Embattled Voice of America to use newsfeed from hard-right network
A hard-right, Trump-supporting US news network that perpetuated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election will provide news coverage for Voice of America (VoA), the Trump administration said.
Kari Lake, a special adviser to the body that oversees the government-funded VoA, announced on X that One America News (OAN), which was sued by voting machine companies for promoting claims of election fraud, will provide 'newsfeed and video service'.
'Every day I look for ways to save American taxpayers money. Bringing in OAN as a video/news source does both,' Lake said. 'OAN is one of the few family-owned American media networks left in the United States. We are grateful for their generosity.'
The news that OAN, which many see as a pro-Trump propaganda outfit, will provide content for VoA, which has traditionally been a more politically neutral news source, is a move that will spur further fears about Donald Trump's crackdown on the press.
OAN, which spread conspiracy theories about the coronavirus epidemic, almost exclusively interviews Republican politicians and rightwing voices, including this week the founder of an organization that denies the existence of the climate crisis.
A look at OAN's recent output gives a taste of what listeners would be in for.
Dan Ball, a primetime OAN host, introduced his show last week by telling viewers: 'God help us, cackling Kamala comes out of hiding, rearing her ugly head for the first time since her devastating loss to Trump.'
On Tuesday's show, Ball discussed Trump meeting with Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, adding that the meeting comes 'as the global trade war continues – and yes we are winning'.
Lake, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for Arizona governor, serves as a special adviser to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), VoA's parent company. Trump signed an executive order on 15 March which aimed to dismantle that agency, and VoA has not produced any content since then. As many as 1,300 VoA employees have been placed on leave. skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to This Week in Trumpland
A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
VoA was founded during the second world war to combat Nazi propaganda, and became a pro-democracy voice heard by millions around the world. In April, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration's order to shutter VoA, but the ruling has been caught up in a government appeal.
In March, Lake announced that VoA would no longer use news reports from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
'We should not be paying outside news organizations to tell us what the news is,' Lake said. 'With a nearly billion-dollar budget, we should be producing news ourselves.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Shop early 4th of July sales here: Beauty, mattresses, furniture, fashion, and more are all up for grabs!
The Fourth of July is still a few days away, but if you're interested in taking advantage of some sweet deals you're in luck! Retailers aren't waiting for the holiday to kick off their savings, which means you have early access to an abundance of sales. Amazing discounts abound across all categories, whether you're looking to upgrade your space with a sofa, in the market for a new mattress, or just want to treat yourself to something special. Now is the perfect time to get in on those Independence Day deals and save plenty of cash! Here are the deals that are definitely worth your time.
The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
There's a new retirement age for 2026 if you need to collect Social Security
Don't quit your day job — because Americans will soon have to wait longer than ever to retire. For the first time since Social Security's creation 90 years ago, the full retirement age is set to hit 67 years old in 2026. That is of course, if Social Security lasts long enough for you to reach that age, with new data showing the program is likely to run out of money by 2034. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935, creating an insurance program to provide workers aged 65 and older with a steady income in retirement. Introduced to fight elder poverty, biographer Kenneth S. Davis described it as "the most important single piece of social legislation in the entirely of American history." But next year, Americans will have to wait until they turn 67 before they can collect payments with no limitations. Those approaching retirement face important decisions about when to collect their Social Security payouts — with the repercussions being significant and worth thousands of dollars. Should I retire at 62, 65, 67, or 70? When to start collecting Social Security benefits depends entirely on individual circumstances. Americans can opt to take early retirement at 62 years old, though, monthly benefits will be reduced permanently. Those born in 1959 will be the first group to face a full retirement age of exactly 67 and each year a claimant waits past the FRA permanently increases their benefit (until 70). Using a FRA of 67 and a base monthly benefit of $1,800, here's how the numbers play out. Americans turning 62 next year – the first age group that can claim Social Security benefits – would receive just 70 percent of the full amount, or $1,260 per month, if they begin early retirement. At age 65, the benefit rises to roughly 87 percent of the full benefit, or $1,560. Retiring at 67 unlocks the full benefit of $1,800. For those who delay retirement until age 70, monthly payments climb to an estimated $2,323, around 124 percent of the base amount. Benefits no longer increase after becoming a septuagenarian. Why did the law change? The new retirement age did not happen overnight and has been climbing gradually after Congress passed a set of reforms which were signed into law by President Ronald Reagan more than four decades ago. While the Social Security Act was born in the depths of the Great Depression, its 1983 amendment came amid another era of economic strain. The system was on the brink of financial collapse after the U.S. had experienced back-to-back recessions. Benefit payouts began to exceed income, meaning Social Security, as it stood, was no longer sustainable. The original act was designed when life expectancy in the U.S. was just 61 years, so there were vastly fewer retirees and benefits would not have been collected as long. By 1983, Americans were living much longer, with the average life expectancy over 74 years (79 today). The ratio of active workers to retirees also shrank dramatically, from 42 to 1 to 3.6 to 1 (2.7:1 today). The law change meant that people turning 65 in 1990 were the last to have a full retirement age of exactly 65. Starting in 1991, the full retirement age increased by two months each year, meaning those turning 65 in 1991 had to wait until 65 years and 2 months; in 1992 it was 65 years and 4 months, and so on. From 1996 to 2007, anyone turning 65 had an full retirement age of 66 years. After that, the retirement age continued rising by two-month increments until it reached 67 for those turning 65 in 2026 and beyond.
