Insurgents shoot villagers going to a market on the same day UN peacekeeping convoy attacked, killing one personMilitants have killed at least 31 people in central Mali when they fired upon a bus ferrying people to a local market and attacked a UN convoy in the north of the country in a region racked by a violent insurgency.The bus was attacked on Friday by unidentified gunmen as it travelled its twice-weekly route from the village of Songho to a market in Bandiagara six miles (10km) away, said Moulaye Guindo, the mayor of the nearby town of Bankass. Continue reading...

South Australia announces rule changes for interstate arrivals as ACT records first case of variant. This blog is now closed

Greg Hunt says TGA and Atagi to decide on Pfizer vaccines for children by the end of the yearThe Australian government says Covid vaccines could soon be rolled out for children as young as five as Victoria reported nine deaths and the NSW health minister, Kerry Chant, warned of “an uptick” in Omicron cases in metropolitan Sydney.The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, said on Saturday that the regulators – the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation – were set to decide on giving Pfizer to children by the end of the year. Continue reading...

Normally, planes are in constant motion, pinballing between continents. But in March 2020 all that came to a halt. What did it mean for our jobs, our horizons – and the planet?

Adriana, 27, reporter, meets Streisand, 27, freelance reporterAdriana on StreisandWhat were you hoping for?

US and Australia become latest countries to confirm locally transmitted cases

The dwindling number of places available for the metropolis’s Muslims are becoming religious battlefieldsUntil a few weeks ago, no one had given much thought to the car park outside sector 37 police station in Gurgaon, a satellite city to India’s capital, Delhi. But for the last few Fridays the dusty, litter-strewn patch of concrete has become a religious battlefield.This week as a Hindu nationalist mob assembled in their usual saffron, roars of their signature slogans “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and “hail the motherland” filled the air. Then a cry rang out: “The Muslims are here.” And the mob began to charge. Continue reading...

Poll takes place as human rights groups express fears over record of successor Adama BarrowGambians are heading to the polls on Saturday for the first time since the former president Yahya Jammeh was forced into exile after 22 years in power.Jammeh, whose rule was marred by allegations of torture, extrajudicial killings and rape, fled to Equatorial Guinea in 2017 when United Nations-backed regional coalition forces staged a military intervention after his refusal to concede electoral defeat. Continue reading...

Despite a review finding one in three parliamentary staffers have been sexually harassed, behaviour inside the building shows no sign of improvementAllegations of abuse and accusations of widespread sexism. Bullying and harassment particularly of women. A cabinet minister stood aside pending an investigation into claims by a former staffer that their relationship was at times “abusive”. Even by the low standards of the Australian parliament, it was a week of horror in Canberra.The final sitting week of parliament for the year began with a long-awaited report on sexual harassment and cultural issues within the parliament, which found one in three parliamentary staffers “have experienced some form of sexual harassment while working there”. Continue reading...

More than 100 cases of new variant have now been found in England; Strict social distancing will be required in Ireland’s bars and restaurants with mandatory table service and a maximum of six people per table

Met asked to investigate reports of alleged breaches of Covid lockdown rules at No 10

Is anyone safe from the knife-wielding puppet in this rebooted 80s horror classic? Certainly not people who shop at New Jersey yard salesMy editor was not born when Child’s Play came out in 1988 and so looked at me blankly when I begged and pleaded with her not to make me review Chucky (Sky Max), the latest screen incarnation of Don Mancini’s possessed doll – AKA the most famously malevolent inhabitant of the uncanny valley and one that traumatised for life anyone who saw the switchblade-wielding horror (“Wanna play?”) at too tender an age.So, here I am and here, most definitely, is Chucky once more. It’s exactly the same Good Guy doll, with exactly the same backstory – parcelled out in a flashback or two in each of the eight episodes – and the fear is real. At least for viewers of my generation. Maybe the younger folk, who don’t come trailing clouds of monstrous formative trauma and/or have been hardened by the real-life horrors of the internet, will fare better. Let me know, if you can. I’ll be behind the sofa, hyperventilating. Continue reading...

