Brendan Carr says he supports free speech – but has gone after broadcasters he deems are not operating in the ‘public interest’
“The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” Brendan Carr, now the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote in his chapter on the agency in Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that detailed plans for a second Trump administration.
It’s a view he’s held for a long time. He wrote on X in 2023 that “free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
Lily James plays former Tinder employee who became founder of Bumble in an illuminating yet corny rise-to-fame tale
In 2012, a plucky, headstrong young entrepreneur crashes a startup mixer in Los Angeles, desperately trying to get their big idea off the ground. Naive and ruthlessly ambitious, they brave the skeptics, the losers, the people too good to talk to them and the people who don’t take them seriously. Eventually, inevitably, their genius – obvious, unsinkable, perhaps diabolical – collides with opportunity. Voilà! An origin story is born.
Swap out the date and the city, and this would describe a pivotal scene in any number of recent movies and TV shows that take cinematic interest in the self-mythology of entrepreneurs. The dramatic logic and iconography of the origin story, basically true but always highly glossed, is by now so recognizable it almost writes itself: initial rejection, dogged persistence, chance meeting, lightbulb moment, big break. We’ve seen it in a wave of brand backstory movies – Flamin’ Hot, Air, BlackBerry and Tetris to name a few – as well as the recent boomlet of shows depicting 2010s hustle culture. The twist with Swiped, Hulu’s new film on the founding of online dating titans Tinder and Bumble, is that this founder is a woman.
The cast radiate charm, the storytelling is hugely imaginative and the narrative is irresistibly heartwarming. It’s not the funniest comedy, but it has so much more going for it than just laughs
Mawaan Rizwan began his career as a YouTuber; he later attended the prestigious Paris clown school, École Philippe Gaulier. In Juice, the 33-year-old’s BBC sitcom, he effortlessly unites these disparate comedy training grounds. As the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, Rizwan channels the archetypal man-child vlogger. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood are inevitably thwarted. But he is also a figure of more outre fun. With a severe bowl-cut and a penchant for retina-searing fashion, Jamma is overtly ridiculous: a master of slapstick and a magnet for chaos.
In series one, Jamma spent most of his time clowning about: hardly working at a quirky marketing company (with mini trampolines instead of desk chairs) and messing around his sensible therapist boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey). Now – having been fired from the job and broken up with Guy – he’s crashing with his friend Winnie and working as a clown in a care home. Jamma seems fine with his new gig and more interested in sleeping around than patching things up with lovelorn Guy. But after their paths cross again, he becomes determined to win him back.
Manchester United reached the main draw of the Women’s Champions League for the first time after an Elisabeth Terland hat-trick helped them overturn a first-leg deficit to deservedly eliminate the Norwegian side Brann in the third qualifying round.
Terland netted a so-called perfect hat-trick, scoring with her right foot after earlier doing so with her left and nodding in a header, to ensure Marc Skinner’s team will be included in Friday’s draw for the new, 18-team league phase of the competition, along with Chelsea and the holders Arsenal. It was Terland’s second hat-trick in this competition already this term after just four European qualifying fixtures, the clinical forward having also scored a treble against PSV in August.
More than 3,000 hours of footage filmed since 2018 by a teenager gets turned into a strange, revealing and unsettling look at a fallen star
“What was Kanye West thinking?”has remained a prevailing question since the Grammy award-winning rapper-producer pulled the rip cord on his spectacular descent into rightwing nihilism more than a decade ago. In Whose Name?, a cinéma vérité take on the tortured musical genius (who goes by just Ye now), offers fans and long-term observers a new artifact to pore over in search of answers – and reason to be disappointed all over again.
That’s not a knock on the 104-minute opus, an outcropping of more than 3,000 hours of footage – some of it never before seen, some of it a reverse perspective on the viral stunts and rants that have marked Ye’s dramatic nosedive. Director Nico Ballesteros – who started filming in 2018, at age 18, with nothing to recommend him (his stint as a second assistant director on a Jesus Is King concert video came later) – had sweeping access to Ye and made the distinctive choice not to layer it with any talking-head commentary for context. Mostly, he turns on the camera, holds a tight focus on his subject and lets the rest drift in and out of frame.
Overcoming my terror of new housemates was gradual but by observing them I learned that pythons can be beautiful and clever
Fifteen years ago, while perched on the back deck of my 1920s tin and timber Queenslander home in Brisbane, I realised I was being watched.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I spun around to discover a snake dangling from the lattice. Terrified, I rushed inside and locked the door. Clearly, fear is not rational, or I would have understood that serpents don’t have arms.
The band cited a ‘moral and ethical burden’ placed on artists by revenue from their work ultimately funding lethal technologies
Massive Attack have become the latest act – and first major-label one – to pull their catalogue from Spotify in protest at founder Daniel Ek investing €600m (£520m) in the military AI company Helsing.
In June, Ek’s venture capital firm Prima Materia led the defence tech firm’s latest funding round. Helsing’s software uses AI technology to analyse sensor and weapons system data from battlefields to inform real-time military decisions. It also makes its own military drone, the HX-2. Ek is also chairman of Helsing.
Unconnected to this initiative and in light of the (reported) significant investments by its CEO in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft, Massive Attack have made a separate request to our label that our music be removed from the Spotify streaming service in all territories.
In our view, the historic precedent of effective artist action during apartheid South Africa and the apartheid, war crimes and genocide now being committed by the state of Israel renders the No Music for Genocide campaign imperative.
In 1991 the scourge of apartheid violence fell from South Africa, aided from a distance by public boycotts, protests, and the withdrawal of work by artists, musicians and actors. Complicity with that state was considered unacceptable. In 2025 the same now applies to the genocidal state of Israel. As of today, there’s a musician’s equivalent of the recently announced @filmworkers4palestine campaign (signed by 4,500 filmmakers, actors, industry workers & institutions) – it can be found @nomusicforgenocide & supports the wider asks of the growing @bds.movement. We’d appeal to all musicians to transfer their sadness, anger and artistic contributions into a coherent, reasonable & vital action to end the unspeakable hell being visited upon the Palestinians hour after hour.
6 mins: City break, Doku runs down the middle, Politano eventually dispossesses him on the edge of the area but in doing so accidentally passes to Foden, who’s just mulling over which corner he should aim his shot at when the referee blows his whistle for a foul on Politano.
4 mins: A shot! The bad news is that Ruben Dias took it, and he was at least 30 yards out. It is fair to say that Vanja Milinković-Savić was untroubled.
Eddie Howe: “When we were drawn against Barcelona, it had a magical feel to it,” said the Newcastle head coach. “I’m really excited to sample the atmosphere - I think it will be an incredible thing again. We will try to get a positive result and prepare the players for the game. I’m looking forward to how we match up against them and there is a lot of confidence restored after winning on Saturday.”
On Newcastle’s return to the Champions League: “The build-up is different to the Premier League and having done it before, that can help us again,” he said. “The squad is arguably stronger - it has changed from two years ago and I back the quality that we have. The early games are really important because they set the tone and that’s why we are really focusing on our performance to try and deliver a good one.”
Double defeat protects Venezuelans with temporary protected status and Guatemalan minors
The Trump administration has been handed a double defeat by judges in immigration cases, barring the executive branch from deporting a group of Guatemalan children and from slashing protections for many Venezuelans in the US.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the administration to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied immigrant children with active immigration cases while a legal challenge plays out.
Brayan Ramos-Brito acquitted after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incident
A Los Angeles protester charged with assaulting a border patrol agent in June was acquitted on Wednesday after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incident.
The not guilty verdict for Brayan Ramos-Brito is a major setback for the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in southern California and for Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who has become a key figure in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The 29-year-old defendant, who is a US citizen, was facing a misdemeanor and was the first protester to go to trial since demonstrations against immigration raids erupted in LA earlier this summer.
Matthew James Ruth, 24, killed in altercation that left three officers dead and wounded two more
The alleged gunman who killed three officers and wounded two more in southern Pennsylvania before he was killed by police was a 24-year-old being sought on stalking charges, according to court documents and law enforcement.
The violence erupted in rural York county on Wednesday as officers sought Matthew James Ruth, who had also been charged with trespassing, loitering and prowling at night in a domestic-related investigation that began a day earlier, court documents show.
US president also advises PM to use military to stop irregular migration at conclusion of his second state visit
Donald Trump has accused Vladimir Putin of letting him down in a joint press conference with Keir Starmer during which the US president piled criticism on his Russian counterpart.
Trump said on Thursday that he had hoped to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine soon after entering office, but that Putin’s actions had prevented him from doing so.
The former lawyer was outspoken about China’s response to the Covid pandemic
A Chinese citizen journalist who was jailed after reporting from the frontlines of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan is to face trial for a second time, according to human rights activists and media freedom groups.
Zhang Zhan, who was released from prison in May 2024 after serving four years behind bars, is expected to go on trial on Friday at the Shanghai Pudong New Area people’s courtfor “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all term used to target government critics.
