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ODNI reject bioweapons claims but says origins of virus may never be known, barring dramatic breakthrough in Chinese cooperationAllegations that the Covid-19 virus was designed as a bioweapon – a theory aired by some senior Republicans – are based on “scientifically invalid claims” whose proponents “are suspected of spreading disinformation”, the US intelligence agencies have reported.Most of the 17 US agencies also agree that the virus had not been genetically engineered, while observing it is becoming increasingly difficult to detect signs of such tampering. However, the intelligence community is still divided on the question of whether the virus was spread by animal-to-human transmission or as the result of a lab accident, concluding that that may never be known barring a dramatic breakthrough in Chinese cooperation. Continue reading...

Club remain weirdly in thrall to a 79-year-old man who has not coached in almost a decade when a cultural reset is neededIt was a few months into David Moyes’s ill-fated reign at Manchester United, and with results in freefall and the dressing room in mutiny, Patrice Evra decided to go to see the only man he knew who could fix things.“Boss, you have to help David,” he pleaded with Sir Alex Ferguson on a visit to his home in Cheshire. Continue reading...

The tiny town of Matatā provides a bleak preview of the challenges that could play out across the country in the decades to comeThere’s a moment on the road from Auckland to the Bay of Plenty, after hours of farmland, when the view of the sea rears up in front of you. The fields retreat, the horizon expands, the road is lined by Pohutukawa trees clinging to the cliffs. The change in view is as stark as an etch-a-sketch being wiped clean.Follow that road and you come to a tiny settlement, slipped between the sea and a steep spine of hills running down New Zealand’s Toi-te-Huatahi coastline. Gradually, the once-orderly and plush beachfront homes are disappearing. Houses are replaced with grassed lots, weeds push up through the cul de sac pavements. Soon, the view will be transformed further still, the last remnants of the neighbourhood replaced with a reserve stretching from the road to the sea. On one of the few remaining fences is a sign: “Leave our homes alone! Watch out the rest of New Zealand – you’re next!” Continue reading...

Joe Biden held an unusually long meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican and gifted him a 'command coin' sometimes awarded to soldiers and leaders. 'You are the most significant warrior for peace I've ever met,' the US president told the pope. Citing what he said was a tradition linked to the coin, he joked: 'Next time I see you, if you don't have it, you have to buy the drinks'

Joe Biden tried to repair his personal and political relationship with Emmanuel Macron by acknowledging that the announcement of a security and technology pact that blindsided France was a 'clumsy' episode handled with a lack of grace. The US president and his French counterpart met at France’s Vatican embassy in Rome on Friday, before the G20 leaders’ summit this weekend, for their first in-person discussion since Macron was left feeling betrayed and humiliated by September’s security deal

The 66-year-old’s stabbing of her husband, David Jackson, became a test of courts’ attitudes towards coercive control

Both sides say serious gaps remain but negotiations will resume next weekTalks between the EU and the UK on the dispute over the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol have ended the week without a breakthrough.Both sides have indicated that serious gaps remain on thinking. The EU said it believed the UK was not taking its proposals, which it described as “unprecedented and far-reaching”, seriously enough. Continue reading...

Police say Communist party’s Valery Rashkin claimed to have found animal after it had been killedAn MP with Russia’s opposition Communist party is under investigation for allegedly hunting without a licence after police found the dismembered remains of an elk in the boot of his car.Valery Rashkin confirmed to local media that he was stopped by police while driving in Russia’s Saratov region with the elk carcass in his trunk but said he and a travel companion did not shoot the elk and had planned to report the animal’s death to police. Continue reading...

Late-night hosts discuss Facebook’s rebrand as ‘Meta’, tortuous negotiations for Biden’s social policy bill and Trump’s op-edStephen Colbert kicked off Thursday’s Late Show with news of Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, “as in, your aunt Gloria saying, ‘I met a guy on Facebook who says the vaccine makes his balls magnetic,’” he quipped. Continue reading...

Rococo painting to go back on show at Wallace Collection with greater depth and detailA complex and delicate conservation process on one of the most celebrated paintings in French art history has revealed fresh vibrancy and detail that shows the artist’s “true genius”.Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing, created in 1767, was considered by many contemporaries as highly risqué for its depiction of a young woman revealing a glimpse of her undergarments from her perch in a verdant garden. Continue reading...

