The Dictatorship

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion, accusing it of defamation

Published

4 hours ago

December 17, 2025

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion, accusing it of defamation

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.

The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

It accused the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”

The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.

The BBC said it would defend the case.

“We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” it said in a statement.

The broadcaster apologized last month to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.

BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.

The speech took place before some of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.

The BBC had broadcast the hourlong documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

Trump said earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC “for putting words in my mouth.”

“They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say, and they’re beautiful words, that I said, right?” the president said unprompted during an appearance in the Oval Office. “They’re beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said. They didn’t say that, but they put terrible words.”

The president’s lawsuit was filed in Florida. Deadlines to bring the case in British courts expired more than a year ago.

Legal experts have brought up potential challenges to a case in the U.S. given that the documentary was not shown in the country.

The lawsuit alleges that people in the U.S. can watch the BBC’s original content, including the “Panorama” series, which included the documentary, by using the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.

The 103-year-old BBC is a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by every household that watches live TV or BBC content. Bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial, it typically faces especially intense scrutiny and criticism from both conservatives and liberals.

The Dictatorship

California hires ex-CDC leaders who left under Trump

Published

4 hours ago

December 17, 2025

Blue Light Newsroom

California hires ex-CDC leaders who left under Trump

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Two former senior officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including one fired by the Trump administrationwill join California as public health consultants, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday.

Susan Monarez was fired as the CDC’s director and Dr. Debra Houry resigned as the agency’s chief medical officer and deputy director over disputes about changes at the agency. The two will work with California’s public health department to help build trust in “science-driven decision-making,” Newsom’s office said.

“We’re not just wringing our hands right now — we’re fighting back,” Newsom said at a news conference. “This is a substantive response to what is not happening in Washington.”

California has increasingly positioned itself as a counterweight to federal health policy, and Newsom has amped up his criticisms of President Donald Trump and challenged the Republican’s policies in court. The governor’s final term ends in just over a year, and he’s gearing up for a possible presidential run in 2028.

California joined Washington and Oregon — two other states with Democratic governors — to launch an alliance in September to establish their own public health guidance and vaccine recommendations, as the Trump administration makes sweeping changes to vaccine and health policy.

California state Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican, said the initiative announced Monday is an example of Newsom prioritizing his national political ambitions over the state.

Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.

Follow on

“California has serious problems, and we need serious solutions from a serious leader,” Strickland said in a statement.

The White House and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to emails seeking comment on the Monarez and Houry hirings.

Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have repeated falsehoods about vaccines, and the administration has given health recommendations this year that experts say were not backed by science.

Trump in September urged pregnant women not to take Tylenolsaying it could pose a risk of autism to their babies, remarks medical experts said were irresponsible. The CDC website was changed last month to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. A federal vaccine advisory panel voted earlier this month to reverse decades-old guidance recommending that all U.S. babies get immunized against the liver infection hepatitis B on the day they’re born. The vaccine is credited with preventing thousands of illnesses.

Monareza former director of a federal biomedical research agency, was named acting director of the CDC in January. Trump later nominated her to serve as director. She was confirmed by the Senate in July, making her the first nonphysician to serve in the role. But she was fired by the Trump administration in August after less than a month in the post.

Kennedy has said Monarez was fired after she told him she was untrustworthy. But Monarez said that was false in congressional testimony and that she was fired after refusing to endorse new vaccine recommendations that weren’t backed by science.

Monarez, in her new role, will advise California on advancing health technologies, state officials said at the news conference.

“California is leading the way to no longer sit on the sidelines and hope for a better future,” Monarez said. “California is investing and innovating now to build the public health systems that will protect lives, strengthen communities and create a future in which all Californians can thrive.”

Houry, who spent more than a decade at the CDC, was among a handful of top officials at the agency who resigned around the time Monarez was fired. Houry said in August she was concerned about the rise of vaccine misinformation during the Trump administration, as well as planned budget cuts, reorganization and firings at the CDC.

Houry, who will serve as a regional and global public health adviser as part of the California initiative, said the effort will “serve as a model for how states can lead together in an era of shifting federal priorities, constrained resources and evolving health threats.”

___

Associated Press writer Trân Nguyễn contributed.

The Dictatorship

NYC getting first 3 Vegas-style casinos…

Published

13 hours ago

December 17, 2025

Blue Light Newsroom

NYC getting first 3 Vegas-style casinos…

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Mets’ ballpark in Queens. A Bronx golf course once operated by President Donald Trump ’s company. A slot parlor on a horse racing track near John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The three disparate sites, located far from the tourist hub of Manhattan, will become the future homes of New York City’s first Las Vegas-style resort casinos.

