US politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares110 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump justice department seeks 2020 election records from Georgia county

      by

      The justice department on Thursday asked election officials in Fulton county, Georgia to turn over records related to the 2020 election, a request that underscores how the administration is trying to revive one of the president’s biggest falsehoods about the election he lost five years ago.Investigators have cleared Fulton county of malfeasance in 2020. Nonetheless, a Republican majority on the board voted to re-open the investigation last year. On the night of the 2024 presidential election, the board voted to subpoena a slew of documents. This summer, the board passed a resolution asking the justice department to intervene and help them get the documents. The subpoenas issued last year seek records related to voter lists, chain of custody forms, ballot images, security seals, and ballot scanner paperwork.The 30 October letter from the department’s civil rights division, obtained by the Guardian, asks Fulton county to turn over a slew of records that were subpoenaed by the state election board. The letter’s existence was first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.“Transparency seems to have been frustrated at multiple turns in Georgia,” Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who leads the civil rights division, wrote in the letter. She also said the voting section had received correspondence from “voter transparency advocates” of “multiple instances of government obstruction of transparency requests, including high-resolution ballot scans, signature verification documentation, and various metadata requests”. She asked the county to turn over the records within 15 days.A spokesperson for the Fulton county elections board did not immediately return a request for comment. A justice department spokesperson declined to comment beyond what was in the letter.The department’s request comes as the justice department has asked 40 states to turn over voter roll information and has sued eight states that have refused. The White House also recently hired Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who worked on cases seeking to overturn the 2020 election results to work on voting issues. Heather Honey, another prominent election denier whose misleading research was used to sow doubt about the 2020 election results, has also been appointed to an election-related role in the Department of Homeland Security.To justify its request, the justice department cited a provision of the Civil Rights Act that requires election officials to retain election records and gives the attorney general the right to request them. The law requires records be retained for 22 months after a federal election – a period that has long elapsed since the 2020 contest.The letter also said the department also needed the records to comply with two federal statutes, the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the federal statute that allows DoJ to request election records requires the justice department to provide a “basis” for requesting them. That was absent in Dhillon’s letter, he said.“In DoJ’s letter, I see a purpose: we want to check up on what you did,” he said. “But the letter just cites a general swath of federal statutes without saying anything about why there’s a basis to believe that the records they’re seeking will shed light on a federal statutory violation. [The] DoJ doesn’t just get to go fishing because it’s curious.” More

    • 125 Shares156 Views

      in US Politics

      Democratic representative urges former prince Andrew to testify over Epstein

      by

      A Democratic congressman on Friday called for the former prince Andrew Mountbatten Windsor to testify before the US House of Representatives committee that is conducting an inquiry into the government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.The statement from Ro Khanna, a California Democratic representative, who serves on the investigative House oversight committee, comes after the UK trade minister, Chris Bryant, suggested that since Mountbatten Windsor has been stripped of his royal titles, he should answer demands for information about his dealings with Epstein, an alleged sex trafficker who died by suicide while in federal custody six years ago.“Just as with any ordinary member of the public, if there were requests from another jurisdiction of this kind, I would expect any decently minded person to comply with that request,” Bryant said.Khanna told the Guardian: “Andrew should be called to testify before the oversight committee. The public deserves to know who was abusing women and young girls alongside Epstein.”Republicans hold the majority in the House, but amid public outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the Epstein case approved an inquiry by the oversight committee into how the government handled his prosecutions. Interest in the case flared in July, after the justice department announced a much-rumored list of Epstein’s sex trafficking clients did not exist, and it would share nothing further on the case.The House investigation has thus far resulted in the release of tens of thousands of pages of documents – including a lewd drawing apparently made by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday – as well as depositions from former top government officials.As a member of the minority, Khanna does not have the power to subpoena Mountbatten Windsor’s testimony. Spokespeople for the committee’s Republican chair, James Comer, did not respond to questions about whether he believes the former prince should be questioned.Khanna and Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman, have introduced a bill to force the release of files related to Epstein, but Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, a top ally of the president, has refused to bring it up for a vote. Massie and Khanna have circulated a discharge petition that will require the bill be voted on, if 218 members of the House sign it.“This is what my effort with Representative Massie has been about: transparency and justice for the survivors who have been courageously speaking out,” Khanna said.The petition has been signed by all 213 House Democrats, as well as four Republicans. The 218th signature is expected to be Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in Arizona last month, and awaits swearing in by Johnson. However, the speaker has refused to do so until the House comes back into session, and says he will not tell lawmakers to return to Washington until the Senate approves a measure to end the ongoing government shutdown. More

    • 138 Shares156 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump administration blocked from suspending Snap benefits for millions of Americans

