Nov 04(Jowhar)-Wadamada Khaliijka Carabta ayaa shaaciyay in Itoobiya aan wax laga weydiineynin Badda Cas, shaqana aysan ku leheyn.
Millions of Americans Returning to the Polls — But Not the Same Way
Election Eve in America: Small Ballots, Big Echoes
There’s a peculiar hush that settles over polling places on the night before a big vote—a mix of optimism, dread and the faint smell of coffee cooling in Styrofoam cups. Walk past a community center in suburban New Jersey or a library in Alexandria, Virginia, and you’ll hear the same thing: neighbors swapping predictions, campaign volunteers folding one last stack of leaflets, and the low hum of a nation scrimmaging over meaning in miniature contests.
This is not a presidential year. But make no mistake: tomorrow’s local ballots feel national. Two governorships, hundreds of state legislators, dozens of city offices and a high-stakes California referendum have become a kind of political litmus test for the country—an off-season weather report that could tell us how the American electorate is feeling about the first year of a polarizing White House and the direction of the two major parties.
Why These Local Races Matter
It’s tempting to tune out odd-year elections as small-bore civic duty. Yet these contests sit midway between the last presidential election and next year’s midterms; they are, in many ways, the “midterms of the midterms.” Historically, the party occupying the White House tends to lose ground in interim elections. In modern memory, that drift has been reliable: presidents usually see their party give up seats in the House come midterms, and governors’ races often swing momentum like a tidal current.
But local factors—shutdowns, commuter rage, bread-and-butter inflation—can amplify or blunt national trends. That’s what makes tomorrow’s pairing of New Jersey and Virginia so captivating. They are both wealthy, densely governed states where the national conversation about tariffs, federal funding and the cost of living collapses into immediate household concerns.
Virginia: Federal Paychecks, Suburban Anxiety
Drive the beltways of northern Virginia and you’ll pass guarded compounds—Langley for the CIA, sprawling Pentagon parking lots, the FBI Academy at Quantico—and a thousand home offices once tethered to federal paychecks. “We have family in the service,” says Martha Lopez, a middle-school teacher in Fairfax County. “When paychecks get interrupted, everyone talks politics at the dinner table.”
That reality has given Abigail Spanberger, a former intelligence officer turned congresswoman, a campaigning edge. Her pitch is pragmatic: address affordability, protect jobs, steady the economy. “I’m running to solve the problems people wake up worrying about,” she told a small crowd at an Alexandria community center, voice steady as rain on a roof. “Not to deliver lectures.”
Spanberger’s opponent, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, presents a contrasting story—an immigrant from Jamaica and a Marine veteran who threads conservative rhetoric with a populist streak. But that has not easily translated into traction in a state that did not vote for Donald Trump in the last presidential cycle. And the partial federal shutdown, with furloughed employees and families tightening belts, has sharpened the political stakes in towns where a paycheck can determine a mortgage payment.
New Jersey: Commuter Fury and the Rail That Never Came
Head north to New Jersey and you feel the pressure of the morning commute in every train station poster. “We’re stuck on a rail promise,” says Marcus Allen, a Newark commuter who spends an hour and a half each way on the PATH into Manhattan. “Pull the funding on our tunnel and you’re messing with 200,000 people’s livelihoods.”
That sense of betrayal—federal funds for a critical trenched tunnel to Manhattan having been threatened—has given Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy pilot and current Democratic congresswoman, a ready issue. Sherrill’s framing is simple: a governor should be an advocate for working people, not a bystander when transportation and energy bills spike. Her campaign zeroes in on surging home energy costs, housing affordability, and the everyday squeeze that voters feel at the pump, in grocery aisles and on their utility bills.
New Jersey is historically blue; registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in many counties. Yet recent polling shows narrower margins than party stalwarts would like—reminding strategists that turnout, not registration alone, wins elections.
New York’s Mayoral Drama: A City in Search of Solutions
If state governors are the commanders-in-chief of local life, mayors are the city’s emergency room physicians—triaging homelessness, housing, policing, and mass transit with limited resources. New York City’s mayoral primary amplified this reality into theater.
Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state legislator and self-described democratic socialist, managed to capitalize on the anxieties of younger residents crushed by rent and the promise of a city where wealth and want coexist cheek by jowl. “We want action, not platitudes,” said Amina Yusuf, a barista in Brooklyn, describing the mood of many of her peers. Mamdani’s platform—aggressive rent control, expanded public housing, free citywide transit funded by higher taxes on the wealthy—resonates with those who see the city’s future slipping from reach.
That kind of politics unnerves some moderates and provokes fierce national debate. Critics paint Mamdani as impractical; admirers call him the voice of a generation priced out of the American dream. Even the mayoral race’s ripple beyond Gotham has fed a familiar question: can progressive city-level victories be translated into state or national strategy?
Gerrymandering and the California Referendum
Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, California voters are being asked to reimagine how district lines are drawn. Proposition 50 (as it is commonly discussed) would recalibrate redistricting rules—effectively reshaping how the Golden State’s 52 congressional seats might be apportioned. For Republicans, the measure portends fewer footholds in a state where they already lag in voter share. For Democrats, it’s a defensive maneuver aimed at preserving a fragile advantage ahead of national midterms.
“This isn’t just a local power play,” says Dr. Helena Park, a political scientist who studies electoral systems. “Redistricting in a giant state like California moves the chess pieces in Washington.”
