Vote counting in Nevada has been thrown into chaos because young people cannot sign their own names, a state official has said.

Absentee ballots in the state require a voter’s signature to match with signatures already on file in state or federal databases.

Roughly 13,000 mail-in ballots have been rejected across Nevada because the signatures on their ballot did not match the signatures in the system, secretary of state Francisco Aguilar said on Tuesday.

The signatures of younger voters did not always match what was on their driver’s licences, he added.

“It’s mostly the fact that young people don’t have signatures these days,” he explained. “And when they did register to vote through the automatic voter registration process, they signed a digital pad … and that became their licence signature.”

State officials were “frantically” reaching out to young voters to rectify the issue, US media reported.

“We need to ensure that every voter’s voice is heard,” Mr Aguilar said outside a Las Vegas voting site.

He said his office was sending guidance to counties across the state to ensure the signature verification process was “being applied equally across the state”.

According to reports, the number of rejected ballots in Nevada is much higher than in previous years.

Mr Aguilar expressed fears that the sheer number of ballots requiring fixing could mean the state would be late in declaring which presidential candidate was victorious.

“When you start to look at the data and you start to realise how high it is, it makes you nervous, because, again, these races are so close, the margins are so slim, that I don’t want to look at the numbers tonight and know that we have to wait for ballots to be cured.”

Votes in Nevada have until Nov 12 to correct a mismatched signature.

Mr Aguilar’s office has faced criticism for not anticipating the problem.

Patricia Fisher, a professional documents examiner from Northern California, told US news site Mother Jones that Nevada officials should have compared more than two signatures.

“You never compare just two signatures to determine a mismatch,” Ms Fisher explained, adding that the signatures need to be from “similar types of documents” and that you do not compare a recent with “one collected years earlier”.

“Six signatures is about the minimum for a solid comparison,” she said.

Footage has emerged of the moment a Labour MP was mugged by a gang of youths on bicycles.

Chris Webb, the MP for Blackpool South, had his phone stolen as he walked to his flat in London at around 10pm on Monday.

CCTV footage obtained by The Telegraph shows Mr Webb, 38, walking away from a convenience store in Lambeth after trying unsuccessfully to collect a parcel.

In the video, four youths dressed in black and wearing balaclavas can be seen cycling on the pavement behind the MP before one appears to snatch his phone.

The group then rides off, chased for a few yards by Mr Webb on foot.

Mr Webb, who was not injured during the incident, called the police using his Apple Watch as people from nearby shops came out to assist him.

Mohammad Khan, the owner of the convenience shop, told The Telegraph he believed the youths could have been following the MP before they struck.

He said: “ He (Mr Webb) always comes to my shop. He is a nice guy, a quiet guy. He is a gentleman.”

Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Webb, 38, wrote: “Last night, as I was returning to my flat in London, I was attacked and mugged by a group of individuals.

“Luckily, I have no injuries and I am OK. Unfortunately, they just took my phone so I’m without one for the foreseeable future.

“I want to thank the Met Police for their swift response and support. The officers who assisted me went above and beyond. They are a remarkable credit to the force.”

‘I’m not an easy target’

Mr Webb said that while he was “not an easy target”, the group, wearing balaclavas, had managed to catch him off guard. He said he suspected they had seen him using his new iPhone and walking alone.

He added: “I don’t think I was targeted as an MP. Whilst I was in a suit and shirt and tie, they would not have known I was a member of Parliament.

“I’m a big guy. I’m 6ft 2ins … I’m not an easy target, but obviously these were confident enough to kind of grab me and stop me so they could get away. My instant reaction was to kind of chase, and then I quickly realised that is not a smart thing to do in the surroundings I don’t know, in a place I’m unfamiliar and outnumbered six to one.

“I wasn’t on the phone at the time and I didn’t hear them, which is remarkable in itself of how stealthy these are because these are on bikes. I’m normally pretty aware of my surroundings, I’ve got pretty decent reflexes and things like that from training and boxing training. So I’m kind of surprised how they managed to get so close to me without me realising.”

Mr Webb said he had used the tracking on his phone via his smartwatch to lead police to an area where officers arrested an individual with a bag of stolen phones. However, his was not among them.

A Met spokesman said: “Officers were called at 21.55 on Monday Nov 4 following reports of a robbery in Lambeth. The victim was approached by a group of men who stole his phone from his hand. Inquiries remain ongoing.

“Anyone with information is asked to call 101 or X @‌MetCC and quote CAD7685/4 November. You can also provide information anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”

Tim Farron, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, was one of several politicians to expressed concern, writing: “That’s awful – I hope you are OK? “ Mr Webb replied: “I’m fine thanks Tim.”

Labour MPs including Chris Bryant, the culture minister, Josh Fenton Glynn, the MP for Calder Valley, and the Jarrow and Gateshead East MP Kate Osborne posted messages of support.

Mr Webb won his Lancashire seat in a by-election victory in May, retaining it at the general election in July. He is the son of a postman and a teaching assistant who wanted to “follow in their footsteps” into the public sector.

In an interview with Sky News, he revealed that he first joined a picket line aged two when his father was on strike and has been a Labour Party member for more than 20 years.

Burglars with a nose for fine wine have stolen €60,000 (£50,000) in bottles from the cellar of a Paris restaurant in the latest theft to rock the French capital.

More than 750 bottles of wine were stolen this month in the dead of the night from the discreet, unnamed Paris eatery, which serves traditional French cuisine alongside a fine wine list, according to local media reports.

The restaurant’s cellar, located in the heart of the capital, contained various vintages and grand crus, some of which are on sale for €2,000 a bottle.

An ‘increase in thefts’

Jérôme Baudouin, editor-in-chief of La Revue du vin de France, said that this year had been a “bad vintage” for fine wine thefts.

“For the last five or six years, there has been an increase in thefts,” he told Le Parisien. “The price of wine, particularly Burgundy, has risen considerably. And that attracts criminals.”

Citing the example of a bottle of Bourgogne Premier Cru, Mr Baudouin said that while 10 years ago it was worth €50, it can now cost as much as €400, making it appealing for thieves to “load 20 or 30 cases in the boot of the car…and off [they] go”.

80 bottles stolen

The Parisian world of wine was shocked in January when thieves targeted the Michelin-starred Tour d’Argent, which overlooks the Seine and has the largest collection of any restaurant in the country.

In a surgical strike, burglars stole 80 bottles of its finest vintages, including Romanée-Conti, the legendary Burgundy that can fetch tens of thousands of euros.

The total value of the theft, reportedly committed without a break-in and only recorded during an inventory, surpassed €1.5 million.

A ‘parallel market’

In 2019, more than 150 bottles worth an estimated €400,000 were stolen from the cellar of the Michelin-starred restaurant Maison Rostang, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.

In that case, burglars took advantage of work being carried out on the restaurant, located near the Champs-Élysées, to break in discreetly after digging a hole in a wall of around 50cm in diameter.

The culprits are often specialist thieves who sell on a “parallel market”, according to experts, while some thefts are believed to be inside jobs.

‘Cannot be sold’

“Most often, thefts involve wines with a high speculative value that are numbered. A stolen Romanée Conti or Petrus cannot be sold on the legal market,” said Aude Legrand, vice-president of a professional wine merchants’ union.

“In the case of grand crus, you could compare it to the art market. It’s all very well to have a stolen Picasso, but you still have to know who to sell it to,” she told Le Parisien, adding that wine merchants are “very careful about where bottles come from”.

The leaders of France and Germany have called on the European Union to build a “more united, stronger and more sovereign” continent in the face of Donald Trump’s historic election victory in the United States.

EU leaders fear that Trump’s return to the White House could jeopardise American support for Ukraine and even lead to Washington pulling out of Nato, stripping Europe of the security umbrella it has enjoyed since the end of the Second World War.

On Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, held crisis talks after it became clear that Trump would return to the White House.

“I have just spoken with the chancellor,” Mr Macron said. “We will work towards a more united, stronger, more sovereign Europe in this new context – by cooperating with the United States of America and defending our interests and our values.”

Mr Scholz stressed that he was ready to work with Trump, as did Mr Macon, who fell out with the Republican candidate during his first term.

“For a long time, Germany and the US have been working together successfully promoting prosperity and freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. We will continue to do so for the wellbeing of our citizens,” Mr Scholz said.

Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, congratulated Trump on his victory, amid fears he would carry out threats to pull out of the Alliance unless European nations ramped up their defence spending.

“His leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong,” Mr Rutte said in comments designed to flatter the often unpredictable President-elect.

European leaders, including Mr Rutte, will meet in Hungary’s capital, Budapest, on Thursday and Friday for summit talks that will now be dominated by the fallout from Trump’s astonishing election victory.

Sir Keir Starmer will also attend Thursday’s European Political Community Summit of EU and non-EU leaders before the bloc’s heads of state and government hold separate talks over dinner and on Friday.

The Prime Minister said: “I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.”

Mr Macron has long warned the bloc can no longer rely on the US for its security and must go further down the path of EU integration so it can act independently of Washington on the world stage.

In 2019 the French president said Nato was experiencing “brain death” and could no longer rely on Washington, which Trump described as a “nasty” and “very dangerous” statement for him to make.

Mr Macron’s calls for “strategic autonomy” have been heard by the European Commission, which wants to boost Europe’s arms manufacturing base and plans to roll out joint procurement of weapons over the next five years.

