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

From The Handmaid’s Tale to Hereditary, the 65-year-old actor owns malevolence. She talks about her Oscar-tipped role as a school-shooter’s mother in Mass – and why men are more vulnerable than womenMany people don’t want to see Ann Dowd’s new movie. Even the most positive of its reviews from Sundance called it “excruciating”, “exhausting” and “tortuous”; an endurance test some will not be willing to endure. Including Dowd herself, who has yet to watch it.“We’ve talked about it a lot, the cast, and we have different points of view,” Dowd says to me over coffee in Chelsea, New York, conscious that Mass is a tough sell. “When people ask me, I say this film has tremendous hope and that it has to do with healing and forgiveness. I don’t give the specifics.” Continue reading...

Peter Dutton ‘a dangerous personality’, Paul Keating says; China responds after defence minister warns against ‘mistakes of the 1930s’; record Queensland native title claim granted; WHO calls meeting over new Covid variant; Victoria records 1,362 new cases, NSW 261; police update on William Tyrrell search; Australia on track for wettest spring in a decade. This blog is now closed

The Transport Workers Union said it was investigating reports that Amazon Flex workers’ cars were dangerously overloadedAn Amazon warehouse in western Sydney called the police to remove two union officials investigating allegations of workers’ cars being overpacked during its busy Back Friday sales period.The Transport Workers’ Union sent three officials to Amazon Flex’s Bella Vista parcel pickup facility on Friday, with two of them tasked with going onsite to investigate reports of alleged dangerous overloading of vehicles. They believed workers were being pressured to accept the parcels to avoid disciplinary action or termination. Continue reading...

A storm took the roof off Binta Bah’s house before torrential rain destroyed her family’s belongings, as poverty combines with the climate crisis to wreak havoc on Africa’s smallest mainland countryThe windstorm arrived in Jalambang late in the evening, when Binta Bah and her family were enjoying the evening cool outside. “But when we first heard the wind, the kids started to run and go in the house,” she says.First they went in one room but the roof – a sheet of corrugated iron fixed only by a timbere pole – flew off. They ran into another but the roof soon went there too. Continue reading...

Ai-Da used data bank of words and speech pattern analysis to produce and perform a work that is ‘reactive’ to the Divine ComedyDante’s Divine Comedy has inspired countless artists, from William Blake to Franz Lizst, and from Auguste Rodin to CS Lewis. But an exhibition marking the 700th anniversary of the Italian poet’s death will be showcasing the work of a rather more modern devotee: Ai-Da the robot, which will make history by becoming the first robot to publicly perform poetry written by its AI algorithms.The ultra-realistic Ai-Da, who was devised in Oxford by Aidan Meller and named after computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, was given the whole of Dante’s epic three-part narrative poem, the Divine Comedy, to read, in JG Nichols’ English translation. She then used her algorithms, drawing on her data bank of words and speech pattern analysis, to produce her own reactive work to Dante’s. Continue reading...

Comments come as Australian police and defence force personnel begin taking control of capital HoniaraSolomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has blamed foreign interference over his government’s decision to switch alliances from Taiwan to Beijing for anti-government protests, arson and looting that have ravaged the capital Honiara for the past three days.However, critics have also blamed the unrest on complaints of a lack of government services and accountability, corruption and foreign workers taking local jobs. In 2019, Sogavare also angered many, particularly leaders of Solomon Islands’ most populous province, Malaita, when he cut the country’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Continue reading...

As the annual Christmas shopping frenzy begins, readers discuss how they have challenged this culture – from sewing to buying secondhand to instituting a ‘90 day rule’With Black Friday marking the start of a frantic month of Christmas shopping, we asked our readers to get in touch about the ways they have challenged consumerism.Responses ranged from revolutionary changes such as giving up buying new clothes to subtler tweaks such as making sandwiches rather than buying a plastic-encased meal deal. Everyone agreed, however, that turning their back on a culture that constantly demands more from consumers came with financial and environmental benefits, not to mention a feeling of smug satisfaction that money simply can’t buy. Continue reading...

Laura Mvula, Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, Snail Mail, BackRoad Gee, Sigrid and Eris Drew mull over the year’s big stories, from Britney’s freedom to battles over plagiarism and streamingHow did you feel coming into 2021, after the unprecedented bleakness of 2020? Continue reading...

