Category: News
Germany’s Merz Secures Pensions Bill, Ending Embarrassing Internal Rebellion
Germany’s Merz Secures Pensions Bill, Ending Embarrassing Internal Rebellion
Germany’s Bundestag on Friday finally approved a contentious pension reform package which was subject of weeks of internal revolt within Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s own Christian Democratic Union party. But this brings to an effective end yet another challenge in his turbulent first seven months in office.
The lower house passed the legislation, which rolls out a reform locking the state pension level at 48% of average wages through 2031, by a vote of 319 to 225, with 53 lawmakers abstaining.
Eighteen younger members of Merz’s center-right Union bloc, a number greater than his coalition’s parliamentary majority, had led an aggressive campaign of resistance to the plan. They argued it will place an unfair burden on younger generations, among other issues including hidden mounting costs.
We’ve for months documented that Germany’s public pension system is under mounting pressure: amid a deepening economic crisis, uncontrolled poverty migration, and a rapidly aging population, a shrinking workforce is being forced to shoulder an ever-growing burden. Meanwhile, the number of pension recipients continues to rise and has now smashed through the 21-million mark.
Merz has tried, dubiously, to demonstrate firm control over his coalition by pushing for an absolute majority of all 630 Bundestag members. However, Friday’s vote outcome spared him the embarrassment of passing the bill only with the help of opposition abstentions from the Left Party. On this, Politico explains:
Earlier this week, Germany’s far-left Die Linke (The Left) party announced its lawmakers would abstain from the vote, effectively ensuring its passage by reducing the overall number of votes needed to pass the pension legislation.
Still, Merz continued to try to secure the support of young conservatives in order to avoid the politically damaging impression that his coalition was dependent on indirect far-left support to get the package over the line.
Ultimately, only seven members of Merz’s conservative bloc voted against the package, giving the conservative leader a so-called chancellor’s majority.
He had entered office by criticizing the political chaos and internal strife which characterized former Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government before it collapsed last year. Merz vowed to avoid such a bumpy road, but his stint thus far has been precisely that.
Kicking the can down the road.
Merz’s challenge today is the #1 demographic/funding conflict every govt will be facing and soon.
Merz averted a crisis by getting his pension bill approved. But the problem won’t be going away as younger CDU members complained too much of the…
— Dan Tsubouchi (@Energy_Tidbits) December 5, 2025
“This is not the end of our pension policy,” Merz said immediately after Friday’s vote. “It’s only the beginning.” He conceded that the controversy revealed just “how big the challenges are that our country faces.”
He further said his office has been engaged in “too many public discussions” – among the more pressing priorities of the country’s stagnant economy and the question of the migration crisis.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/06/2025 – 07:35
Tiroteo en un bar de Sudáfrica deja al menos 11 muertos
Por GERALD IMRAY
CIUDAD DEL CABO, Sudáfrica (AP) — Al menos 11 personas, incluidos tres menores, fallecieron a causa de un tiroteo en un bar en un municipio próximo a la capital administrativa de Sudáfrica, Pretoria, dijo la policía el sábado.
Otras 14 personas resultaron heridas y fueron trasladadas a un hospital, según un comunicado de los Servicios de Policía de Sudáfrica. La policía no ofreció detalles acerca de las edades de los heridos.
El tiroteo ocurrió en un bar sin licencia en el municipio de Saulsville, al oeste de Pretoria, a primera hora del sábado. Los medios locales informaron que el bar estaba dentro de un albergue.
Los menores fallecidos eran un niño de 3 años, otro de 12 y una niña de 16. La policía dijo que buscaba a tres sospechosos.
Sudáfrica tiene una de las tasas de homicidios más altas del mundo, con más de 26.000 en 2024, un promedio de más de 70 al día. Las armas de fuego son, con mucho, la principal causa de muerte en los homicidios.
El país, con 62 millones de habitantes, tiene leyes de posesión de armas relativamente estrictas, pero muchas muertes son cometidas con armas ilegales, según las autoridades.
Ha habido varios tiroteos masivos en bares —a veces llamados shebeens o tabernas— en los últimos años, incluyendo uno que mató a 16 personas en el municipio de Soweto en Johannesburgo en 2022.
En septiembre del año pasado, 18 personas fueron asesinadas, 15 de ellas mujeres, en tiroteos masivos en dos casas en una parte rural de la provincia del Cabo Oriental. Un hombre fue acusado por presuntamente disparar a las víctimas con un fusil de asalto.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/tiroteo-en-un-bar-de-sudfrica-deja-al-menos-11-muertos/
Al menos 11 personas, incluidos tres menores, mueren en un tiroteo en un bar en Sudáfrica, según la policía
CIUDAD DEL CABO, Sudáfrica (AP) — Al menos 11 personas, incluidos tres menores, mueren en un tiroteo en un bar en Sudáfrica, según la policía.
Detroit Lions’ playoff probability is 54% with 4 games left, including ending the season at Chicago Bears
DETROIT — The Detroit Lions are getting a brief break.
Detroit earned a desperately needed 44-30 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night, going 2-1 in a three-game stretch of home games over 12 days.
“We handled our business,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “Now, we get a little breather. We get a couple of days here to catch our breath and then we get ready for the Rams.”
The Lions (8-5) would not be in the playoffs if they started next week, but the two-time defending NFC North champions have a chance to play their way in.
It won’t be easy, especially after Pro Bowl safety Brian Branch tore his left Achilles tendon against Dallas.
Detroit’s playoff probability is 54%, according to the NFL, with four games left in the regular season.
The banged-up Lions will have the weekend off before reporting to the team’s training facility on Monday to begin preparing to face former Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams on the road Dec. 14.
Detroit plays the Pittsburgh Steelers in its home finale on Dec. 21 before visiting Minnesota on Christmas Day and closing the regular season at the Chicago Bears — potentially with a lot at stake.
“We want to kind of be on this up ramp by the time we hit the playoffs, where we’re this dangerous team who can kind of go toe to toe with anybody,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said. “That’s what you want and we’re right there.”
What’s working
Jahmyr Gibbs had 120 yards of offense and three scores in his latest sensational performance. He joined Hall of Famers Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson and Earl Campbell as the four players in NFL history with 4,500 yards from scrimmage and 45 touchdowns during the first three seasons of a career.
What needs help
Detroit didn’t adequately replace veteran guard Kevin Zeitler when he left in free agency to sign with Tennessee and that has become a glaring problem.
