Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Ross ‘threatened to fire’ Noaa staff over Trump’s Dorian claims

The commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, is facing calls to quit, amid reports he threatened to fire officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) if they contradicted Donald Trump’s erroneous claims about the path of Hurricane Dorian. The so-called “Sharpiegate” scandal began with Donald Trump’s insistence – and Noaa’s denial – that the storm could strike Alabama. According to the New York Times, Ross warned the agency’s acting administrator heads would roll unless the dispute was smoothed over.

Dorian victims. More than 100 Bahamians attempting to flee the devastation caused by Dorian were ordered to disembark a ferry to Florida, after US immigration officials said they would refuse to admit them without valid visas.

Trump says US-Taliban talks ‘dead’ after scrapping summit

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A street vendor in Kabul passes an election poster for the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who is seeking a second term at this month’s election. Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

The US and the Taliban are thought to have been close to negotiating a peace deal of sorts, until Trump’s shock announcement on Saturday that he had cancelled a secret summit with Taliban and Afghan leaders at Camp David. Now, the president says the talks are “dead so far as I’m concerned”, raising fears of a spike in violence before the Afghan presidential election this month.

Kabul bombing. Trump blamed the end of talks on a Taliban bombing in Kabul last week, in which a US soldier was killed. The Taliban issued a statement saying his decision “shows neither patience nor experience”.

Limited deal. The Afghan government was against the proposed deal, which is thought to have consisted of a US troop withdrawal in return for a basic guarantee that the Taliban would not launch attacks on the US from Afghanistan.

British MPs in uproar as Johnson prorogues parliament

Play Video 10:38:08 Brexit: chants of 'shame' as suspension of parliament descends into chaos – watch live

The British House of Commons descended into chaos late on Monday as MPs protested against Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks before the Brexit deadline of 31 October – a move the Speaker of the House described as “an act of executive fiat”. After the prime minister lost his sixth parliamentary vote in as many days, failing to secure the snap election he wanted, the session broke up amid cries of “shame on you” from the opposition benches.

Speaker quits. One Labour MP attempted to physically restrain the Speaker, John Bercow, from proroguing parliament by lying across him. Bercow has announced he will step down from the Speaker’s chair permanently at the end of October.

Cameron memoirs. The former UK prime minister David Cameron will defend his decision to hold the EU referendum in a documentary broadcast to coincide with the long-delayed publication of his memoirs this month.

Vaping lawsuits highlight concerns over e-cigarettes

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Is Juul just the new big tobacco? Photograph: Samantha Maldonado/AP

Savannah West starting vaping because she liked the mint and mango flavour made by Juul, the vape-maker that commands three-quarters of the US e-cigarette market. But the habit also left the teenager addicted to nicotine. Now she is one of many US consumers suing the company, whose product was once seen as a safer alternative to cigarettes, but which potentially faces the same challenges as big tobacco.

Teen vaping. An estimated 9 million adults and 3.6 million US teenagers vape, including 20% of high school students. Michigan recently became the first state to ban flavoured e-cigarettes in an effort to curb teen vaping.

Respiratory illnesses. A recent spate of severe respiratory illnesses among young people in the US has been blamed on vaping. The researcher Thomas Eissenberg says the best way to protect your lung health is to not smoke or vape.

Cheat sheet

The US extracted “one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government” in 2017, in part over fears the Trump White House’s mishandling of classified intelligence could put the source in danger, CNN reported on Monday.

The US Coast Guard has rescued four trapped South Korean crewmen on an overturned cargo ship , more than a day after it capsized while leaving port on the Georgia coast.

Japan’s environment minister has said the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant is running out of space to store water contaminated by its damaged reactor cores, and will have to start dumping the water in the Pacific by the end of 2022.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba and China’s richest man, is to retire as the boss of the e-commerce firm on Tuesday, his 55th birthday, with a celebration at a stadium in Hangzhou.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I didn’t play a stripper; I played a person who works in a strip club for a living’: Constance Wu in Hustlers. Photograph: STXfilms

Constance Wu: ‘It’s good to sometimes publicly fail’

The Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu sparked a social media storm this year by complaining about the renewal of her sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat. But as Hustlers, her new film with Jennifer Lopez, hits cinemas, she tells Martha Hayes: “I don’t regret being messy and imperfect in public.”

Why did a masked gang raid North Korea’s Madrid embassy?

Days before Trump was due to meet Kim Jong-un in Hanoi in February, a gang of armed men burst into the North Korean embassy in Madrid, took an official hostage and demanded he defect. But he refused, and they fled. Who were they, and what was the point of their plan? Giles Tremlett investigates.

The Amazon workers joining the global climate strike

On 20 September, more than 1,000 Amazon staffers will walk out of their offices around the world to join the Global Climate Strike and demand the company radically reduce its carbon emissions. Rebecca Sheppard, an organiser from Seattle, tells Ben Tarnoff why she was inspired to take action.

San Quentin prisoners reframe their experience

Nigel Poor is the artist behind the acclaimed podcast Ear Hustle, produced by inmates at California’s San Quentin prison. Recently she asked inmates to annotate archival photographs of prison life with their poetic musings and interpretations of the images. Now the fascinating results are being exhibited, as Anna Furman reports.

Opinion

British consumers are concerned that a post-Brexit trade deal with the US would force them to eat chlorinated American chicken. But that issue is just part of a larger problem, says Felicity Lawrence: the hyper-intensive American farming model.

It is increasingly clear that nurturing more complex agro-ecological systems, combining traditional knowledge with cutting-edge science, will be vital for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting diversity.

Sport

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has racked up 55 combined goals and assists in just 50 games for the LA Galaxy, and he’s not alone: goals are way up overall in the MLS this season. Graham Ruthven asks whether the league is blessed with brilliant attackers – or cursed with dodgy defences.

New Orleans kicker Wil Lutz made a 58-yard field goal as the clock ran out on Monday night, clinching a last-minute NFL victory for the Saints over the Houston Texans, 30-28.