De bizarre persconferentie van Melania Trump over haar vermeende banden met financier en zedendelinquent Jeffrey Epstein heeft in de Verenigde Staten en daarbuiten voor opschudding gezorgd. In een zeldzaam openbaar optreden vanuit het Witte Huis ontkende de First Lady dat Epstein degene was die haar eind jaren negentig aan haar huidige echtgenoot, president Donald Trump, voorstelde. Daarmee ging ze frontaal in tegen jarenlange speculaties in Amerikaanse media over de rol van Epstein in de begindagen van hun relatie.

Tijdens de opname van de Sky News-podcast “Trump100” kreeg presentator Mark live in de uitzending een telefoontje van Paolo Zampolli, een in New York gevestigde Italiaans-Amerikaanse zakenman en society‑figuur. Zampolli claimde dat híj de echte koppelaar was tussen Donald en Melania – en zei desnoods “onder ede” te willen verklaren dat hij het stel aan elkaar heeft voorgesteld. Zijn interventie voedt de vraag wie er belang heeft bij het herschrijven van de ontstaansmythe van het machtigste koppel van Amerika.

De timing van Melania’s uitlatingen is opvallend. Terwijl zij afstand neemt van Epstein, ligt Donald Trump opnieuw onder vuur, onder meer vanwege het ongeblurred online delen van een video waarop de moord op een vrouw te zien is – een stap die zelfs binnen zijn eigen politieke omgeving ongemak veroorzaakt. In sommige kringen klinkt inmiddels de roep om een beroep te doen op het 25e amendement van de Amerikaanse grondwet, dat het mogelijk maakt een president wegens onbekwaamheid af te zetten.

De Nederlandse koloniale films waren meer geobsedeerd door details dan door spektakel, waar andere Europese grootmachten zich aan laafden. Dat is goed te zien in de koloniale filmarchieven die in Eye liggen. Hedendaagse kunstenaars bogen zich over de archieven om de beelden in perspectief te plaatsen.

Door de blokkade van de Straat van Hormuz kwamen duizenden zeelieden vast te zitten op schepen in de Perzische Golf, veelal onder erbarmelijke omstandigheden. De 22-jarige Indiase scheepskok Bikram Ghosh zag hoe de tanker waarop hij voer in brand vloog na vermoedelijk te zijn geraakt door een Iraanse drone.

The raspberry danish latte is making its way around the world after its inventors decided to share the recipe

A viral coffee drink created by a little college town coffee shop on the outskirts of Minneapolis is now making its way around the world after its inventors decided to give the recipe away for free.

After Little Joy Coffee’s raspberry danish latte, a spring seasonal drink, went viral in March, the shop’s owners decided to encourage coffee shops to rip off the recipe directly and add it to their menus.

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A reincarnation mystery drives this exploration of spiritual interconnectedness in a globalised world

What happens when a novelist cares more about their plot, or their message, than their prose? Plot and message have this much in common: they travel smoothest on the lubricating oil of cliche. Thus you might find yourself enjoying, at the level of story or argument, a novel that trundles along via lumps of workhorse novelese like the following: “manicured gardens”, “apple of their father’s eye”, “venerable patriarch”, “Little did I know then”, “keeping a weather eye”, “money was tight”, “Barely had the words left her mouth”, “engulfed by civil strife”, “I was taken aback”, “a piercing cry”, “an ear-splitting cacophony”, “a lick of paint”, “It was a marvel to behold”, “It was as though she were a woman possessed”, “The ceremonies went off without a hitch”, “She and I were polar opposites” …

This is, for much of its length, the experience of reading Amitav Ghosh’s 11th novel, Ghost-Eye. The plot has been quite intricately worked out. It seeds the reader’s curiosity, especially in the first half, with all sorts of intriguing mysteries. The subject – the various collisions of global and local in the post-second world war age – is important. But much of the prose is dead on arrival. I say this with regret. Like many readers, I think of Ghosh with gratitude: not just for the narrative riches of his Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire), but for the work of intellectual framing he performed in his 2016 polemic The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Ghosh is at least partly responsible for the arrival of the climate emergency as an urgent subject in literary fiction over the last decade. He woke us from our slumbers.

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Presidential elections in Djibouti and Benin at the weekend highlighted how a costly electoral system is reshaping democracy

Alexis Mohamed would have loved to stand against his former boss. A longtime adviser to Djibouti’s president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, Mohamed resigned last September, citing democratic regression in the country.

But at the election at the weekend, Mohamed was not on the ballot. Now outside the country, he says he cannot return home to file nomination papers or campaign freely without credible security guarantees. Even if he were allowed to compete, nomination costs would still loom as a steep barrier in a political environment many critics describe as ceremonial, with Guelleh the habitual winner.

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Experts say climate pattern could supercharge extreme weather events and push temperatures to record highs

There is a high likelihood that the phenomenon known as “El Niño” will emerge this summer – and it could be exceptionally strong. A so-called “super El Niño” could supercharge extreme weather events and push global temperatures to record heights next year if it develops, according to experts.

Meteorologists are keeping a close eye on the climate patterns developing in the Pacific Ocean that will enable stronger predictions about what’s to come in the year ahead.

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Official report says system ‘completely failed’ because some form of violence by Axel Rudakubana had been ‘unambiguously signposted over many years’

• Southport attack inquiry report – latest updates

Axel Rudakubana was able to carry out the Southport atrocity because of “catastrophic” failures by multiple agencies and the “irresponsible and harmful” role of his parents, a damning inquiry has found.

Sir Adrian Fulford condemned the “inappropriate merry-go-round” of state bodies passing the buck and their “frankly depressing” refusal to accept responsibility, saying: “This culture has to end.”

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Undisclosed number of names and contact and reservation details accessed in latest cybercrime attempt

• Business live – latest updates

The accommodation reservation website Booking.com has suffered a data breach with “unauthorised parties” gaining access to customers’ details.

The platform said it “noticed some suspicious activity involving unauthorised third parties being able to access some of our guests’ booking information”.

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