41 m. ago Survivors of 2022 July Fourth parade mass shooting to address gunman before his sentencing

Survivors and relatives of people killed in a 2022 mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago are set to address the gunman at his sentencing hearing

Events

48 m. ago Man Utd news: Ruben Amorim picks top striker transfer target with six sales planned

Manchester United have one eye on the summer transfer window when Ruben Amorim will be hoping to be furnished with a new set of players following a chastening first campaign

Events

2 d. ago Trump’s political bullying of Harvard will do nothing to foster diversity of thought | Kenan Malik

Substituting liberal biases with conservative will only serve to subvert academic objectivityFew people want to live in an echo chamber. Many have no problem being friends with those who vote differently to the way they do. And many would probably agree with John Stuart Mill that “he who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that” – that to truly know one’s own argument, one must also know the arguments of those who disagree.How to create a culture that encourages more fruitful engagement between those of differing political views has become a key question in contemporary public debate. Nowhere more so than in universities, where there has been much debate about “viewpoint diversity”, the aspiration to nurture differing and conflicting perspectives within an institution or group as a means of sharpening arguments and teasing out truths. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Denied, detained, deported: the people at the heart of Trump’s immigration crackdown

The White House is targeting people seen as opponents of its agenda – here are some of the most high-profile casesDonald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. The administration has set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting asylum seekers and refugees while conducting raids in undocumented communities and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multi-pronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Denied, detained, deported: the people ensnared in Trump’s immigration crackdown

The White House is targeting people seen as opponents of its agenda – here are some of the most high-profile casesDonald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage “the largest deportation operation in American history”. The administration has set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting asylum seekers and refugees while conducting raids in undocumented communities and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multi-pronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president’s ideological agenda. This assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago 'I live in Benidorm and have one big warning to anyone watching football in bars'

A Benidorm expert has issued a warning for anyone visiting the popular Spanish holiday resort this summer, as pickpockets are said to be targeting tourists in sports bars

Events

9 d. ago The identity politics of many Muslims, and critics of Islam, are deeply corrosive | Kenan Malik

Condemning them as ‘sectarian’ is only adding to the clamour that they have no place in the westA poll suggests that most British Muslims identify more with their faith than with their nation. The head of the Saudi-backed Muslim World League counsels British Muslims to talk less about Gaza and more about domestic issues. Labour MP Tahir Ali is criticised for campaigning for a new airport in Mirpur in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir; he claims the criticisms have led to “Islamophobic” attacks. After push-back, the BBC changes a headline describing converts to Islam as “reverts”, a term some Muslims use to suggest that Islam is the natural state of humankind.Just a taster of debates about British Muslims over the past week. At the heart of each of these controversies is the question of how Muslims should relate to western societies, and western societies relate to them. For some, the answer is easy. On the one side, many claim Islam to be incompatible with western values and that allowing...

Politics

2 w. ago Trump is targeting US universities as never before. Here are four ways to help them | Cas Mudde

Supporters in Europe can offer new opportunities and minimise the isolation. Certainly they can avoid making things worseUniversities in the US are under attack. While the Trump administration pretends to punish them for their alleged compliance with or support for “antisemitism” (ie pro-Gaza demonstrations) and “anti-white racism” (ie diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives), the real targets are academic freedom and freedom of speech. Going after the most prominent and privileged universities, such as Columbia and Harvard, kills two birds with one stone: it garners prime media attention and spreads fear among other, far less privileged universities.The rest of the world has taken note and has started to respond, though mostly without knowing much about the specifics of US academia and without asking US-based academics what they need. Obviously, different academics face different challenges – depending on, for example, their gender and race, legal status, the state they live in...

Politics

2 w. ago The white working class is nothing like what politicians think – or claim – it is | Kenan Malik

A new book, Underdogs, demolishes the myth that it is homogeneous in its hostility to immigration‘Many of those who act as the champions of the white person against immigrants,” Labour MP David Winnick told the House of Commons in 1968, “have not in the past gone out of their way to defend the interests of the white working class.”It was the first time anyone had referred to the “white working class” in parliament to describe a segment of the British population. Half a century on, that segment has become the focus of one of the most contentious and polarising of debates. For many on the right, the white working class constitutes a distinct group, both their distinctiveness and their problems, stemming largely from their whiteness. Many on the left have, Joel Budd notes, “fallen silent on the subject”, nervous of racialising issues of class. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Brits warned to avoid popular holiday destination 'like the plague' due to scam

Tourists are often targeted by scammers and pickpockets as they are typically less aware of their surroundings. Certain travel hotspots are notorious for it

Events

3 w. ago Why Trump’s brutal crackdown on free speech is unprecedented in the US

Experts says rounding up protesters and taking control from universities goes beyond McCarthy’s witch-huntsDonald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would crack down against pro-Palestinian student protesters.Over the past few weeks, he has forcefully followed through. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ Joe McCarthy and the road to Trump

Red Scare author Clay Risen sees parallels between 1950s witch-hunts and the right’s assault on government todayOn 9 June 1954, in a Senate hearing room on Capitol Hill, Joseph Nye Welch made American history. With one question, the lawyer prompted the downfall of Joe McCarthy, the Republican Wisconsin senator who for years had run amok, his persecution of supposed communist subversives ruining countless lives.“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness,” Welch said, as millions watched on TV, as he defended Fred Fisher, a young lawyer in McCarthy’s sights. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Just like McCarthy, Trump spreads fear everywhere before picking off his targets | Kenan Malik

Arrests, blacklists and deportations are chilling reminders of the red scare that transformed America‘Gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that goes into the finding and getting of it.” It’s a line spoken by Walter Huston in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a story about greed and moral corruption directed by his son, John Huston. That line was to have appeared on screen at the beginning of the film. It didn’t, on orders from the studio, Warner Bros. “It was all on account of the word ‘labor’,” John Huston later reflected. “That word looks dangerous in print, I guess.”It was a relatively insignificant moment in the drama of America’s postwar red scare. McCarthyism proper had still to take flight. Yet, so deep ran the fear already that a single, everyday word could create consternation in Hollywood. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Protest at Scots Tesla Centre as anger over Elon Musk sparks boycott calls

Activists joined picketers from across the globe in targeting Elon Musk's Tesla Centres.

Events

3 w. ago Human rights groups rebuke Kristi Noem’s visit to El Salvador prison: ‘political theatre’

Homeland security chief went to infamous prison holding deported Venezuelans as White House targets immigrantsUS politics live – latest updatesHuman rights organizations on Thursday denounced the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem’s, visit to the notorious prison in El Salvador that is holding hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the US earlier this month without a hearing, calling her actions “political theatre”.Critics condemned Noem’s visit as just the latest example of the Trump administration’s aim to spread fear among immigrant communities, as the cabinet member stood in a baseball hat in front of a line of caged men bare from the waist up. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Human rights groups rebuke Kristi Noem’s visit to El Salvador prison: ‘political theater’

Homeland security chief went to infamous prison holding deported Venezuelans as White House targets immigrantsUS politics live – latest updatesHuman rights organizations on Thursday denounced the visit by the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to the notorious prison in El Salvador that is holding hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the US earlier this month without a hearing, calling her actions “political theater”.Critics condemned Noem’s visit as just the latest example of the Trump administration’s aim to spread fear among immigrant communities, as the cabinet member stood in a baseball hat in front of a line of caged men bare from the waist up. Continue reading...

Events