section
Politics
Policy, power, and the news of the day.
4589 stories archived
MPs on both sides urge Commons not to take ‘extraordinary risk’ of forcing through assisted dying bill
Joint appeal issued by Labour MPs Gareth Snell, who voted for the bill, and Meg Hillier, who voted against MPs who voted for and against assisted dying have urged their respective sides not to take the “extraordinary risk” of forcing through the bill using an obscure parliamentary procedure if it continues to be blocked by the Lords. Two Labour MPs have written a warning letter to colleagues in the crucial hours before the next vote, Gareth Snell who voted in favour of the bill, alongside Meg Hillier, who voted against. Continue reading...
ECB raises interest rates to 2.5% amid warning Iran war is fuelling inflation
Borrowing costs soar in Europe and oil tops $105 a barrel as bank flags mounting price pressures in eurozone Business live – latest updates The European Central Bank has raised interest rates to 2.5% and warned that the risk of higher inflation over the next year has risen following renewed fighting in the Middle East. It came as government bonds soared on a jump in oil and gas prices overnight after the latest US and Iran attacks on ships in the strait of Hormuz. Continue reading...
Canada saved the bald eagle from near extinction in the US – does the White House know?
The White House posted a photo of bald eagle attacking a Canada goose to send a message – but it was Canada that played a critical role in the recovery of the bird in the US In late August, the White House posted a real photograph on social media of a bald eagle standing atop the limp neck of a Canada goose. The raptor presses the goose’s face into the grey winter slush. With its stark white head and brilliant yellow talons, the eagle looks victorious and defiant. Continue reading...
Ralph Lauren proves the American dream still sells at New York fashion week
Designer mixes burnt-out velvet and shredded denim with a mythology that keeps getting more profitable The opening show of fashion’s month of catwalks was not on the official schedule, but Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo were snuggled on to celebrity-packed benches in a cathedral-sized marble hall where tapestry-hung walls and a gilded coffered ceiling framed a view over lower Manhattan. Ralph Lauren, who is 86, took his bow at the end of this show casually dressed in a varsity jacket spelling out New York. In an industry obsessed with youth and novelty, Lauren is more relevant than ever in his ninth decade. Continue reading...
Japan seeks change to new UN world map over Russia 'misconception'
The new ‘true-scale’ map shrinks Europe and North America while enlarging Africa – and depicts the disputed Kuril islands as ruled by Moscow Japan has asked for the revision of a new world map adopted by the UN because it said it made the disputed Kuril islands appear to belong to Russia. The UN general assembly voted on Friday to adopt the new map, which makes the African continent larger while also shrinking North America and Europe, drawing condemnation from the US. Continue reading...
Chemical companies reach $455m settlement with North Carolina over ‘forever chemicals’ claims
Chemours, DuPont and Corteva reach settlement after lawsuits accuse companies of polluting drinking water Chemours, DuPont and Corteva on Thursday reached a $455m settlement with North Carolina and 11 local entities over Pfas contamination claims tied to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant and other historical discharges. Lawsuits accusing major chemical companies of polluting U.S. drinking water with toxic Pfas chemicals – a group of pollutants referred to as “forever chemicals” – have led to settlements worth billions of dollars, including one struck by the three companies in New Jersey last year. Continue reading...
Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark celebrate their ‘chemistry’ as USA advance to Fiba World Cup semis
Fiba World Cup: USA 108-56 Hungary Reese and Clark have been portrayed as fierce rivals Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark’ s interactions are a subplot of the women’s Fiba World Cup, the WNBA season and if you spend enough time on social media, a divided United States . Clark and Reese have shown their relationship on the court is thriving, and they both excelled in USA’s 108-56 quarter-final win over Hungary on Thursday. In Thursday’s game, the growing chemistry showed. The pair had a nifty pick-and-roll to end the first quarter that ended with a layup by Reese. The Atlanta Dream forward returned the favor hitting Clark on a fastbreak for an easy lay-up later in the game. Continue reading...
