Education

About 300,000 UNRWA pupils have been deprived of a formal education since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Gaza’s classrooms are slowly coming back to life, following two years of relentless Israeli war and devastation that has destroyed the Palestinian enclave’s fabric of daily life: Homes, hospitals and schools.

Four weeks into the United States-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is in the process of reopening schools across the territory amid ongoing Israeli bombardment and heavy restrictions on the flow of aid.

Since October 2023, more than 300,000 UNRWA students have been deprived of a formal education, while 97 percent of the agency’s school buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the fighting.

What were once centres of education are now also being used as shelters by hundreds of displaced families.

Reporting from the central city of Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum found families sharing classrooms with children striving to reclaim their futures.

Inam al-Maghari, one of the Palestinian students who has resumed lessons, spoke to Al Jazeera about the toll Israel’s war on Gaza has had on her education.

“I used to study before, but we have been away from school for two years. I didn’t complete my second and third grades, and now I’m in fourth grade, but I feel like I know nothing,” al-Maghari said.

“Today, we brought mattresses instead of desks to sit and study,” she added.

UNRWA is hoping to expand its educational services in the coming weeks, according to Enas Hamdan, the head of its communication office.

“UNRWA strives to provide face-to-face education through its temporary safe learning spaces for more than 62,000 students in Gaza,” Hamdan said.

“We are working to expand these activities across 67 sheltering schools throughout the Strip. Additionally, we continue to provide online learning for 300,000 students in Gaza.”

Um Mahmoud, a displaced Palestinian, explained how she and her family vacate the room they are staying in three times a week to allow students to study.

“We vacate the classrooms to give the children a chance to learn because education is vital,” Um Mahmoud said. “We’re prioritising learning and hope that conditions will improve, allowing for better quality of education.”

The war in Gaza has taken an immense toll on children, with psychologists warning that more than 80 percent of them now show symptoms of severe trauma.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF has estimated that more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza during the fighting.

Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa regional director, said “one million children have endured the daily horrors of surviving in the world’s most dangerous place to be a child, leaving them with wounds of fear, loss and grief.”

Advocates say new rules let Education Department to politically punish groups working on immigration, transgender care.

The United States Department of Education has finalised new rules that could bar nonprofits deemed to have undertaken work with a “substantial illegal purpose” from a special student loan forgiveness programme.

Those rules, finalised on Thursday, appear to single out certain organisations that do work in areas that President Donald Trump politically opposes, including immigration advocacy and transgender rights.

Under the new rules, set to take effect in July 2026, the education secretary has the power to exclude groups if they engage in activities like the “chemical castration” of children, using a politically charged term for gender-affirming healthcare, including puberty-delaying medication.

It also allows the education secretary to bar groups accused of supporting undocumented immigration or “terrorist” organisations.

The Trump administration has said its decisions “will not be made based on the political views or policy preferences of the organization”.

But advocates fear the move is the administration’s latest effort to target left-leaning and liberal organisations.

Trump has already threatened to crack down on several liberal nonprofits, which the White House has broadly accused of being part of “domestic terror networks”.

Thursday’s rules concern the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme, created by an act of Congress in 2007.

In an effort to direct more graduates into public service jobs, the programme promises to cancel federal student loans for government employees and many nonprofit workers after they have made 10 years of payments.

Workers in the public sector, including teachers, medical professionals, firefighters, social service professionals and lawyers, are among those who can benefit.

In a statement, the Trump administration defended the updated rules, calling them a necessary bulwark to protect taxpayer funds.

The programme “was meant to support Americans who dedicate their careers to public service – not to subsidize organizations that violate the law, whether by harboring illegal immigrants or performing prohibited medical procedures that attempt to transition children away from their biological sex”, said Education Undersecretary Nicholas Kent.

Critics, however, have denounced the administration for using false claims of “terrorism” or criminal behaviour to silence opposing views and restrict civil liberties.

Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said the new rules weaponised loan forgiveness.

Lukens explained that many of the lawyers, social workers and paralegals who work at his organisation handle cases to stop deportations and other immigration litigation.

They count on public service loan forgiveness to take jobs that pay significantly less than the private sector, he said.

“All of a sudden, that’s going away,” Lukens told The Associated Press news agency. “The younger generation, I hope, will be able to wait this out for the next couple of years to see if it gets better, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to see a lot of people leave the field to go and work in a for-profit space.”

Organisations have raised concerns over the education secretary’s broad power to determine if a group should be barred. Short of a legal finding, the secretary can decide based on a “preponderance of the evidence” whether an employer is in violation.

The National Council of Nonprofits was among the associations criticising the change.

It said the rules would allow future administrations from any political party to change eligibility rules “based on their own priorities or ideology”.

Sandi Toksvig embarks on a journey across the nation as she digs out the history buried beneath our feet. But one discovery pushed her over the edge, leaving her in tears.

Sandi Toksvig is no stranger to curiosity, but in her latest series – Hidden Treasures with Sandi Toksvig – she’s delving deeper than ever before and one moment left her in floods of tears.

The beloved broadcaster is turning her lifelong love of archaeology into a full-scale adventure, uncovering the history buried beneath Britain’s soil.

“I studied archaeology many years ago at Cambridge University. It was a theoretical course, so I never went on a dig,” Sandi Toksvig says. “So when I got offered this, it was a bit that was missing in my education. I really needed to do this.”

Teaming up with her friend, archaeologist Raksha Dave, Sandi, 67, embarks on a thrilling nationwide journey across four episodes. From Dorset to Northumberland, the duo dig up remarkable discoveries that stretch from the Iron Age to the Second World War.

The series begins in Dorset, where a team from Bournemouth University excavates a 2,000-year-old Iron Age cemetery belonging to the Durotriges, one of Europe’s earliest women-centric communities.

From there, Sandi and Raksha head off to join the University of Reading at Cookham Abbey, before venturing north to explore Hadrian’s Wall and finally taking on their most ambitious dig in Essex – uncovering the wreckage of a US fighter plane from the Second World War.

READ MORE: ‘I’m a beauty writer and I tried the same hair mask Michelle Keegan swears by’

“It’s such an astonishing range,” Sandi says. “We cover everything from the Romans to the Iron Age, which is the period from about 800 BCE to 43 CE, to look at the Durotriges. They were a local Iron Age tribe in modern Dorset and one of Europe’s first women-centric communities.”

But not every discovery is easy to process. In the opener, deep in a two-and-a-half-metre pit, Sandi comes face-to-face with a haunting find.

“We discovered a 15-to-17-year-old skeleton face down with a break across one of the arms,” Sandi recalls. “The arms had been tied together prior to death. The nature of the death seemed to be violent and suggested this was perhaps a sacrificial grave. Everybody was being careful.”

Experienced and steady, Raksha handled the skeleton with care. “She very carefully picked it up and handed it to me,” Sandi says. “I turned the face at last to the light and it felt like the person was looking at me.

“At that moment, I unexpectedly burst into tears. I could not stop crying. To hold that person’s head in my hands was one of the greatest privileges of my life.”

For Raksha, the discovery was groundbreaking. “It was pretty gobsmacking,” she says. “It’s very rare to find a human sacrifice. That’s not the first one they’ve discovered, there’s an obvious pattern that follows from years of digging. This suggests that it was the norm for the Durotriges.”

The chemistry between Sandi and Raksha is a highlight of the show. “Very occasionally, you meet somebody and you think, ‘We’re going to be friends,’” Sandi says.

“I am so drawn to anybody with expertise; Raksha has archaeology running throughout her bones. She is a magnet for archaeological finds. Give that woman a trowel and stick her in a couple of inches of dirt – she’ll find you something fantastic!”

Raksha laughs, saying, “Sandi calls me a magpie because every time I turn up on the site, I find stuff.” But it’s not all glamour and golden relics. “Camera crews don’t realise how crazy it can be,” says Raksha, 48.

“There’s a lot of dirt flying around. Quite often, you can be in challenging places, not all sites are accessible. You don’t know what the weather’s going to be like, it could be really horrid and muddy.

Also, camera crews are not used to an archaeological digging timetable. When you’re down a hole shovelling into a wheelbarrow all morning, you need to have a break.”

Despite the challenges, the pair’s friendship made every trench, trowel and muddy pit worth it. “Raksha is really good fun,” Sandi says. “We had beer, sitting back in a wheelbarrow – she taught me that leaning back in a wheelbarrow is a rather comfortable chair.

