Global Pulse

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  • Police, fans and celebrities – What it’s like outside the Swift wedding

    Police, fans and celebrities – What it’s like outside the Swift wedding

    On a crisp, bustling day in downtown Manhattan, crowds of onlookers, die-hard fans, and media personnel have clustered around the iconic Madison Square Garden, all drawn by swirling rumors of a high-profile wedding tied to global pop superstar Taylor Swift.

    BBC correspondent Nada Tawfik reported on-location from the heart of the crowd, capturing the electric, chaotic atmosphere that has wrapped around the famous venue since early morning. Uniformed NYPD officers have been deployed across the perimeter, working to maintain order as thousands of attendees, many decked out in Swift’s signature red lipstick and Eras Tour merch, jostle for the chance to catch a glimpse of the star or her famous guests.

    Celebrities have been spotted slipping into the venue through private back entrances over the past two hours, fueling further excitement among the gathered crowd. Fans have traded speculative rumors about the guest list, the ceremony details, and the surprise performance many are hoping will take place after the vows. Local business owners nearby say foot traffic has surged more than 300% compared to a typical weekday, with food carts and souvenir stands selling out of snacks and Swift-themed merchandise within hours.

    Despite the chaos, officers on the ground report that the crowd has remained overwhelmingly peaceful, with most attendees just happy to be part of the once-in-a-generation pop culture moment unfolding outside one of New York’s most famous landmarks.

  • Hyundai’s new steel mill sparks hopes and fears in Louisiana

    Hyundai’s new steel mill sparks hopes and fears in Louisiana

    On a drizzly March morning in 2025, South Korean industrial giant Hyundai staged a high-profile announcement at the White House, flanked by then-President Donald Trump, top Republican leaders, and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. The company revealed it would pour nearly $6 billion into a cutting-edge new steel mill in Louisiana, built to supply domestic metal for its existing vehicle factories in Alabama and Georgia. Trump framed the investment as a direct win for his administration’s trade tariff policies, while Hyundai executives touted the thousands of new jobs the facility would bring to the Bayou State. What the event omitted, however, was a far more transformative detail: this mill could become the lowest-carbon iron and steel production facility the United States has ever constructed.

    Steelmaking is one of the global economy’s most carbon-intensive sectors, responsible for roughly 9 percent of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike the coal-fueled blast furnaces that built America’s 19th-century steel industry—many of which still operate across the Midwest today—Hyundai’s planned Ascension Parish facility is not designed to run on coal. Last summer, company leaders told Louisiana officials the plant will eventually run on hydrogen, a carbon-free fuel that can be produced entirely from renewable electricity and water. Executives described the project as a potential “catalyst for the hydrogen ecosystem” across the Gulf South, while helping Hyundai meet rising global demand for sustainably manufactured steel.

    This development marks a rare bright spot for U.S. steel decarbonization, a movement that has stalled in recent years amid economic headwinds and federal policy rollbacks. Under the previous Biden administration, two major U.S. steel firms, SSAB and Cleveland-Cliffs, were set to receive $500 million each in federal funding to develop hydrogen-powered steel production. Both projects were ultimately scrapped.

    Kelvin Wells Jr., an industrial organizer with the Sierra Club’s Delta Chapter based in Baton Rouge, called the project an opportunity to redefine Louisiana’s industrial identity and accelerate the state’s clean energy transition. But despite that promise, critical questions remain unanswered: whether Hyundai will actually deliver on its hydrogen decarbonization pledges remains far from certain.

    According to the company’s permit filings, Hyundai will launch operations in 2029 running primarily on natural gas, a plan Hyundai confirmed publicly to Canary Media. The company says it will capture and store all carbon dioxide produced during initial operations, a process that cuts coal-based steel emissions by roughly two-thirds—but still generates far more pollution than steel produced with green hydrogen from renewables, and faces intense pushback from carbon capture critics. When asked to set a timeline for a full transition to green hydrogen, a Hyundai representative noted, “It is difficult to pinpoint when hydrogen will become economically viable.”

    For local residents of Ascension Parish, where the mill is being built on the grounds of a former sugarcane plantation, uncertainty around the project extends far beyond hydrogen plans. The region sits along Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley,” a stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans already saturated with petrochemical facilities and oil refineries that have driven disproportionately high rates of chronic illness and pollution in low-income and Black communities. Locals hope the new steel mill will deliver tangible benefits instead of repeating the harms of past industrial development, but say Hyundai has yet to respond to their repeated requests for community engagement.

    The project’s closest major population center is Donaldsonville, a town of 7,000 that boasts a historic place in U.S. political history as the site of the nation’s first Black mayor, elected in 1868. Today, the parish has one of the highest poverty rates in Louisiana, despite decades of industrial development in the region. Glenn Price, who leads a local neighborhood organization and is a member of grassroots coalition Good Neighbors Louisiana, says he is skeptical the project will deliver quality local jobs. Past industrial facilities in the area have prioritized hiring out-of-state workers, he notes, and Hyundai has a documented record of labor and safety violations at its U.S. auto plants. Price also worries the mill will add to the region’s already unbearable pollution burden, bringing no meaningful improvement to public health.

    Good Neighbors Louisiana is pushing Hyundai to codify its pledges on pollution reduction, green hydrogen transition, and worker protections into a legally binding community benefits agreement, and is calling on the state to conduct a full environmental justice analysis before approving final permits. Recently, the group won a small early victory: Hyundai agreed to convert nine gas-fired process heaters to cleaner electric equipment, a change the company says will reduce harmful pollutant emissions.

    “We can’t stop industrial development from coming here—we don’t have that power,” Price explained during an interview at Donaldsonville’s public library. “If they’re coming in, we just want them to make solid commitments to our community. We’re fighting to get the best outcome we can.”

    The 1,700-acre Hyundai site sits at the core of a proposed 17,000-acre industrial mega-hub called RiverPlex MegaPark, developed jointly by Hyundai, CF Industries, and other major energy firms. The project would expand industrial development into rural farmland currently owned by descendants of formerly enslaved people and sharecroppers, sparking fears of displacement among long-time local residents.