News of Channel deaths has reached camp, but many still plan to pay people smugglers huge amounts in hope of a better lifeEverybody at the camp on the outskirts of Dunkirk, little more than a scrappy collection of tents with no toilets or running water, has heard about the 27 people who drowned on Wednesday.Everybody knows the risks. But everybody says they still have the same plan, to try to get on a boat to the UK, because they do not believe that death will come to them – and because of their hope for a better life. Continue reading...

Over 500 flights from Shanghai’s two major airports were cancelled and six hospitals suspended outpatient servicesHundreds of flights have been cancelled while some schools were shuttered and tour groups suspended on Friday after three Covid cases were reported in Shanghai, as China continues its strict zero-Covid policy.Beijing has largely succeeded in controlling the spread of the coronavirus within its borders through travel restrictions and snap lockdowns, but frequent domestic flare-ups have tested its no-tolerance strategy in recent months. Continue reading...

Civilisation is in a death spiral but you can’t get the lid off the goddamn jar of salsa!

Honiara has awoken to a calmer scene but tension lingers as quelling the violent protests has not resolved their underlying causesUnresolved tensions and geopolitical pressures are a volatile mix in Solomon Islands.What began as a peaceful protest calling for the resignation of prime minister Manasseh Sogavare on Wednesday quickly descended into unrest as the crowd of about 1,000 people, many of whom travelled from the neighbouring Malaita province, grew agitated and set fire to a leaf hut in the capital Honiara’s parliamentary complex. Continue reading...

Analysis: UK suggestions that the French are not exerting themselves enough belies a more complex situationBehind Boris Johnson’s suggestions, in the wake of the Channel drownings, that France was not doing enough to stop small boat crossings, lies a more complex picture. There is a growing sense among charities and the French political class that policing, security and repression alone cannot solve the issue of refugees risking their life to reach the UK to claim asylum.In the past year, with rising numbers of attempted small boat crossings across the perilous shipping lanes of the Channel, there has been a significant increase in policing and patrols along the French coast, with new surveillance equipment, reservists called in, and more than 600 police officers and gendarmes working 24 hours a day – increasingly at night – to patrol a 40-mile stretch of rugged coast. UK financing has already contributed to new technology and an increase in officers. In addition, asylum seekers sleeping rough are moved on nightly, with tents and sleeping bags confiscated and camps broken up. Continue reading...

As officials grapple with crisis, even more Kurds are preparing to make dangerous journey to EuropeWere they driven to the freezing shores of Europe by desperation, or did several thousand Kurds instead make the dangerous journey in search of opportunity?As officials in Iraqi Kurdistan grapple with what is driving a crisis that is thought to have led to scores of citizens drowning in the Channel on Wednesday, and thousands of others to brave precarious migrant routes to Europe, even more are preparing to leave. Continue reading...

Meeting will determine if B.1.1.529 variant warrants a designation as one of ‘interest’ or of ‘concern’

At least 27 people died when their boat sank in the Channel attempting to reach the UK. Diane Taylor reports on a tragedy that was long in the making – and avoidablePregnant women and three children were among the 27 people who drowned trying to cross the Channel in an inflatable boat. The tragedy occurred on Wednesday and is the deadliest incident since the migration crisis began.Diane Taylor has been reporting on the crisis from both sides of the Channel for years as people-smugglers have switched their focus away from lorries to the much more dangerous route across the 21-mile stretch of water in small boats. She tells Hannah Moore that at the heart of the problem is a political failure of both the UK and France to provide enough safe and legal routes to asylum. Continue reading...

England and Israel ban travel from countries in southern Africa following detection of new variant

Aid groups say more deaths are likely and Britain must allow safe routes for asylum seekersMore lives will be lost in the Channel unless urgent action is taken to stop “playing politics with people’s lives”, ministers have been warned as desperate refugees vowed to keep attempting the perilous journey.The grim prediction came as investigators tried to identify the bodies of at least 27 people, including a pregnant woman and three children and thought to be predominantly Kurds from Iraq, who drowned on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The French coastguard mayday call emerged on Thursday after 27 people drowned trying to cross the Channel. All ships were alerted in the area about "approximately" 15 people being overboard and to report information to Gris-Nez emergency officials.An emergency search began at about 2pm on Wednesday when a fishing boat sounded the alarm after spotting several people at sea off the coast of France. The cause of the accident has not been formally established but the boat used was inflatable and when found by rescuers was mostly deflated

Robert O’Brien, Andrew Kelly and Donna Brand are accused of killing Caroline Glachan 25 years agoThree people have appeared in court in Scotland charged with the murder of the 14-year-old schoolgirl Caroline Glachan in 1996.Robert O’Brien, 43, Andrew Kelly and Donna Brand, both 42, appeared in private before Dumbarton sheriff court. Police had confirmed the arrests earlier on Thursday. Continue reading...

