UN: Wildfires are brewing a toxic cocktail of air pollution

September 7, 2025

Wildfires producing 'witches' brew' of air pollution - UN — A view of the Madrid skyline and Madrid airport during sunset last month, when Spain and Portugal experianced unprecedented wildfires

When the sky goes on a journey

Some mornings the light in my city turned the color of steeped tea. The sun rose, but it wasn’t warm—it was filtered through a haze that made faces softer and thoughts narrower. Children in schoolyards coughed; laundry dried with a faint film of soot that flaked off onto the balcony rail.

We were not living next to a factory or a coal plant. The smoke, when traced back, came from places thousands of kilometres away: fires in boreal forests, peat burning in tropical basins, farmers setting fields alight after harvest.

That is the unnerving truth the World Meteorological Organization laid out this year in its fifth Air Quality and Climate Bulletin: air pollution does not respect borders. When wildfires ignite, they create a moving, complex cloud of particles and gases that can travel across continents, changing the air you breathe in ways that are immediate and dangerous.

A witches’ brew on the winds

Wildfire smoke is not a single ingredient. It is a shifting cocktail of soot, organic carbon, volatile organic compounds and chemical fragments that react in the atmosphere. Scientists call many of these particles “aerosols.” Some reflect sunlight; some absorb it. Some seed clouds; others accelerate melting on distant glaciers when dark carbon settles on snow.

“What leaves the pyre is a witches’ brew,” said Lorenzo Labrador, a WMO scientific officer who coordinated this year’s bulletin. “Those components can travel, mix, age, and then arrive in valleys and cities hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.”

The most dangerous of those particles are PM2.5—particulate matter finer than 2.5 micrometres. They slip past the body’s defenses, embedding deep in lungs and entering the bloodstream. The World Health Organization links outdoor air pollution to more than 4.5 million premature deaths each year. The 2021 WHO air quality guideline now recommends an annual PM2.5 exposure of 5 micrograms per cubic metre or less—levels most of the world still struggles to meet.

Where the numbers spiked in 2024

The WMO bulletin mapped places where wildfire seasons pushed PM2.5 above seasonal norms in 2024: Canada’s forests, Russia’s Siberia, pockets of central Africa—and most dramatically, the Amazon basin. Smoke episodes from Canada even left a fingerprint on European air quality in certain meteorological setups. The message is blunt: a fire that ignites in one hemisphere can darken skies in another.

Voices from the frontlines

“We wake up and our throats are raw. My grandson’s asthma has become worse during these months,” said Rita Singh, 62, who farms rice and wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. She described mornings when a persistent fog sits low over the fields, not merely a seasonal mist but a pall augmented by burning crop residue and household smoke.

On the other side of the globe, Aleksandr Petrov, a volunteer firefighter in Siberia, recalled hands blistered by heat and lungs made sore by ash. “You carry a smell with you for days,” he said. “Even in the village house, the curtains smell of smoke. We know the forests will grow back. The people do not have that patience.”

Dr. Maya Chen, an air-quality researcher at a university in Singapore, explained the science in plain terms: “When you have prolonged heat and drought—driven by climate change—fuels dry out. Fires are bigger, they burn hotter and longer, and they loft particles much higher into the atmosphere where winds can take them far.”

The human and economic toll

Air pollution is more than an abstract statistic. It is missed school and work days; it is births complicated by maternal exposure; it is harvests shorn by reduced sunlight and crops coated in ash. The economic ripples are enormous—lost wages, extra healthcare costs, and reduced labor productivity. Global assessments suggest the welfare and productivity losses from air pollution run into the hundreds of billions annually, if not more.

On the Indo-Gangetic Plain, where over 900 million people live, winter fog episodes laced with PM2.5 are becoming longer and more persistent—partly because millions of tonnes of agricultural residue are burned each year. “This fog is no longer just weather,” the WMO warned. “It is a symptom.”

What works—and why isolated fixes aren’t enough

The story is not all bleak. Eastern China, for instance, has seen sustained declines in PM2.5 in recent years thanks to a mix of regulations, cleaner fuels, and industrial controls. Paolo Laj, the WMO’s global atmosphere chief, pointed out that when countries commit to air quality strategies, the atmosphere records the change.

“Take a decade-long view,” Laj said. “Cities that regulate, switch to cleaner heating, and invest in monitoring see tangible improvements.”

Yet there is no single silver bullet. Switching to electric cars helps in urban centres, but it doesn’t stop a wildfire on a distant continent from pushing PM2.5 into your city. Cutting coal is necessary for climate and local pollution, but massive wildfire seasons—aggravated by heat and drought—require land management, firefighting investment, and cross-border cooperation.

Practical levers for change

Build dense monitoring networks—satellite data helps, but ground stations capture the health-relevant details.
Reduce routine agricultural burning by offering alternatives—mechanization, incentivized residue management, and market-based disposal.
Strengthen early warning and air-quality alerts so schools can plan recess and cities can limit outdoor exposure during peaks.
Address black carbon specifically—reducing short-lived climate pollutants protects both health and ice sheets.
Invest in community health responses—clean cookstoves, masks distribution during peaks, and access to care.

Beyond borders: why this should matter to everyone

Ask yourself: what is the value of a blue sky? To many of us, it is aesthetic. To billions, it is life. This is a global issue because climate change lengthens fire seasons and makes extreme heat and drought more likely. It is a public health issue because PM2.5 is a silent killer. It is a social justice issue because the burden falls hardest on those who can least afford air purifiers and healthcare—children, outdoor workers, older adults and low-income communities.

There are moral and practical reasons for nations to cooperate more deeply. A soot-laden plume drifting from Canada across the Atlantic is a reminder that our atmospheric commons needs stewardship as much as any river or ocean.

Where we go from here

Somewhere between the farmer burning stubble to clear a field and the policymaker drafting emissions rules, there is an opportunity for new thinking—and for old habits to be reframed. Technology can help. Better weather forecasting, coupled with targeted advisories and international data sharing, can limit harm. Financial tools can smooth transitions for farmers and support reforestation rather than repeated combustion.

“We have examples where policy works,” Dr. Chen said. “Now we need scale and political will. People notice when the air clears; they demand action. That is how change happens.”

So what will you do when the sky turns brown where you live? Will you ask your leaders whether their air-quality plans consider distant fires as well as local emissions? Will communities push for incentives that keep fields from burning and invest in early-warning systems? The air is a daily commons—it carries our breath, our business, our future. Treating it as such may be the most practical form of solidarity we can muster.

Reform UK’s momentum keeps building, as support continues to rise

hanad

September 7, 2025

Reform UK has momentum and it continues to build — Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, at its annual party conference in Birmingham, UK

Theatrics at the NEC: Politics as Prime-Time

On a damp Birmingham morning, the National Exhibition Centre—the glass-and-concrete cathedral for conferences of every stripe—was buzzing like a festival ground rather than a political assembly.

Stalls hawked turquoise jerseys, enamel badges and glossy leaflets while conference-goers queued for coffee beneath banners that unfurled the party slogan in bold type: Make Britain Great Again. Sparks of staged pyrotechnics and strobe lights threw the hall into moments of wrestling-arena drama as speakers strode onstage to pulse-pounding music.

