The New York-based writer talks about her peripatetic childhood, the pain of losing her parents – and finding love at a jazz jam sessionNadia Owusu, 39, was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and raised in Italy, Ethiopia, England, Ghana and Uganda, and lives in New York. She moved there aged 18 to attend Pace University and earned her master’s in creative nonfiction at the Mountview residency programme, where she now teaches. Her first book, a memoir called Aftershocks (Sceptre), explores trauma, race and belonging as Owusu charts her peripatetic youth and the pain of being abandoned by her Armenian-American mother when she was two, and then losing her beloved Ghanaian father to cancer when she was 13. She won the Whiting award for emerging writers in 2019 and has just been appointed director of storytelling at Frontline Solutions, a US black-owned consulting firm that helps social change organisations to define their goals.The book connects geographical and emotional upheaval. “I have lived in disaster and disaster has lived in me”, as you put it.

Protesters use tractors, lorries and boulders to create blockades and press for repeal of legislationThousands of farmers blockaded main roads across India for several hours on Saturday to press their demand for the repeal of new agricultural laws that have led to months of major protests.The protesters used tractors, lorries and boulders to blockade the roads. They carried banners and flags denouncing the laws, which they say will leave them poorer and at the mercy of corporations. Continue reading...

‘Significant snowfall’ expected on Sunday, with warnings across eastern parts of UK until WednesdayBouts of “significant disruptive snowfall” are expected to hit the south-east of England, with Storm Darcy also due to bring gale-force winds to parts of the country, forecasters said.Easterly winds from Ukraine and the Black Sea area will bring an intense chill on Sunday, but the air will not be as bitingly cold as it was with the “beast from the east” in 2018, the Met Office said. Continue reading...

Met police say one man killed and at least nine injured in series of ‘isolated’ incidents on Friday nightPolice have launched a murder investigation after a man was stabbed to death in Croydon, south London, in a spate of violence that also left at least nine injured.Metropolitan police officers responded to five reports of stabbings at five locations across Croydon in just over two hours between 6.56pm and 9.12pm on Friday. Continue reading...

The city landmark and masterpiece of Greek revival style, empty for more than 50 years, could be a place of learning againWhen renowned Scottish architect Thomas Hamilton set about designing a home for Edinburgh’s Royal High School in the early 1800s, he cemented the city’s reputation as an “Athens of the North” with a Greek revival building still considered one of Europe’s finest.But despite being widely lauded and variously floated as a home for the Scottish parliament, a national photography centre and a military history museum, the building has lain empty since the school moved in 1968. Now, a decision by the city’s council to strip hotel developers of the site’s lease could see it back in action once again. Continue reading...

Dr Clive Dix also says UK well-placed to respond if vaccine-resistant variant emerges

A stone figure found on a beach was probably by a Lekwungen people artefact, the Royal British Columbia Museum said, but Ray Boudreau begged to differEarly one morning last summer, walkers on a beach in western Canada spotted an oblong stone figure resting on the sand.Weighing nearly 100kg, it bore a face with exaggerated features – a bulging eye, contorted nose and lips – and was covered in a thin layer of seaweed and algae. Continue reading...

I moved from London to New Zealand, where the sense of normality is surrealRead more: Laura Barton on how a daily call to California got her through lockdown

Analysis: From Yemen and the Middle East, to Russia and China, the UK has to step up diplomatically

The admission comes after the PKKP accused the mining giant of failing to notify them of an executive reshuffleRio Tinto has accepted it bungled its communication of executive changes to traditional owners of the destroyed Juukan Gorge site.The admission comes as the company’s new chief executive, Jakob Stausholm, prepares to soon meet with Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura representatives for the first time in person. Continue reading...

UN welcomes reversal of Trump-Pompeo order as state department says it is purely to alleviate ‘world’s worst humanitarian crisis’The United States has said it intends to revoke the terrorist designation of the Houthi movement in response to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis – reversing one of the most criticised last-minute decisions of the Trump administration.The reversal, confirmed by the state department, comes a day after Joe Biden declared a halt to US support for the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Continue reading...

