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    ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour

    British journalist Sami Hamdi was reportedly detained on Sunday morning by federal immigration authorities at San Francisco international airport, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) says that action is apparent retaliation for the Muslim political commentator’s criticism of Israel while touring the US.A statement from Cair said it was “a blatant affront to free speech” to detain Hamdi for criticizing Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza while he engaged on a speaking tour in the US. A Trump administration official added in a separate statement that Hamdi is facing deportation.“Our attorneys and partners are working to address this injustice,” Cair’s statement said. The statement also called on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “to immediately account for and release Mr Hamdi”, saying his only “‘crime’ is criticizing a foreign government” that Cair accused of having “committed genocide”.The press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, wrote of Hamdi in a social media post: “This individual’s visa was revoked, and he is in ICE custody pending removal”.McLaughlin’s post also said: “Those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country.”During his tour, Hamdi spoke on Saturday at the annual gala for Cair’s chapter in Sacramento. He was expected to speak on Sunday at the gala for the Florida chapter of Cair.McLaughlin’s post about Hamdi’s detention was shared by Trump administration ally Laura Loomer, who took credit for his being taken into custody.Loomer, who has called herself a “white advocate” and a “proud Islamophobe”, has often peddled conspiracy theories such as endorsing claims that the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 were an “inside job”.In 2018, she infamously chained herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York City in protest of her account being banned. Billionaire businessman Elon Musk reinstated her account after he bought the social media platform in 2022.“As a direct result of … my relentless pressure on the [state department] and Department of Homeland Security, US officials have now moved to take action against Hamdi’s visa status, and his continued presence in this country,” Loomer posted on social media.Hamdi is the latest of numerous immigrants who have been arrested and deported by ICE over pro-Palestinian views. Earlier in October, journalist Mario Guevara was deported to El Salvador after having been detailed while live streaming the massive, anti-Trump No Kings protest in June.On 30 September, a federal judge appointed during Ronald Reagan’s presidency ruled the administration’s policy to detain and deport foreign scholars over pro-Palestinian views violates the US constitution and was designed to “intentionally” chill free speech rights.The ruling is bound to be appealed, possibly all the way to the US supreme court, which is dominated by a conservative supermajority made possible by three Trump appointments. The state department, meanwhile, has said it will continue revoking visas under the policy. More

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    Pentagon names new press corps from far-right outlets after reporter walkout

    After the recent departure of Pentagon reporters due to their refusal to agree to a new set of restrictive policies, the defense department has announced a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” featuring 60 journalists from far-right outlets, many of which have promoted conspiracy theories.Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted the news on X but did not provide any names.The Washington Post, however, obtained a draft of the announcement, which stated that the new reporters, who agreed to the department’s new policies, were from outlets such as Lindell TV, started by Trump ally Mike Lindell; the Gateway Pundit; the Post Millennial; Human Events; and the National Pulse.The list also includes Turning Point USA’s media brand Frontlines, influencer Tim Pool’s Timcast and a Substack-based newsletter called Washington Reporter, the Post reported.The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for the list of journalists.Parnell described the group as a “broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists”.“New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people,” Parnell wrote. “Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”The new press corps includes rightwing outlets that have promoted conspiracy theories. For example, the Gateway Pundit spread false information about the 2020 election and then settled a defamation lawsuit with two Georgia election workers it falsely accused of wrongdoing and admitted that there was no fraud in the election.Similarly, Lindell denied the results of the election and was ordered to pay $2.3m to an employee of a voting machine company who sued him for defamation.Pool, a conservative podcast host, was among the influencers who allegedly were associated with a US content creation company that was provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favor of Moscow’s interests and agenda.Pool said they were “deceived and are victims”.The journalists who turned in their press credentials earlier this month did so after the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, introduced a policy that required that they agree not to obtain unauthorized material and restricted access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.Outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Atlantic, as well as reporters from rightwing outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax, all refused to sign on to the new rules.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further,” Newsmax told Times journalist Erik Wemple.The Guardian also declined to sign the revised Pentagon press pass policy because it placed unacceptable restrictions on activities protected by the first amendment.During a White House press briefing, Pool, a member of the new Pentagon press corps, asked Karoline Leavitt to comment on the mainstream media and “their unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate [on] if there’s any plans to expand access to new companies?”In a segment on Wednesday on the rightwing television network Real America’s Voice, defense department spokesperson Kingsley Wilson thanked the show’s host, Jack Posobiec, for joining the press corps.Wilson misstated the policies that caused journalists to leave the Pentagon. She did not mention that it included a requirement that they not obtain unauthorized material.“They walked out because they refused to sign an agreement that was simple. It was common sense. It said, wear a visible press badge. Don’t go in classified spaces, stay in the correspondence corridor and follow the building’s rules,” Wilson said.“That was their right, but also their loss, because now we get to have incredible journalists like yourself who are going to be here in the Pentagon reporting on what the Department of War is doing every single day,” Wilson said. “It’s really the next generation of journalism at the Pentagon.” More

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    BBC reporters cannot wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts in newsroom, says Tim Davie

    BBC journalists cannot wear T-shirts in the newsroom supporting the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter, the corporation’s director general has said.Tim Davie said the BBC stood against racism but it was “not appropriate for a journalist who may be covering that issue to be campaigning in that way.“You cannot have any assumption about where people are politically. You leave it at the door, and your religion is journalism in the BBC. And I tell you: the problem I’ve got is people react quite chemically to that.“So you can’t come into the newsroom with a Black Lives Matter T-shirt on. We stand absolutely firmly against racism in any form.“I find some of the hatred in society at the moment utterly abhorrent, personally, really upsetting, but that is a campaign that has politicised objectives. Therefore, it is not appropriate for a journalist who may be covering that issue to be campaigning in that way.“And, for some people joining the BBC, that is a very difficult thing to accept. And it has not been an easy thing to get done this, and we wrestle with it every day.”Speaking about diversity and impartiality at the BBC at the Cheltenham literature festival, Davie also drew a parallel with impartiality when reporting on mainstream political campaigning.“I feel very, very strongly that if you walk into the BBC newsroom, you cannot be holding a Kamala Harris mug when you come to the election – no way, that’s not even acceptable,” he said.The BBC director general also said his “number one priority” was “trying to navigate a course where you are impartial” and that required “elements of diversity”, adding that “socioeconomic diversity” was something that “hadn’t been talked about enough”.He added: “It is absolutely a big battle, and I’m getting questions: ‘Why are you giving a voice to Reform?’, ‘Why are you doing this?’ We’re not giving a voice, we’re covering – covering what people are interested in, covering the reality of what people feel.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDavie was also asked whether he felt safe when he had been shouted at and people had come into his personal space.He said: “It’s not for the faint-hearted; these jobs in public life now, I mean, they are really quite demanding. I’m no great Californian hippy, but you have to look after yourself, you really have to.” More

