AFP USA

From the unproven medical claims to the self-proclaimed expertise, anyone watching Donald Trump’s autism announcements Monday could have been forgiven for having flashbacks.There were strong echoes of the US president’s pandemic performance during his first term, when he once famously mused about injecting disinfectant to counter Covid.Five years later, the Republican’s claims were almost as eye-popping.And with the health of millions at stake as he urged pregnant women not to take the painkiller Tylenol — before expounding his theories on vaccines — the stakes were just as high.”There’s a rumor — and I don’t know if it’s so or not — that Cuba, they don’t have Tylenol because they don’t have the money for Tylenol. And they have virtually no autism,” Trump said at the White House.It was perhaps the most outrageous of the claims Trump made during a more than hour-long press conference attended by an AFP reporter — but it was far from the last.”The Amish, as an example. They have essentially no autism,” Trump said of the traditionalist people, known for their horse-drawn carts and rejection of modern technology.Turning to his vaccine-skeptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, as he asked whether that was actually true, Trump added: “Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says. I’m not so careful with what I say.”Time and again the 79-year-old Trump admitted that his personal theories were just that — theories — even as he cast himself in the role of America’s physician-in-chief.”This is based on what I feel,” said Trump as he repeated long debunked concerns over the MMR shot combining vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella.Trump also urged further spacing for childhood vaccines that have been the cornerstone of public health programs around the world for decades — before adding: “I’m not a doctor but I’m giving my opinion.”- ‘Tough it out’ -The billionaire former reality TV star has long made his name challenging the conventional wisdom on politics and diplomacy, and it has won him two elections.But it is on health where his views have often veered furthest from the mainstream. During the Covid pandemic Trump repeatedly resisted lockdowns and masking measures, while throwing his weight behind unproven drugs like hydroxychloroquine.He was widely mocked when, during one of his many freewheeling White House briefings on Covid in 2020, he gave some increasingly bizarre suggestions about how to treat the disease.Trump mused about bringing “light inside the body” — and disinfectant.”I see the disinfectant, it knocks it out in a minute… is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside,” he asked a bemused expert.During his second term, Trump’s pick of Kennedy as his health secretary has brought once fringe medical ideas into the heart of the government.Trump himself says he has long been preoccupied with autism, and showed supreme confidence in his views on Monday — even as he struggled to pronounce “acetaminophen,” or paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol.”Don’t take it,” Trump said repeatedly.He urged pregnant women in pain to avoid the drug and “tough it out,” but had few answers for what they should do for fevers that could harm them or their babies.Veering off on the subject of vaccines, Trump also had his own theories.He insisted that children should not be vaccinated against Hepatitis B until the age of 12, versus soon after birth, saying: “Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B.”Trump added that children were being loaded up with “too much liquid” while being innoculated against potentially fatal diseases — repeating a frequent anti-vaccine talking point.”They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace,” he said. “It looks like they’re pumping into a horse.”

US President Donald Trump will denounce “globalist institutions” in his first United Nations address since returning to the White House and also meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky against a backdrop of mounting tension with Russia.Trump will speak from the UN General Assembly rostrum for the first time since his political comeback as he tears down decades of US participation in international organizations.Opening the annual summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that aid cuts led by the United States were “wreaking havoc” in the world.”What kind of world will we choose? A world of raw power — or a world of laws?” Guterres said.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would be touting “renewal of American strength around the world” and will describe “how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order.”Trump’s second term has opened with a blaze of nationalist policies curbing cooperation with the rest of the world.He has moved to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization and the UN climate body, severely curtailed US development assistance and wielded sanctions against foreign judges over rulings he sees as violating sovereignty.- New talks with Zelensky -Trump will meet Zelensky for the second time since he sat down in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 — a summit that broke Moscow’s isolation in the West but yielded no breakthrough on Ukraine.Despite Trump’s insistence that he can broker a quick end to the war, Russia has not only kept up its barrage of attacks on Ukraine in the past month but rattled nerves with drone or air incursions in NATO members Poland, Estonia and Romania.Trump said last week that Putin had “really let me down.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a television interview Tuesday, said that Trump was still considering imposing sanctions on Russia but also wanted Europe to take action by buying less oil.”We’re the only ones that can talk to Ukraine and Russia, and everyone’s encouraged us to play that role,” Rubio told NBC News.”At some point that role might end. As you can see, the President’s already repeatedly expressed his deep disappointment at the direction that Putin is taking this, even after Alaska,” he said.A UN report released Tuesday found that Russian authorities have tortured civilian detainees in Ukrainian areas Moscow occupies, including sexual violence, in a “widespread and systematic manner.”Zelensky will again need to tread carefully with Trump, who — along with Vice President JD Vance — berated the wartime leader in an explosive February 28 meeting at the White House, calling him ungrateful for billions of dollars in US military assistance.- New York telecoms plot -The annual UN gathering goes on all week, but Trump, who first made his name in New York real estate, is spending barely a day in the city. One of Trump’s few other one-on-one meetings will be with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, an ideological ally to whose government the United States is considering offering an economic lifeline.Ahead of his visit to the UN district, now swarming with heavily armed police and agents and crisscrossed with barricades and road closures, the US Secret Service said they had disrupted a “telecommunications-related” plot.The Secret Service said it “dismantled a network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior US government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations.”The statement said that “nation-state threat actors” were involved.Trump’s appearance comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron led a group of Western allies of the United States in recognizing a Palestinian state, a historic but largely symbolic step strongly opposed by Israel.The United States and Israel both shunned the special session.