    To speed up negotiations for the project, at least 10 local elected officials in Ascension Parish have signed non-disclosure agreements with Louisiana Economic Development, the state’s economic development agency, enabling officials to privately negotiate a $2.6 billion incentive package for Hyundai. This level of secrecy has become standard under Governor Landry’s administration, but local environmental groups have filed a lawsuit to block the practice. A spokesperson for Louisiana Economic Development defended NDAs as a “standard part of economic development projects” across the country, arguing that “by engaging local elected officials early while protecting sensitive business information during negotiations, Louisiana is able to compete for transformational projects that create opportunity, grow wages and strengthen communities across the state.”

    Local resident Ashley Gaignard, president of Rural Roots Louisiana, questions why details that are supposed to serve the public good must be kept hidden. “I want to see my community thrive,” she said. “I just don’t want to do it at the cost of risking our water, our air, our lives.”

    Not all local residents are opposed, however. Deletrick Dickerson, a safety representative for the United Steelworkers union who lives in Ascension Parish and works at a nearby alumina refinery, says the project could deliver transformative benefits if it prioritizes hiring local workers from the region’s majority-Black, economically disadvantaged river communities. “We just want everything to be open and honest,” he said.

    In a written statement to Canary Media, Hyundai-Posco Louisiana Steel, the U.S.-based subsidiary leading the project, addressed community concerns directly. The company says it is using “advanced technologies to minimize emissions of harmful and toxic substances,” that the project “is designed to comply with all applicable environmental regulations and permit requirements,” that it will “prioritize hiring local residents to the greatest extent possible,” and that “safety will be our top priority.”

    Unlike traditional coal-fired U.S. steel mills, Hyundai’s Louisiana facility will combine two lower-carbon production technologies into one operation: a direct reduction furnace to process raw iron ore, which can run on natural gas, hydrogen, or a mix of the two, and two electric arc furnaces to produce finished steel. Only three direct reduction facilities currently operate in the U.S., all running on natural gas, including a large Nucor operation just across the Mississippi River from Hyundai’s site. Electric arc furnaces are already common across the U.S., but most rely on recycled scrap metal to produce steel; Hyundai will use its own domestically produced direct reduced iron to manufacture high-grade steel suitable for vehicle production.

    The project is a direct response to trade policy shifts: Trump administration steel tariffs raised costs for imported steel, pushing Hyundai to bring more of its supply chain to the U.S. Building a new coal-fired blast furnace makes no economic or environmental sense today, so the company opted for a flexible new design that can adapt to future decarbonization. Hyundai also plans to sell its low-carbon Louisiana steel to other automakers, as growing global policy pressure—including the European Union’s carbon border adjustment tax—and consumer demand increase the market for sustainably produced steel, while Hyundai itself must meet South Korea’s national carbon neutrality targets.

    “This project is not just about producing steel — it’s about producing a better future,” Hyeongjin Kim of Hyundai Steel told Louisiana leaders last year.

    In May 2026, Hyundai signed a $650 million contract with Italian industrial equipment manufacturer Danieli to supply the electric arc furnaces and direct reduction system for the plant. Andrea Diasparro, Danieli’s group sales director and executive board member, says the equipment is purpose-built to enable a seamless transition from natural gas to hydrogen. “No additional equipment has to be implemented for the plant to be hydrogen-ready, in the case that hydrogen is available at a reasonable price,” he explained. The system also includes built-in carbon capture technology, which Hyundai will use during its initial natural gas phase.

    For climate advocates like Angelle Bradford Rosenberg, a medical scientist and leader of the Sierra Club’s Delta Chapter, the lack of a binding timeline for transition is a major red flag. “There’s no mechanism in Louisiana for watchdogging that sort of thing,” she said. “We need those commitments from corporations in the beginning, because we cannot trust that it will come later.” Good Neighbors Louisiana has repeatedly invited Hyundai representatives to attend public community events, she says, and has yet to receive a response.

    Louisiana already produces millions of tons of conventional hydrogen annually for the chemical sector, made from natural gas in a carbon-intensive process. Industry plans to transition to lower-carbon hydrogen: so-called “blue hydrogen” is produced from natural gas with carbon capture and storage, while “green hydrogen” is made by splitting water with renewable-powered electrolyzers, producing no carbon emissions. Hyundai has indicated it plans to transition first to blue hydrogen, with a ready supply next door from CF Industries’ planned $4 billion blue ammonia facility, which will produce hydrogen and store emissions underground.

    Opinions on blue hydrogen are deeply divided. Local environmental groups and even some Republican state policymakers oppose carbon capture and storage, citing concerns about underground injection risks, potential leakage, and the continued reliance on fossil fuels. But the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force, a leading climate advocacy organization, frames CCS-enabled blue hydrogen as a critical intermediate step to build out hydrogen infrastructure and drive down costs for future green hydrogen adoption. “We really see CCS-enabled hydrogen as a way to jump-start the economy and lead us into electrolytic [green] hydrogen in the future,” said Lindsay Cooper Phillips, senior Gulf Coast policy manager for the Clean Air Task Force. “It’s challenging for someone like Hyundai to just start off there.”

    Green hydrogen, widely seen as the end goal for zero-carbon steelmaking, still faces major structural barriers in Louisiana and across the U.S. Global supplies remain limited, and production costs are still prohibitively high for large-scale industrial use. Political shifts have made the challenge even greater: the Trump administration has cut and paralyzed federal funding for new clean hydrogen projects, Governor Landry has stalled the low-carbon hydrogen policy initiatives launched by his Democratic predecessor, and Louisiana has barely begun to build out renewable energy generation capacity.

    That makes Hyundai’s 2029 launch plan to start with natural gas unsurprising, if disappointing for decarbonization advocates. “The production of green hydrogen has not yet reached the scale, nor cost, necessary for feasible implementation to replace natural gas,” Hyundai wrote in its December 2025 permit application to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The company says it will transition to green hydrogen once sufficient supply is available, but has not disclosed a public timeline.

