Aja intended to go for a light lunch with a co-worker, instead, things turned out real heavy.Over sandwiches and sodas her white male co-worker casually mentioned his salary. The figure happened to be about $40,000 more than what she was making.I am reminded of Aja’s story today, equal pay day for Black women, the day Black women have finally earned the same amount of pay that white men earned in 2020. That’s right: Black women in the United States must work 19 months to earn what white men earn in a year.Aja did her best to feign indifference and kept the conversation going, but beneath the surface she was a hot mess. Not only was he earning $40,000 more than her salary at the time, she’d worked for the company longer than he had and had more work experience in the industry.Hearing how she’d been lowballed by the hiring team felt like a gut punch. She struggled through the rest of the meal and the ensuing months on that job. Demoralized, eventually she found it nearly impossible to focus on her work or to complete the same tasks that she had previously mastered effortlessly. She could never bring herself to admit her low salary to the co-worker and friend.It all became too much. So much so that the married mother of one ended up resigning and taking a lower-paying part-time gig. She also took over full-time care of her son, who was a toddler at the time, while she attempted to rebuild her self-esteem.“I tried to just kind of put a smile on my face behind all this pain,” she tearfully recalled. “Because I’m like, ‘how in the world am I getting paid a significant amount less than him?’”Stories like Aja’s weighed on my mind last year when, after more than two decades as a journalist, I began producing my first podcast as a Leonard C Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting Fellow for In These Times, a Chicago-based progressive publication. In the Gap explored the gender pay gap, documenting Black women’s heart-wrenching accounts of maltreatment and the gender, racial, pregnancy and parenting discrimination they endured while trying to earn an honest living.The picture is bleak: Compared with other women in the United States, Black women have always had the highest levels of labor market participation regardless of age, marital status or presence of young children at home. Today, Black women who work full-time year round are paid about 63 cents for every dollar paid to white non-Hispanic men, translating to a potential loss of more than $946,000 in earnings over the course of a 40-year career. This affects the financial standing of the Black family too, as 80% of Black mothers are the sole, primary or co-breadwinners for their households. Black women disproportionately work in, and arguably are often relegated to, domestic and caregiving jobs, where they receive low wages and little consideration for their own family obligations. Black mothers with young children have the highest labor force participation rates among mothers of all races and ethnicities. Painstakingly producing 12 episodes mostly from home with the support of two women editors, who like me were novices in podcasting and also working re

“Education,” wrote Nelson Mandela, “is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” One wonders what he would have made of the response to the education crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. A crisis threatening to derail social and economic progress, trapping millions of children in poverty. The UN secretary general has warned of a “generational catastrophe”, yet the international response has been marked by staggering complacency.That lack of concern was on public display at last week’s Global Education Summit in London. Fresh from cutting UK aid to education by 40%, Boris Johnson – a self-styled champion for universal girls’ education – opened proceedings by declaring that education was “the single best investment we can make in the future of humanity”.The prime minister’s summit then delivered a financial whimper. Set the decidedly modest ambition of raising $5bn (£3.6bn) over five years for the Global Partnership for Education, an important multilateral financing mechanism, pledges fell spectacularly, if predictably, short of the target.It’s tempting to focus on the ineptitude, hubris and hypocrisy of a government singularly ill-placed to provide global leadership on education. Tempting, but misplaced. The summit’s failure was a symptom of a deeper malaise in international cooperation. Faced with unprecedented reversals in education, donor governments and international agencies have responded with all the strategic insight of rabbits caught in the headlights, with petty squabbles over institutional remits and poorly coordinated projects masking a failure to develop a credible collective plan of action backed by finance.Covid-19 has layered a new crisis on old problems. Before the pandemic more than 250 million children were out of school. Not that being in school was an automatic passport to learning: more