Daniel Zuidijk

Unmasked: the man behind one of the fastest growing far-right YouTube channels Chris Booth’s channel – rife with neo-Nazi ideology, antisemitism and racism – garnered 2.3m views and likely thousands of dollars from YouTube in about two months The Guardian has identified the self-described “national socialist” behind an openly extremist YouTube channel that in just over two months has accumulated 50,000 subscribers, seen more than 2.3m views, and likely made thousands of dollars from YouTube’s revenue-sharing monetization program. Johnathan Christopher “Chris” Booth, 37, lives in the unincorporated community of Coral, a part of Maple Valley Township in Michigan’s Montcalm county and is married to a senior local Republican official. Continue reading...

Unmasked: the man behind one of the fastest growing far-right YouTube channels

Ukraine Anti-Corruption Agencies Detain Four in Drone Procurement Probe Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies said four people had been detained in a probe into “large-scale” corruption in the procurement of drones and jamming systems.

Ukraine detains four people as part of a probe into “large scale” corruption in the procurement of drones and planning systems (🎁)

US and Europe See Putin Reining In Russia’s Unruly Hybrid War US and European officials say they’re seeing a decline in suspected Russian state-backed sabotage acts this year, evidence that President Vladimir Putin’s security services may be reining in a hybrid ...

Russia’s so-called hybrid war appears to have entered a quiet period according to US and European officials interviewed by Bloomberg News (🎁)

Elon Musk’s Empire Is Creaking Under the Strain of Elon Musk Tesla, SpaceX and xAI are struggling to deal with the fallout from Musk’s Trump feud and wild bets.

It is increasingly looking like Elon Musk is the biggest obstacle for his own companies.

The centibillionaire’s political turn last year has raised questions about the management of SpaceX, Tesla and even xAI (🎁)

Israel Foreign Ministry to fund visit by MAGA social media influencers ***

Israel's Foreign Ministry is funding a trip for US influencers associated with the America First and MAGA movements via a third party group. The government's contract with Israel365 was justified because of its "experience and know-how" in mobilising Christian audiences

Brazil’s Top Court Defies Trump, Signals No Retreat on Bolsonaro Donald Trump’s tariff threat against Brazil over a legal probe into his political ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, caught the Supreme Court in Brasilia off guard.

Donald Trump’s tariff threat against Brazil over a legal probe into his political ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, caught the Supreme Court in Brasilia off guard

Syria’s Bedouins Say They Withdrew From Sweida After Clashes MAZRAA, Syria (AP) — Syria's armed Bedouin clans announced Sunday they had withdrawn from the Druze-majority city of Sweida following weeklong clashes and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, as humanitarian ai...

Syria's Bedouin's withdraw from the Druze-majority city of Sweida following weeklong clashes and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. The clashes killed hundreds and threatened to unravel the country's already fragile postwar transition.

Trump’s Ambitions Collide With Epstein, Fed and Health Concerns For President Donald Trump, whose political career has benefited from voter anxiety over Washington elites, the health of his predecessor and the riches of Wall Street, the past week offered a reversa...

For someone who built an entire platform on the back of anxiety about DC elites, the health of his predecessor(s) and Wall Street riches, this last week has been a rare reversal of fortune for Trump

I’m going to be at Develop: Brighton this week to meet video game folks and get a sense of the industry more broadly.

Do get in touch if you want to chat, gossip or indeed invite me to your party

Revealed: the far-right, antisemitic men’s club network spreading across US Old Glory Club has at least 26 chapters with participants including military personnel, lawyers and civil servants

New from me: details on the sold Glory Club, which has set up at least 26 lodges across 20 states, and whose members include antisemitic podcasters, a national guardsman, and a defense contractor with secret clearance www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Institutions Protecting US Democracy Have Turned Into Traps America’s two-party system has long been intended as a barrier against an extremism. Polarization is making it an accelerant instead.

For most of US history, the two-party system served as a bulwark against political extremism.

Not anymore…

China Has Stifled Hong Kong’s Voice, But Not Its Spirit Five years after Beijing imposed a national security law that effectively snuffed out dissent, Hong Kong is finding its way back as a financial hub.

Civil society in Hong Kong might be on its knees, but that doesn’t mean the former colony has become just another Chinese city

Russian Internet Outages Soar as Kremlin Boosts War Controls Russia is regularly switching off mobile internet connections in large swaths of the country for security reasons, in a sign of the Kremlin’s growing ability to control popular access to technology.

