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The high-speed La Jefa is described as a ‘towering centrepiece’ for families to ‘slip, slide and splash’ across the water at the aqua par

An aqua park known for its gleaming turquoise lake, is upping the ante with its latest addition described as the “ultimate summer slide experience”.

The new high-speed attraction, La Jefa, stands as a monumental feature at St Andrews Lakes in Halling, beckoning families to “slip, slide and splash” in the sun.

St Andrews boasts a pristine 70-acre lake filled with spring water and is continuously expanding with various floating play areas, slides, jump points and splash zones, in scenes that wouldn’t be out of place on the Med.

La Jefa, translating to ‘the female boss’ in Spanish, is the latest thrilling complement to the park’s highly popular 20ft slide, El Jefe – ‘the male boss’.

St Andrews Lakes’ operations director Stuart Bishop said: “La Jefa is the perfect next step for our Aqua Park. Guests already loved El Jefe, but we wanted to bring something new, something a bit different and something just as fun. We can’t wait to see families and friends tackle it this summer,”

In addition to the aquatic thrills, the attraction close to Rochester also features a private sandy beach area, paddleboarding, kayaking, zip wiring, and axe throwing activities, reports Kent Live.

Not to mention wall climbing, archery, sailing courses, paddleboard classes and children’s activity days throughout the school holidays.

The old quarry has been turned into a stunning blue lake reserve, offering fun for everyone on water and land. And if you want to relax, the wellness space boasts wood-fired lakeside saunas, steaming hot tubs and even a cold plunge lagoon, not to mention a chill-out zone with snug chairs and a fireside to cosy up to.

Aqua park tickets are £25 person for a 50-minute session and family deals and concessions are available. Your ticket covers buoyancy aids, vigilant lifeguards and an essential safety rundown before making waves.

Information on bookings, activities needing inductions and session timings is available on the website. There are also all-day charges for the beach.

Nestled in Halling, a quaint village perched in the Medway area snug between Cuxton and Snodland and within a stone’s throw from Rochester, St Andrews Lakes is where you’ll find the paradise pit. The lake gets its clear blue hue from the suspended chalk particles that reflect the light.

St Andrew’s says the lake’s waters gush from a spring, making them “incredibly clean”.

Netflix Inc. will add live television channels and shows from French broadcaster TF1, expanding the streaming platform’s live offer for customers in the country.

French customers will be be able to watch live feeds, including sports, from TF1’s channels, and stream the broadcaster’s shows on demand from next summer, Netflix said in a statement on Wednesday. Netflix will dedicate a portion of the app to TF1 content as part of the distribution agreement.

Netflix is expanding the content it offers customers and has invested in live events such as National Football League games and wrestling matches. The French partnership goes a step further, offering traditional live broadcast content such as dramas and reality television.

Thomson and Berthelot write for Bloomberg.

June 10 (UPI) — Sports betting service FanDuel has added a 50-cent surcharge to all wagers laid in Illinois to offset the state’s per-wager tax of up to 50 cents per bet.

The surcharge transfers the tax to FanDuel’s customers and remains in effect for as long as Illinois continues to levy the per-wager tax.

“Should the state reverse its decision at any point in the future, FanDuel will immediately remove the $0.50 transaction fee,” officials at FanDuel-owner Flutter Entertainment said in a press release.

The Illinois tax will disproportionately affect bettors who lay small wagers, Flutter Chief Executive Officer Peter Jackson said in a prepared statement.

“There is an optimal level for gaming tax rates that enables operators to provide the best experience for customers, maximize market growth and maximize revenue for states over time,” Jackson said.

“We are disappointed that the Illinois Transaction Fee will disproportionately impact lower wagering recreational customers while also punishing those operators who have invested the most to grow the online regulated market in the state,” he added.

Instead of paying a 50-cent surcharge on a $5 wager, Flutter said many customers will switch to offshore betting sites that aren’t subject to the Illinois tax.

DraftKings is another popular sports betting site that is considering charging its Illinois customers to offset the state tax.

“DraftKings anticipates taking action and expects to share more information soon,” a DraftKings spokesperson told CNBC.

About three-fourths of Illinois sports betting wagers are made through FanDuel and DraftKings.

Illinois sports books paid about $276 million in state taxes in 2024, according to an LSR analysis.

FanDuel paid $74 million and DraftKings $67.9 million in state taxes on their combined total of more than 150 million bets.

