishes into the great flow of literature itself.

The Uses of Utopia by Joad Raymond Wren is published by Allen Lane (£25). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Books, Culture
Title – Tell us: what is your favourite beach read? | Books | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-community-team
Link – Tell us: what is your favourite beach read? | Books | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-10T13:58:57.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/10/tell-us-what-is-your-favourite-beach-read

Summer is here, which means lazy days at the beach or the pool with a great book by your side.

We would love to hear from people about their favourite beach reads. What books have you loved reading on holiday? What are the page turners that you keep returning to every summer and always recommend to friends? We would love to hear what books these are and why they make a great beach read.

If you’re having trouble using the form click here . Read terms of service here and privacy policy here .

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Drama films, Romance films, France, Comedy, Culture, Europe, World news, Paris
Title – Nino review – time is running out for young man faced with cancer in shrewd sperm sample portrait | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterbradshaw
Link – Nino review – time is running out for young man faced with cancer in shrewd sperm sample portrait | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T08:00:26.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/17/nino-review-tragicomic-tale-young-man-cancer-pauline-loques

F rench film-maker Pauline Loquès makes her feature directing debut with this meanderingly real-time-style portrait of a young man in Paris over a fraught weekend, somewhat in the manner of Agnès Varda’s New Wave classic Cléo from 5 to 7 . It is heartfelt and affecting, if a little flimsy.

Théodore Pellerin plays Nino, a young guy who has never quite got over the death of his dad, and who on the eve of his 30th birthday goes to the doctor due to slight pains while swallowing; he is told he has throat cancer, due to sexually transmitted HPV (or human papillomavirus) which he might have contracted years before. In a state of shock – baffled Nino persistently asks if he has got someone else’s test results – he is told that to preserve his chances of conceiving children he must provide a sperm sample for freezing right away, this weekend, before he begins chemo and radiotherapy on Monday.

As he faces this onerous task for which he is tragicomically not in the mood, poor Nino displays something between stoicism and numb inability to absorb the truth. He has a series of scenes and encounters in which his cancer is the unmentioned new elephant in his living room: he meets up with his ex, Camille (Camille Rutherford), but can’t tell her the news, leaving her with a postcard; he has a long conversation with his mum (a cameo for Jeanne Balibar) who has her own life to lead; he has to endure his own birthday party and then gets locked out of his apartment. He then has a fortuitous meeting with his school contemporary Zoé (Salomé Dewaels), a young mum. Smart, gentle Zoé has a connection with Nino, who is vouchsafed a sad vision of his future with her as a husband and father, a future which may never happen.

There are flaws in this film: the circumstances in which Nino finally provides that sperm sample are entirely ridiculous and there is a somewhat precious and self-conscious cameo for Mathieu Amalric. But in many ways it’s a shrewd sketch of the ways that real life, in all its embarrassment and banality, does not respectfully stop for bad news.

Nino is in UK and Irish cinemas from 19 June.

Keyword – Wellness
Trefwoorden – Well actually, Swimming, Fitness, Life and style
Title – Why do you always feel like you have to pee when swimming? | Well actually | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/marlene-cimons
Link – Why do you always feel like you have to pee when swimming? | Well actually | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T16:00:07.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global/2026/jun/16/why-swimming-makes-you-feel-like-peeing

I’m midway into my hour-long swim when it hits: I really have to pee. This always happens. It doesn’t help to curb my morning coffee or use the restroom beforehand. My bladder doesn’t care.

Why does this happen? “It’s a normal physiological response by the body to being immersed in water,” says Dr Stavros Kavouras , assistant dean, professor of nutrition and director of the Hydration Science Lab at Arizona State University. And it’s not just me: “It’s something that happens to all swimmers.”

Here’s what experts have to say about that inexplicable urge to pee when you’re surrounded by water.

What causes the urge to pee when you’re in the water?

The strong sudden need to urinate when submerged in water results from a process called immersion diuresis.

Diuresis is a medical term that refers to the increased production and excretion of urine by the kidneys. During this process, the body filters excess bodily fluid, water and waste products from the bloodstream and expels them through urination, according to Dr Scott Trappe, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University.

