DENVER: When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $400 million to help fund election offices as they scrambled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic late last summer, he said he hoped he would never have to do it again.
Republican legislatures are granting him that wish.
At least eight GOP-controlled states have passed bans on donations to election offices this year as Republicans try to block outside funding of voting operations. The legislation often comes as part of Republican packages that also put new limits on how voters can cast ballots and impose new requirements on county or city-based election officials.
The response is spurred by anger and suspicion on the right that Zuckerberg’s money benefited Democrats in 2020. Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation.
Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through a nonpartisan foundation that had liberal roots. Conservative groups cite analyzes that the money went disproportionately to Democratic-leaning counties in key states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.
“People saw that, and looked around, and they were increasingly concerned about why would you have a billionaire funding our elections through the backdoor,” said Jessica Anderson, executive director of the conservative group Heritage Action, which has pushed the bans in several states.
But many election officials say that effort short-sighted and fueled by paranoia. Election offices, they argue, are chronically underfunded and now cannot benefit from donations that still flow to so many other branches of government, including police, schools and libraries.
Furthermore, they say there is no sign of favoritism in the distribution of the grants from Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Elections are more expensive in populous urban areas, and especially more so last year, when states scrambled to shift to mail voting to deal with the pandemic. Metro areas had to buy expensive equipment to open and sort mail ballots, a task that smaller, more GOP-leaning counties could do by hand or with less gear.
Also, Republican-leaning areas were already discouraged from accepting election grants due to conservative suspicion of Zuckerberg. The Republican attorney general of Louisiana last year ordered his state’s election offices to turn down grants from the nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which distributed $350 million of the Zuckerberg money.
“Every election department that applied, received funding,” said CTCL’s executive director, Tiana Epps-Johnson, adding that the distribution of the money “reflects those who chose to apply.”
A spokesman for Zuckerberg declined to address the wave of new legislation.
“When our nation’s election infrastructure faced unprecedented challenges last year due to the pandemic, Mark and Priscilla stepped up to close a funding gap and granted $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonpartisan, 501 (c)(3) organization,” said Ben LaBolt. “Mark made clear this was a unique effort to address the unprecedented challenge of the pandemic and his preference for elections to be publicly funded.”
The center distributed grants to 2,500 election offices nationwide, from Alaska to Florida. The money was spent in a wide variety of ways — protective gear for poll workers, public education campaigns promoting new methods to vote during the pandemic, and new trucks to haul voting equipment.
In northern Arizona, sprawling Coconino County used its $614,000 grant to hire more election workers, particularly Navajo speakers who could do outreach on a reservation, and set up drive-up sites for voters to drop off ballots, said county recorder Patty Hansen.
She said it was the first time she had enough money to expand outreach to the entire county, which is among the biggest in land size in the country at 18,600 square miles but is sparsely populated.
“Because of the legislation passed and signed by the governor, we will never be able to get a grant like that ever again,” she said. “They’re cutting off a funding source to be able to provide these additional requirements they’re putting on us.”
Election officials have long complained they were underfunded, but never more so than last year when they had to instantly revamp their entire operations at the peak of the pandemic. There was a huge shift to mail voting, while even in-person voting required new protective measures, and hazard pay for poll workers.
Democrats pushed for an extra $2 billion for election offices in the initial coronavirus aid bill in April but only got $400 million. After a spring and summer of troubled primaries and partisan deadlock over more funding, Zuckerberg stepped in. He and Chan donated a total of $400 million to election offices — $350 million in the form of grants to local offices that were distributed through CTCL.
The selection of CTCL raised eyebrows among some conservatives because of the group’s roots. Some of its founders, including Epps-Johnson, once were at the New Organizing Institute, which provided data and training to liberal activists Still, CTCL has become respected among election officials and includes a Republican, Pam Anderson, former elected clerk of a suburban Denver-area county, on its board. In an interview, she said the group was “100 percent nonpartisan.”
