Labour’s election pledges revealed as leader says ‘no quick fix to mess Tories have made’

• UK politics live –latest updates

Keir Starmer has vowed to deliver stability as the cornerstone for changing Britain, unveiling his party’s six election pledges amid a fanfare of endorsements from senior public figures.

The Labour leader said “most reasonable, tolerant people” in the country wanted what his party wanted for Britain, before he received an extraordinary endorsement from Boots’ chief executive, Sebastian James, an Old Etonian, who was a member of the Bullingdon Club alongside Lord Cameron.

Some allege harassment, one claims she was sexually assaulted. His lawyers deny the allegations

• Revealed: Magician David Copperfield accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women
• ‘I honest to God believe I was drugged’: magician David Copperfield’s alleged victims speak out

It was September 1991 in New York and the grand finale of Look of the Year, a prestigious modeling contest that had helped launch the careers of supermodels Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen.

The celebrity magician David Copperfield, one of the judges, watched from the front row as 58 contestants paraded across the runway in their branded hot pink and sorbet yellow swimsuits. Nearly all the contestants were teenagers; some were as young as 14.

Ministers say it is too early to say outlook is positive and describe suspect as a ‘lone wolf’ as officials appeal for calm

• Slovakia PM shooting – latest updates

The Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, is in a stable condition but “not out of the woods yet”, officials have said, as they appealed for calm after a shooting that laid bare the deep political divisions of recent months.

At least five shots were fired at Fico, 59, on Wednesday as he met a small group of supporters after a government meeting in the town of Handlová, about 90 miles (150km) north-east of the capital, Bratislava.

Les Distractions de Dagobert was the surrealist’s ‘definitive masterpiece’, says Sotheby’s expert in New York

She was worshipped as a muse by renowned surrealists including André Breton and Max Ernst, but the Lancashire-born artist Leonora Carrington quickly shrugged off the label to achieve an unprecedented level of mastery and freedom in her own painting.

Now, on the 100th anniversary of Breton’s publication of the Surrealist Manifesto, Carrington has become the most valuable British-born female artist at auction after one of her paintings sold for more than £22.5m.

Zoraya ter Beek, who has has chronic depression, anxiety, trauma and unspecified personality disorder, expected to end her life soon

• Europe’s slowly shifting attitudes towards assisted dying

A 29-year-old Dutch woman who has been granted her request for assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering is expected to end her life in the coming weeks, fuelling a debate across Europe over the issue.

Zoraya ter Beek received the final approval last week for assisted dying after a three and a half year process under a law passed in the Netherlands in 2002.

Broadcasting inquiry into how nurse was able to murder babies would ‘help combat offensive conspiracy theories’, hearing told

The Lucy Letby inquiry should be broadcast to the public to prevent the spread of “grossly offensive” conspiracy theories, lawyers for the families of her victims said.

The inquiry, which will begin on 10 September and be held at Liverpool town hall, will examine how the nurse was able to murder babies at the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit in 2015 and 2016.

Entire hush-money trial likely to succeed or fail on whether jurors believe Michael Cohen’s testimony

• Michael Cohen takes stand for cross-examination in Trump trial

Judge Juan Merchan is on the bench and the court is in session.

Donald Trump has arrived in the courtroom for day 18 of his criminal trial.

Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican representative

Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican congresswoman

Eric Trump

Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump aide

Committee chair says UK government has known for years about flaws in benefit system and needs to ‘get a grip’

A cross-party committee of MPs has urged the government to overhaul the weekly benefit for unpaid carers and fix “without delay” the issues causing thousands to rack up enormous debts.

Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, was told that the government had failed for five years to tackle the IT problems that have left tens of thousands of unpaid carers owing sums that had plunged many into debt and left some facing criminal prosecution.

Force says no confirmed incidents in London as rumours spread on social media after nails found at Oxfordshire playground

The Metropolitan police have been forced to respond to rumours circulating online that nails have been stuck to children’s playground equipment, saying there have been no confirmed incidents in London.

In recent days parents’ WhatsApp groups have been inundated with reports that vandals have glued nails to children’s slides and other playground equipment.

Glimpse of galactic merger, via James Webb telescope, may explain presence of monster black holes

A pair of black holes has been observed colliding in the ancient universe for the first time. The observations, by the James Webb Space Telescope, reveal a merger of two galaxies and the monster black holes at their centres when the universe was just 740m years old, about a 20th of its current age.

The discovery that massive mergers appear to have been common in the infant universe could help explain how supermassive black holes like the one at the heart of the Milky Way achieved such tremendous proportions.