We’re friends and I admire her beyond words. The fact she’s been President of the Council for British Archaeology doesn’t surprise me.” Their shared laughter balances the show’s emotional weight, but both women hope the series sparks a bigger debate about archaeology’s future.

“I hope more will volunteer. Things are beginning to rot because of climate change,” Sandi says. “The safest way to protect something was to leave it buried. Now, we need to get cracking. I would encourage everybody to volunteer. It’s a fantastic experience.”

Hidden Treasures with Sandi Toksvig airs on November 4th, on Channel 4.

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A nostalgic follow-up to one of Nickelodeon’s most beloved comedies is in the works at Netflix

Netflix has just announced a highly anticipated spin-off to one of the most popular classic Nickelodeon shows over a decade after it came to an end.

The original series ran for four smash-hit seasons and introduced young fans to several major stars, including one of the world’s biggest pop icons.

Now, filming is currently underway in Vancouver for Hollywood Arts, which will return fans to the world of Victorious.

Starring the likes of Victoria Justice, Elizabeth Gillies and Wicked’s Ariana Grande, the original series took place at an elite performing arts high school where ambitious teens learn the ropes of showbiz.

Original star Daniella Monet, who starred as Trina Vega, the older sister of Justice’s Tori, will reprise her role for the long-awaited follow-up.

Several years after the events of the series, Trina still hasn’t gotten her big break, so she heads back to her alma mater to teach a new generation of fame-hungry students.

Monet shared via Tudum: “Coming back as Trina alongside such a dynamic, powerful cast of newcomers is something I feel very lucky and grateful to do.

“Victorious was in a lot of ways life-changing for all of us. Our cast is forever bonded by that experience, and to think that I have an opportunity to steward anything close to that is a feeling I can’t begin to describe.”

A synopsis reads: “Trina is back at Hollywood Arts High School, and this time she’s stepping behind the desk.

“The struggling performer finds herself filling in as a substitute teacher at the prestigious school, where she surprises herself by inspiring a group of ambitious teens.”

Joining Monet is a talented crop of up-and-coming stars, including Alyssa Miles (Hanging out with Alyssa and Xavier), Emmy Liu-Wang (Raven’s Home), Peyton Jackson (Woman in the Yard), Erika Swayze (Workin’ Moms) and Martin Kamm (Unsung Hero).

Plus, Community’s Yvette Nicole Brown will also be making a guest appearance as Principal Helen, having appeared during Victorious’ original run as well as Nickelodeon’s equally beloved teen comedy, Drake and Josh.

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Jake Farrow (Victorious, iCarly) and Samantha Martin (Henry Danger, Danger Force) will be showrunning and executive producing, and Monet is also on board as an exec. producer.

An exact release date has yet to be revealed, but Netflix has confirmed Hollywood Arts will be dropping its first season in 2026.

In the meantime, streamers can currently catch up with every episode of the original series while they wait for the sequel.

Victorious is available to stream on Netflix.

Military government orders two-week closure for schools and universities as blockade on fuel imports declared by JNIM causes further disruptions.

Mali’s military government has announced schools and universities nationwide will be closed for two weeks, as the landlocked country continues to suffer from the effects of a crippling blockade on fuel imports imposed by an armed group in September.

Education Minister Amadou Sy Savane said on Sunday the suspension until November 9 was “due to disruptions in fuel supplies that are affecting the movement of school staff”.

He added authorities were “doing everything possible” to restore normal fuel supplies before schools resume classes on November 10.

In a separate statement, the Interministerial Committee for Crisis and Disaster Management said restrictions will be placed on fuel supplies until “further notice”, with priority given at dedicated stations to “emergency, assistance, and public transport vehicles”.

It comes nearly two months after the Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) armed group, one of the several operating in the Sahel, declared a blockade on fuel imported from neighbouring countries.

Since then, the al-Qaeda affiliate has been targeting fuel tankers coming mainly from Senegal and the Ivory Coast, through which most imported goods transit.

JNIM initially said the blockade was a retaliatory measure against the Malian authorities’ ban on selling fuel outside stations in rural areas, where fuel is transported in jerry cans to be sold later. Malian authorities said the measure was intended to cut off JNIM’s supply lines.

Endless queues

The blockade has squeezed Mali’s fragile economy, affecting the price of commodities and transport in a country that relies on fuel imports for domestic needs.

Its effects have also spread to the capital, Bamako, where endless queues have stretched in front of gas stations.

Mali, along with neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, has for more than a decade battled armed groups, including some linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), as well as local rebels.

Following military coups in all three countries in recent years, the new ruling authorities have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance, which is seen as having made little difference.

Analysts say the blockade is a significant setback for Mali’s military government, which defended its forceful takeover of power in 2020 as a necessary step to end long-running security crises.

Applause and cheers from crowds greet train arriving this morning at first new station on the part of the network since 1920s

Railway fanatics flocked to a town in Essex today to be part of history as the first new train station opened on the Eastern main line for 100 years. Beaulieu Park was the first station to open its doors on this part of the UK rail network network since way back in the 1920s. There was great excitement as the 7.20am train pulled in from Colchester for the historic stop. Crowds of people clapped and cheered as the train arrived. Rail chiefs were particularly pleased because the £175m station is opening four months early. Excited passengers were onboard the train which then headed to London Liverpool St. Andy Cross, 47, said: “I just wanted to be part of history. It was a special moment.”

Dozens of passengers were on the platform watching the train arrive. Many took photos and video and some live streamed the event. An hour earlier many were waiting to purchase their tickets.

The station is part of a new super green initiative project near Chelmsford, Essex. Martin Beable, Greater Anglia’s Managing Director, said: “We have been really looking forward to the opening of Beaulieu Park station, the first new station on the Great Eastern Main Line in over 100 years.

“Beaulieu Park station will benefit from a regular and reliable service of up to four trains per hour during peak times and two trains per hour during off peak periods, making rail travel simple and convenient for passengers.”

Councillor Louise McKinlay, Deputy Leader at Essex County Council, said: “Essex is pioneering the type of infrastructure-supported growth that’s on the national agenda, being bold and ambitious in our commitment to future-proofing the county and putting investment where it’s most needed.

“The new Beaulieu Park station is testament to this, and the role it will play in transforming travel in this part of Chelmsford and surrounding areas will have a positive impact for years to come.

“I want to thank everyone involved for their hard work to get the project to this stage. I’m very much looking forward to the station opening.”

The new station will transform travel north of Chelmsford as it will eases pressure on the existing busy Chelmsford train station and reduces car journeys into the city centre.

The station is a significant addition to the Beaulieu and Channels neighbourhoods in the north of the city, which form the first phases of the new Chelmsford Garden Community.

4,350 homes already have planning permission as part of the Garden Community. This includes 1,989 new homes which have already been built, along with the Beaulieu Square Neighbourhood Centre providing local shops, community and health services.

This is in addition to the Beaulieu Park School – the first all-through primary and secondary school in Essex.

Another 6,250 homes, a second all-through school campus, up to three primary schools with early years and childcare provision, up to four standalone early-years facilities, more than nine hectares of employment space and walking and cycling routes will also be delivered as part of the Garden Community in the coming years.

Beaulieu Park Station will provide easier and quicker access to jobs, helping the economic development of the area and encouraging further investment.

Beable added: “We expect the new station to be a very attractive and popular option for travellers from that part of Essex.”

As the Netherlands gears up for a snap parliamentary election on October 29, less than halfway through parliament’s usual four-year term following the collapse of the ruling coalition, the likelihood of another win for the country’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is mounting.

An outright win is next to impossible. The Netherlands has always had a coalition government formed by a minimum of two parties due to its proportional representation electoral system, under which seats in parliament are awarded to parties in proportion to the number of votes they win.

The PVV, headed by Geert Wilders, also won the most votes in the last election in November 2023. It then partnered with three other far-right parties – the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), New Social Contract (NSC), and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – to form a coalition government.

But in June, PVV made a dramatic exit from the coalition government over a disagreement on immigration policy. PVV had wanted to introduce a stricter asylum policy that included closing borders to new asylum seekers and deporting dual nationals convicted of crimes, but the other parties demanded further discussions.

In a dramatic move, Wilders took to X to announce that the failure by other parties to agree to PVV’s plans meant it would leave the coalition.

Coalition partners slammed this decision and accused Wilders of being driven by self-interest. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said at the time that Wilders “chooses his own ego and his own interests. I am astonished. He throws away the chance for a right-wing policy”.

Following the pull-out, Prime Minister Dick Schoof – an independent – announced that he would resign and a snap election would be held this month.

Then, in August, the NSC’s Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp also resigned after he failed to secure support for new sanctions against Israel over its war in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in Gaza City. In solidarity with Veldkamp, other NSC party members left the coalition, leaving only two parties remaining.

Now, with an election imminent, opinion polls suggest the PVV will secure the most seats in the 150-seat parliament. While a winner needs 76 seats to form a government, no single party ever makes it to that figure, which has led to a history of coalitions.

According to a poll by the Dutch news outlet, EenVandaag, on October 14, the PVV is projected to secure 31 seats. The centre-left Green-Labour alliance (GroenLinks-PvdA) is polling at 25 seats, and the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) is polling at 23.

PVV’s former coalition partner, the centre-right VVD, could take 14 seats and the BBB, four. So far, the NSC is not projected to secure any seats at all.

Immigration fears

At the end of September, EenVandaag polled 27,191 people and found that the main sticking point between voters – and, hence, between the leaders, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA – is immigration. Half of all voters said it was the key issue on which they would be voting this year. Housing was the second-most important issue at 46 percent, and “Dutch identity” came third at 37 percent.

While the PVV is firmly anti-immigration and wants to impose a much stricter border policy and asylum laws, GroenLinks-PvdA would prefer to allow a net migration figure of 40,000 and 60,000 migrants per year.

Tempers are running high over this issue. Last month at The Hague, a right-wing activist known as “Els Rechts” organised an anti-migration protest that attracted 1,500 attendees. According to reports, protesters threw stones and bottles at the police, set a police car alight and smashed windows of the left-wing Democrats 66 (D66) party offices.

While left-wingers argue that the immigration issue has been wildly hyped up by the far right, they are losing control of the narrative.

Esme Smithson Swain, a member of MiGreat, a Dutch non-governmental campaign group that calls for freedom of movement and equal treatment for migrants in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera that the far right in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom, more widely, had “constructed a narrative that there is a migration crisis”.

“They’ve managed to construct this idea of a crisis, and that distracts our attention away from populism, away from arms trades, away from social services and the welfare state being sold off.”

Whatever its merits, the right-wing message that immigration is at the root of many social ills seems to be taking hold. The far-left, pro-immigration BIJ1 party, which rejects this message, is not projected to win any seats at all in this election.

Immigration “is a key term especially for right-wing political parties to win the election”, Noura Oul Fakir, a candidate for the BIJ1 party, told Al Jazeera. “We don’t focus on it because we look at everything that’s been going on from a systemic point of view, that every form of oppression is interlinked … This fight for equality and justice, it’s about more than just immigration, but it’s also interlinked with other issues that we see nowadays.”

People ‘more emboldened to express racist views’

By January 1, 2024, the Netherlands was hosting 2.9 million migrants (16.2 percent of the population), compared to the average across European Union member states of 9.9 percent (44.7 million people in total).

Similarly, Germany hosts 16.9 million migrants (20.2 percent of the population); France, 9.3 million (13.6 percent of the population); Spain, 8.8 million (18.2 percent of the population); and Italy, 6.7 million (11.3 percent of the population), according to figures from the EU.

Mark van Ostaijen, an associate professor in public administration and sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, explained that immigration has become a mainstream talking point in “housing, care, educational and cultural policy domains”.

For instance, the Netherlands is currently short of 434,000 homes, including for 353,000 asylum seekers and 81,000 Dutch first-time buyers, according to figures commissioned by the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (VRO).

Immigration has, therefore, been blamed for what is seen as a housing crisis.

According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 316,000 migrants arrived in the country in 2024, 19,000 fewer than in 2023. But CBS also found that population growth is still mainly down to net migration, with the largest number of migrants coming from Ukraine and Syria.

“I think this is indeed something that will continue the electoral legitimacy of far-right parties, or right-wing parties, even more, given the fact that the Netherlands was already quite leaning towards the conservative angle,” van Ostaijen told Al Jazeera.

“This will be a topic that will haunt our politics and our democratic decision-making and discourse for quite a while,” he said.

Anecdotal evidence bears this out. Fakir has noticed a change in the experiences of immigrant residents she and her colleagues have spoken to in the country following the growth of the PVV.

“In their personal life [they have seen] a noticeable shift where people feel more free or emboldened to express racist views, both online and in real life. Others are telling them those classic things of ‘go back to your own country, or you’re not Dutch’,” she said.

For Nassreddin Taibi, a recent graduate who works as a political analyst and plans to vote for GroenLinks-PvdA, the anti-immigration protests at the Hague “further cemented polarisation among Dutch voters” and have caused centrist parties to fall into line with the right-wing narrative.

“These protests have influenced the discourse in the sense that centrist parties now say that cutting immigration is necessary to win back trust of voters in politics,” he said.

Nearly half of voters still undecided

While the far-right PVV is projected to win the most seats in this election, it will still face an uphill journey to form a government, as other parties such as the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) have ruled out joining a coalition government.

Furthermore, the PVV’s leader, Wilders, has not escaped controversy with his Islamophobic comments and anti-migration stance despite the rise in anti-immigration sentiment across the country as a whole.

Notable incidents over the years include Wilders’ likening of Islam to Nazism in 2007 and his reference to the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as “fascist” in a letter to a Dutch news outlet. His letter and comments led to Wilders being prosecuted for inciting hatred and discrimination, which he denied. In 2011, he was acquitted by a judge who ruled that his comments had fallen within the scope of free speech.

More recently, in August this year, Wilders posted an image on X that depicted a smiling, blonde and blue-eyed woman, representing the PVV; and a wrinkled, angry-looking elderly woman wearing a headscarf, representing the PvdA. It was accompanied by the words: “The choice is yours on 29/10.”

Aan U de keuze op 29/10 pic.twitter.com/royhcInDlm

— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) August 4, 2025

Fake news and misinformation have also driven the rise in far-right narratives, analysts say.

The Facebook page ‘Wij doen GEEN aangifte tegen Geert Wilders’ (We are NOT filing charges against Geert Wilders), which claims to be a PVV supporters’ page boasting 129,000 followers, said it does not intend to be “discriminatory, hateful, or incite violence”, but has nevertheless posted AI-generated images of this nature.

In one such image, which received 1,700 likes, a white family is seemingly being harassed by men of colour.

In another, a white woman is seen in a supermarket paying for groceries while surrounded by Muslim women wearing hijabs and niqabs, with the caption: “No mass immigration, no Islamisation, no backwardness of the Dutch.” The post received 885 likes.

While the outgoing home affairs minister, Judith Uitermark, has said the government is examining new ways to combat fake news, she added that the Netherlands is somewhat protected from the rise of extremism by its proportional representation system, under which no one party ever wins a majority.

Still, the Dutch Data Protection Authority has warned voters not to use AI chatbots to help them decide who to vote for.

And a large number are still deciding. EenVandaag found that some 48 percent of voters are still undecided about which candidate they will choose. If the GroenLinks-PvdA can disengage from right-wing talking points and, instead, focus on its own policies more, it may perform better than expected, analysts say.

This will be no easy task, however.

“We find ourselves doing this also as a civil society organisation, as campaigners, trying to fight off the narrative and fight off the kind of populist ideals of the far right faster than we can push for our own agenda as well. And I think a lot of the time that leaves left-wing parties in the Netherlands seeming a bit hollow,” Swain said.

Still, she says that she is holding out hope for this election, despite what feels like a “vast and growing far-right bulk of the population”.

“I think it’s very easy to kind of feel that division between ‘us and them’. Us campaigning on the left and this growing mass of the far right,” Swain said.

“We need to tackle fighting the influence of lobbying and of fake news in our political structures. And I think that becoming more united as a population would naturally fall from that.”

This week, legislators from over 120 national parliaments are meeting in Geneva to assess the world’s collective response to humanitarian crises.

Unprecedented rates of armed violence and forced displacement, together with climate change, public health emergencies, and food insecurity, have combined with the disintegration of our systems for international solidarity.

