On Sunday night, Gaga was a surprise guest during Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show, delivering a Salsa-fied remix of her hit single Die With A Smile in the middle of his set.

The following morning, the Grammy winner told her Instagram followers that it had been her “honour to be a part of Benito’s halftime show”.

She enthused: “Thank you Benito for inviting me and thank you to the entire cast for welcoming me onto your stage. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I am so humbled to be a part of this moment,” the Abracadabra star added. “It’s all the more special because it was with you and your beautiful heart and music.”

Check out Gaga’s two Instagram posts for yourself here and here.

She later said: “I’m just so happy for him. What he means to people is so incredibly important. He’s a brilliant musician and human being. He’s so incredibly kind and I thought what he said was so incredibly important and inspiring.”

We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI – prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Of all the holidays, there’s possibly the most pressure involved when it comes to getting your Valentine’s Day gifts just right.

Sure, Christmas is a big holiday, and birthdays are a huge deal too, but Valentine’s is all about being romantic, and about instinctively knowing what your partner enjoys as the most heartfelt, sexy, and/or fun gift – even if they haven’t thought of it themselves.

And getting it wrong? That’s not an option.

This year, instead of playing that dreaded guessing game, why not pick something you know you’ll both enjoy and can share together?

Here’s a list of inspiration for what to shop…

Brandon To is a Politics graduate from UCL and a Hong Kong BN(O) immigrant settled in Harrow

When Mark Hehir, a London bus driver, helped chase down a thief who had just snatched a passenger’s necklace, he probably assumed he was doing the right thing.

He was wrong. At least according to modern Britain.

Instead of thanks, Hehir was sacked by Metroline. His crime? “Excessive force” while stopping a fleeing robber.

Let’s be clear about what this means: Stopping a thief is now, apparently, too much.

So what is acceptable? A polite request? A strongly worded suggestion? Perhaps a hymn, sung gently, in the hope that divine intervention persuades the criminal to hand the necklace back?

This case would be funny if it weren’t so revealing.

A new chilling message is now being sent to the public: do not intervene. If you help, you may be punished. If you step in, you may lose your job. If you act decisively, you may be accused of doing more harm than the criminal himself.

Is it any wonder that bystanders look away?

TfL staff are told not to challenge fare evaders. Passers-by hesitate before helping victims. Even the police, in countless videos circulating online, appear reluctant to chase criminals, paralysed by the fear of complaints, and accusations that have little to do with justice.

Put it frankly, this is cowardice, dressed up as “compassion”.

Behind it lies a justice culture warped by liberal and “woke” ideology. In this worldview, criminals are endlessly contextualised, even sympathised with, as it’s always the “system” that failed them.

But who is there to sympathise with the victim? Or in this case, the hero who stood for them?

And heaven forbid if identity politics can be dragged into it. Suddenly, the act of stopping a thief is no longer about theft at all, but about race, systems, or abstract theories dreamed up in universities, far from the bus stop where the crime actually happened.

Against this backdrop, Kieran Mullan, the Shadow Justice Secretary, deserves credit for speaking up and standing with Mark Hehir. This is precisely what Conservatives should be doing — drawing a clear moral line and refusing to apologise for it.

But words are not enough.

If Conservatives are serious about restoring order, and about shedding the legacy of a government that was too weak and overly liberal on crime, then we must go further and be explicit about protection.

We should introduce clear legal safeguards for citizens who intervene, in good faith, to stop crime. If someone acts to prevent theft or violence, they should not later discover that the real punishment comes from their employer or a compliance department.

Employers who sack staff for intervening should be required to publicly justify their decision. Where dismissal occurs, it should be treated as a no-fault dismissal, with enhanced compensation. And if a company refuses to reinstate or explain itself, the state should step in. Not to micromanage, but to send a message: those who stand up for public order will never be abandoned.

This is how culture changes. Not through slogans, but through real actions.

At this point, defenders of the status quo raise a familiar objection: people don’t intervene because it’s dangerous. Criminals might be armed. It’s safer to do nothing.

But this argument collapses the moment one looks at reality.

Take the recently viral footage of thieves smashing a jewellery shop in Richmond in broad daylight. Dozens of people stood nearby. Not one intervened. Not one shouted. Not one tried to distract or deter. Most simply filmed.

I’m not suggesting reckless heroics. But shouting, calling the police, or trying to throw things at the thieves from a safe distance? Yes, they may not be immediately helpful, but at least we created pressure that might urge them to leave earlier. At least we tried hard, and fulfilled our civic responsibility.

