BBC's Arabic radio service in Lebanon closed after 85 years as part of a £28.5m savings drive. 'Just months later, in October 2023, the Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency took over the frequency. Its news bulletin opened with “This is Moscow”, replacing the previous “This is London” intro.' 🙄

The Rubio speech was not a detente. It was the JD Vance message delivered with velvet rather than boxing gloves (h/t @fbermingham.bsky.social) He signalled 0 actionable compromises to the EU other than implicitly asking Europe to close its borders / round up migrants (and then the US offers what?)

TV. They've just reinvented TV.

Here’s a niche question, Bluesky: can anyone recommend a good but not extensive biography of Willy Brandt? Is Life of a Statesman good or is there a better alternative?

Delighted to announce the launch of the New Politics Project at @ecfr.eu. Led by me in Berlin and Piotr Buras in Warsaw, it will 1) research how volatility, fragmentation & populism are reshaping European foreign policies, 2) build a resilient agenda for a stronger, autonomous Europe. ecfr.eu/npp

Here’s a niche question, Bluesky: can anyone recommend a good but not extensive biography of Willy Brandt? Is Life of a Statesman good or is there a better alternative?

“The scheme recouped more than its net cost of €72m through increases in arts-related expenditure… and reduced reliance on other welfare payments”. I prefer the French model of the statut d'intermittent, which supports the arts ecosystem more directly but… good! www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

It’s always great to be in Florence to learn from @eui-eu.bsky.social colleagues. Today, Max Weber Fellow Dr Anissa Bougrea gave an excellent seminar on the financialisation and geopolitisation of EU aid to Africa under the Global Gateway. Highly recommended research

If Bad Bunny can cover the history of Puerto Rico, colonialism, transatlantic slavery, hemispheric consciousness, as well as contemporary life and politics in under 14 minutes, you can do your 15- or 20-minute conference presentation with time to spare.

Cultural Trends is looking for new Editorial Board members. Interested in joining us? Apply by 2 March 2026.

Very good to see the EU at least think about previously unthinkable things. It's of course easy to see how this could get messy. How about a different way of doing it. Start with full but *temporary* membership, which converts into permanence if certain conditions are met within a deadline. /

António José Seguro becomes the next President of the Portuguese Republic with 66.8% of the votes against the far-right candidate. That’s a beautiful map if I’ve ever seen one. #Portugal

An opinion I pretty firmly hold is that everyone should make a song, paint a painting, act in something, and write a book even if all of those things end up being objectively terrible

You heard it here first, the Spanish aristocrats who despised Columbus were part of the “woke mob”

A study at U Mass Amherst finds that Elon Musk manipulated Twitter to bolster the voice of the Neo Nazi Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) before the German 2025 parliamentary elections. No surprises here. groups.cs.umass.edu/equate-ml/20...

3 million disgusting nudified images were produced by Grok in just 11 days. Existing safeguards don’t work; we need preventative measures for AI. My letter with other MPs to @lizforleicester.bsky.social.

A retiree wrote this email to a DHS attorney. Within five hours, DHS demanded Google turn over records for his account. A Kafkaesque form of domestic surveillance, intimidating Americans for lawful speech. New from us at the Post: www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio... @johnwoodrowcox.bsky.social

This is a harrowing look at Epstein's connections to academia. It shows how Epstein was able to woo high-profile scholars with witty banter, promises of research funding, and help from a well-connected literary agent, despite not having a degree himself. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Unfortunately, politico is too optimistic. Center-right pol leaders (including the PM) spent days legitimising the far-right candidate by refusing to choose. C-right figures (not parties!) are now endorsing the center-left candidate following pressure from voters. But the cordon sanitaire is over.

One of those days. Two big rejections. I hope the next email will be more positive. #AcademicLife

After Horizon and Erasmus+, it’s time for the UK to join Creative Europe. Do you agree? Are you a UK or EU citizen? Then sign this petition: openpetition.eu/!ukjoince This is the first step of a campaign co-led by the @forumukeu.bsky.social and the @europeanmovement.co.uk.

🇺🇸🤔 Epstein offered himself as a source of insights about Donald Trump for Russian officials. In the correspondence, Epstein admits that he had already spoken about Trump with former Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, who died in 2017.

