The fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal law-enforcement officer is laying bare the sharp divides in US politics – and threatening to inflame an already contentious debate over immigration policy.
The incident took place in broad daylight. There are multiple videos taken by bystanders from various locations. And yet even the basic facts are being disputed.
Almost immediately after the shooting, two starkly different accounts began to take shape. Any ambiguities in the videos shared online were seized upon – different angles and different screengrabs were used to push a particular narrative.
And on the public stage, state and federal officials openly disagreed.
According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the driver – 37-year-old Renee Good – was to blame. As she drove away from ICE officers, she “weaponised her car” in a “domestic terror attack”, Noem said.
US President Donald Trump blamed a “professional agitator” and a “radical left movement of violence and hate” in a Truth Social post.
National Democrats – and state and local officials in Minnesota – have painted a completely different picture.
Jacob Frey, the Democratic Mayor of Minneapolis, said a federal agent “recklessly” used lethal force. He also issued an expletive-laced demand for immigration enforcement officials to leave the city.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called the shooting “totally predictable” and “totally avoidable”, arguing it was a direct consequence of the surge in federal immigration officers into Minneapolis and surrounding areas in recent days.
“We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalised operations are a threat to our public safety,” he said on Wednesday.
Getty Images
There have been demonstrations against ICE operations following the shooting
This clear division between the federal government and local officials was only further illustrated on Thursday morning, when the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced that the justice department and the FBI were no longer co-operating with its investigation into the shooting.
Federal agencies, it said, would be solely responsible for handling the investigation into the use of lethal force by the ICE agent.
That Minnesota has become the epicentre of a growing conflict over immigration enforcement in recent months is both unsurprising – and ironic.
It is ironic because Good’s death occurred just a few miles from where, in 2020, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd during an attempted arrest, setting off nationwide Black Lives Matters protests – including some, in Minneapolis, that turned violent.
Walz has put the state’s National Guard on standby, and cautioned the hundreds of protesters who have taken to the streets not to resort to violence.
Minnesota’s central role in this latest flare-up is unsurprising because it marks the culmination of conflict, controversy and scandal that had been building for months.
The recent surge in immigration enforcement comes after Trump derided the state’s large Somali immigrant population – most of whom are US citizens – after members of the community were convicted of widespread fraud in the distribution of federal Covid aid.
“Hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country, and ripping apart that once great state,” he said in November. “We’re not going to put up with these kind of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn’t even be in our country.”
Under pressure, Walz abandoned his bid for re-election last week, as allegations mounted of corruption in state social services, including childcare and food aid.
EPA
Governor Tim Walz abandoned his bid for re-election last week
The surge in immigration enforcement in the state is just the latest example of the Trump administration using federal officials to target communities suspected of having high rates of undocumented migrants. The use of force during this operation is far from an isolated incident, either.
The Minnesota incident was at least the ninth immigration-enforcement-related shooting since September – all involving individuals who were targeted while in their vehicles – according to the New York Times.
The intensity with which the immigration actions have been undertaken – in an expanding list of cities across the US – has led to protests and calls from Democratic officials for greater oversight, accountability and restraint among law enforcement agents.
The fatal Minneapolis shooting has already given these efforts new urgency among their advocates.
Trump administration officials, for their part, are pressing ahead – citing the mandate they say they received from voters in the 2024 presidential election as well as the evidence, in dramatically reduced undocumented entries into the US, that their efforts have proven effective.
They have also vigorously disputed the argument that the video of the Minneapolis shooting is evidence of a misuse of lethal force.
“The gaslighting is off the charts and I’m having none of it,” Vice-President JD Vance wrote in a post on X. “This guy was doing his job. She tried to stop him from doing his job.”
While he said the incident was tragic, he added that “it falls on this woman and all of the radicals who teach people that immigration is the one type of law that rioters are allowed to interfere with”.
Walz, in his next public comments, was quick to counter.
