Early in the morning of Nov. 10, 2017, I got the phone call every parent dreads and none of us are ever prepared for.On that November morning, my oldest daughter, 15-year old Parker Lily, lost the battle with her mental health that wethought she’d been winning. Since that call, my family and I have been trying to rebuild our lives.
For years, I carried around the same tacit misconception many people do about suicide: if someone seems depressed, dejected or hopeless, you don’t say the S-word. You definitely don’t ask if they’re thinking about taking their own life. The worry behind this misconception is simple: you don’t want to put the idea of suicide into their head.
I’m here to tell you, as a father whose life was split into “before” and “after” by that phone call, the opposite is true.
If you take nothing else from what I’m about to say, take this: you will not cause suicide by asking someone directly if they’re thinking about it.
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The mental health world has firmly renounced the idea of not asking someone directly. And I’m hoping to get as many people as possible to understand this and to jettison silence. You might be the lifeline they didn’t know they were allowed to grab.
Parker wasn’t a “statistic.” She was mydaughter. She was also a force of nature.
Even as a little girl, she was formidable: curious, larger than life and constantly creating. Almost from the time she could walk, teachers were telling us how gifted she was as an artist, how she possessed a level of abstract thinking way beyond her years.
She was a protective, loving big sister to her siblings Rory and Hudson. She was fiercely loyal, cared deeply about her family and friends and had an antipathy for injustice that would light up a room, or a dinner table argument.
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She was also very funny. At four, she was already asking big questions like, “Why can’t I eat ice cream for breakfast?” and delivering them with a level of confidence that made you think, “Honestly, why can’t you?”
In later years, you would have seen a bright, artsy teenager who was thriving at her Maryland high school; a place structured specifically for kids battling mental health issues. She made friends, acted in plays, created art and seemed, finally, to be hitting her stride. From the inside, there was a lot more going on.
Parker struggled with her mental health. There were moods we didn’t understand, self-harm, a stay in a psych ward. There were shifts in medications, potential diagnoses (bipolar? borderline personality disorder?) that were terrifying to hear attached to your child. There were stretches when she seemed to be climbing out of it – when we allowed ourselves to think, “She’s winning. We’re over the worst of it.”
We wanted that to be true so badly.
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The morning she died, my phone rang with a Maryland number I didn’t recognise. I almost didn’t pick up. But I did pick up, and I heard an officer tell me Parker had taken her own life. Her roommate had found her. The police hadn’t been able to reach her mother, Deb, my ex-wife. I heard a voice come out of my mouth that said: “I’ll tell Deb.”
My brain split. Part of me was insistent that this had to be a mistake, asick joke. The other part was already running toward the house where Deb and the kids were sleeping, knowing I had to wake them up and say the words out loud.
On my way there, I found myself standing on a corner, outside of myself, waiting for a traffic light to change. The bus stop, the police precinct, the blue sky: None of it made sense. Parker was gone. There was no right side up.
Then something overwhelmed me, rushing past the horror. It was the first of many to follow. It was a wave of grief. Grief that manifested itself as pure love.
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I’m not ascribing any mystical significance to the experience. I was reacting to massive trauma. Adrenaline, flooding brain chemicals, my emotions, my memories, all working together to keep me from completely losing my grip. That’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.
But in that moment, Parker came to me – from my heart, my mind, my soul – and gave me the courage to go to her mother, to her siblings, and tell them that she was gone.
That was the beginning of “After.”
Photo Courtesy Of Alex Koltchak
The author’s last picture with all three of his kids
In the months after Parker’s death, I started going to support groups for people left behind after suicide. I walked into those rooms feeling thatmy story was unique, my pain singular. I walked out realising that suicide is heartbreakingly common, and that most people don’t talk about it.
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I heard story after story, each different indetails but similar in impact: the shock, the guilt, the endless replaying of “What did I miss?” and “Why didn’t I…?” and “If only I’d said X, or done Y.”
The numbers are brutal, especially for young people. Too many of our kids are battling suicidal thoughts, and far too many of them are doing it in silence because they’re ashamed or scared, or because the adults around them are too terrified to even think about, let alone name what might be happening.
Then, in the spring of 2022, my daughter Rory wrote a college essay about living in the shadow of Parker’s death and her own mental health struggles. Reading her words – raw, direct, courageous – awoke something in me.
She talked about not knowing how to be anyone but “Parker’s sister,” about trying to figure out who she was in the wreckage. It knocked something loose in me.
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I realised I couldn’t keep expecting my kids to tell the truth about their pain if I was going to stay quiet about mine. It was time to confront the silence and guilt that take over after suicide, and to make sure that people who feel pulled toward that edge know they are not alone. There is zero shame in asking for help.
So, I started telling my story.
At first, it wasn’t a show. It was just me, at a table late at night, scribbling memories and fragments: Parker as a little girlinsisting on ice cream, Parker drawing on every surface in the apartment, Parker in a hospital gown apologising for being sick, Parker onstage at school and absolutely owning it.