I wonder if the New York Times will go after any of the prominent academics in the Epstein files for being rapists as hard as they went after Claudine Gay for being kind of sloppy with citations in her graduate thesis. If not, why not?

The director of Melania movie

Looking at the list of 19 new CBS News commentators, the median number of times they appear in the searchable Epstein database is 2 and the mean is 100

As a side note, it’s funny to see so many of these emails with thirsty academics repeatedly enact Marx’s bit in the 1844 Manuscripts about the power of money. “Oh Mr Epstein, your house in New York is enormous and, unrelatedly, your questions at dinner were so intelligent, so insightful, so deep.”

Common use of the word “censorship”conflates three distinct things: (a) factual claims ab suppressing speech; (b) legal claims ab U.S. law; (c) a normative claims ab free speech values. Elon slides between them interchangeably; the word becomes an escape hatch from accountability & chills others.

Elon Musk publicly slandering that cave diver as a "pedo guy" after he begged Jeffrey Epstein for island party invites is just incredible

STATEMENT FROM ABBE LOWELL, ATTORNEY FOR DON LEMON

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Long live comedians.

Danish PM Frederiksen: "Now we have to make sure that we will have no dependencies on other countries outside Europe, not only in energy but in everything."

Breaking news: Composer Philip Glass withdrew his highly anticipated Symphony No. 15 from its scheduled Kennedy Center performance, saying “the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony.”

UK cinemas being paid to play Amazon's pro-Trump propaganda film to near empty rooms www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

The European Parliament is keeping the EU–US trade deal on ice - at least for now. Seems sensible to me. Until it’s clear what the Greenland framework actually entails, and whether it credibly takes coercive US tariffs off the table, Europe would be unwise to put that leverage away.

France announced today it’s phasing out Teams, Zoom, etc. to be replaced with a French/European solution called Visio. The data is hosted on Outscale. Transcripts and subtitles are also handled by French providers. The target is set on 2027 for government agencies.

We are opening an investigation into Grok because we believe that X may have breached the DSA. We have seen antisemitic content, non-consensual deepfakes of women, and child sexual abuse material. In Europe, no company will make money by violating our fundamental rights. link.europa.eu/Fh8h84

🚨🚨Major and welcome news: @ec.europa.eu opened a fresh investigation today into Elon #Musk’s #X following an explosion of non-consensual sexualized deepfakes created by the artificial intelligence chatbot #Grok. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/eu-n...

Also part of the global diversification push by the EU - the Security and Defence Partnership that will be signed with India this week. Quite remarkable to see the EU flag flown at an Indian parade.

Also reflects Labour's continuing lack of clarity about what it wants relations with the EU for Hard to argue a case, when you don't have one

HEY MEDIA: I think when pro sports teams are holding memorials for the people the administration has declared terrorists, it’s safe to drop the “accounts differ” pretense and move on to “the administration attempts to smear the man it murdered”

It's easy to dismiss musicians and sportspeople condemning what is going on in Minneapolis and other American cities, but culture and entertainment are crucial channels by which anti-ICE and anti-Trump messages reach the 'average' voter who is not paying a lot of attention.

Really hard to look at this and all the other examples of bravery and kindness from ordinary people in this moment not think also of the tremendous cowardice exhibited over the past year by some of the richest, most well-protected people in business, media and politics

So which politician is calling for the dismantling of the probably illegal database that ice & this government is collecting biometric data of protesters?

Realists who advocate compromise w Ru always claim/assume that all Ru wants from Ukr is to control its foreign policy. As Ru keeps partitioning Ukr and working to absorb each chunk through genocidal Russification, the realists’ stubborn denial of Ru’s attempt to destroy Ukr nation discredits them.

Washpost foreign correspondents plead with Bezos to keep the overseas bureaus alive.

One of the few EU politicians so far to speak out

Mexico got the 1986 World Cup after Colombia, who had been originally awarded it, acknowledged it wasn’t able to safely host the tournament. Just saying.

It's getting harder to see how the United States gets out of this dangerous spiral. Another reason for European strategic autonomy. Still its governments will go on doing way too little, way too late.

What are we doing here Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless economist.com/united-state... from The Economist