Politics
Sabrina Carpenter Apologises After Insulting Fan’s Zaghrouta Celebration At Coachella
Sabrina Carpenter has apologised after insulting one fan who performed an Arabic vocal celebration during her Coachella set.
On Friday night, the Espresso singer delivered her first headlining performance at the Coachella music festival, where she whizzed through all of her biggest hits and was joined on stage by a number of surprise guests.
During a quieter moment of the set, Sabrina was seemingly taken aback when she heard someone in the crowd doing a zaghrouta, a vocal trill often heard at Arabic celebrations.
“I think I heard someone yodel,” she responded. “Is that what you’re doing? I don’t like it.”
When the fan in question shouted back that the gesture was part of their “culture”, the Grammy winner retorted: “That’s your culture? Yodelling? Is this Burning Man? What’s going on? This is weird.”
Footage of the incident was then circulated online, with one since-deleted clip racking up 30 million views on X alone.
Responding to one critic accusing her of being “insensitive and Islamophobic”, Sabrina wrote back on Saturday night: “My apologies, I didn’t see this person with my eyes and couldn’t hear clearly. My reaction was pure confusion, sarcasm and not ill intended.”
She then conceded that she “could have handled it better” now that she knows “what a Zaghrouta is”.
“I welcome all cheers and yodels from here on out,” Sabrina added.
Joining Sabrina as headliners at Coachella this year were Justin Bieber – who raised eyebrows with his own low-key set ending with him scrolling YouTube and singing along with some of his own hits on Saturday – and Karol G.
Sabrina’s set featured elaborate performances of hits including Espresso, Manchild and Taste, as well as on-stage appearances from Will Ferrell, Susan Sarandon and her former Disney Channel co-star Corey Fogelmanis.
Coachella will return for its second weekend of 2026 later this week.
As rumours continue to swirl about which stars will be on the line-up for this year’s season of The Celebrity Traitors, there’s one name that we can now confidently rule out.
Over the weekend, former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi made an appearance on Laura Kuenssberg’s flagship BBC politics show, during which the subject of Celebrity Traitors came up in the conversation.
The Oscar winner then shared that he’d been approached about putting in a stint in the iconic castle, but turned it down.
Explaining his reasons for not wanting to compete on Celebrity Traitors, Peter said the show “propels” its contestants “into the public eye” and to a “level of fame” and “exposure” that he’s personally not comfortable with.
“It’s like doing my music things,” Peter noted, referring to his recent pivot from acting to music. “It’s very difficult for people in that business to understand that you want to keep it small.
“People keep saying to me, ‘why don’t you do a bigger tour?’, or ‘why don’t you do a bigger release?’, or ‘why don’t you promote this more?’. I’m not doing it to be famous.”
BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge
Filming on the second season of Celebrity Traitors is due to get underway imminently, before the star-studded reality show returns to our screens in the autumn.
A number of names reported to be in the running for the show’s first iteration, including Bob Mortimer, Daisy May Cooper and Danny Dyer, are now heavily rumoured to be following in Alan Carr’s footsteps, with the likes of Ruth Jones, Cheryl Tweedy, Michael Sheen and Amol Rajan also tipped to be on the follow-up season’s line-up.
Meanwhile, Alison Hammond recently claimed that she was too booked and busy to do the show after rumours about her involvement.
The Traitors will also return for its fifth season in early 2026, with the BBC recently renewing both the main show and its celebrity counterpart until at least 2030.
Anyone who watched Louis Theroux’s Inside The Manosphere will be aware that misogynistic content is rife online. Yet these views haven’t just appeared out of nowhere, they’ve been around for years – and social media has amplified it thanks to rage-fuelled algorithms.
Nearly 70% of boys aged 11-14 years old have been exposed to misogynistic content online, according to Ofcom.
After Netflix’s much-lauded series Adolescence shone a spotlight on misogyny among school children last year (and introduced many parents to terms like red pill and manosphere), teachers told HuffPost UK misogynistic comments are commonplace, even from primary school-age boys.
Just this week, one Birmingham-based teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, told Birmingham Live a six-year-old pupil had “said he wasn’t going to get his fruit at snack time and one of the girls would have to go and get the fruit for him”.
