Media outlets amplify Israel’s narrative about its attack on Iran.
Israel has launched an unprovoked assault on Iran, including strikes on nuclear facilities and assassinations of several senior military commanders and scientists. In front of the world’s media, however, the Netanyahu government is spinning the attack as “preemptive”.
Contributor: Negar Mortazavi – Host, The Iran Podcast
On our radar:
This past week, phone and internet services virtually collapsed across Gaza, as Israel repeatedly bombed transmission stations and communication towers.
Meenakshi Ravi explains how Gaza now risks digital isolation.
Showdown in LA: A very Trumpian spectacle
President Trump has turned Los Angeles into an ideological battleground amid protests against anti-immigration raids. His mobilisation of the National Guard and marines – without the approval of California’s state government – has produced made-for-TV images of the kind likely to appeal to the MAGA faithful.
For many others, it is yet another sign of a dangerous turn away from civil liberties under his presidency.
Featuring: Branko Marcetic – Staff writer, Jacobin Sarah Mehta – Senior policy counsel, ACLU Jose Olivares – Investigative journalist Will Swaim – Podcast host, Radio Free California
Warwick won the Le Mans 24 Hours, is a former president of the British Racing Drivers’ Club and is one of the most senior driver stewards in F1.
An ex-F1 driver is always one of the four stewards officiating at every grand prix.
Last week Warwick was quoted as saying that a penalty given to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the Spanish Grand Prix after the Dutchman apparently deliberately collided with Mercedes’ George Russell was “right”.
On a gambling website, Warwick said: “Should he have done what he did, in Turn Five with George Russell? Absolutely not. Did he get a penalty for that? Yes.
“It seems to me that, although he dove in, he then did turn away from George, but momentum pushed him against George. It is absolutely wrong and the FIA was right to give him a penalty.”
Warwick is the second driver steward to be punished by the FIA for commenting on races in the past six months.
In January Johnny Herbert was dropped by the FIA, which said his “duties as an FIA steward and that of a media pundit were incompatible”.
The FIA’s decision to suspend Warwick came a day after controversial statute changes were passed by the organisation’s general assembly.
The changes are said by critics to “risk further contributing to the erosion of the FIA’s reputation for competent and transparent governance” under president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Ben Sulayem’s time in office since 2021 has been marked by a series of controversies, the majority of which have been focused on the erosion of accountability and good governance and the introduction of measures that enhance his power and reduce oversight.
When there are questions about how stewards arrived at decisions during a grand prix, the FIA refuses to comment on the basis that stewards are “independent from the FIA”.
Veteran correspondent for the US broadcaster, Terry Moran, had called Trump aide Stephen Miller a ‘world-class hater’.
Veteran journalist Terry Moran will not be returning to ABC News after he was suspended by the broadcaster for a social media post that called United States President Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller “world-class haters”.
In a statement, the US network said on Tuesday that Moran’s quickly-deleted post on X was “a clear violation of ABC News policies”, the Associated Press news agency reports.
It added that Moran’s contract was ending, and “based on his recent post… we have made the decision not to renew”.
The post on Sunday night was primarily directed at Miller, whom Moran described as “the brains behind Trumpism”.
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran had said on X.
Moran, who had recently interviewed Trump in his role as Senior National Correspondent for ABC News, also described the US President as a “world-class hater”, but said that in Trump’s case, it was only a “means to an end” of “his own glorification”.
In Miller’s case, however, Moran said, “his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate”.
The Trump administration quickly condemned Moran’s post, with Vice President JD Vance describing it as an “absolutely vile smear of Stephen Miller”.
Moran, 65, had worked at ABC News since 1997. He was a longtime co-anchor of “Nightline”, and covered the Supreme Court and national politics.
During an interview with Trump that was broadcast a month ago, the president told Moran, “You’re not being very nice” in the midst of a contentious exchange about deportations.
Trump aide Steven Cheung responded to Moran’s exit on Tuesday with a post on X, simply saying: “Talk s***, get hit.”
Miller, meanwhile, has been focused on the Trump administration’s decision to send 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion to Los Angeles, amid anti-immigration enforcement protests in California’s capital city.
In one post on X on Tuesday, Miller said that California has become a “criminal sanctuary for millions of illegal alien invaders” and that “huge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations.”
The AP news agency reported that Moran’s contract with ABC had been due to expire on Friday, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Moran’s post also comes at what was already a sensitive time for ABC News. The network agreed to pay $15m towards Trump’s presidential library in December to settle a defamation lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate claim that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E Jean Carroll.
Moran leaves ABC as major television networks in the US struggle to retain audiences amid the soaring popularity of some podcasters and subscription-based newsletters.
The shift has also been embraced by some journalists, such as Mehdi Hasan, who started his own media network in early 2024, after quitting MSNBC when it cancelled his show in late 2023.
