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(LONDON) — A long-awaited report on Russian influence in British politics criticized the British government for neglecting to investigate whether Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum, describing its utter lack of curiosity about the threats to democracy as being a major failure at the heart of power.

The parliamentary report’s authors accused the British government of “actively avoiding” looking into evidence of the Russian threat to the EU referendum. The authors found this particularly unforgivable given the evidence that emerged of Russian interference in the U.S. elections and in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.

“There has been no assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum and this goes back to nobody wanting to touch the issue with a 10-foot pole,” committee member Stewart Hosie said, demanding that such a study be done and the public informed.

While the report from the parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee said it would be “difficult — if not impossible — to prove” allegations that Russia sought to influence the referendum, it was clear that the government “was slow to recognize the existence of the threat.”

Committee members concluded that the goal of a resurgent Russia in influencing the vote would be to amplify existing divisions, and thus possibly destabilize Western political systems.

In a 20-page response, officials denied the government had “badly underestimated” the Russian threat and rejected the call for an assessment of alleged Russian meddling during the Brexit referendum.

“We have seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU Referendum,” the statement said.

The report says Russia sees Britain as one of its top intelligence targets in the West. It said Russian influence in the U.K. is the “new normal,” and successive governments have welcomed Russian oligarchs with open arms. Russians with “very close links” to President Vladimir Putin were “well integrated into the U.K. business, political and social scene — in ‘Londongrad’ in particular,” it said.

Speaking before the report was released, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Russia “never interfered in electoral processes,”not in the United States, not in Britain, not in any other country.”

“We don’t do that ourselves and we don’t tolerate when other countries try to interfere with our political affairs,” Peskov said.

The report’s authors said they were subjected to an unprecedented delay in making the document public, with officials holding off its release for more than six months. Critics have claimed that was meant to shield Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party from embarrassment.

The committee did not offer a theory as to why the government delayed the report, but did say the government’s explanations for delaying the report were not true.

The report was originally submitted to Johnson on Oct. 17. The government initially said it couldn’t be published until it was reviewed for national security issues, which postponed its release until after the Dec. 12 general election. Further holdups were caused by delays in appointing new members to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Finally, Johnson named five Conservative lawmakers to the nine-person panel in hopes his handpicked candidate would be chosen as chairman and block the report. The gambit failed when a renegade Conservative was chosen to head the committee with backing from opposition parties.

The opposition Labour Party has accused the government of failing to publish the report because it would lead to further questions about links between Russia and the pro-Brexit campaign in the 2016 referendum on European Union membership, which Johnson helped lead.

Another parliamentary panel — the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee — previously published the results of its own inquiry into disinformation and “fake news,” which called on election regulators and law enforcement to investigate reports that a British businessman with links to Russia donated 8.4 million pounds ($10.6 million) to the Brexit campaign. The National Crime Agency said in September that it found no evidence of criminal offenses related to the donation.

The intelligence committee report covered the full range of the Russian threat to the U.K., including election interference, espionage and targeted assassinations such as the attempt to kill former spy Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury two years ago.

The report urged British authorities to beef up their defenses, saying the “clearest requirement for immediate action” was for new legislation to give tools to the British intelligence community faced with a “very capable” adversary and to battle espionage, illegal financial dealings of Russian elite in Britain and their “enablers.”

It called for better coordination with Britain’s Western allies, and said Britain should be ready to lead international action and should work to develop new rules on “offensive cyber” operations.

It faulted unspecified social media companies for “failing to play their part” and said the British government should set up rules to “ensure that they take covert hostile state use of their platforms seriously” and “name and shame” those that fail to act.

The report’s release comes only days after Britain, the United States and Canada accused hackers linked to Russian intelligence agencies of trying to steal information from researchers working on a potential coronavirus vaccine.

(BEIJING) — China said Tuesday it would take unspecified “necessary measures” after the U.S. government imposed trade sanctions on 11 companies it says are implicated in human rights abuses in China’s Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The sanctions add to U.S. pressure on Beijing over Xinjiang, where the ruling Communist Party is accused of mass detentions, forced labor and other abuses against Muslim minorities.

Xinjiang is among a series of conflicts including human rights, trade and technology that have caused U.S.-Chinese relations to plunge to their lowest level in decades.

The Trump administration also has imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials over the accusations. Beijing responded by announcing unspecified penalties on four U.S. senators who are critics of its human rights record.

