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Spain Confirms It Will Boycott Eurovision 2026 If Israel Participates 

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Spain has become the latest country to announce that they will not be participating in next year’s Eurovision song contest if Israel participates. The head of Spain’s broadcaster, RTVE, stated that “the genocide currently taking place makes it impossible for us to look the other way.”

Spain is the first of the “big five” Eurovision contestants to make this declaration. The “big five” refers to the nations that contribute the most money to the song contest event; the other four countries are France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy. 

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Slovenia, Ireland, and the Netherlands have also made the choice to not participate should Israel compete. The vote for Spain was held the same day as a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. 

José Pablo López, president of RTVE, said that the broadcasters that make up the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which runs the contest, should no longer remain silent about the situation occurring in Gaza. 

“As joint organizers of the Eurovision song contest, we share a collective responsibility,” he said. 

“While Israel has regularly participated in the competition, the current events and the genocide currently taking place make it impossible for us to look the other way.”

“It is not accurate to claim that Eurovision is merely an apolitical music festival. We are all aware that the contest carries significant political implications. The Israeli government is equally aware of this fact and leverages the event on the international stage,” he added. 

Israel denied that it’s committing genocide in in Gaza, and its ambassador to the UN, Daniel Meron, said the report made by the UN commission of inquiry was “scandalous and fake,” the Guardian reports.

The EBU opened up a consultation process back in July with the 37 broadcasters who took part in Eurovision last year to discuss and debate Israel’s participation in the 2026 contest. Typically broadcasters have to inform the EBU about their participation by October, however, this year the deadline has been extended to December.  

López stated that RTVE is hoping Spain’s “visible, meaningful stand” would be taken seriously and properly received by other EBU members, and lead to a decision to be made sooner rather than later. 

“Our hope is that a decision can be reached well before December, as the EBU must be aware of the serious damage being done to the Eurovision song contest, which will mark its 70th anniversary in 2026,” he stated. 

“Therefore, we hope this decision will be made earlier and that the EBU won’t be subjected to the stress of a last-minute vote in London in December. We believe that, for the good of the festival and the values ​​it has championed since its inception, this matter must be resolved before the scheduled assembly.”

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Eurovision is one of the biggest television events in the world, garnering over 160 million viewers this year. 2026’s contest will take place in Vienna in May. 

Russia was banned from the contest after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 while Israel has been able to compete over the past two years despite the multitude of international concerns.

RTV, Slovenia’s public broadcaster, was the first to announce that they wouldn’t participate in Eurovision, followed by RTÉ in Ireland, and then Avrotros in the Netherlands. 

Avrotros stated: 

“The broadcaster also expresses deep concern about the serious erosion of press freedom: the deliberate exclusion of independent international reporting and the many casualties among journalists.”

Iceland’s public service broadcaster, RÚV also said they “reserved the right to withdraw” from Eurovision after claiming they were considering their position in the competition. 

Director of culture and factual content at Finnish public broadcaster, Yle, Johanna Törn-Mangs, said: 

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is tragic, and we sincerely hope for an end to the suffering as soon as possible. Israel’s participation in Eurovision has been a significant topic of discussion in Finland and we have been consistently informing the EBU about the conversations happening here.”

“The EBU is therefore well aware of the public discussion in Finland. At Yle, we have received – and continue to receive – weekly feedback on this issue, both supporting and opposing Israel’s continued participation in the Eurovision song contest.”

The director of Eurovision, Martin Green, recently spoke about their recognition of the concerns regarding Israel’s participation in the contest. 

“We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We are still consulting with all EBU members to gather views on how we manage participation and geopolitical tensions around the Eurovision song contest … It is up to each member to decide if they want to take part in the contest and we would respect any decision broadcasters make.”

election

Comedian Rosie O’Donnell Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Re-election

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Rosie O’Donnell has called for an investigation into the 2024 US presidential election results, questioning the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s sweeping victory across key swing states. The comedian and former co-host of “The View,” who has had a long-standing rivalry with Trump, voiced her concerns during an appearance on Irish talk show “The Late Late Show” last week.

Speaking to host Patrick Kielty, O’Donnell expressed disbelief over Trump’s electoral success, hinting that his close friendship with a powerful tech figure could have influenced the outcome. Without naming him directly, O’Donnell seemed to suggest Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stating, “One of his best friends owns and runs the internet.” She also named this individual as one of his “biggest donors.”

“I would hope that would be investigated and that we would see whether or not it was an anomaly or something else that happened on election night in America when Kamala Harris was filling up stadiums with people who supported her and Donald Trump was not able to do that. So it’s curious to me, and as an American and a believer in democracy, I would hope that we would be able to look at all of the reasons why this happened in our country.”

