This weekend sees the release of a controversially funded film about the first lady, directed by a disgraced film-maker

It’s not often that a presidential administration faces a direct referendum at the box office. Sure, there was more than a hint of rebuke in Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 unexpectedly becoming the biggest-grossing non-music-or-nature documentary of all time (and highest full stop in North America) while taking re-election-year shots at George W Bush (who went on to squeak out another victory anyway). But that movie was also sold on Moore himself, a recent Oscar winner and fixture in both film and television by that point. Bush was excoriated, but he wasn’t exactly getting top billing. The unambiguous star of this weekend’s Trump-approved documentary is right there in the title: Melania. It’s coming to 1,500 theaters this weekend from Amazon/MGM.

Relatively few documentaries receive a wide release (though Melania is going out in about half as many theaters as last weekend’s Amazon release, the Chris Pratt vehicle Mercy), so comparison points are relatively few. Box office predictions generally place the movie well under Moore’s unlikely high-water mark for the form. Some are guessing the opening weekend will pull in about $1m, which would comfortably keep it off the list of the worst wide openings of all time (the record low for a new release in around 1,500 theaters is about $330,000) but would nonetheless qualify it as a bomb. Others estimate that it will go as high as $5m, putting it in line with rightwing docs like Am I Racist?, the highest-grossing documentary of 2024, which ended its run with $12m. As the Hollywood Reporter points out, technically inching ahead of Am I Racist? and the recent faith-based After Death would boast the biggest non-music launch for a documentary of the past decade.

These are the agencies detaining people across the US – mostly, but not all, under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security

When the Trump administration ordered a surge of armed federal immigration enforcement personnel on to the streets of Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security declared it the largest operation in its history and the liberal midwestern city became Donald Trump’s latest chosen hotspot.

Such escalations mark the US president’s agenda of mass arrests and deportations from the US interior. The highest-profile efforts involve officers from multiple agencies rushing to prominent Democratic-led US cities, against local leaders’ wishes. But coast to coast, federal officers have been raiding homes, businesses, commercial parking lots – even schools, hospitals and courthouses. The efforts have delighted the president’s hardcore Make America Great Again voter base, but are also tearing families apart and spreading fear and even death on the streets and in detention.

Downing Street sources say agreement is ‘done deal’ and will not be scuppered by US president’s U-turn

US intelligence agencies disagree with Donald Trump’s newly found opposition to the Chagos deal, Keir Starmer has said, as he underlined how the US administration had supported the deal as it bolstered their defences.

The prime minister made his remarks, which could undermine the US president’s fresh view of the deal as an “act of great stupidity”, on the flight to Beijing for a visit that will cover UK national security among other issues.

Our perception of a person’s physical beauty is colored by our perception of their behavior – but what if we divorced inner and outer beauty?

Hey Ugly,

They say we end up with the face we deserve. When we think “ugly” (hurtful, spiteful, non-constructive) thoughts, our faces tense and harden. Similarly, when I ignore my needs, my face shows me signs of it.

A look behind the scenes of the star’s second album turns out to reveal exactly what you’d expect, at arduous length

Paris Hilton here presents us with an unbearable act of docu-self-love, avowedly a behind-the-scenes study of her second studio album, Infinite Icon, and where she’s at as a musician, survivor and mom. But maybe there is, in fact, nothing behind the scenes; judging by this, the scenes are all there is: Insta-exhibitionism, empty phrases and show.

Hilton’s second album no doubt has its admirers and detractors, and her fans are perfectly happy with it. But this film, for which she is executive producer, is an indiscriminate non-curation of narcissism and torpid self-importance that seems to go on and on and on for ever; the longest two hours of anyone’s life, finally signing off with a splodge of uninteresting and unedited concert footage.

Judgment in The Hague orders Netherlands to do more to protect Caribbean people in its territory from impacts of climate crisis

The Dutch government discriminated against people in one of its most vulnerable territories by not helping them adapt to climate change, a court has found.

The judgment, announced on Wednesday in The Hague, chastises the Netherlands for treating people on the island of Bonaire, in the Caribbean, differently to inhabitants of the European part of the country and for not doing its fair share to cut national emissions.

The US president bears political responsibility for having greenlighted ICE agents’ regularly lawless conduct

As public outrage grows over the killing of two protesters by Donald Trump’s deportation agents in Minneapolis, the White House is going into damage-control mode. It has its work cut out for it. Trump didn’t pull the triggers that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but he bears political responsibility for having greenlighted the agents’ regularly lawless conduct.

Good and Pretti should not have been killed. As far as can be seen in the ample video evidence that has emerged, neither posed a threat to the agents at the scene or anyone else. Their sole “offense” was to take a stand against the deportation raids. Yet trigger-happy agents needlessly shot them – Good as she was turning her car away from the agents, Pretti while he was restrained by agents on the ground. There was no plausible self-defense to justify these killings.

AI automation, now as simple as point, click, drag, and drop

Hands On  For all the buzz surrounding them, AI agents are simply another form of automation that can perform tasks using the tools you've provided. Think of them as smart macros that make decisions and go beyond simple if/then rules to handle edge cases in input data. Fortunately, it's easy enough to code your own agents and below we'll show you how.…

LONDEN (ANP) - Atlete Sifan Hassan (33) zal op 26 april van start gaan in de marathon van Londen. Hassan maakte in 2023 in Londen haar debuut op de marathon. Ondanks dat ze onderweg even moest stoppen vanwege kramp, wist ze haar eerste marathon meteen winnend af te sluiten.

In 2024 werd Hassan in Parijs olympisch kampioen op de marathon. Het was de eerste gouden medaille ooit op dat onderdeel voor Nederland. Hassan is ook de houdster van het nationale record op de marathon: 2.13,44. Dat liep ze in Chicago in 2023.

"Dit is waar ik mijn debuut op de marathon heb gemaakt en juist daarom verheug ik me om terug te keren", zegt Hassan in een persbericht. Ze liep de marathon van Londen na haar debuut in 2023 ook nog in 2025, met een derde plaats als resultaat.

MANCHESTER (ANP/RTR) - De vorig jaar gestopte Britse bokser Tyson Fury keert opnieuw terug in de ring. De 37-jarige voormalige wereldkampioen zwaargewicht neemt het op 11 april op tegen de Rus Arslanbek Makhmudov.

"Ik ben blij om terug te zijn", zei de Engelsman. "Mijn hart ligt altijd al in de bokssport en dat zal ook altijd zo blijven." Ook Makhmudov keek uit naar het gevecht. "Ik ben ontzettend blij met deze kans", zei de Rus. "Tyson Fury is een geweldige kampioen geweest. Ik zal meer dan ooit voorbereid zijn om met een enorme overwinning naar huis te gaan."

Fury kondigde begin vorig jaar voor de vierde keer zijn afscheid aan, nadat hij eerder was gestopt in 2013, 2017 en 2022. Hij verloor in december 2024 een titelgevecht tegen de Oekraïense bokser Oleksandr Oesyk. De jury oordeelde na twaalf ronden unaniem in het voordeel van Oesyk. De Brit zei later dat de jury een fout had gemaakt met zijn beslissing.