Facebook, Twitter and YouTube face fines for allowing 'evil' online extremism

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube could be slapped with multimillion-pound fines for failing to remove extremist and criminal content under plans by the UK and France.

Online radicalisation will be a top priority during the Prime Minister's visit to Paris on Tuesday, in which she will hold talks with new President Emmanuel Macron.

Image:This will be Theresa May's first foreign trip since the bruising general election

As part of new laws to be drawn up by the two leaders, tech giants face being hit with large financial penalties if they allow unacceptable content such as terrorist propaganda.

:: Analysis - Tension between May and Facebook over online extremism

Mrs May's first foreign trip since losing her majority at the General Election will not be the triumphant outing on the world stage that Downing Street will have envisioned - and she is likely to face ongoing questions publicly and privately about what a hung parliament will mean for Brexit and her leadership.

But ahead of the summit, Mrs May said the joint campaign would "ensure that the internet cannot be used as a safe space for terrorists and criminals".

Last month, in the wake of the suicide bomb in Manchester, leaders of the G7 states - the US, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy - agreed a package of measures to step up pressure on firms such as Google and Facebook to take down "harmful" content.

Speaking ahead of her visit to Paris, the Prime Minister said: "The counter-terrorism co-operation between British and French intelligence agencies is already strong, but President Macron and I agree that more should be done to tackle the terrorist threat online.

"In the UK we are already working with social media companies to halt the spread of extremist material and poisonous propaganda that is warping young minds.

"And today I can announce that the UK and France will work together to encourage corporations to do more and abide by their social responsibility to step up their efforts to remove harmful content from their networks, including exploring the possibility of creating a new legal liability for tech companies if they fail to remove unacceptable content.

"We are united in our total condemnation of terrorism and our commitment to stamp out this evil."

The governments of Britain and France will not just punish firms, but vow to lead joint work with the tech companies to develop tools to identify and remove harmful material automatically.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd will meet her French counterpart in the coming weeks to develop the plans.

A recent report by MPs said the companies were not doing enough to remove extremist content online which may be fuelling hate crimes.

The Home Affairs Select Committee pointed out that in Germany, the justice ministry was drawing up plans to levy fines of up to €50m for firms which did not remove illegal content.

Theresa May to hold crunch talks with DUP leader Arlene Foster

Theresa May will meet the DUP leader Arlene Foster later, whose support the PM will need in order to get her Queen's Speech passed through Parliament.

It comes after the Prime Minister apologised to her MPs for the election result, telling them: "I got us into this mess and I will get us out of it."

The first move in Mrs May's new reality of compromise politics is to listen to what the DUP hope to gain by offering the Conservatives their support.

:: Theresa May avoids leadership challenge - for now

It is thought the Prime Minister is preparing to ditch unpopular policies such as her social care reforms and plans to means test the winter fuel allowance.

Arlene Foster said her party wants to "support the national interest" and "bring stability to the nation".

She told Sky News: "We enter these talks in a positive fashion, we are first and foremost unionists and therefore we want to secure the union.

Trump analytics firm Cambridge Analytica denies helping Leave.EU campaign

The chief executive of Cambridge Analytica (CA), the controversial data analytics firm which worked for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, has denied his company helped the Leave.EU campaign, saying it had been the subject of politically motivated attacks.

Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of an investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) into the use of personal data by political parties, along with other companies.

Speaking exclusively to Sky News, Alexander Nix said that laws around data sharing would need to be changed, to keep up with current practice. He also said that the Conservatives had run an "ill-prepared" and "absurd" digital campaign.

Image:CEO of Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix criticised the Tories 'absurd' campaign

He said: "A lot of the media that has been attacking us is liberalish, which means that they're pushing their own ideologies into print. Which is not very objective."

Over a series of articles, the Observer alleged that Cambridge Analytica had worked with the Leave.EU campaign during the Brexit referendum last year, but Leave.EU had failed to declare their contribution.

Cambridge Analytica has taken legal action over those articles.

Mr Nix told Sky News: "We've really been quite consistent to explaining to your colleagues in the press over very many months that we didn't work for any of the campaigns that were involved in Brexit."

I asked Mr Nix about an article he wrote for Campaign magazine, in February 2015, in which he said CA had "supercharged" Leave.EU's social media outreach.

