AP files amended complaint against White House over press pool ban

White House adviser’s quote included in suit: ‘The AP and the WHCA wanted to f--k around. Now it’s finding out time.’

The Associated Press amended its complaint against the Trump administration on Monday, including in its epigraph a punchy quote from an anonymous White House adviser: “The AP and the White House Correspondents Association wanted to f--k around. Now it’s finding out time.”

The unnamed White House adviser’s quote came about during an exchange on 25 February 2025 and was first reported by Axios last week.

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The LA Times published an op-ed warning of AI’s dangers. It also published its AI tool’s reply

‘Insight’ labeled the argument ‘center-left’ and created a reply insisting AI will make storytelling more democratic

Beneath a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece about the dangers of artificial intelligence, there is now an AI-generated response about how AI will make storytelling more democratic.

“Some in the film world have met the arrival of generative AI tools with open arms. We and others see it as something deeply troubling on the horizon,” the co-directors of the Archival Producers Alliance, Rachel Antell, Stephanie Jenkins and Jennifer Petrucelli, wrote on 1 March.

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UN human rights chief ‘deeply worried by fundamental shift’ in US

Volker Türk alarmed at growing power of ‘unelected tech oligarchs’ and warns gender equality is being rolled back

The UN human rights chief has warned of a “fundamental shift” in the US and sounded the alarm over the growing power of “unelected tech oligarchs”, in a stinging rebuke of Washington weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency.

Volker Türk said there had been bipartisan support for human rights in the US for decades but said he was “now deeply worried by the fundamental shift in direction that is taking place domestically and internationally”.

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Rachel Maddow says MSNBC laying off ‘non-white’ hosts and staff is ‘indefensible’

Majority of producers on Maddow and Joy Reid’s shows let go with option to re-apply amid network shake-up

MSNBC has told the majority of the employees who produce Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid’s primetime evening news shows they are being let go as part of the network’s programming overhaul with the option to apply for new roles, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.

Maddow, the biggest star and highest-rated anchor at MSNBC, will get to keep her executive producer, Cory Gnazzo, and several other senior producers, the people said.

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Tim Westwood inquiry report: what new allegations against him have emerged?

The document contains a series of previously unpublished claims, including 22 from members of the public

The independent inquiry into what the BBC knew about the former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood’s conduct has been published almost three years after a joint investigation by the Guardian and BBC News.

The investigation told the stories of a number of women who accused the 67-year-old of sexual misconduct and predatory behaviour.

“Hounded” a 17-year-old Black woman with phone calls and texts.

Invited a girl who was 15 or 16 back to his home following an under-16 night, after she had added him on Blackberry to get information about the event.

Contacted a woman who had shared her business card, and appeared agitated when she did not want to meet late at night.

“Hurled” a can of drink at a woman who was serving in a club.

A former BBC staff member told the corporation their son had witnessed Westwood propositioning a 15-year-old girl in a night club in around 2007. The BBC reported the complaint to the Metropolitan police, who took no action.

A BBC employee said in 2022 that a guest on Radio 1 had described potential sexual assault by Westwood between 2004 and 2007. They said they had reported it to a more senior employee, but White found no evidence the complaint had been documented. Westwood’s lawyers said he was never spoken to about the incident.

A student told the review about Westwood referring to her breasts during a 1Xtra DriveTime show in 2010, calling her “cuddly” and miming grabbing her breasts, which his lawyers say he strongly denies.

A Sun journalist contacted Radio 1 in November 2012 saying they had been given tipoffs about Westwood and “inappropriate relations with young girls”. A senior figure flagged allegations made about Westwood on Twitter to HR and the corporate investigations team, which decided that no action would be taken without further evidence.

White concluded that senior BBC staff did not think Westwood had had sexual contact with 15-year-old girls, but that the issue “ought to have been formally raised with him” and the online allegations should have been examined further.

“Many” BBC employees “perceived there to be a close relationship between the controllers and Tim Westwood”.

