The authorities in Britain were bracing for more potential unrest on Wednesday after days of violent rioting spurred by disinformation around a deadly stabbing rampage.
Protests over the weekend devolved into violence in more than a dozen towns and cities, and with messages on social media calling for wider protests and counterprotests on Wednesday, the British authorities were on high alert.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet held emergency meetings to discuss what has become the first crisis of his recently elected government, and thousands of police officers fanned out across the country.
Here’s what we know as the country girds for more potential violence.
Where has the unrest taken place?
Protesters over the weekend took to the streets of a dozen cities across Britain, most of them in England. Trouble broke out from Aldershot in the south to Sunderland in the north and Liverpool in the west. Belfast, in Northern Ireland, was also drawn into the fray.
In some cases, the protesters were merely unruly, but in others the violence was far more pronounced.