If the area was a major commercial shipping hub once, what's the reason it isn't any more? Depopulation? (If it's depopulation, then was it emigration or was it a fall in birth rates?)
> The town is at the junction of the Forth and Clyde and Union Canals, a location which proved key to its growth as a centre of heavy industry during the Industrial Revolution. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Falkirk was at the centre of the iron and steel industry, underpinned by the Carron Company in nearby Carron. The company made very many different items, from flat irons to kitchen ranges to fireplaces to benches to railings and many other items, but also carronades for the Royal Navy and, later, manufactured pillar boxes and phone boxes. Within the last fifty years, heavy industry has waned, and the economy relies increasingly on retail and tourism.
So, yes, deindustrialization. But being at a key canal junction doesn't mean much today, since modern railroads and steamships rendered the canals obsolete a century-ish ago.
> But being at a key canal junction doesn't mean much today, since modern railroads and steamships rendered the canals obsolete a century-ish ago.
That is true for the English narrow channels which are way too narrow to support any kind of large vessel, but not true in general - the Mittellandkanal in Germany for example still sees a huge amount of traffic and there’s regular infrastructure investment going on into the canal network in many places. One example is the new boat lift in Niederfinow which is not as architecturally beautiful as the Falkirk wheel, but lifts entire river barges.
Additional context: he claims ICE forged his signature on legal documents.
He should be free while the case proceeds. Seems like exactly the kind of person who is not a flight risk, because the entire reason he’s contesting it is because he’s built a life he doesn’t want to leave.
You are mistaken. Plenty of people own businesses in the US even as foreigners. I don't even have to step into that country to open one, and also not for a transfer of ownership/shares.
This is not true. You do not need to be a US resident to register a company, and anyone own shares in a company. There are a variety of visa options, and ways to navigate the process that will work.
I didn't say you needed to be a US resident to register a company.
I said that most pre-GC work-permits (e.g. H1B) don't allow you to own a US-based business. If you're here on a work-permit, they (the govt.) expect you to be an employee of your sponsor, they don't want you to start a business.
To your point,
one can be an investor in a US company without having a US visa/residence/work-permit. Although, to open a business without living in the US, only a handful of states allow this (e.g., Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada).
However, once again, if you are in the US on a work-permit, you need to follow the rules of the work-permit. The rules applicable to non-citizens who are not living in the US on a work-permit may be different.
Most tech startups will be Delaware. And a lot comes down to the definition of "own" which is ambiguous especially as a C-Corp. One may not be CEO, but can be a H1B Co-founder with a non-trivial (for some amount of non-trivial) number of shares. The O-1 far as I can tell allows for startups, and there may be other visa types which I am unaware of.
Really, I am just saying that the statement "you need a GC to own a business" is far too broad a claim to be true.
>I said that most pre-GC work-permits (e.g. H1B) don't allow you to own a US-based business
You can absolutely own a US-based business on a H1B, like you can buy shares in companies, it's just a 100% share. You just cannot work for your company without having an approved H1B from that business or having some other generalized work permit like an EAD.
My opinion is probably not but this is ultimately a political conversation.
The article is extremely light on details but fact he doesn't have a Green Card/Lawful Permanent Resident yet would indicate that at some point of his time in United States, he was illegally present, probably for a while.
Sure, he's on path, MAYBE (that's up to immigration courts), to legal status but he's not quite there yet and it's one of those "Are we going to forgive past transgressions?"
> Sure, he's on path, MAYBE (that's up to immigration courts), to legal status but he's not quite there yet and it's one of those "Are we going to forgive past transgressions?"
For a productive member of society? Absolutely, bring him in and let him stay.
There are absolutely some immigrants who should be deported for violent crimes and likewise, but they are a tiny minority of immigrants. So when you set quotas far above that, they start rounding up productive members of society to fill the quotas and ignoring the violent criminals because it’s easier to arrest parents and children.
I know of no other country that locks people up while they process immigration appeals. That's crazy.
Other countries will either summarily deport you and make you resolve your status from outside the country, or let you stay while you appeal and deport you when your appeals are exhausted. Both are sane things to do, this is not.
The US has a very strong belief in punishing people. It helps them create an "out group" to shun. For those people, the worse the conditions of your jail are, the better. It's some sort of a relic of the specific religious background common in the USA, and it's disgusting.
Other parts of the world believe in human dignity and helping people fix the things that are broken in their lives. Look up Norwegian prisons...
> The article is extremely light on details but fact he doesn't have a Green Card/Lawful Permanent Resident yet would indicate that at some point of his time in United States, he was illegally present, probably for a while.
That is absolutely false. I know many people who have lived legally in the USA for many many years with valid visas and have intentionally never pursued a green card. Two people come to mind including one who has over 20 years the US on valid visas -- she intentionally never pursued the green card despite both (a) being married to an American and (b) being legally able to get the green card.
