On the red carpet at the premiere of Wuthering Heights - Australian actress Margot Robbie, when asked about her stunning necklace made two glaringly inaccurate statements.

Firstly, Robbie legitimises the ownership of the jewel to Hollywood:

It's Elizabeth Taylor's necklace. It is the Taj Mahal diamond that Richard Burton gave it to her… there is something kind of Cathy and Heathcliff about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in my mind.

Then, reaching for an older origin, she called the history of the necklace "amazing," musing that it belonged to "the woman whose grave is the Taj Mahal" — pointing not toward the powerful Empress Nur Jahan (1577-1645) who actually owned it, but to her more romantically memorialised stepdaughter, Mumtaz Mahal, who is indeed buried there.

The film has been accused of whitewashing Heathcliff — erasing his possible Romani or Black identity from the book to fit a palatable Hollywood romance.

While the BBC is busy rescuing the film's image by explaining away the backlash as passionate fandom or bold reinterpretation; maybe it's time to stop watering down these criticisms.

Margot Robbie — whitewashing the Origin Story

Margot Robbie's reply about the necklace shows just how successful Operation Legacy was.

Declassified British files reveal that Operation Legacy was the systematic, state-ordered destruction of thousands of "dirty" colonial documents in the 1950s and 60s. Lorries carried files to incinerators; crates of secrets were sunk at sea. In the words of a 2013 report, officials were desperate to consign atrocities and their paper trails to history, leaving successors and subjects in the dark.

It is not a stretch to imply that the history of the imperial loot of the diamond was buried with Operation Legacy.

The exact path of how the necklace left colonial India and entered the vaults of Cartier remains unclear, a gap in the record that itself speaks to the opaque channels of colonial extraction.

After being acquitted by Cartier in 1972, the jewel entered the orbit of Elizabeth Taylor through her then husband. It was later sold at auction in 2011 for a record $8.8 million to an anonymous bidder.

Again, Christie's auction house narrative also conveniently omits the Western acquisition, whilst exoticising the Mughal past.

An academic study of 19th century British press notes that:

Throughout imperial rule, both textual and illustrated newspapers produced reports and cultural representations of India, and more specifically its rulers, that highlighted exoticism and promoted a sense of cultural difference from British readers, subsequently creating an overall image of India that was stereotyped.

Christie's and Robbie have done the same thing: Romanticising the Mughal past but staying silent about the colonial loot.

Let's de-exoticise Nur Jahan.

Nur Jahan was politically one of the most important figures of the Mughal Dynasty. Historical and art history research reveals a formidable co-ruler: a skilled hunter depicted loading a musket in androgynous attire. A political strategist who issued coins in her name, and an economic strategist who commanded trade fleets and negotiated with European merchants .

According to a paper:

Maharani Nur Jahan, wife of Emperor Jahangir, was famed for her political intelligence and military skill and played an unrivalled role in ruling the Mughal Era. The Mughals were ardent supporters of art and culture, as seen by their exquisite buildings and distinctive handwriting

Nur Jahan's stepson, Shah Jahan, would later become famous for building the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

But what's less well-known is that the beautiful white-marble tomb he created was actually inspired by an earlier gem in Agra: the mausoleum Nur Jahan commissioned for her own father, Itimad-ud-Daulah. Often called the "Baby Taj," her design pioneered the intricate marble inlay and graceful proportions that would define the Taj Mahal itself.

Nur Jahan died in 1645 and is buried in Lahore, a city she helped beautify, alongside her husband Jahangir.

Nur Jahan's legacy is still alive today across both India and Pakistan — in Lahore, where she's buried, and in Agra where she first set marble and gems into poetry.

That shared history deserves better than the watered-down, exotic story we've been handed. It's time for both countries to reclaim her — not as some romantic side character, but as the powerhouse she truly was a ruler, a hunter, and a builder.

Other Loot

It's the same story playing out on a larger scale in British establishments.

The Koh-i-Noor diamond — seized by the British East India Company from a 10-year-old Punjabi Maharaja in 1849 — still sits in the Imperial State Crown, glittering in the Tower of London.

The swords and jewels of Tipu Sultan, looted after he was killed defending his fortress of Srirangapatna in 1799, still lie behind glass at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

So, while the Indian government made diplomatic noise in 2023 about getting the loot back, the reality in London hasn't budged. This highlights the colonial dynamic that is still at play.

What Margot Robbie's comments reveal is a familiar colonial reflex — one Hollywood knows all too well — of laundering imperial theft through re-angling the narrative.

Until colonial extraction is called THEFT, and not just "amazing history," empire remains alive and well.

Featured image via the Canary

By Nandita Lal

This week's stellar episode of the new 'Star Trek' series looked back at the legacy left behind by the captain of 'Deep Space Nine' and found the best perspective it could.

There's no evidence that Epstein is alive and hiding in Israel.

Back in 2023 we noted how a company named Telly proclaimed it had come up with a new idea for a TV: a free TV, with a second small TV below it, that shows users ads pretty much all of the time. While the bottom TV could also be used for useful things (like weather or a stock tracker), the fact it was constantly bombarding you with ads was supposed to offset any need for a retail price.

But apparently there's been trouble in innovation paradise.

Shortly after launch, Telly proclaimed that it expected to ship more than half a million of the ad-laden sets. Within a few months it had announced it had already received 250,000 pre-orders. But a recent report by Lowpass indicates that only 35,000 of the sets had made it to peoples' homes.

What was the problem? Ars Technica, Lowpass and The Verge note that the problems began with a substandard shipping process that resulted in a lot of TVs showing up broken to folks who pre-ordered. Reddit is also full of complaints about general quality control issues, like color issues, ads being played too loudly, odd connectivity issues, remote controls randomly unpairing, and more.

Still, there's evidence that the idea might still have legs, as the premise itself appears profitable:

"The investor update reportedly said Telly made $22 million in annualized revenue in Q3 2025. This could equate to about $52 in advertising revenue per Telly in use per month ($22 million divided by 35,000 TVs divided by 12 months in a year is $52.38).

