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Oliver Anthony, the previously unknown singer whose Rich Men North of Richmond went viral and topped the charts over the past week, hit out Friday at politicians, particularly on the right, for co-opting his message.

In a more than 10-minute clip posted on YouTube, the songwriter from Virginia reflected on his breakout success, and said that “the one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up in this.”

“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “It’s aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we’re buddies and act like we’re fighting the same struggle here, like we’re trying to present the same message.”

Rich Men North of Richmond overtook megastars Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen and Olivia Rodrigo to snag the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, with 17.5 million streams and nearly 150,000 downloads in less than a week.

The track invokes the argument that Americans in the south and rural areas have been left behind by rich elites farther north.

In his lyrics Anthony leans into issues of long hours for little pay with high taxes.

He also picks up talking points that have persisted since the business-friendly, pro-austerity Ronald Reagan years, namely against the welfare state.

Anthony had previously insisted that his political views are down the middle.

In his clip posted Friday he scoffed that his song was used during the opening of this week’s debate between Republican presidential hopefuls.

“I wrote that song about those people. So for [the Republican candidates] to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up,” he says.

“That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song was written about the people on that stage — and a lot more, not just them, but definitely them.”

Anthony also spoke to critics on the left who accused him of ridiculing welfare and the poor.

He said his stanza about the “obese milking welfare” spoke to an article he read about individual food subsidies going toward snack foods.

“If we can fuel a proxy war in a foreign land, but we can’t take care of our own, that’s all the song is trying to say,” Anthony said. “That the government takes people who are needy and dependent and makes them needy and dependent.”

In the video he choked up while saying he cares about connecting with people, not topping charts.

He also promised more music to come: “I’m going to write, produce and distribute authentic music that represents people and not politics.” 
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Israel’s far-right national security minister lashed out at supermodel Bella Hadid on Friday for criticizing his recent fiery televised remarks about Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In an interview earlier this week with Israel’s Channel 12 following two deadly Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the occupied territory, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir argued that his right to freedom of movement as a Jewish settler outweighs the same right for Palestinians.

“My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria, is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs,” Ben-Gvir said on TV Wednesday, using the biblical name for the West Bank. “The right to life comes before freedom of movement.”

Addressing Mohammad Magadli, a well-known Israeli-Arab television host who was in the studio, Ben-Gvir added: “Sorry, Mohammad. But that’s the reality.”

His statement drew widespread criticism as commentators seized on it as proof of allegations that Israel was turning into an apartheid system that seeks to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The catchphrase “Sorry, Mohammad” became meme fodder for social media as critics posted it alongside videos of Israeli violence against Palestinians.

Hadid, a world-famous supermodel and social media influencer whose father is Palestinian, shared an excerpt from Ben-Gvir’s interview with her 59.5 million followers on Instagram on Thursday, writing: “In no place, no time, especially in 2023 should one life be more valuable than another’s. Especially simply because of their ethnicity, culture or pure hatred.”

She also posted a video from leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem showing Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank city of Hebron telling a resident that Palestinians are not permitted to walk on a certain street because it is reserved for Jews. “Does this remind anyone of anything?” she wrote.

Ben-Gvir responded angrily on Friday to Hadid’s post.

“I invite you to Kiryat Arba, to see how we live here, how every day, Jews who have done nothing wrong to anyone in their lives are murdered here,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Ben-Gvir lives in the settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, the largest Palestinian city.

Earlier this week, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli car near Hebron, killing an Israeli woman and seriously wounding the driver. That attack came just days after a Palestinian shooting attack killed an Israeli father and son in the northern Palestinian town of Hawara.

Ben-Gvir acknowledged the backlash but doubled down on his original statement. “So yes, the right of me and my fellow Jews to travel and return home safely on the roads of Judea and Samaria outweighs the right of terrorists who throw stones at us and kill us,” he wrote.

Ben-Gvir has been convicted in the past of inciting racism and of supporting a terrorist organization. He was known as an admirer of rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned from Parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990. Kach wanted to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship, segregate Israeli public spaces, and ban marriages between Jews and non-Jews. Before joining politics, Ben-Gvir hung a portrait in his living room of a Jewish man who fatally shot 29 Palestinians in the West Bank in 1994.

A once-marginal far-right activist, Ben-Gvir now wields significant power as the national security minister overseeing the Israeli police force in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
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The president of the Spanish football federation faces an emergency meeting of its general assembly on Friday amid media reports that he will hand in his resignation following an uproar for kissing a Women’s World Cup champion.

Luis Rubiales is expected to stand before representatives of Spain’s regional federations, clubs, players, coaches and referees in Madrid at noon local time, and local media say he is stepping down.

The federation has refused to comment on repeated requests from The Associated Press for confirmation of Rubiales’ decision to go that was reported late Thursday.

Rubiales, 46, is under immense pressure to leave his post since he grabbed player Jenni Hermoso and kissed her on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony following Spain’s 1-0 victory over England on Sunday in Sydney.

FIFA, football’s global governing body and organizer of the Women’s World Cup, opened a disciplinary case against him on Thursday. Its disciplinary committee was tasked with weighing whether Rubiales violated its code relating to “the basic rules of decent conduct” and “behaving in a way that brings the sport of football and/or FIFA into disrepute.”

That move by FIFA came after Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that Rubiales’ attempt to apologize, which came after he initially insulted his critics, was unconvincing and that “he must continue taking further steps” to be held accountable.

Spain’s Higher Council of Sports, the nation’s governing sports body, pledged it would act quickly to consider various formal complaints filed against Rubiales to see if he had broken Spain’s sports law or the federation’s own code of conduct that sanction sexist acts. If so, Rubiales would face being declared unfit to hold his office by Spain’s Administrative Court for Sports.

As if the forced kiss was not enough, Rubiales had shortly before grabbed his crotch in a lewd victory gesture from the section of dignitaries with Spain’s Queen Letizia and the 16-year-old Princess Infanta Sofía nearby.

The combination of the gesture and the unsolicited kiss has made Rubiales a national embarrassment after his conduct was broadcast to a global audience, marring the enormous accomplishment of the women who played for Spain.

Hermoso, a 33-year-old forward and key contributor to Spain’s title, said on a social media stream “I did not like it, but what could I do?” about the kiss during a locker-room celebration immediately after the incident.

The first attempt to respond to the scandal was a statement it released in the name of Hermoso in which she downplayed the incident. Later, a local media report by sports website Relevo.com said that the federation had coerced her into making the statement. The federation has denied this to The AP.

On Wednesday, Hermoso issued a statement through her players’ union saying it would speak on her behalf. The union said it would do all it could to ensure that the kiss does “not go unpunished.”

Rubiales has received no public support from any major sports figure and united political parties from both the left and right are calling for him to resign.
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Ebrahim Golestan, a renowned Iranian writer and filmmaker, has died at his home in Britain at the age of 101.

His daughter Lili, the director of Tehran’s Golestan Gallery, confirmed news of his death this week. On Instagram, she wrote “Father, you have left us. Farewell.”  

Golestan was born in Shiraz and left Iran before the 1979 Revolution. 

His notable films include “The Hills of Marlik,” “Brick and Mirror,” “The Secrets Treasure of Jin Valley,” “Waves, Coral and Rock,” and “From One Drop to the Sea.”

Ebrahim Golestan also produced “The House is Black,” directed by Forough Farrokhzad. 

The Iranian Directors Guild described him as an intellectual who “infused a renewed vitality into Iranian cinema before the new wave.” 

The statement characterizes Golestan as a literary luminary and storyteller with a uniquely captivating manner of expression.
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