Politics
Good riddance to RuPaul’s Drag Race
When the BBC television programme The Black and White Minstrel Show breathed its last one evening in 1978 after a whopping 20 years, I don’t think many people were that cut up about it. Except, of course, the entertainers involved, who included a young Lenny Henry. When I see Sir Lenworth CBE now talking about reparations, I wonder how much of it is him trying to compensate for appearing in this show. Don’t worry, Len. You were married to Dawn French for 25 years – you’ve served the time.
The Black and White Minstrel Show had been a phenomenon, spawning huge tours and hit albums, with an audience of 20million viewers at its peak – but the 1980s were almost here, and it was obvious to anyone half-sentient how offensive it was. For those of you too young to remember the show, it comprised white male singers wearing ‘blackface’ make-up, singing songs to attractive white women. Even as a child I sensed there was something off about it, so it’s surprising that they kept it going so long. But then the BBC is always rather slow on the uptake, which may be something to do with its lumbering, bloated size.
When it does see the light, however, it will invariably be intent on shining the torch directly into the eyes of the poor paying public and insisting that it’s all their fault before proceeding with a full-on scolding. Thus, in 2023, the BBC broadcast a documentary featuring David Olusoga and David Harewood informing us of the evils of ‘blackface’ and using The Black and White Minstrel Show to illustrate this – as if the decision to broadcast this abomination had been taken by hoi polloi rather than the posh white men who ran the BBC for all those years.
Long before ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ was a song by Taylor Swift, there was a similarly named psychological game, identified by Eric Berne in his brilliant pop-psychology book, Games People Play, in which a person throws the blame for a bad action on to another, even to the point of feeling genuine anger at them. Auntie can run as many cringingly cosy adverts as it likes telling us that it’s ‘our’ BBC, but this has very much been the attitude of the state-sanctioned broadcaster to its tributaries: pay up and shut up – and when it goes wrong, it was all your fault in the first place.
You’d think that, having so conclusively backed a bad idea, for so long and so late, in the shape of blackface, the BBC might have swerved such shenanigans thereafter. But I guess that the taste for mocking a section of the Beeb’s compatriots who hadn’t been to a decent public school was strong in the corporation. So ‘womanface’ replaced blackface as the drag of choice.
It has now emerged that the BBC has cancelled RuPaul’s Drag Race UK after eight series due to ‘significant financial pressures’. According to the BBC website, after starting in 2019, ‘Drag Race UK brought British drag into mainstream entertainment in the UK, and made household names of drag performers such as La Voix, Danny Beard and Tia Kofi.’ (Never heard of ‘em.)
I’m pleasantly surprised that this chop has happened, as the BBC has been unhealthily obsessed with drag queens over the past few years. Every ‘talent’, cookery and panel show must boast a bloke blind with sparkling eyeshadow; they’re all over Celebrity Mastermind, The Weakest Link, The One Show and Comic Relief (which actually sounds like a drag-queen name – once you look at life in their ceaselessly, and oddly joyless, smutty manner, everything seems like a drag-queen name. I can’t go past my local butcher without making a mental note to avoid Crackling & Stuffing.) As Andy Jones (who worked for the BBC himself) noted starkly in the Spectator earlier this year: ‘And, of course, “because of the unique way the BBC is funded”, the BBC News site also features every crumb of drag news from “Wiltshire locals dress in drag for calendar” to “Drag queens impacted by cost-of-living crisis.” The site ran around 20 separate online stories about the death of drag queen “The Vivienne”.’
BBC News even has a dedicated written section for the creatures – which can often run more stories than the boring old women’s section. BBC News’ top story on International Women’s Day one year was Dylan Mulvaney’s autobiography. Drag queens even have their own alleged sitcom Smoggie Queens, which has been commissioned by the BBC for a third series. I’ll stop here, though there’s masses more, because I’m starting to feel a tiny bit queasy. I’ll just say that it’s amazing there hasn’t been a drag queen reading the BBC News yet, hoiking up her false bosom while recounting some terrible atrocity.
This isn’t a bit of a giggle or pushing the boundaries or ‘being kind’. Drag is womanface, and it’s every bit as bad as blackface. That we don’t see it as such – and that women are among those who cheer these misogynist clowns on – speaks volumes about how we still see sexism as the ‘Yes, but…’ of prejudice, not really serious enough to be up there with racism. It’s ironic that a generation of young, liberal women have proudly freed themselves from being compliant to putative male partners of their own age (see that recent New Statesman poll that found that while only 35 per cent of women under 25 hold a favourable view of men, men from the same cohort hold a 72 per cent favourable view of women), but are fine with being adoring audiences and simpering punchlines for men who want only to mock them. They are accessories and doormats, there to make men dressed as women look acceptable – even if they call themselves names like Cheryl Hole and A’Whora and talk about ‘being fishy’ when they compliment one of their kind for ‘passing’ as a woman. There are drag queens who squirt ‘milk’ out of their fake breasts and drag queens who pretend to have ‘periods’ all over the stage. Is that just a bit of fun, too? But for the kind of woman who is deeply dreary and wants to look edgy, and who has usefully internalised her own misogyny, nothing is too low to get a ‘You go, gurrrl!’.
