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It’s World Sleep Day, and what better excuse is there to give your bedtime routine a bit of a boost?

There’s a good chance you need it, too, as new research from Dreams has found that, despite spending over 7 hours in bed, on average, we are actually sleeping for 6 hours 37 minutes a night.

That might not seem like a big deal at first, but in total it amounts to the equivalent of 22 days of missed sleep in a year. That’s over 3 weeks we’re missing out on spending in the land of nod.

If you’d like to try and get those 3 weeks back, take a look at the HuffPost UK team’s very favourite tried-and-tested bedtime-friendly buys, from mattress toppers to supplements.

The Israeli military has expanded its illegal evacuation order to a large area of Lebanon north of the Litani river, towards the al-Zahrani river as far as Saida. The threat is forcing hundreds of thousands more civilians to flee, adding to the 700,000 forcibly displaced by the earlier expulsion order.

The mass displacement is comparable with demanding the evacuation of England from Birmingham to the south coast.

With its typical arrogance, the occupation is also demanding the evacuation of parts of densely-populated areas of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, with successive orders affecting adjacent areas of the city:

IDF Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee posted the orders to X, demanding all residents evacuate ‘for their safety’:

#URGENT ‼️ Urgent Warning to Residents of Southern Lebanon

🔸Hezbollah’s terrorist activities are forcing the Defense Army to act against it forcefully, especially in your areas. The Defense Army does not intend to harm you.

🔴Out of concern for your safety, we direct this to all residents south of the Zahrani River – you must evacuate your homes immediately🔴

🔸Anyone near Hezbollah elements, their facilities, or their combat means is endangering their life.

🔸Any building used by Hezbollah for military purposes may become a target.

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🔸O residents of southern Lebanon, you must move immediately to north of the Zahrani River.

🔸Attention: Any movement south may put your lives at risk

Following the pattern of its crimes in Gaza, Israel has included among its supposed resistance ‘targets’ the bombing of the Lebanese University in Beirut:

Israel has just bombed the Lebanese University.

They are repeating the Gaza genocide.

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pic.twitter.com/JQG70rO5Y7

— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) March 12, 2026

Among the victims of the bombing were Dean of Science Dr Hussain Bazzi and Dr Mortada Srour, also member of the school of science faculty.

Was the fact they were leading scientists in their field the reason they’ve been targeted?

Israel, from the tips of its invasive roots to the ends of its poisonous leaves, is a murderous terror state.

Featured image via the Canary

Health minister Zubir Ahmed has said he doesn’t blame Islamophobes for islamophobia.

Why not?

It’s actually the algorithm’s fault.

Labour health minister defends Islamophobes

He said that these right-wing racist cockwombles don’t know any better, and are:

inundated and attacked every minute of the day with algorithmic content.

And? Arguing this is “new” or that they’re impressionable is hogwash. The logic doesn’t add up. Haven’t you ever been told , Ahmed, that you can’t polish a turd? Anti-Muslim hate and general bigotry are exactly what it says on the tin — hate and bigotry.

Racist begets racism

Ahmed, a surgeon by training, shares that he sometimes wears ‘visibly Muslim garb’ when he goes out to gauge the reactions of passersby. Despite his medical accolades, including life-saving surgeries, he himself faces racist comments. For example, people have said, ‘Thanks for the transplant, now go home.’

Ahmed referenced the media’s determined push to drive the “Overton window” of acceptable political discussion ever further right. This process has been underway for decades. As a result, extremist, openly racist right-wing views are now treated as ‘normal’. Moreover, Ahmed warned that it has accelerated over the last year.

Islamophobia? But where?

This is hardly surprising, given that Starmer’s government, committed to Israel, demonises Palestinians. Under Starmer’s leadership, the party has openly been courting the racist right. Furthermore, it has shamelessly demonised Muslims in by-election contests – before and after getting into government.

Starmer also watered down the government’s definition of ‘anti-Muslim hate’, removing the word ‘Islamophobia’ in response to complaints from the hard right and the Israel lobby. The lobby was offended at the definition’s similarity to the so-called ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism. Yet, it is still attacked by Islamophobic media. However, Ahmed says that it is still “the right diagnosis for the illness” of Islamophobia.

With its long history of Islamophobia among its ruling right, Labour is of course not the party for Muslims and has haemorrhaged Muslim support since Keir Starmer took over.

Featured image via the Canary

Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan has called the government out for falsely saying that Motability changes won’t impact disabled people.

Duncan-Jordan has worked with Transport For All and 70 other disabled people’s organisations to prove that this is not true.

