Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, continued their swing-state tour with rallies in rural Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan, on Wednesday, that the campaign said brought out more than 10,000 people each.

The rallies, which followed a raucous event in Philadelphia, served as an opportunity for Harris to continue to introduce Walz, a formerly low-profile midwest governor, to Democrats in the critical swing state.

In Eau Claire, a north-western Wisconsin city less than two hours from Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota, the rally drew attendees from both states – and 12,000 people in total, the campaign said. The Detroit rally on Wednesday night drew 15,000 supporters in another crucial swing state, the Harris campaign told reporters. Walz called it “the largest rally of the campaign” so far.

The big Detroit crowd repeatedly chanted: “We’re not going back,” Democrats’ counter to Trump’s anti-abortion politics and “make America great again” slogan.

Attendees in Wisconsin said they were enthusiastic about seeing a Harris and Walz ticket. “I’m elated,” said Lori Schlecht, a teacher from Minnesota who said she was excited about Walz given his background in public education – Walz was a public school teacher before he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006. “Minnesota is blessed to have him, and I’m glad to see him at the national level. He is authentic and real – he’ll get shit done.”

Many Minnesota residents in attendance pointed to Walz’s down-to-earth manner as an asset to the Democratic party ticket.

“Walz is my homeboy,” said Colin Mgam, who is 65 and retired and drove from St Paul for the rally. “He brings straight talk, and he’s going to do well.”

As midwestern Democrats praised Walz as “one of us”, the Harris campaign announced on Wednesday that it had raised $36m from supporters in the 24 hours since it announced him as Harris’s running mate.

The rallies did see some shaky moments, with protesters in the Detroit crowd briefly trying to disrupt Harris’s speech. Reporters on the scene said the interruption came from pro-Palestinian protesters chanting: “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide. We won’t vote for genocide.”

In response, Harris first said that in a democracy, everyone’s voice matters, but that “I am speaking now”. Then, as the shouts from protesters continued, she said: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that, otherwise I’m speaking.” The crowd cheered.

Both rallies were also marked by medical incidents as thousands of people packed together in the summer heat, prompting several speakers to pause their remarks and flag that people in the crowd needed assistance. Calls for a “medic” interrupted multiple speeches, including both of Walz’s. In Wisconsin, Walz urged supporters to drink water and “take care of one another”. In Michigan, he thanked the crowd for taking care of their neighbors. “We are neighbors, and we’re not weird,” he said.

The Eau Claire rally highlighted Harris’s focus on Wisconsin, where she held her first rally after Joe Biden announced the end of his bid for re-election. In 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes, and Biden won the state in 2020 by a similar margin.

The indie folk band Bon Iver, whose lead singer is from Eau Claire and previously supported Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, opened for Harris at the Wednesday event.

In Wisconsin, Walz spoke first, focusing on his midwestern background and noting he had family in the crowd. “Being a midwesterner, I know something about commitment to the people,” he said. He also spoke at length about his experience coaching football, teaching social studies and serving in the Minnesota national guard, underscoring his role as a kind of ambassador to rural and working-class Americans for the Democratic party.

And he directly took on Trump. “Don’t believe him when he plays dumb. He knows exactly what he’s talking about. He knows exactly what Project 2025 will do in restricting and taking our freedoms. He knows that it rigs the economy for the super rich if he gets a chance to go back to the White House. It will be far worse than it was four years ago.”

Walz also revisited his support for and personal experience with IVF, the fertility treatment, which has become a contentious issue for Republicans after an Alabama court ruled that frozen embryos have personhood.

In Michigan, Harris reiterated her now popular attack line that, as a former prosecutor, she “knows Donald Trump’s type”, but had to cut off her supporters’ repeated chants of “Lock him up!” when she talked about Trump’s recent convictions, telling them that the courts would handle that, and that “we are going to beat him in November.”

The United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, who appeared on stage before Harris in Detroit, called her “a badass woman who stood on the picket line with striking workers” and praised Walz as one of the union’s top picks for vice-president.

“He’s one of us. He’s a working-class guy. He knows working-class values,” Fain said. “Best of all, he’s a proud union member.”

Fain called Trump “a lapdog for the billionaire class” and “a scab”, prompting the Detroit crowd to chant: “He’s a scab! He’s a scab!”

Walz, who was not initially an obvious contender for Harris’s vice-presidential pick, garnered widespread attention within the party after giving a candid and upbeat interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe in which he boosted Harris and wrote off Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance as “weird”.

Donald Trump has been quick to paint Walz, who has worked with progressive lawmakers in Minnesota to pass a raft of progressive laws – codifying the right to abortion, expanding protections for workers and establishing landmark voting rights legislation – as a member of the “radical left”, a line of attack that the former president will likely continue to push.

But Walz pushed back against Trump on Wednesday in Wisconsin. “This election is all about asking that question: which direction will this country go in? Donald Trump knows the direction he wants to take it. He wants to take us back.”

JD Vance went on the offensive on Wednesday, attacking the military record of Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick.

Speaking in Michigan, Donald Trump’s Republican running mate said: “You know what really bothers me about Tim Walz? When the United States Marine Corps … asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do and I did it honorably, and I’m very proud of that service.

“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Now a US senator from Ohio, Vance, 40, deployed to Iraq in 2005, as a military journalist. Despite his title – combat correspondent – he did not experience combat.

Walz, 60, was in the army national guard for 24 years, in infantry and artillery, deploying in response to natural disasters on US soil and to Europe in support of operations in Afghanistan. He retired in 2005, to run for Congress, shortly before his unit deployed to Iraq.

He has faced attacks before. In 2018, he told Minnesota Public Radio: “I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that. I willingly say that I got far more out of the military than they got out of me, from the GI bill to leadership opportunities to everything else.”

A soldier who served under Walz, Al Bonnifield, said: “Would the soldier look down on him because he didn’t go with us? Would the common soldier say, ‘Hey, he didn’t go with us, he’s trying to skip out on a deployment?’ And he wasn’t.

“… He weighed that decision to run for Congress very heavy. He loved the military, he loved the guard, he loved the soldiers he worked with.”

Calling Walz “very caring” and a “very good leader”, Bonnifield said Walz helped him and other soldiers when they returned from Iraq.

Vance seized on footage publicized by the Harris campaign in which, discussing gun control reform, Walz says: “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.”

Vance said: “He says, ‘We shouldn’t allow weapons that I used in war to be on the American streets.’

“Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war? What was this weapon that you carried into war given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq? He has not spent a day in a combat zone. What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not.”

Observers suggested Vance was attempting to “swift boat” Walz – a reference to attacks on John Kerry, the decorated US navy Vietnam veteran and Massachusetts senator who ran for president against George W Bush in 2004.

Bush avoided serving in Vietnam but Republicans attacked Kerry regardless. The Republican operative (and wounded Gulf war veteran) widely credited with coordinating the effort, Chris LaCivita, now runs the Trump-Vance campaign.

In a statement, the Harris campaign said: “After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired veterans affairs and was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform … As vice-president … he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families.”

It added: “In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”

Donald Trump claimed to have saved Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, from rightwing protesters in 2020 during unrest in Minnesota after the police murder of George Floyd, a statement that appears to contradict Walz’s own descriptions of calls between the two politicians.

Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Trump said, without offering evidence or specific dates or times, that he publicly announced Walz was “a good person” in order to dissuade protesters from surrounding Walz’s house.

Walz, the Minnesota governor and Democratic vice-presidential pick, has previously said it was tweets by Trump that “brought armed people to my house” in the first place, including members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group.

In the Wednesday interview, Trump said: “I helped him very much during the riots because his house was surrounded by people that were waving an American flag.”

Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020, when Derek Chauvin, a police officer, knelt on his neck. Mass protests against police brutality and for racial justice ensued, as did some rioting and property destruction.

Trump did not act to calm the situation, tweeting on 29 May: “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

The platform then known as Twitter (now X) said Trump’s post “violated rules about glorifying violence” but left it online.

Speaking to Fox, Trump said Walz was “very, very concerned that [the situation] was going to get out of control.

“They only had one guard, I guess it was at the [executive] mansion or at his house in some form. And he called me, I said, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ I was in the White House. He said, ‘You would put out the word that I’m a good person.’ And I did, I put out the word, I said, ‘He’s a good person. I hope everything’s good.’ And everybody put down their flags and took their flags with them. But they took the American flags and their Maga flags and they left.

“It was thousands of people. That was the first time, I said, ‘Wow, that’s very interesting.’ And he called me back and he thanked me very much. That’s my only thing I’ve ever had to do with him.”

On Wednesday, a source close to Walz told the Guardian the call to which Trump referred took place a month before Floyd’s murder, days after Trump’s “liberate Michigan” tweet.

Walz and Trump had a cordial conversation about the Covid response, the source said, citing reporting at the time and a tweet dated 20 April in which Trump said he “received a very nice call” from Walz and said: “We are working closely on getting him all he needs, and fast. Good things happening!”

Walz has discussed multiple calls with Trump in an interview with Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, reporters for Politico who wrote a bestselling book about the 2020 election and who on Wednesday published their conversation in full. In it, Walz said he spoke to Trump and his vice-president, Mike Pence, throughout the Covid spring and protest summer of 2020.

“President Trump would call me and … those conversations … were relatively cordial,” Walz said. “He made public statements, during the unrest with George Floyd, that ‘Governor Walz knows how to do this, he’d been in the military. And they’re doing some of these things.’”

But Walz also discussed incendiary tweets including a 17 April call to “Liberate Minnesota” from public health rules imposed under Covid.

“I also would tell him that it was really unhelpful and that my children were scared when they heard these things,” Walz said. “And it wasn’t that he had to agree … but I asked for clarification. I never got it. I said, ‘What does ‘Liberate Minnesota’ mean? What do you want me to do differently? What do you think that I’m doing or not doing?’”

Walz said he “never got a response” from Trump but had a “much closer” relationship with Pence, with whom he had served in Congress.

Trump’s “communication style was that I sometimes wondered if he actually heard me”, Walz said.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday afternoon, ABC News reported that, despite Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, and other Republicans criticizing Walz’s handling of unrest after Floyd’s murder, the then president had praised Walz’s actions. The TV network reported that it had acquired a recording of a phone call in which Trump told other state governors that Walz “dominated” the situation said he was setting a good example for other states.

Trump called Walz and “excellent guy” and said in the call on 1 June 2020, according to ABC: “I know Governor Walz is on the phone, and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days.”

He praised Walz summoning law enforcement to tackle the violence and added, according to the network: “I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim. You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins.”

On Fox News, Trump was asked how he reacted when Harris named Walz as her running mate.

“I never thought this was gonna be the one that was picked,” Trump said, adding: “I know him a little bit.”

Calling Walz “a very, very liberal man”, he said Harris had made “a shocking pick and I could not be more thrilled”.

With fewer than 100 days to go until the election, Kamala Harris announced her VP pick – the avuncular Minnesota governor Tim Walz – and dropped a new official logo.

Harris-Walz merchandise, including yard signs, T-shirts, and one much-memed camouflage printed hat, launched as soon as the current vice-president put Walz on her ticket on Tuesday. The logo looks simple, with some even calling it boring: tall, white, sans serif lettering spelling out the nominees’ last names.

“The logo needs a little more [flair] to reflect the excitement of the base,” read one tweet posted to X. “Oh my god this is minimalist hell get me out of here,” said another.

But, as Hunter Schwarz pointed out for Fast Company, others viewed the logo as historic, tracing its branding back to Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign. Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman and first Black woman to run for a major party’s nomination, used all-caps, sans serif lettering. (Harris took nods from Chisholm’s campaign design when running in 2019.)

“The logo looks bold and strong, and the brilliance of it is that it doesn’t have to be clever,” said Ross Turner, a graphic designer who works on political campaigns.

Turner noted that the Harris Walz design looks similar to Trump Vance signs, which also utilize an all-caps, sans serif font. “I initially thought, wow, Harris kind of dropped the ball, because this looks so much like the Trump logo,” Turner said. “Isn’t the goal to differentiate? But they didn’t have to differentiate with the logo, because Harris already does as a candidate. And [Republicans] can’t turn around and mock this logo, because then they’d have to do the same for Trump since it’s so similar.”

“I like their lack of preciousness,” said Charles Nix, senior executive creative director of the typeface company Monotype. “The speed of this campaign and this design coming together demands a sort of truth. It doesn’t have a full year to be tested in focus groups. It speaks plainly and urgently.”

“They’re clearly emphasizing Harris,” said Katherine Haenschen, an assistant professor of communications and political science at Northeastern University. “It’s a good, solid logo.”

If the campaign’s logo is straightforward, its merch comes off as more playful. One $40 camo hat with Harris Walz embroidered in orange looks strikingly similar to a cap sold by the gen Z pop star Chappell Roan in support of her Midwest Princess tour.

Walz, a game-hunting Minnesotan who signed gun control measures into law, was wearing a camo baseball cap when he got the call from Harris offering him the VP slot, and he’s worn camo in the past. But some online commentators are reading into the campaign’s cap, released Tuesday after a high-energy rally in Philadelphia, as a nod to Roan. The singer even posted a side-by-side of her merch with the Harris-Walz hat on X, writing: “is this real.”

The cap, which the campaign called “the most iconic political hat in America”, can be interpreted as a rebuttal to Donald Trump’s red Maga option. The gen-X-dad styling might be seen as an attempt to appeal to middle American voters who might actually use it while hunting. “There’s a lot of connotations with camouflage print and preparing for battle, which I’m sure crossed the in-house design team’s mind, given how fraught the leadup to November is going to be,” said the fashion writer Freya Drohan. Fitting, too, as one of the Harris campaign’s slogans is “when we fight, we win”.

One could even imagine coastal hypebeasts who have never held a gun in their lives wearing the hat: camo has emerged as one of 2024’s most unlikely fashion trends, seen on runways from Balenciaga to A$AP Rocky’s AWGE label.

“This is the bushwick x los feliz unity that our nation needs,” wrote the comedian Desus Nice on X about the hat, citing two hip neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Los Angeles where it’s not uncommon to see people dressed in what can only be described as fish and game warden-chic.

“I’m personally really encouraged that it seems like the campaign is listening to young voices,” said Ziad Ahmed, head of Next Gen, a gen Z marketing practice at United Talent Agency. “I think everyone can feel that energy across the internet right now. When we first saw the hat, we almost couldn’t believe our eyes, as we are so not used to our politicians actually making good, cool, smart choices.”

