The US president’s plan for Hollywood is full of plot holes. But when it comes to the hidden propaganda baked into movies, he may have a point

As always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as “a National Security threat” and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!”

How would a 100% tariff on films made oversees work? Just movies shot overseas? What about movies set overseas? And who would pay? How do you impose tariffs on goods without a port of entry? “Commerce is figuring it out,” said a White House official. In fact, movies are listed as an exception to presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to address national security threats, so it is likely the lawyers would end up figuring it out, if Trump’s plan went ahead. But, many executives in Hollywood are quietly nodding agreement. It is true that Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38% drop. Many major franchises such as Avatar and Mission: Impossible are shot mostly overseas, where the lure of lucrative tax breaks offset such minor inconveniences as the incursion of some Derbyshire sheep into one of Tom Cruise’s paragliding set-pieces.

Britain has ‘reset’ relations with the EU, but with Farage ascendant again, our politics must be cured of the Brexit virus

Not much about Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union is settled, but Keir Starmer can justifiably claim it has been “reset”. That word was artfully chosen before last year’s election to dress low aspiration as high diplomacy. There are 10 days of negotiation before the summit in London, where a new UK-EU partnership is due to be unveiled. It will be more outline than substance. But there is progress in the very fact that Britain’s ruling party sees Brussels as a partner, not a parasite.

Old-guard Eurosceptics will, of course, denounce any deal as a betrayal of Brexit. If there are plans for a time-limited, youth exchange visa, it will be decried as a return to free movement by the back door. If there is agreement to align regulations so that goods can more efficiently cross borders and the European court of justice is involved in adjudicating compliance, the high priests of sovereignty will anathematise it for heresy. Any commonality on carbon levies or renewed permission for the French to fish in British waters will be painted in shades of surrender.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

As part of a Bafta TV special, the nominated actor and Walking Dead regular on bringing Bernardine Evaristo’s hit novel Mr Loverman to the small screen, and splitting his time between London and LA

He is almost 40 years into his career, but Lennie James is still keeping things fresh. The 59-year-old south Londoner has run the gauntlet of high-octane TV dramas, playing Morgan Jones for more than 10 years in the wildly successful apocalypse drama The Walking Dead and its spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead; bent copper DCI Tony Gates in Line of Duty; and the down-and-out philanderer Nelly Rowe in Sky’s Save Me. In person, though, James is the polar opposite of the characters he is best known for – considered, introspective and disarmingly earnest.

Last year, he took on a radically different role, as Barrington (below) in the BBC adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s novel Mr Loverman, a closeted Windrush-generation Caribbean man in a secret relationship with his best friend. Quietly moving, it is a drastic shift in tone for James, and has earned him his first solo Bafta TV nomination.

After a relationship breakup, rambling 700 miles from the Highlands to Dorset with Martin helped restore my faith in people

I’ve always had a keen sense of adventure. During the summer holidays, my parents would push me and my sister out of the front door and tell us only to come home to eat. I went from roaming the streets of Hackney in east London as a child, to trekking, wild camping and hitchhiking the length of the Americas in my late 20s.

After returning to my home in Liverpool, I worked as a photographer and got into a relationship. When we broke up years later, I was distraught – but it led me back to the life of exploration that I’d put on the back‑burner. In the summer of 2016, I embarked on a solo 1,000-mile (1,600km) route through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Not wanting to feel sealed off from the wondrous environments around me, I did the majority of it on foot.

Eighty years after the end of the second world war, two former Berlin correspondents discuss how the Guardian covered the Nazis

Frederick Augustus Voigt was the Manchester Guardian’s Berlin correspondent between 1920 and 1932.

In this episode, two fellow former Berlin correspondents, Helen Pidd and Philip Oltermann, discuss Voigt’s incredible reporting on the rise of Nazi Germany.

From rocks being thrown at cars to spectators being given the red cards, readers share their experiences of the most shocking scenes at children’s soccer games

The first manager my son had, when he was seven, got the parents together and told us how shouting could affect our sons’ development and behaviour, not only as players but as human beings. Usually, I don’t behave so badly. The worst I’ve done is to complain to the referee and I’ve sworn once or twice. But mostly I’ve been civil. There was one time, though, when a game was interrupted because the other team had fielded ineligible nine-year-old players. There was a lot of swearing and shouting from managers and dads. My wife decided enough was enough and took our son from the field to go home. He was the team’s only keeper so without him there was no game and several of the other team’s dads taunted us, shouting: “Are you running?”, “Are you scared?”. My wife ignored them and headed for the exit but one of the dads pushed her. Another guy punched me from behind and I completely lost it and punched back. Both teams were expelled from the tournament.
André Pereira Leme Lopes, 53, Brazil

Pope will hold private mass in the Sistine Chapel at 0900 GMT, during which he will give his first papal homily

• Robert Francis Prevost: the moderate, good humoured first US pope
• Pope Leo’s in-tray: pontiff has many urgent issues to address
• Share your views on Pope Leo XIV

China has sent congratulations to newly elected Pope Leo XIV and hopes the Vatican under the new pontiff will continue dialogue with China “in a constructive spirit”, Reuters reports a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday at a regular press conference.

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, strained relations between the Vatican and China in 2020 when he described China’s Muslim Uyghurs as a “persecuted” people, listing them alongside the Rohingya, the Yazidi, and persecuted Christians in Islamic countries.

Treasury chief secretary insists deal will be ‘really good for Britain’ and dismisses claims the UK is no better off

On the news that the parent company of British Airways has struck a $13bn (£9.8bn) deal to buy 32 new planes from the US aircraft maker Boeing, a day after a trade agreement with the US cut tariffs on the industry, here is our report on it, by Mark Sweney:

The governor of the Bank of England has said he hopes the UK can “rebuild” trade relationships with the EU after striking a trade deal with the US.

Mayor to make major policy shift and say scale of housing crisis requires breaking taboo

Sadiq Khan is announcing plans to build on parts of London’s green belt, in a dramatic shift in housing policy aimed at tackling “the most profound housing crisis in the capital’s history”.

In a major speech on Friday, the mayor of London is expected to say the scale of the challenge, which could need about 1m new homes built in the next decade, requires a break from longstanding taboos.

Russia staging a lavish, ‘biggest ever’ parade in Moscow to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war

Elsewhere, British foreign minister David Lammy will on Friday meet with his Ukrainian counterpart and 17 other foreign ministers in Lviv to discuss how to secure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, Britain’s foreign office said in a statement reported by Reuters.

“We stand for a just and lasting peace, for a secure Europe, and for accountability and justice,” Lammy said.

“For me it is unthinkable that one can be from this part of the world and – during the … Russian aggression against Ukraine – be in Red Square and celebrate the Victory Day together with those who are murdering children, civilians and attacking other countries.”