Malta warned of corruption crisis after Daphne Caruana Galizia verdict sends ‘chill down the spine’
Labour peer tells Council of Europe inquiry failure to implement legal protections still putting journalists at risk Europe live – latest updates Malta is vulnerable to “repeated instances of high-level corruption” unless it strengthens the rule of law and protections for journalists, the Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti said at the opening of an inquiry into judicial failures following the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Chakrabarti, a member of the House of Lords and former director of the human rights group Liberty, has been named special rapporteur for a Council of Europe investigation into the fallout from the assassination of the anti-corruption journalist, who died in a car bombing in October 2017. Continue reading...
Ryanair will dispute passenger’s claim he was sucked out of window
CEO Michael O’Leary tells reporters the businessman was sucked ‘towards’ but not out of the opening Business live – latest updates Ryanair has said it will be “disputing” that any part of a passenger’s body was sucked outside when a window on one of its aircraft broke while in flight. US investigators are examining the incident which left Ljubisa Karović, 61, severely injured when the window beside him shattered on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany in July. Continue reading...
Fascism on the rise in the UK, Anglican bishop says
Arun Arora, bishop of Kirkstall in Leeds, condemns ‘twisted theology’ of groups who demonstrated at south coast ports at weekend UK politics live – latest updates Fascism is on the rise in the UK, a Church of England bishop has warned, condemning the “twisted theology” of the self-described “Christian patriots” who demonstrated at ports on the south coast last weekend. The masked, black-clad, anti-migrant agitators – led by Daniel “Danny Tommo” Thomas, a former bodyguard of far-right influencer Tommy Robinson – were heard chanting: “Christ is King.” Continue reading...
‘I feel the pain of all those souls’: Ground Zero visitors remember lives lost on 9/11
People from across the US and around the world pay their respects at memorial to victims of the terrorist attacks “No day shall erase you from the memory of time,” reads an inscription at the the Ground Zero national September 11 memorial and museum, quoting from The Aeneid and cast in 15in letters made from the steel of the twin towers, which fell 29 minutes apart in a terrorist attack a quarter century ago. It took a decade for the 9/11 memorial in downtown Manhattan to be completed. It is composed of two dark granite basins on the footprints of the original towers with water cascading from their lips and the names of all 2,977 who died as a result of four aircraft hijackings inscribed on bronze panels around it. Continue reading...
American democracy depends on the census. Trump is undermining it | danah boyd
The very mechanisms that allow the census bureau to resist partisan interference are coming undone. And Congress is silent When the constitutional architects of the United States got together, they came up with a crazy plan: “What if we count everyone in the country and allocate political representation that way?” It was a radical act. Until then, censuses had been used by kings to levy taxes and conscript men into war. With the penning of article 1, section 2 of the US constitution, being counted ensured that states would get financial resources and political representatives. Congress was tasked with building the processes to anchor representation to the population. People wanted to be counted. And politicians wanted their people to be counted more. danah boyd is the Geri Gay professor of communication at Cornell University and the author of Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census Continue reading...
Glencore’s former head of oil pleads not guilty to bribery charges
Billionaire Alex Beard and his former deputy appear in London court over alleged payments to African officials Glencore’s billionaire former head of oil trading has pleaded not guilty to two bribery charges after allegedly facilitating payments to west African officials in order to advance the Swiss commodity group’s operations in the continent. Alex Beard, 59, denied two counts of conspiracy to make corrupt payments at London’s Southwark crown court on Thursday, in a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Continue reading...
Houthis seize key Yemeni port of Mocha in drive to take control of Red Sea coast
Iran and its proxies move closer to full control of two shipping chokepoints as regional conflict widens Yemen’s Houthi rebels are making a concerted drive to take full control of the country’s Red Sea coast, claiming control of the key port of Mocha, in the most serious wave of fighting with the Saudi-backed government in years. Seizure of the coast would be a strategic disaster for Saudi Arabia and the US, taking Iran and its proxies closer to full control of two chokepoints for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsular: the Bab al-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea and the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. Continue reading...