    Even as the hydrogen future remains uncertain, the region is already preparing for the mill’s arrival. Earlier this year, River Parishes Community College broke ground on a dedicated Hyundai Training Center in Donaldsonville, which will offer a two-year training program to prepare local workers for jobs at the mill. Korean investors have purchased hotels and residential property in downtown Donaldsonville to house new workers, and the first Korean-owned businesses have opened. Industrial gas supplier Air Liquide is investing $350 million to build a new air separation unit in nearby St. James Parish, which will supply purified oxygen to Hyundai’s electric arc furnaces by pipeline, and the facility is on track to launch in 2028. Air Liquide, one of the world’s largest hydrogen producers, says it stands ready to partner with Hyundai if the company moves forward with hydrogen adoption. “That could be another project for us tomorrow,” said Matthieu Giard, a group vice president for Air Liquide.

    For a full transition to green hydrogen, however, Louisiana will need to build roughly three gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity, according to Clean Air Task Force estimates—more than the total amount of solar energy currently installed across the entire state. Today, natural gas power plants generate the vast majority of Louisiana’s electricity, with only a small contribution from nuclear power. Entergy Louisiana, Hyundai’s electricity provider, plans to add up to three gigawatts of solar capacity in coming years, and private developers are advancing plans for the state’s first three onshore wind farms. However, large-scale offshore wind development in the Gulf of Mexico has been effectively halted following policy rollbacks by the Trump administration.

    If Hyundai delivers on its decarbonization pledges, the project could mark a turning point for the entire U.S. steel industry, paving the way for a full clean transition of one of the nation’s oldest and most polluting industrial sectors. For local advocates, that potential is what makes the fight for accountability so important. They remain torn between cautious hope for a cleaner, more prosperous future and deep skepticism that the project will deliver on its promises.

    “The Hyundai plant is huge for the United States and for us,” Bradford Rosenberg said. “We want to make sure we get it right.”

  • ‘Baseless’: Cair sues Florida governor for terrorism designation alongside drug cartels

    ‘Baseless’: Cair sues Florida governor for terrorism designation alongside drug cartels

    A landmark legal challenge has been launched against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by the United States’ largest Muslim civil rights advocacy organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), over a controversial state law that labeled CAIR a domestic terrorist organization — placing the civil rights group in the same legal category as some of the hemisphere’s most violent international drug cartels.

    The lawsuit, filed Thursday, brings together three major non-profit legal and advocacy organizations: CAIR itself, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The legal teams describe the designation enshrined in House Bill 1471 (HB 1471) as entirely unfounded, constitutionally flawed, and a direct threat to fundamental First Amendment rights.

    In an official statement announcing the legal action, CAIR emphasized that the terrorist designation exposes the organization to immediate and irreversible damage. If enforced, the law would allow Florida state authorities to shut down all of CAIR’s programming, advocacy, and community operations across the state. Beyond CAIR, Florida’s new terror list also includes two additional vaguely defined entities: the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement that has no documented active operations in the United States and no centralized global headquarters, and antifa, the loose decentralized anti-fascist movement that has no formal structure, membership roster, or fixed operating base.

    The law grants Florida officials sweeping power to attach crippling stigmatizing labels to non-profit organizations, then deploy a broad range of state powers to immediately silence and disable the targeted group, its staff, its members, and any other individuals connected to the organization. Penalties include harsh criminal charges, civil fines, and administrative sanctions that reach far beyond standard regulatory measures, CAIR argues in the suit.

    Alongside CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and antifa, DeSantis has proposed adding more than 90 other organizations to the state’s terror registry. That list includes major international groups like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Venezuela-based transnational criminal gang Tren de Aragua, and Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel, one of the deadliest drug trafficking organizations in the world.

    The current designation traces back to HB 1471, a bill approved by the Florida state legislature in March this year, signed into law by DeSantis in April, and implemented on July 1. This is not the first time DeSantis has attempted to blacklist CAIR: in December 2023, the governor issued a unilateral executive order to place the group on a terror watchlist, but that action was blocked by a federal judge earlier this year.

    In his ruling blocking the initial executive order, federal judge Mark Walker centered his decision on a core constitutional question: whether a state governor can, outside of a formal emergency, unilaterally label one of the nation’s largest civil rights groups a terrorist organization and cut off any government benefits to individuals or entities that provide material support or resources to the group. Walker’s ruling was clear: “This Court finds he cannot.”

    Now, CAIR is asking the court to issue an emergency injunction to block enforcement of HB 1471 entirely, arguing the new law retains all the constitutional flaws of the original executive order.

    The text of HB 1471 states that any person or entity that provides support to a designated terrorist group can face criminal prosecution, and it also includes a provision asserting that no religious code — a measure widely interpreted to target Sharia law, which is protected under First Amendment religious freedom provisions for many American Muslims — can supersede Florida state law.

    In their legal challenge, CAIR and its co-counsel point out that the designation process laid out in HB 1471 lacks basic due process protections. The law does not require state officials to provide the targeted organization with formal notice that includes all justifications for the designation, all material evidence — both incriminating and exculpatory — that decisionmakers relied on to approve the label. It also does not require the state to prove, or even provide evidence, that the targeted organization has violated any existing state or federal law.

    Founded in 1994, CAIR is a U.S.-based non-profit focused on protecting civil liberties for Muslim Americans, and it funds almost all of its work through public donations from American citizens of all faith backgrounds. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s deputy national director based in Washington, D.C., previously told Middle East Eye that when similar executive orders targeting CAIR were in effect in Florida and Texas, the organization was blocked from purchasing property and barred from accessing state government contracts. Both states have also added the Muslim Brotherhood to their domestic terror lists.

    Republican leaders, most notably Texas Senator Ted Cruz, have repeated longstanding claims that the Muslim Brotherhood maintains secret influential ties to CAIR and seeks to impose Sharia law across the United States. CAIR has repeatedly pushed back against these accusations, noting that more than 95% of its annual budget comes from individual donations from the American public, including both Muslim and non-Muslim supporters.

    Internationally, the Muslim Brotherhood is designated a terrorist organization by several Middle Eastern nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. At the U.S. federal level, the Trump administration issued an order designating specific national chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as terrorist organizations, but no such designation applies to the movement as a whole or to any U.S.-affiliated groups. Critics of these designations have long argued that blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood is largely a geopolitical concession to authoritarian monarchies and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that view the popular reformist movement as a threat to their hold on power.

