********** LAW **********
return to top
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio
Mon, 10 Jun 2024 16:35:30 +0000
“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told a person he thought was a right-wing activist.
The post Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio appeared first on The Intercept.
The federal judge hearing a human rights case disputed allegations he might not be impartial but recused himself out of an “abundance of caution.”
The post Judge Who Went on Israel Junket Recuses Himself From Gaza Case appeared first on The Intercept.
Justice Michael Croucher summarising case to jurors, after ex-Jetstar pilot pleaded not guilty to murdering campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay
The jury in the trial of a former Jetstar pilot accused of murdering two elderly campers in the Victorian high country will not be able to consider an alternative charge of manslaughter, the state’s supreme court has heard.
Gregory Stuart Lynn, 57, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Russell Hill, 74, and Carol Clay, 73, at a remote camping site in the Wonnangatta Valley in March 2020.
Continue reading...Sunak’s interview about going without Sky TV as a child was the perfect warm-up act but Keir Starmer got a few laughs too
Well, there’s good news for Sacha Baron Cohen: The Brothers Grimsby is no longer the most excruciating thing set in Grimsby. Asked to name something that might endear him to the public, the exhausted-looking prime minister basically spent a long time gibbering “I like sweets.” As someone famously deprived of a Sky subscription as a child, Rishi Sunak would not have been able to watch this televised “leaders’ event” when he was growing up. The tragedy is that Sky News is now free, so these days he’d be able to watch himself get repeatedly laughed at by the audience. (Not that that was entirely plain sailing for Keir Starmer, who seemed surprised to find his trusty “my father was a toolmaker” line drawing a burst of jaded cackles too.)
Anyway: Starmer v Sunak. The challenger v the gaffer. They call Rishi Sunak the gaffer because he will do you a gaffe at least three times a day. In terms of TV spectacle and drama, last week’s debate between these two largely had the flavour of leafing through a wooden furniture catalogue, with each leading man occasionally outshone by his lectern. That said, I keep reading that what every single one of the British people crave is for politics to be really, really boring. In which case: sorry, Mr Bates vs the Post Office – you just lost the Bafta.
Continue reading...The £8m award goes to system that could herald ‘sea change’ in antibiotic use by identifying correct treatment for urinary tract infections within 45 minutes
An £8m prize for a breakthrough in the fight against superbugs has been awarded, after a decade-long search for a winner, to a test that can identify how to treat a urinary tract infection in 45 minutes.
The test could herald a “sea change” in antibiotic use, the judges said as they announced the winner of the Longitude prize on antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Continue reading...Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his Manchester United advisers were minded to sack the Dutchman but in the end another trophy changed their minds
The documentary of how Manchester United’s Sir Jim Ratcliffe-led season review ended with Erik ten Hag keeping his job as manager would show a forensic, painstaking process, according to a high-ranking club executive. The non in-house version might differ as it would show Ratcliffe and his advisers being minded to sack the Dutchman before a number of factors ultimately persuaded them that Ten Hag should remain in post.
Ten Hag probably stopped contemplating clearing his United desk after Ratcliffe’s beauty parade of Thomas Tuchel, Kieran McKenna (who signed a lucrative new contract with Ipswich), Mauricio Pochettino, Roberto De Zerbi, Thomas Frank, Graham Potter, Gary O’Neil, Paulo Fonseca and Gareth Southgate as potential replacements ended with them all judged less handsome than the incumbent.
Continue reading...Co-president of the KlimaSeniorinnen says declaration is betrayal of older women
Swiss politicians have rejected a landmark climate ruling from the European court of human rights, raising fears that other polluting countries may follow suit.
A panel of Strasbourg judges ruled in April that Switzerland had violated the human rights of older women through weak climate policies that leave them more vulnerable to heatwaves. Activists hailed the judgment as a breakthrough because it leaves all members of the Council of Europe exposed to legal challenges for sluggish efforts to clean up carbon-intensive economies.
