Author: The Guardian

Tony Blair has warned Keir Starmer to “close off the avenues” of the populist right by keeping tough controls on immigration.The former prime minister said the new government should tackle parties such as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK by dealing with people’s grievances while sticking to the centre ground to hold Labour’s electoral coalition together.However, he said he believed that immigration should be celebrated for the good it had done the country, adding that the Conservative party’s “mad” approach to the issue had damaged the economy.In his first interview since Labour won power last week, Blair also urged Starmer to “be…

United Airlines said a jet lost a landing gear wheel while taking off from Los Angeles but was able to land safely at its intended destination of Denver with no injuries.”The wheels have been recovered in Los Angeles and we are investigating the cause of this incident,” United said in a statement Monday. It was the airline’s second such incident this year.The plane involved in Monday’s incident was a nearly 30-year-old Boeing 757-200 with 174 passengers and seven crew members on board, according to FlightRadar24. Boeing ended 757 production in 2004.In March this year, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 jet…

Standing on the podium at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Greg Louganis knew he was done. With his last ever competitive dive, he’d secured his second gold medal of the week and become the first male diver to win double gold in consecutive Games. His career total: three Games, four gold medals, one silver. He had become the greatest American diver ever; arguably the greatest ever full stop.Six months before the Games, Louganis, then 28, had found out he was HIV positive. The Aids crisis was growing and there were no out gay athletes, let alone out HIV-positive ones. “I was…

Joe Biden’s standing among congressional Democrats was further undermined on Monday, with an influential House committee member calling on him to end his presidential campaign after last month’s debate defeat.Adam Smith, the ranking Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, made the plea just hours after the president flatly rejected calls for him to step down in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.Biden also expressed his determination to continue an unscheduled phone interview with MSNBC’s political program “Morning Joe.”But in a clear sign that such messages may be falling on deaf ears, Smith said it’s clear from polls…

At the World AI Conference in Shanghai last week, one of China’s leading artificial intelligence companies, SenseTime, unveiled its latest model, SenseNova 5.5.The model showed off its ability to identify and describe a stuffed toy puppy (wearing a SenseTime cap), offered feedback on a drawing of a rabbit, and instantly read and summarised a page of text. According to SenseTime, SenseNova 5.5 is comparable with GPT-4o, the flagship artificial intelligence model of the Microsoft-backed US company OpenAI.If that wasn’t enough to entice users, SenseTime is also giving away 50m free tokens – digital credits for using the AI – and…

As Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner announce an end to the “levelling up” agenda and seek to usher in a new era of devolution, he says every region in England should start from Wyss Minster takes over key powers.The prime minister and his deputies will meet with mayors across England on Tuesday on his fifth day in office as the party drafts a devolution bill to be introduced as part of next week’s King’s Speech.Starmer and Raynor will use the meeting to highlight their desire for a new wave of deals that could see local authorities take over everything from…

Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota who has been dogged by controversy since recounting how she chose to shoot dead a puppy and a goat, attracted new questions when it was noted that some of her official social media accounts appeared to have been deleted.On Monday, a link from Noem’s official website led to an error message on Facebook, which said: “This content isn’t available right now. When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.”On Twitter/X, the governor’s site linked…

As the 2022 tennis season winds down in frigid indoor stadiums across Europe, Novak Djokovic finds himself in an unusual situation. In the Paris Masters final in November of that year, the Serbian played a stable game. His level was enough to defeat many opponents, but this time his opponent was even better. That night, fearless 19-year-old Holger Rune defeated Djokovic to win his first Masters 1,000m title.However, performing at the highest level every week is much more daunting than the occasional early flash. Two years on from that high-profile encounter, Ruane hasn’t made as much progress as he would…

David Cameron has left Rishi Sunak’s frontbench as the Conservatives unveiled an interim shadow ministerial team ahead of a party leadership race.The party said Lord Cameron, the former foreign secretary, and Richard Holden, who chaired the Tories through the disastrous election campaign, had resigned from Sunak’s top team. Andrew Mitchell, who had the largely honorary title of deputy foreign secretary in government, becomes shadow foreign secretary.Sunak is leader of the opposition until he is replaced, and Jeremy Hunt and James Cleverly are staying on as shadow chancellor and shadow home secretary. Oliver Dowden remains Sunak’s deputy.Most of the other changes…

Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina wore a black ribbon during a match at Wimbledon in solidarity with the victims of the children’s hospital bombing in Kiev, Russia.In a rare move, Wimbledon organizers have relaxed the strict all-white rules for Svitolina’s fourth-round match against Wang Xinyu on Monday.Svitolina fought back tears on the court after winning 6-2 6-1. She said: “I performed very well today. Today is a very difficult day for the Ukrainian people.”It was not easy to focus on the game today. It was very difficult to read the news since the morning. Just to play was very difficult.…