Category Archives: US press and publishing

Donald Trump ‘lost $1bn in a month’ from coronavirus lockdown

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Stock market crash strips billionaire status from 267 of world’s richest people in the annual list

Donald Trump lost an estimated $1bn of his paper fortune in the past month as the coronavirus lockdown forced the closure of offices, shopping centres, hotels and golf courses he owns.

The US president’s fortune has fallen from an estimated $3.1bn (£2.5bn) on 1 March to $2.1bn on 18 March (at the height of stock market panic caused by the coronavirus pandemic) according to Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list.

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Lawsuit raises questions about source of Jeff Bezos’s affair revelation

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In lawsuit, Michael Sanchez has accused AMI of plot to ‘scapegoat’ him, and has cast doubt on claim that he was the ‘sole source’

A top executive at the tabloid publisher behind the National Enquirer said in a private email that he was “saving for my tombstone” the untold story of how the tabloid uncovered a 2019 exclusive about Jeff Bezos’s extramarital relationship, according to a lawsuit against the publisher.

The claim raises new questions about how American Media Inc (AMI) discovered the Amazon CEO’s relationship, and how it obtained knowledge of explicit sexual photographs that Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, has alleged were used against him by the publisher for “extortion and blackmail”.

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US newspapers appeal to China not to expel their reporters

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Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post use open letter to urge reversal of decision

Publishers of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have pleaded with the Chinese government not to expel their reporters, in an open letter published on Tuesday.

Earlier this month at least 13 journalists from the three major US news organisations were ordered to leave China in response to what the government said was “unreasonable oppression” of Chinese journalists in the US.

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China: expulsion of US journalists was response to ‘unreasonable oppression’

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Beijing defends ban of 13 journalists, which has been criticised as irresponsible during coronavirus crisis

Beijing has defended its decision to expel journalists from three major US publications, saying it was responding to “unreasonable oppression” of Chinese journalists in the US, as a diplomatic row escalates between the two countries.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, the foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing had been “compelled” to take countermeasures after Washington imposed restrictions on staff at Chinese state media outlets in the US.

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Barbara B Smith, groundbreaking model and lifestyle guru, dies aged 70

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  • Author and entrepreneur had early onset Alzheimer’s
  • Eponymous Manhattan restaurant achieved society success

The groundbreaking model, restaurateur and lifestyle guru Barbara B Smith, known to many as “the black Martha Stewart”, has died, her family announced on Sunday. She was 70.

Smith died on Saturday evening after suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease, which she was found to have in 2013. Following her diagnosis, Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, raised awareness of the disease and particularly its impacts on the African American community.

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Reporter who wrote book on Saudi crown prince was allegedly targeted by hackers

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State department investigates after New York Times journalist Ben Hubbard says his phone was targeted in 2018

A New York Times reporter was allegedly targeted with spyware linked to Saudi Arabia in 2018, at a time when the kingdom was targeting several Saudi dissidents around the world.

A new report by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School found that Ben Hubbard, who has written a book about Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, was targeted by spyware known as “Pegasus”, which is made by Israel’s NSO Group.

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The Fixers review: Trump, Cohen, Stormy Daniels and the porn star presidency

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A guide to ‘the bottom-feeders, crooked lawyers and gossip mongers who created the 45th president’ demands to be read

In February 2019, Jeff Bezos accused David Pecker and the National Enquirer of extortion and blackmail after the tabloid published intimate pictures taken by the Amazon chief. Pecker and co denied being motivated by a desire to aid Donald Trump or receiving a major assist from Saudi Arabia. It was just about gossip.

Related: 'Click I agree': the UN rapporteur says prince tried to intimidate Bezos with message

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UN experts demand US inquiry into Jeff Bezos Saudi hacking claims

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‘Grave concern’ expressed at evidence of possible ‘effort to silence Washington Post’

UN experts are demanding an immediate investigation by the US into evidence indicating that Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, was hacked with spyware deployed in a WhatsApp message sent from the personal account of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

The special rapporteurs – Agnès Callamard and David Kaye – said in a joint statement they were “gravely concerned” by evidence they had reviewed about the apparent surveillance of Bezos in what they described as a possible “effort to influence, if not silence, the Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia”.

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‘Wrong then, wrong now’: US clash with Iran echoes march to Iraq war

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As a new Republican president seeks re-election, senior figures in Washington warn history may be repeating itself

A Republican president facing a tough re-election campaign and widely viewed as hopelessly out of his depth. Bureaucrats itching to turn US military firepower on a Middle Eastern regime they claim without evidence is plotting an imminent attack. Compliant sections of the media that put flag-waving jingoism ahead of skeptical scrutiny.

So it was in late 2002, when President George W Bush’s administration built unstoppable momentum towards invading Iraq, promising to destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that never existed. Nearly two decades later the potential target is not Iraq but Iran, with many of the same concerns over false pretexts and official lies.

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Rightwing columnist smacks journalist Glenn Greenwald on Brazil radio show

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Greenwald has faced backlash from far right after series of articles damaging to Jair Bolsonaro’s government

Brazil’s bitterly divided politics reached a new low on Thursday, when a rightwing columnist smacked the US journalist Glenn Greenwald in the face on a live radio program.

