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X's new location transparency feature unleashes questions about origins of MAGA accounts

admin - Latest News - November 24, 2025
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A new transparency feature on X has stirred confusion, anger and a wave of online sleuthing after users discovered that the platform was suddenly displaying the surprising locations where certain accounts are based



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October 5, 2025
Oct. 5, 2025, 5:30 AM EDTBy Alexander SmithLONDON — Despite being headlined by a genuine star and staged at one of London’s premier theaters, a play about the foundation of a sprawling and troubled public service seemed unlikely to provoke night after night of standing ovations.But that’s what happened with “Nye,” an unlikely hit about the creator, and origin story, of Britain’s taxpayer-funded National Health Service.The play, written by Tim Price and directed by Rufus Norris, came at an inflection point for the NHS, as it’s known. Almost 80 years after it was founded, the medical service once touted as the envy of the world is “broken” and suffering the “biggest crisis in its history,” the government says. The crisis at this national bedrock is part of a bigger malaise at the heart of British culture: rising prices, stagnant wages and crumbling public services. “I’m terrified, not just for the NHS, but for the whole of our society,” Michael Sheen, who starred as Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, the founder of the NHS, told NBC News in an interview. “Once it’s torn down, then I guess people will think about what they’ve lost.”Michael Sheen performing in “Nye” at London’s National Theatre. Johan Persson / National TheatreSheen, 56, better known to international audiences as Tony Blair in “The Queen,” David Frost in “Frost/Nixon” and the angel Aziraphale in the Amazon Prime series “Good Omens,” has spent much of the last two years honing his portrayal of Bevan, the socialist politician who dragged himself out of Wales’ coal mines to will the NHS into existence.Though second nature to Brits, the ideal of the NHS is unfamiliar to many Americans: British people have universally free health care at the point of access — from ambulances attending car accidents to insulin for diabetes to cancer care to childbirth. Though some people do have private insurance, the idea of having to choose between illness and financial ruin is shocking in the U.K.Now the Labour Party, which created the then-radical NHS in 1948, is battling its own economic constraints and record-setting unpopularity. It has a colossal task if it is to fix the crumbling hospitals replete with overworked doctors and bed-lined corridors. Prime Minister Keir Starmer must turn around a behemoth whose budget of 200 billion English pounds ($269 billion) represents some 40% of all government spending, and whose 1.4 million employees are the world’s seventh-largest workforce. In the United States, only the Department of Defense, Walmart and Amazon outnumber it.An ambulance outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London in 2023.Belinda Jiao file / Getty ImagesThrough all this, the core NHS ideal endures. Everyone in the U.K. has a story of a relative, or themselves, receiving the type of world-class care that puts a terrifying financial strain on millions of Americans. (In the past six years, this reporter’s mother has had a single mastectomy and reconstruction, as well as three titanium plates in a shattered ankle, without having to pay a pound for the care.)But just as common are the tales of maddening, hourslong waits in overstretched emergency rooms, or weeklong delays just to see a community general practitioner. Many critics blame the sprawling crisis on years of underfunding by the now-ousted Conservative government of 2010-2024, whose response to the 2008 financial crisis was to make drastic cuts to public services.It’s perhaps unsurprising that a largely liberal London-theatergoing audience responded with applause and tears at the hagiography of Bevan at the National Theater. Though relatively unknown in wider society, admirers see Bevan as a founding father of modern Britain; his ideal of the NHS today is not just popular, it defines the country itself.“It’s far from perfect,” said Alison Ferris, 40, a nurse at a hospital in Canterbury, in southeast England. “But I do the best that I can for anyone that comes in front of me. I treat every patient like I would treat my loved ones.”Though the concept remains revered, public satisfaction in the NHS in practice cratered to 52% in 2023 from a high of 70% in 2010, according to the King’s Fund, a top think tank tracking British health care.Nye Bevan, Britain’s Minister of Health who is credited with spearheading the creation of the National Health Service, meets a patient in 1948. Edward G. Malindine / Getty Images“We have to fight for the NHS, the same as the NHS was fought for when it was created,” said Ferris’ mother, Caroline Heggie, 70, a hospital union representative, who like her daughter had come to see the last night of “Nye” at the National Theater last month. “We can’t go the way of privatization, we can’t go the way of America. That’s what we’re up against.”Like Bevan, Sheen is a Welsh firebrand unafraid to wear his leftist politics. But he also lived for 14 years in Los Angeles, so knows too well what life is like without socialized health care.