A day after US President Donald Trump and NATO’s chief purportedly struck a deal on Greenland, residents expressed anger and frustration that the Danish territory was again being sidelined in talks about its future.Carrying two steaming cappuccinos from a popular American coffee chain on Thursday, Niels Berthelsen took the time to stop despite the icy cold winds whipping the streets of Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital.”If they want to make deals about Greenland, they have to invite Greenland to the negotiating table,” the 49-year-old skipper told AFP.”Nothing about Greenland without Greenland,” he insisted repeatedly.Trump backed down on threats to seize Greenland by force after meeting NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, saying they had reached a “framework” deal on the Danish autonomous territory.While details of the agreement made at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos remained scant, many Greenlanders, who fiercely defend their right to self-determination, were disappointed.”It’s obviously a good thing that the military threat has gone down,” Berthelsen said.”But they could just as easily have reached an agreement by inviting Greenland to the table, rather than having Mark Rutte negotiate a deal with Trump by himself. I find that very disrespectful on Mark Rutte’s part.”Fellow Nuuk resident Esther Jensen agreed.”I’m very disappointed, because Rutte cannot make any kind of agreement with Trump without Denmark or Greenland, and Denmark cannot make any decision without Greenland either. So we are very disappointed,” said Jensen.Greenland’s prime minister said he was not aware of the contents of the framework agreement, but stressed no deal could be made without involving the island.”Nobody else than Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have the mandate to make deals or agreements about Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark without us,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a press conference.”We have some red lines… We have to respect our territorial integrity. We have to respect international law, sovereignty.”Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Rutte had coordinated with her and the Greenlandic government — though Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on social media that Rutte “cannot negotiate an agreement on behalf of Denmark or Greenland”.- Longing for quieter times -A Danish colony for three centuries, Greenland, which today has around 57,000 inhabitants, gradually gained autonomy in the second half of the 20th century.But Denmark’s assimilation policies — including de facto bans on the Inuit language and forced sterilisations — have left Greenlanders bitter and angry.”Our country will neither be given away, nor will our future be gambled with,” Greenland’s Deputy Prime Minister Mute Egede said in a post on Facebook.”It is unacceptable to attempt to hand our land to others. This is our land — we are the ones who shape its future.”In Nuuk, some residents wondered what really went down in Davos.”We know all too well that Trump has a tendency to read too much into some things,” said 80-year-old pensioner Arkalo Abelsen.”When Rutte… says that they’ve spoken about some possible solutions, in Trump’s mind, that becomes a deal,” Abelsen said, leaning on a crutch.”That’s not a deal. There’s no agreement.”The unwelcome surge of interest in Greenland, and the turbulence caused by recent events, has tested locals’ tranquil temperament.”Ever since Trump was re-elected president, we never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next,” said Abelsen.”Especially when he goes after our country like it’s a piece of ice drifting in the sea. It’s very destabilising. We feel powerless.”My wife and I speak about it every day. We say, ‘If only we could go back to the days before Trump.’ Back then, we knew what was going to happen.”Susan Gudmundsdottir Johnsen, a 52-year-old travel agency employee, also said she longed for quieter times.”From now on, we need peace and quiet.”

Vampire period horror film “Sinners” smashed the all-time Oscars record with 16 nominations, the Academy announced Thursday.The blues-inflected race allegory from director Ryan Coogler scored nominations in nearly every category possible, including best picture.In doing so, “Sinners” blasted past the previous record of 14, jointly held by “Titanic,” “La La Land” and “All About Eve.”Coogler told industry website Deadline that the “pretty crazy” record haul of nominations was “so rewarding.” A rare original Hollywood film that is not based on any existing franchise, “Sinners” was viewed with skepticism by many in the business before its April release, but became a $360 million global hit.Coogler said he “did not have any expectations” for awards, adding that “people just showing up to the movies and having a good time, that would’ve been enough.”But its huge tally included a best actor nomination for Michael B. Jordan — who plays twins returning home to the 1930s segregated US South — plus nods for everything from screenplay to score.There was also a nomination for best casting, the first new category to be added to Hollywood’s most prestigious awards in more than two decades.”One Battle After Another” came in second place with 13 nods including best picture, best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson.But its female lead, 25-year-old newcomer Chase Infiniti, was surprisingly snubbed by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters.Both of the top two nomination getters came from Warner Bros, the movie studio that is currently the target of a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount.Guillermo del Toro’s monster epic “Frankenstein,” Timothee Chalamet’s ping-pong drama “Marty Supreme” and Norwegian arthouse favorite “Sentimental Value” each bagged nine nominations.”Hamnet,” a period drama in which William Shakespeare and his wife struggle to cope with the loss of their son in plague-ravaged Elizabethan England, secured eight.Jessie Buckley was nominated for playing the Bard’s long-suffering wife Agnes, though the film’s male lead Paul Mescal missed out.”There’s no part of Agnes that exists without Paul… and what he poured into this story,” Buckley told The Hollywood Reporter after the announcement.- Acting races -The nominations set the stage for the 98th Oscars ceremony on March 15.While “Sinners” tops the nominations, “One Battle” remains the frontrunner to win best picture, having won almost every precursor prize going so far this awards season.The zany thriller about a retired revolutionary looking for his teen daughter against a wild backdrop of radical violence, immigration raids and white supremacists broke the all-time record for nominations by Hollywood’s Screen Actors Guild.DiCaprio, Chalamet and Jordan will do battle for the best actor Oscar, along with Ethan Hawke for Broadway period drama “Blue Moon,” and Wagner Moura from Brazilian political thriller “The Secret Agent.”For best actress, Buckley will compete with Emma Stone playing an alien — or is she? — in conspiracy theorist drama “Bugonia,” Renate Reinsve in “Sentimental Value,” Kate Hudson in quirky music biopic “Song Sung Blue,” and Rose Byrne as a struggling mom in indie hit “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”- International voters -With the Academy’s overseas voter base rapidly expanding, both “Sentimental Value” and “The Secret Agent” were nominated for best picture.But Persian-language Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just An Accident” missed out in the top category, and will compete for best international film, along with Spain’s nomadic hippie odyssey “Sirat” and heart-wrenching Palestinian docudrama “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”Pop megastar Ariana Grande surprisingly missed out on a best supporting actress nomination for her portrayal of Glinda in “Wicked: For Good,” which failed to pick up any nods.Recently appointed Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor opened the early-morning announcement in Los Angeles with a warning about the threat of artificial intelligence.”We live in a time of limitless technology that enables us to push the boundaries of our cinematic experience,” she said.”And our profound belief is that the heartbeat of film is and will always remain unmistakably human.”

