Crisis Group. 🗒️ NEW ANALYST’S NOTEBOOK | New Force to Battle Haiti’s Gangs Gets Security Council Blessing @fortid.crisisgroup.org assesses the UN vote to create a Gang Suppression Force and the challenges ahead as it seeks to restore security in Haiti

London Review Of Books. Goebbels gave him a back-handed compliment by writing that he had no complaint about the British correspondents in Berlin “since Mr Ebbutt of the Times has gone”.’ Patrick Cockburn on a journalist who saw the Nazi threat coming:

The Guardian. ‘It’s a collective validation’: the group helping Black families cope after baby loss. Those feelings reflect the reality for Black parents. In England and Wales, Black babies are stillborn at almost double the rate of white babies, www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...

Alan Lester. The @telegraphnews.bsky.social, @dailymail.co.uk and @thespectator1828.bsky.social have all promoted Nigel Biggar’s latest book as the definitive riposte to reparations claims. But what exactly are its arguments and how do they stand up to scrutiny?

Press Gazette. Ashley Allison, CNN commentator, is to buy The Root from G/O Media. The digital magazine, focused on Black culture and politics, is set to see investment in video content, new partnerships, and in-person experiences

Lots of people asking about the Government's prospects for recovering the £120m from Barrowman/Mone/their companies Short answer: I don't know. I'm not an insolvency specialist. No clue how the £120m was paid out to them from PPE Medpro So I have no technical answer But...

Thanks Dan. We at @spotlightcorruption.org think Director disqualification in this case could lead to compensation orders. These can be used against shadow directors and those who control a company. Be interested if anyone else who is an insolvency lawyer has other ideas.

1/ Donated to ProPublica recently? That means you’re a member. Join us for our next Inside the Big Story event, a virtual discussion on Oct. 15 about how immigration policies are being enforced and how our reporters are documenting the consequences. Check your email for the invite 📩

ICYMI. Tech Won't Save Us. Palantir is Thriving Under Trump. Caroline Haskins. Notes Paris Marx is joined by Caroline Haskins to discuss what Palantir actually does and the growing influence it has within the US government and many large corporations. techwontsave.us/episode/294_...

Spotlight On Corruption. Newsletter. This week we highlighted a very real risk to the UK’s status as a democracy. Our report calling for the government to restore the full independence of the Electoral Commission set out just how easy it would be for a future mailchi.mp/spotlightcor...

WIRED. The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession. Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since. www.wired.com/story/the-re...

Bradley Balko. Finally read this, and the reporting is as good as everyone says it is. It’s also terrifying, confounding, and deeply weird. The most powerful people in American politics right now — including the guy who has all our personal data — aren’t just evil, they’re absolutely bonkers.

game... youtu.be/9BtU1PSPkgI?...

The Guardian. Ghost of Yōtei review – a brutal and stunningly beautiful samurai revenge quest PlayStation 5; Sucker Punch/Sony. The follow-up to Ghost of Tsushima leans into its young protagonist’s thirst for bloody vengeance. www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...

University of London Press. We too are very excited for the publication of the latest #OpenAccess book in our #NewHistoricalPerspectives series, Atlantic Isles by @grod.bsky.social! Published with the @ihr.bsky.social and @royalhistsoc.org with funding from @jisc.bsky.social. Read more:

PS Quaterly. In this note, Senior Editor Stuart Whatley contextualizes the latest issue of our magazine, What Works? The decade since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals has not gone as hoped. Progress toward eliminating poverty, mailchi.mp/project-synd...

Social Europe. How to Get European Territories Future-Ready. The EU must abandon insularity and embrace global partnerships in futures governance to secure its place in a rapidly changing world. Roland Benedikter. www.socialeurope.eu/how-to-get-e...

Social Europe. Restoring Public-Sector Capacity Where It Counts. Cities face crises first. Investing in capable, adaptive local governments is essential for resilience, inclusion, and democracy. Mariana Mazzucato and Rainer Kattel. www.socialeurope.eu/restoring-pu...

The Atlantic. Pete Hegseth gathered generals from around the globe to unveil new physical-fitness standards in a speech that felt like a TED Talk. Nancy A. Youssef and Missy Ryan on how some officers took it:

WIRED. California-based Cognixion is launching a clinical trial to allow paralyzed patients with speech disorders the ability to communicate without an invasive brain implant. “No one has been able to put out a consumer device that matches the performance of an invasive device or even comes close,”

European Journal Of Cultural Studies. Space invading at the museum. Siobhán McGuirk. Nirmal Puwar’s ‘space invaders’ thesis has endured as both an analytical framework and as a tool for feminist organising. In the museum sector, it has been embraced by journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Jonas Fossli Gjersø. Our series of essays and commentary relating to the ongoing genocide in Palestine is free to read, share and download until tomorrow, 30 September 2025. The article examines the combined violence of settler colonialism in Israel and the US in two parts.

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Just published! Check out 'Between Paternal Power and Prerogative: The Reformatory Origins of Protection in the British Empire (1788–1888)' by Matilde Cazzola:

"chu rude bwoy shut up..!"

