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End of teachers strike

In trying to please the masses, the Tories leave hard-working taxpayers with the crumbs

by www.telegraph.co.uk Leave a Comment

Boris Johnson has always been a bundle of contradictions. From his self-description as “basically a Brexity Hezza” to being the “libertarian” who brought in some of the world’s most draconian Covid measures, the Prime Minister’s policy on cake has always been “pro having it and pro eating it”.

The Battenberg nature of the Government’s latest chequered economic offering, however, appears to speak to an operation pie-eyed on pleasing the masses, rather than letting Tory voters eat cake.

A rise in the state pension and benefits in line with double-digit inflation may well appeal to those who are never likely to vote Conservative and perhaps that is the point.

Yet those currently in employment but saddled with the highest tax burden since the Second World War will feel like they are only getting the crumbs from the Treasury’s table.

Announcing that the pension triple lock would be reinstated after it was put on pause during the pandemic is undoubtedly a good foil to the argument that the poorest pensioners will have to choose between heating and eating this winter.

Similarly, the idea that benefits will also rise with inflation for about six million people – is, like the state handouts that have already been announced, a good way of looking like you are helping the neediest through the cost of living crisis.

The only problem with such profligate policies, as Margaret Thatcher pointed out, is that other people will have to pay for them. In this case, taxpayers will be footing the £20 billion bill with seemingly nothing in return.

While those who don’t pay National Insurance Contributions (NICs) will be better off, those who are already having to shoulder the burden of the Health and Social Care levy are actively being told by Downing Street to accept pay rises below inflation, which is likely to hit 11 per cent this year.

In the week that 40,000 rail workers have ground Britain to a halt, and with teachers, NHS staff and refuse collectors threatening to follow suit, that is not a surprising stance from No 10 as the UK faces a 1970s-style summer of discontent. But it is a contradictory one.

PM doing his best impression of Orthrus

As when Chancellor Rishi Sunak stands at the despatch box, announcing yet more freebies while insisting he’s all for “fiscal discipline”, Mr Johnson appears to be doing his best impression of Orthrus, the two-headed serpent-tailed dog from Greek mythology.

One head is promising the British public “a high wage economy” while the other is telling workers not to ask for too much money.

Only on Monday, Mr Johnson declared: “Too high demands on pay will make it incredibly difficult to bring to an end the current challenges facing families around the world with rising costs of living.”

Yet Downing Street has struggled to explain how it would not be inflationary to allow pensions and benefits to rise in line with prices.

Surely if it applies to workers’ wages, then it applies to non-workers’ wages too?

Apparently at Cabinet on Tuesday, “The Prime Minister, Chancellor and Chief Secretary to the Treasury led a discussion on the importance of fiscal discipline” while announcing the inflation-busting rises.

Little wonder, then, that one Whitehall source described the fiscally-disciplined-tax-and-spend plan as “bonkers”, while it was left to David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, to remind the Government that it might want to encourage growth in the private sector to promote higher productivity.

With nothing whatsoever in the Spring Statement for small, medium-sized or even large businesses, that sector appears to have been all but forgotten in No 10’s quest to help everyone but the people who pay their wages.

Starmer may be boring, weak and short of ideas – but he’s still going to win the next election

by www.telegraph.co.uk Leave a Comment

Is this how the great Tory dream of electoral realignment ends? With a dorky guy in a blue tie walking through a cartoon door in the centre of a Devon market town to symbolise Boris Johnson’s departure? Don’t laugh. These jokers could be in government soon.

That’s how it’s looking, at any rate. Unless something significant changes in the next two years, we should expect Sir Keir Starmer in No10 at the head of a so-called “progressive” coalition , alongside the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party. A second Scottish referendum would no doubt be the price of power, but we shouldn’t expect Sir Keir to baulk at it.

Don’t tell me that Sir Keir is boring or weak. How can he be weaker than a man who no longer commands the support of 40 per cent of his own MPs and has now lost one of his party’s safest seats? If we were to see a Tiverton-like swing away from the Conservatives at a General Election, the party would be left with just 83 seats.

What’s more, something happened this week that hasn’t happened in a decade: Labour gained a seat in a by-election . It’s hard to believe it has been that long, but then again you have to remember that the party spent half of that time with Jeremy Corbyn in charge.

This success is all the more striking when you sit down and really try to think of a single policy proposal put forwards by Labour in the last year or so.

There was the oil and gas windfall tax, for what it’s worth (only about £2 billion in the Labour design). There was its opposition to letting the temporary rise in universal credit expire. There was the party’s love of lockdown.

And there was the spectacle of two dozen Labour MPs making clear their support for train strikes by joining picket lines this week, in defiance of their leader.

But if you really want to know what Sir Keir stands for, you should read his 14,000-word pamphlet published by the Fabian Society – and tell me if you are any the wiser, because I certainly wasn’t.

In other words, this is not an opposition fizzing with new ideas and energy. Sir Keir is not an exciting, dynamic or even especially competent fellow. For Christ’s sake, this is a man who has admitted on national television that he doesn’t even know what sort of anatomy a woman is supposed to have (not a charge you can level at Boris).

But for all of that, most voters are looking at him and thinking that he looks like a better option than the current Prime Minister.

Some Conservatives seem to take comfort from the notion that, in Wakefield, where there was only a 10 per cent swing against them, there was no Labour surge. Instead, many Tory voters just didn’t show up – or voted for an independent.

This should be the opposite of comforting. It proves that the Conservative Party is now so repellent to voters that Labour doesn’t even need to put forwards an especially compelling alternative. All the party has to do is potter along as it has been.

This isn’t just a one-off, either. A few years ago, essays were being written about the death of moderate Leftist parties across the democratic world and speculating on the idea that it was impossible to knit together an electoral coalition of the working class and posh, urban progressives. The Right was supposedly onto a winning formula in its patriotic alliance of the conservative working classes and the wealthy suburbanites against the gender-obsessed, identity politicians of the clueless Left.

Then Joe Biden won in America and Olaf Scholz won in Germany. The pandemic and the ensuing economic mayhem it unleashed is a pretty fierce electoral opponent, even if the social democratic party waiting in the wings isn’t.

The problem the Conservatives have is that even the supposedly popular actions they are taking are simply being discounted. They are handing out £37 billion for heating, are they? Well, so they should – after all, they paid everyone more than that during the pandemic through the furlough scheme.

The party could try explaining that things are different now, with inflation spiralling, but then they have to explain why it is that they keep saying that more public largesse is impossible – and then buckling under pressure and finding it is possible after all.

They would have to explain how it is that when they talk about rail workers’ and teachers’ wages, inflation is but a temporary hitch, soon to abate, but when they’re talking about tax rises, handouts and interest rates, it’s a dire threat that requires us to be prudent with the public purse.

Tory optimists argue that it’s just a question of holding tight and riding out the inflation shock, then sweeping in with some tax cuts before the general election. This is a bit like trying to thread a needle while riding a surf board – you could get lucky, but you probably won’t. Even if inflation comes down, prices won’t. We will be stuck paying much higher heating and shopping bills than we were before.

And the likelihood is that inflation won’t come down until interest rates go much higher , which will send a ripple of economic pain and bankruptcies through the economy.

That’s before we even get to the question of leadership. Voters are tired of Boris Johnson’s excuses, tired of his jokes and tired of his promises.

It looks like he might try to regain a bit of his old pizzazz by facing down the unions. It would, as it happens, be the right thing to do to help keep a lid on inflation and limit the economic fallout from the pandemic.

But winning that sort of battle requires moral authority, which the Tories are sorely lacking.

No wonder the Prime Minister is already losing the battle for public opinion with the RMT union’s Mick Lynch .

With this week’s by-elections, the Conservatives have been given another warning – one that they will again choose to ignore. They are sticking with an unrecoverable Government, waiting for something, anything, to turn up.

Prepare to be unimpressed as they unleash a blitz of new catchphrases and policies to “change the narrative” and “relaunch” Mr Johnson’s bandwagon in the next week.

