She said that the US shift away from Europe is a “long term” process and the bloc needs to urgently adapt Norway’s Støre also spoke about the need to strengthen the European security by investing with other European partners – and the changing nature of Europe’s alliance with the US. In a pointed rebuke to Trump’s recent criticism of Nato saying: “When I met President Trump [for the] first time I … looked him in the eyes and said: it’s important for a Norwegian prime minister to look a US president in the eyes and say: 100 km from my border is the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and it is not directed against me, but against you. It makes a difference that we monitor those submarines. We know when they leave port, we know when they test their new weapon systems and we share it with you and we collaborate … on monitoring that. Continue reading...

Ric Roman Waugh’s predictable plot redeemed by fight choreography as Statham faces up to Bill Nighy, and casting of young Hamnet actor Bodhi Rae Breathnach Say what you like about Jason Statham, but he definitely knows his fanbase and gives them what they want. In his latest vehicle, he is back playing a former armed-forces operative haunted by his violent past who is compelled to take up weaponry again. This is basically the setup for the Transporter franchise in which he starred, many more works featuring Statham and, to be frank, most action movies, which are (let’s face it) basically variations on Achilles sulking in his tent in the Iliad until he is forced to fight once more. There is nothing new under the sun. Shelter, formulaically directed by Ric Roman Waugh (Greenland) working from a script by Ward Parry (The Shattering), feels populated by indestructible plastic tropes that have cracked and faded after years of scorching sun exposure. Statham plays Mason, once a special-forces super soldier with secrets who is first met hiding on a remote island in the Outer Hebrides, with only goodest boy German shepherd Jack for company. Fans of the John Wick franchise will immediately feel anxious about Jack’s future – although if you’ve seen Leon: The Professional you probably won’t feel so worried about young Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), an orphaned girl whom Mason takes under his wing when her only relative, her uncle, is killed in a boating accident. That little spark of kindness triggers MI6 to track Mason down, having first falsely identified him as a terrorist, and then sending assassins to kill him all of whom he swats away like so many flies. Continue reading...

With some of Ukraine’s most valuable biodiversity sites and science facilities under occupation, experts at Sofiyivka Park in Uman are struggling to preserve the country’s natural history In the basement laboratory of the National Dendrological Park Sofiyivka, Larisa Kolder tends to dozens of specimens of Moehringia hypanica between power outages. Just months earlier, she and her team at this microclonal plant propagation laboratory in Uman, Ukraine, received 23 seeds of the rare flower. Listed as threatened in Ukraine’s Red Book of endangered species, Moehringia grows nowhere else in the wild but the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine. Of those 23 seeds, only two grew into plants that Kolder and her colleagues could clone in their laboratory, but now her lab is home to a small grove of Moehringia seedlings, including 80 that have put down roots in a small but vital win for biodiversity conservation amid Russia’s war with Ukraine. Continue reading...

Polish director-writer Michal Grzybowski’s film has inspired flashes, but mostly eschews humour for a drearier take on the intertwining of stage and life The play’s the thing in this tepid Polish comedy-drama that catches the conjugal complications of its protagonist. Self-righteous theatre actor Marcin (Łukasz Simlat), is mid-run playing Captain Hook in a production of Peter Pan. His terminally unhappy wife Ola (Agnieszka Duleba-Kasza) announces she is off; then, as their argument spills into the theatre wings where she is playing Tinkerbell, she reveals that she previously slept with someone else. Ziemovit/Peter Pan (Dobromir Dymecki) looks sheepish – before being opportunely hoisted out of reach on wires. A few months down the line, Marcin is essaying Torvald in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House opposite his new love Ewa (Wiktoria Filus) as Nora. But when she falls down a trapdoor, guess who is substituted into the role? The tension is ratcheted up when Marcin and Ola once again find themselves leading the bill as sparring Oberon and Titania, in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on which their company’s future rests. Continue reading...

No deal on table for left-back after respectful discussions Arsenal in talks to sign Barcelona full-back Ona Batlle Katie McCabe is likely to leave Arsenal when her contract expires this summer, with no new deal on the table after what sources have described as “very respectful discussions” about her future. Arsenal regard McCabe as a club legend, the left-back having been there for just over 10 years and helped them become world and European champions, but they plan to refresh this summer with younger players. Continue reading...

⚽ Transfer interactive: deals from Europe’s top five leagues ⚽ 7pm GMT deadline | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Daniel Similar is so of Manchester United. They couldn’t get the midfielders they wanted – data systems, scouts and a DoF came up with Carlos Baleba, Elliot Anderson and Adam Wharton, incredible knowhow – so sorted the front of the team. And guess what? It’s working. We’ve said this before, over more than a decade now, but surely this is the summer they finally fill the hole that’s been in the middle of the pitch since before Fergie left. It’s strange, really, that Liverpool spent so much money on forwards last summer, the part of their team that was working, and ignored the midfield and defence, which were not. I guess the way they’ll see it now is that they’re sticked in attack for the next few years – if Isak can stay fit and Wirtz get used to the physicality of the league, and not everything going through him – and they’ve now started overhauling the rest of the squad. Continue reading...