"Yeah, look, that was an example of the cart pulling the horse, unfortunately.

"That was a press release written by a slightly over zealous PR adviser that was put out ahead of any work commencing with Leave.EU. At the moment that came to our attention, we were very quick to clarify that it was an error."

An article on Leave.EU's website, dated November 2015 but since removed, said that they "had hired the best people in the world" and that Cambridge Analytica "will be helping us map the British electorate and what they believe in".

Mr Nix dismissed the article.

Image:Supporters of the Leave campaign celebrate after the referendum result in June 2016

"This doesn't say we worked with them. This document says that we might be working with them. And that was the case, we did have a number of discussions with them.

"We viewed different options with different campaigns about working on the referendum and we decided that we weren't going to work on it and we didn't work on it."

In February 2016, Andy Wigmore, the communications director of Leave.EU, told the Observer that Cambridge Analytica had been "happy to help" Leave.EU.

Mr Nix told Sky News: "I think you'd have to speak to Andy about that. But I understand that since that interview, he's changed his position and I believe there was some confusion about our company and another that he had been working with or talking about working with."

Mr Wigmore told Sky News: "CA did zero paid work for us - it was a simple pitch process and set-up. If we won designation we would use them [CA]. It's that simple. We did not win so did not use them.

"It's true that we have strong relationships with many involved with CA and it's true we were involved with many other campaign organisations involved with the Trump campaign which is how we were initially introduced to CA."

Talking about the ICO investigation, Mr Nix told Sky News: "They clearly feel that they need educating at this point. This is a very fast moving space and I think it's important that policy makers are up to speed with all the changes that are happening.

"I've no doubt that as technologies improve and data becomes increasingly available, that legislation will have to be adapted."

President Trump, alleging breach of constitutional oath

Attorneys general for the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland say they will sue President Trump on Monday, alleging that he has violated anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution by accepting millions in payments and benefits from foreign governments since moving into the White House.

The lawsuit, the first of its kind brought by government entities, centers on the fact that Trump chose to retain ownership of his company when he became president. Trump said in January that he was shifting his business assets into a trust managed by his sons to eliminate potential conflicts of interests.

But D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) and Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) say Trump has broken many promises to keep separate his public duties and private business interests. For one, his son Eric Trump has said the president would continue to receive regular updates about his company’s financial health.

The lawsuit, a signed copy of which Racine and Frosh provided to The Washington Post on Sunday night, alleges “unprecedented constitutional violations” by Trump. The suit says Trump’s continued ownership of a global business empire has rendered the president “deeply enmeshed with a legion of foreign and domestic government actors” and has undermined the integrity of the U.S. political system.

“Fundamental to a President’s fidelity to [faithfully execute his oath of office] is the Constitution’s demand that the President ... disentangle his private finances from those of domestic and foreign powers. Never before has a President acted with such disregard for this constitutional prescription.”

The suit could open a new front for Trump as he navigates investigations by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and congressional committees of possible collusion between his associates and the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Democrats plan resolution to demand Trump divest from his business, but chances of passage are slim

If a federal judge allows the case to proceed, Racine and Frosh say, one of the first steps will be to demand through the discovery process copies of Trump’s personal tax returns to gauge the extent of his foreign business dealings. That fight would most likely end up before the Supreme Court, the two said, with Trump’s attorneys having to defend why the returns should remain private.

“This case is, at its core, about the right of Marylanders, residents of the District of Columbia and all Americans to have honest government,” Frosh said. To fully know the extent of Trump’s constitutional violations “we’ll need to see his financial records, his taxes that he has refused to release.”

Racine said he felt obligated to sue Trump in part because the Republican-controlled Congress has not taken the president’s apparent conflicts seriously.

“We’re getting in here to be the check and balance that it appears Congress is unwilling to be,” he said.

The constitutional question D.C. and Maryland will put before a federal judge is whether Trump’s business ownership amount to violations of parts of the Constitution known as the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses.

Trump-like Julius Caesar play boycotted by US firms

Two major US corporations have ended their sponsorship of a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in which the Roman leader mimics Donald Trump.

In the New York-based production, Julius Caesar is depicted as a blond-haired businessman in a blue suit.