Residents allowed to return home after the fire danger is downgraded to ‘watch and act’A devastating bushfire in the Perth hills has been downgraded from an emergency warning to “watch and act”, and rain relief is imminent.Hopes were high that forecast weekend rain would help firefighters get on top of the week-long blaze as a tropical low tracked towards the south-west. Continue reading...

Paul Grisham forgot he lost it until rediscovery during demolition work at McMurdo basePaul Grisham’s wallet was missing for so long at the bottom of the world he forgot all about it. Fifty-three years later the 91-year-old San Diego man has it back along with mementoes of his 13-month assignment as a US navy meteorologist on Antarctica in the 1960s.“I was just blown away,” Grisham told the San Diego Union-Tribune after the wallet was returned on Saturday. “There was a long series of people involved who tracked me down and ran me to ground.” Continue reading...

Announcement means five people with links to Auckland isolation facility have tested positive

Crews have been dealing with flare-ups on northern flank of bushfire that has destroyed at least 86 homesRain relief is imminent after another dangerous night on the frontline of a devastating bushfire in the Perth hills that has destroyed at least 86 homes.Hopes are high that forecast weekend rain will help firefighters get on top of the week-long blaze as a tropical low tracks towards the south-west. Continue reading...

The state is on the cusp of granting $2bn or more in licences, but has no way of measuring how much water will be returned to parched river systemsIn the next week or two, the NSW government will reveal how many floodplain harvesting licences it intends to grant in the Gwydir valley, home to some of the biggest cotton producers in the country.It’s the next chapter in a process that will grant between $2bn and $4bn in water entitlements to farmers as part of a plan to control and regularise a practice that captures billions of litres of water for irrigation during high-rainfall events. Continue reading...

Handforth residents, a comedian and young political activists helped explosive parish council meeting go viral

The actor remained queasy of the role in The Sound of Music which brought him enduring fame, finally finding his groove aged 80 as a long-closeted father in Mike Mills’s Beginners

Development prompts mixture of cynicism and hope Libya may be able to puts years of conflict behind it

Veteran and respected actor had a career stretching back to the 1950s, but won his Oscar for best supporting actor for Beginners in 2011• Peter Bradshaw on Christopher PlummerChristopher Plummer, the dazzlingly versatile Canadian actor whose screen career straddled seven decades, including such high-profile films as The Sound of Music, The Man Who Would Be King and All the Money in the World, has died aged 91.His family confirmed the news, saying he died peacefully at home in Connecticut with his wife of 53 years, Elaine Taylor, by his side. Continue reading...

Ahead of the Cop26 conference in Glasgow, UK organisers must do more to make rail travel a viable option for delegates, writes Nigel Perkins. Plus Chris Theobald on the environmental benefits of rail over air travel, and Gayna Walls on her memories of train journeys across EuropeWe were very pleased to see you raising the profile of some of these issues in your editorial (The Guardian view on Europe by train: virtue signalling, 2 February). We have been working with members of Back on Track across Europe to support their campaign for the revival of night trains, improved cross-border day services and simpler through-ticketing arrangements.We shall now be asking the UK government to take a far more proactive approach in the coming months as chair of the Cop26 climate conference to be held in Glasgow this November. Continue reading...

Alleged attacker is killed in car crash as Police Scotland say incidents in Ayrshire town are not terror-related

Tory former defence minister, Labour and charities call for rethink over Yemen conflictBritain is under increasing pressure to restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia after Joe Biden said the US would no longer sell munitions that could be used in Riyadh’s “offensive operations” in Yemen.Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, called on the government to “follow suit and rethink military sales”, seven months after the British government restarted them following a high-profile court defeat. Continue reading...

Protests have spread across country since military coup, as citizens resist return to dictatorship

Māori memories of past epidemics meant iwi were instrumental in forcing Jacinda Ardern’s government to act quicklyIn the space of a few days in 2017 New Zealand’s Labour caucus made Jacinda Ardern their leader. In the space of a month the country made her their prime minister, and in the space of a few years the rest of the English-speaking world would turn to her as a global leader. That might sound cliché, and in a small sense it is, but it captures the adoration and esteem in which large parts of New Zealand and the world hold Ardern. She has apparently committed to a social democratic programme of old, from public housing to subsidised tertiary education, and – more importantly – she has dealt successfully with the virus. Global business leaders and others rightly rate New Zealand’s Covid-19 response as the best in the world.But is it equally right to simply credit Ardern and her government for this success? Continue reading...

