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Biden will give election-year roast at annual correspondents' dinner as protests await over Gaza war

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Biden will give election-year roast at annual correspondents' dinner as protests await over Gaza war

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to deliver an election-year roast Saturday night before a large crowd of journalists, celebrities and politicians against the backdrop of growing protests over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

In previous years, Biden, like most of his predecessors, has used the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to needle media coverage of his administration and jab at political rivals, notably Republican rival Donald Trump.

But with protesters pledging to gather outside the dinner site, any effort by Biden to make light of Washington’s foibles and the pitfalls of the presidential campaign will have to be balanced against concerns over the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the perils for journalists covering the conflict. Criticism of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s 6-month-old military offensive in Gaza has spread through American college campuses, with students pitching encampments in an effort to force their universities to divest from Israel. Counterprotests back Israel’s offensive and complain of antisemitism.

Biden’s speech before an expected crowd of nearly 3,000 people at a Washington hotel will be followed by entertainer Colin Jost from “Saturday Night Live,” who is sure to take some pokes at the president as well as his opponents.

There will also likely be a spotlight on the many journalists detained and otherwise persecuted around the globe for doing their jobs, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia since March 2023.

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But before the president gets to the Washington Hilton — where the event has been held for decades — he was expected to pass hundreds of people rallying along the path of Biden’s motorcade and nearby to bring attention to the high numbers of Palestinian and other Arab journalists killed by Israel’s military since the war began in October.

Law enforcement, including the Secret Service, have instituted extra street closures and other measures to ensure what Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said would be the “highest levels of safety and security for attendees.”

The agency was working with Washington police to protect demonstrators’ right to assemble, Guglielmi said. However, “we will remain intolerant to any violent or destructive behavior.”

More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether.

“The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering,” the letter states. “We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the ‘crime’ of journalistic integrity.”

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One organizer complained that the White House correspondents’ association — which represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the president — largely has been silent since the first weeks of the war about the killings of Palestinian journalists. WHCA did not respond to request for comment.

According to a preliminary investigation released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza. Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants.

“Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price— their lives—to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement.

Sandra Tamari, executive director of Adalah Justice Project, a U.S.-based Palestinian advocacy group that helped organize the letter from journalists in Gaza, said “it is shameful for the media to dine and laugh with President Biden while he enables the Israeli devastation and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.”

In addition, Adalah Justice Project started an email campaign targeting 12 media executives at various news outlets — including The Associated Press — expected to attend the dinner who previously signed onto a letter calling for the protection of journalists in Gaza.

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___ Associated Press writers Mike Balsamo and Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.

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At least nine killed after Iranian strike on Israel’s Beit Shemesh

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At least nine killed after Iranian strike on Israel’s Beit Shemesh

BREAKING,

The Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service says that 20 others were injured by the impact.

At least nine people have been killed after an Iranian missile strike on the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, as Tehran continued to launch retaliatory attacks a day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes.

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The Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service said on Sunday that nine people were killed and 20 other people were injured by the impact, including two in serious condition.

The Israeli military said in a statement that search and rescue teams, and a helicopter to evacuate those injured are currently operating in Beit Shemesh, with the army’s spokesperson adding that the circumstances of the impact from the Iranian ballistic missile are under review.

More to come …

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Sombr Altercation at Brit Awards Was Staged, Rep Confirms

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Sombr Altercation at Brit Awards Was Staged, Rep Confirms

Sombr was mid-performance at the Brit Awards when a random man bumrushed the stage and pushed the singer off the platform, leaving him stunned — only it was all planned, says his rep.

The singer-songwriter, who was nominated for international artist and international song, was at the end of his smash single “Undressed” when a man joined him on the podium and shoved him hard. Security guards aggressively removed the man from the stage, and Sombr returned to the microphone to segue into his next song.

Shortly after the performance came to a close, Sombr’s rep confirmed to Variety that the whole thing was part of the act. Fans were already split online over whether the incident was staged or real. Naysayers noticed that the offender was wearing a shirt that read “Sombr is a homewrecker” — a nod to his latest single “Homewrecker,” which some claimed was a dead giveaway. But others weren’t necessarily convinced it was a stunt, considering how hard he was pushed and how additional security guards came to his rescue.

Brits host Jack Whitehall remarked on the incident after Sombr’s performance concluded. “Such a shame we didn’t have the security ready,” he said.

The incident took place just days after Britain’s BAFTA Awards last Sunday, when John Davidson, the Scottish Tourette’s syndrome activist and real-life inspiration for the film “I Swear,” disrupted that ceremony with an outburst of racial slurs that occurred as “Sinners” stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were onstage. “I can’t begin to explain how upset and distraught I have been as the impact from Sunday sinks in,” Davidson told Variety earlier this week.