Neil Duncan-Jordan holds Labour to account again

The MP for Poole has a history of holding his own party’s government to account. In July 2025, Duncan-Jordan was one of four MPs who lost the whip for being a big catalyst in Labour MPs opposing the horrific benefits cuts.

On Twitter, he said:

Ministers said Motability changes wouldn’t impact disabled people.

Transport For All has compiled testimony from disabled people that calls this into question.

I’ve written to the Government with 70 organisations raising concerns.

Ministers must listen to disabled people.

The government announced cuts to Motability in the Autumn 2025 budget. What was abundantly clear from Reeves’ rhetoric around this was that Labour were pandering to Twitter right-wing gobshites.

Letter disproves lies about disabled people

Duncan-Jordan also shared the letter that he and the organisations have sent to the Minister for Disabled People, Stephen Timms. As well as requesting a meeting with the minister, he’s impressing on Timms just how important Motability is.

The letter says:

Motability is a vital scheme, and these cuts will create further barriers for disabled people, including those with long-term and progressive conditions, to access employment, education, medical appointments and to live independently.

The Government and Motability have repeatedly assured deaf and disabled people’s organisations, Parliament and the media that changes to the scheme – including the introduction of VAT on upfront/advanced payments, increased taxation on leases, and a narrowed vehicle selection – would not negatively affect users.

Transport for All has collated responses from disabled people sharing their fears. Duncan Jordan said in the letter that these ‘directly conflict’ with the narrative the government and media are spreading.

The letter said these include those who:

•  Need a higher up car to see safely out of and drive. The removal of a specific model will mean these groups will pay a higher fee for a car that does not meet their access needs.

• Rely on their Motability cars to work, and who will now face the prospect of being unable to continue employment due to increased costs from VAT and higher insurance premiums.

• Fear they will be unable to afford the scheme and who cannot get a car that meets their needs due to the reduced vehicle choice.

Labour doesn’t care about working with disabled people

The letter also calls out the fact that there has been no consultation with disabled people or their organisations on these changes. They urge the government to fix that and, if changes must be made, to co-produce new policy alongside disabled people.

But as we’ve seen with the Timms Review, the DWP has a very different view of co-production – and it’s never authentic.

Speaking of the review, the letter also raises the issues that changes to PIP will mean for Motability users. Namely, that if the criteria are narrowed, many will lose their vital vehicles.

The letter ends with a powerful reminder of what the DWP’s aims should be:

Policy must be guided by genuine co-production with disabled people across all impairment groups and their organisations. This should start from the principle of enabling disabled people to live their lives, participate in wider society and for those who can and are able to work, to be supported to work.

Because whilst the Labour government pretend they are doing everything for the benefit of disabled people, their actions always say otherwise.

They might pretend to want to support disabled people into work. But their bullshit schemes, cutting Access to Work, and stopping us from getting to work with accessible vehicles tells us how much they actually care about disabled people.

Featured image via the Canary

As Keir Starmer visited the North of Ireland on 12 March, local politicians laid bare the impact of rising fuel costs. Many in the North use heating oil and this has seen disproportionate price rises following the US / Israeli attacks on Iran.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald T.D led a party delegation to meet with Starmer. She was accompanied by deputy leader Michelle O’Neill MLA, and Pat Cullen MP. McDonald said:

As we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement peace is secure, and our national journey is towards Irish unity which requires political leadership.

Speaking in Belfast, McDonald said:

At today’s meeting between Sinn Féin and the prime minister we raised the growing crisis in relation to rising fuel, home heating, and energy price rises, which is bearing down hard on workers and families.

Given the financial constraints on the Executive budget, there needs significant intervention from the British government and it needs to happen urgently.

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We raised the illegal occupation, annexation and continuing genocide in Gaza which remains dire, and the magnitude and scale of the crisis in the Middle East. The international community stands idly by and the British government is arming Israel.

We called on the prime minister to stand on the right side of history. The threat to peace and stability as a result of the wholesale breaching of international rule of law by Israel and the US is deeply worrying.

The human impact is colossal, and we must hold ground to reduce instability and rising militarisation. There must be an immediate ceasefire. Diplomacy and respect for International Law must have primacy.

Commenting on this week’s British Irish Summit she said:

This week’s British Irish summit is another important step in rebuilding relations and East-West co-operation, which was badly damaged under the Tories in pursuit of a hard Brexit.

The challenge for both the taoiseach and British prime minister is to open a new chapter in British-Irish relations, to recognise that as we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement peace is secure, and our national journey is towards Irish unity which requires political leadership.