It will be the third time – or perhaps the fourth. It won’t change anything.

Putin’s bombs aren’t weakening Ukraine’s resolve to fight

by edition.cnn.com Leave a Comment

Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

(CNN) In 2011, three American researchers revealed an eye-opening finding derived from data on the US bombing campaign during the Vietnam War.

Their discovery: the more bombs that were dropped on South Vietnamese hamlets in 1969, the likelier the Viet Cong insurgents were to end up controlling the territory afterward. As Cornell University professor Thomas Pepinsky noted then , “Killing civilians is unjust, but our research shows that it is also bad strategy.”
Two years later, historian Richard Overy concluded that the targeting of European cities in World War II was also a military failure — “strategic bombing proved in the end to be inadequate in its own terms for carrying out its principal assignments and was morally compromised by deliberate escalation against civilian populations.”

But as Russia’s war in Ukraine entered its third week Thursday, President Vladimir Putin didn’t seem interested in the fine points of military strategy. Missiles rained down relentlessly on Ukrainian cities.

Hospitals, schools and apartment buildings were wrecked, as the civilian death toll mounted. Yet there’s no sign the carnage is weakening Ukraine’s resolve to fight — a survey this month found that two-thirds of Ukrainians remaining in the country were willing to play a role in mounting armed resistance.
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A bomb destroyed the maternity and children’s wards of a hospital in the southern city of Mariupol, killing three people and injuring more than a dozen, as Michael Bociurkiw noted, in a CNN Opinion piece from Lviv. “Grainy images and video showed an Armageddon-like scene: vehicles on fire, the outside grounds singed and a crater large enough to accommodate two men head to toe. A dazed, bloodstained, pregnant woman was being led out by rescue workers…”
“These are my people being injured and killed. I watch as large swaths of the land of my ancestors, introduced to me in childhood through Ukrainian folk songs and poems as a bucolic land of freedom fighters and brave dissidents, is being transformed into killing fields. No wonder my dreams keep me in a captive state of despair.”

“Two weeks into the war, scenes of carnage like that of the Mariupol hospital have become part of the daily horror for Ukrainians that can’t be switched off. ”

No easy victory

For all the damage the Russians have been able to inflict, though, the war isn’t providing the quick and easy victory Putin might have expected.
“The bottom line is the Ukrainian military forces have acquitted themselves exceptionally well thus far in the war,” observed retired US Army Major General Mike Repass , who provided education and advisory support to the Ukrainian military on a US government contract and who shared his views with CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen . “Russia will have a very difficult time subduing them because they are willing to fight until it becomes seemingly ‘futile,’ or they no longer have the resources to do so.
“The Ukrainians have been overmatched by Russian technology and outmanned and outgunned — by Russian tanks, artillery, precision long-range strike missiles, armored personnel carriers — but the terrain favors the defenders, especially in the North and East of Ukraine , although less so in the South. I think time and mass are on the Russian side, and they’re going to be able to either create conditions for peace suitable to Putin’s liking, or they will outright destroy the cities of Ukraine and the Ukrainian military with it, which to me still leaves a resistance scenario for the Ukrainians,” Repass concluded.
“The truth is sinking in that, by attacking Ukraine, Mr Putin has committed a catastrophic error, ” wrote the editors of The Economist . “He has wrecked the reputation of Russia’s supposedly formidable armed forces, which have proved tactically inept against a smaller, worse-armed but motivated opponent. Russia has lost mountains of equipment and endured thousands of casualties, almost as many in two weeks as America has suffered in Iraq since it invaded in 2003.”

Zelensky’s moment

There was an extraordinary moment last week in the House of Commons, on the site where Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill declared in 1940, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
This time, the defiance came from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s embattled president, speaking on a video link to Britain’s Parliament. Frida Ghitis wrote that the screen showed “the familiar image — the boyish-faced president with the stubble of war, wearing his olive green T-shirt. His stirring message was also, above all, an appeal to conscience and bravery, a blend of inspiration and exhortation, lofty ideals and, notably, concrete requests.”
Zelensky ” has achieved far more than anyone had reason to expect. He is not just rallying Ukrainians. He has also rallied the international community at all levels, speaking to world leaders, legislators, community groups and everyday citizens, day after day. Zelensky has articulated the meaning of this war in terms that make it relevant to all the world’s democracies. He has turned the cause into one that world leaders feel compelled to support, that private businesses fear to ignore, in which individuals across the globe yearn to help.”
NATO countries have rushed to provide arms to Ukraine, but won’t intervene directly in the war against a nuclear-armed foe. Should the US be doing more? Critics of President Joe Biden have called for a no-fly zone and the delivery of Polish fighter planes to Ukraine. “It’s completely understandable that elected leaders, like so many Americans, are desperate for Biden to stop a madman’s invasion of a sovereign country and relieve the suffering of the Ukrainian people,” wrote Kirsten Powers . ” We would not be human if we did not feel these things. ”
“But it’s easy to forget that military action often makes things worse, not better. What could be worse than what is happening now? A world war with vastly more casualties. And in case anyone has forgotten, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has indicated his willingness to use nuclear weapons.”

The refugee tide

More than 2 million refugees have escaped the fighting in Ukraine, crossing borders into nations that are welcoming them with open arms.
“In Poland I see the beauty of what can happen when refugees are welcomed,” wrote Arwa Damon. “When kindness and compassion is what greets those on the run for their lives. When hundreds of volunteers wait for bus after bus with signs offering free rides and warm places to stay.”
“Today it feels like the world has woken up and finally realized how ruthless and murderous the Russian government is. As if for years Syrians were not dying under the same Russian bombs. As if countless Syrian voices were not begging the world to help them. At the time, they asked me, ‘Why doesn’t the world care about us?’ But I could never answer the question without crushing them even more. How do you tell someone their life is not part of a geopolitical calculus, that in the grand scheme of the puppet masters, their life is not worth all that much?
“We are painfully seeing that refugees are selectively welcomed, and war criminals are selectively punished. It’s not just the western media that is biased; it’s the western world …The ugly truth is our humanity is skin deep. And it breaks my heart.”
When war broke out, Catarina Buchatskiy could no longer sit in her Stanford University dorm room, decorated with “photos of my childhood in Kyiv, while the city and its surrounding areas were being bombarded by Russian artillery.” Soon after the invasion, she flew to Krakow, Poland, to assist incoming refugees and offer other humanitarian assistance.
” This is a war challenging the very existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians as an independent, sovereign people . It’s also a continuation of a centuries-long Russian war on every single one of us.”

Memories of Prague, 1968

Daniel Kumermann was 17 when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in August 1968 to crush reforms that were threatening to turn Czechoslovakia into a democratic country. “Despite the overwhelming mass of steel around us, we kept refusing to accept its reality,” he recalled. “We still believed that we could somehow protect and preserve the process of the democratization of our country known as the Prague Spring.” It was not to be. Only the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 would free the Czechs, and now, Kumermann, observed, they fear what’s next.
“That is the really bleak message for us here in the Czech Republic and for our neighboring countries, which also used to be under Soviet rule. We can be sure that if Putin succeeds in his current adventure he is not going to stop there — and his gaze will be locked on us . The Ukrainians fighting back against the Russian onslaught do so not only for their own freedom, but for our freedom as well. And for that they deserve our unmitigated gratitude.”
Russia’s most powerful backer in recent months has been China, which has echoed some of Putin’s talking points and avoided direct criticism of the Ukraine invasion. China experts have debated whether President Xi Jinping was blindsided by the scope of Putin’s war. But the more urgent question is what, if anything, China will do to try to stop it.
Ian Johnson , who worked as a journalist in China for 20 years, isn’t optimistic. “China, far from being able to act decisively on the world stage, suffers from a chronic leadership void that leaves it paralyzed to act in the face of global crises,” wrote Johnson.
In theory, it would make sense for China to actively seek to restore peace. “China grew rich in the international order that Putin seeks to destroy. Ultimately it needs to compete with the world’s leading countries, and to do that it needs an open world system with a free flow of capital and ideas. Slumming it with dysfunctional states like Russia only drags China down. This could still happen, and China might set aside its domestic priorities to help end the crisis. But doing so would require a seismic shift.”

In Russia

In Moscow, the shuttering of McDonald’s and other Western companies signaled a decisive shift, according to Andrei Kolesnikov . In recent years, Russia “has become a mall society. People spend their weekends in these consumer hubs; heading there for walks, visiting restaurants, watching films, and of course, shopping.”
“In these boom times, the general consensus among the middle classes of the big cities has been, ‘Yes, we have an authoritarian leader, but why do we need democracy?’ Russians, it appeared, were doing just fine … we’ve learned what kinds of wines we like to drink, we’re picky about cars and holiday resorts abroad. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, foreign businesses, brands, technology, parts and partners have increased employment, expanded competencies. We are still on our own — politically and militarily — but in lifestyle, we are no different from Westerners…”
“The terrible feeling that haunts those people in my circle — who now wander around Istanbul like Russian emigrants in the 1920s or who, like me, still remain in Moscow, full of its traffic jams and queues at banks — is that our freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to assemble peacefully, have been taken away from us. ”
Brittney Griner, the star WNBA player, has been detained in Russia, where she competes for professional leagues. Russian officials said they found cannabis oil in her luggage and charged with her a drug offense that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Peniel E. Joseph wrote that Griner “suddenly finds her life ensnared in a geopolitical chess game controlled by Russian officials at an increasingly perilous and uncertain moment. While Griner’s fame and privilege could shield her somewhat, her identity as a Black gay woman athlete facing the Russian legal system is a precarious one, and as the war intensifies and diplomatic options wane, Americans must not look away. ”
For more:

Covid mind-shift

Two years since the widespread Covid lockdowns began, the virus is in retreat in the US. Whether another variant like Omicron or Delta could spark a new surge is unknown. In the meantime, the urge to return to some kind of pre-Covid sense of “normal” is strong. In an essay, Dr. Sanjay Gupta argued that the health threat hasn’t disappeared despite the drop in new infections. ” Although the numbers are falling, they are still painfully high ,” he wrote, and the lingering effects of “long Covid” are deeply concerning.
Congress last week failed to pass a $15.6 billion pandemic aid package, as Julian Zelizer noted. “As much as our nation’s elected officials are to blame for this lapse, we have been all too eager to move on from the Covid-19 pandemic without tackling underlying public health needs that will allow us to live with this as endemic. We are a nation with a short-attention span, with a media eco-system that has the tendency to quickly shift from one crisis to the next.”

A blow against progress

Dr. Megan Ranney recalled visiting “a cemetery in an old mining town in Utah. My husband and I were struck by the rows of little tombstones. Each tombstone’s death date was within a few weeks of each other in the early 1900s. They were all children who had died of diphtheria. As a parent and a physician, it was an all-too-concrete reminder of the toll that infectious diseases used to take on US families and children.”
Vaccines for children have virtually eliminated diptheria, along with polio and other deadly diseases, she noted. So Ranney reacted with surprise to the “new guidelines put out by the Florida surgeon general on Tuesday, that ‘healthy children from ages 5 to 17 may not benefit from receiving the currently available COVID-19 vaccine.'”
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“The Covid-19 vaccine currently under emergency use authorization in the US for kids 5 and up — a two-dose Pfizer/BioNTech series — is effective at preventing the worst outcomes: severe illness, hospitalization and death. Study after study shows that the kids who get hospitalized for Covid-19 are, by and large, those who are unvaccinated … let’s not undermine these effective protections available to our children. We should celebrate, not denigrate, vaccines. Let’s let common sense, compassion and respect for the data prevail ,” Ranney wrote.
Also in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis moved ahead with a series of bills inspired by topics that dominate conservative media. One of the bills, Jill Filipovic noted, “penalizes any educator who so much as mentions sexual orientation or gender identity to K-3 students.”
“It’s a dystopian law, and a major incursion on free speech and expression — rights that many conservatives have claimed to defend, but instead use their political power to undermine . It’s also a direct attack on kids: Whatever your views on LGBTQ rights and gender identity, barring teachers from even recognizing that gay people exist forces them to lie to their students and breaks down trust between students and educators.”

The book bans

In 2020, Brad Meltzer , who gained fame as a thriller writer, found his non-fiction children’s books on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. listed among more than 200 titles a Pennsylvania school board tried to exclude from classroom discussions of diversity. Authors, activists and students fought back, Meltzer wrote, leading the Central York School Board to eventually drop its “freeze” on the books. But book banning efforts remain in high gear in many parts of the country.
It’s far from the first time this has happened. “From censoring anti-slavery books in the Civil War, racy books in the 80s, rap music in the 90s, or the books about gender identity, sexual orientation and racial injustice that are being targeted today,” Meltzer observed, “the ‘concerned citizens’ fighting to make sure their way of life is undisturbed ‘by uncomfortable ideas’ will eventually be revealed as the villains of the story. If you’re cheering as books are pulled from the library, you’re on the wrong side of history. ”

January 6 turning point

In the first trial of a January 6 Capitol rioter, Guy Reffit was found guilty Tuesday of all five counts related to the attack. Nicole Hemmer saw it as a turning point, a potential departure from a long history of the justice system largely condoning far-right violence.
The “verdict — which joins a series of plea deals, bench trials and seditious conspiracy charges — shows a system with the capacity and flexibility to prosecute far-right extremism in ways it seldom has in modern US history. And while that system still has weaknesses, its ability to respond to extremism will be a critical counterweight to an emboldened far-right. ”

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‘Sprakkar’

Sanna Marin is Finland's prime minister.

Sanna Marin is Finland’s prime minister.

Finland, an early pioneer of full political rights for women, had reason to boast on International Women’s Day this past Tuesday. Its 36-year-old female prime minister Sanna Marin leads a coalition of five political parties, all headed by women, wrote Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle, who moved there for a time from New York City.
“We found a fiercely egalitarian and modest society that is much the opposite of what we were used to in the US. Schoolchildren learn through play and joyful discovery, enjoy multiple outdoor daily recess periods and have highly respected teachers and fairly-funded public schools. Parental leave is generous, public hospitals are first-rate, and the full participation of women in political leadership and many professions is accepted as routine,” they wrote.

“The more we speak with Finnish people, the more we are struck by how often they emphasize the idea of partnership between women and men, rather than a competition of “women versus men.” We often hear of the collective Finnish desire to care for each and every member of society .”
In ancient Icelandic, there’s a word for outstanding or extraordinary women, wrote Eliza Reid , Iceland’s first lady and an immigrant from Canada. “Yet the word is not exclusive to people who understand that language. There are ‘sprakkar’ all around us… I encourage you to recognize them, to elevate them, to amplify their voices, and to remember the influence we can all have in creating a more equitable world for everyone.”

‘How You React Is the Only Thing You Can Control’

by www.theatlantic.com Leave a Comment

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

In my last newsletter , I asked readers, “What norms should govern jokes in our society? What, if anything, makes a joke harmful? What harm, if any, is there in punishing people for jokes or chilling the expression of jokes? How has humor improved your life? Have jokes ever made your life worse?” Many of you responded with memories of laughter or comedic appreciation. Others shared raw stories of hurt. And one correspondent argued that I should be fired. (Thankfully, her email was not persuasive.)

Nancy strongly dislikes hearing a certain four-letter word in comedy:

I don’t appreciate hearing f this, f ing that––very limited vocabularies besides, since when is “f ing” something bad? Maybe they’re doing it wrong.

That’s reportedly true of at least one randy singer-songwriter .

Laughter as Solace

Victor learned the value of joking about serious subjects amid a family tragedy:

My son Aidan was diagnosed with soft-tissue sarcoma in 2018 at the age of 14. In 2019 we were told his cancer had spread to his lungs. There was nothing that could be done for him.