Continue reading...The three British judges still on territory’s top bench under pressure to quit after two others stepped down last week
Pressure is increasing on the last remaining British judges who sit in Hong Kong’s top court to resign, after two senior justices stepped down last week because of the “political situation” in the former British colony.
Jonathan Sumption and Lawrence Collins resigned as non-permanent overseas judges from Hong Kong’s court of final appeal on Thursday. Collins cited the “political situation in Hong Kong” in a brief statement about his departure.
Continue reading...Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.
The post A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case. appeared first on The Intercept.
The Republican amendment to the annual defense budget is just one of several proposals to restrict humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The post House Votes to Block U.S. Funding to Rebuild Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
Resolution concerned attorney general’s refusal to turn over audio of Biden interview in his classified-documents case
The House voted on Wednesday to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified-documents case, Republicans’ latest and strongest rebuke of the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign.
The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members.
Continue reading...Newtown students declare ‘time for change’ more than 11 years after one of the deadliest US school shootings
Students who survived one of the deadliest school mass shootings in US history are graduating high school on Wednesday, as many call for more action on gun control.
Emotions were running high at Newtown high school in Connecticut on Wednesday, more than 11 years after a former student entered Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012 with guns and killed small children, teachers and staff in a massacre that shook the nation.
Continue reading...Six years in the making, jaw-dropping new film The Grab shows a secret scramble by governments and private firms to buy up global resources
In 2013, the US food conglomerate Smithfield Foods – the country’s largest pork producer and maker of the famous holiday ham – was sold to a Hong Kong-based company called WH Group in a deal worth $7.1bn. It was the largest ever Chinese acquisition of an American company; virtually overnight, WH Group, formerly called Shuanghui International, gained ownership of nearly one in four American pigs. Such a huge business deal did not go unnoticed; news coverage and an eventual congressional hearing questioned the sale with a mix of good, old-fashioned American xenophobia and reasonable concern for the nation’s food supply. But in the eyes of most people, and certainly most American consumers, the Smithfield Foods sale remained just that: a one-off business deal, if they were aware of it at all.
For Nate Halverson, a journalist with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) out of Emeryville, California, the Smithfield deal was the first point in a much wider and concerning pattern – though the company’s CEO, Larry Pope, assured Congress that the Chinese government was not behind WH Group’s purchase, Halverson found evidence to the contrary on a reporting trip to the company’s headquarters: a secret document, marked not for distribution in the United States, detailing every dollar of the deal, and the state-run Bank of China’s “social responsibility” in backing it for “national strategy”.
Continue reading...Dan Osborn, running as an independent, has racked up endorsements in a race that could help determine Senate control in 2024.
The post UAW Endorses Nebraska Underdog Threatening to Unseat a Republican Senator appeared first on The Intercept.
Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Three US nationals on trial in Democratic Republic of Congo over events in May described as an attempted coup
More than 50 people, including three US citizens and a Belgian, have gone on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo over what the army has described as an attempted coup.
The actions of the three Americans were “punishable by death”, Judge Freddy Ehume told the military court in the DRC capital, Kinshasa.
Continue reading...Government employees are using their official badges to demonstrate against U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The post “Not the Career in Public Service I Signed Up For”: Federal Workers Protest War appeared first on The Intercept.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...Researchers tested for bias in Facebook’s algorithm by purchasing ads promoting for-profit colleges and studying who saw them.
The post One Facebook Ad Promotes a For-Profit College; Another a State School. Which Ad Do Black Users See? appeared first on The Intercept.
In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
Ustinov Studio, Bath
Deborah Warner’s staged version of Winterreise is a powerful and deeply moving piece of theatre
Schubert completed his great song-cycle Winterreise in what was effectively his own last winter; he would be dead just a year later. In this setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller, depicting a man rejected in love and his painful journey across a freezing, stormy landscape, both actual and metaphorical, the singer’s challenge is exploring that balance between vocal and psychological elements.