New York City has sued to block a documentary about the police department fronted by celebrity psychologist Dr. Phil that local officials say is “extremely problematic.”In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the city argues episodes of the documentary “Behind the Badge,” which was given the green light by former mayor Eric Adams, “pose an imminent threat to the life and safety of active NYPD officers.” “For example, the faces, voices, and names of undercover officers conducting operations in plainclothes are not obscured,” the complaint alleges.”There are numerous other pieces of harmful footage that cannot be released to the public. For example, the identities of individuals in NYPD custody are depicted in the rough cuts without any blurring or redactions applied to their faces.”The city, now led by Democratic mayor Zohran Mamdani, is asking the court to prohibit the sale, distribution, or broadcast of the material, which a New York State Supreme Court judge temporarily granted on Wednesday.Mamdani has sought to chart a starkly different course from his predecessor Adams, a flamboyant former police captain known for his idiosyncratic style and love of publicity.On Friday, a judge will hold a hearing on the documentary that is produced by TV talkshow host Dr. Phil’s son Jordan McGraw and his production company McGraw Media, court filings showed.

Former special counsel Jack Smith defiantly defended his prosecution of Donald Trump in a long-awaited showdown on Thursday with Republican critics in the US Congress, citing overwhelming evidence that he led a “criminal scheme” to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.Although Smith, who led two failed prosecutions against Trump, never got his day in court, the televised hearing before the House Judiciary Committee provided the opportunity he has long sought to make his case to the American public.A veteran federal attorney and former war crimes prosecutor in The Hague, Smith told lawmakers his team of investigators had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity.””Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power,” he said.Smith said his decision to bring charges against Trump was taken “without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.”Smith was appointed special counsel in 2022 by attorney general Merrick Garland and charged Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and separately with mishandling classified documents.The Republican president denied both charges and sought to frame them as politically motivated, accusing the Justice Department of being weaponized against him.Neither case came to trial and Smith, in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 vote.Smith said his decision to charge Trump was not motivated by politics.”If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.”No one should be above the law in this country and the law required that he be held to account,” he said. “President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the very laws that he took an oath to uphold.”- ‘Get President Trump’ -Smith’s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee comes a little over a month after he testified behind closed doors about his prosecution of Trump.Smith had requested that the deposition be delivered in public, but the Republican majority on the House panel declined his request.Republican committee chairman Jim Jordan accused Smith at Thursday’s hearing of seeking to “get President Trump” in an attempt to prevent him from running in the 2024 election.”He’s got to stop President Trump from running, tie him up in court,” Jordan said. “It was always about politics. The good news is the American people saw through it.”Since taking office for the second time, Trump has urged the Justice Department to bring cases against Smith and several other perceived political opponents.He did so again on Thursday, attacking Smith in a Truth Social post.”He destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy. Jack Smith is a deranged animal, who shouldn’t be allowed to practice Law,” Trump said. “Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done.”Cases brought against Trump foes James Comey, a former FBI director, and New York Attorney General Letitia James collapsed last year after a judge ruled that the prosecutor who brought the charges was unlawfully appointed.Representative Jamie Raskin, the House committee’s top Democrat, defended Smith’s investigation at Thursday’s hearing.”Donald Trump says you’re a criminal and you belong in prison,” Raskin said. “Not because you did anything wrong, mind you, but because you did everything right. You pursued the facts, you followed the law.”