Legitimate scrutiny became entangled with a racial argument about merit and diversity. His death raises questions about how society treats black success and failure
The tragic death of Jason Arday raises serious questions about race, institutional authority and what happens to people in a society increasingly organised around public reputation. Arday, who resigned earlier this month as a professor at the University of Cambridge, was found dead at his home last week. He was 41. His family and friends have lost somebody they loved and cared for. Arday had publicly said that the scrutiny of allegations concerning his academic work and claims he had made about his life was taking a profound toll. That he then died amid an intense and continuing media examination of his life is deeply troubling.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, was right to call this “a moment for reflection”. This does not mean suppressing difficult questions, ignoring why there remain a pitifully small number of black professors in British universities, or attacking legitimate journalism. But in a polarised world it should see the media ask how proper scrutiny can widen into something more encompassing; how race affects the meaning attached to an individual’s alleged failings; and whether separate valid stories can, via social media, have an overwhelming effect. In Arday’s case, alleged shortcomings in his record rapidly became weaponised by the right in an argument about diversity and black academic advancement.
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Continue reading...Trump also claims he’s ‘actually making it much safer’ for South Korea by scaling back joint military drills just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles
Republican senator Thom Tillis deplored Trump’s decision to cut US military drills with South Korea, which comes despite military officials from both countries warning that Kim Jong-un’s regime is learning new battlefield expertise, including new drone tactics, from assisting Russia with its war in Ukraine.
Tillis wrote on X:
South Korea has been a solid military ally for over 70 years that possesses exquisite military capabilities. Reducing joint exercises with South Korea does nothing more than free up thousands of North Korea’s troops to support Putin’s systematic kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of innocent Ukrainian citizens.
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Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said that he has “heard absolutely nothing back from” Sen. Mitch McConnell, more than a month after he issued a public letter calling on the Republican lawmaker to update his constituents on the status of his health amid a lengthy hospitalization.
“I wish him no harm—I actually wish him good health,” Beshear said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “His boss are the people of Kentucky, and this is why the Senate—the Republican-controlled Senate—feels so broken. They feel like they’re not accountable to anyone.”
“All he needs to do is call into this show for two minutes, or Fox News for two minutes, or do a video for two minutes to the people he’s supposed to serve, but you know what? He absolutely refuses to do it,” Beshear continued.
In addition to criticizing McConnell for not sharing additional details about the state of his health, Beshear went on to call out Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
“And then John Thune, as the leader of the Senate, you’ve got a duty to make sure all of your senators have the capacity to serve,” Beshear said. “And what is he saying? 'Not my job.' That’s not surprising. None of them will do their job right now and stand up to a president … that is running over the constitution at every turn.”
Concerns and questions about McConnell’s heath have swirled since the 84-year-old Senator was hospitalized in June, following what his office later revealed was a fall. The Kentucky Senator shared earlier this month that he had been released from a rehabilitation center, but he has yet to return to the Senate or otherwise make a public appearance.
In July, after McConnell had been absent from the Senate for several weeks without giving significant details about his condition, Beshear publicly shared a letter he had sent to the Senator, in which he requested that McConnell “fully update Kentuckians regarding the current status of [his] health.”
“Over the last several weeks, Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and wellbeing, and ability to hold office in the United States Senate,” Beshear wrote in the letter. “As public officeholders, we have made a commitment to our constituents to do our best to represent them and to always be transparent. I believe this requires clear communication about one’s ability to serve.”
McConnell was hospitalized on June 14, beginning a protracted—and ongoing—absence from the Senate and the public eye. For weeks, his office released little to no details about his condition, which sparked widespread uncertainty over his health.
Four days after Beshear’s letter, McConnell offered his first public statement since his hospitalization began, saying that he went to the hospital after a fall. He said that his doctors confirmed that he didn’t sustain major injuries, such as broken bones, a concussion, or a stroke, but he was “briefly unconscious” after his fall. He also said he grappled with “a mild case of pneumonia” while he was hospitalized. He revealed that he had since “been able to move from hospital care to a rehabilitation center.”
On July 27, McConnell shared another update on his health, saying that he was still working toward returning to the Senate and was “keeping up with intense physical therapy.” His statement was accompanied by a message from Congress’ Office of the Attending Physician, which said that McConnell was “not yet medically cleared to leave the rehab facility and return to the office.”
“Since his discharge from hospital care, he has maintained a strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, including multiple sessions a day designed to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls,” the office said. “His bout with childhood polio continues to be a significant factor in his mobility.”
On Aug. 6, McConnell announced that he had been discharged from his rehabilitation center that day and would continue recovering at home.
“On the advice of my doctors, I’ll maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy from home during the state work period, and I’ll continue to engage with my staff and colleagues on important Senate business,” he said.
His office has not shared an update on his health since then, and did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.
McConnell, who previously announced that he would retire in January when his term is set to end, has had health issues in the past, including several falls in recent years.

17 августа 1998 года - день, когда миллионы россиян узнали значение слов «дефолт» и «девальвация». День, который навсегда изменил жизнь и судьбу многих из нас, на долгие годы разделив всё на до и после.
