WORLD NEWS
Aria Thorpe cause of death after teenage boy charged with murder of 9-year-old girl
Nine-year-old Aria Thorpe’s cause of death has been revealed by a coroner, after her mum described her as her “world” and aa 15-year-old boy appeared in court charged with murder
Aria Thorpe died from a single stab wound according to her post mortem
A nine-year-old, described by her family as the “funniest little girl”, died from a single stab wound, a post mortem found.
A 15-year-old boy appeared in court charged with murdering the schoolgirl, named by police as Aria Thorpe. They said Aria’s tragic death had caused a “huge amount of shock and upset” to her family and the wider community.
Her mum, Victoria Hull, a hairdresser who previously described her children as “my world”, was left “devastated” by the tragedy and her aunt, Jordan Hull said the family had been in “extreme pain”. A heartbreaking message from one of her pal’s was left outside her nome in Weston-super-Mare simply saying: “Aria thank you for playing with me.”
READ MORE: Weston-super-Mare: Boy, 15, charged with murder of 9-year-old Aria ThorpeREAD MORE: Aria Thorpe: Images of tragic young life cut short at 9 as boy, 15, charged
Aria Thorpe on a family holiday with her mum Victoria Hull
Aria’s uncle Ashely Nicholls, posted a TikTok video on Wednesday, and said: “The last 24 to 36 hours have been an absolute nightmare…We ask for a little bit of privacy to protect the family and give time to process and mourn the loss of honestly, the happiest, funniest little girl…
“Most people will never experience what happened in that room and watch your partner just completely break down and be hysterical…it’s just so raw still.
A heartbreaking note from Aria’s friend to thank her for playing (Image: PA)
“There has been great support from family and friends and people that know the family. You can’t even imagine what everyone’s going through, it’s just absolutely crazy.”
Forensic officers at the scene in Lime Close, Weston-super-Mare(Image: Tom Wren / SWNS)
Aria died 10 days before Christmas at a house in Weston-super-Mare, on Monday teatime.
Forensic tent outside a house where a nine year old was stabbed to death(Image: SWNS)
Aria died 10 days before Christmas at a house in Weston-super-Mare, on Monday teatime. A post-mortem examination found the preliminary cause of Aria’s death was a single stab wound, Avon and Somerset Police said.
The teenage accused, who cannot be named due to his age, appeared at Bristol Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday. He spoke only to confirm his name and address during the brief hearing, which his dad attended.
Flanked by three dock officers and wearing a grey prison-issue tracksuit, the teenager was remanded into custody by District Judge Nicholas Wattam and told his next court appearance would be at Bristol Crown Court on Friday.
The teen was arrested less than half an hour after police were alerted to Aria’s death. He was found by officers at Worle railway station, half an hour away from the crime scene.
Superintendent Jen Appleford, reads a statement to the media outside Avon and Somerset Police Headquarters (Image: PA)
Announcing he had been charged, Chief Supt Jen Appleford, outside Avon and Somerset Police headquarters gave an update on Wednesday saying: “This remains an incredibly difficult time for Aria’s family, who we continue to support and update around our investigation. It is impossible to adequately describe how traumatic the past 36 hours have been for them and we’d like to reiterate in the strongest possible terms their request for privacy.
“The tragic loss of such a young girl has caused a huge amount of shock and upset, with there being a profound sense of loss felt throughout the community. We are working closely with partner agencies and schools across the Weston area to make sure those affected receive access to any support they need.
“We are grateful to local residents for the patience shown while we have been carrying out enquiries in the area. This work will need to continue over the next few days, but if anyone has any issues then please do not hesitate to speak to officers on the cordon who will be happy to help.”
Aria had celebrated her ninth birthday with a KPop Demon Hunters party just two weeks ago. And the night before she died, had been excitedly discussing her Christmas wishlist with a best pal.
Weston-super-Mare MP Daniel Aldridge described Aria’s death as an “utterly heartbreaking tragedy”. In a statement posted on the school’s website, the Trust which oversees Becket Primary School, where Aria was a pupil, said, “Our school and Trust community are devastated by the tragic death of one of our pupils, Aria Thorpe.
“We are working closely with professional agencies to ensure appropriate support is provided to our children, staff and families as they come to terms with this heartbreaking news. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with Aria’s family during this incredibly difficult time.”