      by

      Two federal judges issued back-to-back rulings on Friday in separate cases ordering the Trump administration to use contingency funds to continue paying for food stamps during the government shutdown.A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday afternoon blocked the Trump administration from suspending all food aid for millions of Americans, in a case brought by a group of US cities, non-profit organizations and a trade union.At almost the same time, in a separate but similar case, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the government must continue to fund the program that helps low-income households stave off food insecurity, in a case brought by the Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors who sued the administration.Without intervention, the US Department of Agriculture said it planned to suspend payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or food stamps, on Saturday, 1 November, putting millions of low-income households that rely on the benefits at risk of food insecurity and financial hardship.John McConnell, a US district judge in Providence, issued a temporary restraining order in the Rhode Island case at the behest of those plaintiffs. They had argued that the US Department of Agriculture’s suspension of Snap benefits due to kick in on Saturday was unlawful.Snap, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative, provides assistance to nearly 42 million – one in eight – low-income Americans each month. The USDA has said insufficient funds exist to pay full benefits, as issuing food stamps costs the public purse between $8.5bn and $9bn every month.The Trump administration contends the agency lacks authority to pay them until Congress passes a spending bill that will ending the enduring government shutdown which began on 1 October.The plaintiffs in the civil case being heard in Rhode Island are represented by the liberal legal advocacy group Democracy Forward. The group argued that the federal government’s decision to suspend the nutritional benefits was wrong and unlawful, as the USDA still had funds available to fulfill its obligation to fund the Snap program.Such available funding includes $5.25bn in contingency funds that Congress has previously provided for the USDA to use when “necessary to carry out program operations”, the plaintiffs said.Aside from the contingency funds, the plaintiffs argued that a separate fund with about $23bn in it could also be utilized to avoid what would be an unprecedented suspension of Snap benefits.In the Massachusetts case, the US district judge Indira Talwani in Boston gave the administration until Monday to say whether it would partly pay for the benefits for November with contingency money or fund them fully with additional funds.It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.The rulings are likely to face appeals.In their challenge, the Democratic-led states argued that the agriculture department has the legal authority – and available funds – to at least partly maintain the program during the shutdown.“Because of [the] USDA’s actions, Snap benefits will be delayed for the first time since the program’s inception,” the states said in their complaint. “Worse still, [the] USDA suspended Snap benefits even though, on information and belief, it has funds available to it that are sufficient to fund all, or at least a substantial portion, of November Snap benefits.”The Trump administration has maintained that the department’s contingency fund is intended for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, not government shutdowns. The government has acknowledged that it has billions of federal dollars left, including emergency funds especially marked for Snap, but top officials have maintained they are unable to tap into those reserve funds.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe administration warned that a court order requiring it to use emergency reserves to fund Snap would be “operationally fraught”, arguing it could take weeks to deliver benefits and might leave families with less than half their normal monthly allotment. In court filings, officials noted that such a partial payment “has never been made – and for good reason”.The argument appears to contradict the department’s lapsed-funding plan, released in late September, which stated that Congress’s “evident” intent was for Snap operations to continue during a government shutdown and pointed to “multi-year contingency funds” that could be tapped in the event the closures dragged on. The plan has been removed from the department’s website.The USDA’s website now carries a strikingly partisan notice, accusing Senate Democrats, incorrectly, of shutting down the government to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants and trans Americans. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”The administration’s refusal to intervene underscored a broader strategy during the shutdown, now the second-longest in US history. Throughout the impasse, Trump has selectively reprogrammed federal funds to protect priorities central to his political agenda – such as paying troops and law enforcement officers, including those involved in immigration enforcement – while allowing other programs like Snap to starve.Bracing for the loss of federal nutrition assistance, food banks and pantries, already stretched thin amid rising food prices, were bracing for a surge in demand. Officials in states such as Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, Hawaii and Minnesota have announced plans to tap state and local funds to provide food aid and assist food banks in the interim.The governors of New York, Delaware, Oregon and Virginia have declared the looming crisis a state of emergency, while states set aside millions to help offset the lapse of federal benefits.“Unlike Washington Republicans, I won’t sit idly by as families struggle to put food on the table,” New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced on Thursday.In California, the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said he would deploy the California national guard under his command to support food banks and announced $80m in state support to fill the Snap gap.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 263 Shares91 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats should be taking the fight to Trump – the problem is, he’s got them battling each other | Jonathan Freedland

      by

      Every year is election year in the US, but the contests of 2025, which reach their climax on Tuesday, will be especially revealing. These “off-year” battles – a smattering of governors’ races, statewide referendums and the election of a new mayor in the country’s biggest city – will tell us much about the national mood 12 months after Americans returned Donald Trump to the White House and one year before midterm contests that could reshape the US political landscape. Above all, though, they will reveal the division, the confusion and sheer discombobulation Trump has induced in the US’s party of opposition.The verdict on Trump’s first 10 months in office will be delivered most clearly in the two states set to choose a new governor: New Jersey and Virginia. By rights, these should be relatively easy wins for the Democrats. Both states voted for Kamala Harris a year ago, and the current polls are grim for Trump. This week, an Economist/YouGov survey registered Trump’s lowest rating of his second term – 39% of Americans approve of him, while 58% disapprove – the lowest number they’d recorded for him bar one poll in his first term. Trump’s handling of the economy gets especially low marks, and a plurality of voters blame the continuing government shutdown, now in its second month, on Trump and his party. If an off-year election offers an opportunity to kick an unpopular incumbent, then Tuesday should be plain sailing for Democrats.And yet, the contest in New Jersey, for one, is looking far from comfortable. Democrats there are mindful that a year ago Trump surged in the state: after losing to Biden by a whopping 16 points in 2020, he trailed Harris by just six. Current polls show the Democratic candidate for governor ahead, but only narrowly: one survey put her just one point ahead of her Republican opponent. The party is funnelling serious money into the contest and deploying its biggest guns: Barack Obama will campaign in New Jersey on Saturday.It may work. But the fact that, after all that voters have seen from Trump these past 10 months – the power grabs; the wild on-again, off-again moves on tariffs; the failure to shrink inflation; the indulgence of corruption; the vanity projects, including the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for a gilded Trump ballroom – a Republican is even competitive in a state such as New Jersey should be troubling Democrats. And, if my conversations in Washington and New York this week are anything to go by, it is.The problem is that, even after a decade in which Trump has dominated US politics, Democrats are still not sure how to confront him, or even, more fundamentally, what they should really be. Take the mayoral contest in New York City, which is exposing the depth of the divide.The frontrunner is Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old newcomer who came from nowhere to storm his way to the Democratic nomination. Hugely charismatic and a master of social media, he has energised voters who had long regarded the Democrats as stale and tired: in the Democratic primary earlier this year, turnout was highest among those between ages 25 and 35. His chief opponent is the man he beat in that primary, the former Democratic governor of the state and scion of one of the party’s most storied families: Andrew Cuomo.Their clash captures what Cuomo, now running as an independent, calls the “quiet civil war” among Democrats in almost cartoonishly stark terms. Mamdani is a socialist beloved by the young, but feared by the old – and by those alarmed by his refusal to denounce the slogan “globalise the intifada”, a phrase they believe sanctions attacks on Israel-associated, meaning Jewish, targets in the US and elsewhere. Cuomo is 67, previously endorsed by the party establishment and tainted by the bullying and sexual harassment scandal that drove him out of office in 2021.It is a divide that is both ideological and generational. Plenty of younger Democrats see Mamdani as radical and inspiring, drawn to his message of “affordability” of housing and public transport. They see Cuomo as the embodiment of an exhausted, morally compromised centrism that cannot beat Trump. Meanwhile, many older Democrats see Mamdani as radical and untested, carrying too little experience and too much ideological baggage – the same leftist liabilities that the right ruthlessly exploits and ultimately always leads to Democratic defeat. I got a glimpse of that divide when, at a live event in Manhattan for the Unholy podcast, I asked Hillary Clinton whether, if she had a vote in New York City, she would cast it for Mamdani, who is, let’s not forget, the official Democratic nominee for mayor: “You know what? I don’t vote in this city. I’m not involved in it. I have not been at all even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it.”If Mamdani wins, and either of the comparatively moderate Democrats running in New Jersey and Virginia loses, then the party’s progressive wing will take that as confirmation that its approach – the path of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders – represents the party’s best hope. But if all three win, and especially if the gubernatorial candidates improve on Harris’s performance in 2024, then the moderate wing will be buoyed, and the argument inside the Democratic party will rage on. In fact, it’s a fair bet it will rage on whatever happens.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd that is because the age of Trump has been utterly confounding for his opponents. How do you play against a player who breaks all the rules of the game? If you stick to the old ways of doing politics, if you obey the traditional proprieties and conventions, you cast yourself as part of the very establishment or deep state or elite that Trump has so profitably railed against for 10 years. But if you don’t, if you disrespect past norms, then you become part of the problem, the danger, Trump represents, weakening the guardrails that keep democracy on track.An example of that dilemma is on display in California. The state’s ambitious governor, Gavin Newsom, has tabled a ballot initiative – a referendum – that would redraw the boundaries of California’s congressional districts to give the party about five more seats in the House of Representatives in time for next year’s midterm elections. It’s retaliation for a Trump-approved gerrymander in Texas that will hand Republicans a similar advantage in that state. Democrats have hailed Newsom’s move as an act of resistance, fighting Trumpian fire with fire. And so it is. But it also burns away one more democratic norm, turning boundary changes into a routinely partisan battleground.Democrats are struggling because there are no good options when fighting a nationalist populist unafraid to wreck democracy. If you stay high while he goes low, you lose – and he is free to wreak further destruction on the democratic system. But if you sink to his level, you risk damaging the very thing you want so desperately to protect. The havoc of Donald Trump is never confined to Trump. It engulfs his opponents too.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

      Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path. Book tickets here or at guardian.live More

    • 138 Shares178 Views

      in US Politics

      California’s gerrymandering measure would move the nation backwards | David Daley

      by

      Let’s imagine it’s early 2031. Democrats hold a three-seat edge in the US House. California has just lost four seats to congressional reapportionment. Texas has gained four.Reapportionment has not gone well for Democrats. In addition to the four from the Golden state, New York has lost two seats. Minnesota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois each lost one. Blue states surrendered those seats – and electoral college votes – to red states where the Republican party draws the lines: Florida, Utah, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.President Gavin Newsom, needing to make up those 11 electors in a re-election campaign against Donald Trump Jr while also defending his party’s slender lead in the House, calls California’s Democratic leadership. Texas will already gain four seats, he tells them. California will lose them. Democrats are going to have to draw a 47-1 congressional map. If not, Republicans could win another trifecta. Trump Jr could win. Democracy itself is on the line.Very little in this scenario is fanciful. If population trends continue, Sun belt migration will cost blue states a dozen seats in the US House. Newsom will be a favorite for the Democratic nomination. Texas and Florida will gain additional seats, no gerrymander required. And the partisan calculus in 2031 could look a lot like it does in 2025: without a big boost from California, Democrats might not have any hope to hold the US House.Newsom and other proponents of California’s proposition 50 – a measure that would allow Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional districts – insist that they are only asking voters to replace California’s bipartisan commission-drawn map as a temporary solution to an urgent crisis within American democracy. The 48-4 map, they promise, is purely retaliatory, and designed to restore partisan balance and match the five seats stolen first by Texas. The commission – designed to ensure fair districts – would supposedly be restored to power after the 2030 census.It’s difficult to believe that’s true. Those additional California seats will not be any less important to Democrats in five years. After all, the exact electoral concerns driving Newsom and Democrats to act in 2025 will still be with us when the next round of redistricting begins, after the 2030 census. Indeed, after reapportionment – and if the US supreme court further weakens the Voting Rights Act in a case from Louisiana this term, placing seats held by Black Democrats across the south in jeopardy – the Democrats’ partisan prospects might even be worse.Now put a Trump scion or another Maga acolyte on the ballot. Combine that with the electoral college boost the Republican party will receive after apportionment and their long-term edge on the US Senate map. Won’t California Democrats insist, again, that democracy depends on a radical gerrymander? Might partisans approve another power grab in the name of democracy?California voters face a difficult choice this fall. Many citizens, rightly concerned about the authoritarian turn of the national GOP, will support proposition 50 as a counterweight. Yet it’s worth considering this: once politicians gain power over redistricting, they’re loath to hand it over voluntarily.California voters, after all, created the state’s independent commission for precisely this reason: the politicians could not be trusted to do it themselves. In the 1980s, the Democratic representative Phil Burton called the state’s Picasso-style cartography his “contribution to modern art”. He offered the same justification as Newsom: this power play was needed to counteract Republicans. But voters hated this gerrymander so much that a statewide repeal vote succeeded in 1982.This rebuke taught Democrats a curious lesson: they’d simply guarantee themselves the number of seats they wanted by working with Republicans to gerrymander the state. After the 2000 census, the two parties agreed on a fair split of the delegation behind closed doors. Voters had no say at all – and the seats were so locked in that despite a tumultuous decade in politics, only one incumbent lost a re-election bid.Voters didn’t like this much, either. They finally took the pen away from politicians, over the course of two initiatives in 2008 (affecting state legislative districts) and 2010 (affecting Congress). The commission voters established is the gold standard for reform. Commissioners are put through an arduous process to ensure fairness. No state provides more public input. The commission has inspired nonpartisan reformers nationwide, who have pointed to its success when winning anti-gerrymandering initiatives in Michigan, Colorado, Utah, Ohio, Missouri and elsewhere.And while competitive elections have dwindled nationwide, they’ve dramatically increased in California. Instead of one congressional seat changing hands each decade, 15 seats flipped from 2012 to 2020. In 2022, five seats were within 5 percentage points, and another two were within 8 percentage points. In 2024, eight seats were within 5.1 percentage points. Those competitive seats would be wiped away on the new map – which not only flips GOP seats blue, but also strengthens three other Democratic incumbents.It is no small thing for a state to lose all of its competitive seats. It becomes almost impossible to hold lawmakers accountable. In districts this safe for one side, good luck changing your representative even if you want to.This gerrymander does net Democrats five seats nationally. One could argue that’s a fair trade-off. But in the end, it doesn’t actually create a level national playing field – now or long-term. Proposition 50 counters Texas. But with Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina and Kentucky redrawing next, that’s an additional 10 seats with no counterweight – all with the US supreme court weighing a Voting Rights Act case that, depending on the decision, could allow Republicans to nab another dozen seats. Californians will surrender their commission, and the best national inspiration for reform. The actual national impact may be negligible to zero.And over the long run, the partisan picture will grow cloudier still for Democrats. California’s shrinking population could cost the state four seats in Congress via reapportionment. That’s another reason why it’s so hard to imagine Democrats giving up power to draw the lines ever again. After the 2030 census, four incumbents will lose their districts. Will an additional five Democrats want to lose theirs – the likely outcome if the commission returns? Might partisans want the power to choose which side, or which incumbents, lose their seats? Come 2029, the rumbling will begin: this power should stay with the legislature. You know, because democracy itself will depend upon it.If this mid-decade redistricting armageddon tells us anything, it’s that we desperately need a national standard to end gerrymandering everywhere. But if California unwinds the most successful example of reform for partisan purposes, well, it moves the nation farther away from any real solution.It moves California backwards as well, to a time when mapmakers chose winners and losers – something politicians tend to like just fine. We should expect them to zealously protect it at all costs.