The state Gaming Commission on Monday awarded the three projects licenses to operate in the lucrative metropolitan-area market during a meeting at a riverside park in upper Manhattan.

The panel approved the licenses with the condition that the companies each appoint an outside monitor that would report regularly to the commission to ensure they meet their financial and legal obligations, as well as the promised investments they made to local communities.

Brian O’Dwyer, the commission’s chair, said the state looked forward to the promise of jobs, infrastructure improvements and gaming revenue being realized.

“You all have an important charge ahead of you, and you can be assured that this commission takes our responsibility to keep your feet to the fire with great respect,” he said to the project representatives in attendance.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement the projects would pump billions of dollars into the state’s transit and education systems and create tens of thousands of jobs.

Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.

Follow on

But a handful of protesters opposed to billionaire Mets owner Steve Cohen’s Hard Rock plan vowed to continue their fight in court. They and other casino opponents worry the projects will only increase gambling addiction.

“You picked a billionaire over New Yorkers! Shame on you!” the group shouted as they walked out of the meeting.

Cohen and Hard Rock’s proposal calls for an $8.1 billion casino complex on a parking lot next to the Mets’ Citi Field that would include a performance venue, hotel and retail space.

Bally’s has proposed a roughly $4 billion casino at the Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx that would include a hotel, event center, meeting spaces, restaurants and other amenities.

And Resorts World has proposed investing more than $5 billion to expand its slots parlor at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens into a full casino with a hotel, dining and entertainment options.

The projects bested several other proposals that fell by the wayside during the high-stakes competition.

Among them were three casinos proposed for Manhattan that were rejected by local boards, including a Caesars Palace in the heart of Times Square backed by rapper Jay-Z. A plan for a resort on Coney Island’s iconic boardwalk in Brooklyn was also defeated by local opposition, and MGM abruptly pulled out of the once-crowded sweepstakes, despite local support.

The state gaming commission was authorized to license up to three casinos in the New York City area after voters approved a referendum in 2013 opening the door to casino gambling statewide.

Four full casinosall upstate, now offer table games. The state also runs nine gambling halls without live table games, many of them also miles away from Manhattan.

Monday’s decision, in some ways, was largely a formality. Millions of dollars in gambling revenues are already factored into the state budget.

A state panel charged with vetting the proposals for the commission also recommended awarding a license to all three remaining proposals earlier this month.

The Gaming Facility Location Board, in its written decisionargued that the region’s dense and relatively affluent population, combined with high tourism, would be able to support all three plans, despite their relative proximity to each other.

The panel said its consultants conservatively estimated the casinos would generate a combined $7 billion in gambling tax revenues from 2027 to 2036, plus $1.5 billion in licensing fees and nearly $6 billion in state and local taxes.

Monday’s decision also means Trump could stand to claim a substantial prize. When Bally’s purchased operating rights for the city-owned Ferry Point golf course from the Trump Organization in 2023, it agreed to pony up an additional $115 million if it won a casino license.

Spokespersons for the Trump Organization didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Monday on the expected windfall.

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

The Dictatorship

How anti-Israel rhetoric contributes to antisemitism and real-world violence

Published

15 hours ago

December 17, 2025

Blue Light Newsroom

How anti-Israel rhetoric contributes to antisemitism and real-world violence

Dec. 16, 2025, 6:43 PM EST

On Sunday, hundreds of Australian Jews gathered, as Jews have done for millennia, to light the Menorah on the first night of Hanukkah. At the same time, two armed men engaged in another historic custom: targeting Jews because they are Jews. Fifteen people were killed in the massacre at Bondi Beach, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.

For Australia’s small but vibrant Jewish communities, this weekend’s tragedy was horrifying but, on some level, hardly surprising. Since the massacre of more than 1,000 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents in Australia have increased fivefold. Indeed, only two days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, a demonstration outside the world-famous Sydney Opera House led to chants of “F— the Jews.”

Since then, the litany of antisemitic incidents in the land Down Under will be all too familiar to Diaspora Jewish communities around the world.

For Australia’s small but vibrant Jewish communities, this weekend’s tragedy was horrifying but hardly surprising.

A synagogue was burned to the ground. Kosher restaurants were vandalized. Protests were launched at Jewish restaurants. A Jewish educational institution was spray-painted with antisemitic epithets, and swastikas showed up on the walls of local synagogues. That this unending cycle of intimidation, threats and provocation would eventually lead to violence should be a surprise to no one.

Indeed, why in the two years since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust are Jewish communities in New York City, Manchester London TorontoLos Angeles and Amsterdam under siege?