The long awaited publication of the Terms of Reference for the Pat Finucane Public Inquiry is welcome and which must now proceed without further delay after decades of determined and dignified campaigning by the Finucane family.

The prime minister must now act to establish a public inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown, the Bellaghy Wolfe Tones GAC chairman murdered in 1997. The British government is appealing recent court rulings that found its failure to establish a public inquiry into his murder to be incompatible with its obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Sean Brown’s widow, Bridie, now 87, has waited too long for justice and this continued resistance to an inquiry is totally unacceptable. I put it directly to Keir Starmer that he should meet Bridie Brown, and to drop its appeal to the Supreme Court.

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I have also raised this with the Taoiseach who must press the case with the prime minister in Cork and stand with the Brown family in their pursuit of truth and justice.

Gerry Carroll MLA, of the People Before Profit party, also commented on the skyrocketing home fuel costs:

Starmer and Reeves have repeatedly refused to step up and provide a package of financial support for households reeling from spiking oil prices.

Their promises to crack down on profiteering energy companies would be welcome – but for nearly two years, this Labour government has betrayed ordinary people time and time again, in favour of big business.

They’ve refused to fairly tax wealth and rolled out the red carpet for corporate lobbyists. Labour clearly don’t have the interests of working class communities at heart and cannot be trusted.

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The Executive’s shambolic handling of this energy crisis is no better, with Sinn Féin and the DUP trading insults about a £81m fund for energy support that looks unlikely to reach the bank accounts of struggling households any time soon.

The fact remains that people in Britain look set to receive a £150 payment next month, with further payments set to follow. It’s completely unacceptable that people in the north will be left behind – especially given our heavy reliance on home heating oil.

Executive parties have a duty to step in where Starmer has failed, and implement price caps on energy costs and deliver meaningful financial support for people across the north, who are facing financial punishment as the result of an illegal and unprovoked war that nobody wants.

Featured image via Sinn Féin

Donald Trump wants the US to dominate Latin America again by weakening the region’s ties with China. And on 7 March, he brought the leaders of “13 like-minded countries” to a Trump resort in Florida for a “Shield of the Americas Summit”. The Chinese embassy in the US, however, mocked the president’s new pet project.

Trump-bootlickers accepting US shackles

Despite a smokescreen promise of using “lethal military force” to rehash drug-war failures of the past, the military alliance of Trump-bootlickers is really a demonstration of US intentions in Latin America. It used brutality in the past to get its way, and it’s willing to do so again now.

The Chinese embassy summed the move up as an attempt to ‘shackle‘ countries throughout the region to US power:

Shield of the Americas, or shackles of the Americas?
📽️ @XHNews #US #America pic.twitter.com/X5kYo09gfq

— Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) March 12, 2026

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After decades of forcing their submission, the US allowed nations in the region a bit more freedom after the Cold War ended. And with some democratic gains, many people in the region sought alternative paths. This saw US economic dominance decrease and cooperation with China increase.

Billionaires have long sought quieter means to get Latin American countries to shackle themselves to the US again. And they’ve got their way in numerous resource-rich nations in the region. But Donald Trump’s tariff pressures, bullying, assassinations, abductions, and blockades have tried to tip the balance even further.

Trump’s regime is desperate to weaken China’s influence in Latin America and, unable to compete economically, it has resorted to militarism again. But for those who lived through the Cold War, the name ‘Shield of the Americas’ may sound all too similar to the notorious ‘School of the Americas’.

School of the Americas / WHINSEC

Most of the countries whose right-wing leaders attended the ‘Shield of the Americas Summit’ also have a dark history with the ‘School of the Americas‘ (SOA), the Pentagon’s “covert warfare” tool that spent decades embedding brutally repressive techniques into militaries throughout Latin America.

Graduates from the military school served elite US interests in Latin America so the US Army didn’t need a repeat of Vietnam closer to home. And some of Latin America’s most notorious dictators passed through SOA’s halls before killing and torturing hundreds of thousands of people back home.

SOA graduates put their lessons into practice from Argentina to El Salvador and Brazil, and from Nicaragua to Venezuela. And despite SOA’s 2001 rebranding as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), graduates have been pushing US interests well into the 21st century, from Honduras to Chile and Bolivia.

SOA Watch, a nonviolent grassroots movement campaigning against such training, has faced hostility from the US government for its work. And as its national organiser Hendrik Voss explained:

The purpose of the school is to maintain U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere, and it is also a tool to maintain white supremacy over the non-white populations of this hemisphere.