I wrote about the day of the phone call and the immediate aftermath: the wake,and what it feels like to stand over your child’s body. What it feels like to see your grief mirrored by the family and friends surrounding you.
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Over time, those pages turned into a script – a one-man show about a family punched through the heart by suicide, and the love that somehow keepsflowing regardless.
It’s a family portrait and a love letter to Parker. It’s also a survival story. Not a triumphant “and then everything was fine” survival, but the kind where you limp forward, fall down and keep getting up because there are still people who need you, who love you. I called it “Bent Through Glass” because life is unspeakably fragile, the world a place of broken shards despite our best efforts. And also, and more importantly, because even when glass fractures or breaks, it never ceases to refract the light around us.
If Parker can no longer be here, then what I want is for her story to help someone else stay.
If you’ve lost someone to suicide, you might beinthe same loop I was:
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How did I not see itcoming? How did I let it happen? What kind of parent, partner, friend does this make me?
I don’t have answers that make those questions disappear. What I’ve learned is that the questions themselves are a vacuum. “Why?” is eternal, possessing an infinite array of answers. I spent years asking why, only to be dragged deeper into a lightless hole, every time.
The only thing that has any consistency for me now is this: don’t turn away from it. Turn toward it. That means turning toward your own grief instead of stuffing it down and pretending you’re “fine.” It means turning toward the people around you who are hurting, instead of looking away because you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing.
And it especially means this: if you think someone you love might be suicidal, say the word. Ask the question.
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You are not going to “give them the idea.” If they are in that kind of pain, the idea is already there. What you might give them is permission to tell the truth out loud. Ask directly: “Are you thinking about killing yourself?” If the answer is yes:
Stay.
Tell them you’re grateful they told you.
Help them reach out to trained support: a crisis line (in the U.S., you can call or text 988), a therapist, a doctor, a trusted adult, whoever is available and trained to help.
You don’t have to fix them. You’re not a superhero. You’re a human being saying, “I see you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
If you’re the one in that dark place right now, hovering on the edge of thoughts you don’t want to admit even to yourself, this is what I want to say as a father:
Stay. Stay long enough to tell one person. Stay long enough to make one call or send one text. Stay long enough to get through this hour, and then the next one.
You are not weak for needing help. You are not a burden for feeling this way. There is no shame in saying, “I can’t hold this alone.”
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When I step out under the lights and tell this story, I’m not doing it because I enjoy reliving the worst day of my life. I’m doing it because, in the aftermath of Parker’s death and Rory and Hudson’s struggles, it’s clear to me that silence around suicide is killing people.
We cannot afford that silence anymore. We never could.
Alex Koltchak is a writer, filmmaker, actor, performer, and stand-up comedian. His one-man show, Bent Through Glass, is being staged at The 30th Street Theater in NYC from April 1-25, 2026, with the aim of performing the work nationally.
Help and support:
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Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.
Maher Rizq Abdullah Naasan lives in the village of al Mughayyir, north east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. His home is in the south of the village, only 100 metres from his sizable plot of land.
Two kilometres away in the al Khaleel valley is a newly established illegal settler grazing outpost and, unfortunately for Naasan, 60, the settlers have now constructed a dirt track.
He said:
This dirt track runs from the outpost to our area, almost to the edge of my house. Every day, the settlers are with their sheep, damaging the olive trees growing on our land, many of which are more than 100 years old.
The army then turns up to protect the settlers and expels us from our land. They prevent us from taking care of our land and when they see us with our olive trees, they fly a drone overhead.
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Naasan had recently found himself being filmed by a drone. Then, five minutes later, a Hummer vehicle belonging to Israeli occupation soldiers arrived on the scene. They dropped gas bombs on the homes close to Nassan’s. Settlers then appeared and began grazing their livestock on his land.
Several days later on 2 April, at 1pm, the Israeli occupation vehicle again arrived in the area, this time with five soldiers inside and went straight to Naasan’s house.
He said:
I didn’t leave the house because if I did, they would have assaulted me. These aren’t regular soldiers but a militia dedicated to protecting settlers. My car was parked in front of my home and I have video footage documenting what they did to it.
They searched the car first, then opened the bonnet and put a substance in the oil reservoir to destroy the engine. They cut all the wires and cables inside the car, including to the battery, and they damaged the fan. After that they withdrew.
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Israeli attacks on Palestinians exceeded 23,800 in 2025
‘The goal is to seize our land and surround our homes’
Naasan, who said there was no reason for this behaviour because his car was legal, added that the drone was hovering above him taking pictures when he made the video of his damaged vehicle.
The reason for all this harassment is to remove us from our land, and for the occupation’s soldiers and settlers to let us know that they can do whatever they want.
The goal, in general, is slow evacuation — to seize our land and surround our homes. The army is protecting these settlers while their livestock are eating the olive trees. They have plenty of land already but now come to ours to make us leave it.
