At the memorial event for slain US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on Sunday, President Donald Trump and his supporters celebrated the 31-year-old’s life using the language of religious fervor.”He’s a martyr now for American freedom,” Trump said of Kirk, who was killed on September 10 at a Utah university campus.Trump was the final speaker to address nearly 65,000 people at the event, held at a stadium in the southwestern US state of Arizona, with people coming from far and wide to pay their respects.”I look at him as a Christ martyr, definitely,” said Monica Mirelez, a 44-year-old nurse who drove more than 12 hours from Texas to attend Kirk’s memorial.Mirelez told AFP she watched Kirk’s videos on Instagram every day. “He was a perfect example of what we should be doing as Christians, we should be bold and speak up,” she said.”It’s so sad that he was silenced like this,” Mirelez continued, adding that “it feels like losing a brother.”The crowd at Kirk’s memorial was decked out in red, white, and blue, greeting Trump and other speakers with chants of “USA! USA! USA!”In keeping with the religious tone of the event, Christian rock songs were performed between speeches, with many in the crowd singing along.- ‘Biblical principles’ -Mirelez said she supported Kirk as a fellow Christian, finding that “his political views were basically backed up by the Bible.””He stood up for biblical principles, against the LGBTQ community… That brought him a lot of hate from a lot of people, but I think he was misunderstood,” she said. Another attendee, 15-year-old high school student Nick Chisholm, said he was shocked by the reaction of some of his classmates to Kirk’s death, saying “they laughed, they said he deserved it.””Whatever he said, he didn’t deserve to be killed for speaking his opinion and his beliefs,” Chisholm told AFP.Speakers and attendees also expressed a sense of solidarity in the wake of Kirk’s killing.”You have no idea the dragon you have awakened,” top Trump advisor Stephen Miller told the audience. “You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the West.”- ‘We’re all Charlie Kirk now’ -Welsley Inglis, a 61-year-old mechanical engineer from California, told AFP he believes the shooter was influenced primarily by the rival Democratic party. “They’re the ones that have really pushed blending the genders, no male, no female, transgender, get rid of that dichotomy,” he said. He added that he appreciated how Kirk was “was bringing the youth back to the church and changing their minds.””When I was a child, the churches were filled. By the time I became an adult, churches were empty,” Inglis said.He said threats made by the Trump administration to crack down on left-wing activists accused of funding political violence were a hint of what was to come. “We can’t just crack down on dissent, there would have to be proof, it has to be done by the books… But personally, I think they have proof, it just hasn’t been released yet,” Inglis said. Another Trump supporter, Jeremy Schlotman, preferred a more cautious approach. The 21-year-old practicing Catholic, who recently joined Kirk’s organization Turning Point USA, said he forgave the alleged killer — a sentiment also expressed by Kirk’s widow Erika during her speech on Sunday.”I think that’s the best response to what the shooter did,” Schlotman said.”Kill one, and a thousand more will rise. That’s what’s happening, the shooter just created a generation of new Charlies. We’re all Charlie Kirk now.”

Google faces a fresh federal court test on Monday as US government lawyers ask a judge to order the breakup of the search engine giant’s ad technology business.The lawsuit is Google’s second such test this year after the California-based tech juggernaut saw a similar government demand to split up its empire shot down by a judge earlier this month.Monday’s case focuses specifically on Google’s ad tech “stack” — the tools that website publishers use to sell ads and that advertisers use to buy them.In a landmark decision earlier this year, Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that Google maintained an illegal grip on this market.Monday’s trial is set to determine what penalties and changes Google must implement to undo its monopoly.According to filings, the US government will argue that Google should spin off its ad publisher and exchange operations. The DOJ will also ask that after the divestitures are complete, Google be banned from operating an ad exchange for 10 years.Google will argue that the divestiture demands go far beyond the court’s findings, are technically unfeasible, and would be harmful to the market and smaller businesses.”We’ve said from the start that DOJ’s case misunderstands how digital advertising works and ignores how the landscape has dramatically evolved, with increasing competition and new entrants,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs.In a similar case in Europe, the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust enforcer, earlier this month fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.47 billion) over its control of the ad tech market.Brussels ordered behavioral changes, drawing criticism that it was going easy on Google as it had previously indicated that a divestiture may be necessary.This remedy phase of the US trial follows a first trial that found Google operated an illegal monopoly. It is expected to last about a week, with the court set to meet again for closing arguments a few weeks later.The trial begins in the same month that a separate judge rejected a government demand that Google divest its Chrome browser, in an opinion that was largely seen as a victory for the tech giant.That was part of a different case, also brought by the US Department of Justice, in which the tech giant was found responsible for operating an illegal monopoly, this time in the online search space.Instead of a major breakup of its business, Google was required to share data with rivals as part of its remedies.The US government had pushed for Chrome’s divestment, arguing the browser serves as a crucial gateway to the internet that brings in a third of all Google web searches.Shares in Google-parent Alphabet have skyrocketed by more than 20 percent since that decision.Judge Brinkema has said in pre-trial hearings that she will closely examine the outcome of the search trial when assessing her path forward in her own case.These cases are part of a broader bipartisan government campaign against the world’s largest technology companies. The US currently has five pending antitrust cases against such companies.

