Rishi Sunak has defended Boris Johnson's decision-making during the pandemic, telling the Covid inquiry that the former PM was right to encourage "vigorous debate" over "incredibly consequential decisions". Sunak also pushed back against claims of a toxic working atmosphere in Downing Street, saying his interactions with No 10 when he was chancellor "felt fine". Israel's army has reached the centre of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Chief mediator Qatar says Israel's ongoing bombardment of the Palestinian territory, which has left an estimated 18,000 dead, is "narrowing the window" for a new ceasefire and hostage release. The fossilised skull of an enormous marine reptile has been extracted from cliffs on Dorset's Jurassic Coast. The two-metre-long specimen (below) belonged to a pliosaur – a 12-metre predator that ruled the waves 150 million years ago – and was discovered after an enthusiast stumbled upon its snout on the beach below. |
Claudine Gay (left) and Liz Magill. Kevin Dietsch/Getty |
The derangement of America's Ivy League |
As the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn tried to justify rampant anti-Semitism on their campuses at last week's Congressional hearings, says Andrew Sullivan in The Weekly Dish, the "toxic collapse of America's once-great Ivy League" was on full view. After much evasion, condescension and stonewalling, congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked a simple question: "Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university's] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment? Yes or no?" "It depends on context," said MIT's Sally Kornbluth, incredibly. It would be a "context-dependent decision", agreed Penn's Liz Magill, who has since resigned, after an alumnus was so sickened by her answer that he pulled a $100m donation. |
It was almost funny to hear Harvard president Claudine Gay insist that her university embraces free expression, "even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful" – her students are forced to attend training sessions where they learn that "fatphobia" is a form of "violence". Gay's claim only makes sense if you understand that in the Ivy League, when a member of an "oppressor" class says something edgy, it's "violence"; but if a member of an "oppressed class" calls for genocide, "it's speech". That's why so many Ivy Leaguers "instantly supported" Hamas. They view Palestinians as "victims of a 'colonial', 'white', 'settler state'", and thus think any violence they commit must be justified. To today's Harvard man, supporting the fundamentalist terrorist group is the "only moral position to take". |
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Dezeen has selected 10 of the most "striking staircases" featured on its site this year. The round-up includes a brutalist-style spiral staircase in an apartment complex in Chile; concrete steps bordered by black ribbon-like rails and angular balustrades in India; a bright yellow zigzagging staircase which mimics the appearance of a crane in Berlin; and chunky white stairs resting on a slab of concrete in Slovakia. See the rest here. |
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"A Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China's ultra-secretive political system," says Politico. The foreign and defence ministers, both Xi Jinping loyalists, were handpicked and elevated to their positions mere months before they went missing earlier this year. Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of the country's nuclear weapons programme, and senior officials overseeing the financial sector. Li Keqiang, China's recently retired prime minister, supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in October. In Beijing, "heart attack in a swimming pool" now has the same connotation that "falling out of a window" does in Moscow. |
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The Knowledge Book of Notes & Quotes |
"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow." Or so said Mark Twain. But there are exceptions. If you want to get a copy of The Knowledge Book of Notes & Quotes before Christmas, time is running out. It's just £12.99, incl P&P (UK only). Click here to order your copy. |
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Nice work if you can get it |
Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani has just signed what is thought to be the "largest individual sports deal in the world", says the FT: a 10-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers worth $700m. The agreement dwarfs top payouts in other sports, such as Cristiano Ronaldo's two-year deal with Saudi Arabia's Al Nassr FC (said to be worth $200m a year), and golfer Jon Rahm's $300m agreement, signed last week, to join Saudi Arabia's LIV tour. Ohtani, 29, is particularly sought after because he's good at pitching (ie throwing) the ball as well as hitting it – the equivalent of an all-rounder in cricket. |
Sunak defending his Rwanda policy last week. James Manning/Getty |
The ethical case against Rwanda |
When Rishi Sunak came to office, says Philip Collins in The Times, all he had going for him was that he was "more constitutionally proper and less reckless" than Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. His Rwanda bill explodes that myth. The legislation, which seeks to disapply certain provisions of the 1998 Human Rights Act, has been "drafted explicitly" to contradict the Supreme Court's judgement that Rwanda is not a safe country for refugees. Sunak has effectively decided that if he declares in an act of parliament that the African country is in fact safe, "then, as if by magic, it becomes so". He is "legislating reality into thin air". |
It's bad enough that this legal jiggery-pokery won't actually work – refugees will still be able to challenge their deportation under the European Convention on Human Rights. But the "true and decisive objection" to the bill is that "there is every reason to think that Rwanda will indeed mistreat refugees". According to the UN, 94% of the African country's 132,305 refugees, asylum seekers and other displaced people rely on the World Food Programme for basic necessities. Its asylum system has been shown to be biased against Afghans, Syrians and Yemenis; the appeals process "barely exists". Sending refugees there would "cast shame" on Britain. Sunak's legislation may well be voted down in the Commons tomorrow, or held up in the Lords until the general election. "We have every ethical reason to hope so." |
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| A "very-well-behaved guinea-pig"? Christopher Furlong/Getty |
During the 2016 election, The Washington Post collated a list of "the 100 greatest descriptions of Donald Trump's hair ever written". They include an "abandoned nest"; a "beaver's tail"; a "very-well-behaved guinea pig"; "wisps of insulation material"; the "furrowed wake that a speedboat would leave on a lake of orange sherbet"; a "dishrag that on closer inspection is alive with maggots"; and a "decomposing pumpkin pie inhabited by vicious albino squirrels". See the rest here. |
The dishwasher is a more efficient use of energy and water, and gets plates cleaner, than washing by hand, says New Scientist, "if only we could agree how to load it". To solve this eternal debate, Birmingham University boffins used radioactive tracers to track how water moves during a normal cycle. Their main finding? Don't pre-rinse. Detergents are "designed to bond with food residues" – if there's nothing to react with, they can land on other items and turn them cloudy. "Now all that's left to argue about is whose turn it is to put the dishes away." |
It's Laure Ferrari, Nigel Farage's long-term French girlfriend, who greeted him as he left the I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! jungle this weekend. It's a sign of how their relationship has changed, says The Times – when Farage was injured in a small plane crash during the 2010 general election, aides had to carefully manage hospital visits so Ferrari never bumped into his wife, or another UKIP staffer with whom he was said to be having an affair. Today, with the Brexit campaigner's second marriage finished, and suggestions that the appearance of a stable home life could aid a political comeback, Ferrari is being brought into the open. |
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"The three grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for." Scottish writer Alexander Chalmers |
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