Tognetti/Australian Chamber Orchestra
(ABC Classic)
Under Richard Tognetti the ACO has established itself as world-class and this 50th anniversary live recording of these two great concertos are a wonderful souvenir of a remarkable group

Over the past quarter of a century the Australian Chamber Orchestra has become a regular visitor to Europe, establishing itself as one of the world’s foremost chamber bands. The group was founded in 1975, and this pairing of perhaps the two greatest violin concertos in the repertory is being released to mark the ACO’s 50th birthday. The soloist and conductor in both works is Richard Tognetti, who has been the orchestra’s leader and artistic director for the past 35 years.

Both recordings are taken from concerts given in Sydney’s City Recital Hall, the Beethoven concerto in 2018, the Brahms last February. The close recorded sound very faithfully reproduces the intensely involving approach of the ACO when heard in the flesh, with its amalgam of modern playing techniques with the use of historical instruments (gut strings, period wind). For both concertos the orchestra’s permanent core of 20 players was more than doubled with guest instrumentalists from other Australian orchestras, but the suppleness and coherence of its textures are as persuasive as ever.

Israeli soldiers had taken Mohammed Ibrahim from his home in a night raid when he was only 15 years old

A 16-year-old American citizen was freed on Thursday after spending nine months in an Israeli prison.

Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian-American teenager from Florida whose case was first exposed by the Guardian in July, was released following a guilty plea and suspended sentence, according to his family. Relatives said he was taken to a hospital for intravenous therapy and blood work immediately after his release, and noted he is severely underweight, pale and is still suffering from scabies contracted during his detention. Ibrahim had lost a quarter of his body weight in detention, his family said.

• Leader lost valuable points after disqualification

• McLaren team insist did not take ‘excessive risk’

Lando Norris has insisted nothing has changed in terms of his focus on sealing his first Formula One world championship after both he and his McLaren teammate were disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a result which catapulted Red Bull’s Max Verstappen back into contention for the title. McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella however has denied the team took “excessive risks” with their car in Las Vegas.

The race in Nevada last weekend was won by Verstappen but Norris took a strong second and Piastri fourth. However, four hours afterwards, following an investigation by the FIA, both were disqualified after the skid blocks on the floor of their cars were found to have been worn down below the 9mm limit defined in the rules.

The Canadian electroclash icon on No Lube So Rude, her first album in a decade, the state of global politics, the ‘punk energy’ of the older generation and her love of ping-pong

Why is your forthcoming album your first in over a decade and who is/are the “you” in comeback single Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business? k4ren123
I’ve been very busy – touring, working with dance troupes, performance art, sculptures, playing the lead role in a production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins in Stuttgart, and on and on. Then, finally, I started on new music. The “you” in the single are people who feel they have the right to have autonomy over other people’s bodies and make it unsafe for people to be who they want to be. I’m especially talking about queer and mostly trans rights. The song’s like a mantra or chant, a way to empower people in only a few sentences.

As a fan of your concert costume design as much as your music, what can we expect from the upcoming tour? Kelechica
I was thinking about sustainability and went to a costume sale at the Berlin opera and bought a bunch of opera costumes. I’m working with Charlie Le Mindu, who is transforming them into weird new creations. In the video for Not in Your Mouth, I’m wearing my sister’s leather jacket. It’s just been the fifth anniversary of her passing, and I wanted to keep something of her, so I kept her leather jacket that she wore the crap out of since the 90s. So, in a way, she’ll be in the show.

She left Silicon Valley to master pie, became Hollywood’s baker and now films its healing power

Thanksgiving may be a holiday steeped in myth and controversy – but there’s still something Americans largely agree on: there’s nothing wrong with the holiday’s traditional dessert. So says Beth Howard, expert pie maker, cookbook author, memoirist, and now documentary film-maker.

“No matter what, pie brings us together. Pie is love,” says Howard, who never tires of talking about anything with a flaky crust and filling. She’s spent the last few months at community screenings – over 100 and counting – of her new documentary – Pieowa – that’s Pie + Iowa (her home state). The film chronicles the history of pie and how it brings people together. It’s full of church ladies, blue ribbon winners, home bakers, expert pie makers and cyclists, which is where Iowa comes in.

Pieowa is now screening in Iowa and across the US, find out more info at https://theworldneedsmorepie.com/pieowa/

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plus approximately 1/2 cup more for rolling)

1/2 cup butter, chilled

1/2 cup vegetable shortening or lard

1/2 tsp salt

Ice water (fill one cup but use only enough to moisten dough)

3lbs Granny Smith apples, peeled (approx. 7 or 8 apples depending on size)

*It’s also okay to use a variety of apples. Try Braeburn, Jonathan and Gala. Avoid Fuji or Delicious as they’re too juicy and not tart enough.

