The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

Pressure review – stormy weather in tense D-day forecast retelling

Andrew Scott finds levels of complexity in a stoic character based on meteorologist James Stagg, the man who persuaded Eisenhower to delay Operation Overlord, for this slick wartime drama

The historic gamble of D-day 1944 gets a new perspective in this slick and watchable, if slightly cheesy and unreflective, period drama, whose staginess reflects its origins in theatre; David Haig adapts his play with the director Anthony Maras. Andrew Scott – in RAF uniform, short-back-and-sides and ’tache – plays James Stagg, a brilliant Scottish meteorologist attached to the military during the war. Stagg arrives at the top-secret allied base of Southwick House in Hampshire stubbornly intent on telling allied Cmdr Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, bullishly played by Brendan Fraser, that he has an outlier forecast of bad weather, which means D-day should be delayed from Eisenhower’s planned date of 5 June.

This is to the rage of Col Irving P Krick (Chris Messina), the swaggeringly gung-ho American meteorologist who has always had Ike’s confidence until now. And if we were unsure about this character’s brash-Yank status, in his opening scene he literally shimmies and bops to the Andrews Sisters’ Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy in the operations room to the uptight, thin-lipped astonishment of Stagg who, as overall commanding officer, tells the Americans to get that piano out of there.

Continue reading...

‘That’s how it started’: Dambrauskas’ journey from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to Champions League

Valdas Dambrauskas takes Sabah to Manchester United after journeying from Lithuania and a game show win, via London pub work

Valdas Dambrauskas can reel off the questions and answers without a moment’s pause. Who won the first Academy Award for best actor in 1929? It was Emil Jannings, even if someone else might have been tempted to go with Charlie Chaplin. Which country publishes the highest number of daily newspapers? India was the clear winner. Can you name the nation that produces the most electricity per capita in the world? His family, watching back home, clasped heads in hands but he was right: back then, in 2002, the answer was his native Lithuania.

It was enough to win Dambrauskas about £725 in his appearance on Six Zeros – A Million, the Lithuanian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? “At that time it was quite big money,” he says. “I could have bought a flat in my home town; it was a very difficult period there and they were almost free. But my plan was to go to England and follow my dream to become a coach, and that’s how it started.”

Continue reading...

Pixel 11 Pro review: Google’s best pocket camera goes customisable

Solid battery life, snappy performance and quality software make for a great smaller phone with a killer camera

Google’s latest Pro phone is out to prove it has the best camera on a smartphone while embracing customisation, allowing you to change the look and feel of your photos far beyond simple filters even if that means making them technically worse.

The Pixel 11 Pro packs the best of Google’s hardware and software into a still-pocketable and easy to handle frame, instantly making it a contender for best smaller phone of the year.

Screen: 6.3in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (495ppi)

Processor: Google Tensor G6

RAM: 12 or 16GB

Storage: 256, 512GB or 1TB

Operating system: Android 17

Camera: 50MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 5x tele; 42MP selfie

Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.7 x 71.9 x 8.4mm

Weight: 204g

Continue reading...

Chelsea’s 2016-17 Premier League title should be given to Spurs, says Pochettino

  • Former manager says Chelsea should be stripped of title

  • ‘The title should be for the team that was second’

Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea should be stripped of their 2016-17 Premier League title for financial rule breaches and the honour retrospectively awarded to Tottenham, who he led to second place that season.

Chelsea were fined £10m by the Football Association in July and given a suspended two-window transfer ban for multiple violations of the rules during the Roman Abramovich era. They were also fined £10.75m by the Premier League in March.

Continue reading...

How the fate of a small furry animal reveals the ecological tragedy of Israel’s war on Lebanon | Hisham Younes

The Syrian rock hyrax depends on the fragile landscapes of the border region. Alongside other environmentalists, I have been documenting the destruction of its habitat

Wars are usually measured in the number of people killed, homes destroyed and towns erased. Far less attention is paid to what happens beneath the rubble. Across southern Lebanon, repeated large-scale detonations are not only causing human tragedy by demolishing villages, they are also destroying the ancient limestone habitats that have sheltered colonies of rock hyrax for centuries.

As founder and president of Green Southerners, an environmental organisation documenting the ecological effects of war in southern Lebanon, I have been helping colleagues to record the damage inflicted on forests, wildlife and fragile ecosystems across the border region.

Continue reading...

World Tango Championships finals in pictures

Tango is an art form which, as the competitors themselves described, serves as a deeply personal means of expression, communication and connection between people beyond cultural and geographical borders. The final featured dancers from several countries including Russia, Turkey, Japan, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, underlining tango’s global and growing appeal.

Continue reading...

Ridiculed by the press – and now King Charles is joining in. Sorry, Harry, but what did you expect? | Emma Brockes

The Sussexes must have hoped for a warm welcome. Then they read the king’s delicately savage letter about ‘private citizens’

As welcome-back-to-Britain gestures go, the lord chamberlain’s letter, sent on behalf of King Charles on Monday to remind Harry, Meghan and everyone watching that they’re still “private citizens”, was so perfect as to restore me to monarchism. After six years in the wilderness, what greater comfort for Prince Harry than to find himself, once again, in the familiar waters of this country’s passive aggression, being attacked by his father via the merciless phrase “fully respected”, and provoking from the prince a coded up-yours in the form of his publicly stated “surprise”.

Well, it’s up there with better cheese, bread and the NHS, isn’t it?! Even the most Eurocentric American can’t match us for this kind of subtextual bare-knuckle fight. Before we get into what else the returnees may be enjoying this month, let’s fully excavate the letter’s encrypted hostility. First, the king’s repeated use of the words “personal” and “private” – as in “the charitable work of the Duke and Duchess is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity” – is so intense, so heavy handed, as to go beyond merely calling his younger son a civilian and come perilously close to the ultimate insult, “middle class”.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

VK: Voorpagina

Volkskrant.nl biedt het laatste nieuws, opinie en achtergronden

Trump gaat op dag één van zeldzame Republikeinse conventie ‘stevig tekeer’: ‘Hij kan het niet laten om de dominante factor te zijn’

Al op de eerste dag staat Trump 1,5 uur op het podium bij zeldzame Republikeinse conventie: ‘Hij kan het niet laten om de dominante factor te zijn’

Al op dag 1 staat Trump 1,5 uur op het podium op zeldzame Republikeinse conventie: ‘Hij kan het niet kan laten om de dominante factor te zijn’