Mohammad Javad Zarif implies move was endorsed by supreme leader, as his exit sends stock market into a tailspin
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s most prominent reformist, has resigned from the government, saying he had been instructed to do so by an unnamed senior official.
He implied the move was endorsed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, although he did not name him in his resignation letter as he stepped down as vice-president for strategic affairs.
Continue reading...UN-commissioned study in UK, US, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand finds satisfaction rises with age
For more than half a century, the midlife crisis has been a feature of western society. Fast cars, impulsive decisions, and peak misery between the age of 40 and 50. But all that is changing, according to experts.
In a new paper commissioned by the UN, the leading academics Jean Twenge and David Blanchflower warn that a burgeoning youth mental health crisis in six English-speaking countries worldwide is upending the traditional pattern of happiness across our lifetimes.
Continue reading...Global Times signals Beijing’s likely countermeasure after US president threatened a further 10% duty to come into force on Tuesday
China is preparing countermeasures against fresh US import tariffs that are set to take effect on Tuesday, China’s state-backed Global Times reported, with American agricultural exports likely to be targeted.
Donald Trump last week threatened China with an extra 10% duty, resulting in a cumulative 20% tariff, while accusing Beijing of not having done enough to halt the flow of fentanyl into America, something China said was tantamount to “blackmail”.
Continue reading...Best supporting actress Oscar winner addressed complaints about the Netflix musical after a journalist said it was ‘really hurtful’
Oscar winner Zoe Saldaña has apologised to Mexicans who were offended by controversial musical Emilia Pérez.
The star picked up the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in the Netflix movie and in the press room after her win, a journalist told her the film has been “really hurtful for us Mexicans”.
Anora takes home best picture Oscar
Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards
Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing ands creenplay
Continue reading...No one uttered the US president’s name, and speeches bore few references to Gaza or Ukraine, focusing on the LA fires
The 97th Academy Awards had one of the longest run times for the annual show in recent history, yet the least mentions of the current political climate – with not a single person uttering the name “Donald Trump”.
While few people watch awards shows – least of all the Oscars – for political discussion, comments on world events have long been an expected part of the broadcasts. Trump himself has even weighed in on a show – at least once while it aired: last year, while campaigning for re-election, he posted on Truth Social and asked rhetorically whether there was ever a “worse host” than Jimmy Kimmel at the 2024 Oscars and criticized his opening monologue.
Anora takes home best picture Oscar
Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards
Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay
Continue reading...Sean Baker’s film picks up five awards including best picture while Israel-Palestine documentary No Other Land also gets major win
Low-budget comedy Anora has triumphed at this year’s Oscars winning five Oscars, including best picture and best actress while Adrien Brody took home best actor.
Anora, which follows Mikey Madison’s sex worker who gets married to the son of a Russian oligarch, premiered at the Cannes film festival last year and has become the fourth Palme d’Or winner to be named best picture.
Continue reading...Director who made his name with microbudget indie films wins with his self-penned drama about a lapdancer who falls for one of her clients
Sean Baker has won the best director Oscar for Anora at the Academy Awards, which are taking place in Los Angeles, California.
A romance/thriller about a lapdancer who impulsively marries a Russian playboy, Anora stars Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn. It is Baker’s eighth feature, having made his debut with the microbudget indie Four Letter Words in 2000, and his fourth film since making a breakthrough in 2015 with Tangerine, a drama about trans sex workers shot on iPhones.
Anora wins best original and Conclave wins best adapted screenplay
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting prizes
No Other Land wins best documentary andFlow wins best animated feature
Continue reading...Former youngest-ever winner of best actor Oscar wins award again for his portrayal of fictional architect in Brady Corbet’s epic drama
Adrien Brody has won the Academy Award for best actor for his role in Brady Corbet’s post-war epic The Brutalist.
In 2003, Brody became the youngest ever winner of the same award, when he took the prize for his role in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, aged 29 years, 343 days.
Anora takes home best picture Oscar
Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards
Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay
Continue reading...Sole previous scoring credit on a full-length film for the singer, guitar player and visual artist is The World to Come
The young British composer Daniel Blumberg has won his first Oscar for his second-ever musical score for a feature film, for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.
Blumberg, 34, won the Bafta award last month for the score, which has met with considerable praise and which plays a prominent role in the film. The Brutalist is the story of a fictitious Hungarian architect, László Tóth, who moves to the US after surviving the Holocaust.
