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Nearly five years later, Miles Teller is hoping Top Gun 3 gets a clear runway to begin production soon. Following news that the third installment is officially in the works at Paramount, the actor noted that “everybody’s really excited” about reprising their roles once Tom Cruise finishes a sequel of another one of his early […]

Euronews held an EU Enlargement Summit in Brussels on Tuesday, hosting policymakers and political leaders from candidate countries to discuss how the next phase of the European Union's enlargement can be imagined.

Series two of this rambunctiously entertaining espionage drama might be implausible. But it’s a magnetically acted tale of friendship, with moments of genuine poignance Is Helen Webb Britain’s busiest mum? Or Britain’s least busy mum? On the one hand, she’s got two kids, is the wife of the recently promoted prime minister and also a deep cover spy, who spends her days passing information about her husband’s work to a shady intelligence organisation and her nights on covert missions which often involve acts of bloody slaughter. Yet the reason she can do all this is that nobody expects her to do anything at all: she doesn’t have to look after her children (she has an ever-present nanny – who, unbeknown to Helen, is in fact another spy), manage the household, hold down a job or even sleep in her own bed at night. Forget getting away with murder – how does she get away with not doing the school run?! I don’t think you’re meant to spend Black Doves obsessing over Helen’s domestic arrangements, but if you like cataloguing the ways spy dramas stretch credulity to its absolute limits, Joe Barton’s thriller will certainly scratch that itch. This is a show so relentlessly preposterous it’s practically nihilistic: not just because Black Doves’ excessive body count makes life itself look cheap and worthless, but because searching for coherence in its bewildering storylines quickly starts feeling like a waste of time too. Continue reading...

The AI-generated sci-fi film Gods Don't Give Gifts has added a bit of star power: Pop star Grimes is going to appear in the movie. Billed as "the first AI film to come to theatres," Gods Don't Give Gifts is a notable test case for the commercial potential of AI films, and it releases on […]

The postseason is nearly upon us but there’s plenty to still be decided as the end of the regular season approaches Just days after millions of Americans cast their votes in the midterm elections, we will soon arrive at the second-most meaningful decider in US society: Major League Soccer’s Decision Day. With eight 4pm ET kickoffs on the east coast and another seven games kicking off hours later out west on Saturday, there’s still plenty to play for at the end of the regular season. This is an extract from Soccer Desk, a newsletter from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here. Continue reading...

There are small pleasures to be had in this straightforward retelling of the boxing champ’s life but there’s not much most viewers haven’t seen before The Greatest is a new limited series that repackages the life of Muhammad Ali for generations born too late to remember when the sporting icon was the world’s most famous man, or too lazy to seek out one of the many books written about his boxing rise, his exile from the sport for refusing the draft, his improbable late-career comeback and his steely resilience in the face of a seismic Parkinson’s diagnosis. That this TV adaptation comes from Amazon is both a stroke of vertical integration and an indictment of a viewing public whose patience for source material wears thinner with every scroll. The Prime Video drama says it’s based on “the life of Muhammad Ali”, a credible claim given the extent to which Ali’s cultural ubiquity made him a public figure of eminent domain. The first-ever “authorized scripted series” also has the backing of Ali’s widow, Lonnie, who serves as an executive producer. But the show clearly takes its direction from the definitive tome authored by Muhammad Ali’s brother, Rahaman Ali. The younger brother was a lifelong sparring partner, sharing a room in their childhood Kentucky home and remaining a prominent member of his entourage until the champ’s death in 2016, aged 74 – an occasion for global mourning. Continue reading...

Harry Potter fans lining up to enter the franchise’s new Oxford Street store in London were greeted by trans rights protesters chanting that J.K. Rowling has “blood on her hands.” A group of around a dozen protesters stood to the side of the flagship store, wielding megaphones and placards with messages that included: “Trans kids […]

A riveting documentary following the rise of Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal. Plus: the live final of Big Brother. Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, BBC Two “Gastronomy is the French Foreign Legion,” says Marco Pierre White. “They don’t question you too much.” In the 1980s, the culinary desert of the UK saw the rise of three difficult, brilliant chefs (Pierre White was joined by Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal) who triggered a foodie revolution. This three-parter doesn’t quite avoid presentational, era-specific cliches, but it does capture the energy generated by the trio’s rise. Phil Harrison Continue reading...

The former Bond actor has given his seal of approval to 007 hopeful Callum Turner, who is rumoured to be one of the frontrunners for the coveted role. An official announcement regarding the identity of the next Bond is expected to drop before the end of the year.

Daniel P Lewis stars in his own script as an isolated man beset by trauma as a helpline counsellor Walters tries to heal his pain While working for a helpline one night, counsellor Grace (a terrific Hannah Walters) gets a call from Walter (Daniel P Lewis, also the film’s screenwriter), an isolated working-class man beset by trauma and loneliness who is contemplating killing himself. Grace quickly ascertains that Walter is in profound emotional distress, and although he keeps hanging up on her when her probing questions become too painful, he also keeps calling back until he feels safe enough to speak about the root causes of his anguish and accept help. However, other factors threaten to destabilise Walter’s fragile recovery as the violence that’s always been a part of his life erupts once again. Even if you didn’t read up on any of the background to this intimate, microscale drama, you’d be likely to suss while watching that it’s a labour of love for some of the cast and crew, perhaps born of a desire to show people in pain that there is help out there for them. That manifest sincerity and altruistic intent is so strongly palpable here that it somewhat wards off negative criticism, but it has to be admitted that the film does have its weaknesses. For a start, confining the action to Grace and Walter’s conversations and then observing how he reacts increasingly self-destructively after each talk means we follow a repetitive cycle of confession-reaction rinse-and-repeat. Lewis’s performance is dialled up to the max from the start, so it doesn’t have anywhere to go over the long haul. Added to which, the film keeps cutting away to somewhat strident flashbacks to explain what happened to him, instead of letting the revelations emerge through speech. Continue reading...

