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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaUS media organisations push Biden and Trump for TV debate pledgePublished45 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsUS election 2024Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Donald Trump and Joe Biden last debated each other during the 2020 presidential election.By Vicky WongBBC NewsA dozen US news outlets have called on the presumptive US presidential nominees to commit to taking part in TV debates ahead of November’s election.The statement did not name Joe Biden or Donald Trump, but said it was never too early for candidates to publicly declare they will take part.The letter warned the stakes of this year’s poll were “exceptionally high.”Mr Trump, who skipped all four Republican primary debates, has said he is keen to debate President Biden.The statement – published on Sunday – was signed by the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, as well as ABC, AP CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, NBCUniversal News Group, NewsNation, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Univision and USA Today.It said that televised debates have “a rich tradition” in US democracy, dating back to 1976, and that tens of millions of people tune in to watch.Where Biden v Trump will be won and lostBiden draws election battle lines in fiery speechIs it time for America’s elder statesmen to retire?”If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,” the statement said, adding that there was “simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation.”Mr Biden and Mr Trump have won enough delegates to secure their nominations at party conventions. There were no Democratic debates in this presidential election cycle, while Mr Trump secured his nomination despite skipping all the Republican presidential debates.Mr Trump, 77, has repeatedly claimed Mr Biden, 81, is too old and forgetful to debate him. Mr Biden has made similar allegations about Mr Trump. Last month, Mr Trump said he would take part in a TV forum with the Democratic president “anytime, anywhere, anyplace”.But the White House has expressed reluctance to commit to a contest amid concerns that the Commission on Presidential Debates – which administers the debates – would be unable to guarantee a “fair” bout. According to an Associated Press report last month, when asked by reporters if he would commit to a debate with Mr Trump, Mr Biden said: “It depends on his behaviour.”The televised debates are set to take place in September and October. But in a latter on Thursday, Mr Tump’s campaign called for “much earlier” and “more” presidential debates than initially proposed. “Voting is beginning earlier and earlier, and as we saw in 2020, tens of millions of Americans had already voted by the time of the first debate,” campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in the letter. In 2020, Mr Biden and Mr Trump took part in two ill-tempered presidential debates. Mr Trump’s repeated interruptions – which at one point prompted Mr Biden to exclaim “will you shut up, man” – saw NPR call the bout “maybe the worst presidential debate in American history”. Related TopicsUS election 2024Donald TrumpUnited StatesJoe BidenMore on this storyIt’s official – Biden and Trump set for rematchPublished13 MarchA simple guide to the US 2024 electionPublished13 MarchHow does US electoral college choose presidents?Published30 JanuaryTop StoriesLive. 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![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaChristiania: A Copenhagen hippy commune fights back against drug gangsPublished42 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage caption, Local residents are trying to reclaim Pusher StreetBy Adrienne MurrayCopenhagenFor more than 50 years, the hippy neighbourhood of Christiania has been a haven of counter-culture, in the very heart of the Danish capital Copenhagen.Popular with tourists, it is known for its liberal attitude towards cannabis and the infamous drug market, Pusher Street.However, in recent years organised criminals have increasingly taken over, and growing violence has rattled the community. Residents have now had enough. In a bid to reclaim the street from drug dealers, this Saturday they began physically digging it up, armed with spades and crowbars. There were celebratory claps and cheers of “Christiania”, as locals prised up heavy cobblestones and tossed them into wheelbarrows, one by one. “We’ve been breaking up Pusher Street. It’s closing down today. So it’s a kind of a closing party,” said local Pia Jagger, carrying away a big stone.Now this roughly 100-metre stretch of road has a new sign reading: “Pusher Street is closed today.””In the last five or six years I haven’t been here that much because I have kids and I didn’t feel very safe,” said onlooker Sofie Ostergaard. “Today I brought all three of them, and they’re helping.” Standing beside a rainbow-coloured cargo bike, 40-year resident Hulda Mader told the BBC: “It feels like a historic moment. We’re very happy for it.”A spokeswoman for Christiania’s press group, she said: “We are very tired of people saying Pusher Street is Christiania. It is not.”Though it’s illegal in Denmark, cannabis has been sold openly in Christiania for decades.Image caption, A mural has been painted remembering one person who was shot dead in the areaBut many of the original local dealers have been pushed out, as organised gangs have wrested control. In the last three years, there has been a spate of stabbings and fatal shootings. According to Ms Mader, the community reached a turning point about a year-and-a-half ago. “Two people came in,” she said. “They shot one dead and injured four others. That was absolutely where we said this is enough.””We’re going to dig it up. We’re gonna change all the infrastructure. Then we’re gonna start building other stuff.””For us hash is not the problem, it’s the money in it,” Mette Prag, a representative from the Freetown Christiania Foundation, told reporters. “But the last years with all the violence and all the fighting, we cannot have it in our society. That’s why now this chapter must come to an end.”Among those present on Saturday was Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard. “It is a day that is the beginning of the end, of the very, very deep roots that organised crime gangs have established in this neighbourhood in Copenhagen,” he said.”To safeguard that Christiania will continue to be a vibrant, colourful, creative part of Denmark, it needs to be a place without organised criminal gangs.”Tourists are still welcome to visit Christiania, he added, but not for drugs.Image caption, Cobblestones were dug up by locals during the dayOrdinarily this T-shaped strip is the epicentre of Denmark’s cannabis trade, where so-called pushers hawk weed from behind makeshift stacks of beer crates and plywood market stalls, labelled with names like Green Rocket and Blue Dream. Just three days ago, the BBC counted roughly 20 sellers. Until the late 1990s it was informally tolerated, says Kim Moeller, a professor of criminology at Malmo University. But that ended in the 2000s, as the market grew bigger and more visible. He says about five different gangs now operate, and that has brought more disputes. “If you have a conflict between groups in Copenhagen, they can most likely find each other in Pusher Street where they can shoot at each other,” says Deputy Police Inspector Simon Hansen, who oversees the Copenhagen police force’s operation in Christiania.It is often the people manning these shops who get caught up, he says. “They are sometimes kids. Sometimes people who have some kind of disability, and people who can’t get a job.”Police have repeatedly raided Pusher Street but the dealers have kept coming back.”We clear out the shops 100 times a year”, Mr Hansen said. “That sounds like pushing the same rock up a mountain. But we don’t want the shops to evolve to small houses and sheds.”‘Perfect hippie dream’Found within a kilometre of the Danish parliament, Freetown Christiania was established in 1971 when a bunch of anarchists and hippies squatted inside a vacant military base. They set up an independent commune, with its owns rules and flag. There is no leader and decisions are made by consensus at communal meetings. The Danish state eventually accepted Christiania as a radical “social experiment”, later giving it legal status. Local gallery owner Marios Orozco moved here from the USA in 1981, when he was 19. “I had long hair and found Christiania to be the perfect hippie dream,” he told the BBC.”You can imagine a village filled with people that didn’t fit into society. There were bikers, hippies and nudists running around. It was sort of a chaotic piece of heaven.”Today 1,000 residents, including 250 children, live in the graffiti-covered barracks and wooden cottages along Copenhagen’s historic ramparts. With music venues, vegetarian cafes and souvenir shops, it’s also one of the country’s top tourist destinations. Christiania has often been at loggerheads with the authorities, and for a long time it resisted efforts to shut down Pusher Street. But last August residents agreed it must go. In an extraordinary shift, they collaborated for several months with Copenhagen’s Lord Mayor Sophie Haestorp Andersen, Justice Minister Hummelgaard and police over a new plan.”As a city, we cannot live with [the violence], and the local Christianites have not been able to live with it either, but had been