Christian Mahogany had the first opportunity to fill the role before breaking his leg last month. Against Dallas, the Lions rotated 27-year-old Trystan Colon and fifth-round pick Miles Frazier into the game and they had mixed results.
“There were some mistakes certainly that want to be cleaned up, but for the most part did a good job,” Campbell said.
Stock up
Jameson Williams is coming off the most productive games of his career, matching a career high with seven catches for 96 yards against the Cowboys a week after setting career highs with seven receptions and 144 yards along with a touchdown in a loss to Green Bay.
Stock down
Injuries in the secondary are piling up. Branch tore his left Achilles tendon, according to a person familiar with the situation. Tests revealed the significant injury on Friday, the person told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the results were not announced.
Free safety Thomas Harper, filling in for injured All-Pro Kerby Joseph, suffered a concussion in the first quarter against the Cowboys. Cornerback Terrion Arnold was put on injured reserve earlier this week.
Injuries
Branch’s injury is a big blow for a team that counts on the hard-hitting defensive back with coverage skills. Receiver and punt returner Kalif Raymond has missed two straight games. Brock Wright, filling in for injured tight end Sam LaPorta, was put on injured reserve on Thursday.
Key number: 58
The Lions will play their 58th game without losing back-to-back regular-season games at Los Angeles, the league’s longest run since San Francisco’s 60-game run without dropping consecutive games from 1995 to 1999, according to Sportradar. The Rams have the second-longest active streak, going 24 games without losing two in a row in the regular season.
Next steps
Rest from a grueling, three-game stretch and recover from injuries to get healthy for the final part of the season.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/detroit-lions-playoff-chances-nfc-north/
Kyle Monangai laughs about fan’s ‘Lion King’ parody: ‘Everybody’s been sending it to me,’ Chicago Bears RB says
A parody Instagram post in tribute to Chicago Bears running back Kyle Monangai has caught the attention of the rookie himself.
“Like the ‘Lion King’? Yeah, I saw that,” Monangai smiled. “Everybody’s been sending it to me. It was definitely cool to see. And big shout-out to him who made that. He’s got some nice vocals. I can’t sing that well.”
Edgar Blackmon, a Second City alumnus and Richton Park native, created the post, taking inspiration from the familiar opening chant from the Disney animated hit, “Circle of Life/Nants’ Ingonyama,” the latter of which loosely translates from Zulu to “Here comes the lion.”
The melodic chant, according to Genius.com, goes as follows: “Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba / Sithi uhm ingonyama …”
While wearing what appears to be a homemade Bears headdress, Blackmon swaps in Bears-centric lyrics but sings them with the same accent.
“Kyle Monangai with a Bears first down (Bear down, Chicago Bears,” he starts off in the post with a caption that reads, “Me whenever Kyle Monangai does something good.” “Kyle Monangai’s in the end zone again (Bear down, Chicago Bears).”
Said Monangai: “I laughed. It was cool. My mom loved it. The whole family saw it, they loved it. And I know that everybody around here got a good laugh out of it. They loved it too.”
Monangai, 23, has 121 carries for 591 yards, and his five rushing touchdowns are tied with D’Andre Swift for the team lead.
The seventh-round draft pick is averaging 4.9 yards per carry through 12 games, putting up 176- and 130-yard days against the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles, respectively.
“That’s right, he needs it,” Swift said of his fellow running back’s social media tribute. “He’s been playing great ball right now. So whatever love he can get, whatever recognition he can get, he deserves it.”
Receiver Olamide Zaccheaus, whose stall is near Monangai’s, loves to joke around with the rookie.
“Somebody sent it to me,” Zaccheaus said. “I really haven’t (teased him) but it may start getting some traction in the locker room.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/chicago-bears-kyle-monangai-lion-king/
Nahshon Wright’s ’emotional’ breakout season for Chicago Bears comes as he mourns his JUCO coach John Beam
In the mass of bodies, Nahshon Wright saw a sliver of dark brown leather.
“I just saw him holding the ball out with two hands,” Wright said.
Jalen Hurts pushed his way into the pile on the Philadelphia Eagles’ infamous Tush Push play. The Eagles needed a first down and were just 11 yards from regaining the lead on Black Friday in a game that felt as if it were about to turn in their favor.
Then the unheralded Chicago Bears cornerback, who wasn’t even supposed to be a starter this season, flew around the pile and ripped the ball from Hurts’ hands. Wright somehow worked his way to the bottom of the pile to recover the fumble.
Bears cornerback Nahshon Wright (26) celebrates his fumble recovery against the Eagles in the third quarter Nov. 28, 2025, at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
The Bears took over and drove downfield for a touchdown that extended a one-point lead to eight. The Bears went on to close out a surprising victory over the defending Super Bowl champions at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
“That was one of the turning points in the game right there,” coach Ben Johnson later said. “They’re in scoring range and a high-percentage play for them, and yet he was able to get the ball away from them.”
The Tush Push play marked Wright’s third fumble recovery and his eighth takeaway this season, counting his five interceptions. He has been a difference-maker for the Bears in 2025 — and far and away the biggest difference-maker nobody saw coming. He started the season as a backup and got a chance only because of injuries at cornerback.
Perhaps most telling about the Eagles game was not Wright’s takeaway, but rather the fact he played the entire game — 100% of the defensive snaps — despite veteran cornerbacks Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon returning from injuries.
Days earlier, when asked about the possibility that Wright’s playing time might diminish when those guys returned, Ben Johnson was blunt in his assessment of Wright: “He’s done a phenomenal job. I think he has certainly earned play time.”
In a matter of months, Wright has gone from the relative obscurity of a backup defensive back on a team that finished last place in the NFC North a year ago to an indispensable starter on a team that is 9-3 and leading the NFC.
“I think when it’s all said and done, I’ll be able to look back and give myself a pat on the back,” Wright said. “I mean, obviously I’m proud of what’s been going on and what’s happening for myself, but it’s so week to week I haven’t got to kind of soak it all in yet.”
‘All the work we put in’
Cornerback Nahshon Wright celebrates after the Bears defeated the Steelers 31-28 on Nov. 23, 2025, at Soldier Field. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Al Harris is the reason Wright came to Chicago. Harris was the defensive backs coach when the Dallas Cowboys selected Wright with a third-round pick in the 2021 draft.
Wright entered the NFL after two years at Oregon State and one year of junior college football at Laney College in Oakland, Calif. His predraft scouting report on NFL.com included comments like “speed is lacking” and “very thin frame” with a projection that suggested he’d be a seventh-round pick or go undrafted. Instead, the Cowboys took him with the 99th pick.
Harris, now the Bears defensive backs coach, worked with Wright every single day after practice during those early years in Dallas. Wright hardly played for the Cowboys defense back then. He was stuck behind Pro Bowl corners Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland.
Behind the scenes, Harris and Wright worked every day, particularly on tracking the football and on press coverage. Wright said it was hard to put in the work but not see any playing time on defense. He remembered a game against the San Francisco 49ers in 2023, when he was sidelined by an injury, that Harris reminded him to make the most of his next opportunity.
“It’s just crazy to think that we had that talk two, three years ago and now it’s kind of happening,” Wright said.
Those were valuable years, despite the lack of playing time. Harris and Wright built a rapport. On top of that, Wright watched first-hand what it took for Diggs and Bland to develop into Pro Bowl selections.
“He’s seen these guys become All-Pro, Pro Bowlers, lead the league in interceptions,” Harris said. “So he knows the message. He knows the teaching. Just to his credit, from when he got in the league as a rookie and to now, his movements are night and day, the understanding is night and day. He’s more confident.”
The Cowboys traded Wright to Minnesota in August 2024, swapping him for cornerback Andrew Booth Jr. Wright spent the 2024 season on the Vikings practice squad. Even so, he kept in touch with Harris last year.
When the Vikings released Wright in April, Harris was the first person to call. Now, Wright has been thinking about that conversation two years ago, when Harris told him to make the most of his next opportunity.
“It didn’t happen in Dallas,” Wright said. “It didn’t happen for me in Minnesota. It just so happened to happen for me now and I’m with Al. So it’s crazy when you think about it — all the work we put in for those years.”
Wright signed with the Bears on April 8. At the time, it was a free-agency footnote. Cornerback was one of the deepest positions on the Bears roster. Jaylon Johnson, Kyler Gordon, Tyrique Stevenson and top backups Terell Smith and Josh Blackwell all returned from the 2024 roster.
Wright’s path to significant playing time looked unlikely.
‘Stay locked in’
For veteran safety Kevin Byard III, Wright was anything but a footnote.
“Shonny was a third-round pick, so obviously the talent was always there,” Byard said.
The NFL is a league of attrition. The teams that catch some luck in the injury department often are the ones playing into late January. A backup never quite knows when his big break will come.
Jaylon Johnson missed the preseason after injuring himself in preparation for training camp. Smith suffered a season-ending knee injury in August. Gordon tweaked his hamstring ahead of Week 1. Wright found himself in the starting lineup for the season opener against his former team, the Vikings.
“Just stay locked in because you never know what could happen,” Wright said of his mindset.
Early in the third quarter, Wright lined up against Vikings star receiver Justin Jefferson — a player he matched up against all the time when he was on the Minnesota practice squad. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy looked left the whole way and Wright followed the QB’s eyes. He jumped in front of Jefferson’s route and grabbed an easy interception.
There was nothing but green grass ahead of him, and he ran 74 yards for a touchdown. It was his first interception in three years and just the second of his career.
A week later, Jaylon Johnson returned from a groin injury and started, pushing Wright back to the bench. But Johnson wound up reinjuring himself in the Week 2 loss in Detroit. The Pro Bowl corner needed core muscle surgery and would be out for an extended period. Wright was thrust back into the starting lineup and has never left.
When Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels fumbled a handoff late in a Week 6 game at Northwest Stadium, Wright was there to scoop up the game-altering fumble recovery. A week later he had another interception against the New Orleans Saints.
He had three interceptions in November, plus two fumble recoveries and a forced fumble (one being the Tush Push play in Philadelphia). That earned him NFC Defensive Player of the Month honors.
Little by little, week after week, Wright has put his stamp on a Bears defense that leads the NFL with 26 takeaways. Wright’s five interceptions rank second in the league behind only Byard’s six.
His production has blown away even the most optimistic of expectations.
“What I saw was, each and every day and each and every week during training camp, I saw a guy that continued to get better,” defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said. “And I’ve said this before, anytime you’ve got a guy that’s got talent and intelligence and they’re willing to work, those guys get better. And that’s exactly what he’s done.”
‘I’ll always remember him’
Bears defenders gather around cornerback Nahshon Wright (26) after he intercepted a Vikings pass in the end zone Nov. 16, 2025, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Wright and his junior college football coach, John Beam, were standing in Endless Supply, a shoe and apparel store on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. It was Oct. 18, the night before the Bears-Saints game at Soldier Field, which would feature Wright playing against his brother, Saints cornerback Rejzohn Wright. Both Wright brothers played for Beam at Laney College in Oakland, Calif.
Beam starred in Season 5 of the Netflix series “Last Chance U.” One episode featured the Wright brothers discussing the death of their father, Jamal Wright, who was shot and killed in December 2017 in San Jose, Calif. In the aftermath of the shooting, Beam was there for the boys.
In the episode, Nahshon Wright recalled Beam telling him, “Everything you do, do it for your dad.”
On this October evening, Beam and Wright were standing in Endless Supply shopping, but mostly just catching up. They had a big group of family, Wright’s fiancée and daughters, his mom, Rejzohn’s wife and his in-laws. As the family walked up and down the Magnificent Mile — Beam wanted to get his steps in — Beam and Wright caught up on everything: life, finances, football.
It was at Endless Supply that a group of young men approached them.
“What do we know you from?” one of them said.
He was talking to Beam, unaware that the taller guy was a starting cornerback for the Bears.
“They ended up taking a picture with him and not me,” Wright recalled with a laugh. “On the walk we were joking about that: ‘You’re more famous than me, and I play.’”
Laney Coach John Beam speaks before the Oakland Athletic League football championship game on Nov. 25, 2023. (Joseph Dycus/Bay Area News Group/TNS)
Wright’s journey to Laney was a roundabout one. Initially, coming out of James Logan High School in the Bay Area, Wright didn’t want to go to Laney, despite the fact it was just up the road in Oakland. He first went to San Francisco City College, then transferred to College of San Mateo.
When his 1998 Acura couldn’t handle the commute, he finally wound up at Laney with Beam. It was in the aftermath of his dad’s death that he grew close with the coach.
A week or so after his dad’s shooting, Beam was at Wright’s front door, getting him out of bed.
“Beam stepped in,” Wright said. “He stepped in as a father figure, father role. He did a lot for me and my brother, my family.”
