Politics — Pete

The Guardian — World Jul 1

Wednesday briefing: After two powerful earthquakes, what is the reality on the ground in Venezuela?

In today’s newsletter: A country already in crisis since the removal of its leader earlier this year by the US, now has to find a way to rebuild with little state presence in evidence The shaking seemed to come from nowhere. In a moment captured by fishers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, two earthquakes struck seconds apart . Plumes of dust appear where buildings once stood in the recording as the camera rises and falls with the swell. The men rapidly head for the shore in search of their families. “I’m shaking,” says the cameraman. Since the quakes struck last Wednesday, the search for missing loved ones has not stopped for scores of Venezuelans. Officially, more than 1,700 people have died. But tens of thousands remain missing: desperate relatives are walking up and down streets lined by rubble and collapsed buildings with photos of those they cannot find, asking for help. World news | A child has been rescued from the rubble in Venezuela, six days since the country was hit by devastating twin earthquakes. UK politics | Andy Burnham will have to find an extra £4.7bn for defence in his first budget, after Keir Starmer announced a £298bn defence investment plan (Dip) without having fully identified how it will be funded. US politics | The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. UK news | The European media group Axel Springer has completed its £575m takeover of the Telegraph, ending years of uncertainty over the future ownership of the 171-year-old titles. US news | Nine matches in the World Cup group stage were played amid potentially dangerous heat and humidity, a Guardian analysis shows. Continue reading...

The Guardian — World Jul 1

‘Complicated and expensive’: Burnham is right about the risks of nationalisation | Nils Pratley

Track record of Welsh Water shows public ownership is not the answer to all the woes in the utilities sector Good news for Andy Burnham: one of the original 10 water privatisations from the Thatcher-era has returned to public ownership already. Thanks to a complicated turn-of-the-century corporate saga, Welsh Water, serving 3 million people, converted to not-for-profit status in 2001. It has no shareholders. Financial surpluses go “straight back into keeping bills down and looking after your water and beautiful environment”, as the website blurb puts it . How’s it going? After a quarter of a century without dividend-hungry shareholders to feed, has the model proved its superiority? Not exactly. Welsh Water usually has high scores on customer trust metrics but its performance on bills and spills tends to be middle of the pack. Continue reading...

The Guardian — World Jul 1

‘Imagine this was your daughter’: how grieving mothers campaigned to close sentencing gap

David Lammy’s decision to increase minimum sentence for domestic murder victims follows years of tireless lobbying David Lammy had gone quiet. Sitting in his ministerial office in the Palace of Westminster, the justice secretary had just been presented with pictures of women killed by their partners in their own homes, by their grieving mothers. As she put the photographs in front of him, Carole Gould explained that her 17-year-old daughter, Ellie, was killed by fellow sixth-former Thomas Griffiths the day after she ended their relationship in 2019. Julie Devey, who was joining the call remotely, showed a photograph of her daughter, Poppy Devey Waterhouse , who was 24 when she was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Joe Atkinson, on 14 December 2018. Continue reading...

The Guardian — Politics Jul 1

Academy school leaders in England face pay cap to curb ‘banker-style’ salaries

Nearly 100 academy chief executives earn more than £200,000 a year, and at least one more than £500,000 The era of academy school leaders in England receiving “banker-style salaries” and hefty annual increases may soon be over, with the government to introduce limits on executive pay. Nearly 100 academy chief executives earn more than £200,000 a year, with pay in academy trusts equating to anything from less than £5 a pupil to more than £150. Only a quarter of the high-earners were women. Continue reading...

The Guardian — World Jul 1

Specieswatch: How heatwaves play havoc with bees’ fertility

Study reveals extreme heat causes sharp drop with knock-on effect for pollination of food crops in following years We know heatwaves have serious health consequences for humans, but what about other species? A study has shown they severely diminish bees’ fertility, with significant implications for the pollination of food crops in the following years. Prof James Gilbert of the University of Hull his and colleagues simulated a three-day UK heatwave in the lab and measured its effect on solitary red mason bees, compared with those kept under control conditions of an ordinary summer. Continue reading...

The Guardian — World Jul 1

Energy price cap rise ‘will push millions in Great Britain into fuel poverty’

Typical bill will surge by £220 a year from Wednesday, forcing 13.5m homes to spend over 10% of income on fuel Millions of households in Great Britain will be pushed into fuel poverty after months of volatility on the global gas markets as energy bills rise by more than £220 a year under the government’s price cap from Wednesday. As the cap on gas and electricity rates rises to the equivalent of £1,862 a year, the number of households forced to spend more than 10% of their income on energy bills will increase to 13.5m from almost 11.3m in April, according to fuel poverty campaigners. Continue reading...

The Guardian — US News Jul 1

Democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeats 15-term incumbent in Colorado House primary

Twenty-nine-year-old beat Representative Diana DeGette in deep-blue Denver district The democratic socialist Melat Kiros unseated long-serving US representative Diana DeGette in Colorado’s primary elections held on Tuesday, after a campaign in which support for Israel became a wedge issue among voters. The Associated Press reported that Kiros had defeated DeGette for the Democratic nomination in the deep-blue first congressional district centered on Denver. The victory of Kiros came a week after New York voters unseated two Democratic congressional incumbents and replaced a third who was retiring with candidates who had campaigned on standing up to Israel amid accusations that it was carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Continue reading...

The Guardian — US News Jul 1

Why Meloni has hit back hard against Trump and his ‘made up’ photo claim

With her popularity flagging and a general election looming, the Italian PM sees a strategic advantage in the rupture If Giorgia Meloni thought that she could put her April spat with Donald Trump over the pope’s criticism of the US war on Iran behind her, she had not banked on the US president’s capacity to bear a grudge. Trump reignited tensions by telling an Italian TV journalist that the Italian PM had “begged” him for a picture at the recent G7 meeting in France. The Spanish newspaper El País suggested that Trump’s feathers had been ruffled by a video at the same meeting, showing Meloni appearing to scold him. In any case he doubled down on his tale in a Truth Social post , adding that Meloni wanted the photo to boost her flagging approval ratings, which he blamed on her failure to support the US in the Iran war. Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome Continue reading...