The production company, Public Theater, said the character was a contemporary Caesar "bent on absolute power".

One of the sponsors, Delta Air Lines, said the producers had "crossed the line on the standards of good taste".

In the Shakespearean tragedy, which is staged in New York's Central Park, Caesar is assassinated in a lengthy scene in which he fights off his attackers before succumbing to multiple stab wounds.

The lead character's wife in the play, Calpurnia, is depicted wearing designer outfits and speaking with an apparent Slavic accent - suggesting that she is based on First Lady Melania Trump, who is Slovenian.
Trump impersonators compete in LA

In announcing the production earlier this year, Public Theater described its portrayal of the Roman leader as "magnetic, populist and irreverent".

On its website, the company states that the play is about "how fragile democracy is," adding that it highlights how the "institutions that we have grown up with can be swept away in no time at all".

Delta said on Monday that the "graphic staging of Julius Caesar" at the Free Shakespeare in the Park event "does not reflect" the airline's values.

President Trump's son, Donald Junior, criticised the production, asking whether boundaries had been crossed in what he described as art becoming political speech.

"I wonder how much of this 'art' is funded by taxpayers?" he tweeted, adding: "Serious question, when does 'art' become political speech & does that change things?"

The play opened with previews on 23 May and the production is due to run until 18 June.

Delta and the other sponsor to withdraw, Bank of America, have both supported the Shakespeare season in Central Park for several years.

In a 2012 production of Julius Caesar by New York-based The Acting Company, the Roman leader was modelled on then-President Barack Obama.

Commenting on the row, Gregory Doran, the artistic director of the UK's Royal Shakespeare Company, said that Shakespeare could often surprise modern audiences with how "relevant" he is.

"Though he often set his plays in periods and places that were remote from his own, by doing so he could talk freely about his own society," he said.

"We constantly reapply that metaphor to our own times. Shakespeare is like a magnet that attracts all the iron filings of what is happening in the world."

Pope warns Nigerian priests

Pope Francis had unusually harsh words for Nigerian clerics

Pope Francis has given Nigerian priests 30 days to pledge obedience to him and accept a bishop appointed for their diocese - or risk being suspended, the Associated Press news agency reports.

The pontiff met on 8 June a delegation from the Ahiara diocese in south-eastern Nigeria, where priests have been refusing to accept the 2012 appointment by then pontiff, Benedict XVI, of the local bishop, Peter Okpaleke.

Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported yesterday that Pope Francis was acting "for the good of the people of God" by threatening to suspend the priests from the ministry if they did not pledge in a letter, by July 9, "total obedience" and accept Bishop Okpaleke's appointment.

The Vatican issued only a short statement on the 8 June meeting, describing the situation in the diocese as “unacceptable”, the Catholic Herald reported.

The protests were motivated by the fact that Bishop Okpaleke is not a local priest, it added.

The newspaper quoted the Pope as saying that every priest of the diocese must write a letter to him by 9 July asking for forgiveness and "must clearly manifest total obedience to the Pope” - or else he would be suspended and would lose his office.

Pope Francis said he was taking a tough line because "the people of God are scandalised. Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal must suffer the consequences”, the Catholic Herald quoted the Pope as saying.

Ministers to demand softer Brexit as Cabinet meets for first time

Theresa May's new Cabinet is meeting for the first time since the election, with some ministers poised to demand a softer Brexit policy.

But the Cabinet Brexiteers have been boosted by the return of Michael Gove, in a move seen as a bid to protect the Prime Minister from a leadership challenge.

:: The reshuffle: Who's in, out and who's moved sideways

"I genuinely didn't expect this role," he told Sky News. "I am delighted to be part of the Government.

"I am delighted to be able to support Theresa May to ensure that we have a Government capable of delivering on the people's wishes.

The other major change is the promotion of Mrs May's close ally Damian Green to First Secretary of State, making him a Deputy Prime Minister in all but name.

Speaking after completing her reshuffle, Mrs May said: "What I've done today is seen people from across the party accepting the invitation to be in my Cabinet and crucially I have brought in talent from across the whole of the Conservative Party."

And on her own future, she said: "I said during the election campaign that if re-elected I would intend to serve a full term.

"But what I'm doing now is actually getting on with the immediate job. But I think that's what's important, I think that's what the public would expect."