When I sustained my spinal cord injuries (SCI) 36 years ago, I felt very alone. With no internet or social media, I found it difficult to find people with similar injuries or even hear stories of those like me.

I Didn’t Plan on This

Thankfully, this is changing. To help those newly injured, the Spinal Injuries Association has launched a podcast series called I Didn’t Plan on This, with each episode focusing on different people and topics.

Each episode is packed with information and positive stories of how people with SCI managed to overcome barriers, and live lives they never thought they would be able to do when they were first injured. The current episode features Paralympian stars Hannah Cockroft and Nathan Maguire. It’s about sport, but also access.

The Spinal Injuries Association said:

This episode is part of a series we have launched to bring a wider understanding of the impact of spinal cord injury to the public who may have limited knowledge and experience of meeting anyone with a SCI.

It is also hoped that those who are newly injured and struggling to cope with the impact will discover this series and find some hope and a path to support as well as a new community that they thought might never be possible through connecting with Spinal Injuries Association.

As we’ve recently been watching the Winter Paralympics, this episode gives listeners a glimpse into para-sport, and the dedication and training it takes for high-level athletics. But also, how taking part in sport can be beneficial mentally, whether that is with a goal of the Olympics in mind or just to keep fit and meet others.

On this sport episode of the podcast, we are also taken behind the shiny medal ceremonies and red-carpet events, where there is another story. This story is about acceptance, access and equal treatment.

Superstars told to go round the back

For a moment, imagine that you are one of these para-athletes. You’ve not only had to deal with significant disabilities, like spinal injuries, but also the years of training for a new sport have finally paid off, and you have achieved a medal, maybe even a gold medal on the world stage. Just like the able-bodied athletes you are at a high-profile, red-carpet event to celebrate your achievements.

But as you wait in line, fizzing with anticipation, you are told the event isn’t fully wheelchair accessible. So, after being on the red carpet, you’ll have to access the venue via the kitchens. Just imagine how that feels.

This is what happened to Olympian Hannah Cockroft. In the podcast, Hannah reveals more, as she recounts this story and how she felt about it.

Her husband Nathan Maguire also told a story about being at an expensive hotel, but rather than checking in like any other visitor at the front, he was informed that the wheelchair access was through a door at the back of the hotel between the bins.

So, if being a high-profile medal winner, or staying at a costly hotel doesn’t guarantee equal treatment, how can we expect it for anyone else with a disability? That’s one of the questions this episode of the podcast poses.

Breaking stereotypes around spinal injuries

Despite these problems with access, what shines through is how Hannah and her husband have managed to break through the stereotypes of what people with disabilities can do and will show others that they can break through too.

The Spinal Injuries Association has said about this podcast series:

A spinal cord injury changes everything.

Through honest conversations and inspiring personal stories, this series shows what’s possible when determination meets the right support. You’ll hear from individuals who refused to let circumstance define them, proving that life after injury is still full of opportunity, connection and meaning.

All those years ago, when I was newly injured, this podcast would’ve been something that would’ve helped me. That’s because at that time I thought my options were limited and that I wouldn’t be able to do what I had planned for my life.

I also think it would’ve helped those caring for me. So, if you have a SCI or not, these podcasts are a good listen or watch and you can find them here:

I Didn’t Plan on This podcast on Spotify

Watch the podcast on YouTube

Featured image supplied via author

Over 99,000 social security claimants are currently waiting for their appeals against the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP) callous decisions to be heard. What’s more, the situation is only getting worse.

That’s according to the latest tribunal statistics from His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), released on 12 March. The figures relate to Q3 of 2025/26, from October to December last year. By custom, the publication presents its statistics in comparison to the same quarter of the previous year.

DWP spiralling caseload

HMCTS deals with a broad spectrum of claimants, including social security and child support, immigration and asylum, employment tribunals, gender recognition certificates, and several other functions.

Overall, the numbers were damning, with the open caseload growing, whilst the number of cases dealt with continued to fall. The publication stated that HMCTS:

recorded a 14% increase in the interim total for receipts, and a 4% decrease in the total for disposals, compared to the same quarter in 2024. Receipts have exceeded disposals over the last year, resulting in a 19% increase in open caseload to 831,000 at the end of December 2025.

Moreover, the situation is even more dire if we focus specifically on social security appeals are challenging DWP decisions:

Compared to the same period in 2024, Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) increased by 12% and disposals decreased by 26%. Open cases increased by 25%, as receipts have exceeded disposals over the last year.

