Top story: ‘Most damaging thing in my life’
Hello, it’s Warren Murray with a briefing that will have to last you until Monday so we’d better make it count.
Police in London and New York have announced they are investigating sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein. The English actor Sophie Dix, meanwhile, has told the Guardian how her budding film career was ruined after the kind of hotel room assault by the movie producer that has become all-too-familiar reading.
In a scathing indictment on the industry, Dix said: “I was very, very vocal about it at the time … But I was met with a wall of silence.
“People who were involved in the film were great, my friends and my family were amazing and very compassionate, but people in the industry didn’t want to know about it, they didn’t want to hear … It was massively damaging. It’s the single most damaging thing that’s happened in my life.”
Weinstein himself has spoken to photographers in LA: “Guys, I’m not doing OK but I’m trying. I gotta get help … You know, we all make mistakes … second chance I hope.” He is reported to have sought counselling in Arizona. The British Oscar winner Emma Thompson, though, has declared that Weinstein is not “a sex addict, he’s a predator”.
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Fail of two cities – Not much cheer about Brexit from either London or Brussels. The government has announced it has made so little progress that it cannot bring the withdrawal bill back to parliament next week. Debate has been postponed amid grappling over a string of hostile amendments. Turmoil continues within the governing party – the former chancellor Nigel Lawson has called for Philip Hammond to be removed as chancellor for refusing to countenance a “no deal” Brexit, while remainers continue to push for Boris Johnson’s sacking as foreign secretary. In Brussels, Michel Barnier has said talks remain at a “disturbing” deadlock, largely over the divorce settlement. But the pound rallied after a leaked European council document suggested Donald Tusk will ask the EU27 to start hammering out details of a future trading relationship with Britain.
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Meltdown averted – The temperature has cooled slightly around US dealings with Iran. Donald Trump is apparently backing away from a threat to derail Tehran’s nuclear limitation deal with the west. Instead, it is thought Trump will satisfy himself with making a stormy speech today denouncing Iranian behaviour, including its ballistic missile programme, and support for Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah. He is expected to foreshadow sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), and this is a potential flashpoint. But Julian Borger writes that European diplomats are sounding relieved overall about Trump’s position, with one saying: “Of all the places it could have been on the spectrum, this is very much at the better end.”
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Fate of Sally Jones – The British militant Sally Jones was retreating with Isis from Raqqa in Syria when a drone strike likely killed her, along with her 12-year-old son, in June. Jones worked for Isis at its height, indoctrinating women and sending them on suicide missions, according to the picture that is emerging of her life. Her work made the shadowy “white widow” a top target for US and UK intelligence. Raqqa, once the Isis capital, is now thought to be within days of falling to Kurdish and Arab forces, and Islamic State’s foreign ranks are in steady decline, writes Martin Chulov.
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Falling from the sky – China’s out-of-control space station Tiangong-1 will crash to Earth sometime between now and next April, and no one really knows where. The 8.1-tonne orbiting laboratory was a big achievement for China when it was launched in 2011, but the country’s space agency lost control of it in 2016. The briefing has been quietly monitoring the situation ever since – check the graph in this morning’s story to see how Tiangong-1’s orbit has started a rapid decline. Experts say much of it will burn up in the atmosphere, and even though pieces weighing 100kg might make it all the way down, probability and past experience suggest it is unlikely anyone will be hurt.
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World of pain – Shortages of morphine and palliative care are leaving 25 million people a year dying in “horrendous and preventable pain”, including millions of children. The finding comes from a special commission set up by the Lancet medical journal, which found the situation was worst in poorer nations. Some governments are gripped by an “opiophobia”, a fear that letting morphine into hospitals will lead to addiction in the community. In other countries cost is the main issue, or authorities are simply indifferent to the suffering of impoverished, terminally ill patients. Morphine can and should be made available for “pennies”, says Prof Felicia Knaul, co-chair of the commission from the University of Miami: “[This is] one of the world’s most striking injustices”.
