• Live updates as the draw is made in Switzerland

• Who has qualified | European tables | Mail Luke

Here is some reading on how Republic of Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland made it into the playoffs. Plus a bonus Scotland match report after they sealed the place at the World Cup in dramatic style.

“As an ROI supporter, I hope we get a home match against a theoretically weaker side,” writes Martin. “I dream of beating Spain in the final. I fear it’s all going to end in tears, starting about an hour from now.”

X chatbot suggested gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ‘designed for disinfection’ not mass executions

• Europe live – latest updates

French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday night it was expanding an existing inquiry into Musk’s social media platform, X, to include the “Holocaust-denying comments”, which remained online for three days.

Brazilian president underlines need to reduce emissions as Turkey set to host next year’s summit

Adelaide has lost out to Antalya to host next year’s Cop. My colleague Adam Morton, the Guardian Australia’s environment editor, has the account from Belém of what went down.

Ouch. From one perspective, Australia’s long-running bid to host the Cop31 UN climate conference next year has ended in clear failure.

In today’s newsletter: Despite valid criticisms, the summits are filled with smart, passionate people dedicating their lives to fighting the climate crisis

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It is easy to criticise the UN climate conferences. But unless you’ve been, there’s one wonderful, almost miraculous, thing that you may not be aware of: it is a beautiful gathering of humanity, people from virtually every country on Earth, all thrown together in common cause.

What’s more, many are incredibly smart, passionate and dedicating their lives to fighting the climate crisis. The more of them you meet, the more your hope grows that global heating can be defeated.

Trump’s anti-climate agenda could result in 1.3m more deaths globally, analysis finds

Tropical cyclone Fina intensifies to category two and could hit NT coast on Friday

England’s Beth Mead: ‘If we don’t adapt to climate change, football becomes a privilege, not a right‘

Convicted serial offender given a 37th life sentence for crimes against 12-year-old girl in 1980s and former partner

The former police officer and convicted sex offender David Carrick has been handed a 37th life sentence at the Old Bailey with a minimum of 30 years for molesting a 12-year-old girl and raping a former partner.

Carrick, 50, who served as an armed officer in the Metropolitan police, sexually assaulted the 12-year-old child when he was a teenager in the late 1980s, his trial heard. More than 20 years later, he repeatedly raped a woman and subjected her to “degrading and humiliating” abuse during the course of a toxic relationship.

Actor praises co-star in abominably reviewed Ryan Murphy legal drama, and claims show deserved more appreciation

Glenn Close has hit back at the critical mauling for her recent series All’s Fair. The actor stars in Ryan Murphy’s legal drama, which has received a string of zero-star reviews. In her appraisal, the Guardian’s Lucy Mangan described it as: “Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible.” The series currently holds a 3% rating on reviews site Rotten Tomatoes.

According to Close, the main issue was the choice to air the worst three episodes first. “I personally think that the first three episodes were the weakest,” she told Variety. “That was a tough way to start. I’ve seen all nine episodes, and I think it actually adds up to something.”

The draft plan, reportedly developed by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, would force draconian measures on Ukraine

In the last hour, Ukraine said it had received from Russia the remains of 1,000 people that Moscow said were killed Ukrainian soldiers, in the latest repatriation – a rare area of cooperation between the warring sides, AFP reported.

“Today, repatriation measures took place. 1000 bodies, claimed by the Russian side to belong to Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on social media.

As she launches her first children’s book, the actor answers your questions on Alan Partridge, her iconic green dress and thrilling 10-year-olds with a bullseye

Have you read or listened to the delightful chapter in Alan Partridge’s Big Beacon where he demands: “We came for Knightley, we want to see Knightley, where’s Knightley?” dcieron
No! Do I want to see it? Or is it something that will make me cringe and want to hide under the sofa? I do like Alan Partridge. He’s kind of terrifying but amazing, so now that I know I’ve been a part of Alan Partridge, I should check it out.

When you first wore the green dress in Atonement, did you realise how iconic it would be? Murdomania
I thought it was a bloody good dress. It never actually lasted. It was so fragile that, any time you touched the front, it would completely break, so they had to make a load of different fronts. By the end, I was thoroughly sick with having the dress remade on me. But it’s a beautiful dress and I had no idea that it would have the life that it did.

My aunt was chastising me for not carrying on my mother’s legacy of pineapple tarts and butter cakes. Why had I been so resistant?

‘Aiyah, why don’t you bake?” my Aunt Julie scolded, her voice shrill with disbelief. “You should learn how to bake for the sake of your child! Your mother was such a good baker!” Her comment stung. I had always adored my mother’s youngest sister. As the only member of my family who also lived in Germany, we had a special bond.