That's notably more than what other TV companies report, as Lowpass pointed out. As a comparison to other budget TV brands that rely heavily on ads and user tracking, Roku reported an average revenue per user (ARPU) of $41.49 for 2024. Vizio, meanwhile, reported an ARPU of $37.17 in 2024."

The TV industry had already realized that they can make more money tracking your viewing and shopping behavior (and selling that information to dodgy data brokers) long term than they do on the retail value of the set. This just appears to be an extension of that concept, and if companies like Telly can get out of their own way on quality control, it's likely you'll see more of it.

In one sense that's great if you can't afford the newest and greatest TV set. It's less great given that the United States is too corrupt to pass functional consumer privacy protections or keep its regulators staffed and functional, meaning there are increasingly fewer mechanisms preventing companies like this from exploiting all the microphone, input, and other data collected from users on a day-to-day basis.

I personally want the opposite experience; I'm willing to pay extra for a dumb television that's little more than a display panel and some HDMI inputs. A device that has no real "smart" internals or bloated, badly designed GUI made by companies more interested in selling ads than quality control. Some business class TVs can sometimes fit the bill, but by and large it's a segment the industry clearly isn't interested in, because there's much, much more money to be made spying on and monetizing your every decision.

The science here gets really dark.

Gulikit's TT Pro and TT Max have many more stick and button options than a Switch 2 Pro controller, and they have one feature no other gamepad does.

The DOJ's release of Epstein-related documents was supposed to be redacted, but whoever did the job left a backdoor wide open. Email attachments were stored as base64-encoded text — basically, the raw PDF data converted to a string of letters and numbers — and nobody thought to remove them. — Read the rest

The post How sleuths are recovering hidden Epstein documents appeared first on Boing Boing.

One of the most surprising things to come out of the war in Ukraine has been the rapid adoption of drones by both sides. Outnumbered and outgunned but certainly not outmatched, the Ukrainian military began using small, modified off-the-shelf drones to drop munitions, support reconnaissance, and conduct raids. — Read the rest

The post A terrifying weapon is being used to save lives in Ukraine appeared first on Boing Boing.

Season 2 of the Fallout TV show just wrapped up. I thought it was pretty good, even if it does often fall into the trap of too much setup and not enough payoff. While there was no sign of the rumored New Vegas remaster (as much of a slam dunk as that would have been on Bethesda's part), I've been warding off the Wasteland blues with these really damn cool Fallout-themed LEGO models. — Read the rest

The post These Fallout LEGO models are incredible appeared first on Boing Boing.

If you attend a protest and post about it on Instagram, federal agents may already have a way to find out who you are. The Department of Homeland Security has administrative subpoena power — meaning it can demand records from tech companies, schools, and individuals without a judge's approval, without proving probable cause, and without notifying the person being surveilled. — Read the rest

The post ICE can demand your data from Google without a warrant appeared first on Boing Boing.

The acquisition could mark the beginning of consolidation in the carbon removal market since removal costs remain higher than buyers would like to pay.

This week's release of Opus 4.6 shook up the Agentic leaderboards

Like are people genuinely delusional enough to think that we're going to somehow magically escape this planet and all the destruction our civilization has directly caused and just start from scratch elsewhere? It's hilarious. Comical even. Terraforming a place like Mars would take centuries. It isn't practical. The universe is too vast.

I'm all for going into space and developing new technology like reusable rockets and so forth. But it feels like so much of this hoo rah, go team! hype is just artificially created to distract people from the grim reality here on Earth: increasing environmental destruction, technofascism, erosion of basic civil liberties and rule of law. Like a bunch of sycophants endlessly obsessing over rockets like a dick measuring contest and the "good ol days" of the 60s and 70s Space Race which was the result of a unique geopolitical climate that will likely never be repeated.

It just seems pointless to me. We have at best 30-40 years (very generous estimate) before things get very bad and unbearable here with climate change. We're not going to do anything significant in space within that time period. Sure, we might send more advanced satellites out. But this whole idea that we're going to colonize other planets or moons I just don't think is realistic. Why not focus all this effort and endless media sensationalism towards solving all the real, dire problems here on Earth first?

Like is this just a situation where the psychopathic, neo-Nazi, tech billionaire CEO oligarchs are attempting to ultimately create some new subspecies or master race of elite, obedient worker drones to build and thus join the new colony, leaving everyone else behind to die from either nuclear war or climate catastrophe? It seems that way in my view. They clearly know this planet is cooked, hence them building bunkers in remote locations. Hence them investing all this money and time into anything relating to space travel. Hence them buying governments and creating an alternate reality using social media where everyone who serves their interests is allowed to afford a somewhat decent life, and everyone else is doomed to a life of poverty.

Even if we miraculously manage to do all this in that time, what's the point? What's the point in starting from scratch on another world if the way our society views energy consumption now is still stuck in the 18th century? If our entire society is still based on primitive ideology? We're literally just going to destroy that place too. Like a cancerous tumor. What do we do then? I highly doubt this new colony would have a sustainable civilization separated from capitalism (socialism, etc), since that'd in turn diminish the need for and power of the oligarchs entirely. They'd be incredibly stupid to not continue hyper unregulated capitalism/fascism on this new planet too.

Curious to hear what other people think about this. This kind of stuff truly keeps me up and night, and I can't really talk about it with most of my friends irl.

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Traffic has improved inside and out of Manhattan.

The director was not going to make the film without the Skeletor we know and love.

A low-slung and compact 1978 Harley-Davidson FLH with hot rod underpinnings, masterfully built by Fatech.Countless parallels can be drawn between hot rods and custom motorcycles, but no one celebrates them quite like Minoru Watanabe. Watanabe-san runs Fatech in Tokyo, Japan, where he builds nostalgi...

Disney+ subscribers in some European countries have lost access to advanced HDR features like Dolby Vision and HDR10+, TechRadar and FlatpanelsHD report. The issue was first spotted by German Disney+ subscribers on Reddit, but currently also impacts subscribers in Portugal, Poland, France and the Netherlands, according to FlatpanelsHD.

