Washington D.C. — President-elect Donald Trump has decided to shift his inauguration ceremony indoors to the Capitol rotunda, citing an “Arctic blast” forecast for Monday. The announcement was made via Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, marking a significant deviation from the traditional outdoor festivities due to expected dangerously low temperatures.
The forecast for Inauguration Day predicts highs of only about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, with lows dipping to six degrees, accompanied by strong winds. This harsh weather prompted the decision to emulate Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, which was also moved indoors due to similarly cold conditions.
Trump expressed concern for the safety of attendees, particularly law enforcement, first responders, and even the horses used for crowd control. “I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way,” Trump stated, emphasizing the perilous conditions expected on the day.
The last time a U.S. president took the oath of office inside was Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1985. Temps outside were around 7 degrees.
The move indoors means that the traditional spectacle at the National Mall, where presidents typically address large crowds, will not occur as planned. Instead, Trump has arranged for supporters to gather at Capital One Arena in downtown Washington. Here, they can watch the ceremony live on Monday, and the arena will also host the Presidential Parade. The arena’s capacity is limited to 20,000, significantly less than the potential hundreds of thousands who might have attended at the Mall.
However, logistical adjustments are already underway. Fencing around the National Mall is being dismantled, and there are no plans to set up screens for public viewing there, according to a senior administration official.
This indoor shift reflects a pragmatic approach to extreme weather but alters one of the most visually impactful elements of the inauguration tradition. Trump’s focus on safety over spectacle could be seen as a nod to his administration’s commitment to public welfare, though it also underscores his sensitivity to public perception of crowd sizes, a topic he has often highlighted in the past.
As the nation prepares for this historic transition, all eyes will be on how this unprecedented indoor inauguration unfolds, balancing tradition with the harsh realities of winter weather.
During the inauguration on January 20, Trump will be sworn in as the forty-seventh President of the United States. He previously served as the forty-fifth President between 2017 and 2021.
Donald Trump’s newly launched cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, achieved a market valuation of over $8 billion within two hours of its debut, according to press reports early Saturday.
The president-elect announced the memecoin on X, urging supporters to join the “Trump Community.”
“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Trump stated in his post, directing followers to the coin’s official website.
The rapid surge in valuation highlights the growing influence of memecoins in the cryptocurrency market, with $TRUMP quickly emerging as a notable contender.
Financial analysts have urged caution, noting that memecoins are highly volatile and prone to sudden value shifts.
Despite these concerns, Trump supporters have embraced the cryptocurrency enthusiastically, propelling its valuation to $8 billion within hours.
The success of $TRUMP demonstrates the increasing impact of branding and community loyalty in the evolving digital economy.
The Norwegian joined City from Dortmund in 2022 and has scored 111 goals in 126 games for the club since.
The striker’s previous deal, which reportedly included a release clause, had been due to expire in 2027.
Haaland’s new deal would see the striker remain with City until his 34th birthday should he stay at the club until its expiry in nine-and-a-half years’ time.
The length of Haaland’s deal is the longest in the Premier League, eclipsing the nine-year deal Cole Palmer signed with Chelsea last August.
“I am really happy to have signed my new contract and to be able to look forward to spending even more time at this great club,” said Haaland.
“Manchester City is a special club, full of fantastic people with amazing supporters and it’s the type of environment that helps bring the best out of everybody.
“I also want to thank [manager] Pep [Guardiola], his coaching staff, my team-mates and everyone at the club as they have all helped me so much in the past couple of years.”
Txiki Begiristain, City’s director of football, said: “The fact he [Haaland] is signed for so long demonstrates our commitment to him as a player and his love for the club.”
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTokbeginning Sunday unless it’s sold by its China-based parent company, holding that the risk to national security posed by its ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States.
A sale does not appear imminent and, although experts have said the app will not disappear from existing users’ phones once the law takes effect on Jan. 19, new users won’t be able to download it and updates won’t be available. That will eventually render the app unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings.
The decision came against the backdrop of unusual political agitation by President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed that he could negotiate a solution and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has signaled it won’t enforce the law beginning Sunday, his final full day in office.
Trump, mindful of TikTok’s popularity, and his own 14.7 million followers on the app, finds himself on the opposite side of the argument from prominent Senate Republicans who fault TikTok’s Chinese owner for not finding a buyer before now.
It’s unclear what options are open to Trump once he is sworn in as president on Monday. The law allowed for a 90-day pause in the restrictions on the app if there had been progress toward a sale before it took effect. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the law at the Supreme Court for the Democratic Biden administration, told the justices last week that it’s uncertain whether the prospect of a sale once the law is in effect could trigger a 90-day respite for TikTok.
At arguments, the justices were told by a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese technology company that is its parent, how difficult it would be to consummate a deal, especially since Chinese law restricts the sale of the proprietary algorithm that has made the social media platform wildly successful.
The app allows users to watch hundreds of videos in about half an hour because some are only a few seconds long, according to a lawsuit filed last year by Kentucky complaining that TikTok is designed to be addictive and harms kids’ mental health. Similar suits were filed by more than a dozen states. TikTok has called the claims inaccurate.
The dispute over TikTok’s ties to China has come to embody the geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing.
The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.
TikTok points out the U.S. has not presented evidence that China has attempted to manipulate content on its U.S. platform or gather American user data through TikTok.
Bipartisan majorities in Congress passed legislation, and President Joe Biden signed it into law in April. The law was the culmination of a years long saga in Washington over TikTok, which the government sees as a national security threat.
TikTok, which sued the government last year over the law, has long denied it could be used as a tool of Beijing. A three-judge panel made up of two Republican appointees and a Democratic appointee unanimously upheld the law in December, prompting TikTok’s quick appeal to the Supreme Court.
