AFP USA

The Washington Post will no longer run views opposed to “personal liberties and free markets” on its opinion pages, owner Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday, the billionaire’s latest intervention in the major US paper’s editorial operations.The move, a major break from the norm at the Post and at most credible news media organizations worldwide, comes as US media face increasing threats to their freedom and accusations of bias from President Donald Trump.”We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” wrote Bezos on social media platform X.”We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”Bezos said the US capital’s premier daily did not have to provide opposing views because “the internet does that job.””If this was a regular news environment we might just raise our eyebrows at this, but this is happening at a time of unprecedented pressures for journalists working in the United States,” said Katherine Jacobsen of rights watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In October, Bezos sparked controversy by blocking the Post’s planned endorsement of Democratic vice president Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, triggering newsroom protests and subscriber cancellations.And in January, an award-winning political cartoonist for the newspaper announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting Bezos groveling before Trump was rejected.At the time, editorial page editor David Shipley defended the decision, saying it was made to avoid repeated coverage on the same topic.On Wednesday, Bezos announced Shipley would be leaving his post because he had not signed on to the new opinion pages policy.”I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no,'” said Bezos.Other Post staffers also expressed their concern.”Massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section today — makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there,” Jeff Stein, the paper’s chief economics correspondent, wrote on X.Stein added that he had “not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately.”Amazon owner and world’s third-richest man Bezos, along with other US tech moguls, have appeared increasingly close to Trump since his election last year.Bezos was among a group of tech billionaires who were given prime positions at Trump’s inauguration, and he visited the Republican at his Mar-a-Lago estate during the transition period.CPJ has documented “how ownership of media companies in countries such as Hungary and Russia has really had an impact on press freedom,” the committee’s Jacobsen cautioned.”We would do well in the US to look at countries like that to see what happens when perhaps too much interest is given to owner interest versus serving the public good.”

The US Supreme Court appeared likely to rule in favor on Wednesday of an Ohio woman who claims she was the victim of “reverse discrimination” because she was passed over twice for jobs for candidates who were gay.Marlean Ames, 60, an employee of the Ohio Department of Youth Services, is asking the court to revive a lawsuit she filed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act which bars discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.The case comes at a time when President Donald Trump and a number of major corporations are rolling back diversity and inclusion programs intended to combat systemic inequalities faced by minorities.America First Legal Foundation, a group founded by Stephen Miller, who is now the White House deputy chief of staff, filed a brief with the court in support of Ames, a straight white woman.Ames, a heterosexual woman, is arguing against lower court decisions that rejected her discrimination suit on the basis of precedent that members of majority groups must meet a higher bar for proving workplace bias than minorities.In its ruling, the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said Ames had not established “background circumstances” showing that the state agency is “that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”The requirement that she present “background circumstances” is unconstitutional and being unfairly applied only to members of majority groups bringing job discrimination cases, Ames said.A majority of the justices on the Supreme Court, both conservatives and liberals, appeared sympathetic to the arguments made by Ames’s lawyer, Xiao Wang.”We’re in radical agreement today,” quipped Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the six conservatives on the bench.- ‘Equal justice under law’ -Addressing Wang, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, said: “So all you want for this case is a really short opinion that says discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, whether it’s because you’re gay or because you’re straight, is prohibited?” “That’s right, your honor,” said Wang.Ames was simply seeking “four words on the side of this building — equal justice under law,” he said.”At bottom, all Ms Ames is asking for is equal justice under law, not more justice, but certainly not less, and certainly not less because of the color of her skin or because of her sex or because of her religion,” Wang added.Elliot Gaiser, the solicitor general of Ohio, arguing on behalf of the midwestern state, rejected Ames’s claims that she failed to get promotions because she was heterosexual.”She could not establish that anybody was motivated by sexual orientation or even knew her sexual orientation,” Gaiser said, or that they knew the sexual orientation of the people who obtained the jobs she was seeking.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three liberals on the nine-member court, said there was “something suspicious” about the hirings that can “give rise to an inference of discrimination.””She was a 20-year employee, great reviews, and then all of a sudden, she’s not hired, and someone’s hired who’s gay, doesn’t have her level of college experience, and didn’t even want the job,” Sotomayor said.The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its ruling in the case this summer.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration aims to cut around 65 percent of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency, a key regulatory body that works on a range of areas, including climate change.”I spoke with Lee Zeldin and he thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental,” he said, referring to the EPA administrator. The agency currently employs more than 17,000 people, of the roughly two million total US federal workforce.Trump has made slashing the size of the federal government a key priority in his first days in office, tasking Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, with aiding that effort as well as cutting government spending.The Republican ran on a platform that promised to curb environmental protection regulations, specifically those related to climate change, in order to increase economic growth.He has called climate change a “scam,” and pulled Washington out of the landmark Paris Agreement for a second time on his first day back in office.Since then, he has declared a “national energy emergency” to expand domestic oil drilling, and signed executive orders to slow the transition to electric vehicles and halt offshore wind farm projects.Zeldin, a former US congressman from New York, has committed to delivering Trump’s campaign promises, although he acknowledged last month that man-made climate change was “real.”He has said he would prioritize the EPA’s role in ensuring clean water and air, but appears set to roll back a host of other environmental regulations.”The EPA is going to aggressively pursue an agenda powering the Great American Comeback… that’s our purpose,” he said earlier this month.The new EPA administrator has appeared to embrace Musk’s government spending cut efforts, announcing on Tuesday that the agency had slashed $60 million in grants that were funding “wasteful DEI and environmental justice programs,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.Most scientists agree that climate change currently underway differs from natural cycles of the past. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is indisputably attributable to human activity, and in particular to the burning of fossil fuels, especially since the end of the 19th century.