"Dolby Vision support for content on Disney+ is currently unavailable in several European countries due to technical challenges," Disney said in a statement. "We are actively working to restore access to Dolby Vision and will provide an update as soon as possible. 4K UHD and HDR support remain available on supported devices."

If the issue is in fact a technical one, it seems like it could be around for the long-term. Disney has removed any reference to Dolby Vision from its Disney+ video quality support page in Germany. As of now, the company lists HDR10 as its default HDR format, despite Dolby Vision support being a feature of Disney+ for several years now. 

FlatpanelsHD writes that the real issue might be legal, rather than technological. A company called InterDigital won an injunction in a German court against Disney in November 2025 because it violated at least one of the company's patents on streaming video technology. The injunction specifically requires Disney to stop violating InterDigital's patent on "a method for dynamically overlaying a first video stream with a second video stream comprising, for example, subtitles." It's not entirely clear how that plays into the company offering Dolby Vision and HDR10+ in Europe, but it would explain why subscribers in Germany were some of the first people to notice Dolby Vision's absence.

Engadget has contacted Disney for more information about Disney+'s missing HDR support and whether InterDigital's injunction played a role. We'll update this article if we hear back.

Mentions of Dolby Vision and HDR10+ were also stripped out of the US version of Disney+'s video quality support page. InterDigital hasn't won an injunction in the US, but the company is pursuing a patent case against Disney in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. That doesn't necessarily mean Dolby Vision support will be taken from US subscribers next, but it does suggest there's more happening here than just technical challenges.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/disney-loses-access-to-dolby-vision-and-hdr10-in-some-european-countries-193930091.html?src=rss

Your Party has allegedly blocked a member of Zarah Sultana's Grassroots Left slate from sitting on a committee responsible for making sure upcoming internal elections are conducted in a fair manner. This raises concerns because the person was blocked by a senior member of Jeremy Corbyn's opposing slate, The Many. It raises questions about just how real democracy is in the new party.

Your Party elections

Your Party is currently gearing up for its upcoming Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections on 26 February.

This marks a crucial step in establishing the new political party's structures. These elections are integral to enabling branches across the country to formally constitute, allowing them to organise effectively and campaign on local and national issues within their communities. However, recent revelations appear to confirm members' concerns that socialism and genuine democracy are inconvenient obstacles for those who currently hold the reins - and the party's resources.

Verified evidence seen by the Canary raises serious concerns that Jeremy Corbyn is allowing ally Karie Murphy to exert undue control over internal democratic processes. Far from uniting socialists as promised, these developments appear to confirm long-held fears that grassroots members are being frozen out unless they belong to 'Jeremy's team'.

Socialist? BLOCKED

Originally, members of Your Party made it clear that they wanted an elected oversight committee formed ahead of the CEC election. Supporters argued that this approach would make committee members more representative of the entire membership, bridging divides and differences of opinion.

However, figures on The Many slate allegedly objected, instead pushing for - and implementing - a sortition process that selected five members to carry out crucial oversight. Given the public bickering and clashes driven by strong views on both sides, members generally accepted this compromise as fair in principle.

However, it now appears that principle and process are not the priority for those gearing the party's democratic processes.

The Canary has been told that Karie Murphy exclude one sortition member from being involved in the Your Party committee, literally blocking her number and ignoring her very existence.

One Your Party member who wished to remain anonymous told the Canary:

This blatant and arrogant power-move by Murphy has now confirmed prior reports received that those with the reins are only happy with members having a say, if you are firmly loyal to their camp alone. Once again, actions by figures within the party suggest a failure to learn from past mistakes, calling into question whether they possess the principles and resolve needed to confront the far right and unite, rather than divide, and empower the communities they claim to represent.

Access denied in Your Party

The Your Party sortition member has requested to remain anonymous. Also worth noting sortition members are usually meant to be anonymous to ensure safeguarding of democratic processes and efficient electoral oversight. Her experience went as follows:

When I was called by Karie Murphy a few weeks ago I actually ignored the call the first time, I'd become accustomed to doing that trying to avoid debt collectors asking for payments I can't make.

But when I didn't recognise the number I decided to call back immediately. The woman on the phone explained to me that I had been sortitioned as part of the selection process for a Your Party Election oversight committee. The woman said I would be required to attend regular meetings with MPs supporting Jeremy Corbyn such as Adam Shockat.

I remained quiet during her brief pause which I only assume she expected I'd fill with some line about how I'm 'a big fan'. I was a big fan, but that's not true anymore, Corbyn's no socialist and he'd proven which class he really stands with time and again. Her mention of Adam Shockat the sexist and Jeremy Corbyn only reminded me of what I'd be up against, but I knew I couldn't let this opportunity pass. I told this woman, who I later learned was actually Karie Murphy, that I was in regular attendance at YP meetings and that this could be great because I could get the input of a wider part of the membership.

Similarly to my holding back at the mention of Corbyn and Shockat, Murphy remained quiet. Nonetheless, I knew she couldn't backtrack now that I had been offered the position, I thought.

I told her I was wanting to accept the offer and that this was really important to me. Immediately she responded with asking what I did for a living, when I mentioned my job role she said it may be difficult for me to get permission at work. I knew that my job would in no way be related to or jeopardised by a position on an election oversight committee and that any request made to my employer would just be a matter of procedure. This was so important to me that I would have risked my job to be given the opportunity to just mirror the voices of highly experienced and well qualified activists I've met since becoming involved within Your Party.

I asked to be sent the information and confirm my interest, the woman told me that she was waiting for someone else to send her the information first but would then be in contact with me the next day to send over the details and officially confirm my interest. I immediately spoke to my Trade union rep after the phone call, he confirmed with me that this would not conflict with my job but I would be required to make a formal request with the key details. The next day I waited but heard nothing back, no emails, no phone calls, no messages.

After two weeks someone told me that the elections oversight committee were set to meet. I had started to question whether the whole thing was still going ahead, I knew the majority of members initially had wanted the committee to be elected.

I was confused, I hadn't seen any emails but double checked all of my folders to be sure. I double checked my call log and messages but there was nothing that I'd been sent. Confused, as I was meant to have been sortitioned for this committee, I decided to ring the person who rang me two weeks earlier. User busy.

