PM to meet regional leaders to discuss effort to ‘support and sustain ceasefire’ and reopening the strait of HormuzMiddle East crisis – live updatesKeir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to meet leaders in the region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran.The prime minister’s visit on Wednesday comes hours after a two-week ceasefire was agreed on Tuesday evening, canceling a self-imposed deadline by the US president, Donald Trump, for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer heads to Gulf after US and Iran agree two-week ceasefire
PM to meet regional leaders to discuss effort to ‘support and sustain ceasefire’ and reopening the strait of Hormuz Middle East crisis – live updates Keir Starmer is travelling to the Gulf to meet leaders in the region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran. The prime minister’s visit on Wednesday comes hours after a two-week ceasefire was agreed on Tuesday evening, canceling a self-imposed deadline by the US president, Donald Trump, for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction. Continue reading...
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The provisional truce comes more than a month after the US and Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran.

Iran war shows Trump not ‘reliable ally’ for UK, says Ed Davey – UK politics live
Lib Dem leader says conflict shows ‘classic Donald Trump cycle of destruction’ OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is proposing the extension of the four-day working week, as a response to AI taking over some of the work done by humans. But for the Conservative party the four-day working week, at least in the public sector, is viewed as a menace. Officially, that’s a value-for-money position, but it also overlaps with their opposition to civil servants working from home, which has some of the traits of a culture war obsession. Today the Conservatives have announced that, if they were in government, they would ban councils from letting staff work a four-day working week on full pay. Explaining why, the Tories say in a news release: The four-day working week, as introduced by Liberal Democrat-run South Cambridgeshire district council, has left residents with more council tax for less public service. Bin collectors and social housing officials receive 100 per cent of their pay for around 80 per cent of their originally contracted hours. The Labour government have failed to act. As communities secretary, Angela Rayner scrapped [Whitehall opposition to the South Cambridgeshire policy]. Labour are refusing to legislate against a four-day week, giving councils an effective green light to get away with charging more for less work. Consequentially, Labour-run Cambridge City Council has become the second council to sign up to the four-day week. Those areas which saw a statistically significant improvement include: the percentage of calls answered by the contact centre; the average number of days taken to update housing benefit and council tax support claims; the average number of weeks for householder planning applications to be decided; the percentage of planning applications (both large and small) decided within target or agreed timescales; the percentage of council house repairs complete within 24 hours; [and] the percentage of complaints responded to on time. If performance variations caused by Covid are discounted, every single service monitored either got better or stayed the same. Continue reading...

Israel says Iran ceasefire does not include Lebanon
Israel's military said Wednesday its forces would continue their campaign against Hezbollah fighters, claiming the ceasefire with Iran does not apply to Lebanon. France 24's Noga Tarnopolsky has the latest.

Liberal judge Chris Taylor wins election to Wisconsin supreme court – US politics live
Democratic-backed candidate’s win to Wisconsin supreme court gives liberals 5-2 edge on court Clay Fuller supports the war in Iran. Shawn Harris opposes it. Voters in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s former district in north-west Georgia decided that this distinction was not enough to propel a Democrat into a conservative-leaning House seat on Tuesday night. Associated Press called the election as results from the rural counties of north-western corner of the state rolled in. Continue reading...