Government privately being urged by advisers to tell people to work from home as UK cases of variant hit 134UK ministers have been warned they cannot wait for new research on the Omicron variant and must act now to prevent a potentially “very significant wave of infections” that risks overwhelming the NHS.A 75 further cases of the variant have been identified in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Friday night, bringing the total number of UK confirmed cases to 134. The head of the agency, Dr Jenny Harries, said: “We have started to see cases where there are no links to travel, suggesting that we have a small amount of community transmission.” Continue reading...

Katharine Murphy speaks to the executive director of Essential about how Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese are polling post-Covid lockdowns and the sexual harassment allegations in Parliament HouseRead more: Continue reading...

Once a place ‘where careers go to die’, in Vegas you can see the big stars up close – and it makes sense for AdeleLas Vegas shows once conjured images of early-bird dinner specials, corny magicians and Cole Porter standards sung to happily clapping coach parties. But with another of the world’s biggest pop stars signing on to perform in the city, namely Adele, the Vegas concert residency is further cemented as a glamorous and lucrative rite of pop passage.Her fourth album, 30, released last month, became the biggest-selling album of the year in the US after just three days on sale. That is the kind of popularity that warrants a stadium tour – indeed, she played to nearly 3 million punters across the 120-show stretch of her previous 2017-2018 world tour. Continue reading...

The country became the world’s newest republic this week. While Britain is still racked by arguments over empire, others have already passed judgmentThe contrast could hardly be more striking. In Britain, the removal of the statue of a slave trader, name changes for institutions and apologies from some who profited from slavery have produced reams of fevered arguments and fulminations. In Barbados, this week’s removal of the Queen as head of state was as calm and straightforward as the process leading to the change.Yes, there was a ceremony to swear in the new president, Sandra Mason (at which Rihanna provided rather more excitement than Prince Charles, as the prime minister, Mia Mottley, had savvily realised). But this symbolic moment was not one of high passion or drama. Continue reading...

Government accused of having emboldened extremists after lynching of Sri Lankan in SialkotA mob in Pakistan tortured, killed and then set on fire a Sri Lankan man who was accused of blasphemy over some posters he had allegedly taken down.Priyantha Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan national who worked as general manager of a factory of the industrial engineering company Rajco Industries in Sialkot, Punjab, was set upon by a violent crowd on Friday. Continue reading...

Analysis: the prince may be prepared to risk a costly lawsuit against the Sun and Mirror, rather than settlingThe legal battle against the Mail on Sunday may finally be over.But for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, another one looms, and this could make it all the way to trial. Continue reading...

Officials say variant’s R number is believed to be above 6, though most cases are mild and no deaths reported

In Guardian Australia’s online culture podcast, Michael Sun and Alyx Gorman bring in Vice Australia’s head of editorial Brad Esposito to chat about the evolution of brands on social media, from cringey posts to identity politics – including a tweet so tone deaf, Brad had to pull his car over to report on it. Then Michael teaches Alyx why breaking a Snapchat streak is an unforgivable faux pas Continue reading...

Emma Tustin sentenced to minimum of 29 years as boy’s father is jailed for 21 years for manslaughterA woman who killed her six-year-old stepson, who had been poisoned, starved and beaten in the weeks before his death, has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 29 years.Emma Tustin, 32, was sentenced for the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, alongside his father, 29-year-old Thomas Hughes, who was given 21 years in prison for manslaughter. Continue reading...

Proposed register would come into effect in January, a year after near-total ban on abortionThe Polish government are planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies which would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.The proposed register would come into effect in January 2022, a year after Poland introduced a near-total ban on abortion. Continue reading...

Brent Osborn-Smith says his daughter Amelie is grateful to be alive and could return to UK this weekendThe father of a British teenager mauled by a crocodile in southern Africa has revealed he received a text message from a medic who was evacuating her from the scene by air, reading: “You have one hell of a brave girl there, sir.”Amelie Osborn-Smith, 18, was left with her right foot “hanging loose” and hip dislocated after a large crocodile bit her leg while she was swimming in the Zambezi river in Zambia during a break from a white-water rafting expedition. Continue reading...

The death of the musicals legend triggered anguish and a memory of a destabilising telling-offThere aren’t many public figures whose deaths, when announced, can trigger audible anguish, but Stephen Sondheim was one of them. At the end of last week, the alert popped up on my phone. Alone in my living room, I said loudly: “Oh no.” Continue reading...