Passengers on ill-fated dinghy probably had little notice before they set off. Exactly what happened next may never be knownWhen the lifeboat reached the dinghy not long after 3pm on Wednesday it was a crumpled mass of grey rubber, barely inflated and scarcely afloat. And surrounded, in the cold, dark water of the Channel, by already lifeless bodies.Two helicopters were hovering noisily overhead as Charles Devos, at the helm of a volunteer-run rescue vessel, spotted the bobbing shape in the water. “I just saw it there, pretty much completely deflated,” he said. Continue reading...

Home secretary reiterates offer to send more police to France after 27 people drown trying to reach UKBritain and France have traded diplomatic barbs after the deaths of 27 people who drowned trying to cross the Channel, with Priti Patel, the home secretary, saying it was up to the French to take action to prevent further such tragedies.As the countries tussled over whether more UK police should be sent to France to try to stop crossings in small boats, Patel’s French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, blamed the illegal labour market in the UK for attracting people. Continue reading...

Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi’s election has raised concerns about human rights and the surveillance stateMaj Gen Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi’s ascent through the ranks of the interior ministry in Abu Dhabi is associated with the United Arab Emirates’ transformation into a hi-tech surveillance state.His personal achievements include a diploma in police management from the University of Cambridge, a doctorate in policing, security and community safety from London Metropolitan University and a medal of honour from Italy. Continue reading...

Community reacts to the drowning of 27 people amid sense of resignation that nothing may changeA UK Border Force perimeter at Dover Marina prevented closer contact with the few dozen men and women waiting late on Thursday morning on a red doubledecker bus marked “private” – yet exhaustion was clearly etched on each one’s face.It was unclear if the latest arrivals, who were on boats picked up by a Border Force cutter and a lifeboat in the Channel at 5am had embarked from France knowing 27 people had drowned making the same crossing on Wednesday. Continue reading...

After at least 27 people lost their lives in a Channel boat crossing, readers discuss the government’s culpability in closing off safe routes for refugeesBoris Johnson describes himself as appalled at Wednesday’s Channel tragedy (Tragedy at sea claims dozens of lives in deadliest day of Channel crisis, 25 November), and is elsewhere reported as accusing France of letting human traffickers “get away with murder”, but it’s the asylum policy of his and previous governments that has created the conditions in which trafficking can flourish and tragedies such as this can occur.There are no options other than “irregular” ones by which asylum seekers can now enter this country. The Home Office requires physical arrival in the United Kingdom before an asylum application can be lodged. Its current nationality and borders bill, by criminalising all means of entry other than official ones that are impossible to access, is clearly intended to bring an end to finding asylum in this country. It won’t, however, bring an end to the displaced making their desperate attempts to reach our shores. Continue reading...

Members of industry association say large number of vehicles will be used to block key artery between nationsFrench fishers are threatening to block access to the Eurotunnel and the ferry port in Calais on Friday as part of an ongoing dispute over access to the waters between France and the UK in the wake of Brexit.They have branded the UK’s approach as “contemptuous” and “humiliating” and say they have no other option but to block access to the port and tunnel along with two other ports, Saint-Malo and Ouistreham. Continue reading...

Plymouth officers continue to question 24-year-old after teenager vanished from bus stopPolice investigating the killing of 18-year-old Bobbi-Anne McLeod, who vanished from a bus stop in Devon, have confirmed there is no known link between her and a man being held on suspicion of murder.In an attempt to calm growing fears in the community, Devon and Cornwall police also said they were not currently looking for anyone else over McLeod’s death. Continue reading...

The home secretary said it was up to France to stop refugees crossing the Channel in small boats, after 27 people, mostly Kurds from Iraq or Iran, drowned trying to reach the UK in an inflatable boat.Making a statement to MPs, Patel said that while there was no rapid solution to the issue of people seeking to make the crossing, she had reiterated a UK offer to send more police to France.Patel told the Commons she had just spoken to her French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, after the disaster in which 17 men, seven women and three adolescents – two boys and a girl – drowned

Andy Smith, who documents his travels on YouTube, estimates task will take ‘best part of 25 to 30 years’When Andy Smith moved from the Lincolnshire countryside where he grew up, to Rotherham, he immediately longed for a return to his rural life.“For the first 24 years of my life I lived in a village, and living in a town is a big difference,” said 37-year-old Smith, who was born in Saxilby. “It made me miss village life. So I thought, how can I combine the missing of village life with my passion for geography?” Continue reading...

