Action

Argentina gives UK two weeks to cease operations or face maritime court action.

Argentinian President Javier Milei has threatened the British government with legal action unless it stops an oil project off the disputed Falkland Islands, the British-administered territory over which Buenos Aires claims sovereignty.

Milei gave the United Kingdom a two-week ultimatum on Monday evening, saying it must halt all work on the Sea Lion oil project or Argentina will ask the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a maritime court in Hamburg, Germany, to order a stop to the project.

He called the operations “the illegal plundering of our resources” and declared “Argentina will not stand idly by” as the UK causes “irreversible and irreparable” damage.

The companies developing the project, Israel’s Navitas and Britain’s Rockhopper, have shrugged off Argentina’s threats, insisting they have valid exploration licences issued by the UK.

The tribunal, an independent court established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, can issue legally binding emergency orders. But even if it ordered the UK to halt the project, it has no means of forcing the government to comply.

The UK rejects Argentina’s sovereignty claim, arguing that the islanders have the right to determine their own future and develop their natural resources. In a referendum in 2013, residents of the Falklands voted overwhelmingly to remain a British overseas territory. Argentina says the islands were populated illegally.

Milei’s administration has already taken legal action against the project authorised by Britain, arguing it violates a United Nations resolution calling for both sides to desist from unilateral actions in the islands until their dispute is resolved.

Buenos Aires has doubled down on its claim over the Falklands since United States President Donald Trump said Washington was open to reviewing its historically neutral stance on the territory.

The British government for its part has said it stands behind the businesses operating near the Falklands.

The dispute over the Falkland Islands led to a war between Britain and Argentina in 1982. It killed 649 Argentinian soldiers, 255 British soldiers and three islanders after Argentina invaded the archipelago that year.

Demonstrators protest against UK government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Police in the United Kingdom have arrested more than 50 people protesting in support of the banned Palestine Action group outside a Labour Party conference in the northwestern English city of Liverpool.

The local Merseyside Police confirmed the arrests in a statement published on Sunday.

The police said those taken into custody at the protest, organised by Defend Our Juries, had displayed material in support of Palestine Action, proscribed as a “terrorist” group by the Labour government in July 2025 under the Terrorism Act.

According to the statement, police respected the rights of people to protest lawfully while aiming to keep the peace and ensure the public are safe.

More than 250 protesters sat outside the conference centre holding banners with words supporting the group on Sunday, before dozens of police began making arrests.

English band Massive Attack singer Robert Del Naja was among those arrested.

After asking demonstrators if they were going to continue holding up the signs, officers led people away, telling them they had been arrested under the Terrorism Act.

Reporting from Liverpool, Al Jazeera correspondent Milena Veselinovic said the protesters wanted to put proscription “front and centre of the UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s agenda” on the first day of his party’s annual conference.

“Being arrested is nothing in comparison to what the people in Gaza are going through, and it’s also worth it, because this is about our right to free speech,” one protester told Al Jazeera.

Another said that “there are priests, there are healthcare workers, there are people who deeply care, and deeply care about right and wrong.”

Kerry Moscogiuri, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said protesting “is one of the most effective tools” to make government leaders listen and described the arrests as “a truly shameful attack on freedom of speech”.

“The new prime minister can reform our laws so that communities are protected in coming together and demonstrating on the issues they care about. Will he do so?” she said.

Activists also confronted Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband inside a restaurant in Liverpool, demanding that he lift the ban on the group and declare Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The activists left after Miliband reportedly refused to comment.

A civil disobedience campaign has emerged since Palestine Action was outlawed in July 2025, with more than 3,600 people arrested for showing their support for the group, often while holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

The UK Supreme Court is now set to hear the case after London’s Court of Appeal upheld the government ban in June.

Head of the Roman Catholic Church holds ’emotional’ two-hour meeting with seven abuse victims in French town of Lourdes.

Pope Leo XIV has thanked a group of survivors of clerical abuse “for their painful testimony” and “reaffirmed his commitment” to end harm by Catholic priests at a meeting in southwestern France, the Vatican said.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is on a four-day visit to France.

On Sunday, the pontiff visited the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, where he privately met seven survivors of child abuse, now adults, and promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.

The group said in a later news conference that the meeting was emotional and touching.

“When he saw the state I was in, he took me into his arms,” survivor Jean-Marie Delbos said, adding, “It was an extraordinary moment.”

The 80-year-old was abused as a pupil at the nearby boarding school of Notre-Dame de Betharram, where staff have been accused of physical and sexual abuse over several decades.

The survivors said they felt heard and that they were impressed by Leo’s compassion and knowledge of their individual cases.

But they hoped the words would be accompanied by action.

Jerome Guillement, who has written about a priest abusing him as a teenager, said at the news conference that the pope understood the “systemic” nature of sexual abuse in the Church.

“From his point of view, the perpetrators are individuals, but what allows it to continue is the systemic dimension within the institution,” he said.

“He certainly believes that the Church has done a great deal in France, but he also believes that the Church in France still has a tremendous amount left to do.”

Local leaders hoped Leo’s visit would help repair the Church’s standing after a 2021 independent inquiry found that some 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades.

The pope told an estimated 150,000 people gathered for a Mass in a field near the famed Catholic shrine in Lourdes earlier on Sunday that the Church must have the courage to face its past.

Veronique Garnier, another survivor who met with the pontiff, said she had found the Mass, in which Leo referred to abuse without directly apologising for it, troubling and wondered why she had attended.

But she said she was encouraged by her meeting with Leo.

“I do indeed believe there is hope – hope that there can be change and truly listening to us at a deep level, rather than just superficially with beautiful words that are never followed by any real action,” she said.

