Trump's State of the Union address claims US in 'golden age'

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. The best British misdaad series. Hello and welcome to News Air from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And coming up today, what will people in Spain learn about the attempted coup there in 1981? Official documents relating to that historic moment have just been made public. Also why the rapper Snoop Dogg is twirling his towel with the swans. That's coming up later. But we are going to begin today in Washington, D.C., in the annual State of the Union Address that the President gives to Congress. For Donald Trump, it was a chance to reflect on his first year since his return to the White House, and he did so at some length, a record-breaking one hour and 47 minutes, in which it was less reflection, more a combative hard sell of what he claimed was a turnaround for the ages, particularly when it comes to the economy. But it's a message that he's struggling to land. Mr Trump's own approval ratings are in the doldrums. And according to one recent poll, a majority of Americans say they feel worse off than a year ago. We'll talk about that and what it means for a Republican party with its eyes now on November's midterm elections in a moment. But first, here's a flavour of the speech from our correspondent, Helena Humphreys. Mr Speaker, the President of the United States. A prime time pitch to the nation from a president not known for his brevity. True to form, Donald Trump delivered the longest State of the Union address in history. As his approval ratings slide and concerns about affordability grow, the president insisted Americans have never had it so good. Our nation is back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before. His greatest hits were on full display. No tax on tips, doubling down on tariffs and a promise to stay tough on immigration. The only thing standing between Americans and a wide open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress. Thank you. His speech was often interrupted by cheers and chants of USA. The Olympic gold medal winners in the US men's hockey team received a standing ovation. But at times, tensions spilled into the chamber. You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals. Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar shouted in protest during the president's remarks on immigration and the Somali community in her home city of Minneapolis. Fellow Democratic lawmaker Al Green was escorted from the chamber. He had waved a sign protesting a video the president had posted depicting the Obamas as apes. We're lucky we have a country. With people like this, Democrats are destroying our country. And dozens of other Democrats had refused to show up in the first place. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard. But Donald Trump's speech was also aimed at an audience beyond the chamber. With a military strike on the table, the world watched closely for what the president had to say about Iran. My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far. To have a nuclear weapon, can't let that happen. What was not said was notable too, including the Epstein files and growing calls for accountability here in Washington. We did not hear the truth from our president. Delivering the Democratic response, Virginia's governor, Abigail Spanberger, accused the president of misleading Americans. Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? We all know the answer is no. The 250th anniversary of our glorious American independence. In a speech marking nearly 250 years since America's founding, the president made his case that Republicans should shape its future. As the country heads towards November's midterm elections, it's up to voters to decide. We've seen nothing yet. We're going to do better and better and better. This is the golden age of America. Helena Humphrey's reporting there from Washington, D.C. Well, with me, Ben Chu from BBC Verify. And Ben's been digging around some of President Trump's claims in that speech. Ben, good to have you with us. Let's start with the economy and concerns about the rising cost of living. Here's what Mr Trump had to say about gas prices. Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor. It was quite honestly a disaster is now below two dollars and thirty cents a gallon in most states. And in some places, one dollar and ninety nine cents a gallon. And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw one dollar and eighty five cents a gallon for gasoline. Prices that a Brit can only dream of. I mean, is that true? Well, obviously, gas prices are the totemic indicator of the cost of living in America. And we've obviously dug into those figures because he made such a feature of them and was so specific about the prices. And basically, we think he's exaggerated in both directions. So he was, you heard him there saying under Joe Biden, they were $6 a gallon. They reached a peak in June 2022 of about $5 a gallon. So they've come down from there, obviously, but they've come down to about $3 a gallon, just under $3 a gallon, not the $2.30 a gallon, which he was very specifically saying they are at the moment in the US. We tried to dig into this figure of Iowa, where he said he'd seen a figure of $1.85 a gallon. We couldn't find any corroborating evidence to back that up. The lowest state figure for average price per gallon of gasoline was Oklahoma, which was about $2.37. So we think