Immigration agents in New York and protests in London: photos of the day
Steve Lewis, 64, from Tottenham, takes part in a protest outside the Houses of Parliament from his home via an LED screen as he is unable to leave his caring duties. The protest, part of a campaign by Carers Trust and Uncommon Creative Studio, takes place after figures revealed that one in three unpaid carers are rarely able to leave their responsibilities and have no legal right to time off Photograph: Matt Alexander/PA
People carry items that symbolise what is being lost or denied to Palestinians as a result of Israel's military campaign in Gaza Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
A cyclist passes a banner showing an image of destruction in Gaza which activists from the Led By Donkeys protest group installed over the Labour party's headquarters Photograph: Isabel Infantes/Reuters
At al-Shifa hospital Palestinians mourn over the body of a child who medics said was killed in an Israeli strike Photograph: Khamis Al-Rifi/Reuters
Living in a tent in Gaza City, where basic supplies are lacking, 18-month-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq's weight dropped from 9kg to 6kg. Malnutrition is widespread in the territory. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Children hold empty pots as they gather in hopes of receiving food from a charity kitchen Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Palestinians walk among rubble and makeshift shelters as they head to collect aid supplies from trucks which entered central Gaza from Israel Photograph: Khamis Al-Rifi/Reuters
Federal immigration agents patrol the corridors of the Jacob K Javits federal building. Several undocumented immigrants were reportedly detained inside the courthouse during immigration proceedings Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The Salvadoran navy escorts a semi-submersible carrying 1.3 tonnes of cocaine after arresting two Ecuadorians and a Colombian onboard. The vessel was intercepted 600 nautical miles (about 1,100km) south-west of the Jaltepeque estuary, and was carrying a cargo valued at $33m, El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, said Photograph: EL SALVADOR'S PRESIDENCY PRESS OFFICE/AFP/Getty Images
Arturo Suarez, who was held for months in an El Salvador prison after the US alleged he was a member of the Tren de Aragua gang, embraces family members after his release Photograph: Leonardo Fernández Viloria/Reuters
Emergency services personnel work to put out a fire after a Russian attack Photograph: AP
The tropical storm Wipha caused monsoon rains and flooding in the capital, and heavy rains continued even after the storm moved towards Vietnam Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP
Police detain an activist protesting against a bill to criminalise the search of 'extremist materials' on the internet, as the legislation was due to be read at The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament Photograph: AP
People look at the remains of a school that was hit by an air force training aircraft, killing at least 20 people Photograph: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters
A tractor cuts a fire line as a wildfire burns near the settlement of Beledie Han Photograph: Reuters
A coach driver takes a rest inside the luggage compartment on a warm day Photograph: Andy Wong/AP
Tourists watch the sunset at the Uyuni salt flat, which has an area of more than 10,000 sq km and is the biggest such landscape in the world
Photograph: Esteban Biba/EPA
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The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
The government must ensure the promise of free childcare is delivered
Takeup of the government's offer of free childcare has been one-quarter higher than predicted, which has prompted some voices in the sector to warn of its imminent 'collapse', because it is unclear how the planned expansion of the scheme in September will be funded. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, in an exclusive interview with The Independent, says the unexpectedly high numbers signing up for the scheme is a 'good problem to have'. There is no doubt that there is a problem, however. The higher takeup meant that the Department for Education spent £2bn on the scheme in the last financial year, covering most of the first year of the Labour government, rather than the planned £1.6bn. That gap was covered by additional funding announced in the spending review in March, but as we report today, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the gap will continue to widen as the scheme expands. The next expansion will happen in September, when working parents with children aged nine months and older will be offered 30 hours a week of 'free' childcare. Of course, the care is not 'free' in that it has to be paid for by taxpayers generally – on the grounds that helping the parents of young children to work is a public good. As Ms Phillipson puts it: 'If people are able to work, or work a few more hours, that helps us all as a society as well and it gets economic growth going.' The funding of the scheme will continue to be under pressure, but the most important fact about the scheme so far is that it has not collapsed. The Independent was among those voices warning that it had been underfunded by the Conservative government, but to its credit the new government has increased the money available. The finances of the scheme may be stretched, and many childcare providers continue to say that they cannot recruit enough staff at the wages they can afford, but the gloomier warnings of chaos and thousands of parents left without places have not yet been borne out. It is crucial to remain vigilant as the scheme expands so that remains the case. At the insistence of Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor in the previous government, the scheme was designed to start small, with a limited offer of free hours to older children, before expanding gradually to provide full coverage. This September's expansion is the final stage of that planned rollout, which so far has gone more smoothly than we expected. If the last stage is a stretch too far and some parents cannot immediately find the places they want, that would be a blow to the government's ambitions. Ms Phillipson is right that the problem facing the scheme in its final phase is the problem of success. The higher-than-expected demand means additional pressure on the public finances in the later years of this parliament – pressure that coincides with other increased demands on Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, from slow growth, higher interest rates and a government U-turn on disability benefits spending. Providing greater access to free childcare is a good policy that will help working families. Its success and ambition should be applauded. The government must now make sure that its expansion is a success.