Illinois’ new per-wager tax charges 25 cents per bet on the first 20 million wagers each online sports book accepts, followed by 50 cents per wager on additional bets.

The transactional tax could cost FanDuel $86 million and DraftKings $79 million in 2026, Citizens gaming analyst Jordan Bender told CNBC.

The per-bet tax is in addition to Illinois levying between 20% and 40% on sports book profits after raising the tax from 15% last year.

Employers in the United States have slowed hiring even though they added a solid 139,000 jobs in May.

While that was higher than the forecast of 133,000 jobs, it was lower than the 147,000 hires in April,  Labor Department data released on Friday showed. It also sharply revised downward the data for March and April by 95,000 jobs.

The US Labor Department said the biggest gains were in the healthcare industry which added 62,000 jobs; followed by the leisure and hospitality sector which added 48,000, 30,000 of which were in food services.

The social services sector followed suit, adding about 16,000 jobs. The federal government contracted 22,000 jobs.

Industries including manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing showed little change as tariff anticipation spending slowed.

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2 percent. Wages ticked up slightly. The average wage grew by 15 cents or 0.4 percent.

“The job market is steadily but surely throttling back. Monthly job gains are moderating, and most telling, the gains are being consistently revised lower, and not by a little bit. Indeed, after revision, monthly job gains appear to be closing in on 100,000,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told Al Jazeera.

“It [the jobs report] does signal the job market and economy are increasingly fragile as the fallout from the global trade war intensifies.”

Private payrolls also tumbled this month, according to payroll firm ADP in a report on Wednesday, which showed the US economy added only 37,000 jobs, the lowest in two years. Unlike the Labor Department report which lags by a few weeks, this report is more immediate.

“After a strong start to the year, hiring is losing momentum,” Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said in a release.

What was particularly notable about the ADP report was the set of industries with net job losses. The manufacturing sector recorded a net loss of 3,000. Natural resources and the mining industry lost 5,000. Those losses in the goods-producing sectors were offset by a job gain of 6,000 in construction.

The only substantive gains were in the leisure and hospitality sector, a notoriously low-paying sector, which added 38,000, according to ADP. Financial services followed in the gains, adding 18,000 jobs. However, those gains were offset by losses, including in education and health, which cut 13,000 jobs. The trade and transportation and utilities sector cut 4,000 jobs.

Last month, the ADP report showed 62,000 jobs were added, in stark contrast to the Labor Department’s 147,000, because it is considered a more immediate measure.

Job openings and labour turnover 

On Tuesday, the job openings and labour turnover survey or JOLTS report, which captures data at a significant lag to the Labor Department and ADP, showed there were 7.4 million open jobs in April, up roughly 191,000 from the month before.

But just because jobs are open does not mean they are being filled, according to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

“I think that reflects some cautiousness on the part of both employers and workers,” Gould told Al Jazeera.

While job openings in sectors like trade, transportation and utilities increased, hiring actually decreased.

This comes as major employers have implemented hiring slowdowns and freezes across sectors.

American Airlines reportedly put in place a hiring freeze for flight attendants in April amid uncertainty in the travel market. The financial services company T Rowe Price slowed down its hiring. And amid a slowdown in research grants, universities have put in place hiring freezes, most recently Johns Hopkins University, which currently has 600 National Institutes of Health-funded medical research projects under way.

As Al Jazeera has previously reported, small businesses said because of the looming tariffs, they’ve had to implement hiring freezes.

Hiring for small businesses declined in May by 4.4 percent compared with this time last year, according to Homebase, a payroll service provider for more than 150,000 small businesses accounting for roughly 3.8 million workers.

To forecast what to expect in the jobs market moving forward, EPI’s Gould suggests a close watch on key indicators including housing starts and factory orders, which indicate that manufacturers and construction companies will need to cut jobs if trends continue.

“Some of the government data [like the jobs and JOLTS report] takes a lot longer to sort of see trouble to catch that turning point and you might see it in the other measures a little bit faster, but there’s also a lot of volatility in them,” Gould said.

In April, residential home construction declined by 0.9 percent, the third straight month of declines, suggesting a pullback that indicates both builders and consumers are wary about building new homes and making improvements. At the same time, orders for goods made in US factories fell by 3.7 percent in April, according to the Census Bureau.

With new legal muscle, the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation is upping pressure on Paramount Global to abandon efforts to settle President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit targeting CBS and “60 Minutes.”