“The idea of this health care system that we have here, just seemed so alien to them over there,” Sheen, who now lives back in his Welsh hometown of Port Talbot, says of his former American hosts. He says that “seeing people go into hospitals with serious injuries or illnesses, and being asked to produce their check book before they can be treated” would shock most Britons.The crisis at the NHS coincides with an uptick in hostility toward immigrants — even though they are often people’s doctors, nurses and hospital cleaners. Almost 20% of NHS staff have a non-British nationality, with Indians, Filipinos, Nigerians, Irish and Poles making up most of their number. Nigel Farage, the leader of the hard-right Reform U.K. party and an ally and friend of President Donald Trump, is leading some polls to become Britain’s next prime minister. He has become the first prospective leader to question the funding model of using taxes to fund the NHS — historically taboo.‘Britain stands at a fork in the road’: Starmer warns against rise of far-right populism01:40“It doesn’t work — it’s not working,” Farage told NBC News’ British partner Sky News in May. “We’re getting worse bang for the buck than any other country, particularly out of those European neighbours.”Opposing Farage’s proposal, however, leaves open the specter of privatization, which many say has been creeping up even before the Health and Social Care Act 2012 opened up the NHS to bids from private contractors.Farage isn’t the only person dissatisfied. Indeed, the NHS has slipped from being a world-leader on many metrics.“Corridor care” is now a year-round crisis, and the number of people waiting 12 hours or more to be admitted into an emergency room rose from 47 in summer 2015 to 74,150 this summer. Targets have lagged for years in everything from ambulance attendance times to cancer diagnoses. Meanwhile, a 7 million-strong waiting list means many people feel abandoned for months, in pain, before getting hip or knee replacement and other types of surgery.There is ample evidence to suggest that economic austerity policies imposed during 14 years of Conservative Party rule are at least partly to blame, according to Max Warner, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a London research group.“It is true that a lot of NHS performance measures over the 2010s were broadly getting worse having started off relatively well,” he said. “Although it’s worth saying that productivity did grow, so it’s a nuanced picture and causality is difficult.”The Conservatives argued that they kept NHS spending up, protecting it from the brutal cuts that crushed almost every other government department at the time. But this 2% yearly growth still fell well short of the 3.8% yearly average since the 1980s, and according to critics was insufficient to cope with an aging population and the rising prices of cutting-edge drugs.Far from the envy of the world, Britain has been scrimping by spending 37 billion pounds ($53 billion) on the health services each year, well below Germany, France and Australia, a landmark review found last year.The current Labour government has outlined plans to raise spending to around 3% — an improvement but still short of what many advocates had hoped. At his annual Labour Party conference this week, Starmer announced that a digital overhaul named NHS Online would launch in 2027, describing it as “a new chapter in the story of our NHS.”Ultimately, whatever the model, cash is key, according to Roy Lilley, who ran an NHS hospital in the 1990s as chairman of Homewood NHS Trust in Surrey, west of London.Michael Sheen, center, performing in “Nye” at London’s National Theatre. Johan Persson / National Theatre“It doesn’t matter how you pay for your health care,” said Lilley, today a consultant whose newsletter hits 300,000 inboxes. “Whether you take it out of your pocket marked ‘insurance,’ or you take it out of your pocket marked ‘taxes,’ it’s still your trousers.” He remains optimistic, however, pointing to some waiting metrics improving and a general recovery from the hammerblow of the pandemic, which drained resources and mentally scarred doctors.Still, Sheen — never shy to mix acting with activism — believes it’s no coincidence that the NHS is in crisis just when its origin story begins to vanish from living memory.“The crisis that we seem to be experiencing makes it all the more important to go back to the beginning and to look at what was behind the founding of the NHS, and what the principles were,” he said. “It becomes incredibly important to tell the story of it and to remind people of what it was actually like, so that we don’t forget.”Alexander SmithAlexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.