Some women will even involve their own baffled children in ‘Baby Drag Bingo’ or ‘Drag Queen Story Time’. In 2023, the truly vile-sounding ‘CabaBabaRave’ took place, featuring drag queens in thongs and bondage gear gurning at bewildered babies – it was organised by two women. Such thoroughly castrated females exist only as accessories to befrocked men who, the idiots frequently reassure them, make ‘a better woman than I do!’. In a piece calling the cancellation of Drag Race UK ‘sickening’, the Guardian smugged: ‘A contestant in season one even had a girlfriend at the time – and if that’s not inclusion, what is?’ More fool her. Talk about a female eunuch. Talk about a trans- / handmaid.
Even as a little girl, I knew that blackface was wrong. How stupid must grown women be, how complicit in the contempt which the BBC has been so flagrant in displaying towards them, not to recognise the same thing about womanface?
Who sounds madder to you: the bloke in the pub who likes golf and whiskey or the twat on the street wearing a keffiyeh like a holy shroud while cackling dementedly as an inflatable Jeffrey Epstein sodomises an inflatable Donald Trump? Come on, it’s an easy one. Give me the normie whiskey-sipper over the bourgeois half-wit who simps for Hamas any day of the week. Luckily for Trump, it was the former who cheered for him during his trip to Ireland, while his haters consisted of the most batshit agitators ever to disgrace the streets of Dublin.
It always amazes me when Trump supporters are painted as loons, given there’s no one in Christendom as nutty and annoying as a Trump hater. His two-day jaunt in Ireland was hard proof that anti-populists are far more mentally unstable than populists. Trump was cheered by everyday men and women thronging the bar of his golf course in County Clare, while 150 miles away, in the fallen city of Dublin, overeducated eejits foamed at the mouth about the ‘Epstein class’ and raised the trans flag alongside the Palestine flag. Imagine calling Trump supporters thick when you don’t even know that the only ‘transition’ a genderfluid Mick would be permitted to undergo in Gaza would be from the top of a tall building to the street below.
Trump’s visit to Ireland was hilariously uncontroversial. The press had panted for scandal. Ireland ‘braces’ for the Trump storm, said Time. We must ‘expect the unexpected’, said the Irish Independent. They couldn’t wait for Trump to say something crazy so that they might wank out yet more thinkpieces on what a menace to decency he is. Yet all he did was swap niceties with Taoiseach Micheál Martin, watch the Irish Open at his Doonbeg golf course, and commit to lifting tariffs on Irish whiskey. Will that apply just in Ireland or across the EU, he was asked? ‘Just Ireland’, he said. Oh snap.
The only thing they could cite as proof that he’s still the great uncouth blunderer of Western politics was his comment on Irish unification. A United Ireland would be a ‘fantastic thing’, he said. But here’s the thing: that’s an entirely mainstream opinion in the Irish republic. It’s the only thing Trump’s cheerers in Doonbeg and his detractors in Dublin are likely to agree on: that Ireland should be united. Even former UK PM Gordon Brown has said it’s ‘inevitable’ Ireland will be united.
Yet that didn’t stop the broken-record loathers of Bad Orange Man from trying to blow up his comments into the scandal of the decade. Trump used his trip to ‘fan the flames’ of war in Northern Ireland, said the Daily Beast. Babe, lie down. The idea that a throwaway remark by a US president could reignite the Troubles is not only fantastically dumb – it’s borderline anti-Irish racism. The Irish Indie used the words ‘geopolitical bombshell’ for its recap on Trump’s visit, yet it could cite not one crazy thing done by Trump. You could smell the disappointment.
No, for true insanity, for a glimpse into the bottomless black hole of dogmatic stupidity, one had to look to the opposition to Trump. Thousands gathered in Dublin to impotently froth about the president. It was a sea of Palestine flags – raw proof that that emblem has been wholly hijacked by pampered Westerners as little more than a vanity metric for their own moral superiority. The irony was too much: Trump gave voice to a genuinely Irish nationalist idea, while his haters wrapped themselves in a foreign flag, clearly preferring the holy relic of performative Palestinianism to anything Ireland-related. The populist cares for nationhood, the anti-populist only for the self.
They burnt the US flag. Down with the Land of Free, up with the Land of Hamas! A blimp version of Benjamin Netanyahu and Jeffrey Epstein took it in turns to bugger a blimp version of Donald Trump. Two Jews fucking an American president in the ass – it’s not exactly subtle, is it? The old fascists saw Jewish tentacles everywhere, the new ones see Jewish todgers. To drive the point home, placards showed Epstein and Netanyahu as the puppetmasters of a marionette Trump. Yeah, that’s anti-Semitic as hell. You almost have to admire the nuclear-grade gall of activists screaming ‘Fascist!’ at a democratically elected president even as they hold up imagery that might have made Der Stürmer wince.
Of course the trans flag was everywhere, too. No lefty demo is complete without the voodoo cry that you can have a cock and be a woman. Quite when ‘left-wing’ became synonymous with being a socially disordered douche who thinks men should be free to show their knobs to women (‘trans rights’) and Islamofascists should be free to kill Jews (‘resistance’) is anyone’s guess. But we can all agree, surely, that the sex-denying, Jew-taunting, anti-American bollocks on display in Dublin was in every way imaginable more unhinged than anything said by anyone in Doonbeg.