The teacher noted misogynistic views are being “trickled down” to younger children through older siblings who are consuming this content online.
When the six-year-old was pulled up on his comments, he said his older brother had been “watching the videos”.
Research by the University of York found most primary and secondary school teachers are “extremely concerned” about the influence of the manosphere – a collection of websites and forums that typically promote masculinity, some of which amplify misogynistic views – on children and young people.
One-quarter of teachers referenced male pupils discussing misogynistic influencers or misogynistic movements from the internet, such as incels.
Educator Rebecca Leigh previously told us she’s noticed “a rise in misogyny” among students – some as young as 11 or 12.
Unison, the UK’s largest union, said a major issue currently affecting schools is the rise in sexist behaviour and language, and sexual harassment – noting it’s being fuelled by explicit content online, as well as on mobile phones.
Childhood is a critical stage of development, and children are “highly impressionable” and particularly vulnerable to extreme views, family psychotherapist Fiona Yassin told HuffPost UK.
“The internet is a hotbed for extremism and misinformation and early research around the impact of the ‘manosphere’ on children is incredibly alarming,”
But parents, carers and anyone working with children can play a role in shaping how youngsters view women.
Regardless of whether you believe your child is exhibiting these behaviours or consuming harmful content online, conversations about misogyny and the treatment of women are incredibly important.
And given all the data, it’s never been more pressing.
In the lexicon of modern warfare, ‘connectivity’ is a target. In 2026, the Israeli Air Force has turned this concept into a grim reality along the banks of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Through a terrorizing and systematic campaign of infrastructure destruction, the southern third of Lebanon is being physically detached from the rest of the sovereign state.
Isolating southern Lebanon
Every bridge, from the historic stone arches to modern highway spans, has been reduced to rubble, creating a ‘de facto’ island of the south. While Israel claims this as a tactical necessity to ‘freeze the movement’ of resistance groups, the sheer permanence of the destruction suggests a deeper metamorphosis.
By severing the veins that connect Beirut to the south, the Israeli military is performing a geopolitical amputation, turning a 170km waterway into a moat of isolation. As the concrete falls, a haunting question arises: Is Israel simply clearing a path for victory, or is it permanently carving a new map into the Lebanese landscape?
The Litani River
For readers unfamiliar with the geography of the Levant, the Litani River is the most significant waterway in Lebanon, flowing entirely within its borders for roughly 170 kilometers. Originating in the fertile Bekaa Valley in the east, it winds south before making a sharp, westward turn toward the Mediterranean Sea, just north of the city of Tyre.
This ‘elbow’ in the river creates a natural geographic line that sits approximately 20-to-30 kilometers north of the Palestinian border. Because of this strategic position, the Litani has long served as a geopolitical yardstick: it is the boundary line established by the United Nations in 2006 to separate Israeli occupational forces from Lebanon, and its waters remain a vital, yet contested, artery for the country’s agricultural heartland and hydroelectric power. In the context of conflict, to cross the Litani is to enter the most volatile ‘buffer zone’ in the Middle East.
Israel wants to implement its plan of re-occupying southern Lebanon, as its officials have stated since the announcement of the UN 1701 decree. While the Lebanese government in Beirut remains trapped in a state of diplomatic paralysis, unable to ‘bridge’ even its own internal political divides, the Litani is being transformed from a Lebanese river into a hard, unilateral frontier.
We are on the verge of witnessing the birth of a new border, written not in ink, but in broken rebar and isolation.
The ultimate ‘red line’
For Israel, the Litani River represents the ultimate ‘red line’ where military strategy meets geography.
Historically viewed as a potential water source, the Litani’s primary importance in 2026 is as a permanent security buffer. By pushing Lebanese armed forces north of this 170km line, Israel seeks to create a so-called ‘sterile zone’ that extends its occupation north of the Palestinian lands and protect its mercenaries from short-range missiles and anti-tank fire.
The systematic destruction of the river’s bridges serves a dual purpose: it creates a tactical ‘moat’ that asphyxiates southern supply lines and serves as a geopolitical tool to physically decouple the region from Beirut.