Veteran ABC News correspondent Terry Moran is leaving the network, following his suspension over social media posts that were harshly critical of the Trump White House.
Moran, 65, was suspended Sunday after statements on X that described President Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller as “world class” haters. He also called Miller “vile.”
Moran, a senior national correspondent for the news division who interviewed Trump in the Oval Office in April, is not a commentator. An ABC News representative said his actions violated editorial standards and his contract was not renewed. He had been with the network since 1997.
“We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post — which was a clear violation of ABC News policies — we have made the decision to not renew,” the representative said in a statement. “At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.”
Moran’s expulsion from the network is a sign that news organizations are concerned about journalists incurring the wrath of Trump, who has shown a willingness to fight back against his critics in the press. Moran is the first high profile journalist to lose his job over publicly lambasting the president and his aides.
Moran wrote on a now deleted X post that “Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater…You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”
Trump is suing CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview in October that he claims was deceptively edited to help his 2024 election opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The suit — an obstacle to CBS parent Paramount Global’s deal to merge with Skydance Media — has gone to a mediator.
ABC News paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump filed over statements by “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos, who incorrectly said on air that the president had been liable of rape, when it was sexual abuse. Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger has asked that ABC’s “The View” spend less time talking about Trump, who typically leads the daytime talk show’s hot topics segment.
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta — who battled Trump in the White House briefing room during the president’s first term — left the network rather than take a midnight time slot that would have lowered his profile considerably. Acosta has since launched his own program on Substack.
Approached by Britain’s MI6 while reporting on Nigeria’s Biafra War, he mined his experiences for literary inspiration.
Best-selling British novelist Frederick Forsyth, author of about 20 spy thrillers, has died at the age of 86.
Forsyth, who was a reporter and informant for Britain’s MI6 spy agency before turning his hand to writing blockbuster novels like The Day of the Jackal, died on Monday at his home in the village of Jordans in Buckinghamshire, said Jonathan Lloyd, his agent.
“We mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest thriller writers,” Lloyd said of the author, who started writing novels to clear his debts in his early 30s, going on to sell more than 75 million books.
“There are several ways of making quick money, but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank,” he said in his 2015 autobiography, The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue.
The gamble paid off after he penned The Day of the Jackal – his story of a fictional assassination attempt on French President Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists – in just 35 days.
The novel met immediate success when it came out in 1971. It was later turned into a film and led to Venezuelan revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez being nicknamed Carlos the Jackal.
Forsyth went on to write a string of bestsellers, including The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974). His 18th novel, The Fox, was published in 2018.
Forsyth trained as an air force pilot, but his linguistic talents – he spoke French, German, Spanish and Russian – led him to the Reuters news agency in 1961 with postings in Paris and East Berlin during the Cold War.
He left Reuters for the BBC but soon became disillusioned by its bureaucracy and what he saw as the corporation’s failure to cover Nigeria properly due to the government’s postcolonial views on Africa.
His autobiography revealed how he became a spy, the author recounting that he was approached by “Ronnie” from MI6 in 1968, who wanted “an asset deep inside the Biafran enclave” in Nigeria, where civil war had broken out the year before.
In 1973, Forsyth was asked to conduct a mission for MI6 in communist East Germany, driving his Triumph convertible to Dresden to receive a package from a Russian colonel in the toilets of the Albertinum museum.
The writer said he was never paid by MI6 but in return received help with his book research and submitted draft pages to ensure he was not divulging sensitive information.
In his later years, Forsyth turned his attention to politics, delivering withering, right-wing takes on the modern world in columns for the anti-European Union Daily Express.
Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. He lost a fortune in an investment scam in the 1980s and had to write more novels to support himself.
He had two sons, Stuart and Shane, with his first wife.
Another tortured round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations, another set of headlines laying the blame solely on Hamas.
Throughout the various ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, western news outlets have repeatedly blamed their failure on Hamas. This week, we hear a perspective that rarely features in the coverage – the group’s own – on the negotiations and the media narratives that surround them.
Contributors: Tahani Mustafa – Senior Palestine Analyst, International Crisis Group Basem Naim – Politburo member, Hamas Julie Norman – Associate Professor, University College London Abdaljawad Omar – Lecturer, Birzeit University
On our radar:
Ukrainian drone strikes on multiple Russian airfields have further escalated the conflict, as peace talks come up short. Tariq Nafi reports on the messaging on the airwaves both sides of the border.
Is logging off the cure for ‘brain rot’?
After decades of increased connectivity, screen time and addictive algorithms, more and more young people are logging off.
The Listening Post’s Ryan Kohls looks at the community-based movements reevaluating their relationships with digital technology.