3/4 cup sugar (or more, depending on your taste or tartness of apples)

4 tablespoons flour (to thicken the filling)

1/2 teaspoon salt (you’ll sprinkle this on so don’t worry about precise amount)

1 to 2 teaspoons cinnamon (or however much you like)

1 tablespoon butter (put dollop on top before covering with top crust)

1 beaten egg (you won’t use all of it, just enough to brush on pie before baking)

In his new book The World in a Phrase, author James Geary shares aphorisms from David Byrne, James Baldwin and more that speak to the modern day

When it comes to aphorisms, the biggest hits are familiar: “a penny saved is a penny earned”, “a picture is worth 1,000 words”, the one about why teaching fishing is better than fish donations. These phrases have been around so long they can feel as old as language itself.

But aphorisms aren’t just historical artifacts. People regularly come up with new ones, and even if they haven’t come from the pen of Confucius or Emily Dickinson, they can shed light on the modern human experience with just a few words. In fact, “the aphorism is, in some ways, perfectly suited to the digital age: the oldest form of literature finds its ideal vehicle in the most modern short modes of communication,” writes James Geary in The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism.

Andy Serkis revels in his narration of the first murder mystery from the author of This Is Going to Hurt, which showcases Kay’s signature pitch-black humour

Dr Eitan Rose is stark naked in a gay sauna when he is called upon to perform CPR on an elderly man and fellow patron who is having a heart attack. When arriving paramedics ask Eitan for his details, he declines to give his real name, instead giving them the name of his work supervisor and nemesis, Douglas Moran. Eitan is a hard-partying consultant rheumatologist who has just returned to work after several months off following a mental health crisis, and who uses liquid cocaine secreted into a nasal inhaler to get through the working day.

When Moran dies in unexpected circumstances, Eitan suspects foul play and sets about finding the culprit. Soon he is performing illicit postmortems and impersonating a police detective so he can cross-examine a suspect. But when he tries to blow the whistle, his colleagues and the police decline to take his claims seriously. Eitan may work among medical professionals, but they are not above stigmatising a colleague diagnosed with bipolar disorder and taking his outlandish claims as evidence of his instability.

Don’t panic if you’ve left it late to plan your gathering – follow these tips for whipping up an instant party atmosphere

At this time of year, when there’s enough going on to make the most vivacious person occasionally look forward to the financial and social drought of January, it’s all too easy to forget things. I cannot be the only person who’s ever been shocked back into consciousness at my desk by a message from a friend asking, “What time do you want us later?” Fear not; whether you’re absent minded, or just prone to last-minute invitations, I have your back.

Firstly, and I cannot stress this enough, whether you’ve been planning for a year or 15 minutes, the best parties are the simplest. All anyone is hoping for is a good chat, something to drink, and enough to eat that they don’t feel like gnawing an arm off on the bus home. Unless you’re Jay Gatsby, no one expects a full bar, Michelin-starred catering or a live band.

That said, a theme is helpful for disguising the fact you’ve just thrown this thing together on the way home from work … And by theme, I mean something like, for instance, Christmas. Getting slightly more specific (Scandinavian Christmas, say, with glögg, spiced punch, smoked fish and rye crackers, Nordic beats playlist; or Mexican Christmas, with ponche navideño, cold beers or margaritas, and heaps of tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole, and Luis Miguel on the stereo) will focus your options on the inevitable supermarket sweep.

(London)
The delicate experimentation of the band’s debut may not have chimed with the post-punk 1980s, but its durability makes this deluxe reissue thoroughly deserved

The Durutti Column’s debut album does not have an auspicious origin story. The band whose name it bore had split acrimoniously just before they were supposed to record it. Their guitarist Vini Reilly was so poleaxed by depression that he was virtually unable to leave his house: 12 different attempts were made to section him over the course of 1979. Believing that Reilly was “going to die”, Factory Records boss Tony Wilson intervened, buying him a new guitar, then suggested he visit a studio with the label’s troubled but visionary producer Martin Hannett as “an experiment”. The sessions were a disaster. Hannett ignored Reilly in favour of tinkering with a vast amount of cutting-edge electronic equipment he had brought with him. Reilly fitfully played something on the guitar, but eventually stormed out with the words: “I’m fucking sick of this.” He did not return.