By his own admission, tenor Ian Bostridge’s engagement with the cycle has long been obsessive. Now, he and pianist Julius Drake – singer as ego and pianist as id, Bostridge’s definition of the relationship – have collaborated with Deborah Warner in creating a staged version and it seems as if all their previous experience – 100-plus performances, different recordings, a film as well as a book – has flowed logically into this powerful and deeply moving piece of theatre.
Continue reading...Billie Eilish’s third is a triumph, Shabaka goes woodwind and Yunchan Lim makes the most thrilling piano debut of the decade … here are our music team’s picks of the best LPs from the first half of the year
Being called “overproduced” is generally a criticism but BMTH make it a virtue on this ridiculously high-intensity album. The glitched-up production reflects a fiendishly intricate digital world, while frontman Oli Sykes’ emotions are more histrionic – and affecting – than ever. At a time when so many bands are content with tinkering at the edges of what’s been done before, it’s bracing to hear BMTH be so relentlessly ambitious and fused to the present moment. Read the full review. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Continue reading...Co-president of the KlimaSeniorinnen says declaration is betrayal of older women
Swiss politicians have rejected a landmark climate ruling from the European court of human rights, raising fears that other polluting countries may follow suit.
A panel of Strasbourg judges ruled in April that Switzerland had violated the human rights of older women through weak climate policies that leave them more vulnerable to heatwaves. Activists hailed the judgment as a breakthrough because it leaves all members of the Council of Europe exposed to legal challenges for sluggish efforts to clean up carbon-intensive economies.
Continue reading...PM says opposition leader’s refusal to name a short-term emissions reduction target in line with Paris agreement is calculated to reignite climate wars
Anthony Albanese says Peter Dutton has forfeited his claim to the prime ministership because refusing to name a short-term emissions reduction target shows he is not serious about addressing climate change.
Some Liberal MPs were taken by surprise when Dutton confirmed the opposition would not name a 2030 climate target until after the next election. Moderate Liberals have sought to downplay the significance of the announcement, stressing the party remains committed to net zero by 2050 amid concerns it may hurt the Coalition in seats held by, or under threat from, climate-focused “teal” independents.
Continue reading...Stephen Kwikiriza is one of 11 campaigners against EACOP targeted by authorities in past two weeks, rights group says
A man campaigning against the controversial $5bn (£4bn) east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP) is recovering in hospital after an alleged beating by the Ugandan armed forces in the latest incident in what has been called an “alarming crackdown” on the country’s environmentalists.
Stephen Kwikiriza, who works for Uganda’s Environment Governance Institute (EGI), a non-profit organisation, was abducted in Kampala on 4 June, according to his employer. He was beaten, questioned and then abandoned hundreds of miles from the capital on Sunday evening.
Continue reading...His heroes are Patrick Bateman, John Wick, Tommy Shelby and Walter White. He follows Andrew Tate and idolises wolves. And he has quickly become a laughing stock. Welcome to the world of the sigma male
You are a lone wolf. You are an independent thinker who makes his own rules. You are confident and competent. Women are drawn to you, but you don’t really care about them. Your day begins at 4.30am with a cold shower, followed by a punishing workout and an even more punishing skincare routine. You shun conventional career paths and run your own business, probably in crypto or real estate or vigilante crime fighting. You are that rarest of males – you are a sigma.
Either that or you’re a bemused bystander who has had a hard time avoiding content about sigma males and the “sigma grindset”. In the past few years, sigma masculinity has blown up. It’s all over social media – and it’s helped define what could be a masculine archetype for our times, supposedly exemplified by characters played by the likes of Keanu Reeves, Cillian Murphy, Bryan Cranston and Christian Bale, plus the manosphere influencer Andrew Tate as well as actual, real life wolves.
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
SEMrush and Ahrefs are among
the most popular tools in the SEO industry. Both companies have been in
business for years and have thousands of customers per month.
If you're a professional SEO or trying to do digital
marketing on your own, at some point you'll likely consider using a tool to
help with your efforts. Ahrefs and SEMrush are two names that will likely
appear on your shortlist.
