Top story: ‘They did not vote for nothing to change’

Hello, I’m Warren Murray and there’s news afoot.

A Brexit deal has become an even knottier problem after Theresa May ruled out the right to stay for EU citizens who arrive during the hoped-for transitional period. “There is a difference between those who came prior to us leaving and those who will come when they know the UK is leaving,” said the prime minister, who is in China. She added that people “did not vote for nothing to change” in the referendum.

But Brussels sees things very differently. Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, told the Guardian: “Citizens’ rights during the transition is not negotiable. We will not accept that there are two sets of rights for EU citizens.”

May’s comments leave the UK with some big sticking points for the second phase of negotiations with Brussels. The Brexit secretary, David Davis, has said the UK will fight the EU’s desire to apply all its laws and regulations to the UK until the end of 2020. The uber-leaver Jacob Rees-Mogg has accused the government of threatening to turn the UK into a “vassal state” during the transitional period. Meanwhile, Liam Fox, the international trade secretary travelling with May, has admitted that contrary to Brexiters’ favoured line, being in the EU doesn’t stop Britain increasing its trade with non-EU countries like China. And a second leak of Brexit analysis has shown tightening up Britain’s immigration system would cause more economic damage than could be balanced out by any trade gains.

‘Undermining British values’ – A senior Ofsted official has backed head teachers’ right to set uniform policies after a row over a school where the hijab was banned for under eights. Extremists are using religion to “actively pervert” education, chief inspector Amanda Spielman will say at a Church of England conference today, and “schools must not, in their entirely correct goal of promoting tolerance, shy away from challenging fundamentalist practice where it appears in their schools or communities”. The Muslim Council of Britain has accused Spielman of issuing a “disproportionate number of public statements about Muslims”. Ofsted had been considering whether to sanction schools that bow to a “vocal minority” of parents over uniform policy.

Poultry complaint – A KFC commercial that was branded “disrespectful to chickens” and non-meat eaters was Britain’s most complained about TV advert in 2017. The advertising watchdog, though, deemed it within the rules and unlikely to cause wide offence. The same goes for ads from Moneysupermarket (dancing men in cutoff and high heels), Match.com and O2 (same-sex kissing). Dove decided to scrap an ad that featured opinions about breastfeeding (including “put them away”), as did McDonald’s with its “dead dad Filet-o-Fish” scenario. “Multiple complaints don’t necessarily mean that an ad has fallen on the wrong side of the line,” said Guy Parker, the chief executive of the ASA, adding that they were assessed according to research on “audience, context and prevailing societal standards”.

Carbon capture ‘no silver bullet’ – Ways of sucking carbon dioxide from the air will not work on the vast scales needed to beat climate change, Europe’s scientists have warned, with “a deep and rapid reduction in emissions” the only real hope. Easac, the science advisory body to the EU, says that plans to meet 50-year emissions targets are relying too heavily on schemes such as planting trees and filtering out CO2 from the atmosphere, which risk huge damage to the environment or are likely to be very costly. Still, Easac says research and development of these “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) must continue because of the small but important role they might play. Phil Williamson, from the University of East Anglia, said the priorities should be transitioning to zero emissions “as rapidly as possible” and scaling down “unrealistic” expectations about the impact of NETs.

Jobs to a droid – We should definitely be worried about robots taking our jobs in the not-so-distant future, our economics editor, Larry Elliott, writes today. But not content to wait, Amazon seems intent on turning people into robots straight away. The company has patented a wristband that sounds unnervingly like a C-3PO’s restraining bolt from Star Wars – it monitors the movement of warehouse workers and can even jolt them with vibrations to make sure they are reaching for the correct shelf. Is this what Adam Smith meant by the “invisible hand”? There may be hope, though, that we can master technology rather than be enslaved by it – meet the rebels determined to replace the Googles, Facebooks and YouTubes of the world with their own DIY internet.

And finally: Russian officials are trying to figure out how to stop locusts devouring the World Cup pitch under players’ feet this June-July. “The whole world is coming here. Football fields are green. Locusts love it where there is lots of green. How would they not come to the place where football is being played?” asked Pyotr Chekmarev, the agriculture ministry’s head of crops. Hmm … maybe should have bid for the cricket world cup instead?

Lunchtime read: ‘You could have saved me’

At age 15, Joy was sold by her parents to a wealthy woman. At 16 she was bound by a curse to this maman, giving her control of her life. A few weeks later, Joy was forced to leave her home country of Nigeria for Italy, where she believed she would be working in a hair salon.

After an appalling journey to Sicily where she ended up in an asylum-seeker camp, it turned out Joy had been sold into one of the sex-trafficking rings that uses the camps as way stations. Barbie Latza Nadeau explains how the mafia has infiltrated Italy’s refugee system after working out that migrants are “more profitable than drugs”.

Sport

Olivier Giroud shivered in disbelief as his new club Chelsea succumbed to their worst home defeat since April 2016 in a 3-0 reverse at home to an excellent Bournemouth side. Across London, Tottenham Hotspur outplayed, out-thought and out-fought Manchester United in a 2-0 win that prompted José Mourinho to officially give up the pretence that the title race was still alive.

After Giroud had completed his £18m move to Chelsea on transfer deadline day, Arsenal broke their transfer record with the £56m signing of the striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Borussia Dortmund, who in turn took Michy Batshuayi on loan from Chelsea for the rest of the season.

Greg Rutherford, the London 2012 long jump gold medalist, has revealed he feared his career was over before undergoing groin reconstruction surgery and an ankle operation in the autumn. And Danny Care believes he can do no more to convince Eddie Jones that he deserves to be England’s starting scrum-half for the Six Nations – and the latest indications suggest he will get his wish against Italy on Sunday.



Business

Asian markets have been mixed with Tokyo stocks higher as the yen weakened against the US dollar. Chinese markets declined after the US Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged.

The pound has been trading at $1.419 and €1.142 overnight.

The papers

The Financial Times leads on news that more than £1bn has been wiped off the value of Capita following the demise of rival government contractor Carillion – a story that also makes the front of the Guardian alongside news that MPs will decamp from the Palace of Westminster during its six-year renovation.

The Guardian and the Telegraph both give prominence to Carrie Gracie’s eye-opening testimony on the BBC pay gap to MPs yesterday. The Times reports comments from Ofsted that extremist views are circulating in British schools. The Express is pleased that Theresa May wants EU citizens arriving in the UK during the Brexit transition period not to have the rights afforded to others already here. The Sun is not pleased that F1 chiefs have decided to scrap “grid girls” from the upcoming season.

A record number of over-40s are having strokes, says the i; while the Mail is more concerned about high levels of at-home drinking by those in their 50s and 60s. And the Mirror leads on the story of Alfie Evans, whose parents are fighting a decision by medics to switch off his life support.

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