The Litani River is a ghost that has long dictated the rhythm of Lebanese-Israeli warfare, serving as a recurring milestone for invasion and withdrawal. In 1978, the IOF launched Operation Litani, a clear signal that Israel viewed the river as an ‘acceptable boundary’ for Lebanese sovereignty. This fixation was codified further in 1982 and again in 2006 through UN Resolution 1701, which attempted to turn the river into a diplomatic shield by mandating it as a zone ‘free of non-state armed groups’, as per the UN.
However, these historical attempts at ‘cleansing’ the area south of the river have never achieved permanence. Instead, the Litani has become a cyclical graveyard of diplomacy; every time the “ghost” is supposedly laid to rest by a ceasefire, the failure to address the underlying territorial tension ensures that the river eventually rises again as the frontline of a new, more destructive generation of conflict.
A state of agonizing paradox
The Lebanese state in 2026 exists in a state of agonizing paradox: it’s trying to push to assert its sovereignty as demanded by the US and Israel, only to have the physical means of doing so systematically dismantled. While the government officially banned Hezbollah’s military activity in March and moved to deploy the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) southward – only to retreat later, once Israel moved its troops northward – the severed bridges of the Litani have turned these mandates into hollow gestures.
Beirut is effectively presiding over a ‘truncated’ nation, where the southern third of the country has become a logistical island. Despite a flurry of diplomatic protests to the UN and desperate attempts by the Ministry of Public Works to patch together temporary crossings, the government remains paralyzed. It is unable to defend its borders, reconnect its people, stand by its resistance forces, or prevent the Litani from hardening into a permanent, unilateral frontier that ignores the state’s very existence.
The destruction of the Litani bridges may well be the final act in transforming a temporary military ‘moat’ into a permanent, unilateral frontier. If these crossings are not restored, the ‘amputation’ of southern Lebanon risks becoming a settled geographic reality, echoing the “Gaza-fication” of the borderlands where separation is enforced by rubble and isolation.
This is no longer just a battle over security zones; it is the physical redrawing of the Levant’s map. As the smoke clears in 2026, the haunting question remains whether the Litani will ever again be a Lebanese river, or if it has been successfully rebranded as a hard, impassable limit – a ghost that has finally stopped haunting the conflict and started defining the peace.
Featured image via Associated Press
Politics
Neurodivergent Job Interviews: Why AuDHD Talent Is Being Filtered Out Of The Hiring Market”
Since last July, Edward James Herath, a brand and strategic comms consultant, has taken part in more than 120 job interviews. The feedback is often the same: he’s “too direct,” “too honest,” “abrupt,” or “confrontational.”
Herath, 39, who is diagnosed with autism and ADHD (AuDHD), believes his literal and questioning demeanor is costing him jobs.
He finds interviews particularly difficult because of their “indirect, passive-aggressive, and theatrical communication style,” he tells HuffPost UK. He believes they measure how he performs under pressure rather than his ability to do the job, and his real self – someone who cares deeply about his relationships and career – doesn’t come across.
“There’s a strong emphasis on reading between the lines and softening language,” he says. For someone who values clarity, that’s a difficult tone to strike.
Hearth is by no means alone in this struggle. Research suggests neurodivergence is widely seen as a barrier to employment. A 2024 Zurich survey of 1,000 neurodivergent adults in the UK found more than half believed recruitment processes were designed to filter them out, while over a third said interviews had triggered panic. A 2025 UK survey also found that 40% of young people believe being neurodivergent was a hindrance in the hiring market.
The consequences are significant for employers, says Sharawn Tipton, Chief People Officer at Greenhouse. She says traditional hiring often favours similarity over talent, despite evidence that diverse teams perform better. Neurodivergence, she says, is “no different than height or personality.”
“When you think about neurodiversity, it’s really around understanding that the mind works differently for everyone,” she says. “Different ways of thinking and communicating are things that help companies innovate faster.”
Job interviews are a game, but the rules aren’t clear for everyone
Christal Castagnozzi, a psychologist with ADHD and autism who specialises in neurodivergence, says traditional interviews prioritise skills like eye contact and quick verbal responses. Executive functions like memory and processing speed are suddenly tested too.
