US ceasefire proposal, pursued by Trump, appears to be failing to make any further progress
Back to Ukraine, Bloomberg News (£) has just reported that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed replacing the current ambassador to the US during his phone call with President Donald Trump on Friday.
Bloomberg reported that Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal is high on the list of potential candidates, with some other senior figures such as his deputy Olha Stefanishyna and defence minister Rustem Umerov also believed to be under consideration.
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© Photograph: Ukrainian State Emergency Service/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ukrainian State Emergency Service/AFP/Getty Images
Fall of 7% in premarket trading would wipe $70bn off firm’s value as market frets CEO’s foray into politics will distract from role
Shares in Tesla are heading for a sharp fall in the US as investors fear Elon Musk’s launch of a new political party will present further problems for the electric carmaker.
Tesla stock was down more than 7% in pre-market trading on Monday, threatening to wipe approximately $70bn (£51bn) off the company’s value when Wall Street opens.
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© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA
© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA
I had been conditioned to be kind, agreeable and unselfish since I was a child. Pausing to consider what I really want to do has transformed my life
It was 6.18pm when the email pinged through. The lasagne smelled decidedly overcooked as I attempted to referee another squabble between my kids. The cat litter needed changing, and my cup of tea sat next to the microwave, stone cold and grey. Still, irresistibly, I was drawn to the screen. I read the subject line: “Quick favour this evening, if you have a sec?” Without thinking I started to reply: “Of course, no probl ...”
I didn’t reach the end of the sentence. The hyper-sensitive smoke alarm started blaring. I grabbed a towel and swatted at the ceiling; by the time the house fell silent, I had forgotten about the email.
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© Photograph: Courtesy of Nikki Allen
© Photograph: Courtesy of Nikki Allen
Now thought to be the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40, it can also lead to difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, memory problems, depression, anxiety and miscarriage. How has this extreme practice been normalised?
Now that Lucy has been in a steady relationship for a year, she finds herself looking back at previous sexual encounters through a new lens. The slaps to her face. Hands round her neck. The multiple late-night messages from one partner – nine years older and, in her words, “a Tinder situation”: “Can I come over and rape you?”
“I like to think I enjoyed my single 20s,” says Lucy, now 24. “I was an avid Hinge and Tinder user and I liked to think of myself as the ‘cool girl’. But I’ve been thinking about it so much – I’m not sure why. There was the friend of a friend who slapped me so hard in the middle of us having sex – no warning, just from nowhere. It actually made my teeth rattle. There was another guy I met at a bar. We got together that night and he started choking me so hard, I felt this sharp pressure, this pain I’d never experienced before. I was drunk but it sobered me up in one second. I still wonder what he did to me to cause that pain.”
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© Illustration: Ben Tallon/The Guardian
© Illustration: Ben Tallon/The Guardian
Refugees who found sanctuary in Nairobi fear a new family protection bill could again threaten their rights
Sitting on the porch of their shared house on the outskirts of Nairobi, Entity* and Rock* are chatting amiably. Aged 27 and 33 respectively, the Ugandan housemates have much in common – both exiled to Kenya for the the violence they faced at home for being gay.
In May 2023, Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, infamously one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and life imprisonment for same-sex relationships. The law harshened the 2009 “kill the gays” bill, which had come into effect in 2014 without the death penalty.
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© Photograph: Marie Ruwet
© Photograph: Marie Ruwet
The next in our series of writers drawing attention to their favourite comfort films looks back to a funny and touching documentary from 1999
“I was a failure and I get very sad and depressed about it. I really feel like I betrayed myself. Big time. When I was growing up, I had all the potential in the world. Now I’m back to being Mark with a beer in his hand who is thinking about the great American script and the great American movie. This time I cannot fail. I will not fail.”
As far as opening monologues go, you couldn’t have scripted a more perfect introduction to a film that captures one of the purest pursuits of the American Dream ever set to film. But these were not written for a character, but instead straight from the heart of Mark Borchardt in a 1999 documentary. It’s rare that documentaries are associated with feelgood movies, which is odd because they are remarkable vehicles for generating warmth, empathy and humor from spending time in the company of real life people who you grow to like. And I utterly adore spending time with these people.