Unaware that he was making an album, Reilly was “mortified” when Hannett handed over a finished product, and “absolutely hated” what he heard. The solitary upside, as he saw it, was his sense that it would never find a wider audience. The music on 1980’s The Return of the Durutti Column bore no relation to the workmanlike post-punk that the original band had contributed to the label’s compilation EP A Factory Sample, put together the previous year. (Although Reilly thought they were “complete and total rubbish”, too.) Grasping for comparisons, the music press likened it to the atmospheric jazz of the German label ECM and Reilly’s guitar playing to that of Mike Oldfield and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia – neither of them having much musical cachet in the post-punk world of 1980. Even a positive review in the NME suggested listeners would consider The Return of the Durutti Column “hippy noodling”.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, worked with agency-backed military units during US war in Afghanistan

The suspected shooter of two national guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday worked with CIA-backed military units during the US war in Afghanistan, the agency has confirmed.

The alleged gunman, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, came to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program that gave some Afghans who had worked for the US government entry visas to the US.

Raúl Rocha Cantú is under investigation for drug, gun and fuel trafficking while Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip is accused of fraud

This year’s edition of Miss Universe, with its onstage injuries, dramatic walkouts and allegations of vote rigging, was already one for the ages.

But it turns out the drama had barely begun: just days after Fátima Bosch was crowned Miss Universe in Thailand, the co-owners of the organisation are both facing arrest warrants.

Senior figure allegedly referred to customers buying ‘highly processed food’ and denigrated Indian employees

• Business live – latest updates

Campbell’s has dismissed an executive who allegedly referred to the soup company’s products as being made for “poor people” and denigrated its Indian employees.

Martin Bally, who was the vice-president of Campbell’s information technology department, was recorded making the alleged comments by another employee.

• Warriors star exits late in loss with bruised quad

• Team says MRI will determine severity of injury

Stephen Curry limped away from the bench late in Golden State’s 104-100 loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night after bruising his right quadriceps.

He will undergo an MRI exam on the injury to determine his status.

In some of the country’s poorest, driest areas, people rely on water contaminated with arsenic 60 times over safe limits, causing crippling illnesses in families

It’s a cloudy winter’s day in El Chañaral, an old Indigenous Wichi community now inhabited only by the Bustamante family. It lies nine miles from San José del Boquerón and near Piruaj Bajo, in Argentina’s northern Copo department.

As Batista Bustamante and Lidia Cuellar drink mate tea, their seven-year-old daughter, Marcela, climbs on to her purple bicycle and heads into the scrubland. She reaches a reservoir – a puddle of greenish-brown water – and pulls a pink pair of scissors from her pocket, which she drives into the earth to extract chunks of mud.

Parliament delays debate over law defining sex without consent as rape, after comments by far-right deputy PM

Italy’s parliament has delayed a debate over a landmark law that would define sex without consent as rape amid a rift within the ruling coalition.

The measure, the result of a rare pact between the far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her main political opponent, the centre-left leader, Elly Schlein, passed in the lower house last week and had been expected to get final approval in the senate this week.

As L’Atalante is re-released, we count down the best movies set largely on ships, boats, barges, yachts, steamers and trimarans. Submarines banned, as they’re under water

Stephen Sommers’ sci-fi horror pulp follows a bunch of scene-stealing character actors playing mercenaries hired to destroy the cruise ship Argonautica for insurance purposes. But a giant mutant octopus has got there first! Among the potential cephalopod fodder are Treat Williams, Kevin J O’Connor, and Famke Janssen as a jewel thief.

US president’s threat to seize territory prompts intelligence briefings reminiscent of Game of Thrones patrol

The Danish government has set up a “night watch” in the foreign ministry, not to keep out the wildlings and White Walkers like the Night’s Watch of Game of Thrones, but rather to monitor Donald Trump’s pronouncements and movements while Copenhagen sleeps.

The night watch starts at 5pm local time each day and at 7am a report is produced and distributed around the Danish government and relevant departments about what was said and took place, the Politiken newspaper reported.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Dining at 3pm allows for an ideal holiday schedule. Let’s retire the term ‘dinner’ from our Thanksgiving lexicon

Without question, my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I relish the opportunity to appreciate all the wonderful things about life. I also love that it is simultaneously a holiday all about complaints, criticism and arguments. Every holiday should contain such multitudes. I might be feeling grateful for my blessings while also wishing the gravy had more salt in it. There’s something uniquely American about turning a holiday that’s meant to be a joyous celebration of abundance into a chance to vehemently disagree about something trivial.

