Some graduates are paying thousands just to look employed. And parents are spending up to $50,000 on career coaches. Why is the entry level job market so broken? Al Jazeera’s Yasmeen ElTahan explains.
Published On 22 Sep 202622 Sep 2026
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DAVID Walliams’ entire children’s book catalogue has been dropped by publisher HarperCollins.
The author and TV star, 55, was let go by the company last year after it had been reported that he “harassed” young female staff.
A junior employee had complained about Walliams’ conduct, prompting an internal investigation.
HarperCollins will now phase out physical copies in bookshops before removing ebook and audiobook versions.
His back catalogue of titles includes Billionaire Boy and Gangsta Granny.
In December 2025 the publisher said it would not publish any new titles by Walliams, saying it “takes employee wellbeing extremely seriously”.
Bosses at a Waterstones festival also cut ties and the BBC said it had no projects “directly involving” him.
Walliams began writing after finding fame as the star of BBC comedy Little Britain.
He went on to sell more than 60million copies, starting with 2008’s The Boy in the Dress.
In November 2022, Walliams quit as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent after lewd comments about contestants were leaked.
He apologised for the “disrespectful” remarks but later sued BGT makers Fremantle and secured a big payout.
A spokesman for Walliams had said in December: “David has never been informed of any allegations raised against him by HarperCollins.
“He was not party to any investigation or given any opportunity to answer questions.
“David strongly denies that he has behaved inappropriately and is taking legal advice.”
New York Mets first baseman Jared Young was carted off the field Thursday night after he took a knee to the head during a collision with pitcher Nolan McLean while both players were trying to make a play on a ground ball hit by Philadelphia’s Justin Crawford.
Young, who landed face-first in the dirt, reportedly was briefly knocked unconscious during the sixth-inning incident at Citi Field.
“It was scary to sit there and just know that he wasn’t with us in that moment,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said after the game. “He was just somewhere else.”
Young was able to give a thumbs-up to the crowd, however, as he was driven off. Mets interim manager Andy Green told reporters after the game that it “feels at this point in time like we’ve avoided the scariest outcomes.”
A CT scan at a hospital was negative, said Green, who added that Young had concussion symptoms but also had full use of his extremities.
Still, Green said after his team’s 3-0 loss, “it was a terrifying moment on a baseball field. Took him a while to come to. It was a really scary collision.”
McLean remained in the game and struck out Philadelphia’s Garrett Stubbs to end the inning. He was replaced by reliever Tobias Myers in the seventh.
Young, 31, has been a bright spot for the Mets (69-84) during his first full season, hitting .266 with nine homers and 39 RBIs in 103 games. A left knee injury caused him to miss six weeks early in the season.
“He’s somebody we all respect and appreciate and have love for,” Lindor said. “He’s been a big part of our team this whole year.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — A nonprofit run by Black federal lawmakers launched a multimillion-dollar effort Tuesday to engage lower-propensity voters in key districts in the midterm elections, following years of dissatisfaction over traditional efforts to reach such voters.
The Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s “SO VOTE” campaign will seek to register and mobilize young voters, as well as voters in majority-Black and rural communities, across the South, Midwest and West. The campaign involves partnerships with dozens of local organizations, the institute said, with in-person and online outreach to voters often sidestepped by major political campaigns.
“For decades, as far as I can remember, there are those of us who have always complained about the fact that neither party spends the significant and requisite time with Black and brown and poor and rural communities,” said Marcia Fudge, a former Democratic congresswoman from Ohio who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Biden administration.
“So we finally decided to take it upon ourselves to do something that we didn’t think anybody else in the industry was doing,” said Fudge, who is spearheading the new effort alongside former Black Caucus colleagues.
Voter engagement efforts will cover outreach across Georgia and Mississippi, as well as target voters in 16 congressional districts that are likely to determine control of the House.
Instead of traditional television advertising, the campaign will convene local civic groups and houses of worship, as well as fraternities and sororities. The effort will also use some now-widespread techniques in political campaigns, such as geotargeting online ads and partnerships with local content creators for audiences who mainly receive their news online.
While the voter engagement efforts are officially nonpartisan, the Black Caucus’ targeted races are in many regions where Black voter turnout could prove key to whether a Democratic candidate prevails in closely divided House districts. Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana Democratic congressman who served as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, said the effort would focus on repeatedly engaging voters in rural communities who feel alienated from Democratic campaigns.
“If you’re not happy with the way things are going, then voting is part of the solution, but it takes constant communication,” Richmond said.
The Black Caucus’ institute has raised about $1 million for the campaign, primarily from individual donors, and plans to spend at least $4.5 million in the midterm election cycle.
