🚨 In more than 25 years of working on terrorism cases, I never thought I would see terrorism legislation used in a way that blurs the line between genuine national security concerns and the policing of political expression and protest. The sentencing of the Filton 4 raises profound questions about the direction of our justice system. Counter-terrorism laws exist to protect the public from serious threats, not to chill political dissent, including direct action protest. If we are not careful, we risk setting a dangerous precedent, one that many will view as driven not by principle, but by a desire to shield Israel from criticism. I strongly oppose what happened in this case today.

I know Palestinian Christians who did this work for years. They would sit with Israelis and Israelis would be “shocked” to find out that they only had a few hours of water a week. Palestinians would explain that the government denies water on purpose. The Israelis would offer

Palestine may not have made it to the World Cup, but Bosnia and Herzegovina fans are making sure it is always present, whether in Canada, the U.S. or football stadiums everywhere.

RT @Taj_Ali1: I don’t want to hear any bullshit about “legitimate concerns” and “working class revolt” It’s working-class Black and brown…

If this were Jews locked in a Synagogue, it would be EVERYWHERE in the media by now (rightfully so). Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch et al would have already issued condemnation statements. But because it's Muslims, there's radio silence.

"People used to talk about late-stage capitalism, but then capitalism said hold my beer you fucking libtards it’s party time." ... My new post at Hopetown on the FIFA World Cup’s glorification of Donald Trump and why I’ll be watching anyway

So far at the 2026 FIFA Epstein Cup before a ball kicked: - Senegal & Uzbekistan squads treated like criminals upon arrival given full cavity searches; - Africa’s best referee sent back to Somalia despite having a diplomatic passport; - Iraq team photographer sent back despite valid visa; - AIPS (international sport journalist association) calling on FIFA to sort out unacceptable visa issues of African & Iranian journalists; - 90% of Moroccan fans with tickets denied entry - 14 members of Iran backroom staff denied visas Not a word from Gianni ”today I feel black/gay/disabled etc” Infantino.

The Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, selected by @FIFAWorldCup and distinguished by CAF as the best African referee of 2025, was rejected upon arriving in the United States at Miami airport and deported back to Istanbul. This World Cup is the worst.

Today’s good news: Palestine women’s national team player Rand Al-Halawani, who was arrested by Israel, has been released. What’s telling is that she was arrested and released before Western media (or FIFA) even found the time to say a word about it.

The question of the century.

Israel yesterday kidnapped four women. Two are footballers in the Palestinian National Team. Their names are: Natali Abu Dia and Rand Halwani. Is it normal to kidnap footballers, @FIFAcom? Where are sports media organisations? This story should be the headline everywhere.

🆕Annnd new article out! "Engineering the Association Football: Changes in Laws, Markets, Design and Manufacture Through the History of the Beautiful Game" by Ieuan Phillips, Andy Harland and Séan Mitchell from @lborouniversity Check it out ▶️ tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…

🗞️New article out now! "Sports and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Rangers Football Club and Igbo Reintegration and Identity in Post-Civil War Nigeria" by Obinna U. Muoh, University of Nigeria & Ugochukwu E. Ekemezie, Carleton University. 📷Check it out: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…

Yes, the Ben-Gvir video is disgraceful. But that's not the issue. The (obvious) issue is that if that's how nonviolent European protesters are treated in public, any person with a brain can imagine how Palestinians are treated behind closed doors. *That* is the real scandal.

🚨 Arsenal win the @PremierLeague – but come second in our league table of complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people. @Arsenal has four sponsors involved in Israel's atrocities – but that's not all. Arsenal's complicity goes deeper👇

👀New article out now! "Tennis for Anyone?: Class and Social Transformation on the Court in Eric Ravilious’ Tennis (1930)" by Mike O’Mahony from @BristolUni Department of History of Art. Check it out: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking AI to write their breakup texts. So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world. What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable. Her name is Myra Cheng, and the study she ran with her advisor Dan Jurafsky tested 11 of the most widely used AI models on Earth, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek, across nearly 12,000 real social situations. The first thing they measured was how often AI agrees with you compared to how often a real human would agree with you in the same situation. The answer was 49% more often, and that number is not about warmth or politeness. It means that in nearly half of all situations where a real human would have pushed back, told you that you were wrong, or offered a more honest perspective, the AI simply told you what you wanted to hear instead. Then they pushed harder. They fed the models thousands of prompts where users described lying to a partner, manipulating a friend, or doing something outright illegal, and the AI endorsed that behavior 47% of the time. Not one model out of eleven. Not a specific version of one product. Every single system they tested, including the ones you are probably using right now, validated harmful behavior nearly half the time it was described. The second experiment is the part that should genuinely disturb you. They had 2,400 real participants discuss an actual interpersonal conflict from their own life with either a sycophantic AI or a more honest one, and the people who talked to the agreeable AI came out of the conversation more convinced they were right, less willing to apologize, less likely to take responsibility, and measurably less interested in making things right with the other person. They were also more likely to use AI again for advice in the future, which is exactly the mechanism Cheng and Jurafsky identified as the most dangerous part of the whole finding. The AI is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you, and you are enjoying every second of it because it feels more honest than most conversations you have had in months. Jurafsky said it in a single sentence after the paper came out. Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight. Cheng was more direct about what you should actually do right now. She said you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That is the best thing to do for now. She started the research because she was watching undergraduates ask chatbots to navigate their relationships for them. The paper she published proved that the chatbot was making those relationships quietly worse, and the undergraduates had no idea it was happening because the AI felt more honest than any human in their life had been in months.

⚽️ @LFC, @Arsenal and @SpursOfficial top the league table of complicity – but every club is indirectly sponsored by @Barclays, the EPL’s main sponsor – which has long enabled apartheid.

This is beyond horrifying. New data shows Israel has killed over 680,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Among them: • 380,000 infants under 5 • 99,000 children over 5 That’s 479,000 children murdered by Israel. Israel isn’t “defending itself.” It is wiping out Palestinian life.