“People in positions of power have already passed judgement, from the president to the vice-president to Kristi Noem, have stood and told you things that are verifiably false, verifiably inaccurate,” he said. “They have determined the character of a 37-year-old mom that they didn’t even know.”
It appears that even video evidence is open to interpretation at this point. Each person sees the same images and draws decidedly different conclusions – ones that frequently, perhaps not surprisingly, reinforce their previously established positions.
The chasm in US politics seems as immutable as it is daunting.
Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.
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Saudi-backed “National Shield Forces” were seen deploying in Aden a day after separatist leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi fled Yemen for the United Arab Emirates. The city has been at the centre of al-Zubaidi’s Southern Transitional Council (STC).
US President Donald Trump has said that his country’s involvement in Venezuela could last for years.
He told the New York Times that “only time will tell” how long his administration would “oversee” the running of the South American nation following the seizure by US forces of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a raid on Saturday.
Trump also did not say if or when elections would be held in Venezuela to replace the interim government headed by Maduro loyalist Delcy Rodríguez.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said the ouster of Maduro had set off an “irreversible process” that would lead Venezuela to be “free”.
New York Times (NYT) journalists quizzed Trump on his plans for the future of Venezuela days after he had said his administration would run the oil-rich nation.
Earlier on Wednesday, the White House had said that the US would control sales of sanctioned oil “indefinitely”.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright argued that the US needed control over Venezuela’s oil sales for leverage over the interim government in Caracas.
Trump said his administration would be “taking oil” from Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven reserves, but acknowledged it would “take a while” to get the country’s oil industry up and running.
Venezuela’s oil production has plummeted as a result of mismanagement on the part of the Maduro government and that of his predecessor, as well as years of US sanctions.
Watch: BBC Verify examines claims Venezuela “stole” US oil
Trump told the NYT that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “in constant communication” with Rodríguez, who was designated as Venezuela’s interim leader by the country’s Supreme Court, which is dominated by Maduro loyalists.
He added that Rodríguez is “giving us everything that we feel is necessary.”
The US president had earlier said that the interim government had agreed to use the proceeds from the sale of its oil to buy only US-made goods.
According to the NYT reporters, Trump did not answer their questions about why he recognised Rodríguez as Venezuela’s new leader.
Many Venezuela analysts had expected that the ouster of Maduro would be followed swiftly by the return to the country of opposition leaders Edmundo González and María Corina Machado.
But in his first news conference following the US raid, Trump was dismissive about Machado, alleging that she lacked the “respect” and support to lead Venezuela.
“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader,” he said.
Machado managed to unite opposition groups behind her ahead of the 2024 presidential election but was barred from running for the presidency by officials loyal to the Maduro government.
She then threw her weight behind former diplomat González, who acted as her proxy.
The electoral council, which is also dominated by government loyalists, declared Maduro re-elected. However, voting tallies collected by the opposition, which have been independently verified, suggest González won by a landslide.
González went into exile to escape the government repression that followed the election, and Machado went into hiding within Venezuela.
She embarked on a perilous journey by land, sea and air to reach Oslo in December to collect the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights” in Venezuela.
Her current whereabouts are unknown but she has said that she plans to return to Venezuela soon.
She said that she hoped this new phase of the transition process would be “as short and swift as possible”.
She added that the interim government, which she said was “the same regime it was under Maduro” was “being given instructions to dismantle itself”.
Machado insisted that González was the legitimate president-elect and urged that his mandate be respected.
She stressed that “the first thing” that needed to happen was for the political prisoners to be released.
Machado is not the only one who has been demanding that the more than 800 political prisoners held in Venezuela’s notorious jails be freed.
On Wednesday, Republican lawmaker María Elvira Salazar published several posts on social media insisting they be released “immediately”.
However, in his interview with the NYT, Trump instead “appeared far more focused on the rescue mission than the details of how to navigate Venezuela’s future”, according to the journalists who spoke to him.