Without a sale to an approved buyer, the law bars app stores operated by Apple, Google and others from offering TikTok beginning on Sunday. Internet hosting services also will be prohibited from hosting TikTok.
ByteDance has said it won’t sell. But some investors have been eyeing it, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt. McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative has said it and its unnamed partners have presented a proposal to ByteDance to acquire TikTok’s U.S. assets. The consortium, which includes “Shark Tank” host Kevin O’Leary, did not disclose the financial terms of the offer.
Prelogar told the justices last week that having the law take effect “might be just the jolt” ByteDance needs to reconsider its position.
The pair were jailed for life after a blockbuster trial in the 1990s detailing the gruesome slayings of Jose and Kitty Menendez at the family’s luxury Beverly Hills mansion.
But a growing campaign to free the brothers — given new life by a hit Netflix series — has opened the door to a reduced sentence, with Los Angeles officials seemingly receptive to their lawyer’s overtures.
A January 30-31 hearing was postponed Friday until March 20-21, the office of District Attorney Nathan Hochman said.
Local media cited Hochman saying agreement had been reached between prosecutors and defense because of the impact the fires would have on the “extensive preparations” required.
Los Angeles is staggering under the weight of a sprawling disaster that has killed at least 27 people and forced tens of thousands from their homes.
Around 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) have been burned and thousands of buildings lie in ruins.
At the time of the conviction, prosecutors said the brothers had plotted to murder their parents in a bid to hasten a $14 million inheritance.
Supporters insist the 1989 killings were an act of desperate self-defense by young men subjected to years of sexual abuse and psychological violence at the hands of an abusive father and a complicit mother.
Erik Menendez, now 53, and Lyle Menendez, 56, have spent more than three decades behind bars.
A previous court hearing — at which the men were due to appear by video link from prison — was a blockbuster event in its own right, with a lottery system in place for spots in the public gallery.
As the US ban on TikTok approaches, its American users are migrating by the hundreds of thousands to a Chinese application they’d probably never heard of just a few days before. Xiaohongshu means “little red book” in Chinese. The name is not a reference to Mao Zedong’s collection of quotations but to a personal diary. It is sometimes translated into English as RedNote.
Users – mostly women – share videos and photos of their vacations, make-up, clothing choices, pets and restaurants. The lifestyle app is intended for a Chinese audience only and only exists in Chinese. However, since Monday, January 13, it has been the most downloaded iPhone app in the United States, ahead of another previously little-known Chinese social media application, Lemon8, developed by Tiktok’s parent company.
The administration of US President Joe Biden considers that by harvesting the data of its 170 million US users, TikTok, an international version of a Chinese social media platform, constitutes a threat to national security. A law passed in April 2024 gives its owner, the Bytedance group, until this Sunday to give it up. It will otherwise no longer be possible to download it in the US, and risks becoming obsolete.
Good-natured interactions
Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported on January 14 that Chinese officials had discussed the possibility of selling TikTok’s US arm to Elon Musk, which would be a welcome gift to President-elect Donald Trump and his new adviser. But the parent company denied this, describing the information as “pure fiction.”
Now, a single theme dominates Xiaohongshu: “TikTok refugees,” i.e. all those new profiles of Americans who have managed to register with the help of Google Translate, and who are arriving in the run-up to January 19. In just 48 hours, Xiaohongshu gained 700,000 users. While, for the past two decades, China has progressively blocked all foreign social media, creating a censored internet bubble inside a “great digital wall,” the Chinese are waking up. They are astonished to see these citizens of the world’s leading power, with whom relations are so strained, arriving on their app. “Did I come to the wrong place? It’s all in English,” said Tan Ming, originally from Sichuan province.
Interactions are generally good-natured, especially as both Chinese citizens and American newcomers share a critical view of the Biden administration. When it comes to exposing their data, many admit to going in blind. “I trusted the terms and conditions more than any American application. Even if I didn’t understand anything,” said an app newbie, in one of their posts. Parker, a young blonde in a cowboy hat and denim overalls, danced to a folk tune. She wrote alongside: “Hey TikTok alumni, I’m trying to transfer my stuff.” To which a user named H., in Tianjin in northeast China, responded, with a dash of humor, “Welcome to the spies’ place, give me your data.”
Having discovered the 100% Chinese internet, many people say they are totally lost. In a video, a Westerner but apparently already experienced Xiaohongshu user, Yana Kim, offered her advice in this highly censored environment. “China is very conservative. They control social media very strictly. There’s a big difference with social media in the West. You have to be careful what you say, what you wear, what you post,” she said. “In China, there are sensitive words. Avoid saying what’s not allowed,” added an internet user from Guangdong province, who describes himself as a “cultural guide.”
Moderation in English
Megaroo8, an American, who created his account on Tuesday, said: “Is there a lot of censorship here? We’re told that Chinese media are censored, but people seem to be fine here.” To which a Chinese man took the liberty of replying that all he has to do is search for forbidden subjects in the country to experience having his account blocked. He told Megaroo8 that “most internet users have naturally developed a sense of renunciation to sensitive subjects.” Still, a newcomer tried to find out if it was acceptable to ask if the laws are different between China and Hong Kong. A Chinese man replied, “We’d rather not talk about that here.”
In any case, most of them didn’t come to criticize the Chinese government or ask about freedom of expression issues. In contrast, topics critical of American society are flourishing. One Chinese internet user, Ermazi, wanted to know “if there really are homeless people all over the United States,” as the Chinese press often suggests. Another asked if it was true that there are “killings everywhere in the United States, as the Chinese news says.” One internet user took the liberty of telling an American doctoral student in political science that “it’s American politics that’s the problem.”
The influx of users took the platform’s management by surprise. At a time when Chinese websites are having to block forbidden topics with the utmost zeal in order to continue to be tolerated by Beijing, Reuters reports that the platform is in a hurry to develop its English-language content moderation.