We brought him home to spend his last days with us. We spent a lot of time watching TV together, especially shows about superheroes. One show that stands out is The Boys on Amazon Prime, because of a particular episode. There is a scene where one of the superheroes visits a boy with cancer in the hospital as part of his Make-A-Wish. The boy becomes upset because the superhero was not the one he wanted to meet. Aidan laughed at the scene but he laughed even harder when the Superhero, who is the fastest runner in the world, told the boy he can teach him to run. The boy who was still upset responded, “Can you teach me to outrun cancer?” My initial response was of shock because I didn’t think cancer was funny, but seeing Aidan’s response allowed me to appreciate the power of humor or dark comedy and its ability to make light of difficult situations.

Lisa writes that she’s grateful to have a child who shares her sense of humor:

I am one of those people who has been told many times, “You’re funny. No, I mean it, you’re really funny.” Maybe I really am. I have thought of joining Twitter to simply share humor. However, I am self-aware enough to understand this is said only by those people who know me and give the benefit of doubt to the stuff I say, otherwise known as grace.

Not too long ago, I was having a serious conversation with my child. We were discussing hormones and how they play a part in upsetting our emotions, especially during puberty and menopause. The topic of suicide came up, and my child asked if I had ever had any thoughts along those lines. We had been talking for a while and know each other well. My reply: “I think I would kill your father before I killed myself … What if I’m not the problem?” We laughed. A lot. Out of context, this is obviously a very dark thing to think, much less to say out loud to your child. Now you see why I could never be on Twitter—instant cancellation and probably urgent texts, screenshots, and calls to my husband. Humor requires all of us to be nonbinary in our thinking. It is ironic that the most stridently accepting of everyone’s “TRUTH” often can’t find their funny bone.

Humor got Laura through a dark moment, too:

When my father died, his wake was appropriately somber … at first. He’d had a long stretch of debilitation as a result of cancer and chemo, and my gentle, sweet dad succumbed.

What was wonderful was the laughter, though, as memories of my always-smiling, frequently laughing father started to bubble up. The family and friends gathered to remember him began to talk louder, laugh more, and reminisce about his sense of humor. As we all got sillier, a sudden group self-awareness took over and we all hushed at the impropriety of laughing after death. Until, again as if we were one body, the group realized that was what Dad would have wanted. (I could feel him in the room with us, impatient at our seriousness.) Now, as I help a friend cope with end-stage cancer (again), what strikes me anew is how he and I find relief from the seriousness of his situation in silly jokes about death, his difficulty walking and breathing, and what both of us fear and dread. Humor (we all have different senses of it) helps us cope with what we fear.

Emily’s dad gave her the same gift:

Nothing should be off the table to make jokes about. My dad had one of the darkest senses of humor; he made off color jokes all the time, especially when it came to death. He absolutely believed that everything was funny. If you tried to tell him a joke wasn’t funny, then THAT was funny. My dad had some tough experiences as a young person, so humor for him became how to get through it. It wasn’t an act, though. It wasn’t “Let’s laugh so we don’t cry.” He honestly just learned how to find it all, everything, worth laughing about. As Oscar Wilde said, “Life is too short to be taken seriously.” Which isn’t a denial of dark things or hard things; it is learning to coexist with them so as to not live in fear.

When my dad died quickly and unexpectedly from Covid in 2020, at 64, it was his humor that helped us get through it. His ability to make you laugh at the exact wrong moment is why I far more often think of him and smile or laugh than I think of him and cry. He, more than anyone, would find his own death hysterical. He would be furious, for sure, but I know he would have us rolling making jokes about it, too. Before his death, I didn’t know it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time about the same thing. Life is only misery and suffering if you can’t learn to laugh about misery and suffering.

Val appreciates being around others who can both dish it out and take it:

Among jokesters, we all take our turn in the barrel. We tell a joke about someone’s nationality or job or hobby—then someone tells a joke about something near and dear to us.

We grin and bear it and sometimes have to admit, “Hey! That’s funny!”

No blood, no foul. Only people with absolutely NO sense of humor should ever be truly offended by a joke. If you can’t laugh at yourself, you have no standing to laugh at others. I generally find such people to be difficult to be around. I also don’t think they lead very “fun” lives. I think joke tellers need to be sensitive to their audience. It’s definitely possible to go too far or injure people’s feelings. If you don’t know your audience well, it’s possible to strike a little too close to a nerve. This is why I like to be with people with good senses of humor. Still, one always has to be careful about hitting below the belt.

The Pain of Being Mocked

Reb writes with mixed feelings:

This comic [strip] came out when I was in junior high school, and it has stuck with me in the nearly 40 years since. I’ve pulled it up as a reminder many times in my life when either I, or someone else, overreacted. However, I do believe that laughing at a joke is implicit approval of it. I was often the butt of jokes at school—about my speech, physical appearance, and impairment—and yes, it was harmful to my self-image and my willingness to interact with others.

Even if you are not directly named in the joke, if you see yourself in it, it can sting, and if others approve of it, that can be harmful. How you react is the only thing you can control, so maybe you react publicly to object to that harm. As an individual that seems right and fair. I don’t tend to listen to comedians. I have denied them a platform from which to present to me. But is ignoring (or not explicitly rebuking) a comedian (or politician) who says things I find hurtful to me or others also a form of implicit approval?

I think, perhaps, it is.

To the question “Have jokes ever made your life worse?” Adam answers, “Good Lord, yes.” He writes:

I grew up in the U.K. in the 1990s, and I’m a cisgender guy who’s mostly attracted to other guys. I would absolutely not have *dreamed* of coming out at school. You know the one thing I dreaded more than anything else? Not being simply abused, verbally or physically (although both would certainly have happened), but being *ridiculed*. That was the thing I feared the most and would have found most harmful, and it would certainly have happened, as I’d seen it happening to others, whether they were out or just perceived to be gay. The very word gay was a pervasive catchall term of abuse and ridicule.

Being straightforwardly attacked, in a strange way, contains a compliment: You are at least being acknowledged as important enough to fight with. But being ridiculed has no such backhanded compensation. Being ridiculed is the mortal enemy of empathy. It makes you less than a person. It was the one thing I absolutely could not deal with, so I spent a lot of my life trying to hide a lot of who I was. Comedy is no sideline or bystander in this issue, either. It’s absolutely no coincidence that the period in which it became increasingly socially unacceptable to attack people for their sexuality––around the 2000s to 2010s––was exactly the time society stopped tolerating comedy which did the same.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, there was a vein of “comedy” in the U.K. which more or less entirely focused on insulting people for their identity. Bernard Manning was the most notorious of these “comedians,” and if you go looking, you’ll find quite a lot of debate in serious newspapers and so on about him and this genre of comedy, which very much mirrors the current one, with the term politically correct replacing the current term woke for exactly the same purpose. The “jokes” that were directed at normal, everyday women and minorities by normal, everyday people were the same ones these “comedians” told on TV and the popular club circuit. They were very influential. It took a concerted effort by liberals to shift attitudes to the point that, finally, this kind of “humor” was generally no longer considered acceptable, and thankfully still isn’t. History suggests that the best approach is to do the hard labor of shifting people’s attitudes.

Samantha recounts awful abuse that she encountered growing up:

High school, for me, was hell. Depression, anxiety, and stifling academic pressures absolutely played a role, but so did overt bigotry wrapped up as humor. Every time I tried to challenge my classmates and even my teachers on the horrible things they said about me or other minority groups, I would be treated with an eye roll and a mocking laugh about how I just “didn’t understand humor” and “overreacted to everything.” I learned to keep my head down while people laughed so they didn’t see me crying.

What are some of the things my classmates and teachers alike thought were “hilarious”? A student kept calling me, “Hey, Jew!” I asked her to please call me by my name. A different student responded with a laugh, “Jews don’t have names. They only have numbers!”

We watched a documentary about life in prison camps in North Korea. A scene showed a child so hungry that he dug through animal manure for a single piece of corn. My class erupted in laughter at the idea of a starving, tortured child being forced to eat poop. “Jokes” about people raping me. “Jokes” about me burning in a gas chamber. “Jokes” about how people who self-harm should just kill themselves. “Jokes” about wanting to gun down Romani people. This isn’t humor; this is bigotry, cruelty, and bullying.