Jeremy Kyle, known to many as a television provocateur, prowled the aisles in the new role of roving reporter, his microphone prodding delegates and party heavies alike. He was one of the weekend’s most literal reminders that this was as much a media event as a policy convention—a show designed to be filmed, clipped and shared.

Song, Sequins and a Singing Mayor

There were lighter, stranger moments too. Andrea Jenkyns—recently elected Mayor of Lincolnshire—took the stage in a glittering sequin jumpsuit and sang a song called “Insomnia,” which she co-wrote two decades ago. Not everyone in the crowd rose to their feet in applause for the vocal performance, but the sight of a local mayor closing a political conference with a rendition of the national anthem felt like a deliberate recalibration of how politics can be staged.

“It was bonkers,” said one delegate, an exhausted but smiling man from Stoke. “You come for speeches, you get a pop concert and a singalong. That’s politics now—if you can’t get people’s attention, you’re not speaking to them.”

Showmanship Meets Messaging

If there was a theme to the weekend, it was that Reform UK has embraced spectacle as a tool. The turquoise jerseys—selling briskly—were intentional theater: a visual shorthand that recalled the red MAGA caps of America’s populist moment. It was an aesthetic choice with a political message; style here is policy-adjacent.

“It’s about creating an identity,” a campaign strategist said, asking not to be named. “You make a brand people can wear, and they do your thinking for you on the train home.”

Discipline, Discord and a Return to the Fold

But underneath the glitter, the conference also exposed the cleavage between brand and governance. Party leader Nigel Farage used his closing speech to remind members that, for all the razzmatazz, discipline matters. It was a pointed note after a year in which the party weathered public rows with former insiders—most memorably a fallout with ex-chair Zia Yusuf and public spats that spilled onto social media.

Mr Yusuf, who had publicly criticized a parliamentary intervention by the party’s Sarah Pochin, later returned to take a leading policy role. The episode, observers say, is emblematic of a party still trying to reconcile insurgent energy with the day-to-day business of political management.

“You can’t run a movement like a band,” a former local councillor grumbled. “At some point someone has to do the boring, hard graft of policy and compromise. Otherwise it’s just noise.”

Policy, Promises and the Limits of Spectacle

The weekend also revived controversial policy headlines. The party’s pledge to deport up to 600,000 asylum seekers—an idea that would require leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, its backers say—remains a flashpoint. Critics point out that the ECHR is a core element of the Good Friday Agreement: removing the UK from the convention would have implications for peace arrangements in Northern Ireland and require complex renegotiation.

“Sovereignty talk without logistics is fantasy,” said Dr. Amina Hassan, a lecturer in international law. “Rights conventions are enmeshed in treaties across borders. You can’t just sign out of one document and expect the rest of the architecture to stand unscathed.”

When questioned, Mr Farage insisted the policy was workable, arguing the ECHR clause had been “tacked on” and would not derail peace accords. Opponents retorted that such assurance underestimates legal pathways, diplomatic consequences, and the practicalities of mass removals.

Immigration, Welfare and Fractured Lines

Inside the conference, voices were not monolithic. Sarah Pochin, one of the party’s MPs, told reporters she personally favors a policy that would limit access to benefits and NHS care for recent arrivals—a stance she acknowledged was not yet party doctrine. “If we’re serious about fairness, you have to start with residency,” she said in a conversation clearly meant for cameras.

These internal debates are signs of a party still constructing its playbook: bold headlines on the one hand, messy debates on the practical mechanics on the other.

Momentum, Money and the Lobbyists

Attendees noted an unusually robust presence of lobbyists and former Conservative operatives. “You wouldn’t see this at the Lib Dems,” one veteran of dozens of conferences observed. It’s a telling barometer: where money and influence shadow an event, people infer electability.

Some polls have suggested that Reform UK has been polling strongly in recent months—often cited figures place the party around 30% in certain national surveys since last year’s local elections—prompting nervous glances from Westminster. Whether that momentum can be sustained, and whether it translates into the concentrated support needed to form a government, are open questions.

Defections, Alliances and the Long Chess Game

High-profile defections—such as former Conservative ministers and aides flirting with the party—feed fears that Reform could become a de facto home for disaffected Tories. Nadine Dorries’ recent move and the presence of people like Jacob Rees-Mogg at fringe events underline a porous political landscape. “Politics is about coalitions,” the Rees-Moggs’ presence seemed to declare to anyone willing to read it.

But there is a paradox: absorbing more mainstream defectors risks diluting the insurgent identity that fuels Reform’s energy. If the party becomes seen merely as an offshoot of the Conservatives, it may lose its distinct appeal.

What Does This Mean for Britain—and for Us?

At the NEC, there was an unquestionable verve. Thousands left with new jerseys, brochures and a sense that they had witnessed something consequential. Yet spectacle is not governance. Glitter doesn’t draft legislation. Singalongs don’t negotiate treaties.

So ask yourself: are you drawn to politics that entertains or politics that deliberates? Is it comfort or competence you want in the places where policy meets people’s lives?

As Britain heads toward future elections, this conference may be remembered as the moment Reform UK graduated from insurgent movement to institutional contender. Or it may be seen as a high-water mark of performance politics—a clever, combustible mix of image, anger and improvisation that peaks before the hard reality of administration arrives.

“Momentum is fragile,” a campaign analyst said as the lights came down. “You can ride a wave of discontent—and sometimes that’s enough. But waves crash, and then you have to build a harbor.”

For now, the turquoise jerseys will take their place in cupboards across the country. The bigger questions—about policy coherence, international obligations, and the trade-offs between theatricality and governance—remain unresolved. And that uncertainty is where the real story lies.

Russian strikes on Ukraine kill three, including a child

hanad

September 7, 2025

Child among three killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine — The aftermath of a Russian drone attack on a residential building in Odesa

Smoke over Pecherskyi: A Morning When the City Held Its Breath

When dawn broke over Kyiv, the skyline was not the familiar silhouette of cupolas and cranes but a ribbon of smoke stitching itself into the pale sky. It rose from the heart of the city — the government quarter in Pecherskyi — and from residential blocks far from the gilded domes, where ordinary life had been abruptly interrupted by an overnight barrage of drones and missiles.

Three people were killed, officials said: an infant, a young woman, and an elderly woman sheltering in the Darnytskyi district on the east bank of the Dnipro. Eighteen others were wounded, and scores of buildings — apartments, high-rises and the very seat of municipal power — smoldered or bore the jagged scars of impact.

A child among the casualties

“An entire family’s life collapsed in the span of a few minutes,” said a woman who declined to give her name, standing outside a temporary aid station where volunteers wrapped blankets around survivors. “There was a baby. A life that hadn’t even begun. How do you sleep after that happens?”

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on Telegram that a fire had broken out at the government building in the city centre after an attack that began with drones and was followed by missile strikes. Reuters journalists and witnesses saw thick black smoke billowing from the building in the Pecherskyi district, the smoke threading across the city as if to remind everyone below of the fragility of normalcy.