Meanwhile, a Californian “Tiktok refugee” by the name of Jose Carlo Hernandez Orozco, who thought he was contributing to the dialogue of civilizations by writing “You can ask me anything,” found himself bombarded with English homework assignments sent by young Chinese students.
Three lawyers who once represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were jailed Friday in Russia as part of the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent that has reached levels unseen since Soviet times.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were jailed from 3 1/2 to five years by a court in the town of Petushki, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Moscow. They were arrested in October 2023 on charges of involvement with extremist groups, as Navalny’s networks were deemed by authorities.
The case was widely seen as a way to increase pressure on the opposition to discourage defense lawyers from taking political cases.
At the time, Navalny was serving a 19-year prison term on several criminal convictions, including extremism. He died in a Russian prison camp in February 2023.
The independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that Kobzev said in his final statement in court on Jan. 10 that “we are being tried for transmitting Navalny’s thoughts to other people.”
That ruling, which exposed anyone involved with the organizations to prosecution, was condemned by Kremlin critics as politically motivated and designed to stifle Navalny’s activities.
According to Navalny’s allies, authorities accused the lawyers of using their position to pass information from him to his team.
Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in 2021 upon his return from Germany, where he was recuperating from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison.
After two more trials, his sentence was extended to 19 years. He and his allies said the charges were politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of seeking to jail him for life.
In December 2023, Navalny was moved from a penal colony in the Vladimir region east of Moscow to one above the Arctic Circle, where he died in February at the age of 47 under still-unexplained circumstances. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and members of his team alleged he was killed on orders from the Kremlin. Officials have rejected the accusation.
Two other Navalny lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov, are on a wanted list but no longer live in Russia. Mikhailova, who defended Navalny for a decade, said she was charged in absentia with extremism.
Kobzev, Liptser and Sergunin have been deemed to be political prisoners, according to human rights advocates from Memorial, Russia’s most prominent rights group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. The group demands their immediate release.
David Lynch, the American filmmaker, writer and artist who scored best director Oscar nominations for “Blue Velvet,” “The Elephant Man” and “Mulholland Drive” and co-created the groundbreaking TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died at age 78, his family said on Thursday.
“It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch,” a statement on Lynch’s Facebook page said. “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’”
With his visually stunning, disturbing and inscrutable works filled with dream sequences and bizarre images, Lynch was considered a master of surrealism and one of the most innovative filmmakers of his generation.
He received an honorary Academy Award in 2019 for his lifetime achievements.
The enigmatic artist and devotee of transcendental meditation preferred not to explain his complex, bewildering films, which included “Wild at Heart,” the 1990 Palme d’Or winner of the Cannes Film Festival, the 1977 horror film “Eraserhead” and the 1997 mystery “Lost Highway.”
“A film or a painting, each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there,” he told The Guardian newspaper in a 2018 interview.
His style of filmmaking prompted the term Lynchian, which Vanity Fair magazine described as weird, creepy, and slow. In his films Lynch inserted the macabre and disturbing into the ordinary and mundane and heightened the impact with music.
Lynch said that he was not only interested in the story, but also the mood of a film, set by the visual elements and sound working together.
“His eye for the absurd detail that thrusts a scene into shocking relief and his taste in risky, often grotesque material has made him, perhaps, Hollywood’s most revered eccentric, sort of a psychopathic Norman Rockwell,” the New York Times said in 1990.
COUNTERCULTURE ICON
Lynch, a former Eagle Scout who was once described by producer Mel Brooks as “Jimmy Stewart from Mars,” grew up to be a counterculture icon but his roots were firmly planted in small-town, wholesome America.
David Keith Lynch was born on Jan. 20, 1946 in Missoula, Montana, the eldest of three children. His father worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the family moved frequently. Lynch once described his childhood as a “very beautiful, sort of perfect world.”
But as an art student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the 1960s he encountered the seedier side of America while living in a crime-ridden, run-down area of Philadelphia with his wife and baby daughter. He described the city as the biggest influence of his life.
The experience inspired “Eraserhead,” his unsettling, hallucinatory debut feature that became a cult hit in midnight cinemas. After seeing the film, Brooks, the producer of “The Elephant Man,” hired Lynch to direct it.
“The Elephant Man,” about a severely deformed man in Victorian London, was nominated for eight Academy Awards in 1981. Although it failed to win an Oscar, it launched Lynch into the mainstream. But his next film, the 1984 science fiction epic “Dune,” bombed at the box office.
Two years later Lynch was back on top with “Blue Velvet,” which delved into the mysterious underworld in a small North Carolina town. Some critics considered it his masterpiece and the best film of the decade.
“‘Blue Velvet’ represents something that has never been seen before and in all likelihood will never be seen again: an underground movie made with Hollywood means and Hollywood skill. It’s midnight mainstream,” Dave Kehr, of The Chicago Tribune, wrote in his 1986 review.
Lynch switched to the small screen in 1990 when he created the mystery crime series “Twin Peaks” with Mark Frost for ABC. The Emmy-winning series became a cultural phenomenon and was revived in 2017.
“Mulholland Drive,” Lynch’s 2001 Hollywood mystery, began as a TV pilot but was dropped by the network and eventually made it to the big screen. It was named the best film of the 21st century so far in a 2016 BBC poll of 177 critics worldwide.
In his later years Lynch, a true Renaissance man, devoted himself to making documentaries, short films, painting and a YouTube channel. He released albums, music videos, soundtracks and books, including his 2018 memoir “Room to Dream.”
The acclaimed director was married four times and fathered four children.
“I love what I do and I get to work on stuff I want to work on. I wish everybody had that opportunity,” he told Vulture.com in a 2018 interview.