    Cruz has argued that the movement, which retains widespread public support in many parts of the Arab world thanks to its combination of Islamic religious identity, grassroots political organizing, and community social welfare programs, poses a direct threat to U.S. national security. But when asked by Middle East Eye how the Muslim Brotherhood threatens U.S. security, Nathan Brown, a leading expert on Middle East politics at George Washington University and a trustee of the American University in Cairo, offered a blunt response: “None at all.”

  • ‘Hotter and hotter and hotter’ – Europe’s new climate in seven charts

    ‘Hotter and hotter and hotter’ – Europe’s new climate in seven charts

    Just four days into July 2026, the United Kingdom and much of Western Europe have already experienced two historic, record-shattering heatwaves that experts say offer a clear preview of the region’s new, warmer climate reality. The extraordinary heat events came in rapid succession: an unseasonably warm May was immediately followed by a June heat event so intense that the United Nations’ weather agency labeled it extraordinary across the European continent. After only a short period of cooler temperatures, forecasters are already warning that a third heatwave is looming on the horizon.

    While this string of extreme heat may feel out of the ordinary to most residents, climate scientists confirm it aligns exactly with long-held predictions for a human-warmed world. The primary driver of this shift is the continued burning of fossil fuels, which releases heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that raise global average temperatures. “Human-induced climate change has made events like this more likely and more intense,” explained Professor Stephen Belcher, chief scientist at the UK Met Office.

    The scale of June’s temperature anomalies is unprecedented across the UK. Provisional data shows temperatures peaked at 37.7°C in Lingwood, Norfolk—far exceeding the UK’s previous all-time June record of 35.6°C, a mark that stood from 1957 until it was tied in 1976. Multiple weather stations across the country broke this decades-old record, and even the UK’s longest-running measurement sites saw their previous June records shattered by 2°C or more. “We normally expect the records broken by small amounts – tenths, maybe up to a degree or so,” noted Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading. “So to have it shattered by such a large amount is noticeable and extraordinary, and of course this comes after a similar event in May.”

    June’s heatwave was made particularly oppressive by a dangerous combination of extreme high temperatures and elevated humidity. High humidity prevents the human body from cooling itself effectively through perspiration, leaving outdoor workers—who are among the most vulnerable groups to extreme heat—at heightened risk of heat-related illness. Overnight temperatures also remained unusually high across most of the UK, creating widespread “tropical nights” where temperatures never dropped below 20°C, a phenomenon that was extremely rare in the UK historically. On the night of June 24 into June 25, Cardiff recorded an overnight low of 23.5°C, making it the warmest June night ever recorded in the country. Hawkins explained that as global temperatures continue to rise, these uncomfortable, unhealthy tropical nights will become increasingly common across the UK.

    The same high-pressure “heat dome” that triggered the record heat in the UK also smashed temperature records across the entire European continent. More than a dozen countries spanning western, central, and eastern Europe broke their national June temperature records, with some new records exceeding previous marks by 2 to 3°C. Multiple nations recorded temperatures above 40°C in June—a month that is typically far cooler than July—with some even setting all-time national temperature records for any month of the year. National weather agencies across the continent described the event as historic and exceptional: Germany’s Deutscher Wetterdienst called it “a heatwave for the history books,” while France’s Météo-France labeled it “exceptional” and “historic.” France and Spain also set new records for the hottest average national June temperature on record.

    Even Switzerland, an Alpine nation with historically cool summer temperatures, recorded a June high of 39°C, beating its previous June record by more than 2°C. Sonia Seneviratne, a professor at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich, noted that while the event was highly unusual compared to historical measurements, it did not come as a surprise to climate scientists who have long warned of rising heat extremes in a warming world. “When you know that we have a warming climate, I was not that surprised to see this happen,” she said.

    Europe has emerged as one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet, leaving it disproportionately exposed to frequent and increasingly intense extreme heat events. Scientists point to two key factors driving this accelerated warming: the ongoing melting of the region’s bright snow and ice cover, which previously reflected large amounts of solar energy back into space, and reductions in tiny polluting aerosols in the atmosphere, which also used to reflect sunlight away from the planet’s surface. Some researchers also hypothesize that long-term warming is altering European atmospheric circulation patterns in ways that increase the frequency of the high-pressure systems that spawn heatwaves, though this connection has not been definitively proven.

    This summer, European coastal waters are also experiencing record-breaking marine heatwaves, amplified by the recent record-breaking air temperatures above the surface. Unlike air temperatures, which cool relatively quickly after a heatwave passes, ocean water retains heat for far longer periods. This residual ocean heat reduces the cooling effect of coastal sea breezes, creating a feedback loop that can intensify future heatwaves on land.

    Climate scientists are unified in their conclusion that human-caused long-term warming has already made extreme heat events like June 2026’s heatwave significantly more intense than similar weather patterns would have been a century ago. “The only way to explain [such strong heatwaves] is to taking into account this [long-term] warming,” Seneviratne explained. “When you have a high-pressure system, this heatwave will tend to be much hotter [now]. This is very well understood.”

    The long-term trend of rising average temperatures means that what once qualified as extreme heat in the UK and Europe is quickly becoming the new normal. Only a few decades ago, the UK seeing temperatures rise above 30°C in June was a relatively rare event. Today, it is a routine occurrence. Scientists emphasize that the long-term warming trend does not guarantee every subsequent heatwave will be hotter than the last, or that every summer will be warmer than the previous one. However, as long as global greenhouse gas emissions continue to drive rising average temperatures, summers across the UK and Europe will inevitably grow warmer on average. “Our heatwaves will get hotter and hotter and hotter until we get to global net zero greenhouse gas emissions [and] we stabilise the climate,” Hawkins said.

  • Magical World Cup ride of Vozinha and Cape Verde ends after pushing Messi and Argentina to the brink

    Magical World Cup ride of Vozinha and Cape Verde ends after pushing Messi and Argentina to the brink

    MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – For Vozinha, the journey to the 2026 FIFA World Cup began with one simple, heartfelt wish: for his mother to watch him compete on soccer’s biggest global stage. By the end of Cape Verde’s historic tournament run, the 40-year-old goalkeeper had turned that small personal goal into one of the most unforgettable underdog stories in modern World Cup history.

  • Row after Indian state drops eggs from school lunch menu

    Row after Indian state drops eggs from school lunch menu

    A proposed policy shift in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, which would remove eggs from some government school mid-day meals in favor of vegetarian alternatives, has ignited fierce public and expert debate across the country, touching on questions of nutrition accessibility, ideological influence, and the future of the world’s largest school feeding program.