The Guardian + Photo Op..

scallywagery..abroad..?

patriotism at its finest: quite openly pleading for help from one's (evangelical) benefactors from the other side (of the atlantic..) "true grit..!"

Al Jazeera English. Battlefield and Madden NFL developer agrees to sell itself in a deal that would be largest leveraged buyout in history. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, an investment company run by the son-in-law of the United States president,

Project Syndicate. What Works? The decade since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals has not gone as hoped. Progress toward eliminating poverty, providing universal education, tackling climate change, and other targets remains disappointing. mailchi.mp/project-synd...

European Journal Of Cultural Studies. A plea for promiscuous creativity. Jeroen de Kloet. The promiscuity of creativity forces us to include other places, creativities and practices in the mix. We are bound to move beyond the comfort zone journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

A factor in this triumphant return is how platforms (Spotify) dissolve historical time, with the effect that a) nobody needs to remember that this was a band whose 'good' patch lasted circa 18 months and b) they provide the backdrop for inter-generational bonding

You can also see how well suited they are to the age of platforms, with meme-like visual 'icons' that hold their shape in a torrent of imagery, like emojis: the logo, that haircut, the bucket hats, the Adidas logo. Oasis 2025 is what an LLM might come up with if you fed it Oasis 1994-95.

You might turn around to the LLM and say "you've hallucinated the bucket hat: it was a Stone Roses/Spike Island thing, never an Oasis one at all", but you'd be missing the point

Bristol University Press. Why do #RacialInequalities persist, and in some cases deepen, in an era that claims to be ‘post-racial’? From the backlash against #BLM to the rise of far-right governments, ‘White Privilege’ by Kalwant Bhopal dismantles the illusion of racial progress.

Runnymede Trust. “The market education system is failing the most vulnerable children in society” Half a century on from the injustice of 'educationally subnormal' schools, similarly discriminatory practices continue to blight the lives of Black pupils today, writes Montel Gordon in our blog ✍️

Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. Our next #IdentitiesEvent is open for registration! 'From #Colonial Subjects to #Black Nations: Racializing the Caribbean within Global #Blackness' www.eventbrite.co.uk... @uofgsociology.bsky.social @uofgsps.bsky.social @uofgsocsci.bsky.social

The Guardian. Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon review – his first novel in 12 years tunes into rising fascism in the US. All things are connected; that doesn’t mean they add up. Pynchon’s livewire prose hops from subject to subject, joins the dots and makes patterns.

The Guardian. Germany’s anti-diversity backlash isn’t fatigue – it’s strategy masquerading as neutrality | Fatma Aydemir. The work builds itself in the everyday: four performers move in circles across an empty stage. It brings the so-called “pedestrian movement” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Guardian. YouTube agrees to pay Trump $24.5m to settle lawsuit over account suspension. Trump had filed the suit against YouTube and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, alleging that the platform had “accumulated an unprecedented concentration of power, www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The Atlantic. MAGA is embracing the kind of tactics it once deplored, Idrees Kahloon argues. "A culture of self-censorship is destructive. But prescribing state ideology as a cure is like treating a migraine with a lobotomy."

don't say: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

lookin up man u on yt..you get a cacophony of verticals & noise belonging to people, institutions, and "unknowns" from outside the club (all with rather odd looking red facial gestures) above and below a small 2inch banner of the (actual) club..clickbait..and further noise..and further clickbait..

LSE British Politics and Policy blog. 💡New! Why AI needs social science, by @helenmargetts.bsky.social and Cosmina Dorobantu of @lsedatascience.bsky.social. "If people are central to AI, the social sciences must play a key role in AI advancement."

Social Europe. Europe’s Digital Future Demands Public Ownership And Worker Control. European AI strategy must prioritise democratic governance over market solutions to protect citizens' data and workers' rights. Jan Willem Goudriaan and Diego Naranjo. www.socialeurope.eu/europes-digi...

Geese - Cobra. youtu.be/y3udPM2ehAo?...

Geese-Husbands. youtu.be/H2qb7k8SZLI?...

Nieman Lab. [chuckle chuckle.."what kinda news?"] One in five Americans say they regularly get news on TikTok, a dramatic uptick from just 3% in 2020. When the researchers focused only on adult TikTok users, they found that a greater proportion of the platform’s users turn to it regularly for news.

Council on Foreign Relations. Despite the president’s remarks criticizing global efforts to address climate change, other countries will pursue a clean energy transition or—like China—use the U.S. retreat to their advantage, writes Alice Hill.

ICYMI. Project Syndicate. Binaifer Nowrojee President of the Open Society Foundations “The opportunity is clear: With proactive investment, bold reforms, and fresh thinking, the green transition can drive industrial transformation, mailchi.mp/project-synd...

ICYMI. Project Syndicate. [a more american, less addictive and less competitive tik tok is good for all americans?] Look more closely, however, and the picture is less reassuring. After all, global investors already own roughly 60% of ByteDance, www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/t...