Extra Time: The Australia-England Blockbuster

This story first appeared in Extra Time, our pop-up newsletter about the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Get it in your inbox by subscribing here.

Best of frenemies

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A picture of the British flag sits in the upper-left corner of the Australian one. New South Wales, an Australian state that will host Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal between Australia and England, was founded as a British penal colony in 1788. King Charles III is technically Australia’s head of state.

Australia and England are a pair of places inexorably linked through shared history, language, and culture.

So naturally, they want to beat the pants off each other on the pitch. 

Wednesday’s game, which kicks off at 6 a.m. ET, is a blockbuster dream matchup that will ratchet up the pressure for both teams. England is the defending European champion, desperate to win the nation’s first World Cup since 1966, when the men brought the trophy home to the birthplace of the world’s most popular game. 

Australia, meanwhile, will enter the pitch with nothing but positive momentum. The host country is coming off a dramatic 10-round penalty-shot victory over France in the quarterfinals and has its best player, Sam Kerr, back in the lineup after she missed the tournament’s first three games with a calf injury. The Matildas, as the Aussie women’s team is known, have brought even more exuberance and joy to a nation already plenty passionate about its sports. Australia wants nothing more than to keep this party going.

After England came back from a one-goal deficit on Saturday to defeat Colombia 2-1 in the quarterfinals, Lioness coach Sarina Wiegman, who is from the Netherlands, was asked if she’d be taking a crash course in the Australia-England rivalry. 

“I just think it’s going to be really big,” said Wiegman. “But now I’ve had a couple of questions about that so it’s probably going to be bigger than I imagined.” 

The two teams last met in April, at a friendly in London. Australia ended England’s 30-match unbeaten streak with a 2-0 victory. At the Tokyo Olympics, the Matildas also beat Great Britain—predominately made up of English players—4-3 in the quarterfinals. 

A decade ago, the Guardian published an in-depth guide to the England vs Australia rivalry, which spans across numerous sports, including cricket and rugby. The outlet claimed that the rivalry is guided by “six rules,” including: “brutality is an inevitability,” “eccentricity is a quality to embrace,” and my personal favorite, “defection and affection is common in later life.” (Awwww.) 

The actual participants in the Australian-England semi are playing down the rivalry, which isn’t too surprising. Athletes are prone to tamping down outside noise.   

“I think sort of the biggest internal rivalry is probably New Zealand still. That’s always been our sort of ‘we cannot lose to them and we will not lose to them’,” said Australia midfielder Tameka Yallop. 

“But I think within the team right now, our mindset is to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. So for us, England are right up there and so are the other teams in the semifinals as well.”

England and Australia faced each other in a cricket series, known as The Ashes, this summer, and Australia defeated England in the women’s Netball World Cup final earlier in the month. 

“I wouldn’t say this is a major rivalry in football,” England’s Keira Walsh said on Sunday. 

Bollocks. That changes on Wednesday.

The philosophy of Peter

Only one team remaining at this World Cup has reached a final before: Sweden, the 2003 runner-up, who in the round of 16 and quarterfinal down under has knocked out the champs of the three previous World Cups, the United States (2015 and 2019) and Japan (2011). Sweden faces Spain on Tuesday at 4 a.m. ET in Auckland; Las Roja are playing in their first-ever World Cup semi.

Sweden’s coach, Peter Gerhardsson, said at his pre-match press conference that he was reading a book, Resonanz, by German sociologist Hartmut Rosa. 

What has he learned from Rosa? “As a human being, know everything,” Gerhardsson said. “It’s not exciting. And that’s why football is so exciting. Because you never know. As a coach, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You can prepare. You can know things. And that’s why football is interesting. For everybody. It’s the greatest sport in the world.”

Moments later, Gerhardsson tried to leave his press conference through a utility closet, before realizing his error and exiting through the proper door.  

I don’t totally understand what Gerhardsson is saying or what this all means. But I admire the guy’s vibe. Sweden will be ready.

Letter from a local

TIME’s Yasmeen Serhan sends this dispatch from London after watching England knock off Colombia 2-1 in the quarterfinals.

