Le Weekend: Mummies v. UK Museums, YSL Fashion Week Finale, Yellow Card Shredding

⬇️  STARTER 

How the Trump-Tech alliance is turning its fire on a Brazilian judge

Late last month, as many in Brazil spent the weekend dancing at pre-Carnival street parties, the far-right video platform Rumble was shut down. This came after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension of the platform, and the national telecom regulator Anatel notified more than 20,000 internet providers and operators to pull the plug.

Moraes had demanded that Rumble suspend the accounts of Allan dos Santos, a fugitive currently in the U.S., and appoint a representative in Brazil — just as Twitter was forced to do last year. Rumble refused.

But Moraes was also responding to a provocation from Rumble itself — and from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Just hours after Brazil’s Prosecutor General’s Office filed charges against Jair Bolsonaro on Feb. 19 over an alleged 2022 coup attempt, Trump expressed his displeasure: his company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which owns the social network Truth Social, joined Rumble in filing suit against Moraes in a Florida court, arguing that the Brazilian Supreme Court’s rulings violate the U.S. First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

The companies are asking the American court to rule that Moraes has no authority over them since they are based in the U.S., even though they provide services in Brazil. The timing says it all.

Now, following Rumble’s suspension, which was upheld by the Brazilian Supreme Court on March 7, the companies have requested an emergency ruling to sanction Moraes immediately.

Now, let’s dig deeper into the real stakes behind this battle.

First observation: Trump’s lawsuit falls far short of what Bolsonaro supporters were hoping for. The former Brazilian president's son Eduardo Bolsonaro had made repeated trips to the U.S. lobbying for economic sanctions against the current leadership in Brazil in a desperate bid to prevent his father’s arrest. [...]

— Read the full article by Natalia Viana for Agência Pública, translated from Portuguese by Worldcrunch.

🎲  OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ

What do you remember from the news this week?

1. Ukraine launched its largest attack to date on Moscow using what kind of military equipment?

2. Which outgoing leader was photographed exiting Parliament, carrying a chair and sticking out his tongue?

3. The trial opened of Argentine doctors accused of negligence in the death of which sports legend?

4. Despite struggling with dropping car sales, German automaker Volkswagen has sold a record 8.5 million units of what?
Currywurst sausages / Electric scooters / VW-branded sneakers / LEGO camper vans

[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]

#️⃣  TRENDING

The end of China’s real-life Truman Show? A man with intellectual disabilities was unknowingly filmed 24/7 by neighbors, unwittingly becoming an internet sensation garnering hundreds of millions of views. Feng Dianwu, 62, widely known as “Brother Min,” was living alone in a small rural village in northern China’s Hebei province. The man suffers from cognitive disorders linked to injuries sustained while defending a friend in his youth, and was struggling financially. In 2022, villagers started filming him inside and outside his home, turning him into an internet sensation for his “funny behavior,” the South China Morning Post writes. Beyond the virality, the villagers also relied on the content to raise money meant to improve the man’s living conditions. But now “Brother Min” is said to have moved out of the village in March, taken by relatives, according to one of his neighbors. On his door, a notice reads “No one is home.”

🎭  5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW

• In memoriam: South Korean singer Wheesung, who has been credited with popularising R&B in South Korea, was found dead at his home in Seoul at the age of 43; British actor Simon Fisher-Becker, known for his roles on Doctor Who and in the first Harry Potter film, died at 63; Jamaican reggae legend Colvin “Cocoa Tea” Scott, known for songs like “I Lost My Sonia,” “Sweet Sweet Cocoa Tea” and “Young Lover,” died at 65.

• Greek lawmaker attacks paintings he deems “offensive” in Athens’ National Gallery. Nikolaos Papadopoulos, a Greek lawmaker from the small right-wing, ultra-religious Niki party, attacked four paintings in an exhibition at The National Gallery in Athens, including one he had previously criticized as offensive to Orthodox Christianity, the predominant religion in Greece. Police detained Papadopoulos for several hours after he threw the works to the floor and shattered glass in their frames. The paintings are part of an exhibition of Greek artists titled “The Allure of the Bizarre,” which includes works that caricature religious icons and themes.

• Metallica collaborates with Apple for immersive concert experience. Apple announced a new immersive content experience for the Apple Vision Pro with Metallica’s epic performance in Mexico, which was filmed during the sold-out finale of their M72 World Tour last year. With high-resolution, 180-degree video and immersive spatial audio, viewers will be able to enjoy up close the band’s iconic hits including “Whiplash,” “One” and “Enter Sandman.” The concert will be available on the video headset starting March 14.