Disengage from this visit, says Annalisa Barbieri. Explain to your children that you don’t want to see your exNext month my ex-husband is coming over from abroad to meet our son’s new baby. The whole family is viewing the prospect with alarm. He left when our son was one and our daughter four, and subjected me to all kinds of physical, verbal, financial and emotional abuse.Last time he came, he expected to be ferried about and have meals and laundry provided, and claimed to be unable to pay for anything – he is in his 60s and behaves like a spoiled teenager. My son lives in a small house and is considering paying for his dad to stay in a hotel. My daughter has no space and lives a distance away. Although my ex claims to have stopped, he smokes heavily, including cannabis, and my daughter has said she doesn’t want him doing this around her young child. Continue reading...

Aerial footage shows the devastating impact of flooding in Dumfries after the River Nith burst its banks, days before Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow. The conditions have also led to evacuations, the closure of schools as well as travel disruption in the south and west of Scotland

Other royals are stepping up, including at Cop26, as a monarch who doesn’t like to say no has to reduce her workloadAs Prince Charles steps up to welcome world leaders to the Cop26 climate summit next week, the Queen will appear in a recorded video from Windsor to address delegates in Glasgow. It could well be a defining moment.With the Queen’s advanced years, there has been a gradual devolving of some of the more arduous public engagements to younger members of the royal family. The Duke of Edinburgh’s death in April at 99 and the Queen’s recent cancellation of public engagements to rest on medical advice after undisclosed tests, which necessitated an overnight hospital stay, has focused attention on the inevitable transition – and what it entails. Continue reading...

The athlete turned activist joins forces with Ava Duvernay for a bold and devastating docudrama mixing the story of his early life with shocking stats on racial inequalityColin Kaepernick became famous in the US as an NFL quarterback. He became famous around the world, and infamous in his own country, when he became a civil rights protester and – shortly after that – no longer an NFL quarterback. Kaepernick drew admiration and condemnation when he took the knee during the playing of the US national anthem at a preseason game in 2016, in protest against US police brutality and racial inequality after multiple police shootings of black people and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.His actions inspired many more players to join him in similar actions – then president Trump to recommend that such players should be fired. At the end of the season, the managers at his team, the San Francisco 49ers, told him they were going to release him – a move largely seen as politically rather than practically motivated, despite the 49ers’ claim that he didn’t fit in with their new coach’s plans. His activism has increased and he has remained unsigned since. Continue reading...

In the run-up to the climate conference, the rock’n’roll poet reflects – with a little help from her daughter – on a life spent breaking barriers, hanging out with Dylan and learning to InstagramMore than two decades ago, Patti Smith and a group of other artists were sitting with the Dalai Lama when the late Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys asked the Tibetan spiritual leader a question: what’s the number-one thing that young people can do to make a better world? Without missing a beat, the Dalai Lama replied: “Look after the environment.”“I thought it was so beautiful,” Smith says in her trademark New York drawl. “That was his number-one preoccupation. Not to free Tibet, but to take in hand a global concern that was going to affect us all, on a scale we haven’t seen before.” Continue reading...

Data shows extent of vaccine inequality between high and low-income countries

‘Historic’ gesture for bilateral talks on summit fringe is intended to emphasise continuityAngela Merkel will bring her likely successor as German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, along to bilateral meetings on the fringe of this weekend’s G20 summit, in a “historic” gesture to emphasise continuity between the outgoing and incoming governments.Social Democrat Scholz, who is conducting coalition talks to form a power-sharing deal with the German Greens and the Free Democratic party (FDP), is expected to attend bilateral meetings with the US president, Joe Biden, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as the heads of state or government of Argentina, Singapore, India and South Korea. Continue reading...

At 93, the Merchant Ivory director – and oldest ever Oscar winner – reflects on enduring love, delighting in his sexuality and defying film-making expectationsJames Ivory’s movies revel in the elegance of the swan and simultaneously show how frantically its feet are paddling beneath the water. In the films for which he is best known – 1985’s A Room With a View, 1987’s Maurice, 1992’s Howards End and 1993’s The Remains of the Day, a fraction of his output – we see the effort put into making those rooms look so beautiful; the human cost of controlling your emotions. Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis) pretending to clean his spectacles after Lucy (Helena Bonham Carter) breaks their engagement in A Room With a View; Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) looking at Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) as she takes the book out of his hand: Ivory knows that an ocean of emotions can be contained in the smallest gesture.Ivory, 93, spends most of his time in his 6,000-sq ft home in the Hudson Valley, but when he’s in Manhattan, he stays in the Upper East Side apartment he’s had for the past half-century. He shared it with his partner, Ismail Merchant, who produced his movies, while Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who wrote most of them, lived downstairs. But Merchant died in 2005 and Jhabvala died in 2013, so now it is just Ivory on his own. When he welcomes me inside on an unseasonably warm October day, he is chipper and bright: “This weather is wonderful, it’s like Los Angeles,” he smiles. He is, as usual, very busy. Continue reading...

