Global Pulse

标签： North America

北美洲

  • Timelapse shows World Cup final stadium nearly vanish in smoky haze

    Timelapse shows World Cup final stadium nearly vanish in smoky haze

    Striking time-lapse footage has captured a startling visual shift at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the chosen venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup final, as thick haze from hundreds of ongoing Canadian wildfires swept across the region and nearly obscured the massive sports arena from view.

    The haze, which has been an ongoing issue for the Northeastern United States through multiple waves of wildfire activity this year, drifted southward from Canada, where hundreds of uncontrolled blazes have been burning across vast swathes of boreal forest in recent months. Climate researchers have linked the increased frequency and intensity of these wildfires to rising global temperatures and prolonged drought conditions across much of Canada, creating ideal conditions for large, fast-spreading fires that send plumes of smoke hundreds of miles across international borders.

    For residents and visitors in the New York City metropolitan area, where MetLife Stadium is located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, the hazy conditions have not only created dramatic and concerning visuals like the timelapse of the vanishing stadium, but have also sparked ongoing public health concerns over poor air quality. The timelapse, which spread rapidly across social media after being shared, has served as a stark visual reminder of how far-reaching the impacts of climate change and large-scale wildfires have become, even for major population centers far from the actual fire lines.

    Officials have repeatedly issued air quality alerts across the region during periods of heavy haze, urging vulnerable populations to limit outdoor activity. As wildfire seasons continue to lengthen across North America, episodes of cross-border haze like this are expected to become more common in coming years, raising questions about how major public events like the World Cup will need to adapt to changing air quality conditions moving forward.

  • US Republicans accuse Canada of wildfire inaction

    US Republicans accuse Canada of wildfire inaction

    A devastating season of Canadian wildfires has triggered a sharp diplomatic standoff between U.S. lawmakers and Canadian officials, as hazardous smoke continues to blanket large swathes of the United States, triggering public health emergencies and disrupting daily life.

    As of last Friday, official data from the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System recorded more than 890 active wildfires burning across Canada, with over half of these blazes classified as out of control. To date, the infernos have consumed nearly 3 million hectares of Canadian land, making this one of the most destructive wildfire seasons on record for the North American nation.

    The far-reaching impact of the blazes has crossed international borders, with a dense, toxic blanket of smoke spreading south into multiple U.S. states, stretching from Minnesota and Michigan in the Midwest to Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York on the East Coast. Hazardous air quality warnings have been activated across the entire affected region, forcing the cancellation of dozens of outdoor public events and forcing residents indoors to avoid exposure.

    On Friday, global air quality tracker IQAir ranked Chicago, Illinois as the city with the worst air quality on the planet, with Detroit, Michigan — one of the U.S. cities hardest hit by the pollution — claiming second place, followed by Washington D.C., Toronto and New York City. On Thursday last week, thick smog completely obscured iconic New York City landmarks including the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, prompting city officials to extend existing heat emergencies and activate full air quality emergency protocols. Hundreds of cooling centers have been opened across the five boroughs, and free KN95 masks are being distributed to residents to help reduce smoke inhalation.

    The poor air quality has sparked fierce criticism from four Republican members of the U.S. Congress representing districts in Michigan. In a joint open letter addressed to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the lawmakers — John James, John Moolenaar, Jack Bergman and Lisa McClain — said their patience with Canadian inaction on the wildfire crisis has run out.

    “We are done accepting apologies in place of action,” the letter read, adding that the delegation warned the U.S. could move forward with direct cross-border intervention for wildfire management and firefighting operations if Canada failed to take meaningful steps to address the root of the crisis. The lawmakers accused Canada of failing to follow through on 2023 promises to treat the wildfire risk with urgency, claiming that “American lungs are paying the price for Canadian inaction, year after year.” They specifically cited unaddressed issues including chronic underinvestment in preventative measures such as forest thinning, fuel load reduction and controlled prescribed burns, as well as insufficient enforcement to prevent arson.

    Prime Minister Carney did not directly respond to the specific accusations in the letter, but used a recent Ontario press conference to push back on the framing of the crisis. Speaking in French, Carney emphasized that “Climate change is everyone’s responsibility — truly everyone’s — including the United States.” He added that his federal government maintains constant close communication with provincial authorities and local affected communities to coordinate response efforts.

    Ontario Premier Doug Ford also dismissed criticism of his provincial government’s wildfire response, noting that more than 150 fire crews are already deployed on the ground battling active blazes. “We will spend whatever it takes,” Ford stated, to bring the fires under control and support affected communities.