Wendy Williams feels like she’s “in prison” and insists she is “not cognitively impaired”.
The 60-year-old star – who hosted her eponymous talk show from 2008 until 2022 before Sherri Shepherd took over her slot – is under the guardianship of lawyer Sabrina Morrissey and living in a care facility, almost a year after her care team announced she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia.
Calling into ‘The Breakfast Club’ on Thursday (16.01.25), she said: “I am not cognitively impaired, you know what I’m saying? But I feel like I’m in prison.
“I’m in this place where the people are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s… There’s something wrong with these people here on this floor.”
Primary progressive aphasia is a rare condition that affects the nervous system and inhibits the ability to communicate, while frontotemporal dementia affects personality, behaviour and language.
The former daytime host has been under a guardianship since 2022.
Her niece Alex also phoned into the morning show and voiced her support for her aunt.
Williams’ niece, Alex, also phoned into the show to support her aunt.
She claimed: “My aunt sounds great. I’ve seen her, in a very limited capacity, but I’ve seen her and we’re talking to her. This does not match an incapacitated person.
“And that’s why we say she’s in a luxury prison, because she is being held and she is being punished for whatever reason that other people are coming up with as to why she has to be kept in this position.”
In a press release from her care team announcing her diagnosis last year, they addressed speculation after she had begun “to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions”.
They continued: “The decision to share this news was difficult and made after careful consideration, not only to advocate for understanding and compassion for Wendy, but to raise awareness about aphasia and frontotemporal dementia and support the thousands of others facing similar circumstances.
“Unfortunately, many individuals diagnosed with aphasia and frontotemporal dementia face stigma and misunderstanding, particularly when they begin to exhibit behavioral changes but have not yet received a diagnosis.”
Almost a year ago, Wendy’s sister Wanda Finnie claimed that she wasn’t made aware of her sibling’s diagnosis after she was placed in a facility to be treated for cognitive issues and that the family had received no updates on Wendy since she spent time with them in Florida in 2021.
A hip-hop superstar beef was cranked up another notch Wednesday when Drake sued Universal Music Group for defamation over rival Kendrick Lamar’sdiss track “Not Like Us.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York City, alleges UMG — the parent record label for Drake and Lamar — published and promoted the track even though it included false pedophilia allegations against Drake and suggested listeners should resort to vigilante justice. Lamar is not named in the suit.
The result, the suit says, was intruders shooting a security guard and two attempted break-ins at Drake’s Toronto home, online hate and harassment, a hit to his reputation and a decrease in his brand’s value before his contract renegotiation with UMG this year.
“The lawsuit is not about the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’” the lawsuit says, referring to Lamar. “It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.”
The suit later alleges, “UMG did so because it understood that the Recording’s inflammatory and shocking allegations were a gold mine.”
And, the suit claims, the music company has made large investments and used its connections to arrange for “Not Like Us” to be performed at next month’s Super Bowl, where Lamar will be the halftime entertainment.
The lawsuit, which is seeking a trial and an undisclosed amount of money for damages, also repeated allegations in other legal filings that UMG falsely pumped up the popularity of “Not Like Us” on streaming services.
The track is nominated for five Grammys, including record of the year and song of the year.
UMG disputed the lawsuit’s allegations in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
“Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist — let alone Drake — is illogical,” the company said. “We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success.”
The company added: “Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists. He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music. ”
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, is among the biggest in hip-hop in recent years, with two of the genre’s biggest stars at its center.
The two were occasional collaborators more than a decade ago, but Lamar began taking public jabs at Drake starting in 2013. The fight escalated steeply last year.
Drake.
Drake’s lawyers, from New York-based Willkie Farr & Gallagher, said the lawsuit seeks to hold UMG accountable for knowingly promoting false and defamatory allegations against him. They said the shooting and break-in attempts at Drake’s home, and the online vitriol, prompted him to move his family out of the house, and that he fears for his and their safety.
“Beginning on May 4, 2024 and every day since, UMG has used its massive resources as the world’s most powerful music company to elevate a dangerous and inflammatory message that was designed to assassinate Drake’s character, and led to actual violence at Drake’s doorstep,” the law firm said in a statement.
“This lawsuit reveals the human and business consequences to UMG’s elevation of profits over the safety and well-being of its artists, and shines a light on the manipulation of artists and the public for corporate gain,” it said.
Israel and Hamas have agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal following 15 months of war, mediators Qatar and the US say.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday so long as it was approved by the Israeli cabinet.
US President Joe Biden said it would “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal’s final details were still being worked on, but he thanked Biden for “promoting” it. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said it was the result of Palestinian “resilience”.
Many Palestinians and Israeli hostages’ families celebrated the news, but there was no let up in the war on the ground in Gaza.
The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency reported Israeli air strikes killed more than 20 people following the Qatari announcement. They included 12 people who were living in a residential block in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City, it said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 46,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.
Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there are four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.
Getty.
Qatar’s prime minister called for “calm” on both sides before the start of the first six-week phase of the ceasefire deal, which he said would see 33 hostages – including women, children and elderly people – exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Israeli forces will also withdraw to the east away from densely populated areas of Gaza, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes and hundreds of aid lorries will be allowed into the territory each day.
Negotiations for the second phase – which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a return to “sustainable calm” – will start on the 16th day.
The third and final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.
Sheikh Mohammed said there was “a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three”, with the agreements set to be published “in the next couple of days, once the details are finalised”.
He also said Qatar, the US and Egypt, which also helped broker the deal, would work together to ensure Israel and Hamas fulfilled their obligations.
“We hope that this will be the last page of the war, and we hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement,” he added.
President Biden said the plan, which he first outlined eight months ago, was “the result not only of the extreme pressure Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and the weakening of Iran – but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy”.
