Riyadh says Aidarous al-Zubaidi, leader of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, was helped to flee Yemen
Saudi Arabia has accused the United Arab Emirates of smuggling a UAE-backed separatist leader out of Yemen after he failed to turn up for crisis talks in Riyadh on Wednesday.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said Aidarous al-Zubaidi had fled the port city of Aden for Abu Dhabi under Emirati supervision, deepening a diplomatic row between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Son of Saul director recalls how getting his first job as assistant to the austere master was a hard but inspiring lesson in the most ambitious kind of movie-making
The last time I saw Béla Tarr was a few years ago at the Nexus conference in Amsterdam. We were invited to speak about the state of the world and of the arts. We both thought light and darkness existed in the world, even if our perception about them differed. Béla was already weakened in his body, but the spirit was still ferocious, rebellious, furious. We sat down to talk. It seemed fairly obvious this would be our ultimate, and most heartfelt, conversation. As the former apprentice, I was able to see the master one last time, with all his rage, sorrow, love and hate.
I first met Béla in 2004 when he was preparing The Man from London. I wanted to learn film-making and applied to become an assistant on the film. He gave me my first real job: as an assistant, I had to find a boy for one of the main parts. I spent months in the casting process, for a part that eventually was cut from the shooting script. But for Béla, every effort put into a given movie was never lost – it was integrated into the energy field of the enterprise. The final outcome had to be the product of difficult processes. The harder the task, the better quality one could expect. He wanted to film life, and its constant dance. The choreography was a revelation for me: 10-minute, uninterrupted takes, unifying space, characters and time. All in black and white.
42-year-old failed to win playoff game during tenure
Miami’s offense has struggled in recent seasons
The Miami Dolphins have fired head coach Mike McDaniel after the team missed the playoffs for the second straight season.
“After careful evaluation and extensive discussions since the season ended, I have made the decision that our organization is in need of comprehensive change,” Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said in a statement on Thursday.
Plichta faces misdemeanor charges, which locals say is a tactic of Grand Rapids police to suppress protests
Jessica Plichta was arrested on 3 January after a live interview with a local news station about a Grand Rapids, Michigan protest against the Trump administration’s seizing of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, in an attack with a reported death toll of 100. The clip went immediately viral, racking up millions of views across social media. While the headlines focused on Plichta’s age (22) and that she’s a pre-school teacher, Plichta believes the reason for her arrest – seemingly the only one among roughly 200 protesters – went beyond the day’s events.
Plichta, who recently co-founded local group Grand Rapids Opponents of War, an organizer of Saturday’s protest, had visited the Venezuelan capital of Caracas just last month, amid the Trump administration’s blockade. She was a part of a delegation to the International People’s Assembly for Sovereignty and Peace of Our Americas. Activists from dozens of groups planned to attend. But after Trump ordered that Venezuelan airspace be “closed in its entirety” on 29 November, many canceled their trips.
People told to leave three areas as fears grow of wider conflict between government and Kurdish authorities
The Syrian army ordered civilians to evacuate neighbourhoods of Aleppo on Thursday after fighting with Kurdish forces entered its third day, deepening the rift between the Syrian government and the US-backed Kurdish authorities in Syria.
The Syrian government urged people to leave the three contested neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh and Bani Zeid by early afternoon, opening humanitarian corridors and displacement shelters to facilitate their exit. The Syrian army said it would begin military operations against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) after the deadline, and issued maps showing specific areas that needed to be evacuated.
Citizen scientists help in University of Bonn study showing river carries up to 4,700 tonnes of ‘macrolitter’ annually
Thousands of tonnes of litter is pouring into the North Sea via the Rhine every year, poisoning the waters with heavy metals, microplastics and other chemicals, research has found.
This litter can be detrimental to the environment and human health: tyres, for example, contain zinc and other heavy metals that can be toxic to ecosystems in high concentrations.
The presidents of France and Germany have sharply condemned US foreign policy under Donald Trump, saying respectively that Washington was “breaking free from international rules” and the world risked turning into a “robber’s den”.
In unusually strong and apparently uncoordinated remarks, Emmanuel Macron and Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned the postwar rules-based international order could soon disintegrate.
Director general says BBC needs to reach young audiences online amid pressure to leave Elon Musk-owned site
The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, has said he will not be taking the broadcaster off Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, saying that its presence is needed to resist a flood of global misinformation.
Exclusive: Dulwich college contemporaries say Reform leader often used antisemitic language and racial epithets
Thirty-four school contemporaries of Nigel Farage have now come forward to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, raising fresh questions over the Reform leader’s evolving denials.
One of those with new allegations is Jason Meredith, who was three years below Farage at Dulwich college, a private school in south-east London. He claims that Farage called him a “paki” and would use taunts such as “go back home”.