Leo also spoke about the abuse scandals in a closed-door meeting with French bishops on Sunday, according to a Vatican-provided text.

He was expected to visit the northeastern city of Metz on Monday before returning to Rome the same day.

Cuba’s deputy foreign minister slams US sanctions, labelling them ‘equivalent to genocide’.

A senior official in Cuba has warned that any prospective United States military action taken against the island nation would constitute a serious international crime, and has rejected claims made by US President Donald Trump that Cuba is a failed state.

On Sunday, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, the country’s deputy foreign minister, told the US cable television channel C-SPAN’s flagship programme, Washington Journal, that it would be an “atrocious international crime for the US to use military force against Cuba, which is a peaceful neighbouring country”.

His comments come after Trump said during his Tuesday speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that “freedom will be coming” to the island. His remarks prompted the Cuban delegation to exit the assembly hall. On Saturday, Trump brought up military action, telling reporters, “I don’t think we’ll need the military. Cuba is failing very badly.”

Fernandez de Cossio said that coercing nations who do not “submit” by disrupting their commercial shipments, attempting to handicap a population through starvation, depriving it of stable healthcare and withholding fuel, as the US has “done for nine months now”, is “equivalent to a genocide”.

The US has maintained a foreign policy of maximum economic pressure against Cuba for more than 60 years. The Trump administration has previously said that it wants a shake-up in Cuba’s government. Earlier this year, the administration enforced an additional oil and fuel blockade against the island, which has crippled the nation’s infrastructure, causing widespread fuel scarcity and rolling power outages. Government officials in Cuba cited systemic difficulties in securing food supplies and other basic necessities for the country of more than 10 million.

Fernandez de Cossio said Havana must ready its citizens for the prospect of US military aggression, adding that while Cuba recognises it might stand alone, it will still exercise its legitimate right to self-defence.

He explained that bilateral diplomatic channels with the US remain open but have yielded minimal results due to the economic stranglehold of ongoing sanctions, adding that Havana remains willing to engage with Washington in a “respectful manner” only if discussions accommodate mutual dignity, benefit both populations, and respect state sovereignty.

Several countries condemned the US’s continued economic sanctions and blockade of Cuba during the UNGA earlier this week.

New Orleans Pelicans star Zion Williamson had a “friendly and casual ‘friends with benefits’ sexual relationship” with the woman who is accusing him of raping and abusing her multiple times between 2018 and 2023, according to a court filing by the former Duke standout’s legal team.

A document submitted to Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday states that Williamson denies “each and every allegation” made against him by a Jane Doe in a second amended complaint filed in June.

Williamson’s filing describes the interaction between the former No. 1 overall draft pick and his accuser as “infrequent and sporadic.”

“All interaction among and between the Plaintiff and Defendant was pleasant and entirely consensual, with the Plaintiff initiating and communicating her desire to be intimate with the Defendant,” the document states, “and the Plaintiff herself decided to end the relationship because she became upset when she realized that the Defendant was focusing his time and energy on professional basketball and on being a father, and did not have sufficient time or interest to maintain a relationship with the Plaintiff.”

The second amended complaint lists the causes of action as assault, battery, sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, domestic violence and stalking. The response from Williamson’s team states that the statute of limitations has expired on each cause of action.

The initial complaint, filed in May 2025, also included false imprisonment and conversion as causes of action, which are not included in the latest complaint.

The lawsuit provides details of two instances in 2020 during which Williamson allegedly raped his accuser in a Beverly Hills apartment he was renting at the time.

“These two incidents were not isolated,” the lawsuit states. “Defendant continued to abuse, rape, assault, and batter Plaintiff in California and other states, including Louisiana and Texas, until the relationship ended in 2023.”

The lawsuit also alleges that Williamson committed many other acts of violence against his accuser, including strangling her multiple times to the point that she lost consciousness, suffocating or smothering her, striking and kicking her “with great force,” threatening to kill her and her family members, and pointing a loaded firearm to her head.

Williamson “was either drunk or on cocaine” while allegedly committing many of those acts, the lawsuit states.

A jury trial has been scheduled for April 2028.

Canada pledges 100 million Canadian dollars ($71m) in aid for Palestinians as the UK and France call for action against Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that Canada is pledging 100 million Canadian dollars ($71m) in international assistance for Palestinians in an effort to preserve “the possibility of a two-state solution”.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Carney outlined that 80 percent of the funding will go towards direct humanitarian aid. The remaining 20 percent will be allocated to “support peace and security”, including Canada’s multiyear initiative to train Palestinian police in the occupied West Bank.

Carney prefaced the pledge by noting that Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure “immense human suffering”, while Israelis confront “existential threats from Hamas and from Iran and its proxies”.

The prime minister was also critical of Israel’s E1 settlement project, with the “intention to bring forward trade restrictions targeting goods produced in those illegal Israeli settlements”.

Canada is one of the 12 states that announced restrictions on trade in goods ⁠with settlements in the occupied territory.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Ottawa has pledged more than 600 million Canadian dollars ($426m) in aid for Palestinian civilians.

‘Shame on all of us’

Carney was not the only Western leader to speak on Palestine. French President Emmanuel Macron also slammed world leaders for restrictions on aid in a UNGA speech on Tuesday.

“There are those who claim that peace has been achieved, but this has not opened the way for humanitarian aid deliveries. This sight is shameful. Shame on all of us,” he said.

“But what is our credibility worth if we remain inactive in the face of Gaza?” he added.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said failure to deliver a two-state solution will “corrode trust” in politicians who have talked about the issue but not taken action.

Burnham told delegates from dozens of countries that the UK has also banned trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank because the E1 settlement expansion plan is “a deliberate attempt to block a two-state solution”.

