********** USA POLITICS **********
return to top
DOGE’s Lawyer Once Warned That Ignoring Court Orders Would Destroy the Country
Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:33:18 +0000
With DOGE initiatives getting hung up in court, Elon Musk and Donald Trump attacked judges and flirted with defying their rulings.
The post DOGE’s Lawyer Once Warned That Ignoring Court Orders Would Destroy the Country appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump’s crusade against “wokeness” is co-opting the language of the civil rights movement to undo its legacy.
The post How Trump Twisted DEI to Only Benefit White Christians appeared first on The Intercept.
Speakers at Principles First summit warned of peril Trump and allies posed, urging people ‘to be in the streets’
Michael Fanone, the former police officer who defended the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, looked out at the attendees of the Principles First summit and denounced Donald Trump in the strongest possible terms for pardoning roughly 1,500 people who participated in the insurrection.
“He pardoned them because he wants people to know that if you commit crimes on his behalf, he’s got your back,” Fanone said on Saturday. “They are operating under the assumption that, if they commit violent criminal acts on Donald Trump’s behalf, that he will pardon them for future violence.”
Continue reading...Netflix’s new Robert De Niro-led hit series toys with real-world references but hasn’t got the faintest clue what to do with them
Spoilers ahead
For decades, movies and TV shows that feature the president of the United States as a character have tried, often playfully, to keep pace with the headlines. Sometimes they even managed to move a little faster than real-life progress; Morgan Freeman was chosen to lead the nation in Deep Impact a decade before the election of Barack Obama, and plenty of women have occupied the on-screen Oval Office, anticipating a glass-ceiling break that has yet to actually happen.
So at first, the new Netflix series Zero Day comes across like a slightly and understandably mistimed attempt at topicality by focusing on George Mullen (Robert De Niro), a former US president known for bipartisan cooperation, who only served one term before stepping down to deal with the death of his son, and who later works closely with the current president, Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett), a woman of color. The show may have been anticipating a Kamala Harris/Joe Biden dynamic that never quite came to fruition, but on the other hand, Zero Day started filming in 2023, well before Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket in summer 2024, so maybe it should get points for prescience anyway.
Continue reading...I played a fictional billionaire on TV. It’s time world leaders got serious about taxing the real ones
You could be forgiven for thinking the second coming of Donald Trump was fiction. Unfortunately, it’s not – the threat he and his “broligarchs” bring to people around the world is very, very real. Last month Trump, surrounded by his uber-rich friends, was inaugurated the 47th president, while his political supporters sat outside in the cold – the perfect metaphor for who really matters in this presidency.
Among the clique were the three richest men in the world: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and top dog Elon Musk, who personally poured $277m into Trump’s election campaign, increasing his own wealth by $170bn as a result.
Brian Cox played Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession and is a supporter of Patriotic Millionaires International
Continue reading...Almost 40% of federal contracts canceled as part of Doge’s cost-cutting efforts aren’t expected to save government any money, Trump administration’s own data shows
It’s coming down to the wire for beleaguered House speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying to rally GOP holdouts behind his budget plan for enacting Donald Trump’s agenda before the showdown vote this evening.
Amid Republican opposition threatening to derail his bill, Johnson was up late last night locked in talks with holdouts from across his party who remain skeptical of his outline plan for tax and spending cuts - as well as border security, energy and defense policy - via a single reconciliation bill.
Continue reading...Trump administration escalates movement forged by US states to censor literature in full-scale DEI crackdown
When the actor Julianne Moore learned her children’s book, Freckleface Strawberry, a tale of a girl who learns to stop hating her freckles, had been targeted for a potential ban at all schools serving US military families, she took to Instagram, posting that it was a “great shock” to discover the story had been “banned by the Trump Administration”.
Moore had seen a memo that circulated last week revealing that tens of thousands of American children studying in about 160 Pentagon schools both in the US and around the world had had all access to library books suspended for a week, while officials conducted a “compliance review” to hunt out any books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”.
Continue reading...A former campaign staffer said Sen. John Fetterman’s single-minded focus came at the exclusion of the progressive positions he ran on.
The post Fetterman Staff Quit Amid Frustration Over “Just Working on Israel All the Time” appeared first on The Intercept.
All-male elections at the African Union highlighted the exclusion of talented women from power. The continent cannot thrive like that
What does it mean to be African? Is it simply being one of the 1.5 billion people from the continent? Does African mean the same as black? If you are a descendant from the UK, US, Brazil or Cuba, are you still African? Are only black Africans African, or does this include white Zimbabweans and Arab Egyptians? Or is Africa merely “a western invention”?
These questions are passionately debated. To be African is to inhabit an identity shaped by a complicated history, politics and geography. Yet there is one aspect of this identity that receives far less discussion: namely, do we see Africans as male?
Minna Salami is the author of Can Feminism be African? and founder of the MsAfropolitan blog
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Senate estimates will be back under way today, and AAP has flagged a little of what we can expect:
Creative Australia bosses, including the chief executive, Adrian Collette, will front an estimates hearing and it’s expected they’ll be questioned about the selection body’s shock decision to ditch the Venice Biennale team.
Continue reading...The victorious CDU leader is likely to be more proactive on the European stage. He will also need to forge broad alliances at home to see off the far right
Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), has a reputation for being blunt. On Sunday evening, as it became clear that the CDU had won the snap election triggered by the outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz, he did not disappoint. “For me,” said Mr Merz in a post-election television debate, “the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
As recently as a fortnight ago, such a statement from a German chancellor-elect would have been inconceivable. But these are new and extraordinary times. A convinced transatlanticist, Mr Merz has previously played down the dangers to western unity posed by Donald Trump. But crude electioneering on behalf of the extreme right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) by the US president’s outriders, and the sidelining of Europe and Kyiv from negotiations over the future of Ukraine, have forced a handbrake turn.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...The cut, an anti-trans attack, was the latest example of confusion sown by bold claims that wither under scrutiny.
The post DOGE Said It Cut $232 Million From Social Security Budget. It Was Only About Half a Million. appeared first on The Intercept.
The tech giant bets Starmer will fold, Musk faces GOP pushback and tech sees returns on Trump investment
Hello, and welcome back to TechScape, a newsletter about tech and the intersection of whatever you want it to be.
Continue reading...Parliamentary petition launched due to billionaire’s link to Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to conquer Canada
More than 200,000 people from Canada have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire’s alliance with Donald Trump, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.
The British Columbia author Qualia Reed launched the petition in Canada’s House of Commons, where it was sponsored by the New Democrat parliamentary member and avowed Musk critic Charlie Angus, as the Canadian Press first reported over the weekend.
Continue reading...Democrat Jasmine Crockett calls it ‘really wild’ that it is foreign leaders who are speaking truth to power
The congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has revealed she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico over Donald Trump in their attempts to stand up to him, saying it is “really wild” to find herself in that position given he is the president of the US.
“They are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now,” the Democratic representative from Texas said on Friday on the popular Breakfast Club podcast, alluding to the political feuds Trump has engaged in with the US’s two North American neighbors during the first month of his second presidency. “They can see what it is and they were like, ‘We are not messing with this crazy regime.’”
Continue reading...The video might bring pleasure to their supporters, but for us it is a call to shut down their fascist deportation machine.
The post Trump and Musk Delight in the Sounds of Human Suffering With Sick “ASMR” Immigrant Video appeared first on The Intercept.
Climate Change Authority chair says his job is to provide ‘frank and fearless advice’ after he criticised opposition’s nuclear energy proposal
The chair of the Climate Change Authority, Matt Kean, has hit back over an opposition suggestion that his criticism of its nuclear energy proposal could lead to him being sacked if the Coalition wins government.
Kean said the shadow climate change and energy minister, Ted O’Brien, should explain if a Peter Dutton-led government would seek retribution on the authority’s expert staff that prepared the nuclear report.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Business secretary says negotiations – now in their 15th round – are a ‘top priority’ for Labour government
Ministers are relaunching negotiations with India this week in an attempt to clinch a multibillion-pound free trade agreement that they hope will boost the UK’s flatlining economy.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, flew to Delhi on Sunday to meet his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal, for the first time since Labour won the election.
Continue reading...This week on The Intercept Briefing, politics reporters Jessica Washington and Akela Lacy assess the full scope of Trump's first month in office.
The post One Month Under Trump: Are You Keeping Up? appeared first on The Intercept.
Associated Press analyzed canceled government contracts and found that 40% will produce no savings
Elon Musk’s cost-cutting bonanza appears to be having less impact than the world’s richest man is claiming, with a review finding that almost 40% of the federal contracts scrapped so far will save the American taxpayer not a penny.
The Associated Press put under the microscope a list of 1,125 federal government contracts that Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) boasted it had torn up in the first month of the new Trump administration. The news agency found that of those, 417 were likely to produce no savings to the federal budget.
Continue reading...Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing Musk out of politics.
The post This Is the Way to Stop Elon Musk appeared first on The Intercept.
Keir Starmer says now is the time to deepen European security, as he announces move in the Commons
The rightwing historian Niall Ferguson is in the audience for Badenoch’s speech, according to James Heale from the Spectator.
Niall Ferguson spotted at Kemi Badenoch’s big speech on foreign affairs… hearing we might get some policy too
Tractors’ horns interrupt Badenoch’s speech shortly after she begins speaking. Attendant spinner heard swearing furiously
Continue reading...Follow major developments of the second Trump administration’s first 100 days, brought up to date weekly
Donald Trump has completed an extraordinary return to power as the 47th president, vowing to impose his vision and re-altering the political and cultural landscape of the nation.
To keep up with the dizzying array of executive orders, directives, firings and policy changes, the Guardian will be tracking the major developments of the second Trump administration’s first 100 days, just like we did during the first 100 days of Trump’s first presidency in 2017.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Departure follows meetings with Wes Streeting and unusual criticism from two Commons committees
Amanda Pritchard is standing down as chief executive of NHS England, in a development that will shock the health service.
Her departure from the top job follows recent meetings she held with Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to discuss his plans to overhaul the service and her own future role.
Continue reading...Exclusive: The ‘deeply troubling’ move comes amid concerns US ignoring international climate ramifications
US officials have missed recent international climate forums sparking concerns about a potentially significant shift from Donald Trump’s first term, a review of meeting records and interviews with meeting attendees by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian show.
On his first day back as president, Trump signed an executive order on stage in front of supporters at an arena in Washington DC which he said was aimed at quitting what he called the “unfair one-sided Paris climate accord rip off”. Trump’s exit from the Paris agreement means the US will join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries outside the international agreement adopted in 2015 to limit global warming.
Continue reading...Tech billionaire, a close adviser to the US president, is a vocal supporter of Germany’s far-right AfD party
Sales of new Tesla cars almost halved in Europe last month, indicating waning demand for the US carmaker’s vehicles as its chief executive Elon Musk intervened repeatedly in the politics on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Texas-based carmaker sold 9,945 vehicles in Europe in January, down 45% from last year’s 18,161, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Tesla’s share of the market dropped to 1% from 1.8%.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer is travelling to the White House for a high-stakes meeting. But will he have any influence over the US president? Patrick Wintour reports
It’s the most important international relationship the UK has, and for decades has been referred to as “special”. Since the second world war, the UK and the US have considered themselves the closest allies, working together for shared values, with any resentments, differences of opinion or cross words kept to private channels.
But now Donald Trump is back and he seems keen to throw the usual world order of alliances and enmities into chaos. Keir Starmer’s first meeting with the US president comes at a crucial juncture for Europe, with the future of Ukraine in the balance. “The stakes at the moment could not be higher,” says the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.
Continue reading...Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey look ahead to a pivotal week of diplomacy for Keir Starmer as he prepares to visit the White House. With Donald Trump’s hostility towards Kyiv looming large over the three-year anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, can the prime minister persuade the US president to change tack?
Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed
Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.
The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.
Continue reading...Polish prime minister says EU leaders will meet on Sunday and calls for greater defence mobilisation across Europe
The London summit is understood to be still in planning and would serve as a forum for European leaders to get debriefed on both Macron and Starmer’s conversations with Trump during their respective visits to the White House and to consider implications for European and Ukrainian security.
It so happens that Starmer is due to speak in UK parliament in the next half hour, so we could get an official confirmation of what Tusk said.
I hope that this greater [defence] mobilisation of Europe, of member states and Europe more broadly, will become a fact.
[Before meeting at the next European Council,] we will be in London on Sunday, together with our British friends and a group of leaders, to talk about these joint plans on defence.
Continue reading...Trump is leaving Ukraine with impossible choices: fight a losing war without U.S. support, or submit to economic vassalage.
The post Trump Doesn’t Care About Ukraine or Russia — Just Money appeared first on The Intercept.