Neighborhoods scarred: Pecherskyi, Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi

In Darnytskyi, state emergency officials described a residential building where two of its four stories were on fire and structural parts had been destroyed. In the western Sviatoshynskyi district, several floors of a nine-storey residential block were partially collapsed. Drone debris, they said, set further fires in a 16-storey building and in two more nine-storey apartments.

“The walls have been blackened, but the worst is the silence of the neighbours who no longer answer their doors,” said Ihor, a shopkeeper from Sviatoshynskyi who spent the morning salvaging what he could from his store. “You don’t plan for this. You never imagine your life will be split between ‘before’ and ‘after’ like a seam ripped open.”

Scenes from the city

Photos circulating from emergency services showed facades crumbled, stairwells exposed to the sky and smoke pouring out of shattered windows — images that mirror, in hundreds of cities across Ukraine, the human cost of modern, urban warfare. Fire crews in fluorescent jackets navigated rubble as neighbours handed over water and warm coats. Volunteers set up cots in school gyms. Churches opened doors to those seeking quiet and shelter, another familiar tableau from the war’s long months.

Beyond Kyiv: ripples across the country

The strikes were not confined to the capital. Explosions rattled Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, cutting power to parts of the city; Odesa in the south reported damaged civilian infrastructure and fires in apartment blocks; Kryvyi Rih saw attacks targeting transport and urban infrastructure, officials said — although, in that case, no injuries were immediately reported.

“This is not just about damaged buildings,” said Marina Petrenko, a volunteer with a regional aid network. “When a transport hub, a school or an apartment block is hit, it fractures the web of everyday life. The elderly lose access to pharmacies. Parents lose access to childcare. The ripple effects are enormous.”

The tactics: drones, missiles, and civilian spaces

What began as a cascade of small, unmanned drones — the kind of weapon that has repeatedly blurred the line between battlefield and backyard — was followed by heavier missile strikes. Officials in Kyiv accused the attackers of intentionally striking civilian targets; Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, wrote on Telegram that Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets.”

Whether launched to hit military or logistical nodes or to terrorize, the effect is often the same: civilian spaces become targets, making ordinary routines — walking to the store, taking a child to school, sleeping — fraught with danger.

Why drones matter

Drones have become a grim protagonist in this conflict. Small, relatively cheap and increasingly sophisticated, they can evade traditional air defences and strike with a precision that is maddening in its potential for harm. Across Ukraine, as of mid-2024 and into 2025, militaries on both sides have adapted to this new normal: layered air defences, mobile interceptors, and constant civilian alerts.

“We’re fighting a war where the sky is no longer a benign space,” said a military analyst who researches aerial threats and asked not to be named for security reasons. “Drones lower the threshold for damage, and when used in series they can saturate defences and inflict both material and psychological damage.”

Human cost and the wider picture

Three people killed, eighteen injured. These are numbers recorded on paper, but each digit represents a family, a set of routines upended, and a neighborhood that now has an empty place at table. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war has caused widespread loss: millions displaced internally and abroad, billions in infrastructure damage, and a toll on civilian life that is not fully captured by casualty tallies alone.

“If you walk through Kyiv today, the cost isn’t just the blackened walls,” said Dr. Olena Hrynenko, a psychologist working with trauma survivors. “It’s the mistrust, the sleepless children, the grandparents who no longer dare to walk to the market. Recovery will take years — perhaps a generation — and the healing work has to begin now, even as the war continues.”

International echoes

With western Ukraine under threat, Poland activated its own and allied aircraft to ensure air safety, according to the operational command of the Polish armed forces — a reminder that the conflict’s shocks reverberate beyond Ukraine’s borders. Governments and international bodies continue to juggle diplomatic pressure, sanctions, military aid, and humanitarian assistance, even as the violence reshapes neighborhoods and national conversations about security.

What does resilience look like?

Amid the rubble and alarm, ordinary acts of kindness persist. Volunteers ferry medicines across checkpoints. A bakery in Sviatoshynskyi handed out loaves for free to those queuing at the temporary shelters. Strangers shared their powerbanks. In a country used to defying the shock of each fresh assault, small rituals of solidarity have become, paradoxically, the architecture of endurance.

“We cannot let this define us,” said a young teacher who spent the morning registering displaced children at a makeshift classroom. “There will be mourning, yes. There will be anger. But there must also be school, there must be birthdays, there must be bread. That is how we keep our humanity.”

Questions to sit with

As you read this from wherever you are in the world, consider: what does it mean when civilian spaces are no longer safe? How should communities and governments balance immediate protection with long-term recovery? And what role do global actors play when the lines between military targets and everyday life blur?

These are not rhetorical exercises. They are the contours of policy, aid and empathy that will shape what comes next — for Kyiv, for Ukraine, and for any city that learns in the hard way that the modern battlefield reaches into living rooms and nursery rooms alike.

For now, Kyiv holds its breath and then exhales in small, stubborn acts: a bowl of soup shared on a cold stairwell, a firefighter going back into the smoke, a volunteer sewing warm hats for children who woke up to ash on their lips. The headlines will say “attacks” and “tally”; the city knows the softer, more painful ledger by heart.

British police arrest 425 protesters during Palestine Action demonstration

hanad

September 7, 2025

UK police arrest 425 people in Palestine Action protest — Police officers were deployed during a mass demonstration in Parliament Square against the ban on Palestine Action in London

Westminster at a Crossroads: When Protest Becomes a Crime

It was the kind of London afternoon that pins memory to place: a gray, indifferent sky, the Parliament buildings towering like an old argument, and the river running its patient course. But beneath that familiar backdrop, voices rose loud and uneven—chants, the slap of footsteps, the rustle of cardboard placards. “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” read one sign, raw with felt-tip urgency. Within hours, police fences tightened, squads pushed forward, and by the day’s end more than 425 people lay detained, cuffed and ushered into police vans. The Metropolitan Police confirmed the figure late last night.

A crowd, a slogan, a ban

On paper the scene was deceptively simple: a demonstration in front of the Houses of Parliament. In reality it was a collision of law and conscience. The group at the heart of the controversy, Palestine Action, was proscribed under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 earlier this year following a string of high-profile vandalism incidents—among them damage to a Royal Air Force base that authorities estimate cost roughly £7 million.

The ban makes it an offense to “support” or “encourage support” for the organisation. That legal framing has turned routine protest into a potential criminal act. According to Metropolitan Police briefings, “the majority of these arrests were made for supporting a proscribed organisation.” Before yesterday, police had already arrested more than 800 people in connection with Palestine Action activity; 138 of those had been formally charged.

On the ground: voices from the crowd

The human geography of the protest was immediate and varied. There were retirees who came with conviction and carefully folded placards; students who had sprinted out of lectures; fathers who had brought children, who watched with wide, baffled eyes as lines of officers moved in. I spoke with Polly Smith, 74—an erstwhile school librarian who calls herself a “professional protestor” and would not be drawn into cliché. “These people are not terrorists,” she said, breath visible in the cold air. “If saying ‘stop killing civilians’ is terrorism, then what does that make the rest of us?”

