“It’s impossible that Jason Arday could have got his post without DEI,” say people about an industry which can find 200 academics willing to sign a letter in support of David Miller and another 200 academics willing to support Nathan Cofnas.

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 6d ago

I'm sorry, but if you think Nathan Cofnas being suspended for being a racist is an 'academic freedom' issue you are the dumbest fucking mark alive.

Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/

This is going down as well as you might expect www.ft.com/content/93dc...

Do you want to hazard a guess at what this “jaw-dropping” list of freebies included? What luxuries asylum seekers might be being given “for free” in Thetford? Xboxes? Plasma TVs? iPhones? Ferraris? Let's take a look👀 🧵 1/22

This is wildly irresponsible of Google - allowing people to create AI generated satellite images. Satellite imagery has always been such a useful and reliable source because it came from reliable sources, but now Google is messing with it at source. www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-pla...

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

Woken at 4am by wildfire smoke filling the house. Southeast Wales, one of the UK's wettest regions, is shrouded in smoke today. You can feel it in your lungs. The climate crisis is now.

I have such an expertly curated algorithm that I'm seeing posts from Mexican street food restaurants in the US and this is how they're advertising the game tomorrow night. "Good vibes"

A security researcher using Claude Opus 4.7 found the AI tool could independently code an exploit to hack into Front Gate Tickets, the ticketing platform for almost every major US music festival from Lollapalooza to Bonnaroo. He could then issue any tickets at will. www.wired.com/story/claude...

Claude Helped a Hacker Find a Way to Issue Tickets to Almost Every US Music Festival

A researcher found that using Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7, he could break into the website of Front Gate—used by every festival from Lollapalooza to Bonnaroo—and freely issue any ticket he chose.

wired.com

This is an incredible throw, not just for the distance, but also the accuracy

Carceral Abolition@carceralabolition.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The arm on NBA star Kelsey Plum, who throws a rolled-up jersey to her dad sitting in the upper bleachers. www.reddit.com/r/AbsoluteUn...

And the 'regeneration' money doesn't even touch the sides when you compare it to what was cut from councils under austerity.

Joost @almodozo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Everybody is saying "fuck 'm," but the "meh" response from locals seems entirely justified. Why would they suddenly change their mind when a lot of that regeneration money has focused on window dressing that didn't impact their primary cost of living concerns, in impossible to evaluate schemes?

I am going to log off because I am so disappointed that a number of Americans who I thought would know better are so instent that we lack air conditioning in Europe because of a sense of moral superiority. We cannot consume our way out of this *currently*. There are legal and structural reasons.

i think people forget how quickly Elon Musk got to this point. in 2020, he wasn't even valued at $25 billion. still an astronomical number but nowhere near a trillion dollars.

Hundreds of strangers in Belfast working together. Doing shopping, providing accommodation, driving kids to school, people to hospital appointments. Have just been told of a woman close to us who hasn't left her house since Monday so we'll be sorting her out today and getting her anything she needs

Alongside the ongoing oppression of Muslim and indigenous groups in Xinjiang and Tibet, China has been investing heavily in the economy - building massive energy and transport infrastructure, high tech factories and tourism. Part 2 of our Western China series: as.ft.com/r/cd1f62af-4...

Xi’s last frontier: China’s plan to transform its west

A vast development drive aims to tap the region’s economic potential and extend Beijing’s control

ig.ft.com

If you're looking for a long read this weekend, we've just published an investigation into the detention network in Xinjiang, which we discovered has the largest detention capacity in the world relative to its population.

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 3mo ago

How China is breaking apart a people and its culture ft.trib.al/1cvmuMI

UK Members of Parliament Ian Duncan Smith and Alex Sobel put out this statement in response to our Xinjiang story, describing the extensive prison network in the region and campaign of forced assimilation that is taking place there.

NEW: Xinjiang has the highest detention capacity in the world, according to FT analysis - enough space for almost 1 in 40 people in the region - more than five years after the Chinese govt announced the camps had closed.

