As Colombia approaches presidential elections next year, the US decision to decertify the country in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right, writes NICK MacWILLIAM

LAST week, Britain smashed its previous record temperatures. Thermometers hit 40.3°C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire, while 33 other locations went past Britain’s previous highest temperature of 38.7°C, set in 2019.
Perhaps most concerning is the extent to which the records were broken — meteorologists who are used to records being broken by the smallest decimal points expressed surprise that the record was beaten so clearly and across so many areas.
The heatwave has caused a great deal of disruption. Leicestershire fire services declared a number of “major incidents” and London firefighters had their busiest day since the second world war.

CLAUDIA WEBBE argues that Labour gains nothing from its adoption of right-wing stances on immigration, and seems instead to be deliberately paving the way for the far right to become an established force in British politics, as it has already in Europe

The Met Police arrested a staggering 890 people, many elderly, disabled, and even blind in a single demonstration — all to back up the government’s unhinged campaign against non-violent civil disobedience at the behest of Israel, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

CLAUDIA WEBBE says a UN agency’s finding that Gaza’s famine, killing up to 400 people a day, is entirely man-made must prompt a renewed revolt against our government’s complicity in this horror

Starmer’s decision to suspend Diane Abbott yet again demonstrates a determination to maintain and propagate a hierarchy of racism, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE