Daniel Křetínský to become a major shareholder in French oil firm as part of deal creating 50/50 joint venture

The Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský is to become one of the largest shareholders in TotalEnergies after selling a stake in his electricity generation business, which includes several UK power plants, to the French oil company.

Křetínský, whose companies own stakes in Royal Mail and West Ham United football club, agreed to sell a 50% stake in his stable of European power plants to TotalEnergies for about €5.1bn (£4.5bn) in exchange for about 4.1% of Total’s share capital.

As the summit goes into its second week, complex issues with anxiety growing over conference outcomes

The first global register of how much carbon dioxide is being buried underground has been published – it was 45m tonnes in 2023. In one sense that’s not a large amount – it’s about 0.1% of global CO2 emissions that year. Furthermore, about 90% of it was pumped into oil fields to push out more oil, largely in the US and Brazil.

This seems to support criticisms of carbon capture and storage as a niche technology supported by fossil fuel companies aiming simply to continue to sell their products.

Polish PM vows to ‘catch the perpetrators, regardless of who their backers are’ after blast on track used for deliveries to Ukraine

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Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has described an explosion along a section of railway line used for deliveries to Ukraine as an “unprecedented act of sabotage” that could have led to disaster.

There were no casualties from the incident on the line from Warsaw to Lublin, but the consequences could have been catastrophic if the gap in the tracks had caused a train travelling at full speed to derail.

Huge rally organised by megachurch whose members vote in a bloc could spell trouble for Philippine president

From a skyscraper in downtown Manila, a sea of white spreads out below, covering the vast green lawns of Rizal Park and expanding down arterial roads and sidestreets. It is formed of more than half a million people, clad in matching white T-shirts, the slogan “transparency for a better democracy” emblazoned on their chests.

An estimated 650,000 of them have flooded the centre of Manila to protest, amid fury over a spiralling corruption scandal in which billions of dollars in flood mitigation funds have evaporated. Organised by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), a powerful sect in the Philippines, the three-day rally has shut down schools, roads and offices. Many of those protesting have camped out all night on the park’s lawns, sleeping in tents or beneath tarpaulins and umbrellas. Families have journeyed from across the country to set up camp, some equipped with portable stoves and rice cookers, others pushing elderly family members in wheelchairs, many of them bearing placards saying “expose the deeds”.

Tender hake in a punchy flavoured butter makes for a quick midweek supper or a knockout dinner-party show-off, and all in half an hour

I love this one-tray dinner; it feels elegant but easy, and worthy of both a midweek meal and if you are entertaining. The punchy anchovy and garlic butter does all the hard work, and gives the impression of more effort than was actually exerted. But what to serve it with, I hear you ask? Well, it wouldn’t be out of place with creamy mashed potato, buttery polenta or a salad. Just make sure to baste the fish halfway through cooking, to get all the flavour and juices back into it.

The Guardian aims to publish recipes for sustainable fish. Check ratings in your region: UK; Australia; US.

Sofie Benoot’s film opens out from the film-maker’s medical problem to a diverting reflection on humankind’s deep roots in ancient minerals

The elegant, humorous, susurrating Welsh voice of Siân Phillips sets the keynote for this whimsical essay documentary from Belgian film-maker Sofie Benoot about the nature of rock and stone, and the mysterious interrelation between our bodies and the landmass of Earth.

Benoot’s starting point is the kidney stone that has just been removed from her body, an intriguingly smooth and worn pebble; it’s a personal event she assigns to her offscreen alter ego, voiced by Phillips. This quasi-fictional narrator musingly notes that once upon a time she provided the voice for nature documentaries; quite true, Phillips has indeed narrated some nature documentaries, which appears to be the reason why Benoot cast her.

• Operation had been delayed due to infection

• Former QB has cirrhosis and Parkinson’s disease

Bernie Kosar is scheduled to receive a liver transplant on Monday morning. The former University of Miami and Cleveland Browns star quarterback shared the news in a social media post on Sunday night.

“Thank you all for the thoughts, prayers, and support – it truly means the world to me,” Kosar said in the post from his hospital bed.

Lingering thunderstorms pose risk of mudslides in areas around Los Angeles recently ravaged by wildfires

A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved through California but not before causing at least six deaths and dousing much of the state.

Early Monday lingering thunderstorms pose the risk of mudslides in areas of Los Angeles county that were recently ravaged by wildfire.

Experts say Observations Group’s connections to the Base and Rinaldo Nazzaro present ‘urgent danger’

In the underworld of accelerationist neo-Nazis, where talk of attacks against western governments are commonplace, the spread of illegal weapons manuals and tradecraft on drone warfare are proliferating. Experts say, in some cases, that classes are being taught online with the input of leadership from proscribed terrorist groups with links to Russian intelligence.