The Department of Commerce said Monday the addition of the 11 companies to its Entity List will limit their access to U.S. goods and technology. It gave no details of what goods might be affected.

“This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party’s despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a statement.

The Chinese foreign ministry rejected the sanctions as interference in its affairs and an attempt by Washington to hurt Chinese companies.

“What the United States is concerned about is not the human rights issues at all, but to suppress Chinese companies, undermine the stability of Xinjiang, and smear China’s Xinjiang policies,” said spokesperson Wang Wenbin. “We urge the United States to correct its mistakes, revoke relevant decisions and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.”

Wang said Beijing will “take all necessary measures” to protect Chinese businesses, but gave no indication of possible retaliation.

China has detained an estimated 1 million or more members of the Uighur and other Muslim ethnic minority groups in internment camps.

The government describes them as vocational training facilities aimed at countering Muslim radicalism and separatist tendencies. It says those facilities have since been closed, a claim that is impossible to confirm given the restrictions on visits and reporting about the region.

Veterans of the camps and family members say those held are forced, often with the threat of violence, to denounce their religion, culture and language and swear loyalty to Communist Party leader and head of state Xi Jinping.

The companies cited Monday include clothing manufacturers and technology suppliers.

Two companies cited, Xinjiang Silk Road BGI and Beijing Liuhe BGI, are subsidiaries of BGI Group, one of the world’s biggest gene-sequencing companies. The Commerce Department said they were “conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression” of Muslim minorities.

Human rights groups say security forces in Xinjiang appear to be creating a genetic database with samples from millions of people including through using blood and other samples subjects are compelled to provide. Nationwide, authorities have gathered genetic information from the Chinese public for almost two decades that the government says is for use in law enforcement.

Phone calls Tuesday to BGI’s public relations and investor relations departments weren’t answered.

Three of the companies cited were identified by investigations by The Associated Press in 2018 and 2020 as being implicated in forced labor.

One company, Nanchang O-Film Tech, supplies screens and lenses to Apple, Samsung and other technology companies. AP reporters found employees from Xinjiang at its factory in the southern city of Nanchang weren’t allowed out unaccompanied and were required to attend political classes.

U.S. customs authorities seized a shipment from the second company, Hetian Haolin Hair Accessories, on suspicion it was made by forced labor. People who worked for the third, Hetian Taida, which produces sportswear sold to U.S. universities and sports teams, told AP detainees were compelled to work there.

The Commerce Department imposed similar restrictions last October and in June on a total of 37 companies it said were “engaged in or enabling” abuses in Xinjiang.

The department issued a warning on July 1 that companies that handle goods made by forced labor or that supply technology that might be used in labor camps or for surveillance might face unspecified “reputational, economic and legal risks.”

The Chinese foreign ministry criticized the warning, saying Beijing would take “necessary measures” to protect Chinese companies but giving no details.

Michael Jordan and rap go hand-in hand. This notion was made abundantly clear in The Last Dance, the ESPN docuseries that aired in April to huge acclaim and viewership. The series sets Jordan’s rise to hip-hop’s golden era, pairing his high-flying highlights with classic songs by LL Cool J, Eric B & Rakim, Outkast and more. Each of these audio-visual time capsules only reinforced the sense of overwhelming nostalgia underpinning the series.

But while The Last Dance is backwards-looking, a funny thing has happened in the months since its release: it’s had a disproportionate impact on the hip-hop of the present. If you listened to rap radio today, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the ‘96 Bulls were still at their athletic peak. Jordan, his teammates and his foes have been referenced over and over: by Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, YG, Future, Freddie Gibbs, and many other artists. The current no. 1, 3 and 9 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 all allude to the show in some way.

So while The Last Dance glorified a past era of hip-hop, it’s unwittingly informing a new one. And as the show arrives to a much bigger audience on Netflix this week, its impact will likely continue to proliferate. Here are the ways the series has made its way into lyric form, and the reasons why hip-hop artists have embraced it so fully.

MJ himself

Michael Jordan has long been the subject of rap lyricism, serving as a symbol of unparalleled greatness. While the man himself wasn’t much of a hip-hop fan, many rappers have claimed his story as native to their culture: a swaggering, self-made underdog who overcomes every obstacle to prove himself as a legend. “Basketball and hip-hop are synonymous as far as their competitive nature of everybody wanting to be the best,” the hip-hop artist Nick Grant tells TIME. “We’ve never seen someone so dedicated to his team and his craft as Michael—and everybody follows that blueprint.”