Featuring: Monique Golay – Barcelona Chapter Leader, Offline Club Hussein Kesvani – Technology and culture journalist Adele Walton – Author, Logging Off
WASHINGTON — A majority of U.S. journalists who followed the 1992 presidential campaign believe President Bush’s candidacy was damaged by press coverage of his record and of the economy, according to a survey released Saturday.
Only a small percentage of print and broadcast journalists think the campaign of President-elect Bill Clinton was similarly harmed by media coverage. In fact, more than one in three said coverage benefited the Arkansas governor.
Most journalists interviewed believe the press treated Bush fairly. He was harmed, they said, not by media bias but by accurate reporting on his performance in office and on the nation’s economy.
These are the principal findings of a special survey of more than 250 top- and middle-level journalists conducted by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press. The survey was conducted in the final weeks of the election campaign.
Four in five journalists surveyed rated press performance in the 1992 campaign as good or excellent, saying it generally was better than the coverage in 1988.
Public opinion surveys conducted throughout the campaign showed most Americans also gave positive ratings to media coverage, although by a smaller margin. Nearly six in 10 people surveyed gave the press good or excellent marks. More than one in three, however, judged the performance as fair or poor.
The Times Mirror survey found the media judging the impact of its coverage differently at the end of the campaign than it had in an initial survey last May, during the final stages of the presidential primary battles.
The earlier polling found most journalists–slightly more than 50%–believed campaign coverage was having a “neutral effect” on Bush’s campaign as he turned back the challenge of conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.
At that time, 64% thought Clinton was being hurt by media coverage during his struggle with the so-called “character” problems that beset his primary campaign.
The latest poll also found that journalists gave the industry high marks for specific aspects of campaign coverage. Overall, more than 70% gave ratings of good or excellent to coverage of Clinton’s Vietnam draft status, the candidates’ positions on issues and the economy.
The press gave itself a somewhat lower grade for coverage of independent candidate Ross Perot, with 63% rating it as good or excellent. The survey said one senior editor summed up the attitude of many by saying: “We were all on the verge of carrying very critical stories about his temperament and his personal life when he pulled out. Since he re-entered, we’ve treated him as an eccentric.”
The coverage of Bush’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal received the harshest judgment by journalists. More than 70% of respondents said the coverage was only fair or poor, with only 24% rating it as good. A television executive said only the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post had “done a good job of explaining this issue.”
The survey said a large number of journalists cited the emergence of talk shows this year as a chastening sign that politics can work well “without the press as interlocutor.”
However, critics of this new phenomenon “took aim at the cheerleading-like atmosphere” of some talk show political interviews, saying too many questions were soft, with no follow-up questions, the poll reported.
In a significant retrenchment, media mogul Byron Allen has retained investment banking firm Moelis & Co. to sell his network-affiliate television stations after spending more than $1 billion to scoop up outlets in smaller markets.
The Allen Media Group announced the news Monday morning. It owns nearly two dozen stations, including in Northern California near Redding, as well as Honolulu; Flint, Mich.; Madison, Wis.; and Tupelo, Miss.
The company needs to pay down debt, Allen said in a statement.
Allen’s firm declined to provide details on its finances.
The Los Angeles firm has spent big bucks during the last six years buying stations with a goal of becoming the largest independent television operator in the U.S. Many of Allen’s stations have standing in their markets with programming from one of the Big Four broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
“We have received numerous inquiries and written offers for most of our television stations and now is the time to explore getting a return on this phenomenal investment,” Allen, chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We are going to use this opportunity to take a serious look at the offers, and the sale proceeds will be used to significantly reduce our debt.”
The Los Angeles entrepreneur and former stand-up comedian had been steadily expanding his empire for more than a decade.
However, the television advertising market has become increasingly challenged in recent years as media buyers shift their budgets to digital platforms where they are more likely to find younger consumers. The television advertising market has become more strained with the addition of streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+ competing with legacy stations for dollars.
A decade ago, Allen brought a high-profile $20-billion lawsuit against two of the nation’s largest pay-TV distributors, Comcast and Charter Communications, alleging that racism was the reason his small TV channels were not being carried on those services.
The case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court and was legally significant because it relied on the historic Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was enacted a year after the Civil War ended and mandated that Black citizens “shall have the same right … to make and enforce contracts … as is enjoyed by white citizens.”
But the Supreme Court struck down many of Allen’s arguments. In a 9-0 decision in March 2020, the high court said it was not enough for a civil rights plaintiff to assert that his race was one of several factors that motivated a company to refuse to do business with him. Instead, the person must show race was the crucial and deciding factor.
Last month, CBS picked up his show “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen” to run at 12:35 a.m.
Final vote count gives conservative candidate 50.89 percent, while his liberal rival receives 49.11 percent, AP reports.