“Neurodivergent folks will struggle in all of these areas, especially when we are put on the spot,” she says. “You’re literally being judged while standing in front of someone. That’s a neurodivergent person’s worst nightmare.”
For many, interviews become less about competence and more about navigating unwritten social rules, according to Elise Minkin, a neurodivergent career coach. She tells HuffPost UK that interviews can feel like “a game” where not everyone knows how to play.
“There’s this kind of secret code that a lot of neurodivergent people feel like they were never told,” she says.
Even common questions, such as why someone wants the job, can cause trouble.
“Obviously for a paycheque,” she says. That’s the true answer – and one which someone with neurodivergence would be inclined to say. “But of course it’s not what the interviewer wants to hear,” she added.
Office environments are not always comfortable spaces for neurodivergent people. Those with autism may struggle to concentrate under harsh fluorescent lighting. Flickering or humming lighting can also be distracting and even sometimes painful.
The location may also affect performance. Some candidates may communicate better over Zoom, where they can make notes, comfortably take more time to answer questions, or use a sensory fidget tool off-screen, which have been shown to help reduce anxiety and increase concentration for people with ADHD and autism.
Without flexibility, neurodivergent candidates “can’t always show up as their best self,” Minkin says.
Many neurodivergent candidates face the difficult decision over whether to disclose their condition up front. Tipton recommends those who want to do this to ask to be connected with anyone at the company who can offer support, such as an employee resource group (ERG).
“You can ask the company, what do you do?” she says. “Because interviewing is a two-way street, and you want to make sure you’re going to an environment where you’re going to thrive and the company is going to be able to support you.”
Those who don’t may result to masking, which is a term for suppressing natural behaviours to appear more socially typical.
“I’m not at all a fan of masking,” Austin says, citing its mental and physical toll. But she acknowledges the decision is personal.
Castagnozzi believes the responsibility should not fall on candidates at all, and adjustments should be built into hiring by default.
“This should just be a best practice,” she says. “Even someone that is not neurodivergent, or does not know that they are neurodivergent just yet, may benefit from accommodations, especially during a stressful time.”
Conversations are brewing on social media
Under the Equality Act 2010, employers in the UK must make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants. Similar protections exist in the US and Canada.
But reasonable adjustments are often applied inconsistently or denied altogether. Many neurodivergent people are speaking publicly about their experiences, sharing frustrations and finding solidarity.
Darcie, who has autism and ADHD, shares her experiences with her 14,000 TikTok followers. She says that receiving interview questions 15 minutes in advance is a reasonable adjustment that helps her organise her thoughts.
In a TikTok posted in January, she described a recent interview where an employer initially agreed to provide the questions. But when she arrived, they backtracked, which undermined her confidence.
In the comments, viewers shared their own thoughts, with many agreeing that the way the company behaved was a “red flag.” Some urged Darcie to take the employer to court for discrimination, noting that reasonable adjustments are a legal requirement.
“This is really bad,” one said. “Definitely report this if you can.”
Viewers who also had ADHD and autism said they often made the same requests to potential employers, with mixed results.
“There really should be no excuse for employers not to do this when requested,” one viewer wrote. “For most jobs it shouldn’t be based on how quickly you can answer on the spot anyway.”
Some employers worry adjustments provide an unfair advantage. But Kristin Austin, VP of Culture and Community Health at Rewriting the Code, disagrees, arguing they actually improve fairness.
“If the goal is truly for people to show up at their best, why would you not give them those resources?” she says. “Are you evaluating my ability to think under pressure, or my ability to do the job?”
Software engineer Shea Belsky has experienced hiring from both sides. He says neurodivergent job-seeking experiences vary widely, making it difficult to generalise. Sometimes he has had a good experience, and sometimes he hasn’t. But meaningful change, he adds, must come from company culture, and that’s something he always strives to be a part of.
“It has to be baked into an organisation’s DNA,” he says. “We want people to feel like they can come and be their authentic selves.”