“We all live in an era of low trust in politics. Many people in this room, many politicians around the world, have spoken for decades about a two-state solution. But if we fail to back those words with deeds, we will further corrode trust in the political, diplomatic and international process,” Burnham added.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday headed into a week full of high-stake meetings with world leaders after spending a 72-hour period banning reporters from the White House, mulling whether it was time to “blow … up” Iran, and proposing to house military drones and snipers in his triumphal arch in the nation’s capital.

The weekend — which also included the announcement of a security deal over Greenland and the creation of a new “A.I. Force” — captured an American president operating unpredictably across multiple fronts even as each one drew friction. The actions now stand to color the backdrop of a week that will feature meetings with world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington.

Each of those moves carries its own political weight ahead of the diplomatic talks, but also ahead of the midterm elections, where these topics are front and center in key races.

Trump’s handling of the Iran war, its subsequent shocks to the global economy, his push to fast-track the development of artificial intelligence and the Greenland agreement are likely to come up in meetings with world leaders. His deal with Denmark to bolster U.S. military presence in Greenland, a territory Trump has repeatedly tried to annex, is expected to be signed Tuesday in New York, though action is still needed by the Danish and Greenland governments before it can be enforced.

While all the details of the Greenland deal are not public yet, Trump has said it is a “dream come true for the United States of America.”

“This solution is a great one for the United States of America, Denmark, Greenland and all of our Allies,” Trump wrote on social media Friday. “We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land. We will be very protective of it.”

In an interview Sunday, Trump also indicated that he was trying to make a decision on Iran as the war stretches into its eighth month. The president said he would “probably be open” to meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the U.N. General Assembly.

“My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up?” Trump told Fox News. “They better behave.”

Of all the actions Trump took, the press dispute has become the most contentious and drawn an immediate legal response. Three major news outlets — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — sued the Trump administration Monday for banning their reporters from the White House grounds, and major television networks suspended their pool coverage of the president’s activities.

In a joint statement, the organizations said the White House has acted “without notice or process” and called the arbitrary decision a “blatant violation” of the 1st Amendment.

Trump, meanwhile, argued Monday that the banned news outlets are “corrupt” and a “threat to our national security.”

Vice President JD Vance defended the press ban.

“He’s not banning media outlets. What he’s doing is saying we’re not going to give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda,” Vance said Monday, arguing that the three outlets push out “negative” coverage of Trump.

The tense showdown between Trump and the White House press corps led to audio problems during the president’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new helipad on the South Lawn. Without television cameras and microphones set up by the major TV networks, it was impossible to hear what Trump was saying through the White House’s official YouTube stream, signaling further technical difficulties in the week ahead.

Behind the public displays of control, news reports have painted a picture of a president increasingly frustrated by the lack of credit he feels he is owed. At a recent closed-door meeting, reported by the Wall Street Journal, Trump told advisors he was aggravated that his allies hadn’t lauded him enough for his efforts to take over the Kennedy Center or other accomplishments made during his second term.

Trump has tried to put his name on the building’s facade and run into resistance from Democrats, arts patrons and a federal judge who blocked the move last week. Trump was then photographed aboard Air Force One looking at a large printout appearing to show demolition plans for the center.

Over the weekend, Trump posted on social media a link to a news article that claimed he was seeking to fix “safety hazards” at the performance center. He then posted an image of him watching the Western Hemisphere with the words, “His Hemisphere,” and wrote that his proposed triumphal arch near the National Mall would be used as a military complex for drones and snipers.

Trump also announced that he would be creating the “A.I. force,” modeled after the Space Force he launched during his first term, to ensure the country does not “in any way hinder or stifle the growth of the industry.” The announcement came amid growing backlash to data centers and the fast-paced development of artificial intelligence, an issue that in recent weeks has prompted stark warnings about the technology’s power and its threats to humanity.

Tech executives, including Dario Amodei and Sam Altman, have even called for a slowdown on the technology’s advancement and last week, four leading AI companies — Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google — faced a lawsuit claiming they made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.

Trump’s announcement over the weekend comes as lawmakers, including congressional Republicans in tight races, have called for new guardrails on the technology.

Despite technology becoming a political flashpoint during the midterms, Trump has dismissed concerns about AI as a hoax and asserted that those who oppose data centers are intent on being “backwards and poor.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) is among the lawmakers who have called for action on regulating the technology, and he has warned that not doing so could come at a cost on Nov. 3.

“We really need to send a memo around explaining we’ve got midterm elections coming,” Kennedy told Politico. “I may send that out.”

A STRIKE at a major airport in Belgium has forced Ryanair to cancel at least 30 flights, with more to follow.

The industrial action by air traffic control staff could continue well into October, affecting evening schedules.

Industrial action by air traffic control workers at Charleroi Airport started on September 16.

The strike will continue to take place during every night shift from 22pm to 8am the following morning until October 10.

It’s been reported that as a result, Ryanair has cancelled at least 30 flights so far.

Ryanair flies to Charleroi from three UK airports; Newcastle, Manchester and Edinburgh.

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Looking at today’s schedule, it’s mostly arrivals into the airport after 9.30pm that are affected.

Only two flights from the UK are affected by the strike action today.

The first is a flight from Manchester Airport to Charleroi which was scheduled for 10.55pm and has since been cancelled.

The second is a flight from Charleroi to Manchester Airport which was scheduled for 19.35pm and has also been cancelled.

Ryanair has asked passengers to monitor their Ryanair App for the latest updates regarding their flight.

In a previous statement, the airline said: “We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of these ATC strike delays/cancellations, which are entirely beyond airlines’ control.”

Yesterday, about 40 flights in total were cancelled at Charleroi Airport.

