Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Orlando Figes, the historian, is paying damages and costs to two academics after they issued libel proceedings against him.
The case came after it emerged that Professor Figes, from Birkbeck College, University of London, posted poor reviews of books by fellow historians Dr Rachel Polonsky and Professor Robert Service, on the Amazon website.
Initially his wife, Stephanie Palmer, shouldered the blame for the reviews. But it emerged that Professor Figes wrote them himself, using the pseudonyms "Historian" and "Orlando-Birkbeck".
By then Professor Figes had issued legal threats to academic colleagues, literary journals and newspapers that suggested he might have written the reviews. His lawyer had also initially denied that he was the author and threatened legal action.
As part of the settlement agreed yesterday, Professor Figes, 50, has circulated an apology and retraction in which he accepts that his denial of responsibility for the reviews was false.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments