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In today’s newsletter: With the 2024 election likely to hinge on just thousands of votes in swing states, the president needs every vote he can get
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Good morning. No Republican presidential candidate has received more than 13% of the votes of Black Americans since the civil rights era. In the race against probable nominee Donald Trump, Black voters are again likely to be Democrat president Joe Biden’s most reliable constituency. But in recent months, that support has started to erode.
This week, Joe Biden has tried to do something about it, with a visit to the Black church in South Carolina where a white supremacist killed nine people in 2015. He linked Trump’s 2020 election denialism to the Confederate rebellion over slavery that prompted the civil war, and told his audience: “Once again, there are some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie.”
Post Office Horizon scandal | Hundreds of post office operators are to have their convictions quashed by parliament in an unprecedented move designed to draw a line under one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in British history. Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said that everyone convicted in Scotland as part of the scandal would likewise be cleared.
Israel-Gaza war | A legal hearing into the war in Gaza opens in The Hague on Thursday as the international court of justice (ICJ) hears arguments alleging that Israel is committing genocide. Read Julian Borger’s analysis.
UK economy | The Bank of England may be forced to bring forward the date of its first interest rate cut after three leading forecasters issued a surprise update suggesting the inflation rate will halve to 2% by April. The forecasters attributed their predictions to a slump in energy prices and the cost of oil on international wholesale markets.
HS2 | The estimated cost of the HS2 line from London to Birmingham has ballooned to as much as £66bn due to inflation, the scheme’s executive chair has told MPs. That is up to £10bn more than the existing estimate, which is quoted in 2019 prices.
Land rights | The right to wild camp on Dartmoor could be under threat again after the supreme court granted permission for a wealthy landowner to pursue a ban in court. Hedge funder Alexander Darwall prompted a large protest movement after he banned wild camping on his land.
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