A piece of the radioactive fuel left from the meltdown of Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been retrieved from the site using a remote-controlled robot.

Investigators used the robot’s fishing-rod-like arm to clip and collect a tiny piece of radioactive material from one of the plant’s three damaged reactors – the first time such a feat has been achieved. Should it prove suitable for testing, scientists hope the sample will yield information that will help determine how to decommission the plant.

The plant’s manager, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco), has said the sample was collected from the surface of a mound of molten debris that sits at the bottom of the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel.

The “telesco” robot, with its frontal tongs still holding the sample, returned to its enclosed container for safe storage after workers in full hazmat gear pulled it out of the containment vessel on Saturday. But the mission is not over until it is certain the sample’s radioactivity is below a set standard and it is safely contained.

If the radioactivity exceeds the safety limit then the robot must return to find another piece, but Tepco officials have said they expect the sample will prove to be small enough.

The mission started in September and was supposed to last two weeks, but had to be suspended twice.

A procedural mistake held up work for nearly three weeks. Then the robot’s two cameras, designed to transmit views of the target areas for its operators in the remote control room, failed. That required the robot to be pulled out entirely for replacement before the mission resumed on Monday.

Fukushima Daiichi lost its cooling systems during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, causing meltdowns in three of its reactors. An estimated 880 tons of fuel remains in them, and Tepco has carried out several robotic operations.

Tepco said that on Wednesday the robot successfully clipped a piece estimated to weigh about 3 grams from the area underneath the Unit 2 reactor core, from which large amounts of melted fuel fell during the meltdown 13 years ago.

The plant’s chief, Akira Ono, said only the tiny sample can provide crucial data to help plan a decommissioning strategy, develop necessary technology and robots and retroactively establish exactly how the accident had developed.

The Japanese government and Tepco have set a target of between 30 and 40 years for the cleanup, which experts say is optimistic. No specific plan for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal has been decided.

A high school in California has decided not to invest in coal, oil or gas, instead pledging to put money into clean energy. It’s the latest win in a new fossil fuel divestment campus campaign launched by high schoolers across 11 countries that is gaining support in the US.

The Nueva School, an elite private school outside San Francisco, pledged in spring 2024 to invest a portion of its $55m endowment in renewable power. The commitment followed months of pressure from students.

“If you’re choosing to put that money in the right projects, then you’re helping the world get where it needs to be,” said Ines Pajot, 18, a former student of the Nueva School who helped spearhead the campaign.

Unlike many other institutions that have faced divestment calls, the Nueva School had no direct investments in coal, oil or gas to pull. But it does have indirect investments, with less than 4% of its endowment in funds that are indirectly exposed to fossil fuels.

The students at the Nueva School say their win was made possible by engaging with the school’s board of trustees over the course of six years. By including a promise to place financial stakes in climate-friendly causes, they say the institution’s pledge goes a step further than traditional divestment commitments like those seen on many college campuses.

“The divestment movement looks different now than it did 15 years ago,” said Anjuli Mishra, 18, a Nueva student and coalition leader. “There are more opportunities to invest in clean energy, and it’s imperative for schools to align with this new investment landscape.”

Pajot said the students took a “collaborative” approach to their pressure campaign, choosing to work openly with the board and hear its concerns rather than simply making demands.

“We had a lot of conversation with the board and our knowledge very much evolved,” she said. The students started by calling for divestment, then became interested in a “divestment and reinvestment” framework. Eventually, they landed on a call for sustainable investment “because we realized that, to our core, we wanted to use money to facilitate the energy transition”, Pajot said.

The Nueva School organizers are part of the International High School Clean Energy Investment Coalition, which officially launched this fall after two years of informal organizing. The group of private high school students – hailing from about 50 schools, half of which are in the US and the rest of which span 10 other countries – are pushing their institutions to clean up their financial portfolios. Some of those schools have endowments of more than $1bn, rivaling those of some private universities, Pajot said.

In another recent win, the board of the prestigious Seattle Academy in Seattle, Washington, officially voted in favor of a divestment proposal this year and is determining next steps. And St Marks, a private boarding school in Southborough, Massachusetts, started to phase out its fossil fuel investments in 2022, while pledging not to directly invest in fossil fuels in the future. Today, less than 3% of the school’s endowment is tied to fossil fuels.

“The fact that the schools are making this decision shows that they’re taking climate change, in and of itself, seriously,” said Pajot.

