In today’s newsletter: The president announced he will not be seeking reelection and endorsed his VP. Now Kamala Harris has to convince the American people she can see off Donald Trump• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. Joe Biden’s momentous announcement that he is dropping out of the presidential race may soon be remembered as inevitable – but if so, it only started to look that way once it had happened. Even as the president announced his withdrawal, campaign aides were calling Democratic convention delegates to shore up their support, Politico reported; blindsided White House officials were “finding out by tweet”.That’s not to say the decision was surprising. With more and more party leaders and donors urging Biden to quit, publicly or privately, in recent days, the president cut a deeply isolated figure. After the announcement, in contrast, Democrats fell in line to describe him as a selfless American hero – and many of them echoed his endorsement of his vice-president, Kamala Harris.UK politics | Rachel Reeves has indicated that the government could agree above-inflation pay rises for teachers and other public sector workers, saying there is “a cost to not settling” pay negotiations. Reports suggest independent pay review bodies had advised increases of about 5.5%.Crowdstrike outage | NHS patients have been warned GP services “cannot be resumed immediately” as the effects of Friday’s global IT outage continue. While computer systems have largely returned to normal, some knock-on effects are ongoing, with some stranded air travellers facing days of further delays.Immigration | Indonesian workers who paid thousands of pounds to travel to Britain and pick fruit at a farm supplying most big supermarkets have been sent home within weeks for not picking fast enough. One of the workers said he had sold his family’s land, as well as his and his parents’ motorbikes, to cover the more than £2,000 cost of coming to Britain in May.UK news | Six people, including two children, have died in a collision between a car and a motorbike in West Yorkshire. Police called the incident “absolutely tragic” and said the A61 near Barnsley would remain closed for some time.Pollution | Real-time water quality monitors are being installed at wild swimming spots and beaches across southern England to help people assess their immediate risk of getting ill from polluted water. Continue reading...
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