Pressure is mounting on the UK government to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s, after a decisive vote in House of Lords in favour of Australian-style restrictions. Peers backed a Tory-led amendment to the children's wellbeing and schools bill by 261 votes to 150, despite the government opposing the move. Ministers are already considering a ban as part of a consultation due to report by the summer and so the Lords amendment is unlikely to pass in the Commons.
The academic and political activist discusses what he sees as a moral collapse in the US and a leadership crisis in the Democratic Party. In this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, American philosopher and activist Cornel West delivers a searing critique of the United States, describing what he sees as moral collapse, democratic decay and spiritual bankruptcy. Drawing on the Black freedom struggle and his own run in the 2024 presidential election,
A flag is certain the wind admires it -the breeze flaunting it so its crowns, leaves, crosses, bands of colour, or stars float in air, ready to be honoured, deferred to. In turn the flag at times pats the wind streaming past, confirming they stand together, believing the wind thinks of itself as Tunisian wind orAmerican wind. To people who live under the flag open in its glory, or relaxed against
The year we are leaving behind has been plagued from the start by a series of social, economic, environmental, technological and institutional challenges, all happening with such speed and intensity that we are yet to fully comprehend their impact on our lives, let alone on future generations. As the overwhelming strain of domestic and geopolitical changes continues to build up, I cannot help but remember the man's words. Too much pressure. Unstable, uncertain and replete with deep inequalities.
After a tumultuous year marked by President Donald Trump's return to the White House and his swing towards tariffs and protectionism, recent growth has outpaced the expectations of most analysts. In a speech this month, Trump hailed his economic record, insisting that the US was on the cusp of an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen.
Life expectancy is high; if you retire at 65, you're going to need to fund potentially decades of living expenses. A great many people underestimate how much they need to accumulate in a 401(k) or an IRA to fund a retirement of that length. People also tend to have smaller families and fewer people to rely on. But there's also a challenge that comes from the complexity of the financial system itself.
"The Larry Summers era is over," Politico proclaimed, after the House Oversight Committee released correspondence from Jeffrey Epstein's estate attributed to the veteran Harvard economist Lawrence Summers. That framing seemed a bit over the top. It is true, though, that, in the thirty-plus years that I've been writing about the economy and economic policy, Summers has been pretty much a constant presence.
This article was a wonderful reminder of how much we really do need and how having a lot more cargo and cash doesn't give our lives meaning. At this fraught time, this identity crisis our country is going through, I wish for us all to be grateful for what we have and find a way for everyone in our country to have enough to feel safe, sheltered, nourished and maybe even happy.
And I'm not just talking about random life events, like winning the lottery, I'm thinking about luck in the broader sense of the circumstances into which each of us is born. It took me a while to realise that my journey through life has been eased by several tailwinds. I have had the incredible luck of being born in the UK, in a peaceful period of history.
I wasn't sure quite what to make of him he seemed a nice guy. I maybe thought his views were going to be stronger than they turned out to be. Look, we've got ourselves here a reformed Tory, and myself rather more to the left. But we both disaffected with where politics has gone in this country. We both recognise that the biggest problem we've got is this massive inequality, and neither of us think the parties we used to be aligned with are addressing it.
Democrats enabled Donald Trump to become president twice because of repetition compulsions that still propel the party's leaders undermining the party's potential to end the real-life nightmare of Maga control over the federal government. Scrutinizing how this century's Democratic leaders set the stage for Trump's electoral triumphs is crucial not only for clarity about the past. It also makes possible a vital focus on how such failures can be avoided in the future.
"[That] leads to hubris among the winners, leads them to inhale too deeply of their own success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way, to forget their indebtedness to those who made their achievements possible," Sandel said during a lecture last Thursday at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. "And it leads to humiliation to those left behind, those less fortunate than themselves."
While it is correct that everyone will feel the effects of climate change, the extent to which it impacts people differs-people's access to information and knowledge, for example, is one of the most important differentiating factors. During the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year, a UCLA study showed that affected communities with limited English proficiency suffered specific challenges as a result of not being able to understand alerts and information shared.
Growing up in a remote Nepalese village, brothers Mausam Kulung and Praveen Kulung shared a dream to build a better life for themselves and their family. Sons of a farmer, the brothers grew up in poverty. Jobs were almost non-existent, and for generations, villagers had little choice but to migrate abroad in search of work. Their village had no proper schools while they were growing up, and no reliable public infrastructure.
Jess, a 35-year-old hospital neurologist, had joined protesters attempting to stop traffic in order to show her anger at the French government. Inequality is rife in France and this is the only way to be heard, she said. Pushed back with teargas by riot police, Jess, who asked for her real name not to be published said she was scared by police tactics, but felt it was crucial to be on the streets.
My biggest worry, just like many other parents, would be the uncertainty that the world brings when you're not there, said Christopher Cuzul, a sales manager at O'Reilly Auto Parts in Bakersfield, California. His five-year-old, Christopher Jr, is starting kindergarten this year. You know your child more than anyone else. Not everyone understands how they act or what they need, Cuzul said.
"I've been raped more times than I've had consensual sex in the last year," said a homeless woman named Rebecca. "I've been outside in the cold and had some guy offer me shelter, and the next thing I know, I wake up, and he's rapin."
