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As she releases an album inspired by Girl, Interrupted, the US indie icon reveals how a childhood kidnapping and her repressive southern childhood left her with PTSDIn Los Angeles, it’s early and overcast. “It has that six-in-the-morning feel,” says Aimee Mann, eternally droll, from a home office wallpapered in fruity foliage. “So it’s been hard to get going.” Drab weather demands good knitwear, and Mann has paired thick-rimmed round glasses the size of ashtrays with a brown woollen sweater vest. She admits, with a whaddaya-gonna-do shrug, that she bought the Alexa Chung garm off Instagram. “I’ve actually bought several things from Instagram ads,” she says sheepishly. “How do they know?”When it comes to her career, the 61-year-old songwriter has never been one for the hard sell. In 1985, Mann’s band ’Til Tuesday had a US Top 10 hit with their debut single, Voices Carry, a sublime new-wave anthem about the liability of expressing emotion. With her shocked peroxide do, rat-tail plait and unyielding stare, Mann resisted sexual and commercial commodification. Misunderstood by their label, the group ended, then Mann spent the 90s with her first three solo albums of brilliantly spiky, weary, erudite guitar pop mired in major-label politics, from collapses and buyouts to brazen apathy at what to do with a late thirtysomething classicist more akin to Randy Newman than Britney Spears. Continue reading...

Posters in Liverpool were destroyed after going on display in Homotopia festival’s Queer the City exhibitionDetectives are investigating after two artworks, commissioned in response to a series of homophobic and transphobic attacks in Liverpool, were destroyed. Merseyside police said they are treating the incidents as hate crime.The artworks were vandalised within days of going on display as part of Homotopia festival’s Queer the City outdoor exhibition. Continue reading...

Leicester East MP, once a key Labour figure, threatened to ‘use acid’ on friend of her partner, trial heardThe MP Claudia Webbe has been sentenced to 10 weeks in custody suspended for two years after being found guilty of a campaign of harassment, including threatening an acid attack, against a woman.Webbe was found guilty of harassing Michelle Merritt, a friend of her partner, with threatening phone calls. A trial was told she had called Merritt a slag, threatened to “use acid” and said she would distribute naked pictures of Merritt to her family. Continue reading...

When the Kenyan woman died nine years ago, the army closed ranks – it’s time to find out what happened and whyThe last time 21-year-old Agnes Wanjiru was seen alive in public, she was leaving a hotel bar with two soldiers.Her body was found by a hotel worker two months later, stuffed into a nearby septic tank, naked but for her bra. The mother of a five-month-old baby, Agnes was a hairdresser who turned to sex work to support herself and her daughter, and had gone to the hotel expecting it to be full of partying British soldiers. An inquest later concluded that one or more of them must have killed her.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

As the London Korean film festival kicks off, Youn Yuh-jung, talks about how her portrayals of racy grannies and scheming maids scandalised the nationIn her Oscar-winning turn in last year’s Minari, Youn Yuh-jung played the mischievous granny you wished you’d had: the one who ignores your fun-sucking parents, takes you on wild adventures and teaches you to do your own thing. “You’re not a real grandma,” her Americanised grandson tells her. “They bake cookies! They don’t swear! They don’t wear men’s underwear!” In real life, Youn is pretty similar: lively, funny, unpretentious, and, she admits, not all that good at cooking. The 74-year-old actor has had an unconventional life and career, and most of us in the west know only a tiny fraction of it.“My problem is, I don’t plan anything!” Youn laughs over Zoom from Los Angeles. Unlike her character in Minari, she speaks fluent English, although she apologises for it not being good enough. Continue reading...

Reports say Ethiopia wants to buy Bayraktar TB2 drones after military cooperation agreement was signed with AnkaraEthiopia’s government has forged an alliance with Turkey, amid reports that it wants to deploy armed Turkish drones in its bitter war against forces from the region of Tigray.Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, signed a military cooperation agreement on a visit Ankara in August with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Continue reading...

Cases at near-record levels and 500,000 more deaths forecast by February

Total of 61,158 offences recorded in year ending June 2021, amid national debate over women’s safetyPolice have recorded a record number of rape offences in England and Wales, according to official figures.Although there was a fall in overall crime levels driven by coronavirus restrictions, the Office for National Statistics said recorded sexual offences had increased by 8%. Continue reading...