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    Who are the rightwing influencers filling Trump’s head with visions of antifa?

    Last week’s White House roundtable on antifa was an odd affair, mainly because the supposed experts who briefed Donald Trump on antifascism were rightwing influencers who make a living filming themselves confronting leftwing protesters.Videos of protests in Portland and Chicago produced by these conservative content creators have long shaped the president’s distorted view of reality.Although the influencers all describe themselves as “independent journalists”, they all frame leftwing protesters as nefarious or ridiculous in their videos, and eight of the 11 are current or former employees of Turning Point USA, the conservative advocacy organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk.None presented evidence to support the administration’s claim that antifascists, who disrupt white supremacist rallies or oppose the mass deportation of their neighbors, are “terrorists”. Instead, they shared personal stories of having been victimized by leftwing protesters.“Their job”, the extremism researcher Jared Holt said on his podcast, “is to make these viral clips that they can show on Fox News and scare your grandpa into thinking antifa is on the verge of a mass slaughter, and that Mr Trump is the only man who can put an end to this by sending the military to go crack some skulls”.Here is a guide to the conservative media activists whose work fills the president’s head with visions of antifa.Andy NgoNgo is a video journalist turned pundit with 1.7 million followers on X. View image in fullscreenSince Donald Trump first shouted the word “antifa” at a rally in 2017, a week after he accused antifascists of “violently attacking” white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, no one has done more than Andy Ngo to promote the myth that black-clad protesters around the nation are part of a secret terrorist network.Ngo, the son of Vietnamese refugees in Portland, made his name on Twitter by posting video clips, often misleadingly edited or captioned, of street battles that broke out when far-right groups from surrounding counties descended on the liberal city to provoke antifascists.His willingness to selectively edit his reports to blame antifascists for the violence was revealed in 2019, when video recorded by an antifascist mole in a rightwing group Ngo had embedded with, Patriot Prayer, showed that Ngo had witnessed, and chosen not to report, the Christian nationalists planning to instigate violence at a leftwing gathering.A month later, Ngo was attacked by antifascists while filming their efforts to counter a Proud Boys rally in Portland. He was punched, kicked and doused with silly string and a milkshake he later claimed had been laced with quick-drying cement. (That accusation appears to have been a false rumor shared with the police by a rightwing activist who was caught on camera the same day dousing antifascists with grey powder.)That assault instantly made him a sought-after guest on Fox News. Two years later, he published Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, a best-selling book filled with exaggerated or inaccurate claims about leftwing protesters.Ngo’s use of the term “domestic terrorists” to describe antifa, now amplified in official US government statements, is not just inaccurate, it can be dangerous. In 2022, a Portland resident who followed Ngo on YouTube went to the site of a planned racial justice march Ngo had railed against, screamed that antifascist volunteers protecting the marchers were “terrorists” and opened fire. The rightwing gunman shot four traffic safety volunteers and a protest medic. One woman died at the scene, another succumbed to her injuries later.Katie DaviscourtDaviscourt is a video correspondent for the Post Millennial with 260,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenKatie Daviscourt, a former Turning Point USA activist, is a correspondent for Post Millennial, a far-right Canadian website where Andy Ngo is an editor. A Portland police sergeant recently described her in an internal report as one of the “counter-protesters” filming protests outside a Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement office who “constantly return and antagonize the protesters until they are assaulted or pepper sprayed”. A week later, Daviscourt was struck by a protester who tried to block her from filming by swinging a Palestinian flag in her face.The next night, she appeared on Fox News with a black eye to accuse Portland police officers who spent 2020 battling with antifascists of being part of antifa. “The Trump administration needs to start treating antifa like Isis, the terrorists that they are, and put an end to them for good,” she told Jesse Watters.Nick SortorSortor is an influencer who confronts protesters and Democrats for his 1.2 million X followers.View image in fullscreenNick Sortor, a former real estate agent from Kentucky, made his name during the Biden administration by going to the scenes of disasters, in East Palestine, Ohio, and Lahaina, Maui, to scream at officials and push conspiracy theories in interviews with Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.In February, he claimed that Elizabeth Warren, the 76-year-old Massachusetts senator, has “assaulted” him as she pushed past him to get into her car while he was peppering her with questions based on viral misinformation.Sortor has been involved in multiple physical altercations with protesters in Portland this month, some of which he clearly initiated. Video shot by a Fox News correspondent one night showed Sortor ripping a burning American flag from the hands of an elderly protester he later described as an “Antifa thug”. Later that night, Sortor was arrested after exchanging blows with protesters, who reportedly objected to him filming closeup images of a teenage girl who had just been maced by a federal officer.The charges against Sortor were later dropped by a local prosecutor after his arrest prompted an outcry in the conservative media. Sortor received a sympathetic text from Trump and a phone call from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, who ordered the head of the justice department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon, to open an investigation of the Portland police bureau over supposed anti-conservative bias. Dhillon was previously Andy Ngo’s lawyer.Julio RosasRosas is a correspondent for Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV with 230,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenJulio Rosas got his start working for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, writing last month that meeting the conservative activist “is THE reason why I have my career in politics today”.The marine reservist spent much of 2020 filming undercover video of racial justice protests, highlighting rare instances of violence in clips that helped Fox News and the Trump White House frame demonstrations that were about 94% entirely peaceful as anarchic.Rosas’s openly partisan approach to covering protests was reflected in his comment to Trump that the “sustained political violence that we’re seeing in this country is not a ‘both sides’ issue”.Rosas did not tell the president that, in previous years, he had filmed two infamous acts of rightwing political violence: Kyle Rittenhouse shooting two people, one fatally, in 2020; and Trump supporters hurling a metal barricade into the doors of the Capitol, striking police officers, and attacking journalists on 6 January 2021.Savanah HernandezHernandez is a contributor to Turning Point USA and a former Infowars host with 700,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenSavanah Hernandez, a former host for the far-right, conspiracy theory outlet Infowars now creating videos in Portland for Turning Point USA, was celebrated on Fox News in the summer of 2020 for a stunt in which she had herself filmed holding up a sign that read “Police Lives Matter” during a Black Lives Matter protest that followed the murder of George Floyd.At the White House roundtable, she directed her rage at reporters from the White House pool covering the roundtable. “The same media that’s sitting in this room with us, has declared all of us at this table Nazis and fascists, and they’ve been doing this for years,” Hernandez said. “This is why Antifa feels emboldened to attack us.”What Hernandez was apparently not aware of is that, since the Trump administration now selects members of the press pool to be admitted to events with the president, many of the people she was yelling at actually worked for pro-Trump outlets.Cam HigbyHigby is a Turning Point USA media activist with 190,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenCam Higby is a Turning Point USA activist who got his start creating videos for PragerU, a rightwing media outlet that promotes climate-crisis denialism and soft-pedals the brutal reality of American slavery in educational films now approved for use in K-12 schools in 10 states.In recent weeks, Higby has spent time in Portland, but has also been emulating Turning Point’s murdered founder Charlie Kirk, by setting up tables on college campuses and challenging students to debate him.At the White House roundtable, however, Higby cast himself as a reporter unfairly targeted by antifa. “I’m attacked every time I do my job. When I leave my house to go to work, I’m violently assaulted. I’ve had guns pulled on me. I’ve been bear-sprayed. I’ve been beaten down. I’ve been almost killed,” he said.Nick ShirleyShirley is a YouTube influencer with 880,000 subscribers.View image in fullscreenNick Shirley, 23, started out making prank videos during his high school years in Utah but last year he began to make YouTube videos aimed at boosting Donald Trump.In February 2024, Shirley recorded himself asking migrants if they supported Joe Biden and shared video on X of several saying they did with the caption: “Confirmed: Migrants for Biden 2024”. Three months later, Shirley hired Latino day laborers at a Home Depot parking lot and paid them $20 each to appear in a video holding signs outside the White House with the slogans: “I Love Biden” and “I Need Work Permit for My Family.”Last month, he produced a friendly profile of the English racist organizer Tommy Robinson, and called a protest he attended in Paris an “antifa riot”.Shirley has been in Portland in recent weeks, making a video he titled, “Portland has Fallen… ANTIFA Take Control of City”, and telling Fox News that Oregon’s governor, who refused to give him an interview during a protest march, had “sided with antifa”.Jonathan ChoeChoe is a Turning Point USA correspondent with 180,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenJonathan Choe, now a Turning Point USA correspondent, was fired from his job as a reporter for the ABC affiliate in Seattle in 2022 for producing what looked like a promotional video for the Proud Boys, set to a song by a white supremacist, in his spare time.In addition to reporting on leftwing protests for rightwing outlets, he covers homelessness in Seattle as a fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Christian conservative thinktank .In May, Choe was filmed striking a protester in the face with a baton and then insisting to police that he was the victim. “He assaulted me,” Choe shouted, in video recorded by Daviscourt.Last week in Portland, Choe filmed a man he identified as “Maga patriot Thomas Allen” punching a protester and knocking them to the ground during a skirmish initiated by Sortor. When Allen was then arrested by the police, Choe suggested it was unjust because “antifa militants” had earlier in the night briefly seized Allen’s red Maga cap.Allen was arraigned last week for misdemeanor assault.James KlugKlug is a Turning Point USA ambassador with 617,000 YouTube subscribers.View image in fullscreenJames Klug is affiliated with Turning Point USA and known for videos in which he argues with and mocks liberals.On inauguration day 2021, Klug offered his followers a behind-the-scenes look at how influencers like Rosas go undercover to capture violence at leftwing protests in the city and then appear on Fox News to put all the blame on antifa.The violence in that case was from a small group of anarchists who smashed windows at the Oregon Democratic party’s headquarters in Portland, as Joe Biden was sworn in as president.Rosas told Laura Ingraham on Fox it was the work of antifa, although Rose City Antifa, the Portland group that helped revive the Nazi-era concept of antifascist organizing, said in a statement this was an anarchist action antifascists played no part in.Brandi KruseKruse is a former local TV reporter from Seattle who has 165,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenBrandi Kruse, a Republican podcaster who quit her job as a reporter for Seattle’s local Fox affiliate in 2021, recently spent 48 hours in Portland for her podcast, a city she subsequently described as a “shithole”. She told Trump that she was a former critic who now endorsed him.Kruse also claimed the president’s antifascist rhetoric had already had an effect. “I genuinely believe there would be people at these tables who would be dead today, and would have been killed in Portland, had you not called them a terror organization and said we’re going to bring the full weight of the federal government to bear.”Jack PosobiecPosobiec, who has 3.2 million followers, hosts a podcast sponsored by Turning Point USAView image in fullscreenJack Posobiec, a former One America News host who left the fringe cable channel to start a show on the far-right network Real America’s Voice sponsored by Turning Point USA, is best known for promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. More

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    ‘He may be watching’: Mamdani on Fox News speaks directly to Trump

    Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York, stepped into the lion’s den on Wednesday when he sat for an interview with Fox News, the rightwing news organization that has spent weeks demonizing him and his democratic socialist goals.Speaking to host Martha MacCallum, Mamdani was asked about funding for his proposals, which include freezing increases on rent-stabilized apartments, providing free buses and offering free childcare – and whether other services would be cut to achieve those goals.“I don’t think we have to cut,” Mamdani said. “I’ve spoken about raising taxes on the wealthiest. And, frankly, this is an issue that we have here in New York City, and, frankly, even across this country.”Mamdani said he had spoken to people who voted for Donald Trump in New York who told him it was the “cost of living” that “drove them to vote” for the president.Mamdani said that, despite that, “what we’re seeing time and time again is we’re more focused on the question of billionaires and the most profitable corporations than we are on people who can’t even afford to make ends meet in the city”.Following his surprise victory over Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, Mamdani has for months led the polls to be New York’s next mayor. A survey released by Quinnipiac last week showed Mamdani winning 46% of the vote to the former New York governor’s 33%. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, was at 22%.That rise has brought attention from outlets such as Fox News, which has closely covered Mamdani, sometimes publishing multiple news stories on him a day. Jesse Watters, the network’s primetime host, has been a frequent critic, describing Mamdani as a “communist”, which he is not, and calling him “Kamala Harris with a beard”, while Sean Hannity suggested that the rise of Mamdani, who is Muslim, is evidence that “an extremism is taking root right before your very eyes”.In an interview that rehashed several rightwing critiques of Mamdani, MacCallum suggested he may lack the qualifications for the role. “President Trump said that you never worked a day in your life,” MacCallum told Mamdani, before asking what qualifies him to run the city.In response, Mamdani spoke directly into the camera, alluding to how the outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, bowed to pressure from the Trump administration to cooperate on immigration crackdowns – before the Trump-led justice department dropped a federal corruption case against him.“I want to take this moment, because you spoke about President Trump, and he may be watching right now, and I just want to speak directly to the president,” Mamdani said.“I will not be a mayor like Mayor [Eric] Adams, who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won’t be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo, who will call you to ask how to win this election. I can do those things on my own. I will, however, be a mayor who is ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living.“That’s the way that I’m going to lead this city. That’s the partnership I want to build, not only with Washington DC, but [with] anyone across this country.”The interview came as Mamdani prepared for a debate with Cuomo and Sliwa on Thursday night. Adams suspended his re-election campaign in late September.Cuomo, who has centered his campaign on reducing crime, will likely seek to contrast his decades of experience in politics with Mamdani’s newcomer status. The former governor, who resigned in 2021 after he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, has run numerous ads attacking Mamdani.The issue of the Israel-Hamas peace deal is likely to come up, given Cuomo’s strong support for Israel and Mamdani’s opposing stance. Mamdani has criticized Israel’s war in Gaza and called the bombing of the territory a “genocide”. Mamdani was asked questions about the region on Wednesday, including whether he would give credit to Trump for the fledgling deal.Mamdani, stressing that his focus would be on New York rather than international politics, said he was thankful for the ceasefire, adding: “I have hope that it will actually endure and that it will be lasting.”“I think it’s too early to [give credit],” Mamdani said. “But if it proves to be something that is lasting, something that is durable, then I think that that’s where you give credit.” More

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    ‘Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth’: a Chinese journalist on the US under Trump

