Salah scores and Egypt downs New Zealand 3-1 for a first World Cup victory

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Egypt’s players danced on the field while their red-clad fans celebrated in the stands. The Pharaohs finally got their first World Cup win.

Mohamed Salah scored the go-ahead goal and Egypt went on to defeat New Zealand 3-1 on Sunday night.

He celebrated his 68th international goal by pumping his fist before he was mobbed by his teammates in the 67th minute. When he was subbed off in the 85th he was treated to a standing ovation by the sellout crowd at BC Place Vancouver.

When it was over, coach Hossam Hassan and an assistant grabbed an Egyptian flag and ran around the field waving it aloft. The fans cheered and sang long after the final whistle.

“I always give my best to the national team," Salah said. “Today I think is a very special day, with our first win in the World Cup.”

Egypt moved to the top of the standings in Group G with the win, but was not yet assured of a spot in the knockout round. The Pharaohs will play a deciding game against Iran on Friday in Seattle, needing at least a draw to advance.

Egypt is making its fourth World Cup appearance after missing the field in Qatar four years ago. Salah scored a pair of goals in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Finn Surman put New Zealand in front in the 15th minute with a flying header off a corner kick delivered by Instagram sensation Tim Payne. It was the third international goal for the 6-foot-3 defender who plays for the Portland Timbers in MLS.

Omar Marmoush dropped a free kick off to Salah in the 35th minute but it went just wide and bent into the side netting and Egypt went into the half down 1-0.

“In between the first and the second half, we said it’s a no-go, we are not going to leave this pitch unless we claim the victory for ourselves, unless we make everyone proud and happy,” Hassan said. “I told them, I told the players, I am not willing to withdraw, I am not willing to go two steps back.”

Egypt turned up the pressure coming out of the half and Mostafa Zico broke through with the equalizer, finding space between Surman and Payne for a header that goalkeeper Max Crocombe got a hand on but couldn’t stop in the 58th minute. Zico celebrated by gesturing for the fans in the crowd to cheer.

Salah took a back-heel pass from Zico for his goal, which puts him just one away from tying his coach for the national team's all-time scoring lead. Trezeguet's diving header wrapped up scoring for Egypt in the 82nd.

Egypt’s Hamdy Fathy was subbed off late in the first half after an apparent injury away from the ball. He was replaced by Ramy Rabia.

In the opener against Belgium, Emam Ashour scored the early goal for Egypt but then Romelu Lukaku subbed into the match and caused chaos in the box, resulting in an own goal for a 1-1 draw.

New Zealand twice took the lead against Iran in their group opener, only to cede it for a 2-2 draw in the end. Elijah Just scored both goals for the All Whites.

New Zealand returns to Vancouver on Friday to face Belgium. The All Whites are still looking for their first World Cup win. But they have not been eliminated yet.

“You just have to believe and be positive,” said veteran Chris Wood. “We're still one win away. We can still go in, beat Belgium and go through. I'm not going to lie, it's going to be very tough.”

Iran and Belgium played to a scoreless draw earlier in the day in Inglewood, California, giving both teams two straight draws at the tournament.

AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup

Egypt's Trezeguet (7) celebrates with Mohamed Salah (10) and Marawan Attia (19) after scoring his side's third goal during the World Cup Group G soccer match between New Zealand and Egypt in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Egypt goalkeeper Mostafa Shoubir (23) allows a goal to New Zealand's Finn Surman, not seen, during the first half of the World Cup Group G soccer match in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

Egypt's Omar Marmoush (22) and New Zealand's Finn Surman, right, vie for the ball during the first half of a World Cup Group G soccer match in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP)

Egypt players celebrate after Mohamed Salah (10) scored his side's second goal during the World Cup Group G soccer match between New Zealand and Egypt in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Egypt's Trezeguet (7) celebrates with Mohamed Salah (10) and Marawan Attia (19) after scoring his side's third goal during the World Cup Group G soccer match between New Zealand and Egypt in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Egypt's Mohamed Salah (10) celebrates his goal with teammate Mostafa Ziko (11) during the World Cup Group G soccer match in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Jim Mustian reported and co-wrote an Associated Press story that revealed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to be distributed in New Mexico as part of an effort to build bigger federal prosecutions.