Immersion diuresis is annoying, inconvenient and uncomfortable – but not usually dangerous, although sometimes it can lead to dehydration, he says.

Why does immersion diuresis occur?

Contrary to common misconception, you aren’t absorbing water from the pool through your skin while swimming.

When your body enters the water, “the relatively cooler water will cause the [blood] vessels in the skin to constrict to conserve core body temperature,” Trappe says. “This sends more fluid centrally.” (Most pools are heated to about 78-82F (25.5-27.7C), according to the US Department of Energy ; lakes and other bodies of water can be even cooler.)

After the blood moves to the chest, special cardiopulmonary receptors detect the volume increase, interpreting it as fluid overload. They signal the brain to halt production of antidiuretic hormone (ADH), a substance that tells the kidneys to retain urine, Kavouras says.

Almost simultaneously, your heart muscle cells also secrete a hormone called atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) in response to high blood volume. ANF widens blood vessels to reduce blood pressure, which then increases water excretion in an effort to restore fluid balance.

Put simply: your body thinks it has too much fluid. “The kidneys sense an increased fluid volume and balance this out by pulling some of the water from the blood – and you [then] have to pee,” says Trappe.

“Both of these factors make the kidneys produce more urine,” says Dr Michael Joyner , an anesthesiologist and researcher at the Mayo Clinic, who studies how the nervous system regulates blood pressure, heart rate and metabolism in response to stress. “This is a natural reflex that keeps the heart from getting overfilled with fluid.”

In addition to water pressure and water temperature, being prone in the water also plays a role, Kavouras says: “The blood more easily goes to your heart.”

Is that why the urge to pee happens far less often when, say, I go running? Yes, says Kavouras, but you also sweat less in the water, so you don’t lose as much fluid that way when swimming. Running causes more sweating, so the body doesn’t feel like it’s holding too much fluid.

So, is there any way to prevent immersion diuresis? “Not really,” Trappe says. “It’s all part of being a swimmer.”

So are people just peeing in the pool all the time?

When I get the urge, I am annoyed. I could quit my workout early or take a break and risk losing my pool lane while I’m gone. I could hold it, or give in to my inner toddler and pee in the pool – probably not a good idea if I want to keep swimming here. So I just hold on until my laps are done.

Other swimmers apparently have no such inhibitions. They just let go in the water. “Nobody talks about it, but everybody does it,” Trappe says.

Kavouras, a former competitive swimmer, agrees. “It’s long been part of swimming culture that swimmers pee in the pool,” he says. “But I’m not going to answer the question of whether or not I ever did it.”

Out of curiosity, I raised the issue with my son. Now in his 30s, he was a serious competitive swimmer starting at age five until he was in his 20s. I wanted to know if he had ever done it.

“Sure, all the time,” he says. “After a few laps I was always peeing on the swimmer behind me.”

The swimmer behind him could not be reached for comment.

Keyword – News
Trefwoorden – UK news, World news, Photography
Title – AI arts and gold-mining in mud: photos of the day – Wednesday | UK news | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/natasha-rees-bloor
Link – AI arts and gold-mining in mud: photos of the day – Wednesday | UK news | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T13:44:51.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2026/jun/17/ai-arts-and-gold-mining-in-mud-photos-of-the-day-wednesday

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Transgender, Sport, Society
Title – I’m a 14-year-old trans athlete. No one should face the vicious attacks I have faced | Lina Haaga | The Guardian
Author – Lina Haaga
Link – I’m a 14-year-old trans athlete. No one should face the vicious attacks I have faced | Lina Haaga | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T12:00:31.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/17/trans-athlete-no-one-should-face-vicious-attacks

F or as long as I can remember, I have known I am a girl. That certainty is as instinctive as knowing I am right-handed. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never been transgender or loved someone who is, but I have never lived this way to gain an advantage or take something from someone else. I live this way to honor what I know is true.

