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Formed in 1992 in New York, Wu-Tang Clan have sold over 40 million records worldwide to become one of the most influential hip hop groups of all time.

Euronews spoke with them backstage in their dressing room moments before they hit the stage at Dubais Sole DXB Festival.

It was the bands first time in Dubai, and they were finding it a lot more relaxed than their usual turf, New York City's Staten Island.

Raekwon told Euronews they had received a friendly welcome. We've been running around going to the mall and just meeting people and they been extra humble and you know, that's what I love is that you could go somewhere and, like if I dropped my wallet, you get your wallet back. You get your wallet back. So to me when you see people like that, it's like, it's a blessing.

U-God felt he felt he could let his guard down in the emirate.

I like the fact there's no guns really, no gun violence, he said. The laws are different and a little bit more strict. Theres certain things that need to be done.

Looking back on their 28-year career, Cappadonna described themselves as pioneers.

We paved the way and made it, you know, more possible for the upcoming artist struggling to get in there, and be creative, and make their own way too. But you know, at the same time, it's like we are still the kings of this right here.

Raekwon said their success was proof that dreams come true.

You know, you work hard and people see your work ethic is good and they know that you come from a history of poverty. And we did a lot. And like you say, we opened the doors for a lot of these youngsters, you know, and they look at us, they look at us in a godly fashion. And that comes from us knowing our struggle, knowing where we came from. But also knowing where we are going? And the music has been that vessel.

The group would not be drawn on politics and the Black Lives Matter movement.

All lives matter, Cappadonna said, while Raekwon said he believed US politics was starting to become like comedy.

Despite their success, the group says they still find inspiration in their daily lives.

U-God said: Keeping it real for me is just paying my bills and taking care of my babies and staying out of trouble, harm's way.

I'm trying to live and write stuff I still go through, because Im still going through drama. The drama never stops.

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The beat goes on: Wu-Tang Clan reflect on rap, racism and keeping it real. - Euronews

There are eras in history, like the 1950s, when older people set the cultural and moral terms for the young. And there are eras, like the 1960s, when its the other way around.

The current decade has been in the latter mold. Its true beginning was Dec. 17, 2010, when a 26-year-old street vendor in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire, setting off protests that quickly toppled governments across the region. Now it approaches its end with the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg named Times Person of the Year.

In between, the decade has been fundamentally shaped by the technological creations of the young, in the form of social media and mobile apps; by the mass migrations of the young, from Africa and the Middle East to Europe and from Latin America to the U.S.; by the diseases of the (mostly) young, notably addiction and mental illness; and by the moral convictions of the young, from the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements in the U.S. to mass demonstrations from Cairo to Hong Kong.

Why and how did the young dominate the decade? Lets narrow the focus to America.

Demography first. What history usually thinks of as the sixties (beginning around 1964 with the Civil Rights Act and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) coincided, in the United States, with the coming-of-age of the baby boomers, roughly 75 million strong. Our current decade coincides with the coming-of-age of millennials, another generation of about 80 million. More people, more power or at least more influence. By comparison, my generation, the underwhelming Generation X, numbers only 65 million.

Next, anger. History is often a series of reactions and counterreactions. We remember the nonconformism of the 60s as a response to the conformism of the 50s. This decade, too, has been a reaction to the last: to two wars that began in moral fervors and ended in strategic fizzles; and to a financial crisis whose victims numbered in the millions and for which nobody accepted blame.

Not surprisingly, this decade has been marked by the intense hostility of the young toward truisms that once governed our thinking. As they saw it, the liberal international order didnt uphold the peace it bled us dry. Capitalism didnt make the country rich it made the rich richer. Silicon Valley didnt innovate technology it mined our data. The Church didnt save souls it raped children. The cops didnt serve and protect they profiled and killed. The media didnt tell the news they spun it.

This hostility isnt manifest just on the progressive left. It also accounts for the rise of the populist right.

As for tech, not only did the young invent and shape social media, social media shaped and reinvented the young. This was the decade when algorithms meant to cater to our tastes succeeded mainly in narrowing those tastes; when the creation of online communities led to our Balkanization into online tribes and the dissemination of disinformation and hate; when digital connection deepened our personal isolation, vulnerability and suggestibility; and when the ubiquity of portable screens with infinite data meant there was always something more interesting to do than interact with the person before us.

One result has been a kind of shallowing of our inner life: of time spent wondering, wandering, reading, daydreaming and just thinking things over. Another result has been a shallowing of our political life via the replacement of wit with snark and of reasoned arguments with rapid-fire tweets and hot takes.