we don't know where he's got that figure from, but we can't verify it, basically. I should put it in the context of the overall cost of living as well. The latest official statistics in America suggest that inflation is about 2.4%. That's for January, year on year, a little bit lower than when he came into office, which was 3%. But it's interesting that economists have looked at the impact of his tariffs, which are obviously taxes on imports. And they say that the inflation rate would be about one percentage point lower if he hadn't put those tariffs on. So maybe one and a half percent rather than two and a half percent. So it looks like his policies have actually pushed up the cost of living rather than reduced it, James. Let's turn to migration. Let's have a listen to one bit of the speech in which he spoke about that issue. After four years in which millions and millions of illegal aliens port across our borders, totally unvetted and unchecked. We now have the strongest and most secure border in American history by far. In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States. Ben, is that true? Well, this one needs a bit of context because it is technically true, according to the US border agency, that no zero migrants have been admitted formally into the United States in terms of crossing the southern border over the past nine months. But that doesn't mean that no immigrants have crossed that border illegally, if you see what I mean. Being admitted means formally accepted and being able to stay until your court hearing is heard. So that hasn't happened. But the official statistics do show that thousands of illegal migrants have been actually crossing that border, have been detected crossing that border in every month that Donald Trump has been president. about 6,000 on average over last year and also the same figure for last month, January. Now, to put that in context, that is much lower than the monthly figures which we were seeing under Joe Biden in 2022 and 2023, when in some months it was more than 200,000. So it's absolutely correct that the numbers are way, way down from where they were, but it's not technically zero. It's down a lot, but it's not being completely eradicated. Ben, thank you very much indeed, Ben Chu from BBC Verify. verify. Well, let's talk to John McHenry, who's a Republican pollster with North Star Opinion Research. John, very good to have you with us on NewsHour. Your reaction to the speech? Well, it certainly was long. But I wondered at the beginning when he was talking about the economy exactly what you were just talking about. Do people find this believable? But I think he He sort of found his footing later on, probably an hour into it, where he was not only talking about immigration, but saying, I'd invite everybody who agrees that the first duty of the United States is to protect its citizens and not the illegal immigrants. and virtually every Democrat sat on their hands, including Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, and just waited to see if anyone was going to stand up where he really drove home the differences between what his leadership would mean and what Democratic leadership would mean if Democrats won in the midterms. It's not the most inspiring way to do the speech, but I do think politically it was effective to draw that line and what the stakes are in November. What about the economy though, which is where, as you well know, elections are fought and won or fought and lost. I mean, is the economy his biggest vulnerability? And I just wonder whether anything he said last night will help his pretty dismal poll ratings. Probably what he said last night won't help. I think what's going to help is whether we do see improvement over the course of the next six months, where opinions really start to get baked in. you reference the tariffs, perhaps adding a point of inflation. With the tariffs reduced by the Supreme Court, do those policies wind up showing lower inflation? Do people actually start feeling better about the economy by July and August, where we might say, okay, that's no longer as big an issue and people can start focusing on some of the social and justice issues that President Trump feels more confident in at the moment. Although he said he wants to continue with those tariffs in some form, doesn't he? He may get a little assist from the courts and the Republican Congress by not implementing some of the things that he's trying to implement. So we'll see how that all plays out. If Republicans do have to vote on that in July or August, it puts them in a very tough spot. One, I don't think they have the votes. Thomas Massey and Don bacon are too committed nose on tariffs. But also, if Republicans have to cast that vote in July or August, it's close enough to the election that it'll be fresh on people's minds and far enough away that Democrats can throw that vote into an ad and run against it all fall. Is Mr Trump becoming a liability for those in Congress facing re in November It depends so much on which district we talking about and how Republican that district is Republicans are in a catch-22 in every midterm with him because he's vitally important to help turn out the base. The Republican base now tends to be less college-educated and socioeconomically less likely to turn out in a midterm election. but he's also potentially a liability with independents and i think some of what he tried to do last night was remind some of those independents who did