British and French leaders need to convince US to align with them over Ukraine, while at the UN Trump openly sides with Russia
Keir Starmer, when he visits the White House on Thursday, will have to pick up the many loose threads left by another chaotic day of diplomacy in the US in which America voted with Russia at the UN to protect Vladimir Putin from criticism over the invasion of Ukraine, and then saw Trump make assurances that Putin was happy for European forces to enter Ukraine – only to be contradicted by Moscow hours later.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has been working in lockstep with the UK in a way the two countries have failed to since Brexit, and the aim was for the two leaders of Europe’s major military powers to use their visits this week to operate as a pincer movement pressing Trump to question Putin’s trustworthiness and more broadly to accept that America’s future still lay as a partner with Europe.
Continue reading...With the mothers of his kids begging for his attention on social media, he makes much of ‘pronatalism’. Is that just a fancy word for bad parenting?
If only Elon Musk could impregnate humans at the same rate he’s giving them the ick. Alas, polls show the efficiency tsar’s US approval rating dwindling towards levels he has enjoyed for quite some time among the UK public. And as a country that lived through the Boris Johnson era, I think we have to warn the Americans that if a government figure can’t or won’t answer the basic question “how many kids do you have?”, then he’s probably going to turn out to be a disappointment. And it might even have been a warning sign. If the WhatsApp group of his exes is bigger than Mumsnet and 10 times as pissed off, then it’s just possible you could be dealing with a guy you’re going to end up feeling betrayed by.
Is Musk that guy? Who among us can say, certainly considering the sheer number and ferocity of the lawyers Mister Free Speech employs? I do know Elon is something called a “pronatalist”, but I increasingly wonder whether that’s just a fancy new word for a very old form of shittiness. Consider the spectacle of his ex, Grimes, coming on to the social media platform Musk owns and outright begging him to get in touch for his input concerning a “medical crisis” for one of their shared children. “I’m not giving any details but he won’t respond to texts call or emails and has skipped every meeting and our child will suffer lifelong impairment if he doesn’t respond asap, so I need him to fucking respond and if I have to apply public pressure then I guess that’s where we are at.” These posts were either deleted or are now inaccessible, while one user suggested she had been “shadowbanned”. Silly Grimes. If she had put a rape threat or some antisemitism in her APB, it would have stayed up.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Regulator says bringing emergency runway into operation would boost competition and passenger choice
Gatwick airport’s expansion has received the backing of the UK’s aviation regulator, which argued it would bring “benefits to consumers” even with the prospect of a third runway at Heathrow.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced its support for the West Sussex airport’s proposed new commitments for the next four years, saying they would increase choice for passengers.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Liz Kendall confirms government will no longer back controversial ‘computer says yes’ system
Ministers are to scrap a controversial “computer says yes” program that automatically approves landlord requests to deduct hundreds of pounds from tenants’ universal credit benefits without their consent.
Last month, a judge ruled that the “click-screen” program used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to process tens of thousands of deduction requests each year was unlawful.
Continue reading...Moscow praises Washington for siding with it at UN, as European countries abstain in sign of deepening rift with US
The Kremlin has welcomed what it said was a “much more balanced” US stance on Ukraine after the Trump administration pushed through a UN security council resolution on the war that included no criticism of Russia.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the move was evidence of Washington’s willingness to try to find a peaceful settlement. Moscow backed the resolution, which was passed late on Monday, although European countries abstained, in a sign of a deepening rift with Washington.
Continue reading...Lord David Evans of Watford said ‘our mates now have senior jobs’ and advised on how to approach Angela Rayner
A Labour member of the House of Lords offered access to ministers during discussions about a commercial deal worth tens of thousands of pounds, an undercover investigation can reveal.
Lord David Evans of Watford, 82, was recorded also explaining to undercover reporters – who were posing as property developers looking to lobby the government – on how to approach Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary.
Continue reading...Environment secretary will hope move can reset relations with farmers after inheritance tax row
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, is to announce a five-year extension of the seasonal farm worker scheme in an attempt to reset relations with farmers after fury over inheritance tax.
Making his pitch to farmers at the National Farmers’ Union conference in central London on Tuesday, Reed will also announce the opening of a new national biosecurity centre to tackle diseases including foot-and-mouth and bluetongue.
Continue reading...Warrant will not be required where tracker shows an item is present, as part of raft of measures in crime and policing bill
Police will be able to search properties without a warrant for stolen phones or other electronically geotagged items under the government’s crime and policing bill.
The measure is among dozens in the bill, which will be put before parliament on Tuesday and would mostly apply to England and Wales. It has a particular focus on lower-level offences such as theft and wider antisocial behaviour.
Continue reading...Recordings of empty studios represent impact on musicians of UK’s plans to let AI train on their work without permission
More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and Annie Lennox, have released a silent album in protest against UK government plans to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission, as a celebrity backlash builds against the proposals.
The recordings of dormant music studios and performance spaces, called Is This What We Want?, are being released as leading cultural figures warn livelihoods are under threat from proposed changes to copyright law.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/DomesticErrorist22 [link] [comments] |
Daughter of Peter and Barbie Reynolds says government must do ‘everything in their power’ to secure their release
The family of a British couple arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan have called on the government to do “everything in their power” to secure their release.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, 79 and 75, who run education and training programmes in Afghanistan, were detained by the Taliban on 1 February while returning to their home in the central province of Bamiyan.
Continue reading...Readers share their perspectives on prisoner literacy, custodial sentencing and the objective of being ‘tough on crime’
Neither your editorial on the interim findings of David Gauke’s review of sentencing (18 February) nor your article (Prison system crisis due to overreliance on long sentences, says Gauke review, 18 February) make any reference to some of the more obvious aspects of the Prison Service. First, finding an alternative to the use of prison-based remand; second, keeping non-violent criminals in a restrictive regime outside prison; third, serious study into recidivism, and finally, improving the literacy of those entering prison for the first time.
For 20 years I was responsible for education provision in the five Lancashire prisons. It took me several years to persuade governors to include literacy tests in their initial assessment of new prisoners. The initial result showed that 35% of prisoners failed the literacy test, while among the adult population in general it was about 7%.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/indig0sixalpha [link] [comments] |
DRC prime minister tells human rights council fighting has left about 450,000 without shelter after camps destroyed
About 7,000 people have died in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since Rwanda-backed M23 rebels started renewed advances in January, the DRC’s prime minister has said.
At a high-level meeting of the UN’s human rights council in Geneva on Monday, Judith Suminwa Tuluka also said the war had left about 450,000 people without shelter after the destruction of 90 displacement camps.
Continue reading...Figures emerge as Kindoki Witch Boy film tells true story of Mardoche Yembi who underwent an exorcism as a child
Thousands of children in England have been accused of witchcraft over the past decade, according to new figures that come alongside a film released on Monday.
Faith-based abuse is a worldwide phenomenon but experts found 14,000 social work assessments linked to witchcraft accusations since 2015. In the year running to March 2024 alone, there were 2,180 assessments linked to witchcraft.
Children accused of witchcraft can call Childline on 0800 1111 or NSPCC on 0808 800 500.
Continue reading...New Zealand defence minister Judith Collins says department has ‘never seen a task group of this capability undertaking this sort of work’
New Zealand’s defence minister has warned that Chinese warships located off the east coast of Australia are armed with “extremely capable” weapons that could reach Australia.
The three vessels, known as Taskgroup 107, undertook two live-fire exercises in the seas between Australia and New Zealand last week, causing commercial flights to be diverted in the skies above.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Spending plans remain murky with the Coalition leader having suggested at least three different ways that the ‘savings’ could be used
Peter Dutton’s murky and contradictory plans to slash the public service got a little clearer this week, as he appeared to suggest he wanted to cut essentially all the new public servants Labor has employed since coming to office, and use the savings to pay for Medicare boosts.
But this is at least the third way Dutton has pledged to redirect “savings” from the public service, raising questions about how he would pay for various promises.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...US, Russia, Belarus and North Korea vote against resolution as 93 countries vote in favor, spurning rival US resolution
The United Nations general assembly has backed a resolution drafted by Ukraine and the European Union condemning Russia on the third anniversary of its full-scale invasion, spurning a rival US resolution reflecting Donald Trump’s split with Europe and growing union with Vladimir Putin.
The United States, Russia, Belarus and North Korea all voted against the EU-Ukrainian resolution underlining an extraordinary shift in US policy since the US president’s election that has largely absolved the Russian president of responsibility for the invasion.
Continue reading...Alternative für Deutschland projected to finish second in federal election with about 20% of the vote
For more than 150 years, the symbolism of the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, in Berlin’s Tiergarten, has shifted alongside German identity: from emblem of the empire to strategic relocation by the Nazis and, finally, its adoption as an icon of Berlin’s legendary love parade.
On Sunday, as throngs of people gathered in its shadow, the golden statue bore witness to yet another shift – an election that had yielded an emboldened far right in a result that was unprecedented in Germany’s postwar history.
Continue reading...And that’s how he wants to keep it, his executive orders and memos from Attorney General Pam Bondi show.
The post Trump Is Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: Federal Prisons Are Purposely Inhumane appeared first on The Intercept.
Musk has emerged as Trump’s far-right-hand man, creating some awkwardness for the president’s Democratic foes.
The post Democrats Swear They’ll Fight Elon Musk. But What About the Cash They Took From SpaceX? appeared first on The Intercept.
“What he’s done is testing the limits of his power in a way we have never seen in this country,” says retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner.
The post Constitutional Crisis Looms appeared first on The Intercept.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to reform is upending government operations. Critical functions have been halted, tens of thousands of federal staffers are being encouraged to resign, and congressional mandates are being disregarded. The next phase: The Department of Government Efficiency reportedly wants to use AI to cut costs. According to The Washington Post, Musk’s group has started to run sensitive data from government systems through AI programs to analyze spending and determine what could be pruned. This may lead to the elimination of human jobs in favor of automation. As one government official who has been tracking Musk’s DOGE team told the...
CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger could barely contain his excitement about the Laken Riley Act and Trump’s anti-immigration executive orders.
The post Private Prison CEO on Trump Deportation Surge: “One of the Most Exciting Periods in My Career” appeared first on The Intercept.
One NFL team is proposing an end to the tush push play the Philadelphia Eagles have used so successfully at the goalline and in short-yardage situations, including during their victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in this year’s Super Bowl.
According to NFL Network, league executive Troy Vincent said on Monday that a team submitted a proposal to ban the play, in which teammates push Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts to gain the yardage necessary for a first down or touchdown. Vincent didn’t identify the team, but the NFL Network later said it was the Green Bay Packers.
Continue reading...The NCAA has ruled only women assigned female at birth can compete in college sports. We spoke to some of those affected by the ban
On 5 February 2025 – coinciding with Women and Girls in Sports Day – Donald Trump signed an executive order barring trans athletes from competing in women’s sports. The move marked yet another aggressive shift of his legislative agenda, as he doubled down on anti-trans rhetoric, in which he has vowed to eliminate what he calls “transgender insanity”.
The next day college sports’ main governing body, the NCAA, said only women assigned female at birth would be able to participate under its umbrella. The organization oversees more than 500,000 athletes. Last year the NCAA’s president, Charlie Baker, said he knew of only 10 transgender athletes competing in the organization.
Continue reading...This week on Comfort Eating, Grace is joined by five-time Paralympic gold medalist Ellie Simmonds. At 30, Ellie has hung up her goggles and retired from swimming, but instead of claiming an early pension, she has turned her hand to disability activism and documentary making – in 2024 she won a Bafta for her documentary Finding My Secret Family. She talks to Grace about the food that sustained her gruelling swim training schedule, her celebratory McDonald’s order during the Paralympics, and her secret recipe for orange scones. Ellie also opens up about accusations of bullying within British Para-Swimming in the buildup to Rio 2016
New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday
Continue reading...In his first month in office the US president has thrown science in the US into chaos, delaying projects and casting the future of research funding and jobs into doubt. To understand everything that has happened in the month since he took office and what its impact could be, Madeleine Finlay hears from science editor Ian Sample and Prof Harold Varmus, a Nobel prize winner and former director of the National Institutes of Health under Bill Clinton
Critics say Trump’s executive orders to reshape the NIH ‘will kill’ Americans
Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod
Continue reading...New high tempered by dip in number of female CEOs at 100 biggest listed firms to fewer than 10 last year
Women occupy more than two in five seats on the boards of Britain’s biggest listed companies after further progress was made last year, but the number of female FTSE 100 chief executives dipped for a time to fewer than 10, according to a report.