Bill McKibben, the veteran environmental activist and author, praised the students’ efforts. “They understand the deep contradiction between educating people for the future and investing in ways that make sure that future won’t exist,” he wrote in an email. “Thank heaven they’re gently calling out that hypocrisy!”

High schools are a new arena for the fossil fuel divestment campus movement. Until now, activists have largely been focused on universities, where they have seen major wins.

More than 260 educational institutions worldwide have in recent years committed to halt investments in fossil fuel companies, according to data from Stand.earth and 350.org. Over the past four years, students at two dozen schools in the US have also filed legal complaints arguing that their institutions’ investments in planet-heating fossil fuels are illegal.

In 2015, a Pennsylvania high school made history when, under student pressure, it divested its $150m endowment from all holdings in coalmining companies. At that time, at least five other east coast high schools had launched fossil fuel divestment campaigns; an initiative at St Paul’s School in New Hampshire resulted in a decision not to divest.

Some educators are bringing the divestment movement beyond individual private institutions. In 2022, the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers union in the nation, overwhelmingly supported a resolution calling on pension trustees to pull members’ retirement funds from fossil fuels and reinvest in “projects that benefit displaced workers and frontline communities”.

“As a lifelong educator, I’ve learned that climate change is probably the No 1 concern on their list that is keeping them up at night,” said Lee Fertig, head of the Nueva School. “They’re looking at this as an educational endeavor and not just a financial endeavor – what they can do, as young people dealing with pressing challenges thrust upon them.”

Carefree menstrual pads are contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, which presents a threat to the reproductive health of women using the products, a new lawsuit filed in California state court alleges.

The suit demands Carefree and its parent company, personal care product giant Edgewell, remove PFAS from the products or put a warning label on its packaging.

The exposure is potentially a “big health problem”, said Vineet Dubey, an attorney representing Ecological Alliance, a consumer advocacy group which brought the suit.

“This is a product that has direct exposure into the bloodstream because of the way it’s used and positioned on women’s bodies, so this is alarming, and it’s scary,” Dubey said. The suit was brought under California’s Proposition 65 law that requires companies to warn the state’s consumers if toxic chemicals are present in products.

Edgewell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

PFAS are a class of about 15,000 chemicals typically used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and they accumulate in humans and the environment. The chemicals are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems.

There are virtually no federal limits on PFAS in consumer products despite the fact that they are widely used across the economy.

Ecological Alliance tested the products and found PFOA, one of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds. The Environmental Protection Agency this year found that virtually no level of exposure to PFOA in drinking water is safe and set a drinking water limit of 4ppt (parts per trillion). Testing found PFOA leached from the menstrual pads at about 756ppt per hour.

Recent research found that skin likely absorbs PFAS at much higher rates than previously thought, raising concerns about a product that is pressed up against women’s skin for hours at a time.

PFOA specifically is linked to reproductive health issues like hormone disruption, low birth weight, infertility, immune system toxicity in fetuses and more.

It’s unclear why the chemicals are in the products. PFAS are commonly used as waterproofing agents, and it is possible the PFOA, or a chemical that breaks down into PFOA once in the environment, is intentionally added. PFAS have been detected at high levels in toilet paper and diapers. It is also possible there is unintentional contamination somewhere in the supply chain.

Ecological Alliance in February filed a formal warning that it intended to sue Carefree if the company did not remove the chemicals or take action, or if the state’s regulators and attorney general did not take action. No one responded to the filing.

The suit asks the judge to stop the products from being sold until they’re free of the chemicals. Dubey has previously sued under Proposition 65 for PFAS or other toxic chemical contamination and said companies often reformulate products or make supply chain changes to address the issue, but they do not always.

“I hope [Carefree] acts responsibly because of how potentially dangerous PFAS exposure is in this way, but I never put it past corporations to fight to death to do the wrong thing,” he added.

Saoirse Ronan’s comment about women’s safety on The Graham Norton Show has gone viral after she said using a phone as a weapon is something “girls have to think about all the time”. Ronan later said the reaction has been “wild” and that the moment was “opening a conversation”.

Here, six women tell us what they think about the comments and how they feel about women’s safety.

