Tuesday briefing: How to make sense of England’s local elections campaigns

• World leaders are gathering for the United Nations General Assembly to address ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. • Oxfam is using the event to urge global action on an "inequality emergency" involving climate change, artificial intelligence, and the crisis in Gaza.

• Nearly 130 heads of state are meeting at the United Nations as the organization struggles to maintain its relevance amid global political strain. • The assembly follows a period of tension with the United States, where Donald Trump slashed financial contributions and withdrew from dozens of UN bodies.

• Iranian Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf stated that the old United States-led global order has collapsed and called for Islamic nations to implement a new one. • Ghalibaf noted that Tehran's specific messages and conditions regarding this shift were explicitly conveyed to the U.S. through intermediaries.

• Global leaders are meeting in New York this week for the UN General Assembly to discuss the Middle East crisis, the war in Ukraine, and artificial intelligence risks. • President Donald Trump will address the assembly, while Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the event.

Tensions grow as Trump tells Fox News he is considering ‘wiping Iran out’ after attacks on Riyadh by Houthi rebelsGovernments across the Middle East are bracing for an escalation of violence after Iran claimed it had received intelligence that the US was preparing for a renewed bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.In a potential sign of growing tensions before the UN general assembly in New York this week, Donald Trump cut short a weekend visit to the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday with no official explanation, and a new security alert was issued by the state department to all US citizens in the Middle East. Continue reading...

Jane Adetoro, Christina Walters and Rebecca Walters from Uxbridge were found on 13 MayThe deaths of three sisters found in the sea off Brighton beach did not involve any criminality or third-party involvement, police have concluded.The bodies of Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31, from Uxbridge, west London, were found on 13 May. A postmortem conducted that month confirmed all three women died by drowning. Continue reading...

The PM hopes to be firmer with the US leader than his predecessor without provoking diplomatic warfare, as the Iran war weighs on the UK economyNo international relationship has more power to determine the success of Andy Burnham’s premiership. So you might imagine the stakes for the prime minister’s first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday would be high.Yet Burnham may prove to be a lucky general. The balance of risk has shifted. Trump is unpopular at home, where inflation remains high, and is mired in an intractable conflict in Iran that has the potential to sink his midterm dreams. Continue reading...

Far-right AfD wins in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and leftwing Die Linke on course for victory in BerlinGermany’s embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office and fight for future-proofing economic reforms despite heavy losses for his conservatives in two state elections, one to the far right and the other to a leftwing party.Preliminary results indicated Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tallied just over the 5% threshold to enter the state parliament in the coastal region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, its worst-ever state score, which he called a “disaster”. Continue reading...

Self-described moderates say they feel forced out of Kemi Badenoch’s party, and into the arms of Ed Davey’sClimbing the party-branded stairs of the Brighton Centre with a Liberal Britain tote bag over his shoulder, Cody Butler looks quite at home at the Liberal Democrats’ annual jamboree.But asked how he is finding it, the 21-year-old replied: “Odd.” The former Tory activist resigned as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network and left his old party in July, arguing that centrists, remainers and members worried about the climate crisis and conservation were no longer welcome in the party. A week ago, he joined the Lib Dems. Continue reading...

Row at resort on Athenian riviera escalated into violence after two elderly bathers reportedly argued over shortage of loungersGreek police are investigating the death of an 82-year-old man after a brawl over a sunlounger at a beach on the Athenian riviera.The man had arrived at the popular bathing spot of Vouliagmeni before 10am on Sunday hoping to secure a sunbed, but he soon began arguing with a fellow bather – described by authorities as a “76-year-old man unknown to him” – when it became clear loungers were in short supply. Continue reading...

Florida’s María Elvira Salazar warns Trump that advisers are ‘compromising his legacy’ and not showing ‘whole picture’María Elvira Salazar, the Republican congresswoman who has accused the president of going too far on immigration enforcement, doubled down on her criticism of the administration on Sunday, warning Donald Trump that some of his advisers were “compromising his legacy”.In an interview with CBS News’s Face the Nation, the Florida representative who is locked in a tight race for re-election pleaded with the US president not to “squander” his relationship with Hispanic voters. Though she couched her remarks as criticism of top administration advisers, it was clear that her focus was on Trump’s much-vaunted ambition to carry out the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history. Continue reading...

Exclusive: intelligence officers warn campaign against Nato could intensify ‘in months, not years’ – but panic will play into Kremlin psy-opsEuropean intelligence officials have raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, with one saying a potential attack could come in a matter of “months not years”.The warnings came after Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told parliament that intelligence assessments suggest Russia may launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months, as part of efforts to prove that “article 5 is more theoretical than practical”. Continue reading...