NewsFeed
Nick Reiner, accused of killing his father Rob and mother Michelle in their Los Angeles home, made his first court appearance on Wednesday. His lawyer asked the public to not “rush to judgement” before all the details are revealed.
Published On 17 Dec 2025
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Bondi terror attack updates: Tony Burke insists he has ‘full confidence’ in Asio decisions; Netanyahu resumes attack on ‘flaccid’ Australia | Australia news
Home affairs minister says he has ‘full confidence’ in Australia’s intelligence agency
Sarah Basford Canales
Tony Burke maintains he has “full confidence” in Australia’s domestic intelligence agency as questions are raised about how the father and son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attack, and inspired by Islamic State, were able to travel to the Philippines last month without raising flags.
The home affairs minister said he had reviewed the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s (Asio) decisions and actions regarding 24-year-old Naveed Akram – who was charged with 59 offences including 15 counts of murder on Wednesday – since he first came to attention in October 2019 for alleged associations with individuals involved in a reported Islamic State cell.
“I’ve gone through the different decisions that have been taken in this respect, and I have confidence of the decisions that [were] made,” Burke told ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday.
“Obviously, they are not all decisions that were made during the life of this particular government, but I’m not playing political games with any of this. And no matter who was in office at different times, I have confidence in the way decisions were taken.”
Authorities in the Philippines confirmed on Tuesday that Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, who was shot dead by police on Sunday, travelled to the south-east Asian country between 1 November and 28 November. They listed Davao, in the country’s south, as their final destination in the Philippines.
Davao is the capital of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The island’s more remote regions, west of Davao, have been a centre of resistance for the country’s pro-Islamic State and Islamist militant groups.
Burke said he could not publicly reveal whether Asio continued to monitor Akram after the six-month examination six years ago, or whether the duo’s trip to the Philippines in November triggered a movement alert list.
“I can just answer it in the general, that is, the movement alert list is very vast, and when people come to our attention, they generally stay there for a very, very long time,” he said.
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Updated at 21.18 CET
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Anthony Albanese says courage and decency of Australians can overcome ‘pure evil’
Kelly Burke
Anthony Albanese is yet to respond directly to Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest criticism of his handling of the Bondi terror attacks but he called for for unity when he addressed a multifaith memorial service at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney last night
In his speech he said everyone would join in grieving with those who lost loved ones in the attack which he again called an act of “pure evil” and praised the bystanders whose bravery in helping the victims for acts which showed the “best of Australia”.
Tonight, as we gather in one iconic Sydney location, we mourn the devastation inflicted at another. At this cathedral dedicated to our Catholic faith, we grieve for all those who were killed affirming their faith, Jewish Australians deliberately targeted on the first night of Hanukah, as they came together at that beautiful place to renew their hope, their resilience, their belief in the power of light, the darkness of terror and antisemitism was passed upon them.
Our prayers this evening are for the souls of the innocent people whose lives were so cruelly and violently stolen away at Bondi beach that Sunday evening. We pray with those who we knew and loved, including, I know, the family of Rabbi Eli who was farewelled today, everyone who has lost the centre of their universe, the love of their life, their pride and joy, we grieve for the light and laughter and strength and comfort that so many have lost. We grieve with everyone who would have shared in their happiness.
We pray that those being treated for their injuries recover, we reflect with gratitude on the bravery and skill of the police and first responders who saved lives, and we offer our thanks for the courage and selflessness of everyday Australians; people who, in a moment of deadly danger, did not hesitate to run to the aid of strangers, to shield, shelter or comfort people fleeing in fear.
Ordinary people demonstrating extraordinary courage, including the remarkable actions of Ahmed al-Ahmed, who put himself in the line of fire, wrestling a gun away from one of the shooters. People he has never met owe him their lives.
We pray for the souls of Boris and Sophia Burman and Reuven Morrison, murdered while bravely protecting others. Our nation owes them and all the heroes of Bondi a profound debt of gratitude, not just for their bravery, but also for their example, for reminding us that at the worst of times, we see the best of the Australian character.
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NSW Health says 17 patients injured in the Bondi attack remain in hospitals across Sydney.
We’re expecting updated numbers later today.
As of 7.30pm on yesterday, the numbers were:
-
One patient is in a critical condition
-
Four patients are in critical but stable conditions
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12 patients are in stable conditions
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Updated at 21.09 CET
Morning, everyone. I’m Adeshola Ore and I will be bringing you live updates on the Bondi terror attack.