Surveillance cameras have now been placed on a tall tower to monitor Naasan and other Palestinians when they go to their land.
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“The soldiers then arrive and start firing heavy gas at us,” Naasan added.
A 2022 report by Israeli human rights organisations, Kerem Navit and Peace Now, says that huge areas of land are stolen through the use of grazing outposts. A huge 70% of all Palestinian land seized by settlers has been taken under the guise of grazing activities. These grazing outposts either directly displace farmers and shepherding communities from their land or use violence, harassment and intimidation to force them away.
Nearly one in four people in the West Bank are settlers
It adds that more than 780,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in more than 540 settlements and outposts across the area.
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Almost 60 outposts were established in 2025 alone. Attacks by colonial settlers have become a “functional tool to reshape geography in the West Bank, particularly in Bedouin and agricultural communities,” Mu’ayyad Shaaban, head of CWRC, said. This undermines projects for a viable Palestinian state.
Data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicates Israeli occupiers now make up more than 23% of the West Bank population, so nearly one in four.
The organisation also shared that in 2025:
More than 23,800 attacks were carried out against Palestinians by Israeli occupation authorities and settlers
Some 5,770 of these attacks involved the killing of civilians, burning of homes, facilities and vehicles, and property theft
There were 16,664 attacks on individuals and nearly 1,400 attacks on land and natural resources
More than 35,000 trees, including about 26,990 olive trees were damaged, bulldozed and uprooted during these attacks
Attacks on Palestinians are continuing at unprecedented levels, with nearly 3,800 attacks recorded in January and February of this year alone.
The sole purpose of this land theft is to forcibly displace Palestinians and ethnically cleanse the West Bank.
Overflowing bins. Closed sports centres. Libraries run by unpaid volunteers. That’s the reality in towns and cities up and down Britain. Austerity is the cause, introduced by the Conservative-LibDem coalition.
Labour have continued with austerity. Reform have promised austerity on steroids, with something between £40 billion and £150 billion of cuts per year, but they refuse to specify how or where.
The pledge commits Green councillors to four principles:
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Hold an emergency summit to make our communities heard to kick-start a mass campaign.
Community organisation and mobilisation to push for long-term national solutions.
Democratic control of local assets, including a full range of Community Wealth Building approaches.
Transparency over spending and responsible use of financial powers. At the moment, council finances can be impenetrable, even to elected councillors.
A false logic
Austerity is a false logic. It takes money out of local economies. 13,649 shops closed for good in 2024, costing 119,405 jobs. 17,349 shops closed in 2025, costing 201,953 jobs. As a result, councils receive less in business rates. High streets become run down.
Infrastructure is effected too. In December 2024, Gateshead Council closed a major road flyover with zero notice. A lack of inspections led to deterioration going unnoticed. It created havoc, closing the Metro tunnels underneath it for weeks. Fifteen months later, it’s still closed with diversions in place.
There are also countless undocumented stories about inadequate healthcare and spiralling mental health crises.
Councils end up spending time and money fixing what could have been prevented.
National solutions
The solutions are national. Any government with a sovereign currency can earn, borrow, tax or create money. The use of monetary policy in conjunction with wealth taxes could reverse austerity. All of us would live in a cleaner, safer, more prosperous country. Sure, a handful of people might have to buy a smaller yacht. But we’d have a healthier, happier, more skilled workforce. We’d also have cheaper energy and infrastructure that works.
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Local councils don’t have the same freedom to implement these measures. But it’s not much good throwing your hands up and saying there’s nothing we can do. We’re all sick of politicians blaming the last lot who were in power.
Community Wealth Building
In local government, Community Wealth Building has been proven to work. It’s perhaps best known for making sure anchor institutions – councils, hospitals, etc. – spend their money with local suppliers. Whether this is a local joinery firm or a co-operative of education psychologists, this keeps money from leaking out of local economies.
This needs work – the big outsourcing companies have professional bid writers. Small, local firms often don’t know where to start. The pledge means making it easier for local firms with diverse ownership to compete with the billionaire-owned multinationals. In fact, the Social Value Act allows councils to weight procurement in favour of social impact. Contracts are awarded extra points if they create jobs locally.
It means standing up to the business-as-usual approach of doing quick and easy deals with developers. As Regional Mayor, I stopped £3.5 million of public money subsidising luxury apartments and a hotel right next to St James’ Park. Newcastle’s Labour council had signed it off, but I refused to put any money into a project that had no affordable housing.
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Rebalancing the economy
Care homes are perhaps the single biggest source of wealth extraction from our councils. Care workers are paid a pittance and around 30% of staff leave every year. Yet companies are structured so very rich people make profits by running them into the ground. Councils are left to clean up the mess. We need a National Care Service. In the meantime, we should restructure these deals.
Community energy companies are working across the UK. Community housing trusts can convert old town halls into flats that are collectively owned by all residents. They pay their rent into their joint cooperative, preventing landlordism and property speculation.