In this extract from a book compiling artworks made by Donwood and Yorke for Radiohead, the pair discuss how alienation with Cool Britannia saw them retreat into landscapes, labyrinths and inadvertently inventing TwitterStanley Donwood I can’t believe the innocent world we lived in when we were making this work. It was before 9/11, before the “war on terror”, before the conjoining of the police and the military – all of the social changes that have led towards the position we now find ourselves in. It wasn’t possible to know what was going on around the world in the same way that it is now, when news has become a sort of surrogate entertainment.Thom Yorke Everybody involved felt like we’d been in some weird circus for quite a while, after OK Computer. Personally, I mentally completely crashed, as did Stan. We all did, in a way. Rather than immersing ourselves in this congratulatory atmosphere around us, we felt the total opposite. There was this fierce desire to be totally on the outside of everything that was going on, and a fierce anger, and suspicion. And that permeated everything. It was completely out of proportion, deeply unhealthy – but that’s where we were at. Continue reading...

Sophie Pétronin accused of putting herself and others in danger by going back months after she was freedThe son of a former al-Qaida hostage has struck back at French government claims that she has put herself and others in danger by slipping back into Mali where she was held for four years.Sophie Pétronin’s return to Mali has sparked criticism and made headlines in her native France, with a government spokesperson this week accusing her of “irresponsibility toward her own security and also the security of our troops” in the west African country. Continue reading...

The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world Continue reading...

Commons expected to vote as soon as next week on suspending Tory Owen Paterson after PM’s retreat

With disco enjoying one of its periodic moments in the sun, a supremely classy 21st-century reboot was possible. But this isn’t itIn 1982, Diana Ross was interviewed by Smash Hits magazine. Her presence in among the breathless coverage of Duran Duran and Haircut 100 was testament to her continued commercial success two decades on from the Supremes’ first hit. She talked a little about that band’s 60s heyday, but, as befitting an artist who had just enjoyed two platinum albums stuffed with Top 10 singles, insisted that the 80s were the real “golden age. There’s so much opportunity.”But not, as it turned out, for Diana Ross, whose recording career stalled shortly afterwards. She had her last US Top 10 hit, a tribute to the recently murdered Marvin Gaye called Missing You, 37 years ago. Britain remained under her sway a little longer – Chain Reaction, a flop in the US, rightly reached No 1 in 1986 – but even so, it was all over bar the shouting by the early 90s. Continue reading...

With The Last Duel out now, and House of Gucci at the end of the month, we rate the top 20 movies by the go-to director for swords, sandals, cyborgs and SigourneyA film to prove that straight-up feelgood comedy is not Ridley Scott’s forte and casting his favourite leading man is no guarantee of success, either. This is based on a novel by Peter “A Year in Provence” Mayle: incredibly, it is Russell Crowe playing the quirkily conceited yet adorable Brit who inherits a sumptuous house-plus-vineyard in the south of France, comes over intending to sell it, but instead falls in love with the place and all the picturesque Frenchness thereabouts, including Marion Cotillard. Continue reading...

‘Surprise’ expulsion of de Volkskrant reporter comes after that of the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in AugustRussia has expelled a Dutch reporter, his newspaper has said, as Moscow continues its crackdown on domestic and foreign journalists in the country.De Volkskrant journalist Tom Vennink said his visa was revoked and he was given three days to leave the country following difficulties renewing his journalist accreditation. Continue reading...

High vaccination rates and low Covid case numbers mean border can reopen, premiers Dominic Perrottet and Daniel Andrews say

Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?Thursday seems to come around earlier every week, especially if you’ve set yourself an immovable deadline for writing 15 questions about general knowledge and topical news stories. All your favourites are here: Kate Bush, Ron from Sparks, the Olly Murs face masks, and the unexpected anagram round. It is just for fun, there are no prizes, but there are bonus points to be had in the comments for making the quiz master laugh or spotting the hidden Doctor Who reference in this week’s questions. Let us know how you get on!The Thursday quiz, No 28If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, especially about the respective merits of various Star Trek series. Continue reading...