In this guide, I'm going to help you learn more about these SEO tools and how to choose the one that's best for your purposes.
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a popular SEO tool with a wide range of
features—it's the leading competitor research service for online marketers.
SEMrush's SEO Keyword Magic tool offers over 20 billion Google-approved
keywords, which are constantly updated and it's the largest keyword database.
The program was developed in 2007 as SeoQuake is a
small Firefox extension
Features
Ahrefs is a leading SEO platform that offers a set of
tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors, and monitor your
niche. The company was founded in 2010, and it has become a popular choice
among SEO tools. Ahrefs has a keyword index of over 10.3 billion keywords and
offers accurate and extensive backlink data updated every 15-30 minutes and it
is the world's most extensive backlink index database.
Features
Direct Comparisons: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Now that you know a little more about each tool, let's
take a look at how they compare. I'll analyze each tool to see how they differ
in interfaces, keyword research resources, rank tracking, and competitor
analysis.
User Interface
Ahrefs and SEMrush both offer comprehensive information
and quick metrics regarding your website's SEO performance. However, Ahrefs
takes a bit more of a hands-on approach to getting your account fully set up,
whereas SEMrush's simpler dashboard can give you access to the data you need
quickly.
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the elements
found on each dashboard and highlight the ease with which you can complete
tasks.
AHREFS
The Ahrefs dashboard is less cluttered than that of
SEMrush, and its primary menu is at the very top of the page, with a search bar
designed only for entering URLs.
Additional features of the Ahrefs platform include:
SEMRUSH
When you log into the SEMrush Tool, you will find four
main modules. These include information about your domains, organic keyword
analysis, ad keyword, and site traffic.
You'll also find some other options like
Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have user-friendly dashboards,
but Ahrefs is less cluttered and easier to navigate. On the other hand, SEMrush
offers dozens of extra tools, including access to customer support resources.
When deciding on which dashboard to use, consider what
you value in the user interface, and test out both.
If you're looking to track your website's search engine
ranking, rank tracking features can help. You can also use them to monitor your
competitors.
Let's take a look at Ahrefs vs. SEMrush to see which
tool does a better job.
The Ahrefs Rank Tracker is simpler to use. Just type in
the domain name and keywords you want to analyze, and it spits out a report
showing you the search engine results page (SERP) ranking for each keyword you
enter.
Rank Tracker looks at the ranking performance of
keywords and compares them with the top rankings for those keywords. Ahrefs
also offers:
You'll see metrics that help you understand your
visibility, traffic, average position, and keyword difficulty.
It gives you an idea of whether a keyword would be
profitable to target or not.
SEMRush offers a tool called Position Tracking. This
tool is a project tool—you must set it up as a new project. Below are a few of
the most popular features of the SEMrush Position Tracking tool:
All subscribers are given regular data updates and
mobile search rankings upon subscribing
The platform provides opportunities to track several
SERP features, including Local tracking.
Intuitive reports allow you to track statistics for the
pages on your website, as well as the keywords used in those pages.
Identify pages that may be competing with each other
using the Cannibalization report.
Ahrefs is a more user-friendly option. It takes seconds
to enter a domain name and keywords. From there, you can quickly decide whether
to proceed with that keyword or figure out how to rank better for other
keywords.
SEMrush allows you to check your mobile rankings and
ranking updates daily, which is something Ahrefs does not offer. SEMrush also
offers social media rankings, a tool you won't find within the Ahrefs platform.
Both are good which one do you like let me know in the comment.
Keyword research is closely related to rank tracking,
but it's used for deciding which keywords you plan on using for future content
rather than those you use now.
When it comes to SEO, keyword research is the most
important thing to consider when comparing the two platforms.
The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer provides you with thousands
of keyword ideas and filters search results based on the chosen search engine.
Ahrefs supports several features, including:
SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 billion
keywords for Google. You can type in any keyword you want, and a list of
suggested keywords will appear.