Witnesses felt they were unable to complain because of the “feeling that … senior management were likely to side with presenters”.

Westwood made repeated comments about guests and staff members’ bodies, particularly about women’s breasts.

Until Westwood was removed from the 1Xtra DriveTime show in 2012, “the approach appears to have been to raise issues informally … and, when the situation did not improve, to move BBC staff working on the 1Xtra DriveTime show to other programmes”.

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BBC admits it ‘fell short and failed people’ over Tim Westwood

Corporation apologises as inquiry finds it missed opportunities that could have led to action over former Radio 1 DJ’s behaviour

The BBC has admitted it “fell short and failed people” – including its own staff – and apologised after finding evidence of “bullying and misogynistic” behaviour by its former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood.

A £3.3m external inquiry published on Tuesday found the broadcaster “missed opportunities” during the DJ’s two decades at the organisation that could have led to action. The inquiry was triggered by a 2022 Guardian and BBC News joint investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and predatory behaviour by the DJ.

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Lester Holt to exit NBC Nightly News as MSNBC cuts Ayman Mohyeldin’s show

Holt to step down as anchor as Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, whose shows also canceled, to remain at MSNBC

NBC’s Lester Holt is stepping down as anchor of its Nightly News show, and MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin is stepping down from a similar role at his namesake weekend evening show as the networks’ owners continue a major programming shake-up on Monday.

Others at MSNBC affected by changes revealed on Monday include Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, the New York Post reported.

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MSNBC reportedly cancels Joy Reid show in reshuffle at liberal network

ReidOut is being cancelled as part of a lineup shuffle being helmed by the network’s new president, Rebecca Kutler

MSNBC has reportedly canceled longtime anchor Joy Reid’s show in what is evidently a major programming restructure at the liberal network.

Speaking to the New York Times, two people familiar with the reshuffling told the outlet that Reid’s 7pm show, The ReidOut, is being cancelled as part of a lineup shuffle being helmed by the network’s new president, Rebecca Kutler.

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UK creative industries set behaviour standards after Strictly and MasterChef rows

An independent standards authority says the industry must learn from recent scandals and create safer working environments

New guidelines will be issued this week for the UK’s creative industries after a series of scandals including reports of inappropriate behaviour by Gregg Wallace and Gino d’Acampo, and bullying allegations on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

The Creative Industries Indep­endent Standards Authority (CIISA) will set new standards with the aim of stamping out bullying, harassment and discrimination, and address “power imbalances”.

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Konstantin Kisin: anti-woke libertarian who reluctantly calls himself ‘right wing’

In speech at Arc conference, podcaster argues ‘identity politics and multiculturalism … are two failed experiments’

Konstantin Kisin has until this week been best known as a libertarian, pro-free speech independent podcaster, and for a viral appearance at the Oxford Union arguing that “woke culture has gone too far”.

His profile has suddenly risen, however, after hosting the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, on his podcast, and arguing in an episode with Fraser Nelson, the former editor of the Spectator, that Rishi Sunak was not English owing to his “brown Hindu” background – triggering criticism on social media.

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BBC pulls Gaza documentary featuring child whose father was Hamas minister

Show removed from iPlayer as ‘further due diligence’ carried out and critics ask if any Hamas members were paid for filming

A BBC documentary about Gaza has been pulled from its iPlayer service while the broadcaster deals with intensifying accusations that the film was biased because it failed to make clear the father of its child narrator was a Hamas deputy minister.

BBC sources indicated the intention was to make the documentary available to watch again once a “due diligence” exercise had taken place, but the decision reflects a frustration that the filmmakers did not inform the broadcaster of the situation before transmission.

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Nearly 500 cat figurines stolen from Gordon Ramsay’s London restaurant

By Ramsay’s own estimate, he has lost more than £2,000 during one week in stolen maneki-neko cat models

Nearly 500 cat figurines were stolen in one week from Gordon Ramsay’s new London restaurant, the TV chef has said.

The restaurateur, 58, recently launched Lucky Cat 22 Bishopsgate by Gordon Ramsay in one of London’s tallest buildings, which features the beckoning Japanese cat models called maneki-neko.