Primaries, Polarization, and the Party Identity Question
One lesson emerging from these races is painfully familiar: primary elections often reward the most motivated—usually the most ideologically intense—voters. That dynamic has pushed both parties to grapple with identity. Do Democrats lean hard into progressive reform in cities and let moderates anchor suburban battlegrounds? Do Republicans coalesce around a national personality, or preserve space for local pragmatists?
“The party that wins primaries can lose general elections if it doesn’t reflect the median voter,” says veteran strategist Thomas Rivera. “Conversely, too many compromises can hollow out a party’s soul.”
What to Watch, and What to Take Away
Tomorrow will not decide the presidency. It will not, by itself, redraw the national map. But it will do something politicians prize: provide a snapshot. It will reveal whether voters are punishing a party in power for national chaos, rewarding local leaders who promise practical fixes, or leaning into bold experiments that only cities can carry.
So, what do you think? Are these mid-sized contests merely footnotes, or are they the first sentences of a new political chapter? Will centrists reassert control in suburbs and state capitals while radicals reshape metropolitan politics? Or will the American electorate keep confounding neat categories altogether?
Tomorrow’s returns will offer answers—and questions. Listen closely. The small stories on the ballot often have the loudest echoes.
Russian forces push toward critical Ukrainian logistics hub
On the Edge of Pokrovsk: A Town That Could Tip the Balance
There is a particular kind of silence that comes before a shelling—thin, brittle, as if the air itself is holding its breath. In the ruined outskirts of Pokrovsk, that silence is threaded with the distant thump of artillery and the occasional rattle of small arms. The city, a transport and logistics hub in the Donetsk region, has become the latest focal point in a grinding, year-and-a-half-long push that could reshape the eastern front.
Ukrainian officials describe the situation as acute: they say Russian forces are applying severe pressure around Pokrovsk and that several hundred enemy troops—Ukrainian estimates put the number as high as 300—are operating in and around the city. Moscow, for its part, has claimed advances near the railway station and industrial zone, asserting that its units have dug in on the city’s outskirts. Independent verification from the ground is difficult; these are front-line realities shared through briefings, social media updates, and the slow trickle of eyewitness accounts.
Why Pokrovsk matters
At first glance, Pokrovsk is unremarkable: a mid-sized city built along railway lines, surrounded by fields and the low-lying remnants of heavy industry. Before the war, roughly 60,000 people called it home. Today, most have long since fled. To military planners, however, Pokrovsk is a node on a map. Capturing it would give Russian forces a stepping-stone toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk—the two largest Ukrainian-held cities left in Donetsk—and could alter logistics and lines of advance in ways that matter far beyond this single pocket of rubble.
“If they take Pokrovsk, the dynamics of the region change,” said Marcin Kaczmarek, a security analyst who has been tracking the Donetsk front. “It’s not just territory. It’s access, supply routes, and the morale narrative. For Kyiv, holding it is both strategic and symbolic.”
The fighting on the ground
Both sides paint different portraits of control. Russian statements say their troops have entered the Prigorodny area and are destroying what they call surrounded Ukrainian formations. Ukrainian commanders counter that any Russian presence is limited and fragmented, carried out in small raiding groups—often five fighters at a time—rather than in large armored thrusts. Ukrainian units, including elements of the 7th Rapid Response Corps, say they have denied attempts to sever supply lines north from Rodynske, keeping crucial lifelines open.
“They come in waves—little knots of men rather than an armored tide,” said a Ukrainian commander who asked not to be named for operational security reasons. “That changes how you fight. You can’t meet a hundred with one strategy; you have to respond constantly, locally.”
That localized back-and-forth is expensive. Since the brutal fall of Avdiivka last year, Russian forces have made steady but slow gains along a roughly 1,000-kilometre front. Kyiv reports recently reclaiming or securing hundreds of square kilometres—188 sq km taken from Russian-held positions plus another 250 sq km that were unheld by either side at the time of capture. Yet every advance is measured in blood, munitions, and the slow grinding of urban destruction.
Scenes from the region
On the roads leading to Pokrovsk, the landscape is a collage of war: burnt-out cars, collapsed façades of Soviet-era apartment blocks, and the odd banner flapping on a lamppost. In Kostiantynivka, a small town to the north, a car that survived for years was finally silenced by a November strike—its scorched shell a stark punctuation mark on a main street that once hummed with markets and children.
“We used to pick cherries under that tree,” said Olena, a retired teacher from a village outside Pokrovsk, her voice catching. “Now the cherries grow on ruins. People remember normal life in shards.”
Miners’ hats and the memory of coal pits still name-check the region’s past. Cafés, where they exist, sell strong coffee and dumplings to those who remain; radios tuned to hurried military updates provide the afternoon background. The human routines of small towns—tea, gossip, a neighbour helping another board a window—persist stubbornly, even as the front breathes in and out nearby.
Wider ripples and the international angle
The battle for Pokrovsk is not just a local contest; it feeds into broader geopolitical currents. Kyiv warns that a Russian success here would be the most significant territorial gain for Moscow since Avdiivka—a city that fell after some of the war’s fiercest clashes. Moscow insists it continues to make meaningful advances. Meanwhile, diplomatic avenues remain cold: face-to-face peace talks have not resumed since July, despite public calls from international leaders encouraging a halt to violence.