According to Skeyes, the Belgium‘s official national air navigation service provider, the nightly strikes are expected to affect more than 800 flights.

Sept. 16, 2026 3:10 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The House approved a resolution Wednesday holding billionaire Leon Black in contempt of Congress, referring the matter to the Department of Justice after he defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas in its investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The action was swift and without a formal vote, and now leaves it to the Justice Department to decide whether to seek criminal prosecution. Black has refused to respond to the subpoenas’ requests to appear and to turn over any potential nondisclosure agreements involving the investigation into Epstein.

Republicans and Democrats from the Oversight Committee joined in a bipartisan effort to advance the resolution forward.

“No one is above the law,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the Oversight Committee chairman, said in a statement. “We will continue to seek transparency for the American people and justice for survivors in our investigation of the federal government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell criminal cases.”

California Rep. Robert Garcia, the panel’s top Democrat, called the vote “an important step toward justice and accountability.”

Black’s lawyers have denounced the Oversight Committee’s pursuit of the former head of a private equity firm as an abuse of congressional power. They said he “had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.”

“The Committee has continued to insist on looking for information that does not exist,” attorneys Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler said in a statement. They called the action “politically motivated” and have sued the committee and asked the Office of Congressional Conduct to open a probe into Comer’s tactics.

“This an outrageous action that ignores the facts and the truth about Mr. Black,” they said.

Epstein investigation churns in Congress

Black is the latest among several prominent figures, including former President Clinton and Bill Gates, who have been asked to appear as part of the Oversight Committee’s long-running probe of Epstein. Survivors of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse have told personal stories of being young women in a trafficking enterprise organized by Epstein and his colleague Maxwell.

In June, Black did appear for a voluntary interview at the committee. Lawmakers said later that he refused to answer their questions about the nondisclosure agreements.

The committee issued two subpoenas seeking to compel Black to produce the NDAs and to appear for a deposition July 16. The committee said it had accommodated Black’s request to delay the deposition to Sept. 3, but he refused to appear.

On Tuesday the Oversight Committee voted unanimously to approve the contempt recommendation, sending it to the full House.

Black co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management and stepped down in 2021 during the fallout over his ties to Epstein. Lawmakers have alleged that Black paid Epstein $180 million during their years-long relationship.

A 2021 review commissioned by Apollo found that Black paid Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017, after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. The review said the payments were for “bona fide tax, estate planning and other related services.”

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief called Monday for countries and “frontier” artificial intelligence companies to act urgently to rein in a technology he warned posed “unprecedented risks”.

In a letter sent to countries and AI developers and shared with the media, Volker Turk cautioned that the world was “on the cusp of irreversible change, affecting not just us but generations of humanity to come”.

“The current race towards ever more powerful AI is a step change towards greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives.”

He sent the letter at a time when worries over the risks of “superintelligent” computer systems have been on full display, after a researcher publicly resigned from leading AI firm Anthropic over fears that the technology could escape human control.

Another Anthropic employee, who did not resign, stated publicly that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans”, and that he thought the chances were greater than “10 percent within the next decade”.

Amid the outcry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called Saturday for AI companies to “pace the frontier” — or coordinate a slowdown in the technology’s development, with his chief competitors, xAI’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, publicly supporting him.

“In today’s world, we are almost entirely reliant on a small number of powerful companies to make the right choices on Al development for all of humanity,” Turk lamented.

“I call on States and companies to mobilise urgently through multilateral fora to chart a path for action to govern advanced, frontier AI models, grounded in international human rights law.”

Filmmaker Paul Greengrass is often associated with a cinematic aesthetic colloquially known as “shaky cam” — handheld cinematography enabled by lightweight digital cameras that function a lot like another character in the room, on foot, at eye-level, responding and reacting to action and dialogue the way a person would.

It’s a style that has served him well in modern action thrillers like his installments of the “Bourne” franchise, and films depicting recent real-world events like “Captain Phillips” and “The Lost Bus.” Now, Greengrass applies his signature style to the Middle Ages — can shaky cam work in a medieval movie?

It may seem odd, but it’s a brilliant creative choice when considering that while “The Uprising” is technically about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England, that’s not really what it’s about. It’s about right now.

The shaky cam is intended to jolt us into that awareness. When we pick up with our protagonist, a pathetic ploughman (Andrew Garfield) living a grief-filled and wretched existence, a plague has wiped out half the population. A small group of men hoards wealth and resources, while the peasant class is heavily taxed, laws brutally enforced. As Greengrass lays out the bare facts of this situation with a cinematic style that’s more news documentary than stuffy period piece, the parallels to our own current situation are laid bare.

“The Uprising,” which Greengrass wrote and directed, is told in a fairly simple fashion, with an emphasis on visual storytelling and visceral sensation (the disparate English accents are also lost in the melee of the mob). All we need to know is that the council advising the 14-year-old King Richard II (Woody Norman) conspires while the young royal prays and his mother (Katherine Waterston) glowers. Outside, a bloodthirsty mob armed with farm tools marches on London, led in part by Garfield’s ploughman, who started his own local uprising when he fought back against the taxman. He joins forces with Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), a former soldier, and John Ball (Jamie Bell), a priest deemed heretic, as the crowd demands an audience with the king.

As the chaos unfolds, Greengrass doesn’t pontificate on the morality of these events and, in fact, maintains a rather neutral stance on them for most of the film, withholding judgment. A revolution is not right or wrong for most of “The Uprising.” It is simply inevitable under the conditions the film presents.

The ploughman wants to play by the rules, but it’s how the revolt plays out that radicalizes him. While Greengrass shows us the uprising in all its messy confusion as the logical outcome of oppression, by following our protagonist as he witnesses treachery and deceit, Greengrass ultimately arrives at the belief that revolution is necessary, even in failure, and that freedom is worth more than anything.