I’m chasing the latest patient numbers and we’re expecting the funeral for the attack’s youngest victim, 10-year-old Matilda, to be held today.
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Updated at 21.09 CET
Netanyahu renews attack on Albanese government
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has renewed his attack on the Albanese government’s alleged failure to curb antisemitism in the lead-up to the Bondi terror attack.
In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s massacre, Netanyahu said Anthony Albanese was to blame for the attack because his government’s decision to recognise the Palestinian state had encouraged Islamist extremism and attacks on Jewish targets in Australia.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA
Albanese rejected the accusations.
In a new post overnight, Netanyahu said he had spoken to Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, the father-in-law of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was killed in the attack, and with the chairman of the Israel-Australia Jewish Council, Alex Ostrovsky, who was wounded in the attack and has been discharged from hospital. He said he expressed his condolences and told them (in Hebrew, which X translated):
… that these heinous acts are a direct result of rampant antisemitism, which is fuelled by a flaccid policy of the authorities in the country and of the Australian government, which has a duty to act immediately and with all the tools at its disposal to eradicate terrorism and restore security to the Jewish communities.
I emphasised that the State of Israel stands alongside the Jewish community in Australia, and I strengthened the Chabad emissaries and all the Jews of Australia – those who stand firm, clinging to great faith and immense spirit in the face of those who seek our harm.
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Updated at 21.09 CET
Sarah Basford Canales
Tony Burke asked if moving Asio and AFP to attorney general’s department hampered intelligence
Burke was also asked whether the Albanese government’s decision in 2022 to move Asio and the Australian federal police from the home affairs department to the attorney general’s department – a decision reversed this year – had hampered intelligence.
The minister said it was his decision to return the agencies to home affairs to assist with “seamless” information-sharing.
Burke added they both had enough resources to monitor both politically motivated and religiously motivated extremism: “I’ve confirmed with the Australian federal police and with Asio again in the last 24 hours that they both have more resources than they have ever had, and believe they get a fair hearing whenever they put a resources case to government.”
Asio’s director general, Mike Burgess, drew comparisons between Islamist political group Hizb ut-Tahrir and the neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network, warning their “anti-Israel rhetoric is fuelling and normalising wider antisemitic narratives”.
“The organisation’s condemnation of Israel and Jews attracts media attention and aids recruitment but it deliberately stops short of promoting onshore acts of politically motivated violence,” Burgess said.
The UK banned Hizb ut-Tahrir from recruiting or holding protests and meetings in 2024, joining countries such as Germany and Indonesia.
Burke said he would list the group once it met the threshold, which he said it had yet to.
“My view for a very long time has been, and as soon as I came into home affairs, I asked again. I’ve continued to ask, ‘do they meet the legal threshold?’ Because the moment they meet a legal threshold, I see them causing nothing but harm in the community,” he said.
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Updated at 21.07 CET
Home affairs minister says he has ‘full confidence’ in Australia’s intelligence agency
Sarah Basford Canales
Tony Burke maintains he has “full confidence” in Australia’s domestic intelligence agency as questions are raised about how the father and son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attack, and inspired by Islamic State, were able to travel to the Philippines last month without raising flags.
The home affairs minister said he had reviewed the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s (Asio) decisions and actions regarding 24-year-old Naveed Akram – who was charged with 59 offences including 15 counts of murder on Wednesday – since he first came to attention in October 2019 for alleged associations with individuals involved in a reported Islamic State cell.
“I’ve gone through the different decisions that have been taken in this respect, and I have confidence of the decisions that [were] made,” Burke told ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday.
“Obviously, they are not all decisions that were made during the life of this particular government, but I’m not playing political games with any of this. And no matter who was in office at different times, I have confidence in the way decisions were taken.”
Authorities in the Philippines confirmed on Tuesday that Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, who was shot dead by police on Sunday, travelled to the south-east Asian country between 1 November and 28 November. They listed Davao, in the country’s south, as their final destination in the Philippines.
Davao is the capital of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The island’s more remote regions, west of Davao, have been a centre of resistance for the country’s pro-Islamic State and Islamist militant groups.
Burke said he could not publicly reveal whether Asio continued to monitor Akram after the six-month examination six years ago, or whether the duo’s trip to the Philippines in November triggered a movement alert list.