    On a Friday night in late May, Wang Jian was getting ready to broadcast. It was pouring outside, and he was sitting in the garage apartment behind his house, just outside Boston, eating dinner. “I am very sensitive to what Trump does,” Wang was telling me, in Mandarin, waving a fork. “When Trump holds a cabinet meeting, he sits there and the people next to him start to flatter him. And I think, isn’t this the same as Mao Zedong? Trump sells the same thing: a little bit of populism, plus a little bit of small-town shrewdness, plus a little bit of ‘I have money.’”Wang was sitting next to a rack of clothing – the shirts and jackets the 58-year-old newsman wears professionally – and sipping a seemingly bottomless cup of green tea that would eventually give way to coffee. By 11pm, he would walk across the room and snap on a set of ring lights, ready to carry on an unbroken string of chatter for a YouTube news programme that he calls “Wang Jian’s Daily Observations”. It was a slow news night but he would end up talking until nearly 1am. This was his second broadcast of the day. Different time zones, he explained to me, different audiences.Wang, who has more than 800,000 subscribers on YouTube, is representative of a small but influential part of the Mandarin-language media landscape. He is part of an exodus of media professionals who have left Hong Kong and mainland China in the past decade; and one of a handful who have started posting news and analysis videos on YouTube. Wang serves an audience of Chinese expatriates – along with mainlanders savvy enough to get round China’s great firewall – who tune in hoping that he can fill in the gaps left by propaganda, censorship and disinformation.Wang’s fans find him entertaining and reassuringly professional. (“He’s very objective, I think,” one told me.) His broadcast manner moves from the impersonal, rhythmic cadence of a veteran newscaster to personal asides that bring to mind a slightly incredulous university lecturer. He loves a rhetorical question (“Is this the way a US president speaks?”) followed by his favourite English-language interjection: “C’mon.”I have spent the months since Trump’s inauguration watching Wang on YouTube. He was first recommended to me by a journalist working at a prominent Chinese news outlet who, even while reporting for a similar audience, frequently checked in on Wang’s broadcasts. “He’ll be perfect for you,” they said. Americans have always loved looking at themselves from a distance.Watching the US through Wang makes our political reality appear more comical and more dangerous. He centres China in all his broadcasts, offering a kind of been-there-done-that account of authoritarian creep. He places the US on an arc of history we have long pretended to transcend. “Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth,” he told me. They were born into democracy and have no appreciation of what life is like without it. Chinese people, on the other hand, “have been bullied by rulers for thousands of years. We’re very familiar with these situations.”There are many American reporters, Wang said, who report competently on China. But when I asked how the US media was doing covering the US, he burst into laughter. “If I were the New York Times, I would be putting curse words on the front page every day,” he told me. “F-word, F-word, F-word.”In the US, the China narrative can fluctuate depending on the day. We thought, briefly, that the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan constituted a “Chornobyl moment” that would undermine the regime. It did not. We wonder, on and off, how China builds rail systems so quickly. We worry about whether China will overtake us in AI development. Our sense of national decline is intensified by China’s rise. In April, a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman ran with the headline, “I just saw the future. It was not in America.” (It was in China.)In China, meanwhile, people looking to understand the US are also subject to a push and pull based on the political climate and – under Xi Jinping, China’s long-serving president – the narrowing space for free expression. China’s propaganda operation no longer resembles the lumbering machinery of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. There are still fustier national newspapers – Xinhua and the People’s Daily – that clearly represent a Communist party perspective. There is also the more nationalistic Global Times. “If the US did not interfere in China’s internal affairs or challenge its sovereignty,” said one recent article, “there would be no need for it to worry about China’s defence development”.View image in fullscreenAt the turn of the last century, these bigger publications were balanced by a handful of independent, market-driven media outlets pushing the boundaries of censorship in China, although these mostly reported on domestic issues. Over time, however, most Chinese media consumers have moved online and today, just like Americans, they get most of their information on social media. Mainland China blocks Facebook, YouTube, X and Google. Instead, information spreads on Sina Weibo or, most commonly, WeChat. These platforms are monitored by human censors and AI programmes that hunt for sensitive phrases or keywords. China’s censorship is not monolithic or infallible, but these combined efforts mean that, typically, the news that spreads is the news that the government permits to spread.“Mostly, the things that spread on WeChat are video clips or screenshots with text,” Yaqiu Wang, a researcher based in Washington DC. Clips that highlight American gun violence, protests or inflation flow freely, without any censorship. She mentioned the popularity of snippets from the Trump-friendly Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Yaqiu Wang’s parents will, not infrequently, call at night, concerned about her safety. They are not reading government propaganda so much as a curated selection of American bombast, spin and disinformation.How much Chinese people know about the reality of life in the US varies wildly. “There are those people with power, or those people working in universities, who will jump the great firewall,” Yaqiu Wang told me. These people can read BBC’s Mandarin news service, for example, or listen to the Mandarin-language podcast run by the New York Times journalist Yuan Li. But if these are too dry for news consumers, Wang Jian is there to chatter the night away. “I think this satisfies people’s needs,” said a Chinese government employee who watches Wang’s programme every day. “You can get real information.”Wang has told viewers that, in all his years as a journalist, the last two had brought about some of the biggest global changes he had seen. Trump, Wang explained, has misidentified the US’s strengths. “Your strengths aren’t your people,” he told me later, expanding on his theme. “I could find a bank teller in Hong Kong, bring them here, and they could do the job of 10 Americans.” What the US has got, according to Wang, is allies and a reliable currency. (“And now you’re threatening to annex Canada?”)Trump, according to Wang, would like to be more like Xi Jinping – a strongman leading a nation with a huge manufacturing base. He likes to point out that the two leaders have birthdays a day apart. Trump would like to take back the supply chain and manufacture everything in the US – an idea that drew a “c’mon” from Wang. There are, in turn, things about the US that Xi would like to emulate – the global influence, the financial power of the dollar. “Maybe we should just let Xi and Trump