Labour condemns Reform’s plan for £100bn in cuts as ‘half-baked’ and ‘incredibly reckless’ – UK politics live

Labour chair says uch cuts ‘could mean vital public services like hospitals, schools and law enforcement are put at risk’

The Electoral Commission has released political donation figures for the second quarter of 2026. They show that Reform UK continues to rake in far more than other parties. Nigel Farage’’s party had declared donations worth £5.3m. Labour got £3.6m, and the Conservatives £2.8m.

Most of Reform UK’s money came from Ben Delo, who gave £4m. As Rowena Mason reported earlier this year, Delo is a British billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business.

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Hillary Clinton leads tributes to Gloria Steinem: ‘Her activism was rooted in optimism’

Ex-secretary of state joins Nancy Pelosi, Jill Biden, Roxane Gay and others in heralding groundbreaking feminist

Leading figures from politics, entertainment and wider society led glowing tributes to Gloria Steinem on Thursday, with Hillary Clinton hailing the American feminist icon who died at 92 at home in New York as “one of the architects of the entire structure of women’s equality”.

Clinton, a former US secretary of state, presidential candidate and first lady, was among the first to jump in with praise early on Thursday when she appeared on the CBS Mornings TV show to share her respect and gratitude for Steinem.

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EU’s ability to defend against invasion remains in doubt, finds official report

Fragmented infrastructure and reliance on US continue to hinder ‘defence readiness’, says European court of auditors

The EU’s ability to respond to a foreign invasion by 2030 remains in doubt due to a continuing reliance on the US and fragmented national defence systems, according to a report from its official auditor.

The European court of auditors (ECA) said the EU was much better prepared than before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine of 2022, but achieving its goal of defence readiness by the end of the decade would be difficult.

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Manchester synagogue attack: ministers seek to block MI5 files from inquest

Government lawyers tell coroner disclosing intelligence would pose serious risk to national security

Ministers are seeking to block intelligence material from being heard at an inquest into the death of two men killed in the 2025 Manchester synagogue attack.

Lawyers for Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, told a coroner on Thursday that disclosing the MI5 files would pose a serious risk to national security.

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Aid operations in aftermath of deadly Nepal floods hampered by conditions | First Thing

Guardian reporters in Nepal have witnessed first-hand the scenes of destruction and grief after the flash floods. Plus, a not-to-be-missed interview with the legendary Mr T

Good morning. Thousands remain missing and the delivery of aid has been hampered by treacherous conditions in communities almost wiped out of existence by the flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet. A week after the disaster, survivors who fled up mountainsides are still being collected by army helicopters and evacuated.

The mountain village of Syabru Besi was among those destroyed, with even the road to the village gone. According to local government officials, at least 500 people there are missing, a quarter of the population. The village resembles nothing more than a muddy riverbed, with just one building left standing.

What have Guardian reporters witnessed? Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Gaurav Pokharel have been in the Betrawati and Rasuwa districts with the photographer Ahmer Khan. In this video, Ellis-Petersen explains what she has seen alongside haunting footage of the debris. They have spoken to multiple survivors in a region now full of human suffering.

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BoM forecasts strongest El Niño on record as research points to ‘alarming’ climate change influence

Bureau of Meteorology suggests El Niño has already broken records, with Pacific ocean temperature change exceeding 2C in six months

The growing El Niño weather phenomenon to Australia’s east is already breaking heat records, with forecasts showing it will likely easily surpass previous events, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, as seperate research suggested climate change had greatly shortened the odds of the event hitting record extremes.

On Thursday the UN’s weather agency said the event in the Pacific was continuing to strengthen and would probably persist until early 2027, warning it had the “potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world”.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

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Rise of far-right leader Roberto Vannacci challenges Meloni as she celebrates Italian milestone

Futuro Nazionale party’s speedy poll rise poses questions whether PM will return to her roots before election

Giorgia Meloni’s government has become the longest-running in Italy since the second world war – a milestone the prime minister is determined not to let pass unnoticed.

In the port area of Bari, the capital of the southern Italian region of Puglia, where Meloni hosted the G7 in 2024 and where she spends her summer holiday, preparations are well under way for a festival-style showcase of her rightwing administration.