I then messaged the person asking for the details and received no response. Having gotten nowhere, I later asked a friend to try calling the phone number for me and somehow she was able to get through to this Scottish woman who we later realised was Karie Murphy. Karie Murphy who after learning I would lean far too left for the politics of Corbyn and 'The Many', blocked my number and banked on the left to be disorganised enough to be able to get away with it. Well we're not, and we won't let them get away with it.

This is why Democracy is important, these MPs ultimately want to dampen your impact in order to protect their own interests, shape their own policies and we are getting in the way.

The GL in YP are the only players on the board offering any real solution against rising wealth inequality, unemployment, rise of fascism, cuts to welfare at home. And that's because they are the only real players capable of delivering on their promises; decentralised power, MPs held accountable, no more going back on manifestos because it's not them who decide policies, it's us.

Ultimately people need to understand that this is again another story of class war, a group of MPs trying to hold onto their wealth , and therefore means of power, will ultimately never act in our interests and this time the cost is too high.

We should have expected it with Labour, we can expect it with Greens and we will do everything in our power to oppose it in 'The Many' by forming the party as in the vision of YP GL, Democratic, Grassroots and transformational, in short, a party truly shaped by the many, not just a small group of elite MPs claiming to speak for us.

The GL of YP are the only real players in British politics right now capable of stopping the loss of lives the Global South, and then eventually we, will face if we reach the point of no return in terms of the climate crisis. By exiting Britain out of NATO, ending its funding of imperialism and genocide as well as, crucially, ending its role in the exploitation of the Global south, Your Party could start a possible chain reaction that might lead to the spread of socialism in Europe. I don't think we can ignore that possibility especially given the current level of working class organisation we are seeing.

We know that the climate question can't be solved while the global capitalist system continues. The overconsumption is choking us.

I think it's important to keep an eye on the climate because I don't want my family in the global south to die right now but I also know that there is nowhere to run, I am aware of the eventual cost to life we will face here and worse with the threat of AI, under the current system, the working class risks being nothing more than an inconvenience to have around, and what power would the workers have then in the absence of work. We will be cattle in a slaughterhouse.

No smoke without fire

The Canary contacted Your Party for comment on the issues raised in this article. However, we did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Another Your Party insider close to the project has also spoken to the Canary and confirmed:

It became very personalised. If you didn't show total loyalty to Jeremy being the sole leader, he and the people around him basically, they won't work with you.

This raises urgent, unavoidable questions for Jeremy Corbyn and his team. Members say they have had enough of anti-democratic practices and the old tactics of Labour-right. After years of watching establishment parties impose top-down control, they surely did not come together to replicate the very model they set out to challenge. True democracy is the only cure to fascism.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

Pep Guardiola's press conference was not a routine preview of a Manchester City match. Nor was it about tactics, results, or team selection. What happened was something else entirely.

The coach, known for teaching football with philosophical rigour, stepped off the pitch and asked a painful question about an entire profession: why is the press silent? Guardiola, synonymous with modern football and his historic partnership with Lionel Messi at Barcelona, did not shed his role as a coach. Instead, he expanded it.

Guardiola's press conference a place for reflection

In a moment that felt sincere and unplanned, the press conference turned into a space for reflection when a journalist asked him:

Why do these issues matter so much to you?

Guardiola smiled, then replied with frustration:

I appreciate this question, because in ten years — or even the last two — this is the first time a journalist has asked me that. It's as if talking about these issues isn't allowed in your work. I don't know.

This was not a throwaway comment. It exposed a deep failure in media practice, especially when compared to coverage of Russia's war on Ukraine.

Then, sports press conferences became political platforms overnight. Players and coaches were routinely asked for political positions. No one complained about "politicising sport". Neutrality vanished — but only in one direction.

Now, Guardiola speaks against that selective silence. He is not defending himself, but protesting the lack of scrutiny around Israel's war of extermination in Palestine, which has killed more than 70,000 civilians and destroyed the foundations of life. That silence extends beyond Gaza. It reaches Sudan, where war has displaced millions, and a global climate fuelled by racism and hate against migrants.

Guardiola's criticism was not aimed at one journalist. It was directed at an entire media system hiding behind the idea of "separating sport from politics".

That principle has been used to ignore crimes and violations — particularly those committed by Israel — while athletes who express solidarity with Palestine face smears, silencing, and symbolic punishment. This has happened to figures such as Anwar Ghazi, Noussair Mazraoui, and Ons Jabeur.

Sports journalism is not light entertainment or a harmless supplement. It is journalism. It carries responsibility, accountability, and a duty to side with humanity against systems of oppression. Yet many outlets choose safety. They rebrand silence as "sportsmanship" and neutrality as morality. The irony is that these institutions fully understand the power of sport. FIFA president Gianni Infantino once called football "global magic".

That magic becomes dangerous when it escapes the approved script.

Once again, Guardiola left the pitch — not to explain a game plan or an injury — but to offer a lesson:

Never before in human history has information been so visible. What's happening in Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan. When I see these images, I feel pain. That's why I will do everything I can to help build a better society.

This was not a political speech. It was a reminder of journalism's most basic duty: to see, to ask, and to refuse silence.

This time, the journalists found themselves back in training — while the football manager reminded them of their job.

Featured image via Youtube

By Alaa Shamali

It shouldn't shock anyone that an organisation whose founder and director publicly wrote, "Hinduism is the father of all religions. Islam is a bad copy. Islam is against humanity", is opposed to defining and addressing anti-Muslim hate. What might shock some is that this organisation, Hindu Council UK (HCUK), has the ear of mainstream media outlets like The Telegraph and has the audacity to "warn" the government about how to approach Islamophobia.

Hindutva is migrating across the globe from India

A recent academic investigation called 'Seeing the Sangh' has laid out a comprehensive map of the 'largest far-right network in history'.  This refers to the organisational complex that centres on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India's dominant group promoting Hindutva ideology, otherwise known as Hindu supremacy or Hindu nationalism.

