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Trump Presents Allies with New Media Control Tool: Is It Murdoch’s TikTok? | US News

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Last week, Donald Trump disclosed that the US and China are close to finalizing a deal to allow Tiktok to continue operating in the United States. While the specifics are not yet settled, the proposed agreement could see the owners of the most prominent cable television networks in the US assume control over the nation’s influential social media platforms. This arrangement would grant Trump’s billionaire allies significant influence over the vast and unique landscape of US media.

Here’s what we know: Trump stated that he has received provisional approval from China’s President Xi Jinping for a deal whereby the US version of Tiktok would gain a fresh set of domestic investors, spearheaded by the software giant Oracle. This arrangement would also protect Tiktok’s respected recommendation algorithm while enhancing its security.

Among the investors mentioned, Trump pointed out during a Fox News interview on Sunday that media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, CEO of Fox Corporation, are involved. Additionally, Michael Dell, the head of computer manufacturer Dell, is expected to take part as well.

Tiktok is reportedly set to appoint seven new board members, with six of them being American. Notably, it seems that Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, along with the CEO of Paramount Skydance and Larry Ellison’s son, will occupy several of these positions.

Murdochs

Lachlan Murdoch, aged 54 and the son of 94-year-old Rupert, serves as the executive chair and CEO of Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News. Lachlan took over the company following a legal settlement with his brothers in September, one of whom, James, has distanced himself from their father’s conservative empire. The Tiktok deal might involve investments from Fox’s parent company rather than directly from Rupert or Lachlan, as reported by CNN.

“I hate to tell you this, but there’s a guy named Lachlan involved. Do you know who Lachlan is? It’s a very uncommon name, Lachlan Murdoch,” Trump remarked. “Rupert will likely join the group. I think they will be part of it. There are others involved as well. They are exceptional people, very well-known, and American patriots who love this country, so they’ll do a great job.”

If oversight of Tiktok happens, it would provide Elder Murdoch with new opportunities in technology—similar to how News Corp acquired MySpace for $580 million in 2005. While MySpace peaked as the most visited website in the US three years later, it was quickly overshadowed by Facebook, and as Bloomberg’s billionaire index indicates, Mark Zuckerberg is now worth ten times more than Rupert Murdoch.

Ellison

Trump seems to have a penchant for father-son duos. On the opposite end of Tiktok’s American boardroom, 81-year-old Larry Ellison, co-founder and CTO of Oracle, alongside his 42-year-old son David, the founder of Skydance Media, may play significant roles.

Larry Ellison holds about 40% of Oracle’s shares and has been a fixture in Silicon Valley, temporarily surpassing Elon Musk as the world’s richest person following Oracle’s impressive revenue report. He is also a longtime supporter of Trump, hosting a presidential fundraiser at his Southern California home in 2020, and is known for his luxurious lifestyle and ventures in Hawaii.

David Ellison’s company has made a significant mark in the entertainment sector, managing CBS, BET, Nickelodeon, Paramount+, and UK Channel 5. Following a recent acquisition of Paramount, which also produces the Mission: Impossible franchise, Paramount Skydance is reportedly planning a cash offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, HBO, DC Comics, and other major properties.

Leading up to this merger, CBS News reached a settlement over a lawsuit regarding ‘60 Minutes’, appointing Trump allies as ombudsmen and courting former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss as a potential leader for the channel’s revamped version. This could serve as a precursor to how David Ellison might manage Tiktok.

How Powerful Will They Become?

Should Tiktok’s deal and David Ellison’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery proceed, the combined power of the Murdochs and Ellisons would be immense. They would control media outlets that engage both older and younger demographics, yielding significant authority and sway. The only age group potentially unaffected by their influence may be those on Tiktok, who are skeptical of their parents’ viewing trends.

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Is such integration legal? The Federal Communications Commission’s website includes stringent anti-monopoly regulations regarding television broadcasting. Regulations do not specifically address Fox News Channel or CNN.

