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Politics
Policy, power, and the news of the day.
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Colombian president posts video purporting to show 23 ‘neutralised’ guerrillas in body bags
Footage provokes outrage, as bellicose and performative far-right politics continue to spread across Americas Colombia’s hardline president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has provoked outrage after posting a video on social media in which he strides through rows of white body bags that he says contained the corpses of 23 “neutralised” guerrillas. De La Espriella took power last month vowing “all-out war” against illegal armed groups and he published the footage on Thursday in an apparent attempt to show he was fulfilling that pledge. Continue reading...
Populism poses serious challenge to independent central banks, Bailey says
Bank of England governor says central bankers must explain decisions or risk being seen as ‘unrepresentative elite’ The governor of the Bank of England has said the rise of populist politicians presents a serious challenge to independent central banks. As Nigel Farage’s Reform UK gathered for its annual conference in Birmingham , Andrew Bailey said central bankers must be prepared to explain their decisions to the public, or risk being attacked as an “unrepresentative elite”. Continue reading...
Latcho Drom director Tony Gatlif dies aged 77
Film-maker acclaimed for his celebrations of Roma culture had been working on a ‘historical film project’ in Provence Tony Gatlif, the French director of more than 20 films that mostly concentrated on celebrating Roma culture across the world, has died aged 77. His family said in a statement to AFP that Gatlif died on Wednesday of “a health issue” while working on a “historical film project” in Arles in Provence, France. “The beauty of his films, his generosity, his joy, his poetry, and his love of music will remain with us forever.” Continue reading...
Man jumps out of first-floor window to escape kidnappers in Lincoln
Five jailed after targeting victim and subjecting him to ordeal linked to past relationship breakdown Dramatic footage shows a kidnapped man jumping from a first-floor window into a tree before running into the street and, by chance, coming across a police car. Lincolnshire police said the ordeal of the unnamed man had been “horrifying” and the presence of a marked police vehicle “may have saved his life”. Continue reading...
Russell Howard announces ‘devastating’ death of baby son
Comedian and his wife, Cerys Morgan, set up charitable foundation in memory of Felix, who died shortly after birth Russell Howard has announced the death of his baby son, in what he described as the “most devastating time of our lives”. The 46-year-old comedian said his family had been “changed for ever” after their “beautiful baby boy”, Felix, died shortly after birth. Continue reading...
US added 162,000 jobs in August, with unemployment rate holding steady
Number of new jobs being added has been fluctuating, with private companies adding 38,000 jobs in August The US economy added 162,000 jobs in August, an uptick after a sluggish summer for the labor market. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, still down from its most recent peak of 4.5% last November, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Despite the relative stability of the unemployment rate, the number of new jobs added to the economy has been fluctuating, going from 214,000 in March down to a 21,000 gain in July and then back up in August. Continue reading...
Seeds of hope: how a local farming project is offering a lifeline to Gaza
Family-run Al-Qarara Seed Bank is striving to help Palestinians gain sovereignty over their food security Salama Ayesh Muhanna still remembers the first seeds he planted on his family’s land in al-Qarara, Gaza. At just 17, Muhanna had proudly sprouted cucumbers. “I was very happy because I saw the results,” Muhanna says. “We were farmers at heart.” Continue reading...
US military disables ad trackers on troops’ phones amid security fears
Senator releases letters from armed forces after reports of location data being used to track US troops in Middle East US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by the US senator Ron Wyden and statements given to Reuters. The development follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East. Continue reading...
Tennessee is about to execute its first woman since 1819. Her case raises troubling questions | Austin Sarat
Christa Pike’s planned execution is emblematic of America’s broken death penalty system On 30 September, the state of Tennessee plans to put Christa Pike to death. She would be the third person brought to the death chamber in the Volunteer state this year, one of which was stopped after it was botched. She would join 17 others who have been put to death there since 1960. None of them were women. Continue reading...
Andy Burnham presents his new government as more leftwing. In reality, it’s barely moved at all | Owen Jones
The prime minister talks the talk about reversing decades of privatisation and austerity, but we’re yet to see any policies to this end If Starmerism sought to present the Labour government as more rightwing than it is, Burnhamism seeks to do the opposite. The change in rhetoric is certainly stark. Unlike his sulking predecessor, the new prime minister offers both an analysis and a vision. British stagnation and decline, Andy Burnham correctly told the House of Commons, can be explained by a series of “wrong turns” taken from the 1980s onwards: the privatisation of economic power, the deindustrialisation of the country and the ruinous austerity that followed the 2008 crash. Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Digested week: Tom Tugendhat is a serious politician. What’s he doing in a Reform-lite Tory frontbench? | John Crace
Want to see how small the gene pool of Tory talent is? I give you Andrew Griffith as shadow chancellor. Also this week: Starmer’s Fomo, and telly wars It’s the end of summer and Kemi Badenoch chose to mark the occasion with a reshuffle of her shadow cabinet. Her aim is apparently to get the Tories match fit in case Andy Burnham calls an early general election, but the vibes are much more rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship. After all, when the gene pool of talent is that small, there’s not much you can do. James Cleverly got the ball rolling by announcing he was planning to be the Conservative candidate for London mayor in two years’ time. He may have his work cut out. London is a liberal, multicultural city and unlikely to be won over by a party giving up on net zero and the European convention on human rights. Continue reading...