“Even as we welcome this news, we remember all the families whose loved ones were killed in Hamas’s 7 October attack, and the many innocent people killed in the war that followed,” a statement added. “It is long past time for the fighting to end and the work of building peace and security to begin.”
Celebrations erupted across Gaza as news of the agreement spread. Reuters.
At a later news conference, Biden also acknowledged the assistance of President-elect Donald Trump, who put pressure on both parties by demanding hostages be released before his inauguration on Monday.
“In these past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team,” he said, noting that most of the implementation of the deal would happen after he left office.
Trump was first to confirm reports the agreement had been reached, beating the White House and Qatar to a formal announcement.
In a later post on social media, he attempted to take the credit for the “epic” agreement, saying it “could have only happened as a result of our historic victory in November”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office thanked Trump “for his help in promoting the release of the hostages, and for helping Israel end the suffering of dozens of hostages and their families”.
“The prime minister made it clear that he is committed to returning all the hostages by any means necessary,” it said, before adding that he had also thanked Biden.
Later, the office said an official statement from Netanyahu would “be issued only after the completion of the final details of the agreement, which are being worked on at present”.
Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, said the deal would bring with it “deeply painful” moments and “present significant challenges”, but that it was “the right move”.
The agreement is expected to be approved by the Israeli cabinet, possibly as soon as Thursday morning, despite opposition from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.
Then the names of all the Palestinian prisoners due for release will be made public by the Israeli government, and the families of any victims will be given 48 hours to appeal. Some of the prisoners are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder and terrorism.
Hamas’s chief negotiator and acting Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, said the agreement represented “a milestone in the conflict with the enemy, on the path to achieving our people’s goals of liberation and return”.
The group, he added, would now seek to “rebuild Gaza again, alleviate the pain, heal the wounds”.
But he also warned “we will not forget, and we will not forgive” the suffering inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.
Supporters of the Israeli hostages’ families also celebrated in Tel Aviv. Reuters.
As news of the agreement emerged, pictures showed people cheering and waving Palestinian flags in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah and southern city of Khan Younis.
Sanabel, a 17-year-old girl living to the north in Gaza City, told BBC OS: “All of us are delighted.”
“We have been waiting for this for a long time,” she said. “Finally, I will put my head on my pillow without worrying… It is time to heal.”
Nawara al-Najjar, whose husband was among more than 70 people killed when Israeli forces launched an operation to rescue two hostages, said: “After the ceasefire I want to give my children the best life.”
“I want them to get over the fear we lived. My children are really scared. The terror has settled in their hearts.”
Sharone Lifschitz is a British-Israeli woman whose 84-year-old father Oded is among the remaining hostages. Her mother, Yocheved, was also abducted in the 7 October attack but was released after several weeks in captivity.
She told the BBC in London as news of the deal came through that it felt “like a bit of sanity”, but she admitted: “I know that the chances for my dad are very slim.”
“He’s an elderly man, but miracles do happen. My mum did come back, and one way or another, we will know. We will know if he’s still with us, if we can look after him.”
She warned: “There are more graves to come and traumatised people to come back, but we will look after them and make them see light again… May this be the start of something better.”
Moshe Lavi, the brother in-law of Omri Miran, a 47-year-old father-of-two young children, told the BBC that it was “a very mixed day for most families of hostages”.
“We want to see our families come home from their mass captivity. But we also understand that this is a phase deal. Only the first phase was agreed upon,” he said.
“We’ll have to keep fighting, keep advocating as families with all leaders with our own government to understand they have to release all the hostages.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the “priority now must be to ease the tremendous suffering caused by this conflict”.
Former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration next week, her office said Tuesday, without providing an explanation for her decision.
“Former President Barack Obama is confirmed to attend the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies. Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration,” a statement from the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama said.
The decision to forgo attendance at Trump’s formal swearing-in is a break with tradition for the ceremony, in which former presidents and their wives typically participate. Former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush will attend the inauguration, his office said, and sources familiar told CNN that former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton also will be there.
Michelle Obama also was not in attendance at a memorial service last week for former President Jimmy Carter, remaining instead in Hawaii. Former President Barack Obama attended the service at the National Cathedral in Washington, sitting next to Trump and engaging in animated conversation with him as the program was getting underway.
Other former first ladies, including Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, both attended the Carter event.
Michelle Obama has spoken openly about her animosity toward Trump, whom she has accused of putting her family’s safety in danger through his rhetoric.
In 2017, she put those personal feelings aside after Trump won his first presidential election, welcoming the incoming president and Melania Trump to the White House for tea ahead of that year’s swearing-in.
In the years afterward, she spoke about the experience of sitting onstage as Trump was inaugurated.
“There were tears, there was that emotion. But then to sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display – there was no diversity, there was no color on that stage, there was no reflection of the broader sense of America,” she said in a podcast in 2023.
The Trumps did not attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 amid the president-elect’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.
The US Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on TikTok’s challenge to the law.
Following a hearing last Friday, expectations are high that the law will stand.
Here is a review of what could happen next for TikTok in the United States.
App store ban
Under a ban, the US government would first direct Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, preventing new downloads as early as Sunday, a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
However, the app would remain on the phones of the existing 170 million US users unless TikTok directly blocks their access.
Although TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco stated the site would “go dark” on Sunday if the justices fail to block the ban, many observers doubt ByteDance would unilaterally hit the off switch for American users.
TikTok indicated as much in a memo to staff, cited in the Verge on Tuesday.
“Our offices will remain open” regardless of what happens on January 19th and employees will keep their jobs.
“The bill is not written in a way that impacts the entities through which you are employed, only the US user experience,” the memo said.
Workarounds
But even if TikTok keeps its app accessible, US users would stop receiving security and software updates, leading to gradual deterioration in quality and increased vulnerabilities.