Authorities have been warning, on both sides of the Atlantic, about the accessibility of drone technologies and military veterans on the far right with the know-how to use them, presenting a grave national security threat.

As the author publishes a new story collection, we rate the work that made his name – from his dazzling Booker winner to an account of the 2022 attack that nearly killed him

“It makes me want to hide behind the furniture,” Rushdie now says of his debut. It’s a science fiction story, more or less, but also indicative of the sort of writer Rushdie would become: garrulous, playful, energetic. The tale of an immortal Indian who travels to a mysterious island, it’s messy but charming, and the sense of writing as performance is already here. (Rushdie’s first choice of career was acting, and he honed his skill in snappy lines when working in an advertising agency.) Not a great book, but one that shows a great writer finding his voice, and a fascinating beginning to a stellar career.

World’s richest person wanted to ‘purge’ propaganda from Wikipedia, so he created a compendium of racist disinformation

Entries in Elon Musk’s new online encyclopedia variously promote white nationalist talking points, praise neo-Nazis and other far-right figures, promote racist ideologies and white supremacist regimes, and attempt to revive concepts and approaches historically associated with scientific racism, a Guardian analysis has found.

The tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally recently launched xAI’s AI-generated Grokipedia with a promise that it would “purge out the propaganda” he claims infests Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that Musk has often attacked but that has long been a key feature of the internet.

Home secretary to announce a drastic tightening of rules, including requiring asylum seekers to wait 20 years before getting the right to permanently settle in UK

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has also denounced the government’s asylum plans. In a statement it says:

The home secretary’s new immigration plans are divisive and xenophobic.

Scapegoating migrants will not fix our public services or end austerity.

Draconian, unworkable and potentially illegal anti-asylum policies only feed Reform’s support.

The government has learnt nothing from the period since the general election.

Some of the legal changes being proposed are truly frightening:

Abolishing the right to a family life would ultimately affect many more people than asylum-seekers.

Artificial intelligence will become smarter than ‘most or all humans in most or all ways’, says Dario Amodei

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Artificial intelligence companies must be transparent about the risks posed by their products or be in danger of repeating the mistakes of tobacco and opioid companies, according to the chief executive of the AI startup Anthropic.

Dario Amodei, who runs the US company behind the Claude chatbot, said he believed AI would become smarter than “most or all humans in most or all ways” and urged his peers to “call it as you see it”.

Meaningful therapy offers a path past our worst impulses. We should be fighting for it to be available for everyone

When I picture what a good life means to me, I feel a tension in my chest. I see my daughter and my husband and I feel the profound fulfilment of being exactly where I need to be, tightened by the terror that life is so fragile and I cannot protect them from that reality. Then a memory: lying on my analyst’s couch and describing a feeling of hollowness inside that I felt deeply ashamed of, and her listening and thinking and understanding – and my noticing that while I felt horror and repulsion, she didn’t seem to. Next: different walks around different parks with different friends, each with the same feeling of being warmed from the inside out; also, bumping into neighbours at the playground and feeling a part of my community. I remember powerful moments with my patients, who have felt understood, by me and within themselves. And I think of the moving messages from readers who have got in touch, sharing precious stories from their lives.

People often think that psychoanalysis and its NHS-friendly grandchild, psychodynamic psychotherapy, are all about looking inwards. And it’s true – good therapy should give us the time and space, the frame and the containment, to look inside and listen to ourselves.

A new generation of younger workers are being derided as delusional and unreliable, just as millennials were

Gen Z is undisciplined, apparently; entitled, some critics claim; and purportedly hates work. One viral column in the Wall Street Journal went so far as to suggest this entire generation was potentially “unemployable”.

As younger employees establishing themselves at work continue to face relentless criticism from the higher rungs of corporate America, those old enough to remember the arrival of the last generation could be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu.

The military has been recast in a partisan, performative mold – all according to the president’s logic of impunity

Of all the reasons Americans have been losing sleep recently – hunger, canceled flights, Democrats betraying them – the most ominous has to do with an institution usually absent from discussions about the fate of our democracy: the military. No need to be starry-eyed about US imperialism and what has long been criticized as an ever-expanding “national security state”; one can still appreciate that it is a good thing if generals do not take sides in politics – just ask anyone from the many countries around the world where they do. But a pattern is becoming clear: Donald Trump is purging the higher ranks based on his prejudices and demands for loyalty; the military is being turned into a partisan instrument and a political prop; more dangerous still, the president is instilling the logic of impunity that has come to characterize his entire approach to governance.