High-skilled migrants are vital for the US economy, the OECD’s chief economist told AFP, after the United States imposed a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas widely used by the tech industry.Alvaro Pereira, who is leaving his post after being named governor of Portugal’s central bank, spoke to AFP as the Paris-based organisation released an updated outlook for the world economy.The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a 38-member grouping of wealthy nations, upgraded the forecast to 3.2 percent growth in 2025, up from 2.9 percent in its last report in June.The OECD said the economy “proved more resilient than anticipated” in the first half of the year as companies rushed to import goods before US President Donald Trump’s tariffs took effect.It also raised the US growth outlook from 1.6 percent to 1.8 percent but warned it was expected to slow as higher tariffs start to bite.The OECD said cuts in the US federal workforce and Trump’s crackdown on immigration would also soften growth.”There’s obviously less labour growth and less labour growth means that obviously this will impact total GDP,” Pereira told AFP.He noted that the report was written before the new H-1B visa fee rule came into force over the weekend.”We do think that continuing to attract high-skilled individuals from the United States or from around the world is a key strength of the US economy,” Pereira said.”This will only become exacerbated with the AI boom, because basically there’s significant labour shortages in the ICT (information and communication technology) sector.”H-1B visas allow companies to sponsor foreign workers with specialised skills — such as scientists, engineers and computer programmers — to work in the US, initially for three years but extendable to six.Such visas are widely used by the tech industry. Indian nationals account for nearly three-quarters of the permits allotted via lottery system each year.The US and Germany are the two OECD countries with the highest labour shortage in the ICT sector, Pereira said.- Tariff impact taking ‘longer’ -The OECD report said the impact of Trump’s tariffs had been mitigated by companies “front-loading” — importing goods before the levies came into force.”The impact of tariffs is taking longer to reach the economy,” Pereira said.”A lot of firms decided to act and export a stockpile (to) the United States … to avoid the tariffs.” But he warned that the OECD was already seeing “less growth and more inflation” than expected.”Usually when the world economy is doing really well, it’s growing around four percent, so were far away from that,” he said.