The opening and closing of “The Uprising” are bracing and stark in their storytelling — the middle is a bit mushy and confusing. But it’s the performances that carry us through. Garfield, sensitive and earthy, is our bellwether as the events descend into bloody carnage dictated by muddled agendas. When he turns, we turn, and the anguish that Garfield wordlessly conveys is our compass.

Greengrass surrounds Garfield with actors who deliver bigger performances, like Jarvis as the brutish but shrewd Tyler, and Bell as the fervent Ball. Thomasin McKenzie plays a young woman, Alyce, steeped in her own trauma and loss, who attaches herself to the ploughman, and her ability to express wide-eyed, barely contained hysteria and fear is unmatched. Young Norman is riveting as the increasingly dastardly king.

The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 is a fascinating moment because it’s a time when the notion of democracy wasn’t even a twinkle in a feudal servant’s eye. The mob’s actions are frustrating because they’re religiously bound to the king, who they believe is an emissary of God, and desperate to change their day-to-day existence. When those two instincts collide, it’s bound to be complex and conflicting, and Greengrass delivers that with a boots-on-the-ground style.

The murkiness of it all clarifies by the end of the film, not just in terms of its heroes, villains and message, but Greengrass also situates this story within a recognizable cinematic and storytelling history. There’s a thrill as it all comes together. Greengrass might be taking a big swing (of the scythe), but his blade finds its target nevertheless.

Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Coronation Street’s Jodie Ramsey discovered that Bethany and Kit had slept together on Wednesday night’s episode and now fans are wondering what the mysterious character will do next

Coronation Street’s Jodie Ramsey discovered that Bethany and Kit had slept together on Wednesday night’s episode. The cafe waitress, played by Olivia Frances-Brown, turned up as the long-lost sister of Shona Platt during the programme’s crossover with Emmerdale.

Since then, the mysterious character has managed to get herself intertwined in just about everyone’s problems and caused trouble in one way or another but viewers are none the wiser as to what her game is.

As ever, a lot is going on in the Platt family, and with Sarah Platt (Tina O’Brien) in prison having been charged with murder, her daughter Bethany recently had a one-night stand with DC Kit Green.

The police officer almost became Bethany’s stepdad until Sarah broke things off with him while she was behind bars. However, Kit is still very much part of the family unit having agreed to take care of Sarah’s son Harry whilst she is imprisoned.

Bethany was trying to brush their one night stand off as a ” a moment of madness”, as Kit lamented: “It should never have happened at all! You know, of all the women I could have slept with. Leave it, eh?”

Unbeknownst to them both, Jodie, whose sister is Bethany’s aunt, was listening to their conversation and looked delighted to make such a discovery.

It wasn’t until the very end of the episode, however, that Jodie poured a glass of wine, pulled her phone from her pocket and played the conversation back on her phone, having recorded every word.

Reacting to the twist, one fan wrote on X: “Wow so Jodie recorded the convo! she’s so wicked,” and another said: “Hate and love Jodie, she makes me mad at times! just shows the actress is doing a good job when they make you mad.”

A third wrote: “Jodie is seriously twisted,” and fourth said: “So someone overhears Kit and Bethany talking about sleeping together AND OF COURSE IT’S F****** JODIE!!! OF COURSE IT IS.”

Actress Lucy Fallon, who plays Bethany Platt, recently spoke of the ramifications that will come with her decision to sleep with the man who was almost her stepdad.

She said: “I think it was definitely a major mistake and she is feeling incredibly guilty. That guilt is going to weigh on her for quite a while.

“”There has been a lot going on recently. Bethany has been holding everything together for everyone and trying to look after Harry, while Kit has his own separate issues.

“They were in the flat together and one thing led to another. It clearly causes many problems between them moving forward. For both of them, it was a massive mistake.”

Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and is available to stream from 7am on ITV X.

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America, the Land of Immigrants, has always been ambivalent about just what that mantle should mean, but that ambivalence has taken on an edge. The middle ground has shifted, decidedly to the right.

And California, characteristically, is ahead of the trend.

Now, when liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer suggests that National Guard troops be stationed along the southern border, only immigrant-rights activists are publicly aghast. When Gov. Pete Wilson says the Constitution should be changed to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, a Field poll shows that half of all Californians like the idea.

“This is a state of siege in California,” says an observer from Washington, immigration expert Demetrios Papademetriou of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“There is an enormous bombardment out there. There is always something new about immigration. One’s senses get bombarded every day, which is the worst possible moment for trying to make fundamental decisions regarding immigration. I am delighted that they will be made in Washington, rather than California.”

Yet California is where the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates 52% of all illegal immigrants live, where dueling studies constantly argue the benefits and costs of the immigrant mix, and where, increasingly, many see an immigration apocalypse born of neglect.

Even the membership of the Sierra Club is in the midst of an emotional debate about whether to take a public stand on the hot button topic of the day.

“It’s not as simple as clean air, or like pollution, where less is better,” said Executive Director Carl Pope.

But millions of other Americans seem to have made up their minds. The polls say most Americans believe illegal immigration is out of control, that the country has too many immigrants, illegal or otherwise, and that this is very bad news for the economy and for our national quality of life.

Every day, Americans are clamoring that something should be done. So everyone from the President of the United States to the president of the local homeowners association is offering suggestions.

Hire more Border Patrol agents and get them equipment that works. Issue tamper-proof identity cards. End taxpayer-funded medical care and schooling for anyone in the country illegally. Seize the assets of employers who hire illegal immigrants. And get serious, finally, about welfare fraud. The list goes on.

“Under bold, centrist political leadership, California could have been avoided,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, the grandfather of a growing family of groups calling for a moratorium on immigration.

