Trump Once Vowed to ‘Own’ Greenland. He Settled for Something Much Less.

© Esther Horvath for The New York Times

© Esther Horvath for The New York Times
The US president made the comments as he arrives at the UN headquarters in New York
Nordic correspondent
Emotions among Greenlanders are a mixture of hope, scepticism and fear ahead of the signing of a new much vaunted deal on Arctic security between the US, Greenland and Denmark.
“There have been many different reactions in Greenland because they are talking about a deal but no one can see the deal, we don’t know what it is all about, and what’s in it for us or what’s in it. Also, because we have been terrorised as a people for the last 1.5 years by the American president, so many people feel no trust at all.”
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© Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AFP/Getty Images
Statement sought to clarify Trump’s announcement that US will have ‘permanent control’ over Greenland’s security
Denmark and Greenland have said any agreement with the US to develop a significant military presence in the strategic Arctic territory will not compromise Greenland’s sovereignty.
In a statement on Saturday clarifying an announcement by Donald Trump that an agreement had been reached to give Washington “permanent control” over Greenland’s security, Denmark and the semi-autonomous territory expressed hope that a deal would end friction with the US over the issue.
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© Photograph: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AP

© Photograph: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AP

© Photograph: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AP
The agreement would allow the US to expand its military presence, while Denmark and Greenland say it preserves their sovereignty and right to self-determination
Donald Trump announced on Friday that the US had struck an Arctic security pact with the leaders of Denmark and Greenland, after threatening for much of his second term to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory by force.
The full scope of the deal Trump described as “very important, historic, and special” was not immediately clear. But soon after his announcement in a post on Truth Social, the leaders of Denmark and Greenland issued statements indicating the deal would be signed by the three governments on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York City next week.
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© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
The European Commission’s president warned that recent actions in Denmark and Lithuania are ‘not isolated incidents’
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha responded to the incident in Denmark, declaring Kyiv’s “full support” after “unacceptable actions targeting a Danish helicopter.”
“Moscow continues its attempts to destabilise Europe, not just Denmark. Joint and decisive action is required and Ukraine is ready to contribute to all efforts aimed at strengthening the protection of Europe from Russian threats,” he said.
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© Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

© Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

© Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP
Mathilde Arcel, who won the Volpi Cup on Saturday for her role in Golden Lion winner Woman Unknown, said job offers have now begun to arrive
The winner of this year’s best actress prize at the Venice film festival has revealed that she is on unemployment benefits and had to fly to back to Copenhagen to report to the job centre before receiving her award.
On Saturday night, Danish actor Mathilde Arcel won the prestigious Volpi Cup for her first leading role in a feature film, May el-Toukhy’s post-second world war drama Woman Unknown, which also won the Golden Lion award for best film.
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© Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

© Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

© Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters
Ursula von der Leyen says incidents ‘part of broader pattern of Russian aggression and provocation against Europe’
A Russian warship fired two emergency flares at a Danish helicopter in the Baltic Sea and an Italian Nato fighter jet shot down a drone carrying an explosive device over Lithuania in what the EU described as “reckless and dangerous” Russian behaviour.
Poland also scrambled fighter jets “due to the activity of Russian jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles conducting strikes on Ukrainian territory”, the day after Polish security forces retrieved a suspected Russian drone adrift in its waters.
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© Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

© Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

© Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP
Venice film festival
A nanny becomes the new lady of a prosperous Copenhagen house as accused Nazi sympathisers are violently shamed in May el-Toukhy’s shrewd, painful portrait of survival
Here is an elegantly appointed drama-thriller from May el-Toukhy, about sexual shame and political paranoia in postwar Denmark, with something of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, which it consciously recalls. As director and co-writer, El-Toukhy has created a shrewd and painful movie about the terrible things you need to do to survive, and what it takes to forget those things afterwards.
The scene is a prosperous, upper-middle-class apartment in Copenhagen just after the second world war, when the Danish resistance was permitted the powers of a secret-police militia to detain and interrogate those suspected of having given assistance to the Nazis. Christian (Carsten Bjørnlund) is a ageing factory owner and widower who has evidently fallen in love with his infant daughter’s nanny: this is Marie (fiercely and convincingly played by Mathilde Arcel). Or at any rate, he sees that the child needs a new mother, finds Marie attractive and appreciates her submissive attitude. They are now engaged.
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© Photograph: Courtesy Venice Film Festival