The Wright brothers won a state championship with Laney in 2018. Nahshon transferred to Oregon State in 2019. Rejzohn was still at Laney in 2019, the season that was featured on “Last Chance U.” Even after he left Laney, Nahshon kept in touch with Beam weekly.
Just a few weeks after that walk on the Magnificent Mile in October, Wright saw a text from a friend after the Bears wrapped up practice. Beam had been shot on the Laney campus, where he had transitioned to the role of athletic director.
A chill went through Wright’s body when he saw the text, the same chill he had experienced when his dad died. Something he hoped he would never experience again. Beam died a day later, on Nov. 14.
The news of Beam’s death was everywhere. Beam, who was 66, left behind his wife, Cindi, their two daughters and two grandchildren. The mayor of Oakland called him “a giant” in the community. A 27-year-old man was arrested and charged with Beam’s murder.
Wright tried to process what happened to his coach and prepare for a football game just days later in Minnesota. This time, he leaned on Harris.
“He was calling me by the hour just to check on me,” Wright said.
“We talk outside of the building,” Harris said. “Even when he was in Minnesota, we still stayed in contact, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be about football. It could be the kids. All of that. When that happened, I felt for him because I knew how much that guy meant to him.”
Bears cornerback Nahshon Wright receives a hug on the sideline from defensive backs coach Al Harris after his interception in the second quarter against the Vikings on Nov. 16, 2025, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Fittingly, Wright grabbed another interception that weekend in Minnesota. When he caught the football in the end zone, the emotions hit him and he fell to one knee. On his way back to the sideline, he stuck out his thumb and pinky finger in a “hang ten” hand signal that Beam used to make whenever he took pictures with people.
Wright also shared a big hug with Harris.
“Every week I do get reminded of Beam, and every week I write his name on my tape,” Wright said. “I’ll always remember him. I’ll always take him into every game.”
‘Teams gave up on me’
Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler chases Bears cornerback Nahshon Wright after Wright intercepted Rattler’s pass in the second quarter on Oct. 19, 2025, at Soldier Field. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
This season has bucked trends for the Bears. The team is 9-3 for the first time since 2010. The defense leads the NFL in takeaways for the first time since 2018.
The Bears have done it with a number of contributors over the weeks. None is more surprising than Wright. In Harris’ eyes, this is kind of like Wright’s rookie season — at least in terms of playing time. He has watched Wright’s confidence grow with each passing week.
When Wright showed up at Halas Hall for training camp, his only goal was to make the 53-man roster. After the Eagles game, Amazon Prime Video analyst Richard Sherman — the longtime Seahawks and 49ers cornerback — came up to Wright and told him he was playing at a high level. When Wright was growing up, Sherman was the most famous cornerback in the league.
“I told him it was an honor, and he was like, ‘No, it’s an honor to watch you play,’” Wright said. “So it was definitely cool.”
It has been a long journey for a player who didn’t even know if football was still in his future when he first enrolled at Laney College all those years ago. Wright wasn’t playing back then, so he got a job at Foot Locker on the side. But the coaches in his life — Beam and Harris — always have seen a potential that’s now playing out on a national stage.
Wright hasn’t had time to process what this year might mean for his career moving forward. There have been incredible highs and incredible lows on and off the field.
“It’s definitely emotional, just the journey for myself,” Wright said.
After the Eagles game, Sherman also told Wright to keep listening to Harris. That bit of advice was something Wright already knew.
“He’s always believed in me and that goes a long way,” Wright said. “I texted him (Wednesday) and I just told him, like, I appreciate him more than he knows, just because teams gave up on me in a sense, and it’s cool to have someone like that who believes in you.”
The Bears aren’t giving up on him.
“To see him have the success that he does really warms my heart, it really does,” Harris said. “Because I know what he’s been through. I know how hard he’s worked.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/chicago-bears-nahshon-wright-breakout-season/
Just How Dystopian Could Starmer’s Britain Become?
Just How Dystopian Could Starmer’s Britain Become?
Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,
Scaling back trial by jury, further attacks on lawful speech, the nationwide deployment of deeply flawed facial recognition systems… The list just keeps growing longer.
We first asked this question — Just How Dystopian Could Starmer’s Britain Become? — just over a year ago. At that point in time, with the government just four months in office, all we could offer as an answer was: how long is a piece of string? Now, 13 months later, it is clear that said string is very long indeed, and is getting longer by the day.
On his election, in July 2024, Starmer promised that his Labour government would “tread (stomp?) more lightly” on the lives of voters. It is one of a growing multitude of pledges Starmer has broken during his 17 months in office. In this particular case, it took just two months for Starmer to change course, telling delegates at the 2024 Labour Party Conference that the State would, in fact, take greater control over people’s lives.
In the months that followed, plans were unveiled to, among other things, launch “non-mandatory” digital identity (more on that later); expand the use of live facial recognition technology (ditto); resurrect an old Tory policy to grant inspectors at the Department of Work and Pensions increased powers to snoop on claimants’ bank accounts; and intensify the British State’s crackdown on lawful speech.
That, it turns out, was just for starters. For the main course, the Starmer government is now setting its sights on trial by jury, a legal protection that has existed in England for almost a thousand years and forms one of the bedrocks of democratic legal systems.
Curtailing a Centuries-Old Right
In an ostensible bid to reduce court backlogs, Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor David Lammy has announced plans to limit people’s right to trial by jury in England and Wales. If the plans are enacted, a new tier of “swift” courts will be created to replace jury trials for most offences that carry a likely jail sentence of less than three years as well as complex fraud and financial cases.
Speed and expediency are the goal. Under the proposed changes, only the most serious offences — murder, manslaughter and rape — would continue to be heard by a jury of one’s peers. Despite the fact that English Common Law draws upon the ancient right of trial by jury rooted in Magna Carta, Lammy asserted that “we must never forget that [Magna Carta] implores us not to deny or delay justice.”
Bearing the Orwellian title “Swift and Fair Plan to Get Justice for Victims”, Lammy’s proposal, which is presumably not his own, is extremely controversial. As writes Daniel Alge, senior lecturer in Criminology & Criminal Justice at Brunel University of London, the right to be tried by one’s peers has deep roots in the legal tradition of England and Wales:
Its origins trace back to Magna Carta in 1215, which promised that no one would lose their liberty or property without “the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land”.