This has created a toxic cocktail that is causing untold suffering and costing lives.

The numbers are staggering. More than 122 million people are forcibly displaced, and almost 310 million people need humanitarian assistance.

As is so often the case, the vulnerable are the most brutally affected. One in every five children in the world—approximately 400 million—are living in or fleeing conflict zones.

Children caught up in crises often face the double jeopardy of losing their homes and their education.

Before entering parliament, I was a teacher, drawn to the profession because I knew how crucial education is to children.

But education is often the first casualty during crises and too frequently neglected by an overstretched and underfunded humanitarian system.

As a result, 234 million crisis-affected children and adolescents need urgent educational support, and over 85 million are out of school.

Depriving children in these contexts of an education robs them not just of the opportunity to learn the vital skills they need for life but also to a platform to receive life-saving services like food, water, and basic health care.

Thankfully, in many crisis situations where governments lack the resources to provide education, local and international non-government organisations step in and help ensure that children get the chance to go to school.

However, the drastic cuts to development and humanitarian assistance that many countries have made this year are putting this vital work at risk.

Projections indicate that total official development assistance for education may decline by USD3.2 billion by 2026, representing a nearly 25 percent decrease from 2023 – which could potentially displace another six million children from school in the coming months.

Earlier this year, humanitarian appeals were slashed by up to 90 percent in Sudan and Chad, leaving 33 million adults and children in need of life-saving assistance, without any support.

Despite a record number of refugees, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has received only a quarter of the funding that it needs in 2025, forcing it to halt or suspend about $1.4 billion in programs and to slash more than one-third of its education budget.

In the refugee camps that host Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, up to half a million boys and girls are now left without any form of schooling.

Ninety per cent of the world’s refugees live in low- and middle-income countries whose education systems already struggle to ensure every child is in school and learning.

In such cases, it is evident that host countries need support from the international community to provide the refugees they are hosting with access to education.

Education is also what crisis-affected communities want. Displaced parents and children consistently identify access to quality education as one of their highest-priority concerns.

Despite the enduring hardships they face, the determination of displaced communities to provide their children with an education is inspiring. They deserve our support.

That is why I am proud that Denmark, where I am a member of the national parliament, has affirmed its commitment to provide aid funding at or above the UN target of 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI).

With crises and conflicts multiplying around the world, it is more necessary than ever to strengthen international solidarity, and I hope that Denmark can inspire others to renew their commitment to solidarity through development cooperation and humanitarian assistance.

Tragically, a lack of funding is not the only threat to humanitarian response. The most fundamental humanitarian norms are being challenged in today’s war zones.

Current conflicts show, in appalling and devastating ways, the significant challenges facing international humanitarian law in providing effective and meaningful protection for people affected by armed conflicts.

Once again, education proves the point.

In 2022 and 2023 – the latest years for which comprehensive data is available – there were around 6,000 reported attacks on education and incidents of military use of schools and universities, harming more than 10,000 students and educators globally.

This represents a 20% increase on the previous two years, and the fear is that the number and severity of attacks on education personnel, facilities, and schools has continued to grow.

But there is a different way.

In 2015, Argentina and Norway launched the Safe Schools Declaration with the objective of avoiding military use of schools and strengthening the protection of children and education in conflict. It has since been adopted by 121 states.

Meanwhile, just last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched a global initiative to galvanize political commitment to international humanitarian law (IHL). Some 89 states have signed up to support the initiative.

International cooperation, like these initiatives, to address global challenges, has never been more critical.

As the institutions that represent the people, parliaments are uniquely positioned to mobilize political will, champion inclusive governance and dialogue, challenge narratives, and be the voice of the most vulnerable.

Parliaments are also key actors in translating global humanitarian norms into domestic legislation and policy, scrutinizing government action over humanitarian commitments, and allocating resources to tackle pressing humanitarian challenges.

Right now, parliamentary diplomacy – MPs from different parliaments talking and working together – has the opportunity to play a pivotal role in reinforcing multilateral values such as inclusion, solidarity, cooperation, shared responsibility, and the rules-based international order.

This week’s meeting of national parliaments in Geneva won’t solve the multiple crises we face, but it might just begin the process of reminding us that the challenges we face are global in nature and need global solutions, and forging new people-to-people relationships to do precisely that.

Brookside icon Tinhead is returning to the famous close for a one-off episode twinned with Hollyoaks, and actor Philip Olivier has opened up about the character’s nickname.

Brookside legend Tinhead is making a comeback to the renowned close for a special one-off episode alongside Hollyoaks.

Both beloved Channel 4 dramas were created by Grange Hill mastermind Sir Philip Redmond, with Brookside subsequently inspiring the development of Chester-set Hollyoaks.

To celebrate Hollyoaks’ 30th anniversary, the shows are joining forces for a landmark crossover episode, with Philip Olivier returning to his memorable role as Tinhead.

Tim “Tinhead” O’Leary made his debut in 1996 as the offspring of Carmel and Tommy O’Leary, portraying a wayward pupil at Brookside Comprehensive High School.

Throughout his storyline, Tinhead formed an intricate relationship with beloved character Sinbad, portrayed by Michael Starke, who served as a mentor figure for the rebellious youngster, reports the Manchester Evening News.

However, Tinhead was compelled to transform his ways following a devastating incident that nearly claimed his sister Melanie’s life.

His future seemed promising when romance blossomed with Emily, portrayed by Jennifer Ellison, and the couple wed in 2001.

Yet marital happiness wasn’t destined for the pair.

Following further involvement in unlawful activities, Emily perished during a burglary in 2002, leaving Tinhead bereaved at a young age.

Philip Olivier, 45, last appeared as Tinhead in November 2003 when Brookside broadcast its concluding episode.

However, over two decades later, he’s reprising his role as Timothy O’Leary, alongside Suzanne Collins as Nikki Shadwick, for a special Hollyoaks and Brookside episode.

How did Tinhead earn his nickname?

Despite the character’s actual name being Timothy, soap fans will recognise him by his unusual moniker.

Ahead of the rebooted episode, Olivier shed light on how his character acquired the nickname, revealing it was purely coincidental.

The actor shared: “There was a pretty rough school in my area with a really hard kid who everyone knew as Tinhead. This was before I got the part. The name was spray-painted on the side of a building near the school.

“I know a lot of Brookside writers used to live round that area so they must’ve drove past and remembered the name. People thought I’d suggested it but it was a coincidence.”

Olivier also disclosed that he had initially auditioned for a different role in the show before landing the part of the teenage troublemaker.

He elaborated: “Originally, I went up to play the character of Danny Simpson, then ended up playing the kid that bullied him at school.

“I auditioned for Danny then got a call a month later about this character called ‘Tinhead’.”

The Brookside and Hollyoaks crossover episode airs on Wednesday (October 22) at 7pm on E4.

When the ceasefire in Gaza was announced, I experienced a range of mixed emotions. I felt joy that the bombs had finally stopped, but also dread that they could resume at any time. I felt optimistic that we could go back to normal life, but also anxious that this could once again be short-lived.

As an English teacher, I hope to see education restored as soon as possible. Education is the only means of reviving hope and helping children start to overcome the trauma of two years of genocide. It can provide a sense of normalcy and purpose. That is why it ought to be Gaza’s top priority.

Before the start of the genocide, I taught English to elementary and middle school pupils at an educational centre and a public girls’ school in Gaza City.  The school was destroyed in the first weeks of the war; the education centre was badly damaged.

My family and I were forced to flee our home. A few months later, I started teaching in a tent; it was a local initiative run by volunteers. There were no desks in the tent; my students – ranging from six to 12 years of age – were sitting on the floor. The conditions of teaching were difficult, but I was committed to helping kids continue their education.

By late December 2024, pens, books, and notebooks started to entirely vanish from shops and markets. A single notebook would cost anywhere from 20 to 30 shekels ($6 to $9), if it was available at all. This was out of reach for the majority of families.

When the shortage of paper, books and pens became palpable, some of my pupils started arriving at class without anything to write on; others would collect scraps of paper from the rubble of homes and arrive at class with that; others still would write in tiny letters on the backs of old sheets of paper preserved by their families. Because pens were so scarce, several children would often have to share a single pen.

Since writing and reading, the cornerstone of education, became so difficult to do, we educators had to come up with alternative teaching strategies. We did group recitation, oral storytelling, and songs.