Pressed on what the US plans for Venezuela are, he said that “we will rebuild it in a very profitable way”.
He added: “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.”
The US president is expected to meet representatives of three of the largest US oil companies at the White House on Friday to discuss those plans further.
Meanwhile, the US Senate on Thursday voted 52-47 to take up a resolution intended to block the Trump administration from conducting further military action in Venezuela.
The vote clears the way for debate on the resolution invoking the War Powers Act, but another vote would be needed for the final passage.
It marks the first time during the second Trump administration that the Senate has voted to curb the president’s use of military power.
But it remains largely symbolic as it is not clear whether it will also clear the House, and if it does the president can still use his veto power to block it.
Long before he became a self-made billionaire, best-selling author, and one of the world’s most recognizable motivational speakers, Robbins was a janitor making just $40 a week with no plans to go to college and little clarity about his future. By his early 20s, he was scrambling for opportunity—studying successful people obsessively, seeking mentors, and testing ideas in real time. By 24, he had made his first million as a motivator.
Now, decades later, Robbins—whose past coaching clients include hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones and former President Bill Clinton—recognizes today’s young people are facing a similarly disorienting moment. But he argued the path forward hasn’t changed as much as it might seem.
According to Robbins, the most successful people aren’t those who predict the future perfectly, but those who learn to master patterns. And in today’s volatile economy, Robbins said three pattern-based skills separate those who thrive from those who stall.
1. Pattern recognition
The first step, Robbins said, is learning how to recognize patterns—across industries, careers, and even belief systems.
“What’s the common pattern? What’s [the] common belief system?” he recently told The School of Hard Knocks. “Pattern recognition takes you out of fear.”
For young workers, that might mean studying the advice of successful leaders to spot recurring themes, or tracking which industries and roles are growing in opportunity despite economic headwinds.
2. Pattern utilization
But just spotting patterns isn’t enough—the real advantage comes from learning how to apply them.
“If you look at somebody’s good in finance, it’s because they learn how to not see the pattern, but use the pattern,” Robbins added.
Pattern utilization can be the key to turning insight into income. In reality, this might mean adapting proven business models, borrowing successful habits of high performers, or recognizing market cycles early enough to act on them.
And if you make a mistake, that’s OK—it’s all part of the process. In fact, when he was 25, he admitted he once took the advice of a woman driving a Rolls Royce to invest in penny stocks.
“I took her advice and put my money in those stocks,” he said in 2014. “And I lost everything.”
3. Pattern creation
The final—and most powerful—skill is creating your own patterns.
“That’s when you come the greatest of all time in your particular category. That’s how you get there,” Robbins said. “But I always tell people, we’re not made to manage circumstances. We’re made to be creators. We were created, designed to be creators; become the creator of your own life.”
For Gen Z, that could mean inventing new career paths, blending skills across disciplines, or building opportunities rather than waiting for traditional ladders to reappear. In a world that’s constantly changing, Robbins suggested the ultimate advantage is learning how to shape the future instead of reacting to it.
Odd jobs have fueled the success of Tony Robbins, Jeff Bezos, and Jensen Huang
Robbins grew up in an abusive household, but rather than allowing those circumstances to define him, he has said they became a catalyst for his relentless drive to succeed—and to understand other people.
“If my mom had been the mother I thought I wanted, I wouldn’t be as driven; I wouldn’t be as hungry,” he told CNBC in 2016. “I wouldn’t have suffered, so I probably wouldn’t have cared about other people’s suffering as much as I do. And it made me obsessed with wanting to understand people and help create change.”
To gain independence early, Robbins took a series of odd jobs after school and on the weekends, from helping people move to working as a janitor. The latter in particular proved formative—not because of the work itself, but because of what it allowed him to do with his time.
“I picked that job not because I like janitoring but because I could do it literally from 10 to 2 in the morning,” Robbins said. “I also had the free time to think and feed my mind.”
