Hong Kong fire latest: rescue crews search for survivors after 55 killed and hundreds reported missing

Three men arrested as 26 rescue teams on site at Wang Fuk Court residential apartment complex in Tai Po district. Follow the latest updates live

• Report: death toll rises as hundreds reported missing

• What we know so far about the blaze

• Bamboo scaffolding may be to blame for spread of fire

• A visual guide to the fire

The death toll has risen again to 44, fire officials say.

Officials said they are still having difficulties proceeding into the upper floors in some of the buildings in the residential complex as the fire continues.

Net migration to UK drops 69% year on year, ONS says

Figure of 204,000 in 12 months to June 2025 is lowest since 2021, statistics body says

• UK politics live – latest updates

Net migration to the UK was an estimated 204,000 in the 12 months to June 2025, down 69% year on year and the lowest annual figure since 2021, the Office for National Statistics said.

Net migration – the difference between the number of people moving long-term to the country and the number of people leaving – has been on a downwards trend for the past two years.

OBR chair says he will resign over budget mistake if Reeves and MPs no longer have confidence in him – UK politics live

Richard Hughes says he is prepared to quit over mistake that saw budget forecasts published ahead of the budget

• Ask the Guardian your budget questions

• Budget calculator: find out if you are better or worse off

The Conservative party is attacking the budget on the grounds that Rachel Reeves is putting up taxes supposedly to fund more spending on benefit claimants. Even though the rationale for this claim is questionable, the Tories were making it before the budget was announced, and Kemi Badenoch firmed it up last night, claiming it was a “Benefits Street budget”.

On LBC this morning, asked if the budget meant “alarm clock Britain paying for Benefits Street”, Reeves said she did not accept that. She said 60% of the families that would benefit from the removal of the two-child benefit cap (the most expensive welfare announcement in the budget) were in work.

I don’t think children should be punished by this pernicious policy any longer. And the cost to society of this is huge, the cost for councils of temporary accommodation, when people can no longer afford the rent, putting families in B&Bs, kids having to move to school all the time because parents have moved from B&B to another lot of temporary accommodation, and there’s costs for years to come, because all the evidence shows that kids that are growing up poor are less likely to get into work and more reliant on the welfare state in the future for them.

So this is a good investment in those kids, to give them the chances that I want for my kids, and everyone wants for their kids. It also saves money for taxpayers on that accommodation, on those additional health costs, and ensuring that those kids grow up to be productive adults.

‘It was no longer a gift for my husband. It was all for me’: four women on how boudoir photography changed their lives

Now a hugely popular photographic genre, many women pay thousands to have intimate portraits taken of themselves by a professional. What do they get out of it?

A few hours into Brittany Witt’s boudoir shoot, with the mimosas kicking in and the music going strong, the photographer asked: “How do we feel about some completely nude photos?” Witt was lying on the bed in lingerie, in a studio in Texas, and hadn’t considered nudity an option. “I was like: ‘OK, we’re on this trust path.’” She undressed. The photographer, JoAnna Moore, covered Witt with body oil and squirted her with water, then asked her “to crawl across the floor with my full trust,” Witt says. “I did so. The pose was nude, and it was completely open. I wasn’t covered with a sheet. It was all out, it was all open, and it brought that worst level of self-doubt. I was terrified.”

Witt, 33, has come to see that terror as an important part of her experience. She used to be a competitive weightlifter. “I had a very masculine aura. I showed up in strength,” she says. At school and work – in the construction side of the oil and gas industry – she was “type A – scheduler, planner, had everything together, kind of led the group”. A turbulent home life when she was growing up led her to develop robust protection mechanisms which, in adulthood, acted as a block to relationships – issues she had been addressing with a life coach. But in that moment, on all-fours in Moore’s studio: “I felt those protections stripped away. There was nothing to hide behind, literally, figuratively.”

‘Stay tuned’: new Anne Rice film could foretell release of unpublished work by late author

Documentary series of Interview with the Vampire writer available to stream with potential for further releases

The worst heartbreak and most riveting triumph of Anne Rice’s life happened in relatively quick succession, each beginning when the US novelist’s daughter – Michele, then about three – told her she was too tired to play.

Rice had never heard such a comment from a child that age, and subsequent blood tests ordered by a doctor revealed that her beloved “Mouse” had acute granulocytic leukemia, considered untreatable for her.

The Super Bowl Shuffle at 40: how a goofy rap classic boosted the Bears’ title run

A new documentary charts how a song that featured a 335lb rapper and bad dancing went viral in the pre-internet era

The Chicago Bears are 8-3 and soaring in this season’s NFL standings. For a fanbase that’s grown accustomed to looking up at the division rival Green Bay Packers and looking ahead to the next season’s prospects, it’s reason to smell the roses and indulge in some light strutting. But even as fans find themselves looking forward to the Bears’ first playoff berth in five years, something that once seemed unthinkable with a second-year quarterback and a rookie head coaching helming a squad that managed only five wins last year, no fan is thinking the 2025 Bears have a Super Bowl run in them – not without a rap song to lay the marker down.

Before the 1985 edition of the Bears romped to victory in Super Bowl XX, they tempted fate by recording The Super Bowl Shuffle. Although the song only peaked at 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the accompanying video came to rival Michael Jackson’s Thriller for popularity as it popped up endlessly on TV during the Bears’ title run. “The Super Bowl Shuffle went viral in an age where there was no viral existence like we know it today,” the song’s recording engineer, Fred Breitberg, says. “It was a phenomenal entity as well as being a good record.”

What's open and closed on Thanksgiving? Here's what to know.

Shoppers will need to plan ahead as some grocery stores and retailers will be closed on Thanksgiving or have reduced hours.

This artist designs intricate suits of armor. The intended wearer? A humble mouse

Jeff de Boer has made an entire career out of crafting tiny plate armor. He's compelled by the idea of the underdog finding an edge; something so small being so well-protected.

Mamdani and Trump made nice. NYC immigrants are still on edge.