Gerard Butler returns to keep his family safe from post-apocalyptic chaos in a glum and misjudged follow-up to the superior 2020 adventure
Gerard Butler has made his fair share of sequels, but few have held as much potential as Greenland 2: Migration. The original Greenland wasn’t even a traditional hit; it was released in theaters and on VOD at the end of 2020, when plenty of movie theaters remained closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it garnered some attention for being an unusually sober and thoughtful apocalypse movie, especially given that Butler previously starred in the likes of Geostorm. Because Greenland was about surviving a global apocalypse rather than averting one, any sequel would have to venture into the unknown with a drastically different status quo.
Greenland 2 obliges for a little while, though it also walks back some of the hope that ended the first film. The story rejoins engineer John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his administrator wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their now-teenage son Nathan (recast as Roman Griffin Davis) as residents of a Greenland bunker. They’re lucky to have been government-selected for entry when Earth was rendered largely uninhabitable by comet fragments five years earlier; they’re also chafing at the loss of freedom, tough decisions, and overall claustrophobia that comes with cohabitating underground with hundreds of others. (Curiously, none of them seem to have made many friends despite the close quarters.)
Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, is facing calls to resign after it emerged he opted to play tennis hours after a crippling blackout triggered by an arson attack hit a large swathe of the city, and then misled the public about it.
Districts in the south-west of the German capital were gradually returning to normal after the longest power cut since the second world war as Wegner acknowledged he had not been entirely forthcoming about his actions when the outage began.
(Warner) In this recording of the eight Impromptus, some of Schubert’s most profound music, Lu cements his place as a serious talent
Eric Lu was a worthy if controversial winner of the Chopin international piano competition in October, having won the Leeds event seven years ago: how many springboards should one pianist seek? What is certain is that this latest Schubert recording, following on from his release of the late sonatas late in 2022, reveals a rewardingly mature, un-egotistical approach to the eight Impromptus, some of the composer’s most profound music.
Lu is very much attuned to the way in which Schubert creates overarching structures, conjuring a mesmerising feeling of stasis with music that’s alive with detail under the surface – in his performances of several of them, time really does seem to stand still. Right from the lonely opening of Op 90 No 1, he draws the ear in with the scope of his phrasing: even though his playing can be weightier than some, his lines go on and on into the distance and corners are smoothly turned, with the dramatic passages growing out of what has come before. Perhaps these performances aren’t yet quite distinctive enough to make this recording top choice in a crowded field, but they certainly back up the Chopin judges’ decision: Lu is a serious talent.
Surreal humour and sharp performances from Diane Morgan and Arabella Weir alongside the comedian himself bring his tale of an unemployed bathroom salesman to life
Matt Giles, the thirtysomething protagonist of The Long Shoe, is having a run of bad luck. Shortly after losing his job as a bathroom salesman, he learns that he and his girlfriend Harriet are being evicted from their flat. Can life get any worse? Apparently, it can. Matt finds a note from Harriet saying she has left him and that he shouldn’t contact her. But then he receives a call from a stranger offering him a job that comes with a luxury apartment, leading him to wonder if his fortunes are turning.
Perhaps Harriet will come back if she knows they have a fancy new home. The third mystery novel from comedian Bob Mortimer comes with his trademark quirky touches including a talking animal in the form of Matt’s cat, Goodmonson, and whimsical metaphors; for Matt, trying to place a familiar face is akin to “trying to find a mouse’s handbag in a builder’s skip”.
I found solace in looking through my father’s slides after he died. They made me gasp – and my childhood turned from monotonous monochrome to glorious Technicolor
When my sister handed me a box of old Kodachrome slides last summer, I almost didn’t bother looking through them. Unusually for pre-smartphone times, my camera-crazy father had extensively documented our lives, filling dozens of photo albums. What could the transparencies possibly reveal that we hadn’t already seen countless times? I dimly remembered him ambushing us to watch slideshows, until we were old enough to rebel.
My father died in 2012. Not long before, I had developed an interest in photography myself and, after he was gone, I found solace in my viewfinder. It was, and still is, a way of feeling connected to him. What prompted me to set up my iPad as a makeshift lightbox to view the slides was technical interest.
Twice prime minister of Bangladesh credited with improving the country’s economy and empowering women
Khaleda Zia, who has died aged 80 – although her age was disputed – was the first female prime minister of Bangladesh, and was credited with an increase in female education and empowerment during her two terms in office, in the 1990s and early 2000s. The defining feature of her public life, however, was one of the world’s longest-running and most bitter political feuds.
For more than three decades Zia and her rival, Sheikh Hasina – now exiled in India following her resignation after a violent uprising in mid-2024 – contested the leadership of the south Asian nation, and sought to eclipse the other when in office.
