Trump’s push to acquire Greenland sparks international media frenzy on remote island




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Moreish teatime treats that melt in the mouth… go on, you deserve it
If I were to rank my top biscuits of all time, Viennese fingers would sit firmly in my top three. There’s not too much going on: just a good, buttery crumb, melt-in-the-mouth texture and chocolate-dipped ends, which are a must. While they’re pretty straightforward to make, issues often arise when it’s time to pipe the dough, and it can be tricky to strike a balance between a consistency that has enough butter but still holds its shape once baked. I find that the addition of a little milk helps make it more pipeable, as does using a large, open-star nozzle to avoid cramped hands and burst piping bags.
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© Photograph: Rita Platts/The Guardian. Food styling: Aya Nishimura. Prop styling: Florence Blair. Food styling assistant: Isobel Clarke.

© Photograph: Rita Platts/The Guardian. Food styling: Aya Nishimura. Prop styling: Florence Blair. Food styling assistant: Isobel Clarke.

© Photograph: Rita Platts/The Guardian. Food styling: Aya Nishimura. Prop styling: Florence Blair. Food styling assistant: Isobel Clarke.
The right is unafraid to show its might on the world stage – meanwhile the prime minister is tinkering with potholes. That just about sums up the centre-left
Last weekend, as the world wondered whether Donald Trump would swipe Greenland, Keir Starmer made his own big geographic intervention: he published a map of which councils were fixing potholes.
Yes, potholes. Yes, a map. Barely 18 months into office, with crucial elections just ahead and his party lagging behind the ragtag troops of Nigel Farage and even Kemi Badenoch, this was how Team Starmer kicked off 2026. To be fair, as the young people say, the map is colour-coded.
Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist
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© Illustration: Bill Bragg/The Guardian

© Illustration: Bill Bragg/The Guardian

© Illustration: Bill Bragg/The Guardian
Campaigners claim firm has bought sway over the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths
Campaigners have accused BP of having an insidious influence over the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) in the UK through its relationship with the Science Museum.
Documents obtained under freedom of information legislation show how the company funded a research project that led to the creation of the Science Museum Group academy – its teacher and educator training programme – which BP sponsors and which has run more than 500 courses, for more than 5,000 teachers.
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© Photograph: Martin Pope/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Martin Pope/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Martin Pope/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
Mark Carney held talks with Xi Jinping on Friday during rare Beijing trip as Canada seeks to diversify trade links away from Trump’s America
Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China as he held talks in Beijing with president Xi Jinping on Friday, the first visit there by a Canadian leader in eight years.
Addressing Xi in the Great Hall of the People, Carney said that “together we can build on the best of what this relationship has been in the past to create a new one adapted to new global realities”.
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© Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/Reuters

© Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/Reuters

© Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/Reuters








The title is loaded with meaning for all Koreans, and will give fans globally an insight into the folksong culture that shaped the world’s biggest K-pop group
BTS announced their long-awaited comeback and world tour this week, with their first full-length album in nearly four years set for release on 20 March.
On Friday, the K-pop group revealed its title – Arirang – a choice that carries profound emotional weight for Koreans. So what does it mean, what is its significance for the Koreas, and why did BTS choose it?
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© Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP

© Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP

© Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP
Carl Schmitt wanted empires that dominated the small countries in their orbits. But the US president’s chaotic actions are not that strategic
It is axiomatic to many of his critics that the US president, Donald Trump, is a fascist. Indeed, some have seen echoes of the work of the Nazis’ “crown jurist” and political theorist, Carl Schmitt, in the Trump administration’s domestic policies, particularly his doctrine of “the exception”, which can be used to suspend certain constitutional rights. After a tumultuous few weeks in geopolitics, his work is being discussed for its contemporary relevance again.
In the wake of the release of the new US National Security Strategy in 2025, its raid on Venezuela, the president’s rhetoric on Greenland, Panama, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba, and his apparent indulgence towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the question now being asked is whether Trump is also an advocate of aspects of Schmitt’s concept of “great space”.
Brendan Simms is director of the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University and author of Hitler: Only the World Was Enough
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© Photograph: Andrew Thomas/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Andrew Thomas/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Andrew Thomas/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Architects and designers have recycled ancient practice of collecting rainwater to make buildings ecologically friendly
When the legendary Taiwanese rock band Mayday were due to perform in Beijing one evening in May 2023, some fans were worried that the rainy weather could affect the show. Mayday were taking to the stage in Beijing’s National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, built for the 2008 Olympics. Like the real-life twig piles that give the building its nickname, the stadium is built with an intricate and highly porous lattice, made of steel.
“Don’t worry too much,” reassured an article published by the official newsletter for China’s ministry of water resources. “The Bird’s Nest also has its ‘secret weapon’!”
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© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP
Soaking fabrics in a commonly used insect repellent is a simple and effective tool as mosquito bites become more common during daytime, study shows
From Africa to Latin America to Asia, babies have been carried in cloth wraps on their mothers’ backs for centuries. Now, the practice of generations of women could become a lifesaving tool in the fight against malaria.
Researchers in Uganda have found that treating wraps with the insect repellent permethrin cut rates of malaria in the infants carried in them by two-thirds.
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© Photograph: Jake Lyell/Alamy