Of the 22,000 disposals in Q3 2025/26, 66% were cleared at a hearing (compared to 60% in the same period in 2024/25) and of these, 58% had the initial decision revised in favour of the claimant (compared to 60% in the same period in 2024/25).

Left in limbo

More specifically, 99,000 social security claimants were waiting for their appeal hearing at the end of December 2025. That’s more than 25% higher than it was in the same period last year. Further, the number of people waiting in limbo has increased steadily since the middle of 2021/22, and is only set to continue.

Compared to last year, there’s been a 12% increase in appeals, bringing the total to 38,000. Meanwhile, the number that HMCTS has actually dealt with has actually decreased by 12% overall.

By far the greatest number of appeals related to Personal Independence Payments (PIP). In total, these reached an eye-watering 22,394 cases lodged.

To put that into perspective, Universal Credit claimants lodged 8,714 appeals over the same period. Meanwhile, 2,592 appeals related to Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and 882 appeals related to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

Successful appeals falling

However, whilst PIP appeals vastly outnumber the rest, the rate of appeals has increased fastest for DLA and Universal Credit. PIP cases only rose by 4%, whilst Universal Credit appeals increased by 35%, and DLA appeals shot up by 64%.

Likewise, as reported by Benefits and Work, more and more claimants are being forced to go to tribunal due to the DWP’s dodgy decisions. Meanwhile, fewer of those appeals are actually being won:

Of the 22,000 cases cleared in the quarter, 66% were cleared at a hearing compared to 60% in the preceding year. This means a higher proportion of claimants are having to go all the way to a tribunal rather than the DWP settling the case before it reaches a hearing.

58% of appeals were won by the claimant, a fall of 2% compared to the year before.

Breaking that down, the success rates of appeals for every aspect of social security have fallen. Success rates for ESA appeals dropped the most, by some 11%, followed by a 3% fall for PIP, 2% for DLA, and 1% for UC. However, PIP appeals were still the most likely to be successful, at around 64%.

Unfit for purpose

The numbers of appeals against DWP decisions are rising against the backdrop of a department that’s scrambling desperately to make cuts. Meanwhile, this right-wing posturing is endangering the vulnerable people these schemes were set up to help.

As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey previously wrote:

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the main reason the government is pushing ahead with PIP reform is that they don’t have the staff to process the claims they already have. As a recent report found, delays to PIP are endangering people’s lives. The same report revealed that the DWP planned to make the application process more online-focused and to give every claimant a case worker. But this only works if the DWP can actually find the staff.

Meanwhile, the amount of compensation payments the DWP has authorised has more than doubled since 2021. These ‘consolatory payments’ are issued when DWP screws up a claim so badly that people are left in deep distress.

The DWP is deeply unfit for purpose, and beyond it, the Tribunals Service is increasingly overwhelmed by the backlog of appeals against DWP decisions. Waiting times are out of control, and people’s lives are being put on hold – also so that successive UK governments can try desperately to look ‘tough on benefits’.

Featured image via the Canary

The Trump administration is reportedly threatening to withhold life-saving HIV aid from Zambia – unless the country allows the USA expanded access to its minerals.

The long-established President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) provides over 1.3 million Zambians with daily HIV medications. PEPFAR was put in place by the George W Bush administration, over two decades ago.

However, the State Department is considering slashing this support in a further escalation of Trump’s weaponisation of US foreign aid. Within days of taking office for his second term, Trump issued an executive order to freeze USAID.

Just one year on, estimates put the death toll at over 750,000 worldwide.

Trump: coercive aid

The New York Times reported the US-Zambia proposal after seeing a draft memo prepared for secretary of state Marco Rubio. The note outlines a plan to end health support “on a massive scale” to force Zambia into compliance. It states:

We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.

The US government may slash HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis support for Zambia as early as May this year.

The proposal is part of a broader trend in which the Trump administration is forcing other countries to sign deals in exchange for aid. Thus far, 24 countries have signed agreements to meet various conditions in exchange for $20bn in health support over the next 5 years.

In most cases, the US requirements centre on the countries increasing their own health spending. However, this also comes with demands to turn over both data and biological samples. As the BBC reported, Zimbabwe and Kenya have already walked away from this deal:

A [Zimbabwe] government spokesman has since explained the US was demanding access to biological samples for research and commercial gain but said it was not willing to share the benefits for future vaccines and treatments. […]

In December, Kenya’s High Court suspended a similar health funding agreement the government had signed with the US after a consumer rights lobby filed a case citing concerns about the safety of Kenyans’ health data.

