Top story: Brexiters warn PM not to ‘bounce’ them into vote

Good morning briefers. I’m Martin Farrer and these are the top stories on the first Monday of March.

Struggling towns in the north of England and the Midlands will receive a £1.6bn funding boost as Theresa May tries to build support from Labour MPs for her Brexit deal. The prime minister said the “stronger towns fund” would go to areas that had not “shared the proceeds of growth”. Around £1bn had been allocated already, with Brexit-voting towns such as Wakefield, Doncaster, Wigan, Stoke and Mansfield benefiting to the tune of millions of pounds. May will also announce post-Brexit guarantees on workers’ and trade union rights in the coming days. However, Wigan’s Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, who has indicated she might back May’s deal, said the cash would do little to tackle the effects of austerity. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, dismissed the funding as “Brexit bribery”.

Tory MPs aren’t too happy with the prime minister either and have warned her not to “bounce” them into a quick vote on her Brexit proposal. The hardline European Reform Group are demanding at least two days of parliamentary time to scrutinise any changes to the Irish backstop that May can wring from Brussels before the “meaningful” vote promised on 12 March.

Knife summit – Sajid Javid, the home secretary, will chair a meeting of police chiefs this week to discuss the spate of knife crime across the country that saw two more teenagers killed over the weekend. As the families of Jodie Chesney, who was stabbed in Harold Hill in Essex on Friday, and Yousef Ghaleb Makki, fatally attacked in Hale Barns near Altrincham on Saturday, mourned the two 17-year-olds, Javid said that police forces would be taking action to stem the violence. It comes as figures released today showed a 93% increase in the number of young people targeted by knives.

Tornado toll – At least 23 people are dead after a tornado ripped through the southern US state of Alabama last night. The twister left a trail of “catastrophic” damage several miles long, according to local sheriffs, and cut off power to more than 10,000 homes. It also spread destruction into Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. Television footage showed smashed buildings with rooftops blown away, cars overturned and debris everywhere. Trees had been snapped bare of branches.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A devastated property in Lee county, Alabama. Photograph: AP

The end of the caliphate – The last days of Isis are charted in a gripping dispatch today from our correspondent Bethan McKernan in eastern Syria. Trapped on all sides by Kurdish, Syrian and Russian forces, the remnants of the jihadist group are fighting to the death in their last stronghold of Baghuz on the banks of the Euphrates. The notorious caliphate is now “a hellscape of smoke and fire”, Bethan writes. The jihadists face certain military defeat but there is a huge human cost with women and children still fleeing across the lines to escape the barrage. “Small children kept close to their mothers, their noses, hands and in some cases bare feet turning blue in the biting desert wind. Their faces wore no expressions. Most did not cry.”

Rightward bound – A surge in Ukip membership is shifting the party to the far-right as moderates are replaced by entrants attracted by an anti-Islam agenda based on street protest. A Guardian investigation reveals that the new members are younger, more radical and more digitally focused than the long-standing senior and more moderate local organisers who are leaving, a change that is also threatening to damage its ability to fight elections. The remaking of the party comes under the leadership of Gerard Batten, who has called Islam “a death cult” and who uses the anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson as an adviser.

Freya hits – Many parts of Britain will wake up to the tailend of Storm Freya this morning after it lashed the country with gale-force winds, heavy rain and snow. Gusts up to 80mph were recorded and a severe yellow warning for strong winds was in place for large parts of the country including Wales, south-west England, the Midlands and northern England. Snow brought traffic to a standstill on the A595 between Carlisle and Cockermouth in Cumbria last night. One driver posted on Twitter that the conditions were “very severe”.

‘An absolute miracle’ – Two sisters aged five and eight have been found alive and well after going missing for 44 hours in snowbound terrain in California. Leia and Caroline Carrico survived on granola bars after becoming lost near their home in Benbow, north of Sacramento. Rescuers tracked the girls from a trail of boot prints and wrappers left in the snow. “This is an absolute miracle,” the county sheriff William Honsal said.

Today in Focus podcast: what does Ocasio-Cortez stand for?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

All eyes are on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but what does her brand of politics actually mean for the Democrats as they head into the presidential elections next year? The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports from Washington. And Rupert Jones discusses the dangers of the rising number of windowless microflats.

Lunchtime read: the Aboriginal massacres Australia must confront

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Calls are growing for truth-telling in Australia. Illustration: Andy Ball/The Guardian, Aletheia Casey

The colonial journalist and barrister Richard Windeyer called it “the whispering in the bottom of our hearts”. The anthropologist William Stanner described a national “cult of forgetfulness”. But after decades of silence, calls are growing for a national truth-telling process in Australia to come to terms with the massacres of Aboriginal people that took place across the continent as white settlement took hold. In the Killing Times, a special Guardian Australia report, our journalists have assembled the first proper tally of the human cost, which started with killings carried out by British soldiers in 1794. We have found that there were at least 270 frontier massacres over the following 140 years – most long-forgotten – as part of a state-sanctioned and organised attempt to eradicate Aboriginal people. As well as compiling data for an interactive map on the massacres, we have spoken to descendants on all sides to create a better picture of the history the clountry must confront.

Sport

A frustrated Jürgen Klopp has defended his tactics after Liverpool ceded top spot in the Premier League following a 0-0 draw in the Merseyside derby. The German bristled at suggestions he could have chased the game more aggressively. “It’s not like Playstation,” he said. Meanwhile, Scott Parker’s first game as interim boss of Fulham has ended in defeat courtesy a Chelsea winner from Jorginho. Organisers of a cycling race in Belgium have been left embarrassed after the leader of the women’s race, which commenced 10 minutes after the men’s race, was forced to stop after almost catching up to the men. And, with the influence of Owen Farrell continuing to grow, Andy Bull speaks to fly-half George Ford about whether there’s a way back for England’s former ever-present.

Business

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese technology company Huawei, is suing the Canadian government, its border agency and the national police force over her controversial arrest. The lawsuit looks certain to worsen the diplomatic tension between Canada and China which began when she was held at Vancouver airport in December at the request of US prosecutors. However, Asian markets were upbeat about US-China trade talks and investors sent stocks higher overnight. The FTSE100 is set to jump 0.5% according to futures trade. The pound is buying $1.324 and €1.165.

The papers

The government’s figures on knife crime feature on the front pages of several newspapers. “A knife to the heart of Britain”, writes the Mail. “Anyone’s street... anyone’s child”, is the Mirror’s headline. And the Express demands “Put 20,000 police back on streets now!”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guardian front page, Monday 4 March 2019 Photograph: The Guardian

The Guardian leads with its exclusive investigation: “Surge in Ukip membership signals shift to far right”. The Sun has pictures of Sir Philip Green kissing an employee: “Slime Green”.

The Times prefers to stick to Brexit with: “May accused of bribery with £1bn to help towns” while the Telegraph has a different line on the same theme: “Cox drops ‘hard limit’ demands on backstop”.

The FT says “Hammond set to gain spending windfall from higher tax receipts” while the i has a story claiming “Rise in explicit sex offence evidence puts jurors at risk”.

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