“Wars are not only fought on the ground; they are also fought in the stories leaders tell,” said Dr. Amina Naidu, a conflict-resolution scholar. “When towns like Pokrovsk become symbols, stopping the narrative becomes as strategic as holding the rail yard.”
At the same time, strikes reported by the Russian Defence Ministry extended beyond Pokrovsk’s immediate environs—airfields, weapons repair bases, and gas infrastructure in the region were, according to Moscow, targeted to degrade Ukraine’s operational capacity. Kyiv, meanwhile, has reported halting attempts to seize Kupiansk and slowing Russian advances in several sectors, underscoring how sieges and counterattacks ripple across the wider tapestry of the conflict.
What this means for civilians
Pokrovsk’s dramatic population drop—most of its roughly 60,000 pre-war residents are gone—illustrates the human toll. Displacement reshapes communities and economies. Young people leave, older people stay. Schools become shelters. Churches become distribution centres.
“We carry what we can in two bags and a memory,” said Ihor, a volunteer from a nearby town who helps move families southward. “It’s not just furniture. It’s birth certificates, a photograph, the smell of borscht in the winter. Those are the things that teach you what you’ve lost.”
The international community watches, sometimes with muted statements, sometimes with military aid that changes the tactical calculus on the ground. But for the people living in trembling suburbs and emptied high-rises, aid and headlines are secondary to the pragmatic question of tonight’s safety.
After the dust settles—questions, not answers
What will happen if Pokrovsk falls? Will the capture open a meaningful corridor toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, or will it be another incremental, costly gain in a war of attrition? Can the international diplomatic freeze be thawed in time to prevent further urban tragedies? These are not questions with neat answers, but they are the ones local families ask as they count their water and ration their heat.
History shows that cities, even broken ones, can become symbols of resistance or trophies of conquest. Here, on the ash-scented streets of Pokrovsk, residents and soldiers alike watch and wait. They trade rumors and rations, heroism and heartbreak, in the shadow of engines and the song of distant guns. The world watches too—through briefings, through grainy footage, through the work of aid groups trying to keep living spaces habitable.
Will Pokrovsk become another forgotten ruin, or the hinge on which a new phase of the conflict swings? The answer will be decided not by statements from distant capitals but by the small, dangerous choices made on the ground—by soldiers, volunteers, and civilians who refuse to let their lives be reduced to coordinates on a map.
Accused killer of Irish man sparks disruption at court hearing
An Ordinary Errand, A Shocking Silence: The Death of John Mackey and a London Courtroom Interrupted
On a mild May morning in a north London neighborhood, an 87‑year‑old man walked to the Co‑op with a familiar, small list: cornflakes, cottage pie, a newspaper. He stopped for a kebab on the way home. Two days later he was dead. The man at the center of the unfolding legal drama, 59‑year‑old Peter Augustine, sat in the dock at the Old Bailey this week — and on at least two occasions disrupted the court, insisting aloud that he did not strike the pensioner.
The scene inside the courtroom was raw and human. Augustine, who denies charges of murder and robbery, startled proceedings by shouting from the dock: “I never hit him. I took the bag and I ran.” He left the court voluntarily and then reappeared, interrupting the prosecution’s opening statement a second time. Judge Sarah Whitehouse, presiding with a steadiness that comes from years on the bench, told him to leave.
Outside the legal technicalities, this is a story of a single, ordinary life being cut short, and of the ripple effects that flow into a family, a community, and a city. The victim was John Mackey, originally from Callan in County Kilkenny, remembered by relatives as a “true gentleman” — a phrase that seemed to hang in the air as a family member dabbed at the corner of an eye when details of his injuries were recounted in court.
The day that changed everything
According to the prosecution’s account, on 6 May Mr Mackey left his home for a short trip that most of us could imagine taking without a second thought. He never made it back. Witnesses described seeing a very aggressive assault: one person said they saw an attacker “stomping and kicking” at the vulnerable man; another said they saw him being punched. Dr Rebecca O’Connell told the court she heard someone shouting “give me the bag”.
Police found the contents of Mr Mackey’s bag at Augustine’s accommodation when they arrested him. Among the recovered items was the cottage pie — allegedly eaten. A pathologist concluded that Mr Mackey died from blunt force injuries to his head and chest two days after the attack.
Voices from the street and the court
Outside the Old Bailey, Londoners exchanged their own short takes — a neighbor who’d seen Mr Mackey at the shop said, “He always shuffled along slowly, smiling. You wouldn’t expect anyone to hurt him.” A local shopkeeper, who asked not to be named, murmured, “We talk about safety, but when it happens it feels surreal — like it belonged to someone else.”
Legal observers in the public gallery spoke of the tension between a defendant’s outcry and the measured cadence of the court. “It’s not unusual for emotions to spill over,” said an experienced criminal barrister waiting for the session to resume. “But the court must weigh evidence, not theatrics.” Augustine, the barrister added, told police in earlier proceedings that he had confessed, reportedly saying, “I don’t want bail … because I know what I did. I don’t want bail, I’m guilty.” Whether that statement will be explored in full remains to be seen.
What does this tell us about the city we live in?
When a quotidian errand results in tragedy, it forces a city to look in the mirror. London, like many global cities, wrestles with questions about street safety, care for older residents, and the strains of social isolation. Official statistics provide a backdrop: in recent years, England and Wales have seen hundreds of homicides annually, with London accounting for a disproportionate share of knife‑enabled and violent incidents in some periods. But beyond numbers, the case raises human questions: Are older people being left physically exposed by cuts to community services? Are they more vulnerable because they move more slowly, or because social networks have eroded?