The proportion of board positions held by women at FTSE 350 companies rose to a new all-time high of 43.4% last year, up from 42.1% in 2023, according to the government-backed annual FTSE Women Leaders Review. Among the 100 biggest listed companies, the proportion of women in the boardroom was even higher, at 44.7% versus 42.6% in 2023.
Continue reading...Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Dan Bardell discuss the weekend’s action in the Premier League and beyond
Rate, review, and share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.
On the podcast today: Liverpool stamp their authority on the title race with a comfortable 2-0 win at Manchester City. The panel discuss whether the title race is done following Arne Slot’s tactical masterclass and asks if Pep Guardiola’s prowess is waning.
Continue reading...Oversight laws about foreign influence were already limited. Now the Trump administration is shredding them.
The post How Many Trump Officials Have Taken Money From Qatar? appeared first on The Intercept.
How exactly the IRS will use the SuperPod AI hardware is unclear. But it comes amid a push for automation in government.
The post The IRS Is Buying an AI Supercomputer From Nvidia appeared first on The Intercept.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is trying to eliminate all Defense Department DEI efforts. It hasn’t been entirely successful.
The post Pentagon Official: Hegseth’s Campaign to Scrub DEI History Is a “Dumb” Distraction appeared first on The Intercept.
Oracle, which has secret partnerships with Israel, has told employees to love the country or work elsewhere.
The post Poised to Take Over TikTok, Oracle Is Accused of Clamping Down on Pro-Palestine Dissent appeared first on The Intercept.
Sale of the miner, which is now valued at $4bn, may be delayed following ‘really, really difficult’ market
The world’s biggest diamond miner, De Beers, cost its parent company almost $3bn last year as the growth in lab-grown stones continues to take the shine off the industry.
Anglo American was forced to write down the value of the renowned gem producer for a second consecutive year as its chief executive admitted the diamond markets had proved “really, really difficult for the company”.
Continue reading...A GP surgery in one of the most deprived areas in the north-east of England is struggling to provide care for its patients as the health system crumbles around them. In the depths of the winter flu season, the Guardian video producers Maeve Shearlaw and Adam Sich went to Bridges medical practice to shadow the lead GP, Paul Evans, as he worked all hours keep his surgery afloat. Juggling technical challenges, long waiting lists and the profound impact austerity has had on the health of the population, Evans says: 'We are seeing the system fail'
Continue reading...In a tweet announcing his attack on the Climate Justice Alliance, EPA head Lee Zeldin linked it to the group’s protected speech about Palestine.
The post Trump’s EPA Kills Grant to Climate Nonprofit Over Its Support for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
For some members of the WhatsApp group, speaking out for Palestine and criticizing Israel are tantamount to supporting Hamas.
The post The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
Even with Jordan and Egypt refusing to take in expelled Palestinians, Trump is charging on with his real estate development plan.
The post Trump Is Bullying Jordan and Egypt to Help in Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza. It Isn’t Working. appeared first on The Intercept.
ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.
The post ICE Wants to Know If You’re Posting Negative Things About It Online appeared first on The Intercept.
We’d like to hear from people or anyone in their family who has been ‘evicted’ from a care home providing specialist care for vulnerable adults due to funding cuts
Residential homes providing specialist care to thousands of vulnerable adults with learning disabilities and severe autism have warned they are having to “evict” residents to avoid insolvency because of tax and wage rises and local authority funding cuts.
The annual Sector Pulse Check survey of more than 200 social care providers, both private and charitable, says many are on the brink as they struggle to remain viable in the face of cash-strapped councils’ refusal or inability to meet the rising cost of services.
Continue reading...
In the rapidly advancing landscape of AI technology and innovation, LimeWire emerges as a unique platform in the realm of generative AI tools. This platform not only stands out from the multitude of existing AI tools but also brings a fresh approach to content generation. LimeWire not only empowers users to create AI content but also provides creators with creative ways to share and monetize their creations.
As we explore LimeWire, our aim is to uncover its features, benefits for creators, and the exciting possibilities it offers for AI content generation. This platform presents an opportunity for users to harness the power of AI in image creation, all while enjoying the advantages of a free and accessible service.
Let's unravel the distinctive features that set LimeWire apart in the dynamic landscape of AI-powered tools, understanding how creators can leverage its capabilities to craft unique and engaging AI-generated images.
This revamped LimeWire invites users to register and unleash their creativity by crafting original AI content, which can then be shared and showcased on the LimeWire Studio. Notably, even acclaimed artists and musicians, such as Deadmau5, Soulja Boy, and Sean Kingston, have embraced this platform to publish their content in the form of NFT music, videos, and images.
Beyond providing a space for content creation and sharing, LimeWire introduces monetization models to empower users to earn revenue from their creations. This includes avenues such as earning ad revenue and participating in the burgeoning market of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). As we delve further, we'll explore these monetization strategies in more detail to provide a comprehensive understanding of LimeWire's innovative approach to content creation and distribution.
LimeWire Studio welcomes content creators into its fold, providing a space to craft personalized AI-focused content for sharing with fans and followers. Within this creative hub, every piece of content generated becomes not just a creation but a unique asset—ownable and tradable. Fans have the opportunity to subscribe to creators' pages, immersing themselves in the creative journey and gaining ownership of digital collectibles that hold tradeable value within the LimeWire community. Notably, creators earn a 2.5% royalty each time their content is traded, adding a rewarding element to the creative process.
The platform's flexibility is evident in its content publication options. Creators can choose to share their work freely with the public or opt for a premium subscription model, granting exclusive access to specialized content for subscribers.
As of the present moment, LimeWire focuses on AI Image Generation, offering a spectrum of creative possibilities to its user base. The platform, however, has ambitious plans on the horizon, aiming to broaden its offerings by introducing AI music and video generation tools in the near future. This strategic expansion promises creators even more avenues for expression and engagement with their audience, positioning LimeWire Studio as a dynamic and evolving platform within the realm of AI-powered content creation.
The LimeWire AI image generation tool presents a versatile platform for both the creation and editing of images. Supporting advanced models such as Stable Diffusion 2.1, Stable Diffusion XL, and DALL-E 2, LimeWire offers a sophisticated toolkit for users to delve into the realm of generative AI art.
Much like other tools in the generative AI landscape, LimeWire provides a range of options catering to various levels of complexity in image creation. Users can initiate the creative process with prompts as simple as a few words or opt for more intricate instructions, tailoring the output to their artistic vision.
What sets LimeWire apart is its seamless integration of different AI models and design styles. Users have the flexibility to effortlessly switch between various AI models, exploring diverse design styles such as cinematic, digital art, pixel art, anime, analog film, and more. Each style imparts a distinctive visual identity to the generated AI art, enabling users to explore a broad spectrum of creative possibilities.
The platform also offers additional features, including samplers, allowing users to fine-tune the quality and detail levels of their creations. Customization options and prompt guidance further enhance the user experience, providing a user-friendly interface for both novice and experienced creators.
Excitingly, LimeWire is actively developing its proprietary AI model, signaling ongoing innovation and enhancements to its image generation capabilities. This upcoming addition holds the promise of further expanding the creative horizons for LimeWire users, making it an evolving and dynamic platform within the landscape of AI-driven art and image creation.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
Upon completing your creative endeavor on LimeWire, the platform allows you the option to publish your content. An intriguing feature follows this step: LimeWire automates the process of minting your creation as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), utilizing either the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. This transformative step imbues your artwork with a unique digital signature, securing its authenticity and ownership in the decentralized realm.
Creators on LimeWire hold the power to decide the accessibility of their NFT creations. By opting for a public release, the content becomes discoverable by anyone, fostering a space for engagement and interaction. Furthermore, this choice opens the avenue for enthusiasts to trade the NFTs, adding a layer of community involvement to the artistic journey.
Alternatively, LimeWire acknowledges the importance of exclusivity. Creators can choose to share their posts exclusively with their premium subscribers. In doing so, the content remains a special offering solely for dedicated fans, creating an intimate and personalized experience within the LimeWire community. This flexibility in sharing options emphasizes LimeWire's commitment to empowering creators with choices in how they connect with their audience and distribute their digital creations.
After creating your content, you can choose to publish the content. It will automatically mint your creation as an NFT on the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. You can also choose whether to make it public or subscriber-only.
If you make it public, anyone can discover your content and even trade the NFTs. If you choose to share the post only with your premium subscribers, it will be exclusive only to your fans.
Additionally, you can earn ad revenue from your content creations as well.
When you publish content on LimeWire, you will receive 70% of all ad revenue from other users who view your images, music, and videos on the platform.
This revenue model will be much more beneficial to designers. You can experiment with the AI image and content generation tools and share your creations while earning a small income on the side.
The revenue you earn from your creations will come in the form of LMWR tokens, LimeWire’s own cryptocurrency.
Your earnings will be paid every month in LMWR, which you can then trade on many popular crypto exchange platforms like Kraken, ByBit, and UniSwap.
You can also use your LMWR tokens to pay for prompts when using LimeWire generative AI tools.
You can sign up to LimeWire to use its AI tools for free. You will receive 10 credits to use and generate up to 20 AI images per day. You will also receive 50% of the ad revenue share. However, you will get more benefits with premium plans.
For $9.99 per month, you will get 1,000 credits per month, up to 2 ,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 50% ad revenue share
For $29 per month, you will get 3750 credits per month, up to 7500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 60% ad revenue share
For $49 per month, you will get 5,000 credits per month, up to 10,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
For $99 per month, you will get 11,250 credits per month, up to 2 2,500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
With all premium plans, you will receive a Pro profile badge, full creation history, faster image generation, and no ads.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
In conclusion, LimeWire emerges as a democratizing force in the creative landscape, providing an inclusive platform where anyone can unleash their artistic potential and effortlessly share their work. With the integration of AI, LimeWire eliminates traditional barriers, empowering designers, musicians, and artists to publish their creations and earn revenue with just a few clicks.
The ongoing commitment of LimeWire to innovation is evident in its plans to enhance generative AI tools with new features and models. The upcoming expansion to include music and video generation tools holds the promise of unlocking even more possibilities for creators. It sparks anticipation about the diverse and innovative ways in which artists will leverage these tools to produce and publish their own unique creations.
For those eager to explore, LimeWire's AI tools are readily accessible for free, providing an opportunity to experiment and delve into the world of generative art. As LimeWire continues to evolve, creators are encouraged to stay tuned for the launch of its forthcoming AI music and video generation tools, promising a future brimming with creative potential and endless artistic exploration
Are you looking for a new graphic design tool? Would you like to read a detailed review of Canva? As it's one of the tools I love using. I am also writing my first ebook using canva and publish it soon on my site you can download it is free. Let's start the review.
Canva has a web version and also a mobile app
Canva is a free graphic design web application that allows you to create invitations, business cards, flyers, lesson plans, banners, and more using professionally designed templates. You can upload your own photos from your computer or from Google Drive, and add them to Canva's templates using a simple drag-and-drop interface. It's like having a basic version of Photoshop that doesn't require Graphic designing knowledge to use. It’s best for nongraphic designers.
Canva is a great tool for small business owners, online entrepreneurs, and marketers who don’t have the time and want to edit quickly.
To create sophisticated graphics, a tool such as Photoshop can is ideal. To use it, you’ll need to learn its hundreds of features, get familiar with the software, and it’s best to have a good background in design, too.
Also running the latest version of Photoshop you need a high-end computer.
So here Canva takes place, with Canva you can do all that with drag-and-drop feature. It’s also easier to use and free. Also an even-more-affordable paid version is available for $12.95 per month.
The product is available in three plans: Free, Pro ($12.99/month per user or $119.99/year for up to 5 people), and Enterprise ($30 per user per month, minimum 25 people).
To get started on Canva, you will need to create an account by providing your email address, Google, Facebook or Apple credentials. You will then choose your account type between student, teacher, small business, large company, non-profit, or personal. Based on your choice of account type, templates will be recommended to you.
You can sign up for a free trial of Canva Pro, or you can start with the free version to get a sense of whether it’s the right graphic design tool for your needs.
When you sign up for an account, Canva will suggest different post types to choose from. Based on the type of account you set up you'll be able to see templates categorized by the following categories: social media posts, documents, presentations, marketing, events, ads, launch your business, build your online brand, etc.
Start by choosing a template for your post or searching for something more specific. Search by social network name to see a list of post types on each network.
Next, you can choose a template. Choose from hundreds of templates that are ready to go, with customizable photos, text, and other elements.
You can start your design by choosing from a variety of ready-made templates, searching for a template matching your needs, or working with a blank template.
Inside the Canva designer, the Elements tab gives you access to lines and shapes, graphics, photos, videos, audio, charts, photo frames, and photo grids.The search box on the Elements tab lets you search everything on Canva.