Public Health England says vulnerable at risk from hazardous conditions expected over weekendPublic Health England has urged people to check on elderly and vulnerable people as heavy snow and icy conditions are predicted across the UK over the first February weekend.The Met Office issued amber weather warnings in the east of England for Sunday – stretching from Norwich down to Canterbury – and warned hazardous conditions could last well into next week. Continue reading...

Ninety-five-year-old woman worked at Stutthof camp near Gdansk and now lives in care homeGerman prosecutors have charged a former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp with complicity in the murders of 10,000 people, in the first such case in recent years against a woman.The 95-year-old accused had worked at the Stutthof camp near what was Danzig, now Gdansk, in then Nazi-occupied Poland. Continue reading...

Seven centuries after guilty verdict in Florence, Sperello di Serego Alighieri to help test whether poet’s conviction would stand today[Article revised due to a misunderstanding about the ‘retrial’ - see footnote]The reputation of Dante Alighieri needs little burnishing: his Divine Comedy, tracing the poet’s journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, is widely regarded as one of the greatest works ever written. But more than 700 years after Dante was accused of corruption and condemned to be burned to death, his descendant is to take part in a “retrial” to see if the conviction was just.Sperello di Serego Alighieri, an astrophysicist, and the law professor Alessandro Traversi are working to establish if Dante’s 1302 sentencing for corruption in political office would stand today. Continue reading...

Report says pandemic gives Isis and al-Qaida opportunity to undermine governments in conflict zonesIslamic extremists are planning a possible “rash of pre-planned attacks” when restrictions on movement imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic are lifted, the United Nations has warned.A report based on intelligence received from member countries over the last six months says Islamic State will seek to “end its marginalisation from the news” with a wave of violence and notes that the group recently urged supporters to spend less time on social media to free up time to launch operations against its enemies. Continue reading...

Sotheby’s expert says pandemic has been good for the artist, lending his work ‘a whole new meaning’Two works by Edvard Munch that the Nazis classified as degenerate before selling them for profit are to be offered at auction in London next month, at a time when interest in the Norwegian artist has never been bigger.A self-portrait painted in 1926, the first formal portrait of Munch to come to auction for 15 years, and Embrace on the Beach, painted for a children’s nursery in 1904 and last on sale more than 80 years ago, are due to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s next month. Continue reading...

Fizzy, caffeinated drinks are on sale everywhere, and for many people it can become difficult to function without them. Is cold turkey the only way out?

Archaeologists at British Museum and National Trust report surge in interest in 1939 Anglo Saxon find

European commission’s president admits it underestimated difficulties in vaccine rollout

This week, while most New Yorkers feared death by icefall, others had more rarefied concerns

Street art that we share online tends to be inspiring – not strange, enigmatic or challengingWhatever you think of street art, there’s no denying its pedigree. The paintings done on cave walls 30,000 years ago are today acknowledged as the first creative triumph of the human mind. But before their modern recognition as prehistoric wonders, these pictures of mammoths and bison were dismissed by Renaissance cavers who came across them as crude contemporary graffiti. That’s because graffiti were as universal 400 years ago as they are today, and just as disreputable.Today we veer between seeing graffiti as visual noise and genius coming up from the streets. That’s the fascinating ambiguity of those marks and images. They can be dismissed as a public nuisance or hailed as works of witty artistic genius. Banksy in Britain and JR in France have followed in the footsteps of the 1980s New York street and subway art stars Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring to become respected and marketable. Basquiat and Haring were proteges of Andy Warhol, whose embrace of high and pop art, the beautiful and mundane, set the stage for today’s street art. Warhol himself responded to the graffiti craze with a series of abstract paintings he made by covering the canvases with copper, then urinating on them to oxidise the pigment and produce lovely mineral blues and greens. It was literally the lowest of street activities, peeing against a wall, become Art. Continue reading...

After flying into Seoul, I tested positive despite having no symptoms. Before I knew it, I was in a government-run hostel

At least 30 people have been detained over pot-banging protests against a military coup as demonstrations gather pace Continue reading...