As a workaround, users might turn to VPNs (virtual private networks) to mask their location by routing through countries where TikTok remains available.
Another possibility is that TikTok could update from non-US servers through partnerships with foreign, non-Chinese companies — though this would constitute direct defiance of US authorities and likely intensify scrutiny of ByteDance’s US operations.
Defiance?
Once Trump takes office, the law’s implementation will fall to his attorney general, who could choose not to enforce it, or stall, defying Congress’s overwhelming support for the legislation.
The Trump administration might also approach the Republican majority in Congress to modify the law, potentially giving ByteDance more time to find a buyer or devise alternative solutions.
Alternatives
Once banned, the assumption is that TikTok users will move to other apps, like Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts, TikTok copycats that have grown and will directly benefit from their rival’s demise.
Elon Musk’s X could also benefit and the tycoon has made it known that he wants his platform, formerly Twitter, to more closely resemble TikTok, with video content and shopping features.
Trump has expressed concern that a ban would primarily advantage Meta-owned Instagram, which may explain Mark Zuckerberg’s recent public support for Trump.
Some American content creators have already migrated to Xiaohongshu (Red Note), another Chinese social media app that recently topped the Apple App Store downloads.
Investor rescue?
Several potential buyers have emerged, including a group led by Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, even if ByteDance has ruled out a sale for now.
His partner in the bid, Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, recently golfed with Trump and reported the president-elect’s desire to use the TikTok saga as leverage in US-China relations.
A report that the Chinese authorities would be open to a buyout by Musk was denied by TikTok.
Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also remains interested in buying TikTok, according to the Information.
For now, TikTok’s fate rests with the Supreme Court, with the company lawyers asking the nine justices for a delay to any ban to provide “breathing space” for a solution.
“Nobody knows what they can do and who’s going to do it until they hear from the Supreme Court,” Trump told Newsmax on Monday.
South Korean authorities arrested impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday over insurrection accusations related to his Dec. 3 martial law declaration, investigators said.
A motorcade was seen leaving the gates of his hillside residence where Yoon has been holed up for weeks behind barbed wire barriers and a small army of personal security.
Earlier more than 3,000 police officers and anti-corruption investigators had gathered there before dawn, pushing through throngs of Yoon supporters and members of his ruling People Power Party protesting attempts to detain him.
Yoon’s lawyers have argued attempts to detain Yoon are illegal and are designed to publicly humiliate him. The warrant investigators secured for his arrest is the first ever issued against an incumbent South Korean president.
As local news broadcasters reported that Yoon’s detention may come soon, some minor scuffles broke out between tearful pro-Yoon protesters and police near the residence, according to a Reuters witness at the scene.
Yoon’s declaration of martial law stunned South Koreans and plunged one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies into an unprecedented period of political turmoil. Lawmakers voted to impeach him and remove him from duties on Dec. 14.
Separately, the Constitutional Court is deliberating over to uphold that impeachment and permanently remove him from office.
TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.
The move by users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store on Monday.
RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.
It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.
Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.
TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its lawyers have warned that a ban will violate free speech protections for the platform’s 170 million users in the US.
Meanwhile, RedNote has welcomed its new users with open arms. There are 63,000 posts on the topic “TikTok refugee”, where new users are taught how to navigate the app and how to use basic Chinese phrases.
“To our Chinese hosts, thanks for having us – sorry in advance for the chaos,” a new US user wrote.
But like TikTok, there have also been reports of censorship on RedNote when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.
In Taiwan, public officials are restricted from using RedNote due to alleged security risks of Chinese software.
As more US users joined RedNote, some Chinese users have also jokingly referred to themselves as “Chinese spies”, a reference to US officials’ concerns that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.
RedNote’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to Little Red Book, but the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.
But security concerns have not deterred users from flocking to RedNote.
Sarah Fotheringham, a 37-year-old school canteen worker in Utah, says the move to RedNote is a way to “snub” the government.
“I’m just a simple person living a simple life,” Ms Fotheringham told the BBC in a RedNote message.
“I don’t have anything that China doesn’t, and if they want my data that bad they can have it.”
Marcus Robinson, a fashion designer in Virginia, said he created his RedNote account over the weekend to share his clothing brand and “be ahead of the curve”.
Mr Robinson told the BBC he was was only “slightly hesitant” about accepting the terms and conditions of using the app, which were written in Mandarin.
“I wasn’t able to actually read them so that was a little concerning to me,” he said, “but I took my chance.”
While a ban will not make TikTok disappear immediately, it will require app stores to stop offering it – which could kill it over time.
But even if TikTok dodges a ban, it may prove helpless against users moving to alternative platforms.
Some social media users tell the BBC that they find themselves scrolling on RedNote more than TikTok.
“Even if TikTok does stay I will continue to use my platform I’ve created on RedNote,” Tennessee tech worker Sydney Crawley told the BBC.
Ms Crawley said she got over 6,000 followers within 24 hours of creating her RedNote account.
“I will continue to try to build a following there and see what new connections, friendships, or opportunities it brings me.”
Ms Fotheringham, the canteen worker, said RedNote “opened my world up to China and its people”.
“I am now able to see things I never would have seen,” she said. “Regular Chinese people, finding out about their culture, life, school, everything, it has been so much fun.”
The community so far has been “super welcoming”, said Mr Robinson, the designer.
“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!”
U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to hold onto power after losing the 2020 election, but was thwarted in bringing the case to trial by the president-elect’s November election victory, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The report details Smith’s decision to bring a four-count indictment against Trump, accusing him of plotting to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden.
It concludes that the evidence would have been enough to convict Trump at trial, but his imminent return to the presidency, set for Jan. 20, made that impossible.
Smith, who has come under relentless criticism from Trump, also defended his investigation and the prosecutors who worked on it.
“The claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Smith wrote in a letter detailing his report.