Conservative eurosceptic Karol Nawrocki is expected to win Poland’s presidential run-off election with all votes now counted, according to media reports.
The Associated Press news agency, citing the final vote count, reported on Monday that Nawrocki won 50.89 percent of votes in the tight race against liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11 percent.
The Polish news website, Onet, reported the same results on its website.
The Polish Electoral Commission said on its website that it had counted all of the votes. The commission had said earlier that official results would be out on Monday morning.
Nawrocki, 42, a historian and amateur boxer who ran a national remembrance institute, campaigned on a promise to ensure economic and social policies favour Poles over other nationalities, including refugees from neighbouring Ukraine.
While Poland’s parliament holds most power, the president can veto legislation, and the vote was being watched closely in Ukraine as well as Russia, the United States and across the European Union.
Shohei Ohtani was about halfway through his home-run trot when Taro Abe stood up from his second-row seat in the Vin Scully Press Box and tucked his green scorebook under his right arm.
“Let’s go,” Abe said in Japanese.
Abe, a writer for Japan’s Chunichi Sports newspaper, was followed into the concourse of Dodger Stadium’s suite level by four other reporters from his country. They were on a mission: Find the person who caught Ohtani’s home-run ball.
There was nothing special about this blast, which was Ohtani’s second on Friday in an eventual 8-5 victory over the New York Yankees. The homer was Ohtani’s 22nd of the season and reduced the Dodgers’ deficit at the time from three to two.
“We have to do this every time,” Abe said.
This practice started a couple of years ago, when Ohtani was still playing for the Angels. The appetite for Ohtani content was insatiable in Japan, but the two-way player started speaking to reporters only after games in which he pitched. Naoyuki Yanagihara of Sports Nippon and Masaya Kotani of Full Count figured out a solution for their problem: They started interviewing the fans who caught his home-run balls.
The feature was received well by their readers and gradually spread to other publications. Now, besides the homers that land in bullpens or any other place inaccessible to fans, a group of Japanese reporters will be there to interview the person who snagged the prized souvenir.
Neither Yanagihara nor Kotani was on this particular journey into the right-field pavilion, as Yanagihara was temporarily back in Japan and Kotani remained in the press box. Both of their publications were represented by other reporters. I was there too.
One of the reporters, Michi Murayama of Sports Hochi, looked at me curiously.
“You’re coming?” she asked.
Abe joked: “He’s coming to write how ridiculous the Japanese media is.”
As we walked down a carpeted hallway by the suites down the first-base line, Abe turned around and asked if anyone had seen who caught the ball.
No one had.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hit a pair of home runs off Yankees starting pitcher Max Fried on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Before departing from the press box, reporters usually study replays of the homer to find identifying features of the ballhawk. But in this case, the scramble for the ball was obscured by a short barrier that divided a television cameraman from the crowd.
Abe led the pack out of an exit near the Stadium Club. When we re-entered the ballpark at the loge level, we heard a familiar chant: “Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!”
The reporters stopped to watch the game from behind the last row of seats. Freeman doubled in a run to reduce the Dodgers’ deficit to one, and pandemonium ensued. A young woman clutching a beer danced. Strangers exchanged high-fives. Others performed the Freddie Dance.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone removed Max Fried from the game, and called Jonathan Loáisiga from the bullpen. It was time for us to move on.
Seniority heavily influences professional and personal interactions in Japanese culture, which was why when we reached the top of the right-field pavilion, the two-most-junior reporters were told to find the ball-catching fan and return with him. Iori Kobayashi of Sports Nippon, 25, and Akihiro Ueno of Full Count, 27, accepted their fates without question.
However, the veteran Murayama noticed they weren’t making any progress, and soon she was in the middle of the pavilion with them. She came back soon after to tell us we were in the wrong place.
“We have to go down to the Home Run Seats,” she said, referring to seats directly behind the right-field wall that are in a separate section as the rest of the pavilion.
The ushers there were helpful, describing how the ball struck the portable plastic wall behind the cameraman, rolled under the barrier, and was taken by a boy in a gray jersey. Murayama found the boy and said he would speak to the group when the inning was over.
“They usually come after the inning because they want to watch the game too,” Abe said.
While we waited, Eriko Takehama of Sankei Sports approached Abe and showed him a picture of a fan holding up a piece of the plastic wall that was struck by Ohtani’s homer. The piece had broken off, and the fan told Takehama that he was taking it home.
“Do you want to talk to him?” Takehama asked Abe. “He said he caught a ball three years ago.”
Abe declined.
While watching Max Muncy taking first base on an intentional walk, Abe said, “Everyone has a story. You ask them where they live, where they work and there’s usually something interesting. We’re writing human-interest stories with Ohtani as a cover.”