For Herath, and many others, the hope is to be assessed on their ability rather than arbitrary, performative skills. Until hiring models evolve more broadly, interviews may continue to filter out the very talent that can make a difference.
If you had to compare one living person to Jesus Christ, it would not be Donald Trump.
You might actually say Trump is the polar opposite of Christ – a sort of ‘anti-Christ’, if you will.
One person who disagrees, however, is the man himself:
Good lord
Jesus was famous for kicking the money lenders out of the temple. Donald Trump is famous for not paying back money he owes. These are not the same thing.
Lest we forget, Jesus said:
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
To be fair to him, Trump might actually believe with this, because he said the following in October 2025:
I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make heaven.
The benefit of knowing your eternal soul is damned is that you don’t have to worry about being a good person. This frees Trump to commit clearly sinful acts like waging war and depicting himself as the Christ.
While the warmongering president may made his peace with evil, however, many of his supporters have not:
Truth Social is revolting on Trump, BIGLY! I have never seen it this bad! It goes on and on! pic.twitter.com/cjOT74KihT
— Knoxie (@KnoxieLuv) April 13, 2026
Among those criticising Trump is former loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said:
It’s more than blasphemy.
It’s an Antichrist spirit.
Commentator Harry Sisson, meanwhile, suggested that Trump appears to be healing an old friend of his:
Trump is now posting AI images of himself as Jesus Christ healing, what appears to be, a young Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/zG2OQKbP9s
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) April 13, 2026
Another thing people are noting is that the image Trump shared seems to be more demonic than the original:
Turns out the original photo was posted by @NickAdamsinUSA but someone in the Trump camp decided it would be wise to alter it to add a demon and repost. 👀
Credit to: @mend_alyn for the find! pic.twitter.com/oMQExSN2Qq
— Based Millennial Mommy 🇺🇸 (@MaRy_JaNe1209) April 13, 2026
Did Team Trump alter the image?
Or did the demon simply manifest as a result of the image’s proximity to Trump?
Trump VS the Pope
As many have pointed out, Trump’s latest deadly sin came after he tangoed with the current Pope. In recent weeks, Pope Leo has been putting out fire like the following:
War divides; hope unites. Arrogance tramples upon others; love lifts up. Idolatry blinds us; the living God enlightens. All it takes is a little faith, a mere “crumb” of faith, in order to face this dramatic hour in history together — as humanity and alongside humanity. #Peace
‘Idolatry’, by the way, is when a person worships things like money, fame, or hotel chains over God.
Hard to guess who he might be referring to there.
He doesn’t believe in building libraries or museums, only hotels.
That should be his epitaph, signed off by him.
A rare non-lie from Trump. https://t.co/4aqxsoGMTL
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) March 31, 2026
Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world are immersed in extreme poverty. Yet, disproportionate wealth remains in the hands of a few. It is an unjust scenario, in the face of which we cannot fail to question ourselves and commit to change things. There is no lack of resources at the root of disparities, but the need to address solvable problems related to a more equitable distribution of wealth, to be achieved with moral sense and honesty.
According to convicted criminal Donald, the Pope has been critical of Western wars because he “likes crime”:
He’s attacking the Pope.
He. Is. Attacking. The. Pope. https://t.co/DbveAIyBhw— Jo (@JoJoFromJerz) April 13, 2026
And, the president also said all of the following, which you’re free to read if you have a spare ten minutes and don’t respect your own time:
This will end well.
Some genius in Trumpland decided, “Hey, the best thing we can do now is to go to war with the Holy Father.” pic.twitter.com/zYG3IuNivB
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) April 13, 2026
Of course, Trump has form when it comes to attacking Popes/the concept of basic human decency:
I just remembered Trump posted this after Francis died. pic.twitter.com/FLcGziYs0a
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) April 13, 2026
Pope Leo has now responded, saying:
I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.
I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems.
This sicko really loves crime, doesn’t he?
The Pope isn’t the only religious figure who’s been critical of the American president’s blatant wickedness either:
Trump’s post comes after @60Minutes aired interview with three American cardinals https://t.co/xVGHSeG8eD
— David Shepardson (@davidshepardson) April 13, 2026
End times
As one commenter noted, it does feel like we’re living through the end times:
The Book of Revelation really made all this sound like it was going to be more poetic and less stupid. https://t.co/wZenwg0aos
— one dozen rats at a keyboard (@PanasonicDX4500) April 13, 2026
This isn’t for nothing.