And Robbins isn’t alone in translating an early—and humble—grind into success.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also famously flipped burgers at McDonald’s as a teenager, an experience he has credited with teaching him responsibility, discipline, and how to work on a team.
And Spanx founder Sara Blakely spent years selling fax machines door to door before rebuilding her shapewear empire—and becoming a self-made billionaire.
“I started it with five grand from selling fax machines and self-funded the entire 21 years,” Blakely said last year. “I sat down with myself and I was like, you wanna spend your five grand on a vacation? Or do you wanna try to bet on yourself?”
Civilians were seen fleeing several northern Aleppo neighbourhoods en masse as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian military escalate their fighting after a breakdown in integration talks. Estimates vary widely, but some have placed the number of evacuees at more than 100,000.
MBW’s World Leaders is a regular series in which we turn the spotlight toward some of the most influential industry figures overseeing key international markets. In this feature, we speak to Chris Meehan, CEO of Publishing at Believe. World Leaders is supported by SoundExchange.
Chris Meehan has spent nearly two decades in the publishing business. He started out by solving a problem he says the traditional industry wasn’t addressing.
In 2006, while still a student at Liverpool’s Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), Meehan founded Sentric Music with a simple but radical premise: independent songwriters were leaving money on the table, and nobody was helping them collect it.
“The first thing you do is write a song, and then you play it live,” Meehan explains. “So the first piece of revenue you’re going to generate from your music career is going to be publishing. But there was just nothing there [to help independent artists collect it].”
Sentric’s answer was then a rolling 28-day, non-exclusive contract offering an 80/20 royalty split while allowing writers to retain 100% of their copyrights.
The company grew from a university project into a global operation representing over four million songs and 400,000 songwriters across 200 territories.
After a brief stint under Utopia Music’s ownership following a 2022 acquisition, Sentric was sold to Believe in March 2023 in a deal valued at €47 million ($51 million).
That acquisition has now culminated in a significant milestone. In October 2025, Believe officially launched Believe Music Publishing, with Meehan at the helm as CEO of Publishing.
The division operates with 160 publishing experts across multiple markets, building on Sentric’s technology and collection infrastructure while leveraging Believe’s global footprint spanning 47 countries.
“We’ve put teams into France, Germany, India and Southeast Asia,” says Meehan. “The reputation that Believe has in their markets just allows us to utilize the success of Believe’s journey to accelerate our position.”
Here, Meehan discusses Sentric’s origins, Believe’s publishing ambitions, the technology powering their collection infrastructure, and what he’d change about the global music business…
WHEN YOU FOUNDED SENTRIC IN 2006, THE DIY DISTRIBUTION MODEL WAS JUST EMERGING WITH COMPANIES LIKE TUNECORE. WHAT GAP DID YOU SEE IN THE MARKET FOR PUBLISHING?
At the time, TuneCore and the like had just launched, so you could get your music onto iTunes. It was very much the DIY ethos – “I’m gonna do it myself, I’m gonna run my own label.”
But there was just nothing there for publishing. The more we looked, the more we saw that the biggest problem was access to the infrastructure to collect. There were lots of great A&R people and lots of great companies, but they can only work with the same amount of people they can work with. Everyone else is kind of left to fend for themselves.
So we looked at creating a model whereby we could help people collect the money they were already making that they probably didn’t know they were already making.
WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN CONVINCING INDEPENDENT ARTISTS THEY NEEDED PUBLISHING REPRESENTATION?
It was convincing them that publishing existed. You had to educate people on what publishing was before you could then tell them how you could help them. I don’t think that’s any different today, really – it’s got more complicated than it was.
Back in 2006, most of your income as an independent artist was coming from live performances. Now, live is still a piece, but it’s a piece of a much bigger puzzle.
The biggest issue was telling people they were leaving money on the table. We used to say: the first thing you do is write a song, then you play it live to get validation. So the first piece of revenue you’re going to generate from your music career is going to be publishing.