Technology had another effect: It vastly accelerated the speed with which previously outlying ideas became, in the hands of their mainly youthful advocates, moral certitudes.

Some of those ideas, like marriage equality (the single greatest moral victory of the decade) were long overdue. Others, like intersectionality, gender fluidity, new standards of sexual consent or the purported centrality of racism to American identity, are much more debatable. Moral certitude isnt the exclusive posture of the young. But it is an easier one to hold when life hasnt yet given you sufficient time to leaven idealism with experience, second-guess yourself and learn that the things you once thought were most true arent quite so.

As with any decade, this one contains paradoxes and countercurrents. One paradox is the election of the oldest president in history. Yet Donald Trump, a baby boomer, embodies the spirit of the time as much as he rejects it, not least in his mastery of social media and the cynical, suspicious and angry nature of his politics.

One countercurrent is that some movements that have animated the decade are, at bottom, old-fashioned. So-called third-wave feminism contains a powerful streak of Victorianism. Similarly, the resistance to Trump is partly founded on the belief that moral character matters to presidential fitness, and that this president falls radically short.

Pedantic readers of this column will note that the decade wont really end until Dec. 31, 2020. Theyre right. We have a year to go before we can render a more final judgment on this decade of disillusion, and to begin to sense what comes next.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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This Decade of Disillusion - The New York Times

A conservative judge changes his mind

When John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2005, he assured the nation that his decisions would be guided by something loftier than his own whims or predilections. I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability, he told the Senate. And I will remember that its my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat. It all sounded very reasonable, and its a fiction deeply embedded in our judicial system. Most legal opinions are written as if the conclusion is so apparent, so free of personal bias, so certain, as to be almost inevitable. You dont often see an opinion that begins, This one was a really close call; it could have gone either way! Instead they read as if no reasonable person could have concluded anything else.

All of which makes this weeks opinion from Fifth Circuit Judge Don R. Willett a refreshing surprise. Willett changed his mind. And he reversed himself on one of the more troubling decisions weve seen recently, which is saying quite a bit.

The case, whichThe Daily Appealdiscussedlast week, was based on a lawsuit thata federal judgesaid bordered on the delusional. A Louisiana police officer injured in a protest tried to sue the hashtag#BlackLivesMatter, which amounted, wrote JudgeBrian A. Jacksonof the Federal District Court in Baton Rouge, to picking a fight with an idea,wrote Adam Liptakfor the New York Times. The officer also sued Black Lives Matter, which the judge said was also a nonstarter A third part of the lawsuitseeking to hold a leader of the movement [DeRay Mckesson] liable for the officers injuriesreached the Supreme Court on Friday. Judge Jackson had dismissed that part of the case on First Amendment grounds, but an appeals court revived it, alarming civil rights lawyers and experts on free speech.

The principles outlined in this decision put civil disobedience at risk, Alanah Odoms Hebert, the head of the ACLU of Louisiana, toldThe Atlantic. If this doctrine had existed during the civil rights movement there would not have been a civil rights movement.Othersnoted the irony that officers are allowed to commit acts of violence with near impunity because of qualified immunity, while protest organizers can be sued for the acts of others, if they injure police.

But Willett, a Trump appointee, changed his mind. I have had a judicial change of heart, Willett wrote inhis new opinion. Admittedly, judges arent naturals at backtracking or about-facing. But I do so forthrightly. Consistency is a cardinal judicial virtue, but not the only virtue. In my judgment, earnest rethinking should underscore, rather than undermine, faith in the judicial process. As Justice Frankfurter elegantly put it 70 years ago, Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

In this case, reexamination led Willett to see two gaping holes in the majoritys case. First, he pointed out, despite the panels earlier decision, its not clear that even Louisiana tort law would support a lawsuit against Mckesson,writeslaw professor Garrett Epps for The Atlantic. Willett further wrote that, having insisted on reaching the free-speech issue, the panel botched that as well. Does complaint alleged that Mckesson incited the violence that led to Does injuries. But Does lawyer didnt even bother to explain how.

Epps writesthat even though the original opinion still stands, Willetts change of heart is a sign of life for old First Amendment precedents. But it is also a sign of life for judicial humility, and the idea that our legal system ought to be guided by accuracy and justice, not expediency. When, recently, the issue of convictions by nonunanimous juries camebefore the Supreme Court, those arguing to preserve this practice posited that any ruling to the contrary would be too great an administrative burden on state courts. The same arguments were made when it came to reviewing life without parole sentences for those convicted as children. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1966 might be the starkest example of how our system favors administrative ease over fairness. It was designed to limit the avenues for people on death row to challenge their convictions, anda study showedthat it reduced the success rate for federal habeas petitions to levels about a fifth of what they previously were, and at the time of the studys publication, those numbers were continuing to decline.