Seven generals have so far been implicated in the billowing scandal – can institutional change be effected?For nearly a year, Canada’s military has been engulfed in crisis, as one senior officer after another has come under investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct or cover-up.So far, seven generals have been implicated in the snowballing scandal, which has undermined both public trust in the institution and morale within the ranks – and highlighted a lack of transparency over how the military handles allegations of sexual assault. Continue reading...

Singer admits ‘harsh words’ but adamantly denies domestic violence in argument with mother of partner Gigi HadidZayn Malik has denied hitting Yolanda Hadid, the mother of his partner Gigi Hadid and grandmother of their child, in a domestic argument.The pop singer and former member of boyband One Direction issued a statement, saying: “I adamantly deny striking Yolanda Hadid and for the sake of my daughter I decline to give any further details and I hope that Yolanda will reconsider her false allegations and move towards healing these family issues in private.” TMZ had reported the alleged attack earlier this week. Continue reading...

Lights switched on and off, and the temperature would suddenly changeIn 1999, I was in my mid-40s and had just escaped from my stressful and joyless career as a management consultant. I needed a project. I loved small period buildings and decided to throw my energy into restoring one; I started combing through auction catalogues in search of a place.Having failed to win a number of London houses that didn’t much inspire me anyway, I cast the net wider. My father would often give me advice over the phone. He persuaded me to focus on Derbyshire, a county my family has a strong connection to, and helped me identify what my ideal house would be like: stone-built, a south-facing garden, with at least two bedrooms and a workshop. Continue reading...

Former NSW premier faces a barrage of questions about her former secret boyfriend Daryl Maguire

Beijing must not be let off hook over human rights abuses in return for climate cooperation, say legislatorsLegislators from around the world have gathered on the fringes of the G20 summit in Rome to protest against the presence of the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, and urge leaders not to let China off the hook over human rights abuses in return for Beijing’s cooperation on the climate crisis.Many of those at the Rome counter-meeting have been banned from travelling to China as punishment for campaigning against Chinese repression in Xinjiang. Continue reading...

Surreal drawings by author of The Trial – which he demanded be burnt after his death – to be publishedStricken with self-doubt, paranoia and existential despair, the writings of Franz Kafka have taken generations of readers on what the author called “the descent into the cold abyss of oneself”.A trove of 150 drawings, retrieved from a Swiss bank vault in 2019 after years of legal wrangling and presented to the public for the first time on Thursday, offers a more cheerful interpretation of the term “Kafkaesque”, however. Continue reading...

Religious groups seek to force girl to give birth as intervention of the Catholic church questionedThe fate of an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by a family member has unleashed a fierce debate between human rights activists and the Catholic church in Bolivia, as religious groups seek to force her to complete the pregnancy and give birth.The girl was impregnated after being repeatedly raped and suffering other sexual abuse by the father of her stepfather in the town of Yapacaní, in Bolivia’s eastern Santa Cruz region. Continue reading...

Ex-UK PM and almost 200 global figures write to G20 summit host calling for 240m vaccines to be shared

Explosion in popularity of shows on Disney+ to YouTube raises question of impact on planetStreaming has a dirty secret. The carbon footprint produced by fans watching a month of Netflix’s top 10 global TV hits is equivalent to driving a car a hefty distance beyond Saturn.The world’s largest video-sharing site, YouTube, is responsible for emitting enough carbon dioxide annually to far surpass the equivalent greenhouse gas output of Glasgow, the Scottish city where world leaders will be gathering from Sunday at the Cop26 climate summit. Continue reading...

