White House press coverage row continues while anchor-less channel of the administration’s ‘latest and greatest’ streams propaganda for the Maga faithful

Donald Trump’s previous television career centred on his role on The Apprentice, but the US president’s latest media venture is a rather lower-budget affair: the launch of Trump TV in the wake of his ban on several outlets from covering the White House.

With major US networks agreeing to not cover the president while the dispute continues, on Monday the White House announced the new 24/7 YouTube live stream, which it promised would feature “top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place”.

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Lib Dem leader tells party conference that ‘something big and dangerous is happening in our country’

If Andy Burnham wanted to inject some edge into his meeting with Donald Trump later (which he doesn’t), he could bring along a copy of today’s Financial Times. This front page headline speaks for itself.

Mortgages ‘on the front line’ as Iran war deals £840 blow to homeowners

British homeowners are paying an average of £840 a year more when they refinance their mortgages, as the rising borrowing costs triggered by the Iran war start to impact consumers’ spending power.

Approximately 1m households have rolled off fixed-rate mortgage deals since February, according to Bank of England data.

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The Massachusetts case is the latest in a series of legal woes for the influencer whose real name is Braden Eric Peters

The online influencer known as Clavicular – who helped fuel the rise of the extreme male appearance-improvement trend of “looksmaxxing” – has been charged with rape and drug offenses in Massachusetts.

The 20-year-old, whose real name is Braden Eric Peters, has been scheduled for a 14 October arraignment on Cape Cod, according to legal documents seen by the Guardian.

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National Theatre, London
Tiago Rodrigues’s play has incensed audiences abroad with one character’s hellfire rightwing invective. But its combination of boredom and shocks ultimately feels confusing

What does it say about an audience who, while watching a character make a speech that has sparked screeching protests and angry walkouts in its run across Europe, sit politely listening until the end?

The booing does come, but only after the actor playing a far-right politician and kidnap victim (Romeu Costa) has finished a half-hour invective that takes in everything from the scourge of minorities to that of elites, homosexuals, and the far-left. It is a masterclass in rightwing rabble-rousing, with its appropriation of the word “freedom”. Yet on press night at its British premiere, all that is summoned in response is nervous laughter, a chorus of coughs and a few loud whistles.

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Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The retired diver talks scrapbooking, cheap chargers, and trouser fails with the Filter

• How I Shop with Laura Jackson

Tom Daley OBE is a retired professional diver who has won five Olympic medals, including gold at Tokyo 2020. Since retiring from competitive diving, he has hosted Channel 4’s Game of Wool: Britain’s Best Knitter, while continuing to share his passion for knitting and crafts through his Made With Love brand and YouTube channel. He is married to US screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and the pair have two children.

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Thousands flee fighting as Iran-aligned group seeks to consolidate territorial gains against Saudi-backed government forces

• Middle East live – latest updates

As many as 169 people have been reportedly killed in Yemen in the last three days as Iran-aligned Houthis battle Saudi-backed government forces for control of strategic heights on the Red Sea coast, while thousands flee the violence.

Houthi military officials said at least 118 people had been killed in clashes as well as Saudi air and artillery strikes on Taiz, al-Jawf, Marib and Saada provinces since Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported. Yemeni government sources have said at least 36 people have been killed on their side of the conflict.

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DEN HAAG (ANP) - Justitieminister David van Weel moet in de Tweede Kamer uitleg komen geven over aangiften en meldingen die niet zijn behandeld. Onder meer coalitiepartijen D66 en CDA steunen een verzoek voor een debat dat de Groep Markuszower daarover gaat indienen, bevestigen ze na berichtgeving door de NOS. Ook PRO, BBB en JA21 willen snel een debat.

De Rekenkamer meldde dinsdag dat VVD-minister Van Weel de Kamer "op het verkeerde been" heeft gezet. Hij zei dat het grotendeels gaat om meldingen die niet zijn behandeld, terwijl dat voor slechts 10 procent geldt.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - Mensje van Keulen schrijft het Boekenweekgeschenk 2027. Japke-d. Bouma is komend jaar de auteur van de thema-uitgave van de Boekenweek. Het thema van de 92e Boekenweek, die plaatsvindt van 10 tot en met 21 maart 2027, is Kijk ons nou. Dat maakte boekenkoepel CPNB dinsdag bekend. De organisatie van de Boekenweek koos naar eigen zeggen voor 2027 "een thema over menselijk gedrag en de vele spiegels die schrijvers de lezer voorhouden in hun werk."