Hindu supremacy and accompanying anti-Muslim hatred have been exported across the world with devastating effects from cultural soft power to political lobbying to violence. I monitor this closely, and founded Hindus for Human Rights UK (HfHR UK) to help fight Hindutva, caste, and bigotry in the British diaspora.

Not only does Hindutva politics now exist in many countries — notably the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia — it collaborates with other extremist movements in those countries, with Islamophobia forming the common ground between otherwise strange bedfellows.  The Hindutva movement was complicit in the UK's 2024 racist pogroms; its proponents engage positively with the likes of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Geert Wilders; neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Breivik was an admirer of Hindutva.

Hindu Council UK and the bigotry of its leadership

'Seeing the Sangh' identifies 2,500 organisations that make up the global RSS network, or Sangh Parivar (RSS family), 26 of which are in the UK. Writer-activist Amrit Wilson explains in Byline Times that the "Hindu right has systematically set up, or taken over, a host of organisations in the UK." including the Hindu Council UK, founded in 1994 by one Anil Bhanot.

Bhanot has published op-eds in the Guardian, been covered widely in mainstream media, and held unique positions like Hindu Chaplain in the Royal Navy and Hindu Advisor to the Ministry of Defence. Yet, in 2024 Bhanot was stripped of his OBE for "bringing the honours system into disrepute" with his Islamophobia.

In 2021 Bhanot posted extreme anti-Muslim and Hindu supremacist tweets (now deleted), describing himself as "Hindutva" and asserting that "Islam is a religion of violence."  He went on, "Islam's dawah is an evil tenet and the sooner it's legislated against in parliament the better. It turns muslims into Shaitans, as in love Jihad too."  Love jihad is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory.  Bhanot summed up: "Hinduism is the father of all religions. Islam is a bad copy. Islam is against humanity" and an "invasion into minds".

Bhanot brazenly defended his hate speech by saying:

I did not do anything wrong and I have not put the honours system into disrepute.  Free speech is a thing of the past now in England.  I am quite upset about it.

Grotesquely, his now-stripped OBE was awarded for "community cohesion".  National Secular Society writes:

HCUK has been highly vocal in its opposition to anti-caste discrimination law. In 2017 its then-director of interfaith relations Anil Bhanot claimed that attempts to outlaw caste discrimination via the Equality Act were a "vengeful" act of Dalits (the bottom tier of the Hindu caste system) stemming from animosity towards 'higher castes'.

To abuse one's senior position at a public-facing organisation to gaslight and block legislation that would protect Dalits is indefensible.

HCUK "warning" the government against Islamophobia definition

But Hindu Council UK is not dissuaded by the indefensible. Despite their director's far-right diatribe and unashamed Islamophobia, HCUK thought it appropriate to write a letter to the Communities Secretary about Islamophobia, "warning" against: creating a "chilling effect" on free speech; helping to reintroduce blasphemy laws, and; suppressing criticism of Islam.

Five organisations, including HfHR UK, responded.

The Hindu Council UK's letter to the government stated that:

Freedom of expression includes the right to offend, to challenge and to criticise ideas, indeed Hinduism encourages intellectual debates that has made it robust.

We therefore question why Hindu Council UK is trying, through the Hindu Manifesto for example, to make it illegal to:

accus[e] those who organise around anti-Hindu hate of being agents or pawns of violent, political agendas.

We believe that this "accusation", though it may be found offensive by some, belongs well within the realm of freedom of expression, the right to offend, and the right to criticise ideas.

No one should be surprised that HCUK is trying to control the discourse around a form of hate — Islamophobia — that its leadership espouses. But why would The Telegraph amplify this malicious lobbying and uncritically parrot the line that HCUK represents all British Hindus?

Demonopolising British Hindu representation

Just as Hindu Council UK attempts to position itself as the voice of all British Hindus, the Telegraph article in question is titled, "Hindus warn Labour against 'chilling' Islamophobia definition", reducing the diversity of the one million-plus Hindus in this country down to the views of a single, bigoted group. This is an insult to British Hindus of conscience.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by this either given The Telegraph's tendency, along with other right-wing entities, to produce anti-Muslim narratives.  My request to The Telegraph to publish a response to their coverage went unanswered, so HfHR UK and four other organisations co-published our response in FORSEA.

We face an uphill battle as the British Hindu voice has long been captured by supremacist, anti-Muslim bigots, and some mainstream publications are only too ready to amplify them.  HCUK is just one part of the UK's Hindutva lobby, accompanied by Hindu Forum of Britain, National Hindu Students' Forum, the VHP UK, and many more.

But there is an extensive network of resistance too — our joint response to the HCUK's "warning" demonstrates the resolve of our five organisations, a small section of the landscape. The monopolistic control over Hindu advocacy that Hindutva groups have enjoyed in this country for years is coming to a close as progressive alternatives like HfHR UK are drawing in British Hindus by the day.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rajiv Sinha

YouGov polling from February 2026 shows 78% of the UK public support rent controls. But why regulate a scam when you can get rid of it? That's what the Green Party is proposing.

The Green Party position

The Green Party has rent nailed in their "Abolish Landlords" policy, which was successfully voted on at their conference in 2025. The motion read:

The Private Rental Sector has failed, it is a vehicle for wealth extraction, funnelling money from Renters to the Landlord Class. This motion makes it clear Green Party policy is to seek the effective abolition of Private Landlordism.

The Green Party believes that secure, affordable Housing is a Human Right, and that a core goal for a Green Government and Green MPs is to create a fairer housing market.

The Green Party believes the existence of Private Landlords adds no positive value to the economy or society, that the relationship between Landlord and Tenant is inherently and intrinsically extractive and exploitative. That the Private Rented Sector exists to transfer wealth from the working classes to Landlords.

The Green Party believes that the Private Sector has fundamentally failed, and is continuing to fail to provide secure and affordable housing fit for working people.

The thing is, the Green Party wants to move towards social housing, which is essentially state landlordism. While it provides money for the government, people already pay council tax. Social rent is like an additional tax on housing.

Instead, home ownership should be provided through affordable monthly payments for the baseline cost of the resources and expertise that it took for the house to be built. 'Cost price' housing should be the aim, not just rent controls or social housing.