The Keyword Magic Tool also lets you to:
Both of these tools offer keyword research features and
allow users to break down complicated tasks into something that can be
understood by beginners and advanced users alike.
If you're interested in keyword suggestions, SEMrush
appears to have more keyword suggestions than Ahrefs does. It also continues to
add new features, like the Keyword Gap tool and SERP Questions recommendations.
Both platforms offer competitor analysis tools,
eliminating the need to come up with keywords off the top of your head. Each
tool is useful for finding keywords that will be useful for your competition so
you know they will be valuable to you.
Ahrefs' domain comparison tool lets you compare up to five websites (your website and four competitors) side-by-side.it also shows you how your site is ranked against others with metrics such as backlinks, domain ratings, and more.
Use the Competing Domains section to see a list of your
most direct competitors, and explore how many keywords matches your competitors
have.
To find more information about your competitor, you can
look at the Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools and type in their URL
instead of yours.
SEMrush provides a variety of insights into your
competitors' marketing tactics. The platform enables you to research your
competitors effectively. It also offers several resources for competitor
analysis including:
Traffic Analytics helps you identify where your
audience comes from, how they engage with your site, what devices visitors use
to view your site, and how your audiences overlap with other websites.
SEMrush's Organic Research examines your website's
major competitors and shows their organic search rankings, keywords they are
ranking for, and even if they are ranking for any (SERP) features and more.
The Market Explorer search field allows you to type in
a domain and lists websites or articles similar to what you entered. Market
Explorer also allows users to perform in-depth data analytics on These
companies and markets.
SEMrush wins here because it has more tools dedicated to
competitor analysis than Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs offers a lot of functionality
in this area, too. It takes a combination of both tools to gain an advantage
over your competition.
When it comes to keyword data research, you will become
confused about which one to choose.
Consider choosing Ahrefs if you
Consider SEMrush if you:
Both tools are great. Choose the one which meets your
requirements and if you have any experience using either Ahrefs or SEMrush let
me know in the comment section which works well for you.
Paddington in Peru, which sees Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas and Emily Mortimer join the cast, sees the beloved bear travel to Peru to visit Aunt Lucy
Break out the marmalade sandwiches: the first trailer for the third Paddington movie has been released.
Paddington in Peru, due for release in November, sees the duffel-coated bear travel to South America to pay a visit to Aunt Lucy along with the Brown family. But on arrival he’s told by a guitar-playing nun who runs the home for retired bears that Lucy is missing in action on a scientific mission.
Continue reading...Plans for the £1.9bn Smithfield scheme include a park that is smaller than a football pitch, falling short of the council’s own guidelines
Campaigners are warning that a major development project that will be approved by Birmingham city council falls far short of the city’s own guidelines for open green space.
The £1.9bn Smithfield scheme will bring 3,500 new homes as well as restaurants and offices to 17 hectares (42 acres) of fenced brownfield land in the centre of the city. But the new park – Smithfield Park – will be only 0.8 hectares, smaller than a football pitch.
Continue reading...Party has vowed to end sewage scandal if it wins power, but experts say it will have to act quickly and ambitiously
Since the UK’s general election was called, the Labour party has been seeking to capitalise on voters’ fury over the sewage filling England’s rivers and seas.
The debt-ridden, leaking, polluting water industry, owned largely by foreign investment firms, private equity and pension funds, has overseen decades of underinvestment and the large-scale dumping of raw sewage into rivers. It has become one of the touchstone issues of this election, with voters across the political spectrum angry at the polluting of waterways treasured by local communities. Groups have sprung up to look after rivers and lakes; protests pop up most weekends along the coast.
Continue reading...Whether it’s holidaying domestically or heading to a destination with a cooler climate, we’d like to hear about anything you’re doing differently this year
As the northern hemisphere enters the summer, we want to hear from people who are planning to have a different type of summer holiday this year.
Are you visiting a cooler climate than usual? Or holidaying domestically when you go abroad most summers, or vice versa?