The hyperbole is in sharp contrast to the actual achievements, but in this new era minimising damage and buying time look like wins
An unprecedented second state visit for a US president. An “extra-large” guard of honour. The UK rolled out not only the red carpet, royal welcome and golden carriage but also the superlatives for Donald Trump’s visit. Sir Keir Starmer’s hyperbole on the memorandum of understanding on tech made his guest look almost understated: the prime minister boasted that the transatlantic partnership paved the way for new technologies to “amplify human potential, solve problems, cure diseases, make us richer and freer”.
Yet there was an inverse relationship between the pomp and ceremony of this trip and its real import, between the grand declarations of amity and the actual state of transatlantic ties. The US president soaked up the sycophancy and was obliging enough to hymn the “priceless” relationship. But while Mr Trump grumbled that Vladimir Putin had “really let me down”, he showed no inclination for tougher action against Russia despite Sir Keir’s preposterous remark that the US president had “led the way” on Ukraine and King Charles’s pointed reference – one that his mother might not, perhaps, have made – to Europe and its allies needing to stand together against tyranny.
Sir Ed Davey’s party has plenty to look forward to, but also difficult choices to make
The two largest parties in the House of Commons approach the 2025 autumn conference season with trepidation. Both Labour and the Conservatives are spooked by collapses in voter support and by the rise of Reform UK. Party anxiety, internal disagreements and even grassroots revolts seem possible at both of their conferences.
The third-largest party, the Liberal Democrats, have no such worries at all. They start their conference in Bournemouth this weekend in resilient mood. Having won 72 Commons seats in 2024 – the best result by any third party for a century – Sir Ed Davey’s party cemented those gains in the 2025 English local elections. While Labour and the Tories lost both votes and seats to Reform UK, the Lib Dems did the reverse, gaining seats and capturing three county councils. As a result, Sir Ed claimed the Lib Dems were now “the party of middle England”.
FTC and seven states file lawsuit claiming resellers’ violations of ticket purchasing limits were ignored
The US Federal Trade Commission and seven states accused Live Nation and its ticketing arm Ticketmaster of costing fans millions of dollars by tacitly allowing ticket brokers to scoop concert tickets and sell them at a significant markup, the agency said on Thursday.
The lawsuit deepens Ticketmaster’s legal woes, which began after its botched 2022 sale of tickets to Swift’s much-hyped Eras tour.
When a regime can use the power of the law to punish speech because it does not like that speech, then speech is not free
Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night host, had his show suspended “indefinitely” from ABC on Wednesday after the Federal Communications Commission, the US’s broadcast media regulator, threatened the television network.
The FCC threats came in retaliation for comments Kimmel made on his show regarding Charlie Kirk’s death and the Trump administration’s response to it. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel began.
Kamala Harris watched mortified as her running mate, Tim Walz, fell into JD Vance’s trap in last year’s vice-presidential debate and “fumbled” a crucial answer, she writes in a campaign memoir.
The former Democratic presidential nominee also admits that Walz had not been her first choice for vice-president in her book 107 Days, obtained by the Guardian ahead of its publication next week. Harris writes that her “first choice” would have been the then transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, a close friend of hers who is gay.
Late co-founder previously expressed that he would want his wife to lead in the event of his death, organization says
Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, has been appointed as the new CEO and chair of the board for Turning Point USA.
The organization announced on Thursday that the late CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was shot and killed at an event last week, had previously expressed that he would want his wife to lead in the event of his death.
Core budget to fall to $3.2bn next year and initial minimum 3,000 job cuts expected amid streamlining process
The UN will need to cut $500m (about £370m) from next year’s budget and lose 20% of its staff as it struggles to cope with a massive reduction in funding by the Trump administration.
The plan, in gestation since Donald Trump started cutting his foreign aid budget, is likely to involve an initial minimum 3,000 job cuts out of a 35,000-strong main workforce. The overall UN core or regular budget would be cut from $3.7bn to about $3.2bn next year. It means reductions of 15.1% in resources and 18.8% in posts in the regular budget compared with the 2025 budget.
All the pomp and circumstance can’t distract from the hate and division. The PM must summon the courage to act
As Donald Trump met with a grinning Keir Starmer and senior royals on his UK state visit this week, I found myself needing a Daily Mail body language expert.
Did Starmer’s hand wave suggest he wanted to ask about the migrants currently being jailed surrounded by alligators in Florida? Did King Charles’s lip shape mean he was wondering about the women who’ve accused Trump of sexual assault?
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