The problem is not fear of weapons. The problem is a culture that has trained people to believe that any involvement is dangerous. That culture exists because, time and again, the heroes are punished.

Mark Hehir’s case lays this bare.

He should not be unemployed. He should be thanked. Better still, he should be held up as an example of civic responsibility, of what a noble Britishman should be like.

But of course, we won’t see a “good citizen” award from City Hall. Under a mayor like Sadiq Khan, we might have to be grateful that he’s not arresting Mark Hehir for “systematic injustice “, or whatever new jargons he and his team invented.

And Conservatives should not miss the moment.

This case exposes exactly what happens when a country becomes more afraid of offending criminals than protecting citizens. If stopping a thief is now “excessive”, then the system itself has become excessive. Excessive in weakness, and excessive in its contempt for common sense.

Britain deserves better. And Mark Hehir deserved a medal, not a dismissal.

Help and support:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) propaganda machine is working at top speed again. This time by making cuts to benefits sound like it’s for disabled people’s own good. The DWP released a shiny new press release bragging about how they plan to reform welfare to “support people into work”.

DWP cutting UC health element by over £200

This is, of course, the Universal Credit Bill, which comes into effect in April. The final amendments for which were laid out in parliament yesterday (Monday 9 February). I know what you’re thinking, since when were amendments newsworthy? Well, since the DWP realised they needed to generate as much good press around these abhorrent cuts as possible.

What the press release does finally confirm is just how much the DWP will be fucking over new disabled Universal Credit (UC) claimants. And it’s by over £200 a month. The department proudly gushed that they will be introducing a lower rate of the health element for new claimants. This means that instead of £429.80 a month, new claimants will get just £217.26. That’s a loss of £212.54 a month and £2550.48 a year.

Don’t worry, though, standard allowance is going up too and it’s higher than inflation for the first time ever! Aren’t the government good to us?! For under 25 year olds it’ll go up by a whole £21.60 a month or £259.20 a year. For over 25s it’ll be going up by a whopping £24.76 a month or £297.12 a year. So you’ll only need to make up an extra £2291.28 or £2253.36 a year.

Painting cuts as a good thing and benefit claimants as fakers

Even more cruelly, the DWP is selling this cut as a good thing that will help disabled people.

The press release said:

The system inherited from the previous Government means people receiving Universal Credit for health reasons are paid more than twice as much as a single person looking for work and aren’t given the support to move closer to – or into – jobs.

A reminder that disabled claimants get double what a non disabled claimant does is because the DWP have already judged them unfit for work. They know that these people can’t find a job without it being detrimental to their health.

The DWP continued:

The reforms – coming into force in April – will tackle these perverse incentives by introducing a lower Universal Credit health element

Because nothing incentivises you like the prospect of starvation and homelessness, does it?

The deserving and undeserving disabled

The government also didn’t pass up an opportunity to paint a clear divide between the fakers and the real disabled people. They assured the public that people with the “most severe, lifelong conditions” would still receive the higher rate. Though when they get to decide who fits that criteria, it’s obvious that many will suffer. This rate also applies to those with a terminal illness and current claimants.

By not including current claimants, the government clearly hopes disabled people will keep quiet and play nice. This shows just how selfish and vile they are if they expect the community to turn its back on newly disabled people to save our own skins. That sounds much more like politician behaviour.

DWP chief Pat McFadden said:

The benefits system we inherited was rigged with the wrong incentives and wrote people off instead of backing them. We are changing this.

It’s absolutely vile that the government are still pushing this narrative that disabled people choose not to work because it pays better. When it’s clear to see that many find work inaccessible in a system that cares more about profits than people.

He continued:

These reforms put more money in the pockets of working people on Universal Credit, while ensuring those who can work get the support they need to do so.

This is such a fucking lie, it’s insulting. McFadden knows full well that the health element means people are too sick or disabled to work. So to say the DWP wants to support those who can work is implying they’re faking it.

Overwhelming evidence that the DWP isn’t fit for purpose

To try and make it look like they care, the DWP refers once again to all their bullshit plans to push disabled people back into work. This is despite the overwhelming evidence that the department is a complete farce.

Recently, the DWP was crowing about the rollout of WorkWell, which sells work as a cure for disability. This is despite there being no proof of it actually working at all, never mind well. There’s also the fact the Public Accounts Committee absolutely ripped the DWP a new one over their ability to support people into work.