Margaux Pinot says she feared her partner would kill her, but judge says there is not enough proof of guiltFrench sports stars and politicians have expressed anger at the acquittal of a coach accused of domestic violence against the Olympic judo champion Margaux Pinot, as the state prosecutor launched an appeal.Pinot, 27, a gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, had serious facial injuries including a fractured nose when she filed a police complaint in the early hours of Sunday. She said her partner and trainer, Alain Schmitt, had attacked her at her flat outside Paris, wrestled her to the ground, verbally abused her, punched her many times, repeatedly smashed her head on to the ground and tried to strangle her. Continue reading...

Sebastian Kurz has sent party in disarray since stepping down as chancellor in OctoberAustria’s ruling conservatives have picked the interior minister, an immigration hardliner, to lead them and the nation after a wave of resignations by senior officials set off by Sebastian Kurz.Karl Nehammer succeeds Kurz as party chief and will lead the coalition government with the Greens. He takes over a party in disarray since Kurz stepped down as chancellor in October because he had been placed under criminal investigation on suspicion of corruption offences. Continue reading...

Alongside cutting ties to the monarchy, new PM believes the region represents an untapped civilisationA republic has been proposed and postponed by Barbadian prime ministers for decades. Battling a pandemic that has devastated the country’s tourism economy, Mia Mottley, the country’s first female leader, had ample excuses to again kick the constitutional can down the road.Instead, at the stroke of midnight on Monday, she oversaw the transition of the Caribbean island out of the realm of the British monarchy – the country’s first local head of state, also a woman, Sandra Mason – and in case that were not enough, bestowed the title of national hero on the Barbadian megastar Rihanna in one of the new republic’s first acts. Continue reading...

The object is simple but the mission is impossible – avoid hearing Wham’s ubiquitous 1984 classic, Last Christmas, at any point between the start of December and Christmas EveName: Whamageddon.Age: Eleven years old. Continue reading...

People from younger and more diverse demographics are exploring area amid boom in nature tripsThere are still plenty of lean, grizzled oldies in well-worn gear zipping effortlessly up Lakeland hills like it’s a walk to the corner shop. But there are also younger and more diverse communities exploring the area as hiking, climbing and enjoying nature become “fashionable and trendy” again.“It is absolutely fantastic,” said Richard Leafe, the chief executive of the Lake District national park. “This is what it is all about.” Continue reading...

Grab your Manolos! Carrie and the gang are finally returning in And Just Like That. But, with a more diverse cast and writers’ room, could this reboot be even more radical?

As tensions with Russia and China increase, the prime minister meddles in foreign policy to distract from domestic woesRelations between the world’s great powers are tenser than ever since the cold war. Troops are massing along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Chinese ships and planes are openly threatening Taiwan. Japan is rearming in response. Turkey is renewing its belligerence towards its neighbours. Russia is backing east-west fragmentation in Bosnia.Where Britain stands in all this is dangerously unclear, drifting on a sea of Boris Johnson’s gestures and platitudes. The Royal Navy currently has a £3.2bn aircraft carrier waving the union flag in the South China Sea, completely unprotected. China could sink it in an hour. In the Black Sea, a British destroyer provocatively invades Russian waters off Crimea, showing off to the world’s media. Last week, the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, advanced her bid for her party’s leadership by sitting astride a tank in Estonia and warning Russia that Britain “stood firm” against its “malign activity” in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Britain’s outgoing defence chief, Sir Nick Carter, estimates that the risk of accidental war with Russia is now “the highest in decades”.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Local metal detectorist on Western Isles ‘flabbergasted’ to find missing ring on former potato patchA single-minded metal detectorist has reunited a woman with the wedding ring she lost in a potato patch in the Western Isles 50 years ago.

Just how lucky will the guests who get to stay at the McCallister house later this month be? I foresee troubleIn the interests of public service, I need to make you aware of a trap. Yesterday, a property became available on Airbnb. It is a large home in the Chicago area, available for one night only and it is suspiciously cheap. Look, it’s the Home Alone house.Apparently, for $18 (£13.50), you and three friends can stay overnight in the iconic McCallister residence. You will be greeted by the actor who played Buzz McCallister. There will be pizza and other 90s junk food. There will be a mirror for you to scream into. There may well be a tarantula. It all seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? This is why I am convinced that whoever ends up staying there will be robbed. Continue reading...