“We live in a society where older people can be invisible,” said Dr Aisha Rahman, a sociologist specializing in urban ageing. “This invisibility becomes literal when services withdraw and neighborhoods lose their informal guardianship — the neighbour who knows your routine, the shopkeeper who spots a change.”
Small acts, large consequences
In court, Augustine painted a different picture: he says he only “tapped him lightly on his leg,” said “alright guv,” and walked off, thinking the man was drunk. The prosecution outlined witness testimony that suggested something far more violent. This is where juries will decide, weighing conflicting narratives. Yet the story resonates because it shows how a brief, violent encounter can irrevocably alter a life and a family.
Inside the Old Bailey, members of Mr Mackey’s family sat quietly as the injuries were described. Sobs were stifled. A niece later told reporters, “He loved his routine — simple things. The world feels emptier without him.” The grief is granular: the missing shopping trips, the empty chair at the breakfast table, the newspaper unread.
Broader reverberations: justice, prevention, compassion
As the trial continues — scheduled to last at least two weeks — it will reawaken debates about punishment, rehabilitation, and prevention. What measures can a city take to make sure elderly residents are not preyed upon? How do police, social services, and local communities collaborate to protect the most vulnerable?
Policy experts point to a mix of responses: improved street lighting and CCTV in certain hotspots, investment in community outreach and welfare checks, and better training for shop workers and emergency responders to spot elder abuse. But those are system‑level answers. On the human level, the loss of Mr Mackey reminds us of the fragile threads that bind urban life together.
“When you see an older person walking, offer a smile, a hand if they need it,” suggested Maria Flynn, who runs a local befriending charity in north London. “It’s not about moving mountains; it’s about restoring attention.”
Questions to sit with
What did you notice on your last walk through the neighborhood? When was the last time you checked in on an elderly neighbor or relative? How does a city balance freedom and safety without turning public spaces into fortresses?
These aren’t easy questions. They are, however, urgent. A life as ordinary as buying cornflakes should not be an occasion for fear. As the Old Bailey proceedings unfold, and as Londoners — and readers around the world — listen in, this case asks us to measure the cost of our shared neglect and to imagine practical acts of care that might prevent another ordinary morning from becoming another family’s heartbreak.
The trial of Peter Augustine will resume at the Old Bailey. For now, the portrait of John Mackey that emerges is modest and honest: a man who liked simple routines, who came from County Kilkenny, and who, in a city of millions, was known and loved. How we respond to that knowledge will say as much about us as the court’s eventual verdict will about him.
Former IDF lawyer arrested for leaking video of alleged abuse
The Leaked Tape, the Lawyer, and a Country Asking Itself Tougher Questions
There are mornings in Tel Aviv when the city feels like a film set — cafes steaming, buses filling with office workers, the air heavy with conversations about politics and the price of a loaf of bread. Then a headline drops and the everyday dissolves into something more urgent: an institutional scandal, a moral question, a human face at the center of a storm.
This week that face belongs to Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, once the Israeli military’s highest-ranking lawyer. She vanished for hours after announcing her resignation, only to reappear not as a defiant public figure but as a detained suspect, accused by authorities of leaking a distressing video and of a string of offences that include abuse of office and obstruction of justice, according to public reports.
“We are seeing the law bite into its own ranks,” said an ex-military prosecutor who asked not to be named. “This is not tidy. It is messy and it is necessary.”
What the Footage Showed and Why It Sparked Outrage
The footage — first aired by a major Israeli broadcaster in August 2024 — showed a scene at the Sde Teiman military base where a blindfolded detainee was surrounded by soldiers. The camera’s eye was blocked by a wall of troops and riot shields at the critical moments. Still, what emerged from the gaps, and what subsequent medical records confirmed, left almost no room for deniability.
The military later charged five reservists in relation to that incident. Prosecutors say the detainee was subjected to severe violence during a search on 5 July 2024: a sharp object was allegedly used to stab the detainee in the lower body, causing cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear. These are not abstract allegations — they are medical facts, recorded and cited in charging documents.
“When you see a human being treated like an object, it erodes the soul of a country,” said a human rights lawyer in Jerusalem. “It also triggers a legal imperative: if institutions claim to operate under the law, they must be able to show they apply that law even in wartime.”
A Leak That Reverberated
What turned this from another internal military investigation into a nationwide commotion was the leak itself. According to the resignation letter published by local media, Tomer-Yerushalmi acknowledged that her office released the video to the press during the international uproar over prisoner mistreatment. If confirmed, that admission raises thorny questions about motive, chain of custody and how accountability is handled in moments of crisis.
“Leaks like this can be protective or destructive,” said an academic who studies whistleblowing and military ethics. “They can force transparency where institutions hide, but they also risk compromising investigations and the rights of those involved.”
The Legal and Moral Rubicon
Israel’s military prosecutor’s office has publicly laid charges against the five reservists, and the case has traveled into an uneasy public space where law, warfare and conscience intersect. Complicating matters further, lawyers for some of the accused have been told that the detainee expected to testify was deported to Gaza in October, a move that could affect the prosecution’s ability to secure testimony.
At the diplomatic level, the case landed amid already fraught accusations. In October 2024, a UN commission reported that thousands of detainees had been subjected to widespread abuse in Israeli military facilities, describing some practices as potentially amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel rejected the characterization as “outrageous,” insisting it remains committed to international legal standards for detainees.
