Iran used Chinese spy satellite to target US bases Leaked documents show IRGC secretly acquired system and used it to guide strikes during war in March

New FT investigation: Leaked satellite tasking records show Iran used a high-resolution Chinese satellite to surveil US bases last month.

as.ft.com/r/ac8726e8-f...

“This is a vindication for investigative journalism and for the victims whose stories of abuse we reported,” said the FT’s editor, Roula Khalaf. “The FT was always confident in its reporting. This is a case that should have never been brought.”

The information available to journalists and researchers studying Iran gets narrower and narrower, as we explored in our story a few weeks ago: www.ft.com/content/c0d3...

The FT is hiring a correspondent for our Investigations team. Contact me if you want to discuss the role. Deadline is April 12 job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/financialtim...

Small rituals of survival in Tehran War feels like something that should have been left behind in a more brutal century

One of the best journalists I have known - Najmeh Bozorgmehr - on what it is like being in Tehran at the moment and the small rituals of survival www.ft.com/content/a2b3...

Ultra-short-term bets add ‘even more mania’ to crypto trading [FREE TO READ] Five and 15-minute contracts have surged in popularity as cryptocurrencies have fallen from recent peaks

some interesting stuff happening lately with the truth machines

as.ft.com/r/40518eb1-4...

The Iranian school bombing and the information war [FREE TO READ] Evidence suggests that the US was most likely to be behind the attack that killed over 100 children

NEW: Our team of FT reporters across the world dug into the strike on the school in Minab. Along the way, we explored what the dearth of real-time, on-the-ground information means for open-source research in this conflict:

as.ft.com/r/f29c784b-3...

It was great to work with Michela and the brilliant Behind the Money team this week to share our reporting on ICE.

Find it in your podcast app below:

the oldest adage in journalism is “follow the money”

new in the FT:

An absolutely shocking story with brilliant reporting from Jim here:

As @washingtonpost.com international & local correspondents, we have risked our lives, side by side, because we believe reporting from the ground serves the public good. To choke that engine of brave, committed colleagues would be devastating. If you value our work, tell Jeff Bezos to #SaveThePost.

A city under siege: Minneapolis reels after another killing ICE could become the largest enforcement agency in the US, but critics say its behaviour is increasingly lawless

A city under siege: Minneapolis reels after another killing ft.trib.al/sdWQun9

I think this is the most important article I've written for a while: a trip to Sudan to report on the UN's refugee agency.

Battered by Trump's cuts and western retreat, can humanitarianism survive?
as.ft.com/r/f137508d-d...

Our latest on the Epstein files (and a rare "Boston Logan airport" byline):

ICE Holding Chinese Man Who Documented Uyghur Camps Heng Guan is awaiting an immigration hearing on Monday that could lead to his removal from the U.S. and ultimately land him back in China, according to his lawyer and a New York-based activist group.

In late 2020 a Chinese man called Guan Heng travelled to Xinjiang with our BuzzFeed map of detention facilities to provide ground truth for our work - he provided the first corroborating evidence for many sites.

He escaped to the US - then ICE detained him.

www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Exclusive: Washington Post’s AI-generated podcasts rife with errors, fictional quotes Errors in the Post’s new AI-generated podcasts have frustrated the paper’s journalists.

By all reports its not going... great www.semafor.com/article/12/1...

Since I’ve had a few people ask, I’ll note: our story isn’t behind a paywall! All you have to do is sign up for a (free) FT account, and you can access this — and also 5 other great stories every month.

Eye scans, licence plate readers, spyware: technology used to catch criminals and terrorists is being repurposed to fulfil Trump's pledge to deport 1mn undocumented migrants this year. Critics fear it’s the thin end of the authoritarian wedge.

An #FTEdit thread on America’s new surveillance state 👇

Thousands of contracts and documents outline the contours of DHS’s surveillance capabilities: geolocation, facial recognition, DNA testing, eye scans, spyware, licence plate cameras, credit reports and more. AI tools cross-reference datasets, while mobile apps give field agents information at their fingertips. At the same time, the proliferation of data brokers and digital, “open-source” intelligence has made surveillance easier than ever. Unlike the government programmes revealed by Edward Snowden over a decade ago, DHS has not needed to build extensive in-house capabilities — vendors now offer sweeping tools at relatively low cost.

An investigation by @peter.andringa.me worth reading that also serves as a reminder of a well-known yet always uncomfortable truth: OSINT tools used for accountability (geolocation, facial recognition, data cross-referencing) are embedded in ICE’s deportation machinery.

Trump’s immigration data dragnet The US is pulling in vast amounts of personal information in its drive to deport 1mn people this year

Former officials say that criminal investigators (and tools) have been directed to go after immigrants — potentially leaving other crimes unaddressed. Meanwhile, internal privacy and civil liberties oversight has been sidelined, leading to an increased risk of their misuse.

Trump’s immigration data dragnet The US is pulling in vast amounts of personal information in its drive to deport 1mn people this year

NEW: We took a deep dive into ICE's data dragnet: the data brokers, biometrics tools, and license plate readers powering Trump's deportation effort. Some of the contracts are for tools previous administrations deemed too intrusive.

End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled Mohammed bin Salman’s utopian city was undone by the laws of physics and finance

End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled on.ft.com/47FBigb

FT Investigation: How the Trump companies made $1bn from crypto The president and his family have built a rapidly growing digital assets empire which has been fuelled by the administration’s industry-friendly policies

Asked whether the FT’s calculations on his family’s profits were broadly accurate, Eric Trump said the true figure was “probably more”.
www.ft.com/content/2ea2...

@jburnmurdoch.ft.com today on how the broader slopification of social media has led to an almost 10% drop in time spent on platforms worldwide. Except in the US, where consumption of "extreme rhetoric, engagement bait and slop" has continued to rise.

This is amongst the best reported stories about the current state of ICE Air. Must read.

If you hit the paywall here, you can try searching the headline on Google and clicking there. Our paywall has complex logic based on the number of stories you've read and where you've clicked from... and ultimately it helps us pay for this work. (But also, we want people to read it!)

The booming business of Trump’s deportation flights Companies are jostling for billions of dollars to fly immigrant detainees out of the US

ICE plans to 6x its current budget for immigrant transportation and deportations. The money offers a potential windfall for a few contractors and charter airlines — some with close ties to the Trump campaign. Yet the system is already under strain, with significant concerns for detainees' safety: 🧵

Inside America’s booming immigration detention industry The enormous US deportation programme is enriching companies as detainees complain of poor treatment

You can also read the other stories in our series, "deportation dollars."

On Folkston Georgia, the site of a new immigration processing facility, set to become the largest in the country: on.ft.com/4fVPt4F

On the growing industry of private detention centres : ig.ft.com/us-immigrati...

The booming business of Trump’s deportation flights Companies are jostling for billions of dollars to fly immigrant detainees out of the US

Many more details (and visuals) in the full story:

This reporting was a team effort with @inari-ta.bsky.social, @okr.bsky.social, Stefania Palma, and Molly Taylor.

A graphic showing four examples of routes taken by long, multi-stop deportation flights. They range from 16 hours to 26 hours, not including the return journey, traveling to Nairobi, Kenya; Santiago, Chile; and Buenos Aires, Argentine with 2-3 other stops between.

We also spoke to a federal air marshal seconded from his usual job to work for ICE. He said staff often worked 24 to 30 hours on multi-stop flights, without much rest. He also raised concerns about evacuating chained detainees.

“If we had a water landing, God forbid, they’re all going to drown.”