We’re told to fear populism but I find anti-populism far scarier. Trump might not be your cup of tea – fine – but an anti-Trump movement that agitates for the right of hulking fellas to play in women’s sports and for Hamas to annihilate the Jewish State all the way ‘from the river to the sea’ should horrify you far more. After his two days in Ireland we’ve learnt that Trump likes golf, whiskey and winding up Brits by yapping about a United Ireland, and that his haters think Jews control the world and a 6ft fella in a dress is literally a woman. Choose your fighter.
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If you want to see how politicians would like to treat the public if they were not constrained by democracy, look at how they treat children. Soon to be banned from using social media and, from 1 January 2027, banned from ever buying tobacco, the under-16s are also about to be subjected to phase two of Jamie Oliver’s assault on school dinners.
It is almost exactly 20 years since a Labour government introduced new food standards in England’s schools after the unbearable celebrity chef made a TV series about it. Budgets were increased and Turkey Twizzlers were banned, but Oliver didn’t stop to catch his breath. He immediately demanded a ban on packed lunches and, in a classic case of projection, described parents who gave their children fizzy drinks as ‘tossers’ and ‘arseholes’.
The new school-dinner rules announced today give Oliver everything he has been lobbying for. Pastries and croissants will no longer be permitted in breakfast clubs. Sausages and bacon are allowed, but only once a week. Fried eggs are banned completely. Only breakfast cereals that are very low in sugar can be served. Teacakes, crumpets and unsweetened pancakes can be served, but only twice a week. Porridge is permitted but only if it is ‘plain’ and ‘unflavoured’ – no sugar, honey, syrups or sweeteners are to be made available.
For lunch, kids can no longer be offered fried chips or any other deep-fried food. Processed meat and ‘foods containing pastry’ can only be served once a week. Meals containing cheese, such as lasagna, are limited to three portions a week. Lentils and chickpeas are to be compulsory at least once a week. No foods containing chocolate are permitted. ‘Sweetened desserts’ can only be served twice a week.
As for the tuck shop, the government has decreed that the ‘only permitted snacks are plain fruits, vegetables, savoury crackers, breadsticks, yoghurt / plant-based versions (as per the dairy food group) and houmous’. Nom, nom!
It is not just that the government is being puritanical. The new food regime also reveals a thirst for micromanagement and regulation for the sake of regulation that is quite mind-boggling. No detail is too small for Labour’s Gastronomic Gestapo. No dinner lady is to be trusted and nothing can be left to common sense. Not only will kids be limited to two sweetened desserts a week, but those desserts ‘must include an 80g portion of fruit or vegetables’. Only jam and marmalade with ‘reduced sugar’ can be served, but they ‘must be limited to sachets or portions of no more than 10g or one teaspoon’.
The rationale for many of the new rules is far from obvious. Schools will be allowed to fry sausages but not eggs. If a school serves a food containing pastry and a food containing processed meat, it cannot serve a food covered in breadcrumbs in the same week. Schools cannot serve more than two portions of ‘meat and fish alternative products’ in the same week, but starchy carbohydrates, such as chips, must be available every day. The vegetarian menu must contain pulses at least three days a week. Where have all these numbers come from? Where is the science for any of this?
The new rules go far beyond ensuring that kids have a balanced diet and consume enough calories to get through the day. They are a grab bag of arbitrary prohibitions on random food products and compulsory targets that seem to have been devised by rolling dice. Their only redeeming feature is that they will save the taxpayer money if children decide to eat their breakfast at home and take a packed lunch with them to school.
This is why Jamie Oliver was so keen to ban packed lunches 20 years ago and it is why nanny statists have been echoing his demand ever since. Only last month, the cake-promoting anti-obesity campaigner Prue Leith said the quiet part out loud when she called for packed lunches to be banned because the government ‘can’t police’ what parents put in them. The constant expansion of breakfast clubs and ‘free’ school meals isn’t about preventing children from going hungry. It is about control. The state doesn’t trust parents to follow the latest food fad and it wants to overrule the preferences of not just the child, but also of the child’s family.
The new school-meals regime reveals in absurd detail what a state-sanctioned diet looks like. The government can enforce it on children because children can’t vote. It can’t enforce it on the rest of us for the time being, but through the use of taxes, bans and reformulation, it will do its best to try.
Christopher Snowdon is director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs and the co-host of Last Orders, spiked’s nanny-state podcast.
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NEW YORK — A state lawmaker who gained national attention for his opposition to unchecked AI during a failed campaign for Congress this year is launching a $30 million effort to unite Democrats around regulating the technology, according to the organization’s new website.
New York Assemblymember Alex Bores is unveiling the organization — called “Who Decides” — on Tuesday to “build the winning Democratic answer to AI,” according to a website that was publicly available Monday night.
“Who Decides’ goal is that by 2028, Democratic candidates from the top of the ticket on down run with a common AI safety agenda,” reads an announcement on the site dated Tuesday. “That means addressing the harms people already see and the broader danger that increasingly powerful and out-of-control systems could destabilize our economy, our democracy, and our safety.”
It was not immediately clear whether Who Decides would be organized as a federal super PAC, 501(c)(4) nonprofit or other type of group. The website has a “donate” link that redirects to a webpage hosted by “Give Butter,” an organization focused on helping nonprofits fundraise. The announcement said the group would reject “corporate money or contributions from senior executives at frontier AI companies.”
Bores did not immediately respond to questions about the organization Monday night, including whether Bores, a sitting state lawmaker, personally fundraised for the group while holding public office. He is launching the organization with his former chief of staff, Anna Myers, the website says.