“This is where the global and the local collide,” said a former UN legal adviser. “Domestic accountability mechanisms are seen as the first line of defence against international censure. When those mechanisms appear compromised, the international community grows louder.”
Public Reaction: Protest, Pain, and Questions
On the ground, the leaked video ignited protests and sharpened public debate. Citizens in mixed cities, young reservists still in uniform and veteran activists took to the streets. For many Israelis, a difficult truth became suddenly visible: the ethical behavior of soldiers is not confined to rules of engagement; it reflects the society that sends them into conflict.
“We teach our kids to value life. We expect our institutions to hold to that,” said Sara, a Tel Aviv teacher who joined a small demonstration outside the courthouse. “If those who investigate wrongdoing are themselves implicated, where can the average citizen turn?”
What This Means for Institutions and Trust
There is an irony here that can’t be ignored: the person tasked with upholding legal standards inside the armed forces is now accused of flouting legal limits herself. Whether Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked the footage to spur corrective action or for other reasons, her arrest signals a deeper institutional crisis over transparency and the balance between secrecy for security and openness for justice.
Governments around the world wrestle with these same tensions. Democracies often rely on an independent, functioning legal system to mediate the harms of war; when that system falters, trust frays. Consider that, according to multiple human rights organizations, wartime abuses are not unique to one side in any conflict. The deterrent to such abuses is not merely policy; it is the credible prospect of accountability.
“Imagine you were detained and the only person who could stand up for you is the person investigating the investigators,” asked the academic. “Would you trust the outcome?”
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Tel Aviv court ordered that Tomer-Yerushalmi be held until a later hearing, and the military says its investigation continues. At the same time, the accused reservists face criminal proceedings tied to injuries that medical evidence suggests were serious and deliberate. The deportation of a key witness complicates the path to clarity.
Beyond the courtroom drama lies a question that will echo long after charges are read and verdicts rendered: how do societies preserve moral clarity in war without letting secrecy swallow accountability? It is a question that speaks to national character, legal architecture and, above all, to what citizens expect from those who wield force in their name.
“There are no easy answers,” said a veteran journalist who has covered the region for decades. “But if we learn anything from this episode, it should be to strengthen the channels that let truth surface — legally, safely and transparently.”
Final Thought
As you read this, ask yourself: how should a democratic state balance the imperatives of security with the demands of justice? How much secrecy is justifiable in wartime, and who watches the watchers? These questions are not abstract; they ripple through the lives of detainees, soldiers, lawyers and families on both sides of the divide. They deserve more than headlines — they deserve a sustained, honest conversation.
Madaxweyne Xasan oo ka qeyb galay caleema saarka madaxweynaha dib loo doortay ee Tanzania
Nov 03(Jowhar)-Madaxwaynaha Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya Mudane Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud ayaa maanta magaalada Dodoma ee caasamidda dalka Tanzaniya uga qaybgalay caleema-saarka Madaxwaynaha dib loo doortay ee dalkaasi, Marwo Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Daniel Day-Lewis says method acting has been unfairly misrepresented
Why Daniel Day‑Lewis Is Done with the “Method Actor” Myth
There is a particular kind of hush that falls over a film set when Daniel Day‑Lewis walks on. It is the hush of respect — and, later, of stories that grow taller with each retelling. For decades, the actor’s name has been shorthand for devotion: for living in tents on oil fields, for days spent in prison cells, for an entire life rearranged on the altar of a single role.
But in a recent conversation with The Big Issue, Day‑Lewis, 68, cut through the gossip with a quiet, incandescent anger. “I just don’t like it being misrepresented to the extent it has been,” he said, exasperated by what he called the lumping of his craft into a caricature of “lunacy.”
The headlines versus the intention
It’s easy to see how the myth took hold. The stories are cinematic: a man in a teepee on a deserted Texan oil field while making There Will Be Blood (2007), nights in a cell without food or water to inhabit Gerry Conlon for In the Name of the Father (1993). Those anecdotes stick because they glitter. But Day‑Lewis insists the glitter is the problem. “They focus on ‘oh, he lived in a jail cell for six months’… Those are the least important details,” he said. The thing that matters, he argues, is the intention: to offer colleagues “a living, breathing human being they can interact with.”
He isn’t apologizing for intensity. He’s objecting to reduction. “In all the performing arts, people find their methods as a means to an end,” he told The Big Issue, blunt and precise. “So it p***es me off this whole ‘Oh, he went full method’ thing. What the f***, you know?”
Between craft and caricature
What Day‑Lewis is railing against is a cultural shorthand that strips nuance from creative labor. Method acting — loosely traced back to Stanislavski’s system and popularized in America by Lee Strasberg and others — is a toolbox, not a prescription for self‑destruction. For some actors it’s a private rehearsal ritual, for others a public vow. But the breathless coverage often reduces it to spectacle.
“We’ve turned devotion into a horror film,” said Maria Lopez, an acting coach who’s worked in London and Madrid for twenty years. “It’s as if staying in character equals heroism or danger. That’s a fantasy. The real work is about listening, connection, impulse, and generosity.”
Across the pond, a film student in Dublin named Aiden Murphy told me he grew up on the legends: “I thought it was about endurance records—who could suffer the longest,” he laughed. “Then I watched Day‑Lewis in Lincoln and realized it wasn’t about proving anything. It was about being utterly there.”