The new outreach effort follows years of disappointment and frustration among some in the Black Caucus at the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to court Black, rural and younger voters.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, an influential South Carolina Democrat who decried the lackluster voter turnout in the 2024 election, said the campaign “allows us to put to practice that which we have been proposing, and we have never had the resources to do it. But this year we do.”
The effort is also a response to Republican-led redistricting efforts in multiple states, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat.
“These Southern states are trying to minimize Black political participation and ultimately Black political strength,” he said. “So what we have to do is take that low-propensity voter and elevate their participation so they become an additional voice to be reckoned with.”
Brown writes for the Associated Press.
RIYADH: The performing arts in the Kingdom is undergoing a transformation driven by cultural investment, new venues, international collaboration, and a growing network of local professional and academic institutions, making it tempting for young Saudis to pursue.
While academic study in the field is comparatively new, Saudi theatrical production is not. The Kingdom has long produced recognized theater throughout the Gulf and regionally, but many practitioners studied overseas.
Today, Saudi Arabia is localizing the education of its creative talent through academic and professional training in the country.
Since 2020, Saudi has dedicated a Theater and Performing Arts Commission to regulate and develop a sector encompassing theater, dance, circus, improvisational comedy, street performance, ballet and opera.
Not only through training but also national competitions and workshops.
Undergraduate programs are offered at King Saud University, Princess Nourah University and most recently the Riyadh University of Arts. While the Royal Institute of Traditional Arts provides postgraduate and diploma-level education, Scene Institute, and Ithra have further professional training.
As Saudi universities begin their academic year, many students are continuing their conventional degrees. Other creatives are pursuing their passions academically, making the most of the opportunities the Kingdom has to offer.
Osama Almutairi, a final-year Bachelor of Arts in Theater student at King Saud University, spoke to Arab News about the feasibility of his academic choice.
“My love and passion for the arts, particularly theater, naturally led me to this specialization.”
Theater was not his first choice. “I initially considered studying political science but was accepted into theater as part of the first cohort at the College of Arts,” he said.
“Despite my initial interest in pursuing a conventional degree in the humanities, the continuous development of Saudi Arabia’s arts sector encouraged me to take this step.”
Saudi Arabia has been taking proactive measures while localizing performing arts scholarships.
The Ministry of Culture has been running a fully funded Cultural Scholarship Program that supports creative specializations at 278 approved institutions across 15 countries, including performing arts.
One beneficiary is Majed Al-Muwallad, an actor and theater teacher at Afaq Academy, who completed his Bachelors in Theater Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.
“I travelled to London in 2021. During my studies, I participated in several theatrical productions, ranging from small projects to larger, more academically oriented university productions.
“I had loved acting since I was about 14 years old. I loved films, acting, stories and dramatic texts. When the scholarship opportunity appeared, I thought: ‘Why should I let this opportunity pass?’ I decided to take it.”
Al-Muwallad said he left a job at Aramco to pursue his childhood dream, although members of his community were uncertain about his unconventional choice.
“They were not sure about the professional opportunities available or where such a career could lead,” he said.
“It was a major career change, and leaving Aramco to pursue acting was an unfamiliar idea. People do not usually leave Aramco to become actors,” he added.
Now that he has graduated and is teaching Saudi youth to act, Al-Muwallad believes it was a good decision.
He is even considering pursuing a master’s degree in the performing arts, specifically in performance design. For him, the opportunities are not limited to acting. He hopes to build on his studies in costume, lighting and set design.
“Every theatrical production needs design. It requires a set, costumes and lighting. Rather than limiting myself to the acting and performance side of theater, I would like to develop expertise in design and contribute to the audience’s overall visual experience.”
Almutairi believes perceptions will continue to change as Saudi artists demonstrate the value of academic training.
“The future is wide open for the arts and artists. Society’s perception will continue to change as academically trained Saudi artists demonstrate their ability to represent their communities and country.
“This change is already becoming evident, with society playing an increasingly important role in supporting the success of Saudi artists nationally and internationally.”
For Al-Muwallad, theater should be approached holistically — not only as a career or degree, but also as a journey of self-discovery.
“I learned a great deal before I even began teaching the students. I had to learn how to communicate theatrical knowledge and present information in a way students could understand.
“The experience has taught me a lot about communication and how to identify students’ talents. Theater teaches communication and helps students discover themselves.”
Al-Muwallad encourages young people in Saudi Arabia to pursue their passions academically. “My advice is not to treat university as merely a stage that you pass through and finish,” he said.
“Students should engage with the experience deeply and benefit from it in every possible way.”
He said soft skills can be learned through theater, including communication, emotional intelligence and teamwork.
“Another piece of advice we were always given in London was to always ask questions. A question produces an answer, and that answer often generates another question.
“Asserting that openness and eagerness to learn is vital to a good actor, theater itself is founded on curiosity.