Using a fake DOB or leaving the field blank when making an online account can offer protection from identity theft You get a call from your bank saying there has been suspicious activity on your account. They read out your name, address and date of birth so you are happy it is a legitimate caller. But you are talking to criminals who have used your date of birth as part of a web of verifying information to convince you they are someone else. Continue reading...

Australia’s Fair Work Commission heard that Davide Tamburella was sacked for refusing to use the controversial topping With its sea foam-green and white decor, exposed brick columns and “classic Italian dishes” served atop European oak tables, La Costa was billed as an elegant slice of Italy in the urban heart of Queensland, Australia’s sunshine state. “We promise, it’ll only take a moment to realize you’re not in Brisbane anymore, you’ve made it to the Italian Riviera,” the now closed restaurant’s website still reads. Continue reading...

Since 1954, the King of the Kaiju has been terrorizing the city of Tokyo. But it wasn't until the two most recent installments, Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla Minus Zero, that the franchise became prestige fare.

Millions viewed Lisa He’s post about her mother’s struggling business in Edinburgh. But internet fame created its own complications — and obscured bigger questions.

Grace Harper Brighouse's documentary 'Dependence' claimed the audience award for best British discovery as Los Javis' large-scale queer epic continues to steal hearts around the globe.

Irishwoman Kearns lauded for pulling off illegal double Gaelic ‘solo’ AFLW boss says league to look at changing rules after 2026 finals The AFL will look at rule changes in its women’s competition to make it easier for Irish players to add their own flair, in a nod to the almost 50 former Gaelic footballers in the AFLW. One of the main differences between the sister sports, apart from the shape of the ball and field, is the bounce explicitly required for players in Australian rules running more than 15 metres. Continue reading...

The foreign secretary added that the UK will not shift its position on reparations Good morning. Wednesdays are normally the most exciting day of the week at Westminster, because it’s PMQs, but today (unless we get some mega surprise) all the action is taking place somewhere else. In part, that’s because Andy Burnham is still at the Commonwealth summit in Antigua. But mostly because anyone in SW1 with even a passing interest in politics will be far more interested in the outcome of the US midterm elections. You can catch up with all the drama on our US politics live blog. While the US results are undoubtedly fascinating, quite how relevant they are to the UK is a bit harder to discern. Donald Trump is still president for the next two years, and none of the chaos he has caused for Britain and other European allies is going to go away; conceivably, he could end up even more disruptive. Trump was first elected president in 2016 only months after the UK voted for Brexit and there will be progressives in Britain hoping the US results show that what Ed Davey is this morning calling the “politics of hate, division and economic harm” might be on their way out this side of the pond too. Maybe? But it is probably too soon to get carried away. Our US coverage is all here. In so far as there is any interesting UK reaction, I will post it here. People have been honestly a bit bruised by the past, what happened in the past, the sense that we just really just wanted to sweep this issue under the carpet and not confront it. My sense is there’s a bit of a sigh of relief that, OK … at least there’s a sense of we’ve got a shared interest now in moving the Commonwealth on. No … For us, that’s never been what it’s about. And that’s why it’s been important that … I did have this conversation with our partners in advance. I said, ‘Look, we are going to say we are willing to say that we’re open to an apology, but we’re not going to shift our position on reparations.’ It’s not for…

This insider’s history of the CIA explores the last 50 years of US foreign policy with granular detail and mordant humour The 250th year of the American experiment seems to invite a reckoning. For a young country, the United States is overblessed – or burdened – with myths about its foundation and how the nation has conducted itself at home and abroad. William T Vollmann’s 3,000-page novel A Table for Fortune is an epic attempt, 15 years in the making, to engage with the US’s past and present at an institutional and a personal level. The four simultaneously published volumes offer both a family story and an insider’s history of the CIA, in order to show the consequences of the quest for liberty and the belief in American exceptionalism. Vollmann’s previous novels have explored the ideological basis of American society, most notably those of the Seven Dreams series, published from 1990 to 2015, which depict the generally disastrous encounters between American settlers and Indigenous peoples. A Table for Fortune continues this project by investigating the last 50 years of US foreign policy, at the heart of which is 9/11, with the book “tracing the roots of that crime in one direction and its poisoned harvest in another”. Though the CIA has been fertile ground for many great American novelists – Don DeLillo, Norman Mailer – Vollmann is perhaps the first to represent the culture and daily activities of the agency in granular detail. His great gambit is to frame this as a dark workplace comedy of minor resentments, sexual tension and office banter. These sections are narrated by the institutional voice of the CIA itself in a relentlessly sardonic tone rife with acronyms, codenames and jargon rendered in multiple fonts. The mordant humour of the narrator, who regards all forms of death and suffering as “fun”, has a seductive quality that allows Vollmann to educate the reader about a broad sweep of geopolitical subjects ranging from the Angolan civil war to the…