Overseas tycoons such as Elon Musk would be barred from giving substantial donations to UK political parties under new legislation to block companies making gifts if they do not have British owners or make sufficient revenue in the country
www.ft.com/content/f4ed...
Badenoch monitoring Jenrick’s activities for some time because of suspicions he was working to undermine party. They believed defection to Reform imminent.
Concerns confirmed by indiscreet activities of Jenrick’s unofficial aides - with parts of potential resignation speech left unattended.
Two key figures in Greater Manchester have resigned this week following @manchestermill.bsky.social investigations: The chair of the Uni of GM and the CEO of Rochdale Council. This is the kind of accountability local areas need and that they lose when papers stop taking risks and turn to clickbait.
Also, now that I am back from vacation, a reminder that if you work for a platform or the government and you want to chat, you can reach me on Signal at Vittoria89.82. We can speak anonymously.
#Europe: The Far Right is on the rise... you have been warned. Index's @martinbright.bsky.social attended a far right conference in Brussels to find out more about their claim to be the defenders of free speech:
www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/01/the-...
NEW: Completely unredacted Flock audit logs have been released to the public by numerous police departments and in some cases include details on millions of Flock license plate searches made by thousands of police departments from around the country.
This is *the* thing no author can abide: An editor inserting a change **after** writer has seen "final proof" etc.
A late update in a breaking news story? Sure. But columns, reviews, features, magazine pieces... No.
Happened to me once. Refused to work with that editor ever again.
A few months ago, ICE hired me
I didn't sign and submit any paperwork. I almost certainly failed the drug test. I'm real outspoken about my opposition to the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable
And yet, there it was, in plain English. "Welcome to ICE!"
My latest for Slate
After Bari Weiss, the new CBS News editor in chief, abruptly postponed a segment of “60 Minutes” that was critical of the Trump administration, several veteran correspondents questioned how she had handled the segment after she defended her decision on a call with the newsroom.
If Brendan Carr "believes the FCC is subservient to the president, then he is the last person who should be claiming the power to regulate journalists' editorial decisions under the FCC’s 'public interest' standard," @seth-stern.bsky.social and Clayton Weimers write.
Today, my colleague David Yaffe-Bellany and I published an investigation into the frenzied world of crypto unleased by Trump.
Risk taking, profiteering & yes, innovation, as crypto bros sense that this is the moment crypto will go mainstream in the U.S.
Free link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/t...
I’m sorry, but that’s not how this works.
President Trump hasn’t lost a penny because of the BBC’s editing, and his $10 billion lawsuit against them is preposterous.
The only way for the BBC to preserve its journalistic integrity is to fight back.
Read our statement:
Hence, on the one hand, Switzerland wants to remain neutral. But it can’t *start* coordinating with allies when it is attacked. It needs to act before. And the strategy describes how.
BREAKING: Keir Starmer has launched a formal investigation into foreign election interference after a former senior Reform UK politician accepted bribes to promote Russian interests in the European Parliament
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Susie Wiles says Trump "was wrong" to tie Bill Clinton to Jeffrey Epstein's criminal activity. She adds: There is "no evidence" Clinton visited the island.
Oh no please, Bre’er Fox, don’t throw me in the briar patch!
Futurism Groxxing Elon Musk’s Grok Is Doxxing Home Addresses of Everyday People Grok is a stalker's best friend. Image: Elon Musk doing a gesture that looks a whole lot like a Nazi salute over a bunch of censored information about private citizens, generated by his chatbot, Grok. By Maggie Harrison Dupré, Joe Wilkins Published Dec 4, 2025 9:05 AM EST
NEW: Elon Musk's Grok chatbot will, with minimal prompting, provide residential addresses of everyday Americans.
Prompts as simple as "[name] address" immediately returned accurate home addresses of private citizens — alongside other personal info we didn't ask for.
futurism.com/future-socie...
Wild stat from the CEO of Stack Overflow on Decoder this week -- 80 percent of its users use AI tools, but only 29 percent actually trust AI. This gap is the biggest story in AI, imo. Dug into it quite a bit www.theverge.com/podcast/8440...
It represents a clear signal from the Ivanishvili regime that, in a multipolar system, it has aligned itself with a bloc led by Russia, whose proclaimed neutrality status comes at the expense of security and sovereignty.
The EU has formally concluded the written procedure to indefinitely immobilise the Russian sovereign assets.
25 countries in favour, 2 against.
Can you guess?
‘Harder work than almost any album we ever did’: Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here turns 50
MAGAZINER: How many veterans have you deported?
NOEM: We haven't deported veterans
MAGAZINER: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea
You've got another 38 minutes to catch this while it's in front of the paywall, if you're not a subscriber to The Verge.
"There is growing concern ... that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them."
I believe this is referred to as consciousness of guilt.
www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...