But here she was, chastising me for failing to be a good mother before I had even given birth. I contemplated the question from her immaculate kitchen, where I stood round, hormonal, in my second trimester of pregnancy and on the precipice of new motherhood. But I didn’t have an answer.

Ying Reinhardt is Malaysian writer living in Germany

We’re supposed to be used to this by now, but getting used to it is dangerous. Her colleagues should have spoken up

Catherine Lucey, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News, was doing what reporters are supposed to do: asking germane questions.

Her query to Donald Trump a few days ago during a “gaggle” aboard Air Force 1 was reasonable as it had to do with the release of the Epstein files, certainly a subject of great public interest. Why had the Trump been stonewalling, she asked, “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Australia and England could win or lose in a number of critical areas including Joe Root’s ability to fend off Pat Cummins and which No 5 will shine brightest

Before Bazball, there was Travis Head. He was the one playing on fast-forward during the 2021-22 Ashes, sprinting to 152 at the Gabba in a career-shifting innings. The southpaw has since slashed tons in two finals against India, excelled in challenging Australian conditions, and can break out of a lean patch with a chainsaw-wielding knock. Never mind his three consecutive single-figure scores during Australia’s 3-1 win over India a year ago. He’d already hit consecutive hundreds to turn the direction of the series.

She was sure that there would be warnings if there was any danger. But then the floods came. This is Toñi García’s story

Location Valencia, Spain

Disaster Floods, 2024

Toñi García lives in Valencia. On 29 October 2024, devastating storms hit the Iberian peninsula, bringing the heaviest rain so far this century. The national alert system sounded at around 8.30pm local time; by then, however, flood waters had already broken through the city. Scientists say the explosive downpours were linked to climate change.

A lack of clean water and medicines in the aftermath of the storm has led to a sharp rise in viruses such as chikungunya and dengue

Maidel Jorge, a 36-year-old farmer, sweats as he chops down a tree to collect wood for cooking: the early November weather in eastern Cuba is still as hot as summer. The tree was young, so the wood is green, which means it will take longer to burn and their meal will take longer to prepare.

Jorge, his pregnant wife and their six-year-old son are among 300 people staying in a school turned into an evacuation centre in Grito de Yara, Granma province, some of the 3 million Cubans exposed to Hurricane Melissa, which barrelled into the country last month.

(Warp)
Made using a cache of Y2K sample CDs that Daniel Lopatin salvaged from the internet’s fringes, the kaleidoscopic result speaks to contemporary information overload

It should come as no surprise that the new album by Oneohtrix Point Never comes with a concept attached. They usually do. When not composing film soundtracks, or producing an eclectic range of other artists – the Weeknd, Anohni, Charli xcx, Soccer Mommy – Daniel Lopatin has released a string of acclaimed works, each with their own overarching idea.

The “hyperreal world music” of 2010’s Returnal was inspired by the fact that people now see more of the world than ever without actually leaving their homes. In 2015, Garden of Delete had an accompanying origin story about an adolescent humanoid alien called Ezra; 2018’s Age Of imagined artificial intelligence attempting to recreate human culture after humans themselves had been rendered extinct. Lopatin also has an all-consuming obsession with nostalgia and forgotten pop cultural artefacts: he’s made albums based around warped loops of 80s pop hits, preset sounds on obsolete synthesisers and recordings of US radio stations changing formats, discarding the musical genres in which they previously specialised in favour of the current vogue.

When you work in the game it is easy to get cynical but this week I’ve been consuming all the #limbs I can find

For the second time in a week, I’m welling up. This time in a cafe on Northcote High Street in Melbourne at 9am. I punched the air when Kieran Tierney curled that one in. But Kenny McLean. From the halfway line. As the ball sails over Peter Schmeichel my hands involuntarily shoot to the sky. What a moment. The commentary is amazing. Before long I’m watching it on a loop. The unwritten rule of not talking over each other goes out of the window. In fact it’s better. You want the comms to feel like you feel.

On BBC Scotland, Liam McLeod, Steven Thompson and James McFadden absolutely nail it. McLeod: “They’ve given it away.” Thompson: “SHOOT SHOOT.” McLeod: “He’s gonna shoot.” (McFadden is grinning wildly.) Thompson: “OH HE’S DONE HIM, HE’S DONE HIM, HE’S DONE HIM.” McLeod: “HAS THAT GONE IN? OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO THAT’S UNBELIEVABLE …” The fixed camera set on Thompson and McFadden is wonderous. Two grown men jumping up and down in unison like 10-year-old boys. They are just so happy.

