Ministers to put white working-class people in UK at heart of new equalities unit

• 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.

Podcast will be on YouTube site of Mike Graham, fired from TalkTV after racist post appeared on his Facebook pageWhen Liz Truss launched her podcast last year, she declared it would bring a “counter-revolution” to take on the “deep state”, which, she said, “tried to destroy” her.The revolution, however, has not yet arrived. Truss, whose stint as UK prime minister abruptly ended after her disastrous mini-budget crashed the economy, has so far failed to find a wide audience with her media career. Continue reading...

Friedrich Merz says Alternative für Deutschland is ‘dividing our society’ after party won nearly 44% of vote in Saxony-Anhalt state electionEurope live – latest updatesGermany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has accused the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of seeking “ethnic cleansing” with its “remigration” drive, after the nativist party’s seismic weekend victory in a state election.In their first public confrontation since Sunday’s shock outcome in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz said at a raucous parliamentary debate that the AfD would take an axe to one of the pillars of the German economy with a racist campaign of mass deportations. Continue reading...

Charity stresses small boat rescues are tiny part of its work and speaks out after volunteers abused by far-right agitatorsThe lifeboat charity RNLI has vowed to continue to rescue asylum seekers in the Channel despite attacks on volunteers and staff after the recent high-profile small boat landings.RNLI bosses said workers had been subjected to online and physical abuse and there had been “baseless” rumours that the charity has housed asylum seekers or moved them to secret locations after helping them to shore. Continue reading...

Authorities and public bodies to be urged to buy goods and services from Europe, but without binding quotasEuropean authorities will be encouraged to buy more domestic goods and services when they spend public money under the EU latest effort to counter China’s economic might.In a further “Buy European” plan, the European Commission published proposals on Wednesday for a sweeping overhaul of EU public procurement rules. Continue reading...

The state can’t use new congressional districts under one court order – or its old ones under another. Plus, the architects in Europe turning urban spaces into areas of climate respiteGood morning. Clashing court rulings plunged Missouri’s congressional elections into uncertainty less than two months before the November midterms that will decide which party controls a closely divided Congress.Conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the emergency request from Missouri officials to use a congressional map in November that was redrawn with Donald Trump’s support to give Republicans an edge in the midterms, but a ruling by a federal judge in Missouri temporarily prevented the state from using its old congressional maps.Why is there legal action over the maps? The Missouri supreme court has previously ruled that the new map must go before voters to approve or reject the new districts, meaning it cannot be used in time for the November election. The president and Republicans had fumed over the decision, with Trump calling it “horrible, ridiculous, and unconstitutional”.What are the significant changes to the map intended to favor Republicans? The revised map targeted the fifth congressional district, held by longtime Democratic representative Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. It reassigned portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretched the remainder of Cleaver’s district far eastward into rural Republican areas.What has the British prime minister said? Writing in the Guardian, Andy Burnham said he would “not stand by” as horrific suffering continued, and that for too long the UK had been hesitant to act “fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel”. “The measures we are taking,” he said, “are about targeting illegal settlements and increasing the pressure on the Israeli government to change course. We are not imposing sanctions on Israel as a whole.”How has Israel reacted? Israel has ordered the closure of the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem among retaliatory measures including entry bans on several UK lawmakers. The Israeli government added that longstanding British involvement in the training of Palestinian security forces on the West Bank would be terminated. Britain will also be excluded from the US-led Gaza coordination mission. Continue reading...

AFL-CIO calls for ban on such labels to protect consumers and workers from surveillance pricing and job cutsThe universal adoption of electronic shelf labels in grocery stores across the US could cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages while further driving up grocery costs, according to a report released on Tuesday.An analysis by the AFL-CIO Tech Institute of the label manufacturers’ own marketing materials found the universal adoption of electronic shelf labels, which are marketed to retailers as a cost-cutting measure, could cost workers between $1.6bn to $6.9bn in lost wages annually and affect between 44,223 and 191,633 jobs. Continue reading...

President to give speeches on both days of unprecedented gatheringRepublican midterm convention will be ‘Trumpist pageantry’ – at the party’s own riskSign up for US Breaking News emailHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Donald Trump is due to address Republicans tonight at the party’s first ever national convention ahead of the crucial midterm elections, with the GOP hoping to energize voters as it fights to hold its narrow congressional majorities.Clashing court rulings plunged Missouri’s congressional elections into uncertainty. The US Supreme Court decided not to intervene to reinstate a Donald Trump-backed US House map, upholding a a ruling from the state’s highest state court that prevented the use of the map in the November elections. But shortly after a federal judge temporarily barred the state from using its old congressional maps in November.The US military destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers after a US navy warship was targeted with ballistic missiles. Iran had targeted the warship twice over two days, the US Central Command said.The US will ban Canadian dairy products, motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages. The move marked an escalation in the ongoing trade war between the North American countries, and comes just after Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on $20bn in US goods.Congressman Chris Pappas beat back progressive challenger Karishma Manzur in the New Hampshire Democratic primary for US Senate. Former senator John E Sununu, who is backed by Trump, won the state’s Republican Senate primary.Lonnie G Bunch III announced he is stepping down as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution after seven years in the role amid Donald Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on the world’s largest museum’s autonomy. Continue reading...

Kent Blacklidge, who officials say was ‘directly involved with child exploitation cases’, turned himself in last weekA federal law enforcement agent tasked with “trying to provide justice in cases involving kids” has been charged with child rape in Alabama, state authorities said on Tuesday.Kent Blacklidge, described as a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), turned himself over to the Baldwin county jail on 5 September in connection with a grand jury indictment charging him with first- and second-degree rape, sodomy and sexual abuse, police in the city of Spanish Fort said in a statement. Continue reading...

Cameron Stanley talks up ‘revolutionary’ AI capabilities and says Washington working with Nato and Five Eyes partnersThe Pentagon’s top artificial intelligence official said on Tuesday that America’s closest allies lack the resources to keep pace with the US military’s adoption of AI, and that Washington is working to steer them away from mistakes it made along the way.“They don’t have the resources that we do, they don’t have the experience that we do, they don’t have the scale that we do,” Cameron Stanley, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of War, said at an event at the Billington Cybersecurity summit. Of Nato and the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing partnership of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Stanley said Washington was “actively working with a number of our partners” so “they don’t make the same mistakes that we make”. Continue reading...