As Mayor, I set up venture capital deals where the Combined Authority financially supported start-ups in return for equity stakes. It made millions of pounds for the Combined Authority. Every £1 invested returned more than £3 to in payroll taxes alone. I’d like to see more community bonds and regional finance institutions.
Rebalancing the economy, reversing austerity, ending rip-off Britain. Whatever you call it, there is no lever in No. 10 that you can switch from ‘capitalism’ to ‘socialism’. We need a cohort of leaders at every level with the skills and motivation to run the economy in the interests of the people who do the work.
Olivia Munn is opening up about her experience with a male actor who felt uncomfortable with a film’s seemingly feminist slant.
Appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show this week, the X-Men: Apocalypse actor said she’d pledged long ago to focus on film and TV projects featuring female characters who weren’t reliant on their male counterparts.
One such project, Munn said, required her to appear alongside a male co-star who objected to a scene in which his character’s life would be spared, thanks to Munn’s character’s aid.
“If you read the script, it was that he was guarding his side, I was guarding my side, then we switch sides and then there’s a guy that was coming for him — he was gonna shoot him in the back — so I shoot him,” she recalled. “And then we’re about to shoot, and somehow, I guess he didn’t read the script, and in that moment, he realised, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. She can’t save me. No, no. She can’t save me.’”
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Watch Munn’s Drew Barrymore Show appearance below.
Though Munn did not identify the co-star by name, she described his subsequent on-set behaviour as “obnoxious,” noting that he quickly grew “combative with the director.” After the actor delayed the shoot for about 45 minutes, Munn decided to reframe the specifics of the scene to meet her co-star’s approval.
“I said, ‘OK, how about instead of my character saving you, it’s just that we switch because it’s time for us to switch and so this is my guy to get,’” she said. “And he was like, ‘OK.’”
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She went on to note: “Now here’s the interesting thing: Nothing changed. It’s just what he thought. I was doing the exact same thing.”
Munn, who is married to actor-comedian John Mulaney, has been outspoken about having endured less-than-optimal treatment on Hollywood sets for some time.
Appearing on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast last year, she recalled an unnamed director on HBO’s The Newsroom who smeared her work ethic after she disagreed with his suggestions of how her character, Sloan Sabbith, would behave alongside Don Keefer (played by Thomas Sadoski) in a scene.
Olivia Munn can currently be seen on the Apple TV+ series “Your Friends & Neighbors,” co-starring Jon Hamm.
TheStewartofNY via Getty Images
“I was on the one-yard-line for the movie and my manager calls me and says, ‘Hey, you’re gonna get the role. But first, I guess there’s another director who they know and he says that on ‘The Newsroom’ you were late all the time and really combative,’” she said at the time. “I was like, ‘I know who this is.’”
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These days, Munn can be seen on the Apple TV+ crime drama series Your Friends & Neighbours, which also stars Jon Hamm. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published last week, she said she hoped to set an example for other female actors by standing up for herself in the film industry.
“I can’t change the world and I cannot change how women have been portrayed and received for however long we’ve been on earth,” she told the outlet. “So I’ve realised that I’m going to handle [these situations] in a way that is going to be the best outcome for me.”
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We’ve had two whole days of sunshine here in the UK, so of course we’re already fantasising about when we get a permanent spring/summer stint.
Now, we’re hoping it’s going to be one of those ‘right round the corner’ moments that comes before you know it (a girl can only dream).
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Whatever happens, when the fairer weather finally arrives, you won’t want to be caught unawares. We’ve gotta make the most of it in this country!
So to make sure you’re prepared for the lighter months ahead, we’ve sourced the best garden tables, chairs, and decor to brighten up your garden for all your hosting needs.
Garden tables and chair sets
Picture this: a sunset Aperol on this striped set. Or even a morning coffee. We’re not here to tell you what to do.
No one need be left out thanks to this extra long extendable table, which can comfortably sit eight or more people. Okay, miss popular!
We can already see you spending all your time here. Invite your friends if you like, or sprawl out across that double sofa like you own the place.
We wish we could afford to nip over to Paris whenever we felt like it, but unfortunately money doesn’t allow it. At least this breakfast set will transport you straight to a French bistro, though.
Need something that can be stowed away? This pale pink set is as sweet as can be, and you can fold it up when you’re done.
Those cushions look almost too inviting. And we don’t know about you, but the first thing we’re doing is wrapping fairy lights around the rattan for an extra cosy vibe into the evening.
Chuck some blankets over the back of this, and you’ve got the perfect spot for gossiping over a glass of wine late into the night. Just saying.
Garden benches, sofas, and loungers
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Looking for a little ‘me’ time? I’m already excited to curl up here with a book next time I have an evening free.
The garden bench might be simple, but it’s staple for a reason: it’s reliable, sturdy, and can be dressed up however you like. This sage version will blend right in with your foliage, too.
Forget park sunbathing, you can get your tan on much more comfortably in your back garden.
This striped sofa might be a little spenny, but you can’t really put a price on a life of soaking in the sun, can you?
Garden decor
I mean, there’s no better way to make your garden feel like a fairy kingdom than mushroom-shaped lights.
To make sure you fully enjoy the fruits of your decorating labour, leave some of the essentials in this garden cabinet so you don’t have to keep running in and out when you have pals over.
It is a plus to be able to see each other when you’re outside. Good news: you don’t have to rely on the brightness of the moon, you can actually decorate your outdoor tables as you would indoors.
Sometimes you just need to sit on the floor. Or stick your kid down there for some quiet time.
A senior BBC correspondent has demolished Donald Trump’s claims that America is winning the Iran war.
Jeremy Bowen, the corporation’s international editor, tore apart the US president’s declarations of victory as a two-week ceasefire in the conflict teeters on the brink.
Trump has accused Tehran of not sticking to an agreement to re-open the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway.
Meanwhile, Israel is continuing to launch missiles against Lebanon in another apparent violation of the ceasefire.
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In an article for the BBC website, Bowen said leaked versions of an American 15-point plan to end the war “sound more like a surrender document than a basis for negotiation”.
He also said that despite the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the war, there has been no regime change in the country, despite what the president has claimed.
“With or without the active participation of the new supreme leader, Iran’s regime has demonstrated depths of resilience that took Trump by surprise,” Bowen said.
“Now Donald Trump’s representatives, led by his vice-president JD Vance, must negotiate with adversaries that they claim, incorrectly, to have defeated.”
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He added: “The US and Israel have done immense damage to Iran’s armed forces as well as its military and civilian infrastructure. However, while the Iranian regime may be battered, it’s also intact.
“Regime change is not happening. Iran can still launch missiles and drones. That means that despite loud claims, the US and Israel have not translated tactical victories into strategic advances.
“Iran, on the other hand, has shown that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz gives it a strategic edge that Donald Trump either dismissed or did not understand when he listened to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arguments for going to war with Iran.”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
First lady Melania Trump called for Congress to hold a public hearing centred on survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, in a press appearance where she also attempted to distance herself from the late sex abuser.
“Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony,” she told reporters. “Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the congressional record.”
The demand is a major step for the first lady, given the friendship her husband, President Donald Trump, had with the disgraced financier. The White House has not immediately responded to HuffPost’s request for comment, though CNN reports that the president was not previously aware his wife would mention Epstein in her speech.
The Trump administration has faced a major backlash for its efforts to hinder the full, transparent release of the Epstein files. Under recently ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi, relevant documents would be released over multiple drops, with many items censoring powerful names while revealing survivors’ identities.
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“First Lady Melania Trump is now shifting the burden onto survivors under politicised conditions that protect those with power,” more than a dozen Epstein survivors said in a Thursday statement.
“The Department of Justice, law enforcement, prosecutors and the Trump Administration, which has still not fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
First Lady Melania Trump speaks to reporters on April 9, 2026, in the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin via Associated Press
Trump made sure to clarify, for some reason, that she herself “is not Epstein’s victim,” and that the “disgraceful” sex abuser was not responsible for introducing her to Donald Trump. She also condemned what she called “fake images and statements” purporting to link her to Epstein.
“The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect,” she said. “I do not object to their ignorance, but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”
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The first lady named The Daily Beast as an example of an outlet that had to retract its claims about her ties with Epstein. But given that the story Trump is likely referring to was from February, it’s unclear why she is choosing to speak about it now.
“I have never had any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of his victims. I was never involved in any capacity — I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane and never visited his private island,” she said.
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, late sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 12, 2000.
Davidoff Studios Photography via Getty Images
Trump did admit, however, that she exchanged an email at least once with Epstein’s now-imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The October 2002 email in question was made public in February by the House.
“Dear G! How are you? Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture,” her email to Maxwell read, with “JE” likely a shortened reference to Epstein. “I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in NY. Have a great time!”
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Maxwell responded to Trump by thanking her for the message and calling her “sweet pea.”
“Actually plans changed again and I am now on my way back to NY,” she said. “I leave again on Fri so I still do not think I have time to see you sadly. I will try and call though. Keep well.”
On Thursday, Trump said her email to Maxwell “cannot be categorised as anything more than casual correspondence.”
“My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a [trivial] note,” she continued, after claiming that she was not friends with Epstein.
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Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who alongside Democrat Ro Khanna has aggressively pushed for accountability and justice related to the Epstein files, said on Thursday that the job of asking survivors to testify before Congress falls on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
″[Khanna] & I already gave brave survivors a chance to tell their horrific stories on Capitol Hill,” Massie posted on X. “Pam Bondi wouldn’t even acknowledge them.”
The survivors said on Thursday that they have already shown “extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports and giving testimony,” and that asking them to do more is “a deflection of responsibility, not justice.”