The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
ICE is arresting more non-criminals than ever as Trump pushes for more enforcement
Donald Trump's deportation blitz began as soon as his second presidency did, with billions diverted into mass raids and Trump declaring: 'We're getting the bad, hard criminals out' — but that rhetoric doesn't quite match the data. The number of people without a criminal record being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and held in detention has jumped 800 percent since January, as officials face pressure to boost numbers, according to reports. This enforcement drive has resulted in 51,302 people being imprisoned in ICE centers as of the start of June; marking the first time that detention centers held over 50,000 immigrants at once. Less than one in three (30 percent) of these detainees are convicted criminals, with the remainder pending criminal charges or arrested for non-criminal immigration offenses, such as overstaying a visa or unauthorized entry to the the country. The latest data is from June 1, published by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Since January, when the Trump administration entered office, ICE has not published clear and official figures on arrests or deportations. People held in immigration detention are either arrested by Customs and Border Protection, either at the US border or within 100 miles, or by ICE. But among detained immigrants who have been arrested by ICE and not CBP, the number of non-criminal arrests has shot up. Before the Trump administration entered office in mid-January, the proportion of non-criminal detainees arrested by ICE (meaning people without a criminal conviction or pending charges) was just 6 percent of all ICE arrests, 850 people. This was largely in line with figures over Joe Biden's presidency, where non-criminal ICE arrests rarely made up more than 10 percent of detainees. Yet since President Trump's inauguration on January 20, this figure has soared, with 7,781 detainees arrested by ICE without a criminal history or pending charges. This makes up one in four (23 percent) of all detained immigrants arrested by ICE; an increase of over 800 percent, and the highest levels recorded since at least 2019, as far as records go back. At the same time, just four in ten detainees who had been arrested by ICE were convicted criminals, latest data shows; the lowest level recorded, and a 20 percent drop proportionally from January. This substantial shift in non-criminal immigration arrests comes as enforcement officials increasingly conduct raids at workplaces, a reversal of the Biden-era ban. Meanwhile, ICE is facing ongoing pressure from the government to boost numbers; with Homeland Security secretary Kirsti Noem reportedly ordering targets of 3,000 arrests a day. And just this week, Trump demanded ICE "expand efforts to detain and deport illegal Aliens' in Democratic-run cities, and reversed an order to protect farmworkers from raids just days earlier. 'The American People want our Cities, Schools, and Communities to be SAFE and FREE from Illegal Alien Crime, Conflict, and Chaos,' he wrote in a lengthy tirade on Truth Social. The lack of transparency over ICE arrests and other statistics under the Trump administration has also made it harder to identify trends in immigration enforcement. But internal ICE documents seen by CNN suggest that immigration enforcement has had little focus on violent criminals. Just one in ten ICE detainees from October to May have been convicted of serious crimes — including murder, rape, assault or robbery, according to CNN. Even among all detainees with a criminal conviction, who make up around a third of the 185,000 ICE detainees over this period, the vast majority, around 75 percent, are for non-serious crimes. These non-serious crimes include traffic and other offenses, but are included under an umbrella label when ICE refers to targeting immigrants with a criminal conviction. The Trump administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric has centered around criminal convictions and gang affiliations, not least with the unprecedented deportation of around 245 Venezuelans to El Salvador over alleged links to the Tren de Aragua gang. The increasing number of non-criminals being detained by ICE, in addition to the low prioritization for serious crimes (just 9 percent of all detainees), is a concern amid the wider push to ramp up immigration enforcement at all costs. In fact, though deportation has been front-and-center of the Trump agenda, the numbers are not skyrocketing on the surface; and border patrol deportations are going down, since fewer migrants are attempting to cross into the US. While the latter should be a positive sign for the Trump administration, it may make officials desperate to find higher deportation numbers to report – regardless of immigrants' criminal histories. 'This push on numbers — exclusive of whether or not the job is being done right — is very concerning,' said Sarah Saldaña, former ICE director under Obama, told the New York Times. 'You're going to have people who are being pushed to the limit, who in a rush may not get things right, including information on a person's status.'