Since The Last Dance, references to Jordan are seemingly everywhere. On Gucci Mane’s “Step Out,” Future announces his arrival on the track by rapping, “I jump in a party, b-tch, you know I’m flyer than Michael Jordan.” On “Where They Go,” the Chicago-based Lil Durk invokes Jordan’s name as a claim to the throne of his city: “Chiraq, I’m Jordan, so I wonder who Pippen?” On “Timeless,” Tee Grizzley draws motivation from Jordan’s indomitable work ethic: “Michael Jordan used to shoot a thousand shots a day.” JayDaYoungan, a huge Jordan fan, named his latest album, Baby23, after Jordan’s number.

Of course, Jordan wasn’t just influential as a basketball player: his Air Jordan sneakers have been a pillar of streetwear for decades. Nicki Minaj references this aspect of his legacy in her remix to Doja Cat’s “Say So,” rapping, “I’m little, where’s my stiletto?/ Tell Mike Jordan send me my Retros.” In the week before The Last Dance finale in May, the record hit number one on the Billboard 100.

Around this time, Nick Grant was working on a new EP, God Bless The Child. Grant got so immersed in the show that he was even watching one of the episodes while making the song “L.O.V.E.” He says Jordan’s ethos fueled his mentality during the creative process. “I was carrying that with me: that competitive spirit, of wanting people to undeniably say, ‘This guy is the one,’” Grant says.

The supporting cast

While Jordan’s story is front and center of The Last Dance, the series also takes time to explore the mythos of his colorful supporting cast among the Bulls, which includes Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Steve Kerr. Each of these players dealt with his own triumphs and crises; in their overflowing personas, interpersonal rivalries, and alternating moments of hubris and sacrifice, their stories resemble the twisting narrative of a fabled rap posse like the Wu-Tang Clan or N.W.A. “Having all those personalities in the same place at the same time: We couldn’t repeat that if we tried,” Grant says. “I felt like different parts of my personality connected with different players.”

Other rappers clearly felt the same. On his new album The Goat, Polo G dedicates a whole song to Scottie Pippen and his number, “33.” Bieber declares that he’s “slidin’, going wild like Rodman” on his remix to Jack Harlow’s “What’s Poppin’”; another remix to the song with DaBaby, Tory Lanez and Lil Wayne includes shoutouts to John Stockton, John Paxson and Magic Johnson—all of whom were interviewed in The Last Dance.

Grant, for his part, slipped in a reference to Toni Kukoč, the Croatian sixth man, on “FEDS.” A week later, Kukoč was name-dropped by Steve God Cooks on the ominous song “Bubba Chuck”; that rapper referenced the be-goggled Bulls rebounder Horace Grant in a separate verse released on the same day.

Other rappers have drawn inspiration not just from the docuseries’ characters but its dramatic narrative beats that lit up social media. In May, a clip of Jordan laughing at Gary Payton after the Sonics star claimed he slowed Jordan down in the 1996 Finals was endlessly memed; the Buffalo rapper Benny the Butcher quickly re-memoralized the moment by rapping, “Bought some new Glocks, so I’m good, pounds stocky as Suge/ Smoking Gary Payton just like the ’96 Bulls.” After Bulls general manager Jerry Krause emerged as the show’s narrative villain—especially due to his treatment of Scottie Pippen—YG took Pippen’s side in the beef, repeatedly snarling, “Scottie Pippen / Pay me b-tch, or I’m dipping” on “Swag.”

Wale took a more literal approach on “MAAJO,” using four bars to narrate events that took place during the 1998 Finals between the Bulls and Utah Jazz:

“This the last dance, I don’t talk no jazz

I don’t got no fans in the stands, they’re killin’

It’s the last dance, I ain’t even gonna pass

Everybody got your back ’til your back go Pippen”

And on his album Alfredo, Freddie Gibbs goes perhaps the furthest of anyone, folding the show’s plot points into his own hardscrabble history and in the process elevating Jordan and Pippen’s journey into something of a mafioso epic. “Michael Jordan, 1985, b-tch, I travel with a cocaine circus,” he raps on the first song, before playing up the drama of the pair’s separation and reconciliation:

“Sh-t was different when Mike left and it was Scottie team

Ex won’t take me back, without me, the b-tch wouldn’t have got a ring”

The perfect storm

The influence of The Last Dance on hip-hop can be attributed to a perfect storm of factors. Many of the aforementioned rappers grew up during Jordan’s era of dominance, making them more susceptible to The Last Dance’s nostalgic sway. Given the richness of the series’ soundtrack, any rapper who drew from it creatively would be in essence laying claim to the same lineage.

