Donald Trump has unveiled his “peace plan” for Gaza with Benjamin Netanyahu – but is it realistic? Professor John Mearsheimer joins Freddy Gray to assess Trump’s foreign policy instincts, the role of Tony Blair on the Board of Peace, the use (and misuse) of the term “genocide,” and what chance there is of a Saudi-Israeli accord emerging from the conflict. // CHAPTERS 00:00 – Introduction 02:44 – Trump’s foreign policy instincts vs Biden’s 04:34 – Tony Blair and the ‘Board of Peace’ 08:51 – Netanyahu: ‘the easy way or the hard way’ 11:46 – The controversy over using the word ‘genocide’ 16:04 – Israel’s stance on hostages 17:17 – Jared Kushner, the Abraham Accords, and Saudi Arabia // SUBSCRIBE TO THE SPECTATOR Get 12 issues for £12, plus a free £20 John Lewis/Waitrose voucher https://www.spectator.co.uk/tvoffer
The spirit of public improvement that led to the legislation that created free public libraries 175 years go needs to be rekindled
In the middle of the 19th century a young man called Edward Edwards had a dream in which access to knowledge was given to everyone.
His dream would take the form of free public libraries – the first of them in Manchester, the beginnings of a system that we continue to use and enjoy today: palaces of knowledge for all people.One hundred and seventy five years ago this year, Queen Victoria gave her assent to “an Act for enabling town councils to establish public libraries and museums”, that enabled local authorities of a certain size to levy a ha’penny on the rates to establish a free public library.
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All praise to Manchester for being the first enlightened administration to take up the opportunity. Their library opened on 2 September 1852 and Edwards became its first librarian. The people of Manchester wanted their new institution to provide “increased and wholly gratuitous facilities for the diffusion of knowledge and for mental culture among all classes…”, bold ideas that still resonate with us today, as modern library users are given access to an astonishing array of books, music, digital resources, expert guidance in using digital services, support for businesses, and opportunities for enriching their “mental culture” – all for free.
Manchester’s library grew rapidly. In 1854 its book stock stood at 25,000, and it issued those books more than 142,000 times. Last year the Greater Manchester library service welcomed 7.7 million visitors across their 133 libraries, and they engaged with 80% of the state schools. Their 3m books in the collection were loaned 3.8m times, on top of which more than 450,000 eBooks and more than 670,000 audio books were borrowed. Manchester is one of our nation’s greatest public library systems – a true palace for the people – and under the leadership of Neil MacInnes it is in the rudest of health.
More than a decade of austerity has, however, ravaged the public library sector in many parts of our nation. There are fewer palaces for the people, many are open for fewer hours than before 2010, and some of them are in dire need of physical repair.
Net expenditure by local authorities on public libraries fell by almost half (47%) in real terms between 2010 and 2023. Since 2016, there has been a net loss of 183 libraries that came under councils’ statutory services and around 2,276 FTE library posts have been lost.There is, furthermore, evidence that poorer areas are disproportionately affected by library cuts and closures. Across the UK 7% of libraries in the most deprived decile have been closed since 2016 compared with 3% of libraries in the least deprived.
Our public libraries are free in three critical senses. First, they cost nothing to join and to use. Second, they are open to all in our communities. We must also add a third concept of freedom: the freedom to read – to engage, without restraint, a diversity of knowledge and opinion, the latter of which is being threatened today, as shown in the powerful new documentaryThe Librarians, which deals with the epidemic of book-banning in US public and school libraries.
The cost of creating the Manchester free library was not purely through the taxpayer. For Edward Edwards, libraries “are pre-eminently institutions for ALL CLASSES”. The wealthy should “give liberally for the education, the refinement, and for the rational amusement for those whose lot it literally is to ‘live by the sweat of their brow’’’. He felt “it is a better thing for both to unite their contributions, in such proportions as they can”. Generous Mancunians funded the first building.
Today we have even more billionaires… What are they doing to support the diffusion of knowledge and the mental culture of all?
As the free public library movement took hold, a billionaire became inspired to build palaces for the people across the globe. As a young man in Scotland, Andrew Carnegie’s life chances were transformed through access to books. He gave his wealth back through funding more than 2,500 libraries worldwide, 660 of which were in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1901 he gave $5m – a staggering sum at the time – for the New York public libraries to build an entire system of branches – 65 of them!
In our society today we have even more billionaires than in the age of Andrew Carnegie. What are they doing to support the diffusion of knowledge and the mental culture of all? We need a new Carnegie. Could one of the tech moguls making insane amounts of money emulate the Scotsman’s commitment to freely available public institutions of knowledge?