vote for him in 2024 why they voted for him as opposed to kamala harris and try to if not get them to vote for republicans at least maybe stay home and say you know i'll just let those guys fight it out i don't need to be involved in that just in a sentence i mean is the assumption that he he will or the Republicans will lose one chamber of Congress, if not both. Historically, it's almost impossible for the president's party to hold on to such a small majority. The president's party virtually always loses seats in the midterm with a three-seat majority. It's very hard to see how they would hold on. It would basically be a historic election if they did manage to hold on or build upon their majority. Yeah. John, thank you very much. As ever, John McHenry, Republican pollster with North Star opinion research. Plenty more analysis of that speech on our website too, bbc.com forward slash news. This is News Ad. Still to come on the programme, the Spanish government has just declassified more than 150 documents relating to a coup attempt back in 1981. We'll hear how that moment shaped modern Spain. The fact that the king goes on television and that's the Kennedy moment, It's the moment everybody remembers what they were doing, what it meant for them. And the police are in control and the government is in control and the coup is disarticulated. And after that, the transition to democracy is seen as a success. More on that story coming up in about 15 minutes. Our main headlines from the BBC newsroom right now. The UN is warning that hunger in Somalia is rapidly worsening with six and a half million people facing acute food insecurity. And a British government minister says the UK will suspend the process of transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, following pressure over the deal from President Trump. This is James Menendez with News Out Live from the BBC. Let's head to Sri Lanka now on one of the darkest chapters in the recent history of this island off India's southern tip. a series of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday 2019, targeting churches across the country and luxury hotels in the capital Colombo. Six explosions in all that killed at least 279 people and wounded a further 500. On News Out that day, this man described the scene at one of those hotels. Everyone is just wanting to panic and military was coming in. It's just total chaos. So I then just literally ran out. And then I looked at the Roman white and there was blood everywhere. Sri Lanka was no stranger to violence. It only emerged from decades of civil war in 2009. But that was between the country's Sinhalese-dominated government and its Tamil minority. These attacks, seven years ago, were mainly targeting Roman Catholics. An Islamist extremist group linked to ISIS claimed responsibility. But in the aftermath, rumours began to circulate that the bombers were helped or even directed by members of the security services. And today, Sri Lanka's former intelligence chief, Suresh Saleh, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the attacks, something he's denied. Well, three years ago, the British broadcaster Channel 4 aired a documentary which first detailed the allegations against Mr Saleh. Its executive producer was Ben De Pere. I asked him what the film found. At the centre of our film was allegations from whistleblowers from within the Sri Lankan security services, the police, and from its politics, that there was conspiracy within the Sri Lankan security services to allow the Easter bombings to happen. And indeed, the allegations went so far as that they were actually facilitated by members of the Rajapaksha-affiliated security regime at the time in the country. In order to do what? To help Gotabaya Rajapaksha's election campaign? Was that the allegation? Yes, that's right. So the Rajapaksas were a dynasty in Sri Lanka that not only ended the long civil war there, but ended it in a very bloody way. So they were incredibly popular when they ended the civil war. But after the civil war, they ruled for probably too long and had allegations of corruption thrown at them. Gautabia was the brother of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the long-term president. Gautabia was the minister of defence. And the allegation in our film from whistleblowers was that in order to win the election, they wanted to scare the population, and in particular the Catholic population, into voting for a hard man who had a reputation of stopping wars, of stopping militias and stopping terrorists. And was the support for this group, which was called the NTJ, I mean, it wasn't a very well known group, was it? I mean, was the idea that this was active support or turning a blind eye to their activities? How did it work? Sri Lanka is a small island. It has an extraordinary large standing army, which is the result of its long civil war and the fact that the army also runs large parts of the state. And so the allegation from our whistleblowers was that it's almost impossible now for there to be a terror group or a militarised group in opposition to the Sri Lankan government because of how securitized it was. And the allegation went even further than that, that the head of intelligence, Suresh Sali, had actually met with the members of this group and knew of their plot and even assisted them. And a different dynamic to the civil war, which was between the majority Buddhists and minority Hindus. This was Muslim extremists targeting Sri