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Maine This article is more than 2 months oldMaine voters reject plan for non-profit power utility backed by climate groupsThis article is more than 2 months oldBallot initiative to transform grid backed by climate advocacy groups fails amid fears over cost and performance Maine voters turned down an attempt on Tuesday to oust the state’s corporate-owned electric utilities and replace them with a non-profit backed by climate advocacy groups. In one of several ballot initiatives, Maine voters rejected the proposed takeover of the two investor-owned utilities that distribute 97% of electricity in the state.

Biography booksReviewHow did Liz Truss become the seven-week prime minister? This juicy tale of high political farce hints at an answer Famously, she was the first British prime minister to be outlasted by a lettuce. More pertinently for the book industry, however, Liz Truss was also the first to unravel almost faster than a biographer can type. She quit eight days before the Sun’s political editor Harry Cole and Spectator diarist James Heale were due to deliver a portrait already being written at breakneck speed, and for a book to emerge at all in the circumstances arguably represents something of a heroic technical achievement.

Book of the dayEssaysReviewFrom Caravaggio to Edward Said and Black Panther, this astonishing collection of essays explores art, politics and belonging A young Gambian man, let’s call him D, waits in Syracuse. He arrived in Italy eight months previously, having been smuggled into the country by boat from Libya. D has an easy-going, intelligent manner – an unexpected grace given what he has endured. At a rendezvous with his companion for the afternoon, Teju Cole, D confesses that he has never set foot in a church: he was raised Muslim.

GrrlScientistScienceMystery bird: magnolia warbler, Dendroica magnoliaThis bird is named for a tree species that it probably perched in only once in the history of the world -- immediately before some guy named Wilson shot it deadAdult male magnolia warbler, Dendroica magnolia (formerly, Dendroica maculosa; protonym, Sylvia magnolia), also known as the black and yellow warbler and as the blue-headed yellow-rumped warbler (say that quick after three beers!), photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Texas (USA).

World newsPastor who dissolved corpses of slain wives and children gets lifeAn elderly Hungarian émigré dubbed "the diabolical pastor" by the Belgian media was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday after being found guilty of murdering his first two wives and four of his eight children. In an unusually brutal case which has transfixed Belgium and shocked investigators, a Brussels court found Andras Pandy, 74, guilty of six counts of premeditated murder and concluded that he had also raped three of his daughters.

Readers recommendMusicFrom chicken pie to cannibalism – with a healthy serving of innuendo – we serve up the pick of this week's threadSome topics fly too high, others crash and burn, but occasionally – just occasionally – they smash bang into the mother lode. Meat is one such. Originally suggested in a lighthearted fashion, I imagined it might cast a light on the quotidian or the mundane. But what we got was hundreds of tracks dripping raw red and ready to sizzle.

The 100 best novelsBooksAfter two years of careful consideration, Robert McCrum has reached a verdict on his selection of the 100 greatest novels written in English. Take a look at his list Robert McCrum reflects on his choices One in five doesn’t represent over 300 years of women in literature: a response What is missing: readers’ alternative list The world’s 100 greatest novels of all time (2003) 1. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1678)

TV reviewTelevision & radioReviewShe decides to take back 3.5 million minutes of domestic drudgery, jump on a motorcycle and set off on a voyage of self discovery. Hot flushes have never looked hotter! Did no one think to cast standup Bridget Christie in the upcoming Barbie movie? If it’s true, as Christie asserts, that “The Hulk is the only menopausal role model in the history of TV and film”, then having Christie play Menopausal Barbie alongside Issa Rae as President Barbie and Nicola Coughlan as Diplomat Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s panorama of modern womanhood might have helped.

The CranberriesInterview'She was on a roll': the Cranberries on the last days of Dolores O'RiordanKate MossmanThe Irish band are piecing together their final album following the recent death of their lead singer. They talk candidly about her troubled life and the challenges of working without her The last time the Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan saw Dolores O’Riordan was in the Limerick hotel where we are now standing, in November 2017. He had agreed to do an interview with a Chinese journalist: the band are huge in China, apparently, and had a run of arena gigs booked there.