With exactly two months to go before America’s midterm elections, President Donald Trump is no longer the only member of his administration squandering the opportunity to win over voters and making clownish headlines for all the wrong reasons instead.
As the summer winds down and Americans prepare to cast their verdict on Trump’s return to power, a slew of his top lieutenants are now competing with one another to demonstrate that their own grip on reality is loosening.
First out of the gate on Wednesday was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a man who has, since the start of Trump’s war on Iran, demonstrated zero capacity to sympathise with the plight of Americans who are recoiling from the conflict’s economic impacts.
Zack Polanski launches bid to run for Starmer’s seat in byelection
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, will stand to become an MP when a by-election is held in Sir Keir Starmer’s seat in the coming months.
Everything you need to know
- Polanski has confirmed he wants to be the Green Party candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election caused by Starmer’s decision to leave frontline politics.
- The leader of the Greens insisted the seat was winnable, accusing Labour of standing up for “corporations and big money”. He added: “I will stand up for people struggling to pay their bills.”
- Polanski is currently a member of the London Assembly but is unusual as a national party leader in not being an MP.
Polanski gambles on byelection battle
The Green leader’s decision to stand in Holborn and St Pancras represents a gamble as he seeks to maintain his party’s momentum in challenging Labour on the left. The party’s in recent months and a victory for Polanski would represent a valuable political prize.
Until now Sir Keir’s central London seat has been a Labour stronghold but the Greens came second in the area in local elections earlier this year.
Protests erupt in Spain over Ceuta migrant crisis
Thousands have attended protests across Spain against the government’s handling of the arrival of thousands of migrants in the exclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast.
Everything you need to know
- The rallies on Wednesday were called by city councils controlled by opposition parties. They accuse Spain’s left-wing government of abandoning Ceuta’s residents.
- There have been near-daily protests in the North African city calling for remaining migrants to be returned or distributed across mainland Spain.
- Demonstrators have called for prime minister Pedro Sánchez to resign but the government accuses right-wing parties of exploiting the crisis.
Why did these protests happen?
Some 72,000 people crossed illegally from Morocco into Ceuta in July. While most have returned, as many as 5,000 remain. The Spanish government has blamed for the influx but critics claim the Moroccan authorities were complicit.
Did Morocco orchestrate the mass crossing?
A police report this week said Moroccan security forces had shown “total permissiveness” during the huge influx into the exclave on 30 and 31 July. Sánchez has insisted Morocco was not responsible but the report said the Moroccan police presence was “clearly smaller” than usual.
The police report nonetheless stopped short of directly accusing Morocco of being behind the mass influx.
The protests in pictures
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What to know as toxic haze spreads across South East Asia
Indonesia is battling , some of which have been burning for weeks and resulted in a toxic haze affecting millions.
What you need to know
Multiple locations
The fires are burning on several of Indonesia’s biggest islands, in particular on Borneo.
Health risk
Millions have been exposed to toxic smoke, with 50,000 being treated in hospital for respiratory infections.
Regional problem
Air pollution caused by the fires is affecting Malaysia and The Philippines.
Indonesia’s decades-old problem with wildfires
The forest and peatland fires engulfing parts of Indonesia are a familiar problem for the authorities. Their roots lie in a project by former ruler Suharto to rip up rainforest and drain peat bogs for plantations and logging.
Repeated investigations have shown that developers use fire as a cut-price means of clearing large areas for plantations and industrial sites.
Haze shrouds parts of South East Asia
Fans teased with new Harry Potter trailer – what we learnt
The sorting hat and Quidditch are among the familiar magical phenomena which appear in the first full trailer for the new television series due to air this Christmas.
The sorting hat returns
The eagerly anticipated HBO show based on JK Rowling’s first wizarding novel, , will consist of eight episodes and early glimpses suggest producers have been careful to retain the detail of the original book.
4 min read
What you need to know
Hogwarts is back
The trailer focuses on the magical school and Harry’s first experiences, including the trial of the sorting hat.
Friends again
Harry, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are introduced in separate clips as the trio become friends.
Ron in a mess
Weasley is seen at home trying to read an acceptance letter covered in jam by his brothers.
Hogwarts’ teachers take centre stage
The trailer begins with Professor McGonagall, played by Janet McTeer, telling the newly arrived students they must undertake the dreaded sorting hat ceremony before enjoying a sumptuous banquet at the school of wizarding.
Severus Snape, played by Paapa Essiedu, finds time to sneer at Harry’s classroom shortcomings as he prepares to try Quidditch. But Rubeus Hagrid, performed by Nick Frost, takes the young wizard under his wing, telling him: “You’ll find your place.”
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Personal finance
Pension dashboard deadline nears – what it means for you
Pension schemes and providers have until the end of October to connect to a “dashboard” system allowing workers to monitor their retirement savings.
Crucially, the 31 October deadline applies only to companies and providers, rather than savers themselves. Consumers do not need to take any action.
Everything you need to know
- Each provider must connect to the information-sharing system by the end of next month. People will also be able to see their state pension details in the same place.
- The move is part of wider changes in the pension system being brought in by Labour which will include value for money assessments.
Pension performance league tables
Ministers are planning a system for scrutinising pension performance using a new Value for Money framework.
- Schemes will be rated by 2029 in a league table based on their investment performance, charging levels and quality of service.
