What happened
Emmanuel Macron has announced a significant overhaul of France’s nuclear strategy, pledging to enlarge the country’s arsenal and extend its protective umbrella over eight European allies. Speaking at the Île Longue naval base in Brittany, he said a new ballistic missile submarine, to be named The Invincible, would enter service in 2036.

France will also deepen cooperation with the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark under what Macron termed an “advanced deterrence” framework.

Who said what
“The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons,” said Macron, with the French president warning that any aggressor would face “an unsustainable price to be paid”.

Until now there has been a “deliberate vagueness” about what France regards as its “vital interests”, an attack on which would trigger a nuclear response, said Hugh Schofield on the BBC. Macron’s announcement yesterday has given those interests “further shape” as the country aligns its military future with that of the rest of Europe.

What next?
While France retains sole authority over any launch decision, officials describe the shift as the most consequential adjustment to its nuclear doctrine in decades, intended to reinforce Europe’s security without supplanting Nato’s deterrent.

What happened
A long-lost Rembrandt painting has been discovered after lying in a private collection for decades, having been rejected by art curators in 1960. It took researchers at the Rijksmuseum two years to examine the “Vision of Zacharias in the Temple” (1633): now, the painting is worth tens of millions.

Who said what
Researchers matched its paint pigments to works by Rembrandt from the same period, said The Guardian. “Macro X-ray fluorescence scans showed typical changes in composition” and analysis of the wooden panel dated the painting to 1633.

The owners, who wish to remain anonymous, came in “making jokes” that the painting could be a Rembrandt due to the size of the signature, said Jonathan Bikker, a curator of 17th-century Dutch paintings at the Rijksmuseum. However, “it was also a surprise for them that it was a real Rembrandt” as it was de-attributed “as soon as the father had bought it”.

“It’s wonderful that people can now learn more about the young Rembrandt,” said Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits. “It is a beautiful example of the unique way Rembrandt depicts stories.”

What next?
The work will go on long-term display at the Dutch national museum on Wednesday.

North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive and patriarchal countries, dominates in a surprising arena: women’s football.

The hermit kingdom became a powerhouse after the regime invested heavily in the women’s game as a tool of soft power and propaganda. The youth team still excels internationally, but, after losing the Asian Cup final to Australia in 2010, the senior team “all but disappeared from global competition”, said The Guardian.

Now, the Eastern Azaleas are back in the tournament, having won their opening match in the 2026 event against Uzbekistan in Sydney 3-0 earlier today. Invigorated by a “new generation of youth World Cup winners”, they are “hoping to return to the summit of Asian football”.

At Fifa’s annual congress in 1986, the Norwegian delegate “demanded the creation of a World Cup for women”, said The Guardian. North Korean officials, so the story goes, were “inspired”. They returned to Pyongyang with a plan to use women’s football as a “tool to reassert their collapsing power on the world stage”.

Between the 1990s and 2010s, North Korea had one of the world’s best women’s football teams, winning three Asian Cup titles and more trophies across the continent. But in 2011 a major doping scandal “put the brakes on this success”. North Korea was banned from the 2015 World Cup, then failed to qualify for the Asian Cup in 2018 and the World Cup in 2019.

It remains to be seen whether North Korea can qualify for the senior women’s World Cup in Brazil next year. But, according to The Guardian, this year’s Asian Cup will be “the best glimpse yet of whether this old, unlikely superpower of women’s football is rumbling back to life”.