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O’Donnell, 63, recently relocated to Ireland shortly before Trump retook office, describing the move as beneficial for her mental health and sleep quality. In an Instagram post from earlier this month, she stated, “It’s not easy to move to another country, and we really felt as a family this was the safest and best thing for us to do, and it looks like sadly we were correct.”

She and her 12-year-old daughter, Dakota, settled in Dublin. In her interview, she made it clear that she stood by her decision. “The president of the United States has it out for me and has for twenty years when I told the truth about him on a program called The View,” she said.

“I mentioned his bankruptcies, and I mentioned all of the sexual assault charges, and I mentioned that he was not, in fact, the businessman that everyone thinks he is because of the show, The Apprentice, where they sold a bunch of lies to America for over 10 years, and half of America believed it. And so he was very angry to say the least, and he hasn’t let it go. And he sort of uses me as a punchline whenever he feels the need.”

O’Donnell also expressed deep concern over Trump’s significant government restructuring, particularly his plans to dismantle the Department of Education. She highlighted the personal implications for her autistic child, Dakota, had she stayed in America, emphasizing the severe impact such decisions have on federally funded programs supporting special needs education. “

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“It’s going to be disastrous for children on the spectrum. And that was terrifying. But the biggest reason that it was different than the first time he was in office is because of the Supreme Court giving him ultimate power, the powers of a king or a monarch. And that’s not what the United States is all about. And it’s a terrifying prospect. And in fact, what has happened since he’s taken office has been terrifying, I think for the world and definitely for the United States of America.”

Additionally, O’Donnell criticized MMA fighter Conor McGregor’s recent White House visit, calling it “very depressing” and raising concerns about Trump’s association with controversial figures. Another one of McGregor’s previous visits followed shortly after an Irish High Court ruled in a civil case that he had assaulted and raped a woman in 2018. “It’s very strange that the president of the United States has so many friends who are sexual abusers,” she said. She also stated that the first few weeks of President Trump’s second term have been terrifying.

O’Donnell is Irish on both sides of her family and is currently in the process of applying for citizenship. Reflecting on her new life in Ireland, O’Donnell humorously shared her adjustment to driving on the opposite side of the road on Instagram. “Bought a little used car to tool around the countryside on the wrong side of the road,” she wrote. “Hit the curb three times—thought I hit a cat! #newadventures.” She also expressed excitement about walking Dakota to her new school, signaling her optimism despite the challenging political landscape back in the United States.

Real Estate Home & Keys

UK Housing Market Showing Major Increases In Housing Prices

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House prices in the United Kingdom rose by 8.5% throughout 2020, this marks the largest annual growth rate for the nation since October 2014, according to new official figures released by the government. 

In December 2020, the average price of a house in the UK hit £252,000, which is equivalent to $355,370 in the United States. Government leaders believe this increase is due to the pandemic, but also due to the stamp duty holiday which is projected to finish at the end of March this year. 

The Office for National Statistics released figures this week that showed north-west England as experiencing the highest growth in pricing. Housing rose by 11.2%% last year for that sector, and prices in London rose by just 3.5%. By the end of 2020 the average price of a home in England was around $327,048 in American currency (£269,000).

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“In Wales prices grew 10.7% to an average of £184,000 ($223,706). Scotland had an 8.4% increase to an average of £163,000 ($198,174), while in Northern Ireland a house would typically set buyers back £148,000 ($179937) – up 5.3% on the figure for December 2019,” according to reports.

The fact that so many individuals have been working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic has obviously stunted how many individuals are willing to put their homes on the market during the worst global health and economic crisis in decades. There’s simply not enough supply to meet the demand, even if that demand is exponentially smaller than normal. 

The Office for National Statistics also claimed that the average price of detached properties rose by 10% in 2020 compared to a 5% growth in pricing for flats and maisonettes. 

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“Recent price increases may reflect a range of factors, including pent-up demand, some possible changes in housing preferences since the pandemic, and a response to the changes made to property transaction taxes across the nations.”

In July 2020 the chancellor announced a stamp duty holiday as a means of getting the property market moving. The holiday released property purchases in England and Northern Ireland up to the value of £500,000 ($607,897) from tax payments, according to reports. 

Sarah Coles is a personal finance analyst in the US who claims there’s already hopeful signs that the market will begin to cool down. “Early calculations from Halifax are that house prices fell back 0.3% in January, while the RICS survey showed sales had plummeted, and estate agents expect things to get worse as we go through the spring. A shortage of properties on the market should keep prices from falling, but there’s not going to be a great deal of enthusiasm for more rises.”