“What is happening in California is the direct result of the isolated and removed nature of immigration policy decisions in Washington.”

Many call this brouhaha a backlash against immigrants, scapegoating during an economic recession and a shortsighted repudiation of the principles that made America great.

Others call it unadorned common sense.

“If you set your table for five people in your home and then 15 people show up unexpectedly, you aren’t prepared, and you’ve got problems,” said Fred Vines, a retired state policeman who lives with his wife, a teacher, on Los Angeles’ Westside.

“We’re billions in the hole,” he said. “This has never happened before. It’s got to be overpopulation. You’ve got people coming here who shouldn’t be here.

“Put up a Berlin Wall!” cried Vines, an African-American who denies that racism has anything to do with his get-tough stand. He says that any fool can see it: Immigration is bringing this country down.

*

The organizers of this night meeting of Citizens for Action Now, an 18-month-old immigration reform group in Orange County, have called for more folding chairs to accommodate an overflow crowd of about 60 mostly middle-aged, mostly white citizens or legal immigrants.

Barbara Coe, a police records clerk and co-director of the group, has made a point of emphasizing the legal immigrant component to the newcomers in the room.

It is not immigrants the group is against, she says, but illegal immigrants. She stressed that racism has no place here.

“We decided that the only way we are literally going to save our heritage is to put the focus on the illegal alien problem,” she said.

Early arrivals at the meeting talk among themselves. A middle-aged woman tells of the “marauders” who take over the streets at night. A man who lives and works in Santa Ana, the county seat that is now 70% Latino, says of the city: “It’s gone! It’s gone!”

Before everyone stands to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sheets of blue cards are passed around. Citizens for Action Now, part of the 15-member California Coalition for Immigration Reform, asks its members to carry the cards with them and leave them in businesses such as restaurants, “where it seems fairly apparent” that illegal immigrants are employed.

“Stop the Invasion! Close our Borders NOW! Deny benefits to ILLEGAL ALIENS NOW! Defeat GATT/NAFTA NOW!” read the cards, which leave a space for the sender’s name and address.

The evening’s guest speaker, William E. Dannemeyer, the former Orange County congressman considering another U.S. Senate bid, arrives to detail his controversial, and unsuccessful, legislative efforts to stem the immigrant flow.

But during the question and answer session after his remarks, members of Citizens for Action Now intimate that Dannemeyer, who was one of the most conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, hadn’t been tough enough.

One woman told Dannemeyer: “I feel desperate that the battle is lost.” Another man detailed his inspection of Israel’s border defense system, praising that country’s swift actions to thwart enemy incursions.

“If we can go to the moon, are you going to tell me we don’t have the technology to do what this little country Israel can? That’s baloney!”

The room erupts in applause.

*

Immigrant rights groups say they have heard such sentiments before, only they are hardly blase.

They are afraid that the angry, frustrated public mood might translate into laws that will codify discrimination and divert attention from more onerous economic problems in favor of an easy target: the illegal immigrant without a vote. They warn of a rise in hate crimes.

“We in the immigrant rights community are on the defensive right now,” concedes Roberto Lovato, who heads the Central American Refugee Center in Los Angeles. “We are not being sought out for solutions.”

At a recent news conference in Downtown Los Angeles, Latino community leaders displayed enlarged copies of stories that appeared in the Los Angeles Times from the 1930s to the present. The idea was to trigger a public deja vu .

“Ousting of Aliens Will Be Speeded,” read a headline from 1931. “Government Maps War on Wetbacks,” said another from 1954, and in 1971: “Illegal Alien Growing Peril to U.S. Worker.”

The last offering, “Wilson Urges Stiff Penalties to Deter Illegal Immigrants,” was from the week before.

“We know well in our community that this is a historical cycle,” says Arturo Vargas, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Indeed, during the 19th Century, the state Legislature imposed special taxes on Mexican miners, and the state’s Workingmen’s Party rallied around the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go.” During the Great Depression, and again in 1954, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were sent home.

Yet, cyclical or not, the country’s anti-immigrant mood seems unlikely to cool on its own. Based on a mix of fact, myth and fear, feelings run deep. Ambivalence–and contradictions–thread through it all.

The restaurant busboy might be admired for his willingness to work hard for little pay. But the faceless mass of illegal immigrants is threatening our way of life.

Although it is true that, as a percentage of the population, immigration levels today are a third of what they were during the peak years of 1900-20, the numbers are about the same. And those numbers–about 10 million legal and 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants over the past decade–seem huge.

This is especially true during economic hard times, or perhaps, as immigrant rights group suggest, when people consider who the new immigrants are. Unlike the immigration boom at the turn of the century, more than 90% of the latest immigrant tide comes from the Third World.

Bottom line: The United States takes in more immigrants than the rest of the world combined. And people here are wondering out loud if America has not done enough.

Consider this reaction from homemaker and mother Ellie Kiefer, who recently moved from her Burbank home of 11 years to Simi Valley: “They are just letting them come in. If it was something very positive, starting nice businesses, or really trying or something, that might be different.

“But the crime is getting worse, there are more gangs. The killings. It’s ridiculous. That’s one of the reasons I’m so sick of it.”

Or this from a middle-aged African-American woman who works as a teaching assistant in the Los Angeles Unified School District: “We have to go back to school to speak their language. That’s not fair. And I have to pay for it out of my own pocket. If you are born here in the United States, and you speak English, you have to adjust to them. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Lucy Bermudez, a Philippine-born nurse who just left heavily immigrant Panorama City for Ventura County, says: “I waited for 15 years to become a citizen. It’s unfair of the illegal ones. They are just popping in.”