Nigel, 62, who runs a small recycling company and declined to give his surname, echoed the sentiment. “The ban feels totally inappropriate,” he told me as officers approached. “They should be spending their time trying to stop genocide, not trying to stop protesters.” Minutes later he was among those taken away.

Not everyone at the march was resolutely peaceful. Skirmishes broke out as some demonstrators tried to prevent arrests. The Met said more than 25 people were detained for alleged assaults on police officers and other public order offenses. “Our officers were subjected to intolerable abuse,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Claire Smart later said, describing incidents of punching, kicking and spitting. “We will not tolerate violence against police or the public.”

What was at stake

For many of the protesters, the march was less about one group than about a principle: the right to speak, assemble and call attention to suffering overseas. Around the square there were conversations in Arabic, English, French—people trading stories of relatives in Gaza, of friends who had fled. A teacher I met, Aisha Hassan, wore a keffiyeh and carried homemade leaflets listing casualty figures from Gaza. “We’re not here to vandalize; we’re here to witness,” she said. “If our only recourse is to stand and be heard, then we will.”

Legal lines, moral questions

The government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action has sparked a broader debate that resonates far beyond Westminster. Rights organisations—including Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the UN human rights office—have criticized the ban as disproportionate and a threat to free expression. “Proscribing campaigning groups for their views—and for the tactics of some—is a dangerous escalation,” an Amnesty spokesperson said in a statement. “It risks criminalising legitimate protest.”

On the other side, officials argue that the state must draw boundaries where protest becomes direct action that risks public safety or targeted damage. The government has been granted permission to appeal a judicial decision that allowed one of Palestine Action’s co-founders, Huda Ammori, to challenge the ban in court.

If convicted of supporting a proscribed organisation, most defendants face up to six months in jail. Those found guilty of organising or orchestrating activities tied to the group could face sentences of up to 14 years—penalties that critics say are crushingly disproportionate for political expression.

Bigger currents: global protests and national security

This is not just a London story. Around the world, governments are balancing three competing pressures: preserving public safety, preventing violent or destructive acts, and protecting the democratic right to dissent. In the age of viral footage and fast-moving movements, the line between civil disobedience and illegal action often blurs in public perception and on legal textbooks alike.

Just yesterday, thousands of other Londoners marched in separate pro-Palestinian demonstrations elsewhere in the capital—while, simultaneously, Israel launched new strikes on Gaza, saying it intended to seize Gaza City in operations it framed as necessary to defeat Hamas. The war next door, and the images on social media, feed the urgency here. For many protesters, a legal ban at home feels like another layer of displacement—their voices restricted when they most want to be heard.

Questions for us all

What should a democratic state do when activism crosses into property damage? Where should the line be drawn between security and censorship? And perhaps most urgently: how do we create spaces where people can grieve and protest without risking criminal sanction?

When I asked a young woman named Leila why she kept coming back to protests despite the arrests, she smiled, not a bitter smile but a resolute one. “Because history remembers the ones who stood,” she said. “We are not naive about consequence. But silence is its own sentence.”

What to watch next

The legal appeal over the ban and the ongoing judicial challenge by Huda Ammori—this could set precedent for how the UK treats politically motivated direct action.
Further policing operations and the number of charges laid—so far, 138 charged and hundreds more arrested.
Public debate: will civil society groups coalesce in defense of free speech, or will the specter of vandalism harden opinion in favor of stronger policing?

As the sirens faded and the placards were folded away, Westminster returned to its habitual rhythm. But the questions stirred there did not vanish with the crowd. They spread, quietly and insistently, through living rooms and classrooms across Britain and beyond: how do we contest power without losing our voices? How do we protect one another without muzzling dissent?

London has always been a theatre for argument. Yesterday that theatre brimmed with urgency, pain and protest. The law will do its work; the courts will make their decisions. But on the pavement, in the faces of those taken into custody and in the whispered conversations of those who stayed behind, the story felt less like a legal docket and more like a moral reckoning. What side of that reckoning do you find yourself on?

Trump Intensifies Crackdown Threats, Issues Stark Warning to Chicago

hanad

September 7, 2025

US may 'unwind' EU trade deal if it loses tariff case — Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen seen in July when the deal with the EU was struck

“Department of War” at the River: Chicago Becomes a Symbol in a New National Drama

There is a particular light that falls across the Chicago River in late summer — silver on steel, the city’s towers standing like witnesses. It is the kind of ordinary beauty that makes it hard to imagine tanks or troops marching down LaSalle Street. And yet, that image was splintered this week when a presidential post promised something close to urban martial law: “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”

The words landed like a slap in a city still raw from the last time federal force moved near its neighborhoods. Governor J.B. Pritzker answered in kind, publicly calling the threat “not a joke” and warning that “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

From a Social Feed to a Show of Force

The line came not from a podium but from a social media post — accompanied by an AI-generated image of the president and a swaggering, darkly comic riff on the famous line from the Vietnam film Apocalypse Now: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” In the movie, the line is about napalm; here it was repurposed as a spectacle. For many Chicagoans the post felt less like satire and more like a threat.

“When you see those words, you don’t just hear policy — you feel the possibility of violence,” said Marisol Rivera, a community organizer on the city’s Southwest Side. “This is about making people afraid to come to protests, afraid to walk home at night, afraid that the city they love could be occupied.”

What followed was predictably public: thousands of protesters marched through downtown Chicago, carrying banners that read “Stop this fascist regime!” and “No Trump, No Troops.” The parade routed past the riverfront tower that bears the president’s name; onlookers jeered and offered rude gestures to the building’s glass façade. The energy was as much show as resistance — a civic performance aimed at a national audience.

Echoes in the Capital and on the West Coast

This is not an isolated scene. Earlier, tens of thousands demonstrated in Washington after the National Guard and federal agents were deployed there under a declared “crime emergency,” marching beneath inverted American flags — a traditional sign of national peril. Los Angeles, too, saw confrontations after ICE agents, sometimes masked and operating in unmarked cars, were accused of snatching people from the streets without warrants.

Legal fights have already begun. Constitutional scholars point to the Insurrection Act — a 19th-century statute that allows the president to use federal military force to suppress insurrection or enforce federal law — as the likely hinge point for any large-scale domestic troop deployment. But many civil libertarians say the threshold for using that law has not been met, and that its invocation risks eroding norms the republic has depended upon for nearly two centuries.

“When you start talking about troops in American cities,” said Prof. Lena Mahoney, a constitutional law expert, “you’re not talking about a policy tweak. You’re talking about a paradigm shift in how this country sees dissent, policing, and federal power.”

What “Department of War” Signals

On paper the president signed an order rebranding the Defense Department as the Department of War, calling it a “message of victory.” The secretary of the renamed department offered a headline-ready affirmation, arguing that the United States must “decisively exact violence to reach its aims.” To many, the rhetoric underscored a growing readiness to frame domestic challenges as battles rather than as civic problems to be solved by law, public health, and community work.

Words have weight. In cities like Chicago — where the El rattles past neighborhoods of mixed-income housing, blues clubs, and little storefront churches — language that frames policing and migration as theater or war has real consequences. For many residents, it felt like another sledgehammer blow aimed at communities already suspicious of heavy-handed state action.