switch places. We wouldn’t need to do anything. They could leave the rest of us out of it,” Wang joked. “Although I think Xi Jinping would get beat up in the United States.”It’s this kind of irreverence that Wang’s audience most enjoys. His viewers call him “Teacher Wang” and as he talks, a string of congratulatory messages pop up. They often say: “Teacher Wang, JiaYou!” (a term of encouragement that literally means “add oil!” but is closer to “let’s go!”). Sometimes: “Teacher Wang, well said!” And sometimes, when Wang is particularly critical: “Teacher Wang, well scolded!”View image in fullscreenFormally, there are three parts of Wang’s programmes. He opens with a segment of recent news, moves on to a segment that offers opinions and deeper explorations of a particular topic. Finally, he will end with about half an hour of viewer comments and questions. Recent topics have included immigration protests in Australia (“Without immigration, Australia has no chance of being an influential country”) and China’s diplomatic overtures to India. This segment can also involve questions – “Should I emigrate to another country?” “Should I buy an iPhone now?” – that require him to play a variety of roles: agony uncle, consumer advice columnist, financial adviser. He does an episode every year while he makes dumplings. He is part newscaster, part professor, part friend.Few of Wang’s fans wanted to talk on the record, but two of the handful I spoke with pointed to this as their favourite segment. Local news that might be censored in China makes its way out in the comments. Wang will discuss issues viewers have raised about mainland China – complaints, for example, that government employees are no longer allowed to go to restaurants in large groups; or that factory workers are being forced to take Breathalyser tests when they get home at night; or that falling real estate prices have wiped out someone’s savings. Some of his listeners will address the US directly. “Introducing a tariff of this size is suicidal!” wrote one viewer. “Is it too simple to blame it on arrogance and wilfulness?”Wang, when he’s interested in a question, will stare into the camera. “You think Trump has thought it through?” he asks. “I don’t think so. Trump is really simple. He doesn’t think very deeply.” Trump’s brain, Wang told me, is a “qian dao hu” – a lake with 1,000 islands, none of them connected.Wang does not sleep much. He starts preparing for the broadcast somewhere between four and five hours in advance. Wang’s first daily broadcast runs from around 11am to noon. He then eats lunch, sleeps if he can, and spends time with his family. Around 6pm, he starts the process again, aiming to go live at 11pm. And then at about 12.30 or 1.00am, he walks across the yard, back to his house, and gets his second, truncated, sleep.Wang has wanted to be a journalist since he was a teenager. He was born to middle class parents in Nanshan County, China, a protrusion of land in the south-west part of Shenzhen. When Wang, in high school, decided he was interested in studying journalism at university, his parents told him they couldn’t support his choice. Wang understood their reservations. “During the Cultural Revolution, the people who were most targeted were writers and journalists. They were afraid I would be denounced.” Wang, however, had a stubborn streak. He stopped speaking at home. “I had a cold war with my parents,” Wang told me. He held out until they agreed.Wang arrived at Jinan University in Guangzhou in the mid 1980s, intending to study journalism, but it wasn’t journalism, exactly, that he learned. “We studied the CCP’s theory of media,” Wang told me. According to the CCP, facts were secondary to the health of the party and the populace. Then, in 1990, Wang managed to land a job as a reporter in Hong Kong, which was still under British rule and enjoyed relatively robust freedom of the press. (Though the British did not extend Hongkongers the right to elect their leader.)View image in fullscreenIn Hong Kong, Wang was suddenly in the privileged position of writing honestly about his new city and the country that he had recently left. Wang won multiple press awards as a young reporter at the daily newspaper Ming Pao and then, in 2001, he joined Sing Tao Daily – the oldest Chinese-language newspaper in the city. By this time, Hong Kong had been transferred to PRC rule and, while Sing Tao operated independently, it had significant ties to Beijing. Wang would eventually oversee the publication’s international expansion efforts, helping establish offices in New York, Toronto and San Francisco. He travelled to all these places but didn’t do much exploring. He was working or meeting Chinese émigrés for dinner. (“You ask me my impression of the United States. I didn’t have a impression! My impression of New York was only: Chinatown.”)Reporters in Hong Kong, at this time, were in a unique position. In authoritarian systems, reliable information has a special value, and Hong Kong journalists were granted some access to PRC officials. “This access made Hong Kong media influential not only among Chinese audiences but also among Chinese officials, who treated Hong Kong media as an alternative source of information,” says Rose Liuqiu, a professor in the Department of Journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University. This was particularly true for journalists covering the economy, Wang’s speciality.This work required diplomacy. Charles Ho, who owned the Sing Tao Daily, maintained close ties with Beijing. He famously said that if he followed Beijing’s directives 100% of the time, he would lose value in Beijing’s eyes. Wang’s own work has always walked a line between attracting viewers, reporting the facts and balancing the concerns of a global power.The precarious balance that sustained Hong Kong’s media did not last. Business ties between Hong Kong’s media outlets and Beijing grew steadily, as did concerns about self-censorship. After democracy protests swept through the city in 2014, prominent editors and journalists became the targets of violent attacks. Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Media, had his house firebombed more than once. Kevin Lau, the editor of the newspaper Ming Pao, was hospitalised in 2014 after being assaulted in the street with a meat cleaver. In 2016, Wang decided to retire. Beijing was beginning to limit press freedoms in the city and Wang didn’t think the city would recover the openness that had changed his perspective so drastically as a young man.Wang decided to step back from work and, instead, focus on caring for his young daughter, while his wife continued her work in real estate. At the end of 2018, after a visit to his sister-in-law in San Francisco, Wang decided to move his family to the US. He called his wife and told her that he didn’t think there was much future in Hong Kong. His daughter could attend high school in the US, he reasoned. By the time I met him, Wang told me that many of his friends – editors and reporters at news outlets like the now-shuttered Apple Daily – had either fled or were in jail.Wang thought he was done as a news man. But character is sometimes fate, and Wang loves to talk. In 2019, he started holding impromptu gatherings at his sister-in-law’s house on the weekends. At the time, Trump was engaging in the first iteration of a trade war with China and many of their acquaintances in the Bay Area, most of whom worked in the tech industry, wanted to meet and discuss current events. The weekly crowd grew and it was his sister-in-law who suggested that Wang move the