The apparent launch of Who Decides comes at a moment when the quickly-advancing technology has become a major political issue.
Last week, a former Anthropic researcher issued a dire warning that artificial intelligence has a chance of bringing about the end of humanity. The concerns from the researcher, Jacob Coxon, who also worked for OpenAI, were followed up by calls from the leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI, along with Elon Musk, to regulate the industry and slow development to build more guardrails.
Politicians have scrambled to respond, with both parties trying to coalesce around a policy agenda — and political message — on the rapidly evolving issue. Former President Barack Obama called last week for Democrats to focus on AI, and prominent party strategists from across the ideological spectrum gathered to begin mapping out a strategy.
President Donald Trump rejected recent calls from Republicans and Democrats to quickly regulate the industry in a spate of Monday social media posts.
“We don’t let five people write the laws for hundreds of millions of Americans,” Bores says in the launch announcement on the website, an apparent reference to the top executives in the AI industry. “There is no reason to let them write the rules for AI.”
The group says on the site it will focus on 11 states that it says will be key to the 2028 presidential primary and general election: South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It says it will conduct quarterly national and state polls, host national conferences and partner with local groups in the states.
Earlier this year, Bores lost the primary for retiring Manhattan Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat. His campaign largely centered on a push to regulate artificial intelligence following his work to pass the RAISE Act in the state Legislature, which aimed to enact safeguards for the technology. His campaign attracted a combined $21 million from super PACs backed by dueling factions of the AI community, which spent both in support and opposition of him. Democratic Assemblymember Micah Lasher ultimately won the primary and is all but assured to win in November in the deep-blue seat.
“The lesson Bores and Myers took from those fights was that confronting the AI industry is fertile political ground and that public demand for answers on AI policy exists but remains scattered,” the website said, referencing his congressional campaign. “What’s missing is a coalition capable of turning that energy into a governing consensus before the technology, the economic dislocation, and the partisan battle lines harden.”
Nigel Farage’s hopes of becoming prime minister could be scuppered by a nationwide wave of anti-Reform tactical voting, polling experts have said.
A study by the More in Common found that left-wing voters are far more likely to vote tactically than those on the right.
Even Conservative supporters are more likely to vote for the Lib Dems to stop Reform than they are to back Nigel Farage’s party, the research found.
Overall, one in three voters (32%) said they were willing to vote tactically to block candidates they don’t like.
But while around half of Labour, Lib Dem and Green supporters say they would, only 35% of Tories and 30% of Reform voters are prepared to do so.
Just over half (51%) of Tories say they would never vote Reform, while 50% said they were willing to vote tactically for the Lib Dems.
More in Common director Luke Tryl said tactical voting “has begun to play a more decisive role in our politics”, with Reform the big losers.
He said: “Across by-elections in Caerphilly, Makerfield, Gorton and Denton and even for Count Binface in Clacton, we have seen ruthless tactical consolidation against Reform, with the right struggling to build tactical coalitions in the same way.
“Our research confirms this shift. Progressive voters, especially young voters and graduates, have become increasingly willing to vote tactically.
“Majorities of Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters are now willing to do so. Right-leaning and older voters are less willing to do so. Restore and Reform voters say they are the least open to voting tactically.”
Tryl added: “It’s possible that tactical voting could prove a barrier to Farage’s chances of entering Number 10.
“In focus groups, we’ve heard from some progressive voters who say they are ‘terrified’ of a Reform government, and would be willing to vote for anyone to keep them out.
“A left willing to vote ruthlessly tactically, and a right unwilling to unite behind Farage, could prove one of Reform’s greatest challenges at the next election.”
In a further blow for Farage, More in Common also found that the public preferred the prospect of a Labour government to a Reform or Tory one.
Some 37%, including a clear majority of Liberal Democrat and Green supporters, would back a Labour government if they were forced to make a choice, compared to 23% for both the Conservatives and Reform.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
ICE TO SEE YOU: Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office is advising local governments that zoning and state environmental laws can stymie Immigration and Customs Enforcement from building or expanding detention facilities in their communities.
Those legal barriers — spelled out in a letter sent today by Hochul to local government leaders — represent the latest effort by her administration to halt ICE’s efforts in New York.
“We need localities focused on keeping our communities safe, which depends upon the efforts of local law enforcement, civil servants, and regulators,” Hochul wrote in the letter, which was exclusively obtained by Playbook. “While my administration will continue to demand answers and transparency from federal immigration authorities, should you become aware of these projects, my office is ready to partner with you to determine any appropriate next steps to protect our local communities.”
The missive is a new front in Hochul’s broader push to erect roadblocks against President Donald Trump’s sweeping deportation campaign — which includes a push to build or convert facilities in parts of New York.
New York lawmakers and Hochul agreed in May to a package of sweeping measures meant to limit Trump’s immigration enforcement.
Included in those measures were provisions that required expanded public notice — including holding at least two hearings — for the expansion or construction of an immigration detention facility. The law also prohibits local governments from providing financial benefits meant to offset the cost of a facility.
Hochul’s Republican critics have railed against the measures, which were first proposed during the aggressive deportation crackdown in Minnesota, which left two U.S. citizens dead.
Broome County Sheriff Fred Akshar is set to testify Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington on “the continuing tragedy of sanctuary laws.” Akshar’s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Local government officials have already sounded an alarm this year over ICE’s apparent efforts to expand the agency’s detention capacity by leasing or expanding sites in Batavia, Newburgh and Rochester.