Voices from the Street

“I raised my kids here,” said Tyrone Daniels, who runs a barbershop on the Near West Side. “We’ve seen police change, seen mayors change. But the idea of the federal government rolling in with soldiers? That’s something else. It would tear at the fabric of neighborhoods.”

A younger protester, a student wrapped in a patchwork flag, put it bluntly: “You can’t intimidate people into not wanting a country where they belong.”

Activists have compiled growing lists of incidents they say show the dangers of using federal force in cities. They point to aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles, alleged abuses by masked agents, and the friction created when federal priorities clash with local strategies for safety and rehabilitation. These are not abstract worries. They are worries rooted in anecdotes, court filings, and municipal budgets.

Why This Matters Beyond Chicago

Ask yourself: what does it mean when the commander-in-chief frames domestic policy as war? The question cuts beyond Chicago and into the heart of democratic norms around dissent, local autonomy, and civil liberties. It brings to mind broader global patterns: leaders who amplify threats and justify extraordinary measures often end up curtailing basic freedoms in the name of order.

And yet, the debate also reveals a deeper anxiety in parts of the country. Many Americans — particularly in cities confronting concentrated gun violence, opioid crises, and visible homelessness — demand decisive action. Political leaders have weaponized that demand, promising quick, muscular solutions. The risk is that short-term triumphalism may sacrifice long-term democratic practices and trust.

Possible Outcomes and Questions for the Future

Would a federal troop deployment in Chicago require invocation of the Insurrection Act, and under what legal basis?
How would local police and community organizations react? Cooperation could vary block by block.
Would such a move quell violence, or would it inflame tensions and create new flashpoints?

These are not merely legal hypotheticals. They are strategic, moral, and human questions. If the federal government moves into cities as a matter of policy, what becomes of local democracy? How do you rebuild trust after a neighborhood has been “stabilized” by soldiers rather than social workers, negotiators, and youth programs?

Living Through an Uncertain Moment

Walking along the river after the protest, you see the city’s contradictions in miniature: a kid selling cold water on a corner, the smell of garlic and tomato from a nearby pizzeria, a woman folding handbills about a community clinic. These ordinary scenes are the social tissue that policy decisions, in the end, can protect or rip apart.

“We want safety,” said Pastor Emily Okafor, who runs a small church outreach program on the South Side. “We want our kids to grow up. But soldiers in the streets don’t do that work. They don’t tutor, they don’t clean up leaded playgrounds, they don’t get kids to evening classes.”

So the debate continues: which tools work in which contexts? Which institutions do we trust to keep us safe and free? And perhaps most urgently: when the leader of a nation speaks about “war” at home, how do citizens respond? By fear, by acquiescence, or by taking to the streets in a chorus of dissent?

Chicago, like other cities now in the spotlight, is forcing the country to answer these questions in real time. The next scenes of this political drama will matter — not only for the skyline and the river, but for the habits of governance and public life that will shape generations to come. What would you choose if you had to decide between order and liberty? Between immediate control and the slow work of rebuilding?

British police detain 300 protesters during Palestine Action demonstration

hanad

September 7, 2025

UK police arrest 300 people in Palestine Action protest — A protester is carried away by police officers at a 'Lift The Ban' demonstration in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action

Under the shadow of Parliament: a city divided, a law contested

On a damp Saturday in central London, a crowd gathered like a living mural against the silhouette of the Houses of Parliament—placards bobbing, voices braided into a single, urgent chorus. The air smelled faintly of diesel from the red buses and of reheated coffee from the nearby stalls. For hours the chants rose and fell: anger, grief, defiance. By evening, police figures would say roughly 300 people had been taken into custody. For many who came to protest, the arrests were not a surprise—they were the point.

“I didn’t come to break the law,” said Eileen Carter, 74, a retired nurse from Camden, her voice hushed by age and resolve. “I came because I felt like I had to stand in the street and show the world that what’s happening matters.” Her placard read simply: ‘Stand Up For Gaza.’ She paused, as if weighing the consequences of her own words, and then added, “If that’s enough to put me in a cell, then let them do it.”

The Metropolitan Police had been unambiguous in their warnings all week: explicit support for Palestine Action—a group proscribed under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000—could result in arrest. The ban, introduced in July after a series of high-profile acts of vandalism and a costly attack on a Royal Air Force site said to have caused roughly £7 million in damage, converts political solidarity into a potential criminal offence. The net cast by the legislation has already swept up hundreds; police records show more than 800 people had been arrested prior to this weekend, and 138 charged with offences linked to supporting or encouraging a proscribed organisation.

Faces in the crowd: stories that complicate the headlines

Not all who came were militants or masterminds. Many were parents holding the hands of teenagers, students with backpacks still damp from the drizzle, and older citizens who grew up in an era where the right to protest was sacrosanct. “I’m here because my son is still in Gaza,” said Layla Hassan, 39, who had travelled from East London. “I don’t support vandalism. I support people being allowed to speak.”

“They’ve turned civil disobedience into a security threat,” said Mark Hughes, 62, a CEO of a small recycling company who declined to give his surname in full. “When the state acts like this you have to ask: who exactly are they trying to protect?” He was detained by officers as the crowd surged against a police cordon. Around him, an ebb and flow of skirmishes broke out—pushed shoulders, shouted curses, and the metallic clang of police radios. The chants occasionally shifted into a single, pointed refrain: “Shame on you!”

The human cost of a legal label

To be proscribed under the Terrorism Act is to be legally frozen in the public imagination. Supporters of the ban argue it is necessary to protect public safety and to deter acts of deliberate damage or violence. Critics, from the United Nations to Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have described the move as an overreach: a silencing of dissent under the guise of counter-terrorism. “This is not just about one organisation,” said Dr. Imran Khalid, a civil liberties scholar at a London university. “It’s about where we draw the line between criminal action and political expression, and whether we allow the state to draw that line so broadly that it erodes basic democratic freedoms.”

Legal experts point to the stark penalties: those convicted of supporting or encouraging a proscribed organisation can face up to six months’ imprisonment for certain offences, while organisers or those found to be more directly involved could be jailed for up to 14 years. The government has been granted permission to appeal an earlier court ruling that allowed Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori to legally challenge the ban—an appeal that will likely set new precedents for how protest is policed in the UK.

Two demonstrations, one city in flux

At the same time as the arrests near Parliament, several thousand people poured into other parts of London, holding a separate demonstration to protest Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. Their numbers were larger, their banners more varied—some reading ‘Ceasefire Now,’ others invoking international law. The protests unfolded against the backdrop of new military strikes by Israel aimed at taking Gaza City in operations it described as necessary to dismantle Hamas. Across the capital, conversations about international law, human rights, and the limits of protest spilled into cafés and living rooms.

“People are terrified,” said Amira Suleiman, a university student who had been at both demonstrations. “Terrified for our relatives, terrified for our rights here. They’re linked.”