“PUBLISHING FELT LIKE A DARK ART. THERE’S A LOT MORE EDUCATION NOW THAN THERE WAS 20 YEARS AGO.”
If you play enough shows – the Just Introducing stages, the live circuit – maybe that allows you to collect the money to fund the next recording, the next part of your career. It was very much education into how things work. It felt like a dark art. There’s a lot more education now than there was 20 years ago.
SENTRIC PIONEERED THE NON-EXCLUSIVE APPROACH TO MUSIC PUBLISHING. WHY WAS THAT SO IMPORTANT?
We looked at all the reasons why a songwriter wouldn’t engage with the ecosystem that’s going to pay them money, and we tried to get rid of all the barriers.
One of the barriers – very much spoken about at the time – was copyright ownership and control. We didn’t want to put that as a barrier. We didn’t want long-term contracts. We didn’t want to put punitive terms on the table.
We looked at: how can we help people in the most effective way? And it was getting rid of all of the reasons why they wouldn’t engage.
The way we looked at it was that if we do what we say we’re going to do, then we provide an alternative to a traditional publishing deal. We’ve still got some of the very first writers that we worked with today. If you do a good job and you do what you say you’re going to do, why would someone leave? What does exclusivity and long-term really matter if you’re doing the right thing?
BELIEVE ACQUIRED SENTRIC IN 2023. WHAT MADE THEM THE RIGHT PARTNER FOR SENTRIC’S NEXT CHAPTER?
We were at a point where we’d been going for 17 years. One of the things we knew we were really good at was our ability to collect royalties on a global basis and position ourselves to provide value to clients.
One of the things we struggled with was how to roll that out internationally. We had an international revenue base, we had an international client base, but we weren’t really an international company.
Believe has grown tremendously over the same time period. It made sense for us to look at how we could be in markets that we probably didn’t know about. With Believe’s digital focus and digital leadership, and digital royalties collections growing, they were very uniquely positioned with their relationships with the DSPs and their global market share.
“IN TWO AND A HALF YEARS, WE’VE ACCELERATED OUR STAFF AND TEAMS ACROSS THE WORLD IN MARKETS WE JUST WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LOOK AT.”
In two and a half years, we’ve accelerated our staff and teams across the world in markets we just would never have been able to look at. The thing we started with in 2006 – access to collection – we’re now able to bring that to markets where we can make a real difference, especially now that everything is a lot more digital and global.
WHICH MARKETS IN PARTICULAR WERE YOU TRYING TO EXPAND INTO THAT YOU’RE NOW REACHING VIA BELIEVE?
We’ve put teams into France, Germany, India, and Southeast Asia – directly where Believe have got big footprints. The reputation that Believe has in their markets just allows us to utilize the success of Believe’s journey to accelerate our position.
We’ve already seen success in signings such as Ben Zucker in Germany, French rapper R2, leading Punjabi singer-songwriter Garry Sandhu and many more.
Our commercial relationship with Believe began via TuneCore in 2018. When Sentric started working with them in 2018, we applied our technology and collection capability to the TuneCore publishing catalogue, and we saw rapid growth from there.
There are a couple of key clients we signed together, like Viva Records in the Philippines. It’s really about making sure that we can collect the money from the pockets of consumption that happen around the world that might be very unsighted.
TELL US ABOUT THE PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY THAT UNDERPINS BELIEVE MUSIC PUBLISHING.
We are very unique as a publishing company – very tech-focused and tech-enabled. It’s always been at the forefront.
Back in 2006, we built technology which suited the business model we had at the time, rather than suited the capability or the ambition for what publishing might become. Around 2014-2015, we restarted building. We brought our developers in-house and started thinking about what publishing looks like in 15-20 years. What are the things we’re going to have to face? What are the opportunities? What are the weaknesses?