Hochul wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin earlier this summer requesting more information on ICE’s New York plans.
Last month her administration got a reply.
An ICE official wrote to the governor that the agency has “not directed the establishment of a detention facility” in Rochester. In Batavia, ICE is “in the early stages” of weighing a bedspace and usage expansion at a site. And in the Hudson Valley, the agency confirmed that “an acquisition [is] underway to identify a new facility to lease through the General Services Administration” that would house its investigations, enforcement and removal operations.
Details were scant in the letter, but the response is the first time the federal government has formally laid out any of its plans for ICE expansion in New York to state officials.
On Monday in New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and state Attorney General Letitia James offered some of their own push back: two lawsuits seeking to stop the Trump administration from making it harder for immigrants lawfully in the U.S. to change their status.
The suits target a federal rule change set to take effect Friday. The change would give immigration agents more leeway to deny green cards or visas to lawful immigrants on the basis of being a “public charge” — someone who’s using social safety net programs. The rule change would allow agents to factor in the use of Medicaid or food assistance into their decision making.
The Trump administration has said the rule is necessary to ensure the country is not authorizing immigrants who drain public resources.
Mamdani countered that, rather than saving the U.S. money, the change will force immigrants to forgo routine medical care, increasing the likelihood of medical emergencies.
“None of this is abstract,” Mamdani said. “People could die as a result of these changes.”
James said the administration’s rule change is overly broad and flies in the face of more than 100 years of legal precedent.
“This public charge rule goes back to 1822, where Congress basically said that it only applies to individuals who cannot support themselves, not individuals who apply every now and then for public assistance because they fall on hard times,” she said. — Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta
From the Capitol
REGENTS EXAM PHASE-OUT COMING: The high school class of 2027 will be the final one required to pass the state Regents exams to graduate.
The state Board of Regents authorized the Education Department today to move forward with the next phase of the “New York Inspires” program. As part of that program, the board voted last year to adopt a framework that lets students demonstrate proficiency through other measures like projects or coursework. That framework will replace the Regents exam.
While the Regents will remain as an option, it will no longer be a requirement for high school graduation, beginning with students graduating in 2028, education officials said during the board’s monthly meeting today.
“For years, we looked at what elite private schools provide for their students and they do not worry about the Regents exam,” State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said. “They don’t even worry when you apply to colleges that it’s on their transcript.”
The department said it plans to advance the regulation changes to the board by February 2027 so it can implement the changes in the 2027-28 school year. The board unanimously passed a resolution to that effect today.
Districts will have to develop strategies for assessment that draw on multiple sources of evidence, including classroom performance, student work and state assessments.
Some Regents board members sought more clarity on resources to support families.
“What I did not hear was what resources, what tools do we have for parents and students who are in this purgatory period?” said Regents member Hasoni Pratts, a New York City public school parent.
The news comes as the state grapples with abysmal performance on this year’s reading exams — despite New York spending more per pupil than any other state in the country. Experts and advocates have been questioning what those results say about student learning, and precisely what led to those fluctuations. — Madina Touré
FROM CITY HALL
DEEPFAKE CRACKDOWN: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced today that his office seized control of a dozen domains used to create, disseminate and sell AI deepfake porn.
The sites in question featured AI-generated images and videos of roughly 1,200 individuals — primarily women and celebrities — engaging in sexually explicit activity.
“These horrific violations of privacy follow victims into their careers and personal lives, and take an immense toll on their emotional and mental well-being,” Bragg said. “We were able to seize these domains because a brave survivor stepped forward. And while victims of these sites are largely celebrities, we know that anyone can be a victim of these crimes, particularly in domestic violence cases.”
New York penal law prohibits the dissemination of pornography without a subject’s consent, and violations are punishable by up to a year in prison. That statute was updated in 2023 to explicitly prohibit AI-generated porn.
Bragg’s announcement comes as lawmakers in Albany and Washington grapple with the looming threat of artificial intelligence. But Bragg declined to comment on the potential role of the Manhattan DA’s office in working towards larger scale AI regulation.
“This is a crime in New York State,” he said, referring to the circulation of deepfake pornography. “We don’t have to talk about regulation, legislation. This is a crime now.” —Molly Reinmann
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
2028 VISION: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leaning into the speculation swirling around her 2028 aspirations.
“In some ways, I understand the interest. But I wanted to write to you today to be direct about what I’m focused on,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a fundraising email. “Frankly, I could not care less about titles or positions for myself. That’s not why I got into this work. What matters to me is changing this country so that it finally works for all of us, and that’s why my focus is on the decision working people around the country will make in the next 50 days.”
She added that her political operation is “mobilizing resources, not just to get me re-elected or build for a future campaign, but most importantly to win the midterms and take back the majority.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who’s been active on the trail boosting down-ballot candidates, has kept the door open for either a Senate run or a presidential bid in 2028 — though some progressives are urging her to aim for the White House.
Any clarity on her 2028 decision before this coming Election Day seems unlikely, though — especially given how “concerned” she says she is “by how some in our party are talking” about the midterms.
“There is a narrative taking hold in Washington that the Republicans are already cooked,” her email continued. “That kind of complacency is how we grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. … All of this is why I am not spending this fall thinking about myself. I am spending it working my butt off to deliver a majority in the House and the Senate.” — Madison Fernandez
A DIFFERENT LAUDER GIVES: Estee Lauder Chair William Lauder gave $500,000 to the super PAC backing Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.