than half of 10-year-olds attending primary school in the poorest countries remained unable to read a simple sentence or solve a basic maths problem. These children, many of them first-generation learners, were – and are – being failed by school systems designed to act as a forcing house for rote learning, memorisation and curricula designed without reference to their needs.The pandemic has dramatically widened fissures in global education. Unesco warns that lost learning in 2020 could eliminate the gains made over two decades in low- and lower-middle-income countries. The World Bank estimates that the number of 10-year-olds unable to read or write in these countries could rise from half to two-thirds. Meanwhile, the lethal interaction of rising child poverty and learning losses could leave an additional 24 million children out of school, with many forced into child labour or early marriage.These are not theoretical risks. Rural primary school pupils in Ethiopia have lost 70% of their predicted learning, according to surveys by the universities of Cambridge and Addis Ababa. While many governments responded to school closure by introducing ambitious distance-learning initiatives, reach has been limited. For hundreds of millions of children on the wrong side of the digital divide, man

She is a spirited, Titian-haired, freckled beauty, whose curls just won’t quit. While initially submitting to the strictures of high society and the tribulations of the marriage market, she endures a pasting from the press before emerging triumphant, throwing off the weight of expectations to become her true self. And write a children’s book.The heroine of the Duchess of York’s debut novel for adults, Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott, bears no small resemblance to its author, in both looks and life story. Her Heart for a Compass is out on Tuesday from romance publisher Mills & Boon, but readers hoping for the sexy shenanigans usually found in the publisher’s output will be disappointed. While Margaret indulges in a handful of kisses, and at one point has a man “adjusting his kilt, swearing under his breath”, the pleasures she experiences are all very much above the waistline.Ferguson writes in an author’s note that the novel was “15 years in the making”, beginning when she discovered that her great-great-great-grandparents were the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, and that their second daughter, Margaret, was a redhead with a birthday “within a few days” of Ferguson’s own. The real details of Margaret’s own life are scant; Ferguson depicts her as a woman who is initially the toast of London, described in gossip rags as a “Titian-haired breath of fresh Scotch air”. In the novel, Margaret’s hair is frequently featured: it’s variously a “rebellious red mop”, a “sodden mass of rebellious curls”, a “scarlet flag, wild curls whipping around her face”, and “burnished autumn leaves”. One admirer opines: “She was very naive but, by heavens, she had real spirit, too, no one could doubt that.” But the press vilifies her over her refusal to marry a man she loathes, so Margaret goes to live in exile in Ireland, helping the poor and starting to write her own children’s stories. She makes her way in New York as a journalist and philanthropist, and eventually marries the man who has loved her for years.Ferguson has written the novel with veteran Mills & Boon author Marguerite Kaye, whose recent output (A Forbidden Liaison With Miss Grant; The Truth Behind Their Practical Marriage) does not shy away from the horizontal. Here, Margaret is given some clinches, including with an Anglican priest who inspires her work with the poor (“time seemed to stop, along with her breath, until he gave a soft sigh, and she lifted her face and surrendered her lips to his”), and with the man who eventually wins her heart (“deep, starving kisses, adult kisses, their tongues tangling, hands clutching and clinging”). But Bridgerton this is not.Instead, running to 500-plus pages, Her Heart for a Compass sees Margaret realising that she doesn’t need to “conform to the rules set down by society”, that a Buccleuch woman doesn’t need a strategic marriage, and that her despairing cry, “no one seems to care that underneath I’m an actual person”, isn’t altogether true. The novel veers around somewhat in tone, from archaic – Margaret’s priest informs her that “you cannot have imagined I would have kissed