Brussels has also worked to deepen ties with Nato to quell fears by Baltic member states that a common EU defence policy could undermine the military Alliance by creating a competitor.

Earlier this week, Luc Frieden, the prime minister of Luxembourg, said the EU should discuss creating a European army in the face of a possible Trump victory, Russian aggression and the war in Ukraine.

Such plans would face many obstacles and take many years but Mr Frieden suggested a step-by-step approach with a coalition of willing counties pooling their forces.

Before the election, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister and a Trump critic, said Europe had to take responsibility for its own security.

“Some claim that the future of Europe depends on the American elections, while it depends first and foremost on us. On condition Europe finally grows up and believes in its own strength. Whatever the outcome, the era of geopolitical outsourcing is over,” he said.

After the vote, he congratulated Trump on social media and said: “I look forward to our cooperation.”

Diplomatic sources previously suggested a Trump victory would heavily influence EU budget negotiations next year, as contingency planning for the loss of billions from Washington.

According to the Kiel Institute, the US has provided aid worth a total of €84.73 billion (£71.21 billion) to Ukraine since it was invaded in February 2022, including €56.8 billion in military provisions.

Europe, including non-EU countries, has provided €118.2 billion, but that has been mostly financial rather than military aid to Ukraine, which is a candidate country to join the bloc.

The EU defence industry cannot currently replace vital US weapon supplies to Ukraine but the commission will hope to ramp it up in a similar way to how it boosted vaccine production during the coronavirus pandemic.

Brussels sources speculated a deal could be done with Trump where the EU buys US weapons, which would then either be sent to Kyiv or replace stocks of older European arms, which would be delivered to the Ukrainians.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, told Trump his country needed the weapons supplies.

“I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer,” he said.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the invasion. She and other EU leaders have vowed to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes”.

But there are fears that EU unity could splinter if Trump tries to force Ukraine to cede territory to Russia in an unjust peace deal with Hungary and Slovakia already calling for an end to the war and EU sanctions on the Kremlin.

The former German defence minister “warmly” congratulated Trump and said the EU and US were “more than just allies”.

However, her statement also carried a coded warning to the President-elect not to carry out his threat of hitting EU imports with a 10 per cent tariff. Brussels has prepared a list of iconic US products for retaliatory tariffs, which could trigger a trade war.

“Let us work together on a transatlantic partnership that continues to deliver for our citizens. Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship,” Mrs von der Leyen said in a warning that a trade war would also hurt the US economy.

Trump, who has branded the EU a “mini-China”, believes the bloc is ripping off Americans by running trade surpluses with the US, and using the money to fund social policies rather than on defence.

His antipathy towards the EU was made clear in his first term, when he praised the UK’s vote for Brexit.

The US is Germany’s major trading partner and the country fears that Mr Trump’s promise to impose tariffs could end the era of globalisation that has driven German wealth over decades.

Popular weekly newspaper Die Zeit led its website on Wednesday with the one-word expletive: “F—”.

Der Spiegel, the country’s major political magazine, led its website with the headline “The Trump shock”, while conservative daily Die Welt claimed that “a new era in time” has begun.

Not all European leaders were dismayed by Trump’s comeback.

Diplomats and analysts believe that Giorgia Meloni is well placed to act as a mediator between Mr Trump and the EU.

The Right-wing Italian prime minister is close to Trump-supporting tycoon Elon Musk and has made cracking down on illegal immigration a central aspect of her political brand, much like the president-elect.

“Italy and the United States are ‘sister’ nations, linked by an unshakable alliance, common values, and a historic friendship. It is a strategic bond, which I am sure we will now strengthen even further,” she said.

Viktor Orban, he Hungarian prime minister, has close ties to Trump and US conservatives, although his criticism of EU sanctions on Russia has made him unpopular in Brussels.

Mr Orban, Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has predicted Trump will end the Ukraine war soon after returning to power and is expected to hail the victory at the Budapest summits he is hosting.

“The biggest comeback in US political history! Congratulations to President @‌realDonaldTrump on his enormous win. A much-needed victory for the World,” he said.

Geert Wilders, another Eurosceptic hard-Right politician, who won last year’s general election in the Netherlands, said: “Congratulations President Trump […] never stop, always keep fighting and win elections!”

Worryingly for Mr Zelensky, Russian officials welcomed Mr Trump’s victory and hinted they could be open to negotiations over the war in Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, said: “‘Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on and stupid hanger-on allies, on bad charity projects and on voracious international organisations.”

EU leaders are expected to welcome Mr Trump’s victory and call for continued transatlantic cooperation in their summit conclusions on Friday, a senior official said.

Matthew Savill, military sciences director at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said both Ukraine and its allies can expect uncertainty after Trump’s victory.

