Stephanie Winston Wolkoff reportedly taped the first lady’s ‘harsh comments’ and plans to share them in a book, Melania & Me
Melania Trump will speak at the Republican national convention on Tuesday night, in the shadow of an extraordinary report that she was taped making derogatory comments about her husband’s adult children and even Donald Trump himself.
Related: RNC 2020: a two-hour glimpse into the upside-down world of Trump TV
Continue reading...Officials in Danbury, Connecticut, say they will name their sewage plant after the comedian John Oliver, in retaliation for an expletive-filled rant about the city on his HBO show.
Related: John Oliver: US is 'making a mockery of the phrase a jury of your peers'
Continue reading...The controversial app’s users are ignoring geopolitical battle over its digital security, says Richard Waterworth
TikTok’s UK chief has strenuously denied the video-sharing app, which Donald Trump has threatened to ban, shares data with China.
Richard Waterworth told the Observer that the UK and European arm of TikTok was growing quickly, despite the “turbulent” geopolitical battle in which the Chinese-born app has found itself.
Continue reading...Republican pundits accept success of Biden’s convention address as Trump’s bid to portray Democratic rival as radical leftist falls flat
Under pressure on the last day of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden “hit a home run” with an “enormously effective” speech that blew “a big hole” in Donald Trump’s efforts to paint him as a mentally faltering captive of his party’s left wing.
And that was to hear Fox News hosts Dana Perino and Chris Wallace tell it.
Continue reading...Move is part of a broad Facebook policy shift toward movements with links to violence such as baseless internet conspiracy Qanon
Facebook has taken down or restricted more than 10,000 groups, pages and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon, US-based militia groups, and organizations that promote violent acts at protests. The moves are the result of a shift in the company’s policy toward movements with links to violence that do not meet the criteria for an outright ban.
Facebook will still allow people to post content that supports these movements, but “will restrict their ability to organize” on the platform by removing them from recommendation algorithms, reducing their ranking in news feed and search results, and prohibiting them from using features such as fundraising and advertising, the company said. Facebook will also remove pages, groups and accounts that discuss violence, and said it will study the terminology and symbolism that groups typically use to disguise their intent.
Continue reading...Magazine’s opinion editor and editor-in-chief ended note by saying op-ed would remain on the site
Newsweek has apologized for an op-ed that questioned the California senator Kamala Harris’ American citizenship and her eligibility to be Joe Biden’s running mate, a false and racist conspiracy theory which Donald Trump has not dismissed.
“This op-ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize,” read Newsweek’s editor’s note on Friday, which replaced the magazine’s earlier detailed defense of the op-ed.
Continue reading...Apple Daily founder and pro democracy activist says his case will likely be a ‘litmus test’ of Hong Kong’s legal system
Wary but defiant, Jimmy Lai is determined to keep fighting for a democratic Hong Kong, even as he acknowledges that China’s goal is to take full control of the region.
Speaking to the Guardian five days after his arrest on foreign collusion allegations – he is currently out on bail - media tycoon Lai argues the press must keep going. But he also believes that Monday’s round up was a warning from Beijing.
Continue reading...Bob Woodward’s second book on the Trump White House has a title, Rage, and promises to reveal the secrets of “25 personal letters exchanged between [Donald] Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that have not been public before”.
Related: It Was All a Lie review: Trump as symptom not cause of Republican decline
Continue reading...Apple Daily founder and pro-democracy activist returns to office following arrest under national security law
The Hong Kong pro-democracy figure and media mogul Jimmy Lai received a hero’s welcome as he returned to his newspaper after being arrested on allegations of foreign collusion, while Chinese state media labelled him a “genuine traitor”.
Lai, his sons, senior executives from his Next Digital media company and others including the activist Agnes Chow were detained under Beijing’s national security law on Monday. Hundreds of police officers also raided the offices and newsroom of Apple Daily, the popular tabloid Lai founded, in a move decried as an assault on press freedom.
Continue reading...Live footage of people crossing Channel to UK is like ‘grotesque reality TV’, says MP
Britain’s television news broadcasters have been criticised by opposition MPs and campaigners over their coverage of migrants crossing the Channel, with claims that some of their reports dehumanise those taking the risk to make the journey.