      David Daley is the author of Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      CDC employees on chaos of being fired, rehired and fired again: ‘stuck in limbo’

      by

      As layoff notices swept through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on 10 October, Aryn Melton Backus thought she would be safe this time.Then she received the email: she was part of a major reduction in force (RIF) during the US government shutdown. It wasn’t the first time she’d been fired from the CDC by email, nor the second.Backus has been terminated and then reinstated three times this year.Her experience demonstrates the inefficiencies and tumult at US health agencies as leaders continue cutting into the workforce and ending programs vital for Americans’ health.The latest round of shutdown RIFs is illegal, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is among the unions representing federal workers that are suing the government to stop the layoffs. A quarter of the CDC has now been cut by multiple rounds of layoffs.Some employees who had to work without pay through the shutdown received RIF notices; others who were furloughed learned they would never return to their jobs. Employees who were supposed to be protected from RIFs by an ongoing lawsuit received them anyway. The human resources department at CDC was brought back from unpaid furlough in order to process about 1,300 layoffs – and then their own, as the entire HR department was eliminated.Some of the gutted departments are required by law to continue their work, despite having no employees. The ethics office and the institutional review board (IRB) were also ended, which means the CDC will no longer have oversight on ethical violations and research protocols.The entire library staff at the CDC, an integral part of research and recommendations, was terminated. The Washington office, which developed policy briefings and provided information to Congress members, was eliminated as well.The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the national health and nutrition examination survey, and the staff focused on suicide prevention also suffered layoffs.The multiple cuts across the agency mean the CDC is not able to carry out much of its work, even as some employees remain, said Karen Remley, who previously ran the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and was a state health official in Virginia.In April, for instance, the entire team behind the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (Prams) was cut, which means a critical tool for understanding maternal and child health is now missing.“You can’t take out Prams and keep the registry and have all that work happen,” Remley said. “This artificial separating and splitting really means the work on the local level stops.”Meanwhile, CDC employees have endured attacks and harassment.On 8 August, a gunman fired 500 rounds of ammunition at the CDC headquarters, killing David Rose, an officer, and traumatizing agency employees and their families.Health agency employees have been doxed, with their identities and personal information revealed. Matthew Buckham, Kennedy’s acting chief of staff, was co-founder of the group that maintains a “DEI Watch List” targeting HHS employees. The agency has also been roiled by high-profile departures.“At the highest level of leadership in the CDC, there are no public health or medical professionals left to help guide CDC recommendations,” said Abigail Tighe, a former CDC employee and founding member of the National Public Health Coalition, which held a recent press conference where Backus and other former CDC employees spoke.“Billions in contracts and direct funding to state and local public health agencies has been canceled or clawed back, and the American people are cued up to suffer. It is hard to succinctly put into words what the decimation of the CDC means for everyday Americans.”The first round of layoffs at CDC came on Valentine’s day. Probationary employees – who were in the first year or two of their jobs, either because they had been recently hired or had moved to new positions – along with established senior employees received notices.A judge ruled in September that the probationary terminations went too far and some of the employees were reinstated and placed on administrative leave.In the meantime, RIF notices went out on 1 April, eliminating entire offices such as the office on smoking and health, where Backus worked. She didn’t even receive the notice at first because her access to the CDC network, including email, had been cut off.The lawsuit specifically prevents employees like Backus from being reorganized into new offices or terminated from the agency, she said. That’s why she thought she would be safe this time – but she still received a third layoff notice. That notice was rescinded after less than 24 hours. About 700 employees were reinstated, while 600 remain terminated.“I still remain on administrative leave, unable to do my job,” Backus said. “My situation just highlights the chaos and confusion that federal employees have experienced over the past year. I’m stuck in limbo, following court cases, gathering information, and trying to figure out what my next steps should be.”Charlotte Kent, former editor-in-chief of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), said: “We have so many people who, if they’ve been [un-RIFed], have been on administrative leave. We have the inefficiency of so many government resources, our taxpayer dollars, going to fight the illegal activities that have been done by the administration.”The MMWR was among the departments completely gutted and then reinstated – which was particularly surprising, because the highly regarded scientific journal was specifically included in the president’s budget request for the first time this year.“To have it cut at this point is just shocking,” Kent said.“It’s like being in a strange game where there’s no rules,” said one former CDC employee who was RIFed on 10 October and spoke anonymously to avoid reprisal from the Trump administration. “It’s honestly like Squid Games – we don’t know what’s going to happen next.”John Brooks, who retired last year from the CDC after 26 years and served as the chief medical officer for several emergency responses, said the RIFs demonstrated a “stunning level of incompetency”. Firing the CDC Washington staff means “Congress no longer has a means of direct access to the agency it funds when it needs information or briefings”.The Trump administration reportedly says about 700 of the terminations were a coding error.“It is clear to us that this was not a coding error,” said Tighe. “This RIF was carried out just as all the other ones have been, where they fire as many people as they think they can get away with, there’s public outcry, there’s outcry from congressional members and then they bring back the things that they think people cannot get over.”She called the firings “an intentional attack on the American people and the public’s health”.“Our country is on an uncertain and frankly frightening path,” Tighe said. “We would love to see Congress step in.” More