© Photograph: Courtesy Venice Film Festival

© Photograph: Courtesy Venice Film Festival
This Danish concept encourages everyone to stop wasting energy on things we can’t change. You can even buy a pyt button to press. But does it help?
We wouldn’t ignore tennis tips from Serena Williams, or culinary advice from Nigella Lawson, so when one of the happiest countries in the world lets slip a life strategy, we should probably pay attention. Even if it does, at first, sound a little simplistic and perhaps provoke an eye roll.
Obligatory mention of hygge now dealt with, get ready to embrace “pyt”. Not to be confused with the 1983 Michael Jackson single, this Danish concept means accepting when a situation is out of our control. Then, even though we may be so angry and exasperated that we are in danger of spontaneous combustion, we don’t waste energy thinking any more about it and instead move on.
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© Photograph: shophyggebox.com

© Photograph: shophyggebox.com

© Photograph: shophyggebox.com
Governments are now quicker to point the finger at Moscow, but critics say their inaction invites more sabotage
Russia’s suspected sabotage campaign across Europe appears to be gathering pace again, confronting governments with a problem they have struggled to solve since the start of the war in Ukraine: how to impose a meaningful cost on Moscow for attacks that remain deliberately below the threshold of conventional war.
Over the past month alone, an explosives-laden drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport, Poland has faced suspected acts of sabotage, and a string of unexplained explosions and fires have hit defence facilities supplying Ukraine across Europe.
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© Photograph: NEWS5/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: NEWS5/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: NEWS5/AFP/Getty Images
In spite of capable performances and deployment of hygge, gothic and Nordic noir elements, you’ll search for a feasible plot or a character insight in vain
Adapted from the 2017 novel by Anna Ekberg (actually a male writing duo), this thriller from Denmark chucks in a bit of everything into the mix: hygge lakeside melodrama, manor-house gothic, and Nordic-noir corruption. But this franticness can’t disguise that it’s a dopey and facile thriller that, despite capable performances, plumbs neither its characters’ depths nor hits thematic pay dirt. It also merits a stiff investigation from the plotting police.
Despite amnesia that leaves her unable to remember her life prior to running an idyllic Norwegian rural cafe, Louise (Natalie Wolfsberg Madueño) is gearing up to get hitched to crime writer Joachim (Pål Sverre Hagen). When a tourist approaches and calls her by another name, she is sufficiently shaken to take a DNA test; it confirms she is actually Helene Söderberg, a Danish shipping heiress presumed dead, with a husband and son back home. Originally found stowed away on a cargo ship, she handed over an ID card – for Louise Anderson – which the authorities accepted. Now wanting to reclaim her identity, she pitches up on the capacious doorstep of company executive Edmund (Claes Bang), her former partner.
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© Photograph: Lasse Bak Mejlvang/Netflix/Courtesy of Netflix

© Photograph: Lasse Bak Mejlvang/Netflix/Courtesy of Netflix

© Photograph: Lasse Bak Mejlvang/Netflix/Courtesy of Netflix
Mette Frederiksen, who received message on returning from Ukraine, advises women to embrace self-acceptance
Sick of getting unsolicited beauty tips on social media, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, rebuffed a male cosmetic surgeon’s offer to “fix” her and advised women in similar situations to embrace self-acceptance.
Frederiksen, a Social Democrat and Denmark’s second female prime minister, posted on Instagram that she had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, where she was subjected to air raid sirens, when she found a message proposing some help with her appearance.
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© Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA

© Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA

© Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA
Post-Brexit visa rules and faceless pen-pushers were keeping me and my partner apart. But love finds a way
Consider your ideal wedding. You may picture religious pageantry, majestic domes and the auspicious light of the Divine beaming on a white dress. Maybe you see friends dancing on a pub’s veranda, cheering for you in front of a town hall, or anywhere really – the people you love are there, and it’s all that matters.
What you are probably not picturing is a meet-up with Chris and Mitch, two complete strangers waiting for you and your future spouse by a nondescript fountain in the middle of Copenhagen. Judging by my soon-to-be-wife’s bewildered laugh throughout the entire 20 minutes of our wedding, this is not what she was picturing either. Should I add that neither of us is Danish, or lives in Denmark?
Jules Darmanin is a French journalist
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© Photograph: Jeppe Gustafsson/Alamy

© Photograph: Jeppe Gustafsson/Alamy

© Photograph: Jeppe Gustafsson/Alamy
Government introduces several measures, including monitoring of computers, for pupils aged 16 to 19
Danish teenagers will have to make an oral defence of their written essays to combat AI cheating, the government has announced.
Pupils aged 16 to 19 at upper secondary school (known in Denmark as gymnasiet) will also be encouraged to do written assignments at school under controlled conditions, including monitoring of their computer screens, rather than at home.
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© Photograph: Posed by models; Solskin/Getty Images

© Photograph: Posed by models; Solskin/Getty Images

© Photograph: Posed by models; Solskin/Getty Images
World-class venue puts renewed focus on staff wellbeing under new head chef after René Redzepi stepped down and apologised for his behaviour
The Copenhagen restaurant Noma – often ranked among the world’s best – is preparing to reopen next week under new leadership for the first time since its star chef and co-founder, René Redzepi, stepped down amid accusations of physical and psychological abuse.
The new executive head chef, Pablo Soto, who has worked at the restaurant for nearly a decade, said while it remained “the same Noma” there had been some significant changes. Along with a new, evolving monthly menu to replace its previous seasonal one, he said there was now a heightened focus on enabling employees to live full lives.
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© Photograph: James Brooks/AP

© Photograph: James Brooks/AP

© Photograph: James Brooks/AP
New research linking the issue to Parkinson’s disease adds to the evidence of serious health repercussions from traffic volume and other sources
The roar of late-night traffic is not just annoying for those trying to sleep. It can also have profound effects on their health. A pioneering new study, published this month, has found a clear link between road noise and Parkinson’s disease. The research, which followed more than 3 million Danish participants, found a modest but consistent effect: for every 11.5dB rise in noise level, the risk of the degenerative disorder rose by 3% over the 18-year study.
The study adds to the growing body of evidence that auditory nuisance is associated with serious physical consequences. The European Environment Agency reported last year that more than 110 million people across the continent suffer high levels of health-damaging noise pollution, with physiological stress and sleep disturbance leading to 66,000 early deaths annually as well as heart disease, diabetes and depression. It found that the harm caused was greater than from secondhand tobacco smoke exposure.
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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Pioneering study linking noise pollution to Parkinson’s finds 3% increase in risk for every 11.5dB rise in noise levels
Long-term exposure to road traffic noise is associated with a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease, the biggest study of its kind has found.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder in which parts of the brain become damaged over time, affecting movement and balance.
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© Photograph: georgeclerk/Getty Images

© Photograph: georgeclerk/Getty Images

© Photograph: georgeclerk/Getty Images
Government urges visitors not to approach or feed wolves as it manages safety amid growing population
Danish authorities have advised tourists to stand still, make eye contact and put up “maximum resistance” in the event of attack if they encounter a wolf while on holiday.
After a 200-year absence, wolves started returning to Denmark in 2012. There are now estimated to be 49 wolves on the Danish peninsula of Jutland.
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© Photograph: Rolf Larsen/Getty Images/500px Plus

© Photograph: Rolf Larsen/Getty Images/500px Plus

© Photograph: Rolf Larsen/Getty Images/500px Plus
From Nevada to Manchester, developers are trialling innovative solutions to clean energy’s biggest challenge
In the deserts of the United Arab Emirates a sprawling clean energy project, stretching across an area roughly the size of 12,600 football fields, will play host to a breakthrough allowing solar energy to power the equivalent of half a million homes through the night.
The Gulf state has been steadily combining 5.2GW of solar power capacity with 19GWh of battery storage to create the largest battery scheme in the world.
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© Photograph: UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

© Photograph: UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

© Photograph: UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images