The Gaudy, Nasty Fictions of Donald J. Trump

© Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

© Stephen Maturen/Getty Images








Múte B. Egede, Greenland’s deputy prime minister, said more soldiers were expected in the coming days
Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has responded to last night’s “not easy” meeting with US representatives in Washington, warning that “there is a fundamental disagreement” over “the American ambition to take over Greenland.”
In a post on Facebook, Frederiksen stressed the Danish government would “continue our efforts to prevent this scenario from becoming a reality.”
The defence and protection of Greenland is a common concern for the entire Nato alliance.
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© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

Australian Taylah Preston, world No 204, wins 6-2, 6-4
Raducanu could face Sabalenka early in Melbourne
Emma Raducanu ended her preparations for the Australian Open with a miserable 6-2, 6-4 defeat by Taylah Preston, a 20-year-old Australian wildcard, in the quarter-finals of the Hobart international.
As the top seed in Hobart, a small WTA 250 tournament, Raducanu had entered the tournament with a real opportunity to compete for an elusive second career WTA title since her win at the US Open more than four years ago. Instead, the challenging rainy conditions were seemingly all it took to unsettle the Briton, who put in a dismal performance on Thursday evening. Her defeat against Preston, the WTA No 204, is her fourth-worst defeat by ranking since 2021.
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© Photograph: Steve Bell/Getty Images

© Photograph: Steve Bell/Getty Images

© Photograph: Steve Bell/Getty Images














Moscow’s allegation that unnamed diplomat is affiliated with UK secret service comes ‘out of desperation’, Foreign Office says
A British diplomat has been expelled from Russia over what the UK Foreign Office described as “malicious and baseless accusations” of being a spy.
The diplomat, who was not named, had two weeks to leave the country, the Russian foreign ministry said after it received information “regarding the affiliation of a diplomatic employee at the embassy with the British secret service”.
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© Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images











Martin Freeman does his best to lift this three-parter, but it feels like Enid Blyton – made for an international market that thinks Paddington Bear is holding the queen’s hand in heaven
‘Tis the season, just, for your annual Agatha Christie. In recent years, the adaptations have been infused with the grief and instability of the postwar backdrop against which they all exist, and been given rich, dark, adult inflections by Sarah Phelps for the BBC.
The latest, however, is for Netflix by Chris Chibnall and we are back in the world of period costume, clipped vowels and dialogue infused with nothing but plot, designed to get the puzzle pieces recited into the right position for the next bit then the next bit then the solve – this time at the end of three very hour-long episodes.
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© Photograph: Netflix

© Photograph: Netflix

© Photograph: Netflix

Margaret says her daughter didn’t pay the airport charge, so it’s on her. Georgie says this cock up is all her mum’s doing. You decide who got them into this fine mess
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror
We dropped Georgia off in her own car and she didn’t pay the drop-off fee, so the fine is hers
I didn’t know you had to pay for drop-off. Mum knew and didn’t tell me, so she should help pay
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© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian
Critics and curators are reframing great artists, from Gentileschi to Soutine, to fit with modern ethical narratives. But this ignores the glorious ambivalence of their creations
One rainy afternoon last winter, sitting under a blanket with a cup of tea, I found myself Googling paintings by Chaïm Soutine. It’s a pastime I’ve indulged ever since visiting an exhibition of his portraits of hotel staff on the French Riviera during the 1920s – paintings that combine such a mixture of tenderness and debasement that it’s as if his brush is kissing and beating his subjects at the same time.
I flicked through images of hopelessly innocent cooks and bellboys, with complexions the colour of raw sausage and ears that look as if they have been brutally yanked. And as I did, I came across a review of the very show where I had first encountered Soutine’s works. Ah, I thought, looking forward to luxuriating in literature about his particular genius for kindly sadism.
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© Illustration: Alamy

© Illustration: Alamy

© Illustration: Alamy