‘I change my commute to avoid unlit paths’

It wasn’t just when [Ronan] said that line, it was that she was trying to say it and the others kept talking over her. She attempted at least twice to say it and they just kept making jokes. The whole context of it shows how much women’s lived experiences and attempts at sharing these are overlooked. People are more aware than before, but the show showed it’s not necessarily in the forefront of people’s minds. I normally cycle through Southampton common but I change my commute in the winter to avoid unlit bike paths. I also wear clothes where my phone is accessible at all times. Lizzi, 35, pharmacist, Southampton

‘I try and make myself appear bigger or angrier’

Self protection is the uppermost, but routine, concern when out and about on my own. Guys enjoy a different world and I’m so glad Saoirse seized the opportunity to tell it as it is. I feel keys are the best bet [for self-defence], although I’ve used my legs [to run] and have put on a surprisingly loud deep voice in the past. I did a self-defence class in the 80s and we were told to try and make ourselves seem unattractive to predators because they prey on those they think look frightened. That really struck me and sometimes I try and make myself appear bigger or angrier. Sarah, 59, speech and language therapy assistant, London

‘My dad taught me to box and I had soppy but fierce-looking big dogs’

I was about nine when my dad taught me how to box. Our independence as children was very important to him and he used to spar with me. He must’ve realised that as a girl it might be useful too. I’ve never really felt extreme fear but it’s still there. I’ve also had soppy but fierce-looking big dogs. I lived in London for 35 years and I had a doberman-German shepherd cross called Boo, because she was frightened of everything. I would take her for a walk around 11pm and people would cross the road. Janey, 72, retired graphic designer, Norfolk

‘It’s so easy to ignore a danger or threat if you don’t have to experience it yourself’

I’m a trans woman who only came out fully a couple of years ago. My style is everyday, nothing provocative, and I’m always taken for a woman. Walking home from the bus at night for the first time and feeling really unsafe I suddenly realised – this is what women go through the whole time. I’ve always been aware and supportive of women’s issues but even so, it was a horrible, shaming epiphany to realise that I’d seen past this basic fact of women’s lives. It’s so easy to ignore a danger or threat if you don’t have to experience it yourself. Kim, 60, classical musician, Sweden

‘The clip will be shared but will anything change?’

I agree with her, however, sometimes I worry people only have an interest in feminism when it’s delivered in viral, digestible moments. Yes, the clip will be shared and posted about, but will anything change? Probably not. I’m glad I’m a lesbian because my partners are less likely to cause me harm or kill me. It’s taken us decades to get even this far and I feel like we’re getting stuck at best and at worst going backwards. My mum always taught me to carry a can of strong deodorant that I could spray at someone. I have a big, metal water bottle I carry because I know I can swing it at someone. Ruby, 30s, works in education, US

‘Your elbow is one of your best weapons’

While living in South Africa for almost 20 years I attended a self-defence course for women. The facilitator, a former cop from Zimbabwe, said that most women who were raped had reported they had not known what to do, even when their hands were free. Your elbow is one of your best weapons. Who knew? Even 30 years later I remember what was taught. That said, I do sometimes travel with a small awl in my pocket. Aletta, 66, retired application software facilitator, the Netherlands

The Rhine overflowed last winter, covering fields miles from the river and in some places leaving just the tops of trees visible.

But Thomas Bollig, who farms just a few miles from the banks of the Rhine, was not worried. Even as floods inundated the fields of his neighbours, making sowing impossible, his holdings were largely unaffected. Bollig farms organically, and the natural methods he uses to improve his soil allow his fields to hold more water when it rains, and release it gradually, coping well with floods and droughts.

“It’s like a sponge,” he says, pointing across largely flat fields by Wachtberg village, near the city of Bonn. “We didn’t have the problems that many farmers did.”

That is not the only advantage he sees in having switched his arable and livestock farm from conventional intensive farming to fully organic farming. Around him, in the summer sunlight, bees are buzzing and the air is full of insects, alighting on the flowers that speckle his crops of beans and grain, the song of birds a cheerful background.

“We have a farm full of life today,” he says. “Wildflowers, insects, pollinators – it’s a perfect symbiosis, as they feed on the pests on the crops. And the soil is full of worms.” Out of 75 hectares (185 acres) on his farm, about eight hectares are wildflower meadows. In the middle of some of his cropping fields, tangled areas are left untouched for flowers and animals, a riot of colour – red, blue and gold – amid the green.

A recent pest infestation in his beanfield illustrates the point. “It was so bad, that we considered spraying,” Bollig says. But he kept faith in the organic process, and two weeks later the pests were gone and the fields “full of ladybirds”.