Housing bubble

Currently, there is a housing bubble propped up by the super rich buying properties as 'assets' while supply is starved off through a lack of building. The governing party is doing even worse than the Green Party's plans through pledging to provide 1.2% of their housebuilding programme as social or 'affordable'.

Plus, Common Wealth warned in February 2025 that Labour's housebuilding programme risks being dominated by private equity firms charging eye-watering rents in the Build to Rent sector.

The thinktank pointed out that Build to Rent properties in the UK have increased to 20% of all new builds in recent years.

As the Green Party rightly points out, the relationship between landlords and tenants is "inherently… exploitative". But we can do better than state landlordism and rent controls.

Featured image via the Canary

By James Wright

These 19th century Valentine's Day cards are like mini sculptures. The cards contain illustrations and paper cutouts that transform into 3D scenes when opened. Inside these gorgeous geometric shapes are love notes for the receiver.

From Gohar World on Instagram:

"A very Gohar Valentine: paper cobwebs from The Met's Department of Drawings and Prints.

— Read the rest

The post Victorian valentines hid love notes inside intricate paper sculptures appeared first on Boing Boing.

The City of Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department has announced that voting is now open for their fourth annual "You Name a Snowplow" contest. Past winners have included awesome and hilarious names such as Bozo the Plown, Lollaplowlooza, and My Kind of Plow (2025); Skilling It, CTRL-SALT-DELETE, and Mies van der Snow (2024); and Mrs. — Read the rest

The post Choose from "Abolish ICE," "Chance the Scraper," and more when you cast your vote in Chicago's 2026 "You Name a Snowplow" contest appeared first on Boing Boing.

This video by designer/illustrator Brandon Campbell is innovative and engaging. He elevates the art of making and using rubber stamps by developing his own custom stamping tool. Watch him carve the tool from a small rubber square and then make awesome art out of it. — Read the rest

The post Watch this artist carve an octagonal stamp that rolls out cartoon cars appeared first on Boing Boing.

This lovely animation comments on the idea that our screens are consuming us. Although it takes a screen to watch this animation, it's a good reminder that too much screen time can mess with us. There are three slides in this series, and in each one, a being becomes more and more morphed into a chaos-filled screen (until he is the screen). — Read the rest

The post This animation shows what doom-scrolling does to your brain appeared first on Boing Boing.

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For over half a century, the CIA's World Factbook has been one of the most quietly useful things the federal government has ever produced. A comprehensive, regularly updated, freely available reference on every country in the world—population stats, government structures, economic data, geography, the works. It was the kind of thing that made you think, "Okay, at least some tax dollars are going toward something genuinely helpful."

And then, this week, the CIA just… deleted it. No warning. No explanation. Every single page now redirects to a brief announcement that the Factbook has "sunset." That's it. That's all you get.

Simon Willison, who first spotted the disappearance, didn't mince words about what happened:

In a bizarre act of cultural vandalism they've not just removed the entire site (including the archives of previous versions) but they've also set every single page to be a 302 redirect to their closure announcement.

The Factbook has been released into the public domain since the start. There's no reason not to continue to serve archived versions - a banner at the top of the page saying it's no longer maintained would be much better than removing all of that valuable content entirely..

That's exactly right. If the CIA decided they no longer wanted to maintain the Factbook—fine. You could make an argument for that. But the decision to not just stop updating it, but to actively destroy access to it without any advance notice is something else entirely. You couldn't even grab a final copy before it vanished.

The CIA's official statement on the closure is a masterclass in saying nothing:

One of CIA's oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. The World Factbook served the Intelligence Community and the general public as a longstanding, one-stop basic reference about countries and communities around the globe.

Okay and… why did you suddenly shut it down? They don't say.

That's followed by a brief history of the publication—it started classified in 1962, went unclassified in 1971, hit the web in 1997—and then this parting thought:

Though the World Factbook is gone, in the spirit of its global reach and legacy, we hope you will stay curious about the world and find ways to explore it… in person or virtually.

Gee, thanks. Super helpful. "We deleted the thing you relied on. Go touch grass or something."

The New York Times reported that the shutdown happened while students at Boston University were literally in the middle of an open-Factbook exam:

The sudden closure of the Factbook's website, with all of its entries no longer available to the public, left Jay Zagorsky's business students at Boston University in the lurch midway through an exam due at midnight the next day.

His exams are regularly open-Factbook, and two questions relied on its famously tidy tables of economic certainty. In an instant, a trusted companion of lectures and late-night problem sets was gone.

"That was a great joy this afternoon," Mr. Zagorsky said in an interview on Wednesday evening, recalling the moment faculty colleagues had begun talking to one another in disbelief. "Oh my god. What do we do? The Factbook just went offline? How do we let them finish the answers on the exams?"

Professors scrambling to figure out how to let students finish exams because a government agency couldn't be bothered to give notice before nuking a 54-year-old publication. That'll teach you to rely on anything from this government, I guess.

The Factbook wasn't just a nice-to-have reference for academics. Lawyers have noted that it was regularly used in asylum cases as a trusted, objective source for country conditions (maybe that's why they killed it?). When you're trying to establish that a country is dangerous enough to warrant asylum, citing the CIA's own publicly available data tends to carry some weight. That resource is now just… gone. With no replacement.

To try to salvage what he could of the Factbook, Willison took matters into his own hands. He found that until 2020, the CIA published annual zip file archives of the entire site to the Internet Archive. He downloaded the 2020 version and threw it up on GitHub with Pages enabled, so at least something remains accessible. It's now six years out of date, but it's better than the nothing the CIA has left us with.

And that's what makes this so frustrating. The Factbook was public domain. It was created with taxpayer money. There was absolutely no legal or technical reason the CIA couldn't have left the existing site up with a banner saying "no longer maintained" or given users time to archive their own copies. Instead, they chose to 302 redirect every single page to their farewell note, as if the goal was specifically to make sure no one could access anything.

There's already a FOIA request in the works to try to obtain both the current data and the explanation for why this happened. But the fact that we need a FOIA request to find out why a public domain government reference tool was suddenly erased should tell you everything you need to know about where we are.