• Saint Laurent closes Paris Fashion Week with bright colors. On the last night of Paris fashion week, Anthony Vaccarello, the creative director of French fashion house Yves Saint Laurent presented a runway lineup of evening-appropriate minidresses in bright colors and round, voluminous gowns, as part of his Fall/Winter 2025-2026 Women's ready-to-wear collection. Vaccarello said before the show, held near the Eiffel Tower, that he wanted the look to be clean, without ornamentation: “Simplicity of silhouette — as if created with a few pencil strokes — has defined the Saint Laurent ideal.”

• MPs call for end to display of ancestral remains in British museums. A new report by the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations says the public display of human remains in the UK without consent, including the ancient Egyptian mummies in the British Museum, is offensive and should be banned. The report titled “Laying Ancestors to Rest” also argues that the possession by museums and universities of body parts brought to the UK as a result of enslavement and colonialism has caused profound distress to their descendants, diaspora communities and countries of origin.

⚽️🟨 SMILE OF THE WEEK

Soccer players are usually pretty unhappy when they are slapped with a yellow card by the referee, but this amateur player came prepared. At the Sidemen Charity Match this week in Wembley, British YouTuber and comedian Max Fosh pulled out a mini shredder from his sock to destroy the yellow card he received after fouling another player. Fosh already made headlines during the 2023 edition, where he hit the referee with an UNO “Reverse card.”

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

🇵🇸 As Gazan families struggle to find food and shelter amid the rubble, the future remains uncertain. Residents remain in a constant state of waiting, oscillating between hope and despair.
— DARAJ

🌐 The global “disorder” didn’t start with Trump, but he has joined the ranks of those who oppose the existing world order. Now, it’s up to leaders and nations in Europe to rethink a new world order of values before one of pure power is imposed on them.
— FRANCE INTER

🇸🇦 The Saudis could regain the political and financial clout they once enjoyed in Lebanon, which was lost for two decades to Hezbollah and its foreign patrons.
— KAYHAN-LONDON

✝️ Following Trump's creation of the White House Faith Office in early February, Loris Zanatta writes that religious politics is already on the verge of becoming political religion, and the 2020s are starting to look an awful lot like the 1920s. And we know where that led.
— CLARÍN

🏋️ Some people seem to breeze through a 40-hour workweek, housework, workouts, and personal projects, while others barely make it to the couch after work. But what if you, too, could become one of those high-energy people?
— DIE ZEIT

🤢🚲 BRIGHT IDEA

Urban cyclists have long faced bike thieves, with a French bicyclist organization estimating that as many as 400,000 bikes are swiped in France each year. That is what led Aïko, a 22-year-old student from Lyon, to invent the CactUs Lock, a bike lock that spews a putrid-smelling gas on anyone who tries to cut it open. The anti-theft mechanism is nontoxic, but the chemical spray is made up of putrescine, a molecule found in composing bodies, and is designed to last multiple days to deter thieves from nicking your wheels.

👓 WORLDCRUNCH MAGAZINE

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⏩  LOOKING AHEAD

• Peace talks between the Democratic Republic of Congo Rwanda-backed M23 rebels which have taken over swathes of the eastern DRC are set to start in Angola next Tuesday. Previous rounds of peace talks held by Angola have failed to maintain peace in the region, but M23’s lightning and deadly offensive in the east in January prompted renewed negotiations.

• Trinidad and Tobago will swear in its new prime minister on Monday. Current Energy Minister Stuart Young is set to succeed Keith Rowley at the head of the Caribbean island country. Rowley announced his retirement from politics in January, and named Young as his successor, with parliamentary elections expected later this year.

• Meta says it plans to release its version of community notes on Facebook, Instagram and Threads in the U.S. on Tuesday as a trial before the feature goes global. The move is a major step away from institutional fact-checking processes, usually performed by third parties, which Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims are detrimental to the variety of viewpoints on the social media platforms.

News quiz answers:

1. A total of 337 drones were downed over Russia, including 91 in the capital’s region on Tuesday, marking Ukraine’s biggest ever drone attack on Moscow. Russian officials said the attack killed at least two workers at a meat warehouse and injured 18 others.

2. A Reuters photographer snapped a picture of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mischievously sticking his tongue out while carrying a House of Commons chair out of a Parliament chamber as he winds down his time in government. Trudeau met with his replacement, Mark Carney who will take the reins as Liberal leader after a landslide victory in last week’s party election.

3. The trial starting this week of doctors accused of playing a role in the death of Diego Maradona. Investigators have charged the doctors with involuntary manslaughter, accusing the medical staff of negligence in the 2020 death of the soccer legend from cardiac arrest.

4. Despite financial struggles and declining car sales, Volkswagen saw record sales of 8.5 million currywursts — factory-made sausages served up daily to the German automaker’s workers in canteens and nearby supermarkets.

✍️ Newsletter by Worldcrunch

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*Photo: Maxppp/ZUMA