Nate Jones, an executive at UTA Next Gen, added that he wanted to buy Harris merchandise after she announced her bid, but felt “quite disappointed” by the lineup. “I didn’t see anything I would actually wear, until this hat,” he said. “It’s simultaneously street style and gen X dad style.” Jones ordered the cap, which is expected to drop in early October. The Harris campaign told Teen Vogue it sold $1m worth of caps in less than 24 hours.

Merch alone will not win an election, but the excitement around the hat reiterates how Harris’ presidential bid continues to liven up a once dreary election cycle. It’s also clear that Harris’s team has set its sights on delivering viral moments meant to thrill the very-online voting bloc.

“It is my hope that those in power continue to pay attention to what young voters are saying across the internet,” Ahmed said. “Not just to draw inspiration for their next merch drop, but also to shape their policy platforms that will define our generation’s present as well as our future.”

Thousands of anti-racism protesters gathered across England and formed human shields to protect asylum centres after police warned of unrest from more than 100 far right-led rallies.

Holding placards saying “refugees welcome” and “reject racism, try therapy”, people took to the streets in towns and cities nine days after the country was shaken by the fatal stabbing of three girls in Merseyside and the rioting that followed. But there was little sign of the unrest seen over the past week.

Police staged their biggest mobilisation to counter disorder since the 2011 riots on Wednesday, saying many of the planned gatherings had the potential to turn violent.

Lawyers’ offices shut down, high street shops were boarded up, GP practices closed early and MPs were told to consider working from home as 41 of the 43 local police force areas in England and Wales braced for potential disorder.

About 6,000 riot-trained officers were drafted in to tackle the expected rallies and an estimated 30 counter-protests after immigration law firms and refugee centres were listed as potential targets in a far-right chat group on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

But instead, thousands of counter-protesters took to the streets of Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton and London to protect their communities.

At 7pm in Liverpool, hundreds of people formed a human shield outside a targeted church that hosts an immigration advice centre while women held banners saying: “Nans against Nazis”.

Similar scenes were witnessed in Hackney and Walthamstow, both in east London, and Finchley in the north of the capital, as thousands of local people and anti-fascist activists came together and held placards saying “we are one human race” and “unite against hate”.

In Brighton, the handful of anti-immigration protesters who gathered outside a targeted law office were surrounded by police for their own protection after they were outnumbered by about 500 counter-protesters who chanted: “Off our streets, Nazi scum.” Later, the gathering took on a street carnival atmosphere with a samba band and loud singing.

But tensions flared in Aldershot in Hampshire after a group chanting “stop the boats” clashed with protesters holding “stand up to racism” placards who had been chanting “refugees are welcome here”. Dozens of police officers rushed onto the road to stop the groups from getting too close to each other. There were also reported skirmishes in Blackpool.

Northamptonshire police said three people had been arrested for public order offences in Northampton, and were in custody, and no members of the public or police had been injured.

The Metropolitan police said 15 people were arrested across the capital, including 10 in Croydon for assaulting emergency workers, possession of offensive weapons and other offences after about 50 people gathered “to cause disruption and fuel disorder”. “They’ve dragged and thrown objects down the road and thrown bottles at officers. This is not linked to protest, this appears to be pure anti-social behaviour,” the force added on X.

But by 9pm few far-right protesters were seen at the alleged targeted sites, although counter-protesters remained on the streets.

Despite the fears of violence and disorder scarring Britain on a scale not seen since the 2011 riots, in the end counter protestors outnumbered those supporting the far right led protests. In some places counter protestors found that no one else on the other side had turned up.

A police source with knowledge of the national picture said there were believed to have been small, far right led gatherings in Durham, Blackpool, Norwich, Northampton, Sheffield and Brighton.

The source said: “It appears the swift justice being meted out to those involved in rioting over the last week has made people think twice. Forces were fully prepared for what may have come at them in terms of disorder. However, we have seen the evening pass with minimal to no violence.

“The law abiding public have no time for the mindless criminality we have seen, and last night proves that … We must thank our communities for standing united against wanton thuggery.”

Police feel their intelligence justified a national mobilisation, the biggest to combat feared disorder in over a decade, and the employment of 6000 riot officers, one third of the total in England and Wales.

Earlier Earlier Nick Lowles, a long standing expert on the British far right, and who now leads Hope Not Hate, told the Guardian that he was sceptical there would be widespread trouble on Wednesday evening.

The expectation was triggered by a list of targets found on social media. Lowles, speaking before this evening said: “I think it’s a hoax, designed to spread fear and panic.

“The list has been compiled by one man in Liverpool, who simply googled immigration law firms etc. No-one is organising the local protests and there is very, very little chatter about it on the forums and WhatsApp groups that have been key over the past week.”

Police expect the next couple of days to be relatively quiet and more so called protests are expected this weekend.

Some 15 events across England and Wales were known of by police, mostly involving counter protesters. It was believed some far right led gatherings were taking place, though on a much smaller scale than expected.

Earlier, Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan police, said threats against immigration lawyers were “at the centre of our planning tonight”, adding: “We will not let the immigration asylum system be intimidated.”

The director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, added that publication of targets could be considered a terrorism offence as he revealed that one case of alleged terrorism was “actively under consideration” following the unrest across England and Northern Ireland in the last week.

Britain’s head of counter terrorism, assistant commissioner Matt Jukes, also confirmed for the first time that counter terrorism detectives were investigating some of the violence which erupted after the killing of the three young girls at a Taylor Swift-inspired dance class in Southport last Monday.

The Guardian understands that counter terrorism police are interested in an alleged attempt to set fire to a mosque near the scene of the atrocity, barely 36 hours after Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine were killed. They are also also looking into the attempt to set fire to a Rotherham hotel housing more than 200 asylum seekers on Sunday.

Parts of England went into effective shutdown on Wednesday with shops boarded up in the centre of Manchester, the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, Aldershot town centre and Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex ahead of the rumoured protests.Cases being heard at an immigration tribunal were also abandoned on Wednesday following concerns that far right agitators could target the building. Staff, lawyers and claimants at Hatton Cross Tribunal Hearing Centre, near Heathrow Airport, were ordered to leave at around lunchtime. Some hearings could not be completed.

Those inside the court building were told that there was far right activity in the area. A Whitehall source said the decision to abandon the court was precautionary. It is understood that other immigration tribunals have also been closed early because of fears of violence.

It came as Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, wrote to MPs suggesting they review their security in the wake of the threat of further riots and suggested some might want to consider working from home.

So far 428 arrests across 26 forces have been made and more than 140 people have been charged since the riots erupted last Tuesday, but that number is expected to increase, police said.

Disorder-related sentencing hearings are scheduled for 26 people over the next two days, the Ministry of Justice added on Wednesday evening. Offences covered by the hearings will include violent disorder, publishing written material to stir up racial hatred, and racially aggravated threatening behaviour.

Chief Constable BJ Harrington, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for public order, said that police and the Crown Prosecution Service would seek to minimise the number of suspects released on bail, as a deterrent to further rioting, and that even defendants with no previous convictions had already been remanded in custody after a first appearance in court.

