Nathanial Sylvester, 31, appeared before a judge in Vancouver, Washington, on August 29 facing charges including assault and unlawful imprisonment. ^[1] The sheriff's office stated that the victim escaped by jumping from a second-story window and found refuge at a Goodwill store approximately a quarter mile away. ^[2] The Resolution Foundation thinktank said in a report titled 'Thin End of the Wedge' that Chancellor John Healey must raise taxes on middle earners to fund significantly higher defence spending, including a pledge to devote 3.5% of GDP to defence by 2035. ^[3] The victim reported that before escaping, Sylvester gave her 30 minutes to write goodbye letters to her family because he claimed he was planning to kill her. ^[4] The victim told first responders that she and Nathanial Sylvester had originally met to have sex and hang out before the situation turned violent. ^[5] The article reports that John Healey resigned from Keir Starmer's government in June 2025 over defence funding, and will present his first budget on 28 October 2025, needing to find approximately £1.4bn a year over the next three years to pay for Starmer's defence investment plan. ^[6] The Resolution Foundation reported that tax rises since Labour came to power in 2024 amount to £70bn a year, yet the UK's tax wedge-taxes on earnings minus benefits-remains low by international standards. ^[7] The Resolution Foundation's analysis found that tax rises under Chancellor Rachel Reeves increased the tax wedge by 2.4 percentage points in 2024, the largest jump for any OECD country, but at 32.4% for a single earner on average pay it remains below OECD and G7 averages. ^[8]