This story would be about a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Monrovia named Fisher Luginvuhl. With his mother standing nearby, the Little League catcher gushed, “It’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
The reporters circled the boy and photographed him holding up the ball. They exchanged numbers with Luginvuhl’s father so they could send him links to the stories they produced.
While the reporters worked together to locate Luginvuhl, they were also in competition with each other to post the story first. Murayama wrote hers on her phone as she walked. Ueno sent audio of the six-minute interview to the Full Count offices in Japan, where the recording was transcribed by an English-speaking reporter, who then used the quotes to write a story.
Walking to the right-field pavilion and back was exhausting. I mentioned this to Abe, and he reminded me, “This was my second time doing this today.”
Abe wrote 13 stories on Friday night, 10 of them about Ohtani, including two on fans who caught his homers.
Just as we returned to the press box, the next hitter was announced over the public-address system: “Shohei Ohtani!”
The lawsuit came three days after a similar case by NPR, which also saw its funds cut.
PBS has filed a lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump and other administration officials to block his order stripping federal funding from the 330-station public television system, three days after NPR did the same for its radio network.
In its lawsuit filed on Friday, PBS relied on similar arguments, saying Trump was overstepping his authority and engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” because of his claim that PBS’s news coverage is biassed against conservatives.
“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” lawyer Z W Julius Chen wrote in the suit, filed in US District Court in Washington, DC. “But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”
It was the latest of many legal actions taken against the administration for its moves, including several by media organisations impacted by Trump’s orders.
PBS was joined as a plaintiff by one of its stations, Lakeland PBS, which serves rural areas in northern and central Minnesota. Trump’s order is an “existential threat” to the station, the lawsuit said.
A PBS spokesman said that “after careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations”.
‘Lawful authority’
Through an executive order earlier this month, Trump told the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to stop funding the two systems. Through the corporation alone, PBS is receiving $325m this year, most of which goes directly to individual stations.
The White House deputy press secretary, Harrison Fields, said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.
“Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS,” Fields said. “The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”
PBS, which makes much of the programming used by the stations, said it gets 22 percent of its revenue directly from the feds. Sixty-one percent of PBS’s budget is funded through individual station dues, and the stations raise the bulk of that money through the government.
Interrupting ‘a rich tapestry of programming’
Trump’s order “would have profound impacts on the ability of PBS and PBS member stations to provide a rich tapestry of programming to all Americans”, Chen wrote.
PBS said the US Department of Education has cancelled a $78m grant to the system for educational programming, used to make children’s shows like Sesame Street, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Reading Rainbow.
For Minnesota residents, the order threatens the Lakeland Learns education programme and Lakeland News, described in the lawsuit as the only television programme in the region providing local news, weather and sports.
Besides Trump, the lawsuit names other administration officials as defendants, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. PBS says its technology is used as a backup for the nationwide wireless emergency alert system.
Jury found that the BBC had not acted in good faith and awarded Adams 100,000 euros ($113,000) in damages.
Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has won a libel case against the BBC over a report alleging he sanctioned the killing of an informant in the Irish republican movement.
A jury at Ireland’s High Court on Friday found that the BBC had not acted in good faith and in a “fair and reasonable” way and awarded Adams 100,000 euros ($113,000) in damages.
Adams brought the lawsuit over a claim in a 2016 documentary and online article that he sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson, a long-serving Sinn Fein official who acknowledged in 2005 that he had worked for British intelligence. He was shot dead at his cottage in rural Ireland four months later.
The BBC “Spotlight” investigation included an anonymous allegation that the murder was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the Irish Republican Army and that Adams gave “the final say”.
Adams denies any involvement.
Speaking outside court, Adams, 76, said the case was “about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation”. His solicitors said Adams was “very pleased with this resounding verdict”.
Adams, 76, is one of the most influential figures of Northern Ireland’s decades of conflict, and its peace process. He led Sinn Fein, the party linked to the IRA, between 1983 and 2018. He has always denied being an IRA member, but former colleagues have said he was one of its leaders.
The BBC argued that it acted in “good faith”, that its programme was “fair and reasonable” and in the public interest, and that the allegation made in the documentary was supported by five other sources.
Speaking outside Dublin High Court alongside Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary, BBC Northern Ireland director Adam Smyth told reporters they were disappointed with the verdict.
“We believe we supplied extensive evidence to the court of the careful editorial process and journalistic diligence applied to this programme and accompanying online article,” Smyth said.
“Moreover, it was accepted by the court, and conceded by Gerry Adams’ legal team, that the Spotlight broadcast and publication were of the highest public interest.”
Adams brought the case in Dublin as the Spotlight programme could be watched in Ireland, where it was seen by about 16,000 people.
An online article also had about 700 hits in Ireland during a 14-month period after its publication in September 2016.