Carnarvon local charged with forcible abduction and other offences after four-year-old girl was allegedly taken from WA camping site

Researchers fear Horizon Europe programme is collateral damage in UK-EU political disputeMore than 1,000 universities and 50 academies of science across Europe have called on the EU to “immediately” finalise the UK’s membership of its flagship £80bn research programme and end the 10-month delay to the ratification process.In a letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, they say the lengthy delay is “endangering current and future plans for collaboration” and any further delay will “result in a major weakening of our collective research strength”. Continue reading...

‘Difficult to see future’ of Kathryn Stone, says business secretary after Tories vote to tear up system amid Owen Paterson row

Boys aged 12 and 15 arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour after violence in Belfast on WednesdayTwo boys aged 12 and 15 have been arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour after police came under attack after a protest against the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol in Belfast.Police described the scenes on Wednesday as “disgraceful”, with officers subjected to a volley of missiles and fireworks close to the site of previous violence in April. Three police vehicles were damaged. Continue reading...

Many Nicaraguans, including the ruling couple’s estranged daughter, see unhappy parallels with the fight against Somoza half a century agoAs her childhood home was used to plot one of the 20th century’s most storied revolutions, Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo told playmates she was Guatemalan – lest the neighbours detect the very Nicaraguan conspiracy unfolding next door.“The little friends I used to play ball with came in to drink water once and wandered into the room where the guns were kept,” said the 54-year-old sociologist as she stood outside the peach-coloured villa where she lived as a nine-year-old girl. Continue reading...

Queensland police say accounts of what happened to 27-year-old in state’s far west after he vanished on 18 October ‘not consistent’

This little known and preventable disease disfigures those it does not kill – and a new campaign hopes to raise awareness and eradicate it entirelyWarning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbingFidel Strub was three when the inside of his cheek started to itch. After a few days, it felt like it was burning, then it began to smell as if it was rotting. A splitting headache came next before his whole body started to feel uncomfortably hot.“I remember darkness came,” he says. “I had a hammering headache and a burning body. When I opened my eyes, any light stung them and it burned like hell. It was easier to close my eyes for less pain. I could do nothing but lie on the floor.” Continue reading...

Audio of ‘My name is Cleo’ moment released as WA police expect to lay charges over Cleo Smith case ‘later today’; Peter Dutton says France would’ve reacted the same if told earlier about Aukus; Victoria records 1,247 new Covid cases and nine deaths; NSW records 308 and four deaths; Queensland records three local cases; Labor attacks Morrison over leaked texts – follow today’s news live

The reintroduction of bison to the Carpathians is a boon for nature – and local communities – as our writer discovers on a hiking break“From this pile of logs onwards, we need to be completely silent,” says Georg Messerer, our guide through Romania’s southern Carpathians. His head cocks 45 degrees as a bird starts chirping. “Nuthatch,” he whispers, reaching for his binoculars. “And two red deer.” Georg directs our gaze to a row of apple trees, where sure enough, two deer are grazing.Georg is an environmental encyclopedia. Give him a fresh footprint or dropping and he can tell you what the animal was and when it was there. Born in Germany, but with extensive guiding experience in Southern Africa, Georg has been guiding here, in the remote hills of Rusca in the Țarcu Mountains, near the villages of Armeniș, for more than five years – ever since the reintroduction of free-roaming bison to the area began. Continue reading...

Lawyers say ruling is ‘highly significant’ and likely to impact future prosecutions amid intensifying national security crackdownHong Kong’s top court has quashed attempts by the city’s government to prosecute people for rioting or illegal assembly even without being present at the scene – a ruling lawyers described as a landmark.The five-judge panel in Hong Kong’s court of final appeal, headed by chief justice Andrew Cheung, unanimously rejected an earlier ruling by a lower appeal court that people, such as supporters, could be criminally liable without being actually present under the common law doctrine of “joint enterprise”. Continue reading...

The documents, necessary for entry into bars and sporting venues, are being sold by unscrupulous health workers for less than £20The Lesotho government’s plans to implement a Covid passport system this week are being undermined by widespread fraud involving certificates being sold to unvaccinated people.Covid-19 vaccination certificates are being sold for less than £20 by unscrupulous health workers to the largely vaccine-averse population in Lesotho, where there has been little positive campaigning around the jabs. Continue reading...