One case in Missouriexemplifies the dominance of administrative ease over serious concerns about fairness and justice. Lamar Johnson was convicted of killing Marcus Boyd in 1995. He was sentenced to life. But years after the killing, the states only witness recanted his identification of Johnson as the shooter, and two other men have confessed to Boyds killing and said Johnson was not involved. And Johnson has gained the support of the prosecutor, Kim Gardner, whose office was responsible for his conviction nearly 25 years ago. After looking into his case with lawyers at the Midwest Innocence Project, Gardner asked for a new trial in July saying she believes her office engaged in serious misconduct, including secret payments to the witness, falsified police reports, and perjured testimony.

Gardner believes that she is duty bound to correct past wrongs, but in a case thatone commentator saidshowed just how much the criminal justice system favors form and finality over substance, a judge disagreed. Judge Elizabeth B. Hogan based her decision on a statute that requires the relevant motion be made within 15 days of the conviction. She told prosecutors they were late by approximately 24 years. But in so doing, the judge seems to have ignored case law that allows the motion to be heard beyond the 15-day deadline in extraordinary circumstances and in the interests of justice. A 1984 Missouri appeals court ruled that a perversion of justice would occur if we were to close our eyes to the existence of the newly discovered evidence solely because of a missed deadline. In herdecision, Hogan seems eager to find reasons to reject Gardners attempt to right a possible wrong.

Advocates for Johnson, including professors from law schools across the country, have appealed to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to drop his opposition to Gardners efforts. The circuit attorney needs to have a means to correct that injustice, Gardners attorney, Daniel Harawa, told the appeals court. But Schmitt has steadfastly opposed. His offices reasoning is not exactly lofty. Assistant Attorney General Shaun Mackelprang said in court that the courts jurisdiction over Johnsons case expired when he was convicted and sentenced in 1995. Why turn a blind eye to a possible wrongful conviction? Our laws have meaning and our rules have meaning, and for people to operate within those boundaries,Mackelprang said.

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A conservative judge changes his mind - The Appeal

The Editorial Board, USA TODAY Published 5:45 p.m. ET Dec. 19, 2019 | Updated 12:35 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2019

Russia is still trying to exploit divisions in America. USA TODAY is trying to heal the nations wounds and identify areas of agreement: Our view

Russias information warfare campaign against the United States began with the goal, in the words of the Mueller report, of sowing discord in the U.S. political system.

In a bid to exploit divisions in American society, Russian hackers posed as, among other things, anti-immigration groups, Tea Party activists and Black Lives Matter protesters.

The Russians undoubtedly see their continuing campaign as a spectacular success, judging by the way Americans are at each others throats these days, on impeachment and a variety of other topics.

In an effort to help heal the nations wounds and identify areas of agreement on major issues, USA TODAY and the nonprofit group Public Agenda are partnering on a yearlong project called Hidden Common Ground.

The commentary portion of the project includes columns by centrist voices who tend to get drowned out by the partisan extremes, and by people with widely divergent views who are nevertheless working together to fix a problem.

Voting in 2016.(Photo: Eugene Garcia/epa)

You wouldnt know it from watching cable news, but in the last presidential election 39% of voters described themselves as moderate (versus 35% as conservative and 26% as liberal). In the initial Public Agenda/USA TODAY/Ipsos survey for the project, more than nine of 10said its important to reduce divisiveness.

So far, criticism of Hidden Common Groundhas focused on two questions:

Isn't it ludicrous to talk about bipartisan compromise when my side is 100% right and the other side is 100% wrong?

Isnt it hypocritical for the Editorial Board to support common ground solutions while endorsing the polarizing act of impeaching President Donald Trump?

The short answers are noand no.

Its true that agreementis difficult when one side won't accept basic facts. It's also truethat certain issues involving basic moral beliefs or human rights dont lend themselves to split-the-difference solutions. But many others do.

On immigration, for example, theres clearly common ground to be found between open borders on one side and mass deportations on the other. The long-obvious deal would pair better border security with a pathway to legality for millions of undocumented immigrants already interwoven in American society.

On health care, theres common ground between mandatory "Medicare for All" and repealing Obamacare. One idea is to preserve private insurance but improve the Affordable Care Act by adding a public option or letting certain people under 65 buyMedicare coverage.

On climate change, theres common ground between do-nothing denialism and a Green New Deal that unrealistically attempts to remake the entire economy. A tax on carbon emissions, with the proceeds refunded to consumers, would make green energy more competitive; a more robust research and development program could unearth technological fixes.

