France’s highest court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by far-right leader Marine Le Pen, dealing a major setback to her efforts to overturn a sentence that could bar her from running in the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen was handed a four-year prison sentence, including two years to serve, a €100,000 fine and a five-year ban from public office over a party funds misuse case.

Top French court upholds ban threatening Marine Le Pen’s 2027 candidacy

^{FRANCE 24}

Blistering new report demonstrates how Starmer has repeatedly put support of Israel - and their genocide - over British democracy

Starmer chooses Israel at every turn, says new report

^{Joe Glenton (The Canary)}

The Maple has identified 49 Canadians who have served in the Israeli military since Oct. 7, 2023.

These 49 Canadians Have Served In Israel’s Military Since Oct. 7

^{Davide Mastracci (The Maple)}

Spanish fashion retailer MANGO is sending notices of a data breach to its customers, warning that its marketing vendor suffered a compromise exposing personal data.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/clothing-giant-mango-discloses-data-breach-exposing-customer-info/

U.S. cybersecurity company F5 disclosed that nation-state hackers breached its systems and stole undisclosed BIG-IP security vulnerabilities and source code.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-breach-f5-to-steal-undisclosed-big-ip-flaws-source-code/

This violence is part of the broader strategy of Israeli settlement expansion and de-facto annexation of Palestinian land, with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid reporting that at least 3,400 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence and access restrictions throughout the Gaza genocide and the subsequent ceasefire.

Israel resumes killing Palestinians in first phase of Trump’s “peace plan”

Seven Palestinians were shot and killed by the Israeli military in Gaza since the phase one of the so-called “peace plan” brokered by the Trump administration was implemented.

^{World Socialist Web Site}

The conservative majority will consider whether states are barred from considering race when they draw legislative districts aimed at complying with the 1965 law.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider whether to eviscerate a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act in a congressional redistricting case from Louisiana.

The justices, who expanded the scope of the case over the summer, will hear oral arguments on whether states can ever consider race in drawing new districts while seeking to comply with Section 2 of the 1965 law, which was enacted against a backdrop of historic racial discrimination to protect minority voters.

The long-running dispute concerns the congressional map that Louisiana was required to redraw last year after being sued under the Voting Rights Act to ensure that there were two majority-Black districts. The original map only had one such district in a state where a third of the population is Black.

Supreme Court weighs whether to gut key provision of landmark Voting Rights Act

^{Lawrence Hurley (NBC News)}

Israel’s logic here is clear. It has long relied on an old colonial strategy: Divide and rule. A society consumed by internal violence cannot stand united against its occupier. By cynically fostering the rise of militias, Israel achieves two aims: Weakening Palestinian unity and reducing the burden on its own army. It avoids direct costs and international scrutiny, while Gaza continues to bleed from within.

The armed gangs now spreading fear in Gaza are not defenders of the homeland but Israel’s collaborators, serving its occupation under a different name. They were empowered during the war to act where Israel could not always act openly. Yet Israel’s history with Palestinians who serve its interests is clear: It uses them, then discards them. Once their purpose is fulfilled, collaborators are cast aside, disarmed or destroyed, left with neither honour nor protection. He who turns his gun on his own people may think himself powerful, but his fate is always the same: Rejection by his people, by history and even by the occupier who once used him.

For Palestinians, the consequences are nothing short of catastrophic...

How Israel plans to continue the war without its army

As tanks withdraw and the bombing slows, Israel extends its war through Palestinian militias turned against their own.

^{Amal Abu Seif (Al Jazeera)}

Israel’s logic here is clear. It has long relied on an old colonial strategy: Divide and rule. A society consumed by internal violence cannot stand united against its occupier. By cynically fostering the rise of militias, Israel achieves two aims: Weakening Palestinian unity and reducing the burden on its own army. It avoids direct costs and international scrutiny, while Gaza continues to bleed from within.

The armed gangs now spreading fear in Gaza are not defenders of the homeland but Israel’s collaborators, serving its occupation under a different name. They were empowered during the war to act where Israel could not always act openly. Yet Israel’s history with Palestinians who serve its interests is clear: It uses them, then discards them. Once their purpose is fulfilled, collaborators are cast aside, disarmed or destroyed, left with neither honour nor protection. He who turns his gun on his own people may think himself powerful, but his fate is always the same: Rejection by his people, by history and even by the occupier who once used him.

For Palestinians, the consequences are nothing short of catastrophic...

How Israel plans to continue the war without its army

As tanks withdraw and the bombing slows, Israel extends its war through Palestinian militias turned against their own.

^{Amal Abu Seif (Al Jazeera)}

(src)

JA Westenberg

2025-10-15 11:04:49

If I genuinely believed I was 18 months away from superintelligence that could solve cancer, I would probably not be pivoting to horny chatbots, but that's just me (a person with priorities)

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning police across the country that protests against ICE or Trump administration policies are cover for terrorism to occur, according to a restricted circulation intelligence Bulletin leaked to me.

The Bulletin is the latest sign that Trump’s NSPM-7 national security directive ordering federal agencies to root out domestic terrorism will ramp up surveillance and monitoring of protests and free speech.

Republican Party leaders are joining the panic over so-called domestic terrorism, with two top officials this week likening the upcoming “No Kings” anti-Trump protests to terrorism.

“They have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said last Friday. “It’s the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people,” he said. Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, House Republicans’ third-highest ranking leader, also called that the upcoming No Kings protest a “‘Hate America’ rally,” attributing it to the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.

Leak: Feds Think Protests Hide Terrorism

“No Kings” protest eyed amid NSPM-7 domestic terror panic

^{Ken Klippenstein}

Oct 15 (Reuters) - An investor group, including BlackRock and Nvidia (NVDA.O), will buy Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management (MQG.AX) in a deal worth $40 billion, the companies said on Wednesday, as AI infrastructure expansion powers on.

