First Thing: Trump threatens BBC with $1bn legal action over edit of speech in documentary
Two senior BBC figures have resigned. Plus, China's CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months
Good morning.
Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC and welcomed the resignations of two of its most senior figures after a campaign against the UK's public broadcaster peaked over the criticism that a 2024 documentary used a misleading edit of a Trump speech on the day of the January 6 insurrection.
Why did the BBC's director general and News CEO resign? They did so after the rightwing Telegraph newspaper published a leaked internal report by a former BBC standards adviser alleging failings in the broadcaster's coverage.
What did the documentary show? Trump's speech was edited to put together two sentences that were actually 54 minutes apart, splicing him telling supporters to walk to the US capitol and then to fight like hell".
So Trump didn't tell people to fight"? No, he absolutely did, many times. According to the January 6 select committee report, he spent the next 50-or-so minutes amping up his crowd with lies about the election, attacking his own vice-president and Republican members of Congress, and exhorting the crowd to fight".
Why is Trump doing this? The development is only the latest chapter in a campaign meant to keep media institutions that cover Trump on their toes," writes the Guardian US media correspondent, Jeremy Barr.
What are the spyware companies? Paragon Solutions, which makes a spyware called Graphite; and NSO Group, which the Biden administration had in 2021 accused of engaging in business contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US". Paragon made a deal the Trump administration in September to provide services to immigration agents.
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