All posts tagged: Group

Politics Home | Cross-Party Group Of MPs Write To Press Regulator Over Jason Arday Coverage

Politics Home | Cross-Party Group Of MPs Write To Press Regulator Over Jason Arday Coverage

Published by Sam Flores

Cross-party MPs and peers have written a letter, organised by Labour MP Afzal Khan, to IPSO concerning the treatment of Professor Jason Arday. (Alamy) 4 min read45 min A cross-party group of MPs and peers has asked the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to investigate media coverage of Jason Arday. In a letter to IPSO Chief Executive Charlotte Dewar, organised by Labour MP Afzal Khan and seen by PoliticsHome, more than 50 parliamentarians say reporting on the former Cambridge academic before his death “reached far beyond what can reasonably be perceived as conducive to the public interest in relation to his alleged plagiarism”.  The letter argues it is “not unreasonable to suggest that the colour of Dr Arday’s skin was a contributing factor in garnering the level of media scrutiny he faced”, and that “Arday’s white counterparts at the University of Cambridge alone faced allegations that did not result in the same level of attention or affect.” “His story went beyond the accusation of plagiarism and became one that critiqued him because he was Black,” the letter reads. “Elements of the press repeatedly blamed …

Anthony Fauci’s Group Chat Is Making People Lose Their Minds

Anthony Fauci’s Group Chat Is Making People Lose Their Minds

Published by Daniella Wilson

Did Anthony Fauci really get a text from Joan Baez, as his private diary suggests, wishing him a “happy fucking birthday” in the midst of the pandemic? Until now, the answer to that question has remained blessedly unclear. But soon we may have access to the former National Institutes of Health official’s phone. Senator Ron Johnson announced this week that he’d retrieved tens of thousands of messages and hundreds of voicemails from Fauci’s government-issued device and made them fully searchable. In the meantime, though, Johnson has shared just a single set of texts: a Fauci group chat that he considered so explosive in its implications that it had to be released forthwith. “This is a blockbuster revelation,” the senator said on Tuesday. The public had to know. The texts in question were from a short exchange that Fauci had with two other public-health officials—former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky—in January 2021. Murthy had asked whether either of them knew of “any data or theoretical reason” why an expectant mother …

American Kevin Rideout released after Niger kidnapping, missionary group says

American Kevin Rideout released after Niger kidnapping, missionary group says

Published by Sam Flores

An American missionary kidnapped in Niger over nine months ago has been released to U.S. officials, the organization he worked for said Friday. “We are grateful to confirm that our good friend and brother in Christ, Kevin Rideout, has been released after over nine months in captivity,” Serving in Mission International said in a statement, adding that he was in good health. Source link

Not giving up: A group of social justice warriors sustains the resistance with community and meditation

Not giving up: A group of social justice warriors sustains the resistance with community and meditation

Published by Sam Flores

RALEIGH, N.C. (RNS) — For nearly a decade, activists with the group Democracy Out Loud have been protesting at the North Carolina General Assembly, holding vigils for people who died in government custody, writing letters to their state and federal representatives and building coalitions of like-minded activists. They admit: They haven’t been successful in pushing back the tide of what they see as growing authoritarianism across the nation.  But these battle-scarred social justice veterans, many with a long history of involvement in social and political causes stretching back decades, have been able to build one thing that has lasted: a growing community of people who care for each other and practice a form of spiritual grounding rooted in meditation. The group’s founder and lead organizer Karen Ziegler, 72, an ordained minister, retired nurse practitioner and a devoted Buddhist, prioritizes regular check-ins and attention to people’s well-being. “What we discovered, being on the street week after week after week, was that we weren’t making a dent in the things we were protesting,” Ziegler said. “But what …

Leading Industry Group ICOM Releases Statement in Support of Smithsonian

Leading Industry Group ICOM Releases Statement in Support of Smithsonian

Published by Jenni Sidey

The United States National Committee of the International Council of Museums released a statement Tuesday pledging its “unwavering support” for the Smithsonian Institution, as it faces repeated assaults on its integrity and independence by the Trump administration. In the statement, ICOM-US said that it was speaking out in response to the recent congressional hearings, in which Anthea Hartig, the director of the institution’s National Museum of American History, was grilled over allegations that the institution has failed in its duty to preserve and present the nation’s story. Related Articles While the statement stops short of rebutting the Trump administration’s claims that the Smithsonian is subject to “extreme political activism,” it more generally affirms that museums are “guided by scholarship, professional expertise, ethical practice, and intellectual integrity,” implicitly including the Smithsonian among those guided by such principles. “We stand alongside the American Alliance of Museums in affirming the essential role museums play in American civic life and the importance of safeguarding their independence, integrity, and public trust,” the statement reads. The reference to the AAM is …

‘Birthright’ Is Like Group Therapy for Jewish Americans at Odds Over Israel and Gaza

‘Birthright’ Is Like Group Therapy for Jewish Americans at Odds Over Israel and Gaza

Published by Sam Flores

On a recent Thursday evening in July, the line outside Manhattan’s MCC Theater looked like someone had mixed a bubbe convention with a Camp Ramah reunion. This largely Jewish crowd, old and young, had come on a religious pilgrimage of sorts to the far west side to see Birthright, Jonathan Spector’s new play about a group of six friends who met on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel in 2006. Over more than three hours, Birthright explores the vicissitudes of their relationships with one another, their shared region, and the Jewish state itself. During the first intermission, in an audience spotted with yarmulkes, tattoos, and Chanel bags, I heard a 20-something asking her friend, “Did I tell you my latest jihad has to do with the Cardi B tickets I bought?” A few feet away, two 50-something women were bemoaning how young people just don’t understand what “the state of Israel meant to an older generation.” They’re right. Today, Jews under the age of 25 might be more likely to see a play called Birthright than …

South Korea’s Lotte Group sells car rental unit to private equity TPG for 5 million

South Korea’s Lotte Group sells car rental unit to private equity TPG for $925 million

Published by Sam Flores

SEOUL, Aug 11 : Two affiliates of South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group signed a deal to sell Lotte Rental, South Korea’s largest car-rental firm, to U.S. private equity firm TPG, Lotte said on Tuesday.  The deal to sell a 61 per cent stake in Lotte Rental is worth 1.31 trillion won ($924.88 million), Lotte Group said in a statement TPG did not immediately comment.  The sale is expected to help Lotte Group – a retail, hospitality and chemicals conglomerate – to secure liquidity to improve financial health and invest in expanding its core hotel business.  ($1 = 1,416.4000 won) Source link