“Students should watch a wide variety of theater and explore different traditions, including Arab, English, Greek and Russian theater, as well as influential approaches such as Russian (theatre practitioner Konstantin) Stanislavski’s.”
On Saudi having a relatively emerging academic orientation to performing arts, Almuwallad sees it as a big opportunity rather than a challenge or a barrier.
“Saudi Arabia is still developing in this field, which means students now have an opportunity to participate in shaping it. What they create can become visible and make an impact relatively quickly.”
“Students should recognize that they are important. They should not treat themselves as secondary characters in this development. They have the opportunity to play a central role because the field is still new.”
For Saudi youth choosing an arts degree over a safer, conventional path, there is an opportunity to turn passion into a profession, and ultimately shape the nation’s creative scene.
California, home to the world’s largest tech companies, is placing more guardrails around social media and artificial intelligence as child safety concerns escalate.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than 10 bills aimed at keeping young people safe online.
From suicides to sextortion, parents and their children are wrestling with how social media and AI chatbots could be harming people’s mental and physical health. The anxiety comes as technology becomes more powerful, playing a bigger role in classrooms, offices and homes.
California lawmakers have tried to tackle online safety concerns for years and they’ve faced intense lobbying from tech companies with deep pockets. The state’s laws have a disproportionate impact on the global tech industry because so many of the field’s titans are based here.
“We cannot hand children technology engineered by some of the most sophisticated companies in the world, and then place the burden on kids to defend themselves against it,” said California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom in a news conference Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The California governor, who has tried to strike a balance between safety concerns and supporting innovation, has rejected online safety bills in the past that he thought were too restrictive or premature.
The batch of new legislation includes Senate Bill 1119, which would require companion chatbot operators to assess risks, notify parents in certain cases if their child threatened to harm themselves, and take other safety steps.
Lawmakers named the bill Adam’s Law, after Adam Raine, a California teen who died by suicide in 2025 after conversing with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The teen’s parents sued OpenAI, alleging in the lawsuit that ChatGPT provided information about suicide methods that the teen used. OpenAI and Pinterest publicly expressed support for the bill on Thursday.
Adam Raine’s mom, Maria, said in the news conference that the new law will help save lives and hopes that other states will enact similar legislation.
“Powerful AI companionship chatbots were unleashed on our kids with vastly inadequate protections. Adam was an early adopter of AI, and so many of us parents did not understand the dangers back then,” said Maria Raine, who came to the event with a photo of her son.
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional or call 988. The nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Or text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
At the event, Democratic and Republican politicians shared their experiences as parents who have seen firsthand how technology affects children.
Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) said parents are seeing anxiety and depression among children who grew up in front of screens.
“That anxiety is because the pace of technology is moving faster than government can put guardrails in, and that’s left families across the state struggling to figure out how to keep their kids safe,” Lowenthal said.
Lowenthal introduced Assembly Bill 1709, which Newsom also signed. It would bar certain online platforms from providing an “addictive feature” such as autoplay and feeds that display recommended content to users under 16 years old.
Tech industry groups opposed the bill, raising concerns that it could cut off access to social media’s benefits, such as people’s ability to connect with family and friends. Tech industry groups such as TechNet say that lawmakers should enforce current laws to strengthen parental controls rather than pass new ones.
NetChoice, which has sued California and other states to block the enforcement of new online safety laws, said in a statement that the group has First Amendment concerns about the new bills Newsom signed.
“The state cannot simply describe speech as addictive and then claim a right to regulate access to it,” said Zach Lilly, Director of Government Affairs at NetChoice. “Whether the governor and legislature choose to respect it, Californians have a right to express themselves, and NetChoice will continue to fight for that right.”
The new safety restrictions come as tech companies, including Meta, Google and others, face more scrutiny over how they design products. The companies have suffered several legal blows in courtrooms in California this year.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed in August to pay up to $17 billion and make child-safety changes to resolve a multistate lawsuit. The lawsuit accused the tech company of designing and deploying harmful features while misleading the public about them.
As part of the settlement, Meta said it would impose time limits and mute notifications during certain hours for teens. Young people would also have the option to choose to view a non-algorithmic social media feed that isn’t personalized and disable autoplay.
Earlier this year, Meta and YouTube also lost a social media addiction lawsuit in Los Angeles.
While new legislation goes further than the settlements, some countries have passed stricter restrictions on social media. Last year, Australia started banning social media for children under 16, though enforcement has posed a challenge because teens are finding ways to get around the restriction.
Newsom, who pushed for federal regulation, said that he thinks California’s approach to social media is “better” than Australia’s because children are “all figuring out a way to game that system.”
“This is about the features themselves. This is about actually addressing the problem, the scrolling, the algorithms,” he said.
