Chris Philp gets in a muddle over neighbouring African countries when questioned on BBC show

The policing minister, Chris Philp, appeared to confuse the countries of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on BBC Question Time.

Responding to an audience member’s question during the BBC One programme, the MP for Croydon South seemed to ask whether “Rwanda is a different country to Congo?”.

Continue reading...

The annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner returns this Saturday for a night of comedy ‘roasting’ – where the great and the good are ruthlessly mocked in celebration of the freedom of the press.

In recent years, however, the night has taken on a different tone, with the atmosphere of warm self-deprecation and bipartisan bonhomie replaced by something more scathing and serious.

This week Jonathan Freedland is joined by Jeff Nussbaum, a former senior speech writer to Joe Biden, to discuss the art of writing gags for presidents and whether there is still space for humour in US politics.

Continue reading...

Government accused of trying to undermine independent media with move to replace public broadcaster and its director-general

Journalists in Slovakia are protesting against a government move to overhaul the country’s public broadcaster, warning that the populist prime minister, Robert Fico, and his allies are undermining media freedom.

On Thursday, many journalists wore black, a day after Slovakia’s government approved a controversial draft law that would replace the public broadcaster RTVS, remove its director general and allow a council partly selected by a ministry to appoint a new chief.

Continue reading...

High court judge orders actor turned politician to pay £90,000 damages to each individual for social media libel

The actor turned politician Laurence Fox has been ordered to pay £90,000 each in damages to two people he libelled by referring to them as “paedophiles” on social media.

A high court judge made the order in London on Thursday.

Continue reading...

TV journalist Scott Bryan looks back at the making of I Wanna Marry “Harry” – and the dubious ethics behind the show. Plus: five of the best podcasts hosted by pop stars

• Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

The wild, format-pushing and often skin-crawling world of early 00s reality television has made for some brilliant retrospective podcast series in recent times.

There’s Something About Miriam was one of the most shocking examples, with its “six guys date the woman of their dreams and discover she is transgender” brief. Wondery’s gripping Harsh Reality revisited the murky series after its star Miriam Rivera was found dead a decade after filming.

Continue reading...

Celebrating advertisers with scale, influence and integrity, the ceremony recognised brands including Nurofen and Google Pixel

The inaugural Guardian Advertising Awards, launched to celebrate scale, influence and integrity across the publisher’s platforms, have recognised brands including Nurofen, Google Pixel and Charlie Bigham’s.

The Grand Prix award was given to Nurofen for its See My Pain campaign, which was praised by judges for its real-world impact in tackling awareness of the gender pain gap and the brand’s “commitment to addressing complex health challenges”. The campaign also won in the “everyday brands” category.

Continue reading...

Ben Schoon reports via 9to5Google: Google's Arif Dikici confirmed on LinkedIn this week that Android is now using VideoLAN's (the makers of VLC) "dav1d" software decoder to allow AV1 to work on more devices. This is now available on all devices running Android 12 or higher via a software update. Mishaal Rahman points out that this started to roll out with the March 2024 Google Play system update. Dikici says that "most" devices can at least support 720p at 30 frames per second, but that apps will need to opt in "for now" to support AV1 via software decoding. One app that has opted in is YouTube, which now uses AV1 on all compatible devices (though it may have reverted this). This may result in increased power usage depending on your device, though. Improvements on that front may be coming, though, says VideoLAN on Twitter/X.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Android Gets a New Software-Based AV1 Decoder

In this week’s newsletter: Navigating the ever-changing world of streaming services is head-spinning, so here are our favourite shows on every one right now

• Don’t get the Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up to get the full article here

This week it’s a return to our “a show for every streamer” format, where – yep – we recommend a show to watch for every streaming service. We last did one of these two years ago , and since then the landscape has dramatically shifted. Some streamers have been folded into others (BritBox is now part of ITVX in the UK), some have rebranded (goodbye IMDb TV, hello Amazon Freevee), some have shuttered (RIP Sundance Now), and some, confusingly, have rebranded then shuttered (so long Lionsgate+, formerly Starzplay, we hardly knew thee). And tellingly very few new streaming services have emerged, suggesting that an industry that has had to reckon with the unsustainable levels of growth it had previously encouraged.

Still, even if streaming is in a period of contraction, there’s still an awful lot of services around. Here are our picks for the must watch shows on each of the major streamers, from Apple to ITVX (note to our international readers: this is a guide for UK streaming sites, but hopefully most of the below is available in some form to you too):

Continue reading...

The actor said he wanted to fight on – but the size of a settlement offer from News Group made it financially risky to proceed further

Why did Hugh Grant settle his legal case against the Sun – even though he wanted to fight on?
The actor has accepted an “enormous” settlement from the Sun in return for dropping his claim that he was illegally targeted by the newspaper’s journalists.

Grant said he had wanted to fight the case and go to trial, where the Sun’s top executives could be called to give evidence. But he has instead concluded he cannot afford to turn down the payout from the Murdoch-owned newspaper – which he will be donating to press regulation charities.

Continue reading...