Continue reading...This cheap politics of envy distracts from the country’s most pressing issue: inequality. To survive, Tories must face reality
Rishi Sunak looked relieved as he took the final press question from a local reporter after the launch of his Conservative manifesto yesterday. It came after a torrid previous week, which saw the prime minister accused of lying about Labour tax plans and having to apologise for unforgivably missing crucial D-day commemoration services. You might have thought the manifesto would include some surprising, eye-catching policies. But in many respects, it was a more traditional Conservative party manifesto than some had expected – it contained tax cuts, promises to pensioners and the customary pro-business language.
Yet one of the challenges that Sunak’s Conservative party faces is that for the first time in decades, it now finds itself with no clear political territory of its own. For the past several years it has travelled down a political cul-de-sac and is now at a political dead end. In pandering to Ukip, then the Brexit party, and now Reform, it has ceded the political centre ground to the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, alienating millions of voters turned off by the constant culture warring.
Continue reading...“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito told a person he thought was a right-wing activist.
The post Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Caught on Secret Audio appeared first on The Intercept.
British Museum will host treasures from Samarkand in a bid to dispel cliches of camels, spices and bazaars
A monumental six-metre-long wall painting created in the 7th century, and 8th-century ivory figures carved for one of the world’s oldest surviving chess sets, are among treasures set to be seen in Britain for the first time.
The items will travel from the ancient city of Samarkand to the UK for an exhibition opening in September, as part of the first-ever loan from museums in Uzbekistan to the British Museum.
Silk Roads will be at the British Museum from September 26 2024 to February 23 2025. Tickets go on sale on Monday.
Continue reading...Interesting story of breaking the security of the RoboForm password manager in order to recover a cryptocurrency wallet password.
Grand and Bruno spent months reverse engineering the version of the RoboForm program that they thought Michael had used in 2013 and found that the pseudo-random number generator used to generate passwords in that version—and subsequent versions until 2015—did indeed have a significant flaw that made the random number generator not so random. The RoboForm program unwisely tied the random passwords it generated to the date and time on the user’s computer—it determined the computer’s date and time, and then generated passwords that were predictable. If you knew the date and time and other parameters, you could compute any password that would have been generated on a certain date and time in the past...
Ahead of the election in India, the Guardian’s video team travelled through the country to explore how fake news and censorship might shape the outcome.
Almost one billion people are registered to vote. The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been in power for more than 10 years, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is seeking a third term.
But critics of Modi and the BJP say his government has become increasingly authoritarian, fracturing the country along religious lines and threatening India’s secular democracy. At the same time, the space for freedom of speech has been shrinking while disinformation and hate speech has exploded on social media.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Lawyers say strategy of denying food and services to people in Ukrainian city during siege could amount to war crime
Russia engaged in a “deliberate pattern” of starvation tactics during the 85-day siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in early 2022, which amounted to a war crime, according to a fresh analysis submitted to the international criminal court.
The conclusion is at the heart of a dossier in the process of being submitted to the ICC in The Hague by the lawyers Global Rights Compliance, working in conjunction with the Ukrainian government. It argues that Russia and its leaders intended to kill and harm large numbers of civilians.
Continue reading...Amanda Pritchard rebuts claims service is broken but tells health conference major investment needed
The NHS is “struggling” but “not destroyed”, despite the huge challenges it faces, the head of the health service in England says.
In a major speech on Wednesday, Amanda Pritchard urged which ever party won the general election to give the NHS more money, fix social care and tackle threats to public health, such as junk food.
Continue reading...Six years in the making, jaw-dropping new film The Grab shows a secret scramble by governments and private firms to buy up global resources
In 2013, the US food conglomerate Smithfield Foods – the country’s largest pork producer and maker of the famous holiday ham – was sold to a Hong Kong-based company called WH Group in a deal worth $7.1bn. It was the largest ever Chinese acquisition of an American company; virtually overnight, WH Group, formerly called Shuanghui International, gained ownership of nearly one in four American pigs. Such a huge business deal did not go unnoticed; news coverage and an eventual congressional hearing questioned the sale with a mix of good, old-fashioned American xenophobia and reasonable concern for the nation’s food supply. But in the eyes of most people, and certainly most American consumers, the Smithfield Foods sale remained just that: a one-off business deal, if they were aware of it at all.
