What happened
News organizations from across the ideological spectrum yesterday said they would not sign a new Defense Department press policy that limits the information reporters can request from Pentagon employees and requires journalists to have an escort even in unclassified parts of the building, among other restrictions. The policy is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest move to limit press access at the Pentagon.

Who said what
The new requirements “violate our First Amendment rights, and the rights of Americans who seek to know how taxpayer-funded military resources and personnel are being deployed,” said The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. The New York Times, Newsmax, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Washington Post, Reuters, The Washington Times and Task & Purpose were among the other organizations that said they would not sign by this evening’s deadline. 

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said reporters were having a “full-blown meltdown” over “common sense” restrictions that ask them “just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is.” Hegseth posted a series of wave-goodbye emojis over online statements from news organizations. Trump’s former Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot said Hegseth “should drop the Soviet-style restrictions” and follow the lead of the president “and every other Cabinet secretary by engaging regularly, confidently and conversationally with reporters of all stripes.”

What next?
The Pentagon Press Association said most of its members “seem likely to hand over their badges” tomorrow “rather than acknowledge a policy that gags Pentagon employees and threatens retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been preapproved for release.” The “only publication that has said it will sign the agreement is the right-wing One America News,” The Washington Post said. “Fox News, Hegseth’s former employer, has not yet said whether it would sign the pledge.”

What happened
Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina said in a national broadcast last night that he had been “forced to find a safe place to protect my life” after an elite military unit joined anti-government protests, but he did not step down. It is not known where Rajoelina recorded his announcement, streamed on Facebook after military intervention prevented its planned broadcast on national television, but Reuters reported that he fled the African island nation Sunday on a French military aircraft.

Who said what
Madagascar’s Gen Z–led protests started Sept. 25 over “chronic water and electricity outages but have snowballed into wider discontent with Rajoelina and his government,” corruption and the failure to improve quality of life in the impoverished nation of 31 million, The Associated Press said. This is the “most significant unrest” there since “Rajoelina himself first came to power” in a 2009 coup, backed by the same CAPSAT military unit that “rebelled against” him over the weekend in another “apparent coup.”

The unrest “mirrored recent protests against ruling elites elsewhere, including in Nepal, where the prime minister was forced to resign last month, and in Morocco,” Reuters said. But Madagascar’s military leaders “have been careful not to actively seize power, seemingly to avoid the appearance of a coup,” The New York Times said.

What next?
It was “unclear what steps the breakaway security forces will take now,” said the Times. The country's Senate said it had ousted and replaced its chamber leader, “a focus of public anger during the protests,” Reuters said. “If the president’s office falls vacant, the leader of the Senate takes the post until elections are held.”