Respected ocean expert Katy Soapi continues to advocate to protect Tetepare, one of the last untouched places in Solomon Islands Scientist Katy Soapi’s earliest memories are of the sea. She grew up on Rendova, a lush island in western Solomon Islands, and life centred around the ocean. “I remember when the big waves came, we would dive under them and come up laughing on the other side. Being part of those natural elements brought me so much joy.” Continue reading...

Slovakia win 1-0 and battle with Germany for top spot Netherlands nearly there after draw in Poland Tomas Bobcek’s stoppage-time goal ended Northern Ireland’s hopes of making it out of World Cup qualifying Group A but they came away from a 1-0 defeat by Slovakia assured of a playoff place regardless. Debutant Bobcek had been on the pitch for only three minutes when he fired in from Laszlo Benes’ corner in the first of eight minutes added on, and the goal stood despite Northern Ireland appeals for a foul after Dan Ballard had gone down in the buildup. Slovakia had already seen second-half strikes from Lukas Haraslin and David Strelec chalked off but this time it stood to spark wild celebrations as the home bench emptied. Continue reading...

Order exempting coffee, beef, bananas and other items comes as White House fights off concerns about rising costs Donald Trump moved to lower tariffs on food imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, in an executive order on Friday as the White House fights off growing concerns about rising costs. The new exemptions take effect retroactively at midnight on Thursday and mark a sharp reversal for Trump, who has long insisted that his import duties are not fueling inflation. They come after a string of victories for Democrats in state and local elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City, where affordability was a key topic. Continue reading...

Jonathan Carley, 64, charged with unlawfully wearing uniform of armed forces A man has been charged has been charged over allegedly dressing up as an admiral during a Remembrance Sunday event. North Wales police said they made an arrest after a man was spotted wearing “the uniform and medals of a high-ranking navy officer” during a wreath-laying service in Llandudno, Conwy, on Sunday 9 November. Continue reading...

Maro Itoje and company have talked the talk and are hungry to follow through with a first win at home over New Zealand since 2012 For better or worse it has been lashing down in south-west London. Good news for restocking the reservoirs but rather less so for dry-ball rugby. Had England played New Zealand 24 hours earlier it would have resembled a game of outdoor water polo and, although the matchday forecast is less biblical, a decidedly damp, grey afternoon awaits. Is it some kind of celestial clue that England’s on-field drought against the All Blacks might be about to break? It is now 13 years since the last men’s victory over New Zealand at what was once called Twickenham, so long ago that Maro Itoje was still at school. Troublemaker by Olly Murs (featuring Flo Rida) topped the UK charts and the nation was basking in a warm, fuzzy post-London Olympics glow that was supposed to last indefinitely. Continue reading...

Deal would also require multibillionaire family to give up ownership of the Connecticut-based firm A federal bankruptcy court judge on Friday said he would approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma’s latest deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids that includes some money for thousands of victims of the epidemic. The deal overseen by US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane would require some of the multibillionaire members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7bn and give up ownership of the Connecticut-based firm. Continue reading...

Coach hopes to match spirit of his 2021 Chelsea team Tuchel needs strong bench ‘after a long, long season’ Thomas Tuchel wants his England substitutes to channel any anger they feel at not starting into making the difference when they can because the team that win the World Cup will be defined by productivity off the bench. The head coach will prepare a heat-proof gameplan for the finals next summer when temperatures at many of the venues in the United States, Mexico and Canada are expected to be stifling and a major part will involve how best to use his substitutes. Continue reading...

⚽ Friday’s World Cup qualifiers, 7.45pm GMT kick-offs ⚽ Live scores | Tables | Read Football Daily | Mail Luke Luxembourg: Moris, Jans, Korac, Carlson, Bohnert, Olivier Thill, Martins Pereira, Olesen, Barreiro, Sinani, Dardari. Substitutes: Djabi Embalo, Curci, Avdusinovic, Muratovic, Pereira Cardoso, Veiga, Selimovic, Dzogovic, Sebastien Thill, Martins, Fox, Moreira. Germany: Baumann, Baku, Anton, Tah, Raum, Pavlovic, Goretzka, Sane, Wirtz, Gnabry, Woltemade. Substitutes: Thiaw, Kimmich, Leweling, Ouedraogo, Burkardt, Nubel, Nmecha, El Mala, Schlotterbeck, Schade, Brown, Dahmen. Continue reading...