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© Photograph: RGR Collection/Alamy
© Photograph: RGR Collection/Alamy
Midfielder has shown with Real Sociedad and Spain that he combines calm and control with a capacity to tackle
The way Martín Zubimendi remembers it, the day he was given the chance to be a ballboy for Real Sociedad against Manchester United he was more nervous than when he had to play. Standing at the side of the pitch, he found himself transfixed, the game flying by. So transfixed, in fact, that he forgot it was his job to pass the ball to the players and at one point Claudio Bravo, in goal that night at Anoeta, had to come over and take it off him because he was standing there watching. It was the first time it had happened to him; it would also be the last.
If there is anything that defines Arsenal’s new midfielder, it is that he is so calm, so in control. “He oozes assuredness from every pore,” says the Spain coach, Luis de la Fuente. “He doesn’t get nervous walking a tightrope with no safety net.” When he’s out there, games don’t just go by; they usually go where he wants them to. And as for passes, what he forgot to do that night defines him now: there were 1,752 of them in La Liga last season. No midfielder outside Real Madrid or Barcelona played more.
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© Photograph: David Price/Arsenal FC/Getty Images
© Photograph: David Price/Arsenal FC/Getty Images
An deep dive into the surprising uses and linguistic shortfalls of the ubiquitous symbols
In 2016, Apple announced that its gun emoji, previously a realistic grey-and-black revolver, would henceforth be a green water pistol. Gradually the other big tech companies followed suit, and now what is technically defined as the “pistol” emoji, supposed to represent a “handgun or revolver”, does not show either: instead you’ll get a water pistol or sci-fi raygun and be happy with it. No doubt this change contributed significantly to a suppression of gun crime around the world, and it remains only to ban the bomb, knife and sword emoji to wipe out violence altogether.
As Keith Houston’s fascinatingly geeky and witty history shows, emoji have always been political. Over the years, people have successfully lobbied the Unicode Consortium – the cabal of corporations that controls the character set, including Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple – to include different skin colours and same-sex couples. It was easy to agree to add the face with one eyebrow raised, the guide dog and the egg. But not every request is granted. One demand for a “frowning poo emoji” elicited this splendid rant from an eminent Unicode contributor, Michael Everson: “Will we have a crying pile of poo next? Pile of poo with tongue sticking out? Pile of poo with question marks for eyes? Pile of poo with karaoke mic? Will we have to encode a neutral faceless pile of poo?”
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© Composite: gettyimages
© Composite: gettyimages
Sammy Baloji’s experimental documentary juxtaposes observations from both sides of the divide in its exploration of European exploitation of the country’s natural resources
In his first solo directorial feature, photographer and visual artist Sammy Baloji excavates the colonial legacies in the Congo basin, the second largest tropical forest in the world. Building on a decades-spanning archive from the Yangambi National Institute of Agronomic Studies and Research, the film is loosely divided into three sections, each guided by a different voice that speaks to the complicated environmental history of the area. The first segment is informed by the journal entries of Congolese agronomist Paul Panda Farnana. Working both within and outside Belgium’s colonial control during the 1910s and 1920s, Farnana wrote of his frustration with the extractive regime, as well as meteorological statistics related to rainfall and temperature, which are narrated in voiceover. This is combined with largely static shots of present-day Congo, where vestiges of colonial buildings lie next to verdant fields, a haunting reminder from a dark past.
This cinematic link through time continues with the second narration, taken from the writing of Belgian colonial official Abiron Beirnaert. A stark contrast to Farnana’s clear-eyed, political perspective, Beirnaert’s contemplations luxuriate in boredom and jadedness. The images that accompany this section are also of sparsely attended archives and abandoned factories that do little to subvert Beirnaert’s imperialist outlook. The third voice, however, grants sentience to the ancient tree of the title, bearing witness to decades of Congolese history.
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© Photograph: Publicity image
© Photograph: Publicity image
We want to hear the experiences of scientists, researchers and students after hundreds of research grants have been abruptly cancelled
The Trump administration is dismantling the National Science Foundation (NSF), which critics say risks losing a generation of scientific talent and jeopardizes the future of US industries and economic growth.