The judge and legal philosopher Lord Devlin described trial by jury as “the lamp that shows that freedom lives”. It is a symbolic cornerstone of justice in England and Wales.These proposals go far beyond the recommendations put forward in Brian Leveson’s independent review of the criminal courts, published in July 2025. Leveson proposed trial by judge alone where the defendant requested it, or in particularly lengthy and complex trials. But Lammy’s proposals appear to be a watering down of leaked MoJ plans to restrict the use of jury trials to only “public interest” cases with sentences of over five years.
In practical terms, jury trials already form only a small part of the system, accounting for around 2% of all criminal cases. Ministry of Justice data shows that most criminal cases are resolved in the magistrates’ courts, in which three magistrates (who are volunteer lay people rather than professional judges), determine guilt as well as sentence.
In other words, this will probably have a limited impact on the court backlogs. There can be no doubting that the criminal courts are under extraordinary pressure, with a record backlog of over 78,000 crown court cases.
However, NC readers will be unsurprised to learn that the main cause of that backlog, according to Alge, is “years of budget reductions, court closures, maintenance backlogs and limits on the number of days courts were permitted to sit.”
One of the most disturbing aspects of Lamy’s proposed changes is their potential political implications. For centuries juries have served as a democratic check on government power. In fact, that is exactly why the barons approached King John in 1215 to sign the Magna Carta, requesting the right to trial by jury — as a check on the unruly king’s power.
The renowned English jurist, justice, and Tory politician William Blackstone (1723-1780) wrote the following about trial by jury in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, which (according to Wikipedia) became the best-known description of the doctrines of the English common law:
“Trial by jury ever has been, and I trust ever will be, looked upon as the glory of the English law… So that the liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate; not only from all open attacks (which none will be so hardy as to make), but also from secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial.
In the House of Commons on Tuesday, Labour MP Diane Abbot left Starmer with egg on his face by reminding him of what he himself had said about trial by jury in 1992: “the right to trial by jury is an important factor in the delicate balance between the power of the State and the power of the individual.”
“The right to trial by jury is an important factor in delicate balance between the power of the state and the power of the individual” – Keir Starmer (1992)
What changed? pic.twitter.com/6nY3c593jH
— Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) December 2, 2025
As Steve James writes for WSWS, one of the real targets of the proposed legislation is something called “jury equity” or “jury nullification”, which can be particularly important in trials of a political nature:
This refers to the right of a jury to determine whether a crime has been committed at all, regardless of the opinion of the trial judge.
Jury equity was famously exercised in 1985 by the jury in the case against civil servant Clive Ponting, who leaked details of the then Tory government’s misinformation over the circumstances surrounding the 1982 sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano by the Royal Navy, with the loss of 272 lives.
Ponting was acquitted after a two-week trial, despite admitting that he had leaked the documents in question and the trial judge’s insistence that he had no defence in law. Ponting claimed, and the jury agreed, that releasing the documents, which exposed government lies over the circumstances of the sinking, was in the public interest.
The principle has become an irritant to governments ever since, particularly following a series of cases in which members of climate and anti-genocide protest organisations such as Extinction Rebellion and Palestine Action have been acquitted despite instructions from the bench.
Added Legal Protection for Financial Criminals?
The fact that complex financial and fraud cases, which are defined as those involving “hidden dishonesty or complexity outside the understanding of the general public”, will also be exempt from trial by jury if Lammy’s proposed bill is enacted is also deeply troubling, though it seems to be getting less traction in the media.
Without trial by jury, the legal process could be further tilted in the favour of the UK’s financial and business elite. After all, it’s easier to corrupt one judge than 12 (angry) men and women. And this is the UK we are talking about, the country that arguably perfected the art (if you can call it that) of financial crime.
However, an alternative perspective was offered in the comments section by NC reader Anonymous 2:
If you use mathematical models to commit fraud with complicated algebraic formulae and place them in front of a group of ordinary English men and women and start arguing about the merits or demerits of particular pricing models (e.g. options), then you be can be completely sure that they will glaze over mentally very quickly.
At the very least the jury should be made up of genuine peers in such cases – i.e. people with a high level of mathematical and financial skills, not the average man or woman in the street. Otherwise I am comfortable with a smaller panel of suitably qualified experts supporting the judge, who should also be a specialist in trying advanced financial fraud.
The present system is an invitation to fraudsters because if they make their frauds sufficiently complex there is not a snowball in hell’s chance the jury will convict as they have to be confident that they understand the issues and in such cases they won’t.
The drastic curtailing of jury trials would be concerning enough if it were being done by a government that had shown itself to be more or less worthy of the voters’ trust. That is not the case here.
In fact, Keir Starmer is the most unpopular prime minister since records began in 1977 — a feat he managed to pull off in little over a year. His Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, is also apparently the most unpopular chancellor on record.
It’s not hard to see why: they have broken just about every promise they made to voters. As the veteran journalist Peter Oborne warned before Starmer’s election, “it would be very unwise to believe a word Starmer says — he has a long record of making promises which he then goes on to break.”
“It would be very unwise to believe a word that Keir Starmer ever says.”
~ Peter Oborne.
Keir Starmer has to be the most unlikeable Prime Minister in my lifetime. And he’s got some stiff competition. He’s a compulsive liar, drunk on power and a sanctimonious hypocrite. pic.twitter.com/SKu7ZiqAtg
— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) December 1, 2025
Laying the Foundations of an Authoritarian State
Starmer also has extreme authoritarian impulses. As The Guardian‘s George Monbiot warned in February, his government is laying the foundations of an authoritarian state that could be used by an even more extreme government in the future — perhaps even one led by Reform leader Nigel Farage:
Here are three of the consistent features of authoritarian states: the extreme persecution of dissent, the use of parajudicial measures to shut down opposition movements, and the selective application of the law. All three are already widely deployed in the UK. Though they were introduced in their current form by the Tories, they have been sustained and defended by Keir Starmer’s party.
What this means is that if a hard- or far-right government starts doing what they always do – persecuting minorities and opponents, ripping into public services and the enabling state – and if good citizens take to the streets to defend the people and institutions under attack, the government will be able to round them up and throw them in prison, without the need for a single new law or statute.
Freedom of speech is under constant attack. As the Times of London reported in April this year, police officers made 12,183 arrests in 2023, when the Tories were in office, the equivalent of around 33 per day, under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.
The acts, which make it illegal to cause distress by sending “grossly offensive” messages or sharing content of an “indecent, obscene or menacing character” on an electronic communications network, are being applied on an ever-broader basis. We don’t yet know how many arrests were made in 2024, when Starmer came to power.
