#political-influence

#political-influence

More than three-quarters of Germans reject the idea of buying an electric car from the US manufacturer Tesla, according to a recent survey by the German Economic Institute (IW). Some 60% of respondents said buying a Tesla was "completely out of the question," while another 16% said they would "probably not" purchase a car from US tech billionaire Elon Musk's company, which saw sales fall by 13% worldwide in the first quarter of 2025, by 45% in Europe, and by 62% in Germany.

The grants continue the Trump administration's funding of university programs labeled as civics, civil discourse, Western civilization, great books and other topics that many conservatives back. Earlier this month, the administration announced it awarded nearly $38 million in other grants to civil discourse efforts at universities. Now the NEH, which the Trump administration overhauled last year, says it's further fueling the spread of such initiatives.

Indeed, Meta says that various legal cases in this area have " selectively cited Meta's internal documents to construct a misleading narrative," which suggests that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have harmed teens, and that Meta has prioritized growth over their well-being.

The vote formalized plans announced last year to wind down operations [for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] after lawmakers voted to strip more than $500 million in annual funding from the organization. Executives have been emptying the corporation's coffers in recent months by making grants to public media organizations. After the federal funding ended, executives at the corporation discussed putting the organization into hibernation, keeping it alive in case Congress eventually voted to restore its federal appropriation.

A Brooklyn power-broker threw another wrench into a multimillion-dollar court case now on its fifth judge - by personally phoning the latest jurist, the judge revealed Tuesday. Former borough Democratic Party Chair Frank Seddio - who has been ripped in a federal lawsuit tied to a state case involving more than $2 million in missing investor money - recently called the judge handling the state case, Francios Rivera, on his personal cell phone, the jurist said in court. An exasperated Rivera said Seddio called him to tell him a lawyer who used to work for the judge as a legal secretary was being made an acting supreme court judge.

The year is 2029. President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, having spent years raging against Fox News as a propaganda organ whose very operation is illegal, has found a pressure point to control it. She enables its sale to owners who are friends of hers, and whose business depends on regulatory favors she has made a practice of doling out to allies. As the new editor in chief of Fox News, the owners install Tim Miller, a skeptic of conservatism who has never previously worked in television news.

La Repubblica and other media outlets belonging to the GEDI group, such as the Italian edition of the Huffington Post and three radio stations (M20, Deejay, and Capital), could end up in the hands of the Antenna group, headed by Greek businessman Theodore Kyriakou, a conservative and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. Kyriakou is also a partner in Greece of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose PIF fund holds a 30% stake in Antenna Greece BV.

When we sat down with the organizers, one of my mentors asked them, "Who are the people that can pick up the phone, call the governor, and know that, nine times out of ten, he will do whatever they ask?" This may sound like a strange question to ask, but the reality-which too many don't know and too many in power don't want revealed-is that these people exist throughout our polity at the local, state, and national levels.

Trump administration insiders and well-connected Republican businesses have been jostling to dominate pending humanitarian aid and reconstruction logistics in the shattered Gaza Strip, according to sources and documents reviewed by the Guardian. With three-quarters of Gaza's structures damaged or destroyed by two years of Israeli strikes, the rebuilding effort to come estimated at $70bn by the United Nations could be a rich prize for companies that specialize in construction, demolition, transportation and logistics.

Since mid-May, when Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Pete Rose would be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration and explained his specious reasonings behind it, last week's Hall of Fame vote by the 16-member Classic Era committee carried with it a certain air of inevitability for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, the two greatest players currently not enshrined in Cooperstown.

I bring this up because the Trump administration released a clearly Stephen Miller-authored National Security Strategy last night, and like my WWII veteran grandfather watching Band of Brothers, my brain flashed back to a darker, more traumatic time as I read it. A time filled with thousands of needless words. A time where kids exposed their birdbrains while smarmily lecturing you how they're more advanced than they prove themselves to be.

Throughout the staffing changes, Weiss has been equipped with a reported $10k-per-day security detail as she " do[es] the fucking news ." She had a bit of a viral moment earlier this week when she said that she views her position as the opportunity to shut out voices like Hasan Piker and Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes in order to elevate "normal" voices like, uh, Alan Dershowitz to debate the NRA on guns.

President Trump's second term has brought a period of turmoil and controversy unlike any in the history of the Justice Department. Trump and his appointees have blasted through the walls designed to protect the nation's most powerful law enforcement agency from political influence; they have directed the course of criminal investigations, openly flouted ethics rules and caused a breakdown of institutional culture.

The 35-member volunteer board of directors now includes notable Republican political figures Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, and Reince Priebus, who was Trump's chief of staff during his first term. Before his role in the White House, Priebus served as the longtime chair of the Republican National Committee. Diane Hendricks, a major GOP donor who has given millions to Trump's campaigns,

A former aide to New York Governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo is on trial facing charges she acted as an undisclosed agent to the Chinese government in exchange for millions of dollars in business transactions and benefits secured through Chinese officials. Sun is accused of political activities intended to influence the public on China's behalf, and committing wire and visa fraud, money laundering and other financial crimes in procuring a bounty from the Chinese government.

By the numbers: In the latest Gallup Poll released Thursday, only 49% of U.S. adults say religion is essential to their daily life, down from 66% in 2015. That decline is among the biggest measured globally since 2007. Among 38 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, a median of 36% of adults call religion important - a figure the U.S. is rapidly approaching.

Creators are also having an increasingly important political impact, with Donald Trump courting popular YouTubers and podcasters such as Joe Rogan and the Nelk Boys in the run-up to his 2024 election victory. The recent murder of activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk, and the coverage of the aftermath, reminds us of the critical role these personalities are now playing in shaping both public opinion and political narratives.

Facts are becoming less sacred by the day in Donald Trump's US, where many of his supporters now deny the very existence of truths. To them, inconvenient evidence is by definition bias. His followers and those who fear his fist are falling into line: media, universities and that infamous regiment of tech zillionaires who stood right behind him on inauguration day.

The Mamdani campaign made a payment of $28,677.57 to DSA's NYC chapter on September 15 and filled in the purpose field that the funds were for "Other: explntion / Texting." Mamdani's campaign has previously given numerous smaller payments totaling roughly $3,000 to DSA for "Fundraising / Fundraising Emails" but the September donation represents by far the largest contribution to the group since his campaign was launched. NYC-DSA has received 36 payments, totaling over $33,000 from Mamdani's campaign since early 2025.

The Department of Energy said Wednesday night it was canceling 321 awards worth $7.56 billion that were largely focused on clean energy. The agency hasn't released a list of the 223 affected projects and, at the time of publication, it had not provided one. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said one of the canceled projects included $1.2 billion for the state's hydrogen hub, the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems.