First Thing: Biden struggles and Trump lies in first debate

Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate has Democrats scrambling, while Donald Trump spouted endless lies. Plus: the 82-year-old ‘Sword Granny’ of India

Good morning.

Joe Biden’s lackluster performance in the first presidential debate of the fight for the White House sent senior Democratic advisers and operatives into panic mode. Donald Trump repeatedly made false claims about January 6, the national debt and the economy while Biden mumbled and struggled to rebut Trump’s lies, which will only have reinforced a perception among many voters that he is too old for the job.

David Plouffe, a Democratic strategist and former Obama campaign official, called the debate “kind of a Defcon 1 moment”. “The biggest thing in this election is voters’ concerns – and it’s both swing voters and base voters – with his age, and those were compounded tonight,” Plouffe said.

• Some are raising questions over whether there could be a contested Democratic convention and how Biden might be replaced as the Democratic candidate for the election. The only option would be for Biden to agree to step aside and allow the delegates he won in the primaries to choose someone else – with some big names already being floated as possible options.

• “Trump did not win the debate but Biden certainly lost it.” David Smith writes that Biden lived down to expectations that were at rock bottom and somehow made Trump sound almost coherent.

• What were some of Trump’s lies? Moderators for CNN’s debate took a hands-off approach, letting lies and half-truths remain unchallenged. Trump spouted lies on abortion, the environment, the border, tax cuts and January 6.

• Who won the meme wars? Both contenders delivered soundbites, with Trump declaring that during his presidency “everything was rockin’ good”, and Biden hitting back at Trump’s felony convictions, saying the former president “has the morals of an alleycat”.

Uvalde police indicted over role in slow response to 2022 school massacre

The former Uvalde schools police chief and another former officer have been indicted on multiple counts of felony child endangerment and abandonment over their role in the slow police response to the deadly shooting at a Texas elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead. The indictments make Pete Arredondo, the former schools police chief, and Adrian Gonzales, a former officer, the first officers to face criminal charges in one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.

In other news …

• Oklahoma’s state superintendent has ordered all public schools to teach the Bible and the Ten Commandments, in a dramatic move that reignites the conversation about the separation of church and state.

• Iranians are heading to the polls on Friday to vote for a new president, but millions are expected to boycott the election, the outcome of which they believe will be manipulated by the regime to ensure a loyalist victory.

• The US has imposed fresh sanctions against Iran’s petroleum sector over an apparent expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, which has provoked renewed fears that it is preparing to build an atomic bomb.

• Kinky Friedman, the American country singer-songwriter and author known as the Jewish cowboy, died this week, his estate announced.

• A defunct Russian satellite has broken up into nearly 200 pieces of debris, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to take cover and adding to the mass of space junk already in orbit.

Stat of the day: Canada’s wildfires created nearly four times more emissions than planes did last year

Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland have calculated that the devastating wildfires that burned for months through Canada last year pumped 3.28bn tons (2.98 metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air. This is more than what the entire country of India spewed by burning fossil fuels – and nearly four times the carbon emissions generated by airplanes in a year and about the same amount of carbon dioxide as 647m cars put in the air in a year.

Don’t miss this: the French citizens from Muslim backgrounds who are leaving their country

Scores of highly qualified French citizens who are practicing Muslims or from a Muslim background have left France in recent years amid a rise of far-right rhetoric, calls for headscarf bans and discrimination. While French law bars statistics on race, origins or religion, some researchers believe the number could be as high as tens of thousands.

“France is literally shooting itself in the foot,” said Olivier Esteves, a professor at the University of Lille. “A substantial minority among them were telling me straight away in interviews: ‘You know my name is Mohammed but I’m not Muslim. I drink alcohol, I party, but I have the wrong face, the wrong name. My CV, it doesn’t work on the French job market.’”

… or this: Stellan Skarsgård on Sweden and ‘silly’ Scandi noir

Stellan Skarsgård spoke with Zoe Williams about his latest film, What Remains, which was written by his wife, Megan Everett-Skarsgård, and stars one of his four acting sons, Gustaf. “I don’t usually mix my private life with my professional life,” he said. “You can get very tied up and eventually it starts conflicts that you can’t handle. But I couldn’t say no to working with that dark material, and with Gustaf.”

Climate check: The cleanup costs of Colorado’s oil and gas wells

A report has found that thousands of oil and gas wells across Colorado cannot generate enough revenue to cover their own cleanup cost. More than half the state’s oil and gas wells will generate, at most, $1bn in revenue and it will cost $4bn to $5bn to decommission those sites responsibly. Without quick action by state officials, Colorado taxpayers may be on the hook to foot the remaining $3bn.

Last Thing: The 82-year-old ‘sword granny’ of India

In the southern Indian state of Kerala, Meenakshi Raghavan is known as “Sword Granny”. The 82-year-old runs a school teaching students the precise movements of kalaripayattu, India’s oldest martial art, in which sword fighting is essential. The majority of her more than 200 students are girls seeking the same physical prowess and empowerment that she sought in the craft when she began practicing at the age of seven.

“When young girls and women look at me, they feel inspired that if I can do such a thing at this age, so can they at their age,” Raghavan said.

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