“I can just answer it in the general, that is, the movement alert list is very vast, and when people come to our attention, they generally stay there for a very, very long time,” he said.
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Updated at 21.18 CET
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories before our morning blogger takes the reins.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, insists he has “full confidence” in Asio and its decisions despite the intelligence agency apparently missing the rising threat posed by the alleged Bondi gunmen. More on that soon.
Last night the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, called for unity at a multifaith event in Sydney, after a day in which he faced intense criticism over his response to antisemitism in Australia.
And Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has added fuel to that criticism with another attack on the Australian government overnight. We bring you more on this, too, in a few minutes.
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The Academy Awards will begin streaming exclusively on YouTube in 2029, the latest big change in Hollywood.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made the announcement on Wednesday, saying that it signed a multi-year deal that will give YouTube the exclusive global rights to the Oscars until 2033.
The Oscars, which is planned for 15 March, has aired for a half a century on ABC. Starting in 2029, the show will be available live and for free on YouTube.
It’s another big shakeup in Hollywood, which is dealing with studio sales and mergers, along with steep production cuts.
“The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible – which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a statement.
Over decades, viewership of the awards show has declined, though there was a slight uptick in 2025, with a significant number of younger viewers tuning in from cell phones and computers.
In a statement, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan called the Oscars “one of our essential cultural institutions” and said that partnering with the Academy would “inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy”.
ABC, which has streamed the awards since 1976, said that it was looking forward “to the next three telecasts” it will still host.
The move comes as Warner Bros Discovery on Wednesday recommended its shareholders reject a hostile takeover bid from Paramount Skydance for a rival bid from streaming giant Netflix.
Both options were seen as unfavourable for an industry that has seen drastic cuts over the past several years. Like major studios, cable networks have faced issues as the public has opted for streaming services instead.
YouTube winning rights to the Academy Awards further suggests that reliance on streaming sites will continue.
Warner Bros. Discovery recommended on Wednesday that its shareholders reject Paramount’s offer to buy the company and instead accept Netflix’s offer.
According to Warner Bros., a Netflix takeover would better serve both the company’s interests and its audiences.
In a letter to its shareholders, Warner Bros. called Paramount’s offer “inferior,” also adding it included “significant risks and costs” due to its reliance on borrowed funds.
However, Netflix’s offer is backed by a streaming giant worth more than $400 billion (€340 billion).
“We are confident that our merger with Netflix represents superior, more certain value for our shareholders,” Warner Bros. said.
Warner Bros. agreed to Netflix’s 72-billion-dollar offer, which includes both cash and stocks, so that the latter would purchase its movie studios, as well as HBO’s catalogue.
Paramount’s offer was labeled “inferior” by the Warner Bros. board [FILE: October 2025]Image: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Separating cable channels from company
The Warner Bros. shareholders will have until January 8 to respond to the offer, with the company’s board also voicing its worries about foreign investors being involved.
Whichever offer that ends up being accepted is set to be subjected to scrutiny by the authorities in the US. Paramount argued its offer is more likely to have an easier path to the authorities’ approval.
Warner Bros. will have to sell its cable TV assets, which include news outlet CNN and science channel Discovery, which would have to be completed before a potential Netflix purchase..
Critics of the deal say a Netflix purchase of Warner Bros. would result in a significant market dominance by the streaming company, a sentiment also echoed by US President Donald Trump, who said such a deal “could be a problem.”
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia’s goals in Ukraine are unchanged and will be accomplished either through negotiations or by further military advances if diplomatic efforts fail.
Putin, speaking at an annual board meeting of the country’s Defense Ministry, touted Russia’s military progress on the battlefield and technological advancements as his war in Ukraine grinds on into a fourth year.
“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” he said, using the Kremlin’s term to refer to Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
“We would prefer to accomplish this and address the root causes of the conflict through diplomatic means. However, if the opposing side and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive dialogue, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means,” the Russian leader told military officials, according to a transcript of the speech released by the government.
PUTIN CALLS TRUMP’S PEACE PLAN A ‘STARTING POINT’ AS HE WARNS UKRAINE TO PULL BACK OR FACE ‘FORCE’
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov attend the annual board meeting of the Defense Ministry in Moscow Dec. 17, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Putin also took aim at Kyiv and its European allies for “whipping up hysteria” about Moscow as the Trump administration works to end the war.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned allies last week that Russia could be ready to use military force against the alliance within five years and urged members to boost defense spending and production, so their armed forces have the resources to protect their homelands.