What we do know is that hundreds of people, including many pensioners, have been arrested for simply protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The recent prosecution of Natalie Strecker for writing and sharing tweets calling for resistance against the genocide revealed just how twisted the UK’s legal system has become.
From former UK ambassador Craig Murray’s blog post, “The Terrifying Case of Natalie Strecker”:
Strecker is charged with eliciting support for Hamas and Hezbollah, based on 8 tweets, cherry-picked by police and prosecutors from an astounding 51,000 tweets she sent, mainly from the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Committee account….
The prosecution case is that these tweets, both collectively and individually, amount to an invitation of support for Hamas and Hezbollah resulting in up to ten years in jail in Jersey, or 14 years in jail on the UK mainland.
The prosecution explicitly stated, and the judge notably intervened to make sure that everybody understood, that it is the offence of supporting terrorism to state that the Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.
Judge John Saunders interrupted the prosecution to ask whether they were saying that he would be guilty of support for terrorism if, in a lecture, he told an international law class that Palestinians have the right to armed resistance in international law.
After some kerfuffle when faced with such an awkward question, the prosecution replied that yes, it could be the offence to tell law students that.
“A Fledgling Police State”
While Strecker was eventually acquitted, her case reveals a very disturbing truth about the state of lawful speech under the Starmer government, notes the journalist and author Jonathan Cook:
The British state considers it unlawful to repeat what international law explicitly states: that occupied peoples like the Palestinians have a right to resist their illegal occupation.
That means:
a) The Starmer government openly rejects international law.
b) The Starmer government can scrap free speech and the right to protest – the bare minimal foundations of a democracy – whenever it chooses. We must conclude that we now live in a fledgling police state, that the number of political prisoners is going to grow rapidly, and that the room for dissent is going to shrink further and further.
The fact that this is all happening under a prime minister who before entering politics was a senior human rights lawyer makes it all the more disturbing.
“Facial Recognition” in “Every City, Town and Village”?
At the same time, the Starmer government is planning to unleash live facial recognition cameras across the UK’s urban landscape, completing a project begun some years ago under the Tories.
Police have been using facial recognition technology absent a democratic or legal basis for a decade.
Today, the Government has introduced a consultation which is long overdue.
Join our fight to #StopFacialRecognition – donate now⤵️https://t.co/7WxldldTMC
— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) December 4, 2025
The Daily Telegraph reports that facial recognition technology could be used in “every city, town and village”. Under the plans, the Police could also be allowed to compare photos of crime suspects against the images of 45 million Britons stored in the passport database.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, warned that the expansion would transform the UK into an “open prison” and that passports would become “mugshots for a giant surveillance database, putting the British public at risk of misidentifications and injustice”:
“Every search through this harvest of our personal photos puts millions of innocent citizens through a police line-up without our knowledge or consent. Sir Keir Starmer’s Government is committing to historic breaches of Britons’ privacy that you might expect to see in China but not in a democracy.”
The scheme is already hitting resistance among some local councils. A cross-party group of independent, Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors on Woking Borough Council is calling for the scheme to be suspended, warning that it “risks residents’ right to privacy” and disproportionately impacts ethnic minority communities.
The mass roll out of facial recognition systems goes hand-in-hand with the government’s proposed digital identity system, which in turn goes hand-in-hand with the online age verification system launched in the summer as well as the central bank digital currency (CBDCs) — the so-called “Digital Pound” — that the Bank of England is currently developing.
Digital identity is the keystone of the digital control grids governments around the world are rapidly erecting to keep their restless populaces in check. Without digital identity, the programmable CBDCs that would give central banks and government unprecedented ability to track and control our spending would be unworkable, as the Bank for International Settlements admitted in 2021.
So far, almost 3 million people have signed a parliamentary petition calling on the Starmer government to scrap its plans to launch a de facto mandatory digital identity system. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes, the digital identity systems being created by governments around the world are “fundamentally incompatible with a privacy-protecting and human rights-defending democracy”:
It potentially leads to situations where state authorities can treat the entire population with suspicion of not belonging, and would shift the power dynamics even further towards government control over our freedom of movement and association…
In a country increasing the deployment of other surveillance technologies like face recognition technology, this raises additional concerns about how digital ID could lead to new divisions and inequalities based on the data obtained by the system.
EFF is one of 13 rights groups, including Big Brother Watch and Privacy International, that will be urging Members of Parliament to “oppose measures that risk turning the UK into a Checkpoint Britain” at this coming Monday’s petition debate. [For interested UK-based readers: click here to use Big Brother Watch’s speedy tool to call on your respective MPs to attend the debate]
Of course, as we noted in the first post in this series, most of the dystopian policies and practices highlighted in this post — particularly the crackdowns on protests and free speech — represent a continuation, and at times intensification, of policies and practices already well under way under the Tories.
It is also true that these policies and practices form part of a generalised trend among ostensibly “liberal democracies” — as broad economic conditions deteriorate and AI-enabled technologies advance, the temptation among governments to exploit these new surveillance and control systems is irresistible while the potential benefits for Big Tech are huge.
It is a trend of which Starmer’s Britain is most definitely at the sharp, leading edge.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/06/2025 – 07:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/just-how-dystopian-could-starmers-britain-become
Tiroteos en la frontera entre Afganistán y Pakistán dejan 5 muertos y 8 heridos, según autoridades
Por ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN y MUNIR AHMED
JALALABAD, Afganistán (AP) — Un intercambio de disparos durante la noche entre las fuerzas afganas y las tropas paquistaníes a lo largo de su tensa frontera dejó cinco civiles afganos muertos y otros cinco heridos, mientras que tres civiles sufrieron lesiones en el lado paquistaní, dijeron el sábado funcionarios de ambos países.
Islamabad y Kabul se han acusado mutuamente de provocar el enfrentamiento que viola un frágil alto el fuego de dos meses.
Entre los fallecidos en la zona fronteriza próxima a la ciudad de Spin Boldak, en la provincia de Kandahar, en el sur de Afganistán, había tres niños y una mujer, explicó Ali Mohammad Haqmal, jefe de información del distrito.
La policía de Pakistán y un funcionario hospitalario en la ciudad de Chaman, Mohammad Awais, apuntaron que tres personas, incluida una mujer, sufrieron lesiones a causa del tiroteo y bombardeo procedentes del lado afgano. De acuerdo con la policía, los choques duraron hasta el amanecer del sábado.