The PAC also drew attention to the fact that the DWP doesn’t publish data on work coach numbers. So while the DWP brags that 100,000 advisors will be redeployed in Pathways to Work, we don’t actually know how many there are. And if they’re planning on putting them in GP offices and moving them onto the skills brief we really need to know how many there are to go around.

The DWP doesn’t give a fuck about disabled people

What is clear, despite the DWP saying otherwise, is that they couldn’t give a fuck about disabled people.

If they actually wanted to support those of us who could work, there’d be proper detailed plans. Not just passing disabled people around work coaches. They also wouldn’t be quietly cutting Access to Work whilst spaffing on about wanting to help us. If they actually cared about people who were out of work because of disability they’d be ensuring we could live our lives without fear.

More than anything, if the DWP actually cared about disabled benefits claimants, they wouldn’t be doing everything in their power to demonise us in the press. But then if all of this was true they wouldn’t need to use the press to further their agenda by bragging about fucking amendments.

Featured image via the Canary

The Canary has received reports of an alleged backroom deal between Jeremy Corbyn, The Many, and Redbridge Independents. In January 2025, Corbyn announced his endorsement of the Redbridge Independents, declaring:

we are the alternative, we are the community.

However, this excited endorsement has been challenged by anonymous insiders. And, this revelation comes just as The Many accused Grassroots Left of undermining member decisions at the fledgling party’s inaugural conference.

But, the Canary have received a report from a source that was present in a meeting between Corbyn, Redbridge Independents, and candidate on The Many slate on Tuesday 26 January — one day before Corbyn declared his public support for Redbridge Independents. The source alleges that Corbyn traded his public endorsement for a commitment from Redbridge Independents to deliver votes for The Many.

If accurate, this would represent a clear attempt to exert political influence behind closed doors.

Corbyn pushes The Many

As Your Party gears up for its Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections that will determine leadership of the party, internal rifts are evident. Whilst Corbyn endorsed The Many, Zarah Sultana has endorsed the Grassroots Left slate.

An anonymous source told the Canary that Noor Begum and Tahir Mirza, two candidates on The Many slate, were present at the alleged meeting with Corbyn and Redbridge Independents. If Corbyn has indeed traded public endorsement for assurances of support for The Many, there must be serious questions over the erosion of democratic principles during the course of these elections.

Furthermore, according to our source, Begum confessed she had been told by Laura Alvarez, Corbyn’s wife, that it was imperative that both candidates be elected in the London region. If not, Corbyn and his allies would not have ultimate control of the CEC. As a result, they would not control the party itself.

These are hardly the actions of people committed to member-led democracy. Instead, they are the actions of a group of people clinging to shady Westminster-style backroom politics where what matters is who you know.

Accusations against Grassroots Left

As we mentioned earlier, these revelations come as The Many accuse Grassroots Left of undermining the principle of one member, one vote:

NEW: Some on the Grassroots Left want to overturn conference & abolish one-member-one-vote in Your Party.

The Many will defend OMOV.

Power with the members, not the sects. pic.twitter.com/uQvBb7mq3m

— The Many (@TheManyYP) February 8, 2026

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For months, Corbyn and his allies have briefed against Zarah Sultana and those in her team. Namely, the allegation is that Sultana is attempting to take control of the party. As these allegations swirl, it is clear that Your Party is far from guaranteeing member-led democracy.

A party divided: democracy undermined from within

In February 2026, members of Your Party will vote nationwide to elect candidates to its Central Executive Committee (CEC), the body responsible for carrying forward the membership’s will through democratic debate and decision-making. Since the party’s inception, both sides have accused each other of attempting to seize ultimate control. Furthermore, Zarah Sultana claimed she was pushed out of the process. She denounced it as a “sexist boys club” dominated by unelected bureaucrats.

Reports suggest these struggles for control have been present from the very beginning. Corbyn’s team reportedly opposed Sultana’s involvement and resisted the proposed co-leader model. However, the announcement of that model inspired hundreds of thousands of people across the country to take notice.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Zarah Sultana’s YourParty has reached 800,000 and heads toward a million signs up’s and has 6 MP’s (Independence Alliance MP’s are party of it) and counting.