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British journalist missing in Brazil for 11 days

Foreign correspondents’ association urges authorities to step up search for Charlotte Alice Peet, 32

A British journalist has been missing in Brazil for 11 days, a foreign correspondents’ association in the country said on Tuesday, urging authorities to step up their search efforts.

Charlotte Alice Peet, 32, last communicated with a friend on 8 February, according to a statement from the Rio de Janeiro-based Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (ACIE).

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State department orders cancellation of media subscriptions around world

Foreign posts told to end all ‘non-mission critical’ news subscriptions in Trump directive that will ‘endanger lives’

The state department has reportedly ordered its outposts around the world to cancel all subscriptions to news and media outlets that are supposedly “non-mission critical” in another extraordinary Trump administration crackdown on normal information channels.

An email memo was circulated to embassies and consulates earlier this month explaining that the move was a further effort to cut costs by the federal government, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday.

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Off air: one by one, the Taliban are removing women’s voices from Afghan radio

As one of the last female-run stations in the country is silenced, a former broadcaster gives an inside view of the crackdown on women working in the media

When the Taliban began marching towards cities across Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Alia*, a 22-year-old Afghan journalist, found herself doing some of the most important work of her short life and career.

In the weeks leading up to the Taliban takeover in August, Alia’s voice on the radio became familiar to many in northern Afghanistan. She reported on the withdrawal of foreign troops, the siege of government offices and on the detention of former officials in her province.

Above all, Alia reported on the situation for women and their fears and concerns – emotions she was experiencing herself. As the Taliban gradually began imposing restrictions on them, Alia was documenting history repeating itself.

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Kabul evacuation whistleblower wins case against UK government

Civil servant Josie Stewart found to have been unlawfully dismissed in 2022 after she told BBC about failures

A civil servant who blew the whistle about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and Boris Johnson’s involvement in a decision to evacuate a pet charity from Kabul has won her case for unfair dismissal against the government in a legal first.

An employment panel of three judges unanimously found the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) unfairly dismissed Josie Stewart in 2021 after she leaked information in the public interest.

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Next ad banned over ‘unhealthily thin’ model in digitally altered leggings

Watchdog upholds complaint about advert that digitally altered clothing and used low angle to accentuate long legs

The UK advertising watchdog has banned an advert from high street retailer Next for featuring an “unhealthily thin” model in digitally altered clothing.

The advertisement, which ran on its website, featured a model marketing Next’s “power stretch denim leggings”.

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China tops list of countries trying to silence exiled dissidents over past decade, study shows

Russia, Turkey and Egypt also among worst perpetrators of transnational repression around the globe

A quarter of the world’s countries have engaged in transnational repression – targeting political exiles abroad to silence dissent – in the past decade, new research reveals.

The Washington DC-based non-profit organisation Freedom House has documented 1,219 incidents carried out by 48 governments across 103 countries, from 2014 to 2024.

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Associated Press barred from Oval Office for not using ‘Gulf of America’

Agency says its reporter wasn’t allowed into event in effort to ‘punish’ style guide on upholding use of Gulf of Mexico

The Associated Press said it was barred from sending a reporter to Tuesday’s Oval Office executive order signing in an effort to “punish” the agency for its style guidance on upholding the use of the name of the Gulf of Mexico, in lieu of Donald Trump’s preferred name for the geographic landmark as the Gulf of America.

AP’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said in a statement: “As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.”

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Far-right populists much more likely than the left to spread fake news – study

Amplifying misinformation is now part of radical right strategy, says Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries

Far-right populists are significantly more likely to spread fake news on social media than politicians from mainstream or far-left parties, according to a study which argues that amplifying misinformation is now part and parcel of radical right strategy.

“Radical right populists are using misinformation as a tool to destabilise democracies and gain political advantage,” said Petter Törnberg of the University of Amsterdam, a co-author of the study with Juliana Chueri of the Dutch capital’s Free University.

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