The US evangelicals who support Trump and Israel do so because they think they’re going to usher in the end of the world. This is why they support endless hostilities and expansionism in the Middle East.
As we reported on 21 February:
Many American evangelicals support Israel, but not because they like Israelis. In actuality, they think the creation of Israel is a signifier that the end times are approaching, and that Israel will trigger the Rapture.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the ‘Rapture’ is the time when God calls his faithful back to heaven. Said ‘faithful’ will not include the Jewish men and women who live in Israel, even if they do play an instrumental role in jump starting the Armageddon.
We’re not facing down the end of the world because it was foretold; we’re facing it down because wealthy freaks believe it was foretold.
Trump may not be the literal anti-Christ, but that isn’t stopping his donors from positioning him to perform the same function.
Featured image via Donald Trump
Israel is having a petulant hissy fit about Spain. Again. The occupation regime has cried that a Spanish village’s decision to use an effigy of genocidal war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in its traditional Easter ceremony is – you’ve guessed it – antisemitic.
The Israeli government – never one to shy away from displays of arrogance – has “summoned” a Spanish embassy official for a “reprimand”. The issue? The small Málaga town of El Burgo used an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu for its traditional “burning of Judas” festival.
All too typically, the Israeli government ranted on X that the decision of one pueblo in an autonomous region of Andalusia was the fault of Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez – because he has criticised Israel’s genocide in Gaza, said mean things about Israeli war criminals and dared to say Spain will not support Israel’s illegal war on Iran:
The appalling antisemitic hatred on display here is a direct result of @sanchezcastejon government’s systemic incitement.
And even now, the Spanish government remains silent.
The Spanish chargé d’affaires was summoned for a reprimand. pic.twitter.com/2Bguhs7Ce8— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) April 11, 2026
Israel having another tantrum
Sánchez’s government was having none of such nonsense. In a public statement, it said that it rejected the “insidious accusation” and pointed out the measures it has taken to protect and support Spain’s tens of thousands of Sephardi Jews.
On Easter Sunday, 5 April, El Burgo’s townspeople burned a 7m-tall effigy of Netanyahu, filled with around 14kg of gunpowder. Many would say that this is the least Netanyahu deserves after Israel’s slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians, his and Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran and his attacks on Lebanon, Syria and the occupied West Bank.
Every year, the town selects someone they consider to represent evil as the template for the effigy of Judas. The town’s council said this year’s choice was an expression of the people’s rejection of war and genocide. Last year, Netanyahu’s poodle Donald Trump was selected.
Unsurprisingly, Spain is right, Israel is wrong. Rejecting and opposing evil is not antisemitic. In 2015, the Sussex town of Lewes selected then-PM David Cameron to burn as Guy Fawkes on the UK’s ‘Bonfire night’, a festival with deeply anti-Catholic origins. Of course, suggesting that rejecting evil is antisemitic is, itself, antisemitic. That’s hardly surprising either, considering the deeply antisemitic nature of Zionism and its propaganda.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera
Iran are mocking Donald Trump’s claim he is planning to impose a blockade on ships leaving or entering the Strait of Hormuz if Iran doesn’t give up its own control of who can pass along its coastline. Trump made the threat after his ‘three stooges’ team of amateur negotiators failed to bluster Iran’s diplomats into accepting the US’s demands for capitulation in talks in Pakistan.
The Iranian embassy in Thailand, for example, referred to Iran’s total victory in the online propaganda war and its hugely viral ‘Lego’ style videos. The embassy’s X account said Trump’s plan is “so comical we don’t even have a meme for it”:
The new move from trump against our country is so comical that we don’t even have a meme for it.
