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Politics
Policy, power, and the news of the day.
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‘Dialogue is all the rage’: why is the right pouring millions into ‘civil discourse’ initiatives on US campuses?
Universities looking for a fix to relentless controversy are flocking to ‘civility’ initiatives. Critics say these efforts mask a darker project US college campuses have long been associated with the country’s fraying social fabric. Beset by so-called “cancel culture”, mass protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, and mounting conflicts over free speech, a notion has taken hold that colleges and universities represent a convergence of the country’s broader ills. To meet what’s been widely described as a “polarization” crisis, a veritable industry has emerged, booming since 7 October 2023 and the protests that followed. Dozens of organizations have cropped up promising to foster “civic discourse”, “dialogue across difference” and “viewpoint diversity”. Together, they make up a fast-growing ecosystem that has ballooned, by some estimates, into a $200m a year business some skeptics have billed the “civility industrial complex”. Continue reading...
Good-faith lawsuit? LDS church in fight with podcaster over Mormon name
Church sues excommunicated member over Mormon Stories podcast but John Dehlin says name free for all to use Trademark changes and copyright infringement disputes take many forms. Dunkin’ Donuts changed its name to Dunkin’ because Donuts did not suggest the vigorous, on-the-go attitude the coffee company wants to project. But what happens when a church changes its name, but former adherents continue to use the original term in ways it may not like? Continue reading...
Spirit airlines is dead and a bus travel boom looks likely – but will Greyhounds ever be cool again?
For most Americans, riding a bus means abandoning expectations of basic dignity – but with an increase in ridership, that could change “It’s a grueling experience,” Greyhound bus enthusiast Miles Taylor explains. “You’re not treated very well. Everyone is yelling at you the entire time. When the bus is late, they blame you for it, like somehow you’ve done something wrong. You just get screamed at for wanting to know what’s going on, because no one says anything.” Taylor is obsessed with public transit. “I never really grew out of my little boy train phase,” the 26-year-old said. He works as a scheduler for Boston’s MBTA and runs a popular YouTube account documenting the bus trips he takes for fun in his spare time. Taylor traveled across the country by Greyhound twice; a Boston to Seattle route took 104 hours. But even he admits that America’s bus system is far from luxurious – or even comfortable. Continue reading...
Labour should ‘be kind’, a Makerfield voter told me. So how about stopping the relentless closures of precious day centres? | John Harris
Countless spaces for adults with complex needs have been shut down. If Andy Burnham wants to fix social care, keeping them open must be a priority Wellington House is in north Brighton, and known to the people who frequent it as Welly. It has the austere look of an old Victorian school, but what goes on inside is all about care and empathy. The building is the home of the city’s last council-run day centre for adults with complex needs, autism and learning disabilities, 21 of whom are reckoned to be regular attenders. One of its “service users” has been going there for 40 years ; another has clocked up 24. Many of them know the staff as friends and confidants; for their carers, the time they spend at Wellington House represents precious respite. That is the human picture; the accompanying tale of budgets and bureaucracy is altogether harder and colder. After five other council day-centre closures in the city over the past 20 years, Welly may well be on its way to the same fate. Brighton and Hove city council says its proposed shutdown will save £400,000 a year, and it will ensure that everyone’s “individual needs” are met elsewhere, thanks to schemes and services provided through what it calls “the independent sector market”. John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Lucy Powell appears to endorse Ed Miliband as Andy Burnham’s chancellor
Labour deputy leader says she thinks energy secretary would be good in Treasury but ‘tittle-tattle’ over cabinet posts is ‘unedifying’ Ed Miliband would make a “good” chancellor to Andy Burnham, Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said, ahead of the likely next prime minister’s first major speech on the economy since he returned to Westminster. Powell, who served as Miliband’s chief of staff in opposition and is close to the former party leader, appeared to endorse him to run the Treasury – although some in Burnham’s camp acknowledge such a move could be politically risky. Continue reading...
Temperature records tumble across Europe as heatwave moves east
More than 191m people in Europe face temperatures over 35C, with extreme heat warnings from Germany to Hungary ‘A sad inevitability’: after decades of climate warnings, why is Europe so unprepared for rising heat? Poland, Czechia and Slovakia are braced for record temperatures of over 40C as a heatwave linked to hundreds of deaths in western Europe spreads east. More than 191 million people in Europe faced temperatures of at least 35C on Sunday, with extreme heat warnings in Germany, Czechia, Poland and Hungary. Continue reading...
Ed Miliband as chancellor would benefit every part of the UK – and the bond markets | Josh Ryan-Collins
If Andy Burnham chooses the energy secretary, Labour could fully use the benefits of net zero to promote growth and jobs It should have been a great week for Ed Miliband and his mission to decarbonise the UK economy. Western Europe has experienced one of its worst ever heatwaves , providing powerful evidence of the need to transition away from fossil-fuel-driven energy production to reduce the carbon emissions that are contributing to global warming. Instead, however, he has been attacked by an unholy alliance of trade unions and leading City figures , apparently determined to prevent him becoming chancellor in the cabinet of the presumptive new prime minister, Andy Burnham. Josh Ryan-Collins is professor of economics and finance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Continue reading...