To begin with, Canva has a large library of elements to choose from. To find them, be specific in your search query. You may also want to search in the following tabs to see various elements separately:
The Photos tab lets you search for and choose from millions of professional stock photos for your templates.
You can replace the photos in our templates to create a new look. This can also make the template more suited to your industry.
You can find photos on other stock photography sites like pexel, pixabay and many more or simply upload your own photos.
When you choose an image, Canva’s photo editing features let you adjust the photo’s settings (brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.), crop, or animate it.
When you subscribe to Canva Pro, you get access to a number of premium features, including the Background Remover. This feature allows you to remove the background from any stock photo in library or any image you upload.
The Text tab lets you add headings, normal text, and graphical text to your design.
When you click on text, you'll see options to adjust the font, font size, color, format, spacing, and text effects (like shadows).
Canva Pro subscribers can choose from a large library of fonts on the Brand Kit or the Styles tab. Enterprise-level controls ensure that visual content remains on-brand, no matter how many people are working on it.
Create an animated image or video by adding audio to capture user’s attention in social news feeds.
If you want to use audio from another stock site or your own audio tracks, you can upload them in the Uploads tab or from the more option.
Want to create your own videos? Choose from thousands of stock video clips. You’ll find videos that range upto 2 minutes
You can upload your own videos as well as videos from other stock sites in the Uploads tab.
Once you have chosen a video, you can use the editing features in Canva to trim the video, flip it, and adjust its transparency.
On the Background tab, you’ll find free stock photos to serve as backgrounds on your designs. Change out the background on a template to give it a more personal touch.
The Styles tab lets you quickly change the look and feel of your template with just a click. And if you have a Canva Pro subscription, you can upload your brand’s custom colors and fonts to ensure designs stay on brand.
If you have a Canva Pro subscription, you’ll have a Logos tab. Here, you can upload variations of your brand logo to use throughout your designs.
With Canva, you can also create your own logos. Note that you cannot trademark a logo with stock content in it.
With Canva, free users can download and share designs to multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack and Tumblr.
Canva Pro subscribers can create multiple post formats from one design. For example, you can start by designing an Instagram post, and Canva's Magic Resizer can resize it for other networks, Stories, Reels, and other formats.
Canva Pro subscribers can also use Canva’s Content Planner to post content on eight different accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, and Tumblr.
Canva Pro allows you to work with your team on visual content. Designs can be created inside Canva, and then sent to your team members for approval. Everyone can make comments, edits, revisions, and keep track via the version history.
When it comes to printing your designs, Canva has you covered. With an extensive selection of printing options, they can turn your designs into anything from banners and wall art to mugs and t-shirts.
Canva Print is perfect for any business seeking to make a lasting impression. Create inspiring designs people will want to wear, keep, and share. Hand out custom business cards that leave a lasting impression on customers' minds.
The Canva app is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. The Canva app has earned a 4.9 out of five star rating from over 946.3K Apple users and a 4.5 out of five star rating from over 6,996,708 Google users.
In addition to mobile apps, you can use Canva’s integration with other Internet services to add images and text from sources like Google Maps, Emojis, photos from Google Drive and Dropbox, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Bitmojis, and other popular visual content elements.
In general, Canva is an excellent tool for those who need simple images for projects. If you are a graphic designer with experience, you will find Canva’s platform lacking in customization and advanced features – particularly vectors. But if you have little design experience, you will find Canva easier to use than advanced graphic design tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator for most projects. If you have any queries let me know in the comments section.
Be the first to see our latest thought-provoking films, bringing you bold and original storytelling from around the world
Discover the stories behind our latest short films, learn more about our international film-makers, and join us for exclusive documentary events. We’ll also share a selection of our favourite films, from our archives and from further afield, for you to enjoy. Sign up below.
Can’t wait for the next newsletter? Start exploring our archive now.
Continue reading...Regulator says bringing emergency runway into operation would boost competition and passenger choice
Gatwick airport’s expansion has received the backing of the UK’s aviation regulator, which argued it would bring “benefits to consumers” even with the prospect of a third runway at Heathrow.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced its support for the West Sussex airport’s proposed new commitments for the next four years, saying they would increase choice for passengers.
Continue reading...For over a century, poets, publishers and printers filled this Delhi district’s narrow lanes. But as profits plummet, bookshops are being replaced by kebab shops
Inside one of the oldest bookshops in Delhi’s Urdu Bazaar, Rafiq Ahmad, a film critic and writer, is scrutinising the bookshelves for material to help with his next project. Ahmad often travels from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh to Delhi’s famed Urdu Bazaar in search of the books he needs.
“I know this is the place where I can find any Urdu book from any era. Whenever I have to write anything, I come here for material. Currently, I am looking for books about Dilip Kumar, the renowned Bollywood actor,” Ahmad says.
Continue reading...If you feel there are not enough challenges in your life as a parent, may I suggest taking your kids on a flight
We landed in Melbourne after our red-eye flight from Bali. Our then two-year-old was raging with fever (he was not ill when we boarded) and had screamed for five out of the six hours.
Dazed and confused, we joined the long line for international passport holders instead of the much shorter family line for Australians. We wasted 40 minutes. That was when our then four-year-old decided to vomit. We cleaned that up (FYI, immigration has spew bags), got past the custom dogs, hauled our stuff on to the insanely packed bus that would take us to the equally packed cheap car park, found our car and drove home, before collapsing into a heap.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer is travelling to the White House for a high-stakes meeting. But will he have any influence over the US president? Patrick Wintour reports
It’s the most important international relationship the UK has, and for decades has been referred to as “special”. Since the second world war, the UK and the US have considered themselves the closest allies, working together for shared values, with any resentments, differences of opinion or cross words kept to private channels.
But now Donald Trump is back and he seems keen to throw the usual world order of alliances and enmities into chaos. Keir Starmer’s first meeting with the US president comes at a crucial juncture for Europe, with the future of Ukraine in the balance. “The stakes at the moment could not be higher,” says the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.
Continue reading...Tell us about your favourite seasonal trip, from farm stays and walking through meadows of wildflowers to city breaks. The best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays holiday
After a long, grey winter, it is time to start planning a spring getaway. We’d love to hear about your favourite seasonal adventure in the UK, whether it was glamping in a glade of bluebells or a coastal break that blows away the winter cobwebs.
If you have a relevant photo, do send it in – but it’s your words that will be judged for the competition.
Continue reading...In a tweet announcing his attack on the Climate Justice Alliance, EPA head Lee Zeldin linked it to the group’s protected speech about Palestine.
The post Trump’s EPA Kills Grant to Climate Nonprofit Over Its Support for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
Video:
00:06:40
A group of volunteers is spending two months lying in bed—with their feet up and one shoulder always touching the mattress—even while eating, showering, and using the toilet. But why? This extreme bedrest study is helping scientists understand how space travel affects the human body and how to keep astronauts healthy on long missions.
Microgravity causes muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts, and other physiological changes similar to those experienced by bedridden patients on Earth. By studying volunteers here on Earth, researchers can develop better countermeasures for astronauts and even improve treatments for medical conditions like osteoporosis.
In this study, participants are divided into three groups: one stays in bed with no exercise, another cycles in bed to mimic astronaut workouts, and a third cycles while being spun in a centrifuge to simulate artificial gravity. Scientists hope artificial gravity could become a key tool in protecting astronauts during deep-space missions.
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...With DOGE initiatives getting hung up in court, Elon Musk and Donald Trump attacked judges and flirted with defying their rulings.
The post DOGE’s Lawyer Once Warned That Ignoring Court Orders Would Destroy the Country appeared first on The Intercept.
Exclusive: Liz Kendall confirms government will no longer back controversial ‘computer says yes’ system
Ministers are to scrap a controversial “computer says yes” program that automatically approves landlord requests to deduct hundreds of pounds from tenants’ universal credit benefits without their consent.
Last month, a judge ruled that the “click-screen” program used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to process tens of thousands of deduction requests each year was unlawful.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/chrisdh79 [link] [comments] |
| | submitted by /u/indig0sixalpha [link] [comments] |
Tell us about your favourite seasonal trip, from farm stays and walking through meadows of wildflowers to city breaks. The best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays holiday
After a long, grey winter, it is time to start planning a spring getaway. We’d love to hear about your favourite seasonal adventure in the UK, whether it was glamping in a glade of bluebells or a coastal break that blows away the winter cobwebs.
If you have a relevant photo, do send it in – but it’s your words that will be judged for the competition.
Continue reading...Almost 40% of federal contracts canceled as part of Doge’s cost-cutting efforts aren’t expected to save government any money, Trump administration’s own data shows
It’s coming down to the wire for beleaguered House speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying to rally GOP holdouts behind his budget plan for enacting Donald Trump’s agenda before the showdown vote this evening.
Amid Republican opposition threatening to derail his bill, Johnson was up late last night locked in talks with holdouts from across his party who remain skeptical of his outline plan for tax and spending cuts - as well as border security, energy and defense policy - via a single reconciliation bill.
Continue reading...Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed
Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.
The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.
Continue reading...Democrat Jasmine Crockett calls it ‘really wild’ that it is foreign leaders who are speaking truth to power
The congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has revealed she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico over Donald Trump in their attempts to stand up to him, saying it is “really wild” to find herself in that position given he is the president of the US.
“They are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now,” the Democratic representative from Texas said on Friday on the popular Breakfast Club podcast, alluding to the political feuds Trump has engaged in with the US’s two North American neighbors during the first month of his second presidency. “They can see what it is and they were like, ‘We are not messing with this crazy regime.’”
Continue reading...The cut, an anti-trans attack, was the latest example of confusion sown by bold claims that wither under scrutiny.
The post DOGE Said It Cut $232 Million From Social Security Budget. It Was Only About Half a Million. appeared first on The Intercept.
“What he’s done is testing the limits of his power in a way we have never seen in this country,” says retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner.
The post Constitutional Crisis Looms appeared first on The Intercept.
CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger could barely contain his excitement about the Laken Riley Act and Trump’s anti-immigration executive orders.
The post Private Prison CEO on Trump Deportation Surge: “One of the Most Exciting Periods in My Career” appeared first on The Intercept.
A former campaign staffer said Sen. John Fetterman’s single-minded focus came at the exclusion of the progressive positions he ran on.
The post Fetterman Staff Quit Amid Frustration Over “Just Working on Israel All the Time” appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump is leaving Ukraine with impossible choices: fight a losing war without U.S. support, or submit to economic vassalage.
The post Trump Doesn’t Care About Ukraine or Russia — Just Money appeared first on The Intercept.
The video might bring pleasure to their supporters, but for us it is a call to shut down their fascist deportation machine.
The post Trump and Musk Delight in the Sounds of Human Suffering With Sick “ASMR” Immigrant Video appeared first on The Intercept.
Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing Musk out of politics.
The post This Is the Way to Stop Elon Musk appeared first on The Intercept.
And that’s how he wants to keep it, his executive orders and memos from Attorney General Pam Bondi show.
The post Trump Is Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: Federal Prisons Are Purposely Inhumane appeared first on The Intercept.
ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.
The post ICE Wants to Know If You’re Posting Negative Things About It Online appeared first on The Intercept.
For some members of the WhatsApp group, speaking out for Palestine and criticizing Israel are tantamount to supporting Hamas.
The post The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to reform is upending government operations. Critical functions have been halted, tens of thousands of federal staffers are being encouraged to resign, and congressional mandates are being disregarded. The next phase: The Department of Government Efficiency reportedly wants to use AI to cut costs. According to The Washington Post, Musk’s group has started to run sensitive data from government systems through AI programs to analyze spending and determine what could be pruned. This may lead to the elimination of human jobs in favor of automation. As one government official who has been tracking Musk’s DOGE team told the...
Musk has emerged as Trump’s far-right-hand man, creating some awkwardness for the president’s Democratic foes.
The post Democrats Swear They’ll Fight Elon Musk. But What About the Cash They Took From SpaceX? appeared first on The Intercept.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is trying to eliminate all Defense Department DEI efforts. It hasn’t been entirely successful.
The post Pentagon Official: Hegseth’s Campaign to Scrub DEI History Is a “Dumb” Distraction appeared first on The Intercept.
Even with Jordan and Egypt refusing to take in expelled Palestinians, Trump is charging on with his real estate development plan.
The post Trump Is Bullying Jordan and Egypt to Help in Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza. It Isn’t Working. appeared first on The Intercept.
The actor’s insistence on scripting his own scenes in Paddington 3 and Bridget Jones 4 are proof of his talents. So why on earth hasn’t he written his own film yet?
We can all agree that Paddington in Peru was, well, fine. Compared to the previous Paddington films it was a bit of a damp squib, but Olivia Colman got a few chances to be decently silly and it was leagues better than any of the recent live-action Disney remakes.