For Spanish-speaking shopkeeper Maria Elba Miranda, who emigrated illegally from El Salvador 13 years ago, the burning issue is security, and fear. “I’ve noticed a change in the type of people coming, even from my own country,” she said.

“There are just too many people here. . . . I remember when I came, I was really scared, timid, just looking for work, but now they come here looking for trouble.”

On the same Los Angeles street where Miranda lives and works, immigrants openly hawk fake green cards for $50. If you want a phony Social Security card, they can arrange that too. And to the untrained eye, all the documents look good.

“What we do is help people work, not like those guys, they’re the ones who should be deported,” says a 17-year-old nicknamed Orejas, or Ears, who arrived illegally from Mexico six months ago.

Orejas points across the street at the “bad immigrants” to distinguish himself and his friends from their ilk. Go to them, he says, if you want to buy drugs.

*

The INS estimates, conservatively, that about 3.2 million illegal immigrants now live in the United States. Most of these migrants–up to 70% of them from Mexico–arrived after the estimated 3.7 million others who have taken advantage of the amnesty provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Although that law is widely acknowledged to have ended life in the shadows for many immigrants, it has failed to stop the illegal flow. To wit: the control part of the act has become a joke:

Thousands of mandated Border Patrol jobs remain unfilled. Employer sanctions are rarely enforced. And states such as California complain bitterly that Washington does not reimburse them for services to illegal immigrants whose entry the federal government should have blocked.

Such a situation has led many to believe that no sooner do illegal immigrants cross the border than they end up on the dole. In fact, undocumented immigrants are legally ineligible for almost all public benefits other than maternity and emergency medical care under Medi-Cal or Medicaid, and some prenatal care.

But because of the thriving market in counterfeit documents, fraud appears to be widespread.

Moreover, U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are also entitled to all citizenship benefits, such as the fast-growing Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, and like foreign-born children, free education through the 12th grade.

And beyond the costs vs. revenue debate that is the subject of academic debate, residents of areas with large immigrant populations say they feel the impact of the newcomers in more personal ways.

An African-American police officer married to a Mexican immigrant says the couple’s two children are enrolled in a Los Angeles public school that is 90% Latino, “so my kids have a hard time.”

“The teachers are spending all this time on the Spanish,” he said. “So it slows down my kids. So I’m moving mine to a private school.”

Puerto Rican Miguel Rodriguez, 35, of Carson recently recovered from a car accident and went back to reclaim his welding job.

“They told me they didn’t have anything,” he said. “They hired a couple of guys, Latinos who don’t speak any English, who will take less. They’re making $8 an hour. I was making $13. . . . It kind of pisses me off.”

And from Lanie Wong, 65, a mother of five grown children and a daughter of Chinese immigrants, there is this: “It bothers me that the illegals think they can outsmart our system. They brag. It doesn’t affect me, personally. But it’s the principle.”

*

Felix Martinez, a 43-year-old father of four, and his friend, Milton Monterosa, 41, a father of two, have arrived hours early for an appointment at a Los Angeles office of the state Economic Development Department. They have gone months without work and are hoping for a lead on a job.

Like hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of others, Martinez, of Mexico City, and Monterosa, from San Salvador, overstayed their entry visas and slipped unnoticed into the underground economy that traditionally welcomed illegal immigrants with abundant, low-paying jobs.

Under the amnesty granted to illegal immigrants residing in the country before 1982, both men legalized their status, but the American dream escapes them still.

“My friend and I were just talking,” Martinez says. “Los Angeles has fallen down so much. Before, there used to be a lot of work. Things were good. Now the situation is desperate. There is no work. There is nothing.”

Monterosa just nods.

“On the one hand, I think it’s good that immigrants come to this country,” Martinez goes on. “But, you know, I’m in this position. I can’t condone more people coming. I tell my brothers, everybody. They say, ‘Oh, the streets are paved with gold there. There is a lot of work. I’m coming.’ I tell them: ‘There is no work. Why should you come to suffer? Don’t come.’ ”

Inside the unemployment office, Los Angeles-born Lawrence Cush, 31, is also waiting for a lead. He says he has prepared himself for a good job with a college education and experience as a PBX operator at the Ambassador Hotel.

But he has been out of work since 1985.

“I feel in competition with the immigrants,” he says. “Everyone should speak English, but they don’t. . . . I applied for a job at Continental Cable and they told me that I had all the qualifications but that I didn’t get hired because I didn’t speak Spanish.”

Cush is on welfare. He is looking for a job that pays at least $8 an hour “so that I could make $17,000-$20,000 a year, and that’s not that much. That way I could do my part to support my family.

“I’m not going to take the minimum wage,” he said.

Outside, Martinez speaks in Spanish: “I have these desperate nights where I hug my knees together in bed and pray to God for a miracle, to send me a job, any job, a gardener, a cook, whatever. I’m not talking about some fancy job in an office, a secretary.

“I’ll take anything.”

WASHINGTON — President Clinton was forced to retreat Monday in the face of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole’s angry accusation that the White House had told “a $23-million lie” about a project in his state.

The White House said that Clinton “regrets” any misunderstandings caused by “hyperbole” in a barbed joke the President told that brought the house down Saturday at an annual black-tie dinner hosted by White House correspondents.

Clinton had said that the Republican lawmaker from Kansas was seeking $23 million from the federal government to convert a senior citizens’ center into a boathouse, at the same time that he was assailing Clinton for wasteful “pork barrel” spending.

Dole, who led the Republican battle that scuttled Clinton’s economic stimulus package, first challenged the accuracy of the statement in a television interview show Sunday but he seemed confused about the details. Monday, he flatly denied the claim and issued a belated blast.