Anora takes home best picture Oscar
Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards
Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay
Continue reading...Self-distributed film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community beat out Porcelain War and Sugarcane
The West Bank-based film No Other Land has won this year’s best documentary feature Oscar.
The film, which is made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, won out against competition from Black Box Diaries, Porcelain War and Sugarcane.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president says after Oval Office meltdown best ‘left to history’, adding minerals deal is ready to sign
A defiant but tactful Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused to apologise to Donald Trump after Friday’s spat in the White House, and declared that the row in the Oval Office “did not bring anything positive” to peace for Ukraine.
Speaking to journalists only in Ukrainian at the end of a two-day visit to the UK, the Ukrainian president said that when such delicate negotiations are held in public “foes can take advantage of them” though he said he hoped the row would eventually pass.
Continue reading...Israeli media reports Israeli American Trump donor will fly Eli Sharabi to Washington DC to meet president this week
The freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to Washington to meet Donald Trump this week, his brother told Israeli media on Sunday.
Sharabi, who was released from Gaza after 16 months in captivity, expects to meet Trump with other freed hostages on Tuesday, after the US president watched him describe the severe hunger and violence he endured on Israeli television.
Continue reading...‘That is a fluid situation,’ Howard Lutnick says in first indication that administration may not impose full tariffs
Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that US tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday, but the president would determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level.
“That is a fluid situation,” Lutnick told the Fox News program Sunday Morning Futures.
Continue reading...The continent’s role in any ceasefire will be limited unless countries commit more to Kiev and the Zelenskyy-Trump relationship is repaired
Europe and the UK are hoping they are on the brink of assembling a credible military coalition that Donald Trump can only refuse to support at risk of appearing openly to ally with Vladimir Putin – an alliance many grassroots Republicans reject.
The plan is a long shot since it requires enough countries inside Nato to offer practical support to such a coalition of the willing, and also needs Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, to patch up his relations with Donald Trump following Friday’s Oval Office meeting.
Continue reading...Emergency unfolds amid warnings throughout south-east over dry and windy conditions that exacerbate wildfires
Several wildfires were reported on Saturday in North and South Carolina, forcing evacuations.
The emergency unfolded amid warnings throughout the south-east over dry and windy conditions that exacerbate wildfires.
Continue reading...Russia’s foreign minister also praises Donald Trump for his ‘commonsense’ aim to end the war in Ukraine
The Kremlin said on Sunday that the dramatic pivot in the foreign policy of the US “largely” coincides with its own vision, with Donald Trump described as having “common sense”.
The US president, who has often said he respects his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, has worked to build ties with Moscow since taking office in January, including twice siding with Russia in UN votes.
Continue reading...President of the NAACP New York state chapter fought tirelessly for voting rights, fair housing and education
Hazel Dukes, the president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP and lifelong civil rights advocate, died Saturday at the age of 92.
Dukes peacefully passed away in her New York City home surrounded by family, her son, Ronald Dukes, said in a statement.
Continue reading...Resistance to any proposals remains speculative until administration lays out its plan for the federal agency
After the postmaster general, Louis Dejoy, a former Trump fundraiser and logistics executive appointed during the president’s first term, announced last month that he was stepping down, defenders of the US Postal Service (USPS) concerned that the 249-year-old institution could soon experience the slice and slash of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” scimitar have expressed alarm.
Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to dissolve USPS’s bipartisan board of governors and place the agency under the control of the commerce department secretary, Howard Lutnick, the Washington Post recently reported.
Continue reading...Harris running mate discussed campaign missteps after saying he’ll run for third term as Minnesota governor
Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate in the November presidential election won by Donald Trump, says he deplores how much time he spent addressing the opposing campaign’s decision to spread false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in Springfield, Ohio.
“They sucked me in on” that, Walz said in a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. Echoing similar remarks that he made on a recent episode of the Fast Politics With Molly Jong-Fast podcast, he added: “I was just horrified and angry when they were demonizing folks in Springfield, Ohio. [And] there I was talking for almost a week about immigration, right where they wanted us to be.”
Continue reading...President bullying countries’ leaders into collaborating with his deportation agenda that critics say violates rights
Central America has long been a source of immigrants, and in recent years, it’s also become a major transit route for those from around the world heading to the United States.
That shift led to record numbers of immigrants arriving at the US border, and contributed to the supposed crisis that helped Donald Trump win the election this past November.
Continue reading...