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Robot takes over UN – It was a freaky performance of jerky movements and stilted speech. But enough about Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations …
“Sophia” the social android has answered questions in front of a UN audience. Deputy secretary general Amina J Mohammed at times looked confused about how to react as the robot gestured and held forth about the benefits of technology. Sophia didn’t threaten to “totally destroy little rocket man” or anything, but her statement that “AI and automation produce more results with less resources” sounded a bit alarming. The latex mask fell away for a bit when she mispronounced AI as “ah-dot-eye” – giving hope to people everywhere who read stuff out for a living that their jobs are safe for the moment.
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‘Extreme breeding’ – The intentional breeding of a bizarre-looking horse with a radically concave face has been greeted with shock by veterinarians. The “dished” look of Arabian horses (you can see an example in our story) is considered a mark of beauty on the equine show circuit – but an article in the Veterinary Record said the colt El Ray Magnum, from the Orrion Farms stud in Washington state, US, had such a deformed skull that it might struggle to breathe. Adele Waters, the editor of Veterinary Record, said every professional vet she had shown the images to had found them shocking: “There is no functional value in a horse having a face like that.” Orrion breeding adviser Doug Leadley said the horse was “close to perfection” and critics were just “people who don’t understand”.
Lunchtime read: ‘I hate how much we hate ourselves’
“I process out loud,” says Pink, the relentlessly confessional pop star, promoting her new album Beautiful Trauma. “When I am the most uncomfortable and the most vulnerable and saying the most honest, shameful shit, that’s what’s getting to somebody else. And I’m basically having therapy and somebody else is getting something from it.”
She might be a model of empowerment for girls and young women these days, and no longer the rebellious teenage “shithead” who was shunned as a bad influence by her friends’ parents. But there are still shades of danger – Eminem raps on the new record, and ejects familiar epithets like “slut” and “whore”. Pink doesn’t just defend it, she basks in it: “Look, there’s a part of me that’s a fucker, and this is that.”
Sport
Nasser-al-Khelaifi, the chairman of high-spending Paris Saint-Germain and powerful sports broadcaster beIN, has been accused in Switzerland of criminally bribing the former Fifa secretary general Jérôme Valcke to buy TV rights to World Cup tournaments. Meanwhile, burgeoning talent at youth level promises a brighter future for Gordon Strachan’s successor, who will seek to end the nation’s 22-year wait to reach a major finals.
From a fringe player at the start of the season, to setting a record by hitting 52 home runs in the regular season, the best for a rookie and equal 28th on the all-time list, Aaron Judge has taken the US by storm in the space of seven months. Worcester racecourse has been branded a joke after a quicker and drier surface led to a total of 33 non‑runners, almost as many as the 41 horses who turned up, with two races being reduced to only two runners apiece. Finally, Australian Tim Cahill could land in hot water with Fifa after he appeared to undertake a “sponsored” goal celebration.
Business
The strong stock market run has continued in Asia overnight with the Nikkei in Japan rising more than 1%. That followed a new record high on the FTSE100 in London on Thursday although it is tipped to fall slightly this morning at the open.
On currency markets the pound is buying $1.327 and €1.12.
The papers
Harvey Weinstein and Brexit are on many of the front pages again today. The Sun reports that British TV presenter Myleene Klass was propositioned: “Weinstein offered me sex contract”. The Mirror’s headline is “Movie boss preyed on me when I was a schoolgirl” and highlights the statement by the actor Kate Beckinsale and her frightening encounter with Weinstein when she was 17.
The Mail also includes the Beckinsale story but splashes on Brexit matters. Its lead is “Sack ‘saboteur’ Hammond” and, in case its readers are in any doubt about where its sympathies lie, the paper calls the chancellor “Eyeore Phil”. The Guardian splashes with the “chaos” of EU talks and also highlights a “growing whispering campaign” against Hammond from within his own party. Much the same language in the Telegraph which says Theresa May’s Brexit plans are in disarray. The paper says British police are looking at a possible allegation of sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein. The Times features the “sack Hammond” narrative but leads with a shocking story saying more than 150 Vietnamese children rescued from traffickers have since disappeared from council care homes. Lastly the FT introduces the new chief executive of banking giant HSBC: John Flint, a bank insider who has worked there for around 28 years.
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