La tensión entre los dos vecinos es alta desde octubre, cuando decenas de soldados, civiles y presuntos insurgentes murieron en letales enfrentamientos fronterizos que causaron también cientos heridos en ambos bandos. La violencia estalló tras las explosiones registradas en Kabul el 9 de octubre, que el gobierno del Talibán atribuyó a Pakistán y prometió vengar.
Los combates fueron los peores de los últimos años entre las dos naciones. El alto el fuego mediado por Qatar entró en vigor en octubre y se ha mantenido en gran medida, pero, por el momento, las conversaciones de paz no han logrado un acuerdo.
Pakistán ha sufrido varios ataques insurgentes en su territorio y culpó de la mayoría al Talibán paquistaní, conocido como Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan o TTP. Aunque es independiente del Talibán afgano, el TTP mantiene una estrecha alianza con él y se cree que muchos de sus combatientes se han refugiado en Afganistán desde la llegada del grupo al poder en 2021, lo que ha tensado aún más las relaciones.
Pakistán y Afganistán se han culpado mutuamente por el intercambio de disparos transfronterizo que comenzó el viernes por la noche.
Haqmal dijo que, durante 10 o 15 minutos, el lado afgano no respondió a los tiros iniciados por las fuerzas paquistaníes, y que una vez que lo hizo, cesó sus disparos “en menos de una hora”. Según afirmó, los disparos desde Pakistán continuaron hasta la mañana del sábado.
Sin embargo, Mohammad Sadiq, un agente de la policía local paquistaní, afirmó que los disparos comenzaron desde el lado afgano y que las tropas paquistaníes respondieron al fuego cerca del cruce fronterizo de Chaman, una ruta de tránsito clave.
El tiroteo se produjo un día después de que Pakistán dijera que permitirá que Naciones Unidas envíe ayuda a Afganistán a través de los cruces fronterizos de Chaman y Torkham, que llevan casi dos meses prácticamente cerrados en medio de crecientes tensiones.
Abidullah Farooqi, portavoz de la policía fronteriza afgana, señaló el viernes por la noche que las fuerzas paquistaníes lanzaron primero una granada de mano en la zona fronteriza de Spin Boldak, en el lado afgano, lo que provocó su respuesta. Además, dijo que Kabul sigue comprometido con el alto el fuego.
Mosharraf Zaidi, vocero del primer ministro paquistaní, Shehbaz Sharif, dijo en X que, antes en la noche, el “régimen talibán afgano recurrió a disparos no provocados a lo largo de la frontera de Chaman”. Las fuerzas paquistaníes están en alerta y comprometidas a garantizar la integridad territorial del país y la seguridad de sus ciudadanos, indicó.
Por otra parte, el ejército de Pakistán dijo el sábado que abatió a nueve insurgentes del Talibán paquistaní en dos operaciones basadas en información de inteligencia realizadas el viernes en los distritos noroccidentales de Tank y Lakki Marwat, en la provincia de Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, que limita con Afganistán.
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Ahmed informó desde Islamabad, Pakistán. La periodista de The Associated Press Elena Becatoros en Atenas, Grecia, contribuyó a este despacho.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
Rusia lanza ataque masivo con drones y misiles contra Ucrania durante contactos diplomáticos
Por SUSIE BLANN
KIEV, Ucrania (AP) — Rusia lanzó un importante ataque con misiles y drones sobre Ucrania durante la noche del viernes y la madrugada del sábado, después de que funcionarios de Estados Unidos y Ucrania anunciaron que el sábado mantendrán la tercera jornada de conversaciones para poner fin a una guerra que dura ya casi cuatro años.
Rusia disparó 653 aviones no tripulados y 51 misiles en el ataque de gran alcance, lo que activó las alarmas antiaéreas en todo el país coincidiendo con la celebración del Día de las Fuerzas Armadas ucranianas, dijo la fuerza aérea del país el sábado por la mañana.
Las fuerzas ucranianas derribaron y neutralizaron 585 drones y 30 misiles, agregó, añadiendo que en total se atacaron 29 ubicaciones.
Al menos ocho personas resultaron heridas en la ofensiva, de acuerdo con el ministro ucraniano del Interior, Ihor Klymenko.
Al menos tres de los lesionados estaban en la región de Kiev, señalaron las autoridades locales. Se reportaron avistamientos de drones hasta en la región occidental de Leópolis.
Rusia perpetró un “ataque masivo con misiles y drones” contra centrales eléctricas y otra infraestructura energética en varias regiones, escribió el operador nacional de energía, Ukrenergo, en Telegram.
El presidente de Ucrania, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, confirmó que las instalaciones energéticas fueron el principal objetivo de la campaña. Uno de los ataque con drones “incendió” la estación de tren de la ciudad de Fastiv, en la región de Kiev.
Por su parte, el Ministerio de Defensa del Kremlin reportó que sus defensas aéreas derribaron 116 drones ucranianos sobre territorio ruso durante la noche y hasta el sábado.
Astra, un canal de noticias ruso en Telegram, indicó que Ucrania atacó la refinería de petróleo de Ryazan y compartió imágenes que parecían mostrar un incendio y columnas de humo elevándose sobre el recinto. The Associated Press no pudo verificar la autenticidad el video de manera independiente.
Ucrania no comentó de inmediato el presunto ataque. El gobernador provincial de Ryazan, Pavel Malkov, apuntó que un edificio residencial sufrió daños en un ataque con drones y que los restos de un avión tripulado cayeron en los terrenos de una “instalación industrial”, pero no mencionó la refinería.
Kiev lanzó hace meses una campaña de ataques a refinerías con drones de largo alcance, para privar a Moscú de los ingresos derivados de la exportación del petróleo, que necesita para continuar la con la. Mientras, Ucrania y sus aliados occidentales sostienen que Rusia está tratando de paralizar la red eléctrica ucraniana y dejar a los civiles sin calefacción, luz y agua
La última ronda de ataques se produjo mientras los asesores del presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, y funcionarios ucranianos dijeron que se reunirán por tercer día el sábado después de sus avances en la búsqueda de un acuerdo sobre un marco de seguridad para la Ucrania de posguerra.
Tras las conversaciones del viernes, ambas partes ofrecieron además una evaluación prudente que indicó que cualquier “progreso real hacia un acuerdo” dependerá, en última instancia, “de la disposición de Rusia a mostrar un compromiso serio con la paz a largo plazo”.