NHS reports busiest ever summer as heatwaves drive up hospital admissions
Health secretary says extreme demand no longer confined to winter as service in England warns of knock-on effects The NHS faced the “busiest summer in its history” as the UK experienced a series of heatwaves, health officials have said, while the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has risen to its highest level for nine months. The health secretary said “extreme demand” on the service was “no longer confined to winter” and NHS leaders warned that the service “never gone into winter on the back of such a heavy summer”. Continue reading...
While Puerto Ricans protest for reliable access to water, the governor washes her hands
Leaky aqueducts and mega-projects for the wealthy exacerbate a water crisis in the US island territory Dhara Rivera de Jesús keeps at least 30 large water containers in her home at all times. After more than a year without consistent service in San Juan, Puerto Rico , she fills them whenever water returns, which sometimes only happens for a handful of hours every few days. Going without reliable water to bathe, flush toilets or cook has affected her ability to work and stick to a usual routine – a catch-22, now that she has to spend more money and time buying water and prepared food. This summer, water levels in the island’s key dams fell below the thresholds needed to supply about half a million residents, leading to a severe drought that prompted Puerto Rico’s governor, Jenniffer González-Colón, to declare a state of emergency. But residents of San Juan, including Rivera, had already spent months grappling with water insecurity as the archipelago’s ageing and deteriorating infrastructure continued to fail amid government mismanagement. Continue reading...
Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film
Testimony from Israeli military insiders involved in surveillance and remote killings features in documentary produced by the Guardian Testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders on the secret systems used in the war on Gaza has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award. Continue reading...
UK ministers explore raising price of water for some users amid shortages
Environment Agency says talks under way about increasing prices for industrial users to try to reduce poor water management Ministers are exploring making water more expensive for some users, in the face of severe supply shortages. Despite the UK being a famously wet country, the precarious nature of the water supply has been made particularly acute this summer, with almost three-quarters of England and all of Wales in drought and 27 million people facing restrictions on their water use. Continue reading...
We have started losing control of AI. It’s time to shut it down | Garrison Lovely
What sounds like the overwrought penultimate episode in a sci-fi series about AI doom is now our reality On Tuesday, a former OpenAI researcher quit his job at Anthropic, warning that “neither company is acting responsibly” and that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.” As someone who’s reported on AI risk for years, this wasn’t news to me. But the outpouring of alarm suggests a much wider public is properly confronting this ludicrous situation for the first time. Continue reading...
Chemical industry backed laws in three US states to restrict use of air pollution data
As public air monitors disappear, federal rollbacks and state laws are making it harder than ever to know what’s in the air As the US’s network for monitoring air pollution deteriorates, a Floodlight investigation has found that the chemical industry is going state-to-state to restrict one of the few options citizens have left for holding polluters accountable: low-cost air sensors. Over the past two years, the non-profit investigative newsroom determined , lawmakers in Louisiana, Kentucky and Ohio have passed strikingly similar laws barring regulators from acting on air-quality data that communities collect themselves – unless it comes from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved equipment that typically costs tens of thousands of dollars. Similar legislation has repeatedly been introduced in West Virginia. Continue reading...
‘Our forefathers are coming back’: Naga people celebrate after Oxford museum agrees to return remains
Following six years of talks, Pitt Rivers Museum will return body parts collected by British colonial administrators to north-east India Anthropologists and community leaders from Nagaland, a remote state in north-eastern India bordering Myanmar, have expressed joy and relief that human remains belonging to their ancestors that had been on display in a British museum for nearly a century are finally being returned. On Monday, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford announced that 39 pieces of human remains – including parts of skulls, a finger and a piece of skin with hair – belonging to the Naga tribes, will be returned to Nagaland after six years of negotiation between the community and the museum. Continue reading...