Respected Washington litigator Abbe David Lowell this week joined the team representing the New York advocacy group, which has vowed to sue Paramount should it settle with Trump. The group owns Paramount shares.

Lowell, who has represented Hunter Biden, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, is working on the case with attorney Norm Eisen, a Trump critic who helped House Democrats with strategy during Trump’s first impeachment hearings in 2019.

Eisen is a former ambassador to the Czech Republic who served as White House ethics advisor under President Obama.

Late Thursday, the two attorneys sent a strongly worded letter to Paramount’s chairwoman and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and other board members arguing that a Trump settlement would cause “catastrophic” harm to the embattled media company.

Hunter Biden (left) with his attorney Abbe Lowell (right) at a House committee hearing last year.

(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

1st Amendment experts have labeled Trump’s lawsuit frivolous. But Paramount leaders are desperate to end the Trump drama and some believe a truce could clear a path for the Federal Communications Commission to approve the company’s $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

Paramount needs the FCC to authorize the transfer of the CBS station licenses to the Ellison family.

The prospect of a Trump settlement has carved deep divisions within Paramount, which includes CBS News and “60 Minutes.”

“Trading away the credibility of CBS’s news division to curry favor with the Trump Administration is an improper and reckless act that will irreparably damage the company’s brand and destroy shareholder value,” Lowell said in a statement late Thursday.

“The board is legally and morally obligated to protect the company, not auction off its integrity for regulatory approval,” Lowell said.

The FCC review of Skydance’s proposed takeover of Paramount has become a slog. Skydance and Paramount face an October deadline to finalize the sale or the deal could collapse.

Paramount, in a statement, said that it is treating the FCC review and the Trump lawsuit as separate matters. “We will abide by the legal process to defend our case,” a corporate spokesman said.

Paramount’s lawyers entered mediation with the president’s legal team in late April, but no resolution has been reached. Paramount offered $15 million to Trump to end his suit, according to the Wall Street Journal, but the president rejected the overture and asked for more.

On Thursday, Redstone disclosed that she has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is receiving treatment. Last month, doctors removed her thyroid but cancer cells had spread to her vocal chords.

In their seven-page letter, Lowell and Eisen told Paramount’s leaders that, should they approve a Trump settlement to gain traction at the FCC, they would be violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders and potentially breaking federal anti-bribery statutes.

“We believe [a settlement] could violate laws prohibiting bribery of public officials, thereby causing severe and last damage to Paramount and its shareholders,” Lowell and Eisen wrote.

“To be as clear as possible, you control what happens next,” they said.

The admonition follows a similar warning from three U.S. senators — Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) In a May 19 letter, the senators wrote that paying money to Trump to help win clearance for the Paramount sale could constitute a bribe.

“It is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,” the three senators wrote in their letter.

In addition, two California Democrats have proposed a state Senate hearing to examine problems with a possible Trump settlement.

The senators invited two former CBS News executives — who both left, in large part, because of the controversy — to testify before a yet-unscheduled joint committee hearing in Sacramento.

The California lawmakers, in their letter, said a Trump settlement could also violate California’s Unfair Competition Law because it could disrupt the playing field for news organizations.

Earlier this week, Paramount asked shareholders to increase the size of its board to seven members at the company’s annual investor meeting next month.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation was created in 2012 to protect and defend public interest journalism.

This spring, Lowell left his former major law firm, Winston & Strawn, where he had been a partner for years. He formed his own boutique firm, Lowell & Assoc., with a focus on “public interest representation in matters that defend the integrity of the legal system and protect individuals and institutions from government overreach,” according to its website.

Lowell’s firm also includes lawyer Brenna Frey, who made a high-profile exit from another prominent law firm, Skadden Arps, after it cut a deal with Trump to avoid becoming a target. That law firm agreed to provide $100 million in free legal services.

Last month, Frey appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to air her decision to resign from Skadden Arps.

“I was able to tell my story on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ because of the independence of a courageous news division, which is what’s at risk now,” Frey said in a statement.

With its sale to Skydance Media still beyond its reach, Paramount Global has nominated three new directors to bolster its small board, which has been racked with drama and churn since early last year.

The debt-laden New York-based company currently has only five board members, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who serves as chairwoman. The Redstone family holds nearly 77% of Paramount’s voting shares, giving the heiress tremendous sway.