Women’s soccer hasn’t always been so popular in Britain, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it by the crowds turning up at pubs for early World Cup matches. On Saturday morning, I arrived at my North London local to find the pub’s front room packed with people who, like me, were hoping to catch a glimpse of what would end up being England’s quarter-final victory over Colombia. As I pushed through the crowd toward a lone seat closest to the screen, I noticed that there were a lot more women than there probably would be on any other given match day. But there were also plenty of men—an indication, perhaps, of just how much women’s soccer fandom has grown in recent years.

One pub goer, a 26-year-old guy from Southampton, told me that he’s been waking up early to catch all of England’s matches this World Cup. But he admits that he wasn’t always a follower of the women’s game. Like so many men and women I spoke with, his interest piqued during last year’s European Championships, which the England women’s team won on their home turf at Wembley Stadium in extra time. It was a huge moment not just for women’s soccer, but for the whole of England, which hadn’t experienced a major trophy win in over half a century.

Of course, not everyone at the pub was a devout women’s soccer fan. Another pub goer sheepishly admitted that he was actually there to watch another match (local Arsenal playing Nottingham Forest). Still, he said he felt like he was following the World Cup—in large part because, unlike previous tournaments, this one feels impossible to ignore. Whether it’s headlining on Sky Sports or being broadcast at the pub, women’s soccer is everywhere like never before. And if England fans are lucky, it may even once again come home.

Recommended reading/viewing

Scenes of Australian celebration never get old. (X) 

The backup goalkeeper who might win the World Cup for Sweden. (WSJ)

Why wouldn’t Spain be nervous before this game? (AP)

Why England must avoid sloppy mistakes if the Lionesses hope to win a first World Cup. (Guardian)

Parting thought

Emerging England star Lauren James will not play in the semifinal, after FIFA gave her a two-game suspension for stepping on Nigeria’s Michelle Alozie in the round of 16. She’ll be available for the Aug. 20 final, should England advance. 

I argued that James should just miss one game, and be available for this semi. My case either did not reach the upper echelons of FIFA—shocking, I know—or was summarily dismissed. Ah well. At least FIFA compromised a little bit, and did not hand the most draconian penalty possible and kick James out for the rest of the tournament. 

The Matildas, however, plan on ending James’ World Cup anyway. 

This game on Wednesday should be a beauty.

source https://time.com/6304682/australia-england-world-cup-preview-2023/

The Best Photos from the Iowa State Fair

A host of presidential candidates visited the Iowa State Fair over the weekend to flip pork chops, view a life-size cow sculpted out of butter, and mingle with voters ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation nominating caucuses in January.

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Both of the leading Republican presidential candidates—former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—made a campaign stop to the fairgrounds on Saturday along with former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Democratic candidates Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other presidential hopefuls.

Campaigning at the Iowa State Fair has been one of the nation’s most famous political traditions since 1972, when the state began holding the first presidential nominating contests in the country. At the fair, which attracts about a million people over 10 days, Trump posed for selfies, passed out Make America Great Again hats, and gave a speech in which he repeated false claims about the 2020 election. DeSantis toured the fairgrounds with his family and flipped pork chops with Iowa’s governor, though his remarks were interrupted by protesters blowing loud whistles and clanging cowbells. Longer-shot candidates also tried to leave an impression with voters, including entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who performed a rap of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”

Here are some of the best photos from the Iowa State Fair.

source https://time.com/6304599/iowa-state-fair-2023-photos/

Trials Are About Facts. That’s Bad For Trump.

The mournful lesson of the GOP primaries in 2016 was summed up by the hashtag “LOL, nothing matters.” It captured the vertiginous sense among traditional Republicans that the political world had been loosed from its moorings; that damning facts no longer had purchase with voters because a critical mass of Americans had, for whatever reason, chosen to trust the least honest man in America.

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The series of indictments against Donald Trump may mark a turning point.