Het Boekenweekgeschenk is een cadeau van de boekhandel bij besteding vanaf 17,50 euro aan boeken. Het boek van de 80-jarige Van Keulen is ook een toegangskaart voor veel musea op de laatste zondag van de Boekenweek.

Van Keulen zegt verrast te zijn door het verzoek om het boek te schrijven. "Het schrijven van fictie is doorgaans een onzeker avontuur", zegt ze. "Ik zei dan ook erover na te willen denken. Dat duurde nog geen vijf minuten. Het was of een personage in een verhaal waar ik ooit nog aan wilde beginnen, me aanmoedigde: dit is het juiste moment, doen."

Van Keulen geldt als een van de beste schrijvers van het Nederlandse taalgebied. Ze debuteerde op jonge leeftijd met het inmiddels klassiek geworden Bleekers zomer (1972) en publiceerde sindsdien veelgeprezen romans, verhalen, gedichten en kinder- en jeugdboeken. Vele daarvan stonden op long- en shortlists van de grote literaire prijzen.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Rechts-extremisten proberen hun denkbeelden acceptabel te maken voor een grotere groep mensen door een "zachtere versie" hiervan te presenteren. Daarvoor waarschuwen de Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) en de Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV). "Sommigen proberen politieke partijen van binnenuit te beïnvloeden", schrijven de veiligheidsdiensten in een gezamenlijke analyse.

"Zo worden zoveel mogelijk mensen (herhaaldelijk) blootgesteld aan het rechts-extremistisch gedachtegoed. Dit zorgt voor minder weerstand tegen, en meer acceptatie van, hun ideeën en uitingen", aldus de onderzoekers. Betrokkenheid van extreemrechtse spelers in het debat zorgt er ook voor dat er minder ruimte is voor dialoog en oplossingen, staat in het rapport. Het extreemrechtse gedachtegoed draait om ongelijkwaardigheid op basis van huidskleur en de overtuiging dat witte mensen superieur zijn.

Mark Hughes and Giorgio Piola dissect Mercedes' new interpretation of Ferrari’s unique exhaust.

TIL Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris (aka The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) was written in part to help save the cathedral from demolition.

Russian Burger King patrons have been left with a bad taste after cyber crooks flame-broiled 3.2 million customers in a whopper of a breach, serving up their personal data for anyone hungry enough to consume it. Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) slurped up all the data leaked after the August 2024 attack on Mindbox, Burger King Russia’s marketing platform, concluding that miscreants had grilled the platform and extracted tasty morsels of customers’ basic personal information. The attackers flipped names, dates of birth, email addresses, and phone numbers, with a side order of genders and approximate geographic locations. Burger King acknowledged the situation in October 2024, confirming no financial or passport data was affected. “The data of Burger King restaurant chain customers may also be among those affected by the attack,” the company told Russian news service TASS. “Burger King confirms that the personal data being verified does not include payment details: public transaction information is not transmitted or stored by third parties. “The Mindbox platform and other third parties do not have access to the personal passport or payment information of Burger King customers.” The information stolen in the breach was well-seasoned: it spanned more than six years, dating back to May 2018. News reports at the time suggested that the leaks contained more than 5.6 million lines of data, and included information about a customer’s favorite dish and previous order dates, although HIBP made no mention of these. Russian cybersecurity news outlet Xakep cited sources tying the breach at Mindbox to other break-ins, and claimed it was the work of a single intruder. Among the other stores allegedly affected was Detsky Mir, Russia’s largest retailer of children’s toys, with more than 1 million reportedly affected. ®

According to Liberal Current's poll conducted together with the Center for Strategic Politics the question "Should the next Democratic administration pursue criminal prosecution of [M]embers of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel's genocide in Gaza" has a 57% support among Democrats. (data source) That's good news, as we have some new stuff in the accountability department.

The Officials:

Drop the Genocide 20

These are the top 20 officials most responsible for promoting, lying about, and covering up the Gaza genocide in the Biden White House. The purpose of the #DroptheGenocide20 pledge is to demand these officials be removed from future Democratic administrations, think tanks, and academic and liberal spaces.