Mustian, along with AP journalist Joshua Goodman, reviewed hundreds of internal DEA records and interviewed current and former agents, including a whistleblower who claims his agency gambled with public safety and violated U.S. Justice Department rules about seizing the dangerous synthetic opioid. The White House last year designated fentanyl as a “ weapon of mass destruction.”

This is an interview of Mustian by Del Quentin Wilber, who edited the story.

Goodman, my AP colleague, first spotted the whistleblower complaint accusing the DEA of allowing fentanyl to hit the streets of New Mexico. The report was sent to the White House in September but escaped media attention at the time.

As government records often go, it was heavily redacted to shield not only the whistleblower’s identity but the amount of fentanyl that was not seized.

There was a critical oversight in the government’s redactions. I noticed that the whistleblower’s name ended in an “l” — a single letter that, for some reason, was missed by the black marker.

I sent a flurry of messages on LinkedIn to DEA agents whose named ended in “l” and had worked in Albuquerque. One afternoon in March, I was at my desk when I received a response from an agent who connected me to the whistleblower, David Howell. A couple weeks later I flew to New Mexico and met with Howell.

The simple answer: the sheer potency and lethality of fentanyl. In its “One Pill Can Kill” campaign, the DEA warns that just a couple of grams — an amount that would fit on the tip of a pencil — is enough to kill the average adult. Nowadays with fentanyl, we’re usually talking about counterfeit pills designed to mimic name-brand painkillers. The pills are almost always manufactured by cartels in Mexican labs and contain an unknown amount of fentanyl.

Our reporting highlighted the example of a 2023 fentanyl shipment that DEA agents monitored — but did not seize — at an Albuquerque mobile home park. Agents gathered such detailed intelligence that they wrote in their investigative report that 74,000 pills had been delivered. Howell told me that decision, which came as fatal overdoses hit their peak around the country, was akin to “providing one fentanyl pill to each person at a football stadium.”

Federal officials defended the decision to not seize the drugs.

Alex Uballez, the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque at the time, acknowledged that authorities sometimes “walk" drugs in the name of catching an ultimately “bigger fish” — an approach he said saves more lives than attempting to interdict every shipment.

The DEA said in a statement that “public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.” Spokesperson Amanda Wozniak wrote in an email that “the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.”

This story highlights the enormous gulf between what law enforcement does with taxpayer resources and what the public knows — or is supposed to know — about those activities. That’s true even in something as consequential as the drug war. Federal agents enjoy enormous discretion and make decisions every day that affect public safety.

In many instances, the government asks us to simply trust it’s doing the right thing. Indeed, the records we uncovered would not have been released under the Freedom of Information Act. These records and interviews with Howell revealed the complexity of these investigations that we rarely see. Even as Howell’s complaint was raising serious concerns about allowing fentanyl to reach drug users, DOJ rewrote its non-public rules to afford law enforcement more discretion in deciding whether to seize the deadly painkiller.

Howell, a 19-year veteran of DEA, filed a formal whistleblower in late 2023 with the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency that protects whistleblowers. He submitted DEA reports, emails and text messages, including one in which colleagues discussed a 100,000-pill transaction they witnessed but chose not to stop.

The OSC was initially so concerned that it found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” and took the unusual step of asking the Justice Department to investigate.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, a kind of internal affairs office, found in 2024 that the DEA and U.S. attorney’s office had made reasonable decisions in deciding to allow drugs to go unseized and that their inaction posed no “specific danger to public health.”

Howell and other critics said internal investigators overlooked the question of whether DEA permitted massive amounts of fentanyl to hit the streets.

The tallest building in downtown Albuquerque, N.M., which houses the U.S. attorney's office, is seen beyond a chain link fence on Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

DEA Special Agent David Howell, who filed a whistleblower complaint, stands outside the U.S. district courthouse in Albuquerque, N.M., on Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

DEA Special Agent David Howell, who filed a whistleblower complaint, poses for a portrait outside the U.S. district courthouse in Albuquerque, N.M., on Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

This photo provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration shows pills containing fentanyl which were seized by the DEA in New Mexico, on April 28, 2025. (DEA via AP)