Other Republican election officials have also vouched for the impartiality of the program. “I don’t see why governments should be barred from trying to work with the private sector in securing grant funds,” said Brian Mead, a Republican election director in Licking County, Ohio, outside Columbus, which received $77,000 from CTCL. “If we can work with the private sector and secure funds where we save our taxpayers money, I think that’s a good thing,” Mead said.
That did not mollify conservatives, especially after the initial grants went to major, Democratic-voting cities. In Pennsylvania, one of the central battlegrounds of the presidential election, Philadelphia, with an annual election budget of $12.3 million, received $10 million from CTCL. The conservative Foundation for Government Accountability found that in Pennsylvania, Democratic-voting counties received an average of $4.99 per voter, while Republican-voting ones got $1.12 per voter.
In Florida, the differential was also dramatic, with one-third of the $18 million in total money going to Democratic-leaning Palm Beach County, and an additional $2.4 million for Miami-Dade County, which backed Democrat Joe Biden, albeit more narrowly than expected. Republican Donald Trump won the state.
“If Charles Koch was doing this, well, for many of these people the shoe would be on the other foot,” said Hayden Dublois, a researcher at the Foundation for Government Accountability, referring to the conservative billionaire.
In some states, including Georgia and Texas, the new laws require all donations to local election offices to be distributed by the secretary of state. In Arizona, Kansas, Iowa and elsewhere, they are banned altogether.
Anderson, the Republican CTCL board member, said that will do real damage.
“If you want to block this funding, then I want to ask if the legislators are funding elections?” Anderson said. “Because so many states don’t.”
Zuckerberg’s cash fuels GOP suspicion and new election rules
https://arab.news/76v32
Zuckerberg’s cash fuels GOP suspicion and new election rules

- Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation
- Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through a nonpartisan foundation that had liberal roots
Saudi’s Manga Productions, Japan’s KOEI TECMO announce new gaming partnership

- Manga Productions licensed for Nioh 3 in Mideast, North Africa
- Full Arabic support for region’s gamers, says CEO Essam Bukhary
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Manga Productions has announced a partnership with Japan’s KOEI TECMO as the publisher of the highly anticipated action game Nioh 3 in the Middle East and North Africa region.
According to a recent Saudi Press Agency report, the game is scheduled for release in early 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Steam.
Nioh 3 is the latest installment in the popular RPG series known for its mysterious samurai setting, earning widespread acclaim for its unique blend of Japanese mythology and intense combat.
The series has achieved global success, selling over 8 million copies worldwide. This new installment features an open-world environment and innovative combat system that allows players to switch between “samurai” and “ninja” fighting styles during battles.
As a part of this collaboration, Manga Productions will handle its Arabic translation, marketing and publishing for the Middle East and North Africa region.
Manga Productions, which is a subsidiary of the Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, will engage Saudi creators in the localization process to ensure a culturally relevant experience for Arabic-speaking gamers.
Dr. Essam Bukhary, CEO of Manga Productions, stated: “The launch of Nioh 3 with full Arabic support for gamers in the region is an additional step towards delivering world-class experiences while empowering Saudi talent at every stage of development.”
He added: “The trust we have earned from our global partners reflects Manga Productions’ capabilities in publishing, distribution, and marketing, as well as our continued success in professionally delivering high-quality content to audiences in the region while respecting local culture.”
Hisashi Koinuma, president and chief operating officer of KOEI TECMO, said the success of DYNASTY WARRIORS: ORIGINS has further strengthened the partnership with Manga Productions to bring Nioh 3 to Arabic-speaking gamers.
Abdulaziz Al-Naghmoush, head of business development and content licensing at Manga Productions, welcomed the pact.
“Following our collaboration on DYNASTY WARRIORS: ORIGINS, which was well-received for delivering a uniquely localized Arabic experience, we are now taking a new step with Nioh 3.”
He said the offering would be a “seamless, localized experience that makes players feel as if it was made especially for them from day one.”
WhatsApp to start showing ads to users in parts of the messaging app

- WhatsApp said ads will be targeted to users based on information like their age, the country or city where they’re located, the language they’re using, the channels they’re following in the app, and how they’re interacting with the ads they see
WhatsApp said Monday that users will start seeing ads in parts of the app, as owner Meta Platforms moves to cultivate a new revenue stream by tapping the billions of people that use the messaging service.
