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‘A violation of our history’: Palestinian uproar over Israel’s plan to seize historic West Bank site

Residents of Sebastia say heritage project is pretext for massive land grab and expansion of Jewish settlements

The Byzantine-era church lies half hidden in the shade. Roman columns rise from among the olive trees, even older ruins linked to Israelite kings are overgrown. To the west, the Mediterranean is just visible on the horizon. To the north and south, rise the hills of the occupied West Bank.

In the small town of Sebastia, a hundred metres or less east of the ruins, everyone is very worried.

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© Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian

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Meryl Streep is as withering as ever in first full-length trailer for Devil Wears Prada 2

Promo for the much-anticipated sequel, in which Streep is reunited with Stanley Tucci, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt, clocks up 2.5m views in eight hours

The first full-length trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 has been released, and given more details on David Frankel’s hotly anticipated follow-up. In the promo, Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly and her right-hand man Nigel, played by Stanley Tucci, are seen reuniting with Anne Hathaway’s Andy and, later, Emily Blunt’s Emily.

Priestly remembers neither, nor even her habit of referring to all her fashion magazine assistants as Emily – presumably on account of her withering alpha-editor status rather than, say, dementia.

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© Photograph: 20th Century Studios

© Photograph: 20th Century Studios

© Photograph: 20th Century Studios

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Anti-ICE protests, brilliance by Bieber and the Dalai Lama’s first win: the 10 biggest moments at the 2026 Grammys

From the Cure winning their first Grammys to a posthumous award for Chick Corea, it was a night of heartening wins and robust politics
Grammy awards 2026: list of winners

There are arguments to be made about the efficacy or not of celebs making political statements at awards ceremonies – some might say it is just as impotent as celebrities endorsing US presidential candidates. In the case of last night’s Grammys, we hardly need musicians to reiterate that what ICE is doing is morally reprehensible. And yet the sheer force and variety of these statements was bracing, making it clear that the issue should remain paramount in any context.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

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Hold on to Her review – horrific death of a two-year-old puts immigration crackdown in spotlight

Robin Vanbiesen’s documentary uses the killing of Mawda Shawri in Belgium as the starting point to explore the dehumanising machinery of border policy

Here is an insightful but perhaps over oblique Belgian documentary that sets itself an ambitious goal: to expose the hidden infrastructure of state coercion that supports European migration policy, even down to the point of using reductive language such as “immigrant”. It arrives at these abstractions via the horrific story of the 2018 killing of Mawda Shawri, a two-year-old German-born Iraqi Kurd shot during a bungled border control raid on the van she was travelling in with her parents.

Director Robin Vanbiesen reveals this tragedy through documents and testimony read out for the audience of activists seen here. The infant’s body is dumped in a bin bag by the presiding officers, and her parents, Phrast and Shamden, refused access; the lies of the police, who played to the myth of immigrant barbarity by claiming Mawda had been thrown on to the highway by her fellow passengers; the justice system closing ranks by putting the onus of responsibility on the van driver for dangerous conduct that supposedly forced the police officer to fire.

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© Photograph: True Story

© Photograph: True Story

© Photograph: True Story

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Co-writer of Oscar-nominated film It Was Just an Accident arrested in Iran

Mehdi Mahmoudian detained after signing statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader for recent bloodshed

A co-writer of Oscar-nominated film It Was Just an Accident has been arrested in Tehran just weeks before the Academy Awards, after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, for recent bloodshed in the country.

The human rights campaigner Mehdi Mahmoudian was detained on Saturday after adding his name to a statement declaring that “the primary responsibility for these atrocities lies with Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, and the repressive structure of the regime”.

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

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Poem of the week: The Secret Day by Stella Benson

Writing towards the end of the first world war, the poet, novelist, journalist and suffragist Benson here dreams of a secure peace

The Secret Day

My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired,
And now tomorrow comes and beats upon the door;
So I have built To-day, the day that I desired,
Lest joy come not again, lest peace return no more,
Lest comfort come no more.

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© Photograph: Helen Dixon/Alamy

© Photograph: Helen Dixon/Alamy

© Photograph: Helen Dixon/Alamy

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‘Endlessly quotable’: why Wayne’s World is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most rewatched comfort films is a trip back to 1992 for the unique rock comedy

When the conversation of the most overrated band in history crops up I often want to put Queen forward as my suggestion. Their omnipresent hits represent the worst of bands who favour stadium-sized grandeur over true ambition. However, I can never truly get behind the idea of trashing Freddie and co when their music helped create one of my most beloved scenes in cinema history.

Early in 1992’s Wayne’s World, a bunch of rockers squeeze into an AMC Pacer with custom flames painted on the side. As they drive past the automarts, car washes and beef stands of downtown Chicago, Bohemian Rhapsody plays on the car stereo. The song’s operatic verses are used for laughs (the “Let me go” line becomes a cry for help from a friend who is partied out and might “honk” in the backseat) while the breakdown in the middle creates space for a spot of high-speed headbanging. To me it’s as thrilling a car scene as anything in Bullitt or the Mad Max franchise.

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© Photograph: Album/Alamy

© Photograph: Album/Alamy

© Photograph: Album/Alamy

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Shelter review – super-soldier Jason Statham does the business as he takes on Bill Nighy in action thriller

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.

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© Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy

© Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy

© Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy

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