Stock markets diverged Tuesday as traders monitored key economic indicators, with US inflation data due later this week that could influence Federal Reserve policy.Paris, Frankfurt and London equities rose as investors digested purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data — a closely watched gauge of economic health. The index showed eurozone business activity hit a 16-month high in September, partly driven by solid growth in Germany, while France weighed on performance.Britain’s reading came in below expectations, suggesting the economy is losing momentum, analysts noted.Gold pushed to another all-time high and the dollar steadied. Oil prices rose around one percent after the OECD on Tuesday raised its forecast for world economic growth this year. In focus is Friday’s report on US personal consumption expenditures, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation. Markets expect two further interest rate cuts by the Fed by the end of the year as officials aim to shore up the stuttering labour market despite elevated inflation. With trade subdued by a holiday in Japan and an approaching typhoon in Hong Kong, Asian markets mostly drifted.Hong Kong and Shanghai both closed lower. Taipei jumped more than one percent, with chip titan TSMC soaring over three percent as it tracked US counterpart Nvidia, which announced a $100 billion investment in OpenAI for next-generation artificial intelligence.A rise in tech giants helped lift major Wall Street indices to fresh highs on Monday.However, there are growing worries that the surge may have gone too far and markets are due a pullback with eyes on a possible government shutdown in Washington.”Equity indices are soaring even as the real (US) economy shows signs of strain,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.”For now, optimism around AI-driven growth and record levels of investment is keeping momentum alive, but the balancing act is precarious,” he added.Elsewhere, investors will keep an eye on an expected meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei at the UN General Assembly. The US Treasury said Monday it stood ready to “do what is needed” to support Argentina’s economy, which has faced a plunge in the peso, stocks and bonds. Financial markets have been rattled by recent provincial election defeats for Milei’s party. – Key figures at around 1040 GMT -London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 9,231.35 pointsParis – CAC 40: UP 0.6 percent at 7,879.24 Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.2 percent at 23,575.63Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.7 percent at 26,159.12 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 3,821.83 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: Closed for a holidayNew York – Dow: UP 0.1 percent at 46,381.54 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1792 from $1.1799 on MondayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3501 from $1.3515Dollar/yen: DOWN at 147.76 yen from 147.87 yenEuro/pound: UP at 87.34 pence from 87.30 penceWest Texas Intermediate: UP 1.2 percent at $63.03 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: UP 1.1 percent at $67.27 per barrel

Donald Trump makes his big comeback to the UN General Assembly podium on Tuesday, where the US president intends to denounce “globalist institutions” and meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as patience with Russia wears thin.Trump will address the United Nations for the first time since he returned to office and quickly took to slashing the US role in international organizations.It will be Trump’s second time seeing Zelensky since the US leader invited Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 to Alaska, a meeting that broke Moscow’s isolation in the West but yielded no breakthrough on Ukraine.Russia has not only kept up its barrage of attacks on Ukraine in the past month but has increasingly raised fears in the West, with drone or air incursions in NATO members Poland, Estonia and Romania.Mike Waltz, newly installed as the US ambassador to the United Nations, voiced solidarity over the airspace violations.”The United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory,” said Waltz, who was earlier Trump’s national security advisor.Trump took office vowing that he could end within one day the Ukraine war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and boasted of his personal chemistry with Putin.But Trump acknowledged last week that Putin had “really let me down.”A UN report released Tuesday found that Russian authorities have tortured civilian detainees in Ukrainian areas Moscow occupies, including sexual violence, in a “widespread and systematic manner.”The report cautioned that Russia’s frequent disregard of legal safeguards, combined with a dire lack of accountability had “placed many Ukrainian civilians outside the effective protection of the law during their detention.”Zelensky is expected to press Trump to take a harder line and impose long-threatened new sanctions on Russia.But Secretary of State Marco Rubio, last week previewing the talks with Zelensky, said Trump was not ready to pressure Putin, saying that without him, “there’s no one left in the world that could possibly mediate” on Ukraine.Zelensky will again need to tread carefully with Trump, who — along with Vice President JD Vance — berated the wartime leader in an explosive February 28 meeting at the White House, calling him ungrateful for billions of dollars in US military assistance.- Attacking ‘globalist’ institutions -Trump, who hails from New York, is spending barely a day in town for the weeklong summit. One of his few other one-on-one meetings will be with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, an ideological ally to whose government the United States is considering offering an economic lifeline.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would discuss the “renewal of American strength around the world.””The president will also touch upon how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order, and he will articulate his straightforward and constructive vision for the world,” she told reporters in Washington.Trump in his second term has moved more aggressively in his nationalist “America First” vision of curbing cooperation with the rest of the world.He has moved to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization and the UN climate body, severely curtailed US development assistance and wielded sanctions against foreign judges over rulings he sees as violating sovereignty.”Instead of inflaming global crises and fueling chaos and inequality, he should use his power and influence to work with the global community to provide meaningful solutions,” said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America.Trump’s appearance comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron led a group of Western allies of the United States in recognizing a Palestinian state, a historic but largely symbolic step strongly opposed by Israel.The United States and Israel both shunned the special session.