From day one, when the president’s press secretary lied to reporters about Trump’s inaugural crowd size, the Trump presidency amounted to a systematic assault on truth. Though at times almost amusing—as in “Sharpiegate” when the commander-in-chief displayed a doctored weather map to support his erroneous claim about a hurricane’s path—most of Trump’s lies were no laughing matter. They served as an acid eating away at the already frayed bonds of affection among Americans. They incited fear of immigrants (as when Trump frequently claimed that “Middle Eastern terrorists were flooding across the southern border”), distrust of allies (as when he ceaselessly insisted that NATO was stiffing the U.S. on contributions), and confusion about basic facts such as how much of the wall Trump actually built (not “450 miles” as he boasted, but 40). The number of Americans who died needlessly from COVID-19 due to Trump’s denial of the seriousness of the threat (“It will go away in April”) and endorsement of quack cures will never be known, but the U.S. wound up with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population among advanced industrialized nations.

The chaotic and dishonest federal response to COVID-19 response was a steep price Americans paid for Trump’s assault on truth. But it may not have been the most consequential. The lies did even more damage to social trust. The deluge of deceit undermined faith in every institution that Trump suspected might thwart him—the press, the intelligence services, the courts, government employees, public health authorities, the military, and finally, the electoral system.

Self-styled Trump grand strategist Steve Bannon has implied that the lying is strategic; that “flooding the zone with s—” is part of a plan, similar to that employed by Vladimir Putin, to confuse the public to the point where they give up attempting to separate truth from falsehood. In the long eight years that Trump has dominated our national life, he has succeeded in transforming a third of the GOP into a hermetically sealed cult and persuading a fair share of the remainder to treat negative information about him as politically-motivated dirt (even if also possibly true). 

Trump has not achieved this alone. Elected Republicans, party functionaries, and the organs of right wing influence have played a large (if sometimes expensive) role in this, serving as Trump’s phalanx of falsehood. The gaslighting has demoralized those Republicans who remain immune, to say nothing of independents and Democrats.

Which brings us to the indictments. The one realm of American life that has shown itself impervious to Trump’s assault on truth is the courts. The tactics of lying, whataboutism, distraction, and insults may succeed on NewsMax or in the pages of the Federalist. They don’t work as well in front of a judge. As Stefanos Bibas, a Trump-appointed judge on the Third Circuit, ruled after rejecting the Trump campaign’s effort to disenfranchise millions of Pennsylvania’s voters: “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

“Specific allegations and proof.” That is unfamiliar territory for Trump. Courts are not perfect truth detectors, but they are a helluva lot better at separating fact from fiction than talk radio, social media, or cable TV. Just ask E. Jean Carroll or the plaintiffs in the Trump University case.

In 2020, the Trump campaign filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging the results of the election. A total of 86 judges, including all nine justices of the Supreme Court, heard at least some of these claims. With the exception of a trivial ruling about Pennsylvania’s late arriving mail ballots that would not have changed the outcome, the Trump campaign lost every case. Among the judges who ruled against Trump’s claims were 38 who were appointed by Republicans (including Trump himself). 

Trials have a unique power to rivet attention. A trial of a former president will be an unprecedented national moment with the capacity – perhaps the unique capacity – to penetrate America’s information silos. The upcoming trials in Florida for willful retention of classified documents and in DC for a conspiracy to disenfranchise the American people probably will not budge the Trump faithful. But the segments of the Republican party that are not in Trump’s thrall may yet be persuadable. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who get most of their information from right-leaning sources may have only the haziest notion of what Trump is accused of. They will have forgotten that all of the chief witnesses against Trump at the January 6 congressional hearings and those likely to testify in upcoming trials are fellow Republicans and former Trump associates. They will hear from Republicans, like former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who voted for Trump twice but could not in conscience steal the election for him, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who would not lie to subvert the 2020 election outcome.

Testimony can be expected as well from the two top Michigan state lawmakers who were summoned to the White House and jawboned to change the Michigan electors. After a lengthy meeting, they emerged to declare “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and, as legislative leaders, we will follow the law. . . “ The jurors will hear from former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr who has said not only that Trump knew he lost and that he told Trump that the allegations of fraud were “bull—-,” but that Trump never gave “any indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”

They will also probably hear testimony from former acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, former deputy acting Attorney General Richard Donaghue, former Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, former assistant to the chief of staff Cassidy Hutchinson, and very likely Mark Meadows himself. Trump’s former campaign manager, his White House counsel, his director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, his Director of National Intelligence, and more will lend their credibility to the case. Jurors will weigh Trump’s choice to disregard their judgments in favor of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. The court will hear former Vice President Mike Pence say again that he could not violate his oath or his conscience and steal the election for Trump.