João Pedro stepping up for Rosenior, Arsenal frontmen show their teeth and stretched Liverpool are fighting on João Pedro is enjoying life under Liam Rosenior. The versatile Brazil forward was excellent after coming on at half-time against West Ham. João Pedro, who has five goals in his last five games, helped Chelsea complete their comeback from 2-0 down by scoring his side’s first and then creating Enzo Fernandez’s stoppage-time winner. Chelsea chose well when they beat Newcastle to the signing of the 24-year-old from Brighton last summer. João Pedro was excellent at the Club World Cup, but despite dealing with fitness issues has still has 12 goals in all competitions this season. Capable of playing as either a No 9 or a No 10, the Brazilian was important for Enzo Maresca but has improved since the Italian’s departure. “I’ve had very, very good conversations with him already, probably four in my office,” Rosenior said last week. “I think he’s sick of my office, where I’ve said to him ‘If you play with intensity with your quality, the quality comes out’.” Jacob Steinberg Continue reading...

Going beyond the well-worn stories of division, the Irish photographer depicts young people trying to live normally in the shadow of violence When riots broke out in Belfast in 2021 between mainly young loyalists and republicans, Irish photographer Hazel Gaskin asked herself: why does the world only see Belfast’s young people through stories of tension, division and violence? So, in the wake of the riots, she spent four years visiting the city, documenting youth clubs, boxing gyms, dance groups and teenagers hanging out on the street. “I learned these kids are just being normal teenagers,” says Gaskin. “There are experiences that are different – they come from areas with a lot of historic violence. But people are going about their everyday life. It’s very normal.” The photos in her new book Breathing Land (the title lifted from a line in Seamus Heaney’s poem Tate’s Avenue) were taken across Belfast, including Alliance Avenue in north Belfast, and between the nationalist Falls Road and unionist Shankill Road in west Belfast. She mainly focused on less affluent areas, where peace walls and peace gates still separate communities. Continue reading...

Core X programme is working to lift match officials from underrepresented communities into the professional game “If you can’t manage personalities on the field and you can’t articulate your decisions, refereeing might not be for you,” says Dan Meeson, Professional Game Match Officials’ development director. We are in the cafe area of the Burleigh Court hotel, tucked away on Loughborough University’s campus, where a promising group of officials are being put through their paces by the elite refereeing body as they try to reach the top level. The 29-strong group forms part of the Core X programme, designed to elevate into the professional game match officials from historically underrepresented ethnic communities who operate at semi-professional level. The programme, launched in 2023, runs in collaboration with the Football Association and is supported by the advocacy group Bamref. It accounts for more than three‑quarters of Black, Asian and mixed-heritage referee promotions into the professional game. Continue reading...

Warm, funny and heartbreaking, The President’s Cake tells the story of a brutal ruler and a girl forced to make him a present in a time of sanctions-induced hardship. Its Iraqi director Hasan Hadi remembers his own fearful childhood There were no cinemas in Iraq in the 1990s, when Hasan Hadi was growing up under Saddam Hussein’s regime. But he still managed to fall in love with films – after a family member roped him into helping her distribute VHS tapes of banned foreign movies. “I was a kid,” says the 37-year-old, “so no one would suspect me of smuggling. I’d put the tapes up my shirt or in my bag.” Hadi started secretly watching the films, too, everything from Bruce Lee to Tarkovsky. At night, he crept into the living room after everyone had gone to bed, keeping the volume low in case his family woke up. Continue reading...

Waymo’s cars were first rolled out in San Francisco, but the English capital’s old roads, pelican crossings and jaywalkers may pose issues for AI At the end of the 19th century, the world’s major cities had a problem. The streets were flooded with manure, the unintended consequence of dependence on horses as the major form of transport. In this sea of filth, the infant car industry smelled an opportunity. The Horseless Age, a US car magazine, claimed in 1896 that, with the spread of motorcars, “streets will be cleaner, jams and blockades less likely to occur, and accidents less frequent, for the horse is not so manageable as a mechanical vehicle”. The streets did eventually become cleaner, but not safer. Cars brought huge benefits to society, but also huge challenges. By the end of the 20th century, cars and motorbikes were implicated in more than a million deaths a year around the world, as well as contributing to pollution and suburban sprawl. This story is often told to show that the inevitable march of innovation brings both solutions and problems. However, there was nothing inevitable about US cities becoming dominated by cars. As the historian Peter Norton describes in his book Fighting Traffic, it was a direct result of lobbying by the US car industry. It campaigned for the removal of public transport, the banning of jaywalking and the redesign of streets. The advent of the car in the US is a useful cautionary tale as we consider the introduction of self-driving cars into our lives – especially in the UK. Jack Stilgoe is a professor in science and technology studies at University College London Continue reading...