September 26, 2025
Sept. 26, 2025, 5:43 AM EDTBy Chantal Da SilvaIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make his case to the world on Friday, addressing an international community from which his country faces mounting pressure and isolation over its devastating assault on Gaza.Netanyahu took an unusual route to his annual speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, his flight path appearing to avoid countries that could enforce an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. He is also expected to meet with President Donald Trump, who on Thursday said he would not allow the close U.S. ally to annex the already occupied West Bank in retaliation for the wave of countries that have recognized a Palestinian state.Palestinians flee south on Thursday, amid Israel’s intensified attacks on the Gaza Strip.Ali Jadallah / Anadolu via Getty ImagesNetanyahu said he planned to “speak our truth — the truth about the citizens of Israel, the truth about our IDF soldiers and the truth about our country,” The Times of Israel reported.He said he also planned to “denounce” the growing list of Western countries that have officially recognized Palestine as a state in response to his intensifying military campaign. Israeli forces have ramped up their assault on famine-stricken Gaza City, forcing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people while others stay put under near-daily deadly strikes. Israeli soldiers work on a self-propelled artillery Howitzer at the border with Gaza.Jack Guez / AFP via Getty ImagesAn Israeli soldier watches as Palestinian schoolgirls make their way to school in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, on Sept. 8.Hazek Bader / AFP via Getty ImagesIt also comes after Trump issued a firm warning that he would not allow the Israeli leader’s government to annex the West Bank if it tried to push ahead with a plan that would draw new global outrage. “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. No, I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen,” Trump told reporters, having earlier privately assured Arab leaders on the subject.Asked whether he had discussed the issue with Netanyahu, Trump said, “Whether I spoke to him or not, I did, but I’m not allowing Israel to annex the West Bank.””There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now,” he said. ‘A glimmer of hope’: Palestinians react to statehood recognition01:34Trump issued the rare admonishment after far-right members of Netanyahu’s fragile government coalition called for the move.Palestinians envision the West Bank as a key territory for an internationally recognized Palestinian state, alongside Gaza and east Jerusalem. Annexation of the territory, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, would further imperil that cause.Trump also presented his 21-point plan for peace to Arab leaders, with his special envoy Steve Witkoff saying the meeting was “productive” and that a breakthrough could be imminent. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was also among the leaders to address UNGA, though he was forced to deliver his address by video after the U.S. last month revoked his visa, along with those of other Palestinian Authority officials.Smoke rises following Israeli attacks on the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, on Thursday.Khames Alrefi / Anadolu via Getty ImagesIn his video address, Abbas said Palestinians in Gaza “have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement” by Israel, adding that “despite all what our people have suffered, we reject what Hamas carried out on the 7th of October.”Abbas said Hamas would have “no role to play in governance” in the future he envisioned for Gaza. That future is at stake in peace talks, and Netanyahu will address world leaders while under pressure not just from his closest ally and his ministers but from the families of hostages still held in Gaza. The Israeli leader has thus far defied their protests calling for him to strike a deal to end the war and free their loved ones.Chantal Da SilvaChantal Da Silva reports on world news for NBC News Digital and is based in London.
November 30, 2025
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October 23, 2025
Oct. 22, 2025, 10:00 PM EDTBy Adam EdelmanZohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo clashed Wednesday in the final New York mayoral debate, which put on full display their personal animosity and their array of disagreements over both city and national issues.Throughout the 90-minute debate, Cuomo — the former Democratic governor running as an independent — called Mamdani, 34, a state assemblyman, a “kid” who would get knocked “on his tuchus” by President Donald Trump, a “great actor” and a “divisive force in New York” who brings “toxic energy for New York.”Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, who defeated Cuomo in the party’s primary in June, slammed Cuomo as a “desperate man” and “Trump’s puppet” whose political career was decidedly in the past.The contentious event, held three days before early voting kicks off and less than two weeks before Election Day, comes as Mamdani has maintained a double-digit lead in public polling. With time to further narrow the gap before the election running out, Cuomo took swing after swing at Mamdani, criticizing him for not having adequate experience to lead a city of nearly 9 million and to stand up to Trump, who has repeatedly vowed to withhold federal funding from New York if Mamdani wins.Cuomo ripped Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, in his opening statement as someone with “no new ideas” and a “rehash” of Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying he has “never run anything, managed anything, never had a real job.”Mamdani slammed Cuomo as someone who “will only speak of the past” “and a “desperate man lashing out because he knows that the one thing he’s always cared about, power, is now slipping away from him.” Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who also took part in the debate, teed off on both of his opponents. “Zohran, your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin,” he said. “And Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”Wednesday’s debate also came amid growing calls among Mamdani’s opponents for Sliwa to drop out of the race to create a more competitive two-man contest with Cuomo. Sliwa, who earlier in the day said he’d be leaving his conservative talk radio perch, gave no indication that he’d exit the race.Affordability, housing, homelessness and New York-centric issues like education and policing — Mamdani confirmed that he’d retain New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch — accounted for the bulk of the night’s debate. But the candidates were first asked to weigh in on questions with national implications, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and how to deal with Trump.Candidates were asked how city officials should have approached an ICE raid this week that targeted undocumented immigrants who may have connections to illegal street vending. Cuomo replied that he would have called Trump and told him, “Look, you’re way out of bounds.”“I’ve had a lot of dealings with President Trump, and there’s only one way to deal with him. He puts his finger in your chest, and you have to put your finger right back in his chest,” Cuomo said. “We don’t need ICE to do quality-of-life crimes. We don’t need them to worry about illegal vendors. That’s a basic policing function for the NYPD.”Mamdani slammed ICE as a “reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve,” and he promised to “end the chapter of collaboration between City Hall and the federal government.”Responding to a question about how he’d work with or against Trump, Mamdani said he’d fight him “every step of the way” over deporting Americans and going after his political enemies. But when it came to Trump’s promises to lower the cost of living, Mamdani said he’d be open to working together. “If he wants to talk to me about the third piece of that agenda, I will always be ready and willing,” he said. “We heard from Donald Trump’s puppet himself, Andrew Cuomo. You could turn on TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo, and he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him,” Mamdani added. Trump has called Mamdani a communist and threatened to withhold federal funds and deploy the National Guard, as he has done in other major cities, if he wins the November election.Cuomo seized on the comments from Trump.“You are going to have to confront him, and you can beat him. I confronted him, and I have beaten him,” Cuomo said. Trump, he added, “has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins — and he will, because he has no respect for him.”“He thinks he’s a kid and he’s going to knock him on his tuchus,” Cuomo added. Tensions surfaced yet again after the candidates were asked how their views on Gaza and Israel might affect their ability to be an effective mayor. In a fiery exchange, the three candidates sparred over who would best combat antisemitism in the city, with Mamdani starting by promising to protect Jewish New Yorkers and backing a plan to introduce more lessons about the Jewish experience in New York in public schools.But Cuomo told Mamdani: “Not everything is a TikTok video. You’re the savior of the Jewish people? You won’t denounce [the phrase] ‘globalize the intifada,’ which means ‘kill Jews.’” He added that Mamdani was among a group of leaders “who stoke the flames of hatred against Jewish people.”Cuomo’s comments referred to Mamdani’s past decision not to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” The New York Times later reported that Mamdani privately promised to “discourage” use of it.Mamdani responded that the city needs “a leader who takes [antisemitism] seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage.”Sliwa then jumped in, calling Mamdani and Cuomo “two kids in a schoolyard.” He said several of his family members view Mamdani “as the arsonist who fanned the flames of antisemitism.” “They cannot suddenly accept the fact that you’re coming like a firefighter and you’re going to put out these flames,” he said.Mamdani also drew attention to the sexual harassment allegations that prompted Cuomo to resign as governor in 2021 by announcing that one of the women who made such accusations, Charlotte Bennett, was in the audience.“You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her,” Mamdani said. “I, however, can speak.”“What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?” he asked Cuomo.Cuomo, who has denied the allegations, responded that “everything you just stated, you just said, was a misstatement — which we’re accustomed to.”Bennett this year settled her lawsuit against New York that alleged the state didn’t do enough to prevent Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment. Cuomo threatened to sue her this year for defamation.Mamdani also attacked Cuomo over a scandal involving undercounting nursing home deaths during the Covid pandemic that embattled his administration as governor.“You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience, as if the issue is that we don’t know about it. The issue is that we have all experienced your experience,” Mamdani said. “The issue is that we experienced you taking a $5 million book deal while you sent seniors to their deaths in nursing homes.”“The issue is your experience,” he added.Cuomo hit back by diving back into his own key accusation against Mamdani.“The issue is you have no experience,” he said. “You’ve accomplished nothing.”Adam EdelmanAdam Edelman is a politics reporter for NBC News. Alexandra Marquez contributed.
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