Some tech giants have argued that their platforms are “public squares”, but social media is far removed from publicly owned and controlled organisations that are genuinely open to all, and where no money or data is exchanged for what they offer.
Could our government seize anew the spirit of public, social and economic improvement that the Victorians brought to bear on our libraries, and encourage bold, enlightened philanthropy through a matched funding scheme? A new national fund for libraries could be established if Carnegie-scale transformative philanthropy were matched by government funding.
Such a fund could be used to upgrade libraries’ physical estate, it could support the training and development of librarians, replenish the bookstock (both physical and digital), empower new digital initiatives to help safeguard local data, and help build capacity. It would be consistent with the duties of the libraries minister to “superintend” the provision of library services, ensuring it is even across the nation, that standards are set, and that the sector can develop as a whole.
Next year has been designated a “National Year of Reading”, a very positive development in which at this week’s Labour party conference, chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to more than £10m in funding for a library in every state primary school by 2029. What was missing from the announcement was whether the recurrent costs of funding school librarians was also included: “A pile of books is no more a library than a crowd of soldiers is an army” to quote Gabriel Naudé in his Advice on Establishing a Library – words that would be well heeded by the chancellor and the culture secretary.
We must take this moment to celebrate the creation of our public library system, and to thank Edward Edwards and the other pioneers who made it possible. We owe it to the citizens of today and in the future to renew our library system, through a combination of government funding and philanthropic investment, to refresh those palaces for the people, and ensure their doors can remain open to all.
Richard Ovenden isBodley’s Librarian and the author ofBurning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack(John Murray)
Photograph by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images.
Research shows that repetition and distributed practice are effective teaching strategies.
Explicit teaching plays a significant role in developing reading and writing skills.
Sequence learning is a crucial consideration in all areas of learning, spanning all fields and endeavors.
Source: Hey Juda/Pixabay
Research indicates that repetition and distributed practice effectively fires and rewires the brain, thereby strengthening memory and improving learning potential. This approach aims to develop and refine skills, knowledge, insights, and understanding.Repetition involves intentionally practising the same action, skill, or information, which research shows can create more complex neural connections, reinforce, and enhance memory, learning, skills, and knowledge through consistent repetition and distributed practice.
Distributed practice involves spreading these repetitions across different times instead of focusing them into one session. The research suggests that this method may also develop a deeper consolidation of skills, insights, and knowledge, and, importantly, enhance understanding, thereby achieving the potential for mastery of the task in question (Cepeda et al., 2006).
Education
From an educational perspective, this process of repetition and distributed practice, according to research, helps build the neurological, cognitive, and intellectual foundation in which literacy and numeracy development, insights, and understanding can be enhanced.
The importance of repetition, distributed practice, explicit teaching and sequence learning are especially important during the first three years of school (and, of course, beyond). That is because these pedgogical principles lay the foundations in the development of literacy, numeracy skills and knowledge, critical thinking, and higher-order thinking. However, for this to happen, there is a strict requirement for motivation, application, commitment, and effort to be consistently maintained (Meiers et al., 2006;Walsh et al., 2023; Wiseheart et al., 2019).
The MACE Principle
Source: faizan ali/Pixabay
In terms of literacy and numeracy development, these processes provide the neurological and cognitive scaffolding that enable children (both in literacy and numeracy) to progress from basic recognition of symbols to fluency, comprehension, and creative reasoning of what these symbols are presenting and intellectually advancing.
To further develop this potential, in addition to repetition and distributed practice, one should also consider, as noted, applying the MACE principle: Motivation mobilizes merit, Application advances achievements, Commitment creates competence, and Effort enhances excellence. All of these principles involve unrelenting discipline, dedication, determination, and hard work, for the ultimate purpose of advancing skills, knowledge, understanding, and enhancing erudite insights in all tasks, fields, and endeavors, as well as devloping intrinsic capacities of perseverance and resilience; which can also be described as strength of character. When the going gets tough, the tough keep going (Purje, 2025).
When this occurs, the suggestion is that cognitive and intellectual growth then enables learners to progress from simply recognizing numbers and the letters of the alphabet to the point where the brain and mind can successfully decode these individual numbers and letters.
This then leads to where the learners are now identifying and understanding numerical algorithms and whole words; which are then constructively applied into more advanced numerical understandings and higher levels of narrative texts. These results indicate that critical thinking and higher-order thinking skills have developed and are being applied (Baroody, 2006; Cepeda et al., 2006; Ehri, 2005; Mawson & Kang, 2025; Walsh et al., 2023; Wiseheart et al., 2019).