But the wildlife that abounds on Bollig’s farm is no longer typical for western European farms. About a quarter of Europe’s bird population has been wiped out in the last four decades – that is half a billion fewer birds in the sky today compared with 1980. Four in 10 European tree species are classed as threatened, butterfly numbers are down by about a third, one in 10 bee species are dying out, and two-thirds of the habitats of ecological importance are in an unfavourable condition. A fifth of European species face extinction.

Everywhere you look, the richness and abundance of European nature is under threat. Since the 1970s and 80s, even while many environmental indicators in Europe have improved – cleaner air in cities, less industrial pollution, less sewage in waterways (outside the UK) – the story of nature is one of steep and stark decline. Wildlife, trees, plants, fish and insects – the picture is bleak.

It is not possible to lay all of this destruction at the door of intensive farming, as urbanisation, invasive species and pollution from industry have their own impacts, but the figures clearly suggest farming has played a big role. Amid the overall decline in bird numbers, the ones making their home in farmland had it by far the worst, with numbers down by 57%, and separate research suggests steeper declines of insects in farmed areas.

Brian MacSharry, the head of the nature and biodiversity group at the European Environment Agency, says: “The habitat situation is pretty bad, the species little better, and there is a time lag between [the destruction of habitats and decline in] species. Overall, we know it is bad and that the trend is deteriorating. Agriculture is by far the biggest pressure.”

It was not supposed to be this way. Since the early 2000s, changes to Europe’s farming practices and subsidy regime – the common agricultural policy (CAP) – have been geared explicitly towards protecting the environment, as well as supporting farmers and food production. The CAP represents a third of the EU budget, coming to about €55bn (£46bn) a year and in return for that largesse, farmers are supposed to meet a minimum level of environmental protection. Taking additional measures such as growing more trees or conserving wetlands can net them extra support.

But so far at least, the environmental aspects of the CAP changes have not worked. The European court of auditors in 2020 found little evidence of a positive impact on biodiversity from the CAP. The European Environment Agency, in its State of Nature report in 2023, found that the EU’s farmed environment had continued to decline, with the health of only 14% of habitats and about a quarter of non-bird species classed as “good”. The CAP is also making the climate worse: about 80% of the budget goes to support carbon-intensive animal food products, according to a paper published this month in Nature.

“The CAP has become a monster,” says Faustine Bas-Defossez, the director of nature, health and environment at the European Environmental Bureau, a network of citizens’ organisations. “It is not helping farmers in the mainstream to adopt more sustainable practices. It’s driving the intensification of farming, and increasing the pressure on natural resources. Instead of the polluter pays principle, it’s turning into a system of the polluter gets paid.”

Pieter de Pous, the programme lead at the E3G thinktank, says the CAP is “a policy in search of a justification”. “It is an emotionally charged topic that touches on identity, nationhood, culture. It is about concerns over depopulation in many areas of Europe, and the strong policy wish to not have depopulation.”

After pressure from protesting farmers, even the meagre protections for nature will be further watered down. De Pous says farmers capitalised onthe European Commission’s fear of a backlash against green policies and green parties in the parliamentary elections this June. “This is political opportunism, it’s tactical on the part of the farmers who are protesting.” He believes the farmers were simply going after a larger slice of the European budget.

Whatever the causes, the results for nature are likely to be dire. And ironically, given the fervour of the protests, any hoped-for boon to small farmers is unlikely to materialise – it will be big farmers who benefit from less stringent regulation, as they do from the CAP overall. As payments to farmers under the CAP are based on the amount of land they farm, the CAP favours size above everything else. That means the squeeze on traditional small-scale family farms will continue, with the biggest farmers continuing to scoop up the lion’s share of the cash, and the poorest forced further to the margins.

How did we get into this mess? And is there a way out?

A focus on food security above all

In the early years of what became the EU, the focus of European agricultural policy was on food security above all. When the CAP was conceived, in the early 1960s, farmers were encouraged to increase yields by adopting more efficient machinery and the new fertilisers and pesticides. They were given quotas to supply certain amounts of food, and guaranteed prices for their produce. These were seen as ways to provide stability to farmers, and food security to consumers.

In the late 1980s, when it became clear the quotas were distorting the market and leading to surpluses of some products – the EU’s famous “butter mountain” and “wine lake” – overhaul of the CAP led to more direct payments to farmers. Then, from 2003 to 2012, farm payments were “decoupled” entirely from production and based instead on the amount of land farmed, with extra payments available for farmers who could exhibit good stewardship of the environment. While that has simplified the payment system and removed many of the distortions, it also means the biggest farmers reap the biggest rewards.