When disciples become headlines
The Day‑Lewis aura has its ripple effects. In 2023, Succession actor Brian Cox publicly criticized Jeremy Strong’s approach to method acting, quipping that Strong was “Dan Day‑Lewis’ assistant.” The barb landed widely, and Day‑Lewis found himself linked, undeservingly, to debates about on‑set behavior and extreme immersion.
“If I thought during our work together I’d interfered with his working process, I’d be appalled,” Day‑Lewis told The Big Issue, pushing back on the implication that his methods propagated bad practice. “I don’t feel responsible in any way for that.”
The human cost and the larger conversation
As audiences, we like narratives about the artist as martyr. They fit neatly into our hunger for Shakespearean extremes: the genius who burns for their art. But there are costs to that framing. It can normalize risky behavior, obscure consent and boundaries on set, and erase the critical element Day‑Lewis emphasizes — responsibility to one’s colleagues and the work.
“Acting is not solitary heroism,” said Dr. Lena Roth, a film historian in Berlin. “It’s a relational craft. The best performers I study are generous. They offer a ground for others to react to. That’s the opposite of the myth that method equals madness.”
Statistics on how many professional actors employ method techniques vary widely; there’s no universal checklist. But industry surveys and conservatory curricula suggest a plurality of methods are in play — voice work, movement, textual analysis, improvisation, and yes, various forms of immersive preparation. The point is not which technique is ‘real’ — it’s that the diversity of approaches resists reduction to a single headline.
Why this matters beyond movie trivia
Think for a moment about broader cultural patterns: the clickbait of the 24‑hour news cycle, the appetite for scandal, and our tendency to elevate extremes. Combine those with celebrity culture and you have the perfect engine for a myth to accelerate. But myths have consequences. They shape how we teach, how productions manage safety and consent, and how young practitioners imagine their path.
“There’s a moral I see emerging,” Lopez said. “We need to teach craft with ethics. How far you go should be negotiated, consensual, and reversible. That’s what keeps an industry healthy.”
Back in the room — the work that lasted
Daniel Day‑Lewis’s cv is spectacular not only for the intensity of his approach but for its results: three Academy Awards for Best Actor (1990 for My Left Foot, 2008 for There Will Be Blood and 2013 for Lincoln), making him the only man to win three Best Actor Oscars — a record he shares in spirit with very few names in acting lore.
He stunned audiences with Christy Brown’s fragile triumphs in My Left Foot, sculpted a terrifying portrait of capitalism in There Will Be Blood, and exuded quiet moral weight in Spielberg’s Lincoln. And yet, after a brief retirement announced — and later described by Day‑Lewis as “ill‑advised” — he returned last year to star in Anemone, a psychological drama directed by his son Ronan. The move reminded people that art can be a conversation across generations, not just a solitary rite.
What should we take away?
So what are we to believe when headlines tell us an actor “went full method”? Perhaps the better question is: what do we want to believe about the nature of art? Do we prefer gladiatorial endurance, or the quieter, tougher work of listening and giving space?
Day‑Lewis’s frustration is a useful prod. It asks us to slow down, to read past the anecdote, and to consider the ethics and craft behind a performance. It asks us to honor the labor without fetishizing the pain.
“I choose to stay and splash around, rather than jump in and out or play practical jokes with whoopee cushions between takes,” he told The Big Issue, offering an oddly charming image of how he prefers to inhabit a role. “It’s with the intention of freeing yourself so you present your colleagues with a living, breathing human being they can interact with. It’s very simple.”
Simple, perhaps — but not simple-minded. As consumers of culture, we can demand nuance. We can celebrate dedication without glamorizing harm. We can admire Day‑Lewis for his craft without mistaking method for madness.
What kind of stories about art do you want fed to the next generation — the mythic or the humane? The choice shapes what the stage, the set, and the culture will look like tomorrow.
Supreme Court to hear challenge to U.S. president’s tariff measures
In the Halls of Power: A Courtroom Fight That Could Redraw the Map of Global Trade
The marble of the Supreme Court seems colder in autumn. It holds light differently, catching the weight of decisions that ripple far beyond the city streets of Washington — into factories in the Midwest, into ports on the Pacific, and into family kitchens where the price of everyday goods is quietly tallied.
At its center now is a question that reads simple on paper and vast in consequence: can a president, invoking emergency economic powers, layer sweeping tariffs on imports from around the world? Or did those powers cross a line written to keep such sweeping economic change in the hands of Congress?
From White House edicts to the bench
The tariffs were rolled out quickly and with a flourish that matched the administration’s rhetoric. They were billed as “reciprocal” — a tit-for-tat measure meant to punish trading partners deemed to be undermining American industry and to coax better deals from negotiating tables. They targeted the nation’s largest trading partners and, in some cases, broad categories of imports from numerous countries.
But speed invites scrutiny. Legal challenges followed in short order. A lower court in May found the measures overstepped executive authority, a judgment that sent tremors through Washington and trading floors at once. The administration appealed and won a temporary stay that kept the levies in place while the case climbed the judicial ladder. Then, in August, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a 7–4 ruling echoing the lower court: the duties were illegal. That set the stage for the highest tribunal in the land to weigh in.
Why the case matters — beyond lawyers and law books
At stake is more than legal doctrine. The Supreme Court’s decision, whenever it lands, will determine who gets to steer the ship of U.S. trade policy in times of perceived economic emergency.