Of course, I love arguing about trivial things. In fact, that might be what I’m most grateful for. Thanksgiving traditions are fertile ground for arguments. What to eat and, even more crucially, when to eat. Every year, someone in your life – a family member, friend, know-it-all writer – will tell you they have settled the eternal debate about when to commence Thanksgiving dinner. Some (wrong) people think the word “dinner” should be taken literally, in the American sense. These strict constitutionalists can see no nuance in the holiday traditions and believe (falsely) that the meal should begin between 5pm and 7pm, when it’s properly dark outside.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Advocates allege navy knew levels of airborne plutonium at Hunters Point shipyard were high before it alerted officials

The US navy knew of potentially dangerous levels of airborne plutonium in San Francisco for almost a year before it alerted city officials after it carried out testing that detected radioactive material in November last year, public health advocates allege.

The plutonium levels exceeded the federal action threshold at the navy’s highly contaminated, 866-acre Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. It was detected in an area adjacent to a residential neighborhood filled with condos, and which includes a public park.

Beyond Black Friday, there’s much to enjoy about the American holiday – think succulent smoked birds, sumptuous stuffings and perfect pumpkin pies

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

It’s easy to be cynical about Thanksgiving. The origin story that we’re all told – of a friendly exchange of food between the pilgrims and the Native Americans – is, at best, a whitewashed oversimplification. And then there’s Black Friday, an event that has hijacked one of our few non-commercialised holidays and used it as the impetus for a stressful, shameless, consumerist frenzy.

Besides that, Thanksgiving is meant to be a celebration of American abundance and, boy, does that feel inappropriate at the moment. It sucks to be an American right now. It’s hard to feel gratitude for a country that’s an out-of-control dumpster fire stoked by an ogre of a man who treats the global economy like a game of Monopoly and orders his steaks well done (and with ketchup).

Arsenal rout Bayern to stake a claim as Europe’s best, Liverpool spiral again, Benfica revive under Mourinho, and Estevão dazzles on a crowded week of stars

• Bayern Munich’s unbeaten run and claim to be the best team in European football were both punctured at the Emirates. Arsenalwere rampant against an opponent who have handed them so much pain in the past. The Gunners opened the scoring through their habitual set-piece goal, Jurriën Timber fulfilling the role of the absent Gabriel Magalhães. Lennart Karl, the 17-year-old, showed off his chops with a fine goal; from within Bayern have found the player they desired when they were thwarted in moving for Florian Wirtz. After that, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze took control in midfield, Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli scoring the goals, the latter a humiliation of Manuel Neuer’s sweeper-keeper stylings. Amid the fug of the extended Champions League group-stage format, where matches between elite clubs are routine rather than novelty, this was still a statement victory. “I think they had an incredible match against, in my opinion, the best team in Europe,” Mikel Arteta said of his players. That status surely now lies with his team: Arsenal top the group-stage table with a 100% record.

Idiotic US war secretary Pete Hegseth launches an attack on a turkey-based festivity in frustration at his inability to outsmart a buffoonish police detective. A wild season finale looms

Tonight’s South Park is something of a breather in what has been their most story-driven season (or seasons, as it turned out) ever. There is some advancement to the overriding plot of Donald Trump attempting to kill the unborn baby he’s expecting with his lover, Satan, before it can unleash the prophesied apocalypse – a plot that involves master manipulator (and new Trump sex partner) JD Vance and billionaire/self-proclaimed antichrist expert Peter Thiel (recently incarcerated by South Park’s finest for kidnapping Eric Cartman). But tonight’s instalment, Turkey Trot, focuses more on the goings-on in the titular town than in Washington DC.

As Thanksgiving approaches, South Park finds its annual holiday marathon in jeopardy. None of its regular sponsors – Stan Marsh’s Tegridy Weed Farms, recently shuttered, and City Asian Popup Store, beset by high tariffs – can afford to pay for it. Desperate for a solution, the town reaches out to the one entity that has plenty of money to spend in America: the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

• Retired rider to work closely with head of sport Brailsford

• ‘This team has been my home since day one,’ says Thomas

Geraint Thomas has been appointed as the new director of racing at Ineos Grenadiers, a few weeks after retiring from competition at this year’s Tour of Britain. “This team has been my home since day one, and stepping into this role feels like a natural next step,” Thomas said.

The move by Thomas, who won the Tour de France in 2018, has been long-expected and comes after a major management reshuffle at Ineos Grenadiers, under which the sports directors Zak Dempster and Oli Cookson moved to the revamped Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team.