    A large cluster of active blazes in northwestern Ontario is the primary source of the smoke drifting south into the U.S. Thick plumes of toxic smoke have already rendered air quality unsafe across Thunder Bay and Toronto in Ontario, before spreading over the Great Lakes and settling over the Northeastern U.S., creating persistent hazy conditions as far south as New York. Beyond the cross-border smoke impacts, the wildfires have already displaced dozens of Indigenous residents from First Nations communities in northern Ontario. Some communities have been forced to evacuate the remote region by boat, and Namaygoosisagagun First Nation Chief Helen Paavola told local outlet CityNews that an aerial survey of her community confirmed it has been “burnt to ashes.”

    Data from Canada’s National Forestry Database shows that roughly half of all annual Canadian wildfires are ignited by lightning strikes, while the remaining half are caused by human activity. Climate experts from both Canada and the U.S. have previously warned that rising global temperatures driven by climate change are drying out forest landscapes across North America, creating far more flammable conditions that increase the frequency and severity of major wildfire seasons. When asked by the BBC earlier this year whether Canada could be doing more to curb wildfire risk and resulting smoke pollution, cross-border expert consensus concluded that there is little more Canada could do to stop the large-scale blazes driven by current climate conditions.

  • How the World Cup made an ‘NFL-obsessed’ American a football fan

    How the World Cup made an ‘NFL-obsessed’ American a football fan

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, has ignited a sudden and widespread wave of new soccer enthusiasm among American viewers, turning casual onlookers into die-hard fans and driving measurable growth in participation and viewership across the country.

    One of the thousands of newly converted fans is Jamie Druley, a 51-year-old car salesman from Indiana and self-proclaimed lifelong NFL fanatic. His journey into soccer fandom began when he learned about the boisterous, widely documented celebrations of Scotland’s iconic Tartan Army fan contingent during their time in Boston for the tournament. Curious about what drew thousands of fans to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars just to cheer on their national teams, Druley decided to tune into the matches.

    What started as a casual experiment quickly turned into a full-blown obsession. Druley’s passion grew so intense that his wife eventually texted him from their bedroom asking him to lower his volume as he yelled at match broadcasts from the living room. On slow work days, Druley and his colleagues would stream matches directly in the car dealership’s showroom; the tense semi-final match between England and Argentina sparked such heated friendly banter and shouting between coworkers that it ended with a formal bet between Druley and his boss ahead of the tournament’s final. Today, Druley is even considering purchasing season tickets for his local minor league side Fort Wayne FC, which opened a new 9,200-seat stadium earlier this year.

    Druley is far from alone in this newfound love for soccer. Countless Americans with little to no prior interest in the sport have jumped on the World Cup bandwagon, driving record-breaking viewership numbers across major US broadcasters. Nielsen Media Research data shows that an average of 5.1 million American viewers tuned in to watch each of the 72 matches broadcast across Fox, FS1, and Tubi – a 92% increase in average viewership compared to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The broadcast of the United States’ knockout stage loss to Belgium drew 30 million viewers alone, making it the most-watched English-language soccer broadcast in US history, according to Fox.

    Courtney Silbaugh, a 33-year-old mother from Pennsylvania who describes herself as “not a sports spectator at all,” is among the scores of newly minted fans. Silbaugh had never connected with traditional American sports: she tried watching American football with no success, and struggles to follow baseball due to impaired vision that makes it hard to track the ball. But since the World Cup kicked off, she has watched every match except six, and now calls soccer her favorite sport. “I’m understanding the game more while watching the World Cup… versus watching recreational leagues,” she explained.

    Another new fan is 54-year-old Indiana banker and grandmother Heather Earhart. While her son-in-law works as a high school soccer coach and her grandchildren play youth soccer, Earhart had long felt confused by the sport’s rules and flow, leaving her unengaged even when attending her grandchildren’s games. That all changed during the 2026 tournament, when she found herself fully caught up in England’s World Cup run, even falling in love with the fan favorite chants *Hey Jude* and Oasis’s *Wonderwall*. She now streams the songs while cleaning her kitchen, checks match highlights on YouTube first thing every morning, and has even watched beginner tutorials to learn the sport’s rules and basic skills, from bending free kicks to offside regulations. Earhart says she is now considering following a Manchester club and Real Madrid to watch English star Jude Bellingham, and is eager to visit a local soccer bar in Indianapolis to watch matches now that she understands the action.