— Iran Embassy in Thailand ☫ (@IranInThailand) April 12, 2026
Iran’s embassy in Zimbabwe chipped in with a reminder who’s really in charge of Trump’s administration:
True peace requires confronting the shadows governing the White House. pic.twitter.com/tf5nd9kTUW
— Iran Embassy in Zimbabwe (@IRANinZIMBABWE) April 12, 2026
China and Russia have free access to the Strait because they have supported Iran rather than those waging criminal war against it. Trump may well be ridiculous enough to think he can get away with attacking their ships trying to go about their lawful business – but he would soon get an education in reality.
Toxic clown says what?
Featured image via X
1910: Emmeline Pankhurst (left) listens as Margaret Bondfield (right) makes a speech | Image by: Mirrorpix / Alamy
3 min read
Nan Sloane has produced a fascinating biography of an extraordinary working-class woman
There are two Labour women who have shaped my political life – and indeed the lives of many of my colleagues – more than any others: Margaret Bondfield and Nan Sloane. Bringing them together in Nan’s new biography of Bondfield feels like a Labour Party version of Avengers Assemble.
Most of us know Nan as the driving force behind the Jo Cox Women in Leadership Programme. She has guided more women toward the green benches than I could possibly count. That she has used her formidable skills to shine a light on the pioneers who came before us, ensuring the stories of Labour women aren’t just remembered but heard, is a testament to her.
Margaret Bondfield’s list of ‘firsts’ is remarkable, but her life before Westminster was arguably even more radical. She was a powerhouse in the trade union movement, famously going undercover to expose the shocking conditions women faced on and beyond the shop floor.
She rose through the ranks of the predecessor to today’s Usdaw, rising to the senior leadership team, becoming the first woman delegate to the TUC Conference and eventually the first woman to chair the TUC.
Her parliamentary career was a series of broken glass ceilings – the first woman to speak from the despatch box, the first female Cabinet minister, and the first female privy counsellor.
Her parliamentary career was a series of broken glass ceilings
Yet this book isn’t just a dry tally of milestones but rather a testimony to the grit it took to get there. My favourite story in the book captures this perfectly, where Bondfield joined the shopworkers’ union after spotting an advert for it in the newspaper her chips were wrapped in during a lunch break.
It’s such a brilliantly ordinary moment, but it sparked a life of extraordinary public service.
Nan expertly shows how Bondfield’s politics were rooted in the precariousness of working-class life. Growing up with the very real fear of the workhouse, she understood how quickly a life could be upended by low wages or uncertain employment. That sense of insecurity stayed with her throughout her career. Her politics were never academic – they were grounded in the material realities of working families and, specifically, working women.
She was a fearless risk-taker, though she doesn’t always fit a neat “feminist” mould. She wasn’t a suffragette; she believed that extending the franchise to all – including the working class and not just middle-class property owners – was the only way to truly serve the interests of working-class women. Certainly she made mistakes and took positions that don’t always hold up a century later, but her impact is undeniable.
I do wonder what she would make of today’s landscape – particularly our New Deal for Working People. To see us finally delivering on the issues she was campaigning for a 100 years ago shows that while times change, the fault lines remain the same.
It’s been a century since Margaret Bondfield first represented my constituency. As her successor, and as a proud member of both the shopworkers’ union and the Co-op Party, I feel a deep responsibility. Our movement is the most important vehicle for change we have, and I’m going to work every single day to make sure I live up to the standard she set.
Emma Foody is Labour ( Co-op) MP for Cramlington and Killingworth
Margaret Bondfield: The Life and Times of Britain’s First Female Cabinet Minister
By: Nan Sloane
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
On Sunday 12 April, we reported that Wes Streeting is once again gearing up for a leadership challenge. Should Streeting become PM, he would have two key opponents: Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski. If you’re wondering how well Streeting would do against the latter, please see the below:
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) April 12, 2026
Polanski and titnotherapy
When Zack Polanski became the Green Party leader, the Labour Party immediately launched what they believed would be a devastating line of attack. According to them, Polanski had once tried to hypnotise women into have larger breasts. As Ed Sykes reported for us in September 2025, Polanski:
clarified that he never believed he could enlarge breasts with hypnotherapy, that he never charged people to try and do it, that the Sun misrepresented him, and that he had apologised a day later. He even got a few laughs by saying “lots of men got in touch with me asking if I could help with other body parts”.