Trump’s desire for a deal, likely a quick one, “does not bode well for sustained US support”, Mr Savill said, especially given the rate at which Russian troops have advanced in recent weeks.

The UK Ministry of Defence estimated that Russian troops had advanced about six miles in the Donetsk region in the past week.

“Trump will have to contend with Congress, but there is significant scepticism about Ukraine amongst many Republicans, and a general US focus towards China,” Mr Savill said.

The Church of England has called its own rural parishioners racist, provoking a backlash from the Christian community.

A report by the Church’s racial justice unit has denounced the “lack of cultural awareness” displayed by congregations in predominantly white rural areas and found evidence of  “structural and institutional racism”.

The report, titled Behind the Stained Glass, also identified prejudice in the preference for white male leaders who speak the Queen’s English.

“The evidence confirms the existence of both structural and institutional racism within the Church of England,” the report concluded, warning that “systemic racism has continued unabated in the CofE”.

It added: “Institutional racism is believed to be a pervasive barrier within the Church, demonstrated through discriminatory practices and lack of cultural awareness.”

The report split the CofE into four types of church, with the liberal and progressive urban variety at one end of the spectrum, where people from ethnic minorities were “welcomed and accepted”.

In traditional and conservative churches found in rural and remote areas, ethnic minorities were instead deemed to be “viewed with suspicion” and there was a “preference for white male leadership”.

The CofE singled out “Northern and rural areas” for having fewer ethnic minority clergy, suggesting these areas were seen as less “attractive or welcoming”.

Discrimination was found to have a “profound impact” on the mental health of Black and Asian clergy, which was “exacerbated by a lack of cultural awareness and historical mistreatment within racially homogenous communities”.

The report, which was produced after six months from internal data and interviews with 109 people from 24 out of the 42 dioceses, identified instances of overt racism and discrimination.

A “preference for a certain type of Englishness” was deemed overtly racist, with one participant saying: “If you’re working class, Black, mixed race … you’re less likely to ever preach … they don’t want that; they want Queen’s English”.

Several instances were also reported where parishioners “refused” to have an ethnic minority person preside over the funeral services of loved ones.

The report picked out “resistance to anti-racism efforts”, citing an occasion where a senior leader opposed the term, preferring “inclusion” or “racial justice”, as another example of overt racism.

The report said “educational experiences” and “vocational gatekeeping” had impeded the careers of clergy from “non-traditional Anglican backgrounds”.

Lord Boateng, who was Britain’s first black cabinet minister and is now chairman of the Archbishops’ Racial Justice Commission, took issue with CofE leaders paying “lip service” to Black History Month while presiding over an institution rife with “structural and systemic racism”.

Women and those from low-income backgrounds were included in being subjected to a “tougher time” than the “archetypal Church of England priest who is white, middle class, UK born and/or educated, male”.

“The Church tends to recruit people from a certain type of background, which often excludes those from working class communities”, one participant remarked, while another suggested: “There’s enormous prejudice especially if you are not well-educated and white-skinned and English enough.”

The comments on class come after a report last year found working-class priests felt alienated by a middle-class “wine and cheese” culture in the church.

Rev Dr Ian Paul, the vicar of St Anne’s, Kew, and a member of the General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council, told The Telegraph that the latest report from the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice was “thoroughly terrible”.

He said: “It’s very clear they don’t understand the Church of England. They talk about career progression, which is not the way the Church of England talks about it.

“They talk about anti-racism, which actually is racist language from the culture wars in the States.”

He added that it was “complete nonsense” to describe the Church of England as “structurally racist”.

“It’s nonsense, complete nonsense. They demonstrate no evidence at all. They don’t define what they mean by these terms. And the way they’ve done the research is very poor in terms of process, and it doesn’t support the conclusion. It is as if they have pre-decided this and that is what they have reached for.”

He also pointed out that a lot of ethnic minorities in the UK are Hindu, Sikh and Muslim and therefore do not tend to go to church.

“What do you expect us to do, have Muslim bishops? It is bonkers,” he added.

Prudence Dailey, a veteran General Synod member, told the MailOnline: “The thing I find most upsetting and offensive about this report is that it correlates an attachment to tradition and history with racism.”

A Lambeth Palace spokesman said: “We welcome the report from the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice into the lived experiences of [UK Minority Ethnic and Global Majority Heritage] people in the Church of England.

“The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are committed to promoting racial justice within the church, so it is sobering to read that there are still structural and racist barriers to [UK Minority Ethnic and Global Majority Heritage] clergy progressing to leadership roles.

“The Archbishops reaffirm the work of the Racial Justice Unit, and hope and pray the Church of England will become a place where everyone can thrive and flourish.”