When it comes to taxing the super rich, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel
Any new tax on the rich won’t raise much money unless many of the exceptions and loopholes are dealt with In this new era of rampaging oligarchs, nothing may seem as satisfying as slapping a tax on Elon Musk ’s new trillion-dollar fortune. What most bothers Americans about federal taxes is that billionaires don’t pay their fair share . As the race to develop artificial intelligence mints more billionaires, policymakers’ temptation to directly tax their brobdingnagian wealth is becoming unbearable. The first state out of the blocks is California , where voters in November will decide whether to impose a one-time tax of 5% on fortunes worth more than $1bn. Given the ease with which plutocrats avoid paying income taxes , the case for this sort of direct tax on their stash appears unassailable. Continue reading...
The curious case of the cremation urn left at Newbury racecourse
Urn with loving message to a person named as Gary Bonsor to be buried in local churchyard after efforts to find family draw a blank It is a puzzling story with a still unsolved mystery at its heart: just who is the individual whose cremated remains were left on the counter of a burger van at Newbury racecourse? And why – despite the cremation urn being labelled with a name and a message that hints at a loving family – has no one come forward to claim it? Continue reading...
‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears
The National Design Studio, staffed by Doge veterans, installed visitor-tracking software on vital federal websites An opaque White House office staffed largely by veterans of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has quietly rebuilt some of the federal government’s most sensitive websites – for passport applications, voter registration, prescription-drug pricing and children’s savings – in ways critics say appear to violate federal law. The National Design Studio (NDS) was established by a Donald Trump executive order last August, and is led by Trump-aligned Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and staffed by Doge veterans. Continue reading...
‘Kids are participants in the work of justice’: how US children are being folded into activism
Children-centered organizing is on the rise in New York as families navigate ICE in neighborhoods, the Iran war and climate crisis On a recent Sunday morning at Judson Memorial Church in New York, seven-year-old Nova stood in the middle of the congregation and read from the children’s book We Are the Builders. “Raise our voices, banners and beats. Meet and march out in the streets,” she told the dozens of congregants, many old enough to be her grandparents, as the summer sun poured through the stained-glass windows. “Who wants to join the disrupters?” Continue reading...
‘British food will disappear’: trade deal after Brexit is hitting UK farmers hard
Home-grown food may become a niche product for wealthy in our supermarkets as British farmers’ incomes plummet For Liz Webster, who farms 647 hectares (1600 acres) in Wiltshire, south west England, the latest impact of Brexit has been particularly brutal. About £400 per animal has been wiped off the price she can get for her beef cattle, a hefty blow at a time when all the inputs – feed, energy, fertiliser – are going through the roof. The fall in price, on livestock that typically fetch £2,000 to £3,000 per animal, is the result of a flood of cheaper meat arriving from Australia, the result of one of the new trade deals the government has signed since the UK left the European Union. Prices for beef in the supermarkets have remained broadly the same, but farmers have seen their income plummet. Continue reading...
US releases footage it says shows strikes on Iran – video
The US military has released footage purportedly of strikes on 27 June after it said it struck Iran, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz. It is the worst escalation since the two sides signed an interim peace deal two weeks ago Continue reading...
Ronald Reagan to JD Vance: minimizing Watergate is a Republican tradition | Rick Perlstein
On the American right, there is an unbroken lineage of Watergate propaganda going back to the 70s from today When JD Vance spoke at the Richard M Nixon presidential library last week about his new book on his journey from atheism to an allegedly devout Catholicism, he raised eyebrows by minimizing Watergate . “The idea that it [took] down a presidency is crazy,” he said. He said it was the “deep state that took down Richard Nixon ”– not the 37th president’s implication in serious crimes. Commentators were shocked. Did the vice-president not know that the investigation proved Nixon directed a conspiracy to bribe the men who broke into the Democratic party headquarters to lie in court from a secret, illegal slush fund? Continue reading...
Anti-ICE organizers shift focus to defend democracy from Trump assault
Citizens in Minnesota using lessons learned from migrant crackdown to protect elections from president’s threats When thousands of immigration agents flooded Minnesota earlier this year, a loose network of neighbors sprang into action. They fed each other. They got kids to and from school safely. They tracked the surge that tore through their communities. After organizing, block by block, to monitor Donald Trump’s extraordinary crackdown on their state, the same neighbors are shifting their focus to a different threat. What if the US president tries to steal an election? Continue reading...
‘Tech firms are losing the public’: social media age bans near tipping point
UK is latest country to set minimum age for social media access but big tech is fighting back globally against curbs Social media bans go global: big tech faces a reckoning after Australia’s crackdown Arturo Béjar, a former employee turned whistleblower at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, has talked to parents around the world. He says they share the same perspective: they dread the day their children are old enough to go online. Governments appear to be listening too. This month the UK became the latest country to state that it would set a minimum age of 16 for accessing major social media platforms. Social media bans are becoming a legislative trend after the precedent set by Australia last year, when it imposed an age limit on platforms including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Elon Musk’s X, TikTok and Snapchat. Continue reading...