However, there was one moment where Paddington in Peru touched greatness. And this was the mid-credit sequence. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a nod to the Paddington 2 scene in which a huge number of prisoners introduce themselves, only this time it’s a huge amount of bears. And the person they’re introducing themselves to is Phoenix Buchanan, played by Hugh Grant.
Continue reading...Netflix’s new Robert De Niro-led hit series toys with real-world references but hasn’t got the faintest clue what to do with them
Spoilers ahead
For decades, movies and TV shows that feature the president of the United States as a character have tried, often playfully, to keep pace with the headlines. Sometimes they even managed to move a little faster than real-life progress; Morgan Freeman was chosen to lead the nation in Deep Impact a decade before the election of Barack Obama, and plenty of women have occupied the on-screen Oval Office, anticipating a glass-ceiling break that has yet to actually happen.
So at first, the new Netflix series Zero Day comes across like a slightly and understandably mistimed attempt at topicality by focusing on George Mullen (Robert De Niro), a former US president known for bipartisan cooperation, who only served one term before stepping down to deal with the death of his son, and who later works closely with the current president, Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett), a woman of color. The show may have been anticipating a Kamala Harris/Joe Biden dynamic that never quite came to fruition, but on the other hand, Zero Day started filming in 2023, well before Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket in summer 2024, so maybe it should get points for prescience anyway.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/Arthur_Morgan44469 [link] [comments] |
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
Sausages, cheese, chilli all probably spring immediately to mind, but have you considered wine or sage instead?
How can I make a tin of baked beans tastier?
“You’ve come to the right place,” says food writer Melek Erdal. “One of my most popular recipes ever was jazzed-up beans on toast, which came out of lockdown, when we were all utilising everything.” Essentially, when it comes to injecting flavour into baked beans, it’s all about the base, and for Erdal that means toasting spices (cumin seeds, ground coriander, aleppo chilli) in an ovenproof pan, then adding “the magic triangle”, namely ginger, garlic and chilli, and some oil. “Add the beans, crumble feta on top, then pop it in the oven until the top caramelises.” Erdal might also add a drizzle of tahini, “for a take on shakshuka, and a lovely brunch or lunch.”
In a similar riffable vein, Eleanor Maidment, author of Pulse, makes a base of chorizo and red peppers, then adds beans and poaches some eggs in them. Cured meat is, of course, always a good idea, too: “Baked beans are quite sweet, so savoury things work really well with them,” Maidment says. “Fry onions and bacon, then add the beans and a splash of Worcestershire sauce, say.”
Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
Continue reading...The wine zeitgeist is that place is now more important than time, but labelling bottles as hyper local is not as trainspottery as it sounds
Over the centuries, winemakers have come up with all sorts of systems and terminology to talk up the quality of their wines. One of the best known and still most widely used rankings singles out time as the most important factor: the basic thinking behind classifying a rioja reserva or gran reserva as in some way special is that the longer a wine has spent ageing in barrel and bottle before it is released, the more refined it will be.
For the Germans, preoccupied with ripeness in what was, pre-climate crisis, a difficult place to ripen grapes consistently, it made more sense to build a vinous hierarchy based on sugar rather than oak, in which the higher the levels of sugar in the grape must at harvest, the better the wine should be, from the lowest and lightest, kabinett, to the intensely sweet and concentrated late-harvested, “dry-berries” of trockenbeerenauslese.
Continue reading...‘Pepe’ Jijón loves his life in the Ecuadorian cloud forest, but for his son Jose, the excitement of New York city calls
On an October day, Jose Jijon rang up a customer’s $35 bag of coffee at a Brooklyn, New York, cafe. The transaction was one of many as shoppers poured in and out of Sey Coffee, one of the country’s most renowned roasteries.
There was no way the patron who browsed the coffee varieties – each identified by producer, location and altitude of the farm – could know the smiling young cashier wearing the Johnny Cash T-shirt was the heir apparent to the coffee farm whose beans they had just purchased.
Continue reading...Jason Wouhra OBE, boss of Lioncroft Wholesale, is passionate about helping independent businesses thrive in the face of corporate competition
Walking the aisles of his 120,000 sq ft warehouse, Jason Wouhra gestures towards boxes of crisps, of every conceivable brand and flavour, stacked high on towering 15m-tall shelves.
“We sell £18m worth of crisps every year. Just crisps,” he says. “Millions of boxes of food and drink come through here. We’re restocking every day. Yesterday when I came into work there were already eight lorries parked up on the street waiting to get in.”
Continue reading...Scientists say consumption of the beverage may have health benefit by reducing intake of metals such as lead
The medicinal effect of a cup of tea is no surprise to anybody who has headed straight to the kettle after a laborious work meeting.
But researchers say they may have found a more scientific explanation for why it is associated with health benefits.
Continue reading...A hearty meaty broth jazzed up with some exotic flavours
Remove any juicy pieces of meat from the bones of your Sunday roast (pork, lamb, chicken, whatever) and reserve. You’ll need about 150g per person.
Put the bones into a large pot, pour in enough water to come two-thirds of the way up the pan then bring to the boil. Add an onion, halved, 8 black peppercorns, 1 tsp of coriander seeds, a carrot or two, a stick of celery, a couple of bay leaves and 3 star anise flowers. Thinly slice a 60g piece of ginger and add to the pan. Turn the heat down so the liquid bubbles calmly then partially cover with a lid. Leave for 45-60 minutes.
Continue reading...Pinned inside his vehicle, Matthew Reum waited for help to come. But no one knew he had gone missing …
Matthew Reum was driving home late on a dark, foggy night in Indiana when his headlights landed on what looked like a deer. As he swerved, his truck barrel-rolled down a ravine, into the creek beneath Interstate 94.
It was 20 December 2023, and Reum, a boiler-man, was 27. He was flung between his seat and the ceiling, losing consciousness as the airbags activated and the windows shattered around him. He remembers coming to and finding he was wet, it was dark and “not miserably cold, but it’s winter,” he says, “so it’s probably 30F [-1C]”. He knew he didn’t have any food or water in the car, but wasn’t too concerned. Someone must have seen him swerve, he thought.
Continue reading...Studies show that they’re effective for overweight people, but if you’re healthy, there are less risky ways to lose weight
When I’ve been in the gym over the past few months, one of the things people like to talk about has nothing to do with fitness and building strength, and everything to do with weight loss. There’s a suspected culprit when celebrity after celebrity demonstrates a dramatic and sudden drop in size; one that made Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk the most valuable company in Europe last year, and which Denmark has used as a bargaining chip as retaliation to the US when Trump announced his plans to take over Greenland.
Yes, it’s the widespread use of anti-obesity jabs (often referred to as GLP-1 drugs). In a 2024 poll, 12% of those surveyed in the US said they had taken or were taking them, with the numbers rising steeply year by year. This is roughly the same as estimates of antidepressant usage in the American population and far higher than the numbers taking heartburn medication. It’s become a coveted luxury in middle- and low-income countries, with high prices being the main barrier to usage – the cost is $95 a month in Brazil and $115 in South Africa, compared with about $350 in the US.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of the How Not to Die (Too Soon)
Continue reading...Each spring since 2003, Jon Aars, senior scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute, and his team have conducted an annual polar bear monitoring program on Svalbard - collaring, capturing and taking samples from as many bears as they can across several weeks.
By studying polar bears they get a better understanding of what is happening in this part of the Arctic environment. The bears roam over large distances and, being apex predators, provide lots of information about what is happening lower in the food chain and across different Arctic species.
The Guardian accompanied Aars on an expedition to the southern end of Spitsbergen island, the largest in the Svalbard archipelago.
This week on Comfort Eating, Grace is joined by five-time Paralympic gold medalist Ellie Simmonds. At 30, Ellie has hung up her goggles and retired from swimming, but instead of claiming an early pension, she has turned her hand to disability activism and documentary making – in 2024 she won a Bafta for her documentary Finding My Secret Family. She talks to Grace about the food that sustained her gruelling swim training schedule, her celebratory McDonald’s order during the Paralympics, and her secret recipe for orange scones. Ellie also opens up about accusations of bullying within British Para-Swimming in the buildup to Rio 2016
New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday
Continue reading...At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia
In the summer of 2007, I joined a group of 30 Russian and English students to work on a month-long summer camp at a state orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the Pskov region, south of St Petersburg. We lived in a house nearby, or in tents pitched in the garden. Every day, we walked up to the orphanage to put on developmental activities, sporting events, solve puzzles, play games, stage shows and go on camping trips.
I volunteered at the orphanage, in the village of Belskoye Ustye, for almost a decade, but it was the first visit that made the biggest impression. I had seen nothing like it. My closest reference point was probably workhouses or orphanages from a Charles Dickens novel. I vividly remember the smells – cooked food, unwashed bodies, chlorine and urine – and how the children crowded you, grabbing hands and clothes, pinching, pulling hair, jostling and asking questions. Dressed in an odd collection of what seemed to be adult castoffs, the kids spent most of their waking hours in rooms furnished with just a few scuffed tables and chairs, a bookcase and television. At night, and for long periods during the day, cast-iron metal grilles across corridors were locked, confining the older teenagers to their dormitories at one end. Children vulnerable to self-harm were tied up.
Continue reading...Whose soup is a chunky triumph? And whose is a sludgy mess? Felicity Cloake tries out supermarket takes on chilled, ready-made chicken and vegetable soup
• The best blenders to blitz like a pro, tried and tested
As a small child, my dream was to open an underwater restaurant (no, me neither), and the short menu I painstakingly wrote out for said venture started with chicken and vegetable soup. Which is to say, I have history with this dish. It feels familiar, comforting and overwhelmingly wholesome, yet I don’t often eat it these days, not least because I’ve never found one commercially that makes any welfare claims for the chicken concerned (and I’m generally too cheap to make it myself).
So I was quite excited about this particular taste test – and perhaps inevitably disappointed that even the most expensive samples gave so little information about the provenance of their meat. That said, with a handful of exceptions, the standard was pretty high flavour-wise, and Aldi, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s all at least note that they use British chicken, which is a start.
Continue reading...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...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
US, Russia, Belarus and North Korea vote against resolution as 93 countries vote in favor, spurning rival US resolution
The United Nations general assembly has backed a resolution drafted by Ukraine and the European Union condemning Russia on the third anniversary of its full-scale invasion, spurning a rival US resolution reflecting Donald Trump’s split with Europe and growing union with Vladimir Putin.
The United States, Russia, Belarus and North Korea all voted against the EU-Ukrainian resolution underlining an extraordinary shift in US policy since the US president’s election that has largely absolved the Russian president of responsibility for the invasion.
Continue reading...Report by Environmental Justice Foundation has found evidence that at least 12 Chinese fishing vessels had employed North Korean crew between 2019 and 2024
Chinese fishing fleets are allegedly using North Korean forced labour, a potential breach of international sanctions, with workers allegedly kept at sea for up to a decade, according to a new report by the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation.
The EJF report, published on Monday, has identified at least 12 Chinese deep-water fishing vessels that employed North Korean crew between 2019 and 2024.
Continue reading...British and French leaders need to convince US to align with them over Ukraine, while at the UN Trump openly sides with Russia
Keir Starmer, when he visits the White House on Thursday, will have to pick up the many loose threads left by another chaotic day of diplomacy in the US in which America voted with Russia at the UN to protect Vladimir Putin from criticism over the invasion of Ukraine, and then saw Trump make assurances that Putin was happy for European forces to enter Ukraine – only to be contradicted by Moscow hours later.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has been working in lockstep with the UK in a way the two countries have failed to since Brexit, and the aim was for the two leaders of Europe’s major military powers to use their visits this week to operate as a pincer movement pressing Trump to question Putin’s trustworthiness and more broadly to accept that America’s future still lay as a partner with Europe.
Continue reading...Kremlin says it has nothing to add to the foreign ministry’s position on the unacceptability of Nato peacekeepers in Ukraine
Ukraine’s presidential press service has issued a photograph showing president Volodymyr Zelenskyy introducing the world leaders visiting Kyiv some new developments in Ukraine’s defence industry.
British prime minister Keir Starmer is set to announce a cut to the country’s aid budget to immediately hike defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, ahead of his visit to the White House on Thursday, according to The Sun.
Continue reading...Moscow praises Washington for siding with it at UN, as European countries abstain in sign of deepening rift with US
The Kremlin has welcomed what it said was a “much more balanced” US stance on Ukraine after the Trump administration pushed through a UN security council resolution on the war that included no criticism of Russia.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the move was evidence of Washington’s willingness to try to find a peaceful settlement. Moscow backed the resolution, which was passed late on Monday, although European countries abstained, in a sign of a deepening rift with Washington.