    • 200 Shares168 Views

      in US Politics

      They were teacher and student in exile. Now this Democrat and Republican face off in Ohio

      by

      Almost 32 years ago, in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal, children sat cross-legged around a small blackboard propped on the dirt, repeating the alphabet in sing-song rhythm. Among them was Bhuwan Pyakurel, a fourth-grader, and his teacher, Kamal Subedi, barely 18.“He was tall, thin and very talkative,” Subedi said, now 52. “We didn’t know what would happen tomorrow. So we went hut to hut, gathering kids to learn.” In the early 1990s, thousands of Bhutanese refugees had arrived across seven camps in the region, each day bringing more families, more children and more uncertainty.Three decades later, the former teacher and student live a few miles apart in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, and on opposite sides of a US political divide. Pyakurel is now a Democratic city councilman and the first Bhutanese refugee elected to public office in the United States. Subedi, his former teacher, is running for another seat on the council as a Republican on 4 November.Their race has split the small but influential Bhutanese community in suburban Columbus. But the debate over Subedi’s candidacy has spread far beyond Reynoldsburg. Across Facebook and WhatsApp groups from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, members of the Bhutanese diaspora are weighing in – posting hundreds of comments, endorsements and rejections.Some see Subedi’s candidacy as a sign of maturity, proof that refugees can belong to and shape either party. Others, including Pyakurel, see it as a betrayal, aligning their story of exile with a party that, in recent years, deported dozens of Bhutanese refugees and cut social programs many families rely on.“When people with refugee backgrounds like Subedi run on the Republican platform, I see it as them standing against me, my children, my community, and my values,” Pyakurel said. “It feels like they’re rejecting the ideals this country was built on. If you support that kind of politics, you should be ashamed.”Subedi argues that change comes from participation. “If we never join the Republican Party, we’ll always be isolated from it,” he said. “If we take part, we can help shape the narrative to include us.”Pyakurel was nine when Bhutan carried out the mass expulsions of its Nepali-speaking minority, forcing his family into the Goldhap refugee camp in eastern Nepal. Life there was defined by restrictions, no legal work, little movement and constant uncertainty. “You feel that otherness every day,” he said. “It plants a question in you: why don’t I get the same chance everyone else does?”That chance came in 2009, when his family resettled in Colorado. There, through the Family Leadership Training Institute at Colorado State University, he learned the mechanics of civic participation.“It was the first course that made me think about running for local office,” he said.Then in 2014, Pyakurel, then 35, and his family moved to Reynoldsburg, joining hundreds of other Bhutanese families. Two years later, he became a US citizen. “When I took the oath, the judge said, ‘You have two duties: vote and consider running for office.’ I walked out in tears.”In 2019, when longtime Republican councilman Marshall Spalding sought re-election, Pyakurel decided to challenge him.View image in fullscreen“When he decided to run for office, I just thought that was great,” said Steve Walker, 80, a longtime colleague and adviser. “To have the potential of a Bhutanese representative on the Reynoldsburg city council – that meant a lot. There’s a significant Bhutanese population here.”Once a predominantly white and Republican suburb, Reynoldsburg’s population of roughly 40,000 people is now far more mixed politically and ethnically. Census data show the Black population rising from 10% in 2000 to 26% in 2020. Approximately 8,000 Bhutanese refugees have made their home there, accounting for roughly one-fifth of the city’s population.On the night Pyakurel announced his candidacy he felt his chest tighten as he climbed the steps to the microphone. “I don’t remember exactly what I said,” he recalled, laughing. “But people started clapping before I’d even finished.”Pyakurel threw himself into the campaign the same way he had rebuilt his life as a refugee, one door at a time. “When I told them I was a refugee and why I wanted to serve, most people listened,” he said. “But sometimes they said things that were cruel or racist.”His story still resonated with neighbors, with local Democratic leaders, and especially within the Bhutanese community.That year, Pyakurel made history as the first Bhutanese refugee in the United States to be elected to public office. He won the ward three seat on the Reynoldsburg city council, defeating Spalding by a comfortable margin – proof, he says, that “refugees don’t just find a home in America, they help shape it for the better.”Among Pyakurel’s earliest supporters was one of his former fourth-grade teachers from the Goldhap refugee camp, the soft-spoken Subedi. “I was so proud of him and everything he’d accomplished.”After Nepal, Subedi’s family had resettled in Dallas, Texas, in 2008. “The first year was very rough,” he said. “We arrived in the middle of the recession. There were no jobs. I had a young son and my parents to take care of.”He worked briefly for Catholic Charities in Dallas, then received a full scholarship to attend graduate school at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where he completed a master’s in computational science in 2014. That same year, Subedi and his family migrated to Reynoldsburg, where he teaches physics as an adjunct professor at Columbus State Community College and runs a few small businesses.Unlike his former student Pyakurel, who found his values aligned with the Democratic party, Subedi says he chose the Republican party because of his refugee background, not despite it.“When I finally had to choose a party, I felt Republican principles matched the values I grew up with, Hindu faith, family, discipline, preserving language and culture,” he said. “We left Bhutan to protect those things.“It’s a mistake to assume refugees and immigrants automatically support Democrats. Many of us don’t,” he added.In 2024, Subedi and a group of Bhutanese residents campaigned for Donald Trump in Ohio – a key swing state that Trump carried with 55% of the vote. Now, Subedi is running for city council as a Republican even as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has led to the deportation of dozens of Bhutanese refugees, including several from Columbus.“I’ve already said deporting Bhutanese refugees is wrong. It’s one part of my party I don’t agree with,” Subedi said. “But when I compare that with open borders – where desperate migrants and even criminals cross without screening – I think both are serious problems.”His candidacy has exposed deep divisions within the Bhutanese community in Reynoldsburg.Charan Chamlagai, 42, who once canvassed for Pyakurel, sees Subedi’s Republican run as a positive step. “Subedi brings a different perspective,” he said. “He wants to change things from within and help our community understand the policies that affect us. Some Republican ideas align with our cultural and religious values. We should give him a chance.”Others, though, see Subedi’s campaign as a betrayal.“He’s supporting the Trump administration that deported our people,” said Harry Adhikari, 45. “By running as a Republican, he’s supporting the same system that would deport his own brothers and sisters. He’s not fixing potholes in our community – he’s creating them.”Subedi acknowledged that the deportation of Bhutanese refugees was fundamentally un-American. At the same time, he argues that deportations are not unique to the Trump administration.“Deportations didn’t start with President Trump,” he said. “President Obama deported more than three million people. This is a federal system.”When pressed on the fact that no known Bhutanese refugees were deported under previous administrations, Subedi hesitated. “Deporting Bhutanese refugees is wrong,” he finally said. “I don’t like it.”Decades after he was his student, Pyakurel has been outspoken about Subedi’s campaign.“He’s a Democrat, and in politics it’s fair to challenge your opposition,” Subedi said. “But I think Bhuwan and others have mischaracterized me. They blame me for deportations I had nothing to do with. They treat me like an enemy. Bhuwan won’t even shake my hand any more.”When asked what might change his view, Pyakurel paused before answering. “If Subedi publicly denounced Trump, I’d support him.”But Subedi hesitated when asked if he would take that stand.“I don’t think it would be wise to denounce him openly,” he said. “He’s our commander-in-chief. And there are things Trump has done that I believe are good for this country – to protect it, to save it.” More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Move over, gender studies: the conservative tide coming for US universities