I transitioned at four years old. By sixth grade, my identity was public. I grew used to the double takes, the questions, the quiet skepticism. Most of it did not bother me. Curiosity, even when clumsy, is human. People understand gender differently, and I was taught to respect all ideas, just as I hope others respect mine.

But what occurred on 4 May was not respectful, nor was it curiosity – it was a blatant attack on the values I have always been taught to prioritize.

Days earlier, I competed in the Prep League Finals, a track championship for a small private school league in southern California. In the lane next to me was my older sister. Despite running on an irritated knee, my sister was chasing a likely victory in the 400 meters. She had won each of our prior races. So, when I crossed the finish line just milliseconds before her, I was as surprised as everyone else. My teammates rushed to me, cheering wildly. My sister wrapped me in a hug. My parents celebrated from the stands. It was a moment of joy, as simple, fleeting and shared as the victory of any other child.

Days later, the first headlines materialized across conservative media. To them, my victory wasn’t the typical celebration of a typical child; it was a crime, and I was a thief.

“Transgender heiress, 14, steals victory from her own SISTER at California race”

“Another biological male wins high school track championship”

“‘Trans’ Boy Beats Sister for Gold”

The comments were even worse:

“Put it in a padded room”

“Freak”

“Boy Shoulders”

“Monster”

“What a creep!”

Through each degrading claim and ostentatious headline, I realized the conversation was more malevolent than I anticipated. Not because of what they said about my performance, but because of what they said about my character. This was not a healthy debate about fairness in sports; it was about my worth as a person.

Countless adults absently unlocked their phones and devastated a 14 year old. It didn’t matter that my sister couldn’t have been prouder or that the scientific evidence on trans women’s advantages is mixed or even (and especially) that no child would upend their life for the chance of winning a race a decade later. It was far easier to comment than to question. Easier to react than to understand.

We can have conversations about fairness and equity in sports. In fact, we should. But the way we are conducting them is failing us. The line between debate and dehumanization has not just been crossed – it’s been erased. Opinion is being presented as fact. Disagreement is becoming ridicule. What masquerades as dialogue is amounting to something closer to public shaming.

And when the target is a freshman in high school, it is time we recognize that something has gone horribly wrong.

My plea is simple, but essential. Because if we ignore it, we risk continuing to take steps away from a respectful and constructive debate.

If you are a journalist or reader, a supporter or a skeptic, do the work before you speak. Seek out credible information. Hold your opinions to the highest standard of truth. Continue debating policies, questioning systems and expressing disagreement, but do not needlessly attack someone’s character to make your point. That is not thoughtful. It is not responsible. And, perhaps most importantly, it is absolutely not harmless.

Next time you choose to share your voice, remember that what lies beneath your finger is not just an upload button, but someone’s emotional wellbeing. Behind every headline, every comment, every repost, there is a person. There is a life that absorbs the gravity of your actions and the weight of your words.

If you want to begin taking steps toward positive change, I suggest you start listening to transgender people, reading reputable reporting and engaging with research. Organizations like the Trevor Project offer insight into the lived experiences of transgender youth. Outlets such as the Associated Press and PBS NewsHour aim for balanced coverage. Peer-reviewed studies in the British Journal of Sports Medicine or the National Center for Biotechnology Information provide a deeper scientific context. Remember that none of these sources is perfect, but they are a good place to start.

Because no child, transgender or cisgender, should be forced to endure the cruelty of uninformed adults.

Lina Haaga is a transgender student athlete

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Erling Haaland, Iraq, Norway, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Norway’s Erling Haaland punishes Iraq with double on World Cup debut | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ewanmurray
Link – Norway’s Erling Haaland punishes Iraq with double on World Cup debut | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T00:17:03.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/17/iraq-norway-world-cup-group-i-match-report

Surely nobody expected anything different. Erling Haaland’s arrival on the biggest football stage of all involved a match-defining performance. Kylian Mbappé had laid down a marker with two goals in France’s win against Senegal . Haaland responded in kind, courtesy of a first-half double of his own.

