Whether it’s the $1bn price tag or the US president’s outsized power, key allies are steering clear of the board

• This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday

Hey, do you like peace? Oh, cool, you do? Then, how about we establish a group of countries, all committed to that concept, working together to create global harmony? No, not the one that has already existed for 80 years. A new one. Who’s in?

It turns out: not that many world leaders or global citizens.

• American crashed out of Olympic downhill event

• Bryan Graham: Crash a violent but honest ending

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results

Lindsey Vonn says she has had a successful third surgery on the broken leg she suffered during the women’s Olympic downhill on Sunday.

Vonn posted an update on Instagram that included photos of her giving a thumbs up in her hospital bed with a metal frame attached to her leg.

• Wambach is first major sports figure to depart agency

• Agency founder had emailed with Ghislaine Maxwell

• LA Olympics chief has faced calls to step down

Former US soccer star Abby Wambach has announced she is leaving the Wasserman talent agency and called for its founder and LA 2028 Olympics CEO, Casey Wasserman, to resign after emails between him and Ghislaine Maxwell were revealed in the Jeffery Epstein files.

The two-time gold medalist and World Cup winner shared a statement on Wednesday saying she was leaving Wasserman, an agency that represents an extensive roster of athletes and celebrities across the sports and entertainment industries.

Defending European strategic interests must be a priority to level the economic playing field in an increasingly volatile world

Given the daunting nature of the challenges they face in the era of Donald Trump, it is perhaps understandable that European politicians should wish to get away from it all. This week, in what is being billed as a “leaders’ retreat”, a remote castle in the Belgian countryside has been selected for an EU summit on competitiveness. The pastoral setting may soothe the spirits of attending heads of state; but it belies the urgency of the debate they need to have.

Europe in the postwar period has never felt so insecure. Mr Trump’s America First administration has made clear its intention to bully the continent economically through tariffs and threats, and the transatlantic alliance can no longer be relied upon for its defence. Hi-tech competition from China threatens to overwhelm European industry’s attempts to keep up in key areas, such as the green transition. Across the European Union, support for the far right is on the rise.

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Ukaleq Slettemark is a beacon of hope at a time when even the Greenlandic sports minister worries ‘Trump is crazy’

They don’t fly the flag of Greenland at the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee only recognises independent sovereign states, and, as all the world, even the most distant corners of the US, now knows, Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. But the flag, which is known as the Erfalasorput, was there in the grandstands at the Anterselva Biathlon Arena all the same, even if it wasn’t flying from rooftops above it. It was being waved by all the Danish fans who wanted to show their support for the only two Greenlandic athletes competing here at Milano Cortina.

Their names are Ukaleq Slettemark and Sondre Slettemark, brother and sister, and both biathletes. They were born in Nuuk, and raised between Greenland and Norway where their parents, who are also biathletes, took them to learn the sport when they were children. For the last four weeks, the Slettemark siblings have been caught in the middle of a whirlwind of media attention. There aren’t many famous people from Greenland, Ukaleq explains, in what is perhaps the 20th interview she has had to do after she finished 52nd in the women’s 15km event.

Britain’s seventh-richest man, who vocally backed Brexit then moved to Monaco, also hits out at people on benefits

The billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who moved to tax-free Monaco in 2020, has claimed that the UK is being “colonised” by immigrants.

Speaking in an interview with Sky News, Britain’s seventh-richest man and the part-owner of Manchester United FC took aim at people receiving state support and immigrants.

Small opening cut into floor at Merchant’s House Museum indicates site was probably used as ‘safe house’, experts say

A landmark house in Manhattan preserved as a museum to New York’s 19th-century history has revealed an even more intriguing secret: its previously unknown status as a refuge for people who escaped slavery before and during the civil war.

The Merchant’s House Museum’s link to the Underground Railroad, a network of abolitionists who secured the safe passage of enslaved people to freedom, was discovered when archaeologists looked beneath the drawers of a built-in dresser in the wall of a hallway leading to bedrooms on the building’s second floor.

