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As Trump depicts himself as Jesus Christ, and insults everyone from Keir Starmer to the pope, how can the king hope to keep this state visit on track?
The most awkward thing to happen when King Charles visited President Nixon as a young man – it was 1970, the then-prince was 21 – was that officials kept wheeling out Nixon’s daughter, Tricia, to stand next to him at events. Since they were both single, on paper anyway (this was the same year Charles met Camilla), the optics were a little primitive. Here, you’re a young man; how about this young woman as a token of our esteem? I wasn’t alive, but if I know my mother, at least somewhere on Earth, someone was saying: “Tricia is a person, she’s not chattel.”
Visiting Ronald Reagan 11 years later, Charles was unaccountably handed a cup of tea with the bag still in it, and didn’t know where to put himself. Or the tea. Reagan was mortified, and still talking about it years later. You could split hairs about who was more at fault here: the tea-bringer or Charles himself, who met the occasion by merely staring at the tea. It would have been more courteous, surely, to fish out the teabag and drink it. Possibly, no one gave him a spoon; maybe they thought he always travelled with one, in his mouth.
Continue reading...Judge rules complaint fails to outline malice after Trump argued lewd drawing allegedly sent to Epstein at heart of story was fake
A Florida judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed last summer by Donald Trump over a Wall Street Journal report that he had sent a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, though the judge has given the US president two weeks to re-file the case.
Trump, who has had a habit of suing media companies both inside and outside the White House, had argued that a lewd drawing at the heart of the story was fake. The lawsuit was especially notable because one of the defendants was Rupert Murdoch, one of Trump’s top media allies, whose News Corporation media empire owns the Journal.
Continue reading...Merger will ‘prioritise the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good’, letter states
Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Yorgos Lanthimos and Kristen Stewart are among more than 1,000 film and TV industry professionals who have signed an open letter protesting against Paramount’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, the parent group that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS and Food Network, as well as the Warner Bros TV and film studios.
“We are deeply concerned by indications of support for this merger that prioritise the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good,” states the letter, which was published on Monday on BlocktheMerger.com.
Continue reading...Lack of ballot papers and defective computers disrupt election that Keiko Fujimori appears to be leading
Peruvians will have to wait at least until the end of Monday to know the result of the presidential election held on Sunday, after the voting process descended into chaos in some polling stations due to a lack of ballot papers or defective computers.
In an unprecedented move, Peru’s electoral agency ONPE announced on Sunday night that it would extend voting for an extra day to allow tens of thousands of Peruvians in the country and abroad, who had been unable to vote, to cast their ballots.
Continue reading...
A hacker has compromised a backend system for Doublespeed, an a16z-funded startup that uses a phone farm to flood social media with AI-generated TikTok accounts, and attempted to have those accounts post memes calling a16z the “antichrist,” according to screenshots seen by 404 Media.
The hack is at least the second time Doublespeed has been compromised. The startup uses AI to create fake influencers, generate videos, and post comments.
“a16z is the antichrist. sponsored by doublespeed.ai,” the meme says. It includes images of a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen; a woman pole dancing; and occult symbol Baphomet.
The screenshots show the meme queued up for publication in Doublespeed customers’ dashboard, seemingly to post to their associated social media accounts. A caption indicates the hacker stole some other data and may tried to post content from hundreds of accounts.
“47MB exfiltrated. 573 accounts postable. 413 phones dumped. A16z portfolio security built different,” the caption reads.
It appears the meme was ultimately not posted on Doublespeed customers’ social media accounts. One screenshot included the social media handle of an impacted Doublespeed account; as of Monday, the meme was not available on that account.
Zuhair Lakhani, a co-founder of Doublespeed, told 404 Media in an email “We’re aware of the unauthorized access attempt and addressed it quickly. This involved an older system for queuing posts that had remained in place for compatibility with existing customer workflows, and we have since secured it.”
“Importantly, no unauthorized posts were successfully published, and we have not seen evidence that this attempt resulted in broader impact to customers,” he added.
404 Media first reported about Doublespeed last year, after the startup raised $1 million from a16z as part of its “Speedrun” accelerator program, “a fast‐paced, 12-week startup program that guides founders through every critical stage of their growth.” Doublespeed markets its use of phone farms as a way to evade social media platforms’ policies against removing inauthentic behavior. Doublespeed customers get access to a dashboard that allows them to operate multiple AI-generated influencers. At the moment Doublespeed focuses on operating TikTok accounts, but also plans to give customers the ability to operate accounts on X and Instagram.
Doublespeed was previously hacked in December of 2025. The data from that hack revealed at least 400 TikTok accounts Doublespeed operates and that at least 200 of those were actively promoting products on TikTok, mostly without disclosing that they are ads or not real people. Some of the products promoted by these AI-generated accounts included supplements, massagers, and dating apps.
As we’ve noted last year, Marc Andreessen, after whom half of Andreessen Horowitz is named, also sits on Meta’s board of directors. Meta did not respond to our question about one of its board members backing a company that blatantly aims to violate its policy on “authentic identity representation.”
Almost three years ago exactly, Fred Again rolled into the NPR studios and did a Tiny Desk Concert.
When Fred again.. first proposed a Tiny Desk concert, it wasn’t immediately clear how he was going to make it work — not because he lacked creativity, but because translating purely electronic music at the Desk is a daunting task for anyone. How would an artist, whose performances take the form of DJ sets in front of massive audiences, curate an intimate and unique experience? But what the British songwriter and producer came up with is a reminder of what a Tiny Desk is at its best: an opportunity for artists to challenge themselves in such a way that it almost feels like they’re making new music, all while sticking to what feels true to them. For Fred again.. that meant re-learning the marimba, playing the vibraphone, singing at the piano and looping sounds and beats — all at the same time.
Tags: Fred Again · music · Tiny Desk Concerts · video
