All posts tagged: powers

Labour’s academy direction powers rehashed from Tory bill

Labour’s academy direction powers rehashed from Tory bill

Opposition has been critical of proposed power for the education secretary to direct academies to fulfil their duties Opposition has been critical of proposed power for the education secretary to direct academies to fulfil their duties More from this theme Recent articles New laws handing the secretary of state wide-ranging powers to issue academy compliance orders are a rehash of a similar policy in the Conservatives’ schools bill three years ago. The opposition has been highly critical of section 43 of the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which would give the education secretary the power to give trusts whatever “directions” she “considers appropriate”. These could be issued when a trust has “breached or is likely to breach a relevant duty, or otherwise has acted or is proposing to act unreasonably with respect to the performance of a relevant duty”, the bill states. Neil O’Brien, the shadow education minister, this week described the power as “untrammelled” and “a sort of general power to direct academies on a range of subjects”. He suggested the bill should be …

Tune In to the Healing Powers of a Decent Playlist

Tune In to the Healing Powers of a Decent Playlist

Beliefs and practices about music’s ability to heal the mind, body, and spirit date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, about 20,000 years ago. Music was widely used by shamans and other healers to treat a variety of ailments, from mental disorders to injuries and illness. Only recently have we separated healing and music; we tend to see healing as the province of doctors and music as entertainment. Perhaps it is time to reunite two of the most intimate parts of our lives. Scientific advances in the past 10 years have provided a rational basis for this reunifi­cation. An emerging body of research allows us to take what had been anecdotes and place music on an equal footing with prescription drugs, surgeries, medical procedures, psychotherapy, and various forms of treatment that are mainstream and evidence-based. In the past two years alone, more than 8,000 papers have been published on the topic in peer-reviewed journals. Across millennia, music has been used to relieve a variety of ailments, from chronic pain to depression, anxiety, and simple boredom. …

The Return of Trump—V | Astra Taylor, Michael Greenberg, Coco Fusco, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Thomas Powers, Anne Enright

The Return of Trump—V | Astra Taylor, Michael Greenberg, Coco Fusco, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Thomas Powers, Anne Enright

Astra Taylor • Michael Greenberg • Coco Fusco • Verlyn Klinkenborg • Thomas Powers • Anne Enright Astra Taylor On election night, before Harris’s loss set in, some exit polls showed that “democracy” was a top concern for voters. Many liberals took the result as an auspicious sign. But what is democracy? That was the title of a documentary I made during the 2016 presidential campaign. As I conducted dozens of interviews across the United States over many months, I learned that there was hardly a consensus over the word’s meaning. Ordinary people struggled to define it; a recent college graduate asked me if democracy was when “they tell you what to do.” Others, usually men, scoffed that we actually live in a republic, not a democracy, as though that settled the matter. Still others—many of them—found the American political system exasperatingly corrupt: rigged by special interests, permeated by racism, and almost or already irredeemable. I also spoke to young conservatives and attended Donald Trump’s rallies, where he railed against the War on Terror, Wall …

Playground by Richard Powers – A Dive in Humanity’s Next Frontier

Playground by Richard Powers – A Dive in Humanity’s Next Frontier

You ever have one of those dreams where you’re swimming underwater and suddenly realize you can breathe? That’s what reading Richard Powers’ “Playground” feels like—a breathtaking plunge into the depths of human experience, where the impossible becomes not just possible, but inevitable. A Masterful Confluence of Streams Richard Powers, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Overstory” and the mind-bending “Bewilderment,” has outdone himself with “Playground.” It’s a sweeping, ambitious novel that weaves together four seemingly disparate lives into a tapestry as vast and mysterious as the ocean itself. The Players in Powers’ Grand Game Evie Beaulieu: A 12-year-old girl who discovers a whole new world beneath the surface of a Montreal swimming pool in the 1950s. Ina Aroita: An artist adrift, raised on naval bases across the Pacific, searching for a place to call home. Rafi Young: A literature-loving, game-playing prodigy from Chicago’s South Side. Todd Keane: Rafi’s unlikely friend and future tech mogul, whose AI breakthrough will change everything. These four lives converge on Makatea, a tiny atoll in French Polynesia with a tumultuous …

Did Canadian lawmakers wittingly conspire with foreign powers?

Did Canadian lawmakers wittingly conspire with foreign powers?