conversation online and out of her back yard. By the end of the year, Wang had started his YouTube channel. It was, initially, a chatty, informal programme. And then the pandemic hit, and Wang became a professional again. “All of a sudden it felt serious,” he told me. “I had a responsibility.”It didn’t take long for Wang to acquire an audience, especially after he started broadcasting twice daily. (His is a volume game.) The pandemic was driving people online and China was limiting the flow of information coming out of the cities it had locked down. One regular viewer I spoke with – another government worker in China who asked to remain anonymous – came across Wang around this time, when they were at home during one of China’s restrictive lockdowns. They still listen to his broadcasts daily, looking for news on the economy – still hoping for information that might not be flowing freely from town to town. “During the comments you get a glimpse of what’s happening locally in China,” they told me.Eventually, Wang hired a handful of researchers – some of whom were journalists who had fled Hong Kong after a crackdown in 2019 – paying them from the advertising revenue from his broadcasts. He also started a membership programme and a Patreon and began offering a small selection of goods for sale. The tea he sells through YouTube, he told me, was sourced by a fan. “We don’t make any money on the tea,” he laughed. “I’m the one who buys most of it.”Wang, and the handful of other newscasters like him, are part of an ecosystem of influencers, often called “KOLs” in China for “Knowledge and Opinion Leaders” (an English term that likely originated in Hong Kong). The KOLs compete for attention with western sources – the Joe Rogan and Fox News clips. Most KOLs are apolitical; posting on TikTok or XiaoHongShu about beauty trends or daily life. Within China, many of these influencers are tacitly approved by the CCP. A woman named Li Ziqi, for example, runs the most popular Mandarin-language programme on YouTube and cross-posts on sites in mainland China. Her videos offer an idealised portrait of village life – making traditional crafts while soothing music plays in the background. Political KOLs are less likely to be making video content, and those within China are either pro-CCP or frequently find their accounts blocked. One, who goes by the name Gu Ziming, is famous for managing to pop up with new accounts after having an old one shuttered by censors.View image in fullscreenWhen I visited Wang, it was Friday evening. His researchers – who also wished to remain anonymous – had submitted the evening’s potential topics via a shared Google document. They laughed about Trump’s negotiation strategies (“No one trusts him!”) and speculated as to why a large job recruitment platform in Shanghai had stopped reporting salaries (“It means they’re scared to issue the report”). They moved topics up and down the list, in the order that Wang would plan to address them. In some cases, Wang questioned the news that they brought to him and urged them to seek out more sources.The proposed topics included elections in South Korea; a systemwide shutdown on San Francisco Bart trains; and a Texas ban on Chinese nationals buying property. “Have those Chinese living in Texas done nothing?” Wang asked. “No resistance or protest?”“I think there were protests before,” came the researcher’s voice through the phone. “But it turns out they’re giving exemptions to some people, but otherwise you have to have a green card.”“That’s fine, then,” Wang answered. “Don’t go to Texas to buy a house, then. The housing prices are falling in Texas anyway. This is a very red state. I can clearly see the momentum of this state.” The topic made the broadcast.Years ago, when I first started reporting on the media landscape in China, I thought of it as a foil to the more raucous and open media environment in the west. Now it feels more like a funhouse mirror – a different, exaggerated version of something fundamentally the same. Chinese readers have long approached their news sources with cynicism. In the US and most of the west, media sources are, for the most part, still free and unrestricted. Facts, on the other hand, are increasingly under attack.According to the researcher Wang Yaqiu, there is a division she sees in the US and China. Those who have political power, money, or enough education or energy, will do their best to seek out reliable information. This was true when Wang Jian began his career in Hong Kong, when Communist party officials looked to Hong Kong media as a reliable source. It is true now, when reliable information often comes at a cost – to unlock paywalled information, or to get a VPN to evade the great firewall. Wang’s programme is free to watch, but accessing it takes knowledge, desire and knowhow. Good information, and the ability to find it, Wang Yaqiu pointed out, is more and more a matter of privilege and money – and this is true on both sides of the Pacific. “The rest of us,” she said, “will all be swimming in the same trash.”Wang doesn’t get asked, often, what to do about the authoritarian creep he is commenting on in the US. He has been in this position nearly his entire life – reporting from Hong Kong as its democratic freedoms were eroded, and now the US. He enjoys enough of a distance to look at things from a bird’s-eye view, able to see events as funny and alarming. He has, at the same time, a truculent, slightly traditionalist, belief in the value of the news. After a lifetime patrolling the boundary between truth and nonsense, Wang believes that people build their realities based on what is available to them: their lived experiences, their teachers, the media they consume. They are reasonable. They just need access to reliable information.In recent months, as political violence and censorship in the US have grown, his references to the value of journalism have multiplied. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, he gave a rapid, dispassionate explanation of Kirk’s record. “Kirk pushed forward conservativism and Christian nationalism,” Wang informed his viewers. “He denied the efficacy of vaccines. After Kirk’s death, Trump ordered all the flags fly half-mast.” The next day, Wang made a fresh argument for his line of work. “Media’s role is helping everyone regulate power,” he told his audience. “China castrated the media.” A few days later, he returned to the question. “How do you change your destiny?” he asked. “You change your destiny with knowledge. How do you gain knowledge?” Wang continued. “You read the news.”Wang issues warnings, but his work is fundamentally hopeful. He often returns to his own experience arriving in Hong Kong. He walked the streets, looked at the buildings, and marvelled at the fact that he could just go and look up who owned them. That had not been possible back home. He read old copies of Life magazine and began questioning the Communist party’s version of history. It was an epiphany. “My mission is to provide everyone with an opportunity to change their view of the world,” Wang told me, as he transitioned from tea to coffee. “This is the value of this programme. You need to know that this world is made up of countless puzzles. This, what is happening in the US, is one of them.”On the night I visited, Wang wrapped up around 1am. He thanked his audience. He sighed, momentarily letting his exhaustion slip through. He asked for upvotes and follows. “Join us as a member and help support us,” he said. And then he closed with his regular signoff. “Broadcast better,” he said. “Be better.” More