For Nate Halverson, a journalist with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) out of Emeryville, California, the Smithfield deal was the first point in a much wider and concerning pattern – though the company’s CEO, Larry Pope, assured Congress that the Chinese government was not behind WH Group’s purchase, Halverson found evidence to the contrary on a reporting trip to the company’s headquarters: a secret document, marked not for distribution in the United States, detailing every dollar of the deal, and the state-run Bank of China’s “social responsibility” in backing it for “national strategy”.
Continue reading...Bliss in St Louis has made headlines by announcing that only men over 35 and women over 30 can eat there. Is this the future of grown-up dining?
Name: Youth-free dining.
Age: New.
Continue reading...Some studies link the popular soda sweetener to higher cancer risk, but the links are weak and questions remain
On 29 June 2023, the soda industry was bracing for a fresh wave of controversy. A media leak had suggested that a research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), which had been reviewing the artificial sweetener aspartame, was planning to classify the additive as possibly cancer-causing.
The sweetener – included in candy, soft drinks such as Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, and common items such as toothpaste – has long been dogged by questions about potential health risks. And such a determination could disrupt consumers’ spending and billions in annual sales.
Continue reading...A southern Italian store-cupboard staple in nine easy steps
Spaghetti puttanesca is one of those dishes that is far more than the sum of its relatively humble parts – designed around the store-cupboard staples of the Italian south, it can be knocked up (quiet at the back) in less than 15 minutes, yet will still knock your socks off every time. Keep the ingredients below in stock and you’ll always go to bed happy.
Prep 5 min
Cook 12 min
Serves 2
A cat will set you back thousands over its lifetime, but good insurance and buying secondhand can help you save
The cost of owning a cat varies depending on the breed you get. It will set you back at least £11,100 to care for the average cat over its lifetime, according to pet charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA). This includes the cost of insurance but doesn’t include additional vet bills for illness or injury.
Continue reading...Dan Osborn, running as an independent, has racked up endorsements in a race that could help determine Senate control in 2024.
The post UAW Endorses Nebraska Underdog Threatening to Unseat a Republican Senator appeared first on The Intercept.
In the first instalment of a special series on the emblems of Tory Britain, the former prime minister Gordon Brown looks at the avoidable epidemic of hunger – which is getting worse
In Leeds, a child fails to turn up at school because she and her mother are sharing her family’s one and only pair of shoes. In Liverpool, one of two brothers turns up for football training each week because they are sharing the one pair of football boots the family can afford.
In Swansea, a girl is bullied at school by her classmates because she has no trainers at all. In Wigan town centre, another teenage schoolgirl is found walking alone on a Saturday afternoon wearing her school uniform and explains that these hand-me-down garments given to her by a teacher are the only clothes she has.
Continue reading...Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
Michelle Roach bought a used ice-cream van in order to bring cheap, affordable food to Liverpool's struggling communities. She wanted a vehicle with freezers built in for frozen food, and also something cheerful that was able to break down stigmas around food poverty. Using a '10 items for £5' model, Michelle sources discount food from supermarket surplus and donations.
The Guardian's Christopher Cherry follows Michelle and the van on its rounds, with the service struggling to meet overwhelming demand as the cost of living crisis deepens, and the UK's general election fast approaches.
Continue reading...South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases
What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?
‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid
On the last day of his Huginn mission, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months: the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of Cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the Space Station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward.
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
Continue reading...Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
RSS Rabbit links users to publicly available RSS entries.
Vet every link before clicking! The creators accept no responsibility for the contents of these entries.
Relevant
Fresh
Convenient
Agile
We're not prepared to take user feedback yet. Check back soon!