Asian markets struggled Tuesday to track another record day on Wall Street, with traders now awaiting the release of US inflation data that could dictate Federal Reserve policy in coming weeks.The tepid performance came after a hot couple of weeks on trading floors fuelled by optimism over an easing of US monetary policy.Last week’s interest rate cut came with Fed forecasts for two more before the end of the year as officials aim to shore up the stuttering labour market despite elevated inflation.That puts in focus Friday’s report on personal consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation.With trade subdued by a holiday in Japan and an approaching typhoon in Hong Kong, Asian markets drifted.Hong Kong and Shanghai slipped with Manila, Bangkok and Wellington, while Sydney, Seoul, Singapore and Jakarta rose.Paris and Frankfurt started with gains as data showed eurozone business activity growth hit a 16-month high in September.Taipei jumped more than one percent with chip titan TSMC soaring more than three percent as it tracked US counterpart Nvidia, which announced a $100 billion investment in OpenAI for next-generation artificial intelligence.However, there are growing worries that the surge may have gone too far and markets are due a pull-back with eyes on a possible government shutdown in Washington.Senators failed to pass a stopgap funding bill Friday after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed it.The bill was shot down by Democrats and with both chambers scheduled to be in recess next week, time is running out to keep the government running after the end of the fiscal year September 30.A shutdown would see non-essential operations start to grind to a halt and hundreds of thousands of civil servants temporarily left without pay.”There are rickety bridges ahead. The US government shutdown drama remains unresolved—another potential rockslide on the tracks,” said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes. “The Senate’s failure to bridge the gap between competing proposals leaves traders watching the Sept. 30 deadline with one eye, even as the other scans record-high tickers. “Markets rarely derail on the first warning, but complacency can turn into chaos when the train rounds a blind corner.”- Key figures at around 0810 GMT -Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.7 percent at 26,159.12 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 3,821.83 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 9,249.95Tokyo – Nikkei 225: Closed for a holidayEuro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1790 from $1.1799 on MondayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3518 from $1.3515Dollar/yen: DOWN at 147.74 yen from 147.87 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 87.21 pence from 87.30 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.3 percent at $62.12  per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.3 percent at $66.39 per barrelNew York – Dow: UP 0.1 percent at 46,381.54 (close)

Donald Trump meets Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday as patience wears thin on Russia, at a UN summit where the US president is expected to offer a dark take on the future of the world body.Trump will address the United Nations for the first time since he returned to office and quickly took to slashing the US role in international organizations.It will be Trump’s second time seeing Zelensky since the US leader invited Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 to Alaska, a meeting that broke Moscow’s isolation in the West but yielded no breakthrough on Ukraine.Russia has not only kept up its barrage of attacks on Ukraine in the past month but has increasingly raised fears in the West, with drone or air incursions in NATO members Poland, Estonia and Romania.Mike Waltz, newly installed as the US ambassador to the United Nations, voiced solidarity over the airspace violations.”The United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory,” said Waltz, who was earlier Trump’s national security advisor.Trump took office vowing that he could end within one day the Ukraine war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and boasted of his personal chemistry with Putin.But Trump acknowledged last week that Putin had “really let me down.” Zelensky is expected to press Trump to take a harder line and impose long-threatened new sanctions on Russia.But Secretary of State Marco Rubio, last week previewing the talks with Zelensky, said that Trump was not ready to pressure Putin, saying that without him, “there’s no one left in the world that could possibly mediate” on Ukraine.Zelensky will again need to tread carefully with Trump, who — along with Vice President JD Vance — berated the wartime leader in an explosive February 28 meeting at the White House, calling him ungrateful for billions of dollars in US military assistance.- Attacking ‘globalist’ institutions -Trump, a native New Yorker, is spending barely a day in town for the weeklong summit. One of his few other one-on-one meetings will be with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, an ideological ally to whose government the United States is considering offering an economic lifeline.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump would discuss the “renewal of American strength around the world.””The president will also touch upon how globalist institutions have significantly decayed the world order, and he will articulate his straightforward and constructive vision for the world,” she told reporters in Washington.Trump in his second term has moved more aggressively in his nationalist “America First” vision of curbing cooperation with the rest of the world.He has moved to pull the United States out of the World Health Organization and the UN climate body, severely curtailed US development assistance and wielded sanctions against foreign judges over rulings he sees as violating sovereignty.”Instead of inflaming global crises and fueling chaos and inequality, he should use his power and influence to work with the global community to provide meaningful solutions,” said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America.Trump’s appearance comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron led a group of Western allies of the United States in recognizing a Palestinian state, a historic but largely symbolic step strongly opposed by Israel.The United States and Israel both shunned the special session.