The incoming Mayor of New York City has had a volatile relationship with President Trump. They recently had a surprisingly cordial meeting. New Yorkers say they are still feeling on edge.

South Africa hits back at ‘punitive’ Trump move to bar it from G20 meeting in Florida

Diplomatic row worsens after US president says member state will not be invited to 2026 summit

Donald Trump has said that South Africa will not be invited to G20 events in the United States when it presides over the forum next year, a measure the African nation described as “punitive”.

The US president repeated widely discredited claims that South Africa is “killing white people”, extending a diplomatic row between the countries after the US boycotted the summit in Johannesburg last weekend.

England plan extra training sessions in wake of howling first Ashes Test defeat

• McCullum books extra time in nets before second Test

• Australian captain Cummins may return from injury

A week of inactivity for England’s cricketers will end on Saturday following confirmation of additional training sessions having been scheduled in the wake of their howling eight-wicket defeat to Australia in the first Ashes Test.

As reported by the Guardian on Monday, head coach Brendon McCullum has booked extra time in the nets ahead of the day-night second Test that starts in Brisbane on 4 December rather than send any first team players to the two-day England Lions match in Canberra this weekend.

Luigi: The Making and the Meaning by John H Richardson review – sympathy for a devil?

This nebulous study of Luigi Mangione veers close to romanticising him as a latter-day Robin Hood

On 5 December 2024, the New York Times ran the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The newspaper then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both cold and shocking. But many Americans had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcase costs, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One post read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company designed to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.

Netflix crashes within minutes of releasing Stranger Things series five

Viewers unable to watch episodes of long-awaited final series on TV when the streaming service briefly froze

When Netflix crashed within minutes of releasing Stranger Things series five, it felt like a plot twist worthy of the sci-fi show itself.

Viewers were left unable to stream the opening episodes of the long-awaited final series, with many voicing their frustration on social media platforms.

You be the judge: should my partner stop compressing the coffee in the moka pot?

Hamad thinks his method enhances the flavour. Lucia says he’s breaking all the sacred rules. Who needs to wake up and smell the coffee?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Hamad’s method isn’t the way it’s supposed to be done. I’m Italian – I know all about good coffee

Pressing down the grounds improves the flavour. Lucia is just being a coffee snob

Troll 2 review – mythical Scandi-kaiju runs amok in mayhem-filled mockbuster

An enraged behemoth breaks free from a government black site bent on revenge, but there is not much here aside from some monster action

‘We’re going to need more wallpaper” turns out to be the Nordic answer to “We’re going to need a bigger boat”, after a 50-metre troll has just swept a leg through someone’s soon-to-be-renovated house. When the quips revolve around interior design, you know Norwegian big-budget film-making is taking a softer path than its raucous American inspirations.

This is a Netflix sequel to Norwegian horror comedy Troll with the original director Roar Uthaug returning, and home is clearly a theme dear to the franchise’s heart. The first film’s Scandi-kaiju was returning to its roots, on a mission to trash Oslo. But the new “megatroll” – looking like Danny McBride in the throes of a full-body fungal infection – is headed for Trondheim, bent on revenging itself on the nation’s founding father and chief troll-scourge, King Olaf. Trollogist Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann) and ministerial adviser Andreas (Kim Falck) return, again trying to hold the authorities back from simply lighting up the enraged behemoth after it escapes from a government black site.

Week in wildlife: seal pups, albino turtles and a sleeping tiger

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

11/26: CBS Evening News

2 National Guard members shot in targeted D.C. attack, officials say; Man donates kidney to 9-year-old stranger and hopes it encourages other to do the same

God, gears and gun jewellery: Route 1 revisited – in pictures

Anastasia Samoylova took a photographic journey up the US east coast – and found herself in America’s unreconciled past just as much as its fragmented present

How many women are in prison and on death row around the world? – in charts

While fewer women than men are incarcerated, their numbers are rising faster and most often for non-violent offences

• Experts warn of ‘global crisis’ as number of women in prison nears one million

More than 733,000 women and girls are held in penal institutions globally, according to the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, either as pre-trial detainees or remand prisoners, or having been convicted and sentenced. The actual total is thought to be much higher, as figures for five countries are not available and those for China are incomplete.

Experts warn of ‘global crisis’ as number of women in prison nears one million

Number of women incarcerated around the world rising at nearly three times the rate of men, with female prisoners often subjected to sexual violence and forced labour

• Explainer: How many women are in prison and on death row around the world? – in charts

Up to a million women worldwide are facing sexual violence and forced labour in prisons, where they are overlooked and forgotten, in what is being called a growing global crisis.

The number of incarcerated women is rising much faster than men and is expected to surpass one million on current trends. While on average women account for between 2% and 9% of national prison populations, since 2000 the number imprisoned has grown by 57%, compared with a 22% increase in the men’s prison population.

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly review – horror, humanity and Dr Asperger

The reader grapples with fascism and complicity through the eyes of a mute autistic girl being treated during the second world war

As I started reading Alice Jolly’s new novel, whose narrator is a mute autistic girl in wartime Vienna, I realised that I was resisting its very premise. I am generally sceptical about books that use child narrators to add poignancy to dark plots, or novels that use nazism as a means of introducing moral jeopardy to their characters’ journeys. And yet by the end Jolly had won me over. This is a book that walks a tightrope between sentimentality and honesty, between realism and imagination, and creates something spirited and memorable as it does so.

We meet our fierce narrator, Adelheid Brunner, when she is brought into a children’s hospital by her grandmother, who cannot cope with the little girl’s fixations. Adelheid is obsessed with the matchboxes of the title, which she is constantly studying, ordering and occasionally discarding. In the hospital, she finds that she and her fellow child inmates are the object of obsessive study in turn by their doctors – sometimes understood, sometimes valued, and then, tragically, sometimes discarded.

