Australia and New Zealand win their first World Cup matches

The first matches of the Women’s World Cup showcased the growth and promise of women’s soccer — but also some of the sport’s persistent challenges.

The co-host countries each began the tournament with 1-0 wins. New Zealand beat Norway in front of the biggest crowd ever to see a women’s soccer game in the country. “We put so much pressure on ourselves because it wasn’t just about winning a game, it was about inspiring our entire country,” Ali Riley, the New Zealand team captain, said.

Australia then beat Ireland despite the absence of its biggest star, Sam Kerr, who was injured the night before the match. She will miss at least two games, the team announced. The tournament has been marred by knee injuries that have sidelined almost a dozen top players.

New Zealand shooting: Hours before the World Cup started, a gunman killed two people at a construction site about three miles from the stadium in Auckland. The gunman was also killed, the police said.

Looking ahead: The U.S., the two-time defending champion, will face Vietnam, which is playing in its first Women’s World Cup.

Here’s a schedule and a scorecard.

For more: Sign up for our daily newsletter briefing from the competition, and listen to a podcast from The Athletic.

Iraqi protesters set fire to Sweden’s embassy

Hundreds of protesters stormed Sweden’s embassy in Baghdad yesterday morning, setting fire to parts of it. (Here’s a video.) The unrest was the latest to ripple from a protest last month in Stockholm, where an Iraqi refugee tore up and burned a Quran outside the central mosque on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Sweden said no embassy staff were harmed. Later in the day, two protesters outside Iraq’s embassy in Stockholm kicked around copies of the Quran and stomped on a replica of Iraq’s flag. In response, Iraq severed diplomatic relations.

Details: Yesterday’s protest was staged at the urging of Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential Shiite cleric, who said that Sweden was “hostile” to Islam.

Free speech? Sweden has struggled with whether to allow protests involving the burning of the Quran, which have heightened diplomatic tensions during the country’s bid to join NATO.

Assault video highlights India’s ethnic conflicts

A violent video went viral in India on Wednesday, bringing renewed attention to bloody ethnic clashes in the northeastern state of Manipur, where two communities have essentially been at war over access to government benefits.

In the video, two women were assaulted and paraded naked down a street by a mob. It took more than two months for word of the shocking sexual assault to spread, partly because the internet in the region had been shut down — an increasingly common tactic used to restrict the flow of information in India.

The assault shocked the nation, further inflamed tensions and brought renewed attention to a conflict that has left more than 130 people dead and over 35,000 displaced. It also led to Prime Minister Narendra Modi making his first public comments about what he called a “shameful incident.”

Details: The mob raped one woman and killed her brother as he tried to protect her, according to a police complaint. Many in the mob were Meitei people, who form a narrow majority in Manipur. The victims were from a community of people known as Kukis.

THE LATEST NEWS

The War in Ukraine

Russia attacked the port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv as it takes apparent aim at Ukraine’s grain exporting infrastructure. Wheat prices have risen to 13 percent since Monday.

Belarus said Wagner fighters there were training troops near the Polish border, which could increase tensions in an already volatile area.

Climate

For Europe’s isolated elderly population, heat is the new Covid. If you’re over 65, you’re at higher risk from heat. Here are tips to stay safe.

Germany, which once sneered at the practice of midday naps to beat the heat, is reconsidering the siesta.

China’s heat wave is deepening its addiction to coal-burning power plants.

Our Climate Forward newsletter looks at how extreme heat affects workers and the economy.

Asia Pacific

North Korea has been silent about the U.S. soldier who fled across its border, but if he’s seen as a defector, he may be welcomed into the country.

In Beijing, Xi Jinping, China’s leader, personally welcomed Henry Kissinger, calling the former U.S. secretary of state an “old friend.”

Around the World

At least 31 people have been killed in recent weeks in anti-government protests in Kenya.

After Tunisia signed a deal with the E.U. to tighten its borders, it pushed African migrants to scorching no-man’s lands with little food and water.

Caroline Ellison, a leader in Sam Bankman-Fried’s business empire, kept private Google documents that reveal new information about the downfall of FTX.

The Week in Culture

The British Open started yesterday. Here are five golfers to watch.

Police officers in Las Vegas searched a home in connection with the unsolved killing of the rapper Tupac Shakur.

Americans are loving New Zealand’s fruit-rich ice cream — with lots of sprinkles and drizzles added.

Shelby White served as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 33 years and gave the museum major gifts. But her artifacts may have been looted.

Archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered a hidden Maya city.

A Morning Read

Golden retrievers and their human fans come to the Scottish Highlands every five years to celebrate the breed’s founding. This year’s gathering was the largest yet: 488 dogs showed up.

One man, whose last golden had just died, made the trip anyway. “I’m an addict,” he said, “and this is where I come to get me fix.”

Lives lived: Dermot Doran, an Irish priest, was a linchpin of the 1968 Biafran airlift in Nigeria, one of history’s largest civilian humanitarian efforts. He died at 88.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Barbenheimer is here: Brace yourself

The moment is finally upon us, moviegoers: In one corner, we have “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s three-hour biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb.” In the other, we have “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s Day-Glo feminist-magical realist take on Mattel IP.

Our critic, Manohla Dargis, reviewed them both. She found Christopher Nolan’s complex, vivid portrait of Oppenheimer to be a brilliant achievement in formal and conceptual terms. And Gerwig figures out “Barbie,” Manohla writes, by “vibing on joy, tapping into nostalgia, and, for the most part, dodging the thorny contradictions and the criticisms that cling to the doll.”

Hype aside, the real test is the box office: Both films open in the U.S. today. The toy-based comedy is expected to draw $100 million this weekend, and the biopic about half that. How do you choose between these two chisel-cheeked midcentury marvels? Take our quiz.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

This cucumber salad with roasted peanuts is easy to make, but far from basic.

What to Watch

The second season of “Creamerie,” an apocalyptic comedy series from New Zealand, is full of violent payback and raunchy wit.

Where to Go

Copenhagen brims with innovative design, creative food and stunning architecture. Here’s how to spend a weekend in the Danish capital.

Now Time to Play

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Beam of sunlight (three letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Enjoy your weekend! — Amelia

P.S. Natasha Frost, who does not speak Yiddish, wrote about the joys and challenges of reporting on a Yiddish-only gathering outside Melbourne, Australia.

“The Daily” is about extreme heat in Arizona.

We’d like your feedback! Write to us at [email protected].

Amelia Nierenberg writes the Asia Pacific Morning Briefing for The Times. More about Amelia Nierenberg

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