Daily Mail
16 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Woman in Union Jack dress was turned away from Wetherspoons during anti-migrants protest
A woman wearing a Union Jack dress was turned away from a Wetherspoons so as 'not to increase tensions' after an anti-migrant protest in the area. Tanya Ostolski, 54, from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, says she was knocked back from The Picture House last night, despite being a regular in the pub. Dozens of protestors had gathered in the town centre from around 4.30pm after Reform MP Lee Anderson went against police advice to make an unverified claim that a local man charged with rape was an asylum seeker. It followed similar anti-migrant demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, near Essex, and the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf in central London, in recent weeks. Last night's protests in Sutton-in-Ashfield had ended at around 7pm when protestors made their way back to the where the gathering began, around 50 metres from the pub. Many of those who took to the streets were waving Union flags or were wrapped in the St George's Cross flag and had sought to get into the pub after the demonstrations were over. But clashes with bouncers outside the pub quickly ensued when they were denied access due to a 'no-flag' policy deployed by Wetherspoons in their establishments. Ms Ostolski says she was holding a St George's Cross flag when she was first refused entry by bouncers on the door, before putting it in her bag in the hope that would allow her access. But the 54-year-old said she was 'absolutely disgusted' when she was told by those on the doors that she still wasn't allowed in because of her dress. She said: 'I go in there all the time and they refused entry. They didn't let me in with my flag, the flag is the English flag, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have an English flag? 'It's our flag, it's our nation's flag. I wasn't being aggressive or anything I didn't get lairy or anything. I put the flag back in my bag, and they said I can't come in because of my dress. 'They kept refusing me. I'm probably going to get barred now. They just said Tanya, you're not coming in. I feel absolutely disgusted, why should I be refused entry for wearing a dress or a flag?' The spokesman for Wetherspoons, Eddie Gershon, said the decision was made to ensure calm in the area and 'as a matter of common sense'. He said: 'Pub managers have a duty under the licensing laws, and as a matter of common sense, to judge every situation on its particular circumstances. 'In this case, the pub manager felt that it was important not to increase tensions. Therefore, on this occasion the manager asked customers not to enter with flags or any placards.' Ms Ostolski's knockback comes just days after a schoolgirl was put into isolation for wearing a similar Union Jack dress to celebrate being British at her school's culture day. 'Straight A' student Courtney Wright, 12, wore a Spice Girls-esque dress and wrote a speech about history and traditions as part of the celebrations on July 11. But the Year 7 pupil was told the dress was 'unacceptable' before being hauled out of lessons and made to sit in reception until her father collected her. Downing Street would go on to condemn that decision, with a spokesperson for the Prime Minister saying: 'The PM has always been clear that being British is something to be celebrated. 'You can see that from everything this government has done. We are a tolerant, diverse, open country, proud of being British.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Trump is telling the truths Europe's leaders won't
The most important skill in European politics is the ability to pretend that all is well. In London, Paris, Berlin and a dozen other capitals, the order of the day is continuing the series of polite lies that exculpate a generation of politicians from bearing responsibility for their failures. Things that intrude on this bubble – videos of protests circulating online, the views of the electorate, writers who draw attention to the catastrophic consequences of a toxic combination of welfarism and open borders – are censored, ignored or threatened with legal action. Donald Trump's occasional forays into European affairs have much the same effect on the political class as a stick of dynamite chucked into a lake does on fish. His comments are followed by floundering, gasping, and goggle-eyed outrage. They