You can join the Biggest Party in UK here.https://t.co/wqcecuaaK2

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— JmRoyle #LFC #YNWA #BLM #RejoinEU (@MyArrse) August 12, 2025

Members should have put this divide to rest in November, when Your Party’s inaugural conference overwhelmingly backed dual membership and collective leadership. Yet the back and forth accusations suggest that the democratic mandate from members is not being treated as such.

We have already reported how candidates aligned with Jeremy Corbyn have allegedly had to commit to overturning conference decisions regarding leadership model and dual membership. We even exposed the controversial reality that Corbyn’s aide, Karie Murphy, chose to block a sortition member once becoming aware of their socialist credentials. Nevertheless, the group appear willing to sink to ever greater depths of shadiness.

NEW: Our Proposals to Empower Members & Get Your Party Back On Track 📢

Your Party needs to harness the power of a mass movement. That means empowering members to get organised, and ensuring ALL members have say.

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Here’s our plan 🧵 pic.twitter.com/38vfQAka0E

— The Many (@TheManyYP) February 8, 2026

‘Reminiscent of old-style Labour party’

Michael Lavalette, Independent councilor in Preston and candidate for a CEC public office seat, was unimpressed by reports of yet more factional scheming within Your Party. In response to the alleged backroom deals, Lavalette told the Canary:

This is a symptom of the factional fight going on inside Your Party. Groups are trying to make deals to get their slate over the line.

But we should be against backroom deals, this is so reminiscent of old-style Labour party and trade union politics that Your Party was meant to break from.

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We need Your Party to be broad and inclusive. We know in many parts of the country there are independent groups and Your Party proto-branches in the same space. We need to find ways for them to work together for the benefit of YP as a whole, to work together and gradually evolve into a unified political presence on our communities. We certainly shouldn’t be looking at a ‘franchise model’ of establishing recognised groupings.

Your Party must be a big tent, a broad left of Labour party, insurgent, based in our communities, social movements and trade unions.

With a vision of establishing a better world for the millions, not the millionaires.

As Lavalette astutely points out, these toxic tactics with each camp vying for control, has meant constituencies have opposing groups organising for the same political party. Had member decisions been respected and implemented without fear or favour, this conflict would never have emerged. As a result, we can see candidates on The Many slate resorting to behaviour that can only be called dishonest and manipulative.

Top-down ‘feudal’ politics or member-led democracy

The elephant in the room is now impossible to ignore. The two slates, The Many and Grassroots Left, are drastically different in model and vision. However, the party will only endure if its leaders commit to enforcing member-led decisions. They must put personal gain and power aside.

The recent actions of Corbyn and The Many suggest they are deeply unhappy with the collective leadership model where members set the course and ‘steer the ship’. They are seemingly intent on assuming control of the CEC to row back member-led decisions to permit dual membership. Given the alleged reports of calls for Corbyn to be sole leader, it appears even the leadership model might be under threat. This is especially true if The Many assume control.

Regardless of where you sit in this debate, one principle should unite us all. Vital decisions must rest with Your Party members, made democratically, transparently, and collectively. Not MPs wielding their popularity to decide who gets a voice and who is shut out.

This new party must be about ‘how’ we show up, not which ‘team’ we show up with.

Your Party and The Many had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Featured image via the Canary

Over 1,500 UK students, academics, researchers and university staff have signed an open letter demanding UK universities cut ties to the arms trade. The letter claims the links are fuelling “global instability, injustice, and environmental harm”.

Demilitarise Education (dED), puts the value of arms-linked partnerships at approximately £2.5bn. This figure represents the combined value of partnerships held by universities in arms companies, including investments, research and academic partnerships, over the past eight years.

This data is held on the Universities and Arms Database, which dED developed and hosts.

Demilitarise Education’s arms trade campaign

dED is running a national campaign highlighting the deep and ongoing ties between UK universities and the arms trade.

The campaign has already garnered widespread support. 1,595 academics, researchers, university staff, and students have signed an open letter. It calls for an end to institutional partnerships with arms manufacturers and military-linked organisations.

Through rigorous research, advocacy and collective action, the organisation calls for transparency, ethical funding and an education system with policies committed to peace, social justice and the public good.

Dr Iain Overton, executive director at Action on Armed Violence, said:

UK universities cannot credibly claim to be solely serving the public good while taking billions from the arms trade. These are not neutral partnerships. Defence money shapes research priorities, it legitimises militarisation, and it binds centres of learning into often hidden and distant systems of violence that produce very real civilian harm.