After the release, Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, called Smith a “lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the election.”
Much of the evidence cited in the report has been previously made public.
A second section of the report details Smith’s case accusing Trump of illegally retaining sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
The Justice Department has committed not to make that portion public while legal proceedings continue against two Trump associates charged in the case.
Smith, who left the Justice Department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither reached a trial.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. Regularly assailing Smith as “deranged,” Trump depicted the cases as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign and political movement.
Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case sought to block the release of the report, days before Trump is set to return to office on Jan. 20. Courts rebuffed their demands to prevent its publication altogether.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the documents case, has ordered the Justice Department for now to halt plans to allow certain senior members of Congress to privately review the documents section of the report.
Prosecutors gave a detailed view of their case against Trump in previous court filings. A congressional panel in 2022 published its own 700-page account of Trump’s actions following the 2020 election.
Both investigations concluded that Trump spread false claims of widespread voter fraud following the 2020 election and pressured state lawmakers not to certify the vote, and ultimately, also sought to use fraudulent groups of electors pledged to vote for Trump, in states actually won by Biden, in a bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
The effort culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
Smith’s case faced legal hurdles even before Trump’s election win. It was paused for months while Trump pressed his claim that he could not be prosecuted for official actions taken as president.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority largely sided with him, granting former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
(Reuters) – Mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of a deal on Monday to end the war in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks attended by envoys of both outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden said a ceasefire and hostage release deal he had championed was on “the brink” of coming to fruition and Hamas said it was keen on reaching an agreement.
“The deal … would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started,” Biden said in a speech to highlight his foreign policy achievements.
The official briefed on the talks, who did not want to be otherwise identified, said the text for a ceasefire and release of hostages was presented by Qatar to both sides at talks in Doha, which included the chiefs of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies and Qatar’s prime minister.
Another round of talks is planned in Doha on Tuesday morning to finalise remaining details, with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk expected to attend, as they had on Monday, the official said.
An Israeli official said negotiations were in advanced stages for the release of up to 33 hostages as part of the deal. The Hamas delegation in Doha issued a statement after a meeting with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani saying talks were progressing well.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters the negotiations were at a “pivotal” point, with gaps between two sides slowly getting removed. “I think there is a good chance we can close this … the parties are right on the cusp of being able to close this deal,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sides were “closer than we’ve ever been” to a deal, and the ball was in Hamas’ court.
“We are very hopeful that we get it over the finish line, finally after all this time,” he told MSNBC, adding that the proposed deal was based on a framework Biden put out in May.
Blinken said negotiators wanted to make sure Trump would continue to back the deal on the table so Witkoff’s participation has been “critical.”
Israel’s Kan radio, citing an Israeli official, reported on Monday that the Israeli delegation had briefed Israel’s leaders. Israel, Hamas and the foreign ministry of Qatar did not respond to requests for confirmation or comment.
Officials on both sides, while stopping short of confirming that a final draft had been reached, reported progress.
“The negotiation over some core issues made progress and we are working to conclude what remains soon,” a Hamas official told Reuters.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters: “There is progress, it looks much better than previously. I want to thank our American friends for the huge efforts they are investing to secure a hostage deal.”
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have worked for more than a year on talks to end the war in Gaza.
In Cairo, an Egyptian security official told Reuters the draft sent to the two warring sides did not comprise the final agreement but “aims to resolve outstanding issues that had hindered previous negotiations”.
Sullivan said Biden would soon speak with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi about the negotiations.
HELL TO PAY
Israel’s Channel 12 said Israeli government institutions had been told to prepare for the intake of weak and sick hostages.
The warring sides have agreed for months broadly on the principle of halting the fighting in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian detainees held by Israel. But Hamas has always insisted a deal must lead to a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel has said it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled.
Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration is now widely seen as a de facto deadline. Trump has said there would be “hell to pay” unless hostages held by Hamas are freed before he takes office, while Biden has also pushed hard for a deal before he leaves.
The official who first disclosed the draft said talks went until the early hours of Monday, with Witkoff pushing the Israeli delegation in the Qatari capital Doha and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani pushing Hamas officials to finalise an agreement.
The head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency Hassan Mahmoud Rashad was also in Doha as part of the talks. Rashad left Doha on Monday but a source familiar with the talks said an intelligence delegation stayed behind to play an active role.
Trump envoy Witkoff has travelled to Qatar and Israel several times since late November. He was in Doha on Friday and travelled to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday before returning to Doha.
Biden also spoke on Sunday by phone with Netanyahu, stressing “the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal,” the White House said.
Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed across its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and most of its population displaced.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, a hardline nationalist party which has opposed previous attempts at a deal, said all its members would oppose a deal that didn’t achieve Hamas’ “destruction” and the latest proposal endangered Israel’s national security.
Bloodshed continued in Gaza on Monday. Residents reported a series of explosions in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip that targeted homes and roads. Palestinian health officials said at least 40 Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded in Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip on Monday.
The Israeli military said five soldiers had been killed in fighting in northern Gaza, bringing to nine the number of its troops killed since Saturday.
Beyoncé has contributed $2.5 million to a newly launched LA Fire Relief Fund created by her charitable foundation, BeyGOOD.
The announcement arrived via the BeyGOOD foundation Instagram account on Sunday. “The fund is earmarked to aid families in the Altadena/Pasadena area who lost their homes, and to churches and community centers to address the immediate needs of those affected by the wildfires,” the caption read.
Founded in 2013, the BeyGOOD foundation concentrates on economic equity, by “supporting marginalized and under-resourced programs,” according to its mission statement.
Last week, Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles shared that her Malibu bungalow was destroyed in the Los Angeles-area fires. “It was my favorite place, my sanctuary, my sacred happy place. now it is gone,” she wrote on Instagram. “God Bless all the brave men and women in our fire department who risked their lives in dangerous conditions.”