Russia regularly switches off the internet in large swaths of the country for security reasons, showing the Kremlin’s growing ability to control popular access to technology

Important 👇

Electronic Warfare Crashes Global Shipping’s Navigation Systems The Iran-Israel war highlighted a critical flaw in the satellite-based systems that makes the industry hauling 80% of global trade vulnerable to mass-jamming.

Ships that carry about 80% of global trade are struggling to navigate through a world where tactics such as radar jamming and spoofing have become increasingly common

The music industry is building the tech to hunt down AI songs With no way to stop the onslaught of AI music, the industry is taking a different approach: figuring out how to make money off of it.

Rather than attempting to contain them, the music industry has instead shifted its efforts to making AI songs traceable. Detection systems are now being embedded across the entire pipeline, with platforms, databases and algorithms all now involved with the search

Israel Awakes to a New Reality After US Strikes Iranian Sites Israelis woke up to a new reality Sunday after President Donald Trump confirmed that the US bombed Iran’s three main nuclear sites, diminishing a threat they’ve considered existential for decades.

Trump’s decision to enter the war in Iran was broadly hailed across the political spectrum in Israel, but commentators were also quick to acknowledge that they don’t know what comes next (🎁)

Pandemic preparedness ‘dramatically eroding’ under Trump, experts say

With misinformation and murky details on bird flu and measles outbreaks, experts worry about the next pandemic.

UK Heat Wave Could Claim Nearly 600 Lives This Week, Experts Warn Scientists have warned the elderly and other vulnerable groups in the UK are at risk of heat-related deaths this weekend, as a new study shows recent high temperatures could claim 570 lives in just ov...

This weekend’s heatwave here in the UK could claim almost 600 lives, a report from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London.

“Our study should be taken as a warning,” LSHTM’s Malcom Misty said

Iran Satellite Images Show Race to Get Its Oil Out Into the World Iran is racing to get oil out into the world and ensure revenues continue even as Israel pounds its infrastructure

Donald Trump might not have fully committed to a strike on Iran, but that hasn’t kept the Islamic Republic from racing to get its oil out of the country

Been a while, huh?

Attentat raciste dans le Var : Christophe B., une haine raciale alimentée par la fachosphère Actif sur Facebook, l’auteur présumé du meurtre du Tunisien Hichem Miraoui, samedi 31 mai, y exprimait une agressivité permanente, alimentée par les infox et intox issues de sites et de pages d’extrêm...

The alleged killer of a man in the South of France had a Facebook page full of xenophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic hate, as well as firearms and other telltale signs of right-wing radicalisation

Good (French) read ⬇️

How Ukraine’s Drone Arsenal Shocked Russia and Changed Modern Warfare Costing as little as $400 apiece, Kyiv’s flying machines are successfully neutralizing sophisticated Russian equipment worth thousands of times more

When Russia first invaded Ukraine, there were questions about how long the country would be able to withstand the onslaught.

Three and a bit years later, the country has a homegrown drone industry.

Amazing reporting from my colleagues here at Bloomberg

The far-right can't government in coalition because they're constantly engaged with disordered discourse that demands ideological purity and treats deliberation as a form of doctrine reinforcement, not a process for coming to shared consensus for action.

Dutch Government Falls After Far-Right Party Quits Coalition Far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders pulled his Freedom Party out of the Netherlands’ ruling coalition, causing the government to collapse and triggering a snap election.

Geert Wilders pulls his party out of the Netherlands ruling coalition after his party's partners fail to back his plans to curb migration. The far-right lawmaker's move immediately caused the government to collapse and triggered snap elections

Hungary’s Top Court Strikes Down Police Ban on LGBTQ Gathering Hungary’s top court struck down a police ban of a pro-LGBTQ gathering in Budapest, in a test of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s escalating culture war before elections next year.

Victor Orban’s attempt to ban pro-LGBTQ+ gatherings faces a setback.

Hungary passed legislation targeting Pride and other similar events earlier this year, but a court found that police failed to justify how the new rules applied to a smaller event scheduled to take place later today

Nick wanted to drop bodyfat and build his own micro-harem of women: how my friend fell for the red-pill hucksters of the manosphere His is a cautionary tale of what happens when someone who feels inadequate listens to the new generation of masculinity salesmen

“Nick wasn’t an incel; he was one of the men who saw incels as a cautionary tale – the ultimate destiny of anyone who failed to mould themselves to the dictates of the digitised sexual marketplace.”

Incredible writing on the manosphere in today’s @theguardian.com