Nevertheless, such regulations are pertinent. What implications arise when the owner of the most powerful cable channels in the US also controls the nation’s critical social media platforms? Might this breach antitrust laws?

The answer may lie within the regulations, particularly surrounding changes made eight years ago that lifted the ban on owning both television stations and daily newspapers in the same market. This decision was based on the claim that entertainment, news, and information had diversified significantly within the modern media landscape.

If an individual owns a local television station and its newspapers, why shouldn’t billionaires be able to oversee extensive social networks and the country’s leading channels?

Examining the intricacies of FCC regulations may not be as crucial as Trump’s influence, which plays a significant role in high-level decisions by the US government. Trump’s administration has successfully influenced the FCC to facilitate deals that levy pressure on networks outside of his allies’ control. Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could dismiss the singular Democrat on the committee, with Secretary Brendan Carr’s role in overseeing Jimmy Kimmel’s program suspension being questioned.

The American media landscape is taking on a distinctly Republican hue as Trump’s Tiktok transaction unfolds. Nexstar, the largest owner of local US television stations, expressed alignment with Trump’s decision to halt Kimmel’s shows, mimicking local television giant Sinclair. Currently, CBS and CNN, two major news networks, may soon be following Fox’s conservative trajectory. Online, X has shifted from a diverse platform to a more conservative social network, and Tiktok may follow suit under a board approved by MAGA.

At this juncture, the Murdochs and Ellisons appear to be benefiting from Trump’s favor.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Trump Cabinet Refugee hails his wealthy allies Caesar and Elon | American Politics

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onOn Tuesday, just over a mile from the White House, classicist Mary Beard spoke to the audience about the Roman Emperor. “A dictator is the one who kills you when he is his most generous,” she said. “You go to dinner, you think, wow, this is amazing! But the generosity of a dictator is always fatal.”

On Wednesday, Donald Trump held his first full cabinet meeting. Some may say the mood is warm, cheerful and generous. Housing Secretary Scott Turner offered prayers, including “Thank you, President Trump.”

Was it just an accident that made the TV cameras assemble the scene as Day’s antithesis? Viewers could see Trump in the middle of the seven men in suits, then another row of seven men in suits sitting behind him. Almost all of them were white. (Yes, there were women and people of color at the meeting, but not many.)

Vice President JD Vance was present, but there was no doubt who appointed the emperor as consul. Trump invited Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who runs the so-called “Doctor of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), to speak in front of his cabinet secretary after all attending claimed to be supportive.



Wearing a black “make America great again” hat, Musk jokingly called it “humble tech support” – people laughed faithfully – and insisted that his unplanned efforts to steal the federal government’s chainsaw could save a trillion dollars and delve into the country from debt. “It’s not about options, it’s important,” he said. “If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt.”

In theory it’s fine. But Doge, composed primarily of young male software engineers fueled by pizza and Red Bull, was a disaster. They fired people who oversee the nuclear weapons stockpile and quickly tried to rehire them, but found it difficult to contact them because they were unable to access their working email account. This claimed it saved $8 billion on a termination agreement that was actually worth just $8 million. Musk mistakenly stated that the US spent $50 million on Gazan condoms. And this week, Doge appeared this week. Doge quietly deleted the top five items from the suspected savings public book after it turned out they weren’t that kind of thing.

Musk brought similar unholy confusion to Twitter when he bought it – to the cabinet, Doge admitted to making a mistake, but that said it would fix them quickly. “For example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally cancelled temporarily was Ebola prevention. So we quickly restored Ebola prevention, but there was no interruption.”

I don’t feel safe.

Then came the most dictatorial episode of the conference. The generous and deadly Trump asked his cabinet. If so, we’ll throw him out of here. ”

For crocodiles? Or through a high window, in favor of his fellow Vladimir Putin? There was a nervous laugh and applause from this fawn, flattering, this reunion.

Winning, the President assured reporters: “They have a lot of respect for Elon, he does this, and a bit opposed to some, but I think most of the time everyone is happy – I think they’re excited.”