      by

      @font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive{margin-left:160px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive{margin-left:240px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{max-width:620px}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{max-width:100%}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{margin-left:0}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{max-width:620px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{max-width:860px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{max-width:1100px}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width));position:relative;left:50%;right:50%;margin-left:calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width))!important;margin-right:calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width))!important}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{transform:translate(-20px);width:calc(100% + 60px)}}@media (max-width: 71.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{margin-left:0;margin-right:0}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{transform:translate(0);width:auto}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{max-width:1260px}}.content__main-column–interactive p,.content__main-column–interactive ul{max-width:620px}.content__main-column–interactive:before{position:absolute;top:0;height:calc(100% + 15px);min-height:100px;content:””}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive:before{border-left:1px solid #dcdcdc;z-index:-1;left:-10px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive:before{border-left:1px solid #dcdcdc;left:-11px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-bottom:12px;padding-top:12px}.content__main-column–interactive p+.element-atom{padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;margin-top:12px;margin-bottom:12px}.content__main-column–interactive .element-inline{max-width:620px}@media (min-width: 61.25em){figure[data-spacefinder-role=inline].element{max-width:620px}}:root{–dateline: #606060;–headerBorder: #dcdcdc;–captionText: #999;–captionBackground: hsla(0, 0%, 7%, .72);–feature: #c70000;–new-pillar-colour: var(–primary-pillar, var(–feature))}.content__main-column–interactive .element.element-atom,.element.element-atom{padding:0}#article-body >div .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type,#article-body >div .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#article-body >div .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#article-body >div hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p,.content–interactive >div .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type,.content–interactive >div .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,.content–interactive >div .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,.content–interactive >div hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p,#comment-body .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type,#comment-body .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#comment-body .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#comment-body hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,[data-gu-name=body] hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p,#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type,#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#feature-body hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p{padding-top:14px}#article-body >div .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#article-body >div .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#article-body >div .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#article-body >div hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter,.content–interactive >div .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,.content–interactive >div .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,.content–interactive >div .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,.content–interactive >div hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter,#comment-body .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#comment-body .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#comment-body .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#comment-body hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter,#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#feature-body .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#feature-body hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule)+p:first-letter{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:111px;line-height:92px;float:left;text-transform:uppercase;box-sizing:border-box;margin-right:8px;vertical-align:text-top;color:var(–drop-cap, var(–new-pillar-colour))}#article-body >div hr+p,.content–interactive >div hr+p,#comment-body hr+p,[data-gu-name=body] hr+p,#feature-body hr+p{padding-top:0}#article-body >div [data-gu-name=pullquote],.content–interactive >div [data-gu-name=pullquote],#comment-body [data-gu-name=pullquote],[data-gu-name=body] [data-gu-name=pullquote],#feature-body [data-gu-name=pullquote]{max-width:620px}#maincontent .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,#feature-article-container .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,#standard-article-container .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,#comment-article-container .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption{position:static!important;width:100%;max-width:620px}.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px))}@media (max-width: 71.24em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{max-width:978px}.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption{padding-inline:10px}}@media (max-width: 71.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption{padding-inline:20px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em) and (max-width: 61.24em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{max-width:738px}}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{margin-left:-10px!important;margin-right:0!important;left:0}}@media (max-width: 46.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{margin-left:-20px!important}.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption{padding-inline:20px}}.furniture-wrapper{position:relative}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper{display:grid;grid-column-gap:20px;grid-row-gap:0px;grid-template-columns:[title-start headline-start meta-start standfirst-start] repeat(5,1fr) [title-end headline-end meta-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(5,1fr) [portrait-end];grid-template-rows:[title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-start] auto [meta-end portrait-end]}.furniture-wrapper #headline >div:first-child,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] >div:first-child,.furniture-wrapper .headline >div:first-child{border-top:1px solid var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper #meta,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]{position:relative;padding-top:2px;margin-right:0}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst .content__standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst .content__standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] .content__standfirst{margin-bottom:4px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst ul li,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst ul li,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] ul li{font-size:20px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a,.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst li a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] li a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] a{border-bottom:none;background-image:none!important;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:6px;text-decoration-color:var(–headerBorder, #dcdcdc)}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a:hover,.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst li a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] li a:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] a:hover{text-decoration-color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p:first-of-type{border-top:1px solid var(–headerBorder);padding-bottom:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em) and (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p:first-of-type{border-top:unset}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper figure{margin:0 0 0 -10px}.furniture-wrapper figure[data-spacefinder-role=inline].element{max-width:630px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper{grid-template-columns:[title-start headline-start meta-start] repeat(2,1fr) [meta-end standfirst-start] repeat(5,1fr) [title-end headline-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(7,1fr) [portrait-end];grid-template-rows:[title-start portrait-start] 80px [title-end headline-start] auto [headline-end standfirst-start meta-start] auto [standfirst-end meta-end portrait-end]}.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]:before{content:””;width:540px;position:absolute;top:0;background-color:var(–headerBorder);height:1px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p{border-top:unset}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]:before{content:””;width:1px;background-color:var(–headerBorder);height:100%;position:absolute;top:0;left:.5px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.furniture-wrapper{grid-template-columns:[title-start headline-start meta-start] repeat(3,1fr) [meta-end standfirst-start] repeat(5,1fr) [title-end headline-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(8,1fr) [portrait-end];grid-template-rows:[title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start meta-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-end portrait-end]}.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]:before{width:620px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]:before{left:-.5px}}.furniture-wrapper .article-header .content__labels >div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] .content__labels >div{padding-top:2px}.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{font-weight:600;max-width:620px;font-size:32px}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{max-width:540px;font-size:50px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines]{margin-right:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines]{display:none}}.