La declaración del enviado especial de Estados Unidos, Steve Witkoff; el yerno de Trump, Jared Kushner, y de los negociadores ucranianos, Rustem Umerov y Andriy Hnatov, se produjo después de que se reunieran por segundo día en Florida el viernes. Solo ofrecieron pinceladas generales sobre el progreso que dicen haber logrado mientras Trump presiona a Kiev y Moscú para que acepten una propuesta mediada por Washington para poner fin al largo conflicto.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
Ralph Heatherington, longtime principal who helped ease tensions between Wheaton high schools, dies at 79
During 22 years as a public high school administrator in the western suburbs — including more than a decade as a principal at two high schools — Ralph Heatherington excelled at steering at-risk youths toward making better choices.
Heatherington, who capped his career with a nine-year run as the principal of Wheaton North High School in Wheaton, also had a major hand in mending frayed relations between Wheaton’s two high schools, according to colleagues.
“He had an ability to deal humanely with every kid who entered that building,” said retired Wheaton Warrenville South High School principal Charles Baker, a former colleague and longtime friend. “If a kid was a troubled kid, if a kid came from the wrong part of town, if the kid had police trouble or if he had some kind of issue, Ralph could still deal with it. And Ralph had what I would call an instinctive volume control — to communicate to a kid in the way that was needed.”
Ralph Heatherington. (Kelley Heatherington)
Heatherington, 79, died Nov. 28 at the Alto assisted living and memory care facility in Wheaton, said his daughter Kelley. A Wheaton resident for 42 years and a Carol Stream resident before that, Heatherington had been dealing with Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease, his daughter said.
Born in Fairmont, West Virginia, in 1946, Heatherington grew up in Pennsylvania and Chicago’s north suburbs. He graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge in 1964 and then attended Western Illinois University, where he got a bachelor’s degree in 1971. Heatherington also served in the Army during the Vietnam War, spending the majority of 1968 in Vietnam and seeing combat, his daughter said.
Heatherington earned a Purple Heart, three Bronze Stars and two Silver Stars for his military service in Vietnam, his family said. As a vet, Heatherington went on a military Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., in 2021.
While in Vietnam, Heatherington was inspired to become a public school teacher. After finishing college in 1971 and getting a master’s degree in education from Western Illinois University in 1972, Heatherington began teaching business classes at Wheaton Central High School in 1972.
He moved into school administration in 1982, when he became an assistant principal at Wheaton Central, where he also served as dean of students. Heatherington coached many sports while at Wheaton Central, including football, boys golf and baseball; he also was a cheerleading sponsor. Along with a colleague, the late Rich Jarom, Heatherington also coached girls high school basketball, taking Wheaton Central’s team to the state tournament in 1985.
“Ralph was so unique in how he opened his heart to anybody who had any troubles,” said former University of Miami women’s head basketball coach Katie Meier, a 1985 Wheaton Central graduate who played basketball for Heatherington and Jarom. “It was the moments I’d see him off to the side, counseling someone who’d gotten in trouble, and I remember thinking if I’m ever some type of leader, I hope I have that quality — to not bail on people if they make a mistake but to tell them that what they did reflects poorly on their decisions but not on them, and they could recover from this.”
Throughout her 19 years of coaching Miami women’s basketball, Meier said she set up her Florida office so that players seated across from her saw the word “dream” on the wall behind her, while Meier would see the words “inspire” and “encourage” on the wall behind her players.
“I always set up my office that way because I would always hear Ralph’s voice saying, ‘Do they know you care about them?’” Meier said.
Kim Kern, a fourth grade teacher at Whittier Elementary School in Wheaton, recalled Heatherington as her freshman typing teacher and later as her basketball coach at Wheaton Central. After she began teaching, Kern worked adjacent to Heatherington as Wheaton Central’s freshman girls basketball coach for five years.
“Our motto in (Wheaton Warrenville) Community Unit District 200 is connectedness and connecting with the kids, and he connected with kids way before that was ever a thing,” Kern said. “He just always made sure he knew the kids. It didn’t matter what walk of life you were from. He’d offer a handshake and a smile, and he supported you and backed you. For me, he was a teacher, a mentor, a coach and a friend.”
Heatherington remained assistant principal at Wheaton Central and at its successor high school, Wheaton Warrenville South, until 1993, when became principal at Kaneland High School in Elburn. He returned to Wheaton’s school system in 1995 to become principal of Wheaton North High School.
“The thing I remember about him is, a lot of administrators preach about being in the hallway and you never see them. He was never behind his desk — he was always in the hallway,” said retired Wheaton North physical education teacher and football coach Jim Rexilius Jr. “The kids loved him and they respected him. He never missed an event of any kind. He was a guy who loved his country, loved his family and loved his school.”
While leading Wheaton North, Heatherington oversaw the start of a major building expansion, funded by a $72 million referendum question that voters had approved in 2003.
He also worked to bury bad blood that long had plagued Wheaton’s two high schools, Baker said. For example, Heatherington would meet with all of the school teams ahead of their season to talk about sportsmanship, integrity and decency.
“I think Ralph had his greatest sense of pride in his ability to end the animosity between the north and south sides of town. When he took that principal job, one of the specific goals he talked to me about was, ‘We need to end all that nonsense,’ because it had been so bad in our earlier years,” Baker said. “Students had burned down a press box, burned football fields, tore down goal posts; and every time football games were played, we had security and staff standing guard. The real tribute is that most people today don’t know about that animosity. It’s simply ‘the other high school.’ We play each other and it’s competitive, but that anger and vitriol is gone, and Ralph deserves a ton of credit for getting that done.”
Heatherington’s daughter said one of her father’s great joys as an administrator was graduation day.
“He enjoyed seeing how far students had come throughout their high school careers,” she said.
After retiring from Wheaton North in 2004, Heatherington chaired a referendum committee that aimed to marshal support to fund the construction of a new Hubble Middle School. Voters approved the referendum in 2008 and the new school opened in 2009 on Herrick Road in Warrenville. Heatherington also served briefly as a co-principal at Lincoln Middle School in Park Ridge in 2009.
During retirement, Heatherington continued his side job with the front office staff at Old Wayne Golf Club in West Chicago, where he worked for 44 years. He enjoyed attending his grandchildren’s sporting events and teaching each one how to golf, his daughter said.
Heatherington is survived by his wife of more than 57 years, Judy; two daughters, Amy McMillen and Kelley; a son-in-law, Al McMillen; three granddaughters; a grandson; and two sisters, Julie Busse and Diane Budelier.
A visitation will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 27 at Williams-Kampp Funeral Home, 430 E. Roosevelt Road, Wheaton.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/ralph-heatherington-wheaton-obituary/