Continue reading...Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey look ahead to a pivotal week of diplomacy for Keir Starmer as he prepares to visit the White House. With Donald Trump’s hostility towards Kyiv looming large over the three-year anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, can the prime minister persuade the US president to change tack?
Almost 40% of federal contracts canceled as part of Doge’s cost-cutting efforts aren’t expected to save government any money, Trump administration’s own data shows
It’s coming down to the wire for beleaguered House speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying to rally GOP holdouts behind his budget plan for enacting Donald Trump’s agenda before the showdown vote this evening.
Amid Republican opposition threatening to derail his bill, Johnson was up late last night locked in talks with holdouts from across his party who remain skeptical of his outline plan for tax and spending cuts - as well as border security, energy and defense policy - via a single reconciliation bill.
Continue reading...Tech billionaire, a close adviser to the US president, is a vocal supporter of Germany’s far-right AfD party
Sales of new Tesla cars almost halved in Europe last month, indicating waning demand for the US carmaker’s vehicles as its chief executive Elon Musk intervened repeatedly in the politics on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Texas-based carmaker sold 9,945 vehicles in Europe in January, down 45% from last year’s 18,161, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Tesla’s share of the market dropped to 1% from 1.8%.
Continue reading...Dr Paula Gutlove applauds the French foreign minister’s views on shared global values and goals, but Dr Alexandra Hofer points out France’s double standards
Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s foreign minister, argues persuasively that the major dividing line in international affairs today “is the one that separates those that support the international rules-based order from the rest” (The key global issue is not the clash of north and south, 20 February). The order that Barrot refers to is an intricate web of international agreements and cooperative practices set in place since the second world war. The United States has claimed leadership of this order, and did contribute to its creation. Sadly, however, the US has undermined this order from the beginning and, under the Trump administration, openly seeks to destroy it.
Humanity created this order in response to painfully acquired lessons about power. We know that a competitive, “power-over” approach to world affairs creates instability and inflicts great suffering. Moreover, in a world of nuclear weapons, new technologies and ecological stresses, continued pursuit of power-over poses an existential threat to human civilisation. By contrast, the rules-based order calls for a collaborative, “power-with” approach. Using that approach, we can build global human security and nurture Earth’s interdependent life-support systems, allowing us to thrive for generations to come.
Continue reading...From claiming Ukraine was responsible for the war to incorrect numbers about aid received from the US and Europe, Donald Trump made a number of inaccurate statements while praising the progress made in US-Russia talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Guardian has had a look at his claims
Continue reading...Trump is leaving Ukraine with impossible choices: fight a losing war without U.S. support, or submit to economic vassalage.
The post Trump Doesn’t Care About Ukraine or Russia — Just Money appeared first on The Intercept.
Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed
Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.
The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.
Continue reading...Polish prime minister says EU leaders will meet on Sunday and calls for greater defence mobilisation across Europe
The London summit is understood to be still in planning and would serve as a forum for European leaders to get debriefed on both Macron and Starmer’s conversations with Trump during their respective visits to the White House and to consider implications for European and Ukrainian security.
It so happens that Starmer is due to speak in UK parliament in the next half hour, so we could get an official confirmation of what Tusk said.
I hope that this greater [defence] mobilisation of Europe, of member states and Europe more broadly, will become a fact.
[Before meeting at the next European Council,] we will be in London on Sunday, together with our British friends and a group of leaders, to talk about these joint plans on defence.
Continue reading...Associated Press analyzed canceled government contracts and found that 40% will produce no savings
Elon Musk’s cost-cutting bonanza appears to be having less impact than the world’s richest man is claiming, with a review finding that almost 40% of the federal contracts scrapped so far will save the American taxpayer not a penny.
The Associated Press put under the microscope a list of 1,125 federal government contracts that Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) boasted it had torn up in the first month of the new Trump administration. The news agency found that of those, 417 were likely to produce no savings to the federal budget.
Continue reading...Follow major developments of the second Trump administration’s first 100 days, brought up to date weekly
Donald Trump has completed an extraordinary return to power as the 47th president, vowing to impose his vision and re-altering the political and cultural landscape of the nation.
To keep up with the dizzying array of executive orders, directives, firings and policy changes, the Guardian will be tracking the major developments of the second Trump administration’s first 100 days, just like we did during the first 100 days of Trump’s first presidency in 2017.
Continue reading...The tech giant bets Starmer will fold, Musk faces GOP pushback and tech sees returns on Trump investment
Hello, and welcome back to TechScape, a newsletter about tech and the intersection of whatever you want it to be.
Continue reading...Climate Change Authority chair says his job is to provide ‘frank and fearless advice’ after he criticised opposition’s nuclear energy proposal
The chair of the Climate Change Authority, Matt Kean, has hit back over an opposition suggestion that his criticism of its nuclear energy proposal could lead to him being sacked if the Coalition wins government.
Kean said the shadow climate change and energy minister, Ted O’Brien, should explain if a Peter Dutton-led government would seek retribution on the authority’s expert staff that prepared the nuclear report.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Exclusive: The ‘deeply troubling’ move comes amid concerns US ignoring international climate ramifications
US officials have missed recent international climate forums sparking concerns about a potentially significant shift from Donald Trump’s first term, a review of meeting records and interviews with meeting attendees by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian show.
On his first day back as president, Trump signed an executive order on stage in front of supporters at an arena in Washington DC which he said was aimed at quitting what he called the “unfair one-sided Paris climate accord rip off”. Trump’s exit from the Paris agreement means the US will join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries outside the international agreement adopted in 2015 to limit global warming.
Continue reading...Speakers at Principles First summit warned of peril Trump and allies posed, urging people ‘to be in the streets’
Michael Fanone, the former police officer who defended the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, looked out at the attendees of the Principles First summit and denounced Donald Trump in the strongest possible terms for pardoning roughly 1,500 people who participated in the insurrection.
“He pardoned them because he wants people to know that if you commit crimes on his behalf, he’s got your back,” Fanone said on Saturday. “They are operating under the assumption that, if they commit violent criminal acts on Donald Trump’s behalf, that he will pardon them for future violence.”
Continue reading...The NCAA has ruled only women assigned female at birth can compete in college sports. We spoke to some of those affected by the ban
On 5 February 2025 – coinciding with Women and Girls in Sports Day – Donald Trump signed an executive order barring trans athletes from competing in women’s sports. The move marked yet another aggressive shift of his legislative agenda, as he doubled down on anti-trans rhetoric, in which he has vowed to eliminate what he calls “transgender insanity”.
The next day college sports’ main governing body, the NCAA, said only women assigned female at birth would be able to participate under its umbrella. The organization oversees more than 500,000 athletes. Last year the NCAA’s president, Charlie Baker, said he knew of only 10 transgender athletes competing in the organization.
Continue reading...Netflix’s new Robert De Niro-led hit series toys with real-world references but hasn’t got the faintest clue what to do with them
Spoilers ahead
For decades, movies and TV shows that feature the president of the United States as a character have tried, often playfully, to keep pace with the headlines. Sometimes they even managed to move a little faster than real-life progress; Morgan Freeman was chosen to lead the nation in Deep Impact a decade before the election of Barack Obama, and plenty of women have occupied the on-screen Oval Office, anticipating a glass-ceiling break that has yet to actually happen.
So at first, the new Netflix series Zero Day comes across like a slightly and understandably mistimed attempt at topicality by focusing on George Mullen (Robert De Niro), a former US president known for bipartisan cooperation, who only served one term before stepping down to deal with the death of his son, and who later works closely with the current president, Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett), a woman of color. The show may have been anticipating a Kamala Harris/Joe Biden dynamic that never quite came to fruition, but on the other hand, Zero Day started filming in 2023, well before Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket in summer 2024, so maybe it should get points for prescience anyway.
Continue reading...Studies show that they’re effective for overweight people, but if you’re healthy, there are less risky ways to lose weight
When I’ve been in the gym over the past few months, one of the things people like to talk about has nothing to do with fitness and building strength, and everything to do with weight loss. There’s a suspected culprit when celebrity after celebrity demonstrates a dramatic and sudden drop in size; one that made Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk the most valuable company in Europe last year, and which Denmark has used as a bargaining chip as retaliation to the US when Trump announced his plans to take over Greenland.
Yes, it’s the widespread use of anti-obesity jabs (often referred to as GLP-1 drugs). In a 2024 poll, 12% of those surveyed in the US said they had taken or were taking them, with the numbers rising steeply year by year. This is roughly the same as estimates of antidepressant usage in the American population and far higher than the numbers taking heartburn medication. It’s become a coveted luxury in middle- and low-income countries, with high prices being the main barrier to usage – the cost is $95 a month in Brazil and $115 in South Africa, compared with about $350 in the US.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of the How Not to Die (Too Soon)
Continue reading...I played a fictional billionaire on TV. It’s time world leaders got serious about taxing the real ones
You could be forgiven for thinking the second coming of Donald Trump was fiction. Unfortunately, it’s not – the threat he and his “broligarchs” bring to people around the world is very, very real. Last month Trump, surrounded by his uber-rich friends, was inaugurated the 47th president, while his political supporters sat outside in the cold – the perfect metaphor for who really matters in this presidency.
Among the clique were the three richest men in the world: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and top dog Elon Musk, who personally poured $277m into Trump’s election campaign, increasing his own wealth by $170bn as a result.
Brian Cox played Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession and is a supporter of Patriotic Millionaires International
Continue reading...In his first month in office the US president has thrown science in the US into chaos, delaying projects and casting the future of research funding and jobs into doubt. To understand everything that has happened in the month since he took office and what its impact could be, Madeleine Finlay hears from science editor Ian Sample and Prof Harold Varmus, a Nobel prize winner and former director of the National Institutes of Health under Bill Clinton
Critics say Trump’s executive orders to reshape the NIH ‘will kill’ Americans
Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod
Continue reading...Keir Starmer is travelling to the White House for a high-stakes meeting. But will he have any influence over the US president? Patrick Wintour reports
It’s the most important international relationship the UK has, and for decades has been referred to as “special”. Since the second world war, the UK and the US have considered themselves the closest allies, working together for shared values, with any resentments, differences of opinion or cross words kept to private channels.
But now Donald Trump is back and he seems keen to throw the usual world order of alliances and enmities into chaos. Keir Starmer’s first meeting with the US president comes at a crucial juncture for Europe, with the future of Ukraine in the balance. “The stakes at the moment could not be higher,” says the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/ControlCAD [link] [comments] |
Parliamentary petition launched due to billionaire’s link to Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to conquer Canada
More than 200,000 people from Canada have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire’s alliance with Donald Trump, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.
The British Columbia author Qualia Reed launched the petition in Canada’s House of Commons, where it was sponsored by the New Democrat parliamentary member and avowed Musk critic Charlie Angus, as the Canadian Press first reported over the weekend.
Continue reading...| | submitted by /u/chrisdh79 [link] [comments] |
The victorious CDU leader is likely to be more proactive on the European stage. He will also need to forge broad alliances at home to see off the far right
Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), has a reputation for being blunt. On Sunday evening, as it became clear that the CDU had won the snap election triggered by the outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz, he did not disappoint. “For me,” said Mr Merz in a post-election television debate, “the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
As recently as a fortnight ago, such a statement from a German chancellor-elect would have been inconceivable. But these are new and extraordinary times. A convinced transatlanticist, Mr Merz has previously played down the dangers to western unity posed by Donald Trump. But crude electioneering on behalf of the extreme right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) by the US president’s outriders, and the sidelining of Europe and Kyiv from negotiations over the future of Ukraine, have forced a handbrake turn.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...| | submitted by /u/indig0sixalpha [link] [comments] |
Trump administration escalates movement forged by US states to censor literature in full-scale DEI crackdown
When the actor Julianne Moore learned her children’s book, Freckleface Strawberry, a tale of a girl who learns to stop hating her freckles, had been targeted for a potential ban at all schools serving US military families, she took to Instagram, posting that it was a “great shock” to discover the story had been “banned by the Trump Administration”.
Moore had seen a memo that circulated last week revealing that tens of thousands of American children studying in about 160 Pentagon schools both in the US and around the world had had all access to library books suspended for a week, while officials conducted a “compliance review” to hunt out any books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”.
Continue reading...Comments come after Israel suspended release of 600 Palestinian detainees. This live blog is now closed
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said the group would keep following the path of slain chief Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday during a televised speech broadcast at his massive funeral on the outskirts of Beirut.
“We will uphold trust and walk on this path, we will uphold your will,” Qassem said referring to Nasrallah, adding: “you are still with us: your... path and struggle live within us” and “I am loyal to the legacy Nasrallah”.
