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11 November

In the headlines

The world’s biggest carbon-dioxide producers, China and the US, have announced what The Guardian calls a “remarkable” climate agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade. US climate envoy John Kerry said: “On climate, co-operation is the only way to get this done.” After a 19-day hunger strike, Richard Ratcliffe will meet Foreign Office ministers to discuss the plight of his wife, Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. “If there is no breakthrough from the meeting I will fear the worst,” he told the Evening Standard. Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has tried her first Irn-Bru at the Cop26 summit. After Nicola Sturgeon handed her a can of the Scottish fizzy drink, AOC recorded her reaction on Instagram. “Oh my God,” she said as she took a sip. “I love it! Love it.”  

Comment of the day

Snapshot

 

Noted

“The Polish border is sealed. BLR authorities told you lies. Go back to Minsk! Don’t take any pills from Belarusian soldiers.” That’s the automated message authorities in Poland are sending to any phone on the eastern side of the country’s border with Belarus. Hundreds of migrants are camped out on the frontier, having been herded there by Belarusian soldiers.

Eating out

When Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria filmed Decline and Fall in Cardiff in 2016, she decided to brave the local cuisine, says her co-star Jack Whitehall in the Out to Lunch podcast. The 46-year-old actress, who lives in LA, came back to the set and said: “I’ve found the most incredible little Italian. The owner – I think it’s family-owned – he was so charming and I had the best pasta I’ve ever had anywhere in the world.” Whitehall asked for the name of the place, and Longoria replied: “Pizza Express.”

Sport

A daredevil bodysurfer has conquered a fearsome 64ft wave in Hawaii without a surfboard. Kalani Lattanzi, 27, rode down the face of the wave known as Jaws with just fins on his feet and a hand float. The Brazilian bodysurfer described the experience as “beautiful”. When Lattanzi tackled the world’s biggest swell, off the coast of Portugal, in 2015, Australian surfer Ross Clarke-Jones remembers thinking: “Is that a seal, a dolphin or a shark? F***, that’s a man.”

On the way back

Sharks, which have been found in the River Thames. In 1957 the 215-mile river was declared “biologically dead”. Now, thanks to improved water quality, a study has found three types of sharks in its waters – topes, which can grow to 6ft long; starry smooth-hounds; and spurdogs, which are venomous. In less scary news, the Thames also contains seahorses. 

Quoted

Quoted 11-11

“Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”

Marcel Proust

Snapshot answer

It’s a full-scale mock-up of a US aircraft carrier in a Chinese desert, spotted by an American satellite on Sunday and thought to be intended for missile target practice. In 2015 US satellites found a scale replica of central Taipei, including the presidential palace and a nearby girls’ school – its playing fields are the nearest place to land attack helicopters.