The Upper Peninsula snowboarder races his fifth Olympic Games on Thursday, drawing on a career shaped by construction sites, small-town winters and the belief he could still reach the 2034 Games on home soil

At an age when most Olympic snowboarders have already drifted into coaching, broadcasting or nostalgia, Nick Baumgartner is still doing the hardest thing in his sport: showing up to the start gate believing he can win.

On Thursday at Livigno Snow Park, the 44-year-old American will race the men’s snowboard cross at his fifth Olympic Games – less a farewell tour than another extension of a career that has stubbornly ignored conventional timelines.

• Matches to take place in Florida in early June

• England based in Kansas City during tournament

England will play World Cup warm-up matches against New Zealand and Costa Rica in Florida and base themselves in Kansas City for the duration of the tournament.

Thomas Tuchel and his squad will fly to Florida at the start of June and take on New Zealand on 6 June and Costa Rica four days later. They will then transfer to the Swope Soccer Village in Kansas City, having identified the city as their preferred location in January 2025.

• Group C: West Indies 196-6 bt England 166 by 30 runs

• Rutherford smashes 76 and England splutter in chase

West Indies are making Group C look plain sailing, England are all at sea. Like, by and large, the ball – unless it was arrowing towards a fielder – England’s pursuit of a target of 197 never got off the ground, and at the end of a largely pedestrian performance that eventually veered towards a billious combination of slapstick and horror they had been dismissed for 166 and, with seven balls remaining, been beaten by 30 runs.

Had the knife-edge result against Nepal on Sunday fallen the other way this would already be another crisis in a winter full of them. As it is they will head to Kolkata on Thursday, where they complete their group fixtures against Scotland and Italy, confident given the nature of their opponents of securing the wins they require to progress to the Super Eights but knowing they can afford no further slips.

Steve Whittamore says Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday remained his ‘best customers’ for two years after his 2005 conviction

A private investigator convicted of illegally obtaining secret information has said the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday remained his “best customers” after his conviction, the high court has heard.

Steve Whittamore, who was convicted in 2005 and given a conditional discharge, said his activities for the publisher of the titles, Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), spanned from 1998 to 2007.

FAA initially cited ‘security reasons’ for shutting off skies around El Paso airport in area along border with Mexico

The top US aviation agency has lifted a surprise 10-day closure of airspace above the US-Mexico border town of El Paso, Texas, just hours after it abruptly announced that it would close off the skies for “special security reasons”.

This initial, vague explanation prompted still more questions as conflicting narratives surrounding this surprising closure and its abrupt reversal have since emerged.

Cuban aviation authorities have warned country is running out of jet fuel, threatening to derail tourism industry

• Air Canada cancels all flights to Cuba as US oil blockade cuts off fuel access

Moscow has said it is planning to evacuate Russian tourists from Cuba within days as a fuel crisis triggered by US efforts to choke off the island’s oil supplies deepens.

Russia’s aviation authorities said on Wednesday that two of its airlines serving the Caribbean island would operate outbound-only flights to bring tourists home before suspending services.

US vice-president’s post marks first time Trump administration used the word to describe the massacres

The White House has deleted a social media post in which the vice-president, JD Vance, referred to the Armenian genocide, prompting anger from members of the Armenian diaspora as well as opposition politicians across the US.

The post was made during Vance’s two-day trip to Armenia to mark a visit by Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, to a memorial for the up to 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman troops more than a century ago. The now-deleted post on Vance’s official X account said he was visiting the memorial to honour “the victims of the Armenian genocide”.

Nine people have been killed and dozens injured after a mass shooting at a school in Canada. The suspect was also found dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury. The tragedy has sent shockwaves through the remote town of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, which has a population of only 2,400. It is the second-worst mass shooting in Canada’s history. Lucy Hough speaks to reporter Leyland Cecco

• Minute-by-minute updates on the last-16 first leg

• WSL talking points: Arsenal punish City | Email Sarah

I would love to hear from you. I was discussing with a friend the other day if a Jaffa Cake is a cake or a biscuit, I am firmly on the cake side and she was adamant it was a biscuit. Please get in touch so we can settle the argument, you can email me to let me know your thoughts.