My country, Uganda, and much of Africa has been battered by climate-related disasters. Cop26 is a chance for the biggest polluters to set up a compensation fund

From upcycling to educating, Fashion Open Studio has enlisted nine pioneering designers for a series of online workshops to mark the United Nation Climate Change ConferenceIs it actually possible to reduce the fashion industry’s impact on the environment? Nine pioneering designers from five continents are showing that it is. Masterminding a series of solutions to some of the challenges facing their own communities, they demonstrate what we can learn from local indigenous knowledge and how to work within the limits of our natural resources.In the lead up to Cop26, the designers were asked to respond to the climate change talks’ themes of adaptation, resilience and nature for a series of online workshops created by Fashion Open Studio (the initiative set up by Fashion Revolution) in partnership with the British Council. If you happen to be in Glasgow between November 4 to 11, you can take part in workshop events around the city, or to watch previous events and find out about upcoming workshops online, check out fashionopenstudio.com/events. In the meantime, here are the nine names to know: Continue reading...

Prime minister Mark Rutte, who needs support of three junior parties for majority, has indicated that there is no compromise in sightGovernment formation talks in the Netherlands have become the longest on record, 226 days after the 17 March elections delivered a fractured political landscape that made parties more reluctant than ever to compromise.Dutch government coalitions often take months to form, but this year’s post-election talks have been especially drawn out. For months, parties failed to even move beyond the question of who would be allowed at the negotiation table. Continue reading...

Australian defence minister’s claim comes as French president and PM Scott Morrison speak for first time since rift over Aukus deal• Get our free news app; get our morning email briefingPeter Dutton says sustained expressions of outrage from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, may be connected to the European country’s looming national election rather than the cancellation of a $90bn submarine contract.Australia’s defence minister told the Nine network a call on Thursday night between Macron and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, had been “productive”. The conversation was the first time the two leaders have spoken since the unveiling of the Aukus pact sent diplomatic relationship between Canberra and Paris into freefall. Continue reading...

Once China’s top-selling developer, the company is reeling under more than $300bn in liabilitiesThe Chinese property developer Evergrande has reportedly made an interest payment for an offshore bond before a grace period expired on Friday, narrowly averting a catastrophic default for the second time in a week.Evergrande, once China’s top-selling developer, is reeling under more than $300bn in liabilities, fuelling worries about the impact of its fate on the world’s second-largest economy as well as on global markets. It staved off a default last week by securing $83.5m for the last-minute payment of interest on a bond, and needed to make $47.5m in coupon payments to bondholders by Friday. Continue reading...

The actor will star in Londongrad as Alexander Litvinenko, who was fatally poisoned by a radioactive isotope in 2006Benedict Cumberbatch will play the Soviet spy Alexander Litvinenko in Londongrad, an HBO limited series, Variety reported on Thursday.Based on the book The Terminal Spy by Alan Cowell, Londongrad will feature the Sherlock Holmes actor as Litvinenko, the former KGB agent turned defector who was fatally poisoned by the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in 2006. Continue reading...

Full text of the deputy Labour leader’s words after a man was sentenced for sending a threatening email

Kathleen Stock announces resignation as university says ‘no substantive allegations of wrongdoing’ were made against herKathleen Stock, the philosophy professor at the centre of a row over her views on gender identification and transgender rights, has announced her resignation from the University of Sussex.Stock’s resignation comes three weeks after a protest by some students at the university’s Brighton campus, which included posters and graffiti calling for her dismissal. Continue reading...

Edward Vines is alleged to have tried to breach order six more times from 31 May and 21 SeptemberAn “obsessive” stalker who has harassed the BBC presenter Emily Maitlis for more than 25 years has told a jury he had to breach a restraining order “to prove my innocence”.Edward Vines is alleged to have attempted to breach a restraining order against his former Cambridge University friend Maitlis a further six times between 31 May last year and 21 September this year. Continue reading...

Labour councillors urge further scrutiny of failings that led to £3m overspend at Tory-run WestminsterCouncillors have called for an independent review of a “culture of complacency” at a flagship Tory-run council that ran up a £3m overspend on a much-derided new visitor attraction in London’s West End labelled “Teletubby hill”.An internal Westminster council report, discussed at a council scrutiny meeting on Wednesday evening, admitted the Marble Arch Mound had been badly mismanaged by officials including unacceptable errors of judgment caused by the desire to rush it through at speed. Continue reading...

