Hazel Dukes, lifelong civil rights leader, dies aged 92

President of the NAACP New York state chapter fought tirelessly for voting rights, fair housing and education

Hazel Dukes, the president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP and lifelong civil rights advocate, died Saturday at the age of 92.

Dukes peacefully passed away in her New York City home surrounded by family, her son, Ronald Dukes, said in a statement.

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Young adults increasingly struggling offline turn to ASMR videos, report finds

Visceral videos of people playing with slime or braiding hair soothe those who feel overwhelmed by in-person contact

Younger adults are increasingly overwhelmed by in-person interaction and soothing themselves instead with sensory online content, according to a report on the wildly popular online content known as ASMR.

ASMR – autonomous sensory meridian response – describes a particular sensory phenomenon that is triggered by specific sights or sounds, which usually begins with a tingling sensation across the scalp and results in feelings of deep calm and relaxation.

47% of those aged 25-34 said they felt overwhelmed in noisy or busy places such as shopping centres or train stations, compared with 35% of those aged 55-64.

39% of those aged 18-24 felt the need to shut out noise, for example using noise-cancelling headphones in public, compared with only 21% of those age 45-54.

Younger age groups were also more likely to prefer chatting to people online rather than face to face and to prefer to work alone rather than around other people.

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US Postal Service faces murky future as Trump mulls dismantling institution

Resistance to any proposals remains speculative until administration lays out its plan for the federal agency

After the postmaster general, Louis Dejoy, a former Trump fundraiser and logistics executive appointed during the president’s first term, announced last month that he was stepping down, defenders of the US Postal Service (USPS) concerned that the 249-year-old institution could soon experience the slice and slash of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” scimitar have expressed alarm.

Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to dissolve USPS’s bipartisan board of governors and place the agency under the control of the commerce department secretary, Howard Lutnick, the Washington Post recently reported.

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I love Italy, says Estonian Eurovision entry accused of insulting Italians

Tommy Cash says he did not expect Espresso Macchiato to cause such offence with references to the mafia and coffee

Estonia’s entry for this year’s Eurovision song contest has said he never intended to offend Italy with his song that pokes fun at Italian stereotypes of coffee-drinking, spaghetti-eating mafiosi – and said he submitted the song after his grandmother cried over it.

There have been calls in Italy for Tommy Cash’s catchy song, Espresso Macchiato, to be banned from the competition, which takes place in Basel, Switzerland, in May.

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Trump is making Central America become a dumping ground for US immigrants

President bullying countries’ leaders into collaborating with his deportation agenda that critics say violates rights

Central America has long been a source of immigrants, and in recent years, it’s also become a major transit route for those from around the world heading to the United States.

That shift led to record numbers of immigrants arriving at the US border, and contributed to the supposed crisis that helped Donald Trump win the election this past November.

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Tim Walz regrets getting ‘sucked in’ to addressing Trump’s pet-eating lies

Harris running mate discussed campaign missteps after saying he’ll run for third term as Minnesota governor

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate in the November presidential election won by Donald Trump, says he deplores how much time he spent addressing the opposing campaign’s decision to spread false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in Springfield, Ohio.

“They sucked me in on” that, Walz said in a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. Echoing similar remarks that he made on a recent episode of the Fast Politics With Molly Jong-Fast podcast, he added: “I was just horrified and angry when they were demonizing folks in Springfield, Ohio. [And] there I was talking for almost a week about immigration, right where they wanted us to be.”

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Britain and France step in to heal Trump-Zelenskyy rift – POLITICO Europe

  1. Britain and France step in to heal Trump-Zelenskyy rift  POLITICO Europe
  2. Europe Races to Repair a Split Between the U.S. and Ukraine  The New York Times
  3. Russia-Ukraine war: UK, France and Ukraine agree to work on ceasefire plan  The Associated Press
  4. Zelenskyy meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London following Trump Oval Office clash  Fox News
  5. UK gives Ukraine’s Zelenskyy a warm welcome after Trump confrontation  Al Jazeera English
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Pope expresses gratitude for closeness and urges prayers for peace – Vatican News

  1. Pope expresses gratitude for closeness and urges prayers for peace  Vatican News
  2. Pope remarks on 'blessing' that comes with 'frailty'; says 'war appears even more absurd' in his current state  Fox News
  3. Would Pope Francis resign? Experts say it’s unlikely – but the pontiff often springs surprises  CNN
  4. Pope 'stable', no repeat of breathing crisis: Vatican  Yahoo
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‘I hate my school’: why are more British teenagers plotting shooting attacks?

Experts say young men and boys ‘with strong sense of grievance’ are ‘idolising’ shooters involved in US massacres. They are also falling through the gaps of UK terrorism laws

On the morning of 13 September, 18-year-old Nicholas Prosper was arrested while walking on a residential road in Luton. Minutes before, he had murdered his mother, younger brother and sister, shooting them dead in their family home.

Neighbours called police after hearing gunfire coming from the flat in Leabank tower, on Luton’s Marsh Farm estate, and officers found Prosper shortly afterwards on Bramingham Road. Later that day, searches of the area uncovered a loaded shotgun and more than 30 cartridges hidden in a nearby bush.

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Hopeful or ‘hate-fuelled’? Film of controversial play about Israel gets London premiere

Director says Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, which provoked fury at its first production in 2009, is a ‘family story’ at heart

The premiere of Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children at the Royal Court theatre 16 years ago proved to be one of British theatre’s most controversial opening nights.

Audiences were immediately divided by the British playwright’s deliberately stripped-back treatment of Jewish generational fear and Israel’s history of conflict.

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Israel blocks entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza – BBC.com

  1. Israel blocks entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza  BBC.com
  2. Israel blocks humanitarian aid into Gaza after Hamas rejects ceasefire extension proposal  Fox News
  3. Egypt condemns Israel’s cutoff of aid to Gaza, says it’s using ‘starvation as a weapon’  The Associated Press
  4. Israel block on Gaza aid coordinated with Trump administration, Israeli source says  ABC News
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