Trump makes highly unusual promise of $5,000 for all if Republicans win midterms | First Thing
Speaking in Dallas, the president raised ethical concerns with an apparent $1tn offer to the electorate. Plus the US citizens who are finding moving to Scotland to be an irresistible lure Good morning. Donald Trump has pledged to pay every adult citizen in the US $5,000 if Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections. The outlandish proposal, which would cost over $1tn, immediately raised ethical concerns. Trump made the promise during a marathon speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in which he assailed Democrats as “radical”, defended his unpopular war in Iran, and urged voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot”. Trump claimed, without evidence, that his second term had been “the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency”. Why did the Republicans hold a mid term convention? Republicans are gambling that the GOP’s first midterm convention can salvage their threatened House majority. However, Donald Trump’s dismal approval rating drove many competitive candidates to skip the two-day event entirely. What has Trump said about the former attorney Michael Cohen? The US president has said he would consider pardoning Michael Cohen , the former fixer whom he once branded a “rat” for testifying against him. Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer, but flipped in 2018, and pleaded guilty to federal crimes including facilitating a hush payment to the pornography star Stormy Daniels and lying under oath to Congress. How many people has the US killed in its campaign? Late Wednesday, US Southern Command announced the latest strike in the Caribbean Sea, saying it killed three people. That brought the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 230 in 69 strikes. What has the US announced about Ecuador’s gangs? The US has designated Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang as a terrorist organisation. Rubio said the gang was linked to narcotics trafficking, as well as attacks on civilians, law enforcement officers and journalists. “We are talking about terrorists who, in many cases, possess weapons and equipment resembling the national armies of certain countries,” he said. Continue reading...
RNLI steps up security after attacks by far-right agitators over small boat rescues
Volunteers told to consider not wearing branded clothing and to shut lifeboat stations if they feel in danger Police working to protect RNLI in Dorset amid opposition to small boat rescues The RNLI is stepping up security after a backlash from far-right agitators over the lifeboat charity’s involvement in rescuing asylum seekers in the Channel and landing them on UK shores. Volunteers have been told by the charity’s bosses that they should consider not wearing RNLI branded clothing if they feel this might put them at risk. Continue reading...
Vance appears to walk back Trump’s offer of $5,000 ‘dividend’ if Republicans win midterms – US politics live
Vice-president suggests payment would not go to all and would be paid for by tariff revenues despite supreme court rulings against much of Trump’s program US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims Sign up for the US Breaking News email Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Vice-president JD Vance appeared to partially row back on Donald Trump’s outlandish claims that every adult citizen in the US would receive $5,000 if the Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections. In a nearly two-hour speech, Donald Trump capped off his first night remarks at the GOP midterm convention by pleading with Republicans to “ pretend that I’m running”. The president centered himself in the battle to control Congress, and acknowledged that candidates are more successful when he is on the ballot. He offered an ominous outlook if Republicans fail to retain power. Throughout his remarks, Trump also tried to campaign on behalf of Republicans in competitive midterm races. While he made fun of Ken Paxton’s clothing choices and the way he speaks, he praised the Republican nominee for US Senate in Texas as “the single greatest attorney general” in the state’s history, while also branding his opponent James Talarico as a “disaster”. Earlier, Democratic senator John Fetterman made a surprise virtual appearance at the Republican midterm convention, delivering a video address supporting Dave McCormick, a Republican senator in Pennsylvania . Fetterman, who has increasingly broken with his party since his election in 2022, said in the video that he would always reject “extremes and socialism”, repeating an oft-used Republican critique of the Democratic party’s increasingly popular left wing. Meanwhile, several Republicans who are facing tough races have chosen not to attend the convention in Dallas. This include Susan Collins, the five-term incumbent senator from Maine, and Dan Sullivan – the Republican senator from Alaska who is facing a tough contest against former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola. Continue reading...