Wallace’s dog Gromit was nearly a cat, reveals creator as Aardman turns 50
Nick Park began modelling the character as a feline, before finding it too difficult and changing him to a dog The creator of Wallace and Gromit has revealed that the world’s most famous stop-motion animated dog was nearly a cat. As Aardman Animations marks its 50th anniversary, Nick Park, who joined the studio in 1985, told the BBC he originally modelled Gromit as a feline companion for Wallace. Continue reading...
‘They disturb the game’: how betting fans are taking over tennis courts
Jeering and heckling are increasingly commonplace, even at grand slams, as spectators try to influence matches Midway through the first week of the US Open a couple of years ago, Jiri Lehecka’s attempts to find his form were disrupted by incessant taunting from a spectator close by. “There was a guy who sat just behind my bench on a smaller court, court four, and he was talking to me basically for the first three sets, like non-stop,” Lehecka says. “He was talking to me like: ‘You can’t do it. You are tired. He’s better than you are.’” Lehecka maintained his composure and closed out the match, but even as he focused on navigating the intense stress of competition, he believed he understood this spectator’s motivations. The spectator, he thinks, was not there just to cheer for his favourite player: he was a bettor who had put money on Lehecka to lose. He had entered court four solely to influence the outcome of the match. Continue reading...
ICE bans hugging inside California’s largest detention center. Families are fighting back
In the California City facility, ‘contact visits’ are strictly forbidden – but detained residents aren’t staying quiet. Are officials listening? Teresa Reyes drove 300 miles to be with her son on his 32nd birthday in May, but she couldn’t give him a gift, share a meal with him or give him a hug. She couldn’t even touch him. Her son, Guillermo, a tattoo artist from San Jose, is locked up in the California City immigration detention center, California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, and the only way he can see his mother is behind a thick pane of glass. Continue reading...
JD Vance accused of ‘gaslighting’ after saying he is ‘skeptical’ US struck Iranian wedding | First Thing
Vice-president’s claim US-Iran conflict is not war draws ridicule from Democrat Ro Khanna. Plus, iconic feminist Gloria Steinem dies aged 92 Good morning. The US vice-president, JD Vance, has responded to claims that an American strike was responsible for killing four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran by saying that “sometimes things happen”. The deaths were reported by the Iranian Red Crescent, which operates independently of Tehran and is treated by most international monitors as a credible source on casualty figures. In a further comment, described by the congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, as “gaslighting”, the vice-president said the conflict between the US and Iran, which has stretched into a seventh month and caused the deaths of 18 US service members, was not presently “a war”. Iranian authorities have put the overall death toll from US and Israeli strikes in the thousands, figures outside observers, including US-based monitoring groups, have broadly corroborated. What did Vance say? At a White House press briefing he said: “I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far, so I’m extremely skeptical of this. What I can say with 100% confidence is that, unlike the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the US never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that, and unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen”. Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to blow up Iran’s civilian infrastructure. What is happening with US military leadership? Trump on Thursday named Adam Telle as the acting army secretary after the departure of Daniel Driscoll amid widespread reports of tensions with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the army for civil works. What has the House decided about university boycotts of Israel? The House has passed a Republican-backed bill that would penalize universities that participate in boycotts of Israel. “This legislation is about a simple principle: our colleges and universities should not discriminate against Israel,” said Tim Walberg, the Republican chair of the House education committee. Thirty three Democrats broke with the rest of their party to vote in favor. It now goes to the Senate for consideration. Continue reading...
Missouri supreme court blocks congressional maps backed by Trump for midterms – US politics live
The decision marks a setback for Republicans in a national redistricting battle Sign up for US Breaking News emails Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. The Missouri supreme court blocked a Republican-drawn new congressional map from being used in November’s midterm elections, a blow to the party’s odds for maintaining its narrow US House majority. The Trump administration filed an emergency request asking the US supreme court to lift order blocking USPS from implementing mail-in voting restrictions. Chuck Schumer said the president was “[attempting] to destroy the integrity of our elections” with the move. Excavation work on Donald Trump’s “Great Triumphal Arch” project in Washington is set to begin in the coming weeks, interior secretary Doug Burgum said. Congressman Don Beyer, whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery, described the arch project as “illegal, gridlock-increasing [and] narcissistic”. Maryland’s supreme court has decided that a Democrat-backed congressional redistricting amendment can go before voters in the state in November in a win for Democrats. Donald Trump announced an interim replacement for army secretary, Dan Driscoll, who suddenly resigned earlier this week amid reports of tension between him and defense secretary Pete Hegseth. Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has been asked to testify before a congressional subcommittee as part of an investigation into the “potential misallocation” of federal funds by the region’s Homeless Services Authority. Congressman Robert Garcia described the move as “another attempt by Donald Trump and House Republicans to launch a witch-hunt against Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles.” Continue reading...