The Manchester City striker’s quest for the Golden Boot depends on Norway enjoying a decent run in the event. Their hopes for that extended stay are so hugely reliant on Haaland. Theirs is a powerful combination. The name on the back of the shirt is different for club versus country – Haaland becomes Braut Haaland – yet the output is identically ruthless. This is a 25-year-old you simply cannot take your eyes off. Iraq did that twice and suffered as a consequence.

Haaland used post-match media duties to contradict the sentiment of his international head coach. On the eve of this game, Ståle Solbakken had branded Haaland the finest goalscorer in the world . Haaland pointed out his numbers had been bettered by Mbappé and Harry Kane during the 2025-26 season. He did, however, deliver a warning regarding his level of intensity. “I think today you saw the same energy [as before],” Haaland said. “Of course we have to be happy but also stay calm.”

The team that had waited 28 years for a World Cup return saw off the team that had not participated for 40. Iraq emerge with great credit from a match where the more than 30 world ranking places between the sides was not particularly obvious.

Norway will need to improve, especially in the defensive third, where they looked occasionally shaky. Mbappé will have taken note, with France to face Norway in the final game of this section. Yet this was Haaland’s day. Martin Ødegaard was less visible than his fellow A-lister, albeit the Arsenal man created his side’s third goal. The captain was substituted shortly afterwards, as if to save him for sterner tests.

Even in the final seconds of stoppage time, Haaland’s work was not done. His looping header from a Kristoffer Ajer cross made Aymen Hussein panic sufficiently under pressure from Kristian Thorstvedt to bundle the ball into his own net. Norway’s win had gloss applied.

It took a little over two minutes for it to become apparent what everybody bar a small band of Iraqis had come to see. Antonio Nusa played a glorious high pass ahead of the marauding Haaland. More than 60,000 people gasped. Uncharacteristically, the No 9 was unable to get the ball properly under control, but the ripples of excitement were obvious. Four minutes later, Haaland left Zaid Tahseen for dust before being unable to pick out Alexander Sørloth for what would have been a tap-in. Iraq responded through Ali al-Hamadi, who scooped a decent chance over the bar.

Norway are a team who have split opinion before this tournament. Underrated or overrated? Both views have been widely articulated. The star appeal of Haaland and Ødegaard sets them apart – and is hugely impressive for a nation of fewer than 6 million people – but there is also a clear depth of talent. Nusa was particularly lively here. Oscar Bobb, who would walk into decent international teams, was named among Norway’s substitutes.

This is rightly, then, portrayed as a golden generation of Norwegian footballers. With that comes expectation and pressure, especially against opposition as underwhelming as Iraq.

The journey of Iraq to reach the World Cup, both in respect of playing more qualifying games than any other nation and logistical challenges imposed by the Middle East war, is worthy of huge credit. Nonetheless, it will be a shock if they do not finish bottom of Group I.

The record books will show that Haaland’s moment, inevitably the first of many on this stage, arrived in the 29th minute. Nusa, who was bamboozling Iraq with his every touch, fed David Møller Wolfe. Haaland beat a path to the back post, from there he converted Møller Wolfe’s cross from all of two yards out. Cometh the hour. Haaland’s statistics remain absurd: this was his 11th goal in the same number of recent competitive outings for Norway. The record was to become even better.

What happened next was not in the script. Iraq became the latest underdogs to provide tremors in this World Cup. Not only was their equaliser of great quality, it served as the finest moment in the country’s brief World Cup history. Back in 1986 Iraq scored only once, in the 2-1 defeat against Belgium. This one was a cracker. Ali Jasim found Amir al-Ammari, who stood up a cross. Hussein was never the favourite to win the ball but outjumped a clutch of Norway defenders to plant a magnificent header past the diving Ørjan Håskjold Nyland. The scale of euphoria depicted perfectly the significance of the goal.

Haaland is prolific enough without opposition players teeing him up. Iraq held on to parity for barely three minutes. For reasons known to himself, Jalal Hassan paused rather than rushing to boot a back-pass clear. Haaland spotted the goalkeeper’s uncertainty, weird as it was for a player who has amassed more than 100 caps. Haaland’s shot rebounded from the goalkeeper then back from himself to restore Norway’s lead.