TORONTO — Canadian lawmakers “knowingly or through willful blindness” accepted money from foreign powers, colluded with foreign officials to “improperly” interfere in parliamentary business to “the advantage of the foreign state,” and gave information obtained in confidence to a foreign intelligence officer. Some were, “in the words of the intelligence services, ‘semi-witting or witting’ participants in efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics.” These are among the explosive claims leveled in a new report made public by a committee of lawmakers that’s now rattling Parliament. In a country that’s grown used to reports of Chinese and other foreign meddling, this one from the all-party National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians has landed this month like a bomb, raising familiar questions about how seriously the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking the threat. Adding to the anxiety is the committee’s decision to withhold the names of the individuals accused, how many there are and what they are alleged to have done — redactions that have had the effect of casting …

As Ukraine stumbles in war, Kyiv and Western powers struggle to coordinate

As Ukraine stumbles in war, Kyiv and Western powers struggle to coordinate

KYIV — Sharp fractures are opening between Kyiv and its Western backers, including the United States, over the future of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. Ukrainian leaders have increasingly complained that Washington is restricting their ability to respond to Russian attacks as U.S. policymakers push them to do more to fight corruption even amid the worsening war. Meanwhile, European and American officials are quarreling about strategy to turn the tide on the battlefield. There have been frustrations virtually from the moment Russia’s invasion began in February 2022, but policymakers in Washington, Kyiv and around Europe said tensions have grown sharper in recent weeks as Russia has seized the initiative on the front lines and started recapturing territory liberated earlier in the war. The sharpest battlefield disagreement in recent weeks has been whether Ukraine can use donated weapons to strike targets on Russian soil. Until it shifted policy on Thursday, the Biden administration had strictly prohibited Ukraine from using U.S. weaponry to do so because it feared that the heavy U.S. involvement required to operate the …

Sir Keir Starmer to pledge ‘elite’ Border Unit with anti-terror powers to stop small boats | Politics News

Sir Keir Starmer to pledge ‘elite’ Border Unit with anti-terror powers to stop small boats | Politics News

Labour will create a new Border Security Command to tackle people-smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel, Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce. The “elite” unit, to be part-funded by scrapping the Tories’ Rwanda deportation scheme, will be led by a former police, military or intelligence chief and be granted new powers under the Counter Terrorism Act. Politics Live: New Labour MP’s apology ‘unlikely to change minds’ These powers will allow officers to conduct stop and searches at the border, carry out financial investigations and issue search and seizure warrants targeting organised immigration crime. Sir Keir will outline the measures in a speech on the Kent coast on Friday, when he will vow to “replace gimmicks with graft” and draw on his experience as the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service. The Labour leader will say: “Let’s be clear at the start, these are criminal enterprises we are dealing with. “A business that pits nation against nation, thrives in the grey areas of our rules, the cracks between our institutions, where, they believe, …

Madonna powers through mammoth Rio concert with knee support brace as final tour stop draws historic crowd

Madonna powers through mammoth Rio concert with knee support brace as final tour stop draws historic crowd

Madonna’s Celebration Tour ended with a huge bang on Saturday with a finale performance at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach, marketed as a free concert to thank all the fans for their support. The singer, 65, took to the stage with supporting acts Diplo and Barata, and received special support from Brazilian stars Anitta and Pabllo Vittar. The show was held in front of the Belmond Copacabana Palace Hotel, with free entry available on a first come-first serve basis, and ended up drawing a historic crowd of over 1.6 million. You may also likeMadonna shares sneak glimpse of world tour The final concert of the tour became Madonna’s largest ever, and the largest ever for a standalone concert by any artist, beating a record held by the Rolling Stones. Through her several outfit changes, plus a green ski mask and a leotard in the colors of the Brazilian flag (with her surname “Ciccone” on the back), Madonna also wore a black knee support brace and at times sported a white wrist support brace as well, particularly …

Bukowski Reads Bukowski: Watch a 1975 Documentary Featuring Charles Bukowski at the Height of His Powers

Bukowski Reads Bukowski: Watch a 1975 Documentary Featuring Charles Bukowski at the Height of His Powers

In 1973, Richard Davies direct­ed Bukows­ki, a doc­u­men­tary that TV Guide described as a “cin­e­ma-verite por­trait of Los Ange­les poet Charles Bukows­ki.” The film finds Bukows­ki, then 53 years old, “enjoy­ing his first major suc­cess,” and “the cam­era cap­tures his rem­i­nis­cences … as he walks around his Los Ange­les neigh­bor­hood. Blunt lan­guage and a sly appre­ci­a­tion of his life form the core of the pro­gram, which includes obser­va­tions by and about the women in his life.” The orig­i­nal film clocked in at 46 min­utes. Then, two years lat­er, PBS released a “heav­i­ly-edit­ed 28-minute ver­sion of the film,” using alter­nate scenes and a rearranged struc­ture. Renamed Bukows­ki Reads Bukows­ki, the film aired on Thurs­day, Octo­ber 16, 1975. And, true to its name, the film fea­tures footage of Bukows­ki read­ing his poems, start­ing with “The Rat,” from the 1972 col­lec­tion Mock­ing­bird Wish Me Luck. You can watch Bukows­ki Reads Bukows­ki above, and find more Bukows­ki read­ings in the Relat­eds below. Relat­ed Con­tent  Hear 130 Min­utes of Charles Bukowski’s First-Ever Record­ed Read­ings (1968) Charles Bukows­ki Reads His Poem …