England deserve a tide of goodwill, yet somehow Jude Bellingham is still a target | Jonathan Liew

It’s hard to disagree with Ian Wright when he suggests the midfielder has been subjected to a timeworn double standard

Sir Alex Ferguson was there. Bryan Robson was there. Eric Cantona was there. The manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær was there, and yet even as these four club legends sold the dream of Manchester United to a 17-year-old from the Midlands, they could sense the elusiveness, the coldness, the drop of the shoulder. The nagging suspicion that, like so many defenders Jude Bellingham would later encounter, they too were grasping at pure air.

“He had it planned out,” Solskjær would later remember. “He knew what he wanted. X amount of minutes in the first team. The most mature 17‑year‑old I’ve ever met in my life.” Though five years have passed since Bellingham turned down United for Borussia Dortmund, for me this is still the story that explains him best of all. The origin myth. This is what you all think I’m going to do. So I’m going to step that way instead.

Molly McCann: ‘I’m a scouse female gay athlete who supports Everton – it’s like my cards are marked already’

Britain’s most successful female UFC fighter on knowing when to stand her ground, why she won’t box in Saudi Arabia and aiming to win a world title in the next year

“I give my hidings and I take my hidings and so they have seen me with snapped ligaments in my knee, broken feet, broken toes, broken hands, stitches, broken legs,” Molly McCann says of the damage she has endured as a fighter and the impact it has had on her mum and her partner, Fran Parman. “It’s traumatic for Fran and even more traumatic for my mum. I’m 35 and I’ve been in the gym since I was 12. I had my first fight at 16. I’ve spent most of my life fighting.”

McCann boxed as a teenager and she won an ABA title. But, at a time when women’s boxing was still undermined, she turned to mixed martial arts and eventually became the most successful female British fighter in the UFC. McCann retired in March after 14 savage UFC bouts; but, within days, she became a professional boxer. On Saturday night she will have her second contest in boxing’s paid ranks.

‘The whole journey was fantastic’: how Bob Houghton led Malmö to European Cup final

Englishman was not an obvious candidate to lead them but Swedes pushed Nottingham Forest all the way in 1979

Early in the 1979 European Cup final, Kenny Burns misjudged a long ball and ended up lobbing it up in the air for Jan-Olov Kindvall. He, in turn, attempted to knock the dropping ball over Peter Shilton but the goalkeeper was not as close as he had perhaps anticipated and Shilton ended up catching it simply. The chance was gone and, with it, Malmö’s hopes of beating Nottingham Forest.

“I had quite a good chance to score and then they were the better team,” says Kindvall. “But maybe if we had got the first goal, maybe we had a chance. We were very good when we didn’t have the ball ourselves. We had good organisation in the defence. And Forest were very good without the ball as well. It was more difficult for us to play against a team who were more like our team. We played the English way.”

2 National Guard members shot in D.C., suspect in custody, officials say

Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot a few blocks from the White House in Washington, D.C., and a suspect is in custody, identified as an Afghan national.

Suspect in National Guard shooting identified as Afghan national. Here's what we know.

A 29-year-old Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal has been identified as the suspected shooter in the ambush that wounded two National Guard troops in D.C., officials say.

‘Struggling to pay the bills’: Britons under pressure react to budget 2025

As they struggle with the cost of living, people weigh up whether Rachel Reeves’s measures will help them

• What the budget means for people on a range of incomes

• Budget calculator: find out if you are better or worse off

For Brett and Maria MacDonald, the cost of living has been biting this year, from rising mortgage payments to childcare fees. Living in London with two young children and no extended family nearby, the pair are juggling work with parenting.

Rachel Reeves’s budget has inflamed, not calmed, Britain’s febrile mood | Martin Kettle

The chancellor’s statement will be remembered for the many taxes it raised, rather than the big one – income tax – it did not

Rachel Reeves’s chancellorship was already balanced on a knife-edge, even before the 2025 budget. After she delivered her second budget statement, it still is. Even more than usual, Wednesday’s speech was full of significant fiscal changes, altered spending commitments and adjusted economic forecasts, most of them accidentally (and, for journalists, conveniently) released a short while in advance by the obviously misnamed Office for Budget Responsibility. Politically, however, almost nothing has changed at all.

Reeves arrived in the Treasury last year offering what she, like Keir Starmer, had promised as the Conservative years ebbed: competence, stability and, above all, a focus on economic growth. Her problem, despite her upbeat assessments, is that she has delivered none of them. Nothing about the 2025 budget guarantees any early change in that, however defiantly Reeves spoke about reversing the OBR’s reduced new growth and productivity forecasts.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

National Guard shooting: Trump says US should ‘re-examine’ all Afghan refugees after suspect named

President calls the shooting in Washington an ‘act of terror’, as officials name Rahmanullah Lakanwal as suspected shooter

Donald Trump has called for his government to re-examine every Afghan immigrant who entered the US during Joe Biden’s administration, after law enforcement officials identified the suspect in the shooting of two national guard members in Washington as a man from Afghanistan.

A statement from the Department of Homeland Security named the suspect asRahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the US under a Biden-era policy allowing Afghans set up after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Immigration authorities granted Lakanwal asylum earlier this year, according to CNN.

St Vincent prime minister seeks record sixth term in tight election

Ralph Gonsalves campaigns on strong economy in bid to retain office he has held since 2001

Voters in St Vincent and the Grenadines will go to the polls on Thursday with Ralph Gonsalves seeking a record sixth consecutive term as prime minister.

The elections are expected to be a tight contest between the ruling Unity Labour party, which has been in power since 2001, and the opposition New Democratic party. In the last election, ULP won nine of 15 seats, but the NDP won the popular vote.

Pope Leo to visit Turkey and Lebanon on first overseas trip as pontiff

Vatican says ‘demanding’ six-day mission will be packed with meetings with political and religious leaders

Pope Leo will make his debut overseas trip as leader of the Catholic church on Thursday, travelling on a six-day mission of peace and unity to Turkey and Lebanon in what the Vatican said was expected to be a “demanding” schedule packed with meetings with political and religious leaders amid heightened Middle East tensions.

In Turkey, a country with a Muslim majority and home to an estimated 36,000 Catholics, the Chicago-born pontiff, who was elected in May, will first meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara.