Lia explains why she is upset with Dave Chappelle:

I am Asian American and transgender. In school I used to get called “eggroll” behind my back, because I was a chubby teenager. I think my life would probably be better if I hadn’t known … Some might say that this is bullying, not comedy. But humor is just a tool, and a tool can be used to various ends. The kids who made fun of me certainly thought these were jokes. If pressed, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would have said, “We’re just kidding.” But is “It’s a joke” a proper response to being told that you’ve hurt someone?

When you turn an idea into a joke, you create a premade set of words that anyone can repeat. The joke that Asian men have small penises, which classmates directed at me countless times, is not something that just anyone would come up with on their own. How many middle-school boys are going around doing cross-cultural examinations of relative phallic size? But they heard the joke, and some vague feeling of hatred or phobia that lived inside of them found an easy way to slip out into the world and make itself known. It’s not great that they had those negative feelings inside them to begin with, but by putting those feelings into words, they’ve actively made another person’s life worse as well.

I looked up some of the anti-trans jokes and comments that Dave Chappelle has made. They made my heart sink. When Chappelle says, “I am not saying… trans women aren’t women. I’m just saying that those pussies that they’ve got … y’know what I mean? I’m not saying that’s not pussy, but I’m saying that’s, like, Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy, y’know what I mean?” my reaction is not as a progressive, finding his ideas problematic. My reaction is as a trans person, feeling hurt. When I came out as transgender to my mom in college, she threatened to disown me. When I visited her on Christmas that year, she was deep in drink, and laughed at me and groped my breasts and said, “Oh my God, these are real? You look almost like a woman.” Then she told me how she would never be disappointed in me again for the rest of her life, because she learned to stop expecting anything good to come from me, and drank some more.

Yes. I know what you mean, Dave.

If I were a student at Duke Ellington School , what recourse would I have? One thing I could do is keep quiet, and keep hurting to myself, every time I see that a man who has insulted me has been honored as a Great Man and has had a building named after him. Another thing I could do is vandalize the building. But I don’t think that’s a very good idea, since I’d be taking into my own hands the destruction of something that belongs to a community. Ultimately, I think, the only democratic thing I could do that is fair to myself and fair to the community is to object to the dedication. Is that the stifling of free speech, or is it the most civil form of grievance possible for a student?

Olive draws distinctions among jokes:

For me, what makes a joke harmful is not its content or its response, but its intent. A joke told for the sake of hurting other people (not offending or making angry, but causing anguish) is what can be harmful. If a joke makes me angry, it’s usually because it hurt my ego a little and I can recognize that’s not all that bad. But a joke that’s only a thinly veiled insult or bigoted dog whistle defended by “It’s only a joke. Why are you mad?” can be harmful. Jokes show people what’s considered acceptable to say, and communicating to the world that it’s okay to be hateful does more harm than good.

It should be up to the people telling the jokes to measure their own intentions and read the room. Forethought can be put in to consider if a joke will hurt or offend. If it’ll be hurtful, or rile up people with hateful views, a little self-censorship isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if it’ll only offend, it should be told to everyone who needs to hear it. A joke that causes someone to lose their job is ridiculous. But people do have a right to not like a joke. A joke being met with a comment saying it’s not funny isn’t “cancel culture.” Freedom of speech should go both ways, to the people telling jokes and the people complaining, as long as neither has any expectation of a person losing their livelihood.

Standing Up for Jesters

Kathy defends comics from offended audience members:

I love stand-up comedy. I’m particularly drawn to those who are controversial. Dave Chappelle, Doug Stanhope, Chris Rock, and Patton Oswalt have made me laugh, made me think, made me reflect on myself. Louis C. K. is still one of my favorite storyteller comedians. He’s dark, makes me uncomfortable, but he really makes me laugh! And I’m laughing at myself most of the time! Anytime I’ve heard an “offensive” joke, sure, I think, Hmmm … That’s a little wrong . But I also reflect on the joke, find the truth in the humor, feel where it’s affecting me, and see if maybe I’ve got something worth rethinking, healing, or changing. Maybe there’s an old belief or wound the joke is challenging. That’s all mine. I don’t yell at the comedian. It’s not their fault I feel the way I do about their jokes.

Matt is sympathetic to comics, too:

I always look at comics as trying to make people laugh, not expressing their straight opinions. Often, dirty, vulgar, offensive jokes are targeting that balance between being funny because they’re so taboo and going too far. I hesitate on assigning deeper meaning to most jokes in those categories because the comic is performing. It is up to each comic to have the tact to make their jokes in a way that is effective. If they don’t, they won’t be successful in their career. If jokes that are truly offensive and inappropriate are successful, that is a reflection of the audience, and the comic is just a mirror.

If you respect the comedian, take a minute to see if you can’t hear what they’re really saying. Figure out why it bothers you so much and try laughing at yourself. Laughter is the best medicine.

Jim wants comics to be given a wide berth as artists:

If one considers jokes as art, and professional comedians as artists (which I do), then often they lead social culture more than being defined by it. I don’t appreciate all art. I don’t appreciate all jokes. But I appreciate the artists’ courage and willingness to venture into risky territory. Artists who are too perverse, edgy, or ahead-of-their-time often don’t experience the appreciation of their work in their lifetime. That is their punishment.

If society tries to impose a greater punishment than that on comedians or artists, then that society will rob them of their courage to be risky and will end up with safe, largely uninspired art.

Errol defends comics who mock what they find ridiculous:

My all-time hero in comedy has been Lenny Bruce, the guy before George Carlin, who would literally be arrested onstage and taken to jail, banned from certain countries, and essentially facing constant lawsuits throughout his life because he said things like “cocksucker.” He saw through a ridiculous filter on society and risked his life and freedom to expose it. That’s what comedy is. It’s making fun of something you think is ridiculous. The freedom to spotlight that is key to equality and true progressivism. You are very unlikely to be harmed by something that someone says sometimes in your life. That’s living with other people. The world does not revolve around one person, nor does it revolve around one group of people. Life is fleeting, and to spend so much time and energy and anger and pain on a joke is to squander the only gift the universe has given you.

In the case of stand-up comedians, the remote’s right there. You don’t have to watch, pay for, or listen to anything you don’t want to. You can tell your phone, “I’m not interested in ___.”

Greg is the founder of a comedy club and offers this advice:

We need to bring back the word tacky . When a comedian tells a joke that feels a little icky, that seems like it might go over the line a bit, critics jump to offensive immediately, or say that the language does harm, or, God forbid, makes them feel unsafe. Joke tellers might feel less attacked and be less defensive if those critics expressed their displeasure by saying the joke was simply tacky. That’s it. It easily sums up the ideas of it being in poor taste, not being very funny, or just being a bit ugly. But without the accusatory tones of prejudice, bias, racism, and making the world a worse place.

Should We Even Be Talking About This?

Paul castigates me for airing different viewpoints about Chappelle, rather than simply condemning him:

Chappelle’s “comedy” carries the same potential for negative influence on public sentiment that Fox News has. It will lead to more transphobia, more intolerance, more hate, and more violence toward the LGBTQ community and transgender people as well. I find the cavalier attitude people such as you have—with no practical, real-world experience with what you write about—to be disgusting and offensive. I think you should try interviewing people who are trans and parents of transgender children about how they feel about this topic.

I think you will be in for a rude awakening. I am the parent of two wonderful, beautiful, smart, talented, and kind transgender young people. They are the apple of my eye, and I will support and fight for them ’til my dying breath. I suggest you try walking a day in my shoes. But you can’t. You’re a close-minded transphobe who doesn’t understand what it means to protect someone you love who is part of a vulnerable and now legally targeted group.

Megan goes further, urging The Atlantic to fire me.