Figures deemed too close to Trump critics, such as general Mark Milley, have seen promotions delayed or canceled; those targeted by far-right influencers might face professional backlash. Trump used Maga-fied soldiers as background to a Fort Bragg speech, violating longstanding norms against instrumentalizing state institutions for partisan purposes. Every violation becomes a test of who will be loyal: critics – the potentially disloyal – will identify themselves.

Over the years, the actor has popularised everything from name necklaces to giant corsages. But, with all their dark secrets, women’s handbags should remain shut ...

Vogue aired a matter of public import last week, posing the question on all our lips: “Can Sarah Jessica Parker make the wide-open bag trend happen?” Pictures of the Fendi bag in question showed it shamelessly flaunting its purple sequinned lining for all the world to see. Apparently, it’s deliberate (the bag went down the catwalk like that, keep up) and part of a wider trend for gaping leather goods: “We saw similar styles at Loewe, Chanel and Louis Vuitton.”

So, can she? Vogue says it’s “chic and insouciant”, while conceding it’s also “polarising”. But if anyone can make an unlikely trend happen, it’s SJP. She – or at least her Carrie Bradshaw alter ego – has already popularised name necklaces, vast corsages, even vaster duvet coats and “satin Maison Margiela Tabi Monster bow pumps” (Vogue again) for WFH – I’m wearing mine now, obvs. The JW Anderson pigeon handbag she carried on And Just Like That sold out.

Heavy rainfall hit Galicia region first before slowly moving across western parts of the Iberian peninsula

Portugal and Spain are again recovering from flooding after Storm Claudia brought heavy rain and strong winds last week. The storm developed from an area of low pressure that had earlier driven early season cold and snowy conditions through eastern parts of Canada and the north-eastern US through early November.

The system tracked eastwards across the Atlantic during the second weekend of November before slowing and stalling to the north-west of the Iberian peninsula, caught in the trough of an increasingly amplified, or wavy, jet stream. Spain’s meteorological service AEMET named the storm last Monday before the arrival of several bouts of heavy rainfall, which slowly pushed through during the rest of the week.

Move to give mayors powers to raise funds through levies, but industry says it will ramp up prices and inflation

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British holidaymakers could have to pay a nightly tax on hotel stays and Airbnb-style visits in plans expected to be announced by Rachel Reeves in the budget next week.

The chancellor is reportedly preparing to give mayors powers to raise taxes by charging tourists on the cost of an overnight stay in their cities.

Visitors have their strongest Ashes squad in years but face an Australian team brimming with experience

We would like to hear about your name and how it affects people’s perceptions of you

What’s in a name? As people such as Peach, Riot and Aquaman have found, it can change your life for the better, or worse.

With this in mind, we would like to hear from people with unusual names about how it affects others’ perceptions of you. How has your name shaped your life?

Hasina sentenced in absentia by court in Dhaka over deadly crackdown on student-led uprising last year

Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Dhaka for crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.

A three-judge bench of the country’s international crimes tribunal convicted Hasina of crimes including incitement, orders to kill and inaction to prevent atrocities, as she oversaw a crackdown on anti-government protesters last year.

The search for a gingko-toothed beaked whale had taken five years, when a thieving albatross nearly ruined it all

It was an early morning in June 2024 and along the coast of Baja California in Mexico, scientists on the Pacific Storm research vessel were finishing their coffee and preparing for a long day searching for some of the most elusive creatures on the planet. Suddenly a call came from the bridge: “Whales! Starboard side!”

For the next few hours, what looked like a couple of juvenile beaked whales kept surfacing and disappearing until finally Robert Pitman, a now-retired researcher at Oregon State University, fired a small arrow from a modified crossbow at the back of one of them.

I have been fortunate, and I know it. Now I’d like more successful people to admit that meritocracy is a myth

• Julian Richer is the founder of Richer Sounds and the Fairness Foundation

When you think about what has got you to where you are today, what pops into your head first? Perhaps hard work and determination, aided by a degree of talent? No doubt these have played an important role. But how much do you think that factors outside your control – what we might think of as luck – have influenced your path in life, for good or ill?

I believe that many of us – especially those who consider ourselves successful – underestimate the role that luck has played in our lives. And I’m not just talking about random life events, like winning the lottery, I’m thinking about luck in the broader sense of the circumstances into which each of us is born.

Julian Richer is a retail entrepreneur, author and philanthropist who founded Richer Sounds in 1978. He is the founder of the Fairness Foundation