Move comes as more are jailed, including a self-styled ‘paedophile hunter’ who racially abused rival protesters

A 15-year-old boy has become the first person to be charged with riot over the recent disorder that swept towns and cities across England.

Almost all those involved have so far been charged with violent disorder, which carries a shorter maximum sentence than the offence of rioting. On Wednesday a judge, the recorder of Hull, suggested that prosecutors should consider the riot charge for people alleged to have played a central role in the disorder.

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Latinos had ranked among the Democrats’ most reliable bases – but the party’s once dominant advantage has shrunk

The abrupt substitution of Kamala Harris for Joe Biden as the Democratic party’s presidential nominee has energized two of the party’s bedrock bases of support – pro-choice women and African Americans – along with millions of young voters who felt dismay at the Hobson’s choice posed by two old white guys in the presidential contest.

But the country’s estimated 36 million eligible Latino voters could be another story.

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Now the fires are out, we must take stock. There are no easy solutions to extremism, but there are some clear places to start

There is a widely held sentiment among people of colour who call London our home that travelling beyond its reaches can feel like leaving one country for another, swapping multicultural tolerance for a roll of the dice. But over the past couple of weeks, for the first time in my life, I have feared that the city’s bubble might burst.

In Hampshire, where my mum and grandparents grew up, a police officer was injured as 200 people surrounded an Aldershot hotel housing asylum seekers on 31 July. Similar activity flared in Rotherham and Leeds while I visited family in Sheffield on 4 August. In Belfast, a city close to where my great-grandfather was raised on a farm, a girl was filmed gleefully yelling the P-word as riots exploded across the Northern Irish capital.

Ciaran Thapar is the director of public affairs and communications at the Youth Endowment Fund and the author of Cut Short: Why We’re Failing Our Youth – and How To Fix It. He teaches writing for social impact at City, University of London, and writes a newsletter called All City

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Nearly 300 people aged 19 and under were killed by Bahian security forces in 2023, making it Brazil’s highest rate

Activists have raised the alarm over police violence in the Brazilian state of Bahia, as new figures revealed that more children and adolescents are killed by the region’s security forces than anywhere else in the country.

Two hundred and eighty-nine people aged 19 and under were killed by police in Bahia last year, up from 242 in 2022, according to a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.

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Compare the rioters’ prison sentences with those of Just Stop Oil. How can our justice system claim to be blind?

A functioning society depends on equality before the law. If crimes are not treated equally and dispassionately by the justice system, we lose trust in democracy and each other. But as sentences begin to be passed on racists who rioted earlier this month, we see once again a blatantly unequal application of the law.

Let’s make a couple of obvious comparisons. One was highlighted this week by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). Had those sentenced for their part in the riots this week – who heeded the calls of racist organisers and rampaged through England’s cities – been Muslims inspired by Islamists, they are likely to have been prosecuted as terrorists, potentially facing much longer sentences. Assaulting people in the name of Islam appears to be treated as a far graver crime than assaulting people in the cause of Islamophobia.

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Defacing of Rome artwork celebrating Olympic champion Paola Egonu widely condemned across political spectrum

A mural celebrating the Italian Olympic volleyball champion, Paola Egonu, has become the target of “vulgar racism” after the athlete’s skin in the image was spray-painted pink.

The mural by the street artist Laika was defaced within a day of being unveiled on a wall close to the headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee (Coni) in Rome.

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Decades after Ted Heath sacked Enoch Powell, the Tories must restore the line that stops immigration policy descending into racial hatred

The last four times the Tories chose their leader, the rest of the UK was obliged to pay attention because the winner of the process would automatically become prime minister. The stakes this year are much lower. The prize is stewardship of a battered party reduced to a 121-seat rump in the Commons, exiled far from government.

The next leader’s first challenge will be adapting to a spectacular fall from relevance. There are nuances to be teased out of July’s election results, but the main message was an instruction to Tories from voters to shut up and leave them alone.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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Kerry-Ann Knight hoped to pave way for Black women but was instead subjected to 12 years of abuse

A former soldier who appeared on recruitment posters for the British army has received a settlement and an apology after taking it to an employment tribunal over the racist and sexist abuse she was subjected to during her career.

While still in training, Kerry-Ann Knight was pictured on a recruitment poster above the words “Your Army Needs You and Your Self-Belief”, confidently looking over her shoulder.

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An occasion of fellowship devolved into a spectacle at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention

Yesterday, the National Association of Black Journalists launched its annual convention and career fair in Chicago, Illinois. The multi-day event – viewed by Black journalists as an invaluable safe space – brings together thousands of members from across the nation to train, network and socialize.

The conference’s opening day, however, was overshadowed by an unexpected guest: Donald J Trump. The former president was invited by the NABJ board to participate in a panel interview and his attendance was announced just two days before the event. The interview was fraught, hostile and brief. And it confirmed many NABJ members’ fears that Trump’s interaction with three Black women moderators – Rachel Scott from ABC News, Harris Faulkner of Fox News, and Semafor’s Kadia Goba – would be a farce. The discussion ran afoul of any attempt to use journalism to speak truth to power.

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