Advertisements will be shown only in the app’s Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day. However, they won’t appear where personal chats are located, developers said.
“The personal messaging experience on WhatsApp isn’t changing, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
It’s a big change for the company, whose founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton vowed to keep the platform free of ads when they created it in 2009.
Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 and the pair left a few years later. Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. has long been trying to generate revenue from WhatsApp.
WhatsApp said ads will be targeted to users based on information like their age, the country or city where they’re located, the language they’re using, the channels they’re following in the app, and how they’re interacting with the ads they see.
WhatsApp said it won’t use personal messages, calls and groups that a user is a member of to target ads to the user.
It’s one of three advertising features that WhatsApp unveiled on Monday as it tries to monetize the app’s user base. Channels will also be able to charge users a monthly fee for subscriptions so they can get exclusive updates. And business owners will be able to pay to promote their channel’s visibility to new users.
Most of Meta’s revenue comes from ads. In 2025, the Menlo Park, California-based company’s revenue totaled $164.5 billion and $160.6 billion of it came from advertising.
Israel strikes Iran’s state broadcaster building

- Online footage online shows IRIB’s Glass Building engulfed in flames after the attack
LONDON: Israel has launched an airstrike on the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, in central Tehran, according to numerous videos circulating on social media on Monday.
Footage shared online appeared to show the Glass Building of the IRIB engulfed in flames after the strike.
One widely circulated clip shows the moment a missile hit the facility during a live broadcast — the presenter, Sahar Emami, is seen on-air before a loud explosion interrupts the feed.
Smoke and debris fill the room as the presenter takes cover and a man is heard shouting. Iran’s state-run media confirmed the attack, directly attributing it to Israel.
Israel has attacked the building of the state radio and TV broadcaster IRIB in Tehran. pic.twitter.com/QHlrPatHVe
— nofmgeopolitics (@nofmgeopolitics) June 16, 2025
According to the first reports, there were several casualties although the exact number has not officially been released.
Videos posted online show significant damage to the building, which appeared to be on fire.
London-based news channel Iran International, reported that IRIB resumed broadcasting from another studio after the attack, with Emami joining the Khabar Network’s live broadcast.
The strike came shortly after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned on Monday that Iran’s state media outlets would soon be targeted.
The famous Glass Building of Iran's state broadcaster is on fire following the Israeli airstrikes, a report by the state TV shows.
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) June 16, 2025
The broadcasting has resumed from another studio. pic.twitter.com/GC2sJhv1Rl
“The Iranian propaganda and incitement megaphone is about to disappear,” he said in a statement earlier on Monday, adding that nearby residents had been urged to evacuate.
“In the coming hours, the (Israeli military) will operate in the area, as it has in recent days throughout Tehran, to strike military infrastructure of the Iranian regime,” the military said in a post in Persian on X.
The strike hit an upmarket district of Tehran, home to several diplomatic and international offices, including the embassies of Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait, as well as UN buildings and the Agence France-Presse bureau.
The area also contains major medical facilities and a large police headquarters, raising concerns over the broader impact of the strike.
Ex-Syrian commander claims Assad ordered execution of missing US journalist Tice: BBC

- Maj. Gen. Bassam al-Hassan said to have tried to dissuade former Syrian president but ultimately relayed order
- BBC claims US officials met Hassan in Beirut at least three times, are investigating the uncorroborated account
LONDON: A former Syrian commander who allegedly oversaw the detention of missing American journalist Austin Tice claims that ex-President Bashar Assad personally ordered Tice’s execution, according to a BBC investigation released over the weekend.
The report centers on Maj. Gen. Bassam al-Hassan, a former commander in the elite Republican Guard and one of Assad’s most trusted advisers. According to the BBC, Hassan spoke to FBI and CIA officials about Tice’s fate during at least three meetings in Lebanon, one of which reportedly took place inside the US embassy compound.