Keir Starmer said the government was taking “swift action” against rioters after three men were jailed at Liverpool crown court on Wednesday for their parts in the disorder.

UK headlines were dominated by far-right rallies and the protesters who set out to counter them, with much of the expected violence failing to materialise. Even as shops shut up early and local police forces in England and Wales braces for unrest, far-right gatherings either did not take place or were outnumbered by counter-protesters who formed human chains around asylum centres.

The Guardian splashed on “Thousands take to the streets to counter threat from far right” with a picture of crowds in Walthamstow, east London waving placards reading “Refugees welcome” and “Stop the far right”.

The Daily Telegraph ran with “Britain shuts up shop over riots threat”, reporting that MPs had been advised to work from home while GP surgeries closed and shops boarded up their windows, with a picture of a man hammering up plywood across the front of a Samaritans charity shop in Southend, Essex.

The i headlined on “Far-right rioters face football ban as ministers bid to curb unrest”, writing that rioters involved in violence could be barred from matches as “police probe links with hooliganism”.

The Daily Mail’s front page featured a picture of counter-protesters in Walthamstow, headlining it “Night anti-hate marchers faced down the thugs” and reported that thousands had taken to the streets to “stare down feared far-Right rioters”.

The Independent showed the mugshots of three men jailed for their roles in last week’s Southport riots with their sentences in bold under the headline: “The full force of the law”, adding that they are “the first of many to be jailed” over the violence.

The Daily Mirror also used a picture of the Walthamstow counter-protesters with the headlines “Power of the people” and “Standing together” writing that thousands of anti-racists had turned out to thwart the “far-right thugs blighting Britain”.

The Express headlined its splash “United Britain stands firm against thugs” and also used a picture of counter-protesters in Walthamstow.

The Times also used Walthamstow to illustrate its headline “Thousands take to street to confront the far right”, reporting in its sub headings “Police warn of 100 clashes across England” and “Rioters handed sentences of up to three years”.

The Metro took a different angle on the protests, writing in its headline “Putin’s pawns stoking riots” under the line “Russians targeting UK far-right channels”.

The Vienna leg of Taylor Swift’s blockbuster Eras tour been cancelled after two people were arrested over an apparent plot to launch an attack on a public event in the Austrian capital.

The announcement was made by concert organisers Barracuda Music late on Wednesday, after Austrian authorities said they had arrested a 19-year-old man for allegedly planning an Islamist attack in the Vienna region and suggested that Swift’s shows had been the “focus” of the plot.

The man, who had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group “in recent weeks”, was detained in Lower Austria about an hour from the capital early on Wednesday, Austria’s top security chief, Franz Ruf, told a press conference.

“We have established corresponding preparatory acts and also that there is a focus of the 19-year-old perpetrator on the Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna,” Ruf said.

The man, an Austrian citizen, is believed to have become radicalised on the internet. Ruf said chemical substances had been seized at the suspect’s home and were being evaluated.

A second person believed to have been in contact with the suspect was arrested in Vienna.

Swift had been scheduled to play at the Austrian capital’s Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

In an Instagram post late on Wednesday, Barracuda Music said: “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety.”

The venue had been sold out for the planned concerts, APA reported, and an estimated 170,000 fans had been expected. The organisers said that all would-be concert-goers would have their tickets refunded.

Swift fans took to social media to express their devastation at missing out on one of the superstar’s shows.

“I’m so upset. I’ve been looking forward to it for over a year,” wrote one fan on Twitter. “Taylor Swift in my home town. And now it’s not happening.”

In the official “Swifties” fan group on WhatsApp, administrators were overwhelmed with thousands of messages.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a post on social network X that “the cancelation of the Taylor Swift concerts by the organisers is a bitter disappointment for all fans in Austria.”

“The situation surrounding the apparently planned terror attack in Vienna was very serious,” he wrote. But he added that, thanks to intensive cooperation between police, Austrian and foreign intelligence, “the threat could be recognised early on, tackled and a tragedy prevented.”

In 2017, 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. The bomber, Salman Abedi, detonated a knapsack bomb in Manchester Arena at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving.

An official inquiry reported last year that Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, did not act swiftly enough on key information and missed a significant opportunity to prevent the bombing, the deadliest extremist attack in the UK in recent years.

In November 2020, a convicted Islamic State group sympathiser went on a shooting rampage in central Vienna, killing four and wounding 23 others before police shot him dead. It marked the country’s first deadly jihadist attack.

New Zealand’s prime minister has defended the removal of the Māori language from an official invitation sent to an Australian government minister by saying “in my dealings with Australians it always pays to be incredibly simple”.

But the Australian minister was quick to hit back, saying he was familiar with the language thanks to the popular New Zealand band Split Enz.

The New Zealand National party leader Christopher Luxon’s comment, during question time in parliament, came in response to questioning from the Labour opposition leader, Chris Hipkins, about the government’s use of the Māori language, known as te reo Māori.

This week the broadcasters TVNZ revealed that the culture minister, Paul Goldsmith, had instructed officials to remove several te reo expressions from an invitation to Matariki, the annual celebrations of the Māori new year.

The invitation was bound for Tony Burke, Australia’s minister for multicultural affairs.

The Māori words included the greeting “tena koe” (meaning hello), the sign-off “nāku noa, nā” (which became ‘yours sincerely’), and the removal of the widely accepted Māori name for New Zealand: Aotearoa.

Goldsmith said he didn’t think Burke would know what Aotearoa meant.

“It’s hardly the scandal of the century,” he said. “I just didn’t think it needed a lot of te reo in it … I thought, let’s just keep it simple.”

But Luxon didn’t take into account the power of Split Enz educating a 13-year-old Burke in Strathfield, Sydney.

“I learnt the word [Aotearoa] in 1982 thanks to Split Enz including a reference in the lyrics, Six Months in a Leaky Boat,” Burke said on Thursday.

The hit peaked at No 2 in the Australian charts that year and was the 18th biggest song overall, sandwiched between Bananarama’s Shy Boy and Our Lips Are Sealed by the Go-Go’s.

The lyrics include the line: “Aotearoa, rugged individual / Glisten like a pearl / At the bottom of the world.”

Te reo is an official language of New Zealand, along with sign language, and is increasingly spoken by Māori after decades of decline – in part due to hostile government policies.

Luxon’s right-leaning coalition – of the conservative National party, the free-market libertarians ACT and the populist NZ First parties – has reduced its use in government since taking office last November.

The government has issued edicts to public servants to stop communicating in te reo, and asked government departments to rebadge with English names, scrapping or de-prioritising the Māori names given more prominence during Jacinda Ardern’s government.

Goldmsith’s instruction to remove the Māori greetings – which are commonplace in New Zealand – drew criticism from Labour, particularly given it was correspondence relating to Matariki, New Zealand’s sole Indigenous public holiday.

“It’s just a shameful act … it’s an insult, not just to Māori people but to this country,” the opposition Māori development spokesperson Willie Jackson told TVNZ. “Here we are trying to celebrate this language and you’ve got a minister acting contrary to that.”

In parliament on Wednesday, Hipkins included Goldsmith’s letter in a line of questioning to Luxon on ministerial standards.

“Well, I would just say to that member, we value te reo in this government,” Luxon said.