Winner to face Carlos Alcaraz in Turin semi-finals Sign up for our Sport in Focus newsletter | Mail Katy The occupational hazards of round-robin tennis mean by this stage of the ATP Finals we’re often left scratching our heads, scrambling about for a calculator and trying to work out the brain-busting permutations of qualification. But tonight’s match between Alexander Zverev and Felix Auger-Aliassime, mercifully, is easy. It’s a straight shootout: the winner sets up a semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz at this season-ending event; the loser goes home (or, if it’s Auger-Aliassime, perhaps he’ll finally head off on honeymoon, having been unable to step off the tennis treadmill for long enough after he got married a couple of months ago). Zverev is the favourite for this: the world No 3 is the more accomplished player, has been the champion at this tournament twice before and leads their head-to-head 6-3, winning both their previous matches on an indoor hard court. But … this is the surface on which Auger-Aliassime has claimed the majority of his titles, he’s riding a high after his compelling comeback against Ben Shelton on Wednesday (when Zverev was surprisingly flat in his straight-sets defeat by Jannik Sinner), and he took out Zverev in the US Open third round in August. Plus, conditions are faster in Turin than at Flushing Meadows, which works even more in AA’s favour. Continue reading...

Radio 2 DJ covered 135 miles in five days carrying a Pudsey Bear backpack from Kielder Forest to Pudsey, Leeds The BBC presenter Sara Cox has completed her arduous challenge to cover 135 miles in five days, which has raised more than £7m for the Children in Need charity. The 50-year-old, who presents Radio 2’s Teatime show on weekdays, crossed the finish line for her great northern marathon challenge at about 3.30pm on Friday after covering the equivalent of five marathons in five days, where she was greeted by a performance from former Spice Girl Melanie C. Continue reading...

The Cop30 climate summit, blackouts in Kyiv, immigration raids in Chicago and super-typhoon Fung-wong: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists Continue reading...

Sensitive information relates to more than 100 individuals and their referees Personal details submitted by applicants for a job at Tate art galleries have been leaked online, exposing their addresses, salaries and the phone numbers of their referees, the Guardian has learned. The records, running to hundreds of pages, appeared on a website unrelated to the government-sponsored organisation that operates the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries in London, Tate St Ives in Cornwall and Tate Liverpool. Continue reading...

A man reportedly turned up unannounced and laid a wreath at the town’s war memorial during a service A 64-year-old man has been arrested following reports that an individual allegedly posed as a highly decorated naval officer at a town’s Remembrance Sunday event in Clywd. The man reportedly turned up unannounced at the war memorial in Llandudno wearing the Royal Navy uniform of a rear admiral on 9 November. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Almost all Palestinians have been displaced to ‘red zone’ where no reconstruction is planned The US is planning for the long-term division of Gaza into a “green zone” under Israeli and international military control, where reconstruction would start, and a “red zone” to be left in ruins. Foreign forces will initially deploy alongside Israeli soldiers in the east of Gaza, leaving the devastated strip divided by the current Israeli-controlled “yellow line”, according to US military planning documents seen by the Guardian and sources briefed on American plans. Continue reading...

The fossil-fuel era is drawing to a close, but at a pace far too slow for the planet’s good or a fair transition to a clean energy future The weather in Belém, wrote the Guardian’s environment editor, offers a convenient metaphor for the UN climate talks being held in the Brazilian city. Sunny mornings begin in blazing optimism before the Amazon’s clouds gather and the deluge begins. Cop30 has followed the same pattern. It opened with sunshine – an agenda agreed on day one. The storms were deferred for later “consultations” on climate finance, carbon border tariffs and the question of how to close the yawning gap between national climate pledges and the Paris agreement’s safe pathway. These await Cop30’s second week. They are likely to be more than mere squalls. The International Energy Agency confirmed last week that the fossil-fuel era is ending. Its annual report said the world will hit peak coal, oil and gas this decade and see declines thereafter. The economist Fadhel Kaboub, who advises developing nations on climate, argues this is not “because of political will, but because the economics of renewables is winning”. Africa, he says, can generate about 1,000 times the electricity it will need in 2040 – which could be exported. Globally, however, hydrocarbon use is easing far too slowly. The fight over money and a just transition matters at Cop30. Continue reading...

Larry Fraser, 49, burgled Grove gallery in London, stealing limited edition print of Girl With Balloon series A man who stole a Banksy print from an art gallery to pay off a historic drug debt has been given a 13-month prison sentence. Larry Fraser, 49, stole the limited edition print belonging to the street artist’s Girl With Balloon series after breaking into the Grove gallery in Fitzrovia, central London, last September. Continue reading...

David Szalay’s Flesh breaks from a decade of female-centred interiors and reopens a genre many thought closed to men Novels of female interiority have dominated literary fiction for nearly a decade. Writers such as Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh captured the inner lives of young women in a way that felt almost shockingly fresh and real, and chimed with the #MeToo moment. Similar stories about young men have become hard to find. This week an unapologetic portrait of masculinity won the Booker prize. Flesh, by the British-Hungarian novelist David Szalay, follows the rise and fall of a working-class Hungarian immigrant called István from the late 1980s to the present day. We mainly see István in acts of casual sex or violence. He eats, he smokes. He says “Okay” and “yeah” over and over again. The novel is an exercise in radical exteriority: we do not know what István looks like, thinks or feels, and often he doesn’t either. This is the realist novel pared down to the bone. Continue reading...

