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A civil service base that is under construction in Manchester has been earmarked for Andy Burnham’s No 10 North, according to reports.The northern centre of government will be in Ancoats, on the outskirts of Manchester city centre, but the site is not due to be completed before 2028, according to the Manchester Evening News.Burnham, who is widely expected to succeed Keir Starmer as prime minister in July, has pledged to shift part of his operation north.He has called for a radical overhaul of the “broken” Westminster system of government, and has said he would split his time living between London…

AeroVironment shares skyrocketed 21% after the dronemaker easily blew past Wall Street’s fiscal fourth-quarter estimates, benefiting from U.S. plans to modernize the military and secure space. The Virginia-based defense company more than doubled revenue from a year ago to $642 million, while funded backlog jumped 65% to $1.2 billion. Revenue for autonomous systems totaled $492 million, surpassing the $402 million StreetAccount expectations.CEO Wahid Nawabi told analysts in a Monday earnings call that the company is scaling manufacturing to keep pace with unprecedented demand and that the company’s growth opportunity has “never been stronger. Other drone stocks rallied in support. Kratos…

Keir Starmer warned his successor not to borrow more to pay for defence as he raided energy, transport and housing projects to plug a military spending deficit with an extra £15bn over the next four years.The prime minister revealed his long-awaited defence investment plan (Dip) on Tuesday after an 11-month government row that cost him a defence secretary and arguably contributed to his downfall.Starmer said the government had found the £15bn for the plan by taking money from road and energy schemes. He failed to deny reports that some of the funding had come from pushing back planned upgrades to…

Ethiopia is the homeland of arabica coffee (Coffea arabica).Credit: hadynyah/Getty“A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems” is a quote often attributed to the late Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős. The brew is one of the world’s favourite drinks and an essential stimulant for many researchers — but its future is uncertain.“Coffee is critically threatened by climate change,” says Kassahun Tesfaye, a plant geneticist at Addis Ababa University.Nearly all the 10 million tonnes of coffee beans consumed annually around the world come from two plant species: the strong and often bitter robusta (Coffea canephora) and the more-delicate-tasting arabica (Coffea…

Key eventsWant to get in touch with any thoughts, feelings, suspicions or opinions? Doesn’t have to even be about the match, really.Email me here to get involved.ShareWant to read a preview of the semi-final by Raf Nicholson? Go on then. She caught up with Windies skipper Hayley Matthews ahead of the crunch semi-final. double quotation mark“There is an added fire to us when people think we can’t get the job done.” ShareA tale of two journeys for each of the teams to this point. The West Indies were three from three, before suffering a heavy defeat at the hands of…

The 2012 film Hyde Park on Hudson – fictionalising a 1939 visit by King George VI and his queen Elizabeth to a summer home of President Franklin D Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor – was a modest success, seen (more happily by Republicans than Democrats) as an oblique take on the Clintons: the president hiding a complex private life while his wife was more intelligent and independent than some folk liked.The film’s screenwriter Richard Nelson treats the material for the third time (he also did a 2009 BBC radio drama) in this related but rebooted stage play, providing a fascinating…

The First Lady of Enugu State, Mrs. Nkechinyere Mbah, has called on parents to be watchful and intentional in raising their children, noting that their formative years have a lot to do with the kind of society the nation builds. She gave the piece of advice in Enugu while addressing participants at the “Intentional Parenting Summit,” weekend. The First Lady, who was represented by the wife of the Speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Mrs. Chinyere Ugwu, said parenting entailed more than providing food, shelter, and clothing, stating that it required commitment to shaping the moral and spiritual…

Supreme court due to rule on birthright citizenship, one of Trump’s core policiesToday, the US supreme court is due to rule on one of Trump’s core policies: the right of almost anyone born on US soil to have citizenship. The right is enshrined in the 14th amendment to the US constitution. The amendment was passed after the US civil war to determine the citizenship of American-born people who had been enslaved.Signing a presidential executive order on the first day of his second term in office, Trump is attempting to withhold citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary…

Welcome to the ConversationMany European countries, including Germany, France, Czechia, Poland and Hungary have experienced their hottest days ever. The UK and others have suffered their hottest ever day in June. Over the past week Ajit Niranjan, alongside the rest of our environment team and network of reporters, has been following this extreme heat wave as it headed east across the continent. Today, Budapest is expected to hit 40C and other parts of eastern Europe have issued red warnings for extreme heat.Ajit answers your questions live now.ShareUpdated at 14.09 CESTKey eventsWhy are so many surprised by the heat and ignoring warnings…

Artificial intelligence debt issuance may point to more of a financial stability concern than stock valuations, according to a senior International Monetary Fund official.