Smoking causes almost twice as many cancer cases among the poor than the well-off, according to new findings that underline the close link between cigarettes and deprivation.About 11,247 cases of cancer caused by smoking are diagnosed among the poorest 20% of people in England each year, but far fewer – 6,200 – among those in the top 20% income bracket.Cancer Research UK, which produced the estimates, said the findings underlined why ministers should impose a levy on tobacco firms to help fund the cost of helping tobacco addicts to quit.“It’s very concerning that smoking causes more cancer cases in more deprived groups,” said Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive.The difference in cancer incidence between rich and poor is so great that, combined with cuts to stop-smoking services in recent years, it threatens the government’s target of England becoming smoke-free by 2030, she added.The number of people smoking would need to fall from its current record low of 15.5% to just 5% in order for that ambition to be achieved. While the proportion of people lighting up has fallen significantly over the last 20 years, it is increasingly concentrated among poorer groups.People in the most deprived communities are two and a half times more likely to smoke than the top fifth of people by income, which is the main reason for the greater number of cancers there, CRUK said.“This stark differential in cancer rates exists because of the iron chain linking smoking and disadvantage. Around a quarter of those who are unemployed or in routine and manual occupations smoke, compared with fewer than one in 10 working in management or the professions,” said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the anti-smoking charity ASH.Analysis by CRUK found that about 53,227 cancers a year are diagnosed among the poorest 20% of people in England as measured by the Office of National Statistics’s index of multiple deprivation. Of those, an estimated 11,247 – 21% of the total – are caused directly by smoking, it said.More cancer cases occur in the wealthiest 20% – an estimated 63,828. However, far fewer of them – 6,200 – are the result of someone smoking, and they represent a much smaller percentage (10%) of all cases of cancer that occur in that part of the population.Prof Linda Bauld, a public health expert at Edinburgh university, said: “This new study found that more cancer cases are caused by smoking in the most deprived 20% of the population. This is due to more people smoking in this group, likely because of several factors such as exposure to smoking, access to cigarettes, tobacco industry marketing, housing and income pressures, and access to health and social care, information and education.”Arnott backed CRUK’s call for tobacco companies to be forced to contribute to a smoke-free fund, based on “the polluter pays” principle. “Tobacco manufacturers make extreme profits off the backs of the poor. The time has come to make them pay to end the epidemic that they and they alone have caused,” she said.

The good news: An initial deluge of explicit porn featuring Sonic the Hedgehog is gone. The bad news: It’s been replaced by ISIS propaganda. Such are the travails of Gettr, the pro-Trump, anti-censorship Twitter clone launched by former Trump spokesperson Jason Miller last month. An investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks extremism online, found Islamic State supporters are using the nascent social network to distribute graphic videos and other terrorist propaganda, putting Gettr’s commitment to free speech ― and its moderation system ― to the test. The jihadi accounts were first flagged by Moustafa Ayad, the organization’s executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Ayad told HuffPost that ISIS supporters used Facebook to coordinate a “raid and occupy” campaign targeting Gettr on July 6, with the first batch of 20 accounts coming online within 24 hours later. Those 20 accounts pushed around 300 pieces of propaganda on Gettr within the first week and then “spawned exponentially” to circumvent moderation efforts. They’ve since grown to at least 250 active accounts disseminating content that includes calls for violence and beheading videos, a Politico tally found. ISIS supporters have put forth a concentrated effort in the past few months to “seed and grow” communities of support, Ayad said. The targeting of conservative and far-right platforms is a deliberate tactic: Compared to Facebook, these platforms often have limited resources to combat the problem, and by simply having a presence there, the Islamic State can claim a media win by “owning” a conservative space. Screengrabs of the jihadi content the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shared with HuffPost show that the earliest posts, while problematic, had minimal interaction. Other disturbing content, like white supremacist propaganda, likely has a far greater reach, said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies disinformation online. “Because of the way Gettr is constructed, it is difficult to quantify how popular a subject is,” Brooking told HuffPost in an email. “In my examination of the platform, however, I found these ISIS fan accounts to have a relatively small reach. Some of these accounts seem to have been manually removed by Gettr after they were flagged by reporters and researchers.”  “On the other hand, it takes only seconds to find content promoting the 2019 white-supremacist terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, which saw the murder of 51 Muslim congregants. The same goes for content related to the ‘Great Replacement’ and other white-supremacist propaganda that has fueled terror attacks around the world.” Posting on Gettr Monday, Miller called Politico’s tally of the ISIS fan accounts “misleading and inflammatory” yet neglected to explain how it was inaccurate. He also boasted about Gettr’s “robust and proactive moderation system that removes prohibited content, maximizing both cutting-edge A.I. technology and human moderation.” Facebook, Twitter and all manner of smaller networks have long stru

