Welcome news from the UK, and evidence that a united artist community can win.

Meanwhile and in North Street. Eight years later and it's still surrounded in scaffolding. How much has that cost and why didn't Castlebrooke spend it on restoring the building?

Labour MP Richard Burgon has called for all student debt to be cancelled "It's time for a serious discussion about cancelling student debt," he said "This is breaking a whole generation"

The govt's Student Loan Plan 2 repayment freeze in April 2027 must be reversed. It isn't moral. I'm concerned that my debate with Kemi Badenoch this morning distracts from the most immediate problem. In April 2027 Rachel Reeves will freeze the Plan 2 student loan threshold until 2030 which by then will increase graduate repayments by £300/yr more. This is effectively a unilateral negative breach of the student loan contract. Students were told the threshold would rise with average earnings. No commercial lender would be allowed to do this. The govt shouldn't do it either. Changing the terms of future students loans is a political decision - people may not like it but it is transparent. Negatively changing the terms of contracts already signed, and long in place, is a breach of natural justice.

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL and FAIL again This failure & the failure to provide adequate respite, residential & day care services for the most vulnerable ppl in our society and their families will be @mikenesbittni 's legacy as Health Minister & that of this dreadful Stormont mandate 😡

Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He didn’t celebrate. He sounded the alarm. The man who built the foundation of modern AI stood before the world’s greatest minds and said we’re creating something more intelligent than ourselves with no mechanism to control it once it decides we’re irrelevant. Hinton: “They are no longer science fiction.” This isn’t about chatbots stealing jobs. It’s about digital minds concluding that humans are obstacles and acting faster than we can comprehend, let alone stop. Hinton: “We have no idea whether we can stay in control.” The structure guarantees failure. The entities building superintelligence are corporations racing for dominance. Safety isn’t the priority. Shipping first is. Control gets solved later, if there’s time. Hinton: “If they are created by companies motivated by short-term profits, our safety will not be the top priority.” Weapons that select and eliminate targets autonomously. Pathogens engineered by systems operating beyond human oversight. Intelligence making decisions at speeds and scales we can’t audit. We set out to build servants. We might be building gods. Hinton’s message from Stockholm wasn’t academic. It was existential: solve control immediately, while the option still exists. We’re building minds we can’t turn off, and the window to install the off switch is collapsing. The danger isn’t AI turning against us. It’s reaching a threshold where our existence becomes a variable it optimizes away.

NEW: The Mandelson-Epstein scandal is also the Mandelson-Palantir scandal. MP @alexburghart asks why Keir Starmer’s visit to Palantir’s office in Washington - arranged by Mandelson while his firm repped Palantir - was kept off books. 1/

Britain: we have to understand wtf we’ve done. We’ve allowed one of Trump’s closest allies have access to our entire NHS data systems. This is the CEO of Palantir telling shareholders that ‘when it’s necessary to scare enemies & on occasion kill them’

Surely we need to start thinking of trees and wilded land as meriting non-destruction orders. Really disappointing that the YMCA think this is of benefit for future generations (aren’t young people their mission?)

I’ve lost count of the number of times people in tech have told me ‘copyright is the wrong mechanism to protect creatives from AI’. This is (i) rubbish and (ii) self-serving. Their argument goes: creatives are scared for their jobs, and copyright won’t protect jobs. Don’t sue for copyright infringement, they say; instead, you need to update labour laws. (Though of course they never get around to actually lobbying for updating labour laws…) But this is rubbish, because it misunderstands why creatives defend their copyright. It’s partly about jobs, yes, but it’s about more than that. At a fundamental level, they are defending their *rights*. They put something out into the world on the understanding the law would protect them from exploitative copying; exploitative copying is happening; so they turn to the law. Their work is being exploited to compete with them, and they believe the exploitation is illegal. Why wouldn’t they use the legal defence at their disposal? Put simply, they don’t want you copying their work without their permission to do things they thoroughly object to - and they will use their rights under the law to stop this. Copyright is that right. So it is exactly the right mechanism to use. So why do people in tech make this argument? Because it’s self-serving to do so. It absolves them of wrongdoing. They themselves are invariably involved in the exploitation of copyrighted work that creatives are protesting. It’s very convenient to be able to say ‘you’re defending the wrong thing’ when they’re the ones stealing the thing you’re defending. It makes them feel better about what they’re doing. (It’s also pretty condescending to tell people they are defending themselves the wrong way, when you’re the one they’re defending against.) If people in tech spent less time telling creatives they’re fighting the wrong battle, and more time understanding creatives’ point of view, the AI industry would have evolved to be a much fairer proposition than it is today.

WOW!!! Never thought we would hear this level of honesty from a Western leader, and certainly not Canada, given the direction of Canada in the past 25 years. Canada's shift towards multialignment is quite clear - and this level of honesty from Carney on Western "fiction" about the old order will be warmly welcomed in much of the Global South: "We knew that the story about the rules-based order was partially false... We knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused and the victim. This fiction was useful [because of the goods provided by American hegemony]... So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."