Iraq could count themselves unfortunate to be behind at the break. Møller Wolfe’s magnificent block denied Ibrahim Bayesh. In the final act of the half, Akam Hashem’s half-volley dipped just inches over Nyland’s bar.

The second period lapsed quickly into the instantly forgettable category. Hussein Ali could not keep a back-post volley low enough to trouble Nyland. Haaland could never be described as peripheral but Iraq could take heart from the fact Norway’s phenomenon had no chances between half-time and the hydration break.

Leeway for Norway was provided by a substitute. Leo Østigård leaped highest to meet Ødegaard’s corner, with Iraq not unreasonably questioning the level of grappling in the vicinity of the scorer. Hassan saved from Haaland, denying the striker a hat-trick and the usurping of Mbappé. This time, at least. Haaland is up and running.

Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Jazz, Music, Culture, South Africa
Title – From the pain of apartheid to luscious beauty: 10 of the best recordings by jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim | Jazz | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ammar-kalia
Link – From the pain of apartheid to luscious beauty: 10 of the best recordings by jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim | Jazz | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T13:15:10.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jun/16/from-the-pain-of-apartheid-to-luscious-beauty-10-of-the-best-recordings-by-jazz-legend-abdullah-ibrahim

Scullery Department (from Jazz Epistle Verse 1, 1960)

Born Adolph Johannes Brand in Cape Town in 1934, Abdullah Ibrahim spent his six-decade career defining the heartfelt sound of South African jazz. Making his professional debut as a pianist at 15 under the name Dollar Brand, it was his co-founding of the group the Jazz Epistles in 1959 that laid the groundwork for his journeying career. South Africa’s first Black jazz group, featuring trumpeter Hugh Masekela who would go on to become a star bandleader in his own right, the Jazz Epistles’ first and only album Jazz Epistle Verse 1 is a sprightly document of the South African take on bebop. Although album opener Dollar’s Moods is named for Ibrahim, it’s the record’s closing number Scullery Department that highlights his nascent skills. Heavy-swinging over a bluesy motif, Ibrahim’s playing artfully skips through an opening polyrhythm before taking a solo that refigures Thelonious Monk’s wonky melodic motifs into an earthy sense of groove that would go on to feature throughout his hundreds of recordings to come.

Jumping Rope (from Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio, 1964)

Although the Jazz Epistles never recorded overtly political music, the arrival of the 1960s brought vicious repression (including the Sharpeville massacre), and the apartheid regime placed Black artists under greater scrutiny, leading Ibrahim to flee his home country for Europe. In Zurich, Ibrahim’s future wife Sathima Bea Benjamin encouraged big band luminary Duke Ellington to watch Ibrahim play with his trio. Sure enough, Ellington set up a recording session. The resulting album is a gem, displaying Ibrahim’s fast-developing chops. Tracks such as Dollar’s Dance showcase his gospel influence in its jubilant phrasing but it’s Jumping Rope that explores his virtuosity, speeding up the melodic Monkisms into modernist bursts of fire. A fragmentary delight on an album which benefited from a wider release in the 1990s.

Mannenberg (Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening, 1974)

From the late 1960s, Ibrahim began regular visits back to Cape Town, converting to Islam and changing his name in 1968, before making the hajj pilgrimage in 1970. It was during a trip to an increasingly fractious Apartheid-era Cape Town that Ibrahim would write what has become his most well-known composition, Mannenberg. Named after a Cape Town township to which low-income Black families were forcibly relocated, the song finds its resistance in a persistent mood of joy, featuring Ibrahim’s ear worming, ebullient top-line melody and a roaring solo from tenor saxophonist Basil Coetzee. The song was recorded in a single take but soon became an unofficial civil rights anthem, often played at rallies and becoming a favourite of Nelson Mandela’s, who reportedly listened to a smuggled version during his imprisonment on Robben Island.