Statement on Genocidal Incitement by Israel's Minister of National Security (Lemkin Institute)

The Lemkin Institute strongly condemns the recent inhumane statements of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which he called for the deliberate killing of "30 to 40" Palestinians every night in Gaza, even if they pose no immediate danger, because, according to him, "[t]here are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people." We will be very clear: This statement, which has garnered some outrage in Europe, is an unambiguous declaration of genocidal intent and incitement to genocide.

Israel will 'finish the job' in Gaza and seek Palestinians' migration — defense minister (Jerusalem Post)

Defense Minister Israel Katz says it is only a matter of time before the country resumes full-scale war in Gaza and moves to encourage the emigration of its two million Palestinians.

UK Lawyers for Israel calls to proscribe Doctors Without Borders as terror group

UKLFI appears 128 times in the European Legal Support Centre's Britain Index of Repression database, which documents what it describes as the systematic repression of Palestine solidarity activism across Britain. The centre argued that UKLFI has helped to create a "chilling environment" in which individuals and organisations withdraw or modify lawful Palestine-related activity due to fears of legal escalation.

The Media

Adam H. Johnson: How to Sell a Genocide - The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza (Pluto Press)

How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitized Israel's war crimes, hid the US's central role, and dehumanized the Palestinian people.

Radio War Nerd EP 621 — US Media Complicity in the Gaza Genocide, feat. Adam Johnson + Guest co-host Aamer

The passage of another death penalty law shows the one issue Israelis can unite behind: death for Palestinians

After passing two death penalty laws in six weeks, Israel is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to try to execute Palestinians on live TV. Unanimous support for the laws shows that Israeli society can unite around "death to Palestinians."

The Sources

Gaza is Too Graphic For Community Standards

On January 30, 2025, I uploaded a video to Instagram I filmed in Gaza showing a mother sitting beside the bodies of her children after an airstrike. She was not screaming. She was silent in a way that felt heavier than any sound. Within minutes, the post disappeared from both Instagram and Facebook. The notification read: "This content violates Community Standards on graphic violence." There was no context in the message, no acknowledgment of where the video came from, and no distinction between documentation and harm. Only erasure. And then, silence.

Archive Genocide — War Crimes Archive

We archive what others erase. Permanently. We are a group of researchers dedicated to archiving war crimes footage from Gaza and the West Bank. Our team submits all evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Hind Rajab Foundation, and the South African legal team at the ICJ. If you'd like to contribute or join the effort, connect with us on Twitter or Telegram. (Warning - Graphic footage! - the same data is available as a graph for exploring connections.)

Generational wealth shapes our futures and friendships, whether we talk about it or not.

archive link here

Social

Zo zie je maar weer: sterallures zijn voor de middelmaat, de allergrootsten voelen zich nergens te beroerd voor. De Grote Matthijs van Nieuwkerk maakt tussen het stellen van lange vragen aan prominente figuren ('Nee Pierre vertel nou nog eens waarom likken aan die steen je zo aan de vierde akte van MacBeth doet denken') ruimte voor het aanprijzen van euhhh ja ondergoed. Dan moet je denken aan euhhh boxershorts, onderbroeken, knitwear, poloshirts en meer van dat werk. Er is voor de Matthijsfanclub zelfs een kortingscode die goed is voor 25 procent korting, dat is een kwart, dat is niet niks. Matthijs kan het en doet het. Zelfs zónder het unieke verkoopsargument voor de onderbroeken in kwestie te vermelden, maar je laat als merk de Grote Matthijs natuurlijk niet leeglopen over hoe lekker dat bamboe wel niet aanvoelt op de voorhuid. Wij gaan NU een Van Nieuwkerkslip aanschaffen.

De schrijver van „ogenschijnlijk gewone en alledaagse verhalen” schrijft het geschenk 55 jaar na haar debuut ‘Bleekers zomer’. Bij het thema ‘menselijk gedrag’ levert NRC-columnist Japke-d. Bouma het Boekenweekessay.

Onlangs lag er een boek ongevraagd in mijn brievenbus: 'Dag lieverds, ik ga nu slapen'. De schrijver: Peter Brusse, journalist. Het gaat over zijn tweede vrouw Wiesje (70), die in 2024 was overleden aan de gevolgen van ALS, de gevreesde spierziekte.