Top story: ‘The only substantial meal they get’
Hello, I’m Warren Murray and there’s quite a bit to tell you.
Children are having to be fed by food banks during the holidays because of the lack of free school meals, anti-poverty charity the Trussell Trust is warning. People are being urged to donate to their local food bank to help keep families fed outside term time. Factors such as the higher cost of living and the rollout of universal credit are being blamed.
In Little Hulton, Greater Manchester, local councillor Lisa Stone says holiday hunger is a huge problem: “If [school lunches] are the only substantial meal they get in the day then you can understand why parents dread school holidays.” At the Dorset Road community centre in Wigan a holiday club feeds around 60 children each day. “I had a woman in yesterday who was very emotional,” said manager Warren Done. “She’d just been put on universal credit and it’ll be six weeks before she gets any money.”
The Guardian has reported this week on secret government plans to investigate whether its own policies have been responsible for the sharp rise in the use of food banks.
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Mole scandal hits Secret Service – A suspected Russian spy worked in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned. The Russian national, hired by the US Secret Service, is understood to have had access to the agency’s intranet, email, counterfeit money tracking system and knowledge of its investigations. An intelligence source said the Secret Service quietly removed her last summer. “A government committee needs to investigate the Secret Service for hiding this breach,” a source said.
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Election leaves Zimbabwe divided – Emmerson Mnangagwa has been declared the winner of Zimbabwe’s presidential election by a narrow margin. Officials from Zimbabwe’s electoral commission (ZEC) announced early on Friday that the Zanu-PF candidate had received 50.8% of the 4.8m votes cast. Less than 50% would have meant a run-off. Nelson Chamisa, from the opposition MDC, won 44.3%.
The MDC has rejected the results, claiming the vote was rigged, and three people were shot dead when the army fired on opposition protesters in the centre of Harare, the capital, on Wednesday. Foreign powers now have to decide whether Mnangagwa’s election has legitimacy – without a massive and rapid infusion of foreign aid the country faces economic breakdown.
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May, Macron in crunch talks – The PM is due to meet France’s president today to try to convince him to soften his stance on her Chequers vision for Brexit. One cabinet source told the Guardian: “The French just say no to everything and, by a mile, are the most difficult ones, so if May can make progress with him that would have a disproportionately positive effect on negotiations.” Said another: “A lot hangs on this meeting.” The business, foreign and Brexit secretaries have all met their French counterparts in the past week as May seeks to go over the heads of the European commission. Ministers believe they are winning Germany over and that if Macron follows, the EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will have to be more flexible.
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Terror investigation – Armed police have arrested a man in north-west London on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. Counter-terrorism officers were assisted by the firearms command during the pre-planned operation at around 6.30pm on Thursday, the force said. The suspect, 20, was being held at a south London police station.
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‘Not on my watch’ – General Sir Nick Carter, the new chief of defence staff, has vowed to fight against sweeping moves to prosecute British soldiers over their role in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He said individual soldiers involved in wrongdoing could not expect immunity but he was opposed to veterans being pursued by people with “vexatious” claims. “That will not happen on my watch. Absolutely not.” Some Conservatives have pressured Theresa May for a statute of limitations protecting British army veterans from prosecution. But both Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party have opposed the measure.
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Spies who puzzled us – One of the most secretive organisations in the UK, the surveillance agency GCHQ, has tweeted a colourful montage of emojis to tease the release of its latest puzzle book. The GCHQ Puzzle Book II, to be published by Penguin on 18 October, is billed as a chance to “pit your wits against 100 years of codebreaking genius”. The first one in 2016 proved a surprise hit, selling more than 300,000 copies. The Guardian’s review of the first one described it as “fiendish ... as frustrating, divisive and annoying as it is deeply fulfilling”. Proceeds go to charity.
Lunchtime read: Can’t handle the truth
“Every day barrels of oil continue to be extracted and burned is a good day, every day a parent doesn’t vaccinate their child is a good day, every day a teenager Googling the Holocaust finds out that some people think it never happened is a good day.”
This is the mindset of the denialists: a field of dubious scholars who engage in audacious projects to hold back, against seemingly insurmountable odds, the findings of an avalanche of research and historical fact. Today, denialism has moved from the fringes to the centre of public discourse, helped in part by new technology. Keith Kahn-Harris asks: even if denialism is defeated or implodes, what comes after?
Sport
Virat Kohli, the single-handed hero, produced the innings of a lifetime to keep his side in what has become a wonderfully volatile first Test against England. Jimmy Anderson had the Indian batsman’s measure for much of the second day at Edgbaston yet Kohli punished England’s other bowlers in scoring 149.
It will take an extraordinary performance for anyone to deny the Netherlands an eighth hockey World Cup title after the Dutch backed up the bombast by beating England in the quarter-final. Eddie Jones was convinced Chris Ashton still has an international future by the “glint in his eye” only minutes before he ran England ragged with a hat-trick for the Barbarians at Twickenham in May. Laura Kenny is looking to get back to her Rio 2016 levels following the birth of her son, Barcelona have completed the signing of Arturo Vidal from Bayern Munich for £27m, and the erasure of Colin Kaepernick from the National Football League has taken an unusual turn with the quarterback’s name censored from a song on the soundtrack of EA Sports’ forthcoming Madden NFL 19 video game.
Business
Amazon has revealed that its UK corporation tax bill almost halved to £4.5m last year, days after it posted a record profit of $2.5bn (£1.9bn) in its most recent quarter. Overnight, Asian stocks have inched up following a tech-led rise on Wall Street. Bloomberg reports that Japan has overtaken China as the world’s biggest stock market with $6.17tn in equities, compared with China’s $6.09tn. The pound has been trading around $1.30 and €1.123 overnight.
The papers
The lead story on the Guardian’s front page today is “Air pollution linked to early symptoms of heart failure”. The FT leads with “Apple becomes first company to break through $1tn value barrier”.
The Express splashes with “Three week wait to see your doctor” and the i has “End of the ultra-cheap credit age”. The Mirror and Mail both lead on Amazon. “Amazon now pay even less tax,” says the former, while the latter’s headline is “They’re taking us for fools”. The Sun’s headline is “Blood money” over claims a DJ is profiting from the deaths of rappers, the Time says “Women with disabilities raped by visa cheats”, and the Telegraph has “Army chief: I’ll protect Troubles veterans”.
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