Property and poverty dominate Manchester’s mayoral election politics

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  • Post last modified:1 August 2026

Two phrases — housing and affordability — sung out across Greater Manchester’s mayoral election. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they’ve dominated more than anything else in manifestos, hustings and social media alike. In my view, these two terms are polished, neoliberal-era euphemisms for what we’re really talking about. These underlying, harder-hitting phenomena are actually: property (ownership) and poverty (often, lack of ownership). I think it’s time that we collectively note that point, first things first. But even if there’s a hesitation to talk about property and poverty as such, they are still being discussed. One more remarkable aspect of my weeks covering this mayoral…

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US mocked after mislabelling every country in Africa on AIDS conference map

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  • Post last modified:1 August 2026

A US government delegation to an AIDS conference mislabelled every nation in Africa on a map it used during a presentation. Audience members at the conference in Brazil naturally snapped the bizarre map and shared it online. A Reuters analysis found: The image of the map included ⁠in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The ​company said it was investigating the report. The state ‌department said it took “full responsibility” ‌for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed ‌the slide deck before…

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