All posts tagged: Citizen

Chelsea Citizen banks campaign wins and local goodwill, but yet to turn profit

Chelsea Citizen banks campaign wins and local goodwill, but yet to turn profit

Published by Sam Flores

Rob McGibbon holding an old copy of the Wimbledon News in London. Picture: June Torrance The affluent London borough of Chelsea is no longer a news desert following the launch of The Chelsea Citizen a year ago providing postcode level coverage of the area. Founder Rob McGibbon has already made an impact with campaigning journalism and established a dedicated local following. But so far profitability has been hard to find despite the title’s largely high-earning audience. McGibbon said the Chelsea Citizen covers “everything from council matters and planning disputes, to golden weddings, births and deaths,” alongside cultural content. The site’s main success, McGibbon told Press Gazette, has been with campaigning, as seen with the recent petition against a proposed 29-storey luxury tower block in Battersea. “The tower one is really, really important,” he said, referring to Stop One Battersea Bridge (SOBB) campaign. An eight-day public enquiry begins on 17 March. “I’m taking two reporters with me. I’m having to pay for those. We’re going to file copy every day on it.” The Chelsea Citizen has …

DHS agent killed US citizen in March last year, records reveal | News

DHS agent killed US citizen in March last year, records reveal | News

Published by Sam Flores

Texas shooting appears to be the first known instance of a US citizen being killed during Trump’s immigration crackdown. Listen to this article | 4 mins info Published On 22 Feb 202622 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share A federal immigration agent shot dead a citizen of the United States in March 2025, months before the Trump administration began its ⁠deportation surge in Minnesota that led to the shooting deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. According to records released this week, Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, was killed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents, lawyers for his ⁠family said in a statement. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list A DHS agent fired multiple rounds at Martinez, who allegedly hit another DHS agent with his car as the agents assisted local police in South Padre Island, Texas, with traffic control following an accident on March 15, 2025, according to the records obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group. The records are part of a tranche of heavily …

DHS Agent Killed US Citizen in March 2025, Records Show

DHS Agent Killed US Citizen in March 2025, Records Show

Published by Sam Flores

Feb 21 (Reuters) – A federal immigration agent shot and ⁠killed ⁠a U.S. citizen in Texas in March ⁠2025, months before the Trump administration began its deportation surge in Minnesota that ​led to the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, according to records released this week. Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, was killed ‌by agents with the Department of ‌Homeland Security, attorneys for Martinez’s family said in a statement. A DHS agent fired multiple rounds at Martinez, who allegedly ⁠hit another DHS ⁠agent with his car as the agents assisted local police in South Padre ​Island, Texas, with traffic control following an accident on March 15, 2025, according to records obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group. The agents were conducting immigration enforcement, the records show. Martinez’s shooting appears to be the first known instance of a U.S. citizen being ​killed during U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Federal agents conducting immigration enforcement shot at least five people in January ⁠alone, ⁠including Pretti and Good. FAMILY’S LAWYERS ⁠CALL FOR INVESTIGATION Martinez was ​trying to comply with …

Australia bans a citizen with alleged IS links from returning from Syria : NPR

Australia bans a citizen with alleged IS links from returning from Syria : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Family members of suspected Islamic State militants who are Australian nationals board a van heading to the airport in Damascus during the first repatriation operation of the year, at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. Thirty-four Australian citizens from 11 families departed the camp. Baderkhan Ahmad/AP/AP hide caption toggle caption Baderkhan Ahmad/AP/AP MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s government banned an Australian citizen with alleged ties to the militant Islamic State group from returning home from a detention camp in Syria, the latest development in the case of fraught repatriation of families of IS fighters. The woman was planning to join another 33 Australians — 10 women and 23 children — and fly on Monday from Damascus, Syria, to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday. But the group was turned back by Syrian authorities to the Roj detention camp, due to unspecified procedural problems. The Australian government had acted on news that the group planned to leave Syria, Burke said. He said the woman, whom he did not identify, had been issued …

Jeremy Irons fails in bid to become Irish citizen

Jeremy Irons fails in bid to become Irish citizen

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter He’s owned a castle in County Cork for nearly 30 years, but Jeremy Irons has failed in his bid to become an Irish citizen. The Oscar-nominated British star married Irish theatre actor Sinéad Cusack in 1978, with Irons, 77, purchasing Kilcoe Castle near Ballydehob, as well as a home in central London. But speaking at an event last week (10 February), Cusack, 78, admitted that her husband’s attempt to get an Irish passport had recently reached a standstill due to the financial implications. “He tried to get an Irish passport but [it would mean] a very extreme rethink of all his tax situations, so he gave up,” she told The Daily Mail. “We talked to a friend who’s been through it. He’s moved all his tax affairs [to Ireland]. It’s a great shame.” Back in 2021, Irons spoke about his desire …

How can we tell if citizen participation actually works? A new framework for measuring impact – Evidence & Policy Blog

How can we tell if citizen participation actually works? A new framework for measuring impact – Evidence & Policy Blog