US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced Wednesday that it will build four additional new manufacturing sites in the United States in a committment designed to influence upcoming Trump administration decisions on trade and other issues.The drugmaker, which is in growth mode thanks partly to the success of anti-obesity drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, expects to add more than 3,000 jobs at the four sites as it committed to tens of billions of dollars in additional investment.Chief Executive David Ricks said in a statement the boosted capital spending underscores the company’s “optimism about the potential of our pipeline” and determination to “stay ahead of anticipated demand for safe, high-quality, FDA-approved medicines of the future.”The move, announced at a Washington news conference, comes as Trump proceeds with a deluge of tariff actions and proposed tax cut extensions designed to incentivize global companies to invest in the United States. Trump’s administration is also undertaking deep job cuts across the US regulatory universe that could affect such processes as the application for new drugs.The company’s press release described Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cut as “foundational to Lilly’s domestic manufacturing investments,” adding that “it is essential that these policies are extended this year.”In an interview with CNBC, Ricks said he would call on the Trump administration to address lengthy permitting times to build new facilities due to onerous requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration.Ricks also aims to influence the “contours” of Trump’s trade policy, saying “it makes no sense to punish companies that are pursuing this agenda with the administration and on behalf of the American people.”Wednesday’s announcement will raise Lilly’s domestic capital expansion commitment to $50 billion from $23 billion previously committed between 2020 and 2024 to construct or expand sites in the states of North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin.The company is “currently in negotiations with several states and welcomes additional interest by  March 12, 2025,” said a press release that included a link to express interest online.Shares of Lilly rose 1.7 percent shortly after midday.

Online retail behemoth Amazon on Wednesday announced a new version of its Alexa voice assistant that is powered by generative artificial intelligence, giving the device more human-like qualities.”I’m not just an assistant. I’m your new best friend in the digital world,” Alexa Plus told the audience at a New York launch event.The upgrade comes amid fierce competition in the AI assistant market. Microsoft now offers an audio version of Copilot, Google has launched its Gemini AI, and Apple continues working to enhance Siri with generative AI capabilities.Though the market leaders, Alexa and Siri have been struggling to deliver more intuitive interactions and the companies have long promised increased performance with the use of generative AI. The rollout comes as tech giants including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI are investing billions in AI development despite uncertain returns.The tech juggernauts are trying to expand the everyday use of AI, and Amazon can count on a base of over 600 million installed devices already equipped with its 10-year-old service.Panos Panay, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, said that Alexa Plus opens a new age for voice devices.”Until this moment… we have been limited by technology,” Panay, a former Microsoft executive, said at the event.For now Alexa is mostly used for relatively simple tasks, such as playing music, giving the weather forecast or turning on the lights in a room. Alexa Plus’s capabilities are closer to that of a virtual agent, capable of performing actions on command.This launch is “taking AI to the masses,” said analyst Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight, adding that there was “a lot riding on this revamp.” “The biggest question is whether users are ready, given their early experiences and concerns around security and trust. These factors still remain huge barriers to wider adoption,” he added.Demonstrations at the event showed Alexa Plus performing tasks like booking concert tickets, sending text messages, planning trips, updating shared calendars, and even analyzing security camera footage to determine if someone had walked the dog.Benefiting from the new functionalities of generative AI, Alexa Plus can create, at a child’s request, a made up story with the characters of his or her choice, or produce a song in tribute to a pet.In one showcase, the assistant composed and performed a song about a cat using Suno, a music generation service currently facing lawsuits from major music labels.The new offering includes access through Alexa.com and a dedicated phone app, allowing users to upload documents for feedback similar to ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Alexa Plus will launch in the United States in April for $19.99 monthly, with free access for Amazon Prime subscribers.