First, for more than two years, many anti-Israel activists have preached a message of “globalize the intifada” or “intifada revolution” and “from the river to the seaPalestine will be free” — a statement that negates the existence of Israel. They’ve spoken of a “global struggle against Zionism,” be it in Israel or New York or Sydney.

Israel’s detractors will argue that such rhetoric is not antisemitism or even inflammatory. They will parse their language and claim that calls for an intifada are merely a demand that opposition to Israel should be globalized and that Western countries must end their support for Israel.

But the second intifada in Israel was a suicide bombing campaign that directly targeted Israeli civilians. Restaurants and nightclubs were attacked. A Passover Seder was targeted. Buses were destroyed. Thousands were killed and maimed.

Raising the specter of intifada and then arguing that such words do not provide a permission structure to those intent on violence is willful blindness.

The events at Bondi Beach were merely a logical extension of this inflammatory rhetoric — and as this language becomes normalized, the threats to Jews everywhere only increase.

Second, many pro-Palestine activists simply make no distinction between Israeli Jews waging war in Gaza and Jews in Diaspora communities around the world. For them, if you’re a Zionist (and the overwhelming majority of Jews identify as such), you are as guilty as the Israel Defense Force soldiers fighting in Gaza.

It’s why pro-Palestinian activists recently gathered outside a synagogue in New York’s Upper East Side, because of an event with an Israeli organization called Nefesh B’Nefesh that provides information to Jews interested in moving to Israel. Protesters claimed that the event was aimed at encouraging Jews to move to West Bank settlements, a claim that Nefesh B’Nefesh denies. But even if the protesters were correct, how does that justify chants such as “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” “Take another settler out” or “We need to make them scared”? And the city’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who has refused to condemn the term “globalize the intifada,” took great care to equally blame both those outside shouting antisemitic slogans and threatening congregants and those inside the synagogue.

Raising the specter of intifada and then arguing that such words do not provide a permission structure to those intent on violence is willful blindness.

It’s why any Jew who refuses to condemn Israel or deny their religious, cultural or tribal connection to the Jewish State will inevitably, at some point, be branded a supporter of genocide (and for those who don’t believe me, I invite them to check out my Twitter feed after this piece is published).

Whatever one’s view is on the war in Gaza, simply because one is Jewish, simply because one is a Zionist and simply because one feels a connection to Israel, does not make one culpable for Israel’s actions. But for many of the most radical voices in the pro-Palestinian activist community, a Jew believing that Jews should have the same right to self-determination as any other ethnic group is a scarlet letter.

It’s why antisemitic incidents have not just increased in Australia but practically everywhere Jews live. And it’s why Diaspora Jews feel increasingly under siege.

One might expect sympathy over this calamitous turn of events — and the vulnerability of minority Jewish communities — but instead, the opposite is true.

Indeed, for months Australia’s Jewish community warned about the increase in antisemitic incidents and potential for violence. They beseeched the government to take the issue more seriously. But to no avail.

Are American Jews at a similar inflection point? Polls routinely show that an overwhelming majority of American Jews feel less safe, particularly as antisemitic incidents continue to rise. Earlier this week, a Jewish man was allegedy attacked by two men on a crowded New York subwayshouting “F*** the Jews.” Antisemitic incidents in the city have dramatically increased since Oct. 7. But there are more subtle forms of antisemitism from the left that are growing increasingly mainstream.

Earlier this fall, the progressive hosts of “Pod Save America” gathered in Washington for their annual conference and included Hasan Piker as a speaker. Piker has, over the past two yearsroutinely attacked Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” denied that Israelis were sexually assaulted on Oct. 7 and suggested Zionism was synonymous with Nazism. If Piker had made similar derogatory comments about other members of a minority group or excused terrorism by those who target non-Israelis, it’s impossible to imagine a liberal-leaning group platforming him. But as Jews have learned since Oct. 7, the rules for them are different.

After the shooting at Bondi Beach, both Democratic and Republican politicians quickly condemned the tragedy and piously declared that antisemitism is bad and has no place in our society. These declarations have become the Jewish equivalent of “thoughts and prayers” after the latest mass shooting.

They are a tool for ritualistically condemning antisemitism without actually confronting the anti-Jewish hatred that increasingly finds a home within each political party and is particularly potent among young people.

Without action, without direct condemnation and the ostracizing of those who traffic in antisemitism — and without a recognition that a good amount of anti-Israeli rhetoric has morphed into anti-Jewish hatred — the bloodshed at Bondi Beach will be repeated. But next time, it could be much closer to home.

Michael Cohen is an BLN columnist. He is also the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast That ‘70s Movie Podcast.