Published by skeptic

Franziska Sörgel, Nora Weinberger, Julia Hahn, Christine Milchram and Maria Maia This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Assessing the effectiveness of citizen participation: the development of an impact scheme’. Citizen participation has become central to research policy, yet we rarely ask the crucial follow-up question: what difference does it actually make? In our recent Evidence & Policy article, we propose an impact scheme that helps to move participation from a well-intentioned ritual to a practice with measurable, meaningful effects.    The last decade has seen an explosion of participatory formats designed to gather citizen and stakeholder feedback on science and innovation policy. From citizens’ assemblies to co-creation workshops, public dialogue has become the new punctuation mark in research agendas and beyond. Nevertheless, a fundamental problem persists: we lack systematic ways to measure whether these processes genuinely influence research priorities or merely provide a democratic façade with little real impact. This gap matters enormously for both research institutions that invest resources in participation and for citizens who provide their time and expertise.  At the Karlsruhe Institute …

How citizen cooperation kept Ukraine’s government services working

How citizen cooperation kept Ukraine’s government services working

Published by Jenni Sidey

Ukraine’s war has forced daily life into hard choices since February 2022. Yet schools, permits, social support, and many government services have kept moving. A new study from Linköping University argues that this continuity did not happen by accident. It grew from a deeper shift; citizens and public authorities began working together in ways that used to be rare. The researchers say that when crisis hits, a functioning society depends on more than orders from the top. It depends on people acting, coordinating, and trusting each other enough to share responsibility. That lesson may matter far beyond Ukraine if another country faces war or a major shock. When Crisis Turns Everyone Into a Decision-Maker “Everyone, right down to the family and the individual, makes crucial decisions in times of deep crisis. It’s important that all actors are mobilised, pull together and cooperate,” says Mariana Gustafsson, docent in political science at the Department of Management and Engineering at Linköping University. Theoretical framework of institutional change on the action arena (principal model based on; Ostrom, 1990, Ostrom, …

Ireland pushing to free citizen held by ICE in Texas – POLITICO

Ireland pushing to free citizen held by ICE in Texas – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Culleton has been Ireland’s top news story since the Irish Times on Monday reported on his case and on the allegedly appalling conditions he faces in Camp East Montana, the ICE facility inside Fort Bliss army base near El Paso. The same day, Culleton appeared live on air on Ireland’s RTÉ radio to describe conditions of overcrowding, filth, disease, hunger and violence — and a personal fear, now set aside, that speaking out might make matters even worse for him. “I definitely am afraid of rotting away here. It feels like I’m just stuck and there’s no way out,” Culleton told RTÉ in an hourlong broadcast that included live interviews with his American wife in Boston and his sister back in Waterford, Ireland. Culleton admitted having overstayed his U.S. visa two decades ago, but said he’s been pursuing legal residency via his ongoing application for a green card, buttressed by his valid work permit, his employment as a plasterer and his April 2025 marriage. He’s one of at least 10,000 undocumented Irish citizens who have …

The Samurai Who Became A Roman Citizen

The Samurai Who Became A Roman Citizen

Published by José Betancourt

Last year, we fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture the sto­ry of how a samu­rai end­ed up in the unlike­ly set­ting of sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry Venice. But as com­pelling­ly told as it was in video essay form by Evan Puschak, bet­ter known as the Nerd­writer, it end­ed just as things were get­ting inter­est­ing. We last left Haseku­ra Rokue­mon Tsune­na­ga as he was set­ting out on a mis­sion to Europe in order to meet the Pope and facil­i­tate the bro­ker­ing of a deal for his feu­dal lord, Date Masamune. Hav­ing struck up a friend­ship with a Japan­ese-speak­ing Fran­cis­can fri­ar called Luis Sote­lo, whose mis­sion­ary hos­pi­tal had saved the life of one of his con­cu­bines, Date got it in his head that he should estab­lish a direct rela­tion­ship with the mighty Span­ish empire. Of course, in 1613, it was­n’t quite as easy as catch­ing a flight from Tokyo (or rather, in those days, Edo) to Rome. Mak­ing the long pas­sage by ship were about 180 Japan­ese, Por­tuguese, and Span­ish men, many of whom had nev­er been out on the open ocean …

How to Be a Citizen in the Information War

How to Be a Citizen in the Information War

Published by José Betancourt

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube On this week’s Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel opens with what it means to live in 2026, when our phones can drop us into graphic, real-time violence without warning—and when documenting that violence can be both traumatizing and politically consequential. Using recent footage out of Minneapolis as a lens, he explores the uneasy collision of algorithmic feeds, misinformation, and the moral weight of witnessing. Charlie also traces how viral documentation can puncture official narratives, pushing stories beyond political circles and even into “apolitical” corners of the internet. Then, Charlie is joined by Amanda Litman, a political digital strategist and the co-founder of Run for Something. They discuss how to be a good citizen in the information war without losing your mind. Specifically: In an age of algorithmic fragmentation and billionaire-owned platforms, does sharing that devastating image or news article actually accomplish anything? Or is it just performative activism? Together they explore how nonpolitical creators and everyday people can be especially persuasive messengers, and how to pair online engagement …