    The controversy began last week, when West Bengal’s newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government announced it would hand over preparation of mid-day meals for Kolkata Municipal Corporation-run schools to the Annamitra Foundation, a food service arm of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) — the Hindu organization more widely known as the Hare Krishna movement. Iskcon follows strict vegetarian dietary practices, so the plan will swap eggs for plant-based protein sources. As of yet, no final decisions have been made, the organization confirmed to the BBC, and it remains unclear whether the pilot will ever launch or expand to other schools across the state. That has not stopped the proposal from reigniting a long-running national argument over what belongs on the plates of millions of vulnerable schoolchildren.

    India’s federal mid-day meal scheme, first launched nationwide in 1995 after decades of local testing, has grown into the largest school feeding initiative on Earth, serving free cooked lunches to more than 110 million students across government and government-aided schools. For millions of children from low-income households, the daily meal is the most nutritious — and sometimes the only — full meal they consume in a day. For decades, the program has been widely praised for cutting childhood hunger, improving nutrition outcomes, and boosting school enrollment and retention among marginalized communities. While the Indian central government sets minimum calorie and protein requirements for meals, individual states are given full authority to design their own menus, leading to wide variation across the country: states including Tamil Nadu and Bihar regularly serve eggs alongside grain and vegetable dishes, while others like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh exclusively offer vegetarian options.

    Nutrition campaigners and public health experts have widely pushed back against the West Bengal proposal, arguing that eggs are one of the most accessible, affordable, and nutritionally complete sources of protein for growing children from low-income backgrounds. At roughly 8 Indian rupees (around $0.08) per egg, the food has been a staple of Bengali culinary culture for generations, and its nutritional profile is hard to match on a public budget. Fareha Shanam, a nutritionist at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, explained that eggs contain all nine essential amino acids that the human body cannot produce on its own, alongside critical micronutrients including vitamin D and vitamin B12. While plant-based options like pulses and legumes do offer protein, Shanam noted that they have higher fiber content and a less balanced amino acid profile. Alternatives like paneer (Indian cottage cheese) can match eggs’ nutrition, she added, but cost far more, making regular service unfeasible for a publicly funded program that operates on tight budgets.

    Dr. Vamshi V, a consultant internal medicine physician at Hyderabad’s Gleneagles Aware Hospital, warned that removing eggs without carefully crafting nutritionally equivalent substitutes could have long-term negative impacts on children’s health. “For many children, the school meal is the most nutrient-dense food they get all day,” she explained. A shortfall of essential protein and micronutrients may not cause immediate visible harm, she added, but over time it can hinder physical growth, impair cognitive development and learning, and weaken children’s immune systems.

    Critics of the policy have also accused the BJP government of allowing religious ideology to shape public nutrition policy. The opposition All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), which held power in West Bengal until May 2026, has claimed the government is seeking to “impose vegetarianism” on schoolchildren. Iskcon and state leaders have rejected these accusations. West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari defended the plan, framing it as an effort to provide students with “good and pure food” and emphasizing that no one would be forced to participate in the organization’s religious practices. Iskcon officials note that the group already serves 1 million school meals daily across 16 Indian states through its Akshaya Patra Foundation, and that its vegetarian menus are designed to meet all national nutritional requirements. Radharaman Das, until last week Iskcon’s Kolkata vice-president, told local media that the organization prioritizes nutrition and hygiene in its meal preparation, and that the proposed vegetarian menu would match the protein and vitamin content of egg-inclusive meals. Notably, Das has since been removed from his leadership posts, though Iskcon has not publicly shared a reason for the personnel change, and has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment on the decision.

    Other critics have pointed out that the plant-based substitutes proposed by Iskcon, including soybeans and kidney beans, are not widely consumed in West Bengal and may be rejected by students, leaving many without the protein they need. Several politicians and activists have proposed a compromise solution that has already been tested in some regions: offering students a choice between an egg and a vegetarian alternative. In a Bihar school, for example, students receive an egg every Friday, while those who prefer a vegetarian option get a banana instead, with no coercion either way.

    Reactions to the proposed change among parents and students in Kolkata have been mixed. Some young students told the BBC they welcomed the shift as a break from their regular routine, while others expressed disappointment, noting they looked forward to the days of the week when eggs are served. Chaitali Mitra, a 37-year-old parent whose daughter attends a local government school, said she believed eggs were a critical part of the school meal. “It would reassure me that my growing child’s protein needs were being fulfilled,” she said.

    For teachers across the country who work with low-income students, the debate underscores the non-negotiable importance of the mid-day meal program itself. “The mid-day meals have been among the biggest reasons for students getting admissions in primary schools,” an unnamed Delhi primary school teacher said. Many children arrive at school hungry every day, she added, and wait eagerly for their daily lunch.

  • More cows than pupils – what is behind mass school closures in rural Kenya?

    More cows than pupils – what is behind mass school closures in rural Kenya?

    On a morning that would normally hum with the chatter of playing children and the scratch of pencils on paper, Kaliluni Primary School, a remote rural learning institution in southern Kenya, hosts only grazing cows. These animals wander between cracked, half-hanging classroom doors, which gape open to reveal neat rows of unoccupied wooden chairs. Three years ago, more than 200 students filled this small campus with noise and energy. Today, just five children remain enrolled – and on the day a BBC reporting team visited, even those five and their school’s only remaining teacher were nowhere to be found.

    Leaving the crumbling, overgrown school compound, where tattered textbooks lie scattered across dusty classroom floors, reporters spotted 12-year-old Maureen Mwisiwa in her starched blue school uniform, walking slowly and dejectedly toward her home. Maureen told the BBC she had shown up to Kaliluni every day for a week, only to find herself completely alone with no classes to attend. “I feel bad missing lessons all those days while pupils in other schools are still in class,” she explained.

    Her mother, Josephine Muasya, is one of the last remaining parents with a child enrolled at the school, and she is preparing to transfer Maureen to a distant campus where most of the girl’s former classmates have already relocated. The new school sits 8 kilometers (5 miles) away across unmaintained, rocky roads. With no public transit service in this isolated region of Kitui County, more than 200 kilometers east of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, children cut across steep, uneven terrain to shorten their commute. Even with the shortcut, Maureen will walk for more than an hour each way, compared to the 10-minute trip she took to reach Kaliluni.