The BMA and Wes Streeting are poles apart, with the union committed to full pay restoration while the health secretary is adamant there’s no money for that As resident doctors began a new round of industrial action on Friday, it felt very like the other 49 days of strikes since March 2023, with medics in scrubs on picket lines outside hospitals across England amid a battle for public sympathy. The British Medical Association claimed that the stoppage was wholly justified, while the health secretary, Wes Streeting, riposted that it was irresponsible and risky. Continue reading...

Previous claims against BBC Breakfast presenter have been escalated to full investigation, according to the Sun The BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty is reportedly being formally investigated over allegations of bullying. It follows previous claims of bullying against the 50-year-old broadcaster on the programme, which have now been escalated to a full investigation, according to the Sun. Continue reading...

Club hope to have Frenchman in charge next weekend Any compensation not regarded as problematic Celtic are to accelerate talks with Wilfried Nancy over the weekend as the Columbus Crew manager edges closer to replacing Brendan Rodgers in Glasgow. Celtic are understood to have informed the Major League Soccer side on Friday of their plans, with any compensation required to coax the Frenchman not regarded as problematic. Nancy is believed to be keen on the switch. Celtic hope to have Nancy in place by the time they visit St Mirren next weekend, which would bring an end to Martin O’Neill’s caretaker spell. O’Neill was due to meet Celtic’s main shareholder, Dermot Desmond, in London on Friday. The second tenure of Rodgers in Glasgow ended in acrimony in late October, with Desmond taking public aim at the former Liverpool manager. Continue reading...

Weaning ourselves off gas is the only way to reduce energy bills long term. Cutting support for this is exactly the ‘sticking-plaster politics’ Labour promised to end After years of painfully high energy bills, diminishing household budgets and stalled investment, this year’s budget, on 26 November, should be the moment when the government finally starts to confront why the UK’s energy system is so expensive. And yet, if recent briefings suggesting that Labour will dramatically scale back the heat pump subsidy for households are to be believed, it is now repeating exactly the same mistakes as its predecessors. People want relief from painful energy bills. In the long term, electrification is the only way to provide this. In practice, that means switching from gas boilers to heat pumps, shifting from petrol cars to electric vehicles: boosting access to technologies that are modern, cheaper to run, and are already becoming mainstream. At present, our energy system protects the legacy gas-based system, subsidising supply and penalising demand in ways that keep gas artificially cheap and electricity artificially expensive, even when electric technologies cost less to operate. Camilla Born is the CEO of Electrify Britain, a campaigning organisation founded by EDF and Octopus Energy Continue reading...

There were distinct echoes of Tony McCoy and Wichita Lineman when the current champion won on Wade Out On an afternoon for the National Hunt diehards here on Friday, as Storm Claudia battered racegoers and runners alike, one rider’s refusal to be cowed by either the elements or circumstance was a beacon in the gloom. There were distinct echoes of Tony McCoy’s famous never-say-die ride on Wichita Lineman as Sean Bowen niggled, coaxed and cajoled the novice chaser Wade Out around two circuits of Cheltenham, and it was only in the final moments of a race that took nearly seven minutes to run that Bowen’s mount appeared to have any realistic chance of winning. Continue reading...

Readers respond to an article by Rachel Clarke on how people are dying without the support they need Rachel Clarke is right to highlight the pressures on palliative care, but wrong to suggest that assisted dying debates have sidelined these concerns (As a palliative care specialist, I’ve witnessed the human tragedy of our end-of-life care crisis, 10 November). In fact, the opposite is true. The CEO of Hospice UK, Toby Porter, has stated that the government’s £100m investment in hospices, announced last December, would probably not have materialised without the terminally ill adults bill. He recently told a special Lords select committee that the bill has sparked more conversation about end-of-life care than at any point in his long career. The health minister, Stephen Kinnock, similarly acknowledged that the bill has been a catalyst for long-overdue improvements in palliative care, rolling the pitch for another announcement in the coming weeks. We know this has been the case around the world, as experts from the UK and Australia highlighted recently (Letters, 5 November). Continue reading...

A parent replies to an article by Kate Szymankiewicz about her 14-year-old daughter Ruth, who died after being detained under the Mental Health Act I read with deep sadness the article by Kate Szymankiewicz about the death of her 14-year-old daughter Ruth (‘The ward felt like a prison. What had I let them do?’: how my daughter was crushed by a health service meant to help her, 8 November). As a parent of a child who has also suffered with an eating disorder, I recall the same feelings of horror at the loss of control while we saw our daughter sectioned three times under the Mental Health Act. Continue reading...

Readers aren’t convinced by the wholesome family message peddled by John Lewis in its latest Christmas ad The issues you highlighted in your editorial are real, but please don’t think that advertisers care about them (The Guardian view on the John Lewis Christmas ad: a modern story of fathers and sons, 7 November). This ad is a shameless attempt to make consumers think they are doing something worthwhile in buying overpriced gifts in a failing store that used to share its profits with staff but hasn’t paid them any bonus in the past few years. Continue reading...