Greenwald and Augusto Nunes are prominent figures on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but Thursday’s physical violence – which was being livestreamed – left Brazilians stunned.

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Gwyneth Paltrow ‘a crucial source’ in Harvey Weinstein revelations

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A new book says the actor was scared of going on the record at first but then encouraged other women to speak out

Gwyneth Paltrow has been named a key figure in the New York Times story that first catalogued a series of sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and led to the film producer’s dismissal from his own company and subsequent prosecution.

In a new book titled She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey – the New York Times reporters whose story on 5 October 2017 triggered Weinstein’s downfall – Paltrow is said to have been “scared to go on the record but became an early, crucial source, sharing her account of sexual harassment and trying to recruit other actresses to speak”.

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China denies credentials to Wall Street Journal reporter

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Chun Han Wong, who covered Xi Jinping extensively, is in effect expelled from country

Chinese authorities have declined to renew the press credentials of a Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporter, in effect expelling a journalist who extensively covered President Xi Jinping and Communist party politics.

The foreign ministry said on Friday in response to a faxed question about the Singaporean reporter Chun Han Wong’s visa that some foreign journalists with the “evil intention to smear and attack China” were not welcome.

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New York Times changes front-page Trump headline after backlash

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Original headline read ‘Trump urges unity vs racism’ – prompting accusations that newspaper was feeding president’s narrative

The New York Times was forced to change its front-page headline for Tuesday’s newspaper amid an intense backlash over its portrayal of Donald Trump’s statement on the twin mass shootings that left 31 people dead.

The original headline read “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM”. Many people complained that the wording fed Trump’s claims that those who criticised his persistent anti-immigrant rhetoric – some of which was parroted in the El Paso gunman’s alleged manifesto – were playing politics.

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Outcry after reports Brazil plans to investigate Glenn Greenwald

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Federal police reportedly asked money laundering unit to investigate the ‘financial activities’ of the US journalist

Brazil’s Bar Association, journalists and opposition lawmakers have reacted with outrage to reports that the country’s federal police plan to investigate the bank accounts of an American journalist who published leaked conversations between prosecutors and the graft-busting judge who is now Jair Bolsonaro’s justice minister.

The rightwing site the Antagonist (O Antagonista) reported on Tuesday that federal police had asked a money-laundering unit at Brazil’s finance ministry to investigate the “financial activities” of Glenn Greenwald.

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Sarah Sanders’ tenure as press secretary ended long before her exit

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Analysis: the departing White House spokeswoman, who has not held a press briefing in months, spun a web of deceit in her role

“You’re fired!”

Donald Trump was joking when he barked these words at his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, during a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in April – on a night when both were snubbing the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

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Unfreedom of the Press review: Mark Levin’s Trumpist take on the first amendment

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The passionate pro-Trump convert’s attack on the mainstream media occasionally sounds like ‘fake news’ itself

Americans’ distrust of the media is only exceeded by its disdain for Congress. Mark Levin’s latest book won’t do much to rehabilitate journalism but it should cement his standing among Trump’s go-to guys.

Related: The Mueller Report by the Washington Post review – the truth is out there… somewhere

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Bernie in the Fox’s den: Sanders takes anti-Trump pitch straight to ‘state TV’

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The Democratic frontrunner will speak at a Fox News town hall. He says it’s necessary to speak to Trump voters. Others disagree

Bernie Sanders will finish a four-day tour of Trump Country on Monday, with a town hall on the president’s favorite network: Fox News.

Related: Ilhan Omar has had spike in death threats since Trump attack over 9/11 comment

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Yemeni bodegas boycott New York Post over attacks on Ilhan Omar

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Murdoch-owned paper published front page that Yemeni American Merchants Association says ‘provoked hatred’

A group of New York corner-store owners has announced a boycott on the sale of the New York Post, arguing that the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper’s attacks on the congresswoman Ilhan Omar are making Muslim Americans less safe.

On Thursday, the Post published a front page featuring an image of the World Trade Center towers in flames on 11 September 2001 and a quote suggesting that Omar, a Somali American congresswoman from Minnesota who wears a hijab, had minimized the seriousness of the terror attacks in a speech last month.

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Saudis hacked Amazon chief Jeff Bezos’s phone, says company’s security adviser

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Chief executive allegedly targeted because he owns Washington Post, where Jamal Khashoggi was columnist

The security chief for Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, says the Saudi government had access to Bezos’s phone and gained private information from it.

Gavin de Becker, Bezos’s longtime security consultant, said he had concluded his investigation into the publication in January of leaked text messages between Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, a former television anchor whom the US National Enquirer tabloid newspaper said Bezos was dating.

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Kylie Jenner’s makeup makes her the world’s youngest billionaire

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Youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner reality TV family tops Mark Zuckerberg by two years

Kylie Jenner, the youngest member of the Kardashian-Jenner American reality TV family, has become the world’s youngest billionaire at the age of just 21.

Jenner, who grew up under the watch of TV cameras filming Keeping Up with the Kardashians, was on Tuesday admitted to the “nine-zero” fortune club by Forbes. The business magazine ranked Jenner as the world’s 2,057th richest person. She became a billionaire two years younger than the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who took the title at the age of 23 in 2008.

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