Continue reading...John Feeley launches stinging critique of US president’s bully-boy approach to Latin America
The former US ambassador to Panama has launched a stinging critique of Donald Trump’s approach towards Latin America, comparing his conduct to that of the ruthless and egotistical fictional mob boss Tony Soprano.
In the first month of his presidency, the US president has shocked some observers with his aggressive focus on a region many expected him to largely ignore. Early steps have included threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal, accusing Mexico’s government of being in cahoots with narco-traffickers, sending an envoy to meet the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and clashing with Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, over deportation flights.
Continue reading...Democrat Jasmine Crockett calls it ‘really wild’ that it is foreign leaders who are speaking truth to power
The congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has revealed she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico over Donald Trump in their attempts to stand up to him, saying it is “really wild” to find herself in that position given he is the president of the US.
“They are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now,” the Democratic representative from Texas said on Friday on the popular Breakfast Club podcast, alluding to the political feuds Trump has engaged in with the US’s two North American neighbors during the first month of his second presidency. “They can see what it is and they were like, ‘We are not messing with this crazy regime.’”
Continue reading...Trump’s crusade against “wokeness” is co-opting the language of the civil rights movement to undo its legacy.
The post How Trump Twisted DEI to Only Benefit White Christians appeared first on The Intercept.
With DOGE initiatives getting hung up in court, Elon Musk and Donald Trump attacked judges and flirted with defying their rulings.
The post DOGE’s Lawyer Once Warned That Ignoring Court Orders Would Destroy the Country appeared first on The Intercept.
This critically acclaimed drama about how spaces can haunt and heal us is the finest work of John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson and director Kogonada’s careers
Brady Corbet’s Oscar hopeful The Brutalist offers a somewhat skewed depiction of architectural intent, one where public demonstrations of genius and private catharses have an outsized impact on a building’s design. Grand gestures and hidden intentions make for good drama, but physical space in The Brutalist is rendered secondary to psychological space — it’s a film about a great architect, not great architecture. For the latter, one must watch Korean-American director Kogonada’s film Columbus.
Early on in this gentle drama, Jin (John Cho) speaks of renowned architect James Polshek’s belief in architecture as a “healing art” while looking at one of Polshek’s own designs: the glass walkway of the Columbus Regional Mental Health Center. While Jin admires its faintly dilapidated beauty, it is unclear whether he believes that architecture can really heal us. But Kogonada most certainly does: his generosity of spirit and rigorous control of cinematic technique imbue Columbus with a quiet, aching humanity, demonstrating how spaces can haunt and heal us.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/PrithvinathReddy [link] [comments] |
Pontiff holds meeting in hospital room and is reported to have ‘slept well’
Pope Francis has carried out work duties, including approving individuals for canonisation, despite being in a critical condition in hospital with pneumonia and mild kidney failure.
During a meeting in his hospital room on Monday with Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and the Venezuelan archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, he approved the canonisation of two Venezuelan and Italian laymen who died in the early 20th century. He also authorised the first steps towards sainthood for three 19th-century priests, from Spain, Italy and Poland.
Continue reading...Sections of partly constructed elevated motorway in Anseong fell one after the other, killing at least three construction workers
A motorway bridge collapse has killed at least three people and injured seven as spans of the partly built structure collapsed one after the other.
The accident took place on Tuesday in Anseong, about 70km (43.5 miles) from Seoul, when five 50-metre steel support structures collapsed in turn after being hoisted into place by a crane, the Yonhap news agency reported. The collapse was captured by the rear-facing dashcam of a car on a road beneath.
Continue reading...At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia
In the summer of 2007, I joined a group of 30 Russian and English students to work on a month-long summer camp at a state orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the Pskov region, south of St Petersburg. We lived in a house nearby, or in tents pitched in the garden. Every day, we walked up to the orphanage to put on developmental activities, sporting events, solve puzzles, play games, stage shows and go on camping trips.
I volunteered at the orphanage, in the village of Belskoye Ustye, for almost a decade, but it was the first visit that made the biggest impression. I had seen nothing like it. My closest reference point was probably workhouses or orphanages from a Charles Dickens novel. I vividly remember the smells – cooked food, unwashed bodies, chlorine and urine – and how the children crowded you, grabbing hands and clothes, pinching, pulling hair, jostling and asking questions. Dressed in an odd collection of what seemed to be adult castoffs, the kids spent most of their waking hours in rooms furnished with just a few scuffed tables and chairs, a bookcase and television. At night, and for long periods during the day, cast-iron metal grilles across corridors were locked, confining the older teenagers to their dormitories at one end. Children vulnerable to self-harm were tied up.
Continue reading...As well as intense human suffering, three years of war have had a catastrophic environmental effect, killing wildlife, felling trees and increasing emissions
Since 2022, the Guardian photographer Alessio Mamo has been tracking the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, which began three years ago on Monday, caused millions of Ukrainians to flee. Cities have been flattened, villages occupied and lives destroyed. At least 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and many more injured in Europe’s biggest conflict since the second world war.
Aerial view of craters caused by rocket fire in a field in the liberated area between Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Ammunition and missile residues in these craters may become a source of chemical pollution that could reach the groundwater
Continue reading...New Zealand defence minister Judith Collins says department has ‘never seen a task group of this capability undertaking this sort of work’
New Zealand’s defence minister has warned that Chinese warships located off the east coast of Australia are armed with “extremely capable” weapons that could reach Australia.
The three vessels, known as Taskgroup 107, undertook two live-fire exercises in the seas between Australia and New Zealand last week, causing commercial flights to be diverted in the skies above.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...This week on The Intercept Briefing, politics reporters Jessica Washington and Akela Lacy assess the full scope of Trump's first month in office.
The post One Month Under Trump: Are You Keeping Up? appeared first on The Intercept.
The cut, an anti-trans attack, was the latest example of confusion sown by bold claims that wither under scrutiny.
The post DOGE Said It Cut $232 Million From Social Security Budget. It Was Only About Half a Million. appeared first on The Intercept.
Regulator says bringing emergency runway into operation would boost competition and passenger choice
Gatwick airport’s expansion has received the backing of the UK’s aviation regulator, which argued it would bring “benefits to consumers” even with the prospect of a third runway at Heathrow.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced its support for the West Sussex airport’s proposed new commitments for the next four years, saying they would increase choice for passengers.
Continue reading...Ofgem’s bigger than expected £111 rise is third consecutive increase in energy price cap
The average energy bill for households in Great Britain will rise by £111 from April to £1,849 a year for a typical household, after the energy regulator announced the third consecutive increase in the cap on gas and electricity charges.
The 6.4% rise from April largely reflects an increase in wholesale prices, and was bigger than forecasters had expected.
Continue reading...A former campaign staffer said Sen. John Fetterman’s single-minded focus came at the exclusion of the progressive positions he ran on.
The post Fetterman Staff Quit Amid Frustration Over “Just Working on Israel All the Time” appeared first on The Intercept.
The video might bring pleasure to their supporters, but for us it is a call to shut down their fascist deportation machine.
The post Trump and Musk Delight in the Sounds of Human Suffering With Sick “ASMR” Immigrant Video appeared first on The Intercept.
Data shows aircraft parts from more than 100 western companies reached Russian aviation industry via India
British firms are among more than 100 western companies, including the aerospace giant Boeing, which have exported aircraft parts to India that reached Russia, according to customs data.
Analysis suggests products worth more than $50m have passed through intermediaries in India to Russian airlines and other entities over a 21-month period up to September 2024.
Continue reading...This isn’t new, but it’s increasingly popular:
The technique is known as device code phishing. It exploits “device code flow,” a form of authentication formalized in the industry-wide OAuth standard. Authentication through device code flow is designed for logging printers, smart TVs, and similar devices into accounts. These devices typically don’t support browsers, making it difficult to sign in using more standard forms of authentication, such as entering user names, passwords, and two-factor mechanisms.
Rather than authenticating the user directly, the input-constrained device displays an alphabetic or alphanumeric device code along with a link associated with the user account. The user opens the link on a computer or other device that’s easier to sign in with and enters the code. The remote server then sends a token to the input-constrained device that logs it into the account...
Oracle, which has secret partnerships with Israel, has told employees to love the country or work elsewhere.
The post Poised to Take Over TikTok, Oracle Is Accused of Clamping Down on Pro-Palestine Dissent appeared first on The Intercept.
Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing Musk out of politics.
The post This Is the Way to Stop Elon Musk appeared first on The Intercept.
Russia's foreign minister has dismissed the prospect of a place for Europe at talks between the US and Russia to end the fighting in Ukraine. Speaking at a press conference alongside his Serbian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov said: 'If they are going to weasel out some cunning ideas about freezing the conflict, while actually intending – as is their custom, nature and habit – to continue the war, then why should we invite them at all?'
European leaders have been unnerved by the willingness of Donald Trump, the US president, to engage the Kremlin directly over Ukraine and have been attempting to find a place for themselves in the talks
Continue reading...Oversight laws about foreign influence were already limited. Now the Trump administration is shredding them.
The post How Many Trump Officials Have Taken Money From Qatar? appeared first on The Intercept.
For some members of the WhatsApp group, speaking out for Palestine and criticizing Israel are tantamount to supporting Hamas.
The post The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
In a tweet announcing his attack on the Climate Justice Alliance, EPA head Lee Zeldin linked it to the group’s protected speech about Palestine.
The post Trump’s EPA Kills Grant to Climate Nonprofit Over Its Support for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger could barely contain his excitement about the Laken Riley Act and Trump’s anti-immigration executive orders.
The post Private Prison CEO on Trump Deportation Surge: “One of the Most Exciting Periods in My Career” appeared first on The Intercept.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working closely with the US to implement Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which involves US ownership of the coastal strip, the removal of more than 2 million Palestinians and the redevelopment of the occupied territory as a resort. The Israeli prime minister was speaking after a meeting in Jerusalem with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who defended the Trump plan as bold and visionary
Continue reading...And that’s how he wants to keep it, his executive orders and memos from Attorney General Pam Bondi show.
The post Trump Is Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: Federal Prisons Are Purposely Inhumane appeared first on The Intercept.
How exactly the IRS will use the SuperPod AI hardware is unclear. But it comes amid a push for automation in government.
The post The IRS Is Buying an AI Supercomputer From Nvidia appeared first on The Intercept.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to reform is upending government operations. Critical functions have been halted, tens of thousands of federal staffers are being encouraged to resign, and congressional mandates are being disregarded. The next phase: The Department of Government Efficiency reportedly wants to use AI to cut costs. According to The Washington Post, Musk’s group has started to run sensitive data from government systems through AI programs to analyze spending and determine what could be pruned. This may lead to the elimination of human jobs in favor of automation. As one government official who has been tracking Musk’s DOGE team told the...
“What he’s done is testing the limits of his power in a way we have never seen in this country,” says retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner.
The post Constitutional Crisis Looms appeared first on The Intercept.
Musk has emerged as Trump’s far-right-hand man, creating some awkwardness for the president’s Democratic foes.
The post Democrats Swear They’ll Fight Elon Musk. But What About the Cash They Took From SpaceX? appeared first on The Intercept.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is trying to eliminate all Defense Department DEI efforts. It hasn’t been entirely successful.
The post Pentagon Official: Hegseth’s Campaign to Scrub DEI History Is a “Dumb” Distraction appeared first on The Intercept.
Even with Jordan and Egypt refusing to take in expelled Palestinians, Trump is charging on with his real estate development plan.
The post Trump Is Bullying Jordan and Egypt to Help in Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza. It Isn’t Working. appeared first on The Intercept.
ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.
The post ICE Wants to Know If You’re Posting Negative Things About It Online appeared first on The Intercept.
The parents of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny joined hundreds of mourners at their son's grave on Sunday to mark the anniversary of his death. Navalny died aged 47 on 16 February last year while being held in a jail about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a ‘special regime’
Continue reading...
The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a contract with Thales Alenia Space in Italy to lead European aerospace companies in building the Argonaut Lunar Descent Element, ESA’s first lunar lander.
Taiwan’s coastguard says it ‘cannot be ruled out that it was a grey-zone intrusion by China’
Taiwan’s coastguard has detained a cargo ship and its Chinese crew after an undersea cable in the Taiwan Strait was damaged on Tuesday, saying it cannot rule out the possibility it was a deliberate “grey zone” act.
“Whether the cause of the undersea cable breakage was intentional sabotage or a simple accident remains to be clarified by further investigation,” the coastguard said in a statement. “It cannot be ruled out that it was a grey-zone intrusion by China.”
Continue reading...Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed
Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.