In a proxy filing Monday, Paramount asked shareholders to elect seven directors at its July 2 annual meeting. The slate includes Redstone and three recruits: attorney Mary Boies (a member of the firm led by her husband David Boies); Silicon Valley venture capital executive Charles E. Ryan ; and former Massachusetts trial court judge Roanne Sragow Licht.

In addition to Redstone, three longtime board members — Linda M. Griego, Susan Schuman and Barbara M. Byrne — will stand for reelection.

Board member Judith A. McHale has decided to step down.

The company has grappled with a series of setbacks since it announced its sale to tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media last July.

The company took a $6-billion write-down on its cable television networks business, in yet another sign that Hollywood is reckoning with the ongoing deterioration of the traditional television business.

Leading independent director Charles Phillips left the board in October. His exit came six months after three other directors — Rob Klieger, Nicole Seligman and Dawn Ostroff — abruptly departed as the panel was struggling over terms of Redstone’s planned Paramount sale.

In late October, President Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas over his dismay with edits of a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the closing weeks of the election. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, opened an inquiry to determine whether the edits rose to the level of news distortion.

Trump doubled the amount of damages he was seeking to $20 billion.

Paramount has been defending against the lawsuit. In a court filing last week, Trump’s lawyers asserted the president suffered “mental anguish” due to the “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Redstone’s desire to settle Trump’s suit over the “60 Minutes” edits has carved deep divides within the company.

1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s lawsuit frivolous; CBS News executives and other journalists believe it is a shakedown to exploit the vulnerable company that is desperate to have the FCC approve the sale to Skydance.

The ruckus over the edits contributed to the departure of two top CBS News executives. Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, stepped down under pressure last month. In April, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens departed.

Redstone has expressed her dissatisfaction with CBS News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, three Democrat U.S. senators warned Redstone that the company could face allegations of bribery if they write a big check to mollify Trump in an effort to facilitate the FCC’s review of the Skydance takeover. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to make the lawsuit go away, but he declined.

It’s been nearly 11 months since Paramount agreed to be sold to Skydance in an $8-billion deal that would inject $1.5 billion in capital into Paramount’s battered balance sheet.

Paramount has not revised its guidance on when it expects the deal to close — but the contractual deadline is early October.

As part of its proxy statement, the company again detailed the compensation packages — totaling $148 million to the top three executives and ousted Chief Executive Bob Bakish, who received compensation valued at $87 million. Co-CEO George Cheeks was paid $22.2 million. His counterparts Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy were paid $19.6 million and $19.5 million, respectively, according to the filing.

LA28 announced Honda its automotive partner for the L.A. Olympics on Monday, securing a major founding-level partnership that will help the private organizing committee cover its estimated $7 billion budget.

Honda, which opened its U.S. headquarters in L.A. in 1959 and is now based in Torrance, will work with LA28 on an accessible vehicle fleet that maximizes electric vehicles for the Games to help move athletes and officials around Southern California. The partnership will support U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and the Summer Games in 2028.

Financial terms of the top-tier partnership were not announced. Honda joins Delta and Comcast as LA28’s founding partners expected to lead the way in covering the estimated $2.5 billion in corporate sponsorship needed to stage the first Summer Games held in the United States since 1996.

“As a privately funded games, our mandate is to generate the revenue we need to produce these Games,” LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said in an interview with The Times. “The biggest line item of that is sponsorship revenue. To be able to announce another big partner with a really spectacular brand who has been invested in Southern California for a long time is both [financially] important but also, in many ways, strategically important. It’s another brand that sees the power of our Olympic platform to tell their story in a community that’s very important to that industry that they’ve been invested in for a long time.”

Honda enters the Olympic and Paralympic arena after Toyota ended its long-running partnership with the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee after the 2024 Games. The Olympic Partners (TOP) program lost several major Japanese sponsors after the Paris Olympics, including Panasonic and Bridgestone, sending shockwaves through the Olympic and Paralympic movements. The TOP program accounts for roughly 30% of the IOC’s revenue — the largest share after broadcast rights — and a portion of the money from the top sponsors contributes to the budget of the national organizing committee’s plan to deliver the Games.

With three years before the Games, LA28 has announced several sponsorship deals in recent weeks. Aviation company Archer will provide air taxis to help alleviate traffic concerns. Saatva signed as the Games’ official mattress sponsor. Snowflake, a cloud-based data storage company, will assist athletes with training data and provide information on fan engagement.