are not met with actual rebuttal. With Europe engaged in a project of total self-delusion, it has fallen to the American president to tell us the truths we are unwilling to tell ourselves. For all Mr Trump's failings, he is rarely accused of being insufficiently blunt. And on Europe, he has a regrettable tendency to be correct. While our politicians wring their hands over vast numbers of economic migrants abusing an outdated asylum system, attempting to square the circle of an open borders approach to migration, generous welfare states, and hopelessly outdated laws and treaties, Mr Trump is free to state what he sees: 'You better get your act together or you're not going to have Europe anymore.' It is a view that will resonate with voters across the continent. The great weakening of Europe's borders has been unfolding for a decade now, since German chancellor Angela Merkel crumpled when confronted with a crying child and attempted to reshape her country around the slogan 'wir schaffen das': 'we can do this'. Political will, however, was not sufficient to change reality on its own. The cultural costs have not been negligible. Nor have the economic consequences, particularly alongside other flawed policies. The costs of net zero continue to mount, with politicians seemingly eager to dismantle Europe's industrial base in a fit of moral fervour. When Mr Trump tells Sir Keir Starmer that Britain should go against this consensus and drill for the oil in the North Sea, or objects to the 'detrimental' effect of windfarms on the 'beauty of Scotland', he is articulating the views of millions of British voters. That they are unpopular in Westminster means that these criticisms are frequently ignored or overruled. It does not mean that they are untrue. Indeed, it is often the truth of Mr Trump's statements that triggers the most furious backlash against them. When he says Europeans risk 'losing their wonderful right to freedom of speech', or his vice-president J D Vance criticises 'digital censorship ', the criticisms sting because they are clearly correct, and all the more so contrasted against attempts to rebut them. When the French mission to the UN asserted that 'in Europe, one is free to speak, not free to spread illegal content' – a statement that would have been just as true of the Soviet Union – the official State Department account responded by pointing out the only true effect was to protect Europe's 'leaders from their own people'. It is hard to disagree with this sentiment. It is difficult, too, to disagree with Trump's blunt statement that recognising a Palestinian state 'doesn't matter '. French president Emmanuel Macron has declared that France will join Spain and Ireland in this policy. As Mr Trump says, however, it is a statement that 'doesn't carry weight', and is 'not going to change anything'. In this, it is a perfect summary of Europe's travails. Political leaders who have squandered the legacies they were handed still behave as if the world hangs upon their word, even as events overtake them. Gesture policies like state recognition are thrown out without any thought as to their actual effect or practicality. What does it mean to recognise a Palestinian state in an area controlled by Hamas? How is this policy meant to assist in quelling the fanatical opposition amongst Palestinian elites to any Jewish state in the Middle East, or for that matter the presence of any other minority? In what sense is rewarding Hamas's butchering and raping of Israeli civilians meant to have any effect other than prolonging this bloody conflict? Mr Trump is not always right. His protectionist trade policy is a catastrophic misstep. He was similarly disastrously wrong on Ukraine, and it is by good fortune rather than design that his ham-fisted attempts to force Kyiv into a terrible deal failed. There, Europe's leaders were for once in the right. The difference is that Mr Trump appears to have realised the error of his ways, and shifted his policies accordingly. To date, this has only once occurred in the other direction. It is clearly for the good that Europe is coming round to Mr Trump's views on defence, with Nato pledging to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP after pressure from the White House, implicitly affirming the truth of his statement that the continent had been 'freeloading'. This was not cheap but it was necessary. We must now hope that similar reversals will follow in other fields, before irreparable damage is done.