Around Australia, many homes and businesses are willing a ‘crappy’ Covid year to be over by getting a jump start on festive joy

It’s the “mystery that must be solved”. Seven-and-a-half years after the Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared with 239 people on board, head of news Mike Ticher recommends this story as he remembers covering the tragedy when the news broke

Since 2017 the contract – now worth $1.6bn – has been amended seven times without competitive tender

A cultural ‘cancer’, soft porn … or the height of empowerment? A revealing documentary examines the debates around one of the raunchiest – and most talked about – rap records aroundAs winter forces many of us to ditch nights out with friends in favour of nights in on the sofa, Belcalis Alamanzar’s iconic words ring out across the digital ether: “A ho never gets cold!”. In a clip that went viral in 2014, the rapper better known as Cardi B parades up and down a hotel corridor, clad in a plunging, barely-there bralette and tight-fitting skirt. For women who wear little and care about it even less, Megan Thee Stallion has made a name for herself in the same vein. Together, Meg and Cardi would go on to birth a movement with their hit 2020 single, WAP, an ode to female sexuality and “wet ass pussy” which brought a slice of the club to the worlds’ living rooms at the peak of lockdown.In three minutes and seven seconds of poetic dirty talk, the pair walk us through the spiciest of bedroom sessions, except – contrary to patriarchal norms – they are firmly in the driver’s seat. From fellatio to make-up sex, Cardi and Megan leave their targets weak. With the video quickly becoming a talking point around the world, their sexual desire (and that of women in general) became the subject of fierce debate. While many praised their cheeky candour, others were unimpressed, with Fox News’s Candace Owens going as far as to call Cardi a “cancer cell” who was destroying culture. Continue reading...

Analysis: From overhauling the asylum system to simply taking what refugees say seriously, some ideas to stop the small boatsAmid a rising number of small boats crossing the Channel, culminating in Wednesday’s tragedy, campaigners and experts have proposed a number of possible solutions to curb the dangerous journeys: Continue reading...

Drawn from the Jam, the Style Council and his solo work, all of it powered by romance, storytelling and political vim, here is the best of a British songwriter unbounded by genreOn the B-side of A Solid Bond in Your Heart lurks Weller’s mea culpa take on the sudden demise of the Jam, the arrogance of youth and the perils of becoming the Voice of a Generation. “I was a shit-stained statue / Schoolchildren would stand in awe … I thought I was lord of this crappy jungle.” Continue reading...

Nearly half of infants have drug-resistant HIV in 10 African countries, study finds, underlining need for new alternativesHIV drug resistance is on the rise, according to a new report, which found that the number of people with the virus being treated with antiretrovirals had risen to 27.5 million – an annual increase of 2 million.Four out of five countries with high rates had seen success in suppressing the virus with antiretroviral treatments, according to the World Health Organization’s HIV drug-resistance report. Continue reading...

Analysis finds vaccinated women no more likely than unvaccinated to suffer stillbirth or premature births

Bake Off’s first Italian winner thought he would hate being in the tent. Now that he’s won, he feels more confident than ever – though he still has no plans to give up his day jobIt was a grand slam for Italy – winners of Eurovision and Euro 2020 – this week, as Giuseppe Dell’Anno triumphed in The Great British Bake Off. The 45-year-old engineer – with his precise, impeccable English; his Bristolian life; wife and three sons; and his unbelievably tidy workstation – never thought of himself as a showman. “Whenever I do a Myers-Briggs [personality] test,” he tells me the morning after the final airs, “I come out as a massive introvert. Nothing gives me more energy than locking myself in a room and working on my own. When I got into Bake Off, I thought: ‘This is going to be a nightmare.’”But cameras, audiences and – most importantly – the judges loved him. Twice awarded star baker – once for some milk bread that looked like vegetables, again for a German cake that looked like an alien invasion on the brink of victory – to the uninitiated, his creations may have seemed as elaborate as those of any Bake Off winner. “But one of the comments that Paul often gave me,” he recalls, of those moments before a Hollywood Handshake, “was that my bakes were ‘rather simple but very effective’. That is the way I work. I would rather spend time doing something small, and doing it very well, than venture into something complicated.” Continue reading...