Drones, teargas, riot squads: why has the UK gone to war against asylum seekers already fleeing conflict? | Diane Taylor
Burnham and Macron have committed to going further in the crackdown on French beaches. But little is being done to offer refugees safe alternative routes Garang*, 18, is one of thousands of refugees recently caught in the crossfire of French riot police, who threw teargas and beat them with batons when they boarded dinghies to travel to the UK. He is a victim of a war in his home of South Sudan – and one being fought on France’s northern shores. He borrows a phone from anyone with credit who will let him try to call home, where his family is displaced. Garang doesn’t have enough money on the £10-a-week allowance from the Home Office to make a long-distance call. All he wants is to speak to his mum, to hear her voice, and let her know he is alive and safe in the UK despite the violence he has faced. Diane Taylor writes on human rights, racism and civil liberties Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here . Continue reading...
Iranian town mourns after deadly strike on wedding
Mourning turns to anger as residents of Kuhestak say Baloch communities are being placed in path of conflict People in Kuhestak, a predominantly Baloch city in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, are mourning after a strike on a wedding killed at least four people, including a child, and injured more than 60, according to local authorities. The blast hit at around 9.30pm on 1 September, turning a night of celebration into one of devastation for the small coastal community, which is on the strait of Hormuz. Continue reading...
It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to resign from Meta | Joan Donovan
The CEO is the throughline in a history of billion-dollar blunders that have caused real harm, culminating in last week’s settlement Last week, Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, agreed to a settlement of up to $18bn after dozens of US states accused it of harming children with addictive products. The settlement’s regulatory implications for social media will affect every user, far beyond teens. But if Meta is truly interested in prioritizing the safety of users, the board should request the resignation of Mark Zuckerberg and restructure to put safety above profit. Continue reading...
Private equity faces existential crisis in US as unsold companies pile up
Private equity firms and the companies they own employ over 13 million, from startups to rural hospitals and large retailers, but experts’ concerns of collapse are growing Retail stalwarts Saks and Eddie Bauer filed for bankruptcy. Kmart and JoAnn Fabrics are gone for good, a trail of layoffs and disappointed customers in their wake. Hospital giant Steward Health Care collapsed, costing thousands of jobs and leaving several communities without a local hospital. These once-trusted US companies have one thing in common: they were owned by private equity investors, who load companies with debt when they buy them and squeeze out profits as they restructure. Continue reading...
Health-tracking smart ring maker Oura to list on US stock market
Firm has celebrity fans and ambassadors including Prince Harry, Jennifer Aniston and Kim Kardashian Fans of Oura are accustomed to using its trendy smart rings to fastidiously monitor their health but now investors are preparing to track a new metric – its share price. The San Francisco-headquartered company’s filing to imminently list on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York was made public on Thursday. Continue reading...
UK ministers hit back at Argentinian Falklands claim and insist islands remain British
Defence secretary says ‘winds of change’ remarks by Argentina’s president are more about domestic politics UK politics live – latest updates British ministers have hit back after the Argentinian president said “winds of change” favourable to his country’s claim to the Falklands were “blowing around the world”. Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, said the statement by Javier Milei on Thursday night “tells us more about domestic politics in Argentina than it does about the Falkland Islands”. Continue reading...
The wild world of LSU: from tigers on the field to wooing ex-NFL players
Recruiting ex-pros. Inflaming Ukraine-Russia tensions. Suing the SEC and being sued back. The school is adapting to a new reality – and also creating a new one In 1893, a chemistry professor named Charles Coates arrived at Louisiana State University and wrote that, to his surprise, “there was practically no athletics in the student body: no football, no tennis, and only very little baseball in the spring.” A broad program of sports struck him as the kind of thing a school should have, particularly as US universities were beginning to tout intercollegiate athletics as critical to a balanced higher-ed experience and another way to justify the cost of entry. But 133 years on, sports aren’t merely the main attraction at LSU. They’re the school’s raison d’être , the blinkered obsession that consumes the university and its most prominent ambassadors. Any doubt that the business of educating college students is just a nettlesome distraction from the business of college sports in Baton Rouge has been emphatically dispelled over the past 10 months. On the football side, the school has spent or committed roughly $162m to its last three head coaches: Ed Orgeron, the folksy national champion in 2019 who received a $17m buyout when he was fired two years later; Brian Kelly, the unloved underachiever who received a $54m buyout after being fired last October; and Lane Kiffin, the Kelly replacement whom it signed to a $91m deal a month later. Clemson, the opponent for LSU’s season opener at home on Saturday, are about to find out what all that money buys. Continue reading...
‘Astronomical’ fuel price surge hits farmers in UK and US
Intensification of Middle East conflict and ongoing Russian export ban sees diesel prices rise 10% in less than a week Farmers are facing an “astronomical” jump in the price of fuel needed to operate their vehicles and machinery after a surge in diesel costs in the UK and US. Renewed fighting between the US and Iran has driven up the price of crude oil, while last week Russia extended a ban on diesel exports, further pushing up market prices. Continue reading...