“Survivors have done their part,” they said. “Now it’s time for those in power to do theirs.”
Birdfeeding feels like a pretty noble thing. The UK’s bird population has, after all, declined by almost a fifth since the ’70s, and it’s true that many sadly starve in the barren, colder months.
Following the results from this year’s The Big Garden Birdwatch, the charity saw that greenfinch populations seem to have declined by 67% since the programme began in 1979. They are now on the UK Red List in the Birds of Conservation Concern.
One of the reasons could be partly influenced by your birdfeeders, they said.
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Why might bird feeders hurt some bird species?
Greenfinch populations are shrinking for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is trichomonosis, a disease that spreads easily from bird to bird at feeders.
Speaking to HuffPost UK, an RSPB spokesperson said: “Our research shows that large numbers of birds congregating around feeders can increase the chances of disease transmission.”
This is especially likely in summer and autumn.
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The spokesperson also shared that the researchers looked at whether feeding might increase competition for some birds.
“Competition between species is of concern and was considered as part of the review. Whilst there is growing evidence of negative interactions between willow tits and beneficiaries of supplementary feeding like blue tits and great spotted woodpeckers, the link with supplementary feeding is unclear,” they shared.
“More research is needed to determine if species-specific interactions may require a more regionally or locally targeted approach.”
The RSPB’s chief executive, Beccy Speight, added: “We’re not asking people to stop feeding, just to feed in a way that protects birds’ long-term health. By making small changes together, we can ensure garden feeding continues to be a positive force for nature.”
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How can I make bird feeding safer?
The RSPB suggested two general rules: “feed seasonally. Feed safely.”
In practice, that means we should try to:
Use multiple feeders. “We would recommend having several feeding areas in one garden, perhaps a suet feeder in one spot and a seed feeder in another,” to reduce the risk of transmission, a spokesperson stated.
Steer clear of peanuts or seeds in your feeders from 1 May to 31 October, as that can lead to too many birds gathering in one place. “It’s okay to keep offering small amounts of mealworms, fat balls, or suet year-round,” the RSPB said.
Clean your feeders. We’ve written before about how to clean your feeders properly: “If possible, place your feeders in a different spot after each clean to prevent the build-up of contaminated debris underneath,” too, said the charity.
Move your feeders weekly. A spokesperson shared, “we advise moving individual feeders to a different spot each week (as well as being thoroughly cleaned), to avoid the build-up of any contaminated debris beneath (any existing debris should also be cleaned up).”
Change their water daily. “Only offer water if you’re able to change it every day and make sure it’s tap water. Water baths should also be cleaned weekly,” the RSPB added.
Get rid of flat-surfaced feeders, like bird tables. “Research has confirmed that there’s a higher risk of the disease spreading on flat surfaces, where contaminated food can collect for other birds to eat.”
And there are ways to help outside of changing how you use feeders, too.
Consider, for instance, planting bird-friendly food sources like sunflowers, teasels and ivy, which offer safer nutrition.
Everyone in Britain, from the chancellor of the exchequer to the parents of 17-year-olds currently being dragged around university open days, is concerned about student debt, tuition fees and interest rates. Fretting about the price of a degree has become a national pastime. Far less discussed is the value of higher education: what students will learn and how they might grow intellectually. Unlike tuition-fee increases, which are set by government ministers and policy wonks, educational standards are determined by universities themselves – and they are in freefall.
This week, King’s College London has hit the headlines after academics went public with their disagreement over an internal directive that they should cut the number of exams students are set and overlook grammatical errors when assessing work. At the same time, essay word counts will be lowered from 2,000 to just 1,300 words. You don’t need a degree to work out that the result of all of these changes will be lower standards. Passing will be easier when students are not expected to work so hard, take exams or worry about writing correctly.
But King’s is not the only institution to have lowered standards in this way. Oxford and Cambridge are among the other universities moving away from exams. At the University of the West of England, students can write field-trip reports or book reviews, design a book jacket, write a pitch or record a podcast. These are no doubt fun activities. Some, perhaps, are challenging. But crucially, success does not depend on students having read extensively, thought deeply and marshalled their ideas, either under time pressure or in a longer written form.
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Unsurprisingly, this is reflected in grade inflation. More than 75 per cent of all students now leave university with a first-class or 2:1 degree, with the most dramatic increase taking place between 2010 and 2020. Chinese students studying in the UK have wryly labelled Britain’s higher-education system ‘easy in, easy out’, because not only is it easier to get accepted on to courses than in the US or China, but assessments are also less stringent. In other words, easy admission is followed by low expectations and easy-to-meet academic standards.
So, the academics at King’s College are absolutely right to decry ‘dumbing down’. But the fact that they had to take their complaints to the national press raises uncomfortable questions about who runs our universities. If lecturers themselves are not setting standards, expectations and assessment methods, then who is?