The latest deal puts LA28 on pace to hit its goal of $2 billion in sponsorships by the end of 2025, Wasserman said. IOC contributions, ticket sales and merchandise are among the revenue streams that will help balance the budget. If LA28 goes over budget, Los Angeles city government has agreed to cover the first $270 million in debt with the state of California absorbing up to $270 million.

The study found that without the phasing out of fossil fuels, temperatures will continue to soar.

About half of the world’s population experienced an additional month of extreme heat over the past year due to human-caused climate change, according to a new study.

The extreme heat caused deaths and illnesses, damaged agricultural crops and strained energy and healthcare systems, according to the report (pdf) from World Weather Attribution, Climate Central and the Red Cross published on Friday.

Researchers analysed weather data from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025 to spotlight the dangers of extreme heat, which was defined as hotter than 90 percent of temperatures recorded at a given location between 1991 and 2020.

It found that about four billion people, or 49 percent of the world’s population, experienced at least 30 days of extreme heat. According to the report, 67 extreme heat events were found during the period.

“Although floods and cyclones often dominate headlines, heat is arguably the deadliest extreme event,” the report said.

Deaths linked to extreme heat are often underreported or mislabelled, according to experts. Heatwaves are silent killers, said Friederike Otto, associate professor of climate science at Imperial College London and one of the report’s authors.

“People don’t fall dead on the street in a heatwave … people either die in hospitals or in poorly insulated homes and therefore are just not seen,” he said.

“With every barrel of oil burned, every tonne of carbon dioxide released, and every fraction of a degree of warming, heatwaves will affect more people,” he added.

The Caribbean region was among the most affected by additional extreme heat days, the study found, with the island of Aruba recording 187 extreme heat days, 142 days more than would be expected without climate change.

Low-income communities and vulnerable populations, such as older adults and people with medical conditions, suffer the most from extreme heat.

The high temperatures recorded in the extreme heat events that occurred in Central Asia in March, South Sudan in February and the Mediterranean last July would not have been possible without climate change, according to the report.

At least 21 people died in Morocco after temperatures hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) last July.

Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, in a World Weather Attribution statement, said people are noticing the temperature is getting hotter without linking it to climate change.

“We need to quickly scale our responses to heat through better early warning systems, heat action plans, and long-term planning for heat in urban areas to meet the rising challenge,” Singh said.

The researchers said that without phasing out fossil fuels, heatwaves will continue to become more frequent and severe.

IF you’re prepping your outdoor area for the relaxing summer ahead, a budget buy can level it up.

Lidl shoppers can elevate their garden or balcony’s privacy with this simple addition.

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Whether you’re lying back and soaking up the sun or enjoying a meal al fresco, you don’t want to feel as though you’re on display to everyone in your neighbourhood.

If your outdoor area is a little too exposed for your liking, there’s no need to write it off.

You can now shield yourself from nosy neighbours with this colourful item.

As well as shielding you from prying eyes, this Lidl buy can also help to brighten up your garden.

Shoppers can pick up a Large Hanging Planter for just £6.99 from the middle aisle.

Customers can “choose from a wide range of colours to brighten up their outdoor space”.

According to the experts at Monrovia, staggering your hanging planters at different levels can help to create a natural separation from the outside world.

And it does so without adding an unsightly privacy fence or screen to your space.

“It creates the sense of separation without shouting ‘keep out,'” they explained.

But the gardening pros highlighted the importance of taking care of your planters.

They recommended watering your natural barrier regularly, especially in the hot weather.

Or you can opt for a more classic privacy product to shield your garden from public view.

Amazon also has a £14 privacy buy that is described as “perfect” for summer.

Another privacy fence is also available from Amazon, for just £5.

B&Q has an affordable privacy fence currently on sale, and you can put it up yourself.

And a £10 B&M product adds inches to your fence, elevating your garden’s privacy.

You can also add a stylish touch to your privacy fence with another B&M buy.

A £3 buy from B&M is can also help to add privacy to your garden this summer.

And its not just fences that can help give you privacy in your garden, one B&M item can help shield you from nosy neighbours and the sun.

Meanwhile, a Home Bargains buy is said to add a touch of glamour to your garden.

Another item from the bargain retailer is perfect for attracting birds to your space.

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May 19 (UPI) — The Russian government announced Monday that the nonprofit Amnesty International is no longer welcome within its borders.