The technology infrastructure we’ve got now runs rules for clients in any way they might need – whether that’s simple song registrations, augmented ISRC matching, rights accounting. We use it to power our relationship with CMOs. We also use it to make sure we’re enriching data on the client side.
“WE’VE PROBABLY DEALT WITH MORE DATA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THIS YEAR THAN WE DID IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.”
Where we’re looking now is becoming a data powerhouse in terms of being able to match [consumption data to works]. One of the biggest things we see as an issue is the volume of data that needs to be matched and what our role is in the chain of control on that data.
We need to source and control as much data as possible and rely on third parties as little as possible. We’ve probably dealt with more data in the first half of this year than we did in the previous two years. The direction of travel is going one way, and we need to be five to seven years ahead.
HOW DOES BELIEVE MUSIC PUBLISHING DIFFERENTIATE ITSELF FROM MAJOR PUBLISHERS AND OTHER INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING COMPANIES?
The technology we have, the way we engage with data, the way we present that back to clients – that’s definitely one big differentiator.
We want to make sure we’re translating data into a consumable way. Just because we’ve got lots of it doesn’t mean we should pass lots of it on. Translating that into what people want to see – which is probably a health check – is important. Is my song registered? Has it been acknowledged? Is the royalty flowing? Am I getting paid for Spotify in every market, or is there a gap? We see our CMO relationships less as membership and more as partnership, because we’re in there to innovate and make sure we’re being a good partner from a data and registration perspective.
“WE’VE GOT 160 PUBLISHING EXPERTS NOW IN THE BUSINESS ACROSS ALL THE MARKETS WE’RE IN.”
And we’ve got 160 publishing experts now in the business across all the markets we’re in – a very direct piece of making sure we’re there for the writers in the territories we’re signing them. We provide opportunities outside of data enrichment that might be through sync, or creative. Believe operates in over 50 markets, and there’s recordings happening in every single one of those, and every recording needs a song. The creative opportunity we can bring to the table for writers is very unique.
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST PAIN POINTS IN MUSIC PUBLISHING TODAY, AND HOW IS BELIEVE POSITIONED TO ADDRESS THEM?
There are lots of data challenges, lots of scale challenges that we all need to overcome. We’ve seen real positive steps from a lot of the CMOs to move to quicker payment cycles, which again comes with the need to handle data quicker.
Being ahead of the curve with DSPs is important, and that’s where Believe is uniquely positioned – we have those global relationships on the sound recording and the publishing side. Making sure we’re looking at value opportunities as well as ensuring we’re being remunerated properly.
One of the biggest issues is licensing deals. We’re still not fully always licensed for absolutely everything that pops off, and that reactivity time is probably a little bit too long. We’re having those conversations on both the sound recording and publishing side so we can get ahead of the curve and ahead of the trend.
HOW DO YOU THINK ABOUT AI AND ITS IMPACT ON SONGWRITERS AND THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS?
The biggest concern for songwriters probably stands back to the beginning of the century, which is the unknown. Anything that’s an unknown is something we’re naturally worried about.
Denis [Ladegaillerie] mentioned it recently – there’s marginal revenue opportunity and marginal threat from the data he’s looked at. Something like 34% of tracks uploaded to Deezer are fully AI-generated and accounting for 0.5% of streams on the platform. So I don’t really think we should be focusing on AI getting rid of songwriters.
The way we’re looking at it at Believe is around value protection and value creation. On the protection side, we’ve got consent, control, compensation, and transparency as our four guiding principles.
“WITH BMI AND ASCAP ACCEPTING GENERATIVE AI REGISTRATIONS, WE’RE MOVING INTO A WORLD WHERE THERE’S A BIT MORE CONTEXT AROUND THE COMPLEXITY OF AI.”
Match that with value creation – the Spotify initiative we just became a part of, looking at ways to reach audiences using AI. With many CMOs accepting generative AI registrations, we’re moving into a world where there’s a bit more context around the complexity of what AI looks like. That should reassure writers that while there is an inherent threat, there’s also opportunity. We’re there to help protect the value and create more value.