    The surge in interest extends far beyond living room viewership, according to soccer industry insiders across the US. Nate Roberts, a 40-year-old soccer coach and fitness instructor who moved to Connecticut from Lincoln, England more than a decade ago, says his organization has been flooded with inquiries from people eager to play. In response, he is launching a new adult pickup “beer league” (with alcohol restricted to those of legal drinking age) in the coming weeks to meet unanticipated demand. Roberts says he now receives 10 to 20 personal emails a week from prospective players and parents looking to sign their children up for youth programs, with double that number of inquiries coming through social media. “We’re noticing players that are looking for that rec experience or that first opportunity to start their soccer journey,” he explained.

    Much of the new enthusiasm for the sport among American fans stems from the unique atmosphere of the co-hosted tournament, which brought thousands of international fans to cities across the US. Many new fans say they were struck by the widespread positivity, good sportsmanship, and cross-cultural camaraderie on display as fans from every corner of the globe celebrated together in North American host cities.

    Druley, who is now considering following Manchester City and MLS clubs alongside his NFL fandom, summed up the sentiment: “It sounds cliche as can be, but the whole world getting along, in the way that I saw them doing while here in America, visiting for the World Cup, was just eye-opening to me. As silly as a game or a sport may be to some people, seeing people come together the way that they did over this was just truly amazing to me. It was… maybe what the world needs right now, you know?”

    For all his newfound love of the sport, however, Druley is standing firm on one longstanding American tradition: he will not be calling it “football.” “I know that the entire world outside of us pretty much calls it football, but I am so ingrained in American football that I just cannot call it anything but soccer,” he said. “I have my limits.”

  • Bodycam footage shows airlift of girl stranded by Texas floods

    Bodycam footage shows airlift of girl stranded by Texas floods

    Newly released body camera footage has documented a high-stakes airlift rescue operation that saved a young girl who became stranded alongside her family after catastrophic floods swept through Uvalde County, Texas. The raw footage, captured by a first responder on the scene, shows the tense moments leading up to the extraction: floodwaters have already completely destroyed the family’s three-person household, leaving them trapped with no safe route to escape on foot. As rising water continues to surround their location, the rescue team coordinates with air support to pull the young girl to safety first, in a operation that highlights the life-saving work of emergency responders amid extreme weather events. The floods that hit the region have caused widespread destruction, wiping out residential properties and leaving dozens of residents stranded in sudden, fast-moving floodwaters. The bodycam footage offers a rare, on-the-ground look at the dangers first responders face when conducting rescue operations during natural disasters, and underscores the vulnerability of communities in Texas to increasingly intense flood events driven by extreme weather patterns.

  • Clark ‘a political football’ says NBA chief Silver

    Clark ‘a political football’ says NBA chief Silver

    The ongoing controversy surrounding star Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark, the top overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, has spiraled far beyond basketball officiating and become a divisive political talking point in the United States, according to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Since entering the league, 24-year-old Clark has emerged as one of the WNBA’s biggest mainstream draws, drawing massive public attention to how opposing defenders and game officials interact with the high-scoring guard. The latest wave of debate was sparked by an on-court incident last month between Clark and Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas, who later received a retroactive one-game suspension and $1,000 fine for kneeing Clark in the groin and shoving a fist into her neck while competing for a loose ball.

    In the aftermath of the incident, Fever head coach Stephanie White publicly slammed WNBA officiating for games involving Clark, calling the treatment of the star “egregious” and “utterly disrespectful.” Thomas, meanwhile, revealed she had received death threats and racist abuse in response to the play, turning what began as an in-game foul into a national cultural flashpoint. A group of 11 Republican lawmakers amplified the controversy by sending an open letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, demanding the league take formal accountability and claiming repeated physical attacks against Clark may be driven by racial bias. Right-leaning political analysts have echoed that framing, arguing mistreatment of Clark stems from both racism and professional jealousy among other WNBA players.

    Speaking during a panel discussion at a New York event earlier this week, Silver pushed back on framing the debate as a simple officiating dispute. The NBA chief, who has built a public relationship with Clark, made clear that the discourse surrounding the young star has become tangled in broader U.S. political and cultural divides, rather than focusing on the rules of basketball. “That particular incident is not about whether a foul should have been called at the time of the game or whether that was ultimately a flagrant non-review,” Silver explained. “I’ve come to know Caitlin really well. She’s an incredible player and also an incredible person. And she wants to focus on being the best player she can. And she’s become a bit of a political football in this country, and I think it’s incredibly unfair to her.”