    Muasya says she once held out hope that the national government would intervene to revive her local school, sending additional trained teachers and upgraded facilities to meet the requirements of Kenya’s new national curriculum. Today, that hope is gone. The curriculum Muasya refers to is the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system, a sweeping national education overhaul rolled out in 2017 designed to replace Kenya’s old exam-heavy model with a more creative, practical, skills-focused approach to learning.

    While the reform was intended to reduce educational inequality across the country, it has triggered an unforeseen crisis for Kenya’s most under-resourced rural primary schools. Kaliluni Primary is just one of more than 2,000 rural schools across the East African nation now facing permanent closure after catastrophic enrollment collapses.

    Under the previous education framework, primary school spanned eight grades, with students moving to senior secondary school around age 14. The CBE system restructures basic education to end primary school after grade six, adding a new three-year junior secondary stage for grades seven through nine, which places greater emphasis on science and hands-on technical subjects. The government ruled that existing primary schools would absorb these new junior secondary grades, pushing the transition to senior school to age 15.

    But the restructuring created an immediate, unmanageable burden for low-resource rural schools, which suddenly needed additional classrooms, fully equipped science laboratories, subject-specialized trained teachers, and updated learning materials to comply with the new requirements.

    “Infrastructure gaps are acute. Many rural schools lack basic facilities such as laboratories, yet learners are expected to pursue science and technical pathways,” Mark Kasyoki, a Kenyan education expert, told the BBC. He warned that the CBE curriculum, which was designed to close equality gaps in Kenyan education by making quality learning free for all students, could end up widening those gaps if implementation challenges are not addressed as a matter of urgency.

    Kitui County has been one of the hardest-hit regions. Sooma Primary School permanently closed its doors in 2023 after enrollment dropped to just six students. The following year, Manooni Primary shut down after only three children registered for the new term. There were no closing ceremonies, no goodbye gatherings under the giant shade trees that anchor most rural schoolyards. Students simply left one by one, quietly relocating to better-resourced schools farther from their homes.

    Tabitha Katingu, a Kitui County mother who transferred both of her children to a new school 3 kilometers from her home after their local campus shut down, says the CBE reform was supposed to lift up low-income rural communities, not undermine their access to education. “The CBE curriculum should strengthen schools, especially for low-income communities, not weaken them. We want the best for our children. If a school has not enough trained teachers and other required facilities – why would we waste time there?” she said.

    The transition crisis has also left rural teachers frustrated and disillusioned. “The challenge is not that teachers are unwilling to embrace CBE. It’s that many of us have not been adequately prepared for it. The training has been inconsistent, especially in rural schools,” one Kitui-based teacher explained.

    Not all local residents blame the school closure crisis entirely on the curriculum overhaul. Some point to broader demographic shifts reshaping rural Kenya: falling national fertility rates have led to fewer school-age children in small villages, while working-age adults increasingly relocate to urban centers for better employment opportunities, taking their children with them.

    “Young people want to marry, but life is hard. Everything is expensive, and many fear they cannot provide for a family. That is why there are fewer children growing up in our villages nowadays,” Sarah Mumbua, a long-time resident of Kilukuya village, told the BBC. National statistics show roughly 70% of Kenyans still lived in rural areas in 2023, but UN-Habitat projects that more than half of the country’s population will live in urban areas by 2050 as migration continues.

    The enrollment decline is not limited to primary schools: government data shows 2,700 of Kenya’s 9,605 public secondary schools, most in remote rural regions, now enroll fewer than the 150 students deemed the minimum for viable operations. Local media reported earlier this year that 10 rural secondary schools were closed after teachers arrived for the new term to find zero students had registered for classes.

    In January 2026, the government celebrated a major milestone for the CBE reform: 1.1 million pioneer grade 10 students, the first full cohort to complete the entire new curriculum, transitioned to senior secondary school. But even as officials marked the occasion, they acknowledged the growing crisis in rural areas.

    Education Minister Julius Ogamba confirmed earlier this year that 2,145 under-enrolled public primary schools will be either closed or merged with neighboring campuses to optimize limited government resources. He also announced a nationwide school viability audit, noting that the government has set a minimum enrollment threshold of 45 students for a public primary school to remain open. “It makes no sense to have a school with just 10 students when you need a headmaster, a classroom, a watchman and a teacher. It doesn’t make sense. This tells us that we need to face reality. We now need to change course and ensure that our schools have all the necessary facilities and the right number of students,” he said.

    But the wave of rural school closures has created a new crisis for surviving regional schools, which are now facing crippling overcrowding as they struggle to absorb hundreds of displaced students. Dr. Emmanuel Manyasa, CEO of Usawa Agenda, a Kenyan non-profit education research organization, warns that rapid mass closures carry long-term risks for the entire regional education system.

    “CBE is a good curriculum but we’re failing in the implementation. We skipped critical early stages like a cost and implementation plan. We have been just crisis-managing the transition, which is not sustainable,” Dr. Manyasa told the BBC.

    Bernard Musyoki, a 36-year-old teacher who worked for seven years in a rural Machakos County school (a region neighboring Kitui), saw the impact of closures firsthand. His small community school, which had fewer than 20 students enrolled, was merged into a larger regional campus, and Musyoki transferred to the new overcrowded facility. He says policymakers have swung from one extreme to another, leaving children in larger schools stuck in overcrowded classrooms that lack sufficient resources.

    Musyoki argues the government should reverse course on mass closures, instead capping class sizes and distributing teachers and resources more evenly across rural institutions to ensure the CBE reform benefits all students, regardless of where they live. “Every child, whether they are in a small rural school or a large one, deserves equal access to teachers, classrooms and learning materials,” he said.

  • ‘Flamingo Revolution’ takes off as thousands demand Albanian PM’s resignation

    ‘Flamingo Revolution’ takes off as thousands demand Albanian PM’s resignation

    What began as a small grassroots movement to protect a fragile wetland habitat and its iconic pink flamingo population has erupted into a national political upheaval that has shaken Albania’s 13-year ruling government, with protesters now demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama over allegations of systemic corruption and neglected public welfare.