Explicit Teaching
Source: Dorothe/Pixabay
Equally important to all of this is the role of explicit teaching. The literature suggests that explicit teaching, particularly in the areas of phonological awareness and phonics, is crucial for developing and refining reading and writing skills, and advacing what is meant by literacy.
By analyzing the link between sounds and symbols, the research demonstrates that explicit teaching of phonics enables all learners to decode (all of the symbols, that are now creating words) accurately and efficiently. When combined with repetition, rote drills, and distributed practice, these methods support the development of these fundamental literacy and numeracy skills that eventually become automatic, allowing for greater cognitive engagement, intellectual growth, understanding, critical analysis, insights and creativity.
Evaluating And Synthesizing Information
Once the fundamentals are mastered through repeated explicit teaching practice, repetition and distributed practice (which directly changes the brain and mind), learners now are also develop more complex neural connections and deeper cognitive skills. These advancement in the brain and of the mind self-evidently provides the potential for these learner to now be able to better evaluate and synthesize information more critically and effectively at higher levels of understanding. All of which advances their knowledge (Castles et al., 2018; Ehri, 2005; Fletcher et al., 2021; Foorman et al., 1998; Murphy, 2021).
Building on the educational benefits of explicit teaching, research shows that highly effective teachers are those who apply these explicit teaching principles and practices. According to Hammond and Moore (2018), citing the New South Wales Department of Education and the Communities’ Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, these organizations report, the explicit teaching approach is regarded as a crucial factor in not only recognizing outstanding teachers; the explicit teaching method also offers the educational benefits of improving and advancing student learning outcomes. This process is also connected with sequence learning (Curran & Keele, 1993; Hammond & Moore, 2018; Kyriakides et al., 2013; Rosenshine, 2012;Starzyk & He, 2007)
Sequence Learning
Source: Erik/Pixabay
According to Starzyk and He (2007), “temporal sequence learning is one of the most critical components for human intelligence.” This includes, but is not limited to, language development, reasoning and planning, speech recognition, writing skills, skill acquisition, and the growth of knowledge and creativity across all fields, professions, trades, sports, sciences, humanities, music, and the arts, in fact, all disciplines where learning is taking place.
Therefore, the process of sequence learning should be regarded as an important pedagogical and educational tool across all fields where skills and knowledge are developed and refined. Overall, the evidence suggests that explicit teaching, repetition, distributed practice, and sequence learning are essential for developing and enhancing skills, knowledge, and achievements (Curran & Keele, 1993; Hammond & Moore, 2018).
The Importance of Physical Play and Empathy
In relation to children’s learning, an associated and important consideration to keep in mind is that, from the moment of birth, children need to live in an enriched environment where face-to-face communication should be considered as the primary and ulimate method of interaction.
Source: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
The research is unambiguous; it is the human connection (absent from all devices) that enhances the development of the complex brain, the mind, imagination, language potential, attachment, empathy, and all the other immense holistic qualities that shape the brain, mind, body and the thinking of a developing child, and also the developing adolescent, and eventual rational, ethical adult.
All of these are connected to repetition, distributed practice, sequence learning, perseverance and resilience. Further to this the absolute crucial importance of physical play cannot be overstated. Devices and technology are not substitutes for physical play and human contact. In fact, it is physical play that builds the brain, the mind, the body and all of this creates imagination potential, develops emotions, social understandings, resilience, and, as noted, the holistic mind and body of children, adolescents, and adults.
Without physical play, there is no empathy, Theory of Mind, and successful cognitive, intellectual, physical and emotional development. Ultimately, without empathy, humanity is at risk.
References
Baroody, A. J. (2006). Why children have difficulties mastering the basic number combinations and how to help them. Teaching Children Mathematics, 13(1), 22–31.
Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51.
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380.
Curran, T., & Keele, S. W. (1993). Attentional and nonattentional forms of sequence learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19(1), 189–202.
Decety, J., & Cowell, J. M. (2014). The complex relation between morality and empathy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(7), 337-339.
Ehri, L. C. (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167–188.
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Youth: Change and challenge. New York: Basic Books
Fletcher, J. M., Savage, R., & Vaughn, S. (2021). A commentary on Bowers (2020) and the role of phonics instruction in reading. Educational Psychology Review, 33(3), 1249–1274.
Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Fletcher, J. M., Schatschneider, C., & Mehta, P. (1998). The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(1), 37–55.
Hammond, L., & Moore, W. M. (2018). Teachers taking up explicit instruction: The impact of a professional development and directive instructional coaching model. Australian Journal of Teacher Education (Online), 43(7), 110-133.
