Vance appears to walk back Trump’s offer of $5,000 ‘dividend’ if Republicans win midterms – US politics live

• The United Nations trained nearly 200 community health officers in Rwanda to prepare the government for a potential Ebola outbreak. • Training focused on early detection, risk communication, and infection and prevention and control.

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the multilateral system is straining under fractured geopolitics during his opening address at the 81st UN General Assembly. • Guterres cited a combination of nuclear escalation risks, worsening climate chaos, and declining financial resources for humanitarian operations.

• The Ministry of National Defense dispatched a local fact-finding mission to the Middle East to evaluate troop deployment to the Strait of Hormuz. • The mission focuses specifically on the strategic logistics and security requirements of deploying personnel to this critical waterway.

• Harsh Pant, Vice President of the Observer Research Foundation, stated that the upcoming BRICS summit will test India's diplomatic capabilities during a period of global fragmentation. • Pant noted that current wars in Europe and the Middle East are creating geopolitical instability with no clear end in sight.

• Professor Michel Chossudovsky released a video on September 9, 2026, discussing the historical and geopolitical implications of the September 11, 2001 attacks. • The presentation argues that the 9/11 attacks were instrumental in changing the nature of wars led by the United States and NATO.

• Former President Donald Trump stated on September 9 that he intends to speak with countries that sanctioned settlements to understand their reasoning. • Otzma Yehudit filed a 39-page request alleging that two nonprofits linked to the Ra’am party, Aid 48 and Humanitarian Deeds, transferred millions of shekels to terrorist organizations.

• India is attempting to build consensus among member nations at the BRICS summit to overcome deep global divisions. • Harsh V Pant of the Observer Research Foundation notes that India will prioritize the developmental challenges of the Global South to foster unity.

Testimony from Israeli military insiders involved in surveillance and remote killings features in documentary produced by the GuardianTestimony from 24 Israeli military insiders ​on the secret ​systems used in ​the war on Gaza​ has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians.NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award. Continue reading...

Environment Agency says talks under way about increasing prices for industrial users to try to reduce poor water managementMinisters are exploring making water more expensive for some users, in the face of severe supply shortages.Despite the UK being a famously wet country, the precarious nature of the water supply has been made particularly acute this summer, with almost three-quarters of England and all of Wales in drought and 27 million people facing restrictions on their water use. Continue reading...

As public air monitors disappear, federal rollbacks and state laws are making it harder than ever to know what’s in the airAs the US’s network for monitoring air pollution deteriorates, a Floodlight investigation has found that the chemical industry is going state-to-state to restrict one of the few options citizens have left for holding polluters accountable: low-cost air sensors.Over the past two years, the non-profit investigative newsroom determined, lawmakers in Louisiana, Kentucky and Ohio have passed strikingly similar laws barring regulators from acting on air-quality data that communities collect themselves – unless it comes from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved equipment that typically costs tens of thousands of dollars. Similar legislation has repeatedly been introduced in West Virginia. Continue reading...

Following six years of talks, Pitt Rivers Museum will return body parts collected by British colonial administrators to north-east IndiaAnthropologists and community leaders from Nagaland, a remote state in north-eastern India bordering Myanmar, have expressed joy and relief that human remains belonging to their ancestors that had been on display in a British museum for nearly a century are finally being returned.On Monday, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford announced that 39 pieces of human remains – including parts of skulls, a finger and a piece of skin with hair – belonging to the Naga tribes, will be returned to Nagaland after six years of negotiation between the community and the museum. Continue reading...

Speaking in Dallas, the president raised ethical concerns with an apparent $1tn offer to the electorate. Plus the US citizens who are finding Scotland to be an irresistible lureGood morning. Donald Trump has pledged to pay every adult citizen in the US $5,000 if Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections. The outlandish proposal, which would cost over $1tn, immediately raised ethical concerns.Trump made the promise during a marathon speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in which he assailed Democrats as “radical”, defended his unpopular war in Iran, and urged voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot”. Trump claimed, without evidence, that his second term had been “the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency”.Why did the Republicans hold a midterm convention? Republicans are gambling that the GOP’s first midterm convention can salvage their threatened House majority. However, Donald Trump’s dismal approval rating drove many competitive candidates to skip the two-day event entirely.What has Trump said about the former attorney Michael Cohen? The US president has said he would consider pardoning Michael Cohen, the former fixer whom he once branded a “rat” for testifying against him. Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer, but flipped in 2018, and pleaded guilty to federal crimes including facilitating a hush payment to the pornography star Stormy Daniels and lying under oath to Congress.How many people has the US killed in its campaign? Late Wednesday, US Southern Command announced the latest strike in the Caribbean Sea, saying it killed three people. That brought the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 230 in 69 strikes.What has the US announced about Ecuador’s gangs? The US has designated Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang as a terrorist organisation. Rubio said the gang was linked to narcotics trafficking, as well as attacks on civilians, law enforcement officers and journalists. “We are talking about terrorists who, in many cases, possess weapons and equipment resembling the national armies of certain countries,” he said. Continue reading...