Putin referred to European leaders as “piglets” during the Defense Ministry meeting, according to a translated video of the remarks posted by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
TRUMP TOUTS ‘TREMENDOUS PROGRESS’ BUT SAYS HE’LL MEET PUTIN AND ZELENSKYY ‘ONLY WHEN’ PEACE DEAL IS FINAL
Russian troops stand for a moment of silence at the annual board meeting of the Defense Ministry in Moscow Dec. 17, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
The comment was part of a broader tirade against the West, with Putin accusing European governments of helping Washington try to weaken and divide Russia.
“They were hoping to profit from the collapse of our country. To get back something that was lost in previous historical periods and try to take revenge,” said Putin. “As it has now become obvious to everyone, all these attempts and all these destructive plans towards Russia completely failed.”
The remarks come as U.S., European, Russian and Ukrainian officials engage in a flurry of diplomacy over potential paths to ending the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his negotiating team met in Berlin Sunday with Jared Kushner and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.
(Front row from left) Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and (back row from left) Jonas Gahr, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Ursula von der Leyen, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stand together in the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 15, 2025. (Markus Schreiber, Pool/AP)
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Witkoff and Kushner previously held a five-hour meeting in Moscow with Putin and top foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov in early December to hash out elements of a revised peace proposal after the original leaked 28-point draft drew criticism for being too favorable to the Kremlin.
Ushakov said the Russian side received four documents from the U.S. envoys during the meeting, including one that consisted of 27 points, but he declined to go into detail of what they contained.
Ashley Carnahan is a writer at Fox News Digital.
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During a press conference on Dec. 11, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced there was good news on the state of the economy.
“Inflation as measured by the overall CPI has slowed to an average 2.5% pace,” she said, referring to the consumer price index. “Real wages are increasing roughly $1,200 dollars for the average worker.”
When CNN political correspondent Kaitlan Collins attempted to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt pivoted to an attack. Not on Collins, a frequent target of White House ire, but on Leavitt’s predecessor in the Biden White House, Democrat Jen Psaki.
Psaki, claimed Leavitt, stood at the same lectern a year before and told “utter lies.” In contrast, Leavitt insisted, “Everything I’m telling you is the truth backed by real, factual data, and you just don’t want to report on it ’cause you want to push untrue narratives about the president.”
The “real, factual data” that underpinned Leavitt’s statement was specious at best. The actual inflation rate for September was 3%, not the 2.5% figure cherry-picked from economic data. The rise in real wages? CNN business editor David Goldman writes that in the past year, U.S. workers have experienced “the lowest annual paycheck growth that Americans have had since May 2021.”
I’m a historian who has written about the enduring legacy of George Orwell’s ideas about truth and freedom. Listening to Leavitt assert a “truth” so obviously discordant with people’s lives, I was reminded of the repeated pronouncements from the Ministry of Plenty in Orwell’s “1984.”
Leavitt is a master of the art of political language and deflects attention from administration scandals (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen,” Orwell wrote. “As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards.”
The novel’s doomed hero, Winston Smith, works in the Records Department that produces these fraudulent statistics – figures that are so far divorced from reality that they “had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie.”
In the world of “1984,” not only are statistics invented, they are continually reinvented to serve the needs of Big Brother’s regime at any given moment: “All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.”
Transparency as doublespeak
The lack of transparency depicted in “1984” has an uncanny echo in our current political moment, despite Leavitt’s repeated assertions that President Donald Trump is the “most transparent president in history.”
Leavitt has made that claim countless times, including in her public defense of Trump’s “Quiet, Piggy!” dismissal of Bloomberg News journalist Catherine Lucey last month.
In Leavitt’s usage, “transparency” has become a form of Orwellian “doublespeak,” a word or phrase which through the process of “doublethink” had come to encompass its exact opposite meaning.
“Doublethink,” in Orwell’s writing, was the mechanism of thought manipulation that allowed someone “to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”
Doublethink was the mechanism that enabled the citizens of Oceania, the Anglo-American superstate governed by Big Brother’s authoritarian regime, to accept that “WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
And it is the mechanism that allowed Leavitt to proclaim, in defending Trump’s unwillingness to release the Epstein files, “This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever.” That claim was pronounced “fabulously audacious” by The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, in a story headlined “Nothing to see here: Trump press chief in full denial mode over Epstein.”