Catch up on our Women’s Football Weekly podcast while you wait for this match to get underway:

National Labor Relations Board says it does not have legal oversight of SpaceX and dismisses case

The US labor board is abandoning a years-long legal battle against Elon Musk’s SpaceX and signaling it will steer clear of future cases against the company, according to a letter from the board cited by the New York Times and Bloomberg.

Two years after issuing a complaint accusing the aerospace firm of firing eight engineers because of their involvement in an open letter criticizing Musk, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said it was dismissing the case, disclaiming jurisdiction over it, according to the letter.

• Ukrainian FA president seeks meeting on Thursday

• Fifa president due at Uefa congress in Brussels

Andriy Shevchenko will seek a meeting with Gianni Infantino on Thursday to discuss the Fifa president’s recent comments that favoured Russia’s return to international football competitions.

Infantino sparked condemnation in Ukraine when, speaking in an interview last week, he said the ban on Russia’s participation should be reassessed. Shevchenko, the Ukrainian Association of Football president, is looking to restate Ukraine’s position in private when the pair attend Uefa’s congress in Brussels.

Labour council says flags must not be ‘surrendered’ to far right but there are concerns in town hit by racial tension

A Labour council has been accused of embracing “flag terror” after offering £500 grants to groups to erect union jack and St George’s flags in a town previously rocked by racial tension.

The leaders of Rotherham council, in South Yorkshire, said they wanted the flags to be a “symbol of unity” and did not want to “surrender them to extremist or far-right groups”.

The racism was not new. What was new was the inability to look past it. For a moment, at least, the blinders were off

John from New Mexico, a self-professed lifelong Republican, called into C-Span’s Washington Journal earlier this month with penitence on his mind.

“I voted for the president and supported him,” he began. “But I really want to apologize.”

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

In the 1980s, spearheaded by Channel 4, British TV stopped telling Black and Asian people how to assimilate and gave them a voice. A golden age of dissent, activism and culture ensued – but have we since gone backwards?

One afternoon in 1984, Farrukh Dhondy went for lunch, not realising he was about to become part of British television history. The Indian-born writer was working for Channel 4 at the time on breakout multi-ethnic shows such as No Problem!, a sitcom about a family of Jamaican heritage in London, and Tandoori Nights, a comedy about an Indian restaurant. When Dhondy arrived at the Ivy, Jeremy Isaacs, the burgeoning broadcaster’s founding chief executive, ordered an £84 bottle of wine.

“I thought, ‘What the hell is this all about?’” Dhondy says. It turned out Isaacs wanted him to be the next commissioning editor for Channel 4. “For God’s sake, I’m not an office job man,” he said. “I’m a writer.” But after a brief conversation with the Trinidadian activist-scholar CLR James, who was living with him while going through a divorce, Dhondy changed his mind.

• Julia Simon holds finger to lips as she crosses line

• Simon found to have spent €2,000 on rival’s credit card

An athlete convicted of committing credit card fraud against one of her national teammates has won an Olympic gold medal for France in the women’s 15km biathlon, beating her victim to do it.

Julia Simon, 29, was handed a €15,000 fine and a three-month suspended sentence last October after she was found to have spent more than €2,000 using card details belonging to Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, also 29, who finished in 80th place in the same race. A third member of the French team, Lou Jeanmonnot, won the silver.

The Grateful Dead and some other interesting influences define the best and worst of this year’s crop of tops

Major League Soccer’s 31st season is nearly upon us, and fans across the league are busy offering takes. Takes on roster building, on relevance, on playoff potential. And, of course, on kits.

It at times feels like there is nothing soccer fans across the globe like more than discussing kits and kit culture. Supporters, even those entirely bereft of any fashion sense to speak of, start offering up terms normally reserved for the catwalk come release day.