Читать далееUSS Benfold lost power after ‘engineering casualty’ leaving sailors without galley services, toilets and air conditioning
A US guided-missile destroyer reportedly spent four days adrift and without power in the South China Sea in July, furthering concerns about strain being placed on deployed military members.
The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer which had been sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group, was reported to have been towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines, according to the US Naval Institute News, an independent military publication.
Continue reading...USS Benfold lost power after ‘engineering casualty’ leaving sailors without galley services, toilets and air conditioning
A US guided-missile destroyer reportedly spent four days adrift and without power in the South China Sea in July, furthering concerns about strain being placed on deployed military members.
The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer which had been sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group, was reported to have been towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines, according to the US Naval Institute News, an independent military publication.
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The Supreme Court on Monday denied President Donald Trump’s request for a rehearing in relation to a 2023 civil case that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, court documents show.
The President’s legal battle with Carroll began in 2019, after the writer alleged she was raped by Trump in a changing room at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City in the 1990s. It resulted in two separate trials.
In one lawsuit, filed under the New York Adult Survivors Act in 2022, a jury awarded Carroll some $5 million in damages for the sexual abuse and defamation. Trump asked the Supreme Court to review the decision, but it denied the petition in June. He requested a rehearing by the highest court, but that request was denied Monday without comment.
Rehearings in the Supreme Court are rarely granted. Per court regulations, such petitions are only permitted under “intervening circumstances of a substantial or controlling effect.”
Read More: Trump’s South Korea Shift Tests a Key U.S. Alliance
The President maintains that he did not know Carroll prior to her accusations against him.
“I have absolutely no idea who this woman is,” he wrote on social media after the first verdict was handed down—which he called a “disgrace.”
“No one is above the law, not even a former President of the United States,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said at the time. She added that she hoped the verdict would help tear down “a wall of doubt and intimidation” faced by survivors of sexual assault.
A spokesperson for the President’s legal team says in a statement to TIME: “The American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll hoaxes.”
Carroll’s team had previously brought a defamation suit against Trump in 2019, pertaining to disparaging remarks he’d made about her while in office. A federal jury ruled in her favor in 2024, ordering Trump to pay $83.3 million. His team is currently asking the Supreme Court to review that decision.
Trump’s legal team believes that the defamation case relating to remarks made while in office should be covered by presidential immunity.
Martinich-Sauter separately submitted a petition for rehearing the sexual abuse and defamation case in July. He argued that presidential-immunity questions relevant to the pending case could also affect the $5 million judgment, since that trial featured the same remarks as evidence.
“That is a paradigmatic reason to at least hold a petition,” read the request from Martinich-Sauter.
He cited Supreme Court precedent from another one of the President’s personal legal battles, involving claims of interference with the 2020 election. The Supreme Court vacated the lower court’s decision in 2024 and ruled that former Presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for certain official acts, but not for unofficial acts.
However, with Monday’s denial, Trump has exhausted his avenues for Supreme Court review of the $5 million judgment.
"We are pleased that the United States Supreme Court has declined again to hear this case,” Kaplan tells TIME. “As a result, the jury’s unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E. Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court."
Exclusive: Research also finds stark ethnic disparities, and 40% of deaths among group classed as avoidable
People living with severe intellectual disabilities are dying 24 years younger on average than the wider population, a study has found, with 40% of such deaths being avoidable.
The study also found that within this group, people from minority ethnic backgrounds were dying 14 years younger than their white counterparts.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Research also finds stark ethnic disparities, and 40% of deaths among group classed as avoidable
People living with severe intellectual disabilities are dying 24 years younger on average than the wider population, a study has found, with 40% of such deaths being avoidable.
The study also found that within this group, people from minority ethnic backgrounds were dying 14 years younger than their white counterparts.
Continue reading...US president’s abrupt order to scale back joint exercises with Seoul is meant to ‘flatter’ North Korea’s dictator, top Democrat says
Donald Trump’s move to gut Washington’s 73-year-old military alliance with Seoul has been called “inane” and “shortsighted” as lawmakers warned it risked strengthening Russia’s hand in Ukraine.
The US president abruptly ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles, justifying the decision by citing his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong-un, the nuclear-armed dictator such exercises exist to deter.
Continue reading...US president’s abrupt order to scale back joint exercises with Seoul is meant to ‘flatter’ North Korea’s dictator, top Democrat says
Donald Trump’s move to gut Washington’s 73-year-old military alliance with Seoul has been called “inane” and “shortsighted” as lawmakers warned it risked strengthening Russia’s hand in Ukraine.
The US president abruptly ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles, justifying the decision by citing his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong-un, the nuclear-armed dictator such exercises exist to deter.
Continue reading...Government concedes ‘significant opposition’ requires new approach on quotas for medium-sized development sites
Ministers have dropped plans to relax affordable housing rules for developers in England after a backlash from housing experts who warned it could drastically cut the number of cheaper homes available in rural areas.
The government said on Monday it would not go ahead with proposals to end affordable housing quotas for private builders on sites containing between 10 and 49 houses after a consultation triggered an overwhelmingly negative response.
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