“CAP is just welfare for the rich,” is how Ariel Brunner, the director of BirdLife Europe, termed it, on the social media platform X. “With symbolic consolation for smaller farmers to muddy the water. It doesn’t serve any social purpose. And it favours the destruction of the resources farming depends on.”

But it is also still a lifeline for poor farmers. The problem is that the supermarkets that buy the farmers’ produce, and the suppliers of farm inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides, also count on the subsidy payments. “You have the retailers and middlemen sucking out all of the margin, and farmers being left with very little,” says Will White, the sustainable farming coordinator at the UK-based Sustain coalition of farming and food organisations. “That’s one of the things that locks us into a cycle of highly intensive farming. The status quo is not a good option for anyone.”

In the UK, for instance, farmers make less than a penny in profit from selling a loaf of bread or an average-sized block of cheese. (Although the UK is no longer under the CAP, the government still provides equivalent subsidies under a separate support scheme, so the mechanism is broadly similar.) On each kilo of apples, the farmer makes just 3p. Martin Lines, the chief executive of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, says “none of the payment really reaches the farmer. The payments go to the value chain. Their profits have mushroomed.”

So a system that was meant to help farmers, keep Europeans fed and the land well cared for, has turned into one that trashes the environment; enriches big landowners and leaves poor farmers struggling; delights retailers but costs money for consumers; and causes headaches for politicians of all stripes because they know they can be held to ransom by cavalcades of tractors and burning haybales.

In Britain, the post-Brexit farming system is tied up in similar muddles. The Conservative government vowed in 2017 to move away from area-based payments to “public money for public goods”, but that has proved easier in principle than practice, as environmental land management schemes have come under fire, with accusations of landowners forcing struggling tenants off their land so they can rewild it or grow trees for carbon offsets, and a renewed feeling that small farmers are still at the bottom of the heap.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis is gathering pace, and the effects are being felt on food and farming, sometimes quite brutally. Agriculture and land use change contribute at least a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, so the effects of farming on the climate need to be tackled at the same time as the effects of the climate on farming, but so far there is little sign of that happening.

To bring farmers round to the benefits of farming in a more environmentally sustainable manner, they need to be shown that green regulations ultimately benefit them, says Sustain’s White. “Farmers care about the bottom line – if they can make money from environmental schemes, I think most farmers will listen. Farmers should be working together with governments more – it’s not in their interests to be at the political extremes.”

There are encouraging signs of possible reform. In September, farmers, retailers, consumer groups and environmentalists held strategic dialogues, at the suggestion of the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and put together a proposal that calls for “urgent, ambitious and feasible” change in farm and food systems, with financial support to help farmers get there. It also acknowledges that Europeans eat more animal protein than doctors and scientists recommend, and calls for a shift toward plant-based diets supported by better education, stricter marketing and voluntary buyouts of farms in regions that intensively rear livestock.

There is plenty of scope for redirecting payments to farmers so that they reward greener and less intensive farming, argues Richard Benwell, the chief executive of the Wildlife and Countryside Link charity. “The environmental work that farmers do has been chronically undervalued for a very long time,” he says. “We need to recognise those public goods that traditional small farmers have long been expected to do for free. And on the other side, where harm occurs they should have to pay.”

Bollig believes the CAP could be better targeted, to benefit farmers who follow organic or less demanding “nature-friendly” practices. There are some schemes within the CAP to encourage sustainable farming, but they do not go far enough to help reduce inputs instead of seeking higher yields, he says.

“It doesn’t give farmers a motivation to change,” says Bollig. “Bad farms with better yields make more money, and good farms [with sustainable practices] are left to struggle.”

Building a sustainable global food system, in Europe and across the world, in which greenhouse gas emissions are low, in which biodiversity flourishes, in which the impacts of extreme weather are minimised using natural means, is difficult but possible, according to Ed Davey, of the World Resources Institute. “Farming can work in harmony with nature,” he says. “Sustainable farming techniques are there.”

Crucial to any successful reform will be separating out the interests of big farms and small ones, says De Pous. While big farmers benefit from intensification, with more fertiliser, more pesticide, more concentrated animal feed lots, small farmers could benefit from the opposite, with more emphasis on quality and organic production. “Small farmers should not give up, but they need to question who is representing them, and what they are asking for. The interests of small farmers are not necessarily the interests of big farmers. There are huge differences,” he said.