Huizinga, J. (1949/1955). Homo Ludens: A study of the play-element in culture. Boston: Beacon Press.
Kuhl, P. K. (2007). Is speech learning ‘gated’by the social brain?. Developmental Science, 10(1), 110-120.
Kyriakides, L., Christoforou, C., & Charalambous, C. Y. (2013). What matters for student learning outcomes: A meta-analysis of studies exploring factors of effective teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 36, 143-152
Mawson, R. D., & Kang, S. H. (2025). The distributed practice effect on classroom learning: A meta-analytic review of applied research. Behavioral Sciences, 15(6), 771.
Meiers, M., Khoo, S. T., Rowe, K., Stephanou, A., Anderson, P., & Nolan, K. (2006). Growth in Literacy and Numeracy in the First Three Years of School.
Murphy O. D. (2021). A meta-analysis of the effect of phonological awareness and/or phonics instruction on word and pseudoword reading of English as an L2. SAGE Open, 11(4), 1–13.
Piaget, J. (1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. New York: Norton.
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American educator, 36(1), 12.
Starzyk, J. A., & He, H. (2007). Anticipation-based temporal sequence learning in hierarchical structure. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 18(2), 344–358.
Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, K. J. (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42(1), 3-48.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Walsh, M. M., Krusmark, M. A., Jastrembski, T., Hansen, D. A., Honn, K. A., & Gunzelmann, G. (2023). Enhancing learning and retention through the distribution of practice repetitions across multiple sessions. Memory & Cognition, 51(2), 455–472.
Wiseheart, M., Küpper-Tetzel, C. E., Weston, T., Kim, A. S. N., Kapler, I. V., & Foot-Seymour, V. (2019). Enhancing the quality of student learning using distributed practice. In J. Dunlosky & K. A. Rawson (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of cognition and education (pp. 550–583). Cambridge University Press.
Lufthansa is cutting 4,000 jobs as it leans on AI to set higher profitability targets, the company announced on Monday.
The job cuts would primarily impact administrative roles in Germany, focusing on positions that “will no longer be necessary in the future” due to the duplication of work, the company noted.
“The profound changes brought about by digitalization and the increased use of artificial intelligence will lead to greater efficiency in many areas and processes,” the company said in its announcement.
Lufthansa is far from the first company to lean into AI to automate certain positions.Klarna and Salesforce both cut thousands of staff this year, with their CEOs confirming that AI was the reason those jobs weren’t replaced. Accenture said last week that it would “exit” staff who couldn’t be reskilled on the tech, and that11,000 were already cut.
The string of cuts signals that companies are looking to AI as a means of automating administrative, repetitive and routine tasks.Research from Microsoft published in July found that positions such as customer service, telephone operators and sales representatives are among those that are particularly vulnerable to AI automation.
As companies seek to prove returns on their AI investments, they may be looking to headcount as a way to fulfill those promises.
At a United Nations high-level meeting in New York, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher of the Vatican said “technology is being used to exacerbate certain forms of abuse and violence,” adding that the gravity of the violence and abuse against women and children extended beyond sexual exploitation and trafficking.That technology he spoke of is the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven internet, where sexual violence is widespread.
A UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) study, titled “Disrupting Harm,” said the Philippines had the highest number of victims of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children among the 13 countries included in the research. Parents have much to worry about these days, since almost every school-age child has access to a mobile phone and the internet, and that is a great danger to them. Children are very secretive about their personal lives, and most parents cannot monitor what their children are doing on the internet.
The Philippines is a hotspot of online child sexual abuse. Thousands of foreign pedophiles are searching to trap children in their net of abuse and evil, which includes extortion. Pedophiles pay large sums of money to poor families for food and education. When they become dependent on the money, the parents or relatives are persuaded by these pedophiles to perform sexual acts on the children on the internet that can be watched via mobile phones.Parents say they do it because of poverty, adding that there is no physical contact involved, but this still doesn’t justify their heinous crime. Victims as young as 5 years old do not know what is happening to them or that it is a serious crime against them. They are easily intimidated, as well as violated and psychologically damaged.
When children use the internet, AI-driven search engines can bring them into contact with abusers lurking online. There are the scammers, the abusers who pretend to be teenage boys or girls and befriend unsuspecting children. After days of chatting with and flattering these children, the abusers persuade them to expose themselves sexually. Once they do, abusers record the children or goad them into sending photos of themselves naked or in sexually suggestive poses. Then the so-called friends spring their trap, demand money or sexual favors from the children, and threaten to send the incriminating video or photos to their classmates, parents or teachers, or post them on social media.Unsurprisingly, these children are devastated, but they could tell no one. The extorting abusers can then meet their victims and demand sexual favors.