Safety concerns around technology have also heightened as companies double down on advancing artificial intelligence.
This week, a researcher for AI company Anthropic said he left the company over concerns that AI companies, including OpenAI, are “gambling with our lives” as they race ahead to improve AI that could surpass human intelligence.
The researcher, Jacob Coxon, shared a viral social media post that said: “People building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Newsom signaled the work to protect children isn’t over.
“We need to move, but one thing we’re not doing is we’re not sitting back and we’re not letting it rip,” he said.
SACRAMENTO — Fighting for reelection, Orange County Rep. Young Kim has removed several references to President Trump from her campaign website as she tries to broaden her appeal to voters in a race against fellow Republican Rep. Ken Calvert.
The two are locked in a brutal intra-party fight over one of the only safe districts left for Republicans in Southern California after voters approved a new congressional district boundaries last year.
Throughout the primary, both Republicans used campaign ads and mailers to play up their support for Trump and court GOP voters. But as the general election approaches, both candidates are diminishing the president’s presence in their messaging by varying degrees.
Until recently, a banner on the homepage of Kim’s website described her as a “Proven Fighter” who would “Stand with President Trump to deliver a bold America First Agenda,” according to archived versions of the site.
As of this week, the banner said the Congresswoman is “taking on Career Politicians to Restore the American Dream.” Previous references to Trump and “America First” have been removed from the website’s homepage and Kim’s biography. The changes were first reported by Politico.
An “Issues” page that highlighted her positions on red meat topics such as “Standing with President Trump to Save America,” “Protecting Election Integrity” and “Fixing Bidenflation” has been taken down.
Kim’s campaign pushed back on the notion that she is distancing herself from Trump, calling it “completely absurd.”
“Our campaign has consistently framed this race as a choice between an effective leader like Young Kim, who has delivered results in less than three terms in Congress, and Ken Calvert, whose career has been plagued by corruption controversies and FBI investigations,” said Kim campaign spokesman Chris Pack. “Calvert incessantly complains about Washington getting nothing done, seemingly oblivious to the fact that after nearly 40 years, he has become Washington.”
The new 40th congressional district, reconfigured under Proposition 50 approved by California voters in 2025, packs many of the region’s Republican voters into a district which includes inland Orange County and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
While 40% of the registered voters in the district are Republican, 31% are Democrats and 21% declared themselves to be “no party preference,” according to the Secretary of State’s latest report.
The new map carved the district held by Calvert, a Corona Republican and 33-year fixture in Congress, into three different pieces. Democrats redrew the map in an attempt to oust up to five Republicans and cancel out GOP-led gerrymandering in Texas. Kim, who is from Anaheim Hills, and Calvert advanced from the primary election over several Democrats and an independent candidate and will face off in the Nov. 3 general election.
Calvert continues to emphasize his close ties to Trump. His campaign homepage features a video with shots of him shaking Trump’s hand and interacting with him in the Oval Office.
Calvert’s campaign criticized Kim for scrubbing Trump from her website and at other times keeping the president at arm’s length.
“Young Kim can delete Trump from her website, but she’ll never be able to erase the fact that she is a complete and total fraud who will say anything if she thinks it will help her keep her job,” said Calvert campaign spokesman Calvin Moore.
“Young Kim has had every opinion on Trump imaginable from trying to censure him to claiming she’s 100% with him, to promising to kick his butt, then trying to lick his boots in the primary. It’s insulting to voters’ intelligence that she thinks voters won’t see right through it,” he said.
Calvert’s PAC, Americans 4 Security, has also changed messaging on its mailers. Before the primary, it sent over a dozen mailers attacking Kim for “blocking the Trump agenda” and “running from her anti-Trump record.”
Two recent mailers sent by the PAC contrast Calvert’s record with Kim’s and make no mention of Trump.
The post-primary messaging shifts weren’t a surprise to Matt Klink, a Republican political strategist.
“Through targeting, you look at Democrats and decline to state voters, and you soften your message to focus on things that they care about. That’s not changing their position, it’s just effective campaigning,” he said.
But personally, Calvert has continued to embrace the president. His campaign confirmed Calvert is attending an unconventional midterm Republican convention in Dallas, Texas. Trump is scheduled to give keynote speeches both nights.
Kim skipped the GOP convention in favor of meetings with constituents and a human trafficking task force, and to attend 9/11 events, according to her campaign.
“Calvert being with Trump, he’s helping to create that enthusiasm around his campaign,” Klink said. By skipping the convention, “Young Kim is signaling, ‘I may be a Republican, but I care about the district, too.’ It’s a good contrast.”
Match of the Day pundit Ashley Young looks at Marcus Rashford and Luke Shaw’s connection on the left in Manchester United’s 2-2 draw against Everton.at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
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