Coles went on to explain that “the chancellor could breathe some new life back into the market in the budget if he makes some kind of concession for people mid-sale when the stamp duty rules change. However, there’s no guarantee he’ll do this, and, even if he does, buyers and sellers may be reluctant to get back into the race.”

UK First Covid-19 Vaccine

First Individuals Receive Covid-19 Vaccine In UK 

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The United Kingdom has become the first nation in the world to begin administering a Covid-19 vaccine to its citizens in a non-trial context. 90-year-old Margaret Keenan received the first of two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine this morning. Keenan turns 91 next week, and claims to feel “privileged” that she was given the first shot. 

“It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the New Year after being on my own for most of the year.”

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William Shakespere is the 81-year-old Briton who received the second shot of the Covid-19 vaccine after Keenan this morning. Throughout the rest of the UK, Nurse Joanna Sloan became the first person in Northern Ireland to receive the vaccine and George Dyer became the first individual living in London to get the shot. 

Dyer is a former butcher and hospital volunteer who claims to feel very lucky to be one of the first people in the world to receive the vaccination. “Covid-19 is a terrible thing and I feel very lucky that I can now get this vaccine to keep the virus away. It’s like I’m about to be given a new lease of life, and I cannot wait to get back out there and make myself useful again.”

Gill Rogers is a Sussex resident who received the vaccine on Tuesday. Rogers’ husband unfortunately died from the virus back in April, and she claims the grief has been “quite hard” to endure especially in isolation, so the vaccination is giving her the ability to at least go outside and see others with a little less worry. 

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All vaccinated individuals should continue to abide by all standard health and safety practices implemented by the CDC until further notice, however, the vaccine does at least provide that extra layer of security. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the UK media this Tuesday morning that the vaccine will “gradually make a huge difference. It’s amazing to see the vaccine come out, it’s amazing to see this tremendous shot in the arm for the entire nation, but we can’t afford to relax now. I would just say to all those who are scared, don’t be … you see people take the vaccine this morning, in large numbers, people are going to be taking it in the next few days, and weeks and there is nothing to be nervous about.”

The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine but only 800,000 shots will be made available for the first wave of distribution so that other parts of the world that have already reserved dosages of the vaccine will have access to them as well once their respective governments give them the go ahead. 

The vaccine also is two doses administered at least three weeks apart, so around a third of the UK will be vaccinated after the first round of distribution. If the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine gets approved as well in the coming weeks, as it’s currently projected to, the UK will also have 7 million doses reserved for itself. 

Currently there are 50 vaccination hubs in hospitals across England and dozens others across Wales and Scotland. Individuals over the age of 80 as well as healthcare workers will be the first to be vaccinated. For now it’s only being made available via invitation for those 80 or over/all workers in the healthcare industry.

Contract Tracing

Contact Tracers In Ireland Express Concern Over Future Outbreaks 

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Contact tracers in Ireland have been working tirelessly since the pandemic began to make calls to individuals who are sick and trace possible public areas of exposure. Eamonn Gormley, a tracer working at the University College of Dublin described the extremely disheartening work that they do to the media recently, claiming that the sick individuals they talk to often sound worried about their health and fear for their loved ones that they may have infected. 

“In a lot of cases people were suffering from extreme physical distress, one person I talked to collapsed on the floor and we could hear them gasp for air.” 

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Gormely claims that calls like that are rather rare, but still stick with you. Contact tracers, in general, have the responsibility of notifying individuals who have tested positive for Covid-19 and getting as much information from them as possible in regards to what public spaces they entered within the time-frame of infection. 

In Ireland specifically, many infected people are revealing a multitude of locations they were in close contact with others in, and it’s raising some major concerns. Locations such as pubs, homes, schools, salons, and planes have all been listed recently from Irish individuals who are currently suffering from the coronavirus. 

Ireland saw a steady decrease in case numbers throughout the months of June and July, however, in August numbers began to rise by the hundreds. Within the past month the country saw 2,077 new cases appear; in total they’ve recorded around 31,800 infections and 1,800 deaths. The biggest concern at the moment, however, is the number of individuals that infected patients are claiming to have been around prior to being tested. 

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According to UCD’s tracing center, the average number of individuals a Covid-19 patient has claimed to be in close contact with is 10. Some patients have disclosed they’ve been around 25, 30, even 50 other people before receiving their results. The largest number so far has been 83 close contacts, according to Gormely.

Ireland is joining a growing list of European countries all experiencing major spikes in case numbers. Philip Nolan, the chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modeling Advisory Group, recently claimed that he’s greatly concerned over the lack of action in response to these spikes. 

“Case numbers appear to be growing exponentially and are likely to double every 10 to 14 days if every one of us does not immediately act to break chains of transmission of the virus.” 