“The correspondence was being directed to an Australian minister overseas and what I’d say to you in my dealings with Australians, it always pays to be incredibly simple and clear and use English.”

The quip recalled the former NZ leader Robert Muldoon’s infamous line that New Zealanders leaving for Australia “raised the IQ of both countries”.

But Luxon’s comment fell flat in parliament, with the foreign minister, Winston Peters, showing indifference and other MPs gasping or sounding notes of outrage.

Asked about Luxon’s sledge, the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the conservative leader “is a friend of mine” but there were issues with communication from time to time.

“I often think that while we both speak English, sometimes we need interpreters,” he said.

“It’s the Kiwi accent. From time to time, things can be missed between us, that was the case with [former NZ prime ministers] Chris Hipkins and Jacinda Ardern before him.

“We are great friends. Sometimes we do speak a different language.”

Luxon lived in Sydney for five years during his pre-politics corporate career with Unilever.

His son, Will, is an Australian citizen, and his daughter, Olivia, graduated from the University of Melbourne last year.

“I love Australia,” he said in a 2022 interview. “If I couldn’t be a Kiwi I’d be an Aussie. Absolutely. I just love the confidence and optimism of the joint.”

It is not Luxon’s first Māori language-related misstep. In December he told public servants that wished to learn te reo they should pay for it themselves – though it was later revealed he had charged taxpayers more than NZ$3,000 for his own private tuition.

New Zealand’s prime minister has defended the removal of the Māori language from an official invitation sent to an Australian government minister by saying “in my dealings with Australians it always pays to be incredibly simple”.

But the Australian minister was quick to hit back, saying he was familiar with the language thanks to the popular New Zealand band Split Enz.

The New Zealand National party leader Christopher Luxon’s comment, during question time in parliament, came in response to questioning from the Labour opposition leader, Chris Hipkins, about the government’s use of the Māori language, known as te reo Māori.

This week the broadcasters TVNZ revealed that the culture minister, Paul Goldsmith, had instructed officials to remove several te reo expressions from an invitation to Matariki, the annual celebrations of the Māori new year.

The invitation was bound for Tony Burke, Australia’s minister for multicultural affairs.

The Māori words included the greeting “tena koe” (meaning hello), the sign-off “nāku noa, nā” (which became ‘yours sincerely’), and the removal of the widely accepted Māori name for New Zealand: Aotearoa.

Goldsmith said he didn’t think Burke would know what Aotearoa meant.

“It’s hardly the scandal of the century,” he said. “I just didn’t think it needed a lot of te reo in it … I thought, let’s just keep it simple.”

But Luxon didn’t take into account the power of Split Enz educating a 13-year-old Burke in Strathfield, Sydney.

“I learnt the word [Aotearoa] in 1982 thanks to Split Enz including a reference in the lyrics, Six Months in a Leaky Boat,” Burke said on Thursday.

The hit peaked at No 2 in the Australian charts that year and was the 18th biggest song overall, sandwiched between Bananarama’s Shy Boy and Our Lips Are Sealed by the Go-Go’s.

The lyrics include the line: “Aotearoa, rugged individual / Glisten like a pearl / At the bottom of the world.”

Te reo is an official language of New Zealand, along with sign language, and is increasingly spoken by Māori after decades of decline – in part due to hostile government policies.

Luxon’s right-leaning coalition – of the conservative National party, the free-market libertarians ACT and the populist NZ First parties – has reduced its use in government since taking office last November.

The government has issued edicts to public servants to stop communicating in te reo, and asked government departments to rebadge with English names, scrapping or de-prioritising the Māori names given more prominence during Jacinda Ardern’s government.

Goldmsith’s instruction to remove the Māori greetings – which are commonplace in New Zealand – drew criticism from Labour, particularly given it was correspondence relating to Matariki, New Zealand’s sole Indigenous public holiday.

“It’s just a shameful act … it’s an insult, not just to Māori people but to this country,” the opposition Māori development spokesperson Willie Jackson told TVNZ. “Here we are trying to celebrate this language and you’ve got a minister acting contrary to that.”

In parliament on Wednesday, Hipkins included Goldsmith’s letter in a line of questioning to Luxon on ministerial standards.

“Well, I would just say to that member, we value te reo in this government,” Luxon said.

“The correspondence was being directed to an Australian minister overseas and what I’d say to you in my dealings with Australians, it always pays to be incredibly simple and clear and use English.”

The quip recalled the former NZ leader Robert Muldoon’s infamous line that New Zealanders leaving for Australia “raised the IQ of both countries”.

But Luxon’s comment fell flat in parliament, with the foreign minister, Winston Peters, showing indifference and other MPs gasping or sounding notes of outrage.

Asked about Luxon’s sledge, the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the conservative leader “is a friend of mine” but there were issues with communication from time to time.

“I often think that while we both speak English, sometimes we need interpreters,” he said.

“It’s the Kiwi accent. From time to time, things can be missed between us, that was the case with [former NZ prime ministers] Chris Hipkins and Jacinda Ardern before him.

“We are great friends. Sometimes we do speak a different language.”

Luxon lived in Sydney for five years during his pre-politics corporate career with Unilever.

His son, Will, is an Australian citizen, and his daughter, Olivia, graduated from the University of Melbourne last year.

“I love Australia,” he said in a 2022 interview. “If I couldn’t be a Kiwi I’d be an Aussie. Absolutely. I just love the confidence and optimism of the joint.”

It is not Luxon’s first Māori language-related misstep. In December he told public servants that wished to learn te reo they should pay for it themselves – though it was later revealed he had charged taxpayers more than NZ$3,000 for his own private tuition.

The EU, France and UK have condemned a senior Israeli minister for suggesting it might be “justified and moral” to starve people in Gaza.

The comments from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in which he said “no one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages”, sparked international outrage.

In his speech this week, he went on to say that Israel was “bringing in humanitarian aid because we have no choice. We are in a situation that requires international legitimacy to conduct this war.”

The EU said the deliberate starvation of civilians was a “war crime” and that it expected the Israeli government to “unequivocally distance itself” from the words of the far-right minister.

France also criticised Smotrich, saying providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza is an “obligation under international humanitarian law” for Israel as it controls all access to the territory.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, called on “the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn” the remarks.

Separately on Wednesday, the US state department said Israel must fully investigate allegations of sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees by its soldiers.

Asked about a video aired by Israel’s Channel 12 that appeared to show soldiers taking a detainee out of sight of surveillance cameras to carry out abuses, spokesperson Matthew Miller said US officials had reviewed the video.

“We have seen the video, and reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific,” Miller said. “There ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period … If there are detainees who have been sexually assaulted or raped, the government of Israel, the IDF need to fully investigate those actions.”

The White House also called the reports of rape, torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners “deeply concerning”.

A spokesperson for Israel’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The Israeli military, which runs some detention facilities where Palestinian prisoners have been held, said in response to earlier allegations that it operated according to the rule of law and any specific claims of abuse were investigated.

The video emerged amid an investigation by Israeli authorities into alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners by soldiers.

The investigation sparked protests by rightwing Israelis, who broke into two military facilities after military police detained nine soldiers over allegations of severe abuse of a detainee captured in Gaza by army reservists at the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel.