The Washington Post will no longer run views opposed to “personal liberties and free markets” on its opinion pages, its owner Jeff Bezos announced on Wednesday, the latest intervention by the billionaire in the major US paper’s editorial operations.”We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” wrote Bezos on social media platform X.”We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”The move, a major break from the norm on opinion pages at the Post and at most credible news media organizations worldwide, comes as US media face increasing threats to their freedom and accusations of bias from President Donald Trump.In October, Bezos sparked controversy by blocking the Post’s planned endorsement of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, triggering newsroom protests and subscriber cancellations.And in January, an award-winning political cartoonist for the newspaper announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting Bezos groveling before Trump was rejected. At the time, editorial page editor David Shipley defended the decision, saying it was made to avoid repeated coverage on the same topic.On Wednesday, Bezos announced Shipley would be leaving his post because he had not signed on to the new opinion pages policy.”I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no,'” said Bezos.Other Post staffers also expressed their concern.”Massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section today — makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there,” said Jeff Stein, the paper’s chief economics correspondent, on X.Stein added that he had “not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately.”Amazon owner and world’s third-richest man Bezos, along with other US tech moguls, have appeared increasingly close to Trump since his election last year.Bezos was among a group of tech billionaires who were given prime positions at Trump’s inauguration, and he visited the Republican at his Mar-a-Lago estate during the transition period.In his post on Wednesday, Bezos said the Post did not have to provide opposing views because “the internet does that job.”

Sales of new US homes slumped more than expected in January, government data showed Wednesday, with cold weather and stubborn cost-of-living pressures weighing on buyers as Donald Trump returned to office.New home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 657,000, 10.5 percent down from December’s revised level of 734,000.This was significantly lower than the 681,000 figure a Briefing.com consensus of analysts expected, as bad weather kept potential homebuyers home and mortgage rates remained elevated.Sales of new properties have been helped in recent years as existing homeowners have been reluctant to enter the market with interest rates high.This has pushed some buyers towards new properties — new home sales hit their highest in three years in 2024.But there are risks to sales and residential investment this year, noted Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, in a note.This is due to “high mortgage rates, potential for tariffs on imported building materials from Canada and Mexico along with potential labor supply issues stemming from the Trump administration’s immigration policies,” he noted.On the upside, inventories are not an issue, Sweet said, adding that builders could still boost sales via incentives.The Federal Reserve rapidly lifted the benchmark lending rate in 2022 to curb surging inflation but has since started to cautiously lower it.In January, the median sales cost for new houses was $446,300, a pick-up from December’s figure and the highest in more than two years.Demand for new homes appears to be flagging, analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a recent note.”Sales likely were also weighed down by the weather; last month was the coldest January since 1988,” Pantheon added.

After last year’s Oscars gala wowed viewers with a glitzy, star-studded “I’m Just Ken” karaoke, the producers of Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony knew exactly where to turn for this year’s showstopping musical moment.The pink hues of “Barbie” will be swapped for the pink (and green) colors of “Wicked,” the smash-hit movie version of the Broadway show that is up for 10 Oscars, including best picture.”Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will be on our stage — it’s going to be a moment,” Oscars executive producer and showrunner Raj Kapoor told AFP.”With ‘I’m Just Ken,’ I feel like every celebrity was singing along, so it’d be great to have that energy again this year,” added executive producer Katy Mullan.The producers have not revealed which hits will be featured, although safe bets for any “Wicked” medley would include Erivo belting out “Defying Gravity,” and Grande delivering the bubbly “Popular.”The songs from “Wicked” are so well-known and beloved by Hollywood attendees that “our biggest challenge” will be to stop the A-listers in the aisles drowning out the onstage talent, Mullan joked.”But, I mean, we encouraged it last year. We should probably encourage it again,” she said.This year’s musical lineup has drawn some controversy.As the “Wicked” songs were not written specifically for the film, they were not eligible for the best original song Oscar.In recent years, all the nominated songs have been performed on Oscars night.But this year, Kapoor said producers had “opened up the potential for different music performances.”Best song nominee Diane Warren has called the move “extremely disrespectful.”But Kapoor said nominated songwriters will instead be honored with a “really beautiful” video montage.”This is the 97th year already of the Oscars, so a little change is good,” he added.- Conan, firefighters -Following back-to-back stints by Jimmy Kimmel, fellow late-night comedian Conan O’Brien will take over hosting duties on Sunday.”Having Conan, it’s this whole new world of discovery… We are re-energized. We’re recharged. We’re refocused in a different way. Because Conan wants to do things a little differently,” said Kapoor.Though always carefully stage managed, recent Oscars galas have been hit with twists, like “La La Land” incorrectly being announced as best picture in 2017, or Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage in 2022.”Whatever happens in that room that evening, I think Conan is… going to be able to react to it,” said Kapoor. Firefighters have been VIP guests at Hollywood awards shows all season, and the Oscars will be no different. The night will salute all the first responders who tackled the devastating recent Los Angeles fires, while also honoring the resilience of the city itself.Kapoor promised a “really touching moment” that will celebrate “this city we love, and what happened to it earlier this year,” including to Los Angeles’s vast filmmaking community.As part of an overall theme of collaboration, the show will feature “moments of behind-the-scenes” from movies that will highlight everyone “from the people who build it with their hands, to the people who have the vision, like a director or a production designer,” said Mullan.- Chalamet -Like the award winners themselves, many elements of the show remain under wraps.But that has not stopped frenzied speculation.Other musical performers announced so far include Doja Cat, Queen Latifah, Raye and K-pop sensation Lisa from the band Blackpink.Will there be any further musical surprises? Perhaps best actor nominee Timothee Chalamet, who portrayed Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” will pick up a guitar alongside a certain folk music legend?”We really tried to make that happen! If you can get to Bob, we would love for that to happen!” said Kapoor, laughing.The Oscars begin on Sunday at 4:00 pm (0000 GMT Monday), and will be broadcast on ABC and Hulu.