    The unrest traces its origins to Narta Lagoon, a protected coastal ecosystem near the southern city of Vlora that serves as a critical migratory stop and breeding ground for Albania’s unique flamingo population. The project that ignited public anger is a planned luxury coastal resort, led by a group of international investors that includes Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump. The Albanian government has already granted the development group privileged “special investor” status, despite the fact that no formal environmental impact assessment has been completed and final planning approval remains pending. Still, activists have documented the appearance of fencing and heavy construction machinery on the proposed site, triggering early local pushback.

    The movement gained national traction a month ago, after a viral social media video showed private security guards hired for the project assaulting a local environmental demonstrator. Prime Minister Rama has since confirmed the incident occurred, but the violence did little to quell anger—instead, it galvanized broader public discontent that had been simmering for years. What started as a defense of flamingos quickly expanded to encompass a wide range of public grievances: underfunded schools, understaffed hospitals, stagnant job opportunities, soaring living costs, and widespread disillusionment with the direction of the country’s rapid development.

    Gathering nightly outside Rama’s office in the capital Tirana, demonstrators now carry flamingo symbols as the emblem of their broader movement, labeled by participants as the “Flamingo Revolution.” For many protesters, the fight is as much about their future in Albania as it is about protecting wildlife. “I’m here for our schools, I’m here for our hospitals, I’m here for our infrastructure,” Helena, a young protester, told the BBC. “I want to stay in my country, and I don’t want to leave.”

    Critics of the government, including prominent dissident and writer Fatos Lubonja—who spent 17 years in a forced labor camp under communist dictator Enver Hoxha—allege that the country’s decade-long building boom and tourism expansion is driven by corrupt ties between state officials, oligarchs, and organized crime, acting as a front for large-scale money laundering. Standing near Tirana’s central Skanderbeg Square, ringed by new glass-and-steel skyscrapers, Lubonja said: “If you see all these skyscrapers, it comes out that this is a plan by organised crime, plus oligarchs, plus functionaries of the state. We want to push justice to investigate.”

    Rama, whose Socialist Party has held power for 13 years, has overseen significant transformation in Albania during his tenure. Tirana’s skyline has been completely remade with internationally designed towers, tourism has boomed to account for more than 20% of national GDP, and the country has made rapid progress toward European Union accession—on track to complete accession negotiations by the end of 2027, faster than any other Western Balkan candidate besides Montenegro, which has been negotiating for a decade longer.

    Speaking from his office ahead of a recent night of protests, Rama framed the ongoing demonstrations as evidence of a healthy functioning democracy, dismissing widespread anger as a normal part of democratic discourse. Still, the scandal facing his government runs deep: several of Rama’s closest political allies, including his former deputy prime minister and the current mayor of Tirana, are already under investigation by Albania’s specialized anti-corruption prosecution body SPAK. When asked about concerns over his own integrity, Rama said he supports an independent judiciary that “doesn’t look left, doesn’t look right, but looks straight.” He added that the Socialist Party’s biggest contribution to the country would be allowing anti-corruption investigations to proceed without interference, even when they target party members.

    The depth of the current rift within the ruling party has been highlighted by the high-profile departure of Marjana Koceku, the youngest member of Albania’s parliament. Rama personally selected the 25-year-old environmental activist as a candidate in 2025’s national elections, hoping to capitalize on her reputation as a leading climate advocate in northern Albania. But Koceku has now resigned from the Socialist Party, saying she could no longer pretend the status quo was acceptable. “Beyond these beautiful facades that look so nice and shiny, the reality is not the same,” she said. “[Rama] doesn’t inspire people anymore, and I think that this brought him to a huge crisis of legitimacy. More and more people are realizing that every day.”

    As the standoff between protesters and the government continues, with neither side backing down, the pink flamingo is likely to remain a defining sight on the streets of Tirana for the foreseeable future.

  • Trump’s new take on 250 years of American expansionism

    Trump’s new take on 250 years of American expansionism

    Two and a half centuries have passed since the United States formally severed political ties with Great Britain to declare its independence. In that time, the young, scattered collection of Atlantic coastal settlements has evolved beyond all recognition into a transcontinental global superpower, but the core cultural and political fractures that marked its earliest days remain embedded in the fabric of modern American life, reshaping contemporary politics from immigration policy to territorial ambition.

    When the first 13 colonies secured independence, their combined territory stretched across just 430,000 square miles (1.1 million square kilometers). Today, that geographic footprint has expanded eightfold to roughly 3.7 million square miles. Population growth has followed an even more staggering trajectory: the 1790 national census counted just 4 million residents (including enslaved people), while the 2025 population estimate puts the total at 343 million – an 8,475% increase over two centuries.

    Even as the nation’s physical and demographic size have exploded, historians trace modern political fault lines directly to the cultural identities that formed in the nation’s earliest years, a split that continues to define the presidency of Donald Trump. Key pledges of his agenda – from strict curbs on immigration to renewed calls for territorial expansion – echo the divisions that existed from the founding era, when heated disagreements over slavery, constitutional governance, and economic systems left the new nation deeply fractured. As Boston College history professor and prominent Substack author Heather Cox Richardson notes, 18th century observers widely predicted the fragile new experiment would collapse on its own: “All we need to do is stay over here and wait till they tear themselves apart and go back and pick them up,” she summarizes the contemporary perspective.

    Colin Woodard, director of the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University, maps these early divides into distinct regional identities that still shape American politics today. The first, what Woodard terms “Yankeeland” across the northern U.S., traces its roots to Puritan settlers fleeing religious persecution in Europe, later reinforced by German and Scandinavian arrivals who cemented a pluralistic cultural outlook. In contrast, the broad mid-continental band of Greater Appalachia was first settled by independent-minded Scots-Irish migrants, whose experience of English oppression left them deeply suspicious of centralized state power. “For them, freedom means maximising the autonomy and freedom of the individual and any growth in the power of government axiomatically means individuals are less free,” Woodard explains, a philosophy directly opposed to Yankee New England’s more communitarian outlook. Further south, the Deep South developed into an oligarchic, hierarchical society built around a landowning elite, many of whom brought the system of chattel slavery with them from Caribbean plantations.