Courtrooms don’t run like TV studios. Irrelevant testimony is not permitted. Changing the subject won’t fly. Cross examination reveals contradictions. Failure to answer a question will get a rebuke from the judge. Lying under oath is a crime. So is witness tampering. Trump will not have the scope, so often exploited in the past, to create diversions from this drama. It will hold us and him in its grip. With any luck, some Republicans will get their first inkling of the avalanche of lies Trump has told.

And just maybe, some Republicans will be a bit inspired by the patriotism and integrity of Americans like Rusty Bowers, who withstood pressure from Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Trump to falsify Arizona’s electoral votes. “I took an oath,” he explained simply. And in his diary he noted: “I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.” 

Republicans like Bowers, Raffensperger, and Pence saved America from chaos in January 2021. Perhaps they can do the same for 2024. 

source https://time.com/6304478/donald-trump-trials-indictments-essay/

Pakistan’s Caretaker Prime Minister Sworn in

ISLAMABAD — Former Pakistani Senator Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar was sworn in on Monday as the country’s prime minister to head a caretaker government that will oversee parliamentary elections during one of the country’s worst economic crises.

Kakar, who is comparatively new to politics and is close to the powerful military, has represented his Baluchistan province in the Senate since 2018. President Arif Alvi administered the oath of office to him inside a white marble palace known as the Presidency in a brief ceremony.

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Kakar quit as the head of his small Baluchistan Awami Party on Sunday and resigned as a senator after being named by outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and opposition leader Raza Riaz to oversee the vote and run the administration’s day-to-day affairs until the people elect a new government. It is normal practice in Pakistan to appoint a caretaker government for the election period.

Under the constitution, the election should be held in the next 90 days.

The swearing-in took place as Pakistan celebrated its 77th Independence Day amid deepening political turmoil, which began after the ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan last year.

Pakistan gained independence when the departing British left India and split the subcontinent in 1947.

Monday’s festivities began with gun salutes in the capital, Islamabad, and in each of the four provincial capitals. In Islamabad, President Arif Alvi hoisted the national flag at a ceremony attended by officials and other dignitaries.

Security was high across the nation following multiple attacks over the weekend, including an assault in which Chinese working on a construction project escaped unharmed but two militants were killed when troops quickly returned fire in the coastal town of Gwadar in Baluchistan province.

On Sunday, a journalist, Jan Mohammad Mahar, was shot and killed by gunmen as he was heading home in Sukkur, a district in southern Sindh province, police said. The motive for the killing was unclear and officers were still investigating.

In his overnight farewell address to the nation, Sharif asked his countrymen to “make the right decision” when they go to vote. He blamed Khan for the economic crisis the country was facing when he came to power.

Sharif replaced Khan in April 2022 when he was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament.

Khan was sentenced to three years in prison in a graft case earlier this month and is currently being held at the high-security Attock prison in eastern Punjab province.

But he remains a popular politician and his opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party is expected to give a tough time to Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League in the elections.

Khan is unable to take part in the election unless his conviction is overturned because no one with a criminal conviction can lead a party, run in elections or hold public office. He has appealed the ruling.

source https://time.com/6304579/pakistan-kakar-prime-minister/

Hong Kong Court Partially Quashes Convictions of Prominent Democracy Activists

HONG KONG — Seven of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy advocates had part of their convictions quashed Monday over their roles in one of the biggest pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper; Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the city’s Democratic Party; and five former pro-democracy lawmakers, including barrister Margaret Ng, had been found guilty of organizing and participating an unauthorized assembly.

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Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho were jailed between eight to 18 months. Martin Lee, an octogenarian nicknamed the city’s “Father of Democracy,” Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended jail sentences.

Their convictions two years ago and their sentences were widely seen as another blow to the city’s flagging democracy movement under an unprecedented crackdown by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities.

Read More: Hong Kong’s Million-Dollar Bounties Are About More Than Arresting 8 Activists

Judge Andrew Macrae said he and other judges of the Court of Appeal unanimously quashed their convictions over the charge of organizing an unauthorized assembly. But their convictions over taking part in an unauthorized assembly were upheld.