Lanka's Catholic minority. I mean, what was the idea behind that? Why go after Catholics while they were celebrating Easter? A Catholic minority is often the swing constituency. And so therefore, the political result would be just before an election for them to be a scared minority who would perhaps vote for whichever party was giving the most credible security credentials. I mean, it's taken until 2026 for this arrest to take place. And it is just an arrest. And these are allegations that Suresh Saleh has denied. I mean, what was the reaction in the immediate aftermath of your documentary in Sri Lanka? There was relief that someone had actually revealed these allegations, which had been largely suppressed in the press there, because nobody ever believed that these bombings could have taken place without some knowledge of the state. The documentary maker Ben De Pere. It began as a simple social media post in Scotland, a two-seater bike looking for a new home. What followed was an extraordinary journey spanning thousands of kilometres from Scotland to Kenya and a new chapter for Kenyan paracycling. When Carrie Ruxton, a gym owner in St Andrews, offered her daughter's old tandem bike online, she never imagined it would end up in Nairobi. But among the replies was a message from Alice Meringu, a member of Kenya's national paracycling team, who'd been struggling to find a tandem to race with visually impaired cyclists. The BBC's James Copnall has been speaking to Alice in Nairobi and Carrie in Scotland. So I had this tandem taking up space in my shed. So I tried to sell it on Facebook and I didn't have any offers. So I decided to give it away for free. And I put it onto this tandem Facebook page and I had quite a few inquiries, but one of them was Alice. And when I read Alice's story and she told me that she sometimes had three people trying to use one bike, I really wanted to give the bike to Alice and we really just had to work out how to get it across to Kenya. Yeah, Kenya is not around the corner, right? You were expecting someone to come and pick up the bike and then a whole continent away. That's right. And that's what I was struggling with. But luckily, Alice had a contact in Glasgow, a Kenyan, and he came to pick up the bike. And then it started its journey, in fact, last September. So it took quite a while to get there. I almost lost hope a couple of times. I asked Alice, is it there yet? No, it's not there. And then suddenly she contacted me on the 15th of February and said it arrived yesterday, which is Valentine's Day, the day of love. And so I thought, that's amazing. It's been sent from Scotland with love to Alice. In fact, the bike even had a little tartan ribbon tied to it for good luck. And so Alice told me she decided to call the bike Valentine. And Alice, tell us about why you got in touch in the first place. Is it pretty difficult to get a good tandem bike in Kenya? Actually, no tandem bikes in Kenya. So when we started de-cycling for people with disabilities and people with eye problems, we didn't have enough bikes only one gentleman who had the bike and so I started going to Facebook searching where I can get bikes. As Carrie said it took quite a long time several months for the bike to arrive in Kenya that must have been quite a nervous wait I guess. Yeah we waited like for five months because the bike started its journey on September and it arrived in February so we were waiting for it for sure it's a live day on time because this year we have a para track race in Nigeria and we are hoping to use it because now we have the bike we won't share it and Carrie you mentioned uh sending it off with love and that little tartan ribbon around it and if it has been a family bike I imagine it carries plenty of memories already will be well what will it be to see it in international competition will you be proud will you be emotional how will you feel do you think? Yeah, I'll definitely feel proud. I'm going to keep in touch with Alice and I want to follow everything that she's doing. I'm a gym owner myself at Salt St Andrews and I'm absolutely passionate about getting women involved in sport. And so Alice is going to send me pictures and I'm going to keep in touch with her team. And Alice, is one of the big goals to qualify for the Commonwealth Games, which are going to be in Scotland this time? Yeah, we are hoping that Nigeria will bring good results. Unfortunately in Africa we are only having two teams for tandem bikes that is Nigeria and Kenya so we are hoping as well here in Kenya to bring up more ladies so that we can have more teams there. Alice Maringu and Carrie Ruxton talking there to my colleague James Cotnell. You're listening to NewsHour live from the BBC in London. Do stay with us. Lots more coming up. www.shopify.net That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. episode where I answer listener questions and how to make those markets work for you. Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. I Samparanti and for the past seven years I been granted access to a team of US special agents Their job To track down those who create and trade in sickening images on the dark web When I hug my kids, that's your fuel. That's your why. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web tells their story. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts. To be continued... You're listening to News Hour. Schoolchildren returned to classes in Mexico today following a wave of violence on Sunday that came in response to the army's killing of the country's most wanted drug lord known as El Mencho. Some of the worst violence took place in the popular tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta from where Will Grant now reports. After moving to Puerto Vallarta from the UK nine years ago, Alan Percy and his family began adopting dogs. Eventually, they'd adopted so many, they opened a dog sanctuary called the Sula Society. Today, they care for 300 abandoned dogs in the largest animal refuge in Jalisco State. It's all-consuming work. But on Sunday, their task became even harder. Alan was held up at gunpoint by masked cartel members who pulled him from his vehicle and stole his truck. Probably ten minutes into the journey, five minutes driving from my house, we came round the corner and then we were confronted by a convoy of must have been ten vehicles loaded with cartel members, heavily armoured with automatics. There were guns mounted on the roofs of the trucks and they were blocked the road and they stopped us. I know enough Spanish that when they were saying, solo coche, solo coche, that they just wanted a car. Alan must now rely on a loaned car to bring in food and supplies. the rescued animals unwittingly affected by the violence which swept across Mexico following the death of the cartel boss El Menchon. The cartel's show of force shook Puerto Vallarta, with videos of the violence still circulating on social media, including one in Puerto Vallarta, where numerous cars in the parking lot of the Costco store were attacked. I'm walking through the wreckage of a dozen cars around me which have been completely ruined, completely gutted. It is an apocalyptic scene. What was otherwise a quiet Sunday suddenly exploded into an extraordinary outpouring of cartel violence right before the eyes of the disbelieving residents and tourists. But now the clean-up is well underway. Puerto Vallarta's mayor, Luis Monjía, insists the town is getting back on its feet. If we focus on tackling people's needs, strengthening institutions and showing our best face to the world, then we'll bring back trust to this town and be on the right path as a local government, he told me. Are you worried that taking out El Menchon could then divide the cartel, they start attacking each other, and what happens here turns into a battle in the streets. We have to make sure we don't make problems worse in a complex, intense moment, he said. We must look out for our people, for the tourists who visit us. That's what we need to do. The fallout from El Mencho's death has knocked this tourist hotspot. Now its leaders, residents and its visitors just hope the calm in this otherwise peaceful town isn't shattered again by armed men trying to sow fear. That was our Mexico correspondent, Will Grant, reporting there from Puerto Vallarta. You're listening to NewsHour. This is the BBC World Service in London. You're listening to NewsHour and I'm James Menendez. Now, let me take you back almost exactly 45 years to February 1981 and the Congress building in the Spanish capital Madrid. Spain at that time was just a young democracy. The military dictator Francisco Franco had died a few years before, and the country was now a parliamentary democracy with King Juan Carlos as its constitutional figurehead. But elements loyal to Franco weren't happy with the way the transition to democracy was going. And in the early evening of the 23rd of February, this happened. A Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, along with about 200 other officers in the Civil Guard, stormed into Congress during a vote to swear in a new Prime Minister. And you heard the firing in the air there. It was an attempt to launch a military coup that led to all those inside the chamber being held hostage for some 18 hours. But the attempt failed after a televised intervention by the king, denouncing the plotters and calling for democratic government to continue. Well, many of the facts of this pivotal moment in Spanish history are known, but not all. And in the past few hours, the government has released a bundle of classified documents relating to the failed coup. Professor Mary Vincent's an expert on modern Spain at the University of Sheffield in England. First of all, why is the government releasing these documents now? I think it's partly routine. In any democracy, documents are released after a certain period of time. And obviously that period of time has now elapsed. I do think it's very interesting, though, that they're being made publicly available on a website. And I think that reflects the importance of the 81 coup in Spain's transition to democracy, which is obviously the foundational moment for Spanish, the current Spanish democracy. But it also, I think, suggests there's still a lot of interest in the 81 coup. Yeah, a lot of interest. What about in terms of what we know or don't know about what happened back then, 45 years ago? How much still isn't known about the coup and how it unfolded? I think mostly it's known about the coup, but it was an intensely dramatic moment in the transition to democracy. It's hugely theatrical. You have tanks on the streets of Valencia with an old Civil War general at the helm. You have Tejero going into the parliament building and shooting into the ceiling and everybody diving for cover and holding the government hostage in effect. So it's a very, very dramatic moment, but it's also quite a fragile moment for Spanish democracy. And