One case on trial in Cagayan is an example of this.A Catholic priest had lured and groomed a girl to go with him to a hotel, where he raped her and recorded it on video. He then used the video to keep her silent, and repeated the assault. But the girl ultimately told friends about it. The suspect is now on trial.
Widespread abuse
There are millions of victims of sexual assault all over the world. In late 2024, Unicef reported that 370 million girls and women were and would be subjected to child rape or sexual assault before age 18. The UN agency said in a separate report that online child abuse is happening to such an extent because of “lack of adequate safeguards and regulations to match the pace of digital change.”We can take that to mean that the Philippine government is not implementing the laws mandating telecommunications companies (telcos) and their internet service providers (ISPs) to install blocking software, which is the main way to protect children from online abuse. They are seemingly ignoring these laws. As a result, still images and videos of child sexual abuse still proliferate on the internet, allowing even children to view them.These minors can watch the sex acts done to the youngsters, which arouses them to imitate what they see and abuse younger children. This has happened to thousands of children over the past several years.
One of them was Maria, 12, who was raped several times by a 15-year-old boy who viewed such harmful online material.Maria was so traumatized that she was referred to the Preda Foundation’s home for children for therapy and healing, and to get justice. Unicef has reported that there are 2 million child victims of online sexual abuse in the Philippines.
As mentioned earlier, telcos and ISPs are required by law to install blocking software to prevent child abuse images from being accessed. But evidence of widespread abuse obtained by Unicef and nongovernmental organizations is a clear indication that ISPs do not deploy such AI-driven software. They must be constantly challenged to obey the law. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) must also be challenged to implement the law. It had issued Memorandum Circular 01-01-2014, which is clearly being ignored. Republic Act (RA) 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009 — which this writer helped draft — holds ISPs responsible to make the internet safe.RA 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act of 2022, strengthened RA 9775.
The responsibility for enforcing these laws is primarily the NTC’s duty. But it appears the agency has been captured by the ISPs and does not dare challenge or penalize these providers that have put themselves above the law. Perhaps, the ISPs consider themselves above President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who expressed shock about how widespread child abuse images are online, bringing shame to the nation.The impunity of ISPs is the next corruption that must be challenged, as the flood of child sexual images is inundating the minds and emotions of our children, exposing them to abuse and exploitation, and making them potential abusers later on. Young people themselves must rise and demand a safe and abuse-free internet, and the government and telcos must provide it.END.* * * * * * * * * *Note: Any original information, stories, or news articles posted on this site authored by the Preda Foundation and Father Shay Cullen may be shared, copied, or reproduced without further permission in support of the truth, freedom of expression, and the right to know. Read another reflection:The failure of ISPs to curb online child abuse A study in 2022 revealed that two in 10 internet-using children aged 12 to 17 in the Philippines had experienced online sexual abuse in 2021 alone.
‘Blackouts are coming’ | Kathryn Porter on Britain’s Net Zero energy crisis Politicians are finally waking up to the folly of Net Zero. The Tories have called for drilling in the North Sea. Reform UK wants to lift the ban on fracking. But the UK’s Labour government remains totally committed to renewables, no matter the costs. Here, Kathryn Porter – energy consultant and founder of Watt-Logic – explains why Britain’s bet on wind power has proved so disastrous. The result is rising prices, deindustrialisation and even the risk of major blackouts. The time to change course, she says, is now. New, original spiked videos every Wednesday. About spiked: Founded in 2000, spiked was a pioneer of 21st-century journalism – the first online-only political magazine in the UK. Now edited by Tom Slater, spiked reaches millions around the world with hard-hitting articles, incisive essays and a growing roster of podcasts and videos.
“This isn’t going to resolve the war… And I suspect the war will continue and Israel will continue to pursue its objective.” Donald Trump’s 21 point peace plan for Gaza is a “step forward” to resolve the conflict, but Binyamin Netanyahu’s “long term” goal of eliminating Hamas will still continue, says The Wall Street Journal’s Gerry Baker. Join this channel to get access to perks – / @listentotimesradio 📻 Listen to Times Radio – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio 🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/… 📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-…
"Whether I lost $2 billion or $5 billion, it doesn't make any difference to me. I don't care. If you're rich, it doesn't matter. I'm doing this for the country, I'm doing this for the people." pic.twitter.com/LQQrONZFPZ
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