On these and other public policy questions, to see compromise as a dirty word simply ensures that nothing gets done and problems fester.

As for impeachment, it can be argued that Trump with his constant name-calling, erratic edicts and dismissal of scienceis himself the biggest impediment to finding common ground at the federal level. (In our tradition of giving readers more than one side of an issue, our editorial endorsing the two articles of impeachment was accompanied by an opposing view from the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.)

Senate acquittal appears assured, but even ifTrump were to be removed from office for his abuseof power and stonewalling of Congress, does anyone doubt that incoming President Mike Pence would improve the tone in Washington while continuing to champion conservative causes?

In fact, impeachment and deal-making arent incompatible. Conditions are ripe for successful negotiations because both sides have an interest in demonstrating cooperation.

Heading into an election year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to showthat congressional Democrats can do more than impeach. President Trump wants to show that hes not paralyzed or consumed by that process.

Just in the past week, Democrats and Republicans have reached agreement on a major trade deal, passed in the House on Thursday,and an array of thorny budget issues, including $425 million to help states improve election security. Imagine how much better off the nation would be if they could manage to keep it up.

By Bill Sternberg for the Editorial Board

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Impeachment of Donald Trump doesn't remove the need for common ground - USA TODAY

Her voice is weary yet chilling, telling us she is not complicit in a world edging toward destruction. Shes still in her teens, an inheritor of generations leaving her the burdens of global warming, economic inequality and a ravenous social media that thrills her even as it exploits and strips away the tender gifts of her youth.

Zendaya as Rue Bennett in the HBO drama Euphoria is a prescription-drug-addicted high schooler wandering through the wreckage of sexting, statutory rape, body shaming, mass shootings and lives playing out on smartphones, where avatars and parallel realities prompt one of her friends to muse: I dont think I have an attention span for real life anymore.

Euphoria is a stark dive into Gen Z, those born into a post-9/11 planet of rising tides, starving polar bears, TikTok videos, selfies, invasive algorithms and the specter of the YouTube star. They are the latest iteration in an America whose sense of itself is often marked by generational divides between baby boomers, Gen Xers, millennials and teens like Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who admonished Congress and U.N. world leaders for not doing a better job at preserving the planet.

It has been a year of skirmishes between young and old. From Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jolting C-SPAN with her progressive politics to the resurfacing (yes, really) of the Brady Bunch stars to celebrate the shows 50th anniversary. We hang in that surreal balance. Rifts between generations are part of the natural order, but these days the differences echo with existential questions over climate change and how artificial intelligence and other technologies will reshape the way we live. Even the sisters in the Disney blockbuster Frozen 2 must contend with environmental damage wrought by their elders.

Will Miami disappear this century under rising waters? Will the robots we create subsume us? Will we endure endless superhero reboots? Disappear into our virtual reality headsets? Will Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk mine every sacred piece of our identity? Such questions for younger generations are not rhetorical. Frankenstein is here; the Black Mirror is eerily ascendant.

Anxiety over the future is seeping into a cultural landscape altered in recent years by the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. The Trump presidency, with its impeachment troubles, anti-immigration fury and multiplying lies, has divided the country, distorting our reality and cheapening the creeds that made us a nation. One can understand why the Gen Z characters in Euphoria pedal through suburban neighborhoods numbed and perplexed.

Even I dont fully get it, Zendaya told The Times this year. But I understand a good percent of it. Rue says in the first episode something like, We just showed up here without a map or compass. And its true, because we dont know what the were doing. Nobody actually knows what theyre doing. Imagine growing up in social media and being a child. Its not easy. Its confusing. And its uncomfortable. Its a lot of things. Its created by the very people that call us the zombies or whatever. Its like, were the byproduct of this , you know?

The air between generations has been arrowed with condescension and dismissive tweets for a while. But GIFs and memes this year poking fun and outrage at baby boomers tapped into a deeper anxiety. The OK boomer social media tag was a jab at a post-World War II generation that millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Zers (roughly 19972012) regard as entitled, affluent and blind to the consequences of decades of technological advances and environmental degradation even as dystopian films and literature have flourished.

The young viewed boomers as a cold-blooded and calculating Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. Boomers had their own characterizations of Gen Z: smartphone-swooning snowflakes. Millennials were caught in between, and Gen Xers floated in their own orbit. Suspicion played out across generations like an episode of Succession, where the young Roys, stewing in spoiled privilege, maneuver to outwit and unseat their cranky, toxic patriarch.

