What happened
The Trump administration is reportedly examining whether the US could acquire the Chagos Islands from Mauritius if the British government proceeds with plans to transfer sovereignty of the territory.

Who said what
A US official said Donald Trump remained opposed to Britain relinquishing control of the islands, describing Diego Garcia as a “vital and indispensable military installation of significant importance to the national security of the United States”.

The UK government has defended the proposed arrangement that would see Britain hand sovereignty of the territory to Mauritius while securing a long-term lease allowing military operations to continue.

The US president’s foreign policy has “bent sharply towards territorial acquisitions since he returned to the White House”, said John Bowden in The Independent. But two powers selling territory to one another like this “would be the death of modern diplomacy”, according to Joe Barnes in The Telegraph. The proposal would completely “rip up post-war norms”.

What next?
No decision has yet been taken on any potential American purchase.

What happened
Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen is recovering in hospital after slumping to the ground during his country’s international friendly against Ukraine in Odense yesterday. The match was halted in the 65th minute when the 34-year-old went down and required treatment from medical staff. Players from both teams formed a protective circle around him as the medics attended to the former Manchester United and Tottenham player.

Eriksen was later able to leave the field under his own power before being taken for further medical assessment. The game was subsequently abandoned.

Who said what
Denmark’s captain Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg praised the swift response by medical staff. The national team’s manager Brian Riemer later told reporters: “The most important thing is that Christian is doing well.”

As he left the pitch “the entire stadium gave him a standing ovation”, said Charlie Pittock in The Sun. The episode was reminiscent of the “scary incident” in 2020 when Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest during the European Championship, collapsing on the field in the match against Finland, said Phil Haigh in Metro. Eriksen was subsequently fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator that meant his career was able to continue.

What next?
Eriksen will undergo more tests to establish the cause of yesterday’s incident.

Authorities in China have blacklisted a prize-winning film because nationalists and the manosphere “resented its portrayal of their country”, according to The Economist.

The movie, “Her Heart Beats in its Cage”, is a prison drama centred on Zhao Xiaohong, who killed her husband with a fruit knife during an argument that “spilled over into a violent altercation” about the wider division of domestic chores. A court found her guilty of intentional killing in 2009 and sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

She was preparing for her release from jail when Xiaoyu Qin, a film director, “discovered” her. He visited the prison and was surprised to find “marginalised individuals full of personality and complexity, intense clashes between notions of good and evil” and “deeply conflicted stories”, he told China Newsweek.

After the film was shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain last year it was quickly criticised online for allegedly whitewashing a convicted killer. Some argued that the movie was “condoning violence” and “rewarding a criminal”, while others “questioned whether she was a victim of domestic violence at all”, noting that the judge had “rejected” her claim of self-defence.

China is undergoing its own “version” of the “West’s culture wars”, said The Times, with feminists “calling out the patriarchy and sexual harassment”, while men – particularly young men – are “crying foul”.

But “more informed online debate” about the movie has focused on reforms to the justice system. The law has been altered to allow judges assessing a self-defence claim to take into account any previous history of domestic violence.