From a golden goal on ice, to Eve Muirhead’s redemption moment and more, here are half a dozen Winter Games classics The greatest show on Canadian ice, and it boiled down to overtime. For the Canada team, stacked with NHL talent, the pressure was immense; a loss in this high-profile final might have soured the entire 2010 Olympics. A rivalry with the USA that, on paper, has been largely one-sided – Canada’s men’s ice hockey dynasty has long reigned supreme – suddenly felt terrifyingly and gloriously level. The USA, refusing to be a footnote, had clawed back a 2-0 deficit in the men’s gold-medal game with Zach Parise snatching an equaliser in the dying seconds. Then, seven minutes into sudden-death overtime, the 22-year-old Sidney Crosby, a man built for the biggest moments, slipped the puck between Ryan Miller’s pads with a flick of his wrist. A gold-medal-winning goal, for ever immortalised as “The Golden Goal” and considered an iconic moment in Canadian sports history. Continue reading...

Caffeine can improve the digestive system and lead to better gut health, but try to avoid it after noon or if you have irritable bowels Is sipping a coffee after a heavy meal actually good for helping you digest it? “For some people, absolutely,” says Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King’s College London. “But it’s not always a good idea.” Caffeine stimulates the gut, increasing muscle contractions, she says, which for many people helps food move through the digestive system “at a nice pace” before being excreted. Continue reading...

Rafah crossing in the south, which has largely been closed since May 2024, has reopened for those travelling on foot Earlier, an Israeli defence official said the crossing could hold between 150 and 200 people altogether in both directions. There would be more people leaving than returning because patients left together with escorts, the official added. Lists of people due to pass through the crossing had been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said. Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of the US president Donald Trump’s plan to end the conflict. But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence. Continue reading...

Actor says he has struggled with the backlash to his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in the new Harry Potter show, and says books are about ‘kindness versus cruelty’ John Lithgow has called JK Rowling’s views on transgender rights “ironic and inexplicable”, saying that backlash to his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter series “upsets me”. Speaking on stage at Rotterdam film festival after a screening of his latest film, Jimpa, the 80-year-old actor was asked about how he felt about Rowling’s views. Rowling serves as an executive producer on the upcoming series, which is being produced by HBO and will be one of the most expensively produced television shows of all time. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Platinum has slumped by 10% this morning to $1,945 an ounce – last week it hit a record $2,918/oz, before plunging on Friday. The US dollar is strengthening against some rival currencies today. The US dollar has been better bid since Friday, with the dollar index rebounding around 1% off four-year lows following news that the Federal Reserve may have a new Chair. Kevin Warsh was chosen to be the next Fed President and will replace Jerome Powell if confirmed. Continue reading...

Puzzles one louder than ten It’s two decimal digits long, it’s prime, it’s a palindrome and it’s the number of players in a football team. Let’s hear it for “legs” eleven! Continue reading...

This funny and subversive novel reckons with life under martial law in late-70s Pakistan Mohammed Hanif’s novels address the more troubling aspects of Pakistani history and politics with unhinged, near-treasonous irreverence. His 2008 Booker-longlisted debut, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was a scabrously comic portrait of General Zia-ul-Haq in the days leading up to his death in a suspicious plane crash in 1988. Masquerading as a whodunnit, it was a satire of religiosity and military authoritarianism. Dark, irony-soaked comedy that marries farce to unsparing truth-telling was also the chosen mode for other vexed subjects, from violence against women and religious minorities in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti to the war machine in Red Birds. Hanif’s prickly new novel confirms his standing as one of south Asia’s most unnervingly funny and subversive voices. The story kicks off right after ousted socialist PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is put to death by army chief turned autocrat Zia. Following the execution, disgraced intelligence officer Gul has been posted to OK Town, a sleepy backwater where he “would need to create his own entertainment and come up with a mission to shine on this punishment posting”. Continue reading...

OpenClaw is billed as ‘the AI that actually does things’ and needs almost no input to potentially wreak havoc A new viral AI personal assistant will handle your email inbox, trade away your entire stock portfolio and text your wife “good morning” and “goodnight” on your behalf. OpenClaw, formerly known as Moltbot, and before that known as Clawdbot (until the AI firm Anthropic requested it rebrand due to similarities with its own product Claude), bills itself as “the AI that actually does things”: a personal assistant that takes instructions via messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram. Continue reading...