“Because you continue to give a platform to Conor Friedersdorf despite his numerous demonstrably terrible, harmful opinions,” she writes, “yet another cishet white man has yet another opportunity to widely disseminate his completely irrelevant opinion on why things that demonstrably harm marginalized people whose marginalization he materially benefits from Aren’t That Bad, Actually (TM).”

While I didn’t actually express the opinion that Megan describes, I do disagree with anyone who’d stop us from exchanging all these views––open conversation is the path to tolerance and equality.

In contrast, Darren wants to keep me around:

You seem more willing than most to take us, and yourself, outside our comfort zone and ask the uncomfortable questions that need to be asked. That quality—of taking us all out of our comfort zones—is exactly what makes comedy so essential to the work of democracy. I gave a TEDx talk in 2020 on the topic of “ The Politics of Laughter ” in which I argued that you simply can’t have democracy without comedy. Put differently, if we lose comedy, we lose democracy. I’d even go bigger and say that if we lose comedy, we lose humanity.

As a professor, I work on some pretty grim topics (human-rights violations, genocide, etc.) and the only thing that gets me to the end of the day without fail is a sense of humor. A good joke is like a true friend. I look on with great dismay as a growing chorus of people advocate limits on what comedians can say and what they can tell jokes about. Laughter brings us together in a moment of community, and so silencing comedians will only serve to tear us apart. Comedy has only made my life better, personally and professionally. In fact, comedy only made my life worse one time, when I was attacked by a crowd simply because I told an incite joke. (Sorry, had to end on a bad pun.)

And John says that in a world of terrible acts, targeting jokes for punishment is inapt and counterproductive:

My real problem with all this is simply that while good, moral, and honest people are now walking on eggshells for fear of being the next canceled person for some unspecified, unnormalized offense, plenty of people are saying and doing the most outrageous things and most decidedly not being canceled. We are amplifying those voices dramatically. Actual, outright enemies of Democracy are growing in strength every day, and we are still having this stupid conversation. My advice to the entire Twitterati is to stop this bullshit right now. It doesn’t help anybody living in the real world; it makes for great fodder for the right-wing culture war. And it is mistargeted, badly.

Hurricane Maria: Puerto Rico left entirely without power

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Hurricane Maria regained major hurricane strength as it thrashed parts of the Dominican Republic with heavy rain and high winds.

Earlier, Maria had pummeled Puerto Rico, bringing “catastrophic” 155mph winds and knocking out power to the island’s entire population of 3.5 million.

The “monster” storm was the strongest to hit the US territory in nearly a century.

It made landfall in Puerto Rico at 11.15am BST in the southeast coastal town of Yabucoa and punished the island with life-threatening winds that have torn off roofs and sent doors flying from hinges.

Watch live: Track path of Hurricane Maria

Governor Ricardo Rossello said: “We have not experienced an event of this magnitude in our modern history.”

US President Donald Trump described Hurricane Maria as a “monster”, adding: “Our hearts are with you.”

The second maximum-strength storm to sweep through the Atlantic this month had already killed at least nine people.

In the Puerto Rican capital San Juan windows blew out and there was widespread flooding.

Officials warned the power company’s already crumbling infrastructure had been decimated and the government would have to rebuild dozens of communities.

Carlos Mercader, spokesman for Puerto Rico’s governor, said: “This is total devastation. Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same. This is something of historic proportions.”

After crossing Puerto Rico, Maria was due to pass just north of the north-east coast of the Dominican Republic on Wednesday night and Thursday.

Maria hit just days after the region was hit by Hurricane Irma, which ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record and left a trail of destruction on several Caribbean islands. Stay with us for the latest updates.

Maria regains major hurricane strength

M aria has regained major hurricane strength near the eastern Dominican Republic, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

T he category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale was about 55 miles (90 km) north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with maximum sustained winds of 115 miles per hour (185 km/h), the NHC said.

On the forecast track, the core of Maria will continue to move away from Puerto Rico during the next several hours, and then pass offshore of the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic early on Thursday, the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

British Virgin Islands escape the worst of Hurricane Maria

T he British Virgin Islands have been “spared the worst” from Hurricane Maria, the governor has said, as the storm continues her path of destruction towards another UK overseas territory, PA reports.

Gus Jaspert, governor of the British Virgin Islands, which was wrecked by Hurricane Irma two weeks ago, said initial assessments suggested fresh damage is relatively low.

“We had high winds, we had a bit of flooding, and we had bit of a storm surge that knocked out some of the roads – but that thankfully we have been spared the worst”, he said.

“We are very mindful that others and colleagues in the region felt its full force and our thoughts are very much with them at the moment.”

Mr Jaspert said one of his first priorities on Thursday is to head to the other British Virgin Islands on a helicopter from RFA Mounts Bay to fully assess the damage there.

“We prepared for the worst, it hasn’t been the worst which is good. We are back on to our recovery focus, which is our key thing,” he said.

He revealed that there were no deaths, but that someone who was seriously injured during the latest hurricane is due to be medevaced off Virgin Gorda on Thursday.

‘Postpone Caribbean trips’

T he US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism says people who want to visit the Caribbean territory should postpone their trip while authorities assess the effects of Hurricane Maria on St. Croix and recover from the damage to St. Thomas and St. John from Hurricane Irma.

The department says Hurricane Maria brought heavy rainfall and flooding to St. Croix when it passed to the south of the island and communications throughout the islands are limited.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties from the storm on St. Croix.

Guadeloupe: Natural disaster to be declared after Maria

F rance is to declare a natural disaster for Guadeloupe after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria, a move that is a vital step for victims to secure compensation, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said late on Wednesday.

Two people died and two were missing in the French territory after Maria ripped through the Caribbean on the heels of Hurricane Irma.

“Almost all the banana plantations on the island have been affected,” Philippe said after an interministerial meeting. “Production has totally stopped.”

Under French law, companies or individuals have 10 days in which to file a compensation claim with their insurers for loss in an event that has been officially declared a natural disaster. The declaration will be published on Saturday, Philippe said.

Restoring power in Puerto Rico could take days

B rock Long, head of FEMA, the US government’s emergency agency, said it could take days for the power to come back on in Puerto Rico, and in the US Virgin Islands.

He said: “Because of the nature of the geography of the islands it’s a logistical challenge so it will be a frustrating event to get the power back on.”

San Juan mayor speaks of pain and devastation

C armen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor of San Juan, broke down in tears as she spoke at a shelter.

She said: “Many parts of San Juan are completely flooded. Our life as we know it has changed. There is a lot of pain and a lot of devastation.”

Water becomes river in Puerto Rico

F lood waters rushed down a street in Guyama, Puerto Rico

WATCH: Floodwaters rush through streets of Guyama, Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria strikes the island (via Cruz Rodriguez Keila) pic.twitter.com/apJvSRibDV

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 20, 2017

Maria in infrared

. @NASANPP satellite captured this infrared image of Hurricane #Maria this morning near the U.S. Virgin Islands: https://t.co/jvSNFImaDZ pic.twitter.com/gLdn45ITiB

— NASA (@NASA) September 20, 2017

Curfew imposed in Puerto Rico

G overnor Ricardo Rossello has announced a nightly curfew from 6pm to 6 am that will take effect tonight and end on Saturday morning.