Masks everywhere but few of the festive kind as businesses reckon with absence of 3m touristsAmong the masks on display at Tragicomica, one of the oldest traditional mask shops in Venice, are about a dozen or so with long beaks. Called medico della peste, or plague doctor, they are based on masks worn by doctors who tended to plague victims during an outbreak in the 17th century.While once they were a potent symbol of death, in modern times they became one of the most prominent emblems of festivity during Venice’s carnival. Continue reading...

After 10 years living in France, I returned to China to sign some papers and I was locked up. For the next two years, I was systematically dehumanised, humiliated and brainwashed. By Gulbahar Haitiwaji with Rozenn Morgat Continue reading...

Forty MPs sign letter urging closure of police master’s course run in building where dissidents say they were torturedForty cross-party MPs and peers have urged the University of Huddersfield to close a master’s course it runs at the Royal Academy of Policing in Bahrain, after allegations that political dissidents were being tortured in the same building.The MPs, led by Ian Blackford, the Westminster leader of the Scottish National Party, have written to Huddersfield’s vice-chancellor, Bob Cryan, saying the university is at risk of “indirect implication in human rights abuse” by running an MSc in security science solely for officers of the academy. Continue reading...

A town council meeting that descended into chaos – with councillors trading insults and ultimately getting booted off the Zoom call – has become an internet sensation and a metaphor for the UK’s woes under lockdown.Footage of the extraordinary exchanges of the Handforth council meeting in Cheshire – described by one participant as 'a very good example of bullying within Cheshire east and the environs' – has been shared thousands of times on Twitter. The name of the heroically stoic clerk, Jackie Weaver, trended on Twitter and spawned several memes

Home Alone 2 star cites his contribution to ‘cable news’ in letter to Screen Actors Guild with disciplinary hearing imminentDonald Trump has resigned from the Screen Actors Guild (Sag-Aftra), the union for US performers on film and TV, as the union’s leadership began moves to expel him.In a letter dated 4 February 2020 addressed to Gabrielle Carteris, the union’s national president, Trump said: “I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!” Continue reading...

But before the expected weekend rains, firefighters will have to contend with strong winds whipping up the flamesConditions are expected to get worse before they get better for the firefighters battling the Perth hills blaze with authorities warning of gusty winds heading into the weekend.Winds up to 35 km/h are forecast for the region on Friday night into Saturday morning with stronger gusts up to 80 km/h possible. But there are hopes that forecast rain over the rest of the weekend will ease conditions and give weary firefighters a chance to get on top of the 10,000ha-bushfire. Continue reading...

Swearing, hysterics and a heroically stoic clerk transform Handforth meeting into absurdist dramaA parish council meeting which descended into chaos – with councillors trading insults and ultimately getting booted off the Zoom call has become an internet sensation and a metaphor for the UK’s woes under lockdown.A video of the Handforth council meeting in Cheshire showed it starting badly when one unseen councillor apparently muttered swear words under his breath as the clerk tried to bring the session to order. Continue reading...

Court hears Matthew James Markcrow, 35, used tattoos to mark the women as his ‘property’A man accused of drugging and recruiting women into forced prostitution in Brisbane, and of marking their bodies as his “property”, remains behind bars while his co-accused has been released on bail.Matthew James Markcrow, 35, and Crystal Marie Sawyer, 23, appeared in Brisbane magistrates court on Friday after a four-month investigation into the alleged prostitution ring. Continue reading...

While officials still urge caution over Covid, many older people are going out to see their family

He invented the 12in single and introduced Grace Jones to the world – and at 80 years old is busy pumping out new remixes from quarantine

Chinese video app valued at $180bn on first day of trading in Hong KongShares in the Chinese video app Kuaishou almost tripled on the first day of trading in Hong Kong, giving TikTok’s chief rival a market value of $180bn.The debut of the short-form video site on Hong Kong’s stock exchange on Friday has been one of the most eagerly anticipated initial public offerings this year and raised $5.4bn (£4bn). Continue reading...

Australia’s vaccine rollout could end disruptive state border closures, federal health department boss Prof Brendan Murphy says