I have FOIAd the CIA World Factbook and the reasons for its removal

— Kevin H Bell (@kevinok.bsky.social) 2026-02-05T04:34:14.460Z

The Times did find one former intelligence official who wasn't sad to see it go:

"C.I.A. is not the Library of Congress," Ms. Sanner said with a laugh. "The intelligence community shouldn't be your librarian."

Sure. But when you've been the librarian for 54 years and people have built workflows around your library, you don't get to just burn it down overnight and tell everyone to "stay curious."

This has all the hallmarks of the current administration's broader war on publicly available information. Data.gov scrubbed of climate information. USAID websites vanishing completely (along with the agency). Government research going dark. The World Factbook is just the latest casualty in what appears to be a systematic effort to make the federal government's own information harder to access.

The CIA hasn't said why they did this. It hasn't said who made the decision. It didn't even release the data in some other format. It just went dark and told everyone just to "stay curious about the world."

Some of us are curious why our own government keeps removing public access to information.

The Ultimate AWS Data Master Class Bundle has 9 courses to get you up to speed on Amazon Web Services. The courses cover AWS, DevOPs, Kubernetes Mesosphere DC/OS, AWS Redshift, and more. It's on sale for $40.

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Several children have come down with serious complications like encephalitis and pneumonia, state health officials reported this week.

Tough times for crypto bros whether they're the President or not.

The long wait for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is nearly over, as the film hits theaters on April 1. To keep the hype train rolling, Illumination and Universal Pictures have dropped a short new teaser. It's exactly 30 seconds long, so you'll probably be seeing it again on TV this Sunday during the Super Bowl.

It does feature some nifty footage that we haven't seen before, including a hungry Yoshi absolutely devouring a Magikoopa. There are also shots highlighting the star cannons from The Super Mario Galaxy games and one shot that shows Rosalina bodying Bowser Jr.

There seems to be a plot point in which Princess Peach and Toad head to some sort of sci-fi mega-city, which should be fun. There's an Octoomba living there, another shout-out to the OG Wii game.

As previously stated, the hotly-anticipated sequel arrives on April 1. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a total smash, grossing nearly $1.4 billion and becoming one of the most successful animated films ever made. We found the original to be a fun, but safe, trip to the Mushroom Kingdom.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-new-trailer-for-the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-shows-yoshi-absolutely-devouring-a-magikoopa-191807037.html?src=rss

Noble Audio has announced the Sceptre, a pocket-sized USB-C Bluetooth transmitter meant to boost wireless audio quality from phones, laptops and tablets. The device is intended to exceed the quality offered by a device's existing hardware.

Sceptre is powered by Qualcomm's QCC5181 Bluetooth chipset and supports LDAC, aptX Adaptive, AAC and SBC codecs. Of course, to take advantage of the high quality codecs you'll need a pair of headphones that support them. The dongle has a reported wireless range of roughly 66 feet.

Listeners use the Noble app for initial pairing and can then move the dongle between compatible USB-C devices. It also supports pass-through charging with USB-C so users can charge their devices while listening. The company says Sceptre is compatible with iOS, Android and Windows, and the company confirmed with Engadget that iPhones 15 and newer are supported.

We've been pleased in the past with Noble Audio products, like the FoKus Apollo headphones, or the FoKus Rex5 earbuds. The Sceptre from Noble Audio is available for $70.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/noble-audio-has-released-a-usb-c-bluetooth-dongle-for-high-fidelity-transmission-191655786.html?src=rss

TL;DR: Looking for endless entertainment for your cat? Give them the gift of the Cheerble Ball for $26.90 (MSRP $27.99).

Haven't seen your cat in a while? Our elusive furry friends tend to disappear for hours on end, entertaining themselves and, thus, ignoring you. — Read the rest

The post Endless entertainment for your most elusive animal starts here appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get Youbooks for $49 (reg. $359) and turn a nonfiction idea into a book-length draft you can actually edit and ship.

If you've been hoarding ideas, outlines, and research like they're going to assemble themselves, Youbooks for $49 (reg. $359) is the nudge that turns the pile into a draft. — Read the rest

The post Youbooks is the tool that turns your notes pile into a real manuscript for $49 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Sue Brooks celebrates more than 75 years in the company of Radio 4.

This is a celebration of more than 75 years with my faithful companion, Radio 4. It came to me so clearly when the BBC was under attack in early November. I leapt to its defence like a teacher watching a bully in the playground. How dare he? I must stand up and make a tribute of some sort, and here it is.

2025 was filled with anniversaries, some of which seem to have reached the papers and social media — 75 years of The Archers for example, although for myself that particular addiction didn't last long. I listened out for Pick Of The Year, usually by a special guest — not someone already associated with Radio 4. This year it was Jeanette Winterson and went out on Christmas Day, which felt auspicious.  Generally it goes out at some point in the Christmas week, rarely on the Day itself. I looked at the rest of the schedule and felt that Radio 4 was standing up for itself magnificently. JUST LISTEN TO WHAT WE CAN DO.

Jeanette Winterson — a superb writer who turns out to be a lifelong fan of Radio 4. It was a selection after my own heart and I applauded mightily. A little chastened because it echoed my own ideas, but also thinking…there is so much more. 

This year I have discovered two new series — Artworks (Radio 4's arts and culture documentaries, presented as a podcast) and Illuminated (Radio 4's home for creative and surprising one-off documentaries which shed light on hidden worlds). YES, those hidden worlds. Among them, I found 50 Years of the Koln Concert, a programme which commemorated the first 100 years of The Shipping Forecast, and the unforgettable Sea Like a Mirror, celebrating 220 years since Rear Admiral Francis Beaufort devised the Beaufort Scale for wind speeds. They have been feasts for the imagination, touching all the senses, in the way a dream does sometimes. 

Do you have appetite for more? Perhaps two more, one of which I can't resist although it doesn't quite fit into the time frame. On This Cultural Life, John Wilson talks to a well-known artist about the inspirations behind their work. In July 2022 he interviewed Maggie Hambling. Magnifique alors, Maggie.

