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WORLDThe Guardian

Trump’s new press secretary says she passed bar exam ‘when I moved to China’, raising questions of US authority

Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Katie Zacharia maintains she ‘practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials’ Donald Trump ’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has repeatedly described herself as a lawyer. But when asked after her inaugural press briefing on Tuesday to name the state where she passed the bar exam, she replied curiously: “when I moved to China”. No public record shows she has ever been licensed to practice law in the US states where she resided, and her answer to reporters’ questions on Tuesday only deepened scrutiny.

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WORLDThe Guardian

Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza denies using AI to write prize-winning story

Article in Atlantic claims The Blue Fighter was artificially generated, days after it won Caine prize for African writers The Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated. Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine prize for African writers on 6 October. Five days later, The Atlantic published an article by the author and journalist Vauhini Vara titled: “Yet…

WORLDFrance 24

‘Growing ambitions’: Dr. Kendall on Houthis’ quest to be recognised as Yemen’s ‘legitimate' leaders

What is the strategic logic behind the Houthis’ increasingly high-risk confrontation with Saudi Arabia? “Their experience in the past is that threats pay,” explains Dr. Elizabeth Kendall, Middle East specialist and President of Girton College, University of Cambridge. Dr. Kendall argues that the movement’s increasingly audacious military operations are not merely expressions of ideological hostility or Iranian influence, but calculated instruments of political coercion aimed at securing legitimacy, expanding territorial control and strengthening its…

WORLDFrance 24

‘The idea that Modi must be feared because he holds all levers of power has gone out of the window’

Is Narendra Modi losing his most powerful political asset: the perception of invincibility? As India's youth protest movement confronts an increasingly combative government, Dr. Subir Sinha, Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute and Reader in Development Studies, argues that the political significance of the demonstrations extends far beyond the arrests of opposition activists and the growing confrontation between protesters and state institutions. Dr. Sinha examines how the government's increasingly repressive response may be exposing the fragility…