Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Guy Anker, Leaf Arbuthnot and Arion McNicoll.
In this week’s episode, we discuss:
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Streaming court case
Five people who had been convicted of illegally streaming Premier League games were sent to prison this week, one of them for 11 years, after they allegedly made £7 million from their piracy operation. What does this case tell us about football rights, the power of streaming companies, the financial pressures on viewers – and, given that this case was only brought because the Premier League pursued a private prosecution – the priorities of the police?
Racism at the post office
It emerged this week that the victims of a long-running scandal at the Post Office, in which sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft and fraud, were classified in 2008 by officials using outdated and offensive racial terms, including “negroid” and “dark-skinned European types”. The revelation is seen as emblematic of the high-handed behaviour of the Post Office throughout its 13-year campaign against its own employees, some of whom took their own lives before their names were cleared.
Animal sentience
A flood of new research is overturning our old understanding about what animal minds are capable of. Some recent studies seem to suggest that animals really aren’t as inferior to us as we have long liked to tell ourselves. Is there a hierarchy of intelligence or just different types of intelligence? For example, dogs and elephants are able to respond to scent in a far more sophisticated way than humans, as are bees with magnetism.
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Israel: Losing the American publicFeature A recent poll finds American support for Israel's military action in Gaza has fallen from 50% to 32%
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Unmaking AmericansFeature Trump is threatening to revoke the citizenship of foreign-born Americans. Could he do that?
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EPA: A bonfire of climate change regulationsFeature The Environmental Protection Agency wants to roll back its 'endangerment finding,' a ruling that lets the agency regulate carbon emissions
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The Week Unwrapped: Why are we watching the ocean floor?Podcast Plus, what can we learn from a football club on the brink? And which jobs will fall to AI first?
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The Week Unwrapped: Could AI replace catwalk models?Podcast Plus, should countries sue each other for climate damage? And what does Grand Theft Auto 6 tell us about the video game industry?
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The Week Unwrapped: Are electric bikes 'invading' London?Podcast Plus, why is Volodymyr Zelenskyy opposing anti-corruption laws? And how will US withdrawal affect Unesco?
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The Week Unwrapped: Should women be conscripted?Podcast Plus, are digital ID cards inevitable? And why do women get more ACL injuries?
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The Week Unwrapped: How do you turn plastics into paracetamol?Podcast Plus, what is the Wagner Group doing now? And why is it so hard to find a job after university?
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The Week Unwrapped: Could the Greens ape Reform UK?Podcast Plus, are more people opting out of public services?
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The Week Unwrapped: How did South Korea become a cultural powerhouse?Podcast Plus, what does a vote on citizenship tell us about Italy? And is the future of football six-a-side?
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The Week Unwrapped: How did Japan become a space superpower?Podcast Plus, why on earth are Labubu dolls so popular? Will buy-now-pay-later cause a new financial crisis?