US President Donald Trump holds his first cabinet meeting Wednesday, joined by billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who is in charge of radically downsizing the US government and wields more power than anyone else in Trump’s inner circle.Musk is not part of the cabinet and did not have to go through Senate confirmation.Yet as the force behind his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the Tesla and SpaceX chief has been given a free hand to enact unprecedented — and brutally abrupt — cuts to government programs and staffing.His presence at the formal White House meeting alongside Trump’s actual department heads follows signs of growing tension within the government over his dominance.Trump downplayed this shortly before the meeting, posting on his social media platform: “ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON.””The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!” Trump wrote.The cabinet meeting will be a chance for Trump to tout the dramatic start to his second term, while flanked by aides openly chosen in many cases for their lavish declarations of loyalty.Many of these top figures were successfully confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate despite unusually extensive questions over their experience or behavior.Among the most contentious are Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has a history of backing Kremlin talking points, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has faced allegations of sexual assault.Trump’s Republican Party holds a narrow majority in the Senate, and the refusal of more than a couple Senators to vote against Trump’s picks shows his iron grip on the party, where dissenters have largely quit or been cowed.Former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican dissenter to Kennedy’s confirmation as health secretary, an appointment that caused alarm among the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and vows to suspend research on infectious diseases.And in a situation with no real parallel in modern US history, all of these powerful officials are overshadowed by Musk, who helped bankroll Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.While classified as a mere “special government employee” and “senior adviser to the president,” the South African-born tycoon is seen more often at Trump’s side than Vice President JD Vance or even First Lady Melania Trump.As owner of the X social media platform and a key leader in the US space program, his influence percolates through almost every corner of current Washington politics.However, Musk has faced some pushback to his slash-and-burn methods that have already seen the gutting of the USAID humanitarian aid department, mass layoffs, and menacing emails sent to all federal employees asking them to justify their jobs.Government departments on Monday largely told staff to either ignore the latest email or downplayed the risks of not answering it. According to US media reports, senior officials across the government have expressed frustration and anger over what they see as interference in their agencies.

US President Donald Trump, furious over a disparaging new tell-all book about him, threatened Wednesday to sue authors and media outlets that use anonymous sources.Trump has made suing people an integral part of his brand as he made his way up from New York real estate mogul to the US presidency twice, and this time he is taking aim at the common practice of books and news stories using unnamed sources.Trump is also famously contemptuous of mainstream media in America, which he routinely labels the “fake news” media.His latest move comes after the publication of a new expose by journalist Michael Wolff that has Trump and his team livid.Among other assertions the book says that after surviving an assassination attempt last summer during the election campaign, Trump “seemed possibly on the verge of cracking,” unable to finish sentences and flying into rages that were stunning even for the famously thin-skinned former reality TV star.In a social media post Trump said that after what he called his wildly successful first month back in power, “Fake books and stories” with anonymous sources are coming out and “at some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers” to determine if these sources exist, “which they largely do not.”Trump added: “They are made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty. I’ll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!The new book by Wolff — he had a bestseller that came out in 2018 called “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” — among other bombshell claims also quotes a Mar-a-Lago source as saying Trump’s wife Melania hates him.The Trump White House is skirmishing early and often with the news media as the president presses relentlessly his hard-right agenda targeting immigrants and gutting the federal government through the free-wheeling work of billionaire Elon Musk, an adviser with an outsize role in Trump’s so far very busy second term.On Tuesday the administration broke decades of tradition by announcing that the White House itself would pick which media get close access to the president in confined quarters like the Oval Office as part of what is known as a press pool.Until now an independent association of American media organizations covering the White House made this selection.