BBC boss concedes real prospect of strikes over pay and job cuts

• The UN stabilization mission in the Central African Republic reported a gradual return to normal life in Am-Dafock following an attack by armed groups. • The violence killed 29 people and displaced more than 17,000 residents near the border with Sudan.

• The Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum signed a major oil and gas exploration and production agreement with the Saudi company Delta Energy in Kabul. • The deal focuses on the exploration and production of energy resources within Afghanistan.

One researcher who resigned said many in industry believe that without regulation AI could kill off humanityArtificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant Anthropic, one of whom has quit his job in protest.The latest doom-laden predictions came in posts on social media on Tuesday by a researcher who said he resigned because Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI, were ignoring or at best mishandling their response to the threat. Continue reading...

Brandon Herrera of state’s 23rd congressional district calls insults against women and unhoused people ‘jokes’A Republican candidate for a key congressional district in Texas has come under scrutiny over a series of derogatory comments made about women in his social media posts and videos.Brandon Herrera, who is the GOP candidate for Texas’s 23rd congressional district, has made a string of insults while fashioning a rightwing online persona as the “AK Guy”, and hosts a YouTube channel with more than 4 million subscribers that tests and reviews firearms. Continue reading...

Oil price rises above $100 a barrel as Tehran responds to US attacks that sunk five Iranian tankersTehran has said it attacked 10 ships around the strait of Hormuz after the US sunk five Iranian tankers, as escalating strikes between the two sent the oil price over $100 a barrel for the first time since July.The attacks were the sharpest flare-up of strikes in weeks, as the two sides struggled to break a deadlock in the six-month-long war. Fighting in recent weeks has largely revolved around who controls the strait of Hormuz, as Iran attempts to close off the waterway and Washington enforces a blockade of Iranian ports. The strait is a critical route for global energy supplies, with up to 20% of the world’s oil and gas transiting it before the US-Iran war. The rising price of oil, above the psychologically significant $100 mark is likely to have knock-on effects on inflation and the price of goods. Stocks fell on Wall Street while rising fuel and food prices in the US will further frustrate the Trump administration, which faces a midterm election with an unpopular war and a cost-of-living crisis. Continue reading...

The Wild Horse Nine actor had been due to appear on stage in The Music Critic in Tel Aviv – but pulled out over PR firm’s ‘unacceptable and untenable’ attribution of statementJohn Malkovich has cancelled a planned trip to Israel next year to appear on stage after a PR firm hired by the show attributed quotes to the actor that the company had written.Malkovich, who is a leading Oscar contender for his role in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, was due to appear in The Music Critic, a theatrical-musical satire composed by the Jewish violinist Aleksey Igudesman, in Tel Aviv’s Charles Bronfman Auditorium on 13 April. Continue reading...

Europe’s royals and global political figures attend ceremony that brings 13 days of national mourning to a closeEurope live – latest updatesNorway has observed a minute’s silence as it takes leave of King Harald V in a series of ceremonies, bringing to a close 13 days of ​national mourning that followed the popular monarch’s death last month at the age of 89.Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Oslo and foreign heads of state and government converged on the Norwegian capital for the funeral of the late king, a light-touch and unassuming reformer who ruled for more than three decades. Continue reading...

The breakdown of the US-Iran ceasefire, rising oil prices and the explosion in data centre investment are making the central bank’s task harderFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFor five years the Reserve Bank has been trying to wrangle inflation back to its 2.5% target, and for years it has essentially failed.The result is a cost of living crisis that has generated intense community grievance. Continue reading...

Residents denounce suggestion to rename state ‘New America’, save some Republicans who insist it was ‘satire’US politics live – latest updatesWhen scrolling through social media over the Labor Day weekend, actor, comedian and native New Mexican Steven Michael Quezada was stopped cold by a post about Donald Trump’s recent call to rename New Mexico to New America.“At first I thought, nah, that’s got to be a joke,” said Quezada, who played drug enforcement agent Steven Gomez in the legendary TV series Breaking Bad. Continue reading...

After the AfD’s landslide win in Saxony-Anhalt, people in the state capital share what they make of the result – and what comes next• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAsking residents in a city where a seismic political event has just taken place ‘How do you feel?’ demands chutzpah – this struck me as I walked around Magdeburg, Germany on Monday. The night before, the far-right populist, anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin party Alternative für Deustchland (AfD) had landslide 44% win in Saxony-Anhalt’s state elections, sending shock waves to Berlin, across Germany and way beyond. Regardless of how people in the capital voted, it felt like a bit of an affront to probe. Given the radical plans of the victors, a party classified by domestic intelligence as “rightwing extremist”, that is what I wanted to know. But from the 21-year-old Guinean-German paramedic I met at the central bus station, collecting donations for a local hospice, to the elderly couple returning to their apartment after a stroll down the Elbe river, almost everyone I met opened up to me warmly.Judith, 88, was initially reluctant to talk, but shared some of her life story. Her experience as an eight-year-old refugee, forced to leave Poland in 1946 and eventually ending up move with her family in Magdeburg, had shaped her outlook on life, her successful career as a project engineer – as well as her politics. The news that AfD had not only won the election, but by such a wide margin, was “heartbreaking”, she said. Continue reading...

While a survey found Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters to be the strongest backers of such a ban on trade, even Tory and Reform voters were in favour overallUK politics live – latest updatesThere was a time when placing Israel under strict trade sanctions would have been a politically risky thing for a British prime minister to do. Andy Burnham, however, considers it an electoral asset.As Kemi Badenoch attacked him over defence spending at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Burnham deliberately turned the topic to the trade ban on illegal settlements which he had announced on Tuesday. Continue reading...