The pandemic has also created a strange virtual monoculture, in which huge populations across the world are being forced to stay inside and end up consuming the same cultural content. While rappers’ lives might generally be more exciting than the average person’s, they’ve been bored in the house, too, and have gleefully joined in on the nation’s collective obsessions, from Tiger King to Verzuz to Cheer. The cultural dominance of The Last Dance—the finale of which was tweeted about 1.5 million times—surely made it to top of mind for many artists who have recently entered the studio.

And the modern workflow of hip-hop also made this feedback loop possible. While music during Jordan’s era was usually released on a lengthy delay due to label processes, the current streaming era, with artists more empowered to make their own decisions, means that they can create a song and release it on Spotify the next day. This immediacy of release has enabled rappers to respond to cultural moments while also being part of them.

But of course, the ubiquity of Jordan goes back to the man himself—and his lasting legacy as a symbol of Black excellence across sports, fashion and pop culture. “I think for as long as I rap—if I can say something clever about him and that team,” Grant says, “I’m gonna do it.”

On July 14, U.S. president Donald Trump signed an executive order ending Hong Kong’s preferred trading status. In it, Trump cited several reasons in support of his decision that are nothing more than political rhetoric and slogans based on twisted facts. In essence, by enacting the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL), the Chinese Government was said to have violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration—the announcement signifying Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997—as well as the autonomy promised to Hong Kong under that agreement.

There could be nothing further from the truth.

Firstly, the Joint Declaration made no rference to matters of national security, nor did it say which power had the exclusive right to make national security laws. It is an affront to common sense to suggest that the high degree of autonomy granted to Hong Kong should somehow deprive Beijing from legislating for the safety of the whole nation. Article 18 of Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law, stipulates that national laws can be applied to Hong Kong by way of promulgation and thus holds open the possibility that there are matters outside the autonomy of Hong Kong. National security is precisely such a matter—and it is the responsibility of any federal government, including that of U.S., to legislate on it.

Secondly, the NSL strikes a proper balance between safeguarding the interest of the entire nation and protecting individual rights of people of Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems” political formula.

Article 4 of the NSL confirms that the two most respected international conventions on human rights, and other similar safeguards in the Basic Law, will continue to apply.

Article 5 further confirms that the rule of Law will also continue to apply.

Most significantly, Article 40 stipulates that Hong Kong will have jurisdiction over all cases under the NSL save those rare situations covered by Article 55—which, essentially, are cases in which China is facing “a major and imminent threat to national security,” where there is foreign involvement, or when the Hong Kong government is unable to govern.

These clear provisions suggest that the central government is showing considerable respect for the special situation in Hong Kong.

In the vast majority of cases, the main responsibility for the enforcement, application and adjudication of the NSL will lie with Hong Kong enforcement agencies and courts. Thus, any suggestion that that the NSL will not be properly applied—or applied in such a way as to be in breach of human rights standards or the rule of law—is a serious accusation totally without basis or evidence against the integrity of our enforcement agencies and judges.

In any event, let us not forget human rights and freedoms are not without limits. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which applies to Hong Kong, says very clearly that every right and freedom enshrined therein is subject to legal restraint by reason of national security. This is a universal standard, understood even in the U.S.

Lastly, it is worse than superficial to think Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy is just about freedom of speech or expression. The autonomy of Hong Kong is about our ability to maintain our own financial, economic, and legal systems—and having our own independent judicial, currency, fiscal, logistics, international flight management, land, health care and social welfare systems. It’s about having our own economic, trading, cultural and sports status internationally, not to mention our own electoral system, our own independent right to carry out political reform, and more as defined in the Basic Law.

Even as regards the freedom of speech and expression, any visitor in recent days will testify that after the passing of NSL nothing much has changed. People and the press continue to vilify the SAR and central government in Beijing if they want to without repression. Media that are leaving are doing so of their own accord, not because they have been expelled. Those who want to come or leave are free to come or leave. There have been no mass arrests and no exodus. These facts speak for themselves. And they all show that Hong Kong is freer than you think. Today and tomorrow.