And the last, which has to be Melvyn. In his 86th year, he announced his retirement from In Our Time ( the "death slot" — 9am on Thursday mornings — as it was known in Radio 4 schedules many years ago). This unappealing title now has a vast (over 1,000 episodes) archive and a global audience of dedicated listeners.

Rather than choose a personal favourite, I thought I'd share the fifteen minute conversation between Melvyn and his successor Misha Glenny. It reminded me of the last interview with Dennis Potter, just before he died in 1994, aged 59. Melvyn and Dennis sharing their love of BBC Radio and TV. It's all there in Melvyn's own words.

The first In Our Time without him went out on January 15th. Let's wish Misha Glenny our VERY best…and a heartfelt  HAPPY NEW YEAR for the BBC.

'Baldur's Gate 3' was so huge that anything that came after without Larian's involvement was going to feel a bit off for everyone.

The White House initially defended the post by saying, "Please stop the fake outrage."

There's about $35M up for grabs if your circuits can beat today's limits

It's no lightweight matter. DARPA is putting about $35 million in total funding on the table in the hope that it will spur researchers to work around fundamental physical constraints and build much larger-scale photonic circuits that do more of the computing with light, not electronics.…

What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, a city built on excess, poor judgment, and extremely flexible moral boundaries. Even so, a bar on the Las Vegas Strip felt obligated to demand Border Patrol official and Gruppenführer impersonator Greg Bovino GTFO. — Read the rest

The post Greg Bovino learns he is below Las Vegas standards appeared first on Boing Boing.

Elon Musk has merged SpaceX and xAI, creating what might be the blueprint for a new Silicon Valley power structure. With his $800 billion net worth already rivaling historic conglomerate GE's peak market cap, and Musk being vocal about his view that "tech victory is decided by velocity of innovation," the question isn't whether a personal conglomerate can be built, but rather how far Musk himself is […]

In the grand scheme of things — the wanton cruelty, the routine violations of rights, the actual fucking murders — this may only seem like a blip on the mass deportation continuum. But this report from Dell Cameron for Wired is still important. It not only explains why federal officers are approaching people with cellphones drawn nearly as often as they're approaching them with guns drawn, but also shows the administration is yet again pretending it's a law unto itself.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security published new details about Mobile Fortify, the face recognition app that federal immigration agents use to identify people in the field, undocumented immigrants and US citizens alike. The details, including the company behind the app, were published as part of DHS's 2025 AI Use Case Inventory, which federal agencies are required to release periodically.

The inventory includes two entries for Mobile Fortify—one for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), another for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and says the app is in the "deployment" stage for both. CBP says that Mobile Fortify became "operational" at the beginning of May last year, while ICE got access to it on May 20, 2025. That date is about a month before 404 Media first reported on the app's existence.

A lot was going on last May, in terms of anti-migrant efforts and the casual refusal to recognize long-standing constitutional rights. That was the same month immigration officers were told they could enter people's homes while only carrying self-issued "administrative warrants," which definitely aren't the same thing as the judicial warrants the government actually needs to enter areas provided the utmost in Fourth Amendment protection.

The app federal officers are using is made by NEC, a tech company that's been around since long before ICE and CBP become the mobile atrocities they are. Prior to this revelation, NEC had only been associated with developing biometric software with an eye on crafting something that could be swiftly deployed and just as quickly scaled to meet the government's needs. This particular app was never made public prior to this.

ICE claims it's not a direct customer. It's only a beneficiary of the CBP's existing contract with NEC. That's a meaningless distinction when multiple federal agencies have been co-opted into the administration's bigoted push to rid the nation of brown people.

As is always the case (and this precedes Trump 2.0), CBP and ICE are rolling out tech far ahead of the privacy impact paperwork that's supposed to filed before anything goes live.

While CBP says there are "sufficient monitoring protocols" in place for the app, ICE says that the development of monitoring protocols is in progress, and that it will identify potential impacts during an AI impact assessment. According to guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, which was issued before the inventory says the app was deployed for either CBP or ICE, agencies are supposed to complete an AI impact assessment before deploying any high-impact use case. Both CBP and ICE say the app is "high-impact" and "deployed."

This is standard operating procedure for the federal government. The FBI and DEA were deploying surveillance tech well ahead of Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) as far back as [oh wow] 2014, while the nation was still being run by someone who generally appeared to be a competent statesman. That nothing has changed since makes it clear this problem is endemic.

But things are a bit worse now that Trump is running an administration stocked with fully-cooked MAGA acolytes. In the past, our rights might have received a bit of lip service and the occasional congressional hearing about the lack of required Privacy Impact Assessments.

None of that will be happening now. No one in the DHS is even going to bother to apply pressure to those charged with crafting these assessments. And no one will threaten (much less terminate) the tech deployment until these assessments have been completed. I would fully expect this second Trump term to come and go without the delivery of legally-required paperwork, especially since oversight of these agencies will be completely nonexistent as long as the GOP holds a congressional majority.

We lose. The freshly stocked swamp wins. And while it's normal to expect the federal government to bristle at the suggestion of oversight, it's entirely abnormal to allow an administration that embraces white Christian nationalism to act as though the only holy text any Trump appointee subscribes to was handed down by Aleister Crowley: Do what thou wilt. That is the whole of the law.

Private correspondence recently made public reveals that prominent people in politics, business, and academia didn't just maintain ties with Jeffrey Epstein after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor. They actively consoled him, cast him as a victim, and offered advice on rehabilitating his image, reports the Wall Street Journal. — Read the rest

The post How elites consoled Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction appeared first on Boing Boing.

Reddit said during earnings it's looking to buy 'capabilities' and 'companies.'

The company says it has continuous age check systems running in the background to ensure age accuracy.

This forum should not be tool of patriarchy.

Capitalists want you to believe that competition and death is normal.

That patriarchal violence is the default for humanity, and that it's always "dog eat dog."

Think where you first learned that, my brothers.

Who taught you that? A bully, a father, a coach, a religious leader? An abuser?

Take a breath.

Feel emotions.

Open your eyes.

Life is a circle, a cycle.

Fear is the mind killer.

❤️❤️