Consumers will also have to adjust. In the EU, about 80% of farm subsidy goes towards animal products, which means it has an outsize impact on greenhouse gas emissions. In some European countries, livestock now outnumber people. Changing this will be painful – the farmers of the Netherlands objected to proposals to start to limit the national herd, to cut down on pollution, and at recent polls it was one of the issues that pushed the far right to electoral success in the country. Yet if consumers in developed countries change their diet to eat more healthily – which means less ultra-processed food and less meat – there will be less demand for intensively farmed meat products, and the burden on the land will reduce markedly.

Hopes of reaching the point where farm subsidy systems around the world are dismantled or redirected towards providing the kind of planet we need to feed 8 billion people – or in future 10 billion, or even 12 billion – without destroying what remains of the wildlife, and permanently disabling the climate, may seem utopian. But there is no law of nature that says farming must kill off the natural environment it depends on; many small-scale farmers around the world, and for previous centuries, have worked in harmony with nature and other species. Farm subsidy regimes are economic systems that were drawn up by bureaucrats within the last half-century, and they can be redrawn, despite short-term pressure to the contrary. What that takes is political courage.

A 15-year-old boy who followed a teenager he did not know through Birmingham city centre and stabbed him to death after a four-minute conversation has been jailed for life with a minimum of 13 years.

Muhammad Hassam Ali, known as Ali, was 17 when he died in hospital on 20 January, hours after he and his friend were confronted by two masked 15-year-old boys they had never met as they sat in Victoria Square, drinking hot chocolate and chatting about cricket.

The two boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had followed Ali and his friend from the Grand Central Shopping Centre wearing Covid-style face masks.

Neither of them showed any emotion as they were sentenced by the judge, Mr Justice Garnham, who said 17-year-old Ali’s murder was “yet another illustration of the appalling consequences of carrying knives in public places” as he detained them at Birmingham crown court on Friday.

He said: “It is perfectly clear to me (Ali) was a much-loved son and brother and his family have been left utterly devastated by his death.”

He sentenced the second boy to five years’ detention in secure accommodation.

A trial at Coventry crown court earlier this year heard that, in a conversation lasting about four minutes, the two boys asked Ali and his friend where they came from and if they knew who had “jumped a mate” of theirs a week before. After Ali allegedly said: “Bro, I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re pissing me off,” the youth pulled out a large knife and stabbed him in the chest.

A jury took just over four hours to return unanimous verdicts in July, finding the youth who carried out the fatal attack guilty of murder and possessing a knife and his friend, who was standing nearby when the stabbing happened, guilty of manslaughter and possessing a knife.

In his evidence, the teenager who wielded the knife told the court he only wanted to “scare” Ali and his friend, and that he did not intend to seriously harm or kill anyone.

Michael Ivers KC, representing the defendant, said he was remorseful and prays for Ali and his family regularly.

He said: “He isn’t a man who is in any sense proud of what happened. He truly, truly regrets what happened.

“If he could turn the clock back, not for his own sake but because of the impact it has had on others, he would.”

Sentencing the pair, who sat in the dock wearing white untucked shirts and dark trousers surrounded by four dock officers, Mr Justice Garnham said the knife had been pulled out “for no obvious reason”.

He said: “You suggested in evidence that the words of Ali caused you to fear for your safety. The jury did not accept that and neither do I.

“They did no more than was reasonable in trying to persuade you to go away. There was no justification for pulling out a knife on an unarmed young man who posed no risk to you.”

A statement from Ali’s family, who were in court for the hearing, read out by prosecutor Mark Heywood KC described the teenager as a budding engineer and said they would never get over his death.

They said: “The loss of a child is devastating and life-destroying, but the fact someone took his life in such a horrific and brutal way will always haunt us.”

Donald Trump on Friday tried to energize his voters during a rally in Warren, Michigan, delivering an address replete with his characteristic fear-mongering about immigrants and tangents including musings about his hair.

The former president also repeated his aggressive attack on former Republican representative Liz Cheney, one day after he said she should be under fire with rifles “shooting at her”.

Trump repeatedly urged his supporters to hit the polls. “We have to get out and vote, everybody. Don’t take any chances,” he said.