From a business efficiency point of view, things are moving daily. We’ve repositioned some of our development team into innovation squads to look at the art of the possible. Some of the things we’ve been able to do in terms of querying and interrogating data – we just wouldn’t be able to do with conventional tech. There’s a huge opportunity for business efficiency and processing.
WHAT ARE YOUR LONG-TERM PREDICTIONS FOR THE GLOBAL MUSIC PUBLISHING BUSINESS?
Having been around for 20 years and started when we did, we’ve seen many different waves come and go. Consolidation will continue to happen, and consolidation creates opportunity for companies invested in growing their service business.
From a publishing market perspective, we’re as buoyant as ever about the opportunity for independent publishers. We’re going to continue to have data gaps, issues around matching and transparency. Becoming closer to the DSPs is really going to help with transparency around payments.
“IF YOU LOOK BACK FIVE YEARS, THEN FIVE YEARS BEFORE THAT, THE THINGS WE’RE TALKING ABOUT NOW WEREN’T EVEN ON THE RADAR.”
If you’ve been doing this for 20 years, the long-term probably isn’t any longer than five years. If you look back five years, then five years before that, the things we’re talking about now weren’t even on the radar.
We need to be much more data-focused, tech-focused, global-thinking in the way we collect. We’re in a unique position at Believe – very strong tech focus, and we can deploy that with very strong music executives. That puts us in a position where we can adapt to changes we might not foresee and capitalize on the ones we can.
WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?
Happy songwriters and publishers.
Going back to the philosophy at the beginning of Sentric – when you’ve got someone on a rolling 28-day deal and they can leave at any time, it really focuses you on serving people in the way you’d expect to be served yourself.
Making sure we’ve got that ethos throughout the business. And catalyzing on the creative opportunity within Believe. What’s been great coming into Believe from being an outside partner is that it feels like one company, not dozens of offices around the world. We’re all aligned from the exec team all the way down to local teams. That’s what’s going to produce more opportunity for the recording and publishing business than we’ve seen before.
IF THERE WAS ONE THING YOU COULD CHANGE ABOUT THE GLOBAL MUSIC BUSINESS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Global alignment from CMOs and publishers. That’s it, really.
When we look at opportunities, they become threats because we don’t think globally. We think locally, we think regionally. The recorded and publishing sides don’t often have the same view.
We’d be a lot better at capitalizing on opportunities if there was alignment on every side of the rights in every market in the world. That would lead us to have much easier lives.
“WE DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN THE US THAN WE DO IN EUROPE, THAN WE DO IN SOUTH AMERICA. IT CREATES FRICTION AND DELAY.”
We’re starting to think about multi-territory licensing, but it’s not global. You do something different in the US than you do in Europe, than you do in South America. It creates friction, and it creates delay.
If we had that global alignment and really thought globally about how we engage with DSPs – who are global – we’d be able to pass down the benefit of that locally, as well as facilitate global careers and global songs.
SoundExchange was independently formed in 2003 to build a fairer, simpler, and more efficient music industry through technology, data, and advocacy. The only organization designated by the U.S. government to administer the Section 114 sound recording license, SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties on behalf of 700,000 music creators and growing.Music Business Worldwide
Ghana’s former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, who is wanted at home on corruption allegations, has been detained in the US over issues related to his immigration status, his lawyers say.
Ghana has previously requested Ofori-Atta’s extradition, but his lawyers are challenging this, saying the allegations against him are politically motivated.
Ofori-Atta left Ghana last year for medical reasons, his legal team said.
On Wednesday, confirming his detention in the US, they said they expected the matter to be resolved “expeditiously”.
In a statement, Ofori-Atta’s lawyers said their client was “law-abiding” and was in the process of applying to change his immigration status allowing him to stay in the US “past the period of validity of [his] visa”.