Former Wimbledon champion on how taking accountability for his crimes allowed for rehabilitation, watching Novak Djokovic from his cell and the new era of brotherhood in the sport

“I heard the screaming and I didn’t know what it was,” Boris Becker says as he remembers staring into the dark in Wandsworth prison, just over two miles from Wimbledon’s Centre Court where he won the first of his three men’s singles titles at the age of 17 in 1985. “Were people trying to kill themselves or harm themselves? Or couldn’t they deal with their loneliness? Or are they just making crazy noises because they have lost their minds already?”

Becker had been sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year jail term. Amid his insolvency, he was found guilty of not declaring all his assets so that additional funds could be distributed to his creditors. The judge confirmed that his money was used, instead, to meet his “commitments to his children and other dependents, medical and professional fees, and other expenses”.

Architect Farshid Moussavi is behind a tranquil and timeless new building where Houston’s 40,000-strong Ismaili Muslim community can come together. But how has she created something that looks so delicate out of stone?

On a hot autumn day in southern Texas, monarch butterflies flit around the gardens of Houston’s new Ismaili Centre. Fragile and gaudy, they are on their way south to overwinter in Mexico, travelling up to 3,000 miles in a typical migration cycle, an epic feat of insectile endurance.

Their combination of delicacy and stamina is an apt metaphor for the Ismaili Centre, a building that has taken seven years to realise and is designed to last for a century or more. It’s a place where Houston’s 40,000-strong Ismaili Muslim community, one of the largest in the US, can practise their faith but it’s also a venue for shared activities.

There are 27% fewer art teachers in England today than there were in 2011, and the proportion of students taking arts subjects has plummeted. Here’s what it’s like to work in a job that is essential and often perilously undervalued

When 64-year-old Sue Cabourn began her career in the late 90s, the next generation of artists including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Gillian Wearing were dominating the cultural agenda. All of them were state-educated but, had they attended school now, things might have panned out differently.

There has been an exodus of art teachers (a 27% drop in the number working in English state-secondary schools from 2011 to 2024), lower uptake (48% fewer students have taken on arts subjects at GCSE since 2010), and a reformed system that critics say has stifled creativity and prioritised Stem (science and technology) subjects over arts and humanities.

Samira Asghari, the International Olympic Committee’s youngest member, says negotiation with Taliban is only way to help Afghan girls access sport

“My message for all Afghan women who play is that if there is any small opportunity, do it,” Samira Asghari says. “My solid message is never, ever give up. Afghanistan was always a war-torn country, unfortunately. We have grown up in a war country. And we believe in a future Afghanistan, and the future of Afghanistan is the people.”

Asghari is 31, the youngest member of the International Olympic Committee and an exile from her home. Resident in Europe, her role requires her to try to bring an end to current restrictions which prevent Afghan women and girls from taking part in sport. In this, the people she must negotiate with are the Taliban.

It’s a climate-vulnerable nation, while also being the world’s sixth-largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Global investment in climate action is vital

Staffordshire students say signs material was AI-generated included suspicious file names and rogue voiceover accent

Students at the University of Staffordshire have said they feel “robbed of knowledge and enjoyment” after a course they hoped would launch their digital careers turned out to be taught in large part by AI.

James and Owen were among 41 students who took a coding module at Staffordshire last year, hoping to change careers through a government-funded apprenticeship programme designed to help them become cybersecurity experts or software engineers.

Exclusive: Courts minister says change needed to stop criminals opting for juries to delay cases, sometimes by years, and clear huge backlog

• UK politics live – latest updates

Criminals will be stopped from “gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing, the courts minister has said, promising to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election.

Drug dealers and career criminals were “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial, Sarah Sackman said, while warning that inaction would be a road to “chaos and ruin”.

Exclusive: Senior officials indicated favorability toward Paramount Skydance acquiring Warner Bros Discovery

Senior White House officials have discussed internally their preference for Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in recent weeks, and one official has discussed potential programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount.

The discussions, according to people familiar with the matter, comes as Paramount portrays itself as the best bid for Warner Bros Discovery, after it announced last month it was open to offers, because it would have an easier time getting through regulatory review.

With a platform focused on cost of living, Aftyn Behn wants to turn the US House seat blue for the first time since 1983

Republicans have controlled Tennessee’s seventh congressional district for four decades. The party finished about 21 points ahead of the Democrats when the seat was last contested, alongside Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election last November.

Twelve months on, that lead has narrowed dramatically, according to opinion polls – and a challenger is attempting to build a “coalition of the pissed off” to overturn it altogether.