Trump’s speech came as the presidential campaign enters its final stretch, with both the former president and his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, battling to woo voters in Michigan and other key swing states.

Harris was campaigning in Wisconsin on Friday, where she emphasized that she is looking to be a political consensus builder.

“Here is my pledge to you. Here is my pledge to you as president. I pledge to seek common ground and commonsense solutions to the challenges you face,” Harris said. “I pledge to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make. I will listen to experts. I will listen to the people who disagree with me. Because, you see, unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy.”

“He wants to put them in jail,” Harris said, repeating a line she’s has frequently invoked of late. “I’ll give them a seat at the table.”

He asked voters whether they were better off than they were four years ago, and repeatedly stoked fears about immigrants, saying “every state is a border state” and falsely claiming immigrants are being flown into the south-west.

He repeated some of his most racist tropes, saying: “All of our jobs are are being taken by the migrants that come into our country illegally and many of those migrants happen to be criminals, and some of them happen to be murderers.”

There was time for reflection, too. “We’re gonna miss these rallies, aren’t we?” Trump asked the crowd at one juncture.

At another point, he remarked: “I’m studying my hair. It looks not so good today … not a good hair day for me, ay ay ay.”

Trump, while talking about various types of automobiles, spoke out against hydrogen cars, remarking: “The only thing we don’t want is a hydrogen car.”

“Can you imagine? You call the wife. ‘There’s your husband, in the tree. I don’t see him.’ The tree is bright red.”

Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in swing state polling, and in Michigan, a Detroit Free Press survey shows her having a three-point lead.

Republicans and Democrats, as well as their unofficial boosters, have pounced on the tight split. Harris’s camp is pushing hard to convince young voters, who overwhelmingly support the Democrats, to go out and vote.

With mere days to go before the 5 November election, some Democrats in Michigan described being “freaked out” by the prospect of another Trump victory in this state. Biden won Michigan in 2020, but Trump defeated Hillary Clinton here in 2016. Relying on polls showing her far ahead, the Clinton campaign had prioritized campaigning in other states, neglecting key Democratic segments such as Black communities and auto workers in the state.

Harris has spent more time on the ground in Michigan than in any other state with the exception of Pennsylvania. Harris and her running-mate, Tim Walz, have bounced around the state in an effort to attract Black voters, white suburban women, college students and factory workers.

Last week, Barack Obama rapped with hip-hop legend Eminem at a rally in Detroit. Bernie Sanders, beloved by the Democratic left, tried to reassure young voters in the state that Harris is not just another corporate-minded Democrat.

Trump, too, has upped his efforts to woo Michigan voters. On Friday, the former president stopped in Dearborn to court Arab-American voters, many of whom have been left deeply disappointed by Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Many of the city’s Muslim leaders declined to meet with Trump, including Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah H Hammoud.

“The architect of the Muslim Ban is making a campaign stop in Dearborn. People in this community know what Trump stands for – we suffered through it for years,” Hammoud, a Democrat, said on X. “I’ve refused a sit down with him although the requests keep pouring in. Trump will never be my president.”

Hammoud, who is neither supporting Harris nor Trump in the race for president, also called fellow members of his party. “To the Dems – your unwillingness to stop funding & enabling a genocide created the space for Trump to infiltrate our communities. Remember that.”

Meanwhile, Michigan residents have for months been bombarded by campaign ads, many of which feature exaggerated or blatantly false claims. With the state seeing $759m in political ad spending, Michigan ranks among the top for such disbursements in this election, per NPR.

At his rally on Friday evening, Trump tried to tie Harris to the most recent jobs report, which showed the US added just 12,000 jobs in October.

Trump also again attacked Liz Cheney, one day after he called the former Republican leader a “radical war hawk” in a conversation with Tucker Carlson and said she should face being under fire with rifles “shooting at her”.

“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face,” he said.

On Friday, Trump’s comments were similar.

“She’s tough one. But if you gave Liz Cheney a gun, put her into battle facing the other side with guns pointing at her. she wouldn’t have the courage or the strength or the stamina to even look the enemy in the eye,” Trump said.

“That’s why I broke up with her,” Trump commented, prompting some laughs.

A federal judge on Friday denied an attempt by America Pac – the political action committee founded by Elon Musk to support Donald Trump’s campaign for a second presidency – to move to federal court a civil suit brought by the Philadelphia district attorney over a daily $1m prize draw for registered voters.