Inside the rise and fall of Podemos: ‘We believed we had a stake in the future’

The leftist party exploded out of Spain’s anti-austerity protests in 2011 and upended Spain’s entrenched two-party system. I was instantly captivated – and for the next decade, I worked for the party. But I ended up quitting politics in disappointment. What happened?

• This article originally appeared in Equator, a new magazine of politics, culture and art

I never expected to retire in my 30s, but I suppose politics is the art of the impossible: what it promises, what it extracts. A decade at the heart of Spain’s boldest modern political experiment aged me in ways I’ve only just begun to fathom.

In May 2014, just four months after it was founded, the leftwing Spanish party Podemos (“We Can”) won five seats in the European parliament. As a recent university graduate who had been part of a local Podemos group (or círculo, as they were known) in Paris, I was hired to work for these MEPs. We arrived in Brussels as complete tyros and had to learn everything on the job. But we were motivated by the promise of doing what we used to call “real politics” – that is to say, not the internal power struggles and ideological weather patterns of the movement (which were always abundant), but the actual issues, such as gender discrimination and unemployment.

‘It crushed my confidence. I’ve never got over it’: Karen Carney on online abuse – and how Strictly is rebuilding her

She’s the emerging star of this year’s dance show, wowing judges with her paso doble. The pundit and former footballer talks about gentleness, bullying, her love of the Lionesses and why she’s never been so happy

The qualities that made Karen Carney an unstoppable winger on the football pitch – her speed and attack, and the sheer relentlessness of both – are more of a hindrance in the ballroom, for some of the dances at least. As the emerging star of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, she has had to learn to slow down, stand up straighter, to be softer, and it’s taken a lot of hard work. On week eight, she had just performed the American Smooth, and her pro partner Carlos Gu was tearfully describing Carney’s work ethic. Who could watch her trying to hold back her own tears, chewing on emotion like a particularly tough bit of gristle, and fail to see a woman who was giving it everything?

It was Carney’s dream to be on Strictly. The former England footballer, now TV pundit and podcaster, has just made it through week nine, performing an astonishing paso doble at the all-important Blackpool week, and something will have gone very wrong if she doesn’t reach the final. The show has been struggling this year – a man described as a Strictly “star” was reportedly arrested in October on suspicion of rape last year, and the announcement from its longtime hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman that this will be their final series has been destabilising. But Carney says that for her, it has been an overwhelmingly positive time. “There’s a team spirit within the cast. Behind [the scenes], the team can’t do enough for you to have the best experience.”

The eternal mystery of the Tootsie Pop

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? That's not the only mystery surrounding Tootsie Roll Industries. Correspondent Nancy Giles travels the country, trying to unwrap the classic Tootsie Roll.

Large bull shark kills woman and injures man in attack at NSW beach

Swimmers aged in their 20s bitten by shark at Kylies beach in Crowdy Bay early on Thursday morning, with woman dying at the scene

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A woman has died after a “large bull shark” attacked her and a man on the New South Wales mid-north coast at Kylies beach.

The pair, both aged in their 20s, were swimming together at the beach at Crowdy Bay on Thursday morning when they were bitten, police said.

The century-old mystery of the Lusitania

Beneath the waves off the Irish coast, the remains of a luxury liner rest on the ocean floor. The Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo during World War I, killing nearly 1,200 people. But details surrounding the ship's demise remain murky. Martha Teichner re-examines the deadly catastrophe.

On the Trail: Crater Lake's Old Man

Conor Knighton ran into quite a mystery at his latest stop on his tour of America's National Parks. At Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, he discovered a special piece of wood that has stumped visitors and park staff alike.

The rewriting of Australia’s nature laws comes as a relief, yet I can’t help feel a sense of foreboding | Georgina Woods

The minister says quick approvals can happen while protecting the environment, but my experience tells me that haste brings unintended consequences

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I got a text from a biodiversity advocate around midday on Thursday asking me: are you glad, or sad?

I wasn’t sure how to reply.

Jakarta overtakes Tokyo as world’s most populous city, according to UN

The rankings were changed after the UN used new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities

Jakarta has overtaken Tokyo as the world’s most populous city, according to a UN study that uses new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities.

The Indonesian capital is home to 42 million people, according to an estimate by the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its World Urbanisation Prospects 2025 report published this month.

How the Hong Kong fire unfolded – visual guide

Fire in densely packed group of 31-storey tower blocks that is home to thousands quickly spread via bamboo scaffolding

Dozens of people have died in a huge fire that engulfed several residential tower blocks in Hong Kong, home to thousands of people, on Wednesday afternoon. Many more are in a critical condition and hundreds remain missing, with the fire continuing to burn into Thursday morning.

The fire was first reported at 2.52pm on Wednesday, at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex in Tai Po, in the northern New Territories. The exact cause of the fire remains unknown, but officials say it started on the external scaffolding of Wang Cheong House, before spreading to seven of the eight buildings in the densely packed complex.

Trump reportedly urged Japan’s PM to avoid further escalations in dispute with China

The report comes after the Wall Street Journal claimed the US president told Sanae Takaichi to ‘dial down the volume’ in dispute over Taiwan

Donald Trump asked the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, to avoid further escalation in a dispute with China during a call this week, according to two Japanese government sources who spoke to the Reuters news agency.

Takaichi sparked the biggest diplomatic bust-up with Beijing in years when she told parliament earlier this month that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger Japanese military action.

Trump admin. sending 500 more Guard troops to D.C. after shooting, Hegseth says

The Trump administration plans to deploy another 500 members of the National Guard to the streets of Washington, D.C., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced, hours after two service members were shot.

Tom Phillips case: New Zealand to hold public inquiry into disappearance of fugitive father and children

Hearings will be held in private to assess ‘whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare of the Phillips children’, says attorney general

A public inquiry will be held into the authorities’ handling of the disappearance of fugitive father Tom Phillips with his three children, who hid in New Zealand’s wilderness for nearly four years, the government has announced.