Rising cost of insuring against climate crisis will have wider knock-on effects for UK economy | Heather Stewart
As extreme weather events become more common, economists say government will need to take more active role to protect consumers Anyone attempting to notch up a productive day’s work in the searing heat of southern England this last week was left in little doubt about the impact of extreme weather . But the economic effects of the climate crisis for the UK are not confined to the many hours lost to quietly perspiring – or fetching kids dismissed early from scorching classrooms. Continue reading...
Venezuelan earthquakes test Trump’s new western hemisphere policy after gutting of USAID
Marco Rubio is scrambling to provide effective disaster response to country whose president US deposed in January This week’s dual earthquakes in Venezuela are a test for the new era of American power in the western hemisphere, as the Trump administration scrambles to provide an effective disaster response mission to a country that it now calls an ally in Latin America, after a US special forces raid in January deposed the country’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro. The US is marshalling what secretary of state Marco Rubio called a “big, fast, effective” and “whole-of-government” response as the state department sent three specialised urban search and rescue teams and pledged a $150m assistance fund that one former disaster relief expert called the largest he had seen within 24 hours of an incident. Continue reading...
Australian man charged with murder in Thailand after teenage girl’s body found in suitcase
Simon Peter Carman, 46, has denied the charges against him Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast An Australian man has been charged with the murder of a teenage girl whose naked body was found in a suitcase in Thailand. Pattaya City police told the Guardian the man, identified as Simon Peter Carman, 46, has denied the charges against him. Continue reading...
Prince Harry may cancel UK family visit after being refused police protection
Sussexes trip to Britain in balance after government declines request for taxpayer-funded security The Duke of Sussex is understood to be reconsidering plans to bring his wife and children to the UK next month after his request for taxpayer-funded police protection was rejected. Prince Harry and Meghan were planning their first trip to Britain as a family in four years for events related to the Invictus Games, due to be held in Birmingham in July. Continue reading...
Democratic socialists are winning in US cities with message of getting stuff done
Mayors such as New York’s Zohran Mamdani show leftwing ideology can go hand-in-hand with effective governance A trio of Democratic socialist victories in mayoral contests in three of the largest cities in the US has unleashed a new wave of hope on the left of the party. Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson took office in New York and Seattle, respectively, this year. Janeese Lewis George is set to follow in Washington DC . As momentum around leftwing candidates appears to build, focus will turn to Los Angeles over the coming months, where another member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will attempt to continue this winning streak. Continue reading...
Two prime ministerial resignations, 10 years apart: ‘Brexit represents a kind of faultline in British history’
Keir Starmer’s announcement on Monday was the latest convulsion since the Brexit vote. This week, as we marked 10 years since the referendum, our former national news editor Dan Sabbagh looked back to the start of Britain’s ongoing political chaos Our political sketch writer John Crace has dubbed it the “ podium of doom ”. Just before a British prime minister steps out of 10 Downing Street to announce their resignation, a lone lectern takes centre stage and casts an ominous shadow across the ground. This week’s resignation of Keir Starmer was the seventh such lectern moment in a decade. The first and longest of these shadows was cast 10 years ago this week, when David Cameron resigned after the UK voted to leave the EU. Before then, departing prime ministers mostly made do with a basic mic stand. Before then, prime ministers generally didn’t depart after mere months in the job. Continue reading...
Donald Trump threatens to annihilate Iran after crossfire over Hormuz – Middle East crisis live
Iran attacked Bahrain and Kuwait after US strikes, and threatened a ‘complete halt’ to talks US and Iran trade strikes as both sides accuse the other of endangering ceasefire Welcome to our live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East. Earlier this morning, Iran has said it launched a joint missile and drone operation targeting eight US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain . This comes after the US launched further strikes on multiple targets in Iran, a day after it struck Iran in retaliation for a drone attack on a cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz. Ishaq Dar , Pakistani foreign minister, has reportedly held talks with his Bahraini counterpart, Abdulatif bin Rashid Al Zayani , over the phone to discuss the evolving regional crisis. This comes after Bahrain said it had intercepted a number of missiles and drones from Iran. Several Iraqi political officials were arrested early Sunday on corruption charges, Iraq’s state-run Iraqi news agency reported. It said the arrests were based on statement made by former deputy minister of oil Adnan al-Jumaili , who was arrested last month, and “included members of parliament whose immunity had been lifted.” Israeli soldiers have shot and wounded a Palestinian in the Qalandiya refugee camp – north of occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli forces also detained two people and raided homes, according to Wafa news agency. Continue reading...
‘I loved it’: Jaron Ennis says hostile crowd fueled biggest win of career
Ennis shrugs off scare and eyes undisputed at 154lb New champion embraces hostile crowd after Zayas win Fighter says toughest test only sharpened ambition Jaron “Boots” Ennis left Barclays Center on Saturday night with the WBA and WBO super-welterweight titles, the signature win of his career and answers to questions that had dogged him for years. What would happen when he finally faced an elite opponent? What would happen when he was finally hurt? And could he do it in front of a hostile crowd? Continue reading...