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In the News

  • The New York Police Department (NYPD) has reinstated a Muslim policeman who was suspended last month for refusing to shave his beard.

    Police officer Masood Syed, a law clerk at NYPD, filed a lawsuit on June 22 to challenge the constitutionality of NYPD's policy that bans beards among its employees after he was suspended without pay and his badge and gun confiscated for refusing to follow the rule.

    NYPD has an unwritten policy that allows beards up to 1 millimetre long only for religious accommodation, according to Reuters. Syed has worn a beard from 1/2 to 1 inch for two years for religious reason.

    Read more.

  • Nicky Morgan has snubbed MPs by driving through her preferred candidate for the new Ofsted chief despite their misgivings.

    She announced yesterday that Amanda Spielman will be appointed schools watchdog even after being rejected by the Commons education committee.

    The committee had warned they were ‘unconvinced’ and ‘troubled’ by Ms Spielman’ s nomination and said she lacked ‘vision and passion’.

    Read more.

  • The head of school inspection service Ofsted has warned that the "Trojan Horse" campaign to impose radical ideas on Birmingham schools has "gone underground" but hasn't gone away.

    Sir Michael Wilshaw, national head of the inspection service, has written to education Secretary Nicky Morgan to warn: "The situation remains fragile".

    And he said he was concerned that Birmingham was failing to ensure "children are not being exposed to harm, exploitation or the risk of falling under the influence of extremist views."

    Read more.

  • A group of religious street preachers were arrested after refusing to stop addressing shoppers in Bristol.

    Four men were held on suspicion of public order offences after officers attended Broadmead shopping centre, an area known for open-air preaching.

    A video on the Bristol Post website appeared to show a preacher being told he was "not welcome" before refusing to leave and being led away by police.

    Read more.

  • Sex and relationship education must be made mandatory in schools to help tackle the culture behind online abuse, a former culture secretary has said.

    Maria Miller, who chairs the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee, said the growing scale of online hate crime, cyber bullying and revenge porn cases has “changed my view” on the need for the school curriculum to be updated.

    Read more.

  • Official forms and documents could have the words “male” and “female” removed as ministers said it can be “very distressing” for transgender people to put their birth sex on a form.

    Earlier this year the women and equalities select committee, chaired by former Culture Secretary Maria Miller, had asked the Government to consider the move to prevent transgender people from being excluded.

    Read more.

  • The MP who works as a link between the government and the Church of England has told her colleagues that plans which could see church groups investigated by Ofsted remain under review.

    The proposals will see any group that works with children for more than six hours a week forced to sign up to a new register to counter extremism.

    They've been criticised by many as state regulation of the Church.

    Read more.

  • Even historic defenders of speech like Denmark and the United Kingdom are starting to choose "social harmony" over free expression.

    Read more.

  • You only really know Paris when you know the Métro. When you recognise the Roma rapping on La Ligne 13, when you know without needing to look which stations let the sleeping bags in at night, when you get that instinctive feel for the hour the homeless beggars do their rounds up and down the carriages — “Mesdames, Messieurs.”

    You only really know Paris when you know the spots where women look behind themselves at night. Get out quickly from the tunnels at Stalingrad — watch out for your bag, they say, that’s where the Eritreans are sleeping. Don’t get yourself a commute on La Ligne 13, they joke, it may be light blue but it goes from Romania to the banlieue end of hell. And with this ticket this is where I am going. I have to see the new France for myself to ask: is this country in danger? This is not just any old question to me. This is about my family.

    Read more

  • The controversial bill was brought to the house by Independents4Change TD Mick Wallace this morning despite being deemed unconstitutional by the Attorney General.

    Three Independent government ministers voted against the draft law which would allow abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.

    Read more.