For all the advances that have been made in recent decades, disabled people cannot yet participate in society ‘on an equal basis’ with others – and the pandemic has led to many protections being cruelly erodedAt times, it feels as if the disability rights movement won. After years of groundwork, 1981 was declared the International Year of Disabled Persons. I was born that year, in Oslo, Norway, and though I did not receive my first diagnosis of muscular dystrophy until I was a toddler, the coincidence is apt enough: I was born into a world that was, at last, beginning to recognise this aspect of my being in it.Then, from 1983 to 1992, came the United Nations’ Decade of Disabled Persons. And the Americans With Disabilities Act, the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The turn of the millennium was marked by a litany of good intentions and disavowals of unequal treatment – by an endorsement, as the first article of the UN convention has it, of disabled people’s right to “full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. Continue reading...

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has gone from importing fax machines as a student in Moscow to name-changing billionaireNguyen Thi Phuong Thao began her business career as a sideline importing fax machines and latex rubber into the then Soviet Union while studying economic management at D Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology in Moscow. Before she had turned 21 – or graduated – she had made her first million.Phuong Thao, who is popularly known as Madam Thao, is now Vietnam’s first and only female billionaire with an estimated $2.7bn (£2bn) fortune made from VietJet, the airline she founded and runs, alongside a vast property empire that stretches from skyscrapers in Ho Chi Minh City to five star beach resorts across the country as well as offshore oil and gas exploration and fossil fuel financing. Continue reading...

Intelligence committee chief Adam Schiff says US and allies must make it clear to China ‘what a significant cost it would pay were it to use force’Adam Schiff, the US chair of the influential House intelligence committee, has called for the US to be less ambiguous about its defence plans for Taiwan, amid Pentagon warnings that China’s military has made stunning advances.Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Schiff, a leading Democrat, said the US and its international partners needed “to make it abundantly clear to China what a significant cost it would pay were it to use force to try to invade and take over Taiwan”. Continue reading...

Rates have fallen 62% in women offered the HPV jab between the age of 14 and 16, and 34% for older teenagersThe NHS vaccination programme to prevent cervical cancer has so far stopped thousands of women from developing the disease and experiencing pre-cancerous changes to cells, a study has found.In the first proof that the programme launched in England 13 years ago is saving lives, the Cancer Research UK-funded study found that cervical cancer rates in women offered the vaccine between the ages of 12 and 13 (now in their 20s) were 87% lower than in an unvaccinated population. Continue reading...

George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2004, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said. Continue reading...

Prosecutors believe Giuliani and two others may have violated law over agreement that would have seen them win lucrative contractsThe high-profile federal criminal investigation of Rudy Giuliani in recent days has zeroed in on evidence that in the spring of 2019 three Ukrainian government prosecutors agreed to award contracts, valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to Giuliani and two other American attorneys as a way to gain political and personal influence with the Trump administration.Federal investigators believe Giuliani and two attorneys who worked closely with him, Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova, probably violated federal transparency laws that require Americans working for foreign governments or interests to register as foreign agents with the US justice department and fully disclose details of each such action they undertook on behalf of the foreign interests. Continue reading...

West Australian police say 36-year-old Carnarvon man being questioned after he was twice hospitalised due to self-inflicted injuries

Inquiry opened into claims of torture and extrajudicial killings under Maduro’s rule, a first for a Latin American countryThe international criminal court (ICC) is opening a formal investigation into allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings committed by Venezuelan security forces under President Nicolás Maduro’s rule, the first time a country in Latin America is facing scrutiny for possible crimes against humanity from the court.The opening of the probe was announced Wednesday by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan at the end of a three-day trip to Caracas. Continue reading...

Spokesperson says aim of message was to reduce stigma and normalise healthy conversations especially among young people

Missiles and fireworks thrown at demonstration in loyalist area with trouble also on nationalist side of peace wallTwo children have been arrested following disorder in Belfast after a rally against the Brexit protocol. Police came under attack with missiles and fireworks close to a peace line on Wednesday evening.The disorder came on Lanark Way in the loyalist Shankill Road area; there was also disorder on the nationalist Springfield Road side of the peace wall. Two males, aged 12 and 15 years, were arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour and released on bail as police inquiries continued. Continue reading...