But what this open letter shows is that such institutional consent is not uncontested. Staff and students are no longer willing to accept such complicity as the price of funding. They refuse to allow those who have profited from well-recorded civilian deaths in places like Gaza and Yemen to end up funding our Universities.

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Participants not bystanders

The £2,556,647,429 figure exposes higher education institutions as active participants in military supply chains, rather than neutral bystanders. Signatories argue that these relationships implicate universities directly in systems that sustain war, militarisation and global violence. And often there’s no transparency, democratic oversight or meaningful consent from university communities.

This intervention comes amid intensifying global conflicts from the devastating genocide in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to the ongoing civil war in Sudan and rising geopolitical tensions elsewhere.

These conflicts have caused widespread civilian suffering, resulting in numerous crises across the stated locations, with millions displaced, health systems collapsing and education infrastructure destroyed.

dED argues that university arms trade partnerships form part of the same global architecture that enables and sustains such violence.

BAE Systems

One of the most involved arms companies in UK universities is BAE Systems. At the University of Manchester, BAE is partnering on research to accelerate combat air systems, including research projects aimed at improving fighter jets.

BAE Systems’ weapons and technology have been linked to serious violations of international law. In 2019, the company was accused of “aiding and abetting” war crimes in Yemen.

Components manufactured by BAE for F-35 fighter jets have seen use in Israeli bombing campaigns in Gaza, resulting in thousands of deaths, including hundreds of children.

By supplying regimes engaged in indiscriminate violence, BAE has contributed directly to war crimes, mass civilian casualties, and extensive environmental destruction. Despite reporting on production emissions and business travel, BAE does not account for the catastrophic environmental damage caused by its weapons, including toxic pollution, infrastructure collapse, and long-term ecological harm.

The dED Universities and Arms Database tracks UK university links to arms companies listed in the SIPRI and Defense News top 100. So far, 90 UK universities have been identified as having direct ties. The database allows users to explore how individual universities contribute to arms company activities.

The open letter marks a clear break with institutional consent, as staff and students publicly challenge the normalisation of defence-funded research, arms-linked partnerships and military recruitment pipelines within higher education.

Arms trade ‘incompatible’ with uni aims

Campaigners argue that universities’ stated commitments to the public good, social responsibility and global justice are fundamentally incompatible with their material involvement in the arms trade. As militarism expands internationally, staff and students increasingly identify universities as a key node within the military-industrial complex.

The letter contends that research collaborations, weapons-linked funding streams and defence-aligned innovation programmes play a material role in enabling arms production and export, including into active conflict zones. They also embed militaristic logics within institutions historically understood as spaces of independent thought and public good.

Aleks Palanac from the University of Leicester says:

UK universities cannot legitimately claim to be places of sanctuary for refugee students whilst continuing to actively contribute to the causes of their forced migration in the first place through their involvement in the global arms trade.

Stop the recruitment drive

The campaign also responds to mounting pressure on universities to function as recruitment and talent pipelines for the defence sector. The UK government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review outlines plans to align higher education with military and defence industries more closely. This includes the creation of a Defence Universities Alliance and targeted investment in STEM disciplines to support military technologies and defence roles.

dED criticises the government’s proposed “whole of society” approach to defence. This includes increased exposure to military careers among school-aged children and initiatives such as paid armed forces “gap years” for under-25s. The organisation says this risks normalising military service as a default life trajectory for young people. And particularly so in the context of widening inequality and shrinking civilian opportunities.

Jinsella Kennaway, the co-founder and executive director of dED, says:

Over 1,500 members of the UK knowledge community have put their names to this open letter. This is no fringe view – it is a clear mandate from within our universities. This is a stand against the use of education to fund, legitimise and supply the war machine.

Universities must honour their duty to serve the public good by choosing partnerships that build the conditions for peace, not profit from conflict. No ethical integrity can be claimed while arms industry partnerships amplify the lethality of war and stakeholder calls for change are met with silence.

The letter calls on universities to realign their policies and practices with the dED Treaty framework. It demands full transparency over defence-linked funding, research and partnerships, alongside formal commitments to exclude arms companies from university collaborations.

It further calls for an end to recruitment ties with the armed forces and arms manufacturers. And it looks for a renewed commitment to research and teaching that prioritises peace-building over warfare.

Campaigners argue that universities must remain spaces of critical inquiry and humanistic values, not extensions of the military-industrial complex.

Featured image via the Canary

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