Donald Trump stepped up to the lectern at the American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas on Wednesday night to deliver a speech pitched as a political rescue mission for embattled Republicans.
The headline promise was a “$5,000 dividend to every adult citizen”, which he described as “very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to shareholders”, and would be paid if the party wins both the House of Representatives and Senate.
The first ever GOP midterm convention has been dubbed “Trumpapalooza” by party chairman Joe Gruters, and was intended to motivate the party base with less than two months until the midterm elections.
Channel 4 confirms more than 25% of workforce to be cut
Channel 4 has confirmed it will cut around 340 roles, equivalent to over a quarter of its workforce, by the end of the year.
Here’s what we know.
Channel 4 said it requires “fundamental change in how the organisation operates”.
- A “comprehensive review of the shape, size and structure of the organisation” took place earlier this year.
- Channel 4 has proposed a new organisational design which will “greatly reduce non-programming spend”.
- Chief executive Priya Dogra said the decision was not “taken lightly” but was “necessary to create a simpler, more focused and sustainable Channel 4”.
- It comes nearly two years after the broadcaster axed 200 jobs.
Substantial job cuts
The new changes mean…
340 cuts
Some 340 jobs losses by the end of 2026.
28 per cent
Those cuts are equivalent to just over a quarter of Channel 4’s current workforce.
More details to come
- Channel 4 said the proposed changes focus on “reducing management layers, simplifying decision-making and removing duplication to create a leaner, more efficient operating model”.
- It also said a formal consultation process with affected employees will happen “in due course”, while further details on its future strategic direction and additional “transformation” initiatives would be shared in the coming months.
The broadcaster said the restructure will allow “greater investment in distinctive programmes that set Channel 4 apart”.
Dogra, Channel 4’s chief executive since March, said the job cuts would allow the broadcaster to “invest a greater proportion of revenues into distinctive content, back British creativity and deliver impact for audiences long into the future”.
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Pictured: William attends funeral of King Harald of Norway
The Prince of Wales joined an array of monarchs and world leaders gathered in Norway’s capital, Oslo, alongside thousands of others for the state funeral of King Harald V on Wednesday.
Royal relatives
Harald, who was King Charles III’s second cousin once removed, died on August 28 at the age of 89 after a 35-year reign. He was Europe’s oldest monarch.
The late Queen Elizabeth II and King Harald were second cousins. They shared the same great-grandparents, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Charles previously paid a touching tribute to his “dear cousin” and “much-loved kinsman and friend” after the news of Harald’s death was announced.
British representatives
William formed part of the walking procession behind the monarch’s coffin, which was slowly drawn on a gun carriage through the streets from the Royal Palace to the funeral in Oslo Cathedral.
The heir to Britain’s throne was next to his aunt, the Princess Royal, and joined a large ensemble of foreign royals as they made the journey on foot in honour of the late king.
Who else was in attendance?
Ukraine’s president was also in Oslo. On Tuesday, he met Norway’s prime minister to discuss the war with Russia.
Harald’s son, now Norway’s new King. He and other senior royals walked behind the coffin during the procession.
![SPAIN - SEPTEMBER 07: King Felipe VI at the opening of the Faro Santander museum on 7 September 2026, in Santander, Cantabria, Spain. Faro Santander is the new museum launched by the Banco Santander Foundation, created with the aim of becoming a vibrant, open cultural space connected to the public, where art, technology, education and experimentation will coexist throughout the year.[**********]. (Photo By Nacho Cubero/Europa Press via Getty Images)](https://inews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/SEI_311503212.jpg?w=644)
The monarch of Spain, who has reigned since 2014, was among others in attendance.
A popular king
Hugely popular with the Norwegian public, the late king Harald quietly modernised the monarchy as the country itself became more liberal and informal during his reign.
In times of national crisis, he provided a reassuring presence and a focus for collective grief and solidarity, from the 2011 Utøya massacre to the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than 46,000 people paid their respects at the chapel in Oslo’s royal palace during the week his body lay in state.