The lawyers for Musk and his America Pac had argued that the lawsuit, which is seeking to halt the sweepstakes in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, needed to be resolved in federal court as it referenced the 5 November presidential election.

But the presiding US district judge Gerald Pappert disagreed with that contention in a five-page opinion, writing that the motivations of the Philadelphia district attorney, Larry Krasner, were irrelevant – and that his office had the power to bring the case in state court.

“Having now considered the parties’ submissions, the court grants the motion and remands the case back to the court of common Pleas,” it said.

The case was set for a hearing in Pennsylvania state court on Monday, the day before the election.

The civil suit that names both Musk and America Pac alleges that a petition asking registered voters in battleground states to submit their address, phone number and emails in exchange for $47, as well as to enter a daily $1m prize draw, was a lottery scheme that was illegal under state law.

The petition has separately attracted scrutiny from the US justice department, which warned America Pac that the lottery violated federal law as it in effect amounts to paying people to register to vote. But the civil suit was the first legal action taken to stop the scheme.

As the petition asks people to pledge their support to the US constitution’s first and second amendments – big causes for Republicans – it is widely seen by election law experts as illegally encouraging Trump supporters to register to vote in swing states. In a close election, turnout by voters for the former president could tip the result.

The suit also accuses Musk and America Pac of violating state consumer protection laws by deploying deceptive or misleading statements. For instance, Krasner contends that winners are not random, as advertised, because multiple winners have been people who showed up at Trump rallies.

Musk’s defenders say it is simply a contest open to registered voters. In theory, they say, Democrats registered to vote in battleground states can complete the petition and have a chance to win the $1m lottery.

The petition is perhaps the most public of the various strategies employed by America Pac to bolster Trump’s candidacy. The Super Pac now leads the crucial get-out-the-vote operation on behalf of the Trump campaign as Musk searches for more ways to help the former president return to the Oval Office.

The ground game effort has suffered from some setbacks. The Guardian has previously reported that tens of thousands of Trump voters might not be reached after America Pac’s internal systems flagged that 20 to 25% of door knocks reported in Arizona and Nevada may have been fraudulent.

A Pittsburgh-area Halloween parade’s depiction of Kamala Harris in chains and being dragged by a vehicle displaying Donald Trump’s name is being condemned as racist – and has prompted an apology from the event organizer.

Photos of Wednesday night’s parade in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, that circulated widely across social media show a person dressed as the Democratic vice-president shackled and walking behind a golf cart-like vehicle. The vehicle – a float in a Halloween parade organized by the Mount Pleasant volunteer fire department – is decorated with American flags and Trump campaign signs carrying people dressed in what appear to be Secret Service agent costumes, along with a mounted rifle.

Social media was quick to express disgust at the float’s display, which came less than a week before the presidential election between Harris and the Republican former president comes to a head on 5 November.

The NAACP was among those to say the float was racist. A statement from Daylon A Davis, the president of the NAACP’s Pittsburgh branch, said: “This appalling portrayal goes beyond the realm of Halloween satire or free expression; it is a harmful symbol that evokes a painful history of violence, oppression, and racism that Black and Brown communities have long endured here in America.”

Harris is of Jamaican and Indian descent.

Nearly 24 hours after the parade, the Mount Pleasant volunteer fire department issued a statement apologizing on Facebook for allowing the offensive float.

“We do not share in the values represented by those participants, and we understand how it may have hurt or offended members of our community,” the statement said.

The post did not elaborate on the process of getting approved for the parade, leaving questions about how the float was allowed to roll.

On a CBS News segment, Mount Pleasant’s mayor, Diane Bailey, denounced the portrayal of Harris.

“I was appalled, angered, upset,” the Democratic mayor said on Thursday. “This does not belong in this parade or in this town.”

Bailey added that the fire department must change its process for allowing floats.

“They’ve never taken applications in the past,” Bailey said. “They’ve never vetted anyone who wanted to come to the parade.”

Michelle Milan McFall, the chairperson of Westmoreland county’s Democratic party, added that the float in question rolled during what she said may be the US’s “most contentious election”.

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly threatened to imprison his opponents. He has also been targeted by two assassination attempts, according to authorities.

“It’s vile. It’s heartbreaking. It’s concerning. And I think it’s also got an element of danger,” Milan McFall told ABC affiliate WTAE. “Again, we’re living in this climate where people aren’t just thinking about hatred and feeling it in their guts and bones. They’re acting on it.”