“It is appropriate that the IDF in this case has announced an investigation has arrested a number of people who are alleged to have been involved,” Miller said.

“I won’t speak to the outcome of that investigation, but it ought to proceed swiftly, and if they are determined to be in violation of criminal laws or violations of the IDF’s code of conduct, then, of course, they ought to be held accountable.”

On Monday, the Guardian reported that interviews with released prisoners showed violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuses of Palestinian prisoners had been normalised across Israel’s jail system.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem said in a report that mistreatment was now so systemic that it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Antisemitic incidents in the UK more than doubled in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period the previous year, attributed to the war in Gaza, according to a leading Jewish charity.

The total number of incidents recorded for the first six months of this year was 1,978. The comparable number for 2023 was 964.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism and provides security for Jewish communities in Britain, said the figures were unprecedented and shocking.

“This is a hatred that, while deeply rooted, adapts to current social, political and cultural contexts. The most common form of political or ideological discourse present in antisemitic incidents reported to CST throughout the first half of 2024 referenced, or was linked to, Israel, Gaza, the Hamas terror attack or the subsequent war, alongside anti-Jewish language or targeting,” the CST said.

There was evidence of “political or ideological rhetoric or motivations” in more than seven out of 10 incidents recorded by the CST.

A record number of antisemitic incidents involved schoolchildren, school staff or school property. The total of 162 incidents was more than double the number of incidents for the same period the previous year.

The CST also logged a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents on university campuses and other higher education settings – more than five times the previous year’s tally.

Its report said: “One reason why incident levels have remained so high for so long following 7 October is that this war has lasted longer than any previous conflicts in Israel and Gaza, and therefore has held public attention and scrutiny for a greater period of time.

“Images of death and destruction have continued to circulate in mainstream and social media, anti-Israel protests have persisted, as have vigils for the hostages kidnapped by Hamas.”

This has resulted in “heightened feelings of uncertainty and fear among Jewish people, who know that they may become proxy targets for hostility towards Israel”, the CST added.

The charity recorded 121 incidents in the category of assault, an increase of 41% from the first half of 2023. Cases of damage and desecration to Jewish property rose by 246%.

There were 142 incidents in the category of threats and 1,618 in the category of abusive behaviour.

The majority of incidents took place in Greater London and Greater Manchester, home to the largest Jewish communities in the UK. But there were also incidents in other places, including Brighton, Cambridge, Oxford and Birmingham.

Mark Gardner, the CST’s chief executive, said: “The disgraceful surge in British antisemitism is further evidenced by these latest figures. It happens across society, including in schools, campuses, places of work, public transport and on the streets.

“The CST applauds our community’s ever-increasing determination to stand strong and proud, despite the hatred, vilification and blatant double standards that we too often face, including from many who perversely call themselves anti-racists.”

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said: “The soaring levels of antisemitic hate outlined in this report are truly appalling, and we must never relent in our work to root out this hatred in all its forms.

“There is no place in Britain for this vile hatred and we are absolutely clear that those who push this poison – on the streets or online – must always face the full force of the law.”

British Muslims have also experienced a big increase in hate incidents since last October, according to the charity Tell Mama.

A survey of 550 Muslims found that 60% believed anti-Muslim hate had increased. More than one in four respondents said they had experienced an anti-Muslim hate incident.

Iman Atta, the director of Tell Mama, said: “These findings demonstrate that British Muslims feel a sense of trepidation and a growing sense of the toxic nature of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia. This is even before the recent events and the attacks on mosques like Southport mosque by members of the far right.”

• Ukrainian forces including armoured vehicles have made confirmed advances of up to 10km into Russia’s Kursk oblast, the Institute for the Study of War said on Wednesday evening. “The current confirmed extent and location of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast indicate that Ukrainian forces have penetrated at least two Russian defensive lines and a stronghold,” the US-based thinktank said in its Wednesday evening update. “Russian insider source and several other Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces fought for and seized the Sudzha checkpoint and the Sudzha gas distribution station.” ISW cited geolocated footage and satellite imagery, and said the Ukrainians had taken dozens of prisoners of war.

• The White House was contacting Ukraine to learn the “objectives” of a major incursion across the border into Russia, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said on Wednesday. Washington supported “common sense” actions by Ukraine to stop attacks by Russian forces, Jean-Pierre added. “We’re going to reach out to the Ukrainian military to learn more about their objectives.

• Vladimir Putin described it as a “large-scale provocation” as Ukrainian officials remained silent about the scope of the operation. Matthew Miller, US state department spokesperson, dismissed Moscow’s condemnations. “I have seen the statements from the Russian government. It is a little bit rich, them calling it a provocation, given Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

• Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, writes that the operation appears to be an attack by Ukraine’s military rather than the Ukrainian-based Russian opposition groups that have conducted past raids.

• Russia’s chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, said up 1,000 combatants from Ukraine were involved. Some Russian military bloggers reported Ukrainian troops had reached the town of Sudzha, which is home to the Sudzha metering station, the last major transit point for Russian pipeline gas heading to Europe via Ukraine. Evacuations of civilians were being carried out both in Kursk and in Sumy oblast on the Ukrainian side of the border.

• Russian propagandist Yevgeny Poddubny survived a Ukrainian drone strike in the Russia’s Kursk region on Wednesday and was in intensive care, said the state-owned Rossiya-24 news channel for which he works. Countries including the UK and Australia have had Poddubny under sanctions since 2022.

• The Kyiv Post has said the appointment of Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’s running mate is good news for Ukraine, as “since the start of the full-scale invasion, Walz has been a vocal advocate for Ukraine in its fight against Russia”.

• Boeing says it is been ramping up its production of PAC-3 seekers used in the Patriot missile defence system. The company said it was on pace to break its annual seeker production record by over 20% by the end of the year. More seekers are needed as the US plans to boost production of Patriots with the help of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan.

• Russian-American dual citizen Ksenia Karelina has pleaded guilty in a Russian court to a charge of treason, state news agency RIA quoted her lawyer as saying on Wednesday. Karelina was charged over a donation she made in 2022 to a charity supporting Ukraine. RIA said the prosecution and defence would sum up their arguments on Thursday and the verdict would be announced the same day.

• French authorities allowed Russian sailing frigate the Shtandart to dock in La Rochelle for food and fuel despite sanctions over Moscow’s war against Ukraine, a port source said on Wednesday. The 34-metre-long (112 feet) three-masted ship, built in 1999 and an exact replica of a frigate belonging to tsar Peter the Great, was barred from entering Brest and from taking part in its maritime festival in July. The boat was once a favourite of European maritime festivals and used extensively for cruises and training.

• Ukrainian forces including armoured vehicles have made confirmed advances of up to 10km into Russia’s Kursk oblast, the Institute for the Study of War said on Wednesday evening. “The current confirmed extent and location of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast indicate that Ukrainian forces have penetrated at least two Russian defensive lines and a stronghold,” the US-based thinktank said in its Wednesday evening update. “Russian insider source and several other Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces fought for and seized the Sudzha checkpoint and the Sudzha gas distribution station.” ISW cited geolocated footage and satellite imagery, and said the Ukrainians had taken dozens of prisoners of war.