Phillips disappeared into the rugged North Island wilderness with his children just before Christmas in 2021, following a dispute with their mother. He did not have legal custody of his children.

In August, he was killed in an exchange of fire with police after reports of a burglary in the remote town of Piopio, in the central North Island. A police officer was shot and required surgery.

Death row inmate with dementia dies of natural causes

A Utah man who was spared execution this fall after developing dementia during his 37 years on death row has died of apparent natural causes.

Stranger Things season five review – this luxurious final run will have you standing on a chair, yelling with joy

The kids growing up might have changed this show’s appeal, but they manage to go out in a flame-throwing, bullet-dodging blaze of glory – while still being more moving than ever before

Time’s up for Stranger Things. The fifth and last season arrives almost three-and-a-half years after a fourth run that felt like a finale, not least because it seemed the kids had grown up. Having originally aped beloved 1980s films where stubbornly brave children avert apocalypse, the franchise now starred young adults and had adjusted plotlines and dialogue accordingly. Life lessons had been learned. Selves had been found. Adolescent anxieties – as personified by Vecna, the narky telekinetic tree-man who rules a parallel dimension adjacent to the humdrum town of Hawkins, Indiana – had been put aside.

But Stranger Things now belatedly returns, with the cast all visibly in their 20s. This is a problem. The whole point is that it’s fun to watch kids outrun monsters by pedalling faster on their BMX bikes, or ignoring their mum calling them to dinner because they’re in the basement with their school pals, drawing up plans to bamboozle the US military using pencils, bubblegum and Dungeons & Dragons figurines. If everyone looks old enough to have a studio apartment and a stocks portfolio, none of the above really flies.

Why tariffs might make real Christmas trees more attractive this holiday season

The price of imported plastic Christmas trees is up, the majority of which are made in Asia and subject to tariffs introduced by President Trump earlier this year.

Man donates kidney to 9-year-old stranger and hopes it encourages other to do the same

Nick Kolor makes a living teaching people how to breathe underwater in the Florida Keys, but at 25 he decided to take an even bigger plunge helping one person to live through a kidney donation. Elaine Quijano has the story.

Maps show where storms threaten Thanksgiving travel across the U.S.

Two storm systems are forecast to bring rain, snow and powerful winds to various parts of the U.S. this week, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

Judges allow North Carolina to use House map drawn in bid to give GOP another seat

Federal judges have allowed North Carolina to use a redrawn congressional map designed to give Republicans an additional U.S. House seat.

Why tariffs might make real Christmas trees more attractive this year

With Thanksgiving coming, Christmas trees will soon be going up in homes all over America. Most artificial trees are made overseas, and the president's tariffs are making them more expensive. At the same time, prices of real trees are holding steady. Omar Villafranca reports.

Heavy snow snarls traffic in Midwest as millions take to the roads for Thanksgiving

Across the Midwest, the first snowstorm of the season came at the worst time for Thanksgiving travel. Heavy snow fell in parts of Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin -- as much as 17 inches in some places. Jonah Kaplan reports, and Rob Marciano has the forecast. Then, Kris Van Cleave has more on the millions of Americans traveling by car.

2 National Guard members shot in targeted D.C. attack, officials say

Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot and critically wounded while on duty in Washington, D.C. They were ambushed just blocks from the White House, and the suspect was taken into custody. Nicole Sganga has the latest.

Foreign interference or opportunistic grifting: why are so many pro-Trump X accounts based in Asia?

A new feature on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter allows users to see the location of other accounts. It has resulted in a firestorm of recriminations

When X rolled out a new feature revealing the locations of popular accounts, the company was acting to boost transparency and clamp down on disinformation. The result, however, has been a circular firing squad of recriminations, as users turn on each other enraged by the revelation that dozens of popular “America first” and pro-Trump accounts originated overseas.

The new feature was enabled over the weekend by X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, who called it the first step in “securing the integrity of the global town square.” Since then many high-engagement accounts that post incessantly about US politics have been “unmasked” by fellow users.

Declan Rice cranks up volume to show he is Europe’s best player right now | Nick Ames

The driving force behind the continent’s standout team resembled four players in one as Arsenal put their old nemesis Bayern Munich to the sword

Shortly before the goal that left Arsenal’s supremacy in no doubt, Harry Kane embarked upon a lonely jaunt up their left flank. Much like the majority of Bayern Munich’s attacking endeavours, it ended almost as soon as it had begun. In common with a sizeable percentage it was terminated by Declan Rice, who thundered in and took the ball cleanly with a hooked right foot to a cheer that rivalled the night’s loudest.

The Emirates Stadium crowd was always going to enjoy that one, as Rice knew full well. He responded in kind with a roar and an exhortation to the gallery, perhaps to his teammates too: keep it going, crank up that volume, let’s see this thing through. Rice is the best player in Europe right now and, with that, there are standards to drive.

AI can already do the work of 12% of America's workforce, MIT study says

AI is swiftly reshaping America's labor market, performing many technical and cognitive tasks across a range of industries, study says.

11/25: CBS Evening News

FBI opens probe into Democrats who urged military not to follow unlawful orders; Great Thanksgiving debate: Turkey or ham?

Workday shares sink on subscription revenue guidance concerns

Workday delivered turkey without the gravy, according to analysts at Evercore.

Young mother deported from Minnesota to Honduras without her infant

After being deported from Minnesota last week, a young mother says she's back in Honduras without her 8-month-old child.

Trump defends key negotiator after leaked phone call appears to show him coaching Russia

A transcript of the call appears to show Steve Witkoff coaching his Russian counterpart on how they could get a better deal to end the war in Ukraine

Campbell Soup exec made offensive remarks about customers, lawsuit claims

The food maker says the executive who allegedly mocked customers is no longer employed at Campbell's.

Campbell's fires executive who disparaged its food as for "poor people"

Campbell's said it has fired Martin Bally, an executive who allegedly said the company's products were for "poor people."

2 National Guard members in critical condition after 'targeted' attack in D.C., authorities say

President Trump said the suspected shooter came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021. The administration plans to send 500 more Guard personnel to the nation's capital in response to the attack.