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Whitehall made a joking reference to that incident — which was not bleeped from the initial BAFTA broadcast and was audible to viewers — at the top of the Brits, saying “We’ve got the best in the business on the bleep button.”

Sombr is coming off a red-hot year that saw his various singles “Undressed,” “Back to Friends” and “12 to 12” impact the charts. He recently performed at the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for best new artist alongside Addison Rae, Alex Warren, the Marías, Leon Thomas, Lola Young, Katseye and Olivia Dean, who ended up taking home the award.

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Iran goes dark amid ‘regime paranoia’, blackout follows Israeli, US strikes on compound

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Iran goes dark amid ‘regime paranoia’, blackout follows Israeli, US strikes on compound

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Iran was plunged into an internet blackout Saturday after Israel and the U.S. launched military strikes around the country, according to a global internet monitor.

Within hours of the strikes — which officials said targeted infrastructure and killed dozens of senior regime figures at a compound in Tehran— NetBlocks CEO Alp Toker confirmed connectivity started “flatlining.”

“We’re tracking the ongoing blackout, but our assessment is that this is straight out of Iran’s wartime playbook and consistent both technically and strategically with what we saw during the 2025 Twelve-Day War with Israel,” Toker told Fox News Digital.

“Iran’s internet connectivity is now flatlining around the 1% level, so the original blackout the regime imposed during the morning has been consolidated,” he confirmed.

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“The blackout was imposed just after 7:00 UTC, not long after the attack on the Iranian regime compound,” Toker clarified, adding that Iran had been largely offline for approximately 12 hours following the attack.

“At 06:10 UTC, there is the main compound strike; at 07:10 UTC, telecoms disruption starts; at 08:00 UTC, the blackout is largely in effect; and by 08:30 UTC, connectivity flatlines.”

“Wartime national blackouts are exceedingly rare around the world, and it’s something we’ve only really seen at this scale in Iran,” he said.

President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Iran following an Israeli strike in Tehran on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026.  (@WhiteHouse/X)

In the wake of the attack, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the “heavy and pinpoint” bombing in Iran “will continue uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

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He claimed Iranian security forces and members of the regime’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were already seeking immunity. He urged them to “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots.”

“We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces no longer want to fight and are looking for Immunity from us,” Trump said in the post. “As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity; later they only get Death!’”

Toker argued the timing of the blackout suggested it was imposed deliberately as the regime sought to secure communications amid fears of further targeting.

TRUMP TELLS IRANIANS THE ‘HOUR OF YOUR FREEDOM IS AT HAND’ AS US-ISRAEL LAUNCH STRIKES AGAINST IRAN

TEHRAN, IRAN – FEBRUARY 28: Smoke rises over the city center after an Israeli army launches 2nd wave of airstrikes on Iran on February 28, 2026. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images) (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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“The Iranian regime will have deployed this new blackout to counter potential cyberattacks during their own military operation, but also to avoid leaking the locations of senior regime figures through metadata and user-generated content,” he said.

“Communications would have been limited, and Iran’s leadership would have proceeded with the assumption that all communications, including satellite or whitelisted networks, carry risks,” he said before claiming that “paranoia would be well grounded at this point, with the blackout a belated but direct response to that.”

“Those participating directly would already know to avoid technology that could betray their whereabouts,” Toker said.

“However, the metadata may well have played a part in determining that the meeting of regime leaders was being held at the Tehran compound, who was in attendance, and at what time.”

DID THEY GET HIM? KHAMENEI’S FATE REMAINS UNKNOWN AFTER ISRAEL-US STRIKE LEVELS HIS COMPOUND

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In this handout image provided by the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the nation in a state television broadcast on June 18, 2025 in Tehran, Iran.  (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran via Getty Images)

Toker revealed that the broader network around the regime leaders and around the compound wouldn’t have had the same strict restrictions.

“This kind of adjacent ‘background noise’ can be correlated against other intelligence sources to build an understanding of activity on the ground,” he added.

“Smartphones are a readily available, almost ‘free’ source of intelligence, and even when locked down, they eventually connect to international online services and generate insights that can be used to pinpoint regime figures,” Toker said.

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“In the aftermath of Saturday’s strike, this concern will have been high on the remaining Iranian leadership’s minds, especially if they didn’t have a clear and specific understanding of how the meeting was compromised.”

Iran has previously imposed sweeping internet shutdowns during periods of domestic unrest, including nationwide protests in January, which saw thousands killed, often seeking to curb the spread of information and restrict coordination.

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