Mineral greed

However, unlike most of the other deals, the terms offered to Zambia include demands on access to the country’s mineral reserves. The southern African nation is a major source of copper, along with rarer elements like lithium and cobalt. These minerals have all proven vital to fuel for the green energy transition.

The exact terms of the US-Zambian deal haven’t yet been made public. However, the draft proposal has three key components:

• The US would provide $1bn for healthcare over the next 5 years, provided that Zambia spends $340m on new health funding. Notably, the $1bn is already less than half of the aid America provided before Trump came to power. In spite of the support lasting 5 years, Zambia would hand over citizens’ health data to the US for 10 years. Likewise, it would also have to provide biological specimens for 25 years. As with Zimbabwe, Zambia would have no guarantee of benefiting from any vaccines developed using these resources.
• Second, Zambia would grant US businesses greater access to its mineral reserves. As things stand, the US reportedly sees China as holding preferential access to Zambia’s deposits.
• Lastly, as reported by the New York Times, the third component is:
  

  a renegotiation of a contract with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an American foreign assistance agency focused on economic governance. The original contract, signed in 2024, gave Zambia a $458 million grant to support its agricultural sector. The Trump administration wants it restructured to require regulatory changes in mining and other industries.

‘Insistence on tangible benefits’

Crucially, Rubio’s draft memo states that Zambia would need to sign by May in order to receive the health aid. In the event that it doesn’t sign, the note states that:

sharp public cuts to American foreign assistance would significantly demonstrate to aid-receiving countries the seriousness of our interest in collaboration and our insistence on tangible benefits under our America First foreign policy.

Likewise, the US has already attempted to use threats to health-aid to force Zambia to engage on mineral access. The memo says:

At every point in the negotiation, we communicated what the G.R.Z. [Government of the Republic of Zambia] would lose if they failed to act. Repeatedly, we needed to threaten or actually withdraw assistance important to the GRZ to elicit progress on our priorities.

Since the PEPFAR programme began, Zambia has received over $6bn in US aid. At the programme’s inception, the country’s healthcare system was drowning – over 90,000 people a year were dying of HIV-related illness.

When the Trump administration made further cuts to foreign aid in 2025, the Zambia government began to take over management of aspects of its HIV care. However, a great deal of the sector still relies of American support.

There aren’t words to express the heinous nature of Trump, Rubio and their cohorts. The US is holding millions of Zambian lives hostage to force the country to allow American businesses to exploit it. Human lives, in exchange for lithium and cobalt.

For comparison, the Zambian deal promises $1bn in healthcare over five years. Meanwhile, reports have suggested that Trump’s war on Iran is costing as much as $1bn a day. 

It’s despicable, it’s inhuman, and it’s par-for-the-course from these rotten fascists.

Featured image via the Canary

Another, now-former Metropolitan Police officer has been exposed after a misconduct panel found Ian Steel guilty of sexually grooming TV presenter Jackie Adedeji. Steel abused his position of power and used a fake identity to “fulfil his racialised sexual fantasy”. The panel said he would have been sacked for gross misconduct had he not already quit.

Adedeji, who waived her right to anonymity, said the finding had liberated her:

For the first time in 10 years, I feel free. The shame has disappeared, the silence has disappeared. I found my voice all over again. I’ve stood up for the 22-year-old version of me that felt voiceless. [This has been] the biggest fight of my life. It feels powerful because it’s a classic case of he said, she said, and my story never changed. It doesn’t benefit me to lie and the truth always prevails in the end.

Adedeji first met Steel as a 22-year-old in 2016, in the Shoreditch area of London. Steel claimed to be single and named Danny Stevens. In fact he was in a long-term relationship and had a child. All allegations against Steel were found proven and he has been barred from ever re-joining the police, but escapes criminal consequences.

Steel joins a long list of police sex abusers, rapists and murderers — especially in the Metropolitan Police.

Featured image via the Canary

Equity, the performing arts and entertainment trade union, has welcomed the announcement that the government is to row back on the ‘opt-out’ exception to copyright for AI training. The union says it’s:

recognition that selling out the UK’s creative industries to benefit US tech companies would’ve been an act of national self-sabotage.

The report and impact assessment on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, published jointly today by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Intellectual Property Office, says the government:

will not introduce reforms to copyright law until we are confident that they will meet our objectives for the economy and UK citizens.