The BBC has contacted ICE for comment.
Ofori-Atta faces dozens of charges relating to his time in office under the previous administration, including conspiracy to commit procurement fraud and causing financial loss to the state.
Last February, prosecutors in Ghana declared the former minister a fugitive, alleging that he was trying to evade investigators. This status was withdrawn when his legal team said he did intend to return.
His lawyer Enayat Qasimi previously told the BBC that Ofori-Atta was “committed to fully complying with the laws of Ghana and… answering for anything he did when he was finance minister”.
He was finance minister from January 2017 to February 2024, when the New Patriotic Party was in power.
It lost the December 2024 elections, after which John Mahama from the National Democratic Congress became president, pledging to crack down on corruption.
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Aquatics GB Championships qualifier Ella Justice will head across the pond next fall, as she has announced her commitment to swim for the University of Alabama beginning in the fall of 2026.
“I’m very excited to announce my verbal commitment to the University of Alabama where I will continue my athletic and academic career. I’m truly grateful for this opportunity and look forward to the next chapter. Roll tide”
Currently based in Devon in southwest England, the British swimmer trains year-round with Mount Kelly Swimming, where she primarily specializes in sprint freestyle and backstroke. She has also represented Great Britain on the international stage for the past two years.
Justice made her international debut back in 2023 at the Commonwealth Youth Games (LCM) in Trinidad and Tobago. She placed 10th in the 50 back (31.11), 11th in the 100 back (1:06.71) and 26th in the 50 free (28.28), posting then-best times in all three events. She also contested the 200 back (2:26.56).
More recently, Justice logged a slew of lifetime best times at the 25th CMCM Euro Meet (LCM) in early February 2025. She placed 11th in the 50 back (29.39), 13th in the 200 back (2:22.25) and 14th in the 100 back (1:04.54), posting new personal best times in all three races. She went on to lower her fastest times even further in the 100 back (1:03.22) and 200 back (2:21.36) a week later at the ARENA Lisbon International Meeting.
Justice competed at the 2025 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships (LCM) in August, where she clocked two new personal best times. She took the runner-up spot in the junior final of the 100 back (1:03.29) and placed 5th in the 50 back (28.92).
At the 2024 Swim England National Winter Championships (SCM), Justice turned in a series of top swims and posted lifetime best times in each of her events. She placed 4th in the 100 back (59.23), 6th in the 50 back (27.69), 7th in the 200 back (2:10.14) and 8th in the 100 free (56.49).
Justice kicked off this season with a strong showing at the Swim England SW Winter Championships (SCM) in October. She won both the 50 back in 28.06 and the 100 back in 1:01.57, and she touched 2nd in the prelims of the 200 back (2:16.13) and 8th in the prelims of the 100 free (58.14) before opting out of finals in both events.
Best Times SCM (SCY Conversion)
50 back – 27.69 (24.94)
100 back – 59.23 (53.36)
200 back – 2:10.14 (1:57.24)
50 free – 27.85 (25.09)
100 free – 56.49 (50.89)
A Division I program, Alabama competes in the Southeastern Conference against the likes of Texas, Tennessee and Florida. Last season, the Alabama women placed 6th at the SEC Championships before sending eight athletes to compete at the NCAA Division I Championships, where they finished 15th overall.
To earn a second swim at the 2025 SEC Championships, it took times of 53.11/1:55.25 in the 100/200 back and 48.82 100 free, putting Justice’s projected converted times outside of the cutoff in each of her top events.
On the team itself, Justice would have ranked 3rd in the 50 back, 4th in the 100 back and 200 back and 7th in the 100 free based on her conversions, setting her up to be a strong contributor early on for the Crimson Tide. With Alabama poised to lose its top backstroker, Emily Jones, at the end of this season, Justice will help fill some of the gaps left behind in the backstroke events when she arrives in the fall.
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