What the numbers say—and what they don’t

The arrests and charges provide a quantitative snapshot: hundreds detained, dozens charged. But numbers alone can’t capture the frayed feelings a protest like this exposes—the sense that the state’s security apparatus and citizens’ political impulses are colliding in a new, harsher way. They also raise questions about selective enforcement. Why are some groups targeted for proscription while others, which may express controversial or disruptive views, remain legally active?

Reported arrests at recent demonstration: approximately 300
Total arrests linked to Palestine Action prior to Saturday: over 800
People charged with supporting/encouraging proscribed organisation: 138
Damage attributed to prior Palestine Action acts at an RAF site: approx. £7 million
Potential prison sentences: up to six months for many offences; up to 14 years for organisers

Local color: London as both stage and audience

On the pavement by Westminster, a man selling roasted chestnuts watched the arrests with a detached fury. “I’ve been here forty years,” he said. “London is a place where people make their voices heard. It’s part of our DNA. Now it feels like something’s being suffocated.” Nearby, a group of schoolchildren craned their necks as they were led past by teachers, their eyes wide, taking in what adults often call complex politics in phrases that are simpler and truer: “Why are those people in handcuffs?”

It was impossible not to notice the small, human moments: a woman offering bottled water to arrested protesters as they were guided into vans, a grey-haired man folding up a placard with a careful, tired reverence, and a young medic tending to a demonstrator with a torn hand. These vignettes threaded the drama with everyday tenderness—reminders of the ordinary lives that lie behind political labels.

Where do we go from here?

As legal battles over the ban continue to make their way through the courts, the protest in front of Parliament will not be easily forgotten. It raises urgent questions: how do democratic societies balance the imperative to keep citizens safe with the equally important need to protect dissent? When does policing become political? And perhaps most pressing: in an age of polarized news cycles, how do we ensure that the human stories beneath the banners don’t get flattened into slogans?

The answers will not be found in a single courtroom or on a single pavement. They will emerge slowly, in policy debates, in law reports, in conversations around kitchen tables, and in the courage of ordinary people who keep showing up. “I’m not a criminal,” Eileen said one last time, as she prepared to leave. “I’m a witness.”

What, then, does your witness look like? How will you listen to the next protest that comes down your street, and what will you do when the law and conscience seem to point in different directions?

Lisbon funicular cable found disconnected minutes before crash

hanad

September 7, 2025

Lisbon funicular cable disconnected before crash — According to the initial findings of the investigators, the funicular crashed at a speed of 60 kilometres an hour

When a Cable Snapped: Voices and Questions After Lisbon’s Funicular Tragedy

On a soft, sun-bright morning in Lisbon this week, commuters and tourists made their way up the city’s steep terraces, as they have for generations—past azulejos that catch the light like painted glass, by cafes filling with the aroma of coffee, toward a funicular that has become as much a feature of this city’s rhythm as the trams’ bell or the Tagus’s tide.

By afternoon, that rhythm abruptly stopped. A cable linking two cabins gave way, and one of the vehicles crashed with devastating speed. Sixteen people lost their lives. The shock rolled through neighborhoods and headlines, leaving questions that will not be soothed by time alone.

The bare facts, laid out by investigators

Portugal’s air and rail accident investigations bureau, GPIAAF, published an early note that pieces together what little is known for certain. Maintenance records were up to date. A scheduled visual inspection had been performed the morning of the accident and, according to investigators, uncovered no anomalies in either the cable or the braking systems.

And yet—hours later—a cable separated from the vehicle. Early findings say the vehicle reached an estimated speed of 60 kilometres per hour, and that the catastrophe unfolded in roughly 50 seconds from the first signs of failure to the scene’s aftermath.

“We have to differentiate what we can see in the logbooks from what physically happened on the rope,” one investigator told me, speaking on condition of anonymity to allow them to discuss preliminary findings candidly. “The visual inspection did not allow access to that specific section of the cable where separation occurred. That’s where our focus must be now: why did that part fail despite routine checks?”

On the street: voices that linger

At a small bakery near the line, Maria Lopes, who has worked the counter for 23 years, paused while kneading dough and folded her hands like a prayer. “You learn to live with the city’s noises—bells, trams, the creak of the funicular. We never thought one of those noises would turn into an alarm this way,” she said. “People put flowers by the tracks. We are all asking how this could happen.”

A tourist from Madrid, who asked not to be named, described the scene as surreal. “One minute tourists were taking photos of the tiles; the next, sirens and confusion. There were people comforting each other—strangers hugging because there was nothing else they could do.”

For families of the victims, the morning’s official tone—calm, procedural—will be cold comfort. An emergency response worker, still haunted by the day’s images, told me, “We do this work because we want to save lives, not to go home with a list of them. The human cost is beyond numbers.”

Why a visual inspection might not be enough

Visual inspections are a cornerstone of urban cable-car maintenance. They catch frayed wires, corrosion, alignment issues, lubrication needs. But they are limited by what the eye can reach and by the assumptions that underpin routine checks. When investigators say a section could not be visually inspected, it means a hidden weakness—internal wear, a subsurface defect, a failure in a terminal connection—might have been missed.

“Think of a tree with hollow rot,” explained Dr. João Carvalho, a mechanical engineer specializing in cable transport systems. “From the outside, the trunk may look healthy. Inside, however, stresses accumulate. Cable systems are complex: there are terminations, joints, grips and anchoring points that are often the most vulnerable. You need non-destructive testing—ultrasound, magnetic flux leakage—to reveal those hidden failures.”

Dr. Carvalho’s point is technical but urgent. Across the world, cities operate aging transport infrastructure under the weight of modern demand. That mismatch raises a blunt question: are our inspection regimes keeping pace with reality?

What investigators will look at next

Detailed forensic analysis of the separated cable segment, if it can be recovered.
A review of maintenance logs and the procedures followed during the morning inspection.
Examination of braking systems and emergency safeties for possible malfunction or delayed engagement.
Interviews with staff, witnesses, maintenance contractors and contractors’ subcontractors.
Use of non-destructive testing histories and whether such tests were part of scheduled maintenance.

A city’s memory and the wider questions

Lisbon’s funiculars are more than transport; they are part of the city’s body and memory. Their wooden seats, hand-polished by decades of hands, and steel cables that have borne the weight of locals and visitors alike, are a living link to urban history. But heritage should not be an excuse to avoid the scrutiny modern safety demands.

There are broader currents at play here: an aging global infrastructure, increased tourist loads on historic systems, and pressure on municipalities to balance preservation with modernization. The cost of upgrading systems—both financially and culturally—can be high, and sometimes political will is slow to follow near-term budgets and headlines.

“We cannot let nostalgia become negligence,” said Ana Mendes, a policy analyst focused on urban transport and safety. “Cities must invest in diagnostics and technology. A visual inspection is important, but it should be complemented by periodic in-depth testing and a culture of safety that puts human life above appearances.”

Numbers that matter

Sixteen lives were lost in this accident—names, stories, routines, breakfasts left unfinished. Each casualty will ripple out to families, colleagues, and neighborhoods. Globally, cable and funicular accidents remain relatively rare compared with road traffic deaths, but their consequences are often severe because of the concentrated nature of the systems and the limited escape options when something goes wrong.