From Lord of Winterfell to lover of ornithology, the actor reveals his lifelong love of birding as host of a hugely listenable RSPB podcast. Plus, a gripping investigation into the police On the face of it, the RSPB picking Ned Stark as the host of the new series of their podcast seems odd. But it turns out he’s been a birder since childhood, who crams in birdwatching between acting gigs. He’s warm and honest in his first podcast, chatting to fellow ornithology lover Elbow’s Guy Garvey about spotting different species while working abroad, recognising bird song and the meditative joy of watching the feathered creatures. Alexi Duggins Widely available, episodes fortnightly Continue reading...

Ahead of a major exhibition in London documenting the South American wetland as it faces unprecedented threat, Lalo de Almeida recounts the stories behind his award-winning images Lalo de Almeida is a documentary photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2021 his photo essay Pantanal Ablaze was awarded first place in the environment stories category at the World Press Photo contest. In 2022, he won the Eugene Smith grant in humanistic photography and World Press Photo’s long-term project award for his work Amazonian Dystopia, which documents the exploitation of the world’s largest tropical forest. I have been photographing socio-environmental issues for more than 30 years, especially in the Amazon. 2020 was no different. News of the uncontrolled fires devastating the Pantanal began to catch my attention. So, together with a fellow journalist, I decided to go and see what was happening for myself. Continue reading...

We have now lost £22,000 and now can’t afford to book a new date for the ceremony Two days before my wedding last May, my 23-year-old brother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and underwent emergency surgery. I had bought cancellation cover 18 months previously from The Insurance Emporium (TIE) and immediately submitted a claim as we cancelled the wedding. Continue reading...

In this freewheeling film Lana Daher draws from more than 20,000 hours of archival footage to channel the resilient spirit of Beirut As freewheeling as a travelogue, Lana Daher’s mercurial documentary eschews talking heads and voiceover, drawing instead from more than 20,000 hours of archival footage to channel the resilient spirit of Beirut. Reflecting the non-linear movement of history, the film abandons chronology, zigzagging between disparate events, film clips and newsreels, TV programmes and home videos. Rich with a sense of play as well as melancholy, this stylistic approach conjures the precarity of life in the Lebanese capital. Moments of everyday joy – a wedding celebration, a family outing – are interspersed with startling images of hollowed-out buildings and bombed cars. Here, war seems never-ending and peace is fragile. The film resurrects painful sociopolitical chapters, including the brutal 15-year Lebanese civil war and Israel’s repeated invasions of the country, yet also makes room for gentle humour and beauty. There’s also a deliberate emphasis on popular culture, with the inclusion of hit pop songs; one particularly exhilarating section is set to Dalida’s classic disco track Laissez-Moi Danser, played over dancing scenes both fictional and real. The sequence is immediately followed by a shot of a garbage dump, a stark reminder of reality; off kilter as it is, this tongue-in-cheek edit feels like an ode to the collective courage of Lebanese people. Amid the wartime upheavals, the music goes on. Continue reading...

In a city packed with bakeries, how do you find the best? I risked tooth decay to track down the quintessential blend of crisp pastry, an oozy centre and sugary cinnamon Open sandwiches (smørrebrød), meatballs (frikadeller), crispy pork belly (stegt flæsk) … There are many must-eat dishes for food lovers visiting Denmark, though perhaps nothing springs to mind as readily as the Danish pastry. But how are you supposed to choose from the countless bakeries on offer? And once you have decided which to visit, which pastry to eat? As a long-term resident of Copenhagen and pastry obsessive, I took on the Guardian’s challenge to find the best Danish pastry in town. Let’s get started with the shocking fact that Danish pastries are not actually Danish. In Denmark they’re called wienerbrød (Viennese bread) and made using a laminated dough technique that originated in Vienna. There’s also no such thing as a “Danish” in Denmark – there are so many different types of pastry that the word loses meaning. What we know as a Danish is a spandauer – a round pastry with a folded border and a circle of yellowy custard in the middle. Then there’s the tebirkes, a folded pastry often with a baked marzipan-style centre and poppy seeds on the top; a frøsnapper, a twist of pastry dusted with poppy seeds; and a snegl, which translates as “snail” but is known as a cinnamon swirl in English. Continue reading...

They helped to jail the man who physically and emotionally abused them. Plus, is this the most chaotic episode of Industry yet? Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, BBC Two “He was the sun; I just, like, revolved round him.” In a sensitive documentary, four incredibly brave young women – Jenni, Natalie, Shannon and Robyn – talk about a man they all encountered. He was placed on the sex offender register, twice, then began a web of physically and mentally abusive relationships that led to multiple pregnancies, as well as affairs. But his victims eventually spoke out and brought him to justice. Hollie Richardson Continue reading...