“The White House lied,” Dole said, carefully avoiding a direct attack on the President himself. “There’s no $23-million boathouse, no deficit spending, no new money, no connection with the President’s deadbeat ‘stimulus’ bill and no truth coming from a White House staff that is ill-serving the President with these sophomoric attacks.”

Dole said that he had sought a federal waiver to clear the way for privately funded construction of a public boathouse in Wichita.

“If the White House wants to play hardball, I’m ready to suit up,” Dole concluded, sending an ominous signal that the issue could spill over into future relations with Senate Republicans.

George Stephanopoulos, the White House communications director, issued a statement late Monday afternoon.

“The President regrets the misunderstanding that may have been caused by any hyperbole in his jokes at Saturday’s White House dinner,” he said.

“While Sen. Dole did make the case that the Wichita boathouse is a legitimate Community Development Block Grant project, the potential cost to the taxpayer is not as high as stated in the President’s joke,” the statement concluded.

While the war of words may be forgotten, the harshly worded statement by Dole signaled that the lack of harmony between the Senate GOP leader and the Clinton White House could affect the future of the President’s programs in Congress.

Dole is in a key position as commander of 43 Republicans and as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where the defection from party ranks of a single Democratic senator could block Clinton’s proposed tax increases.

As Dole described the situation, Wichita received $500,000 from the federal government’s Community Development Block Grant program in 1980 to help the city buy a building for use as a senior citizen center.

The center, however, moved to a larger facility in 1992, and the building along the Arkansas River has been standing vacant since then.

Wichita officials, Dole continued, wanted to lease the building to a charitable foundation that intends to use private funds to transform it into a boathouse. To change the use of the building, however, the city was required to seek a waiver from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Dole and Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.), who represents the area in the House, supported the city’s request for a waiver in letters to a HUD regional official. HUD had planned to tear the building down.

The Wichita Eagle Monday quoted an official of the charity, the Arkansas River Foundation, as saying that the boathouse project would cost $850,000 and the funds would come from donations and not the federal government.

“The White House really missed the boat on this one,” Dole said.

WASHINGTON — The House voted Tuesday to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) following a House Ethics Committee investigation that concluded he engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers in his office.

A censure registers the House’s deep disapproval of a lawmaker’s conduct that does not meet the threshold for expulsion from office.

The 413-2 vote was just the latest instance of the House grappling with revelations about lawmakers’ behavior toward female staffers, a trend that prompted House leaders to launch a bipartisan review this year focused on making Capitol Hill a safer job environment for women.

Rep. Michael Guest, the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, said the Edwards case did not involve what he called “quid pro quo sexual harassment,” but rather conduct and behavior that created a hostile work environment.

“While Representative Edwards denies that his conduct was intended to be sexual or romantic, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable person to interpret it as such,” Guest said.

Guest said that behavior included providing the aides with lavish gifts, making comments about their appearance and dress, sending notes regarding his affection and inviting them to intimate dinners and vacations. He also said Edwards was aware that the women were uncomfortable with his behavior.

Edwards apologized to the two women, who are no longer on his staff, for actions that put them in an uncomfortable position. He said his intentions were “only grounded in what I understood our friendship to be” and said he admired them. He also apologized to his wife and family, saying they carried a burden they did not create or deserve.

But he also forcefully rejected the committee’s most damaging conclusions and the recommendation that he be censured. He emphasized that the investigative report itself concluded there was no evidence he engaged in sexual activity or explicitly propositioned any staff member.

“I am imperfect. I have made mistakes, but I do not believe I committed sexual harassment,” Edwards said on the House floor. “The factual findings of this investigation do not justify branding me as though I did.”

Edwards was one of the two lawmakers who voted against the resolution. The other was Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

Edwards told reporters after the vote that he had expected the result would not go his way. House Speaker Mike Johnson sat with Edwards for a few minutes before the vote and told him how he thought it would go.

“It would not have been politically expedient for anyone to vote against a resolution accusing someone of sexual harassment,” Edwards said.

Edwards stood in the well of the House as the censure resolution was read. When he left the chamber, he remained highly critical of the Ethics Committee’s findings and at one point said the investigation was “very much akin to a Russian show trial.”

Edwards becomes the 29th member in the history of the House to be censured. He was asked about that distinction after the vote and said he lived a terrific life before he got into politics.

“I look forward to getting my life back,” Edwards said.

Edwards is serving his second term in Congress representing a district in western North Carolina. He chose not to seek reelection after the committee issued its report.

Edwards is the latest in a line of ethics cases this Congress

Earlier this year, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales faced calls for their expulsion before they stepped down.

And last month, the Ethics Committee announced it was reviewing allegations that Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) may have engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer. He said he would cooperate with the investigation but his actions were consensual in nature and didn’t violate the law or House Ethics rules. He also apologized to his family and constituents.

House members are prohibited from engaging in sexual harassment or making unwanted advances toward their subordinates. The Ethics Committee said that despite the absence of an explicit proposition, a reasonable person could interpret Edwards’ “intimate and effusive attentions, where he prioritized the personal over the professional, as thinly veiled advances.”

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, said the investigation spanned more than four months and included interviews of 16 people and a review of nearly 1,500 pages of documents.

He said Edwards provided the two women with jewelry, designer purses, shoes and flowers and commented on their appearance. He also sent deeply personal letters and even skipped a vote series to decorate a Christmas tree at the home of one of the staffers.

“These are not innocuous, isolated instances,” DeSaulnier said. “They are part of a sustained, unprofessional and inappropriate conduct by Representative Edwards toward two young women he employed.”

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) said Edwards’ behavior was “outlandish and disturbing.”

“If we don’t take action today, there is no opportunity for these women to receive justice,” Leger Fernandez said.

Freking writes for the Associated Press.