Lauder’s contribution comes after his uncle, prolific GOP donor Ronald Lauder, ceased his political giving this year. Ronald Lauder was the principal backer of a super PAC aiding Republican Lee Zeldin’s 2022 bid against Hochul.
William Lauder wasn’t the only deep-pocketed titan to donate to the Blakeman PAC recently. Home Depot founder Ken Langone, a GOP megadonor who once led Republicans for Cuomo, gave $50,000. — Nick Reisman
IN OTHER NEWS
— STALLED SECURITY: More than eight months into his term, Mamdani is still waiting on federal security clearance. (Gothamist)
— LEGIONELLA LOCATIONS: A Yankee Stadium cooling tower tested positive for the bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease, according to the New York City Health Department. (Daily News)
— SIGN LANGUAGE: A PAC funded by Knicks owner James Dolan launched a $250,000 billboard campaign backing Blakeman and blaming Hochul for an exodus from the state. (NY Post)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Bo French, the GOP nominee for a spot on the Texas Railroad Commission, doubled down on Monday on a xenophobic post that disparaged Asian American students at the University of Texas after receiving blowback from fellow Republicans over the weekend.
On X, French was quick to turn his viral post, which had received more than 35 million views as of Monday afternoon, into a fundraising pledge, calling the criticism he has received an attack from “the radical left and their allies.”
He also stood by his post in an appearance on the conservative radio broadcast “The Mark Davis Show” on Monday.
“The radical left, you know, they want to make everything about race,” he said on the show. “Of course, there are some people in our party who are uncomfortable talking about those things because it scares them.”
The social media firestorm started after French posted a photo on X on Sunday of UT students celebrating in the crowd and wrote: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
The post drew swift rebukes from Democrats and some Texas Republicans, including outgoing Sen. John Cornyn — who called on other Republican officials to “condemn the intolerance and racism” — as well as several state lawmakers.
During his radio appearance, French said his social media post is a criticism of admissions and hiring policies at UT, the state’s public flagship, that he said discriminated against Texas residents.
“It’s not racist to point out that we should be favoring Texans over foreigners,” French said.
There’s no indication that the students French targeted are foreigners. Most of UT’s student body is made up of Texans.
According to state law, Texas high school students in the top 5% of their class are automatically admitted to UT, and around 80% of the student body is from the state.
He also took a shot at Cornyn and other Republicans who condemned him, saying many were from the establishment wing of the party that opposed him in the GOP primary.
“What is he doing to help elect [Ken] Paxton? So we have to ask those questions,” he said. “I just think we should be prioritizing our Republican platform, which, by the way, is an America First platform, which prioritizes Americans.”
French, who is running for a seat on the influential statewide body that regulates its oil and gas industry, has a history of making controversial statements.
Earlier this year, he suggested Republicans should fear Islam and advocated for deporting 100 million people.
This summer was pretty hot (understatement of the century) – and extremely dry. In fact, despite recent rainfall, drought conditions continue across much of England and Wales.
One perk of the recent wet weather is that your previously yellow and crispy-looking lawn should be finally returning to its former green glory.
if you’re itching to get your mower out and give it a good trim ahead of the cooler seasons, a gardening expert has shared a word of warning.
Don’t cut your grass too short
Morris Hankinson, managing director of Hopes Grove Nurseries, told Ideal Home that cutting your grass too short is one of the biggest mistakes gardeners can make as autumn arrives, as it will “leave it stressed”.
He explained that “shorter grass has less leaf surface to photosynthesise, which means less shade for the soil, leading it to dry out and be significantly more stressed than other times of the year”.
Ideally, you should let your grass (and soil) recover by not mowing – especially given we’re still in drought. However, if it’s looking a bit unruly, your best bet is to raise the mower blades, leaving the grass “slightly longer”.
Carl Tronders via Unsplash
Any other lawn-care tips?
Yes. According to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), autumn is a great time to give your lawn some TLC so it’s in good shape for next year. This might look like:
1. Raking the grass to remove any debris, grass clippings, and moss. This helps it cope better with drought conditions, as water can then soak through easily into the soil. The RHS notes your lawn might look patchy after raking, but it will soon recover and grow back even more verdant.
2. Spiking the lawn with a garden fork to aerate the soil around the grass roots. You don’t have to do this every year, the gardening pros suggest every two to three years is enough.
3. Top dress the garden with “a mix of loam, sand and well-rotted organic matter” to fill the aeration holes you’ve made. You can buy a ready-mixed version at the garden centre.
4. If your lawn is looking a bit worse for wear after a few weeks of wet weather, apply an autumn lawn feed for a much-needed boost and to help the roots flourish over the winter. RHS’s experts suggest applying fertiliser “just before rain is forecast, at the rate specified on the packet”.
As well as the 15 celebrities being put through their paces, there are going to be some extra new faces entering the Strictly Come Dancing ballroom this year.
Following the much-publicised exits of Strictly hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman at the end of 2025, the show has unveiled its new presenting team, with the usual duo of hosts being bumped up to a trio.
Yes, this time around, TV presenter Emma Willis, comedian Josh Widdicombe and Strictly professional Johannes Radebe are taking over at the helm of the long-running dance show.