© Photograph: Jake Lyell/Alamy

© Photograph: Jake Lyell/Alamy
An appetite for self-destruction left Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies hugely influential but financially insecure. They’re back with a big show and their first album together since 1995
‘There isn’t one songwriter, and so the flavour of the band is always going to change,” says Dave Vanian, reflecting on 50 years of the group of which he has been the sole constant member, the Damned. “Captain Sensible is a great fan of syrupy pop music and prog and glam rock. So his writing is very poppy, melodic and quite wonderful. My writing is more melodramatic, more theatrical. And Rat Scabies was a mod who really loved bands like the Who. That melting pot would either not work at all, or be an absolute firecracker.” As the history of the Damned attests, it has, on occasion, been both.
There have been three break-ups: in the late 70s, late 80s and early 90s; Sensible and Scabies have had repeated spells out of the band; Scabies only started working with them again in 2022, after 27 years away. “The rift was really between him and Captain,” says Vanian, though at one time or another, it seems as though each of the three principals has been in a relationship-ending rage with one or both of the others.
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© Photograph: Sacha Lecca

© Photograph: Sacha Lecca

© Photograph: Sacha Lecca
Pleas for scrutiny of system fraught with accusations of negligence after one-year-old’s death in hospital
Nigerians have called for urgent reforms to the healthcare sector after the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 21-month-old son prompted an outpouring of grief and accounts of negligence and inadequate care.
In a leaked WhatsApp message, the bestselling author said she had been told by a doctor that the resident anaesthesiologist at the Lagos hospital treating her son Nkanu Nnamdi had administered an overdose of the sedative propofol.
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© Photograph: Jared Soares/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jared Soares/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jared Soares/The Guardian
Every week my DisOrient FC team and I would show up at the Park Tavern, our second home, drown our sorrows after a five-a-side match and forge ongoing friendships
Whatever else you might say about the Park Tavern, you can unequivocally say this: it is, without question, the closest pub to the five-a-side pitches where my team DisOrient FC used to play every Tuesday night from 2011 to 2016.
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© Composite: Guardian Design; Courtesy of Tim Jonze

© Composite: Guardian Design; Courtesy of Tim Jonze

© Composite: Guardian Design; Courtesy of Tim Jonze
It makes me feel like a proud parent to see them take flight
The International Crane Foundation was set up in 1973, with the aim of safeguarding the world’s 15 crane species – most are endangered or vulnerable due to habitat loss, climate change and hunting. As senior aviculturist at the headquarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin, I’m involved in everything from daily feeding to overseeing chick-rearing.
Whenever possible, chicks are raised by their biological parents or adopted by other adult cranes, but when that isn’t possible, we have to raise them, and teach them how to behave like cranes. Some chicks will later be released into the wild, so it’s important that they learn to stay away from people and other predators.
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© Photograph: Anne Readel/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anne Readel/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anne Readel/The Guardian
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen among figures showing support for Hungary’s prime minister
Rightwing leaders from around the world have come together to endorse Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, hinting at the symbolism that the country’s elections hold for global far-right movements even as the populist leader lags in the polls.
A campaign video published online by Orbán this week includes endorsements from nearly a dozen leaders including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s Alice Weidel.
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© Composite: Instagram

© Composite: Instagram

© Composite: Instagram







