Editorial: The US president’s $10bn defamation claim against the broadcaster is opportunistic, bullying, and almost entirely without legal merit. It should serve as a rally cry to those who seek to defend the corporation as a priceless fortress of public service journalism
The US president has repeatedly targeted American media in an attempt to muzzle debate and scrutiny. His attempt to export the bullying must be resisted
On the day that the government launched a high-stakes consultation to consider fresh ways of funding the BBC in the digital era, the corporation could have done without another difficult news event of its own. Donald Trump’s decision to follow through on threats to sue over the content of a Panorama programme broadcast in October 2024 may not have come as a surprise, given Mr Trump’s litigious record in the United States. But it will add to the general air of beleaguerment at the corporation and further embolden its domestic political enemies.
A terse BBC statement on Tuesday suggested that there would be no backing down in the face of White House bullying. That is the right response to absurd claims of “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” caused to the US president, and a fantastical request for damages amounting to $10bn. The BBC has rightly apologised for the misleading splicing together of separate clips from Mr Trump’s rabble-rousing speech on January 6 2020, prior to the violent storming of the US Capitol. A serious error of judgment was made in that editing process – though the House of Representatives January 6 committee concluded that Trump did use his speech to incite an insurrection. But the claim that a programme not broadcast in the US was part of a malicious plan to defame Mr Trump and subvert the democratic process ahead of last year’s election is utterly specious.
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As EU countries face multiple challenges in a new era, they must fight to preserve the continent’s social model. That means a new economic approach
More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But last week, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris’s campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.
As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.
Editorial: Thanks to the growing Russian threat against Europe and Nato – at a time when AI is changing the very nature of warfare – the new head of MI6 is right to caution that ‘the front line is everywhere’. The appropriate response can be summed up in one word: deterrence
In the wake of Sunday’s Bondi Beach terror attack on a gathering to celebrate the start of Hanukkah, Australia’s leaders should be facing some very tough questions about their failure to fight antisemitism.
On Dec. 5, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices tossed the universal recommendation for hepatitis B vaccines for infants at birth.
Editorial: The attack in Australia is another example of how widespread antisemitism currently is – and the need for our political leaders to step up and tackle it
In its rush to force private landlords to sell their buildings to nonprofit outfits, the City Council looks to be favoring a new, even-harder-to-control class of slumlords.
Editorial: With the NHS under pressures not seen since the once-in-a-century Covid pandemic, the BMA’s refusal to reconsider the timing of its industrial action is dangerous and wrong
The Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Long Islanders over a New York state guidance that effectively bans dissent on trans issues from school board meetings.
Erika Kirk plainly doesn’t need our help in confronting the conspiracy-mongers and other trolls who exploit her husband’s assassination with no regard to his survivors’ feeling or the truth — but we’re absolutely with her.
Former President Joe Biden claimed that his administration actually lowered the price of "everything" — despite data showing prices rising and real wages falling during his term.
Editorial: The health secretary will point to a ‘worst-case’ outbreak of flu sweeping hospital wards, a public losing sympathy with the strikes and a sensible offer on the negotiating table as he bids to steer a way through this NHS crisis
It looks like the days are numbered for the terrorist-infested UN Relief and Works Agency, as UNRWA loses support from major European nations that have long backed it.
The Responsible Artificial Intelligence Safety and Education (RAISE) Act would require large AI developers to create and publicize safety plans and make tech-sharing impossible.
Editorial: The scandal of 200 people being deprived of their right to citizenship at the stroke of a government pen is a moral failure – a country has a duty to those who have rightly called it home
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