About the author
Laura Beers is a Professor of History at American University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Making ‘lies sound truthful and murder respectable’
In his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
Over the past 10 months, Leavitt has, among other things, claimed that the now dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID – provided a grant of $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru. Not true. She has misrepresented the “One Big Beautiful Bill” as fully eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. In reality, deductions for these are capped. She claimed that Trump coined the motto “peace through strength.” He didn’t. The phrase has been in circulation for decades, used most prominently by Ronald Reagan during his presidency.
And she recently sought to delegitimize U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and colleagues’ plea to servicemen and women not to obey illegal orders by suggesting tautologically that “all lawful orders are presumed to be legal by our servicemembers,” and hence Kelly’s plea could only serve to provoke “disorder and chaos.”
All governments lie. But Leavitt has become a master of the art of political language, wielded to aggrandize her boss, belittle his opponents and deflect attention from administration scandals.
NEED TO KNOW
- Aris Smith Kopiec was trying to enjoy her vacation in Georgia with her three kids
- But when she breastfed her baby at the table, she was kicked out of the restaurant
- Now, the mom tells PEOPLE that she hopes her experience will create more empathy for others who are breastfeeding
Aris Smith Kopiec was just trying to enjoy her vacation with her family when the unthinkable happened.
Back in November, the mom was on a weekend vacation in Blue Ridge, Ga. with her husband and three kids — ages 4 months, 2, and 4 — when they decided to dine at Toccoa Riverside Restaurant.
Seated in the enclosed porch area at a corner table with some family friends, Smith Kopiec tells PEOPLE that her kids were well-behaved. While coloring, playing with stickers and stringing beads, they remained in their chairs except for bathroom breaks. But during the meal, her 4-month-old began to get fussy.
“My husband handed her to me, and I latched her on,” Smith Kopiec recalls to PEOPLE. “My husband then handed me a blanket to cover. I was seated with my back facing the rest of the restaurant. After a short time, my baby fell asleep and I continued holding her, no longer nursing.”
Once they were finished with their family, Smith Kopiec and her friend took their kids outside to go look at the river. As she stood, she accidentally bumped into a chair or person and turned to apologize.
“At that moment, the restaurant owner was standing over me and began yelling, saying, ‘You can’t do that here. Go to the corner,’ ” she claims. “I told him I was not actively breastfeeding at that moment, but he continued yelling that breastfeeding was not allowed and that he needed to ‘protect his restaurant.’ ”
“I explained that I was trying to exit through the side door, but he was blocking the doorway,” Smith continues. “He eventually moved aside and said, ‘Good, go on.’ ”
A rep for the restaurant did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
When she was outside the restaurant, it became more clear to her that she’d been asked to leave because she was breastfeeding. Smith Kopiec told her friend what happened, and they returned inside to get their belongings and find their husbands, who had been paying the bill. At that time, their husbands said while they were outside, another employee of the restaurant came up to them to apologize.
“As we were leaving through the front of the restaurant, I saw the owner standing near the entrance,” Smith Kopiec says, recounting that she “calmly approached him and told him that breastfeeding is legally protected in Georgia and that if he wanted to protect his business, he should follow the law.”
She claims, “At that point, he became increasingly aggressive, repeatedly stating that he did not have to allow breastfeeding and that it was not his responsibility to ‘raise my children.’ ”
Aris Smith Kopiec and her family.
Shyla Keiper with Shyla Shoots Photography
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Per Georgia law, “a mother may breastfeed her baby in any location where the mother and baby are otherwise authorized to be.” However, it does not stipulate any penalties for businesses that violate the state’s code.
At that moment, Smith Kopiec decided to record their interaction and share the video on her social media. The video soon went viral, garnering over 14,000 likes since it was posted to Instagram on Nov. 23. The mom of three said she felt like she was in shock during the altercation.
“I knew breastfeeding was legal, but I wasn’t prepared to be confronted so aggressively while simply feeding my baby,” she says. “I also felt vulnerable because my children were watching, and I didn’t want to escalate the situation or put them in a dangerous position.”
After sharing her video, Smith Kopiec received a lot of support from commenters who were just as shocked as she was. “The support has been overwhelming, and I’m incredibly grateful for it,” she tells PEOPLE. “At the same time, I’ve been surprised by how many people are openly uncomfortable with breastfeeding, even when it’s legal and discreet.”
“Reading those comments really reinforced for me why sharing this mattered — not to provoke anyone, but to highlight how much education and empathy are still needed around something as basic as feeding a baby,” she says.
Aris Smith Kopiec and family.
Shyla Keiper with Shyla Shoots Photography
She also underscores that she didn’t record and share the video to shame people, but rather to educate on what breastfeeding actually looks like. “I think what’s important to add is the gap in between knowing your rights and knowing how to exercise them in real time,” Smith Kopiec explains. “I knew that I could not legally be asked to leave for breastfeeding, but at that moment it wasn’t clear what that actually meant.”
“Was I supposed to sit back down and refuse to move? Was law enforcement going to be called? And if they were, would they even know the law? All of that was running through my mind while my children were standing there watching a grown man yell at their mother,” she says.
Smith Kopiec says at that moment, her first priority was to make sure she was protecting her kids and getting them out of a potentially dangerous situation as calmly as possible. “That’s why I chose to share the video afterward. Not to shame, but to educate — for moms, for business owners and even for law enforcement — so that everyone understands what breastfeeding protections actually look like in real life, not just on paper,” she says.
Smith Kopiec adds, “If this helps even one parent feel more confident feeding their baby or standing up for themselves, then something meaningful came out of a really uncomfortable experience.”
Crowds lined the streets to pay their respects as Lance Corporal George Hooley, 28, was repatriated at at RAF Brize Norton after a ‘tragic accident’ in Ukraine last week
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China has accused the US of “bullying” Venezuela, after Donald Trump ordered a “total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
In a phone call on Wednesday, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told his Venezuelan counterpart, Yvan Gil, that Beijing supported Caracas in defending its sovereignty.
Mr Wang labelled Washington’s military presence in the area – which includes the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier and its support group – as “unilateral bullying”.
“China believes the international community understands and supports Venezuela‘s position in defending its legitimate rights and interests,” Mr Wang said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says the international community supports Venezuela’s position. Pic: Reuters.
The message of support came as the US president declared late on Tuesday that he had ordered the “blockade” on oil tankers into and out of the South American country.
He said the US military would remain in place until Venezuela returns “all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us”.
In the social media post following months of escalating tensions in the Caribbean, Mr Trump said Venezuela was surrounded by the “largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”.
“It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us,” he said.
Mr Trump doubled the reward offered for the arrest of Mr Maduro to $50m. Pic: Reuters
The US military seized a Venezuelan oil tanker on 11 December, in an escalation of the crisis involving the country that is rich in fossil fuels.
Mr Trump’s campaign has included more than two dozen strikes on boats in the both the Caribbean and the Pacific that the US says were trafficking drugs, killing at least 90 people.
Mr Trump has repeatedly accused Caracas of using boats to smuggle drugs into the US, defending American actions as being in the interest of national security.
The US has released no evidence to support its assertions that those killed in the boats were “narco-terrorists”, as the administration has called them.
Mr Trump’s campaign has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
Venezuela’s government has accused Mr Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” with “a reckless and grave threat” against the South American country.
Washington has announced sanctions on numerous oil tankers, shipping companies and family members of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Mr Maduro has accused Mr Trump of seeking to overthrow him. Pic: Reuters.
“The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using oil from these stolen oil fields to finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder, and kidnapping,” Mr Trump said.
The statement seemed to confirm Mr Trump’s goal was to remove Mr Maduro from power and likely replace him with a friendlier regime.
Mr Maduro has been in power since 2013, and was re-elected in 2024 in a contest marred by accusations of fraud.
Trump’s three aims for Venezuela
He has accused Mr Trump of seeking to overthrow him after the US president approved CIA operations in the South American country.
Read more:
Is this what the beginning of a war looks like?
Analysis: Trump says the quiet part out loud on Venezuela
US military says eight ‘narco-terrorists’ killed in strikes
Analysis: Trump pressure on Venezuela
Mr Trump doubled the reward offered for the arrest of Mr Maduro to $50m (£37.2m) in August.
In October, Mr Trump appeared to confirm reports that Mr Maduro had offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth to ease mounting pressure from the United States.