May 28 (UPI) — The Trump administration ordered a hold on any new interviews of foreign student visa applications as it expands the vetting of applicants’ social media accounts.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday in a social media post that he is “announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.”
Politico, NBC News and CBS News previously reported that Rubio issued a cable to all U.S. Embassies and consular agencies Tuesday to request the hold, in which he wrote that “Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel, which we anticipate in the coming days.”
“Septel” is State Department shorthand for “separate telegram.”
The cable also states that “consular sections will need to take into consideration the workload and resource requirements of each case prior to scheduling them going forward,” and that the main concern should be in regard to “services for U.S. citizens, immigrant visas, and fraud prevention.”
Politico said the cable alluded to the search for anti-Semitism and material that would indicate potential terrorist activity.
In a speech Rubio recorded for the Foreign Minister’s Conference on Combating Antisemitism, held Wednesday at the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, he spoke on behalf of the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.
“Those who call to boycott Israel are calling for the boycott of their Jewish neighbors and classmates,” Rubio said. “We have implemented a vigorous new visa policy that will prevent foreign nationals from coming to the United States to foment hatred against our Jewish community.”
Rubio further posted online Wednesday that “Foreigners who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country. Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over.”
The Trump administration previously imposed requirements for screening the social media of returning students who participated in protests in support of Palestinians opposing Israel’s war in Gaza.
Investigators in China are working to find the cause of a powerful explosion at a chemical plant that killed five people and injured 19 more. More than 200 emergency workers responded to the blast in Shandong province, which damaged properties up to a kilometre away.
US President Donald Trump says Russia’s Vladimir Putin is ‘playing with fire’ and Russia has so far been shielded from ‘really bad things’.
A senior Moscow security official has rebuked United States President Donald Trump and raised the danger of another world war breaking out after Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “playing with fire” by refusing to engage in Ukraine ceasefire talks with Kyiv.
Dmitry Medvedev said World War III was the only “REALLY BAD thing” in a response, late on Tuesday, to Trump, who had earlier posted a message to Putin on social media saying that “really bad things would have already happened in Russia” without his intervention.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realise is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened in Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire,” Trump said in a post on his platform Truth Social.
Medvedev responded on the platform X: “Regarding Trump’s words about Putin ‘playing with fire’ and ‘really bad things’ happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII.”
“I hope Trump understands this!”
Regarding Trump’s words about Putin “playing with fire” and “really bad things” happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!
Currently the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and a key Putin ally, Medvedev served as the Russian president between 2008 and 2012, and is known for his sabre-rattling comments.
He has repeatedly warned throughout the course of Russia’s war on Ukraine that Moscow could use its nuclear arsenal.
Putin also raised the possibility of nuclear confrontation in a state of the nation address in March 2024, warning Western powers of Russia’s nuclear capabilities should any decide to deploy troops in support of Ukraine.
“Everything that the West comes up with creates the real threat of a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and thus the destruction of civilisation,” Putin said at the time.
Medvedev’s public rebuke of Trump also comes after the US president said in a post on Sunday that Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” by carrying out extensive aerial attacks on Ukraine despite widespread calls for a ceasefire and Washington’s frustrated attempts to broker a peace accord.
“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him,” Trump posted on Sunday.
Trump also told reporters he was considering new sanctions on Russia amid the impasse in ceasefire talks.
The war of words on social media comes as hopes for a swift end to Russia’s war on its neighbour dim. Kyiv suffered another battlefield setback on Tuesday, with Russian forces capturing four villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov wrote on Facebook that the villages of Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka had been occupied by Russia, although residents had long been evacuated.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Monday that it had also taken the nearby village of Bilovody, implying a further advance into Ukrainian territory, as the more than three-year war grinds on.
Ukrainian officials have said for weeks that Russian troops are trying to make inroads into the Sumy region, the main city of which lies less than 30km (19 miles) from the border with Russia.
Russian forces, attacking in small groups on motorcycles and supported by aerial drones, have been widening the area where they have been carrying out assaults on the front line, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s border guard service said.
Ukrainian forces last year used the Sumy region as a launchpad to push into Russia’s neighbouring Kursk region, where they captured a vast area of territory before being driven out by Russian forces last month.
Latest Trump administration move comes amid a wider pressure campaign against top universities, and targeting of students.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump is temporarily suspending the processing of visas for foreign students, according to an internal memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The cable, widely reported by US media on Tuesday, ordered embassies and consulates not to allow “any additional student or exchange visa… appointment capacity until further guidance is issued”.
It added that the State Department “plans to issue guidance on expanded social media vetting for all such applications”.
The move is the latest blow to foreign nationals seeking to study in the US, as the Trump administration intensifies pressure on universities and students alike.
The administration last week revoked Harvard University’s approval for enrolling international students, amid a wider standoff over the school’s response to pro-Palestine protests and its diversity programmes. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the move.