Footage of Sky News and BBC Breakfast teams approaching and filming small boats trying to navigate the busy waters of the Dover strait was widely condemned on social media. The Labour MP Zarah Sultana said: “We should ensure people don’t drown crossing the Channel, not film them as if it were some grotesque reality TV show.”
Continue reading...Readers queued for hours to get a copy of the pro-democracy tabloid, as US secretary of state says China has ‘eviscerated Hong Kong’s freedoms’
Hong Kong’s Apple Daily tabloid has responded with defiance to the arrest of owner Jimmy Lai under a new national security law imposed by Beijing, promising to “fight on” in a front-page headline above an image of Lai being detained..
Readers queued from the early hours to get a copy of the pro-democracy paper a day after police raided its offices and took Lai into detention, the highest-profile arrest so far under the national security law.
Continue reading...White House reportedly asked South Dakota official about expanding monument
Donald Trump has denied that his team ever approached South Dakota’s governor about adding his face to the iconic monument depicting four presidents at Mount Rushmore. However, he added that it sounded like a good idea.
The New York Times reported a Republican party official source on Saturday stating that a White House aide reached out to Kristi Noem’s office with the question: “What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?”
Continue reading...Director general admits mistake following 18,000 complaints
The BBC’s director general, Tony Hall, has apologised after the N-word was used in a TV news broadcast, following mass complaints and the resignation of one of the corporation’s radio DJs.
“Every organisation should be able to acknowledge when it has made a mistake. We made one here,” Hall said in an email to all BBC staff.
Continue reading...Radio 1Xtra presenter Sideman says he can no longer work for broadcaster after ‘slap in the face’
A BBC radio presenter has quit his job after the corporation defended its decision to broadcast the N-word in a television news broadcast.
Radio 1Xtra presenter Sideman said he no longer felt comfortable working for the national broadcaster after it stuck by the decision to broadcast the language in a report on a racially motivated hit-and-run attack.
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex urges advertisers to demand companies do more to curb hate speech online
Prince Harry has hit out at social media companies for creating a “crisis of hate” and called for “meaningful digital reform” after an unprecedented advertiser boycott of Facebook.
In an opinion piece for the US business magazine Fast Company, the Duke of Sussex revealed that he and his wife, Meghan, had begun campaigning for change in social media “a little over four weeks ago”.
Continue reading...Revenue collapses by 16% in Australia and 13% in the UK, while Foxtel loses 12% of its subscribers in Australia
News Corp has posted a US$1.5bn loss, with its Australian and United Kingdom newspaper businesses suffering sharp declines in revenue and its Foxtel pay-TV business in Australia bleeding subscribers, new financial results for 2019-20 show.
The global media giant released its financial results for 2019/20 on Thursday in the US. The reports paint a grim picture across the last quarter and year, with the exception of its Dow Jones business.
Continue reading...Mulan is first blockbuster to go straight to streaming in response to Covid-19 shuttering cinemas
Disney’s decision to bypass cinemas and offer its latest big budget film Mulan directly to streaming subscribers for $29.99 could signal the beginning of the end for the traditional movie-going experience – and forever change the long-established business model underpinning the Hollywood blockbuster.
The surprise move has stunned cinema owners, who had been banking on the film, along with Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller Tenet, to jump-start box office takings as theatre chains struggle to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Court rules in favour of Duchess of Sussex in latest stage of legal action against Associated Newspapers
The Duchess of Sussex has won a high court bid to keep secret the identities of five friends who gave anonymous interviews to a US celebrity magazine, in the latest stage of her legal action against the owner of the Mail on Sunday.
Meghan is suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, over an article that reproduced parts of a “private and confidential” handwritten letter she sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.
Continue reading...President floundered in conversation with Axios, claiming Covid-19 was ‘under control’ and attacking mail-in voting
Donald Trump stumbled through his second damaging interview in as many weeks, floundering in a conversation with the news website Axios over key issues he is tasked with responding to as president.
It’s been just over two weeks since the president made a series of shocking statements in a one-on-one interview with Fox News, but he packed another host of extraordinary claims into a 37-minute interview released on Monday night by Axios.
Continue reading...Press groups have called for justice after unidentified gunmen killed a journalist in southern Mexico, along with a police officer assigned to protect him after a 2016 attack.
Pablo Morrugares was the fifth journalist to be killed in Mexico this year, in attacks which are increasingly killing police guards assigned to the victims. More than 140 journalists have been killed over the past 20 years.
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