SA nepo baby Elon "Nazi" musk named head of Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.

The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.

It comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The cable instructs those embassies and consulates to pursue five broad goals: countering hostile messaging, expanding access to information, exposing adversary behavior, elevating local voices who support American interests, and promoting what it calls “telling America’s story”. Embassies are told to recruit local influencers, academics and community leaders abroad to carry counter-propaganda messaging, an approach designed to make American-funded narratives feel locally organic rather than centrally directed

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/30/embassies-campaign-marco-rubio-elon-musk

Spain closes airspace to US military over Iran war, widening rift with US

Spain has ramped up its opposition to the US-Israel war on Iran by closing its airspace to US aircraft involved in attacks, underlining its position as Europe’s leading critic of the conflict.

The move, first reported by El País newspaper and confirmed by the defence minister on Monday, comes after Madrid said the US could not use jointly operated military bases in the country for operations related to the war.

“We don’t authorise either the use of military bases or the use of airspace for actions related to the war in Iran,” the minister, Margarita Robles, told reporters. “I think everyone knows Spain’s position. It’s very clear,” she added, calling the war “profoundly illegal and profoundly unjust”.

The closure will force military planes, including those based in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, to bypass Spain en route to targets in the Middle East except in emergencies. Per guardian news

Spain is now my second fave country second only to Canada 😍

'Canadians don't want to come here any more': anger over Trump squeezes US border businesses

Shops and restaurants once bustling with tourists now struggle for survival as Canadians think twice about crossing the border

On a warm March weekend in the American border town of Lewiston, New York, bakery owner Aimee Loughran is putting the finishing touches on a special order: a state trooper badge-shaped cake for a local officer’s retirement party.

It should be the last task of a busy Saturday at her Just Desserts shop, which sits just 20 minutes north of the rushing waters of Niagara Falls. Dotted with cafes, restaurants and historic buildings from the 1800s, the Lewiston strip is usually catnip for tourists, including the Canadians whose homes can be seen from the banks of the nearby Niagara River.

Local demand for Loughran’s cake and pastries, however, has not made up for a dramatic slump in tourist spending, triggered by a now year-long boycott by Lewiston’s northern neighbours.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/28/canada-us-border-business-pay-trump-tariffs

House Republicans reject Senate's deal to fund DHS, likely extending shutdown that has caused turmoil in US airports

“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” lil whiny Johnson said of the Senate-passed bill that made its way to the House in the predawn hours. “It is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at three o’clock in the morning and try to hoist this upon the American people.” per guardian live

in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam war, my mother said to me, 'I'd rather see you dead than avoid the draft.'"

‘I wrote The Sopranos to get over my mother wishing me dead’: David Chase on his mob masterpiece – and his new LSD epic

However, you could argue that this whole circus was constructed because of one man. A few decades ago, HBO was a little-seen backwater of sport and standup. One show propelled it to the forefront of prestige television. That show was The Sopranos. The man who created it is David Chase.

Not that Chase will let himself be complimented like that. “Luck had an amazing amount to do with it,” he says, correcting my thesis before our interview has even begun. “HBO wanted to change their business model. They wanted to do original programming, and the script for The Sopranos had been turned down by every network in the States.”

Though Chase is in London to stump for HBO Max, he has long been famously ambivalent about TV. The Sopranos came after a long career in network television, writing on shows including The Rockford Files and Northern Exposure. “I’d been taking network notes and eating network shit for however many years, and I was done with it,” he says of his time spent developing The Sopranos. “And, you know, if The Sopranos hadn’t worked, I don’t know what I would have done. I was done with TV.”

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/mar/27/sopranos-writer-david-chase-interview-mother-james-gandolfini-mk-ultra-cia-lsd

I bet the new series is going to be a banger

trump playing the stock market again

If democracy ever returns to fascist USA, and that's a BIG if, we need to go after military criminals

who continue to murder free peoples at sea. These military fascists from admirals on down need some serious prison time or worse.

US Southern Command announced on Friday that US forces carried out another “lethal kinetic strike” on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific which left one survivor and two people dead.

After the strike, the military said that it “immediately notified US Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system” for three people who survived the strike. The coast guard said in a statement that one of its ships recovered two dead bodies and one survivor and turned them over to the Costa Rican coast guard.

The strikes on suspected drug traffickers have been described as illegal by experts in international law, but the Pentagon appears to have changed strategy since the first attack in September when it ordered a follow-on strike to kill survivors. Killing survivors has been considered a textbook example of a war crime since 1945, when the victorious allies in the second world war prosecuted a Nazi U-boat crew for killing shipwreck survivors.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/20/us-boat-strike-southern-command

What a good boy: Dog digs up possible link to notorious 19th-century Devon murder case

A man in Devon believes his beloved dog has dug up a key piece of evidence in his back garden connected to a notorious Victorian murder case.

Paul Phillips, 49, told reporters that his labrador, Stanley, recovered a blue glass bottle with the words “Not to be taken” written on the side from their home in Clyst Honiton.

The discovery brought to mind an article he had read about the murder by poisoning of William Ashford by his wife Mary Ann Ashford in 1865 and further research revealed the couple may have lived in a neighbouring property.

Mary Ann was reportedly hanged in Exeter in front of 20,000 people and her execution was so bungled – she took minutes to die – that it is said to have turned people off the idea of public executions and set in motion events that would ultimately lead to the end of public hangings in England in the 1860s.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/20/dog-19th-century-devon-murder-case-discovery

Netanyahu suggests need for 'ground component' in Iran war Israeli prime minister says

you can’t ‘do revolutions from the air’ and that ‘there has to be a ground component as well’ amid growing signs of tensions between Israel and US per Guardian live feed

Hint, hint to US fascist puppets of israel

Fetterman votes with republican committee to approve tRump nominee Markwayne Mullin to lead DHS, heads for full vote

Republican senator Rand Paul voted against advancing Mullin but Democratic senator John Fetterman supported the nomination

per guardian live feed