The Royal Society was right to keep Elon Musk as a fellow, the UK’s new astronomer royal has said, adding there was a benefit to the private sector playing a role in space exploration.

Speaking to the Guardian after becoming the first woman to hold the 350-year-old position, the planetary scientist Prof Michele Dougherty said she had not been involved in the meetings around Musk’s fellowship, but that she supported the academy’s stance.

“The outcome of those meetings, and I’ve seen emails about it, is that he remains as a fellow of the Royal Society, because the reason he was given the [fellowship] has not changed,” said Dougherty.

Asked if she thought

Historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, has cancelled plans to teach this fall in response to the school’s recent agreement with the Trump administration.

Khalidi made the announcement in an open letter to Columbia’s acting president published in the Guardian on Friday.

“Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer” but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by capitulating to the Trump administration in June,” Khalidi wrote.

Columbia announced last week that it would pay more than $200m in a settlement with the federal

Sunday in Switzerland, England’s Lionesses clawed their way to a second straight Euro title after defeating the reigning world champions, Spain, 3-1 in a penalty shootout. With a record 1.35m watching stateside, at least one wondered if, in some alternate universe in which they could play in the Euros, they would have won it.

Asked that question on a recent episode of The Women’s Game podcast, US captain and OL Lyonnes midfielder Lindsey Heaps suggested that they could. While debriefing England’s wild quarter-final comeback against Sweden with retired World Cup champion Sam Mewis, Heaps began by noting the difficulty of comparing Emma Hayes’ program in transition to mid-tournament teams: “It’s

Dear Acting President Shipman,

I am writing you an open letter since you have seen fit to communicate the recent decisions of the Board of Trustees and the administration in a similar fashion.

These decisions, taken in close collaboration with the Trump administration, have made it impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my scholarship and teaching for over 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia. Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer”, but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by capitulating to the Trump administration

Activists have hailed a historic judgment striking down colonial-era laws that criminalised gay sex in St Lucia as a step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in the Caribbean country.

This week the Eastern Caribbean supreme court found that the island’s so-called buggery and gross indecency laws, which criminalised consensual anal sex, were unconstitutional.

In a joint statement to the Guardian, a group of activists who were the claimants in the case described the judgment as “deeply personal” but added that there was “still work to be done”.

“We know not everyone will agree with the ruling – and that’s OK. We’re not asking anyone to change their beliefs. What we are asking for