Jabulani (Joy) (The Journey, 1977)

Ibrahim’s friendship with jazz fusion trumpeter Don Cherry throughout the 1970s encouraged the pianist to turn further towards the avant garde. For 1977’s album The Journey, Ibrahim enlisted one of his largest ensembles to date – a nine-piece – to produce three tracks of upbeat melody anchored in hard-blowing, free tempo improvisations. Seventeen-minute suite Jabulani (Joy) is a highlight, opening with a typically cheerful Ibrahim lead line before a barrage of penetrating free improvisation. Cherry and alto saxophone player Carlos Ward soar upward but Ibrahim’s tender phrases just about keep us grounded.

Just You, Just Me (African Dawn, 1982)

From the maximal invocations of The Journey and Ibrahim’s late 1970s experimentalism comes a delightfully delicate solo outing on 1982’s African Dawn. Featuring tributes to jazz forebears such as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn, it’s Ibrahim’s interpretation of the rollicking 1929 musical number Just You, Just Me that stands out. Employing a heavy left hand bass drone to give the tune’s floating melody added weight, Ibrahim masterfully employs everything from stride rhythm to gospel phrasing and bluesy improvisation, turning his 88 keys into a symphony of sound.

Mandela (Water from An Ancient Well, 1985)

Ibrahim’s septet Ekaya would prove to be one of his most enduring bands after its formation in 1983. Featuring the unusual format of three saxophones, trombone, bass and drums, the expanded horn section allowed Ibrahim to write compositions with a big-band feel and a driving small format rhythm section. This combination is deeply felt on the opening track Mandela from Ekaya’s 1985 album Water from An Ancient Well. Featuring one of the deepest swinging feels in modern jazz, the composition features joyous solos from each member of the horn section while Ibrahim himself keeps to the background, gently pushing the rhythm on with his well-placed right hand phrases.

The Wedding (African Suite, 1998)

On 1998’s African Suite, Ibrahim paired his piano trio with a 17-piece string section, showcasing the melodic depth of many of his most enduring compositions. One of his standards to be given the luscious orchestral treatment is the yearning love song The Wedding, which was initially recorded on the 1980 record African Marketplace. Melismatic strings sweep through an opening overture before Ibrahim’s precision piano notes enter the frame with their inimitable swing, containing as much wistful emotion as a lead vocal line. Ibrahim also uses orchestral settings in his skilful film scoring work, which included the Claire Denis features Chocolat and No Fear, No Die.

Joan Capetown Flower (Emerald Bay) (Sotho Blue, 2010 )

Sotho Blue features a welcome return to the Ekaya format and updated versions of standards from Ibrahim’s repertoire such as The Wedding and 1978’s Nisa. On the group’s take on his 1997 composition Joan Capetown Flower (Emerald Bay), a down tempo, swaying melody sets up an interweaving duet between tenor saxophonist Keith Loftis and Ibrahim, trading finely-woven lines that move beyond a question-and-answer format into a complex, nuanced dialogue of its own.

Dreamtime (The Balance, 2019)

In 2019, at 85 years old, Ibrahim delivered a late-career surge of new music spanning the Ekaya record The Balance, as well as the solo piano albums Dream Time and Solotude, and the live trio recording 3. The new opening composition for The Balance highlights Ibrahim’s constant capacity for creative journeying, featuring longtime collaborator Cleave Guyton on flute. Eschewing his typically upbeat tone, the track moves through a breathy, surprisingly mysterious mood with Ibrahim delivering short, precision-engineered improvised lines to complement Guyton’s emotive vibrato. An unexpected foray into new territory.

Nisa (Solotude, 2020)

On one of Ibrahim’s final solo piano recordings, 2020’s Solotude, the octogenarian embraced the limits of his physicality to create a sprawling 20-track suite that replaces the frenetic energy of early work with the likes of the Jazz Epistles and Don Cherry for something altogether more ruminative, introspective and moving. His version of Nisa, which has appeared in recordings since the 1970s, is particularly affecting, taking ample time to move from phrase to phrase as if Ibrahim is recounting the story of his life’s experience as it comes to him in the moment. Still, the swinging feel, the blue notes and the aching melody are all unmistakably his – a pianist’s touch that will never be fully imitated.