The White House on Monday dismissed a request by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for talks with counterpart Donald Trump to de-escalate tensions between the two arch-foes.The brush-off came as two Venezuelan opposition leaders backed a US naval build-up near the South American country, calling it critical for the restoration of democracy.Trump has dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean in an anti-drug operation Venezuela fears could be the preamble to an invasion.US forces have destroyed at least three suspected Venezuelan drug boats in recent weeks, killing over a dozen people.On Sunday, the Venezuelan government released a letter that leftist Maduro had sent to Trump.In the missive, Maduro — whose July 2024 reelection was rejected as fraudulent by Venezuela’s opposition and much of the international community — rejected as “absolutely false” US allegations that he leads a drug cartel and urged Trump to “keep the peace.”Reacting on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Maduro’s letter contained “a lot of lies.”She added the Trump administration’s position on Venezuela “has not changed” and it viewed the regime as “illegitimate.”The US deployment is the biggest in the Caribbean in years.Maduro has accused Trump — who during his first term tried unsuccessfully to expedite the Venezuelan president’s ouster — of trying to affect regime change.It was “a first letter, I will certainly send them more,” Maduro said Monday night during his weekly television program, during which he said his goal was “to defend the truth of Venezuela.” “If they close a door, you open a window, and if they close a window, you open a door with the truth of your country, lighting up the world, illuminating the White House with the light of the truth of Venezuela,” he added.Maduro’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, last week accused the United States of waging “an undeclared war” in the Caribbean, underlining that occupants of alleged drug boats were “executed without the right to a defense.”Thousands of Venezuelans have joined a civilian militia in response to Maduro’s call for bolstering the cash-strapped country’s defenses.Some Venezuelans have welcomed the US actions, however, hoping they hasten Maduro’s downfall.- ‘Real and growing threat’ -Exiled presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who the United States views as Venezuela’s democratically-elected leader, said the military deployment was “a necessary measure to dismantle the criminal structure” he said Maduro leads.Opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado agreed, and said Venezuelan crime gangs were “a real and growing threat to the security and stability” of the Americas.Maduro’s claim to election victory last year sparked violent protests that were harshly repressed, leaving more than two dozen dead and hundreds behind bars.The opposition said its own tally of results showed Gonzalez Urrutia, who stood in after the regime barred Machado from running, had defeated Maduro hands down.Threatened with arrest, Gonzalez Urrutia fled to Spain. Machado remains in Venezuela, in hiding.Another opposition figure, Henrique Capriles, last week came out against any US invasion.”I continue to believe that the solution is not military, but political,” the two-time presidential candidate said, adding Trump’s actions were counterproductive and “entrenching those in power.”burs-ba/jgc/sla

“Disinformation” is fast becoming a dirty word in the United States — a label so contentious in a hyperpolarized political climate that some researchers who study the harmful effects of falsehoods are abandoning it altogether.In an era of online deception and information manipulation, the study of disinformation seems more critical than ever, but researchers are battling federal funding cuts, a surge of abuse, and even death threats — fueled in part by accusations from conservative advocates of a liberal bias.Some researchers are now opting for more neutral language — words, and at times, technical jargon that are less likely to inflame or derail vital public discourse about falsehoods flooding the internet.Earlier this year, the watchdog NewsGuard announced it was retiring the labels “misinformation” and “disinformation” -– terms it said were “politicized beyond recognition and turned into partisan weapons by actors on the right and the left, and among anti-democratic foreign actors.”It renamed its so-called “Misinformation Fingerprints” database to “False Claim Fingerprints,” opting for language that it said was “more precise” and “harder to hijack.””A simple phrase like ‘false claim’ is more powerful and precise than ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,'” said NewsGuard’s McKenzie Sadeghi.”It names the problem plainly and directs attention to the content itself — without triggering partisan reflexes or rhetorical spin.”- ‘Fractured information ecosystem’ -Terms such as “fake news”, “misinformation” and “disinformation” pre-date the internet age, but they have never been more heavily weaponized by governments and vested interests to silence critics and thwart legitimate debate.Peter Cunliffe-Jones, author of the book “Fake News — What’s the harm,” has advocated for using more specific alternatives ranging from false or unproven to mislabelled or fabricated.Such labels “do not simply declare information false but explain the way in which information is untrue or misleading,” he said.”That way, we hopefully create less room for cynical disputes and more for better understanding.”Authoritarian states including Russia routinely dismiss credible Western media reports as disinformation.Some governments have even co-opted fact-checking itself — launching state-sponsored “fact checks” to legitimize their own propaganda and spin.”In today’s fractured information ecosystem, one person’s ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ is another’s truth,” said Sadeghi.”And in that ambiguity, bad actors win.”