The deal underscores an intensifying race to expand the costly, supply-constrained infrastructure required to develop artificial intelligence technology, as companies rush to build sophisticated AI models.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/blackrock-nvidia-buy-aligned-data-centers-40-billion-deal-2025-10-15/

In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, Brooklyn federal prosecutors charged Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Chen, a native of China who is also known as “Vincent,” remained at large as of Tuesday...

According to Chen’s indictment, Prince Holding Group built at least 10 compounds in Cambodia where workers — often migrants held against their will — were forced to contact thousands of victims through social media or online messaging platforms, build rapport and entice them to transfer cryptocurrency with hopes of big investment returns.

The compounds functioned as forced labor camps, with dormitories surrounded by high walls and barbed wire fences, and automated call centers with hundreds of mobile phones lined up on racks controlling tens of thousands of fake social media profiles, prosecutors said. One compound was associated with Prince Holding Group’s Jinbei Casino Hotel. Another was known as “Golden Fortune.”

In 2023, the United Nations estimated around 100,000 people were being forced to carry out online scams in Cambodia, as well as at least 120,000 in Myanmar and tens of thousands in Thailand, Laos and the Philippines.

https://apnews.com/article/cryptocurrency-crypto-bitcoin-cambodia-pig-butchering-dfd6833904cf539d680e381ad8d0eb6c

“The proposed transaction poses a number of significant foreign influence and national security risks, beginning with the PIF’s reputation as a strategic arm of the Saudi government,” the Senators wrote in their letter. “As Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF has made dozens of strategic investments in sports (including a bid for the U.S. PGA Tour), video games (including a $3.3 billion investment in Activision Blizzard), and other cultural institutions that ‘are more than just about financial returns; they are about influence.’ Leveraging long term shifts in public opinion, through the PIF’s investments, ‘Saudi Arabia is seeking to normalize its global image, expand its cultural reach, and gain leverage in spaces that shape how billions of people connect and interact.’ Saudi Arabia’s desire to buy influence through the acquisition of EA is apparent on the face of the transaction—the investors propose to pay more than $10 billion above EA’s trading value for a company whose stock has ‘stagnated for half a decade’ in an unpredictably volatile industry.”

404 Media

2025-10-15 13:24:39

Senators Warn Saudi Arabia’s Acquisition of EA Will Be Used for ‘Foreign Influence’

Democratic U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren sent letters to the Department of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson, raising concerns about the $55 billion acquisition of the giant American video game company in part by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Specifically, the Senators worry that EA, which just released Battlefield 6 last week and also publishes The Sims, Madden, and EA Sports FC, “would cease exercising editorial and operational independence under the control of Saudi Arabia’s private majority ownership.”

“The proposed transaction poses a number of significant foreign influence and national security risks, beginning with the PIF’s reputation as a strategic arm of the Saudi government,” the Senators wrote in their letter. “As Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF has made dozens of strategic investments in sports (including a bid for the U.S. PGA Tour), video games (including a $3.3 billion investment in Activision Blizzard), and other cultural institutionsthat ‘are more than just about financial returns; they are about influence.’ Leveraging long term shifts in public opinion, through the PIF’s investments, ‘Saudi Arabia is seeking to normalize its global image, expand its cultural reach, and gain leverage in spaces that shape how billions of people connect and interact.’ Saudi Arabia’s desire to buy influence through the acquisition of EA is apparent on the face of the transaction—the investors propose to pay more than $10 billion above EA’s trading value for a company whose stock has ‘stagnated for half a decade’ in an unpredictably volatile industry.”

As the Senators' letter notes, Saudi Arabia has made several notable investments in the video game industry in recent years. In addition to its investment in Activision Blizzard and Nintendo, the PIF recently acquired Evo, the biggest video game fighting tournament in the world (one of its many investments in esports), was reportedly a “mystery partner” in a failed $2 billion deal with video game publisher Embracer, and recently acquired Pokémon Go via its subsidiary, Scopely.

“The deal’s potential to expand and strengthen Saudi foreign influence in the United States is compounded by the national security risks raised by the Saudi government’s access to and unchecked influence over the sensitive personal information collected from EA’s millions of users, its development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, and the company’s product design and direction,” the Senators wrote.

The acquisition, which is the largest leveraged buyout transaction in history, includes two other investment firms: Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, the latter of which was formed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Senators letter says that Kushner’s involvement “raises troubling questions about whether Mr. Kushner is involved in the transaction solely to ensure the federal government’s approval of the transaction.”

These investments in the video game industry are just one part of Saudi Arabia’s broader “Vision 2030” to diversify its economy as the world transitions away from the fossil fuels that enriched the Saudi royal family. The PIF has made massive investments in aerospace and defense industries, technology, sports, and other forms of entertainment. For example, Blumenthal and other Senators have expressed similar concerns about the PIF’s investment in the professional golf organization PGA Tour.

The Senators don’t specify what this “foreign influence” might look like in practice, but recent events can give us an idea. The comedy world, for example, has been embroiled in controversy for the last few weeks over the Saudi hosted and funded Riyadh Comedy Festival, which included many of the biggest stand-up comedians in the world. Those who participated in the festival, despite the Saudi government's policies and 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, defended it as an opportunity for cultural exchange and freedom of expression in a country where it has not been historically tolerated. However, some comedians who declined to join the festival revealed that participants had to agree to certain “content restrictions,” which forbade them from criticizing Saudi Arabia, the royal family, or religion.

Human Rights Watch Refuses Aziz Ansari Riyadh Comedy Festival Donation

Human Rights Watch says it 'cannot accept' donations from Aziz Ansari and other comedians who performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia.

^{Ethan Shanfeld (Variety)}