Britain in middle as some of US’s trading partners retaliate while others want ‘pragmatic’ route in hope levies are eased

Sailors crossing the Atlantic in March are used to dealing with rough seas. But when two shipments of steel from Marcegaglia Stainless Sheffield were slowed up in crossing the Pond by storms this week it meant more than a few days’ extra journey: the metal was caught up in the global trade war started by the US president, Donald Trump, as well.

“Obviously, it’s a massive frustration,” says Liam Bates, the president of long products at the Italian steelmaker’s northern England operation. The company had hoped to rush through two weekly shipments in order to avoid the Wednesday deadline for Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium. Instead, it will have to bear the costs – or hope for grace from the US government.

Election winner Friedrich Merz also trying to seal €500bn fund to revive economy before new parliament convenes

Germany’s outgoing parliament is meeting on Thursday to debate the creation of a €500bn fund for infrastructure investment and radical changes in the country’s borrowing limits in order to boost defence spending.

Friedrich Merz, whose conservatives won last month’s election and who is on the verge of becoming the new chancellor, wants to seal the funding deal before the new parliament convenes in less than two weeks. An expanded group of far-right and far-left MPs could oppose it in the new Bundestag, a so-called “blocking minority” Merz is keen to avoid.

Northvolt devait être le champion européen de la batterie, la réponse au monopole asiatique. Après des milliards engloutis et des promesses non tenues, l’aventure s’achève par une faillite retentissante.

Key factors will drive the Kremlin’s decision. Can Russia fight on and for what? Or is there more benefit in allying with Donald Trump?

At this stage of the crisis, it is important to be clear-sighted. The US-Ukraine meeting in Jeddah was a damage-control operation. Both parties reset relations that had been damaged, largely by Washington’s impatience. The US reversed its previous decisions in exchange for something Ukraine was ready to provide anyway: privileged access to Ukraine’s natural resource wealth and a willingness to start a peace process.

It is encouraging to see renewed US-Ukraine dialogue to end the war. As Churchill said , the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them. The public mugging in the Oval Office , calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator and the pause in military and intelligence support were hard to fathom. Ukrainians wondered why President Trump was putting the blame and the pressure on the victim, and protecting the aggressor. Trump’s “beautiful” deal involved bullying the weaker and reassuring the stronger. He finds it more natural to put pressure on allies, be it Ukraine or Canada, and relax it on adversaries.

Christo Grozev, forced to flee Austria for his journalistic investigation of secret Russian operations, is the central focus of a dynamic and powerful story

Finally getting a release after the verdict in the Bulgarian spy-ring trial , James Jones’s gripping documentary takes open-source journalism website Bellingcat’s former lead investigator Christo Grozev as its main focus. But Grozev is just one of the many in Putin’s crosshairs, so the film opens out to cover several whistleblowers, dissidents and activists. Hopping between location-stamped world cities like a Hollywood thriller, the film has a Michael Mann-like dynamism and pathos in detailing the emotional cost of this defiance.

After identifying hitmen and helping a whistleblower from Russia’s chemical weapons programme to flee to Europe, Grozev finds himself on a kill-list. Warned of an imminent threat, he is unable to return home to Vienna; exiled in New York, he impotently frets about his family’s safety. His doctor points out that, where most people’s stress levels fluctuate, his are unwaveringly high – even when asleep. His situation is better, though, than his friend Alexei Navalny or fellow dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, both in Russian detention in 2023; Grozev is involved in attempts to negotiate prisoner swaps for both.

Russian operation to expel Ukrainian forces in final stage, claims Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, following visit to region by President Vladimir Putin

• Trump hints at financial repercussions if Russia rejects Ukraine ceasefire

Russia downed 77 Ukrainian drones overnight, its defence ministry said Thursday, two days after Kyiv carried out its largest direct strike on Moscow during the three-year war.

Multiple Ukrainian cities were also under attack Thursday morning, with a 42-year-old woman killed in Kherson, according to regional military administration head Roman Mrochko.

Mauritshuis exhibition reveals Dutch families hid in attic to avoid conscription to Germany in second world war

The 13-year-old boy answered the doorbell. “Tell your dad I’m here,” said a man, who stored his bicycle and then disappeared upstairs.

It was 1944, and right under the noses of Nazi command, people were hiding in the attic of The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum from forced labour conscription – Arbeitseinsatz – under which hundreds of thousands of citizens from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands were conscripted to work in Germany.

US president claims Dublin ‘took’ pharma industry as he holds White House press conference with Micheál Martin

Donald Trump has accused Ireland of stealing the US pharmaceutical industry and the tax revenue that should have been paid to the US treasury, in a blow to the Irish premier, Micheál Martin, who had hoped to emerge unscathed from a visit to the White House marking St Patrick’s Day.

The US president showed grudging respect for Martin, alternately ribbing and complimenting him, while also launching several broadsides against the EU.

Districts in Birmingham now ranked below poorest areas of France, Slovenia and Malta as institute urges rethink on planned welfare cuts

The UK has tumbled down the league of affluent nations after almost a decade of welfare cuts and stagnant incomes, according to a report that found the poorest districts in Britain now rank below the lowest-income areas of Slovenia and Malta.

In a warning for ministers to protect welfare spending before Rachel Reeves’ spring statement later this month, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the UK’s reputation for high living standards was under threat.