Experts applaud Biden’s plan to expand testing but wonder if the effort goes far enough to stop the spread of the virusUS infectious disease experts largely agree with the Biden administration’s newly announced emphasis on Covid-19 testing in the wake of the emergence of the Omicron variant, but questions remain over whether the president’s plan goes far enough to ensure that testing stops the spread of the virus.President Joe Biden announced new actions to combat the coronavirus in the US on Thursday, including a nationwide campaign encouraging vaccine boosters; a forthcoming rule requiring private insurance to reimburse the cost of at-home testing; a pledge to provide 50m free at-home tests to health centers and rural clinics for those not covered by private insurance; and a requirement that travelers to the United States, regardless of nationality or vaccination status, provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test within one day of boarding flights. Continue reading...

He came back and sunk his teeth in again. The pain took my breath away as I felt his fangs in my fleshI was backpacking in Panama over Christmas in 2018, and planned to climb Volcán Barú. At 3,474m, it is the highest peak in the country and one of the only places on earth from where you can see the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans at the same time. It is an active volcano, but last erupted around 1550.I set off before sunrise. It was a little chilly, so I had pulled on tights under my trekking trousers. I intended to reach the top by midday, then return before dark to get a lift to my hostel. Continue reading...

The writer-director talks about his new film, co-starring Denzel Washington, and reveals how it felt to work without his brother, Ethan, for the first time in nearly 40 yearsIt might be the unlucky play for British theatre rep types. But for movie directors, Macbeth has been a talisman, a fascinating and liberating challenge – for Akira Kurosawa, with his version, Throne of Blood; for Roman Polanski; and for Justin Kurzel. Even Orson Welles’s once-scorned movie version from 1948, with its quaint Scottish accents, is admired today for its lo-fi energy.Now, Joel Coen, the co-creator of masterpieces such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man and No Country for Old Men, has directed a starkly brilliant version entitled The Tragedy of Macbeth, shot in high-contrast black and white, an eerie nightmare of clarity and purity, with Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand (Coen’s wife) as Lady Macbeth. Continue reading...

Dozens of people were trapped in an Ikea showroom when a storm dumped 30cm of snow in northern Denmark.After the Aalborg showroom closed, it turned into a vast bedroom after six customers and about two dozen employees who had been left stranded by the snowstorm were forced to spend the night in the store

Ukhoo village in Kashmir supplies 90% of wood used in the country’s pencils, but the industry, a major employer in the area, has seen a dramatic drop in demandSchool closures in India during the pandemic have left their mark on more than the children who have seen delays to their learning. In one Kashmiri village the impact has been catastrophic on employment.Pick up a pencil anywhere across India and it is likely to come from the poplar trees of Ukhoo. Continue reading...

Journalist permitted to receive peace prize in person after judge eases travel restrictionsThe Philippine journalist Maria Ressa will be allowed to travel overseas so she can accept her Nobel peace prize in person after a court gave her permission to leave the country to visit Norway this month.Ressa, who is subject to travel restrictions because of the legal cases she faces in the Philippines, shared the prize with the Russian investigative journalist Dmitry Muratov, amid growing concerns over curbs on free speech worldwide. Continue reading...

Louie French becomes MP for suburban London seat, but Tories’ majority of nearly 19,000 cut to 4,478The Conservatives have held the safe seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first in a series of closely watched parliamentary byelections.Louie French was elected as the new MP, replacing the well-liked former cabinet minister James Brokenshire, who died in October from lung cancer. Continue reading...

We air both sides of a domestic disagreement – and ask you to deliver a verdict

Laudably released for charity, the favourite for this year’s Christmas No 1 leaves no musical cliche untwinkled – and its exhortation to forget the pandemic is crassGiven recent government advice to avoid kissing strangers under the mistletoe this Christmas, there’s a sense in which the long-trailed festive hook-up between Ed Sheeran and Elton John counts as a reckless incitement to anarchy. For his part, Sheeran wants nothing more than a relentless tonguing beneath those poison berries this December: “Kiss me,” he sings; then later, “just keep kissing me!” (To be fair, this noted Wife Guy is unquestionably singing about his wife. Did you know he has a wife? He might have mentioned it.)In every other respect, however, Merry Christmas – in case the perfunctory title didn’t make clear – is the very exemplar of avoiding unnecessary risk during this perilous season. There are sleigh bells. Church bells. Clattering reindeer hooves. A kids’ choir. Sickly strings. The full selection box, and delivered with about as much imagination as that staple stocking filler. Old friends Sheeran and John encourage us to “pray for December snow”, and the overall effect is a blanketing avalanche of plinky-plonky schmaltz rich in bonhomie and derivative in tune. Continue reading...