Much of the criticism against boomers was in satire and jest. Some was more pointed, including Blink-182s song Generational Divide with the lyrics: All we needed was your lifeline. (Is it better? Is it better now?). Social media amplified and democratized OK boomer in a time when the calling out and muting of enemies in a growing cancel culture allows younger generations to peel back the masks and reveal the prevailing sins of those in power. It is mass reckoning carried out by TikTok and Twitter.

Such an atmosphere is informing politics, college campuses and the entertainment industry. Director Martin Scorsese unleashed Marvel-fan wrath when he said that superhero movies resembled more an amusement park ride than serious cinema. His comments pointed not only to a generational gap between Scorsese and Suicide Squad cosplayers but to how computer graphics and special effects are reimagining movies for audiences who minute by minute live in their screens.

Cinema is rapidly changing, much like it did in the 1970s when independent filmmakers, including a young Scorsese, upended Hollywood with realism. Today, technology has given us cosmic fantasy. It has also splintered how and where we watch films and TV. Entertainment common ground between generations is shrinking as each seeks shows, podcasts and video streams that speak directly to them and less to the wider world. This raises questions about shared narratives and the future of art, expression and identity. The trend will accelerate with the streaming wars between Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ and other platforms.

It is a progression changed by, but as old as, time. Baby boomers cut their teeth on vinyl records and Easy Rider; Gen Xers had Friends and Reality Bites; millennials watched The OC and The Social Network; and Gen Z is only too familiar with news of school shootings appearing on their social media feeds and turning themselves into avatars and doppelgangers for 15-second TikTok videos.

Yet there are things that transcend and bind generations: Star Wars. The Simpsons. Game of Thrones. The Office. Even Mister Rogers, portrayed by Tom Hanks in the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

A restlessness among the young has spread to our politics, but older generations still hold sway. Pete Buttigieg, a 37-year-old millennial, is the youngest major candidate among Democrats in a presidential race whose top contenders include Elizabeth Warren, 70, a boomer, and Joe Biden, 77, and Bernie Sanders, 78, both pre-boomers. The winds are shifting, but it may take another four years before someone born after MTV was launched moves into the White House.

Gender and cultural equations are also beginning to be redrawn along generational lines although, like politics, not as quickly as many would like. Women made critically acclaimed films this year, including those by thirtysomething directors Greta Gerwig (Little Women) and Lulu Wang (The Farewell). But no female directors were nominated for the Golden Globes. The youngest of the five males nominated was Todd Phillips, 48, and the oldest was Scorsese, 77.

There has been incremental progress along racial lines. Shows like Insecure, Atlanta and black-ish explore the lives of young African Americans. A rising generation of black playwrights, including Jeremy O. Harris and Jackie Sibblies Drury, are laying bare the caustic legacy of prejudice and slavery in new and riveting language.

Fresh Off the Boat, now heading into its final season, paved the way not only for last years Crazy Rich Asians but the 2019 films Always Be My Maybe and The Farewell, which showed fresh ways of depicting the experiences of young Asian Americans.

And while Latino representation in pop culture is still abysmal, especially with Jane the Virgin ending its five-season run this year, a new generation is emerging, with pivotal roles in mainstream films going to Cuban actress Ana de Armas in Knives Out and Colombian actress Natalia Reyes Gaitn in Terminator: Dark Fate.

One of the most potent signs of youth taking over is Billie Eilish, the 17-year-old subversive who has jolted pop music with her debut electro-pulse album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The work makes Eilish, who at times looks like an end-of-days denizen, the youngest artist to be simultaneously nominated in the major Grammy categories of song, record, album and best new artist.

Of course, each generation thinks it discovered what has already been charted by the one preceding it. Bugs Bunny is as sly as anything on South Park. Socially conscious Gen Zers may be marching against gun violence and climate change, but boomers and their elders born before 1946, including Bob Dylan and Martin Luther King Jr., protested for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. A fine line runs between self-righteousness and forgetting. Or worse, not being aware of what those younger and older than us have been through.

The idea that youth culture is culture created by youth is a myth. Youth culture is manufactured by people who are no longer young, Louis Menand recently wrote in the New Yorker. When you are actually a young person, you can only consume whats out there. It often becomes your culture, but not because you made it. If you were born during the baby boom, you can call yourself a 60s person. You can even be a 60s person. Just dont pretend that any of it was your idea.

Still, each generation has its own style and aesthetic to make sense of its world, or, in the case of the rise of virtual reality, other worlds tempting us in cyberspace. As decades go by, what Gen Z innovations will be praised and admonished long after baby boomers with their trippy playlists and fading idealism have passed into history?

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From Marvel movies to OK boomer, 2019 was the year of the generational divide - Seattle Times