The Screen Actors Guild announced over the weekend it would commit $1 million to help members affected by the fires. While a lot of attention has been paid to stars who have lost homes, numerous less-famous industry workers have also lost homes or been displaced by the fires.
Meghan delays launch of Netflix series
The Duchess of Sussex has pushed back the release of her new Netflix series due to the wildfires that have ravaged the LA-area.
“With Love, Meghan” was set to debut Wednesday, but the streaming service said Sunday that it supports her request to push the premiere to focus on helping those affected by the fires.
The Duchess was born and raised in Los Angeles and now lives in Montecito, California, with Harry, the Duke of Sussex and their two children.
On Saturday, the royal couple visited Pasadena to hand out food and water to fire victims and thank first responders.
“With Love, Meghan” is a lifestyle program featuring the Duchess chatting with celebrity pals and demonstrating tasks like floral arrangements and baking. “I’ve always loved taking something pretty ordinary and elevating it,” Meghan says in the trailer. The show will now drop March 4.
‘I would agree that Musk and Trump pose the greatest example of a threat of foreign interference,’ academic tells Anadolu
‘If the liberal democratic order does not take it seriously, then we will see the death of the rules-based liberal democratic order,’ says Hadfield
LONDON
US President-elect Donald Trump and his close ally billionaire Elon Musk are the “greatest example of a threat” of foreign interference, said a British expert, who warned that the rules-based liberal democratic order is under a huge risk of “death.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who is set to serve as an advisor to Trump, has come under harsh criticism for his meddling in European politics through his X platform.
He has made controversial remarks about the political matters of European countries including Italy, Germany and the UK and has also come under strong criticism from Germany’s political establishment over his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of a snap election in February.
Amelia Hadfield, head of the politics department at the University of Surrey, described the issue as a “social media rampage,” saying Musk has taken aim at governments and has a targeted focus on usually a particular individual.
“It’s sort of a forensic attack when you drill down into it, but it’s also very widespread. It’s very spread across in terms of who his approaches seem to be targeted on.”
She noted that it feels as if these “taunts are really quite deliberate” and sort of “manipulative” on the one hand and designed to “provoke,” while on the other hand, he’s well aware that he’s not merely involving himself but interfering.
“I feel there is going to be a ramp-up between now and the presidential inauguration on the 20th of January. So I feel it is a strategy designed to compound nervousness in allies and perhaps jangle even more nerves in countries who are not sure whether they’re an ally or not,” she added.
‘Complicated times for EU’
Hadfield said that on Jan. 20, Musk will no longer be just a multi-billionaire and huge tech entrepreneur but also part of Trump’s presidential cavalcade, meaning it will complicate even further how the West is going to be able to deal with him.
Asked about the possible state of US-Europe relations with Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president later this month, Hadfield said she believes ties could be strained.
“I think not only because Musk has taken aim at a number of European countries — France and Germany are the best examples, but also, more broadly, the United Kingdom — but I think the European Commission is feeling that he has been deliberately not just interfering but inflammatory.”
She noted that Musk expressing support for the AfD on X and his recent discussion with the party’s leader, Alice Weidel, put pressure on the European Commission as well as European governments “because the commission is in charge of enforcing Europe’s Digital Services Act, the digital rule book, if you like, and the point of that act is to police and to enforce social media platforms.”
Pointing out that for breaches of those platforms, including interference, there are huge fines, she added that the European Commission is in a position to consider whether it can take on a platform as large as X on the basis of having given a party like the AfD an unfair public advantage over its rivals before a vote.
However, she noted that political willingness as well as technical evidence is needed to be able to prosecute Musk, saying these are complicated times for the European Union, especially once he is part of the Trump administration.
‘Greatest example of a threat of foreign interference’
Turning to Trump’s “repeated threats” of a trade war with Europe, she noted it would be particularly damaging for Germany and German exports if a tariff as high as 20% is imposed.
“So I think there’s real worry, and that can only be countered by very real pushback as well.”
She said the question in this case is whether Musk is being “goaded by Trump” to undermine centrist parties across Europe as a whole.
Hadfield added that Germany is a very good example of that as a case study of “attempting to normalize” far-right parties like the AfD and playing down their radicalism.
She noted that there have been spats with France, but it hasn’t “quite evolved or dissolved.”
For her, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has played “very canny games” thus far, as indeed, she has with a lot of the EU by trying to onboard aspects of Musk “but not encouraging him to explicitly align himself with elements that would make him appear even more difficult to deal with.”
“I would agree that Musk and Trump pose the greatest example of a threat of foreign interference. At the same time, I do feel that much of it is taunt based, bullying based. It’s distinctly performative.”
She said that more broadly, it is aimed at the liberal democratic order.
“If the liberal democratic order does not take it seriously, then we will see the death of the rules-based liberal democratic order. So the stakes, frankly, could not be higher,” she added.
Barcelona came from an early goal down to beat Real Madrid 5-2 in the Spanish Super Cup final on Sunday, scoring four goals in a dominant first half and surviving having their goalkeeper sent off to clinch a record-extending 15th trophy.
French forward Kylian Mbappe put Real in front after five minutes, finishing a solo run with a shot inside the far post. However, Lamine Yamal levelled for Barcelona in the 22nd before striker Robert Lewandowski gave them the lead from the spot.
Raphinha increased the advantage with a stunning header from a Jules Kounde cross in the 39th minute and left back Alejandro Balde added a fourth for Barca deep into first-half stoppage time.
Raphinha made it 5-1 just after the break, before Barca were left with 10 men when goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny was sent off for fouling Mbappe in the 56th minute. Rodrygo beat substitute keeper Inaki Pena from the resulting free kick but 10-man Barca easily saw out the win.
