Joiking comes to the Proms this weekend in a collaboration between Katarina Barruk and violinist Pekka Kuusisto. The two tell us how they have enriched each other’s musical worlds

‘When I was growing up, I couldn’t listen to any bands or artists in my language,” says Katarina Barruk. She is one of only a handful of remaining speakers – and the only one of whom is an internationally celebrated singer – of Ume Sámi, one of the nine living Sámi languages that today is on Unesco’s critically endangered list. It’s spoken by a handful of Sámi communities living across the part of Sápmi (the territory of the Sámi peoples across northern Scandinavia) that’s now in north-east Sweden. “We have been working so hard to get to the point where you can hear the language at the Royal Albert Hall,” says Barruk. “It’s amazing.”

And not only to hear the language, but experience it sung by Barruk in her own music, recomposed and remade with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. They’ll be led by the violinist and conductor Pekka Kuusisto, in a Prom that will take the audience on a journey “into my universe”, she says, “so that people can understand that this language is alive”. The Prom is a symbol of hope and defiance for Ume Sámi and its speakers, and for the Indigenous peoples of Sápmi as a whole, she tells me. “I want to give something hopeful to my own people.”

• Latvian criticised for saying Taylor Townsend had ‘no education’

• Ostapenko strongly denies US Open comments were racist

Naomi Osaka has condemned Jelena Ostapenko’s comments during her courtside confrontation with Taylor Townsend at the US Open.

The incident on Wednesday has been one of the most talked-about of the tournament, with Ostapenko accusing the American Townsend of having no education and no class after their second-round match. The comments, which Ostapenko justified as a reaction to Townsend not apologising for a shot that hit the top of the net, have prompted accusations of racism.

Dezi Freeman’s anti-government views and bushcraft skills were well-known in the small Victorian town before he allegedly killed two officers

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It didn’t take long for Dezi Freeman to allegedly shoot and kill two police officers before he vanished into the bush in the Victorian high country, seemingly without a trace.

That brief moment in time launched a manhunt that has involved hundreds of police officers from all over the country, some of Australia’s elite special forces, a visit from the premier and, as one local described it, a media “circus” in the small town of Porepunkah, in Victoria’s north east.

Italian platform Phica closes after sharing altered images of PM, her sister, opposition leader and others

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said she is “disgusted” that photos of her and other women were posted on a pornographic website, and called for the perpetrators to be swiftly identified and “punished with the utmost firmness”.

Images of Meloni’s sister, Arianna, and the opposition leader, Elly Schlein, were also discovered on the Italian platform Phica, which had more than 700,000 subscribers before its managers closed the site on Thursday, blaming users for “using the platform incorrectly”.

Armed Only with a Camera is directed by Brent’s brother and collaborator, Craig, and produced by Juan Arredondo, who was also shot during the ambush that killed Brent

It’s a journalist’s role to stay behind the scenes. But sometimes, a reporter’s extraordinary life becomes the story itself.

Such is the case with Brent Renaud, an award-winning documentary film-maker who was the first American journalist killed, at the age of 51, in the Russia-Ukraine war. His life and death are captured in a new, intimate documentary that debuted in Los Angeles at the 21st annual HollyShorts film festival earlier this month.

Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud has just received the Audience award at SXSW and will be available to stream on HBO on 21 October 2025

Whatever the season, I was always in something hand-knitted, and this outfit was colour-coordinated right down to the cheese and onion crisps

I inherited my hands from my nan. Long and slim with hard but feminine nails, we called them “piano fingers”, though neither of us ever learned to play. While I went on to use mine for writing, my maternal grandmother dedicated hers to knitting. Decades before the Sewing Bee or Tom Daley’s Instagram, Barbara would go to the local wool shop for designs and supplies – everything, right down to tiny buttons. As her first born granddaughters, my elder sister and I were the natural beneficiaries of this skill, willing mannequins covered in glitter glue and nostalgia.

When I look back at photos of myself until around the age of six, I realise I’m usually in knitwear. This commitment to wool was not limited by season or location: in my early years, whenever I was photographed on a beach, I was wearing a cardigan as the waves splash at my feet, like an influencer promoting swimwear for people with hypothermia.