Georgia court drops case against Trump and allies over 2020 election

President Trump and more than a dozen of his allies were charged with offenses in Georgia relating to the 2020 presidential election.

These 19 cooking pans could leach lead into your food, FDA warns

Consumers with the imported pans should throw them away due to the severe health risks posed by lead, the agency warns.

College basketball player dies after being injured during game

Connors State College sophomore Ethan Dietz died three days after he was injured during a game in Texas, the school said.

How Medicare's lower prices for 15 medications could impact your costs

The Trump administration tapped a Biden-era rule to negotiate lower prices on 15 widely used medications for seniors.

Trump attacks female reporter as "ugly" over article about his aging

President Trump attacked a New York Times reporter as "third rate" and "ugly, both inside and out."

11/22: Saturday Morning

President Trump set a Thursday deadline for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to his peace plan for the country’s ongoing war with Russia. Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced her resignation from Congress.

4 marketing tricks to not fall for this holiday season

Retailers use marketing techniques to get you to spend more, like creating a false sense of urgency or creating artificial discounts. Outsmart the gimmicks with these tips.

Legal status of 350,000 Haitian migrants to expire in early February

The expiration of TPS policy for Haitian immigrants would make them eligible for deportation, unless they have other legal means to stay in the U.S.

Toxic culture of distrust at BBC led to recent resignations, former deputy director says

Mark Damazer says over-assertive board and executives feeling ‘embattled’ played into departures of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness

A “toxic mix” of over-assertive BBC board members and executives feeling under siege contributed to the resignations of its two most senior editorial leaders, an influential former BBC figure has warned.

A bitter row is still raging over the events that led up to the resignations of the director general, Tim Davie, and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News.

Starmer calls on Farage to apologise to his alleged victims of racial abuse at school

Prime minister says Reform leader’s explanations about alleged comments are ‘unconvincing to say the least’

Keir Starmer has called on Nigel Farage to apologise to his school contemporaries who claim the Reform leader racially abused them while at Dulwich College.

The Guardian reported last week the testimony of Peter Ettedgui, who said a 13-year-old Farage “would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘gas them’, sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers”.

Medicare negotiated lower prices for 15 drugs, including 71% off Ozempic and Wegovy

Medicare announced 15 lower drugs after a second round of negotiations with pharmaceutical companies. The drugs include Ozempic and also drugs to treat asthma, breast cancer and leukemia.

Adrian Newey to step up and lead Aston Martin as team principal next F1 season

• Newey: ‘I have seen great talent within our team’

• Current chief Andy Cowell to become strategy officer

Adrian Newey, regarded as one of the best engineers in Formula One history, will become Aston Martin team principal next season.

Newey committed his long-term future to Aston Martin in September 2024 after his departure from Red Bull sparked a bidding war for the Briton’s services.

At last, TV about influencers that isn’t cringe – I Love LA is my show of the year | Emma Brockes

It gets into its twentysomething characters’ heads in a way that’s fresh and real. You either get it, or you don’t

It’s been a while since a TV show came along that people leaned into losing their minds about, but finally, and after a year of otherwise mediocre programming, we have one. I Love LA, the HBO comedy set among wannabe gen Z influencers, is only halfway through its eight-episode run, but it is already comfortably the best show of the year. And more importantly, it has triggered all the signifiers of event TV: obsessive repeat viewings, line-by-line coverage, big platform profiles of its stars and weekly recaps on Vulture, New York magazine’s website. Within days of each episode airing, people have transcribed and uploaded the entire script, which – with the best will in the world – no one’s doing for Riot Women.

The surprising thing about this is not the fact that it’s the first show by Rachel Sennott, the show’s 30-year-old creator and star, or that the action takes place in a tiny world in east LA, but that content about influencers can be watchable at all. To date, millennial and older writers have tended to use social media as a lumbering plot device – oh my God, something’s gone “viral!” – or as a stand-in for the collapse of all known standards. You probably haven’t watched these because nobody did, but take your pick from: HBO’s one-season disaster The Girls on the Bus, in which an old-media reporter covers a US election race only to find that influencers – those pesky kids! – have stolen her patch. Or the equally horrific Netflix flop Girlboss, loosely based on the memoirs of Sophia Amoruso, the early influencer, and which not even a cameo by Cole Escola could save. Or Flack, the deathly Anna Paquin-fronted show about publicists trying to manage their clients’ social media, and an early red flag for which was the use of the word “maven” in the show’s publicity.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Feeling lonely? Six ways to connect with friends – even when busy

If you aren’t getting the quality time or intimacy you need, try these connection experiments to shake up interactions

Lately, life has felt like Groundhog Day: work, gym, sleep, repeat. Between a punishing work schedule, the grim weather and my desire to hibernate, my social life has suffered. I feel dissatisfied, restless and isolated. But I have plenty of friends and active group chats – I can’t be lonely, surely?

Wrong!

How to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is back this year and promises to be bigger than ever. Here's a preview of what to expect and how to watch.

Guinea-Bissau military takes ‘total control’ amid election chaos

Officers say they are closing borders and suspending poll as president and main rival both claim victory

Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau have announced they are taking “total control” of the west African country, three days after elections that both the two main presidential contenders claim to have won.

Military officers said they were suspending Guinea-Bissau’s electoral process and closing its borders, in a statement read out at the army’s headquarters in the capital Bissau and broadcast on state TV. They said they had formed “the high military command for the restoration of order”, which would rule the country until further notice.

Norovirus cases rise ahead of holiday season, CDC data shows

Norovirus is the leading cause of vomiting, diarrhea and foodborne illness in the United States, according to the CDC​.

Secrets of the cow-skulled scarecrow: did one man’s cruel tales inspire Paula Rego’s best paintings?

When the great artist saw a shocking play by Martin McDonagh about the torture of children, she asked him for more dark stories. As the vivid, extraordinary works they triggered go on show, the playwright looks back

In the summer of 2004, Paula Rego wrote to Martin McDonagh asking for permission to name some pictures after his play The Pillowman. His shocking investigation into the relationship between art and life featured two brothers under interrogation for the torture and murder of children. One is a writer whose stories are summarised by an investigator as: “A hundred and one ways to skewer a fucking five-year-old.”