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UK mortgage borrowers brace for rate jump amid global bond sell-off

Swap rates rise to three-year high as increase in oil prices leads to fears of higher inflation

Homeowners in the UK are braced for a jump in mortgage rates, driven by higher inflation and interest rate increase expectations amid turmoil in the global bond markets.

UK swap rates, which lenders use to price mortgages, have risen to a three-year high, as this week’s global bond market sell-off ripples through the economy.

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John Lewis to launch YouTube chatshow to improve AI search results

Department store chain’s Gift List ‘vodcast’ will be hosted by TV presenter Angela Scanlon

John Lewis is launching an online chatshow and social media studio to help make itself and its products more visible to chatbots and more prominent in AI search results.

The department store chain’s Gift List “vodcast” hosted by the TV presenter Angela Scanlon will air on YouTube with clips disseminated via other social media channels and comes after the success of its sister chain Waitrose’s Dish podcast.

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Teenager in Wales given detention sentence for stabbing teacher in head

Judge voices concern about possible copycat incidents after boy, 16, found guilty over attack at school in Pembrokeshire

A judge has expressed concern over possible copycat attacks on school staff as he sentenced a teenager who stabbed a teacher in the head to four and a half years in youth detention.

Judge Thomas KC said it was the second such attack in south-west Wales in two years and that the authorities might have to consider what security measures were in place to protect teachers.

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Spain’s PM says no evidence ‘whatsoever’ Morocco behind Ceuta border breach

Pedro Sánchez continues to defend Rabat after police report claiming border forces helped 70,000 cross border

Spain has seen no evidence “whatsoever” that Morocco planned or facilitated a mass border breach into its north African territory of Ceuta, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has told parliament.

The address on Thursday followed the emergence of a police report, commissioned by a judge and widely quoted in the media, claiming Moroccan border forces had actively aided about 70,000 people to cross the border in late July.

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Australian science prize awarded to researcher studying memory accuracy of domestic violence survivors

Helen Paterson’s work on advancing how police and courts understand memory is recognised in prestigious Eureka prizes

Memory is an imperfect thing: research shows that recollections of single events – a purse being snatched, say – differ to those about repeated or ongoing events, such as incidents of domestic and family violence.

“What our research shows is that compared to a single-event witness, a repeated-event witness tends to report more gist-like details, the overall details of what typically would happen, and the things that remain constant between the episodes,” said Helen Paterson, an associate professor in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney.

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Off-grid UK-Australian couple describe ‘anguish’ at removal of children by Italian court

After judge allows partial access rights, Catherine Birmingham and Nathan Trevallion say the enforced separation ‘broke each of our hearts’

A couple have told of their heartache, trauma and stress after fighting for two years for their right to parent their children as they choose in the glare of the world’s attention.

The three children of a Melbourne woman, Catherine Birmingham, and her British partner, Nathan Trevallion, were removed from their “dilapidated” off-grid home in Italy last year.

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Live Updates: Iran ignores Trump’s warning, claims new attacks on bases used by U.S. troops in Kuwait, UAE – CBS News

  1. Live Updates: Iran ignores Trump's warning, claims new attacks on bases used by U.S. troops in Kuwait, UAE  CBS News
  2. Iran war live: 105 children and women wounded in latest US attacks  Al Jazeera
  3. Iran attacks Kuwait with missiles and drones after US strikes  Fox News
  4. Iran strikes Kuwait in retaliation for U.S. bombardments, and other Mideast news  MS NOW
  5. Kuwait says it’s ‘engaging hostile missile and drone attacks’ by Iran  The Times of Israel
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Netanyahu’s Oct. 7 phone call to IDF chief took place three hours after attack began – report – The Jerusalem Post

  1. Netanyahu's Oct. 7 phone call to IDF chief took place three hours after attack began - report  The Jerusalem Post
  2. Netanyahu, who set policy and held the levers of power, now seeks to pin all blame for October 7 on others  The Times of Israel
  3. How Netanyahu's wife Sara changed election narrative with her Oct. 7 comment  The Jerusalem Post
  4. 'Sara Netanyahu Did Us a Favor': Will Smearing October 7 Hero Yair Golan Backfire?  Haaretz
  5. Netanyahu's Oct. 7 phone call to IDF chief took place three hours after attack began  Yahoo
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