    When asked to confirm widespread reports that he pressured WNBA Commissioner Engelbert to suspend Thomas following the incident, Silver declined to comment. He did acknowledge that WNBA officiating as a whole needs visible improvement, but reaffirmed that the outsized focus on Clark-related incidents is no longer about basketball, describing it as a game of “political ping-pong” that punishes the young athlete. “She’s a young woman who’s trying to improve her game and focus on being the best player she can be,” Silver added. “I don’t even think it’s fair to her that this has become a separate storyline about whether a foul should have been called at the time or whether it should have been ruled a flagrant foul after the fact.”

    Engelbert, who appeared alongside Silver on the New York panel, also addressed the growing toxicity around the league, saying, “The vitriol and everything that our players receive is unacceptable.” Coach White has previously echoed that sentiment, pointing to a sharp rise in “toxicity, racism, homophobia” directed at WNBA players, particularly in online social media discussions. Clark herself has spoken out against the harassment that has accompanied the national attention. Earlier this month, the rookie called out “the harassment, the hate” surrounding the ongoing debate, noting that “none of that is OK. That goes for the opposing teams we play, that goes for my team-mates, that goes for my coaches.” Her frustration boiled over publicly earlier this week, when she yelled at a referee and used an expletive after a series of unfavorable calls went against the Fever.

  • Trump alleges ‘shocking vulnerabilities’ in US election security ahead of midterms

    Trump alleges ‘shocking vulnerabilities’ in US election security ahead of midterms

    In a primetime televised address from the White House Thursday, former President and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump reiterated a series of unproven allegations that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and claimed there are “shocking vulnerabilities” in the nation’s voting infrastructure. The address came three months ahead of November’s midterm elections that will determine congressional control for the remainder of his current term.

    During the 30-minute speech, delivered to an audience of senior administration members with no opportunity for press questioning, Trump claimed he had declassified hundreds of intelligence documents to back up his assertion that Beijing sought to tilt the 2020 election outcome toward Joe Biden, who ultimately defeated Trump in the contest. Trump also claimed that China had illegally obtained 220 million voter records containing sensitive personal information, alleging that voter data across 18 U.S. states had been “bought, stolen or hacked by China.” He further accused officials who had uncovered this alleged activity of failing to alert executive branch leaders or members of Congress. At no point during the address did Trump present tangible evidence showing China used the purloined data to manipulate voting systems or alter election results.

    These claims directly contradict long-standing conclusions from the entire U.S. intelligence community. A 2021 declassified assessment from the U.S. National Intelligence Council stated with high confidence that China did not engage in any interference efforts targeting the 2020 presidential election, and only considered but ultimately rejected influence operations designed to change the vote outcome. The report noted the decision stemmed from China’s calculation that neither candidate’s victory offered enough strategic benefit to justify the risk of major diplomatic backlash if the interference was discovered.

    In a statement provided to Reuters following the speech, the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. rejected all allegations, confirming that Beijing “has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections” of the United States. The BBC has also reached out to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for additional comment, and has not yet received a response.

    Domestically, the speech drew immediate sharp pushback from Democratic leaders, who argue Trump is deliberately spreading misinformation to erode public trust in the upcoming midterm elections ahead of voting. “Let’s be clear – in America, voters choose their leaders, not the other way around,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on social media immediately after the address. “Democrats will fight like hell to make sure every American voter can cast their ballot freely, without obstruction or interference from Donald Trump.”

    Former Vice President Kamala Harris echoed this criticism in a post on X ahead of the speech, arguing that Trump’s goal is to suppress turnout among opposition voters. “The president is scared of your power, and he wants you to believe your vote does not matter,” she wrote. “He wants you to lose confidence in our electoral system so you stay home this November. He knows how discontent the American people are, and he wants to make sure that you do not vote.”

    Beyond his China allegations, Trump expanded his claims of voting system vulnerability, asserting that widely used U.S. voting machines are “extremely exposed” to tampering by foreign adversaries including Russia, China, and Iran. While gaps and weaknesses in U.S. election infrastructure have been well documented by independent experts and government auditors, many vulnerabilities were addressed after the 2016 presidential election, when U.S. intelligence confirmed Russia carried out a large-scale meddling campaign including hacking, social media disinformation, and funding for grassroots political activity.