The training… is among the root causes of migration that force people to flee their countries in Latin America. SOA/WHINSEC-trained soldiers are the military muscle that keeps in place a system guaranteeing profits for the elites—and exploitation for the poor.

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The Trump regime has now created the US Army Western Hemisphere Command (USAWHC), to which WHINSEC now reports directly. WHINSEC Commandant Col. Eldridge R. Singleton said the shift would help the school grow its influence. He also explained that:

In Fiscal Year 2025, WHINSEC graduated 781 students from over a dozen countries. Since opening in January 2001, WHINSEC has graduated over 37,000 students from over 30 countries.

The US has trained Latin American forces through other institutions too, but the School of the Americas stands out for its notoriety.

The US return to dominance is not inevitable

The creation of USAWHC seems to be an effort to make the US “preeminent” in the region again. And the ‘Shield of the Americas’ seems to be an extension of this aim. As John Griswold at the Common Reader explained, the Trump regime wants to show Latin America is “a priority theatre” for the US.

Trump’s Republican administration, Griswold said, is shaking off past rhetoric about ‘democracy’ and ‘international law’ (which Democratic support for Israel’s genocide enabled). And it’s openly showing it will use military power to protect US interests and “access to key terrain” in the region, while weakening China’s.

Panama is one country bowing to Trump’s will. While the US regime has pressured Panama to move away from China, it has also reopened a “Jungle Warfare” school there to show both Panama and China that it’s serious.

Trump is bringing “big stick energy” to the region. And fawning far-right governments are bringing big bootlicking energy. But three major Latin American countries — Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia (representing “more than half of the region’s GDP” and currently under left-leaning governments) — aren’t playing along.

Latin America’s relationship with China, meanwhile, won’t end overnight. So China is reacting calmly for now, despite facing an increasingly brash US competitor. And its gentle mocking of US tactics may just prompt people in the region to remember the death and destruction that come with submission to US bullying.

Featured image via Wikimedia

The debate surrounding ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup has escalated from a purely sporting discussion to a political issue within US Congress. Dozens of American lawmakers called on FIFA to review its ticket pricing policy.

A letter from US lawmakers warned that the tournament could become an event that excludes a large segment of the fan base.

The letter, coordinated by Representative Sydney Kamlager Duff and signed by 68 other members of Congress, was addressed to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. It urged him to make tickets affordable for American fans as well as international fans attending the tournament, which will be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico from June 11 to July 19, 2026.

FIFA World Cup: rising costs

A global event that impacts the local economy. The primary reason for this intervention relates to the sheer scale of the event itself. Because the World Cup is not just a football competition, but a massive economic project involving cities and public institutions in the host countries.

The American cities hosting the tournament have already spent billions of dollars on infrastructure, security, transportation, and services related to the World Cup. This means that a portion of these costs is covered by public funds and taxpayers, which gives lawmakers the right to question organizers when they feel that local fans might be excluded due to high prices.

Variable pricing

Lawmakers criticized FIFA’s decision to use a variable pricing system for the first time in the tournament’s history, a system that allows ticket prices to change according to factors such as real-time demand and the popularity of a match.

Critics of this policy argue that this model opens the door to significant price increases, especially for matches involving major national teams or crucial stages, potentially turning the tournament into an event exclusively for the wealthy.

In their letter to Infantino, the lawmakers said that high ticket demand “should not be a green light to raise prices at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world.”

FIFA under pressure

Although Congress does not have direct authority over FIFA, such letters represent political and media pressure on the international organization, especially when it concerns a tournament held on American soil.

Therefore, in their concluding remarks, the legislators called on FIFA to “review its policies and take immediate corrective action,” warning that continued variable pricing could transform the world’s biggest football event into a profit-driven enterprise that alienates the fans who have made the game so popular.

Amidst the political and economic debate, the issue of tickets appears to have become one of the most contentious topics in the lead-up to the 2026 World Cup, a tournament that will test not only the readiness of the stadiums but also their relationship with the fans, who are the lifeblood of the game.

Astronomical prices

According to FIFA data, nearly two million tickets were sold in the first two phases of sales, with demand exceeding supply by more than 30 times.

Some tickets for the opening match reach prices of around $900, while tickets for the final exceed $8,000, and the cheapest seats for the final start at around $2,000.

But the biggest surprise came on FIFA’s official resale platform, where a third-tier seat for the tournament final scheduled to be held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19 was offered for a shocking price of $143,000, more than 40 times its original price.

Featured image via the Canary