The Andrews government has defended the absence of a Covid vaccine mandate, saying the rule balances risks with the harm of social isolation

As NSW and Victoria reopen for international travel, they are drastically scaling back quarantine facilities for the unvaccinated

Defendant, 66, charged with murdering one man and mutilating several others in illegal proceduresA man has gone on trial in Germany accused of murdering one man and mutilating several others by performing illegal operations on their genitals.The 66-year-old electrician told a regional court in Munich that he performed the procedures at the men’s request. Continue reading...

US seeking to overturn ruling that WikiLeaks founder could not be extradited because of suicide riskLawyers for Julian Assange have cited new allegations that the CIA plotted to kidnap or kill him as “grounds for fearing what will be done to him” if he is extradited to the US to face espionage charges.The WikiLeaks founder’s legal team also described diplomatic assurances given by US authorities in an effort to overturn a ruling earlier this year against his extradition as meaningless, and not enough to overcome concerns about his risk of suicide were he to be sent to the US. Continue reading...

Schools and non-essential services closed in Moscow, as Ukraine also brings in new restrictions

The clash between the UK and France over post-Brexit fishing arrangements has gathered paceFor much of the year, British and French ministers have traded threats and accusations over post-Brexit arrangements for fishing waters. But the row now appears to be coming to a head. Continue reading...

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Playing raucous American pop in 1960s Vietnam, Phuong Tâm became a sensation – but turned her back on singing after emigrating to the US. Now she’s 76 and her incredible music can finally be heard after her daughter tracked it downIn early 1960s Saigon, Nguyễn Thi Tâm would appear on stage in the city’s vibrant phòng trà (tearooms) and nightclubs. She embodied quintessential young womanhood, with long, straight black hair and wearing a white áo dài, an elegant Vietnamese dress. But instead of traditional songs, she would belt out music that recalled American hot rods, hip-swinging dance crazes and even teenage abandon: using the stage name Phuong Tâm, she was one of Vietnam’s first rock’n’roll singers. “Back then, everyone was singing Vietnamese, some French, but no one else was singing American music,” says Tâm, now 76. “Just me.”Lost for decades, 25 of the brilliantly crafted songs she recorded – all rich in verve and atmosphere – can now be found on Magical Nights, a landmark compilation that required an international collective effort to recover a lost era of early Vietnamese rock. Tâm and I speak in Vietnamese, logging on from our homes in two of the world’s largest Vietnamese-diaspora communities: she is in San José, California; I am in Sydney, Australia. Given that we are talking about events from more than half a century ago, I’m astonished by her vivid recall. “Of course, these are precious memories. I was lucky. I sang every night.” Continue reading...

David Henderson found guilty at Cardiff crown court of endangering safety of an aircraftDavid Henderson, the businessman who organised the flight that crashed, killing the footballer Emiliano Sala, has been found guilty of endangering the safety of an aircraft.The 67-year-old was convicted by a majority verdict of 10 to two by a jury at Cardiff crown court on Thursday. Continue reading...

French president says Scott Morrison should propose tangible actions to heal rift, in first call since rowThe French president has told the Australian prime minister that the scrapping of a multibillion-dollar submarine contract “broke the relationship of trust” and said Canberra should propose “tangible actions” to heal a diplomatic rift.In their first phone call since Australia dumped the submarine plans, Emmanuel Macron also encouraged Scott Morrison to adopt a more ambitious climate policy, including a commitment “to cease production and consumption of coal at the national level and abroad”, according to a French government readout of the conversation. Continue reading...

Dozens of politicians, journalists and activists have been swept up by army officers since takeoverIn the days since Sudan’s military coup, it has become a familiar scene in Khartoum and other cities. At a home or an office, a convoy of vehicles crowded with armed men usually in plainclothes from army intelligence and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces suddenly arrives to make an arrest.Bundled away, sometimes beaten and hooded, for some relatives it is the last news they have of those detained. Continue reading...

Travellers will be able to use certificates issued in UK from Friday across bloc and 18 other countries

Tsai Ing-wen says island is ‘on the front lines’ in the fight for democracy, while US president accuses China of undermining peaceTaiwan is on the “front lines” in the fight for democracy as the threat from China grows “every day”, its president Tsai Ing-wen has said, as US president Joe Biden criticised China’s “coercive” actions in the Taiwan Strait.The democratically elected Tsai told CNN she remained open to dialogue with China’s leader Xi Jinping, but amid increased risk of military action she had “faith” that the US would come to the island’s defence. Continue reading...