    Trump also repeated unproven claims of domestic voter fraud: he alleged that Michigan law enforcement uncovered a voter registration fraud scheme linked to a Democratic-aligned organization, but that the FBI blocked investigators from acting before the statute of limitations expired. Calling the activity “pay, play and cheat,” Trump again offered no evidence that any vote totals were altered or any voting machines were compromised. He also claimed the Department of Homeland Security has identified 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote, but did not provide data showing any of these individuals actually cast ballots or affected the result of any election.

    To address the purported flaws he outlined, Trump used his closing remarks to renew calls for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would ban most forms of mail-in voting, require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, and mandate photo identification to cast a ballot. The legislation has been stalled in the evenly divided Senate for months, and Trump’s push for passage is widely expected to fail unless Republican lawmakers agree to overhaul long-standing Senate procedural rules that currently require a 60-vote supermajority to advance most legislation, a step Republican leadership has so far rejected. The address comes as a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll shows Trump’s national approval rating has fallen to 37%, driven largely by widespread public pessimism over rising cost of living and the ongoing conflict with Iran.

    Political analysts note the speech does little to ease Democratic fears that Trump will continue to question election legitimacy ahead of 2028’s presidential contest, should he choose to run for reelection. The ongoing partisan fight over election security has already become one of the defining issues of the 2024 midterm campaign cycle.

  • How testosterone testing will work in Hegseth’s ‘manly’ military

    How testosterone testing will work in Hegseth’s ‘manly’ military

    In a high-profile policy shift tied to his vision of a more “manly” fighting force, United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has unveiled plans for mandatory testosterone screenings for all active-duty military personnel aged 30 and older. The new requirement marks a notable departure from previous military health protocols, framing physical fitness and hormonal balance as central to operational readiness aligned with Hegseth’s public emphasis on traditional masculine standards within the armed services. While details around implementation—including how results will be used, whether screening will be integrated into regular physical examinations, and what accommodations will be made for personnel with low testosterone readings—are still emerging, the announcement has already drawn widespread attention for its intersection of health policy and cultural ideology within the US Department of Defense. The policy is set to roll out across all branches of the military in the coming months, with officials expected to release additional guidance on logistics and privacy protections for service members in the near future.

  • Taco Bell removes lettuce from menu in US after links to explosive diarrhoea

    Taco Bell removes lettuce from menu in US after links to explosive diarrhoea

    One of America’s largest fast-food chains, Taco Bell, has enacted a precautionary removal of lettuce from menus across multiple undislosed US states, following reported connections between produce from one of its suppliers and a nationwide parasitic outbreak that has already sickened thousands of people. The company confirmed the move in an official statement to the BBC, framing it as a proactive step taken “out of an abundance of caution” after coordinated discussions with public health regulators.

    According to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 7,000 cases of cyclosporiasis — the gastrointestinal parasitic illness linked to this outbreak — have been confirmed across 34 states as of the latest reporting. The parasite, which spreads exclusively through contaminated food or water, has been concentrated heavily in Michigan, where over 3,300 infections have been recorded, accounting for nearly half of all national cases.

    Taco Bell has announced that the affected lettuce from its implicated supplier will be removed from the supply chain indefinitely, with replacement produce set to be rolled out to affected locations. While no formal public health recall or advisory has been issued to date, the chain emphasized that public health safety is a collective responsibility shared by food service operators, their producer partners, and government regulators. The company has declined to publicly name either the supplier or the specific states where lettuce is being removed from menus, though multiple US media outlets have identified the produce supplier as Taylor Farms. The BBC has reached out to Taylor Farms for comment on the reports, and no response has been released as of yet.

    Public health experts note that cyclosporiasis infections have an unusually long incubation period, with symptoms typically emerging roughly two weeks after exposure to the parasite. The most common and debilitating symptom is persistent watery diarrhea that can last for multiple days, alongside other notable effects including sudden unintended weight loss and reduced appetite.

    Tracing the source of cyclosporiasis outbreaks presents unique challenges for public health agencies, industry experts told the BBC, with difficulties compounded in recent years by funding cuts to federal public health institutions. “This isn’t like detecting a needle in a haystack. It’s like detecting a microscopic portion of a needle in a haystack,” explained Steven Manderach, executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials, highlighting the extreme difficulty of pinpointing the parasite in contaminated food supplies.