- The poorest performing schemes will be required to improve or face closure.
- From 2029, providers will be expected to present savers with a single retirement income option which would combine all savings. Retirees would still be free to choose other options.
Recent rain has brought welcome respite for plants and trees but the arrival of the El Niño – predicted to be the strongest in living memory – represents a new threat to parched gardens.
Everything you need to know
- El Niño is the naturally occurring climate phenomenon caused by raised ocean temperatures that builds in the Pacific.
- The phenomenon occurs every two-seven years and is when east to west trade winds weaken or reverse.
- The Met Office has warned that this year’s El Niño is set to be unprecedentedly strong and the UK could be hit by a wet and stormy autumn and early winter.
The system usually brings wetter or colder winters in the UK with experts warning that trees are particularly vulnerable because the summer drought may have weakened both root systems and hindered water absorption in branches.
Heavy rainfall on soil which is still dry from the summer drought could cause flash flooding well into the autumn. Trees could be affected by “cavitation” – a condition whereby air bubbles stop water flow within the trunk and branches.
What to do
Heat-loving Mediterranean plants should be moved indoors and drains cleared.
Pack away patio furniture sooner rather than later.
The drugs found to slow ageing – you might already be taking them
Weight-loss jabs such as Wegovy may be slowing the ageing process as well as helping people to shed unwanted pounds, a study has found.
Research found that mice at a healthy weight who were given Wegovy lived 12 per cent longer – equivalent to a person living to 93 instead of 83.
What you need to know
- Scientists looked at the effects of semaglutide – the active ingredient in Wegovy – on senescence, the process by which cells stop multiplying to regenerate tissues.
- The findings suggest that as well as suppressing appetite, the drug reduces inflammation, DNA damage and senescence. More than 2m Britons are thought to be taking a weight-loss medication.
- The result could be that the slimming drug will one day be used as an anti-ageing pill for everyone – regardless of weight.
The bad news
There are over the idea that the first true anti-ageing drugs have arrived. Most studies into the phenomenon have and scientists have reservations about the same findings applying to humans.
Research into calorie restriction – a radical anti-ageing strategy – has found that while the effects can be dramatic in creatures such as worms or flies, they are at best marginal in more complex animals such as monkeys. Scientists say more research is needed.
The bad news
There are over the idea the first true anti-ageing drugs have arrived. Most studies into the phenomenon have and scientists have reservations about the same findings applying to humans.
3 min read
The bad news
There are over the idea that the first true anti-ageing drugs have arrived. Most studies into the phenomenon have and scientists have reservations about the same findings applying to humans.
3 min read
4 min read
Emerging from discussions with G20 finance ministers in North Carolina, Bessent conceded the country is enduring “an energy shock”. But astoundingly, he blamed it not on the war against Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but instead on Ukraine.
“Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refined products, so that is creating upward price pressure on a global basis”, Bessent told Fox News. He made no mention of the fact that Russia has attacked countless energy facilities across Ukraine since Vladimir Putin’s war began, nor even nodded to the fact that as he was speaking, 350,000 homes in the southern Odesa region were without power after a seventh successive day of round-the-clock Russian missile and drone assaults on the country.
While Putin vowed this week to launch a new campaign of “massive” strikes on the country, Bessent –who reportedly once referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “a little f**ker” and “Mr Bean on crack” – became the first US official directly to accuse Ukraine of culpability for rising oil prices worldwide. As for Trump’s war – the actual culprit – he simply promised Fox viewers that “the conflict…will end and prices will come down”. When that magical moment might come was not vouchsafed unto his audience.
Over on CNBC, the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, was talking literal and provable nonsense in an interview about AI data centres. As Republican lawmakers across the country find themselves on the receiving end of growing public fury over the rapidity with which they have embraced applications to build data centres, Lutnick scoffed at the notion that they put pressure on local water supplies.
“Both [parties] seem to think that there’s some political points to be scored by being anti-data centre”, observed pro-Trump CNBC host Joe Kernan, who then suggested “a little education might change that”.
“One of my favourite things is when people talk about data centres using water”, responded Lutnick. The number one product in America that uses water is cattle… I mean data centres don’t use water,” he insisted. “This is propaganda by our adversaries to try and slow us down”, he said. At no point did Kernan interrupt him and correct the record.
In fact, data centres consume several million litres of water daily to cool servers and generate electricity. The University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science calls them “water-guzzling” and a recent case study reported that “a relatively small one-megawatt data centre…would use 26 million litres of water per year. Regional water stress must be considered.”
He continues to travel the country promoting his new memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back To Faith, currently number three on Amazon’s list of “religious leader biographies” yet struggling to crack the top 1,000 in the website’s broader book rankings.
In an interview with the Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford, Vance was challenged over his interest in “end times”, a belief rooted in the Book of Revelation that claims the physical return of Jesus Christ to Earth will presage the start of the final judgement of humanity and then the end of the world.
“We are committed to doing as much as possible to try and make the world the kind of world that God wants it to be”, Vance assured Crawford. “What I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, okay. And if that leads to building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great too,” Vance proclaimed.
Lest anyone was wondering whether his beliefs get in the way of cold, hard decision-making, the Vice President assured his host that he was up to the challenge.
“There are…things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us. But…I try not to focus on it too much”, said the man who remains a single heartbeat away from the American presidency.