Despite the lack of supplies, children had an amazing will to continue learning. Seeing them struggling with old scraps of paper filled me with admiration and anguish; I was proud of their will to learn in spite of everything, and their perseverance inspired me.

I had a special notebook my grandmother had gifted me years ago, which I used as a diary. I wrote in it my dreams and my secrets. After the war, I filled the pages with stories of bomb explosions, homeless families sleeping in the street, starvation I had never experienced before, and suffering in the absence of even the most basic necessities.

On one particular school day in August, when the majority of my pupils showed up without any paper, I knew what I had to do. I took my notebook and I started tearing its pages, one by one, giving them to my students.

With so many kids, my notebook’s pages ran out in a single day. My students then had to go back to the scraps of paper or cardboard.

The truce may have put a stop to the bombs, but my students are still without paper and pens. Humanitarian aid has started coming into Gaza once again. Food, medicine, and materials for shelter are coming in. These are all crucial. But we also urgently need educational supplies and support to put education back on track for Gaza’s 600,000 schoolchildren.

Books, pens and paper are not just school supplies. They are a lifeline that can help the children of Gaza triumph over war, destruction and immense loss. They are critical tools that can sustain their perseverance and willpower to live, learn and see a bright future.

Children can recover from the trauma of war and regain a sense of security with the aid of education. Learning gives them back the structure, self-assurance, and hope for a brighter future that are necessary for both community healing and psychological rehabilitation.

We need to give children who lost two years of education the opportunity to write, learn, and dream again.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Oct. 16 (UPI) — Brown University has rejected a Department of Education proposal offering priority access to federal funds in exchange for agreeing to terms that critics say target left-leaning ideology in higher education.

On Oct. 1, the Trump administration sent nine universities a 10-part “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that reportedly demands reforms to hiring practices and student grading and a pledge to prohibit transgender women from using women’s changing rooms.

It also requires the creation of a “vibrant marketplace of ideas,” among other changes, including a tuition freeze for five years.

Brown University President Christina Paxson rejected the offer in a letter addressed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, writing she was “concerned that the Compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission.”

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has targeted dozens of universities, particularly so-called elite institutions, with executive orders, lawsuits, reallocation of resources and threats over a range of allegations, from anti-Semitism to having diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Critics have accused Trump of trying to coerce schools under threat of stringent punishments — from losing their accreditation to paying hefty fines sometimes in excess of $1 billion — to adopt his far-right policies.

In late July, Brown reached a $50 million settlement with the federal government over 10 years to unfreeze federal funding and to resolve federal allegations of violating anti-discrimination laws.

As part of the agreement, which also unfroze federal funds, Brown agreed to adhere to government requirements concerning male and female athletics, codify its commitment to ensuring a “thriving Jewish community” and maintain nondiscrimination compliance, among others.

In her letter Wednesday, Paxson said the July agreement includes several of the principles included in the compact while also affirming “the governments lack of authority to dictate our curriculum or the content of academic speech.”

“While we value our long-held and well-regarded partnership with the federal government, Brown is respectfully declining to join the Compact,” she said. “We remain committed to the July agreement and its preservation of Brown’s core values in ways that the Compact — in any form — fundamentally would not.”

Brown’s rejection comes days after MIT similarly declined to join the compact.

“America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote in a letter to the Department of Education on Friday.

“Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”

Conservatives and the Trump administration have alleged that university are founts of left-wing indoctrination that exclude right-leaning thought. However, critics have described the Trump administration’s attempt to address these concerns as government overreach and a violation of free speech rights.

“The White House’s new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education raises red flags,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a statement earlier this month.

“As Fire has long argued, campus reform is necessary. But overreaching government coercion that tries to end-run around the First Amendment to impose an official orthodoxy is unacceptable.”

“A government that can reward colleges and universities for speech it favors today can punish them for speech it dislikes tomorrow,” FIRE continued. “That’s not reform. That’s government-funded orthodoxy.”

Meanwhile, Trump over the weekend suggested that more universities would be invited to join the compact, saying in an online statement that “those Institutions that want to quickly return to the Pursuit of Truth and Achievement, they are invited to enter into the forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

In the statement, he railed against universities, saying “much of Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with WOKE, SOCIALIST and ANTI_AMERICAN Ideology that serves as justification for discriminatory practices by Universities that are Unconstitutional and Unlawful”

WASHINGTON — A new round of layoffs at the Education Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration’s previous mass firings, threatening new disruption to the nation’s students and schools in areas including special education, civil rights enforcement and after-school programs.

The Trump administration started laying off 466 Education Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the government meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown. The layoffs would cut the agency’s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced by more than half its size when President Trump took office Jan. 20.

The cuts play into Trump’s broader plan to shut down the Education Department and parcel its operations to other agencies. Over the summer, the department started handing off its adult education and workforce programs to the Department of Labor, and it previously said it was negotiating an agreement to pass its $1.6-trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.

Department officials have not released details on the layoffs and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE Local 252, a union that represents more than 2,700 department workers, said information from employees indicates cuts will decimate several offices within the agency.

All workers except a small number of top officials are being fired at the office that implements the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that ensures millions of students with disabilities get support from their schools, the union said. Unknown numbers are being fired at the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.

The layoffs would eliminate or heavily deplete teams that oversee the flow of grant funding to schools across the nation, the union said. They affect the office that oversees Title I funding for the country’s low-income schools, along with the team that manages 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs.

It will also hit an office that oversees TRIO, a set of programs that help low-income students pursue college, and another that oversees federal funding for historically Black colleges and universities.

In a statement, union President Rachel Gittleman said the new reductions, on top of previous layoffs, will “double down on the harm to K-12 students, students with disabilities, first generation college students, low-income students, teachers and local education boards.”

The Education Department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office. After the new layoffs, it would be down to fewer than 2,000. Earlier layoffs in March had roughly halved the department, but some employees were hired back after officials decided they had cut too deep.

The new layoffs drew condemnation from various education organizations.

Although states design their own competitions to distribute federal funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the small team of federal officials provided guidance and support “that is absolutely essential,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance.

“Firing that team is shocking, devastating, utterly without any basis, and it threatens to cause lasting harm,” Grant said in a statement.

The government’s latest layoffs are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Government Employees and other national labor unions. Their suit, filed in San Francisco, said the government’s budgeting and personnel offices overstepped their authority by ordering agencies to carry out layoffs in response to the shutdown.

In a court filing, the Trump administration said the executive branch has wide discretion to reduce the federal workforce. It said the unions could not prove they were harmed by the layoffs because employees would not actually be separated for an additional 30 to 60 days after receiving notice.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

The £175m Beaulieu Park train station in Chelmsford is finished well ahead of time, and will open for passengers next week – it’s the first station on the Eastern main line for 100 years

The first new train station on the Eastern main line for 100 years will be arriving … four months early. Rail chiefs are delighted with the £175m station which will open its doors next week.

Beaulieu Park is the first station on this part of the UK rail network network since the 1920s. And because it’s months ahead of schedule passengers will be able to use it from October 26th.

The station is part of a new super green initiative project near Chelmsford, Essex. Martin Beable, Greater Anglia’s Managing Director, said: “We are really looking forward to the opening of Beaulieu Park station, the first new station on the Great Eastern Main Line in over 100 years.

“Beaulieu Park station will benefit from a regular and reliable service of up to four trains per hour during peak times and two trains per hour during off peak periods, making rail travel simple and convenient for passengers.”

Councillor Louise McKinlay, Deputy Leader at Essex County Council, said: “Essex is pioneering the type of infrastructure-supported growth that’s on the national agenda, being bold and ambitious in our commitment to future-proofing the county and putting investment where it’s most needed.

“The new Beaulieu Park station is testament to this, and the role it will play in transforming travel in this part of Chelmsford and surrounding areas will have a positive impact for years to come.

“The progress being made to build the station is remarkable and I want to thank everyone involved for their hard work to get the project to this stage. I’m very much looking forward to the station opening.”

Council bosses hope the new station will transform travel north of Chelmsford as it will eases pressure on the existing busy Chelmsford train station and reduces car journeys into the city centre.

The station is a significant addition to the Beaulieu and Channels neighbourhoods in the north of the city, which form the first phases of the new Chelmsford Garden Community.