  • Rubio calls for global crackdown on far-left extremism

    Rubio calls for global crackdown on far-left extremism

    The Trump administration has brought together senior officials from more than 60 nations across Europe, Latin America, Asia and beyond for a high-stakes Washington summit focused on addressing what top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio frames as a rapidly expanding transnational threat: left-wing terrorism.

    In opening remarks to Thursday’s closed-door session, Secretary of State Rubio called on participating countries to deepen cross-border intelligence sharing and coordinate joint counterterrorism action, arguing that far-left extremism represents a global, interconnected challenge that demands collective response. Administration officials framed the political violence linked to left-wing groups as a singular form of harm rooted in deep-seated animosity toward existing Western social and political structures.

    White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller doubled down on this framing during the summit, claiming left-wing activism is fundamentally driven by resentment, hatred and envy toward successful individuals and democratic institutions. On the same day the gathering convened, the State Department announced new sweeping visa restrictions that bar entry to the U.S. for members of groups labeled “Far-Left Terrorist and other aligned groups”, including individuals accused of involvement in so-called economic sabotage. Washington has already formally designated four European far-left groups — Germany’s Antifa Ost, Italy’s Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, and two Greek factions, Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense — as official Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The administration previously designated the loose U.S.-based far-left anti-fascist movement Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, aligning the global initiative with a long-stated domestic policy priority of the Trump White House.

    Notably, the entire summit agenda made no mention of addressing the growing threat of far-right extremist violence, a choice that has drawn immediate fierce pushback from Democratic lawmakers. Eleven congressional Democrats sent a formal letter to Rubio one day before the summit, raising sharp questions about whether the narrow focus on left-wing groups would ultimately be used to target peaceful, law-abiding political protests and label legitimate opposition activists as terrorists.

    The letter, which was obtained by Reuters, urged the State Department to refocus its counterterrorism work on evidence-based, nonpartisan priorities rooted in on-the-ground threat data. Lawmakers accused the administration of sidelining objective threat assessments to advance the narrow political agenda of hardline elements within the Trump White House, calling the initiative a rubber-stamp for partisan political gains.

    Existing research on domestic extremism in the U.S. paints a mixed picture that does not clearly back the administration’s singular focus. A 2025 threat assessment from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies found that lethal attacks linked to left-wing terrorism surpassed those linked to far-right extremism for the first time in more than three decades, though the report also noted that overall numbers of ideologically motivated attacks from both factions remain relatively low. By contrast, the U.S. Department of Justice removed a 2024 internal assessment from its public website last year that found far-right extremists were responsible for the vast majority of ideologically motivated lethal violence in the U.S. over the preceding decade, a move that critics say was intended to align official government data with the administration’s political framing.

  • Trump Media to sell early access to key social posts

    Trump Media to sell early access to key social posts

    Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, has announced plans to launch a premium paid service set to go live on August 1. The new offering will provide Wall Street financial institutions with low-latency, real-time access to posts from the platform’s most high-impact and influential accounts, filling a long-unmet gap for market participants who rely on timely social media content to inform trading decisions.

    For years, market-moving statements shared on Truth Social — particularly posts from Donald Trump himself, which have repeatedly triggered sudden volatility across global equity, currency and commodity markets, especially when touching on trade policy and tariff announcements — have forced trading firms to rely on manual monitoring of the platform. Even a delay of a few seconds in accessing critical updates can result in millions of dollars in lost trading opportunities for large financial institutions, a cost that the new paid feed is designed to eliminate. Unlike the manual tracking process currently used by banks and trading houses, the new service will push real-time updates from key accounts directly to paying subscribers, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week to cover global trading sessions around the clock.

    Kevin McGurn, interim chief executive of Trump Media, framed the new offering as a pathway to consistent recurring revenue for the currently unprofitable company. “Markets already move on Truth Social posts,” McGurn noted, emphasizing that the official data feed will lock in steady profit streams for the firm long-term. The announcement also called out an ongoing problem for the company: a number of financial firms have been scraping Truth Social user data without authorization for months, reaping the benefits of the platform’s content without compensating the company. McGurn warned that Trump Media will imminently block these unauthorized data access methods, pushing non-compliant firms to purchase a subscription to the official feed instead.

    While the sale of user data and real-time post feeds is a standard practice across major established social media networks, this new venture draws unique attention to the overlapping intersection between Donald Trump’s private business interests and his public profile as a leading U.S. political figure. As of the announcement, the company has not confirmed whether former President Trump’s own posts will be included in the premium paid feed, leaving market participants waiting for further clarification on the service’s core offering.