- Billions of dollars in customs revenue — already collected under the contested tariffs — hang in the balance.
- The ruling could either curtail or empower a president’s ability to use tariffs as bargaining chips in negotiations, shaping everything from bilateral deals to global supply chains.
- And it will send a signal to foreign governments and multinational corporations about whether Washington will wield unilateral economic tools as a routine instrument of statecraft.
“This isn’t just a legal tussle,” said Miriam Alvarez, a trade lawyer in San Diego. “It’s about who decides the rules for our economy: Congress, representing the people, or a single executive. If the Court blesses broad emergency tariffs, we could see a new normal in trade policymaking.”
Voices from the ground — factories, fields, and shopfronts
Walk past the docks of Long Beach on a grey morning and you can hear how the argument plays out in ordinary lives. Containers bubble with goods headed to shelf and assembly line alike. Importers watch customs notices like weather reports.
“Our margins are already thin,” said Asha Patel, who runs an electronics distribution company. “A sudden tariff can be the difference between running payroll and shutting a warehouse. We don’t have months to adapt. Supply chains move on weeks, not Twitter threads.”
In the Rust Belt, where the political rhetoric that birthed these measures has deep roots, the mood is not uniform. At a diner outside Cleveland, a line cook named Ben shrugged and said, “If it helps bring work back, I’ll take higher prices for a while.” But across town, a small auto-parts supplier fretted: “We rely on microchips and metal parts that come from abroad. Tariffs can break these fragile links.” The tension is emblematic — protection for some may be disruption for others.
What the judges are weighing
Constitutional scholars point to a knot of competing principles. On one side is the need for executive agility in economic emergencies — a capacity to act quickly when national industries are threatened. On the other is a constitutional design that reserves broad legislative authority for Congress, whose power to levy tariffs and regulate commerce is explicit.
“Courts have historically been wary of delegations of core policy power without clear congressional guidance,” explained Professor Daniel Kim, a constitutional law expert. “The question here is whether statutes that allow emergency tariffs were meant to permit the sweeping measures we saw, or whether they required a narrower, more defined exercise of power.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority adds another layer of uncertainty. Some justices are often skeptical of expansive federal power, but others value executive flexibility in national security and economic matters. The balance — and the written opinions that accompany the decision — will be dissected by policymakers and markets alike.
Wider ripples: geopolitics, supply chains and the global economy
Imagine a domino falling in Shanghai and landing in Stuttgart. Tariffs, by their nature, cross borders. Global value chains, already reshaped in the past decade by technology, pandemics and geopolitics, could be nudged again by the Court’s ruling.
Trade flows are enormous. The United States imports and exports goods and services worth trillions annually. Even a small change to policy can shift investment decisions, reroute manufacturing, and affect consumers’ wallets. Economists warn that tariff volatility can disincentivize long-term investments and encourage firms to hold more inventory — a cost passed to consumers.
“Companies plan on predictability,” said Linh Nguyen, a supply-chain analyst. “Unexpected tariffs create a tax on planning and on international cooperation. If the Court validates sweeping emergency tariffs, companies will have to factor that political risk into every cross-border contract.”
What outcomes are possible?
- The Court could rule the tariffs illegal, effectively aligning with the lower courts and curtailing the executive’s latitude.
- It could uphold the president’s actions, giving future administrations broader authority to impose similar levies.
- Or it could craft a middle-ground ruling, limiting the scope of emergency tariffs while preserving certain narrow authorities.
Each outcome carries economic and political currents. If the Court strikes the levies down, affected countries and firms may push for compensation or renegotiation. If the levies stand, expect new strategies: suppliers moving operations, trade partners retaliating, or businesses recalculating cost structures.
Questions to sit with
As a global audience, ask yourself: who should hold the economic levers in an interconnected era? Do crises justify extraordinary presidential power, or do they demand more democratic oversight? How do we balance the desire to protect industries with the need to keep markets stable and predictable?
Ultimately, this case is less about one president and more about the architecture of power in a world where economic levers can be as consequential as military ones. The Supreme Court will not just decide on a set of tariffs. It will help draw the boundary lines of American economic governance for years to come.
“We’re watching a constitutional tectonic shift,” said Professor Kim. “The aftershocks will be felt where people buy goods, where factories decide to build, and where governments negotiate.”
Whatever the Court decides, the effects will be lived in small and large ways — in the diner on a cold morning, in a port unloading a container, in the ledger of a midwest manufacturer. And in those everyday spaces, the abstract contours of power become sharply, personally real.
Air India crash survivor says “I’m alive” — calls escape a “miracle”
Alive but shattered: the sole survivor of Ahmedabad’s Air India crash speaks of loss, flashbacks and a family unravelled
When I met Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, he wore a New York Yankees cap tilted low, the brim shading eyes that had learned how to look and not be looked at. It was an ordinary American baseball cap, except that it had become, in the months since a June morning uprooted everything, a talisman of sorrow — his brother Ajay had worn the same hat on the doomed flight that killed 241 people. For Vishwash, the cap is more than cloth. It is a small, stubborn way to keep his brother close.
“God gave me life but took all my happiness,” he told me, voice thin and steady as if he had practised how to say unbearable things out loud. “I survived — that, yes, is a miracle. But my life, our life… my family has been completely brought down.”