In the musician’s new memoir, he aims to tell the true, uncensored story of one of the greatest bands of all time while dispelling some long-running mythsThis year marks half a century since the storied singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison, met his untimely death. Or at least that’s what most reasonable people believe happened. Due to a combination of denial, wishful thinking and some eagerly promoted conspiracy theories, however, some people actually believe that Morrison still lives. According to the Doors’ guitarist, Robbie Krieger, that’s just one of many outrageous myths, misconceptions or outright lies that have clung to the band’s story. “To me, what happened to the Doors was pretty damn cool just the way it was,” Krieger told the Guardian from his home in Los Angeles. “This wasn’t a story that needed to be hyped.”In order to represent his version of setting the record straight, then, Krieger has just published a memoir, Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar with the Doors. It’s a doorstop-thick attempt to retell an oft-told tale, this time informed by a desire to suck the hot air out of the more inflated earlier versions, aided by a hilariously flip tone that makes this late-arriving history perhaps the most reliable, and certainly the most entertaining, of all. The witty prose, fashioned by co-author Jeff Alulis, stands in marked contrast to the bitter tone of the two memoirs penned by the band’s drummer, John Densmore – the second of which focused on his protracted lawsuit against the two other surviving members of the band – as well as the pedantic, and at times pretentious, tone of the published reminiscences of keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese says Labor’s climate policy will cut power bills and create 600,000 jobs; Northern Territory woman dies of Covid; NT shuts border to SA; no changes to booster shot rollout as NSW fears first local transmission of Omicron; Victoria records 1,188 Covid cases and 11 deaths; 337 new cases in NSW; four in ACT. Follow all the day’s developments

When environmentalists on a Seychelles atoll decided to race boats made from ocean litter, they had 500 tonnes to pick from

In opposition leader’s most significant policy announcement to date, Albanese also pledges to boost renewables share of grid to 82%

Study of the superhero’s Jewish influences beats off stiff competition to come first in this year’s Diagram prizeIs Superman Circumcised?, a study of the superhero’s Jewish influences, has resoundingly won the competition to be named “oddest book title of the year”.The Diagram prize, which is run by The Bookseller magazine and voted for by the public, pitted six titles against each other this year, from Curves for the Mathematically Curious to Hats: A Very Unnatural History. Despite competition from second-placed The Life Cycle of Russian Things: From Fish Guts to Fabergé, Is Superman Circumcised? took 51% of the public vote to win the award. More than 11,000 people cast a vote in this year’s competition. Continue reading...

Studies show implementing WHO air guidelines would have drastic impact on health outcomesImproving the air that we breathe is an opportunity for our politicians to save lives and for each of us to have better health.In September the World Health Organization (WHO) revised its guidelines for air quality. Following this announcement, two studies have estimated the health benefits from implementing these guidelines across Europe. Continue reading...

He acts, he directs, he even does the washing-up – is he the perfect man? Here, he discusses marriage, raising twins and his new film, The Tender BarGeorge Clooney is smoother than a cup of one of those Nespresso coffees he has advertised for two decades and for which has earned a highly caffeinated £30m-plus. With that, on top of the tequila company Casamigos, which he co-founded then sold four years ago for a potential $1bn (£780m), the ER juggernaut and – oh yeah! – the hugely successful film career as an actor, director and producer, it seems safe to assume that Clooney could, if he were a bit less cool, start every morning by diving into a pile of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. So, George, I ask, do you ever think: “You know what? I think I have enough money now.”Unruffled as the silver hair on his head, Clooney leans forward, as if he is about to confide in me. “Well, yeah. I was offered $35m for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal [Clooney, the human rights lawyer he married in 2014] about it and we decided it’s not worth it. It was [associated with] a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: ‘Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it.’” Continue reading...