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4 svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines] svg{stroke:var(–headerBorder)}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper #meta,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]{margin-right:0}}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social ul li a span,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__comment,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social ul li a span,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__comment{border-color:var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .content__meta-container_dcr >div >gu-island,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .content__meta-container_dcr >div >gu-island{display:none}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]{margin-left:-10px;padding-left:10px;position:relative}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper .standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]{padding-top:2px}}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p{font-weight:400;font-size:20px;padding-bottom:14px}.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{position:relative;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px;grid-area:portrait}.furniture-wrapper #main-media div div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media] div div{width:100%;margin-inline:0}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{margin-bottom:0}}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));margin-left:-10px}}@media (max-width: 46.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{margin-left:-20px}}.furniture-wrapper figcaption{position:absolute;bottom:0;padding:4px 10px 12px;background-color:var(–captionBackground);color:var(–captionText);max-width:unset;width:100%;margin-bottom:0;min-height:46px}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span{color:var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span svg{fill:var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span:nth-of-type(1){display:none}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span:nth-of-type(2){display:block;max-width:90%}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper figcaption{padding:4px 20px 12px}}.furniture-wrapper figcaption.hidden{opacity:0}.furniture-wrapper #caption-button{display:block;position:absolute;bottom:10px;right:8px;z-index:30;background-color:var(–captionBackground);border:none;border-radius:50%;padding:6px 5px 5px}.furniture-wrapper #caption-button svg{transform:scale(.85)}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper #caption-button{right:10px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive:before{top:-12px!important;height:calc(100% + 24px)!important}}.content__main-column–interactive h2{max-width:620px}:root:has(.ios,.android){–darkBackground: #1a1a1a;–feature: #c70000;–darkmodeFeature: #ff5943;–new-pillar-colour: var(–primary-pillar, var(–feature))}@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark){:root:has(.ios,.android){–new-pillar-colour: var(–darkmode-pillar, var(–darkmodeFeature))}}body.ios #feature-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .element-atom:first-of-type+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter{color:var(–secondary-pillar, #000)}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__header,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__header,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__header,body.android #feature-article-container .article__header,body.android #standard-article-container .article__header,body.android #comment-article-container .article__header{height:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper{padding:4px 10px 0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels{font-weight:700;font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif;color:var(–new-pillar-colour);text-transform:capitalize}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline{font-size:32px;font-weight:700;padding-bottom:12px;color:#121212!important}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image{position:relative;margin:14px 0 0 -10px;width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));height:auto}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a{background-color:transparent;width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));height:auto!important}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst{padding-top:4px;padding-bottom:24px;margin-right:-10px}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a{color:var(–new-pillar-colour)!important;background-image:none!important;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:6px;text-decoration-color:var(–headerBorder, #dcdcdc);border-bottom:none}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a:hover,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a:hover,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a:hover,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a:hover,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a:hover,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a:hover,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a:hover,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a:hover,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a:hover,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a:hover,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner li a:hover,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a:hover{text-decoration-color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta{margin:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span{color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc{padding:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg{stroke:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button{display:flex;padding:5px;justify-content:center;align-items:center;width:28px;height:28px;right:14px}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body{padding:0 12px}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.android #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.android #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.android #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive){margin:0;width:calc(100vw – 24px – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));height:auto}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption{padding:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px))}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted:before,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted:before,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted:before,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted:before,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted:before,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted:before{color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body .prose a,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body .prose a,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body .prose a,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body .prose a,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body .prose a,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body .prose a{color:var(–primary-pillar);background-image:none;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:6px;text-decoration-color:var(–headerBorder)}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body .prose a:hover,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body .prose a:hover,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body .prose a:hover,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body .prose a:hover,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body .prose a:hover,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body .prose a:hover{text-decoration-color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark){body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper{background-color:#1a1a1a}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels{color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline{background-color:unset;color:var(–headerBorder)!important}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p{color:var(–headerBorder)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a{color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg{stroke:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption{color:var(–dateline)}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body .prose blockquote.quoted{color:var(–new-pillar-colour)}body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.ios #feature-article-container #comment-body,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.ios #standard-article-container #comment-body,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.ios #comment-article-container #comment-body,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.android #feature-article-container #comment-body,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.android #standard-article-container #comment-body,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.android #comment-article-container #comment-body{background-color:var(–darkBackground)!important}body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #comment-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter{color:var(–new-pillar-colour, #ffffff)}}body.ios.garnett–type-comment #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android.garnett–type-comment #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst{padding-top:24px;margin-top:0}.prose h2{font-size:24px}body.ios #feature-article-container #caption-button,body.ios #standard-article-container #caption-button,body.ios #comment-article-container #caption-button{padding:6px 5px 0}body.android #feature-article-container #caption-button,body.android #standard-article-container #caption-button,body.android #comment-article-container #caption-button{padding:4px 4px 0}@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark){:root:root:not([data-color-scheme=light]){–follow-text: #dcdcdc;–follow-icon-fill: var(–darkmode-pillar);–standfirst-text: #dcdcdc;–standfirst-link-text: var(–darkmode-pillar);–standfirst-link-border: var(–darkmode-pillar);–byline: var(–darkmode-pillar)}}.furniture-wrapper.has-guardian-org-logo #meta gu-island[name=Branding],.furniture-wrapper.has-guardian-org-logo [data-gu-name=meta] gu-island[name=Branding]{display:block!important}body.ios,body.android{background-color:#fff}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline{font-weight:700}.article .article__body h2,article.content–interactive [data-gu-name=body] h2{font-weight:200}.article .article__body h2:has(strong),article.content–interactive [data-gu-name=body] h2:has(strong){font-weight:700}