The GPIAAF is known for careful, methodical investigations that can take months. Their final report will likely recommend technical fixes and procedural changes. But for those grieving now, the timeline is painfully slow. For many, the urgency is immediate: accountability, support, and changes to prevent another family from learning a city’s tram bell through tragedy.

Questions for the reader—and for policy-makers

As you read this, consider the infrastructure you move through daily—the bridges, elevators, subways, cable cars. How confident are you in the checks we accept as sufficient? How do we balance preservation of the past with the need for 21st-century safety standards?

I walked the line at dusk, where the day’s light catches the tiles and the city exhales. A small vase of candles flickered beside a makeshift memorial. People left messages in several languages—Portuguese, English, French—a testament to a city that belongs to many. One note, in a trembling hand, read simply: “Make it safe for everyone.”

That is the hard, human demand at the heart of this inquiry: not just to explain the physics of a snap cable, or to tally maintenance checks, but to ensure the public can trust the systems that carry them. Trust, once ruptured, is a long road to rebuild. The investigators will look for the mechanical cause. The city must also look for the moral response.

We will follow the investigation’s next steps and the wider conversation it ignites about safety, accountability and how we care for the shared systems of our daily lives. For now, Lisbon lights a vigil and asks—softly, urgently—how we can do better.

AI company Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion over pirated books

hanad

September 6, 2025

AI giant Anthropic to pay $1.5bn over pirated books — Anthropic competes with generative artificial intelligence offerings from Google, OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft in a race that is expected to attract hundreds of billions of dollars in investment over the next few years

A Quiet Storm in Silicon Valley: Authors, AI, and a $1.5 Billion Reckoning

There are moments when the hum of servers and the rustle of paper collide. This is one of them.

Anthropic, a fast-rising San Francisco AI shop behind the Claude chatbot, has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to resolve a US class-action lawsuit brought by dozens of authors who said their books were lifted without permission to train the company’s language models. The deal — covering roughly 500,000 titles — amounts to about $3,000 per book, four times the minimum statutory damages under U.S. copyright law.

That number alone is headline-grabbing. But numbers are only the scaffolding. On the ground, the settlement points to a broader cultural and legal quarrel: how we price creativity in an era when machines learn by devouring human work.

Not a Simple Win — Not a Simple Loss

In June, U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote a decision that read like an attempt to thread a needle. He said the process of training large language models can be “transformative” — likening machine learning to how humans learn from reading. That ruling gave Anthropic partial breathing room. Yet the same judge also rejected Anthropic’s attempt to claim blanket immunity: downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent, searchable library did not qualify as fair use.

“The technology at issue may be among the most transformative many of us will see,” Judge Alsup observed, but he stopped short of blessing wholesale copying as legal. What that tension amounts to — in policy terms and for people’s livelihoods — is what the settlement is trying to reconcile.

What the Deal Means Practically

Under the agreement, Anthropic has committed to destroy the pirated files and the copies it made from them, while retaining the rights to books it legally purchased and scanned. The settlement still requires judicial approval, but if it stands, it will mark one of the largest copyright recoveries tied to AI training to date.

“This settlement is a recognition that creative labor has value — and that value can’t simply be harvested without consequence,” said a plaintiffs’ counsel in the case. “It sets a precedent for how the industry handles the raw inputs that shape AI.”

A Chorus of Voices: Authors, Lawyers, and Storefronts

Walk into an independent bookstore in the Mission District or the East Village and you’ll feel the same pulse: books are not just data. They are livelihoods, conversations, the reason many towns close their downtowns for literary festivals. For writers, the suit cuts to a blunt reality — that their words can be subsumed into vast models with unclear lines of credit or compensation.

“When you put something out in the world, you imagine a reader turning a page, not a machine indexing it into an algorithm,” said one novelist who joined the suit. “This settlement doesn’t erase the harm, but it’s a start.”

Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, welcomed the outcome. “This sends a message to the AI industry: you can’t treat creators like free raw material,” she said. “Authors, including those working with small presses, depend on predictable streams of income.”

On the streets outside Palo Alto cafés, developers and ethicists express mixed feelings. “We need huge datasets to make useful models,” said a machine learning engineer who asked not to be named. “But there has to be a system of consent and compensation. Otherwise, we’re building a house on someone else’s land.”

Context: Legal Ripples Beyond One Settlement

The Anthropic case is not an isolated skirmish. Last summer, a federal judge in San Francisco found that Meta’s use of copyrighted works to train its Llama models could qualify as fair use — a ruling that went the other way from authors’ claims in that lawsuit. And Apple now faces its own claims that “Apple Intelligence” relied on copyrighted books scraped from shadow libraries.

These divergent outcomes underscore a legal system struggling to adapt old doctrines to new technology. Fair use — a cornerstone of U.S. copyright law designed to balance creators’ rights with public interest — is proving elastic, but interpretation varies case by case. Meanwhile, statutory damages under U.S. law range widely: from a minimum of $750 per work up to $150,000 for willful infringement, a fact that shapes settlement dynamics.

Why the Money Matters

Scale: 500,000 books is not a rounding error. For many midlist and indie authors, a $3,000 payment represents months — sometimes years — of income.
Precedent: A record-sized settlement signals to other AI firms that the cost of ignoring authors’ rights could be real and not merely theoretical.
Transparency: The requirement to destroy pirated files and to clarify which scanned works remain in use creates a template for how companies might document provenance going forward.

Money, Power, and the Race for AI

The settlement comes as Anthropic announced a $13 billion funding round that put its valuation at $183 billion, part of a fevered global race. Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and other tech giants are pouring capital into generative AI, an industry many analysts believe could attract hundreds of billions — even trillions — of dollars in investment and economic activity over the next decade. PwC and other consultancies have, in the past, estimated that AI could add trillions to global GDP by 2030.

Yet with capital comes conflict. The same algorithms that can summarize a medical paper, draft a marketing script, or help a student study, also depend on training data scraped from the human archive: books, news articles, code and more. That raises questions about consent, compensation, and cultural stewardship.

A Human Patchwork: Stories from the Margins

In a small midwestern town, a debut author who self-published through a boutique press said she felt vindicated. “I slept in a tiny studio for years to finish that book,” she told me. “Getting an email from your publisher that a giant AI might have ingested your work felt like being robbed by a faceless machine. This feels like somebody finally listening.”

But not everyone sees the settlement as a clear win. A data scientist in London told me, “We need access to diverse texts to build systems that don’t just echo the same demographics. The challenge is building mechanisms that reward creators while preserving the openness that fuels innovation.”

What Comes Next?

Expect more litigation. Expect creative licensing deals. Expect policy debates in Brussels, Washington, and beyond about what it means to train a machine responsibly. Companies will likely refine their data pipelines: filtering out pirated sources, negotiating bulk licenses with publishers, and building compensation systems for creators. Some startups are already experimenting with blockchain-based attribution systems, micropayments, or cooperative models that route royalties back to authors.

But legal and technical fixes alone won’t resolve the cultural question: what do we value, and how do we measure it?