US investigation finds civilian deaths did not violate law of war as strike attempted to target Islamic StateA US drone strike in Kabul in August that killed 10 Afghan civilians was a tragic mistake but did not violate any laws, a Pentagon inspector general said after an investigation.Three adults, including a man who worked for a US aid group, and seven children were killed in the 29 August operation, with the target believed to have been a home and a vehicle occupied by Islamic State militants. Continue reading...

News comes as deputy PM squashes idea that Aucklanders may be given time slots to leave the city over the summerA person with Covid-19 who was self-isolating alone in their Auckland home has been found dead and investigations are under way to determine if the virus was the cause.The 40-year-old man tested positive for Covid-19 on 24 October and had been isolating in Manukau, a south Auckland suburb. He was found by a family member who visited on Wednesday. Continue reading...

UK reports latest Covid data; US to begin giving Pfizer vaccines to children aged five to 11

Colton woman reported missing in October and Stuart Williamson has been charged with her murderHuman remains thought to be those of missing Diane Douglas have been found in the garden of a house near Norwich, police have said.Douglas, from Colton, a village west of Norwich, was reported missing by family members on 21 October this year but is believed to have been murdered nearly three years ago. Continue reading...

Western countries and especially US are keen for sessions beginning on 29 November to reach quick resultIran has agreed to resume talks with world powers on reviving a nuclear deal on 29 November after a five-month gap, with the US urging a quick resolution.The announcement of indirect negotiations in Vienna comes as pressure mounts on Iran, with western nations warning that Tehran’s nuclear work is advancing to dangerous levels and Israel threatening to attack. Continue reading...

The novelist takes the £50,000 prize with a ‘strong, unambiguous commentary on the history of South Africa and of humanity itself’• Damon Galgut is a clear and unsurprising Booker winnerDamon Galgut has won the Booker prize for his portrait of a white South African family navigating the end of apartheid. The judges praised The Promise as “a spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh”, and compared it to the work of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.This is is the first time Galgut will be walking away with the £50,000 prize, despite having been shortlisted twice before.. The Promise is his ninth novel, and his first in seven years. He becomes the third South African to win the prestigious fiction prize, after JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer. Through the lens of four sequential funerals, each taking place in a different decade, The Promise follows the Swarts, a white South African family who live on a farm outside Pretoria. The promise of the title is one the Swarts make – and fail to keep over the years – to give a home and land to the black woman who worked for them her whole life. Continue reading...

Glenn Youngkin won the race to be Virginia’s governor having exploited concerns over teaching about race in schoolsWhat is critical race theory?Developed by the former Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell and other scholars in the 1970s and 80s, critical race theory, or CRT, examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people. Continue reading...

Revolutionary Guards say they thwarted attempt by US to steal Iranian oil in Sea of OmanClaims by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) that they thwarted a US attempt to capture Iranian oil on a tanker in the Sea of Oman are untrue, US officials have said.According to reports in Iranian media – released on the eve of the anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 – the US navy interdicted an Iranian oil tanker on 25 October and intended to transfer the oil to a second tanker, but the the IRGC navy intervened by boarding and taking control of the first tanker. Continue reading...

Development comes after Andrew’s lawyers attacked Virginia Giuffre, accusing her of seeking a ‘payday’ at prince’s expensePrince Andrew could face civil trial in the US over alleged sexual abuse at the end of 2022, a judge said on Wednesday.Speaking at during a phone conference with lawyers in New York, US district judge Lewis Kaplan said he anticipates a trial date of “somewhere in the September to December period of next year”. Continue reading...

Risk of severe outcomes from Covid are significantly higher for pregnant women and their unborn baby

Latest updates: Owen Paterson saved from 30-day suspension for breaking rules banning paid lobbying - by majority of just 18

Defendant stabbed James Gibbons after he challenged youths who were harassing homeless man, court hearsA teenage boy has been found guilty of murdering a man who had been celebrating his twin daughters’ second birthday. The 16-year-old defendant stabbed James Gibbons, 34, after he challenged a group of youths who were harassing a homeless man, Chelmsford crown court was told.The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed he was acting in self-defence and denied murder, but was found guilty by a majority verdict of 10 to two after a trial. Family members of the defendant wept in court as the jury returned its verdict on Wednesday. Continue reading...