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The answer becomes clear when we see the justification for cutting exams, lowering essay word counts and ignoring students’ grammatical mistakes. These changes are apparently needed to make higher education ‘diverse’ and ‘more inclusive’. Those now calling the shots in universities are not lecturers, then, but learning-support officers and diversity, equity and inclusion managers. Not subject experts, in other words, but bureaucrats. And their motivation is not academic, but political.
According to this managerial elite, the problem with exams is that they are a bit stressful. Writing essays can be overwhelming. Those now in charge think students are just too fragile to meet even the most basic demands. But the clincher seems to be the implication that more traditional assessment methods are racist. The learning and teaching bureaucrats at King’s think changes are needed in order to ‘validate diverse knowledge systems and lived experiences’. New forms of assessment should be ‘culturally responsive’ and take into account ‘language culture and identity’. Marking, meanwhile, should ‘embrace linguistic diversity’ and focus on ‘ideas not grammar’.
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We need a reality check. It is not exams that are racist, but the patronising assumption that only white men can cope with writing essays under timed conditions. It is not grammar that is elitist, but the condescending notion that people with ‘diverse’ identities are incapable of mastering the finer points of the English language. For all their politically correct euphemisms, DEI managers see non-white students as ignorant and ineducable.
The idea that so-called non-traditional students have their own ‘knowledge systems’ and need to have their ‘lived experiences’ affirmed through the curriculum and assessment methods challenges the very idea of a university. Rather than being dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the transmission of knowledge, universities become places where multiple perspectives are affirmed, and none must be judged inferior. (Apart, that is, from the work of white males, which must only ever be condemned on the decolonised curriculum.) And rather than students being expected to employ reason and intellectual endeavour, they must have their experiences and emotional responses validated. This is not a university education but a therapy session.
Thankfully, there is at least one positive to take from the King’s College saga. Students have written an open letter criticising the new assessment regime, and lecturers have taken their accusations of ‘dumbing down’ to the press. Clearly, there are at least some people in our universities who still value excellence.
Warning: This articles contains spoilers for The Drama.
Going to see The Drama, the new flick starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, may initially feel like sitting down to a typical romantic comedy.
The film’s marketing revolves heavily around the idea of a gorgeous wedding, surrounded by loved ones, until the bride-to-be reveals a secret a few days before she and her fiancé are set to get married: When she was 15, she planned to carry out a school shooting.
After another mass shooting happened the same day, though, Zendaya’s character, Emma, ultimately didn’t go through with her plans.
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Production company A24 has been coy about the big secret in all of its promotional materials, and viewers are given no forewarning as they settle into their seats about the subject matter that is about to play out onscreen.
The trailer suggests that Emma committed a serious faux pas — but one that might simply reflect a quirk of her personality.
Robert Pattinson and Zendaya at a screening of The Drama last week
Melissa Alexander, whose two kids survived the 2023 Covenant School shooting that left three other children and three adults dead, knew about the plot twist going in.
Still, she walked out of the cinema before The Drama was finished. The film gave her a nightmare later that night.
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Alexander saw the movie Friday night with another Covenant mum in a cinema less than a mile away from the Tennessee school, and the pair walked out about two-thirds of the way in, as Charlie is talking to his friends about Emma’s past.
In the scene, Charlie wonders aloud, given that mass shootings are such a prevalent problem in America, whether there may be a bunch of people who think about committing such a crime but never go through with it.
“There’s not just a bunch of normal people walking around thinking about doing something like this,” Alexander told HuffPost. “It’s a specific type of person. And to diminish it down to everyday people just really annoyed me.
“If somebody is watching this movie, who has some sort of ideations or thoughts about this, I think what it does for them is it helps to normalise it for them.”
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An increasing number of Americans have first-hand experience with the terror of a mass shooting.
So far this year, there have been 32 shootings on campuses across the US, resulting in 15 deaths and 15 injuries, according to Everytown, a gun violence prevention organisation.
Emma explains to Charlie she was bullied in school and got caught up in the “aesthetics” of mass shooters – a definition she never really parses. The movie shows Emma, wearing dark eye makeup, posing with a rifle in front of her webcam. But after a nearby shooting leaves one of her classmates dead, Emma abandons her plans and instead joins her fellow classmates in advocating for gun control.
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Later on, it’s revealed that Emma becomes so involved in gun control activism that she’s arrested for harassing Walmart employees for selling guns.
For Alexander, Emma’s motivating factor – bullying – felt oversimplified and woefully unrealistic. The person who killed six people at the Covenant School was not exacting revenge against peers for bullying: They were 28 and killed three nine-year-olds.
Melissa Alexander, the mother of a Covenant School Shooting survivor, speaking during a discussin about gun legislation at the US Capitol Building in January 2024
Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
“These people are mentally ill, and they don’t just grow up to be a beautiful Hollywood actress like Zendaya,” she said.“That’s not a normal trajectory or the way somebody matures.”
