Good morning.
Everything Everywhere All at Once has dominated this year’s Oscars, winning seven awards including best picture in a big night for Asian and Asian American representation.
The manic multiverse fantasy, about a fractured family swept up in an interdimensional adventure, also delivered wins for best actress, best director, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best editing and best original screenplay at the 95th Academy Awards ceremony. It was the most nominated film of the night.
Michelle Yeoh became only the second woman of colour to win the best actress Oscar, following in the footsteps of Halle Berry in 2002. “For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight this is a beacon of hope and possibility,” she said, before adding: “Ladies don’t ever let anyone tell you you are past your prime.”
Ke Huy Quan was named best supporting actor for his role in the film, beating Barry Keoghan and Judd Hirsch. He is the first Vietnam-born actor to win an Oscar. “Mom, I just won an Oscar!” he said tearfully. “They say stories like this only happen in the movies, I cannot believe this is happening to me.”
How did Everything Everywhere All At Once sweep the Oscars? A combination of old-fashioned star power and zeitgeisty marketing captured Oscar voters (and audiences) across the board.
Did anyone bring up the slap? Yes. Host Jimmy Kimmel laid into Will Smith, saying: “If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech.”
Where can I find the full list of winners? All the winners and losers from the 95th Academy Awards are here.
Tucker Carlson firestorm over Trump texts threatens to engulf Fox News
Tucker Carlson was once seen as untouchable. Now the most popular TV host on American cable news is at the center of a firestorm threatening to engulf Fox News and also anger Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theory-laden political cause he has long championed and who his audience loves.
Court filings attached to the $1.6bn Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit accuse Fox News of allowing its stars to broadcast false accusations about rigged voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.
The documents contained numerous emails detailing the private views and concerns of senior Fox management and its stars, which often seemed at odds with what they were publicly broadcasting to their audience.
While the anchors Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo have been singled out for pushing false claims of a fraudulent election, the fallout has landed primarily on Carlson. In group chats obtained by Dominion, the network’s biggest names – Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity – appeared to doubt claims of election fraud that were featured prominently on the network. At the same time, the Fox owner, Rupert Murdoch, said in a court deposition that anyone who knowingly allowed lies to be broadcast “should be reprimanded, maybe got rid of”.
Is Fox standing by its stars? So far, yes. On Thursday, Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son, heir apparent and executive chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation, expressed support for management, its roster of stars and backed Fox News’s editorial standards.
What else is happening? As Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation battles to contain the Dominion lawsuit scandal that has engulfed its top executives and stars, another crisis is building that has the potential to cause further turbulence for the media empire.
Republican response to the January 6 Capitol attack divides party
Some Republicans have rebuked efforts by Donald Trump and the Fox News host Tucker Carlson to whitewash the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, underscoring a significant split in the party over attempts to downplay the day’s events.
Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, turned over more than 40,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol to Carlson earlier this year. This week, Carlson aired selectively edited portions of that footage, falsely claiming the rioters were “sightseers” and “not insurrectionists”. At least 1,000 people have been arrested for their role in the January 6 attack. Five people died as a result of it.
More than 999 people have been arrested so far, according to the justice department. About 518 people have pleaded guilty to federal crimes to date and 53 have been found guilty at trial.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, quickly distanced himself from Carlson’s portrayal. “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks,” he said on Tuesday.
What have some Republicans said? Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said: “I think it’s bullshit. I was here. I was down there, and I saw maybe a few tourists, a few people who got caught up in things.”
In other news …
Donald Trump’s third national security adviser, John Bolton, did not brief the then president on suspicions Russia may be behind mysterious “Havana syndrome” attacks on US diplomats because he did not think Trump would support him. Bolton was national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.
All toilet paper from across the world checked for toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” contained the compounds, and the waste flushed down toilets and sent to sewage treatment plants probably creates a significant source of water pollution, research has found.
Nuclear-armed North Korea test-fired two strategic cruise missiles from a submarine on Sunday, the state news agency KCNA reported, just as US-South Korea military drills were due to begin. “Strategic” is typically used to describe weapons that have nuclear capability.
Xi Jinping has stressed the need to oppose “pro-independence” influences in Taiwan, as he closed the National People’s Congress (NPC) after a week in which the rubber-stamp parliament handed China’s president an unprecedented third presidential term, and key roles at the top of the government were reshuffled.
Don’t miss this: long shadow of US invasion of Iraq still looms over international order
The French statesman Georges Clemenceau once said: “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.” In the case of the invasion of Iraq, however, the war that began 20 years ago started in victory and has ended in a series of catastrophes, writes Patrick Wintour. The main US military pullout from Iraq was ultimately completed by 2011, finally answering the question posed by Gen David Petraeus during that first push to Baghdad in 2003: “Tell me, how does this end?” Yet the long shadow of the invasion still looms over the international order, staining the reputation of those who instigated it and the political process itself, and dealing a heavy blow to the self-confidence the west felt in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Climate check: Alaska protections announced as Biden reportedly prepares to approve huge oil project
Joe Biden has announced steps to ban oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and limit onshore drilling in Alaska, as his administration reportedly prepares to approve a huge new oilfield in the state. Plans announced on Sunday night will bar drilling in nearly 3m acres of the Beaufort Sea – closing it off from oil exploration – and limit drilling in more than 13m acres in a vast swath of land known as the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The moves come as regulators prepare to announce a final decision on the $8bn Willow project, a controversial oil-drilling plan pushed by ConocoPhillips in the petroleum reserve. Climate activists have rallied against the project, calling it a “carbon bomb”.
Last thing: Hugh Grant, Malala and a donkey: the best memes and moments from the 2023 Oscars
Hugh Grant stammered and equivocated his way through one of the more excruciating awards moments before the ceremony – in an interview that launched a thousand memes. “The whole of humanity is here … it’s Vanity Fair,” he said in a red carpet interview with the American model Ashley Graham, referring to the 1848 novel by William Thackeray. “It’s all about Vanity Fair – that’s where we let loose and have a little bit of fun!” beamed Graham in response, referring to the magazine that famously hosts an Oscars afterparty. Presenting an award later in the night, he referred to his face as a scrotum, possibly making him the first person to say “scrotum” at the Oscars (not factchecked, do not hold us to this).
There was cringe. There was chaos. There was Cocaine Bear. Here are the other most viral bits from this year’s ceremony.
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