What happened
Danish troops deployed to Greenland this year were quietly sent to key locations including Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq carrying explosives intended to disable airstrips, according to reports. The preparations were made amid concerns that Washington could attempt to seize the Arctic territory, a self-governing part of Denmark. The deployment, publicly framed as a joint European training exercise, was in reality designed as a deterrent against any sudden US intervention.

Who said what
“When Trump says all the time that he wants to buy Greenland … we had to take all possible scenarios seriously,” an unnamed Danish military official told Danish broadcaster DR.

Many nations joined the operation, whose reported aim was to have “as many different nationalities of soldiers as possible to force the US to take a significant hostile action if it was to occupy Greenland”, said Miranda Bryant in The Guardian.

What next?
Donald Trump announced a vague “framework” agreement on Greenland with Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte on 21 January, although the “details remain unclear”, said Sky News. At the World Economic forum in Davos, the US president said: “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.”

What happened
The NHS in England teetered “on the brink of collapse” during the Covid pandemic, saved only by the “superhuman” efforts of healthcare workers, the UK’s Covid-19 inquiry has concluded.

The 400-page report, based on 300 written statements and 300,000 pages of evidence, also states that the nation’s healthcare systems remain in a “perilous state”, with little evidence of adequate planning for future pandemics.

Who said what
Covid-19 inquiry chair Heather Hallett summarised the report’s findings as “we coped, but only just”, while Dr Ian Higginson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said “our hospitals are in a much more perilous state than they were before the last pandemic”.

While the report “uses strong language to describe what happened”, said the BBC’s health correspondent Nick Triggle, perhaps “the most illuminating and thought-provoking parts” are about the strictness of the regulations and the restrictions on visitors. There “were trade-offs and difficult balances that were struck when it came to the NHS”, said Triggle, but “did the government go too far?”

What next?
This report and its 10 recommendations is the third of 10 due to be published as part of the inquiry, which finished taking evidence this month, almost three years after hearings began. The inquiry’s final report is expected to be published next summer.

The Shetland Islands are famed for their remote beauty, but for locals this comes at a cost. Now campaigners are pushing for the island’s ageing ferries to be replaced with undersea tunnels.

“The ferry service has served our islands very well, but that’s a 20th-century form of transport,” Alice Mathewson, from the North Yell Development Council, told The Guardian. “In the 21st century the answer is dig a hole. Scotland has to drag itself into the 21st century.”

Shetland is connected by a fleet of 12 ferries that make about 70,000 sailings a year to nine islands carrying roughly 750,000 passengers. The council says many of these vessels are operating beyond their intended working life and that ferries are a significant contributor to local carbon emissions.

A journey of a few miles can take hours – provided the ferries run at all. The frequent bad weather, common in the North Atlantic, means that sailings are often cancelled.

The answer to Shetland’s problems may lie 230 miles (370km) to the northwest. Between 2002 and 2022, a £360 million project connected the Faroe Islands through a series of undersea tunnels. Boasting what is thought to be the world’s first submarine roundabout, the road network has cut journey times by up to 80% and been credited with helping to revitalise the territory’s economy, while also contributing to net immigration over the past decade. Funded largely by borrowing, the costs are being recouped by tolls that start at £2 for residents.

Councillors are expected to consider the next stage of the Shetland Islands project this summer, when preferred options for each of the eight island routes in the programme will be selected.