The NSF, founded in 1950, is the only federal agency that funds fundamental research across all fields of science and engineering. It has contributed to major scientific breakthroughs and innovations.
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© Photograph: Matt Turner/AAP
© Photograph: Matt Turner/AAP
All the latest news and reaction from Switzerland
Over in the men’s game, the top transfer news to come out of the weekend was Arsenal’s £50m signing of Martín Zubimendi from Real Sociedad. Sid Lowe has been on hand to explain what Arsenal fans can expect from the midfielder:
“It feels extremely bad,” groaned the Finland coach, Marko Saloranta, after he thought his team deserved more from their defeat to Norway. Attention for them turns to a date with hosts Switzerland in Geneva on Thursday. Alayah Pilgrim’s late second goal against Iceland turned the goal difference tables in Switzerland’s favour – they only need a draw to progress against Finland.
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© Photograph: Ryan Browne/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Ryan Browne/Shutterstock
Majority of leading names selected by Andy Farrell for Canberra game
First-choice pairing of Finn Russell and Jamison Gibson-Park reunited
Andy Farrell has picked his strongest British & Irish Lions combination so far for his squad’s penultimate fixture before they take on Australia in Brisbane next week. The majority of the Lions’ leading names have been selected to start against the ACT Brumbies in what is clearly being seen as a dress rehearsal ahead of the first Test.
The first-choice pairing of Finn Russell and Jamison Gibson-Park are reunited at half back inside an all-Irish centre pairing of Bundee Aki and Gary Ringrose, with Scotland’s Blair Kinghorn at full-back and the Anglo-Irish combination of Tommy Freeman and James Lowe on the wings.
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© Photograph: Steve Christo/Sportsfile/Getty Images
© Photograph: Steve Christo/Sportsfile/Getty Images
Anyone can ask any question of the players, leading to absurd inquiries, but it can sometimes serve a useful purpose
To spend even a little time at Wimbledon is to drown in the sheer scale of things. This is a place of mind-boggling numbers: the 40 miles of racket string, the 55,000 balls, the 300,000 glasses of Pimm’s, the 2.5m strawberries. But Wimbledon’s true staple good is none of these. The most abundant product every Wimbledon fortnight is the word. And even on a rain-affected, slow news day, the words must keep coming.
As with everything else, Wimbledon procures its words with a suitable reverence. Post-match interviews, in contrast to the more informal on-court setup at Melbourne and New York, are conducted at a respectful distance in front of a microphone stand, as if Jannik Sinner were actually a high-school student about to spell a very difficult word. But of course the majority of Wimbledon’s bluff and bluster takes place in a small windowless upstairs chamber that most tennis fans have never even seen.
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© Photograph: Getty Images
© Photograph: Getty Images
From her groundbreaking debut Thirteen to forthcoming teen drama Street Smart – ‘a homeless Breakfast Club’ – the film-maker explains how she’s made her way in a job still largely made for men
Film-makers have long used their movies as Trojan horses to express their political beliefs and values and Catherine Hardwicke is no different. In her 2003 debut feature, Thirteen, and her 2008 teen vampire hit Twilight, the writer-director bolstered the stories with environmentally and socially conscious messaging to inspire people to “save the planet”. And with her latest film, Street Smart, which she describes as “a kind of homeless The Breakfast Club”, she is still “sneaking in” her “good values”.
Street Smart, now in post-production, is a low-budget ensemble drama, executive-produced by Gerard Butler and partnered with charities Covenant House and Safe Place for Youth, that centres on a group of unhoused teens bonding through music, trauma and humour while fending for themselves on the margins of LA society. It stars Yara Shahidi (Grown-ish), Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan) and Michael Cimino (Never Have I Ever), as well as a group of unknown actors whom Hardwicke describes as having “big hearts and compassion for others; otherwise, they would be trying to work on a superhero film”.
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© Photograph: Tom Nicholson/Shutterstock for Mediterrane Film Festival
© Photograph: Tom Nicholson/Shutterstock for Mediterrane Film Festival
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