Gun control activists have been among the film’s most vocal critics. One of them, Mia Tretta, was shot during the deadly 2019 mass shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, and also survived the recent deadly shooting at Brown University. She is an advisor for Students Demand Action, an organization of students advocating for the end of gun violence.
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Tretta chastised The Drama’s filmmakers for treating school shootings as a “plot point”.
“It’s a reality I lived through when I was shot at my school at 15 years old, and again as a terrified student at Brown this past December,” she said in a statement to HuffPost.
“Using a planned massacre as a rom-com hook isn’t ‘starting a conversation’, it’s exploiting a crisis. There are ways to show nuance without using trauma as a gimmick. Studios and stars have massive platforms, and they should use them to give dimension to survivors, not perpetrators.”
Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered in the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, hasn’t seen the movie yet, but told HuffPost that he had hope for it given Zendaya’s past acknowledgement of his own activism. The actress once shared a clip of Guttenberg speaking at a Parkland vigil on Instagram.
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But Guttenberg remains wary of any effort to explain away a mass shooter.
“Once somebody makes a decision to commit the act of gun violence, I don’t feel the need to humanise them,” Gutenberg told HuffPost.
March For Our Lives, an organisation started by victims of the Parkland massacre, wrote on X that the marketing for The Drama — as a dark romantic comedy — is “deeply misaligned” with the reality of school shootings.
Zendaya has acknowledged in interviews that the movie has “many elements of a romantic comedy”, but called it “heartbreaking, disturbing to some, emotional, but also so much more than that”. Robert, meanwhile, has said it is “so romantic”.
Entertainment reporters appear to be helping preserve the film’s big twist, though, as the stars have not been pressed to answer for the controversy. Their discussions have instead focused more broadly on the relationship between Emma and Charlie, and the moral lines that people may draw – or not – when it comes to those closest to them.
“I think the movie is exploring more, like, your personal limit, and … the limits for how honest and how flawed you can be in your most private life,” Kristoffer Borgli, the 40-year-old Norwegian who wrote and directed The Drama, told the Popcorn Podcast.
There is little solid research into the minds of mass shooters. Two criminologists who spent a decade researching mass shootings told the US news show 60 Minutes that shooters often experience “horrific trauma” early in life, but can appear very normal in person, like “the kid sitting next to you in class”. They suggested overstigmatising shooters could lead people to believing there is nothing that can be done to help them.
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Julia Moralez knows what it’s like to know someone before they reveal a horrifying secret. She knew the mass shooter who carried out the 2019 mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people and injured 89 others. The shooter once lived with Moralez, who told HuffPost that when she knew him, he was “polite, kind and well-mannered”. But reports after the shooting revealed he was a white supremacist.
Moralez was initially interested in seeing The Drama, but once she read the spoiler online, she didn’t think she could.
“It seemed edgy for the sake of being edgy,” Moralez told HuffPost. “There were just things I didn’t like and felt exploitative to me personally. Even the title, The Drama, just making light of something that is a real-life situation for a lot of people … just doesn’t sit right with me.”
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The film also goes against statistics that show mass shootings are typically carried out by boys and men. Emma’s gender is only briefly discussed in the movie when, during a class discussion on mass shooters, Emma corrects one of her classmates when they say that mass shooters are almost always boys. Emma chimes in and says that not only do girls do it sometimes, but mass shootings even happen outside of America, too.
But Moralez doesn’t see it that way.
“If you look at the numbers, it’s something that affects men,” Moralez said. “And I think that that’s something that needs to be looked at. And I think that twisting it to [be] a female issue, for the sake of a story, a good drama, is kind of belittling an issue that affects males, especially as someone who knows someone who shot and killed more than 50 people and live-streamed it.”
“I like Zendaya as an actor, but I’m kind of disappointed that she took this role because I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem right to me.”
Donald Trump’s apparent failure to foresee one of the main consequences of the war in Iran has been mocked by an LBC presenter.
James Hanson said it “beggars belief” that the US president did not think Tehran would end up charging oil tankers for passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The key waterway, which normally carries around one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquid gas supply, has been effectively closed by Iran since shortly after the start of the war.
Under the terms of a two-week ceasefire agreed on Tuesday night, Iran is supposed to have re-opened the strait.
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But in a post on his Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”
In a follow up post, the president added: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!”
In a monologue on his LBC show, James Hanson said: “Honestly, it beggars belief that the man still has not thought through the consequences of his actions.
“What did he think would happen when he started bombing Iran? Of course they were going to retaliate.
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“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending what the Iranians are doing, not least because it’s blooming inconvenient for the rest of us who are paying more at the pumps as a result.
“But if you are the Iranians, of course the only way you are going to raise revenue to carry on fighting is by charging vessels for the right to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
“This is why officials in the Pentagon warned successive presidents for the best part of half a century ’do not launch a war against Iran because they will retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz and that will be incredibly difficult to unpick.
“What did he think was going to happen?”
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