afraid to do something radically about it,” said the mayor. “I told them I would back them up. Now we have a plan and we’re taking the first step.”Image caption, Saturday’s celebrations are not the first time Christianites have tried to kick out the gangsIt’s not the first time Christianites have tried to keep the gangs out. Last August Pusher Street was blockaded with shipping containers and concrete blocks. But the dealers soon returned. And Mr Orozco is among those who are sceptical that Saturday’s initiative will work. “If this does eventually succeed and they manage to disperse [the dealers], they won’t be in one area, there’ll be many areas,” he says. The question of the dealers spilling over into the rest of Copenhagen is something that has often been discussed.”We don’t try to let anyone get the idea that this will kill off the illegal drugs market,” said Mr Hummelgaard. “The police themselves, they assess that they will have an easier job combating the illegal drug trade and crimes related to that, if it’s not all concentrated.”More than five decades after its creation, the commune still survives, though its future faces more uncertainty. Besides shuttering Pusher Street, new plans to revitalise the area include a large social housing development. But others fear it will hurt the commune’s identity. “They want to build 300 apartments,” said Mr Orozco. “It’s going to just destroy the vibe of this place.”New arts spaces, playgrounds and shops are among the ideas for what might eventually replace Pusher Street. “We will reboot the workplaces, the culture places,” said Mette Prag. But also on the cards is potentially a new name for the street. Related TopicsCopenhagenDenmarkMore on this storyWill legalising cannabis unleash chaos in Germany?Published5 days agoArtist took money and ran – now it is payback timePublished18 September 2023Top StoriesThousands of Israelis rally to demand hostage dealPublished1 hour agoPM marks six months of Israel-Gaza war as UK sends Navy ship for aidPublished2 hours agoDozens of UK flights cancelled as Storm Kathleen sweeps inPublished3 hours agoFeaturesThe Papers: ‘Gaza famine’ warning and Corrie ‘budgeting row’Six months on, how close is Israel to eliminating Hamas?’A game of Jenga’: Inside the perilous Baltimore bridge clean-upThe world’s eclipse chasers arrive in North AmericaWhere in the UK can you see Monday’s solar eclipse?Boris Johnson, David Cameron, and the row over arming Israel. 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![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityN. IrelandN. Ireland PoliticsLocal NewsSt Patrick’s Day: The patron saint who ‘liked a drink’Published16 March 2019Shareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, PAcemakerImage caption, Bedecked in green, the 2018 St Patrick’s Day parade in Belfast was typical of how the day is celebratedBy Ciarán DunbarBBC News NISt Patrick’s Day is celebrated across the world by Irish people, their descendants and anyone else who wants to join in.The day, known in the modern era for huge parades, turning things green and having a drink, has, on occasion, led to excess.However, it seems that a little tipsiness has always been the way to remember the saint. The Book of Armagh, from the 9th Century, said all Irish monasteries and churches were to celebrate Patrick with three days and nights of feasting. St Patrick’s Day: Globe goes greenWilliam and Kate brave snowy St Patrick’s Day paradeThe great Irish folklorist Kevin Dannaher described the St Patrick’s Day of 300 years ago. “In most parts of Ireland the men repaired to the local tavern after church to the drink the ‘pota Pádraig’ or ‘St Patrick’s pot’. Seldom did the drinking stop at one pot.”Though he did write that “drowning the shamrock… by no means implies that it is necessary to get drunk in doing so”. St Patrick ‘liked a drink’ But where did the association between saint and alcohol come from?Stiofán Ó Cadhla is a senior lecturer in folklore and ethnology in University College Cork.He said that folklore indicates that St Patrick himself liked to have a drink.Image source, PAcemakerImage caption, St Patrick’s Day now sees huge parades celebrating Irish culture but that was not always the case”One of the narratives associated with him is about ‘peaca an tomhais’… the ‘sin of mismeasure’ when St Patrick enters a public house and orders his pint.”The publican gives him the drink but he has left the drink shorter than he should, he doesn’t give him his full measure.”Patrick corrects him and tells him: ‘You haven’t realised that this sin of mismeasure is one of the worst sins that you can commit’.”Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA, said St Patrick’s Day has always been marked not only because it was a celebration of the patron saint but also because a dispensation allowed the Lenten fast to be broken – meat to be eaten and alcohol drunk – whilst Christians everywhere else were fasting.Who was St Patrick?Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, he lived in the 5th century AD and is understood to have played a major part in converting the Irish to Christianity.While St Patrick really existed, and some of his writings survive, his value does not really come from historical details but from the inspiration of a man who returned to the country where he had been a child slave, in order to bring the message of Christ.He is traditionally associated with the shamrock plant, which he used to explain the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity.Diarmuid Ó Giolláin explained that drinking on St Patrick’s Day was an important aspect of the religious festival and “a break in the rigours of lent”.Stiofán Ó Cadhla points out that St Patrick’s Days falls close to the Spring Equinox.Image source, Press EyeImage caption, Belfast’s Holyland is home to many students and has seen trouble on St Patrick’s Day in the past”You can expect exuberance at this time of year,” he said. “It is tied up with the time of the year and the return to growth, everyone wanted to have their potatoes planted on St Patrick’s Day.”Drowning the shamrock in St Patrick’s pot, that is to say putting your shamrock in a drink, is one of the most traditional ways of celebrating.”John Carr wrote in the early 19th century… that around this time of the year the country people assemble and get very tipsy, they walk through the streets wearing the shamrock in their hats, whiskey is drank in copious libations, and the merry devotees continue until the greater part of the next day in honour of Sheelagh, St Patrick’s wife,” he said, adding that St Sheelagh is now mostly forgotten today.Beginnings of changeDr Ó Cadhla added that when the Catholic Church regrouped in Ireland in the wake of the potato famine it took the opportunity to clamp down on some traditional practices around the saint.”St Patrick’s Day would have been associated with fair days and large gatherings of people in certain locations and at certain wells. “The church step in… asserting themselves, and trying to wean the people off some of those ideas.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Media caption, NI celebrates St Patrick’s Day in 2018″They don’t succeed 100%.”Traditional belief systems and the Catholic tendencies have come to an accommodation. combining to become a folkloric belief and behaviour, he explained.There were always concerns that some of the behaviour surrounding the festival “did not fit in with the strict idea of St Patrick”, Dr Ó Cadhla said:”There is Saint Patrick of the hagiographers [people who write about the lives of saints] but of course there is Saint Patrick beloved of Irish people, who is like one of themselves. “Of course, St Patrick understands and loves the Irish people and is one of them in this celebration.”The paradesDr Ó Cadhla said that the great public parades connected with the patron saint are a relatively recent thing, in Ireland at least.”I think people of a certain age will recall how poorly patronised those parades were and how people really didn’t tend to take them that seriously.”Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke Of Cambridge attend the annual Irish Guards St Patrick’s Day ParadeHe suggested that the parades may have a military origin and that British Army bands would have come out and paraded in the 19th Century.The British Army’s Royal Irish Regiment celebrates St Patrick’s Day to this day, as do the Irish Defence Forces. ‘American razzmatazz’However, he stressed that the “formal, militaristic” nature of today’s parades are greatly influenced by Irish America. Prof Ó Giolláin agreed – he said changes in Irish society and globalisation have led to huge change in how St Patrick’s Day is celebrated in Ireland. “I think the model has been the American St Patrick’s Day celebrations, the American razzmatazz.”Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Chicago River is turned green for the 2018 St Patrick’s Day in Chicago, United StatesHe sees the day as having moved away from the concept of a national day, away from church and state patronage, to representing a global dimension of Irishness.”It has been taken as an opportunity to tourism but also to promote Ireland as a country which is more diverse and more open to the world,” he said.”The change reflects changes in Irish society.” More on this storyGlobe goes green for St PatrickPublished17 March 2018Top Stories’He will come back’ – Israeli hostage families cling to hope, and demand a dealPublished15 hours agoLive. 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