Over 10% chance AI ‘could kill all humans’ within decade
A top safety researcher at Anthropic has suggested that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity in the next decade.
Will the technology really kill us all? The i Paper asks the experts.
Warnings from within
In a post on X on Tuesday, Evan Hubinger, an aligment science lead at AI safety company Anthropic, warned that he believed there was a greater than 10 per cent chance the technology could pose a species-ending risk within 10 years.
“I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to,” he added in the post, which can be seen below.
What else do we know
- Hubinger did not elaborate on specifically how AI could pose such a threat to human life.
- AI experts told The i Paper they mostly agreed that there is at least a risk that AI could wipe out humanity.
- However, opinions vary on how a future extinction event could potentially happen.
What could happen?
Dr Alison Khan, a researcher and AI expert at Loughborough University, said the “biggest and most worrying thing that’s coming around the corner” is AI’s increasing use of scarce natural resources – particularly water – to power data centres.
Henry Ajder, founder of AI-advisory firm Latent Space said it was possible AI decides it is in humans’ best interest to no longer exist and seeks to destroy them, such as by accessing or creating chemical weapons.
Four capabilities AI would need to wipe out humanity
Michael Vermeer, a senior physical scientist at research organisation RAND, conducted a study which found four capabilities AI would need to cause human extinction. These were:
- 1. An objective to cause extinction.
- 2. To gain control over key physical systems like nuclear weapon controls
- 3. The ability to persuade humans to support its actions.
- 4. And finally, the ability to survive without humans around to support it.
‘Very hard, but not impossible’
“It turns out it is very hard – though not completely out of the realm of possibility – for AI to kill us all,” Vermeer wrote in a blog post in May.
However, Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic and OpenAI staffer who quit saying companies are “gambling with our lives”, has argued that AI development is continuing despite the risks because the firms producing the technology are “locked in a race to get there first”. Anthropic has been approached for comment.
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Uganda out of Invictus Games over ‘Harry-Meghan nonsense’
Uganda’s military chief has said the east African country will withdraw from Prince Harry’s Invictus Games.
Here’s why.
A message from the president’s son
In order not to be construed as being opposed to His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom, whom we deeply revere, Uganda hereby withdraws from the Invictus Games […] We shall not participate in anything that does not have His Majesty’s approval.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of the Ugandan president and head of the country’s armed forces writing on x
The context
Kainerugaba’s statement came two days after the King confirmed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not working members of Britain’s royal family.
Speaking to , the general said: “I have factions in the Ministry of Defence that support that Harry-Meghan nonsense. I had to quash it straight away. I support the monarch. Period.”
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A rapid reversal
Uganda’s change in stance comes only two months after its defence minister appeared alongside the Duke of Sussex at an Invictus event in London to announce the country’s entry to the Games.
The Invictus Games, Harry’s tournament for wounded service personnel, is set to be held in Birmingham in July next year.
In coded language, Harry and Meghan are spitting blood
The statement from the Sussex’s press team was very revealing, and a bad omen.
The Republicans are defending slim House and Senate majorities and face a challenging political climate of persistent inflation and an unpopular war.
“I’m asking you to let us finish the job we began with the greatest two years in the history of the presidency,” the president began. “A president, Democrat or Republican, almost never wins the midterms. We’ve got to change that.”
He vowed to visit 35 swing states during the midterms campaign.
“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot. Just one more time.”
But Trump had another aim beyond the midterms: to cement his legacy.
“I want you to remember me in four or five years when this country’s rocketing, remember, I’m the one that got it started,” he told the raucous crowd.
What did Trump have to say?
A surprise announcement, delivered about two-thirds of the way through the 110-minute-long speech, was “a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000″. It would be paid if the Republicans win the House and Senate, and “must be spent in the United States of America”, Trump said.