- ‘Provocative, dangerous’ -The debate comes as major tech platforms pull back key anti-misinformation guardrails — including scaling down content moderation and reducing their reliance on human fact-checkers, who reject accusations of liberal bias.However, Emerson Brooking, from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), said the problem with abandoning the term disinformation was the lack of a clear replacement to describe the intention to deceive.”This idea of intentionality is very important,” he told AFP.”If we see thousands of fake accounts posting a false claim in unison, we can reasonably describe it as a disinformation campaign.”The label, however, has become so heavily politicized that officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration have equated disinformation research with censorship.Following Trump’s executive order on “ending federal censorship,” the National Science Foundation recently cancelled hundreds of grants, including projects that supported disinformation research.In April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) hub — formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC) — which was responsible for tracking and countering disinformation from foreign actors.Rubio justified its closure, saying that it was the government’s responsibility to “preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech.””It’s true that the term (disinformation) has been politicized, and that using it can feel provocative — even dangerous,” Brooking said.”But so long as it has descriptive value, it should still be used. My organization fights authoritarian information manipulation around the world — if we start censoring our own language, we aren’t doing a good job.”

Jury selection began Monday in a US government lawsuit accusing e-commerce giant Amazon of using tricks to enroll millions of customers into its Prime subscription service and then making it nearly impossible to cancel.Opening remarks by rival attorneys were slated for Tuesday, with witness testimony to follow.The Federal Trade Commission’s complaint, filed in June 2023, alleges that Amazon knowingly used designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into signing up for the $139-per-year Prime service during checkouts.The case centers on two main allegations: that Amazon enrolled customers without clear consent through confusing checkout processes, and that it created a deliberately complex cancellation system internally nicknamed “Iliad” — after Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.US District Court Judge John Chun last week ruled that Amazon violated an online shopper protection law by collecting Prime subscriber billing information before disclosing terms of the service, according to excerpts of the ruling shared on X, formerly Twitter.The summary judgement by Chun puts Amazon at a disadvantage for the trial before Chun in his Seattle courtroom.Chun is also presiding over a separate FTC case that accuses Amazon of running an illegal monopoly, with that case due to go to trial in 2027.- A ‘labyrinthine’ process -The cases are part of a volley of lawsuits launched in recent years in a bipartisan effort to rein in the power of the US tech giants after years of government complacency.According to court documents, Amazon was aware of widespread “nonconsensual enrollment” in Prime, but resisted changes that would reduce these unwanted sign-ups because they negatively affected the company’s revenue.The FTC alleges that Amazon’s checkout process forced customers to navigate confusing interfaces where declining Prime membership required finding small, inconspicuous links — while signing up for the service used prominent buttons. Crucial information about Prime’s price and automatic renewal was often hidden or disclosed in fine print, the FTC also alleges.”For years, Amazon has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in its Amazon Prime service,” the original complaint states.The service has become central to Amazon’s business model, with Prime subscribers spending significantly more on the platform than non-members.The lawsuit also targets Amazon’s cancellation process, which required customers to navigate what the FTC describes as a “labyrinthine” four-page, six-click, fifteen-option process to cancel their membership.The FTC is seeking penalties, monetary relief, and permanent injunctions requiring the company to change its practices.The case in part relies on ROSCA, legislation that came into force in 2010 that specifically prohibits charging consumers for internet services without clear disclosure of terms, obtaining express consent, and providing simple cancellation mechanisms.The FTC alleges Amazon violated these requirements by failing to clearly disclose Prime’s terms before collecting billing information and by not obtaining genuine informed consent before charging customers.Amazon’s defense strategy will focus heavily on arguing that ROSCA and other regulations don’t specifically prohibit the practices in question and that the FTC is stretching the law.The company has also argued that it made improvements to its Prime enrollment and cancellation processes and that the allegations are out of date.The jury trial is expected to last about four weeks and will largely rely on internal Amazon communications and documents as well as Amazon executives and expert witnesses.If the FTC prevails, Amazon could face substantial financial penalties and be required to overhaul its subscription practices under court supervision.