First Thing: Biden says ‘I’m not leaving’ as cracks appear in support

White House denies reports president is assessing candidacy. Plus, UK expected to elect Labour in landslide

Good morning.

President Joe Biden has struck a defiant tone and insisted to his campaign team that “I’m in this race to the end”, according to reports, despite the increasing pressure to step down as the Democratic nominee amid concerns over his competence.

Yesterday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters “the president is not dropping out”, even while the 81-year-old “owns” his abject performance in the first debate of the campaign last week against the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

Biden separately told staffers on a call, according to multiple reports: “No one is pushing me out” and “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.” He was joined on the call by the vice-president, Kamala Harris, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election “together”, according to a report.

An ally of the president, however, referred to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump and told the New York Times: “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place.”

Governors in show of qualified support. Democratic governors have rallied around Biden after a closed-door meeting yesterday but admitted they shared voters’ concerns about his performance, as a fresh poll shows Trump has a six-point advantage, 49-43%, over Biden among likely voters.

Stepping out. For three and a half years, Biden was wrapped in a metaphorical ball of cotton wool by an anxious White House staff eager to protect him from the worst of himself.

Polling stations open across UK for general election

Voters are going to the polls across the UK in a general election that is expected to deliver the first Labour government in 14 years. Polling stations in 650 constituencies across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland opened at 7am today UK time. Counting will begin immediately afterwards, with the results announced in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Writing on X as the polls opened, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said: “Change. Today, you can vote for it.” Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, posted a series of messages on the same site that urged voters to “stop the Labour supermajority”.

Labour has maintained its 20-point lead in opinion polls for the entirety of the election campaign and is hoping to make huge gains across England, Wales and Scotland. A YouGov poll published last night said Starmer’s party was on track to win its largest majority in modern history.

Waving the white flag? Senior Tories including one of Sunak’s closest cabinet allies were effectively conceding defeat yesterday. Starmer accused the Conservatives of trying to suppress voter turnout by presenting the election result as a done deal.

California neo-Nazi found guilty of murder of former classmate

A southern California jury has convicted Samuel Woodward of the 2018 murder of former high school classmate Blaze Bernstein, after a three month-long trial that re-excavated a brutal killing that made international headlines for the perpetrator’s membership in the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division organization.

Bernstein, a 19-year-old pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania, disappeared on 2 January 2018 after meeting up with Woodward, then 20, that evening. The pair, who had attended the Orange County High School for the Arts together, had reconnected over the dating app Tinder. Bernstein’s body was found six days later, buried in a park in Orange county. Woodward was the last person Bernstein was in contact with, and immediately fell under suspicion.

Woodward was arrested on 12 January and charged with Bernstein’s murder. A few weeks later, ProPublica revealed Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi guerrilla organization implicated in four other murders, multiple bomb plots and other crimes. Woodward faced first-degree murder charges with a hate crime enhancement – prosecutors had argued Bernstein’s killing was motivated by hatred for LGBTQ+ people.

The verdict. A jury yesterday found Woodward guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement, the top charge brought against the Newport Beach native. Woodward faces a prison sentence of life without parole. Deliberations lasted less than two days. Woodward is set to be sentenced on 25 October.

In other news …

Japan has introduced an enormous humanoid robot to maintain train lines. The 12-metre high machine has large arms that can be fitted with blades or paint brushes. Its operator sits in a cockpit on the truck, “seeing” through the robot’s eyes via cameras and operating its powerful limbs and hands remotely.

The first African-born MP to enter the German parliament, Karamba Diaby, 62, has announced he will not be standing in next year’s federal election, weeks after he revealed hate mail, including racist slurs and death threats, he and his staff had received. He entered the Bundestag in 2013.

About 1.9 million people, 90% of the population of the Gaza Strip, have been displaced at least once since the war between Israel and Hamas began, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency. The Gaza Strip had been cut in two by Israel’s military operations, an official said, with an estimated 110,000 people having fled to Egypt.

Don’t miss this: How laughing gas changed the world

Mark Miodownik charts the history of laughing gas from its discovery in the 18th century to vaudeville gimmick to pioneering anaesthetic to modern party drug. He writes on how he tripped on nitrous oxide one day in hospital after dislocating his finger. “I floated completely out of my mind. Hearing a ‘clack’ sound, I mistook it for the sound of a ball being hit, and became puzzled as to why someone was playing golf in the hospital. Returning to consciousness a few seconds (or minutes?) later, I saw the doctor standing in front of me, but there was no sign of his golf clubs. Instead, my finger was back where it should be. I had felt no pain this time. The doctor looked pleased.

… or this: Feel sad, anxious or ‘homesick’ after sex? You might have post-coital dysphoria

It may have taken academia some time to catch up, but the post-sex blues have been described in proverbs, philosophy and literature for thousands of years. One saying, apocryphally attributed to the Greco-Roman physician Galen, can be translated as “all animals are sad after sex”. Sad-boy philosopher Schopenhauer wrote that “directly after copulation the devil’s laughter is heard”, while the philosopher Spinoza remarked that “after the enjoyment of sensual pleasure is passed, the greatest sadness follows”. Increasingly, research into post-coital dysphoria is showing that people of all genders and sexualities, in different kinds of relationships, have had such feelings after sex and masturbation.

Climate check: ‘Far right using climate crisis as bogeyman to frighten voters’

It is no coincidence that ever more extreme politics has come at a time of ever more extreme weather, writes Jonathan Watts. “Democracy is starting to look almost as fragile as the rainforest. Politicians in the traditional parties will not face the fact that they are no longer living in the stable climate in which that political system was created. The right wants to go back to a past that no longer exists. The left wants to move towards a future that it will not dare to fund.”

Last Thing: Cannabis will likely soon be legally classified as medicine. But medicine for what?

Cannabis is set to be reclassified as a schedule III drug that would officially give it medication status – a stunning reversal after years of “reefer madness” narratives and demonization. But that does not mean there will be cannabis-based medicines in your local drug store anytime soon. The most important change is symbolic, experts say, because “the US government is once again admitting that [cannabis] is a medicine.” It’s currently very difficult to get permission from the federal government to do research on the cannabis plant. But rescheduling could make it easier to study medical cannabis for illness like cancer by easing stigma as well as legal restrictions.

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