• The White House was contacting Ukraine to learn the “objectives” of a major incursion across the border into Russia, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said on Wednesday. Washington supported “common sense” actions by Ukraine to stop attacks by Russian forces, Jean-Pierre added. “We’re going to reach out to the Ukrainian military to learn more about their objectives.

• Vladimir Putin described it as a “large-scale provocation” as Ukrainian officials remained silent about the scope of the operation. Matthew Miller, US state department spokesperson, dismissed Moscow’s condemnations. “I have seen the statements from the Russian government. It is a little bit rich, them calling it a provocation, given Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

• Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, writes that the operation appears to be an attack by Ukraine’s military rather than the Ukrainian-based Russian opposition groups that have conducted past raids.

• Russia’s chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, said up 1,000 combatants from Ukraine were involved. Some Russian military bloggers reported Ukrainian troops had reached the town of Sudzha, which is home to the Sudzha metering station, the last major transit point for Russian pipeline gas heading to Europe via Ukraine. Evacuations of civilians were being carried out both in Kursk and in Sumy oblast on the Ukrainian side of the border.

• Russian propagandist Yevgeny Poddubny survived a Ukrainian drone strike in the Russia’s Kursk region on Wednesday and was in intensive care, said the state-owned Rossiya-24 news channel for which he works. Countries including the UK and Australia have had Poddubny under sanctions since 2022.

• The Kyiv Post has said the appointment of Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’s running mate is good news for Ukraine, as “since the start of the full-scale invasion, Walz has been a vocal advocate for Ukraine in its fight against Russia”.

• Boeing says it is been ramping up its production of PAC-3 seekers used in the Patriot missile defence system. The company said it was on pace to break its annual seeker production record by over 20% by the end of the year. More seekers are needed as the US plans to boost production of Patriots with the help of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan.

• Russian-American dual citizen Ksenia Karelina has pleaded guilty in a Russian court to a charge of treason, state news agency RIA quoted her lawyer as saying on Wednesday. Karelina was charged over a donation she made in 2022 to a charity supporting Ukraine. RIA said the prosecution and defence would sum up their arguments on Thursday and the verdict would be announced the same day.

• French authorities allowed Russian sailing frigate the Shtandart to dock in La Rochelle for food and fuel despite sanctions over Moscow’s war against Ukraine, a port source said on Wednesday. The 34-metre-long (112 feet) three-masted ship, built in 1999 and an exact replica of a frigate belonging to tsar Peter the Great, was barred from entering Brest and from taking part in its maritime festival in July. The boat was once a favourite of European maritime festivals and used extensively for cruises and training.

South Africa’s national beauty pageant has been thrown into turmoil, after the government accused the mother of a contestant who suffered a torrent of online abuse over her Nigerian heritage of fraud and identity theft.

Chidimma Adetshina, 23, has been the subject of vicious, xenophobic attacks on social media since she was announced as a finalist in Miss South Africa in July, with many, including cabinet ministers, questioning her credentials.

The ruckus led to an investigation into her citizenship by the home affairs ministry, after a request from the pageant’s organisers.

This uncovered “prima facie indications” that Adetshina’s mother may have committed fraud and stolen the identity of a South African woman after the Miss SA hopeful was born, the ministry said on Wednesday.

“Reasons exist to believe that fraud and identity theft may have been committed by the person recorded in home affairs records as Chidimma Adetshina’s mother,” said the home affairs minister, Leon Schreiber.

“An innocent South African mother, whose identity may have been stolen as part of the alleged fraud committed by Adetshina’s mother, suffered as a result because she could not register her child.”

The ministry said it was obtaining legal advice on the implications on Adetshina’s citizenship, adding the contestant did not participate in the alleged unlawful actions as she was an infant at the time.

Adetshina and her mother had given their written consent to the initial investigation, it said.

The investigation has broadened to identify and pursue any officials involved in the alleged fraudulent scheme, the ministry said, adding it “deployed every resource at its disposal to establish the truth”.

The organisers of Miss South Africa did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

They had previously said that Adetshina, a law student, was a South African citizen holding “both a South African ID and passport” and thus met all the contestant eligibility criteria.

Adetshina, who is due to compete in the Miss South Africa finals this weekend, has previously told local media she was born in Soweto to a Nigerian father and a South African mother of Mozambican descent.

South Africa grants citizenship by birth to anyone born in the country after 1995. Adetshina was born in 2001.

Her participation in the pageant has stoked anti-foreigner sentiment in the nation, which has witnessed violent, and at times deadly, attacks on immigrants in the past.

Politicians, celebrities and ordinary citizens have weighed in on the debate on social media and chatshows.

While many came to her defence, others argued she should be disqualified over her Nigerian ties.

Among the loudest critics was the arts and culture minister, Gayton McKenzie, whose far-right party won 2% of the vote in the May general election in which immigration was a key issue.

Hostility towards foreigners has increased in recent years, as South Africans tire of unwavering unemployment.

Despite lacklustre economic growth, the continent’s most industrialised nation attracts millions of migrants, mainly people from other African countries.

Plans for a network of radars tracking deep space activity to help protect the UK from “space warfare” are to go ahead in Pembrokeshire, despite the opposition of local campaigners.

The 27 radar dishes planned for the St Davids peninsula, which will be 20 metres high and can track objects as small as a football, are part of a network planned around the globe.

The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (Darc) will be developed at Cawdor barracks in south-west Wales by the Ministry of Defence. Ministers have said the plans are crucial as long-term defence against the possibility of threats in deep space.

The plans to redevelop the barracks, which were previously set to close, are part of the Aukus defence partnership between the UK, US and Australia. They will involve a network of ground-based radars in all three countries designed to monitor, track and identify objects up to 22,000 miles (36,000km) away from Earth.

John Healey, the defence secretary, said there would be local consultation on the plans but said they would secure jobs and were crucial for future defence. “Space plays a crucial role in our daily lives – used by everything from our mobile phones to banking services,” he said. “It is also used by UK defence to conduct vital tasks such as supporting military operations, navigating forces and gathering intelligence.

“This new radar programme will not only enhance our awareness of deep space, but also help protect our space assets alongside our closest partners.”

Space is an emerging frontier for warfare in a world that is increasingly dependent on satellite technology.

“This is a big deal in the sense that we don’t have enough space domain awareness,” said Dr Mark Hilborne, who leads the space security research group at King’s College London. “There is a concern about increasing military activity and increasing belligerence in space. We need more eyes on the sky.”

Darc’s reach matches the distance of geostationary orbit, rather than being “deep space” in the traditional sense. It is designed to provide more detailed intelligence about the nature and activity of satellites, which are projected to increase in number from about 9,000 this year to 60,000 by 2030 with applications including telecommunications, GPS, weather forecasting and military surveillance.

“You can’t hide behind a mountain in space, we can see what’s there, but you don’t always know what’s onboard a satellite or what its operators’ intentions are and whether they are malevolent or worrying,” said Hilborne.

Earlier this year, the US accused Russia of launching a “counter-space weapon” that was seen stalking a US government satellite. In another instance, a so-called “Russian doll” satellite released a second smaller satellite, which launched a projectile, in a presumed demonstration of anti-satellite capabilities.

And there have been increasing instances of GPS and internet satellites being electronically jammed and the use of lasers to temporarily “dazzle” satellites’ optical sensors. “Those kinds of subthreshold activities are happening all the time,” said Hilborne.