Defence secretary says Future Soldier programme will reconfigure army to face next-generation threatsThe defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has announced a radical reorganisation of the British army, with an additional £8.6bn to be spent on equipment and a new ranger regiment created to help counter extremist organisations and hostile state threats.The Future Soldier programme would reconfigure the army to address next-generation threats around the globe, positioning it as a globally engaged, modernised war-fighting force, Wallace told MPs. Continue reading...

Deployment to support ‘riot control’ as protesters defy lockdown order to take to streets for second dayAustralia is deploying more than 100 police and defence force personnel to Solomon Islands, where anti-government protesters took to the streets in the capital, Honiara, for a second day running in defiance of a lockdown order.The Australian government said the deployment would support “riot control” and security at critical infrastructure, a day after demonstrators attempted to storm parliament and topple the prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare. Continue reading...

Chinese companies dominate mining, battery and manufacturing sectors, and amid human rights concerns, Europe and the US are struggling to keep pace

Commission says unrestricted travel between states should apply to those who get booster 9 months after jabs

Home Office says 67,547 applications waiting to be dealt with, as ministers urged to drop ‘nationalist posturing’Asylum claims made in the UK have risen to their highest level for nearly 20 years, according to new figures from the Home Office, as the head of the Refugee Council calls for less “nationalist posturing” over people fleeing war zones.The backlog of cases waiting to be dealt with is also at a record high, with 67,547 people in the queue and more than 125,000 either waiting for a decision or due to be removed from the UK. Continue reading...

The Swedish actor best known for his collaborations with Lars von Trier – as well as Marvel movies, Pirates of the Caribbean and Mamma Mia! – answers your questions about Lars von Trier, porn and pickled herringsAre you ever frustrated with having to wear clothes when you’re working? Do you feel you’re better at your job if you’re able to be naked? KayBee123I usually take off my clothes when I get home but I have no special ambition to be naked on screen. And I’m getting fewer and fewer offers. I don’t know what that means. Continue reading...

The continent is now the centre of the global coronavirus pandemic – again. As countries from the Baltic to the Med brace for harsher winter measures, the Guardian's Jon Henley looks at the reasons behind the fourth wave

Exclusive: Far-right politician is in campaign mode and says he has no regrets about draconian policies he introduced when he was interior ministerWhether they’re camped outside in freezing temperatures or stranded at sea, Matteo Salvini exhibits little sympathy for the asylum seekers blocked at European borders. The Italian far-right leader, who as interior minister attempted to stop NGO rescue boats landing in Italian ports, in one case leading to criminal charges, will travel to Warsaw next month in a show of solidarity with his Polish allies who have deployed hardcore tactics to ward off thousands of refugees trying to enter from Belarus.“I think that Europe is realising that illegal immigration is dangerous,” Salvini told the Guardian in an interview conducted before 27 people drowned attempting to cross the Channel in an inflatable boat. “So maybe this shock will be useful.” Continue reading...

Owner says North Yorkshire restaurant ‘won’t be open for a while’ after blaze breaks out in thatched roofA Michelin-starred restaurant in a 14th-century thatched inn has been “reduced to ashes” after fire broke out in its roof.Firefighters spent the night tackling the devastating blaze at the Star Inn at Harome, near Helmsley in North Yorkshire. Continue reading...

Squeaky clean, uncool and old before her years, the US singer blazed a trail for young women creating their own material. Having dealt with stalkers, addiction and illness, she’s backThirty-three years ago – in musical terms, an epoch – Debbie Gibson was the most famous American teen pop star on earth. At 17 she was as loved by teenagers as Billie Eilish was at 17, in polar opposite ways. Gibson, uncool and critically dismissed, was the wholesome, toothsome innocent who sang upbeat, unapologetically weedy songs about adolescent love. Eilish, peerlessly cool and critically sacred, remains a sad-eyed cynic singing unapologetically disturbing songs about death, sex and generational neuroses. If popular culture is unrecognisable from 1988, as it should be, one aspect remains identical: the constant judgment of female public figures over their physicality, as Eilish always is and Gibson still is, harangued on social media for being “too thin” since her 2013 Lyme disease diagnosis.“I hope Billie is handling all the pressure as beautifully as she appears to be handling it,” ponders Gibson today. “She seems a wise old soul. Everyone changes, you lose weight, gain weight, dye your hair, change your aesthetic … life just happens. But with social media, there’s unsolicited feedback coming from everywhere. You need a backbone of steel, like the Kardashians. Young minds are not wired to process that. The price of fame these days is definitely high. Look, even I have a therapist on speed dial!” Continue reading...