The U.S. on Monday finally reached President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one COVID-19 shot in the arms of 70% of American adults ― a month late and amid a fierce surge by the delta variant that is swamping hospitals and leading to new mask rules and mandatory vaccinations around the country. Louisiana ordered nearly everyone, vaccinated or not, to wear masks again in all indoor public settings, including schools and colleges, and other cities and states likewise moved to reinstate precautions to counter a crisis blamed on the fast-spreading variant and stubborn resistance to getting the vaccine. “As fast as we are opening up units, they’re being filled with COVID patients,” lamented Dr. Sergio Segarra, chief medical officer of Baptist Hospital Miami, where the Florida chain reported an increase of well over 140% in the past two weeks in the number of people now hospitalized with the virus. “As quickly as we can discharge them they’re coming in and they’re coming in very sick. We started seeing entire families come down.” Biden had set a goal of reaching the 70% threshold by the Fourth of July. But that target was set well before the highly contagious delta variant enabled the virus to come storming back and undermined the assumptions that were used to arrive at that figure. There was was no celebration at the White House on Monday, nor a setting of a new target, as the administration instead struggles to overcome public resistance. The 70% target marked the low-end of initial government estimates for what would be necessary to achieve herd immunity in the U.S. That has been rendered insufficient by the delta variant. The U.S. still has not hit the administration’s other goal of fully vaccinating 165 million American adults by July 4. It is about 8.5 million short. New cases per day in the U.S. have increased sixfold over the past month to an average of nearly 80,000, a level not seen since mid-February. And deaths per day have climbed over the past two weeks from an average of 259 to 360. Those are still well below the 3,400 deaths and a quarter-million cases per day seen during the worst of the outbreak, in January. Some places around the country are seeing newly confirmed infections and hospital caseloads reach their highest levels since the pandemic began a year and a half ago. Nearly all deaths and serious illnesses now are in unvaccinated people. The surge has led states and cities across the U.S. to beat a retreat, just weeks after it looked as if the country was going to see a close-to-normal summer. Health officials in San Francisco and six other Bay Area counties announced Monday they are reinstating a requirement that everyone — vaccinated or not — wear masks in public indoor spaces. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York City airport and transit workers will have to get vaccinated or face weekly testing. He stopped short of mandating either masks or inoculations for the general public, saying he lacks legal authority to do so. Denver’s mayor said said the city will require police officers, firefighters and certain other municipal employees to get vaccinated, along with workers at schools, nursi

With one extraordinary act of strength and defiance, Emily Campbell ripped a 161kg barbell off the floor, rested it on her shoulders, and began to squat. With another she exploded upwards to thrust the weight - more than two beer kegs worth put together - high above her head.There was a little wobble of the knees. A steadying smile. Then a beep. And, just like that, Britain had its first ever female Olympic weightlifting medallist - and surely its most powerful, heartwarming and potentially life-changing story of these Games.Team GB will never say it. But some medals are simply more inspirational than others. And watching Campbell, a big, strong and proud black woman from a deprived community win an over-87kg super-heavyweight silver medal was a real This Girl Can moment.Five years ago Campbell was working full-time with children with special educational needs and had never snatched or clean and jerked a barbell in her life. She hoped the iron game would turn her into a stronger shot putter and hammer thrower, having been a national U23 champion. Instead it hurled her life down a wondrous new path.And what made the 27-year-old’s journey even more remarkable is that, unlike almost every Team GB medallist in Japan, she is not on lottery funding. Instead a few odd jobs, and the help of her local community helped her scrape and strive towards an impossible glory.