    The young nation nearly doubled in size overnight with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France, and by the 1820s, territorial expansion had pushed the U.S. border all the way to the Pacific Coast via the Oregon Country acquisition. This westward push was ideologically fueled by the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny,” the widespread belief that the U.S. was divinely ordained to expand across the entire North American continent and beyond. This expansion brought competing regional cultures into new conflict: the harsh interior West mirrored Appalachia’s rugged wilderness and attracted similarly individualist settlers, while the Pacific Coast became a battleground between those values and the commercial, more government-friendly culture of transplants from the Northeast.

    These same divides are clearly visible on today’s presidential electoral map. The U.S. Northeast and West Coast remain strongholds of liberal politics, broadly supportive of expanded government involvement in social and economic life, while the South, stretching from Texas to Florida, and the interior West have become the backbone of modern Republican conservatism.

    By the end of the 19th century, large-scale territorial expansion had come to a halt, but demographic growth continued to accelerate, driven almost entirely by successive waves of immigration. “One of the things that really is at the center of the United States of America is immigration,” Richardson says. “The one thing that does link us all is that concept that we can make a future that we want.”

    The first major immigration wave ran from the 1840s to 1889, bringing 14 million primarily northern and western European arrivals to U.S. shores. A second wave from 1890 to the 1920s brought more than 18 million migrants from southern and eastern Europe, and each new influx sparked a fierce nativist backlash, as established residents worried new arrivals would undercut wages and erode existing cultural norms. Restrictive policies soon followed: the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barred all immigration from China, and the 1924 Immigration Act imposed strict national origin quotas that cut overall immigration dramatically enough to create a clear, lasting dip in annual U.S. population growth.

    It was not until the 1960s that these restrictive quotas were lifted, opening the door to the current immigration wave that has reshaped American demography. Since that reform, more than 70 million new immigrants have settled in the U.S., the vast majority from Asia and Latin America, including roughly 18 million from Mexico alone. Data from the Migration Policy Institute shows that by 2024, foreign-born residents made up 14.8% of the U.S. population, matching the all-time historical peak set in 1890, and immigration accounts for 84% of all current U.S. population growth.

    Historically, early 19th and 20th century immigration waves – driven by industrial expansion in the northern states – shifted national political power toward the North. This geographic imbalance intensified sectional tensions: Southern political leaders pushed for continued territorial expansion to add new slave-holding states and maintain their national influence, a conflict that ultimately led to Southern secession and the American Civil War.

    Modern demographic shifts have reversed this historical pattern. Today, large numbers of immigrants and transplants from northern states are relocating to the South, drawn by booming urban economies in Texas and Florida. At the same time, the ongoing crisis of unauthorized migration across the U.S. southern border has stoked widespread cultural and political anxiety, creating the conditions for the resurgence of populist conservatism embodied by Donald Trump’s second presidency.

    Since returning to the White House, Trump has moved quickly to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations of undocumented migrants. He has also openly embraced a nostalgia for 19th century territorial expansion, floating proposals to acquire Greenland, repatriate control of the Panama Canal from Panama, and even annex Canada and Venezuela as new U.S. states. This agenda marks a sharp reversal of the last century of American history: for 150 years after the end of continental expansion, the U.S. shifted focus from growing its territory to gradually opening its borders to broader immigration. Today, Trump has flipped this script, prioritizing new territorial gains while sharply restricting entry to new arrivals.

    Trump and his supporters argue that mass immigration threatens to permanently alter the fundamental character of the American nation, with the former president frequently warning, “We won’t have a country anymore” if current policies continue. Woodard argues this anxiety is not a new, modern phenomenon – it is the latest iteration of a 250-year-old core debate over what it means to be American. “That does not come out of nowhere,” he says. “We have the meta struggle in American history: Are we a civic nation devoted to … a society where every individual human can be equally, universally and sustainably free over time? Or is this a state that belongs to a certain group of people that are the real Americans by blood and descent?”

    In the scope of human history, 250 years is a fleeting moment, barely a blip on the timeline of global civilizations. But for the United States, two and a half centuries have brought transformation unlike almost any other nation on Earth. Even so, the deep-rooted divisions at the nation’s core and the persistent anxiety over its future have remained a constant through every era of growth and change.

  • Argentina and Cape Verde head to extra time at World Cup after ending regulation tied at 1-1

    Argentina and Cape Verde head to extra time at World Cup after ending regulation tied at 1-1

    MIAMI GARDENS, Florida – A dramatic Round of 32 World Cup clash between defending champion Argentina and debutant Cape Verde finished regulation time deadlocked at 1-1 on Friday, forcing the two sides into 30 minutes of additional play to determine who will advance to the tournament’s next stage.

    The match lived up to its underdog billing from the opening whistle, with Argentine talisman Lionel Messi breaking the deadlock in the 29th minute to extend his unprecedented World Cup scoring record. The goal marked Messi’s 20th career World Cup strike, further cementing his status as the competition’s all-time leading top scorer and putting the two-time world champions firmly in control of the fixture.

    But Cape Verde, making their historic first knockout-stage appearance at a men’s World Cup, responded defiantly just before the hour mark. Midfielder Deroy Duarte netted a breathtaking equalizer that silenced the heavily pro-Argentine crowd packing South Florida’s Hard Rock Stadium. The goal, Duarte’s first ever at the senior international level, set the stage for what would go down as one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history if the African underdogs can hold on to secure victory in extra time.

    Regulation time ended with no further goals from either side, triggering the 30-minute extra time period split into two 15-minute halves. Should the scoreline remain level after extra time, the two nations will face a penalty shootout to claim a spot in the World Cup Round of 16.

    Cape Verde’s run at this year’s tournament has already defied all pre-tournament expectations. The tiny island nation, located roughly 350 miles off the western coast of Africa, has turned heads from the group stage onward, becoming the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup knockout round. Under the leadership of veteran 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, Cape Verde secured three shock draws in group play against European powerhouse Spain, South American side Uruguay, and Asian contender Saudi Arabia to advance, a result that almost no analyst outside of the country predicted.

    Vozinha continued his elite form against Argentina on Friday, racking up seven total saves, four of which came against Messi, and has now conceded just three goals across the entire tournament to date.