All appellants have served out their sentences for this case. But Lai, Leung, Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan remained in custody as they were also charged under a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 following the massive protests.

The charges involved a rally in August 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million people onto Hong Kong’s streets to call for greater police accountability and democracy. The march was relatively peaceful, compared to other protests that often morphed into violent clashes between police and protesters that year.

The 2019 movement was the city’s most concerted challenge to the Hong Kong government since the former British colony returned to China’s rule in 1997.

The pro-democracy movement waned with the arrests and exiles of democracy activists, the COVID-19 pandemic and the national security law.

source https://time.com/6304508/hong-kong-court-democracy-activists-convictions-jimmy-lai/

Ecuadorian Journalist to Take Assassinated Candidate’s Place on Presidential Ticket

The party of assassinated Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has chosen a friend and close associate of his, Christian Zurita, to run in the nation’s convulsed elections.

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Zurita, 53, is an investigative reporter from Quito who, like Villavicencio, has written extensively on domestic corruption. Zurita is the second candidate put forward by the centrist Construye party since Villavicencio was assassinated on Wednesday. 

Though Construye officially nominated Zurita as its candidate, he won’t be permitted to participate in the only debate before the election because the paperwork wasn’t cleared in time, said Diana Atamaint, president of the National Electoral Council.

The debate, now among the seven other presidential candidates, is scheduled for 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. EDT) on Sunday. The election will take place Aug. 20.

Zurita said he will campaign on an anti-crime agenda that he helped Villavicencio write. He spoke at a press conference on Sunday at a hotel in Ecuador’s capital, flanked by vice-presidential candidate Andrea Gonzalez, an environmental activist. Both wore police-issued bulletproof vests.

Villavicencio was gunned down as he left a campaign event at a school in north-central Quito amid spiraling political violence. Six suspects, all Colombian, were arrested following the attack, while the injured alleged gunman bled to death in custody.

The snap elections were forced by President Guillermo Lasso’s decision to shut down Ecuador’s congress, which was attempting to impeach him. If no candidate wins an outright majority or at least 40% of valid votes with a 10-point advantage over the runner-up, a runoff will be held on Oct. 15.

source https://time.com/6304491/ecuador-presidential-elections-journalist-candidate/

Teen Survives Nearly 100-Foot Fall at North Rim of Grand Canyon

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — A 13-year-old North Dakota boy has survived a fall of nearly 100 feet at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon during a family trip.

Authorities said it took emergency crews two hours to rescue Wyatt Kauffman after he slipped on a cliff Tuesday and plunged the nearly 100 feet (30 meters) at the Bright Angel Point trail.

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The teenager was airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital for treatment of nine broken vertebrae plus a ruptured spleen, a collapsed lung, a concussion and a broken hand and dislocated finger.

“I was up on the ledge and was moving out of the way so other people could take a picture,” Kauffman told Phoenix TV station KPNX. “I squatted down and was holding on to a rock. I only had one hand on it.

“It wasn’t that good of a grip. It was kind of pushing me back. I lost my grip and started to fall back,” he added.

Rescue crews had to repel down the cliff and get the injured boy out of the canyon in a basket.

“I just remember somewhat waking up and being in the back of an ambulance and a helicopter and getting on a plane and getting here” to the hospital, said Kauffman, who lives in Casselton, North Dakota.

Brian Kauffman was in North Dakota when he heard about his son’s fall and rescue.

A National Park Service search and rescue team set up a rope rescue down to the steep and narrow trail and raised the teen safely to the rim.

“We’re extremely grateful for the work of everyone. Two hours is an eternity in a situation like that,” Brian Kauffman said.

He said Wyatt and his mother were on a trip to visit national parks when the Grand Canyon fall occurred.

Brian Kauffman said his son was discharged from the hospital Saturday and was being driven home. Wyatt and his mom were expected to reach Casselton on Tuesday.

“We’re just lucky we’re bringing our kid home in a car in the front seat instead of in a box,” Brian Kauffman told KPNX.

source https://time.com/6304465/teen-survives-rim-of-grand-canyon/