“It hasn’t been easy,” she said. “I’ve worked pretty much my whole weightlifting career to fund it and to make sure I’m in the best shape I can. But my community’s spirit is just amazing. Every time I go to the local market they give me free fruit and veg. The cobblers sort out my boots and raise money for me. And, now this kid, who was raised in Bulwell, Nottingham, is an Olympic medallist.”A large media contingent had arrived at the Tokyo Forum to write about Laurel Hubbard becoming the first openly transgender woman to compete in an Olympic Games. But when the 43-year-old Hubbard failed in all three of her attempts at the snatch a half-shut door suddenly swung wide open.A snatch of 122kg put Campbell in fourth place. Then two clean and jerks, of 156kg and 161kg respectively, pushed up into bronze - and then silver - due to her combined tally of 283kg. Then came a scream, before she fell to the floor in tears of disbelief and joy.“Winning the first British female weightlifting medal is something that will obviously be with me forever and I’m just thankful that I managed to put weightlifting on the map,” said Campbell, who had dyed her hair red and blue five hours before the competition.“Because us females have worked so so hard in these past few years to prove that we are not here to just participate, we’re here to compete with the rest of the world. And I hope that you know that the country gets behind us, and we have some more girls doing weightlifting.”That message was echoed by the British weightlifting team leader, Stuart Martin, who said the astonishing high number of drug bans across the sport had given women like Campbell a chance that was not there before.“Let’s not beat around the bush,” he said. “The sport has been in a tough place for a

Canada’s federal government has reached a C$8bn settlement in two class-action lawsuits with First Nations communities over access to clean drinking water.The agreement promises to compensate residents, ensure drinking water infrastructure is built and modernize legislation – as First Nations leaders have been demanding for decades.“Our commitment is to ensure that all First Nations communities have access to clean, safe and reliable drinking water,” said Marc Miller, Indigenous services minister, at a press conference late on Friday.Canada is one of the most water-rich nations in the world, yet in 32 communities across the country, the government has issued 51 advisories against drinking water tainted by industrial contaminants, bacteria or parasites. The federal government has eliminated advisories in more than 70 communities, but it has fallen short of its promise to end advisories in all communities this year.Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that Curve Lake First Nation, Neskantaga First Nation and Tataskweyak Cree Nation were suing the government for C$2.1bn (US$1.7bn) in damages – the costs associated with trucking bottled water for years and a water treatment system for the whole community.The proposed settlement allocates C$1.5bn to an estimated 142,000 individuals from 258 First Nations.Compensation is expected to be calculated based on how remote a person’s community is, how long they’ve been without clean water and if they have suffered health issues such as eczema or gastrointestinal illness from the poor water quality.In Manitoba, the water advisory against Shoal Lake 40 has been in place since 1997. Neskantaga, in northern Ontario, has been under a drinking water advisory since 1995.“Why does this have to happen? Why did we have to sue the government in order to get this thing to where it is today?” said Wayne Moonias, Neskantaga chief, during the press conference. “We have suffered so much, we have lost so much, we have endured so much. But yet our community continues to be resilient. We know how hard it is if you don’t have the basic necessities of life.”With a federal election looming, New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh sharply criticized the governing Liberals for their failure to provide access to clean water.“Indigenous people have had to fight in court for basic human rights, including for access to clean drinking water,” he tweeted after visiting Neskantaga last week. “It should never have come to this.”Curve Lake First Nation, a community surrounded on three sides by a lake, has not had guaranteed access to clean drinking water for more than three decades.“We have made a difference,” said chief Emily Whetung at the press conference, adding that the agreement came with “enforceable timelines”.If Ottawa fails to hold up its commitments under the settlement agreement, First Nations would be able to use a new dispute mechanism.The federal government has pledged to create a C$400m First Nation economic and cultural restoration fund. An additional $400m would be distributed annually to ensure communities can access clean drinking water, totalling nearly $6bn over the next