Rego, then a 69-year-old grandmother as well as a world famous artist, had been taken to see the play at the National Theatre in London by one of her daughters, who knew it would resonate with her. “The brutality and beauty and humour rang very true and like something I had known all my life,” she wrote to McDonagh. “I am actually Portuguese, although I have lived in London for 50 years, and our stories are brusque and cruel like yours.”

European parliament calls for social media ban on under-16s

MEPs pass resolution to help parents tackle growing dangers of addictive internet platforms

Children under 16 should be banned from using social media unless their parents decide otherwise, the European parliament says.

MEPs passed a resolution on age restrictions on Wednesday by a large majority. Although not legally binding, it raises pressure for European legislation amid growing alarm about the mental health risks to children of unfettered internet access.

Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau announce their government takeover on state TV

Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau appeared on state TV saying they have seized power in the country, following reports of gunshots near the presidential palace.

The Georgia election interference case against Trump and others has been dropped

The historic Georgia election interference case against President Trump and allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election is no more.

The bird people of Lake Manchar: surviving in a vanishing oasis

The Mohana of Pakistan’s Sindh province once thrived on the lake but pollution and drought have caused the fragile ecosystem to collapse, along with their way of life

At the mouth of Lake Manchar, gentle lapping disturbs the silence. A small boat cuts through the water, propelled by a bamboo pole scraping the muddy bottom of the canal.

Bashir Ahmed manoeuvres his frail craft with agility. His slender boat is more than just a means of transport. It is the legacy of a people who live to the rhythm of water: the Mohana. They have lived for generations on the waters of Lake Manchar in Sindh province, a vast freshwater mirror covering nearly 250 sq km. The lake, once the largest in Pakistan, was long an oasis of life. Now, it is dying.

Bashir Ahmed in his boat on the lake, next to simple huts built on top of the right bank outfall drain

Trump’s EPA moves to abandon tough standards for deadly soot pollution

EPA had previously said rule reducing fine particle matter from vehicles and industrial sources could prevent thousands of premature deaths a year

The Trump administration is seeking to abandon a rule that sets tough standards for deadly soot pollution, arguing that the Biden administration did not have authority to set the tighter standard on pollution from tailpipes, smokestacks and other industrial sources.

The action follows moves by the administration last week to weaken federal rules protecting millions of acres of wetlands and streams and roll back protections for imperiled species and the places they live. In a separate action, the interior department proposed new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems.

Tell us about a great winter walk in the UK

Share a tip on your favourite route at this time of year – the best entry wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

The crunch of frost underfoot, lungfuls of crisp fresh air, landscapes sparkling in shafts of sunlight; a good winter walk is one of life’s simple pleasures. We want to hear about where you love to walk at this time of year in the UK. Perhaps it’s a bracing coastal path, a meandering woodland hike or a riverside trail. If there’s a lovely pub or cafe on the route so much the better!

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

Protests, tears and a baby: five key images that tell the story of Cop30

Emotions ran high at the UN climate summit in Brazil, which was hit by its first major protest in four years

It was a tense moment. A group of about 50 people from the Munduruku, an Indigenous people in the Amazon basin, had blocked the entrance to the Cop30 venue in protest, causing long lines of delegates to snake down access roads, simmering in the morning heat.

Quiet divorce: why people are checking out of their marriage emotionally – without telling their partner

Are you ready to ‘go zombie’ in your relationship, lowering your expectations of it, forging your own separate life, but staying wed? You’re just one of many who are ‘subconsciously uncoupling’

Name: Quiet divorce.

Age: Ancient, probably.

Danish delight: Tim Anderson’s cherry marzipan kringle recipe for Thanksgiving

These iced Danish pastries stuffed with nuts and jam are a speciality of Tim’s hometown of Racine, Wisconsin

Kringles are a kind of pastry that’s synonymous with my home town of Racine, Wisconsin. Originally introduced by Danish immigrants in the late 19th century, they’re essentially a big ring of flaky Viennese pastry filled with fruit or nuts, then iced and served in little slices. Even bad kringles are pretty delicious, and when out-of-towners try them for the first time, their reaction is usually: ”Where has this been all my life?”

We eat kringles year-round, but I mainly associate them with fall, perhaps because of their common autumnal fillings such as apple or cranberry, or perhaps because of the sense of hygge they provide. I also associate kringles with Thanksgiving – and with uncles. And I don’t think it’s just me; Racine’s biggest kringle baker, O&H Danish Bakery, operates a cafe/shop called “Danish Uncle”. But I also think of Thanksgiving as the most uncle-y American holiday, geared towards watching football and snoozing on the couch.

Tim Anderson is the author of the 24 Hour Pancake People newsletter and Hokkaido: Recipes from the Seas, Fields and Farmlands of Northern Japan, published by Hardie Grant at £28. To order a copy for £25.20, go to guardianbookshop.com. Rachel Roddy is away.

How to be a good party host (or guest) | Zoe Williams

From picking your guests (always add a random) and your outfit, to coping with drunks and nudity, this is what you need to know

When I was young, I thought the worst thing you could do, as a host, was to run out of booze. Then, when I was less young, I thought it was to not have enough food, and now I am perfectly wise, I know that those things don’t matter at all, because you can always go to the shop. The important thing is not to look harried, and to not look that way, you need to not be that way.

T​he era-defining Xbox 360 ​reimagined ​gaming​ and Microsoft never matched it

Two decades on, its influence still lingers, marking a moment when gaming felt thrillingly new again

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Almost 20 years ago (on 1 December 2005, to be precise), I was at my very first video game console launch party somewhere around London’s Leicester Square. The Xbox 360 arrived on 22 November 2005 in the US and 2 December in the UK, about three months after I got my first job as a junior staff writer on GamesTM magazine. My memories of the night are hazy because a) it was a worryingly long time ago and b) there was a free bar, but I do remember that DJ Yoda played to a tragically deserted dancefloor, and everything was very green. My memories of the console itself, however, and the games I played on it, are still as clear as an Xbox Crystal. It is up there with the greatest consoles ever.