Ireland has around 280 active contact tracers with hundreds more on standby. Over 1,000 calls are made every single day from centers located all throughout the country. In one center, the campus has 70 tracers spread out in three rooms. 20 of the tracers in that particular center are environmental health officials and the rest are volunteers. 

Tracers have a very specific code of conduct as well that bars them from expressing any judgement to those who have broken any quarantine rules of health and safety procedures. The goal is not to reprimand, but to gather as much information as possible so that individuals who need to quarantine, do. With the help of a new app as well, tracing has become even easier for these tracers as they continue to navigate this unpredictable pandemic. 

Europe & British Union Flags

Chaos Unfolds in UK as Parliament Takes Unprecedented Actions Over Brexit

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On June 23rd, 2016, a referendum was held in the UK to determine whether or not the country should remain a member of the European Union. A majority, 51.9%, of voters indicated that the UK should leave the EU, and though the referendum was not legally binding, the government has committed to following through with the decision, resulting in fierce negotiations about how the departure should be carried out. In response to the referendum, the then-Prime Minister Theresa May invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, giving formal notice to the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the union and allowing negotiations to begin. The original deadline to leave the EU, March 29, 2019, was extended twice as a serious of tumultuous debates in Parliament raged on. The current deadline to leave the union is October 31st, and the current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has made clear that he will resist any further efforts to extend the deadline. The term “Brexit,” a portmanteau of “Britain” and “exit,” has emerged as shorthand to refer to the UK’s departure from the EU.

The decision to leave the European Union is perhaps one of the most significant political choices made by the UK in modern times, and the consequences of doing so are difficult to predict, though nearly all economists predict that Brexit will have a strong negative impact on the European economy generally, and claim that the result of the referendum has already had a damaging effect. However, a second referendum to reconsider the decision is unlikely, and much of the current debate in Parliament is centered around whether the UK should leave the European Union without negotiating an agreement with the EU, a so called “no-deal Brexit,” or whether a deal should be pursued, delaying the governmental process of leaving the EU even further beyond what already has been several years of argumentation. Among experts, a no-deal Brexit is considered the worst of all possible outcomes, as the consequences of doing so would be more unstructured, chaotic, and destructive than making an arrangement with the EU to ease the transition.

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Recently, Boris Johnson, the current Prime Minister of the UK, was elected, having run on a platform of taking the country out of the EU as quickly as possible, even if that means doing so without a deal. Previous attempts to negotiate a deal have been unsuccessful, as Parliament has been unable to come to an agreement as to which deal to pursue. The former Prime Minister, Theresa May, was unable to negotiate a withdrawal agreement, and resigned as a consequence.

Despite Parliament’s ongoing failure to decide upon terms for withdrawal, however, most members of Parliament strongly oppose a no-deal Brexit, for fear of disastrous economic and political consequences, and have taken unprecedented action in an attempt to prevent it, in so doing shattering constitutional norms. Some MPs who oppose a no-deal Brexit are members of Johnson’s party, the Conservative Party. As a result of these party members taking the highly irregular act of breaking ranks with the Prime Minister, Johnson no longer has a majority lead in Parliament, diminishing his political power substantially. In a controversial effort to ensure a no-deal Brexit, Johnson decided to suspend Parliament for five weeks, to reconvene just a few days before the next European Council, in which negotiations for a withdrawal agreement could occur, and just a few weeks before the scheduled Brexit date. This decision was met with fierce opposition from most members of Parliament, who sought judicial action preventing the suspension of Parliament and successfully passed a bill into law requiring the Prime Minister to delay the Brexit date yet again unless a deal is reached. If Johnson defies this law, he faces potential jail time. Amidst the controversy, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has announced he will step down before the October 31st deadline.

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As time has progressed since the referendum, public opinion in the UK has shifted slightly in the direction of opposing Brexit, in light of the political chaos the decision has wrought and increased awareness of the likely negative consequences. Additionally, trust in political representatives generally has waned, as citizens are frustrated with the government’s inability to carry out the country’s agenda. Johnson has claimed, not unreasonably, that if the country decides yet again to delay Brexit, citizens, particularly members of the Conservative Party he ostensibly leads, will view this as a failure of democracy. A decision to remain in the EU or a second referendum, while very unlikely, could also be interpreted as a failure of democracy, as while referendums are not legally binding they are intended as a means by which the general public provides direction and sets goals for the government. Though the political crisis in the UK is one entirely of the country’s own creation, it serves as a test of the strength of its democratic system of government, and irrespective of the outcome, Brexit will certainly have major political ramifications during the foreseeable future and beyond.