Do we want a future where AI systems are trained on carefully licensed content that compensates creators, or one where the cheapest data wins? How do we ensure smaller voices aren’t drowned out by platforms that can merely pay more?

Final Thoughts

The Anthropic settlement is a yardstick: it tells us how much the law, for now, is willing to nudge an industry toward responsibility. It also reveals the ragged edges of a cultural bargain in transition. There are no easy answers, only trade-offs.

As readers and citizens, we must ask: what kind of intellectual commons do we want? One policed by heavyweights writing checks, or one sustained by fair markets and clear rights? The machines are learning fast. It’s time our laws, markets and moral imagination catch up.

So, where do you stand — on the side of open data for the sake of rapid progress, or on the side of protecting the people whose words built the very foundations of that progress? The future of writing — and the future of AI — may depend on how we answer that question.

Milan opens public viewing for late designer Giorgio Armani’s coffin

hanad

September 6, 2025

Public viewing of Giorgio Armani's coffin in Milan begins — Hundreds of people queued up before the opening of the viewing at which will last two days ahead of a private funeral on Monday

A City in Quiet Mourning: Milan Pays Tribute to Giorgio Armani

The morning air in Milan tasted faintly of espresso and roses. Outside the Armani Theatre, wreaths leaned against iron railings like a congregation of petals. Hundreds — students in wool coats, elderly women with polished handbags, young designers clutching sketchbooks — formed a slow, respectful line before the doors opened at 9am.

They had come to stand for a moment beside the coffin of Giorgio Armani, the man who for half a century reimagined what elegance could mean. A two-day public viewing precedes a private funeral, but for many the pilgrimage was already a ritual: to look, to remember, to place a flower or a handwritten note on smooth marble.

Scenes from the Queue

“He dressed my mother for her wedding; she still talks about the shoulder line,” said Maria Rossi, 68, smoothing the sleeve of her coat as she waited. “She always said she felt important for the first time. That’s what Armani did.” Her hands trembled slightly; her voice was steady enough to carry a lifetime of gratitude.

Nearby, Luca Bellini, 47, who spent years in the Armani ateliers in the 1990s, watched the procession with a mix of pride and private loss. “He taught us craftsmanship and restraint. You could hear him before you saw him — a soft voice, but firm. ‘Less is more, but do it precisely,’ he’d say,” Luca recalled. “He worked until he could no longer. That dedication was terrifying and beautiful.”

These personal recollections are threaded through with public testimony. Italy’s Culture Minister, Alessandro Giuli, called Armani “a leading figure in Italian culture, who was able to transform elegance into a universal language.” The minister praised a lifetime that connected fashion, cinema and Italian identity in ways that reached far beyond boutique windows.

From Piacenza to the World Stage

Giorgio Armani was born in Piacenza in 1934, the middle child of Ugo and Maria Armani. The family was not wealthy; style, it seems, was an inheritance of temperament. Maria sewed for her children and instilled a quiet discipline of taste that would later bloom into a global aesthetic. Armani himself once said he and his siblings “looked rich even though we were poor” — a line that captures his lifelong talent for making simplicity look like splendor.

He studied medicine briefly, then spent time in the army. His entry into fashion came almost by accident: a job dressing the windows of La Rinascente — Milan’s great department store — and later a position with Nino Cerruti where he began what would become his signature experiment: stripping the jacket of padding and structure and tailoring it to human movement.

By 1975 he had launched his own label. Within a few years he had turned new ideas about femininity and masculinity into a style that felt at once modern and timeless. In 1980, a crisp Armani suit on Richard Gere in American Gigolo announced a love affair with Hollywood that would last decades. Bergdorf Goodman in New York, among other luxury houses, embraced him and helped carry his clean lines across the Atlantic.

Key Milestones

1934 — Born in Piacenza, Italy
1975 — Founded the Giorgio Armani fashion house in Milan
1980 — Designed iconic looks for American Gigolo; entry into the U.S. market
2010 — Opened Armani Hotel in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa
2025 — Passed away aged 91; public viewing in Milan ahead of a private funeral

More than a Look: A Global Brand and Cultural Force

Armani never confined himself to a singular canvas. Emporio Armani, Armani Exchange, fragrances, and luxury hotels expanded the brand into lifestyles and experiences. The Armani Hotel in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which opened in 2010, became emblematic of his capacity to translate a design philosophy into architecture and hospitality. He was credited with inventing “red-carpet fashion” — a bespoke system that made cinema’s glamour accessible to the media machine of celebrity.

Yet Armani’s legacy is also about how clothes fit into the rhythms of life. He created workwear that respected the body and eveningwear that allowed a person to breathe. For a generation of women entering offices and boardrooms from the 1980s onward, his designs offered both authority and ease. “He made power dressing humane,” said Dr. Elena Moretti, a fashion historian at the University of Milan. “Armani softened the armor and, in doing so, broadened who could wear it.”

Grief, Reflection, and a Brand That Mattered

There is a particular melancholy in saying goodbye to an icon just weeks before a golden anniversary. The Armani house was inches away from celebrating 50 years — a half-century of men’s and women’s tailoring that remade a city and influenced wardrobes across continents. Instead, Milan pauses to remember a designer who, by many accounts, worked until the end. The company said he “passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones” and noted he was “indefatigable to the end.”

He had cancelled shows in Milan and Paris this year for health reasons; the absence was felt as an ominous hush in the calendar of fashion weeks. For younger creatives, Armani’s mortality forces a question: what do legacies look like in an industry obsessed with the new? How do we remember craftsmanship in an era of rapid trends and fast fashion?

Local Color and Global Threads

Outside the theatre, shopkeepers turned off radios and lowered awnings in a small, improvised salute. A florist wrapped a bundle of white orchids in brown paper and tied it with twine — a modest offering that matched the understated elegance the designer championed. Tourists stopped to take photographs, then put phones away, as if aware they were intruding on a private act of civic mourning.

“He made Milan speak the language of the world,” said Paolo Ricci, who runs a small atelier in the Navigli district. “People come to us because here—here—there is history and craftsmanship. Armani is part of that story. His jackets taught me how to cut a shoulder so a woman could move freely and still be commanding.”

What Armani Leaves Behind

Armani’s influence will ripple through the industry — in patterns, in the proportion of suits on red carpets, in the language designers use when describing restraint and proportion. But beyond fabric and thread, there is a broader cultural footprint. He helped knit Italian design into global identity, creating jobs and reputational capital that fed into tourism, hospitality, and luxury retail. Milan remains one of the world’s fashion capitals; designers, buyers, and journalists still travel here to see the latest statements of taste. Armani helped make that ecosystem possible.

So we stand, a city and a world that loved a man for making simplicity sing. We remember a tailor who turned the ordinary into something quietly exalted. And we ask ourselves: as fashion becomes faster and more fleeting, what does it mean to create something built to last — in garments and in memory?

There will be private words at the funeral on Monday, and public echoes in the months ahead: retrospectives, exhibitions, perhaps debates about preservation, craft and commerce. For now, Milan lines up in the cold, places a flower, and whispers thanks.

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