I think there's a sense at that time that there are lots of outcomes that night and many of them aren't good. so the fact that the king goes on television and that's the kennedy moment it's the moment everybody remembers what they were doing at what time he came on what it meant for them and calms nerves and the police are in control and the government is in control and things are the coup is disarticulated and and after that the transition to democracy is seen as a success and the king is seen as pivotal in that success but the king was franco's appointed heir He was a military man. He'd been trained at military academies. This is a military coup. One of the generals involved is highly duplicitous and trying to definitely act as the king's interpreter to the rebel soldiers. And ever since then, there's been a lot of speculation as to how much did the king know? Was he taken by surprise? You know, what do we know? Yes. And what do you think about that? I mean, what do you think about those suggestions that he knew that this was being plotted in advance? I am sceptical. I understand. I understand the speculation. I have never heard or seen anything to suggest that he didn't play an entirely straight role during the coup. But I do understand the speculation and the fact that his subsequent fall from grace was so spectacular. He is in the aftermath of the coup and with the successful transition to democracy. He's such a hero, the king. Lots of people who are not at all monarchists are still very favourably disposed towards him. and his later fall from grace and all the scandals, I think that evaporated, particularly the corruption scandals, the money. He's seen as more venal then. And I think when that happens, there is always speculation about an earlier version of that man. Yes. I mean, for many years, he was sort of untouchable because of the way he'd intervened after the coup, wasn't he? It's interesting that you used earlier the word fragile. Could it have unfolded very differently. I mean, might the coup have succeeded then? It could have unfolded very differently. I'm not sure the coup could have succeeded. I think there could easily have been bloodshed. And there is a fear during the transition, which is very much a movement of political elites. They control the movement toward democracy. They want to avoid a revolution, as has happened in Portugal. They definitely want to avoid military bloodshed. And though I don't think the condition for a civil war in is, Spain has fought a civil war. And they know what happens when soldiers start shooting each other and shooting in the street. There is a real desire to avoid that level of bloodshed. And all of those things are very popular, are very possible on the night of the 23rd of February 1981. It's not clear how that will end at all. And to what extent are people in Spain more prepared to talk about not just the coup, but that whole transition to democracy and indeed the dictatorship? Because for a while there was a reluctance, wasn't there, to talk about things. It was just about focusing on the present and the future. Do you think now that Spain is a more mature democracy, some of those questions can be tackled more easily? Yes, definitely. There's definitely been a re-evaluation of the transition, which was seen as this elite movement which was skilfully handled, in which the king played an absolutely crucial role. I think there is now much more scepticism about that, a feeling that there were questions that were not addressed to do with living standards and democratic rights, and in particular addressing the past. The Franco regime was very, very violent, and that desire to address the past, to hold people account, because though the perpetrators of the coup were prosecuted, There were many people who had been guilty of brutality, police and military brutality under Franca, who were not prosecuted. I think there is a definite willingness to ask some of those questions and to come to terms with the past in a different way. Now, that was very difficult in the 1980s. There was far more emphasis on just getting the transition sorted out, getting a stable government, bringing Spain into the EU, taking the army into NATO, all of which happened after 1981. Yes, I just wanted to finish by asking, I mean, Lieutenant Colonel Tejero, I mean, he was arrested and was sent to jail, was he? He was, he was. All of the people involved in organising the coup were prosecuted and Tejero was sent to jail. And that was Mary Vincent, who's Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield. The documents relating to that attempted coup in 1981 are now available to view on the Spanish government's official website. Now, Rose Wiley is regarded as one of the most exciting British artists of our time. Her paintings are big, bold and bright. she takes her inspiration from cinema history and celebrity culture and she's 91 with her biggest ever exhibition opening at the royal academy in london tomorrow the bbc culture editor katie razzle has been to meet her I love this kind of thing I love things going up on walls She's the rebel painter of the British art world. And now, Rose Wiley's watching her paintings being lifted into position in the Royal Academy. Over there's a painting. That's me. That's the first me painting with grey hair. Self-portrait? Yes. Somewhat incredibly, Wiley is the first female British painter to have a solo exhibition in the Royal Academy's main galleries in