4,350 homes already have planning permission as part of the Garden Community. This includes 1,989 new homes which have already been built, along with the Beaulieu Square Neighbourhood Centre providing local shops, community and health services.

This is in addition to the Beaulieu Park School – the first all-through primary and secondary school in Essex.

Another 6,250 homes, a second all-through school campus, up to three primary schools with early years and childcare provision, up to four standalone early-years facilities, more than nine hectares of employment space and walking and cycling routes will also be delivered as part of the Garden Community in the coming years.

Beaulieu Park Station will provide easier and quicker access to jobs, helping the economic development of the area and encouraging further investment.

Beable added: “We expect the new station to be a very attractive and popular option for travellers from that part of Essex.”

Adam and Tara Short, originally from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, moved to a new home thousands of miles away from their ‘rat race’ lifestyle

A family have left the UK behind, moving 6,000 miles to Mauritius in a bid to “escape the rat race” and now they say it’s like being on “a permanent holiday”.

Adam Short, 44, and his wife, Tara, 38, took their two children – Spencer, nine, and Xander, four – to Mauritius for a holiday in November 2024. After returning to their Sheffield home and resuming their 8am-6pm workdays, they yearned for a “slower pace of life”.

The Short family are happy with their move, despite living costs being very similar in the two countries. They feel their new life is worth it because of Mauritius’ beautiful beaches, hot summers, friendly neighbours and increased family time.

They say they dpon’t miss the UK’s gloomy weather, long working hours and never-ending traffic jams.

Have you swapped the UK for a home abroad? We’d love to hear from you, whether you love it there or regret the move. Email [email protected]

READ MORE: Gorgeous Greek island with 24C weather in October but no tourist crowds

OPINION

Milo Boyd

Tara, a CEO, and Adam, a car sales business owner, decided to rent out their four-bedroom UK home and booked one-way tickets to Grand Baie in July. With nothing more than five suitcases, the parents and their sons embarked on their new adventure.

They made a pact that if they weren’t happy after two years, they’d return to the UK. However, after settling into a rented four-bedroom house with a pool, just a stone’s throw from the beach, it doesn’t look like the family will be heading back anytime soon.

The two lads are attending an international private school costing £5,000-a-year, while both the parents say they can continue running their UK businesses flexibly from Mauritius.

Adam said: “Back in the UK, we weren’t being a proper family – we were just existing together. We were desperate to get away from the rat race. We thought there had to be a better standard of life out in Mauritius – and there is.

“We work less hours because we can be more productive. The kids finish school at 2.30pm so we can go to the beach or in the pool together. We enjoy as much family time as we can. I get asked every day on social media how we managed to do this – but it’s achievable if you just commit to it.”

The parents began mulling over relocating to a different culture after realising they were barely spending time with their own children.

Adam said: “I used to say to my friends, ‘I feel like I don’t know my kids.’ I would see them every day, but it was all rushing around, getting them ready for school, tea, bed.”

Being ahead of UK time means the parents can complete several hours of work before any of the UK teams begin their day – leaving them feeling more efficient without interruptions. They’re also able to work flexible hours throughout the day, allowing them to take afternoons off to spend quality time with their sons after school.

Despite being outsiders, the Short family say they’ve been welcomed. Adam said: “Everyone is so lovely – we’ve been invited to a meal at a Mauritian family’s home this weekend. Mauritian life is very family-focused which is what we want.

“On the weekends, you go down to the beach and hundreds of families are out all having barbecues with little gazebos. When you walk past, every family will invite you to join them and share their food. All the kids play together. It’s lovely.”

Regarding expenses, Adam explained that whilst some items cost more in Mauritius – others work out cheaper.

He believes that overall, the relocation hasn’t resulted in financial savings – but they enjoy a superior quality of life for their outgoings.

Adam said that a weekly grocery shop costs £200, plus an additional £20 spent on fresh fruit and vegetables at the market. Since the majority of food and beverages are brought in from abroad, alcohol prices in tourist-orientated eateries mirror those found across the UK.

Dining at local Creole venues can prove far more budget-friendly. Adam explained: “At a local Creole place, you can get a nice meal with a bottle of South African wine for £40. Touristy spots near the beachfront, you’d pay £100-£120 for that.

“The supermarkets are expensive because things are imported, but the fresh fruit and veg at the market is so much fresher and cheaper. We have rotis for breakfast now instead of cereal – a type of flatbread-like street food – and you buy them from the street sellers for about 20p each. So when you first get here, you assume everything is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be.”

On the whole, the family are besotted with their fresh start – with Adam confessing they’re currently too engrossed in the local culture to dwell on what’s going on in Britain.

The love story between Noah and Nick in the Culpables Trilogy has flown all the way to London for a version of its own, and the second part has just wrapped up its filming – here’s what you need to know.

The countdown for the third and final instalment of Mercedes Ron’s Culpables Trilogy, Culpa Nuestra, has begun – but the UK fans are wondering when the London version will release its second and final film, Your Fault and Our Fault.

Just like the Spanish version, it follows the story of Nick and Noah, who fall in love with each other despite being step-siblings. And of course, all the drama. The British version starred Matthew Broome and Asha Banks as the lead characters, and both will reprise their roles.

As we await the second and third chapters of the story, we’ve listed some information to keep all Culpables on top of the news.

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What is My Fault: London about?

Continuing the dramatic yet romantic ending in My Fault: London, the second sequel shows Nick and Noah embarking on a life-changing adventure that threatens their relationship. Nick begins to work with his father, and Noah starts a new chapter as a university student at Oxford.

Nick and Noah are now separated and meeting new people, which will test their love for each other as they find themselves entangled with temptation, rivalries and betrayals. Fight for love, or risk losing everything.

For more stories like this subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Weekly Gulp, for a curated roundup of trending stories, poignant interviews, and viral lifestyle picks from The Mirror’s Audience U35 team delivered straight to your inbox.

When are is the My Fault sequel coming out?

The sequel to Prime Video’s breakout hit My Fault: London is on its way. Good news for fans – Your Fault: London finished filming in the summer of 2025, and is expected to be out worldwide sometime in 2026.

As per the last part of the story, Our Fault: London has just started filming, and given the production timeline, it’s reasonable to expect that it will also be released next year. But news have yet to be confirmed.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the Spanish version of the film, both movies are available to watch on Prime Video. Its final part, Culpa Nuestra, will be released on October 16, exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. My Fault: London is also available to stream.

READ MORE: The Twits Netflix release date and cast for film based on Roald Dahl best-seller

Who will be in the My Fault sequels?

As reported by Amazon, Your Fault: London will have familiar faces and some newcomers. Meet Louisa Binder, Joel Nankervis, Scarlett Rayner, and Orlando Norman.

Louisa Binder will interpret the role of Sophia, a beautiful and ambitious young woman who will stir some drama in the relationship between Noah and Nick, as she starts working at Leiste Enterprises. On the other side, Noah will be busy with Michael (Joel Nankervis), an Oxford student who becomes friends with her, but secretly wants more.

Scarlett Rayner will play Briar, a seemingly kind and manipulative strategist who becomes friends with Noah at Oxford, but is hiding something. Then, Orlando Norman as Cruz, Ronnie’s right-hand man in the underground racing world.

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Indian nationals see decrease of 45 percent compared to same period last year as US clamps down on foreign students.

The number of student visas issued by the United States has dropped by about one-fifth compared to the same one-month period last year, with India seeing a dramatic decline amid restrictive policies pursued by United States President Donald Trump.

Data from the International Trade Commission found that the US issued about 313,138 student visas in August, when studies typically begin at US universities, a 19.1 percent drop compared to August 2024.

For Indian students, the largest source of foreign students studying in the US, the drop was 44.5 percent during that period. Visa issuances also dropped for students from China, albeit at a lower rate.

Several Muslim-majority countries also saw massive declines, with student visas for Iranians dropping by 86 percent. The figures do not represent overall numbers of foreign students attending US universities, many of whom remain on previously issued visas.

The drop comes as the Trump administration has pursued a restrictive approach to immigration, while using funding to exert growing political pressure on US universities.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked thousands of student visas, citing violations of US law, participation in protests, or in some cases, criticism of Israel. The targeting has been in parallel with pro-Israel groups that monitor and surveil university students involved in pro-Palestine activism.