The processing pause also comes as Rubio has sought to rescind hundreds of visas for foreign students, citing minor legal infractions or pro-Palestine speech or advocacy.
Speaking on Tuesday, US State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce did not directly respond to the cable, but said broadly, “We take very seriously the process of vetting who it is that comes into the country.”
“It’s a goal, as stated by the president and Secretary Rubio, to make sure that people who are here understand what the law is, that they don’t have any criminal intent, that they are going to be contributors to the experience here, however short or long their status,” she said.
Bruce added that those applying for student visas should continue to proceed normally, but should expect higher scrutiny.
“If you’re going to be applying for a visa, follow the normal process, the normal steps, [and] expect to be looked at,” she said.
Rubio’s cable did not give a timeline for the suspension, but told diplomatic staff they should receive guidance in the “coming days”.
Ongoing challenges
The Trump administration’s actions towards higher education have raised thorny constitutional questions about academic freedom and the rights of individuals living in the US on temporary visas.
Last week, Rubio told lawmakers in the US Senate that he had revoked “thousands” of visas since Trump took office on January 20, although a full accounting has not been released.
Rubio has relied on an obscure law that the administration maintains grants broad powers to remove foreigners whose presence in the US they deem to be counter to US foreign policy interests.
Lawyers for several students targeted by Rubio for their pro-Palestine views – including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi and Badar Khan Suri – have maintained that their clients’ freedom of speech rights are being trampled.
Meanwhile, Harvard University has also said the Trump administration is violating its rights by cutting funding and revoking its ability to enrol foreign students.
US media also reported on Tuesday that Trump’s administration was expected to soon sever the remaining federal contracts with Harvard, in what would be the latest escalation.
Law to take effect on January 1 has support of social media companies, but Apple and Google oppose it.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a bill requiring Apple and Alphabet’s Google to verify the age of users of their app stores, putting the second most populous state in the United States at the centre of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers.
The bill was signed into law on Tuesday.
The law, which goes into effect on January 1, requires parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged below 18. Utah was the first US state to pass a similar law this year, and US lawmakers have also introduced a federal bill.
Another Texas bill, passed in the state’s House of Representatives and awaiting a Senate vote, would restrict social media apps to users over the age of 18.
Wide support
Age limits and parental consent for social media apps are among the few areas of wide US consensus. A Pew Research poll in 2023 indicated that 81 percent of Americans support requiring parental consent for children to create social media accounts and 71 percent supported age verification before using social media.
The effect of social media on children’s mental health has become a growing global concern. Dozens of US states have sued Meta Platforms, and the US surgeon general has issued an advisory on safeguards for children. Australia last year banned social media for children under 16, with other countries such as Norway also considering new rules.
How to implement age restrictions has caused a conflict between Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and Apple and Google, which own the two dominant US app stores.
Meta and the social media companies Snap and X applauded the passage of the bill.
“Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their child’s age and grant permission for them to download apps in a privacy-preserving way. The app store is the best place for it, and more than one-third of US states have introduced bills recognising the central role app stores play,” the companies said.
Kathleen Farley, vice president of litigation for the Chamber of Progress, a group backed by Apple and Alphabet, said the Texas law is likely to face legal challenges on First Amendment grounds.
“A big path for challenge is that it burdens adult speech in attempting to regulate children’s speech,” Farley told the Reuters news agency in an interview on Tuesday. “I would say there are arguments that this is a content-based regulation singling out digital communication.”
Child online safety groups that backed the Texas bill have also long argued for app store age verification, saying it is the only way to give parents effective control over children’s use of technology.
“The problem is that self-regulation in the digital marketplace has failed, where app stores have just prioritised the profit over safety and rights of children and families,” Casey Stefanski, executive director for the Digital Childhood Alliance, told Reuters.
Apple and Google opposed the Texas bill, saying it imposes blanket requirements to share age data with all apps, even when those apps are uncontroversial.
“If enacted, app marketplaces will be required to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” Apple said in a statement.
Google and Apple each have their own proposal that involves sharing age range data only with apps that require it, rather than all apps.
“We see a role for legislation here,” Kareem Ghanem, senior director of government affairs and public policy at Google, told Reuters.
“It’s just got to be done in the right way, and it’s got to hold the feet of [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg and the social media companies to the fire because it’s the harm to kids and teens on those sites that’s really inspired people to take a closer look here and see how we can all do better.”
Trump Media says the money will be used to create a ‘Bitcoin treasury’.
The Trump Media and Technology Group will raise about $2.5bn to invest in Bitcoin, United States President Donald Trump’s social media firm says, as it looks to diversify its revenue streams with a push into the financial sector.