When US President Donald Trump berated an Australian reporter for asking an unpleasant question, his colleagues took that as a warning.With the administration planning to slash correspondent visas and issuing not-so-veiled warnings, foreign journalists find themselves under pressure in the United States.Earlier this week, a journalist from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation asked Trump about his business dealings while in office. Trump was visibly irritated.”In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now, and they want to get along with me,” Trump told the reporter, John Lyons. “Your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m gonna tell him about you. You set a very bad tone.”The exchange was widely discussed in Washington media circles. One foreign correspondent, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Trump’s hostility toward the media was not concentrated on foreigners.”When Trump insults a journalist, it doesn’t matter to him whether it’s a foreigner or not,” the correspondent said.What worries the reporter much more is the administration’s plan to slash journalists’ visas to a renewable 240-day period, down from five years — or just 90 days for Chinese media workers.”How am I supposed to rent a flat? To get a driver’s license? To put my kids in school with a 240-day visa?” the correspondent wondered, adding that it takes time to build a network of sources in the country.”It’s going to be a nightmare.”- Working ‘without fear’ -Another journalist, a correspondent for a European media outlet, said that “the precariousness of foreign journalists doesn’t make them prime targets for this administration,” but “is part of a very worrying overall picture.”The White House prefers journalists, wherever they come from, “who are committed to its stories or self-censor enough to normalize what’s happening,” the European correspondent said.AFP contacted several foreign journalists for this article. Only a few responded, and each of them did only on condition of anonymity.”The shortened timeframe for I-visa renewals creates a framework for possible editorial censorship in which the Trump administration can trade access for compliance in reporting,” Katherine Jacobsen with the Committee to Protect Journalism said in a statement.Mike Balsamo, president of the Washington-based National Press Club echoed that view, adding that such actions could lead to reprisals against American journalists working abroad.”A free press doesn’t stop at America’s borders. It depends on correspondents who can work here without fear their time will run out,” he wrote on X.While the correspondents interviewed for this story did not notice any particular hostility from the White House itself toward them, they pointed out that political figures in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement have not hesitated to target foreign journalists.A close associate of Donald Trump, former ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, recently called for revoking the visa of a journalist from the German television channel ZDF.”This radical Lefty German keeps calling for violence against people he politically disagrees with,” Grenell said on X, criticizing the journalist’s interview with influential White House adviser Stephen Miller. “He poses as a journalist in Washington, DC. His visa should be revoked. There is no place in America this type of inciter.”- A warning to foreigners -Following last week’s assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk — a close associate of the American president — a senior official issued a broad warning to foreigners who are seen “praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event.””Feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on X.But Trump’s return to power has not been bad news for all foreign media outlets. Some news organizations who are known for sharing views similar to Trump’s in their home countries have been embraced by the White House.British television channel GB News, whose stars include far-right leader Nigel Farage, was recently welcomed into the Oval Office, and its journalist was given a coveted seat on the US presidential plane during Trump’s visit to the UK this week.When Trump appeared in the press box, the journalist said that the channel’s viewers had asked if he wanted to “swap jobs” with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.