Ahead of his reunion with Ben Affleck in thriller The Rip – as well as his starring role in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Imax epic The Odyssey – we run through the best work of one of Hollywood’s most reliable heroes
Matt Damon is essentially a bland dish that requires the right spice truly to zing, which means he is often at his best when playing beastly. His flagrantly nasty turn as one of the antisemitic bullies who makes prep school life hell for a secretly Jewish classmate (Brendan Fraser) offers an early indication that Damon realised this, too.
In 1934 and 1978, Fifa’s big event was given over to authoritarian aims. There’s no more doubt that 2026 will be the same
By 1934, it was entirely evident what Benito Mussolini was up to. Italy’s dictator had already consolidated power, colonized Libya and annexed the city of Rijeka. He nevertheless got to stage the second-ever World Cup, managing it with a heavy hand and even supplanting the Jules Rimet trophy with a far larger one. Hosting and winning that World Cup didn’t sate his expansionist appetites. By the end of decade, Mussolini would take Ethiopia, annex Albania and back Francisco Franco in the Spanish civil war.
It was equally well established in 1978 in Argentina that General Jorge Rafaél Videla’s military junta, which had taken over two years earlier, was maintaining its grip on power through systematic detention, torture and murder. Still, protestations from other nations were ignored and the World Cup kicked off.
Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on May 12. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.
‘She has everything to be a world-class striker – fast, two great feet, good with the head and strong,’ says the coach who set the forward’s career rolling
Since they were promoted to the Women’s Super League in 2019, no Manchester United player has managed to score more than 10 league goals in a single season. In Lea Schüller they have signed someone who has surpassed that mark seven seasons in a row in Germany’s Frauen Bundesliga, so it is easy to understand why United are so enamoured with their new striker.
With a formidable 54 goals in 82 internationals, the Germany forward arrives at Carrington with a prolific record and the match-winner profile the club have been craving. At 28 years old she could spend the best years of her career at United, where she has signed a contract until June 2029.
Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam They have poisoned emperors, taken over insect brains and survived atomic bombs. This Dantean journey through fungal hell is riveting – though frogs may disagree
Sylvia Plath’s poem Mushrooms is a sinister paean to the natural world. Her observations on fungi are freighted with foreboding, noting how “very / Whitely, discreetly, / Very quietly” they “Take hold on the loam, / Acquire the air”. The poem ends: “We shall by morning, / Inherit the earth. / Our foot’s in the door.”
Plath’s ominous ode from 1959 forms the opening salvo in an exhibition dedicated to fungi’s creepy omniscience. Far from merely getting a foot in the door, the door has been blasted off its hinges by fungi’s preternatural capacity to reproduce, spread, evolve – and annihilate. How they thrive with a perverse intensity on discarded, dead and dying things, impelling the cycle of decay and regrowth. As coprophiliacs, necrophiliacs and silent assassins, they are legion, and have been around for over a billion years.
Amid constant danger, each planted seed was a tiny act of resistance. As they grew, they offered us food – and a sense of achievement amid the devastation
My 12-year-old brother Mazen ran into the kitchen, shouting that the eggplants were sprouting. He held up the tiny green shoots, his hands shaking. My older brother Mohammed and I rushed outside, laughing despite the fear that had become our constant companion. Each sprout was a victory.
Before Gaza’s skies darkened with smoke and the ground shook with bombs, our garden was a lush tapestry of trees and plants, each leaf and branch woven into our family memory. Birds danced above the branches. Five ancient trees stood tall, twisted trunks weathered by sun and wind, branches heavy with black and green olives. Fruit trees filled the air with sweetness – orange, lemon, a broad-leaved fig and a small clementine.
When 82-year-old Jan Sporry and her husband had to pack up and leave their home in regional Victoria – possibly for the last time – they struggled to choose what to take with them.
On Thursday, the couple and their kelpie Ruby moved to a disaster relief centre in Seymour as firefighters fought blazes in the worst heatwave since the 2019-20 black summer bushfire season and the state braced for a day of catastrophic fire danger on Friday.
Figuring out how to diagnose and fix a problem myself generated a sense of satisfaction powerful enough to get me up a medium-sized hill
It wasn’t until Covid lockdowns that I became a regular bike rider, but it has become one of the joys of my life. Nothing melts away a stressful day like whizzing down a hill; not having to think about petrol prices, one-way streets or parking spots does wonders for my mood.
When it came to maintenance, though, my attitude was decidedly timid. If something worked, that was good enough for me – how it did so was simply none of my business. Strange noises and glitches were things I figured would either go away on their own or deteriorate into something I’d hand off to an expert. I’m not proud to admit I’ve walked my bike half an hour to a bike shop to fix a puncture more than once; my chain was perpetually caked in gunk because I thought even looking at it the wrong way might break something.
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