Thursday’s top story: Fury as Boris Johnson says he will suspend parliament with no-deal Brexit looming. Plus, why 500 million bees just died in Brazil

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

Protests erupt in UK over Johnson’s ‘constitutional outrage’

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has boosted the chances of a damaging, no-deal Brexit by announcing he will suspend the country’s parliament for five weeks, stifling debate in the run-up to Britain’s scheduled departure from the EU on 31 October. The news sparked protests across the country on Wednesday, as rebel MPs from several parties convened to try to block the move, which the Speaker of the House of Commons described as a “constitutional outrage”.

‘Prorogation’ explained. For those not steeped in the minutiae of the Brexit battle and UK politics, Alison Rourke explains why, and how, Johnson has suspended – or “prorogued” – parliament.

‘Mad suggestion’. Just weeks ago, senior members of Johnson’s cabinet described the very idea of proroguing parliament as “archaic”, “mad” and “outrageous”.

Opioids payouts from Big Pharma ‘questionable’, say experts

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Purdue Pharma, which produces OxyContin, has reportedly offered up to $12bn to settle multiple lawsuits. Photograph: Toby Talbot/AP

Experts have greeted news of two vast drug manufacturer payouts over the opioid crisis with a mixture of optimism and skepticism, with the photographer and campaigner Nan Goldin telling the Guardian that a reported settlement offered by the makers of the controversial painkiller OxyContin was “highly questionable”. It was reported this week that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family had offered up to $12bn to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits.

Johnson & Johnson. Another pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson, was on Monday ordered by an Oklahoma court to pay out $572m over its role in the opioids epidemic.

Activists arrested. Goldin and 12 other activists supporting safe injection sites for drug addicts were arrested on Wednesday, after barricading the entrance of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s office building.

Gillibrand drops out of Democratic presidential race

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kirsten Gillibrand: ‘It’s important to know when it’s not your time.’ Photograph: Scott Morgan/Reuters

Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democratic US senator from New York, has become perhaps the most high-profile candidate yet to drop out of the 2020 presidential race, after failing to break out of the low single-digits in polls and secure a spot in the third round of televised debates. Gillibrand, one of a record number of women in the 2020 field, said in a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday that it was “important to know when it’s not your time”.

Remaining candidates. Gillibrand is the sixth contender to exit the Democratic race, leaving a mere 20 candidates still officially in the running, 10 of whom have failed to reach the minimum 2% in two polls required to qualify for the next debate.

Italian president gives Conte mandate to form new government

Italy’s head of state has given two former political enemies the chance to form a new government, capping an extraordinary three weeks that could mark a turning point in the country’s frayed relations with the European Union. President Sergio Mattarella handed Giuseppe Conte a fresh mandate to put together a new coalition of the 5 Star Movement (M5S) and opposition Democratic party (PD).

Conte resigned as prime minister last week after the far-right League party withdrew from its coalition with M5S.

The deal pushed the League into opposition, dealing a blow to its leader Matteo Salvini, who has been pushing for snap elections.

Skull of oldest-known human ancestor found in Ethiopia

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A partial facial reconstruction of an Australopithecus skull. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Scientists have “put a face to the name” of the oldest-known species on the human evolutionary tree, after the 3.8 million-year-old skull of an ancient hominin, Australopithecus anamensis, was found intact in Ethiopia. The species is believed to be a direct ancestor of “Lucy”, a longstanding landmark in the study of human evolution, and dates back to a time when our ancestors walked on two legs but still had distinctly ape-like faces and small brains.

Adult male. The specimen, first unearthed by a local worker in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, is a near-complete adult male skull, which researchers have casually named MRD.

Crib sheet

The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has been greeted by cheering crowds in New York after crossing the Atlantic on a zero-carbon yacht to attend next month’s UN climate summit.

China has said its forces are simply performing regular troop movements, after military vehicles were spotted crossing into Hong Kong , raising fears of a Beijing-led crackdown after months of political unrest in the semi-autonomous territory.

The Trump administration has stepped up efforts to track oil tankers linked to China, amid signs they are helping transport Iranian oil in defiance of US sanctions – a convergence of the White House’s two biggest foreign policy headaches.

A UN commission that has spent 12 years investigating graft in Guatemala has said in its final report that the country has been “captured” by corruption, and that the issue “cannot be solved without a profound restructuring of the state”.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest On a normal day, New York City demands around 10,000MW of power per second; in a heatwave, it can exceed 13,000MW. Illustration: Guardian Design

Air con: how cold air is heating the world

New York City never uses more electricity than in the midst of a heatwave, as its denizens crank their air conditioning to 11. But the more we use air conditioning, the more we fuel global heating. Stephen Buranyi asks whether there is a way out of this vicious cycle.

The California senator fighting for stricter vaccination laws

The California state senator Richard Pan, a trained paediatrician, has endured death threats and harassment from anti-vaxxers as he tries to pass the strictest vaccination laws in the US. He has seen children suffering at close quarters. He tells Vivian Ho: “I don’t think you need any motivation than that.”

The harrowing reality of poor children living in DC

Beyond the Washington of Congress and the White House is DC, where more than 700,000 people live, work and raise children – who, according to a study, are the most underprivileged in the country. Joan E Greve reports on the threats of homelessness and food insecurity that hang over families in the nation’s capital.

The Boss bridges cultural divides in polarised times

The new film Blinded by the Light is a fictionalised retelling of Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir, about finding solace in the music of Bruce Springsteen as a British Pakistani teenager. Despite its cultural specificity, Manzoor says it has been embraced by unlikely audiences across the world.

Opinion

As the Amazon burns, another environmental catastrophe is also playing out in Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil, says Thor Hanson: 500 million honeybees have died in the space of a few months, most likely a result of the government’s loosened restrictions on pesticides.

The challenges facing Brazil’s bees, as well as its forests, boil down in part to bad policy. But that doesn’t let anyone off the hook, because in a democracy government policy amounts to an expression of collective will. And Brazil is hardly the only democratic country where environmental protections are wavering.

Sport

After steamrolling Maria Sharapova in the first round of the US Open, Serena Williams faced a far tougher challenge in the second from American teenager Caty McNally, who forced her to fight back from a set down. In the men’s draw, Roger Federer also dropped the first set before defeating the Bosnian Damir Dzumhur in four.

The race car driver and television personality Jessi Combs has been killed in a high-speed crash in Oregon, while attempting to break the women’s land speed record.

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