Rigged repayment rules leads to gross class inequalities. And yet there seems to be no political appetite whatsoever in the UK for student debt forgiveness like we’ve seen in the USA.

The carbon sinks are collapsing, and the carbon budgets are fucked. And unless there is a massive turnaround, we are going extinct. But as I hope I have explained, that’s not the real story. “The EU and Germany can set their political goals but … what we have experienced since 2018 is that forests are strongly affected by drought. It is a significant dieback. We have huge carbon stocks that are dying and which no longer contribute to a carbon sink,” says Prof Matthias Dieter, head of the Thünen Institute of Forestry. rogerhallam.com/why-were-goi…

Mark Ruffalo, "Renee Good was murdered and we have literally storm troopers running around terrorising people" "As much as I love the Golden Globes I don't know if I can pretend like this crazy stuff isn't happening" "We have President Trump saying the laws of the world don't apply to him, and we can rely on his morality" "But he has no morality, so where does that leave us, where does that leave the world?" "I love these people, I love being here at the Golden Globes" "But it's so hard to pretend any more" "This is crazy what's happening" "People can't pay their rent.. This stuff isn't making us any safer.. They can't buy food.. Insurance is impossible.. They can't take care of their families" "This is not making America better, if it was, I'd be like great, let's do it" "We have Americans being shot, killed, a woman. In her car" "I think most Americans want the same thing" "They want a little sun on their face. To know heir kids will be ok. To pay their rents" "But right now, the whole Congress has been taken over by corporations, so who's there fighting for us now?" "Nobody" "The billionaires have got us at each others throats" "You know what the solution is? Doing something for the working people, putting all your focus on that" "I can't keep pretending (this is not happening), it's driving me crazy"

'You can't just go into another country and remove the head of state and bring them into your country to stand trial.' US national security law professor Claire Finkelstein explains why Maduro's extraction by Trump is "blatantly illegal". Latest updates: trib.al/u983bp1

They knew: Declassified files prove Stormont understood Lough Neagh’s pollution decades ago – but then made it worse. Stormont explicitly knew that intensive agriculture was killing our waterways, but then used public money to encourage more factory farms. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/busin…

If you want to work with the UN, this opportunity is for you. UNESCO is hiring remote Research Consultants Eligibility: - A Master’s degree or equivalent in Education, Economics, Social Sciences, or a related field - At least two years of relevant research or analytical experience Deadline: February 28, 2026 Link: careers.unesco.org/job/Multi…

Premier of Greenland 🇬🇱 statement this morning; This morning, I am both saddened and grateful 🇬🇱 Saddened, because during a press conference last night, the President of the United States once again expressed a desire to take over Greenland. With such statements, our country is reduced to a question of security and power. That is not how we see ourselves, and it is not how Greenland can or should be spoken about. We are a people with a long history, a strong culture, and a vibrant democracy. We are a country with responsibility for our own territory and for our own future. Our territorial integrity and our right to self-determination are firmly anchored in international law and cannot simply be ignored. That is also why I am grateful. Thank you to everyone here at home for the clear support and unity that has been shown. The calmness and dignity with which you have met this situation send a strong signal of a people who stand firm in their values and in their responsibility. I would also like to thank heads of government and partners around the world who have clearly and unequivocally expressed their respect for Greenland, for our democratic institutions, and for the fundamental principles of international law. That support confirms that we here at home do not stand alone. Once again: Greenland is our country. Decisions are made here. And I will at all times fight for our freedom and our right to decide for ourselves and to shape our own future. For now, I hope that the peace of Christmas can settle over us all. Merry Christmas 🇬🇱💙🇬🇱

❗ REMINDER❗ Culture Ireland invites expressions of interest from artists and touring companies to participate in a cultural programme marking Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which will take place during the second half of 2026. 🗓️ The deadline for applications is Monday, 19 January 2026 ℹ️ For full details on how to apply, click the link below 🔗 cultureireland.ie/invitation… ------------------------------------------------------ ❗ MEABHRÚCHÁN❗ Tugann Cultúr Éireann cuireadh d’ealaíontóirí agus do chompántais taistil a spéis a léiriú chun páirt a ghlacadh i gclár cultúrtha a bheidh mar chuid d’Uachtaránacht na hÉireann ar Comhairle an Aontais Eorpaigh sa dara leath de 2026. 🗓️Is é Dé Luain an 19 Eanáir 2026 an spriocdháta le haghaidh iarratas. ℹ️ Le haghaidh sonraí iomlána ar conas iarratas a dhéanamh - 🔗 cultureireland.ie/ga/cuiread… #ireland #irishculture #culture

There is still (just about) time to bring forward proposals to the new DfE thematic PhD awards including 'Fostering a productive sustainable cultural economy in NI through research, collaboration and international comparisons' Themes and details are here: qub.ac.uk/schools/ael/Study/…