The company is raising the funds by selling $1.5bn in stock at its last closing price and $1bn in convertible notes priced at a 35 percent premium, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The money will be used to build a “Bitcoin treasury”, the company said.
The Bitcoin will be held on Trump Media’s balance sheet alongside existing cash and short-term investments totalling $759m at the end of the first quarter. Crypto platforms Anchorage Digital and Crypto.com are to provide custody for the Bitcoin holdings.
“We view Bitcoin as an apex instrument of financial freedom,” Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes said, hailing the move as a “big step forward” in the company’s plan to acquire “crown jewel assets consistent with America First principles”.
Shares of the company behind Truth Social, a streaming and social media platform, were down 6 percent in early trading.
Trump Media has been exploring potential mergers and acquisitions as it aims to diversify into financial services.
Last month, it reached a binding agreement to launch retail investment products, including cryptocurrency and exchange-traded funds aligned with Trump’s policies.
Embracing cryptocurrencies
The Trump family, long rooted in skyscrapers and golf clubs, has opened multiple beachheads in cryptocurrencies, quickly gaining hundreds of millions of dollars. Its other crypto forays include Trump nonfungible tokens (NFTs), a meme coin, a stake in a newly formed Bitcoin producer called American Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency exchange World Liberty Financial.
But the crypto push has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who last month asked the US securities regulator about its plans to supervise exchange-traded funds (ETFs) due to be launched by Trump Media.
Trump, who referred to cryptocurrencies in his first term as “not money”, citing their volatility and a value “based on thin air”, has shifted his views on the technology.
During an event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida during his presidential campaign in May 2024, Trump received assurances that crypto industry backers would spend lavishly to get him re-elected.
Last week, Trump rewarded 220 of the top investors in one of his other cryptocurrency projects, the $Trump meme coin, with a swanky dinner with him at his luxury golf club in northern Virginia, spurring accusations that the president was mixing his duties in the White House with personal profit.
The lawsuit alleges the Trump administration’s move to cut federal funding to public broadcasting is a violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
National Public Radio (NPR) and three of its local stations have filed a lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump, arguing that an executive order aimed at cutting federal funding for the organisation is illegal.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday in Washington, DC by NPR and three local stations in Colorado — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE Inc – argues that Trump’s executive order to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Trump issued the executive order earlier this month, instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and requiring that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organisations. Trump issued the order after alleging there is “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting spends roughly $500m on public TV and radio annually. PBS and NPR get part of their funding from federal grants: 17 percent and two percent, respectively.
“The Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” the lawsuit alleges.
“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” it said.
The White House’s executive order argued that editorial choices – including that NPR allegedly “refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story”, and that it ran a “Valentine’s Day feature around ‘queer animals’” – were some of the reasons it wanted to cut federal funding.
“This is retaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement.
“NPR has a First Amendment right to be free from government attempts to control private speech as well as from retaliation aimed at punishing and chilling protected speech. By basing its directives on the substance of NPR’s programming, the Executive Order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding.”
The absence of PBS from Tuesday’s filing indicates the two systems will challenge this separately; PBS has not yet gone to court, but is likely to do so soon.
The US president’s attempts to dismantle government-run news sources like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have also sparked court clashes.
The administration has battled with the press on several fronts. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating ABC, CBS and NBC News. And after The Associated Press refrained from calling the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America”, as Trump directed, the administration restricted the news outlet’s access to certain government events.
North Korea has detained three shipyard officials over an accident during the launch of a new warship on Wednesday, state media has reported.
Parts of the 5,000-ton destroyer’s bottom were crushed during the launch ceremony, tipping the vessel off balance.
An investigation into the incident, which North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un described as a “criminal act”, is ongoing.
KCNA, North Korea’s official news agency, identified those detained as the chief engineer of the northern Chongjin shipyard where the destroyer was built, as well as the construction head and an administrative manager.
The report said that the three were “responsible for the accident”.
On Friday, KCNA said the manager of the shipyard, Hong Kil Ho, had been summoned by law enforcers.
Satellite images showed the vessel lying on its side covered by large blue tarpaulins, and a portion of the vessel appeared to be on land.
North Korea’s state media did not mention any casualties or injuries at the time, downplaying the damage.
KCNA reported that there were no holes on the ship’s bottom – contrary to initial reports.
“The hull starboard was scratched and a certain amount of seawater flowed into the stern section,” the agency said.
Kim said on Thursday the accident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism”.
He added that those who made “irresponsible errors” would be dealt with at a plenary meeting next month.
It is not clear what punishment they might face, but the authoritarian state has a woeful human rights record.
It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents – though it has done this a handful of times in the past.
This particular accident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a similar 5,000-ton destroyer, the Choe Hyon.
Kim had called that warship a “breakthrough” in modernising North Korea’s navy and said it would be deployed early next year.
