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      Zelenskyy to talk with US negotiators about war with Russia after Easter ceasefire proposal – Europe live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:38

    Ukrainian president says he hopes for ‘results’ as he sits down with negotiators later today

    The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer , is the first one to react to Trump’s comments in The Telegraph, as he gets asked about it at his No10 press conference just now.

    He defends Nato as “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen,” and while he doesn’t respond to Trump’s comments, he says:

    “Let me say a number of things in response to that. Firstly, Nato is the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen, and it has kept us safe for many decades. And we are fully committed to Nato.

    Secondly, that whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make. And that’s why I’ve been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it.

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      Starmer says UK will host meeting later this week with other nations on the reopening of the strait of Hormuz – UK politics live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:35

    Prime minister is holding a press conference from Downing Street

    Starmer says he understands why people are concerned about the cost of living.

    He says he has already set out a five-point plan to deal with the crisis.

    Just look at what’s happening today. Today your energy bills will be cut because of the action that we took at the budget. And whatever happens in Iran, that price is now fixed until July.

    The most effective way we can support the cost of living in Britain is to push for de-escalation in the Middle East, and a reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which is such a vital route for energy.

    To that end, we’re exploring each and every diplomatic avenue that is available to us.

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      Emma Raducanu pulls out of Linz Open as recovery from illness drags on

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:08

    • The 23-year-old British No 1 also sat out Miami Open

    • Post-viral symptoms from illness stall comeback

    Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from next week’s Linz Open as she continues to recover full fitness, her team have confirmed.

    The British No 1 also pulled out of the Miami Open as she prioritises her rehabilitation from post-viral symptoms on the back of an illness she picked up in Romania in early February.

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      Why do this spring’s blockbusters feel so smug?

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:00 • 1 minute

    From action thrillers to sci-fi flicks, a deluge of recent releases are riddled with self-satisfied smarm

    The new Hulu movie Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice has been marketed as a genre-mashing wild ride, with plenty of South by Southwest festival reactions and even genuine full reviews delighting in its supposed mixture of sci-fi, action, romance and buddy comedy. That’s a hell of a lot of genres. While watching it, I found myself wondering if the number of elements in play is supposed to distract from how its comedy has three deadening and similar modes. One involves characters being unexpectedly familiar with seemingly incongruous elements of pop culture: it opens with a scientist tinkering with his time-travel machine while singing along to Why Should I Worry?, a niche Billy Joel song from the old Disney cartoon Oliver & Company; later, there’s a long conversation about a bunch of criminal types’ deep familiarity with the TV show Gilmore Girls .

    If that doesn’t sound funny enough, writer-director BenDavid Grabinski finds the flip side equally hilarious: people not knowing things. Gags include a guy who hasn’t heard of Winnie the Pooh, a guy who doesn’t know the proper name of chloroform, and a guy who doesn’t know what the word “comeuppance” means. These are all different guys. The third, even less sophisticated strain of comedy in Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, are characters who fuckin’ swear. Talk about fuckin’ comedy! Sometimes their names even swear: one guy is nicknamed, get this, Dumbass Tony! In every detail of the movie, you can feel the heavy hand of the screenwriter, straining for irreverence, desperate to show that he’s made something that’s not like the other, regular screenplays out there.

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      Ex-Alex Jones employee reflects on job at Infowars: ‘It was nonsense. It was lies’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:00

    Former Infowars video editor and field producer spoke on his experience working on the show in an NPR interview

    A former video editor and field producer for Alex Jones’s Infowars has said his work for the notorious conspiracy theorist was “nonsense” and “lies”, but he kept at it for four years in his 20s because the far-right media company’s founder was a magnetic presence and it earned him good money.

    Josh Owens made those revealing remarks in an NPR interview published on Tuesday promoting his new memoir about once having been an employee of Jones and Infowars – a conversation that also detailed the hand he said he had in fabricating a video of an operative of the Islamic State (IS) terror group sneaking into the US from Mexico immediately after a beheading.

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      Tony Blair says the left is in ‘unholy alliance’ with Islamists. It’s a desperate last ploy to quell the anger over Gaza | Owen Jones

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:00

    The former PM has no valid response when progressives raise a voice over war crimes, so he seeks to mute them. But we’ll take no moral lectures from him

    The left, claims Tony Blair, has forged an “alliance with Islamists”. He goes further: this is simply the latest mutation of antisemitism. Extraordinary accusations require extraordinary evidence. Yet unlike with his illegal war on Iraq, our former prime minister has not even troubled himself to assemble a dodgy dossier.

    This latest tirade was published by the Free Press, a woke-bashing, pro-Israel publication founded by journalist Bari Weiss, now accused of pro-Trump censorship in her new role as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The substance of Blair’s charge is what he calls “opposition to Israel”. This has become an increasingly familiar allegation. As the popularity of the Green party of England and Wales surges, its opposition to Israel’s genocide is recast as sectarianism.

    Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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      ‘As soon as I left the first session I felt taller’: is reformer pilates as amazing – or awful – as they say?

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:00

    One of the fastest-growing fitness trends is also one of the most divisive. To its fans, it promises a stronger, healthier body; to its critics, it’s another way to make women feel insecure. Time to sort fact from fiction

    I have noticed something new in my London neighbourhood. Amid the sea of nail salons, vape shops and purveyors of fried chicken, sleek, opaque-fronted premises are popping up everywhere. There are several within 15 minutes of my home.

    At weekends, you can spot clusters of devotees heading to these mysterious, vaguely aspirational temples of self-care, AKA reformer pilates studios. Many of these devotees conform to an aesthetic popularised on TikTok via hashtags such as #pilatesprincess. There is definitely a uniform: pink athleisure, Rhode phone cases and oversized pastel-coloured Stanley tumblers, jokingly referenced on Instagram as “emotional support” bottles. It is a trend that prompted New York magazine to run an article under the headline “Why Pilates Keeps Pissing People Off”: the workout has become inseparable from a very strict idea of womanhood.

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      Sali Hughes on beauty: new foundation launches come with a lot of hype. Do they deserve it?

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 9:00

    Armani revamps a favourite, Clarins adds a tint to its serum and a new base from Carisa Janes will suit anyone who hates powders

    Three very big hitters have new foundations: one risky reformulation of a cult classic; one addition to a wildly popular skincare franchise; and one to launch a new brand from a beauty legend.

    Let’s start with Armani’s Luminous Silk (£49 for 30ml), loved by many for its buildable, versatile coverage, and perhaps the most worn bridal foundation of all time. While I’m not against a reformulation in principle (technology, regulations and ingredients move on, and that’s all for the better), Armani does seem to have reformulated here for little discernible reason beyond Google Analytics.

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      Under Water by Tara Menon review – love, loss and a longing for the ocean

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 8:00

    This debut about female friendship and environmental fragility set after the 2004 tsunami in Thailand is strong on grief, but the storytelling remains uneven

    The underlying themes of this debut novel could hardly be more relevant. Marissa is working as a travel writer without leaving her desk, coining gleaming descriptions of untouched beaches for tourists. But as she does so, her mind runs on darker paths. She is living in New York while it braces for Hurricane Sandy, and as the wind rises she remembers being caught up in the horrors of the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. She grieves for the beauty of the ocean that she knew then, and the fate of her beloved friend Arielle.

    Loss, love, environmental fragility, female friendship: I was ready to plunge into the waves of this novel, to swim with its currents of grief and longing. But while I found myself at times drawn in to the narrative, at others I was distanced by Menon’s style, which is deliberately fragmented but also disappointingly uneven.

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