Flooding in Puerto Rico

M ore images are emerging of the flooding in Puerto Rico:

Starting To receive images from Puerto Rico. My sister just sent me this. It’s from Utuado my hometown. #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/STnSEI9yBm

— Antonio Paris (@AntonioParis) September 20, 2017

People without power in Puerto Rico

V ideo emerging of people sheltering after the 100 per cent power outage across Puerto Rico

#PuertoRico officials say it appears as though 100% of the island is without power. The grid is totally offline. #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/j77L8UZLPW

— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) September 20, 2017

Puerto Rico Governor says Maria is ‘catastrophic’

P uerto Rico’s Governor Ricardo Rossello says a “new Puerto Rico” will need to be built:

At least 9 dead after “extremely violent” Hurricane Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico https://t.co/HZPPLfB0rj pic.twitter.com/mh5dbZGNPd

— TIME (@TIME) September 20, 2017

How Maria strengthened

T his animation shows how Maria strengthened as Jose weakened

Animation from Sept. 17-20 satellite imagery shows Hurricane #Jose weakening & #Maria strengthened to a Category 5: https://t.co/DtAy9wvRlG pic.twitter.com/2Qg6P0bQ4f

— NASA (@NASA) September 20, 2017

A view of Maria from space

H ere’s a close-up view of Maria from a Nasa satellite

NOAA/NASA’s GOES 16 weather satellite gets a close-up view of the eye of #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/afF2Qf9hUV

— Francella Perez (@FrancellaKUSI) September 20, 2017

Whole island of Puerto Rico now without power

A bner Gomez, director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency, said 100 per cent of the island, some 3.4 million people, was now without power.

He said: “When we can get outside we will find our island destroyed. The information we received is not encouraging. It’s a system that has destroyed everything it has had in its wake.”

Domenica devastated

M ore aerial footage showing the devastation in Domenica

WATCH: Aerial footage shows Hurricane Maria’s “total destruction” of Dominica https://t.co/Wxb8LARZ7s pic.twitter.com/b5NKPNYdYj

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 20, 2017

‘We shot chickens with a slingshot’

C ouple tell of surviving Irma only to now face wrath of Irma

This couple survived Hurricane Irma, but their nightmare isn’t over yet. They now face Maria’s wrath. https://t.co/ZCjtvIYSHS pic.twitter.com/HzAgvANXe9

— CNN (@CNN) September 20, 2017

Astronaut affected by two hurricanes… while in orbit

T he International Space Station’s Joe Acaba, the first astronaut of Puerto Rican heritage, has been affected by two hurricanes – even in orbit.

In an interview from the space station, Mr Acaba offered words of comfort to Puerto Ricans enduring the wrath of Hurricane Maria. His parents were born in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, and he has lots of family there.

J ust a few weeks ago, Acaba’s home in Houston was flooded by Hurricane Harvey. Acaba was in Russia then, getting ready for his launch. Friends and colleagues came to his rescue, yanking out walls and drying out his house.

Acaba – a former school teacher – arrived at the space station a week ago, along with fellow Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei and a Russian cosmonaut.

Buildings tremble as storm batters Puerto Rican capital

A s Hurricane Maria bears down on San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, buildings trembled and sent torn off pieces of metal barricades clattering along streets.

Broken windows, mangled awnings and gutters dangled haphazardly from buildings or were ripped off entirely.

El Retiro, Caguas, Puerto Rico. Foto enviada por un vecino. #HuracanMaria #MaríaPR pic.twitter.com/3ICzBV0eYT

— Susana Sherin (@SusanaSherin) September 20, 2017

Todo inundado, Los Colobos Carolina pic.twitter.com/xxHaIqw39X

— frances guzman (@franeguz) September 20, 2017

So esta es la que hay en Ciudad Jardin de carolina pic.twitter.com/cMNY1DDT6H

— french toast (@frances_mh) September 20, 2017

Doors fly off hinges as Hurricane Maria hits

I slanders calling local radio stations in Puerto Rico have reported that doors were flying off hinges and a water tank flew away in the island’s southern region.

Meanwhile, widespread flooding was reported in the capital of San Juan, with water running down one apartment’s interior staircase.

Richard Branson: ‘All safe on Necker after night of a thousand buckets’

S ir Richard Branson’s private Necker island was devastated by Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

But the businessman’s retreat in the British Virgin Islands appears to have taken less of a hit from Maria.

Sir Richard wrote on Twitter that “all are safe on Necker” after the “night of a thousand buckets”:

Word from the bunker is all are safe on Necker. Lots of howling rain (2+ feet) but all ok. The night of a thousand buckets #HurricaneMaria

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) September 20, 2017

Yet to hear latest on the rest of #BVI , thoughts with our friends in Puerto Rico & all in #HurricaneMaria ’s path

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) September 20, 2017

Hurricane Maria closes in on capital of San Juan

M aria is now about 15 miles west-southwest of San Juan, with maximum winds of 145mph, the National Hurricane Centre said.

Flash flood warnings as river levels reach dangerous highs

W ith heavy rain causing river levels to reach dangerous highs in Puerto Rico, a warning has been issued for flash floods. It covers the east of the island and is in force until about 4.30pm BST.

RT @NWSFlashFlood : Flash Flood Warning including Carolina PR, Caguas PR, Trujillo Alto PR until 11:30 AM AST pic.twitter.com/fP5dZ33rmv

— NWS San Juan (@NWSSanJuan) September 20, 2017

First pictures from storm-hit Puerto Rico

Storm chaser: ‘Wind sounds like woman screaming at top of her lungs!’

M ike Theiss, an American storm-chaser – is following the path of Hurricane Maria from Fajarado, Puerto Rico.

He has posted a series of dramatic updates and on Twitter, including footage of what the storm looks like on the ground:

The hotel is moving all guests to safe room now in #Fajardo , PR. The wind sounds like a woman screaming at the top of her lungs ! #Maria

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) September 20, 2017

Extreme wind hitting us now ! #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/8VbtKMvBQ2

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) September 20, 2017

Walls being blown apart during extreme wind inside lobby of hotel #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/bL9PUOEzJN

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) September 20, 2017

Daybreak ! Extreme winds pounding our hotel in #Fajarado #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/rwqufucvva

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) September 20, 2017

We are getting absolutely hammered right now !!! Insanity in #Fajardo #HurricaneMaria

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) September 20, 2017

Eyewall tearing up the hotel in #Fajardo #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/UGVKfQi1Cl

— Mike Theiss (@MikeTheiss) September 20, 2017

‘We’ve not experienced an event of this magnitude in modern history’

H urricane Maria is expected to punish the island of Puerto Rico with life-threatening winds for 12 to 24 hours, forecasters said.

“This is going to be an extremely violent phenomenon,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said. “We have not experienced an event of this magnitude in our modern history.”

Roofs fly and windows break as Maria hits Puerto Rico

Z inc roofs were already flying and windows were breaking as Maria approached Puerto Rico before dawn, with nearly 900,000 people without power and one tree falling on an ambulance.

Those who sought shelter at a coliseum in San Juan were moved to the building’s second and third floors, according to local radio.

T he storm is moving across Puerto Rico at 10mph, with a gust of 113mph in the capital of San Juan, according to the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami.

Puerto Rico had long been spared from a direct hit by hurricanes that tend to veer north or south of the island. The last category four hurricane landfall in Puerto Rico happened in 1932 and the strongest storm to ever hit the island was San Felipe in 1928 with winds of 160mph.

Video reportedly shows spot where Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico

T his footage, believed to have been taken from a webcam and posted on Twitter, is said to show the moment Hurricane Maria arrived in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico.

ACTUALIZACIÓN #HuracanMaria pic.twitter.com/LjIjn2iFPQ

— Temporada Ciclónica (@TemporadaCiclon) September 20, 2017

Aerial footage shows scale of devastation on Dominica

F ootage taken from a helicopter over the devastated French territory of Dominica shows the scale of the damage for the first time. The footage posted on Facebook by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency appears to corroborate reports the island has been “devastated”.

Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico

T he eye of Hurricane Maria has made landfall in Puerto Rico, pummeling the island as a category four storm with winds of 155mph, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

The centre of the storm came ashore near Yabucoa in south eastern Puerto Rico at around 11.15am BST.

Seven people confirmed dead on Dominica – bringing Maria death toll to eight

S even people have been confirmed as having been killed on Dominica after it was “devastated” by Hurricane Maria.

It brings the death toll following the storm so far to eight.

Hartley Henry, principal adviser to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, gave the update to a relief fund, adding that there are fears of more deaths on the tiny island:

Maria about to make landfall in Puerto Rico

A ccording to the US National Hurricane Center, the eye Maria is about to make landfall in Puerto Rico, which is slightly earlier than previously expected. It is currently about 35 miles south east of San Juan, with maximum sustained winds of 155mph.