The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation put out a statement that it “has made a decision to recognize the activities of the international non-governmental organization Amnesty International Limited, registered in London, as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation.”

The agency then claimed that while “the organization positions itself as an active conductor of human rights protection in the world,” it alleges that “the London headquarters of AIL is the center of preparation of global ‘Russophobic’ projects, paid for by accomplices of the Kyiv regime.”

It then further purported that Amenesty International has not only worked to “intensify the military confrontation in the region,” but has also justified “the crimes of Ukrainian neo-Nazis,” and has sought an increase for funding of Ukraine as it insists “on the political and economic isolation of [Russia].”

“The organization’s members support extremist organizations and finance the activities of foreign agents,” the agency said.

The Amnesty Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional office responded Monday with a warning that the Russian declaration means “any participation in our activities, including donations and reposts, is punishable in the Russian Federation.”

“If you read us from Russia, or are planning to be there, please refrain from sharing our online and offline materials,” it said. “We will continue to protect human rights in Russia and in the world, and we will keep you informed,” before a final wish for readers to take care.

According to AIL, its Moscow office has been shut down since April of 2022 by Russian authorities after the Russian Ministry of Justice delisted it from the register of the representative offices of foreign nongovernmental organizations and international organizations. This allegedly came after Russia’s media regulator blocked access to Amnesty International’s Russian-language website.

Russia has a list of over 200 “undesirable organizations,” which includes the Clooney Foundation for Justice, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Greenpeace. Russian citizens can receive as many as five years in prison for funding or working with any of the groups that have been banned.

Eight years after its release, the film is gaining a second life on Netflix.

Netflix UK has added a real gem to its collection with the wartime drama Defiance, featuring the star power of James Bond’s Daniel Craig and Ray Donovan’s Liev Schreiber in an incredible true story from WWII.

Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber team up in the enthralling historical drama Defiance, the 2008 offering that’s been garnering a cult following and is now thrilling Netflix UK audiences who hail it as “one of the best films ever.”

Set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Belarus, Defiance follows the extraordinary tale of the Bielski brothers – Tuvia, Zus, Asael, and Aron – four Jewish rebels who defiantly took on the Nazis by forming a vigilante group in the wilderness.

Based on Nechama Tec’s factual book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, the film recounts their heroic saga of providing sanctuary to over 1,200 Jews in forest hideouts, building a veritable secret village threatened with constant jeopardy.

The cast features Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, the group’s appointed head, whilst Liev Schreiber portrays his combative sibling Zus. Jamie Bell appears as their younger brother Asael, and a pre-1917 George MacKay plays the junior member of the clan, Aron, reports the Express.

Helmed by Edward Zwick of The Last Samurai fame, Defiance had its US debut just shy of the 2009 awards season and was tipped for an Oscar for Best Original Score by composer extraordinaire James Newton Howard, with a Golden Globe nod to match.

Filmed right in the heart of Lithuania, merely 200 kilometres from the original saga’s setting, ‘Defiance’ took storytelling to the next level, utilising authentic forest backdrops and even enlisting extras with personal ties to Jewish kin saved by the Bielskis.

The movie started off with a low key in selected theatres, but once it spread its wings for a wider showing, it managed to rake in an impressive $52 million across the globe. Reviewers sent out mixed signals, however, as time passed, it has only received more adulation from movie-goers.

A gleaming review on Letterboxd enthused: “Must watch 10/10. Whenever you have Daniel Craig (Bond) and Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) play two Nazi-hunting Jews navigating a group of a thousand displaced Belorussian Jews through the Yarden forest, facing the ultimate adversity – you have me sold”. Another chimed in with high praise: “Action-packed, great quotes, accurate, and a thrill ride from start to finish. You’ll be rethinking how powerful a sense of community is. (People forget! )”

Scores of cinema enthusiasts have lauded the film’s potent narrative, a blend of vast survival themes and deeply personal character journeys. Defiance further delves into the intense pressure of steering a multitude amidst dire straits, especially as the numbers swell from a mere band to a throng surpassing one thousand souls.

One viewer mused: “For me, one of the best films ever. So inspiring and tragic at the same time. Worth watching.”

Another queried its lack of wider acclaim, stating: “I still find it crazy that this film is not considered a modern classic, with its stunning cinematography, fantastic performances, and gripping story.”

Defiance can now be streamed on Netflix UK.