A major theme of the speech was warning about the consequences of a Democratic majority in the House or Senate. “They want to put the books of Lenin and Stalin in every library, for all our young children to read and study,” he said. “If they win the greatest legislative body in history will, for the first time ever, be controlled by a Communist caucus.”
“If we lose, you’re going to lose your border,” Trump said. “You’re going to lose your tax cuts. You’re going to lose your safety and security. You’re going to lose your wealth… You will be going through hell.”
He explained that “nobody knows that ‘dumb’ has a B at the end of it”, but if you “take out the E and replace it with a U they’re Dum-o-crats because their policy is so bad”.
One example of such bad policies, he said was “men playing in women’s sports”, which he reckoned “will really hurt us”.
He also : tax cuts, and the border wall. He made the inaccurate claim that “zero illegal aliens have entered our country from the southern border in the last 15 months”.
On the economy, Trump said it was “the Golden Age of America“, with a boom in home-made cars and “our country is producing more oil and gas… than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined”. He boasted that Venezuela’s oil had also been “added to our little stockpile”.
He defended putting big tariffs on imports, and boasted of forcing France’s president Emmanuel Macron into doubling drug prices in France by threatening a “150 per cent tariff on all wines”.
Trump riffed on his penchant for renaming geographic features such as Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico, again pushed the idea of renaming New Mexico, and toyed with the idea of more. “We could go into oceans like the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic,” he said. The Strait of Hormuz should be renamed, too. “We’ll call it the Trump Strait, and I’m sure the Iranian leadership will be thrilled with that.”
The president defended his war with Iran, saying “if we didn’t hit them with our beautiful B-2 bombers, they would have a nuclear weapon right now, and I would be addressing them as supreme leader. Mr. Supreme Leader, sir, how are you? And now I don’t have to do that.”
He also defended his “drone proof, bulletproof, everything proof” ballroom under construction at the White House, but rued he’d not get to use it for long. “I’ll be there for a few months,” he said. “I’d love to have it for a long time.”
What is a midterm convention?
Traditionally, conventions are a feature of the presidential election, used to formally nominate a party’s candidate. In the case of the midterms, the party’s candidates have already been selected.
The event’s website spruiked it as being convened “to celebrate the accomplishments of President Donald J. Trump, showcase the strength of the Republican Party and its slate of candidates, and unite Americans around a bold vision for the future”.
They are also trying to counter what’s known as the party’s “low-propensity problem”. Polls suggest Democratic voters are far more likely than Republicans to cast a vote this year. As Trump himself put it (in the third person) at a recent rally, “The problem that we have is they say that Trump does great when he’s on the ballot. But when he’s not on the ballot, his people don’t come and they don’t vote.”
What did the warm-up acts say?
Maverick Democratic Senator John Fetterman made a surprise appearance by video, telling the crowd “I’m a common sense Democrat, I’m always gonna stand with America, I’m always gonna reject the extremes of socialism, and that anti-American way of life”.
Todd Blanche, the US attorney-general, praised the work of the administration’s Ice agents, crediting them for the “swift removal” of “2.6 million criminal aliens who entered the country illegally, and should never have been released into our neighbourhoods”.
Celebrity physician Dr Oz claimed that “prescription drug prices just recorded their largest annual drop, decline, in more than 60 years”, including GLP-1 drugs which were “contributing to a historic American weight loss”.
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent warned against a Democratic “socialist hellscape” and said Trump had “rebalanced trade in favour of our working families… creating assets and expanding ownership”.
UFC champion Justin Gaethje assured the crowd that Trump was a leader who “is fighting for us, who is passionate, who is resilient, and resilient he must be, because I must say, I think politics is a much nastier game than mixed martial arts”.
Who’s appearing on Thursday?
NPR has calculated that fewer than half of the Republican candidates in competitive House and Senate races were listed as convention speakers.
Trump said he would return for a second appearance on Thursday night, “to say goodnight to you”, alongside Vice President JD Vance.