Some of them are now pursuing green cards only because of federal government's immigration enforcement not only going after illegal immigrants or criminals but clearly and intentionally pursing immigrants in general -- even those who are legal and without any criminal history.
From my understanding on this issue, spouses of US citizens are handed a green card after paperwork is shuffled, there is no pursuing it.
When discussing this with friends, multiple spouses have pulled out green cards and only newly weds had anything else but green card. She showed her passport with some form attached to it.
>From my understanding on this issue, spouses of US citizens are handed a green card after paperwork is shuffled, there is no pursuing it.
This is incorrect. You do need to pursue it. Just because your friends did pursue it once they were able to, doesn't mean it is automatic. One needs to decide if they want to get their green card or not once they are married to a US citizen.
I emphasize that I'm not defending the Trump regime, but do you know this friend well enough to be confident that she would tell you if her visa situation didn't check out? It would be extremely hard to stay in the US for 20 uninterrupted years on valid visas without permanent residency. O-1s are theoretically indefinite but require yearly renewal, and all of the other common visas I know of have maximum durations below 10 years.
Yes, I am 100% certain of what I said. These individuals have had valid visas in the US and been here for 10-20 years and intentionally have never become green card holders.
One was on a student visa for undergrad and then a student visa for masters for 6 years total (4 for undergrad and 2 for masters), then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the World Bank for 5 years, then back to a student visa for 5 years pursuing a PhD, then back to a G4 Diplomatic visa for 6 years while working at the World Bank. This person married an American about 10 years ago and still never pursued a green card out of choice.
Another was on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the IDB for 3 years, then a student visa for 5 years while pursuing a PhD, then a visa while working at the Federal Reserve for a number of years (not sure of which, but either H1B or J1), and then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the IMF.
Of course, these are not your typical situations for the average immigrant. Admittedly, I live in a bit of a bubble surrounded by economists in Washington DC from the World Bank, IMF, IDB, etc who are mostly on G4 diplomatic visas.
My point is it is still possible and one shouldn't presume.
Having dealt with US Immigration law, if you are legally present for 20 years, it's extremely difficult not to transition to GC/Citizenship since work visas in United States generally have a limit and any immigration lawyer would have been clear "Either move to GC or you are going home."
Also, despite all the US screaming about "They took our jobs" with immigrants, the US doesn't really hand out work visas all that much and don't really hand it out to blue collar labors at all.
There is a possibility that he's been on legal visa entire time but I'd give extremely good odds that he wasn't. The fact his immigration lawyer doesn't mention it is very telling.
Huh, the headline is very misleading but the article says this:
> Culleton entered the US in 2009 on a visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90 day-limit
> Culleton said that when he was arrested he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued as part of an application for a green card that he initiated in April 2025
That's about 15 years of illegal stay according to "the facts in the article".
If someones potential illegal presence justifies ICE to massively overstep any legal due process and break laws, then by definition you are ok if somehow Democrates took over the DHS when they got in power, and used the premise of anti-domestic terrorism to illegally detain any person associated with MAGA for any reason and let them starve/die in prison.
No but is ICE 100% breaking the law or just norms? Immigration law is such a mess and key reason we are here. For past 30 years, a lot of immigration "law" has been Executive Branch keeping a broken system going by just going with vibes. Now we have Executive Branch deciding to 100% change the vibes and system is coming apart in real time.
Reading over court filings, there is collision between two laws. First one is, "Those who marry US Citizens can get Green Card regardless of previous US Immigration violations."
Second one is, VWP admits have no rights. If US decides to deport you, out you go with no further discussion.
Biggest takeaway of Trump immigration actions is Congress has fucked up so bad letting system get to this point.
If we are talking hypotheticals here, anything can be possible. Subject could be an illegitimate direct descendent of Thomas Jefferson, which would make this entire case uniquely newsworthy.
If they are in the US on a work-permit, they have to follow the limitations of the work-permit. They are not free to follow the affordances available to people who are outside the US. For most temporary work-permits, owning a business is not permitted. The govt. wants the worker to work for their sponsor, not own a business. After one gets a GC (i.e. permanent residence), one is free to work for anyone, or start businesses.
That’s not actually quite true. You can own a business on a work permit, you just can’t work for it. Which is mostly a pointless arrangement, but possible.
This is a more accurate take. That you can own businesses, but you can't work for them without an appropriate work-permit. He was working for his businesses, which explains why he's in a pickle.
It's perversely hilarious to see people supporting fascism for its attacking other individuals, and then demonstrating zero awareness of how little regulation applies to capital crossing borders. It's a crab bucket, alright.
Also, some people want to work on what's already familiar to them. If building a framework from scratch is what appeals to them, they'll do that even if a framework already exists. Busywork to look productive.