#Hurricane -force winds occurring in Puerto Rico- #Maria ‘s eye should make landfall in the next couple of hours. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/5HkvRNZUaL

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 20, 2017

Winds strengthen on Puerto Rico as islanders seek refuge

A s Hurricane Maria approaches Puerto Rico, winds are picking up and islanders are hoping the storm does not cause the predicted damage as they take refuge in shelters.

The islands that still have hurricane warnings

A s Maria’s intensity falls slightly to a category four hurricane, these are the islands that are still under hurricane warnings:

  • US Virgin Islands
  • British Virgin Islands
  • Puerto Rico, Culebra and Vieques
  • Dominican Republic from Cabo Engano to Puerto Plata
  • Turks and Caicos Islands
  • South eastern Bahamas

Meanwhile, here’s the latest image of Maria’s path through the Caribbean reaching us from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Maria’s maximum sustained winds are close to 155mph and the storm should keep that intensity until it makes landfall.

T he hurricane is centered about 50 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and is moving northwest at about 10 mph.

Trees swirl in wind and rain falls ‘sideways’ on US Virgin Islands

P eople living on St Croix, in the US Virgin Islands, have described the “very violent and intense” winds from Hurricane Maria.

Speaking as she sought shelter from the category five storm, 31-year-old Coral Megahy said: “Very violent and intense right now as we have just begun to experience hurricane force winds.

“We can hear debris banging on the aluminum windows as well right now.”

On St John Island, locals reported seeing trees swirling in the wind, with rain coming “sideways” as Maria continued on its path of destruction after battering the island of Dominica and other territories in the eastern Caribbean.

J udi Buckley, former senator for St Croix Island, traveled to St John from her South Carolina home to help with the Irma relief effort – only to get caught up in Maria.

“We have become the Irma relief hub and our brothers and sisters across the pond can’t afford for us to be crippled,” she said, referring to those on St Croix.

‘Ninety per cent of buildings’ destroyed on Dominica

T he tiny island of Dominica suffered “devastating” damage, its Prime Minister said yesterday .

Although few pictures have reached us from the French territory, unconfirmed reports now suggest that 90 per cent of buildings have been destroyed.

According to the West Indies and Caribbean News, landslides have blocked roads and there are reports of widespread damage.

It reports that St Lucia, Martinique and Trinidad and Tobago are preparing to send relief teams to Dominica.

160mph Maria is now 20 miles from Puerto Rico

T he US National Hurricane Center says latest predictions are that Maria is about 20 miles south east of Vieques, Puerto Rico, with maximum sustained winds of 160mph.

Pictures begin to emerge from storm-hit islands where power was cut

V ery few pictures have so far reached us from the islands hit by Hurricane Maria due to widespread power outages.

About 40 percent of the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe – 80,000 homes – were without power and flooding was reported in several communities.

Maria killed one person in Guadeloupe when a tree fell on them and two people on board a boat were reported missing off La Desirade island, just east of Guadeloupe.

Minister: ‘This has been a fortnight of just relentless catastrophe’

F oreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This has been a fortnight of just relentless catastrophe.”

Sir Alan said the British Virgin Islands are not expected to be hit as hard as previously, although he said: “I’m afraid anything on top of what happened before is quite bad enough and just adds to the misery.”

He described suggestions that the UK could have reacted quicker to Hurricane Irma as an “utterly unfounded accusation”.

Remember Jose? Latest satellite image shows tropical storm and Hurricane Maria

I t seems like a long time ago, but it’s less than since we first heard about Hurricane Jose , a major storm that followed hot on the heels of Hurricane Irma.

It weakened into a tropical storm, but is still in the Atlantic Ocean – as this Nasa satellite image shows (Hurricane Maria is pictured centre and Jose top).

Where is Hurricane Maria now?

H urricane Irma is about 85 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with maximum sustained winds of 165mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

“Slow weakening is expected after the hurricane emerges over the Atlantic north of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic,” the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

Donald Trump: ‘Our hearts are with you’

A s Hurricane Maria bears down on the US territory of Puerto Rico, Donald Trump has tweeted about the “monster” storm:

Puerto Rico being hit hard by new monster Hurricane. Be careful, our hearts are with you- will be there to help!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2017

Dramatic view of Hurricane Maria from space

H ere’s some dramatic footage of Hurricane Maria as it churns through the Caribbean from an angle you might not have seen yet – from the International Space Station.

Station cameras captured dramatic views of Hurricane Maria as it churned through Caribbean Sept. 19 as a category 5 storm. pic.twitter.com/cM76v6A0mi

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) September 19, 2017

Puerto Ricans warned: ‘Evacuate… otherwise, you’re going to die’

T housands of Puerto Ricans have been told to “evacuate or die” as Hurricane Maria bears down on the island, reports David Millward .

Having devastated the island of Dominica, Maria was cutting a deadly path west with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands most at risk.

The core of Maria is expected to reach the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico at 1pm on Wednesday BST and is likely to remain a category 5 storm until landfall, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

“You have to evacuate. Otherwise, you’re going to die,” Hector Pesquera, Puerto Rico’s public safety commissioner said. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer.”

H is stark warning came as frantic preparations were being made across much of the Caribbean ahead of the arrival of the “potentially catastrophic” category five hurricane.

With winds of 160mph, Maria is threatening to inflict mudslides, flash floods, and life-threatening storm surges throughout the region. It claimed its first victim in the French territory of Guadeloupe, where two other people were reported missing.

T he storm is following a similar path to that of Hurricane Irma, which ripped across the Caribbean earlier this month, claiming at least 84 lives and reducing the island of Barbuda to rubble.

Maria is the fourth major hurricane – defined as Category 3 or higher – to hit the region this year, making the season the worst in many years.

“Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the National Hurricane Centre said.

With Maria tracking north-west, hurricane warnings have been issued for the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, St Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat. A tropical storm warning was in force for Martinique, Antigua and Barbuda, Saba, St Eustatius, St Maarten, St Lucia and Anguilla.

I t was Dominica, a mountainous island nation of 72,000, which was the first to take a battering.

“We have lost all what money can buy”, Roosevelt Skerrit, the prime minister wrote on Facebook. “The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God,” he added.

“So far the winds have swept away the roofs of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with. The roof to my own official residence was among the first to go.”

Further west, residents of the British and US Virgin Islands were battening down the hatches ahead of Maria’s arrival. A curfew was in force on the British Virgin Islands, which has a population of just under 31,000.

“Our islands are extremely vulnerable right now,” said Orlando Smith, the prime minister. “While Hurricane Maria may not be as strong as Hurricane Irma, our present reality is also very different. Effects such as potential flooding and high winds that can turn debris into dangerous projectiles can have a greater and more treacherous impact for us.”

M aria is expected to pass within 10 miles of St Croix, the largest of the US Virgin Islands, which has a year-round population of 55,000.

A curfew was in force, with Kenneth Mapp, the governor, warning that most of the islanders will be without power for weeks – and in some cases months.

Residents in vulnerable areas of Puerto Rico, just over 70 miles west of St Croix, were urged to seek shelter by the governor, Ricardo Rossello.

Shelves were stripped bare as many of the 3.7million inhabitants braced for the worst hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1932.

I n response, the territory’s government, where a state of emergency was declared by Donald Trump, has imposed rationing of basic necessities including water and batteries.

The extent of the damage suffered so far to French territories in the Caribbean remains unclear.

Early reports from Martinique suggest that damage was minimal. Nevertheless, 25,000 people have been left without electricity and two towns without drinking water. A partial communications blackout with Guadaloupe has made it impossible for the authorities to assess the full damage.

Aid continues to be sent to the region. The UK said 1,300 troops were staying put with a 42-strong military resilience team being deployed to the British Virgin Islands.

France is sending 110 more soldiers to bolster 3,000 troops who are already in place, while the Dutch navy tweeted that soldiers were being sent to Saba and St Eustatius to prevent looting.