The report continues:

In view of the concerns raised by stakeholders, and the continued uncertainty about the likely effects of an exception with opt-out, a broad copyright exception with opt-out is no longer the government’s preferred way forward.

And it also mentions personality rights – something Equity raised – saying:

We propose to explore options that address these risks, while promoting growth and innovation. This will include considering whether a new personality right may be appropriate.

An ‘opt-out’ exception was the government’s preferred option this time last year. This would have allowed developers to scrape creators’ work online to train AI models without active consent from, or pay for, the creators. Equity opposed this position, describing it as ‘legalising theft’ of creators’ work.

Commenting on the report on AI and Copyright, Equity’s general secretary, Paul W Fleming, said:

The government has taken a welcome and marked change of approach, which has included engaging with Equity at the highest level in detail, and in advance of this announcement.

The pause announced today is recognition that selling out the UK’s creative industries to benefit US tech companies would’ve been an act of national self-sabotage. The UK should be the best place on the planet to create, supporting the government’s growth agenda through a strong copyright regime and respect for creative workers.

We welcome the government’s intention to introduce measures on digital replicas and we look forward to working with them to develop new protections against unauthorised and unpaid use of a performer’s voice and likeness, the bedrock of our members’ careers.

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What creators need after this pause is a firm commitment to copyright and neighbouring rights and support for collective licensing for AI uses, including via existing trade union collective bargaining mechanisms. We look forward to working with the Labour government on how best to secure these reasonable aspirations.

Equity believes that licensing frameworks for AI training are entirely capable of facilitating fair and remunerated use of creators’ work, and are already emerging in various sectors. Collective bargaining mechanisms, including Equity’s, which cover 90% of UK film and TV production, already exist for this purpose.

Rather than pave the way for a transfer of wealth from UK creative industries to US tech companies, today’s statement gives needed reassurance to UK creators that AI developers must pay to use their work, just as in any other context.

Recent analysis of three studies commissioned by the tech industry shows that none of the studies demonstrates that a copyright exception for AI would deliver a net benefit to the UK economy, even while the studies mostly failed to account for the impact on creative industries.

Featured image via the Canary

Benjamin Netanyahu has released another questionable video to prove that he is alive – this time with Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel.

Whether the video is real or not is not the Canary’s main concern. Because that is exactly what Israel wants – confusion and distraction from their continuous war crimes.

Israel: speculation

Currently, social media users are filling the internet with rumours, speculation, and conspiracy theories. Some of them have more evidence than others.

In total, Netanyahu and his team have released at least seven different posts – including photos and videos. These are meant to be ‘proof of life’. All of them have varying degrees of believability, with Israel having clearly published some before Israel’s current illegal attacks on Iran. Others do include signs of manipulation.

However, Israeli ministers know that both rumours about them being dead or purposefully releasing videos that look like AI are going to dominate social media.

Meanwhile, Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran – all at the same time.

Maybe most importantly, when you search ‘Israel AI’, the results now include all of this speculation instead of Israel’s increasing and very extensive use of AI in Gaza.

The media has extensively covered Israel’s use of AI in Gaza. It has turned Gaza into a literal testing ground for using AI to kill people.

As the Canary has previously reported, Israel has fuelled its genocide in Gaza with AI tools like Lavender and the grotesquely named Where’s Daddy, which is:

used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.

This allows the Israeli army to mark tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination. The AI targeting system has very little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties.

According to +972 Magazine, the IDF treats decisions that Lavender makes “as if it were a human decision.”

Unlike previous versions of Israel’s AI tech, such as “The Gospel”, – which marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people and puts them on a “kill list”

Additionally, there is mounting evidence that AI targeting shaped the US-Israeli attack on Iran.

Confusion is the goal

Maybe Netanyahu is getting a BBL. Maybe he’s dead, and Israel doesn’t want to ruin his genocidal army’s morale. Or maybe he wants us to think he’s dead. There is no way of knowing for sure.

But what we do know for sure is that if he dies, the absolute hell that Israel will rain down on Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and who the hell knows where else will be like nothing we have seen before – and that’s saying a lot. People across the Middle East will suffer even more than they already do.

People in the West might celebrate his death, but it’s the Arabs and Persians who will suffer even more.

Netanyahu is a despicable human being who deserves to be six feet under. But he is not the entire problem. He is just the current figurehead of the genocidal zionist machine. Zionism does not need Netanyahu to do its dirty work.