Hassan, who also served as chief of staff of the National Defense Forces — a pro-regime paramilitary group previously linked by the BBC to Tice’s abduction — allegedly oversaw the facility where the journalist was held. Sources close to Hassan said that in 2013, following Tice’s brief escape attempt, he was instructed to execute him.
According to the sources, Hassan initially sought to dissuade Assad but ultimately relayed the order, which was then carried out. The detail of Tice’s escape attempt aligns with prior reports, including a Reuters investigation citing witnesses who recalled seeing “an American man, dressed in ragged clothing” attempting to escape through the streets of Damascus’ upscale Mazzeh neighborhood — believed to be Tice’s final sighting.
Tice disappeared in August 2012 while reporting on Syria’s civil war in the Damascus suburbs, just days after his 31st birthday. A former US Marine captain who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tice was working as a freelance journalist while studying for a law degree at Georgetown University. He was abducted while preparing to leave the country to go to Lebanon.
For years, the Assad regime has denied any knowledge of Tice’s whereabouts or involvement in his disappearance. However, the BBC previously reported that classified documents obtained during its investigation supported long-standing suspicions by US authorities that Damascus was directly involved. The latest investigation suggests that Tice was held in the notorious Tahouneh prison, a regime-controlled facility in Damascus. Hassan is also said to have provided the US officials with possible locations for Tice’s remains, though efforts to verify his claims are ongoing.
“There is not anything, at least at this time, to corroborate what (Hassan) is saying,” a source familiar with the investigation told The Washington Post. “The flip side of it is, with his role in the regime, it’s hard to understand why he would want to lie about something like that.”
Despite the recent developments, skepticism persists. Western intelligence officials expressed doubt that Assad would have issued a direct kill order, noting that the Syrian president typically relies on intermediaries to insulate himself from such decisions.
Speaking to the BBC during a recent trip to Lebanon, Tice’s mother, Debra Tice, said she believed Hassan may have told US officials “a story they wanted to hear” to help close the case.
“I am his mother. I still believe that my son is alive and that he will walk free,” she said.
A former NDF member also told the BBC that Tice was viewed as a valuable bargaining chip for possible negotiations with Washington.
According to the report, Hassan fled to Iran following the collapse of the Syrian regime in December. He was later contacted by phone and invited to Lebanon to meet US officials, who assured him he would not be detained.
The BBC revelations come on the heels of an interview published by The Economist with Safwan Bahloul, a three-star general who previously served in Syria’s external intelligence agency and was tasked with interrogating Tice.
Bahloul, who speaks fluent English and has lived in Britain, said Hassan assigned him to question Tice and handed him the American’s iPhone. His mission was to determine whether Tice was “merely a journalist” or “an American spy.”
Bahloul also said Hassan orchestrated the recording of a video, released on YouTube in September 2012, that showed Tice blindfolded and surrounded by armed men. US intelligence later concluded that the video had been staged by the regime to suggest that Tice was being held by Islamic militants.
TikTok rolls out AI-powered tools to turn text into video ads

- Advertisers will be able to upload an image or write a text prompt to generate five-second video clips
- New features announced on Monday at the Cannes Lions advertising festival
LONDON: TikTok is rolling out new advertising tools powered by artificial intelligence that give marketers the ability to turn text or still images into AI-generated video ads.
The ByteDance-owned platform announced the new features on Monday during the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France.
The features, part of TikTok’s Symphony product suite, allow advertisers to upload an image or write a text prompt describing their desired ad. TikTok’s AI then generates five-second video clips that can be used as advertisements.
The text and image-to-video features build on similar AI-powered services introduced by TikTok in 2024, which allow marketers to use AI-generated avatars — AI-enhanced digital spokespeople — to promote and sell products on the platform.
AI-generated ads are the latest frontier for social media platforms, which have been investing heavily in AI to automate processes such as content moderation, misinformation detection, and content creation for advertisers and creators seeking more cost-effective ways to produce material for social media.
With such tools, platforms hope to attract marketers to expand their advertising budgets.
Recently, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta announced it was testing new tools that allow advertisers to create marketing content, including images and messaging, using generative AI prompts.