“He’s offered everything,” Mr Trump said at the time. “You know why? Because he doesn’t want to f*** around with the United States.”
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Mr Trump has said the US will move its campaign against Venezuela beyond the water and start strikes on land.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about one million barrels a day. It has relied on oil revenue to support its economy.
Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Mr Maduro’s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
The board decision comes a day after Affinity Partners, a fund backed by Trump’s son in-law Jared Kushner, pulled out of the deal.
Warner Bros Discovery’s board has rejected Paramount Skydance’s $108.4bn hostile takeover bid and accused the studio giant of misleading shareholders about its financing.
In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, the Warner Bros board wrote that Paramount “consistently misled” Warner Bros shareholders that its $30-per-share cash offer was fully guaranteed, or “backstopped”, by the Ellison family, led by billionaire Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, whose son David runs Paramount Skydance.
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Paramount has been in a race with Netflix to win control of Warner Bros and its prized film and television studios, HBO Max streaming service and franchises like Harry Potter. After Warner Bros accepted the streaming giant’s offer, Paramount launched a hostile offer to outdo that bid.
“It does not, and never has,” the board wrote of the guarantee of Paramount’s offer, noting that the offer posed “numerous, significant risks”.
The board said it found Paramount’s offer “inferior” to Netflix’s $27.75 per share offer, which is a binding agreement that requires no equity financing and has robust debt commitments, the board wrote.
The board also said the offer could be terminated or amended at any time before the deal’s completion, which is not the same as a binding merger agreement.
Warner Bros has not yet set a date for a shareholder vote on the deal, but it is expected to happen sometime in spring or early summer, its chairman, Samuel Di Piazza, said in an interview with CNBC.
The Ellisons have cited their relationship with United States President Donald Trump as a reason why the deal would face an easier regulatory path.
“The Warner Bros Discovery Board reinforced that Netflix’s merger agreement is superior and that our acquisition is in the best interest of stockholders,” its co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in a statement.
Netflix is already talking with the US Department of Justice and the European Commission, its other co-CEO, Greg Peters, told CNBC while expressing confidence in how regulators would view the deal.
Netflix has told Warner Bros it would keep releasing the studio’s films in cinemas in a bid to ease fears that the deal would eliminate another studio and major source of theatrical films, according to people familiar with the matter.
Paramount’s case
Paramount last week took its case directly to Warner Bros shareholders, arguing it had arranged “air-tight financing” to support its bid with $41bn in new equity assured by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital and $54bn of debt commitments from the Bank of America, Citi and Apollo.
The board decision came a day after Affinity Partners, a fund backed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and one of the funding sources of the Paramount offer, pulled out of the deal. The amount Affinity Partners was contributing to the offer was not disclosed in Paramount’s latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“With two strong competitors vying to secure the future of this unique American asset, Affinity has decided no longer to pursue the opportunity,” the firm said in a statement.
“The dynamics of the investment have changed significantly since we initially became involved in October. We continue to believe there is a strong strategic rationale for Paramount’s offer.”
The Warner Bros board countered that Paramount’s latest offer included an equity commitment “for which there is no Ellison family commitment of any kind” but rather the backing of “an unknown and opaque” Lawrence J Ellison Revocable Trust, whose assets and liabilities are not publicly disclosed and are subject to change.
“Despite having been told repeatedly by WBD how important a full and unconditional financing commitment from the Ellison family was, … the Ellison family has chosen not to backstop the PSKY offer,” the Warner Bros board wrote.
“A revocable trust is no replacement for a secured commitment by a controlling shareholder.”
Paramount had submitted a total of six bids to acquire the entire Warner Bros studio, including its television networks, such as CNN and TNT Sports.
It has previously said the Ellison family trust – which Paramount says contains more than $250bn in assets, including about 1.16 billion shares of Oracle – is more than adequate to cover the equity commitment.
Warner Bros had raised questions about Paramount’s financial condition and creditworthiness. The offer relied on a seven-party, cross-conditional structure with the Ellison Revocable Trust providing 32 percent of the required equity commitment while capping its liability at $2.8bn, Warner Bros said. It noted that the trust’s assets could have been withdrawn at any time.
On Wall Street, Paramount Skydance’s stock tumbled on the news. It was down 3.8 percent from the market open. Warner Bros Discovery was down 0.4 percent while Netflix was surging – up 2.8 percent.