In June, Rubio also ordered the temporary suspension of all student visa processing in order to enact greater oversight over student social media profiles.

Those vetting applications were told to look for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States”.

However, the administration’s messaging towards certain countries has not always been consistent.

After initially vowing to restrict a large portion of Chinese students seeking to study in the US, Trump told reporters in August that he planned to admit 600,000 Chinese students into the country to study.

The figure was double the number of Chinese students currently studying in the US.

“We’re going to allow, it’s very important, 600,000 students. It’s very important,” Trump said at the time.

Channel 4 viewers were left emotional on Sunday night as Educating Yorkshire headteacher Mr Burton broke down in tears

Educating Yorkshire viewers were left in tears on Sunday evening after witnessing headmaster Mr Burton break down following a harrowing incident.

The devastating scenes played out after a pupil made threats against Mr Burton’s family and vowed to “burn down the school”.

Mr. Burton was subsequently told to return to his office, while the youngster was removed from the premises.

“You never know what kind of day you’re gonna have when you arrive,” the headmaster reflected. “You have your good days and you have your bad.

“Certainly, early in teaching, you go through those weeks or half terms when you think, ‘Oh, my goodness me, is there something easier you can do?”” reports Leeds Live.

He continued, “The minute that you think the job is easy, or you’ve got a really easy day in front of you, something will happen to change that.”

The programme then showed another teacher speaking to the youngster as he led him away from the school grounds, saying, “I can see you’re angry, mate, all right. I just want you to sit, that’s all I’m asking.”

A fellow staff member then informed Mr Burton he must head back to his office because of the menacing words directed at him. They said, “Threats to you, threats to your house, threats to burn the school down.”

Speaking to cameras, Mr Burton said, “The hardest things to deal with are when you feel as if you can’t be the advocate for the child that you want to be, and that’s heartbreaking.”

The headteacher was visibly emotional as he confided in a colleague, “C*** that, isn’t it? You just think of the kids.

“I know he’s going through a lot. his grief… but I have got three little’uns at home. You deal with it, don’t you? But threats to burn my house down.”

Fans took to social media to share their reactions, with one saying, “Nobody should be reduced to tears at work (coming from someone who cries at work most days.”

Another commented, “Comes to something when the headmaster starts crying.”

Viewers were also moved when Year 7 student Ismaeel won Year Rep..

“I’ve never been happier or more invested in someone I’ve never met before,” one viewer gushed.

“The next stop for Ismaael is No. 10,” another tweeted, while a third added with a crying face emoji, “Yes, Ismaeel.”

Another fan shared, “Him getting his fellow candidates an applause. So many people could learn a thing or two about kindness from this kid.

“In flipping tears here. That little boy is an inspiration. Bless him,” one fan enthused.

Educating Yorkshire is available to watch on All4.

Bettina Aptheker was a 20-year-old sophomore at UC Berkeley when she climbed on top of a police car, barefoot so she wouldn’t damage it, and helped start the Free Speech Movement.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” she told a crowd gathered in Sproul Plaza on that October Thursday in 1964, quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

She was blinded by the lights of the television cameras, but the students roared back approval, and “their energy just sort of went through my whole body,” she told me.

Berkeley, as Aptheker describes it, was still caught in the tail end of the McCarthyism of the 1950s, when the 1st Amendment was almost felled by fear of government reprisals. Days earlier, administrators had passed rules that cracked down on political speech on campus.

Aptheker and other students had planned a peaceful protest, only to have police roll up and arrest a graduate student named Jack Weinberg, a lanky guy with floppy hair and a mustache who had spent the summer working for the civil rights movement.

Well-versed in those non-violent methods that were finally winning a bit of equality for Black Americans, hundreds of students sat down around the cruiser, remaining there more than 30 hours — while hecklers threw eggs and cigarette butts and police massed at the periphery — before the protesters successfully negotiated with the university to restore free speech on campus.

History was made, and the Free Speech Movement born through the most American of traits — courage, passion and the invincibility of youth.

“You can’t imagine something like that happening today,” Aptheker said of their success. “It was a different time period, but it feels very similar to the kind of repression that’s going on now.”

Under the standards President Trump is pushing on the University of Southern California and eight other institutions, Aptheker would likely be arrested, using “lawful force if necessary,” as his 10-page “compact for academic excellence” requires. And the protest of the students would crushed by policies that would demand “civility” over freedom.

If you somehow missed his latest attack on higher education, the Trump administration sent this compact to USC and eight other institutions Thursday, asking them to acquiesce to a list of demands in return for the carrot of front-of-the-line access to federal grants and benefits.

While voluntary, the agreement threatens strongman-style, that institutions of higher education are “free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forgo federal benefits.”

That’s the stick, the loss of federal funding. UCLA, Berkeley and California’s other public universities can tell you what it feels like to get thumped with it.

“It’s intended to roll back any of the gains we’ve made,” Aptheker said of Trump’s policies. “No university should make any kind of deal with him.”

The greatest problem with this nefarious pact is that much of it sounds on the surface to be reasonable, if not desirable. My favorite part: A demand that the sky-high tuition of signatory universities be frozen for five years.

USC tuition currently comes in at close to $70,000 a year without housing. What normal parent thinks that sounds doable?

Even the parts about protests sound, on the surface, no big deal.

“Truth-seeking is a core function of institutions of higher education. Fulfilling this mission requires maintaining a vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated, and challenged,” the document reads. “Signatories acknowledge that the freedom to debate requires conditions of civility.”

Civility like taking your shoes off before climbing on a police car, right?

As with all things Trump, though, the devil isn’t even in the details. It’s right there in black and white. The agreement requires civility, Trump style. That includes abolishing anything that could “delay or disrupt class instruction,” which is pretty much every protest, with or without footwear.

Any university that signs on also would be agreeing to “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

So no more talking bad about far-right ideas, folks. That’s belittling to our racists, misogynists, Christian nationalists and conservative snowflakes of all persuasions. Take, for example, the increasingly popular conservative idea that slavery was actually good for Black people, or at least not that bad.

Florida famously adopted educational standards in 2023 that argue slavery helped Black people learn useful skills. In another especially egregious example from the conservative educational nonprofit PragerU, a video for kids about Christoper Columbus has the explorer arguing, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.”

And of course, Trump is busy purging the Smithsonian of any hints that slavery was a stain on our history.

Would it be violating Trump’s civility standards for a Black history professor to belittle such ideas as unserious and bonkers? What about debates in a feminism class that discuss Charlie Kirk’s comment that a good reason for women to go to college is to find a husband?

Or what about an environmental science class that teaches accurately that climate change denial is unscientific, and that it was at best anti-intellectual when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently referred to efforts to save the planet as “crap”? Would that be uncivil and belittling to conservatives?

Belittle is a tiny word with big reach. I worry that entire academic departments could be felled by it, and certainly professors of certain persuasions.

Aptheker, now 81, went on to become just the sort of professor Trump would likely loathe, teaching about freedom and inclusivity at UC Santa Cruz for decades. It was there that I first heard her lecture. I was a mixed-race kid who had been the target of more than one racial slur growing up, but I had never heard my personal experiences put into the larger context of being a person of color or a woman.

Listening to Aptheker and professors like her, I learned not only how to see my life within the broader fabric of society, but learned how collective action has improved conditions for the most vulnerable among us, decade after decade.

It is ultimately this knowledge that Trump wants to crush — that while power concedes nothing without a demand, collective demands work because they are a power of their own.

Even more than silencing students or smashing protests, Trump’s compact seeks to purge this truth, and those who hold it, from the system. Signing this so-called deal isn’t just a betrayal of students, it’s a betrayal of the mission of every university worth its tuition, and a betrayal of the values that uphold our democracy.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has rightfully threatened to withhold state funding from any California university that signs, writing on social media that the Golden State “will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

Of course, some universities will sign it willingly. University of Texas called it an “honor” to be asked. There will always be those who collaborate in their own demise.

But authoritarians live with the constant fear that people like Aptheker will teach a new generation their hard-won lessons, will open their minds to bold ideas and will question old realities that are not as unbreakable as they might appear. Universities, far from assuaging that constant fear, should fight to make it a reality.

Anything less belittles the very point of a university education.