If you're on Windows 11, search for "Startup Apps" and disable CoPilot, Teams and OneNote (if you don't use them). It'll speed up your system.
CoPilot is a great name. But Microsoft being Microsoft even messed that up. Apparently there's a Github CoPilot and a Windows CoPilot, and they're different.
Those are just two of the several Copilots MS now has, including re-branding the entire Office suite as Copilot… It's is a brand - as you said, a name – not a product.
Flashback to the days when literally every MS product had “.NET” shoehorned into its name somewhere because they had to show they were hip to this newfangled information superhighway thing. The development platform that still has that name 20 years later was just one of a zillion confusingly named marketing initiatives back then.
I think that campaign followed on from everything being named "Enterprise" something. I still miss the days when SQL Server Management Studio was called "Enterprise Manager"...
Also, it seems there are a lot of paid posts on NYT.
Recently, both NYT and WP had front page articles about a book by some billionaire's daughter whose husband cheated on her. They seemed like puff-PR posts.
This sort of nearly open corruption at NYT is worthy of a Trump operation, to be honest.
When Kanye West bought a full-page ad apologizing for his anti-semitisim upon release of a new album, he apparently also bought a full-on legitimate looking "news" article to go with it:
This is the same newspaper that has reporters bragging on Twitter that they shouldn't have to report on major economic news, like the broad effects of the Inflation Reduction Act, because they don't need to report on anything that would benefit Biden. Apparently Biden didn't pay off the right people at the NYTimes.
You get that the economics underlying these claims about buying articles don't make much sense, right? The whole point of the NYT is that the newsfeed isn't the core business.
The newsfeed doesn't need to be the core business for NYTimes to sell full-page advertisements, nor does it need to be the core business to sell stories on preferred topics.
Sure. They could sell a lot of things that aren't core to their business. But why would they? Their next marginal dollar doesn't come from squeezing the news organization; in fact, the way things are trending, news is basically looking like it'll be a loss leader for them.
They are already selling ads, why would you think they wouldn't be raising revenue on the news side? Your argument that they wouldn't take money if it's not coming from the "core business" does not make sense economically. If your argument is that they wouldn't sell editorial selection of article topics, well, they did it publicly when they decided to report on the sale of a full page ad. Placement of articles on topics selected from the outside is usually far more discreet, with the proper PR firms mediating the selection, but the NYTimes is notorious for doing this.
Way to fall-off from being the one source of news everyone in "Anglo" countries in the Third-World used to turn to (and love and respect... however biased the news may have been).
Edit: am trying to access from US, I see a paywall. Good to hear from comments that other countries don't see a paywall.
Huh, viewing from India here - no paywall. BBC can be biased, but it is very useful to know what the British state media thinks. This article is neutral reporting with barely any "analyst opinion" flavor.
Just for clarity: the BBC is not "state media," it's a public broadcaster. This is an important distinction as the UK Government cannot determine its agenda or directly influence its funding.
The BBC will regularly criticise the government, especially when it's a Labour government.
> UK Government cannot determine its agenda or directly influence its funding.
> The BBC will regularly criticise the government
The funding is set for a 10 year cycle, beyond the scope of any individual government specifically to protect the BBC from editorial interference by the government. That’s why it’s a publicly funded broadcaster, not “state media.”
The onus is now on you and the OP to prove your claim that the BBC is state media.
When I say state media I mean media that exists as a part of the state. Like when it's funded by the state or the state has some other kind of influence over it.
Your definition conflicts with UNESCO’s definition. By your reasoning, private US media outlets would have qualify as “State Media” because they kowtow to the Trump government - “some other kind of influence”. This is patently nonsense, so your definition is incorrect.
UNESCO using a definition that doesn't account for fascist corporatism and other means vy which nominally private entities can serve as arms of the state doesn't make that definition universally correct, it just makes it UNESCO’s definition.
> US-based visitors to BBC.com will now have to pay $49.99 (£36) a year or $8.99 (£6.50) a month for access to most BBC News stories and features, and to stream the BBC News channel.
Only the US traffic has a paywall, there's none if you visit it from somewhere else. Understandable to charge people who don't pay for it with their taxes in my opinion, especially if you delivery videos and other expensive content for free without ads.
Most of these cuts happened under the previous government, including where they restricted how revenue from BBC World Service can be recycled into its local broadcasting. You'd almost think the Conservatives were trying to get rid of it.
There are another two hundred-odd countries who also do not pay for it with their taxes. The BBC has apparently not seen fit to paywall them. This is a very confusing and inconsistent move.
The other countries most likely don't make up such a big chunk of visits / costs.
FWIW: There's many news sources in the US (Usually regional news papers etc.) that just throw a forbidden or 402 status code right away at anyone not using a US IP.
reply