The radar system is expected to be operational by 2030 and work can start redeveloping the site once safety requirements and environmental impact assessments are submitted.

Cawdor barracks is home to a British army signals regiment, which is due to relocate from 2028 and the MoD said plans to redevelop the site for the radar station would secure at least 100 jobs. Local campaigners, however, launched a campaign in May to stop the plans called Parc Against Darc, calling it “one of the most health-hazardous, tourism-ruining, skyline-blighting military installations ever proposed anywhere in the UK”.

The campaign was originally set up as the Pembrokeshire Against Radar Campaign in 1990, when a similar radar installation on the Dewisland peninsula was planned, but rallies against the plans drew such attention that Margaret Thatcher cancelled the proposal.

A spokesperson for the campaign when it was launched said it would “build on the strong history of the previously victorious campaign and echo all of its strengths and successes”.

People living with a rare genetic blood disorder in England will be offered a “life-changing” new treatment on the NHS, in what has been described as a historic moment.

Casgevy, which is a one-off gene therapy, has been approved for use on the NHS in England for people living with a severe form of thalassaemia.

The treatment was approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) on Wednesday, meaning that about 460 patients currently living with transfusion-dependent beta thalassaemia could be eligible for the treatment.

Thalassaemia is the name for a group of inherited blood disorders in which too little haemoglobin is produced by the body. It affects about 2,300 people in the UK, who are mainly from a Mediterranean, Asian, or Middle Eastern background. Many people with beta thalassaemia are not expected to live beyond their 50s.

Casgevy works by editing a gene in a recipient’s bone marrow stem cells so that the body produces functioning haemoglobin.

The therapy is hoped to be a lifetime cure. In international clinical trials, 93% of patients with beta thalassaemia did not need a blood transfusion for at least a year after having the treatment.

Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of the NHS, said: “This is a historic moment for people living with beta thalassaemia, with a potential cure for those facing this debilitating disorder now available on the NHS.

“Ordinarily, patients experience painful side effects and undergo regular transfusions, which severely impact their quality of life, but this therapy offers people a life free from that, as well as the hope of living longer, which is truly amazing news.

“This is the latest in a series of revolutionary gene therapies to be secured by NHS England over the past five years, bringing significant benefit for patients – and thanks to funding through our Innovative Medicines Fund, this one-off therapy will be fast-tracked to patients who could benefit from the new lease of life it promises.”

Prof Bola Owolabi, the director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England, said: “This is an incredibly exciting step forward in the treatment of thalassaemia and could drastically change the lives of those living with what can be an extremely painful condition.

“We are committed to reducing healthcare inequalities by rolling out new and pioneering treatments on the NHS for conditions, such as thalassaemia, which disproportionally affects people from some minority ethnic backgrounds.”

Romaine Maharaj, the executive director of the UK Thalassaemia Society, said: “With Nice’s approval of gene therapy for transfusion-dependent thalassaemia under the NHS managed access scheme, we stand on the brink of a revolutionary breakthrough.

“This transformative treatment offers patients a life-changing opportunity, enabling them to repair their own cells and embrace a future free from the challenges of their condition.

“It is a beacon of hope that underscores the power of innovation in medicine, paving the way for curative options that can truly enhance the quality of life for everyone affected.”

Fingers were starting to touch the keyboard. Intros being formulated, allusions to history made. “Matt Hudson‑Smith last night became the first Briton since Eric Liddell in 1924 to wi …” And then Quincy Hall came from the gods to have everyone pressing the delete key.

The 26-year-old American is known as an epic closer. But with 50 metres left of this Olympic men’s 400m final, we all thought he was too far back. Hudson-Smith was five or six metres ahead of him, the gold medal strides away. But then came the gut punch.

Suddenly the Briton’s legs started to tie up. Simultaneously Hall’s long, galloping strides increased in urgency and power. As they did he went from fourth, to third, to second. And, two metres from the line, to gold in 43.40sec – making him the fourth quickest 400m runner in history.

Hudson-Smith’s compensation came in the form of a silver medal and a European best of 43.44. Not that he could see things sunny side up, at least not initially. As he looked up at the screen he uttered one word repeatedly: “Fuck.”

The worst thing about it? Hudson-Smith had no idea it was coming. “I thought I had cleared the field,” he said. “But I kept trying to quicken as I knew someone was going to come. I was trying to run through the line. But he got me.

“I am not angry, I am not upset. I was like: ‘Oh, fuck it, it’s life at the end of the day.’ There is only going to be one winner. He’s the better man, he came on strong, I cannot complain. I ran the fifth-fastest time overall. I have said that if you are going to win, you are going to have to take it from me, and he did.”

By the time Zambia’s Muzala Samukonga had come to a stop after taking bronze in 43.74, Hall was already doing snow angels on the track. “I was just thinking: ‘Keep on driving. Get home, sir,’” he said. “Two of my brothers have passed, and I have two daughters, seven and two. So when I go out on the track I have a lot of reasons to run hard.”

Hudson-Smith was seeking to emulate Liddell’s story, immortalised in the 1981 Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, by winning Olympic 400m final gold.

The official report of the race noted that at one point Liddell was six to eight metres clear before “triumphing clearly by a good three metres”. Alas, 100 years on, history didn’t quite repeat itself.

Still, what a night this was for Hudson-Smith, whose life story has been part Sliding Doors, part Rocky Balboa. As a teenager in 2014 he was planning to swap a job at Asda for the army, when he got a call inviting him to the Glasgow Diamond League as a late replacement. He then shocked everyone by running 44.97 – shattering his personal best by nearly a second.

Soon he was calling Asda to tell them he wasn’t coming back, and European and Commonwealth medals quickly followed. However, his career was then ripped apart by injuries and mental health issues, starting when he tore a hamstring and achilles in 2019. At one point, in 2021, he even contemplated suicide.

“Last year I had an achilles issue,” he said. “I had mental health issues coming into 2022. This year is the first year where I have had an actual season where there has been no issues and the results are showing.”

For the past two years Hudson-Smith has been clambering towards the top of the podium one careful step at a time. It started with a world championship bronze in 2022, followed by a 2023 world silver in Budapest. Despite this result he still believes he can get there in the future.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “Honestly, sometimes the journey is better than the outcome and it has been a hell of a journey. I’m just grateful. I came away with an Olympic silver. Not many people in the world can say that. I’ve been the bridesmaid twice now. But this is just the start.”

There are reasons for optimism. Over the winter Hudson-Smith started serious gym work for the first time. And he clearly believes that Wayde van Niekerk’s world record of 43.03sec could be in striking range if he keeps improving.

“We have plans,” he said. “I saw people say that I ran too fast in the semis. I knew I could drop the time. I also know, as well, it didn’t take as much out of me as I thought. I will keep building on this. I want to shock the world, I want to shock the world. It’s a matter of time.”

He also admitted there were a lot of emotions swirling around during the lap of honour. “I saw my family. I didn’t even know they were here. It was a bit of a shock really. My mum and my dad don’t really watch because they hate it, just as I hate them watching me as well.”

Can you blame him for shedding a tear? “It has been a rough journey. Incredible high and so deep, deep lows. Man, it’s sport. It’s a crazy one. But they know what is to come. The world does as well.”