      A small conservative revolution has swept the humanities at some US colleges and universities. Its vanguard are new programs, called centers or institutes, that have begun cropping up at schools in recent years. Often funded by outside donors or earmarks from state governments, the programs tend to bear names featuring words such as “civic”, “freedom” or “classical”.These centers do credible teaching and research, and are usually not explicitly political. But their goal, to counter what conservatives see as hegemonically leftwing teaching, arguably is.Their rise has created a peculiar irony: just as the economic utility of the humanities is being questioned, and academic departments are gutted on budgetary or ideological grounds, some schools have found money for heady, old-fashioned curricula emphasizing the “great books” of western civilization and the literature of what used to be called the western canon.While students arriving at some universities this fall may have thought Ancient Greek to be dead and French lit struggling for survival, students at these new centers are discussing the philosophical ideas of the ancient world, Christian thought, the Enlightenment and the founding of the American republic, and reading the literature of William Shakespeare and John Milton.Students at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, for example, can choose this semester from courses such as “What Is the Common Good?”, “Just War”, “Great Books of the Ancient World”, “Liberty and Order” and “The Rule of Law”.View image in fullscreenAs the Trump administration attempts to bend major universities to its will, and many Republican politicians accuse higher education of being a hotbed of leftwing ideological indoctrination, schools are feeling pressure to demonstrate that their faculty and curricula are hospitable to conservatives.William Inboden, a conservative academic and the executive vice-president of the University of Texas at Austin, argued in a recent essay that the American people have lost trust in US higher education, in part because of “a sense that American universities as institutions have deviated from, or even turned against, the fundamental values of the nation and what was once quaintly known as ‘the American way of life’”.University administrators and state governments have embraced these centers as an end-run strategy, said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology at Trinity College Dublin who until recently taught in the US. Academic departments tend to resist outside reforms, Faggioli said, and freestanding “centers” are a way for university administrations to add conservative-coded spaces to their schools while avoiding messy confrontations with existing departments.Some of the best known of these programs are Stanford’s Civics Initiative, conceived in 2017 and expanded in 2021, and the University of Texas’s School of Civic Leadership and Civitas Institute, founded in 2023. The University of Arizona’s Center for the Philosophy of Freedom dates to 2008, but recently hired several new faculty members.Earlier this year, the government of Utah went even further – not only establishing by state law a Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University, but giving that center statutory control over the university’s entire general education curriculum. Students there will take new required courses on the “foundational primary texts” that “continue to shape society’s self-understanding, the American experience and the modern world”.According to the legislation, they will study the most famous of the dead male Europeans – such as Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Montesquieu, Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville – as well as Virginia Woolf and Chinua Achebe.View image in fullscreenAnd last month the National Endowment for the Humanities announced a $10.4m grant, the largest in its history, to the Tikvah Fund, a conservative Jewish organization, for a project that will include the “development of university courses … to be offered in partnership with new western civilization BA programs at various major academic centers”.For some academics whose research interests or views have not been in vogue, the changing winds may come as welcome news – at least by the relative, and still mostly bleak, standards of the academic job market.Musa al-Gharbi is the author of We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, and a sociologist who studies politics, culture and institutions. He noted that these centers are hiring people “who do decent work, who do serious scholarship for the most part”, but in some cases “probably wouldn’t have a job in academia were it not for this”, because their work is too conservative, too interdisciplinary or too “outside the lines” to appeal to typical academic departments at mainstream universities.The Hamilton school’s faculty at the University of Florida include a scholar working on a “history of conservative critics of higher education”. The Civitas Institute’s fellows include economists, law professors and philosophers of a conservative, libertarian or pro-market bent – including John Yoo, the lawyer who, while a White House official under George W Bush, famously wrote a series of legal memos justifying the use of torture to extract information from suspected terrorists.In some cases, these new centers have been pressed on unwitting or resistant universities; some faculty at Utah State University have sharply criticized the new center there and accompanying curricular reforms as a kind of hostile takeover of the internal affairs of the university. Similarly, the University of Florida has said that it did not ask for the Hamilton school, according to reporting by Inside Higher Ed.View image in fullscreenThese centers bear some resemblance to the “para-educational” institutes that began springing up at some prominent universities starting about 10 years ago: independent centers funded by conservative donors and sited near universities, but not affiliated with them, to provide extracurricular courses and events about conservative, classical or Christian ideas. They include the Morningside Institute at Columbia, the Abigail Adams Institute at Harvard and the Zephyr Institute at Stanford. This month, the Morningside Institute is holding discussions on Dante’s Inferno, St Francis of Assisi and Roger Scruton, the conservative British philosopher.Unlike those programs, these new centers are formally part of universities; like them, however, they tend to reflect an implicit view that the American humanities – allegedly consumed by ideas from critical theory, Marxism, postcolonial thought and the like – have drifted too far left, suffer from ideological conformity and promote an excessively negative view of the US’s history and place in the world.In an email, Josiah Ober, a professor of political science and classics who co-directs Stanford’s Civics Initiative, noted that state governments have directly established some of these new centers and that it would be mostly “fair to say that the motives of the legislators in question … include a concern for viewpoint diversity in university faculties perceived as being overwhelmingly more progressive than conservative”.Al-Gharbi, the sociologist, believes that ideological conformity and a lack of conservative views are a genuine problem in higher education, but that the “reception” of these centers is complicated by the fact that the right is elsewhere engaged in attacking academic programs, such as women’s, ethnic and area studies, whose ideas they find objectionable.That makes conservatives’ enthusiasm for plurality of thought feel hypocritical, he said – and also risks making these centers more isolated from their broader universities “than might be ideal for them to achieve their actual goals”. He added: “One of the dangers of these centers is that you could end up with the same kind of groupthink that they were concerned about, just going in the other direction.”Yet he and other academics also said that it would be wrong to assume that the revival of interest in the western tradition will only attract people who are politically conservative.“We have all types,” said Charles McNamara, a professor of classics at the University of Minnesota. Some “classics undergraduates wear Oxford shirts, some of them wear cutoff shorts”.View image in fullscreenSimilarly, Dhananjay Jagannathan, a professor of philosophy at Hunter College, said that he knows someone “who was hired by a small, private institution for one of these rightwing-coded ‘great books’ programs, and he is a socialist, and I don’t think he hides that about himself”. Jagannathan is “cautiously optimistic” about the programs; at the end of the day, he said, “it’s good if more talented young classicists have jobs”.Zena Hitz is a tutor at St John’s College, a school in Annapolis and Santa Fe that has taught a strict “great books” curriculum since 1937, and the founder of the Catherine Project, a non-profit that organizes discussion groups on the great books for members of the public. She sees the new centers appearing at universities as embodying an unusual mixture of goals – both functioning as “a kind of beachhead within the university where conservative ideas are welcome”, she said, and representing a “strategic move” to protect old-fashioned humanities fields, especially at public universities in conservative states “that would normally just be slashing the crap out of that stuff”.Although the great books curriculum may be perceived as conservative or elitist in the current context, Hitz noted that it springs from a historical movement that possessed a “radical egalitarianism”. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, miners and other blue-collar workers raised funds for libraries where they could read and discuss works of literature and political theory.Similarly, the great books curriculum has historically enjoyed unusual bipartisan support, she said. “Conservatives like it because it’s the western canon, and it’s old, but liberals and progressives like it because the style of education is open-ended and honors the individual’s development.”A few years ago, she co-taught a course on the Bible; as is not unusual at St John’s, about a third of her students were devout Christians, many from homeschooled backgrounds, and another third were gender-nonconforming students with generally activist leftwing politics. Despite some tense moments, it was an “amazing” experience, she said.Al-Gharbi said that even if these centers actually wanted to exclusively hire conservatives, that might be difficult. “I’ve talked to some people who have set up these schools and run them,” he said, and they acknowledged that the recruiting pool for right-of-center scholars is small. Conservatives, in recent decades, have tended to self-select out of academia.“They hope that over time, the pipeline could get a bit wider,” he said, “than is the case at present.”Similarly, even the small bump in academic hiring that these centers may bring will not mean a major sea change, McNamara said, for classics and similar fields. “We have not had a good job market in the humanities since the 2008 financial crisis. And if there happen to be two extra jobs at an institute that’s appeared at one state university somewhere, I don’t think that really quite qualifies as a particularly robust job market.”Quoting Aristotle, he added: “One swallow does not make a summer.” More