Israel is the problem. Zionism is the problem. Western colonialism is the problem.

If Netanyahu dies, none of these disappear. They only get worse.

Featured image via HG

The military in Iran has issued formal notice to oil and gas facilities in Israel and the Gulf after Israel attacked Iran’s huge South Pars gas field today, 18 March 2026.

The reckless attack is no doubt designed to intensify the global energy crisis and manoeuvre the US into committing to a ground invasion of Iran, but the Iranian government has long given up ‘showing restraint’ to constant Israeli and US attacks and has threatened immediate retaliatory attacks on oil and gas infrastructure in Israel and among US allies in the Gulf.

Israel’s Haifa port facility is also on the target list and has been issued with an evacuation order:

Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has been attacked this week by the UK Israel lobby for calling Zionism one of the biggest threats to the world. She is not wrong.

Featured image via the Canary

Hard-right Telegraph hack Brendan O’Neill is at it again; the Israel and Trump fan’s long fixation with best-selling Irish author and Israel boycotter Sally Rooney has again reared its very ugly head. This time, dressed up as an(other) attack on Rooney’s commitment to Palestinian freedom and an end to the genocide. One that, typically, is saturated with an impression of O’Neill’s obsessive fervour for his own imagined wit and writing skill. High on his own supply, he also (of course) derides Rooney’s hugely-popular books.

Blech. Rooney is a frequent theme for O’Neill. Here, here and here, for example. In the latter, he dismisses her objection to the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians as a “luxury belief”. Right.

Sally Rooney is principled – unlike O’Neill

O’Neill has taken offence (again) at Rooney’s vocal support for the Palestinian people and her opposition to Israel’s crimes. He claims, falsely, that she shows no interest in Sudan and only cares about Gaza because, we’re meant to believe, in Gaza it’s Jews killing Muslims and not other Muslims doing it. This commitment to the Palestinian cause is, he proposes, evidence of a god-complex on Rooney’s part.

His ‘hook‘ for this claim is that Rooney didn’t talk about Sudan, but about Gaza. She was at an event specifically about Gaza, but hey damn the woman for not talking about Sudan. But to O’Neill, nothing should be about Gaza – unless it’s an excuse to lionise Israel. Or Trump. Either will do.

We’ll spare the reader an exposure to examples of O’Neill’s anti-Palestinian bile. Instead, let’s look at who endorses O’Neill’s recent ‘clash of civilisations’ spew, his book “After the pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the crisis of civilisation”. The book, according to the blurb, decries the:

twisted ideology of atrocity denial, as the activist class accused the Jewish State of exaggerating or even inventing the events of 7 October.

And look who loves it, positively gushing with praise for an ‘honesty’ they would struggle to be on nodding acquaintance with:

“A bruising blow in the cause of liberty, tolerance and good sense. Thank God he is on our side” – Jake Wallis Simons, editor, Jewish Chronicle.

“A brutally honest analysis of how the world failed the test of Hamas’s brutality” – Eylon Levy, former Israeli government spokesman.

Grim characters

Genocide-denier Eylon Levy got sacked from his job as a pro-slaughter mouthpiece because he went too far even for his boss Benjamin Netanyahu. O’Neill’s fellow Telegraph hack Jake Wallis Simons is a former editor of hard-right libel rag The Jewish Chronicle and of his own piece of farcical anti-Palestinian propaganda, his book “Israelophobia”. Wallis Simons considers the idea of Israel’s genocide as “narrative” to be “quashed”.

Brendan appears not to read too widely. Every atrocity-propaganda claim by Israel about 7 October fell apart faster than a cheap suit. Rapes, beheaded babies, all of it. Not just in the eyes of the “activist class” he despises, but according to United Nations investigators, human rights groups and even Israel’s chief prosecutor, who couldn’t find evidence to support a single rape case.

Oh, and Israel’s military, its media and its then-defence minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant admitted that Israel spent all day on 7 October 2023, from the early hours until late at night, killing hundreds of its own citizens under the so-called ‘Hannibal directive‘. But that wasn’t all.

The chances of ol’ Brendan sticking that in his pipe and smoking it are very slim. But it would definitely be a better way to spend his time than fixating on Sally Rooney and his imagined skill as a writer.

As for Rooney, well an Irishman who actually had wit and writing skill famously said “You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies”. That goes for women too – and a glance at O’Neill and his fixations means Rooney is definitely on the right track.

Featured image via the Canary