its more than 250-year history. It's obscene. I mean, historically, just extraordinary. Do you think the art world is still male-centric? The interesting thing is that when it comes to the price of the work, men's paintings are still much higher than women's. There's something very wrong with that. It's not like sport where men are more powerful and therefore maybe they play a more powerful game. I mean, in painting, it's like writing. There's no gender difference in terms of how we tackle anything. The image, the size, the amount of paint, it's not gender-specific. So the fact that the man will get more should be fixed. Rose Wiley's own paintings are now highly valued, but her career only really took off when she was in her 70s. In the studio in Kent, where she's worked for more than 40 years, paint-spattered newspapers cover the floor. She starts with drawings and uses photographs and other visual images as references and inspiration for her work. I don't want to do an illustration. I am not a copyist. I work, I transform. It makes a lot of paint. You do. We can see lots of it on the floor around you. It doesn't all go on the work. Yes, because I take it off. You see, the thing is, when it's not working, you take it off. So it's constantly coming off. So a lot of paint is on the floor. She's now aged 91 with a rescue cat she thinks is 16. You are the most lovely pussycat. You're very happy. Wylie didn't paint for many years while she raised her family, but she'd started as a child growing up in the Blitz. I had a little green metal paint box with proper paints. I used to spend my pocket money on refill. What do you think that little girl would think now of her adult self and all the success? It would blow the little child's mind. I mean, it's not something you think about, particularly art students of the 50s. We were not grounded in being successful. I hate to be ageist, but people definitely think this is the work of a young artist. They do say that. You are right. Not in a negative way, though, in a positive way. No, it's positive. No, it's positive. I'm perfectly happy when they say it. Who wants to paint like an old person? It means that it's fresher. Back in the Royal Academy, her big, bold, irreverent canvases chronicle her life and inspirations, including doodlebugs from The Blitz, actresses like Nicole Kidman and scenes from Quentin Tarantino films. I think it was the end of part one of Kill Bill. There was this marvellous shot of a woman lying horizontal with her arm up, spurting blood. It reminded me of Renaissance fountains. I mean, it's not realistic, but then Tarantino's violence is not realistic. Is it true you like painting at night? Well, I often go into the night. It's not a plan. What sort of time do you paint to, then? 20 to 4 is probably my notice, but it's not normal. Often it's more like 1.30. And do you get tired? No, you don't notice. But then I get up to early. Luke. So I'm not losing sleep. So you're basically living the life of a teenager? Well, probably. Wiley's now got her biggest show yet. 90 paintings in all. An artist very much in her prime, who says she hopes her best is yet to come. Our culture editor, Katie Razzle, talking there to 91-year-old artist Rose Wiley. Don't forget if you want to listen to NewsHour but miss our live programme a podcast is always available it's updated twice a day just search for BBC NewsHour podcast you'll find it easily there and you can also subscribe if you want to receive it on a regular basis BBC NewsHour podcast do stay with us though still more to come on this edition of the programme we're going to be heading to the Norwegian Arctic in just a couple of minutes time. This is James Menendez with NewsHour. Now to an extraordinary story of a small sports club defying the odds to reach the biggest of stages. A Norwegian football club whose home is inside the Arctic Circle that's just made it into the final 16 of Europe's Champions League. Last night, Buda glimped a beat last year's runner-up Inter Milan to make it through to the next stage. That's having already beaten two other world-famous clubs, Manchester City and Atletico Madrid. Not bad for a team from a remote town of 40,000 people that often faces harsh winter conditions. Joe Foster's the club's international marketing manager. What's his reaction to last night's win? It's almost a struggle to believe it in a sense. When you think about the size of the city and where it's located and the history of the club, it's a true sort of a unicorn story, a real Cinderella story in a way. But honestly, just pride is what I'm feeling today. The fact that the boys have come together and put together that level of performance. It just speaks volumes about the club and the way we've ran ourselves and the fact that our model has worked. But what is the secret of the club's success? The secret sauce is it's buy-in across all levels. It's the idea of, and it's very important, sort of the idea of performance is the absolute key to everything. If you go back and watch any of our head coach, Shetlenitsen's interviews, he'll never use the word win. He always uses the word performance. And it almost goes back to this idea of he'd rather we lose a game but everyone gives 100% than he would win a game but everyone's giving 20 to 50. Because the only way you can really be a true judge of are we doing this correct is if you're doing it to the best of your ability. Having that level of buy-in from not just the squad but also