With just weeks to go until their first live show, the three-piece team recently took part in a press event attended by HuffPost UK, where they lifted the lid on how their trio came to be, what fans should expect from them as hosts and how they’re feeling about stepping into the ballroom together for the first time.
Here’s everything we learned…
First of all… how exactly is a three-person presenting team going to work?
Well, to be honest, they’re still not sure either.
“I wish we knew!” Emma claimed. “We’re having loads of production days where we kind of go in and we play around and just feel it out really, aren’t we?
“So, nothing’s really set in stone at this point. Hopefully, in the next few weeks, it will all come to light.”
One thing they have ruled out, though, is that rumour one of the new presenting roles is specifically a backstage “roving reporter”.
“It’s not true,” Josh insisted. “It’ll be the three of us in the auditorium, divided up equally. And we’re kind of playing around with it and enjoying finding out our roles.
He added: “Anything where we’re together just feels so good. We don’t want it to feel like it’s divided up because the thing that works so well is that we love working with each other and the chemistry is just brilliant.”
“But you’ll be the judges of that come September!” the comic quipped.
No one is planning on ‘stepping into Tess and Claudia’s shoes’ exactly…
“One of the great things about the three of us coming in is that it’s not like-for-like,” Josh pointed out.
He admitted: “You’d be mad not to feel pressure taking over Strictly, because it’s a British institution. It’s like becoming England manager or prime minister or something like that – only I’d say this is more important.
“Tess and Claudia were legends – you’re following people that literally got MBEs for doing it! And they’re television legends. But, Strictly is about the show, right? We’re just holding it together.”
Emma agreed: “You can’t step into someone else’s shoes. They did their jobs impeccably for many, many years and they sailed that ship beautifully. And we’re not here to step into their shoes and replace them, we’re just here to kind of hold the ship steady. And have a good time.”
Johannes also took a moment to pay homage to Sir Bruce Forsyth, who was the show’s original host when it launched in 2004.
“To Sir Bruce, Tess and Claudia, thank you for giving us a template,” he said. “They had to figure it out, but now we can learn from them.”
Josh added that both Tess and Claudia had been in touch with them to send “really nice messages” of encouragement ahead of their tenure beginning.
The casting process for Strictly Come Dancing’s new hosts did involve those ‘chemistry tests’ we heard so much about in the press
“It was quite a long process,” Emma said. “And rightly so, because they really wanted to make sure that they were thorough in meeting all the people they wanted to meet – and doing screentests which, you know, they don’t happen a lot, screentests or chemistry tests.”
As for what these tests involved, Josh recalled: “You turned up and it was… I don’t know what you’d call it. Just a room, I suppose you’d call it, that’s all it was. It was a room with a table with a sparkly cloth, with Motsi and Anton sat behind it, playing themselves.
“And then Joe, the producer, doing an incredible impression of Craig Revel Horwood next to them. And a great Shirley impression…”
“We literally just did a fake show,” Emma continued, describing the experience as being “like a Blue Peter version of Strictly”, while Josh compared it to “Strictly made on a budget of six pounds”.
Josh continued: “They’d show a video of a dance, and then, the floor manager from Strictly would pretend to be a contestant, and you’d interview him as if he was Ed Balls.
“You were reacting to these classic dances, and then you’d send them upstairs – or they’d be sent upstairs to you because you’d have a go at both roles – and by ‘going upstairs’ that meant ‘going three paces across the room to the next person that’s just stood there’. And then, you’d interview them.”
In fact, Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe were first put together as a trio during these ‘chemistry tests’
“We weren’t together in the first round, and in the second round, the three of us were put together,” Josh revealed, admitting that “we were just really laughing from the moment it started”.
If you were a little taken aback when the presenting line-up was confirmed earlier this year – rest assured that so were they.
“They did say to us when we went in, ‘we’ve gone a bit rogue here, because a three was not something we’d ever really thought of, but seeing what we’ve seen, we just wondered if you three might work quite well together’,” Emma confessed. “And it turns out, we did!”
Emma Willis’ Strictly audition was a little on the shaky side, let’s just say that
“It was actually terrifying to do it,” she admitted, despite her vast experience in live TV, as host of live shows like Big Brother, The Circle and The Voice, as well as This Morning and even the Brit Awards.
“Even the script read-through, I had a script read-through the week before the chemistry test, and I couldn’t read the script, I was so nervous. And I read hundreds of scripts all the time! But I literally could barely speak.”
She continued: “It was almost like it was the first script I’d ever read, and I lost any bit of confidence I had. It was like some kind of parallel universe where I’d never done it before!
“And [that was] partially, I think, because I haven’t screen-tested for anything for a really long time, so I haven’t been in that situation for a while. But it was actually really nice to kind of feel that again, and to feel those nerves, and to feel the want to do something.”
She added: “I felt like a beginner again. It was weird. And then, going into the chemistry tests, it was really exciting, but really nerve-wracking, I think we all felt that.”
Emma later claimed: “I was very diplomatic with myself from the beginning [of the audition process]. I was like, ‘I’m mega grateful that I’m in the mix, I don’t for one second think that I’ll get it, so I’m not going to overthink it, and I’m just going to go through the process, and that will be will be’.
“But when I had to go into that script read-through, I could barely get a word out of my mouth! I was like, ‘this isn’t what will be will be’! This is absolute terror!”
Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
As you might imagine, Johannes Radebe does have a bit of FOMO at the thought of not being a Strictly Come Dancing professional anymore
Johannes joined Strictly in 2018 – and while he didn’t get a celebrity partner until his second series, he’s had one ever since, and has gone on to become one of Strictly’s most popular series.
So, was it a difficult decision to step away from being a Strictly pro in order to become its new co-host?
“Darling, it hit me three weeks ago when the professionals went into the rehearsals for the season,” he told HuffPost UK. “And I’m experiencing FOMO as I’m speaking to you, yes. Especially now that the celebs have all been announced, I’m like, ‘oh my goodness’.”
Johannes admitted: “I would have loved to dance with Lacey, because she has said she’s wanted to do the show for a long time, and it just so happens that when I’m not doing it, she is.”
There is one upside, though.
“I’ll be able to rest my bunions and my back!” he enthused. “But I’ll definitely miss that part of the show.”
Josh then claimed that Johannes was “worried about the lack of exercise” now he won’t be training with a celebrity partner everyday, to which he conceded: “I am, it keeps me fit!”
Overall, though, he insisted that it “doesn’t feel like I’m going anywhere” as he’s “still part of the family”.
“The cake is still the same, but the icing is different,” he suggested.
Emma Willis almost got cast on Strictly just a few years ago
While Johannes is a former pro and Josh previously competed on Strictly’s Christmas special, Emma, conversely, has never even been in the show’s iconic ballroom before.
That’s not for lack of trying, though.
“Being a contestant has been on my mind for about seven years,” she revealed. “Every year, I go, ‘I really want to do it’. And it’s never worked out.”
Emma continued: “A few years ago, I actually went and had a ‘dance day’, where you kind of go and feel it and see if you want to give it a go. Is that what they call it? A ‘dance trial’. You can do a ‘dance trial’.”
So, “about three of four years ago” she went along to one of these trials with the BBC.
“And I walked into the room and [Johannes] was my partner!” she revealed.
While Josh interjected to tease the pair about why their dancing relationship never made it to our screens, Emma insisted: “It just didn’t work out diary-wise.
“I was absolutely gutted, because I always said if ever I danced, I’d really want it to be with Jojo. But now, I get to dance with him in a different way.”
Oliver Dixon/Shutterstock
Indeed, she will finally be getting her dancing shoes on in her capacity as Strictly’s new host
“There’ll definitely be more dancing in this launch show than there ever was in Strictly Come Dancing,” Johannes teased, with Josh noting: “Emma’s terrified. Why are you terrified?”
“Because we have to dance,” she lamented. “Me and Josh have got to go and dance. We’ve got to go and learn it next week, haven’t we? Oh god.”
“I’m looking forward to that!” Johannes beamed, before clarifying: “That will be the opening of the whole show, where it features the cast of 2026. That means the judges, the contestants, the pros and definitely the three of us.”
Emma also pointed out that the number was “not a whole dance with just me and Josh”, but they’d instead be a “tiny part” of a routine involving “everybody that’s taking part”.
“Three counts of eight,” Josh added. “24. Huge.”
Despite what you might have read, it’s not quite all-change at Strictly Come Dancing this year
“Strictly is never the same, is it? I feel like every year, we have twists and turns and surprises,” Johannes claimed to HuffPost UK.
“And I think this year [thats’ the case] more than ever. And, it does become monotonous when we just do the same thing, year in and year out.”
Emma noted that while “the heart of Strictly will always be the same”, a show “can’t be on air for over two decades and never change anything or anyone”.
“It’s not that we’re not changing it, because you don’t want to change it! But little tweaks every now and then, it’s good,” she added, while Josh teased that there could be “more surprises” in store like last year’s well-received “Instant Dance” challenge (which will be back in 2026).
The new Strictly Come Dancing hosts are already enjoying getting to know one another
Josh admitted that the “most nervous” he’s felt at the prospect at taking over as Strictly’s new host was in “the month where we weren’t doing anything”.
“The moment we’re in a room together, it just feels like, this is going to be really fun,” he told his co-hosts.
Emma said: “We’ve got a lot of time together in the coming weeks. That’s something that was really important to all of us, that we spend lots of time together and we got to know each other really well, just so that whole process feels as smooth as possible.”
And their families are all as excited as anyone else for the new series to get underway
“My mama, she probably told the whole township,” Johannes shared. “This is the biggest gig, of course, that I’ve ever landed in my life. So you can imagine, everybody back home has just been absolutely wonderful.
“People have celebrated on our behalf back home in South Africa, they had a party when I told them that I got this job. Everybody came together, so it’s just lovely to know that they understand the magnitude of this all.”
Josh shared that his eight-year-old daughter Pearl was “so excited” about his “once in a lifetime opportunity”, before noting: “Also, it means I can’t go on tour, which is much better for my family.”
Emma then said: “[My family] were all over the moon. You know, we watch it every week, and my kids have grown up watching it, so they were all [excited].
“One of my kids cried, the other one told me how proud they were of me. And my youngest was slightly gutted because she thought that my news was going to be that I was pregnant. And so, I had to let her down with the fact that I’m not, but I am going to work on Strictly, and she was quite happy that at least there was some form of good news coming.
“My parents have watched it since it began, and they were overjoyed, and Matt [Willis, her husband and Love Is Blind co-host] was just like, ‘I’m so proud of you’. It was lovely!”
Strictly Come Dancing returns to our screens later this month.
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