Games respect the game. A boy who is a fan of the far-right movements across Europe, Musk showed an impressive instinctive sense of totalitarianism.

He states: This is an incredible group of people. I don’t think we’ve ever had such a talented team. I think it’s literally the best cabinet this country has ever had…”

Then came the slips that spoke from the wealthiest man in the world. [sic] We should be very grateful to the people in this room. ”

The cabinet that Musk lavished with such praise include Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, accused of sexual assault and alcohol abuse, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine conspiracy theorist who once abandoned a bear cub who died in New York’s Central Park. Less than Marvel’s Avengers Star Wars Cantina.

Kennedy was asked by a reporter about the outbreak of measles in Texas, where a child was reportedly killed. His inactive response: “That’s not uncommon. There’s an outbreak of measles every year.”



The entire conference worshiped authoritarianism and was another sorry to normalize bullies. Musk tried to protect government officials from emails they sent to government employees and asked them what they did last week. It’s not a “performance review,” but a “pulse check review” because some people on the government’s salary are dead.

Trump concluded the meeting with the observation that “the country is bloated, fat, disgusting, incompetent.”

Still as John Stewart It’s been attracting attention this week At Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Doge will not build fighter jets that will soon become obsolete on subsidies given to oil and gas companies, loopholes for hedge funds worth $1.3 billion a year, or $20 subsidies given to defense contractors. “This is the real place for money,” Stewart said.

Even a functioning democracy did not do much about them. Therefore, he wants a country run by aspiring Caesar and his fellow oligarchs.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Can fungi be surprising allies in cancer detection?

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Scientists who study cancer have historically focused on understanding the various factors that contribute to cancer development and progression. They have looked at factors such as genes, lifestyle choices, and even bacteria. However, few researchers have investigated the role of fungi in the human body and how they affect cancer.

Researchers in Israel and the United States recently characterized the fungi that live inside human cancer tissue. Researchers took tumor, blood and plasma samples from more than 1,000 of her patients with various types of cancer and performed a type of “DNA sequencing.” ITS2 amplicon sequencing. They used this sequencing method to determine the presence of different fungal species within cancer tissue and measure the number of fungal cells living there.

Researchers found fragments of fungal DNA and cells in tissues from various human cancers. For example, they discovered several types of fungi associated with breast cancer. Cladosporium sphaerospermum, mainly affected patients over 50 years of age. they again, Malassezia globosaa skin fungus that affects pancreatic cancer patients, and Malassezia restriction bacterium, another skin fungus present in breast cancer tissue. Additionally, they discovered the following species: aspergillus and agar medium Found in lung cancer samples, especially those from smoking patients.

The researchers explained that their results were surprising. Skin fungi are not usually associated with breast cancer. Additionally, they suggested: Malassezia globosa DNA found in both breast and pancreatic cancer samples This suggests that it may play a broader role in cancer development.

The scientists then confirmed that the fungus was growing within the cancerous tumor using a method called . tissue staining. Histological staining is like adding color to a black and white photograph. In this case, the photos were of tissue taken from different types of cancer: melanoma, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, and ovarian cancer. When we stained these tissues, we found that fungi often existed next to cancer cells.

The research team interpreted the results as indicating that fungi can influence cancer progression. They suggested that these fungi may have a commensal or even pathogenic relationship with cancer. In particular, they suggested that the fungus may function as follows. opportunistic pathogensIn other words, they were taking advantage of patients' weakened immune systems to cause infections that would not normally occur in healthy people.

Finally, the researchers used an advanced computational technique known as . machine learning, recognize and identify patterns in DNA data. They wanted to test whether certain types of fungi were present in different types of cancer. Scientists have determined that different types of cancer tissue are inhabited by different fungal communities.

The scientists concluded that understanding the relationship between fungi and cancer could help doctors develop new tools to diagnose and treat cancer patients. In particular, the researchers suggested that doctors could sort the fungal DNA in a patient's blood sample to detect which type of cancer they have. They suggested that fungi may provide a new non-invasive fingerprint for early detection of cancer.


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Source: sciworthy.com