the entire club apparatus has just been huge for us. In the club's history, I mean, was it difficult in the past to get talent to come and play for the team and travel up into the Arctic Circle? Oh yeah, absolutely. When you think during the winter, we don't have sunlight for a good month of the year. It's only a town of 50,000 people. So getting people to come up here and play was often quite unattractive. But now we've sort of span it on its head with our success. Players know that it's somewhere they can come and hone their craft. It's somewhere where they can take that step that they've always been told they have, but they've never been able to find. It's somewhere they know that they've got a good chance of performing well in the league and being able to play in European football. On the physical challenges of playing so far north, you talked about the darkness. Presumably you get a fair amount of snow during winter. Am I right in thinking you play on an artificial pitch? Yes, we do. Just a fun fact, we cleared 80 tonnes of snow off of the pitch before the Inter Milan match. So there are some troubles that we go through that not a lot of other clubs can say they do. Do visiting clubs find that surface difficult to play on? I wonder whether that's an advantage sometimes. Some clubs will say they do. Other clubs don't. Some clubs will come here and say, we train on artificial pitches, so it's not an issue. Other clubs will say, oh, you shouldn't be allowed to have this in European tournaments. I don't think we'd really be able to have a brass pitch up here. Yeah, just wouldn't survive. So what does this mean for the club, the fact that you've advanced to the knockout stage, particularly in terms of sort of finances? I mean, are you seeing more investment coming in? What will that mean, do you think? It's one of those things where, as you said earlier, success breeds success. Just in terms of eyes on the club, it's transformational. The money from UEFA is, once again, transformational, not just for us, but for the league as a whole. When you think of solidarity payments. What about your stadium? Do you need some work needed on that? Are you going to be investing in a huge, vast new stadium? Well, it won't be quite as vast as some of the stadiums we see, because as we say, there's only 50,000 of us. And our county, which is about the size of New Hampshire or Benin or half of the UK, there's only 120,000 people in the entire county. So we can't really get away with having like an 80,000 seater when you need everyone in a two hours flight radius to come there. But we are in the process of building a new 10,000 seater. The money that comes in is huge for making that whole process easier. You're clearly not Norwegian. You're a Brit. What drew you to a small Norwegian football club in the Arctic Circle? Yeah, it's the same with a lot of Brits who moved to Norway. It was originally for love. My girlfriend, we met when we were both at university in Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast. She's Norwegian. When Brexit rolled around, she'd just finished her master's. so she moved home and uh our plan was i will find a job either we'll both find jobs in the uk or in norway and she actually got a job at the club first and just sent the message through saying hey is there any chance you'd want to move to the arctic circle with me and i said well how many opportunities do you get to do that in your life rather foolishly at the time quit my career in advertising hopped on a plane about a month before covid shut everything down but in the end it has worked out quite nicely for me. Certainly has. Joe Foster, who's international marketing manager for Buda Glimt Football Club. Well, let's stick with football and indeed the Welsh link to end the programme, because it seems that Americans from the world of entertainment have an unlikely interest in lower league Welsh football clubs. First, there was the actor Ryan Reynolds becoming co-owner of Wrexham, and then the American rapper Snoop Dogg, who's become co-owner of Swansea. They play in the second tier of English football. Well, Snoop Dogg went to his first home game last night. Ahead of the match against Preston North End, he posted a video encouraging fans to engage in an American pre-match tradition, towel twirling. Swansea City. We created these towels right here for everybody to grab them, wave them in the air. Let's go. The match ended in a one-all draw. What impact did Snoop have? Ellis James is a BBC broadcaster, comedian and Swansea City fan. I was watching it at home and knowing he was at the game, the TV cameras kept cutting back to Snoop Dogg in the director's box. I got that same feeling I always get when someone who's not a Swansea fan has to watch the Swans. I was just desperate for him not to have a bad, completely torrid time. We looked extremely rudderless after we were relegated from the Premier League. we were going nowhere under our previous American owners and now we have new American owners and they've brought in Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart the TV personality and billionaire they've brought in Luka Modric obviously one of the greatest footballers of the last two decades and there's a real buzz about the club Swansea and Snoop fan Ellis James there and that brings us to the end of this edition of NewsHour from me and the rest of the team thanks so much for listening until the next time bye bye www.feyyaz.tv your BBC podcasts.