In 2001, the first Xbox had muscled in on a scene dominated by Japanese consoles, upsetting the established order (it outsold Nintendo’s GameCube by a couple of million) and dragging console gaming into the online era with Xbox Live, an online multiplayer service that was leagues ahead of what the PlayStation 2 was doing. Nonetheless, the PS2 ended up selling over 150m to the original Xbox’s 25m. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, would sell over 80m, neck and neck with the PlayStation 3 for most of its eight-year life cycle (and well ahead in the US). It turned Xbox from an upstart into a market leader.

Apple iPhone shipments to beat Samsung for the first time in 14 years, report says

Apple's success is being driven by its iPhone 17 series launched in September.

Sirāt review – rave in the desert leads to exasperating quest in the sands of Morocco

Oliver Laxe’s Cannes prize winner about a father’s search for his missing daughter starts impressively then descends into Pythonesque perdition

Oliver Laxe leads his audience into a wilderness of non-meaning in this strange and unrewardingly oppressive film that was the joint jury prize winner at Cannes this year and the recipient of all sorts of critical superlatives. For me, Sirāt is the most overpraised movie of the year – exasperating and bizarre in ways that become less and less interesting and more and more ridiculous as the film wears on.

There is a moment of tragic horror halfway through the action that is not absorbed or clarified and whose (presumed) emotional and spiritual consequences are not conveyed. It simply looks coercive and even slightly farcical. The later explosions in the desert are, frankly, Pythonesque. And yet, as with Laxe’s earlier film Mimosas there are some wonderful visual moments and stylish shots of the Moroccan desert landscape. Veteran Spanish actor Sergi López gives Sirāt some ballast.

‘Fearing for our lives’: Australians tell of Chilean mountain horror where five hikers perished

Hikers say authorities should have closed popular trail due to horrendous weather conditions, and camp staff offered minimal assistance

About 100 metres below the most challenging summit in a remote nature reserve in Chilean Patagonia, Australian woman Emily Dong was among a group of hikers who feared they were going to die.

Less than a day later, five hikers would be confirmed dead in the Torres del Paine national park after winds hit 190km/h and temperatures plummeted to –5C. Taking into account wind chill, it felt like –20C.

The Beatles Anthology: the flammed together ‘new episode’ feels totally pointless

The TV equivalent of raiding a bare cupboard, the supposed extra hour here is cobbled together from previous DVD extras – but you can’t miss the tension between Harrison and McCartney

There’s no doubt that the arrival of The Beatles Anthology in 1995 was a big deal. The TV series was broadcast at prime time on both sides of the Atlantic, and ABC in the US even changed its name to ABeatlesC in its honour. The three accompanying albums (the first time the Beatles had allowed outtakes from their recording sessions to be officially released) sold in their millions. Its success helped kickstart the latterday Beatles industry, a steady stream of officially sanctioned documentaries, reissues, remixes, compilations and expanded editions, predicated on two ideas: that the Beatles’ archive contains fathomless bounty; and that the band’s story is so rich there’s no limit to the number of times it can fruitfully be retold in fresh light.

For a while, those ideas seemed to hold true, but recently, it’s been hard not to think the Beatles’ Apple Corps might be trying to feed an insatiable appetite for content from an increasingly bare cupboard. You can marvel at the highlights of Peter Jackson’s TV series Get Back and still wonder whether the director wasn’t stretching his material a little thin; whether nearly eight hours of it – plus a separate Imax film of the Beatles’ final live performance on the roof of Apple’s London HQ, and a reissue of the original 1970 Let It Be documentary – might have been rather too much of a good thing.

‘I didn’t even know this type of attack existed’: more than 200 women allege drugging by senior French civil servant

In a case echoing the Pelicot trial, dozens of women allege they were given hot drinks mixed with a diuretic to make them urinate. Three of them speak out here

When Sylvie Delezenne, a marketing expert from Lille, was job-hunting in 2015, she was delighted to be contacted on LinkedIn by a human resources manager at the French culture ministry, inviting her to Paris for an interview.

“It was my dream to work at the culture ministry,” she said.

Nicolas Sarkozy convicted of illegal campaign financing in failed 2012 re-election bid

Verdict is fresh blow for former French president who was released from prison only this month in connection with separate conviction

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been convicted of illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 re-election bid, after the country’s highest court rejected his final appeal.

Sarkozy, who was the country’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012, was convicted of hiding illegal overspending for his unsuccessful re-election campaign that was shaped by vast American-style rallies.

Trump pardons Gobble and stranded beluga whales: photos of the day – Wednesday

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

Manhattan condo values fell over the past decade. Here's why rents are still rising

More wealthy New Yorkers are choosing to rent as condos lose value in Manhattan.

Hania Rani: Non Fiction review – atmospheric and absorbing storytelling by Polish composer

Barbican Hall, London
From ghost-story minimalism to wartime memory, Rani’s two new works, premiered here, shimmer with imagination, although issues of balance diminished the piano concerto

In a crowded post-minimalist world, Hania Rani has carved herself out a respectable niche. The Polish pianist and composer’s erudite yet accessible work often defies genres, appealing to classical, jazz and electronic aficionados alike. This concert comprised two 40-minute premieres and fell pretty firmly into the classical category, yet the lively audience skewed significantly younger than the Brahms and Beethoven crowd. Stylishly performed by the envelope-pushing Manchester Collective, it felt like quite the happening.

Shining occupied the first half, a piece devised for the kind of 12-piece band favoured by Steve Reich and Philip Glass. It’s based on a short story by Jon Fosse; a stream of consciousness tale of a man lost in the woods at night. Opening with sinister discords on bass clarinet, bassoon and horn, its motifs shifted and spun. A pall of smoke and half-lit players conjured images of a ghost story told around a campfire at midnight.