Since Labour launched this attack, Polanski has more than quadrupled his party’s membership; he’s also pulled ahead of Labour in the polls.
How have Labour responded to this new reality?
As you can see above, by repeating the same smear which has had zero impact on Polanski’s standing:
Does streeting just genuinely not realize that whenever he goes after Zack he loses in devastating fashion? https://t.co/EoryrHcSHn
— James (@TaxingChimp) April 12, 2026
When Jeremy Corbyn was the Labour leader, there was a popular meme which told the following story:
Tony Blair: You should be more right-wing.
Jeremy Corbyn: You should be in prison.
Tony Blair: *HANGS HEAD IN SHAME*
We’re seeing something similar with Streeting.
He knows he has to take the fight to the Greens, but his record in office means he’s fighting with both arms tied behind his back and a handgun in his mouth.
Clearly, being connected to Peter Mandelson is much, much worse than anything Polanski has ever done. Mandelson literally referred to himself as the Prince of Darkness and as a practitioner of the ‘Dark Arts’, which is a big step up from hypnotherapy, no?
It doesn’t end with Mandelson, either. Streeting is up to his eyeballs in donations from private health vultures, as James Wright reported for the Canary on 1 April 2025:
Health secretary Wes Streeting accepted over £50,000 from a company with links to private healthcare recruitment on 3 February. Not long after on 18 February, Streeting announced he was abolishing NHS England and cutting 9,000 public jobs. This raises the question of whether the private sector would replace the public sector job cuts, with the Labour Party already increasing private provision of NHS services under Keir Starmer.
Oh, and there’s also this:
You armed a genocide and trained the army who committed it. No amount of spin and distraction can wash all that blood away. https://t.co/IcNxuq24Ak
— Ross Greer (@Ross_Greer) April 12, 2026
Red hands or Green fingers
Keir Starmer’s Labour operation is one of the most hated governments we’ve ever had, and Streeting is a key cog in that machine.
He’s delusional if he thinks there’s some clever attack line which will make voters forget who he is or what he’s done. He’s not delusional to think he could replace Starmer, however, as Streeting is precisely the sort of slug who does well in the Labour Party.
This is why they’re about to get wiped out in the local elections.
Starmer encouraged activists to leave Labour, now they’re drafting MPs to make up for lack of door knockers — who could have seen it coming?
Via @willem_moore_uk https://t.co/0Qd5wHTgTd
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) April 12, 2026
Featured image via Barold
Katy Perry has treated her social media followers to fresh photos of herself enjoying the Coachella music festival with her new boyfriend, Justin Trudeau.
Last year, the Grammy-nominated singer and former world leader made headlines the world over when it was reported that they’d been pictured on a date while she was on a Canadian stop on her world tour.
Since then, Katy and the ex-Canadian prime minister have been sighted together on a number of occasions, and over the weekend, she proved things were still going strong between them with a carousel of pictures and videos taken at Coachella.
One clip showed the two watching the headlining set from another Canadian Justin – that’d be The Biebs, who performed at Coachella on Saturday night – while in another candid snap, the two were seen enjoying a drink and some noodles together.
Katy’s post also included more clips from Justin Bieber’s headlining set, as well as footage of herself sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with the message: “Please do not give me a rip off your vape no matter what I say.”
Take a look at Katy’s post for yourself here.
After months of speculation, the unexpected couple went Instagram official with their romance towards the end of last year, with Katy later sharing a picture of herself planting a kiss on her new beau while they were on holiday together in January.
The new couple were first rumoured to be dating in the summer of 2025, just weeks after Katy and her long-term partner Orlando confirmed they had parted ways after around a decade together.
Katy and Orlando insisted at the time that they would remain in one another’s lives, and shortly afterwards, they remained true to their word when they shared pictures of themselves on holiday together with their daughter Daisy, as well as Orlando’s two children Daisy and Flynn.
Meanwhile, before his new relationship, Trudeau had been single for around two and a half years, following the announcement in August 2023 that he and his wife of 18 years, Sophie Grégoire, had separated.
Rayan Cherki breaks Premier League norm as Man City boost title hopes
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