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    US news outlets refuse to sign new Pentagon rules to report only official information

    Several leading news organizations with access to Pentagon briefings have formally said they will not agree to a new defense department policy that requires them to pledge they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.The policy, presented last month by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been widely criticized by media organizations asked to sign the pledge by Tuesday at 5pm or have 24 hours to turn in their press credentials.The move follows a shake-up in February in which long-credentialed media outlets were required to vacate assigned workspaces which was cast as an “annual media rotation program”. A similar plan was presented at the White House where some briefing room spots were given to podcasters and other representatives of non-traditional media.On Monday, the Washington Post joined the New York Times, CNN, the Atlantic, the Guardian and trade publication Breaking Defense in saying it would not sign on to the agreement.Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor, said the policy runs counter to constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press.“The proposed restrictions undercut First Amendment protections by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information,” Murray wrote in a statement published on X. “We will continue to vigorously and fairly report on the policies and positions of the Pentagon and officials across the government.”The Atlantic, which became embroiled in a dispute with Pentagon and White House officials earlier this year after editor Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a group chat on Signal, said it “fundamentally” opposes the new restrictions.The new policy “constrains how journalists can report on the U.S. military, which is funded by nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars annually,” a New York Times statement said. “The public has a right to know how the government and military are operating,” wrote the Times Washington bureau chief, Richard Stevenson.Hegseth responded on social media to statements from the Atlantic, the Post and the Times by posting a single emoji of a hand waving goodbye.Righ-leaning outlets have also declined to sign the document. “Newsmax has no plans to sign the letter,” the network told the New York Times reporter Erik Wemple. “We are working in conjunction with other media outlets to resolve the situation. We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further.”Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told the Washington Post that media outlets had “decided to move the goal post”, saying that the policy doesn’t require reporters to agree, but just acknowledge they understand it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionParnell said that request had “caused reporters to have a full-blown meltdown, crying victim online.” He added: “We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”The Pentagon Press Association, which represents the press corps covering the defense department, said last week that a revised policy that seeks to prohibit journalists from soliciting unauthorized information in addition to accessing it, appeared to be “designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs”.The PPA noted that the revised policy “conveys an unprecedented message of intimidation to everyone within the DoD, warning against any unapproved interactions with the press and even suggesting it’s criminal to speak without express permission – which plainly, it is not”.The new rules were accepted by the far-right cable channel One America News, whose White House correspondent is frequently invited by the president to ask him questions. One of the channel’s hosts, former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, said the pro-Trump outlet “is happy to follow these reasonable conditions”. More

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    Why is this Fox News host speculating about AOC’s sex life? | Arwa Mahdawi

    Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and United States homeland security adviser, is one of the most influential people in the Trump administration. He is also such a hate-filled little man that members of his own family are publicly rebuking him.During Donald Trump’s first term, in 2018, Miller’s uncle, Dr David Glosser, wrote a piece for Politico calling Miller an “immigration hypocrite”. Glosser noted that if Miller’s hardline immigration policies “had been in force a century ago, our family [Jewish refugees who fled to the US from Europe to avoid persecution] would have been wiped out”.Then, in July, a woman called Alisa Kasmer, Miller’s cousin and former babysitter, wrote a viral Facebook post calling the Trump aide “the face of evil”. Miller’s cruelty, she said, left her feeling “ashamed and shattered”.While some of his extended family can’t seem to stand him, Miller does have a very enthusiastic cheerleader in the form of the Fox News host Jesse Watters. Last October, Watters claimed that his show’s audience believes that Miller is “some sort of sexual matador” and asked Miller to comment on this. The Maga-dor responded by telling young men to “be the alpha … show that you are not a beta … Be a proud and loud Trump supporter and your dating life will be fantastic.” This is terrible advice for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that gen Z women are the most liberal group in the US.I’m afraid it doesn’t end there; a couple of weeks ago, the Fox News host had Miller’s wife, Katie (a Maga bigwig in her own right), on his show to chat about how sexy Stephen is. “What is it like being married to such a sexual matador?” Watters joked. Very inspiring, apparently; he wakes up every morning excited about how he is going to “defeat the left”.It doesn’t even end there. This week, Watters once again sang his favourite man’s praises on TV, calling Miller a “policy savant”. He added: “Men who are high-value men, like Stephen Miller, take risks. They’re brave, they’re unafraid, they’re confident and they’re on a mission. And they have younger wives with beautiful children.”Watters went on to claim that the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “wants to sleep with Miller … it is so obvious”. The whole spiel was so weird that even Watters’s colleague, Greg Gutfeld, appeared disturbed. “That was pretty creepy,” Gutfeld said.While Watters doesn’t seem to need an excuse to praise Miller, this week’s episode wasn’t entirely unprompted. Rather, Watters was reacting to an Instagram video in which Ocasio-Cortez called Miller a clown and urged people to laugh at Maga.“Miller looks like he is so mad that he is 4’10” that he’s taking that anger out at any other population possible,” AOC said in the video. “Laugh at them! Laugh at them!”It’s not particularly clever to mock someone’s height. (AOC has since said she loves “short kings” and was talking about how “big or small someone is on the inside”.) Nevertheless, the lawmaker is absolutely correct that the way to get under the skin of people in Maga-land is to laugh at them. Ghouls like Trump and Miller don’t care if you call them evil or hypocritical. They don’t care if you use facts and logic against them. What they care about is being laughed at. What they really can’t stand is being mocked. “Humor has long been one of the most effective weapons of anti-authoritarian politics,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism, noted last year after Democrats started calling Republicans “weird”.You can see how thin-skinned Maga is by the ridiculous amount of traction that AOC’s throwaway joke has had. Mediaite has reported that three primetime Fox News hosts factchecked Miller’s height: Watters, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity. Ingraham even had Miller on her show and played the clip to him while he squirmed in discomfort. “What a train wreck, what a train wreck … that lady is a walking nightmare,” Miller replied. He also clarified that he is 5’10”. A very big boy.Steven Cheung, who is White House director of communications, also responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments with a post on his official Twitter account saying: “Sounds like @AOC is often used to the shorter things in life.” He added a pinching hand emoji, which is sometimes used to suggest a small penis.The Trump administration should not be underestimated by any means. They are organized, they are ruthless, and they are proving extremely effective at implementing their agenda. But while we shouldn’t underestimate Trumpers, it’s helpful to remember that they’re not invincible. AOC is right: we should laugh at them. It’s either laugh or cry.French appeals court increases sentence of Gisèle Pelicot rapistHusamettin Dogan contested his first conviction, telling the court Pelicot’s husband had invited him over so it was OK. The court found otherwise this week, increasing Dogan’s prison sentence to 10 years. Pelicot’s lawyer had told the court: “[C]onsent is personal, not delegated. Consent is obtained directly and not by proxy from a husband.”Women may carry a higher genetic risk of depressionNew research published in Nature Communications has found 16 genetic variants linked to depression in women, compared with eight in men.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLatvia may withdraw from international domestic violence treatyWomen’s rights activists protested outside the Latvian parliament this week following a decision by lawmakers last month to start a process that could lead to withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, which aims to standardize support for women who are victims of violence and to promote gender equality.Almost 55,000 preschool children in Gaza are acutely malnourishedThat’s according to a new study published in the Lancet, which shows a clear link between Israel’s aid blockade and malnutrition. Even if a ceasefire holds and adequate food is allowed into the strip, these kids will probably have serious poor long-term outcomes from being starved in their critical years. It is hard to defend deliberately starving babies – which is why Israel is spending hundreds of millions on propaganda efforts including, according to Drop Site News, $45m on a Google advertising campaign promoting Israeli government talking points.UK universities offered to spy on students on behalf of weapons companiesAccording to emails obtained by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates, a number of UK universities reassured arms companies worried about campus protests that they would monitor students’ social media accounts. Per the Guardian, one university “appeared to agree to a request from Raytheon UK, the British wing of a major US defence contractor, to ‘monitor university chat groups’ before a campus visit”.The week in pawtriarchyFrancine is a calico cat who lives at a Lowe’s home improvement store in Virginia. Or she did until she decided to jump on a truck and go on an out-of-state adventure. CCTV was scrutinized and thermal drones brought in to find Francine. She is now back in Virginia, delighting customers with her a-mew-sing antics. Cat-astrophe averted.

    Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More