It’s hard to imagine a stranger twist to the MAGA’s “war on woke” than FBI Director Kash Patel’s announcement that the Bureau is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In a social media post, Patel wrote that the agency won’t partner with “political fronts masquerading as watchdogs”. The decision came after right-wing backlash over the ADL’s inclusion of Turning Point USA and its late leader, Charlie Kirk, in its “glossary of extremism”.

Not surprisingly, the organisation, with whom the FBI had collaborated on issues related to tracking anti-Semitism and other forms of extremism for well over half a century, quickly declared much of its “research” “outdated” and began scrubbing its websites of criticism of conservative figures and organisations.

Patel is certainly not wrong that the ADL is a deeply political organisation. Although it was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all”, since the 1970s, the organisation has focused ever more intently on shielding Israel from criticism. In parallel, it has also monitored right-wing racist and anti-LGBTQ+ extremism so that it could remain solidly within the liberal Jewish fold in the US.

Today, the ADL claims to be one of the country’s leading organisations fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of hate. But in fact, its primary mission continues to be to protect Israel from any criticism by using its considerable resources to ensure that any serious, systematic criticism of its policies, even by Jews, be considered – and when possible, punished – as anti-Semitic.

The ADL was a close partner to the Joe Biden administration in its campaign against pro-Palestinian mobilisation on university campuses, and until last week, it was a close partner to Donald Trump’s administration, as well. It is under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism on campuses that the organisation has contributed to the massive assault on freedom of dissent and freedom of thought in US higher education.

When pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out at Columbia University in 2024, triggering a wave of similar protest action across the country, the ADL led the charge against the university, calling for “swift action” on “virulent antisemitism” on college campuses. For the Biden administration, a quick and harsh crackdown on campus protests was critical to enable it to pursue its policy of unconditional support for Israel’s ever more violent prosecution of the war in Gaza without major public backlash.

For the Trump administration, the ADL and other pro-Israel Jewish organisations served another purpose: their relentless focus on the “new anti-Semitism” that overlapped seamlessly with anti-Zionism and that was allegedly infecting higher education, was the perfect cudgel with which to bludgeon universities into submission.

By working closely with the government, the ADL was able to engage in the classic “arsonist and fireman” scam: accusing universities across the country of anti-Semitism, and then offering itself as the organisation that could put out the anti-Jewish fire.

How does the trick work? The ADL continuously puts out statements criticising universities for enabling or doing nothing to combat anti-Semitism on campus. In particular, its Antisemitism Report Card – which has faced strong criticism for its flawed methodology – grades schools across the country on the prevalence of anti-Semitism on their campuses.

Similar to the US News and World Report college rankings, a bad ADL “grade” can tarnish a school’s reputation with an important segment of the college-aged population. Accusations of anti-Semitism would then motivate leading university donors to threaten to withdraw their support.

Given its access to centres of political power – at least until now – the ADL has been suitably positioned to collaborate on addressing alleged anti-Semitism on university campuses and reassuring donors and the government.

And so, for example, in July, Columbia announced it was partnering with ADL to create programmes aimed at combating anti-Semitism.

How much is the ADL paid for this and other collaborations? Calls and emails to the ADL requesting comment were not returned, but from its own statements, it is clear that the organisation has “collaborations” and “partnerships” with a large number of universities across the country through various programmes – the exact number is not public.

To cite one in-house statistic, the ADL boasted that “over 56,000 faculty, staff, administrators and students on 900 college and university campuses nationwide have participated” in its Campus of Difference programmes, although it seems the programme, similar to the “glossary of extremism”, was pulled offline since Trump returned to power, possibly because it used terms like “diversity” and “inclusion”.

The ADL has not been the only one benefitting from whipping up the anti-Semitism campaign on university campuses.

Brown University, which also reached an agreement with the Trump administration earlier this year, has made a pledge to increase cooperation with Hillel. So did UPenn, which now allows donations to Hillel to be made directly through the university. Most damning for me as a University of California faculty member is UCLA’s recent pledge of $2.3m to “eight organizations that combat antisemitism,” including the ADL and Hillel. All eight are unremittingly pro-Israel.

With all this, the ADL, along with other pro-Israel organisations, have played a central role in the coup-de-grace against academic freedom and shared governance, forcing university leaderships to pivot to the right in order to maintain tens of billions of dollars in mostly science funding. They have facilitated the larger project of remaking the university as a system for regenerating mindless conservatism throughout society.

The question that has arisen with the sudden frontal assault by senior Trump administration officials and conservative figures is whether, having played their role all too well, these pro-Israel organisations are no longer needed, and the markedly increasing anti-Israel – and anti-Semitic – rhetoric among Trump’s base will now have freer rein. In hindsight, the ADL’s obsequious support for Elon Musk after his Nazi salute and anti-Semitic comments may well be owed to a sense among the leadership that it would be on shakier ground with Trump than it was with Biden.

Another hint at this realisation comes from ADL’s claim in a newly released report to care for “Jewish faculty under fire” from colleagues and protesters who portray themselves as “anti-Zionist, but [are] truly anti-Semitic”.

This kind of whingeing at a moment when pro-Israel forces had unprecedented support at the highest levels of power reveals a discourse of infantilisation of Jews that is damning in its own right, but also likely indicative of a growing insecurity within the pro-Israel establishment. Suddenly the victim of conservative ire, it needs Jews to feel even more afraid to maintain already fraying support within the community.

Yet an unintended consequence of the ADL being on the outs with Trump and his forces would be to give Jewish faculty and students more room to breathe and to understand the relative privilege, and responsibility, of our position today. It certainly would be welcome.

Seventy years ago, my mother was refused entry to Columbia because of an openly acknowledged Jewish quota. Thirty years later, when I attended the City University of New York, accusations by some CUNY faculty that Jews predominated in the slave trade were mixed with Black-Hasidic violence in Brooklyn and the growing popularity of the Nation of Islam to create an ostensibly toxic brew for Jewish students attending an urban public college.

The ADL was around then, but was focusing on spying on the anti-Apartheid movement – a policy it continues today with progressive activists – and defending Israel against the incipient movements against the occupation. We, Jewish college students, were largely and thankfully left to our own devices. Like every other – far more oppressed – minority, we learned what to ignore and what to learn from, when to stand our ground or fight, and when to let things go. In other words, how to navigate and deal with the discomforts of life as an adult.

The Trump-MAGA slapdown of ADL might well open space for the growing criticism of Israel and for everyone to grow up just a bit when it comes to debating Palestine-Israel. Whether university leaderships seize the opportunity to assert more independence and defend academic freedom or continue to sell out and name names remains, tragically, an open question.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Authorities say they are using heavy equipment to look for the 49 people who remain missing.

The death toll from the collapse of a boarding school in Indonesia’s East Java province has risen to 14, according to officials, as rescuers battle to recover dozens of students believed still buried under the rubble.

Hundreds of students, most of them teenage boys, were inside the Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in the town of Sidoarjo when it collapsed on Monday, initially killing at least five students and injuring about 100.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) chief Suharyanto told reporters on Saturday that rescuers found nine bodies on Friday, raising the death toll to 14.

“As of today, we are still searching for 49 people who are still missing,” said Suharyanto, who goes by one name, as reported by broadcaster Kompas TV.

More victims could be found, Suharyanto said, as rescuers moved to use heavy machinery to clear locations where the victims were believed to be buried underneath the rubble.

“After the last victim was found last night, we are focusing on a massive cleanup, with heavy equipment entering the collapsed areas,” he said.

Suharyanto said victim identification had been complicated by the fact that most of the victims were under 18 and did not have government identity cards or fingerprint records.

“Some of the bodies were too badly damaged to be recognised visually,” he said.

The total number of victims recorded is 167, of which 104 have been found and are safe, said Abdul Muhari, head of the Disaster Data, Information and Communication Centre at the BNPB.

Fourteen survivors are receiving hospital treatment, while 89 have been discharged. One has been transferred to another hospital, added Muhari.

The school collapse was so violent that it sent tremors across the neighbourhood, according to residents.

Investigators have been looking into the cause of the collapse, but initial signs pointed to substandard construction, experts have said.

The rescue operation was complex because vibrations in one place could affect other areas, officials said.

But the families of the missing agreed on Thursday for heavy equipment to be used, after the 72-hour “golden period” for the best chance of survival came to an end.

The rescue operation was complicated by an earthquake that struck overnight on Tuesday, briefly halting the search.