A city scarred, a family undone
The crash of Air India flight AI171 — a Boeing 787 Dreamliner — on 12 June near Ahmedabad Airport has become a wound felt across continents. Of the 241 people on board, only Vishwash survived. The death toll included 169 Indian passengers and 52 British nationals, making this tragedy one of the deadliest ever in terms of British lives lost. Nineteen people on the ground also perished and 67 suffered serious injuries.
- Date: 12 June
- Flight: Air India AI171, Boeing 787 Dreamliner
- On-board fatalities: 241 (169 Indian, 52 British)
- On-ground fatalities: 19
- Serious injuries on ground: 67
Ahmedabad’s skyline — a city famed for its textile history, intricately carved pols and the warm, spiced aroma of street-side snacks — now holds a scar: a medical college where the aircraft came down. Locals still point, not with the curiosity of long-ago tragedies but with the slow, stunned gestures of people who carry knowledge that time cannot easily un-write.
“I get flashbacks all the time”
Trauma has a grammar of its own. For Vishwash it is sleeplessness — three or four hours a night — and a replay that will not be shut off. “I stay awake, sitting alone in my room,” he said. “I don’t talk much. I just sit on my bed and think.”
He has not, his advisers tell me, been able to speak in any depth with close family about the crash. Even among those who have gathered round — an extended web of uncles, cousins and close friends — the grief is so large it changes how people breathe. “My mother, father and younger brother totally broke down,” he said, voice cracking on the last word. “Every day I’m struggling.”
Vishwash’s advisers, Sanjiv Patel and Radd Seiger, have been vocal about how the survivor has been treated in the months since. “At times it feels like he’s been reduced to a file,” Patel said. “There’s grief you can measure in condolence letters and there’s grief that needs human hands. We’re not seeing enough of the latter.”
Paper promises, human consequences
Air India and its parent, the Tata Group, insist that care for survivors and families remains a priority. An interim payment has been transferred to Vishwash, and airline spokespeople say senior leaders have visited families and offered to meet with representatives. “We remain deeply conscious of our responsibility,” a company statement read, noting that compassion and support for all affected was ongoing.
Yet the feeling on the ground — in Leicester, where a significant Gujarati diaspora gathers, and in Ahmedabad, where relatives still mark the days that will not be forgotten — is of promises that have run out of elasticity. “We are sitting next to the sole survivor of this major airline crash, and as far as I can make out, he is being treated like a number on a spreadsheet,” Seiger told me. “You get one chance after a disaster to do the right thing. It’s not too late, but time is not infinite.”
Questions about why it happened
Official investigators in India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau produced a preliminary report noting that both fuel control switches moved to the “cut-off” position immediately after take-off, stopping fuel supply to the engine. That fact — stark and technical — has prompted urgent and painful questions about whether the crash could have been deliberate.
“When mechanical actions occur that lead to catastrophic outcomes, investigators have to consider every angle, including human factors,” said Dr. Kavita Sharma, an aviation safety expert who consults with international regulators. “But technical clues need to be handled slowly and with rigor. People’s lives depend on getting it right.”
Small details: a hat, a name, a memory
The cap Vishwash wears is small consolation, but it is emblematic of how families try to stitch together continuity when the tapestry has been torn. In Leicester, friends set up an informal support group, sharing meals and sitting with Vishwash when the nights get long. A community prayer was held in a small hall; bowls of khichdi and cups of sweet chai were offered to visitors, gestures that say, in Gujarati, you are not alone.
“In our culture we mourn together,” said Meena Desai, a family friend who helped organise support. “We hold hands. When that doesn’t happen properly — when institutions don’t reach — people feel abandoned.”
Why should you care? Why should this matter beyond Ahmedabad and Leicester?
Because this tragedy sits at the intersection of issues that touch many readers: the global movement of people and the fragile threads that tie diasporas to their homelands; corporate accountability when disasters strike; the mental health fallout that lingers long after headline cycles move on; and the painstaking, sometimes agonising work of figuring out how and why an aircraft — a modern miracle of engineering — came down.
And because grief like Vishwash’s does not respect borders. The dead included scores of British nationals; the survivor lives in the UK; the crash occurred in India. In an increasingly interconnected world, disasters ripple outward quickly — in bank transfers delayed or made, in calls unanswered, in meetings postponed and apologies that arrive too late.
What now?
Investigators will continue their work. Legal claims, compensation negotiations and community support will proceed in fits and starts. But for now, the immediate task is human: to listen better, to sit with survivors and families, and to treat people not as dossiers but as people who need presence, not only papers.
“He survived,” Patel said, looking directly at me. “But surviving is not the end of the story. What happens next — how we walk with him through this — will show us who we are.”
So I ask you, reader: if a friend or neighbour came to you carrying a grief so vast it had no roof to shelter it, what would you do? Hold them close? Offer coffee? Insist the authorities do better? The answers we give, individually and collectively, will shape the contours of recovery — long after investigations close and headlines fade.
RW Xamze oo amar dul-dhigay madaxda hay’ada NIRA
Nov 03(Jowhar)-Ra’iisul Wasaaraha Xukuumadda Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya Mudane Xamze Cabdi Barre ayaa Kormeer degdeg ah ku tagay mid ka mid ah Xarumaha laga bixiyo Kaarka aqoonsiga Qaranka {NIRA} oo ku taala degmada Hodan ee gobolka Banaadir, isagoo faray madaxda hay’adda in dadka loo fududeeyo bixinta adeegga.
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