NEW: China's campaign of oppression in Xinjiang has entered a pernicious new phase - and FT analysis shows that the region still has the highest detention capacity in the world, relative to its population. as.ft.com/r/a4b72955-5...

How China is breaking apart a people and its culture

The campaign of repression against the Uyghurs has entered a new phase

as.ft.com

NEW: Xinjiang has the highest detention capacity in the world, according to FT analysis - enough space for almost 1 in 40 people in the region - more than five years after the Chinese govt announced the camps had closed.

Well as @polphilpod.bsky.social laid out, this is clearly not actually the view or the policy of the Labour Party. The entire UK establishment seems to have agreed that trans people should be excluded from society, as should anyone who supports their rights. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-end-of-t...

The End of Trans Rights in the UK Is the Start of Democratic Collapse

It's never just one minority.

liberalcurrents.com

Sarah Owen MP@sarahowen.org.uk · 3mo ago

All of us deserve to be able to live with dignity and be treated with respect. (7/7)

That these racist thugs have morphed into "far right influencers" is central. Being a bigot used to be a hobby. It is now a profession. We don't have to treat the monetisation of hate as an inevitable phenomenon. We can regulate platforms - not to supress speech, but to remove financial incentives.

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Efforts to deplatform Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson have backfired. Backed by rich American donors and the Kremlin, the far-right influencer with a long criminal record for which he has repeatedly done time offers a distorted vision of Britain has gone global.

Thread on Farage/Reform antisemitism (actually this is just SOME of the counts against them — it would break Bluesky to actually list it all) bsky.app/profile/sund...

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The antisemitic holocaust denying Reform candidate in West Bootl too was elected by 16 votes. Reform said on April 25th it "was looking into" the comments but did not act. It is likely suspending this candidate + communicating would have changed the outcome modgov.sefton.gov.uk/mgElectionAr...

Important to note that the rally organisers didn’t invite the one Jewish leader of a political party that has been growing in support, but did invite Farage because Reform “is a serious party”

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Completely unacceptable from the Board of Deputies. This nakedly partisan hypocrisy does not represent me or many other British Jews. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

The Newcastle Results!!! Absolute madness, a three way split between Lib Dems, Green and Reform. Labour have utterly cratered, they've lost 32 seats. new.newcastle.gov.uk/election/new...

French police are forcibly separating asylum seeking families as they try to board small boats. On Saturday, this resulted in a 3-year-old crossing the Channel alone, his mother left behind. Full thread and story below: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

French police separate migrant children from their mothers on Dunkirk beach

Chaos on Malo-les-Bain as officers split families trying to climb into dinghies bound for England

thetimes.com

Emma Yeomans@yeomans.bsky.social · 4mo ago

In Dunkirk we witnessed French police grab and hold an Eritrean woman's children to stop her boarding a small boat. She already had two children and a husband on board. Another woman was held by police while her 3-year-old was on board alone - the boat left with an unaccompanied toddler. Footage:

Forgot to post this on Fri, in case anyone wants some Sunday reading as.ft.com/r/9d1a0148-f...

Reform UK ran a council for a year. Things went badly

In Staffordshire, Nigel Farage’s party has been hit by resignations, racism allegations and the need to put up taxes

as.ft.com

‘I’m fighting two wars. One against the Russians. And one inside myself.’ Ukraine is reshaping warfare through its use of drones. Yet human operators remain at the controls. For @ftweekend.com, I profiled one Ukrainian FPV drone pilot to examine the personal costs. www.ft.com/content/95f5...

Great profile of Chinese dissident Teacher Li @whyyoutouzhele who chronicles the hidden parts of daily life in China, having Lunch with the FT at McDonalds in Tokyo www.ft.com/content/2574...

Chinese dissident Li Ying: ‘Our work is about being ready for the tipping point’

The activist known as Teacher Li on the dangerous work of cataloguing everyday life in China — and why he wants to change the CCP, not destroy it

ft.com