Trump attacks Pope.
Hungary full of hope.

🧠 Vocabulary challenge​
​
Which of these is the meaning of the word 'footage'?

(A) written notes or records from a meeting
(B) recorded video material
(C) of, or related to, the feet
(D) a calculation of speed

​
(answer at bottom of email)

3 big stories…

1. Orban out.

In Hungary, the centre-right Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar, won a landslide in Sunday's general election, ejecting the far-right Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, after 16 years in power. Tisza won a supermajority - more than two-thirds of seats - which could allow them to make constitutional changes. There's more detail in Monday's and Tuesday's episodes.

2. Trump enrages Christians.

US President Donald Trump used his Truth Social social media platform to attack Pope Leo this week, saying that the Pope is "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy", as well as saying that he wouldn't be Pope if it weren't for him. Trump also posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus performing a miracle on a sick man, which he later deleted after outrage from Christians. He told reporters that he was supposed to look like a doctor and that it was "fake news" to say it looks like Jesus.

3. Ceasefires.

Israel and Lebanon announced a ceasefire last night, starting today and lasting ten days. There's still another week left of the US-Iran ceasefire too, so there should, in theory, be no fighting between states in the Middle East over the next week.

… and one you might have missed.

When recording today's podcast episode, I said that a wolf still hadn't been caught, one week after escaping from a zoo in South Korea, despite hundreds of firefighters, police officers and soldiers looking for him. That story is already out of date! A few hours ago, it was announced that Neukgu, the two-year-old wolf, was caught in the early hours of this morning.

🔍 Find the Synonym:​
​
Somewhere in the "3 big stories", find a synonym for the word "ousting".

Graph of the week

People in the United States now sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis, according to polls from Gallup. In the most recent Gallup poll, 41% of people polled said that they sympathize more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, "in the Middle East situation". This is the first time that the Palestinians have been above the Israelis when asked this question.

🌍 World news question:​
​
Which European country has started a new amnesty programme, that could give a legal status to half a million undocumented migrants?

Quote of the week:

- Peter Magyar, Prime Minister-elect of Hungary, writing on X (Twitter) after meeting President Tamas Sulyok, who was chosen by the outgoing Fidesz government.

SEND7 Supporter's corner:

• Read today's podcast transcript and vocabulary list
• Play today's world news quiz ​
• Use Wednesday's worksheet​

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to have access to all of our transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets, world news quizzes and more, you can become a supporter at send7.org/support. We give 10% of our profit to highly effective charities.

Stephen’s view:

Until about twenty years ago, when people wanted to know the news they read a newspaper, or turned on the television or radio.

This has completely changed since then, with most people getting their news online in some way, and most studies showing that more than half of people get their news from social media at least some of the time.

And yet, I don't think that the old-fashioned, well-established news sources are going away. In fact, I think that they are going to have a new role in this world that we are building full of content generated by artificial intelligence; they will tell us what is actually real.

We are already seeing images, audio, and videos being created using AI, that are very difficult to tell are fake. If this technology continues to improve (and I can't see any reason why it won't), then soon it will be extremely easy for anyone to make a perfectly generated video of virtually anything.

Imagine, tomorrow, you open your social media feed, and you see President Trump declaring that the United States has used a nuclear bomb on Iran, because Iran refused to agree to conditions of surrender. Would you believe it? How would you check if it is real?

For me, my instinct would be to go to a well-known news source, like the New York Times, The Guardian, Reuters etc. If this story is not the headline story, then it's not real.

That is the role that I can see these news media organizations holding in the future - the gatekeepers of truth in a world full of AI rubbish.

Have a great weekend.
Stephen

P.S. What would you like me to talk about in the next few weeks? Just click 'reply' and ask me a question. I might use it in an upcoming newsletter!

ANSWERS

(don't look until you've answered all three questions!)

🧠 VOCABULARY CHALLENGE : (B) "footage" means 'recorded video material'.

🔍 Find the synonym : A synonym for "ousting" is "ejecting" (in the Hungary paragraph)

🌍 World News question : Spain. Undocumented migrants who have been in Spain for at least 5 months, and don't have a criminal record, can apply for a one-year permit to live and work in Spain.

Simple English News Daily is the podcast. This is the email newsletter.
www.send7.org
600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​