The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/ThereWas [link] [comments] |
Report by Environmental Justice Foundation has found evidence that at least 12 Chinese fishing vessels had employed North Korean crew between 2019 and 2024
Chinese fishing fleets are allegedly using North Korean forced labour, a potential breach of international sanctions, with workers allegedly kept at sea for up to a decade, according to a new report by the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation.
The EJF report, published on Monday, has identified at least 12 Chinese deep-water fishing vessels that employed North Korean crew between 2019 and 2024.
Continue reading...The government’s consultation was weighted towards big tech. Now is the time for a rethink
It’s a seductive promise: let our computers scrape the internet for ideas, images, forms of words, stories, music, jokes … and our industry will make your country rich. For a UK government desperate for economic growth, the demands of tech companies for copyright laws to be relaxed – in order that their artificial intelligence (AI) systems can access as much online content as possible without having to pay or seek permission – have been hard to resist. The US and China are the global leaders of this new tech race. But the UK has a chance to compete that ministers are desperate not to miss.
To AI businesses, copyright is an irritant. Three years ago, it appeared that their lobbyists were on the verge of getting their way when a government agency, the Intellectual Property Office, recommended an exemption for data mining. This would grant bots free rein and – so the argument went – provide an incentive for tech companies to invest in the UK.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...New Zealand defence minister Judith Collins says department has ‘never seen a task group of this capability undertaking this sort of work’
New Zealand’s defence minister has warned that Chinese warships located off the east coast of Australia are armed with “extremely capable” weapons that could reach Australia.
The three vessels, known as Taskgroup 107, undertook two live-fire exercises in the seas between Australia and New Zealand last week, causing commercial flights to be diverted in the skies above.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Pinned inside his vehicle, Matthew Reum waited for help to come. But no one knew he had gone missing …
Matthew Reum was driving home late on a dark, foggy night in Indiana when his headlights landed on what looked like a deer. As he swerved, his truck barrel-rolled down a ravine, into the creek beneath Interstate 94.
It was 20 December 2023, and Reum, a boiler-man, was 27. He was flung between his seat and the ceiling, losing consciousness as the airbags activated and the windows shattered around him. He remembers coming to and finding he was wet, it was dark and “not miserably cold, but it’s winter,” he says, “so it’s probably 30F [-1C]”. He knew he didn’t have any food or water in the car, but wasn’t too concerned. Someone must have seen him swerve, he thought.
Continue reading...For over a century, poets, publishers and printers filled this Delhi district’s narrow lanes. But as profits plummet, bookshops are being replaced by kebab shops
Inside one of the oldest bookshops in Delhi’s Urdu Bazaar, Rafiq Ahmad, a film critic and writer, is scrutinising the bookshelves for material to help with his next project. Ahmad often travels from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh to Delhi’s famed Urdu Bazaar in search of the books he needs.
“I know this is the place where I can find any Urdu book from any era. Whenever I have to write anything, I come here for material. Currently, I am looking for books about Dilip Kumar, the renowned Bollywood actor,” Ahmad says.
Continue reading...Business secretary says negotiations – now in their 15th round – are a ‘top priority’ for Labour government
Ministers are relaunching negotiations with India this week in an attempt to clinch a multibillion-pound free trade agreement that they hope will boost the UK’s flatlining economy.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, flew to Delhi on Sunday to meet his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal, for the first time since Labour won the election.
Continue reading...Sections of partly constructed elevated motorway in Anseong fell one after the other, killing at least three construction workers
A motorway bridge collapse has killed at least three people and injured seven as spans of the partly built structure collapsed one after the other.
The accident took place on Tuesday in Anseong, about 70km (43.5 miles) from Seoul, when five 50-metre steel support structures collapsed in turn after being hoisted into place by a crane, the Yonhap news agency reported. The collapse was captured by the rear-facing dashcam of a car on a road beneath.
Continue reading...Trump is leaving Ukraine with impossible choices: fight a losing war without U.S. support, or submit to economic vassalage.
The post Trump Doesn’t Care About Ukraine or Russia — Just Money appeared first on The Intercept.
Lured by the promise of well-paying jobs in Southeast Asia, thousands instead allegedly end up enslaved in jail-like compounds and forced to carry out online scams
“The Chinese would shock me with electric probes almost daily. I endured this continuously for nine months,” claims Seye, a 27-year-old woman who is one of hundreds of alleged trafficking victims who streamed across the Thai-Myanmar border this month.
Seye was among 260 people, more than half of them Ethiopian, who were transferred across the border to Thailand this February by a rebel group. Several among the group agreed to be interviewed on the condition they use only their first name.
Continue reading...Data shows aircraft parts from more than 100 western companies reached Russian aviation industry via India
British firms are among more than 100 western companies, including the aerospace giant Boeing, which have exported aircraft parts to India that reached Russia, according to customs data.
Analysis suggests products worth more than $50m have passed through intermediaries in India to Russian airlines and other entities over a 21-month period up to September 2024.
Continue reading...Man was trekking with another Briton in Dhauladhar range on trail from Dharamkot to Triund in northern India
A British tourist has died after seriously injuring himself while trekking in the Himalayas.
The man, who had gone on a short hike to the foot of the Dhauladhar mountain range in northern India with another British tourist, fell during his descent on Sunday evening and was taken down the mountain on a stretcher.
Continue reading...Head of anti-trafficking agency says dozens of Chinese criminal gangs were running the centres
Tens of thousands of people could be living inside illegal scam compounds in Myanmar that have proliferated near Thailand’s border, according to the head of Thailand’s anti-trafficking agency, who warned it could take months before all foreign nationals are repatriated.
Thailand has launched a major crackdown on scam compounds over recent weeks, cutting off cross-border electricity and fuel supplies.
Continue reading...Oracle, which has secret partnerships with Israel, has told employees to love the country or work elsewhere.
The post Poised to Take Over TikTok, Oracle Is Accused of Clamping Down on Pro-Palestine Dissent appeared first on The Intercept.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to reform is upending government operations. Critical functions have been halted, tens of thousands of federal staffers are being encouraged to resign, and congressional mandates are being disregarded. The next phase: The Department of Government Efficiency reportedly wants to use AI to cut costs. According to The Washington Post, Musk’s group has started to run sensitive data from government systems through AI programs to analyze spending and determine what could be pruned. This may lead to the elimination of human jobs in favor of automation. As one government official who has been tracking Musk’s DOGE team told the...
The tech giant bets Starmer will fold, Musk faces GOP pushback and tech sees returns on Trump investment
Hello, and welcome back to TechScape, a newsletter about tech and the intersection of whatever you want it to be.
Continue reading...With DOGE initiatives getting hung up in court, Elon Musk and Donald Trump attacked judges and flirted with defying their rulings.
The post DOGE’s Lawyer Once Warned That Ignoring Court Orders Would Destroy the Country appeared first on The Intercept.
|
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
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
In the rapidly advancing landscape of AI technology and innovation, LimeWire emerges as a unique platform in the realm of generative AI tools. This platform not only stands out from the multitude of existing AI tools but also brings a fresh approach to content generation. LimeWire not only empowers users to create AI content but also provides creators with creative ways to share and monetize their creations.
As we explore LimeWire, our aim is to uncover its features, benefits for creators, and the exciting possibilities it offers for AI content generation. This platform presents an opportunity for users to harness the power of AI in image creation, all while enjoying the advantages of a free and accessible service.
Let's unravel the distinctive features that set LimeWire apart in the dynamic landscape of AI-powered tools, understanding how creators can leverage its capabilities to craft unique and engaging AI-generated images.
This revamped LimeWire invites users to register and unleash their creativity by crafting original AI content, which can then be shared and showcased on the LimeWire Studio. Notably, even acclaimed artists and musicians, such as Deadmau5, Soulja Boy, and Sean Kingston, have embraced this platform to publish their content in the form of NFT music, videos, and images.
Beyond providing a space for content creation and sharing, LimeWire introduces monetization models to empower users to earn revenue from their creations. This includes avenues such as earning ad revenue and participating in the burgeoning market of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). As we delve further, we'll explore these monetization strategies in more detail to provide a comprehensive understanding of LimeWire's innovative approach to content creation and distribution.
LimeWire Studio welcomes content creators into its fold, providing a space to craft personalized AI-focused content for sharing with fans and followers. Within this creative hub, every piece of content generated becomes not just a creation but a unique asset—ownable and tradable. Fans have the opportunity to subscribe to creators' pages, immersing themselves in the creative journey and gaining ownership of digital collectibles that hold tradeable value within the LimeWire community. Notably, creators earn a 2.5% royalty each time their content is traded, adding a rewarding element to the creative process.
The platform's flexibility is evident in its content publication options. Creators can choose to share their work freely with the public or opt for a premium subscription model, granting exclusive access to specialized content for subscribers.
As of the present moment, LimeWire focuses on AI Image Generation, offering a spectrum of creative possibilities to its user base. The platform, however, has ambitious plans on the horizon, aiming to broaden its offerings by introducing AI music and video generation tools in the near future. This strategic expansion promises creators even more avenues for expression and engagement with their audience, positioning LimeWire Studio as a dynamic and evolving platform within the realm of AI-powered content creation.
The LimeWire AI image generation tool presents a versatile platform for both the creation and editing of images. Supporting advanced models such as Stable Diffusion 2.1, Stable Diffusion XL, and DALL-E 2, LimeWire offers a sophisticated toolkit for users to delve into the realm of generative AI art.
Much like other tools in the generative AI landscape, LimeWire provides a range of options catering to various levels of complexity in image creation. Users can initiate the creative process with prompts as simple as a few words or opt for more intricate instructions, tailoring the output to their artistic vision.
What sets LimeWire apart is its seamless integration of different AI models and design styles. Users have the flexibility to effortlessly switch between various AI models, exploring diverse design styles such as cinematic, digital art, pixel art, anime, analog film, and more. Each style imparts a distinctive visual identity to the generated AI art, enabling users to explore a broad spectrum of creative possibilities.
The platform also offers additional features, including samplers, allowing users to fine-tune the quality and detail levels of their creations. Customization options and prompt guidance further enhance the user experience, providing a user-friendly interface for both novice and experienced creators.
Excitingly, LimeWire is actively developing its proprietary AI model, signaling ongoing innovation and enhancements to its image generation capabilities. This upcoming addition holds the promise of further expanding the creative horizons for LimeWire users, making it an evolving and dynamic platform within the landscape of AI-driven art and image creation.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
Upon completing your creative endeavor on LimeWire, the platform allows you the option to publish your content. An intriguing feature follows this step: LimeWire automates the process of minting your creation as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), utilizing either the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. This transformative step imbues your artwork with a unique digital signature, securing its authenticity and ownership in the decentralized realm.
Creators on LimeWire hold the power to decide the accessibility of their NFT creations. By opting for a public release, the content becomes discoverable by anyone, fostering a space for engagement and interaction. Furthermore, this choice opens the avenue for enthusiasts to trade the NFTs, adding a layer of community involvement to the artistic journey.
Alternatively, LimeWire acknowledges the importance of exclusivity. Creators can choose to share their posts exclusively with their premium subscribers. In doing so, the content remains a special offering solely for dedicated fans, creating an intimate and personalized experience within the LimeWire community. This flexibility in sharing options emphasizes LimeWire's commitment to empowering creators with choices in how they connect with their audience and distribute their digital creations.
After creating your content, you can choose to publish the content. It will automatically mint your creation as an NFT on the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. You can also choose whether to make it public or subscriber-only.
If you make it public, anyone can discover your content and even trade the NFTs. If you choose to share the post only with your premium subscribers, it will be exclusive only to your fans.
Additionally, you can earn ad revenue from your content creations as well.
When you publish content on LimeWire, you will receive 70% of all ad revenue from other users who view your images, music, and videos on the platform.
This revenue model will be much more beneficial to designers. You can experiment with the AI image and content generation tools and share your creations while earning a small income on the side.
The revenue you earn from your creations will come in the form of LMWR tokens, LimeWire’s own cryptocurrency.
Your earnings will be paid every month in LMWR, which you can then trade on many popular crypto exchange platforms like Kraken, ByBit, and UniSwap.
You can also use your LMWR tokens to pay for prompts when using LimeWire generative AI tools.
You can sign up to LimeWire to use its AI tools for free. You will receive 10 credits to use and generate up to 20 AI images per day. You will also receive 50% of the ad revenue share. However, you will get more benefits with premium plans.
For $9.99 per month, you will get 1,000 credits per month, up to 2 ,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 50% ad revenue share
For $29 per month, you will get 3750 credits per month, up to 7500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 60% ad revenue share
For $49 per month, you will get 5,000 credits per month, up to 10,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
For $99 per month, you will get 11,250 credits per month, up to 2 2,500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
With all premium plans, you will receive a Pro profile badge, full creation history, faster image generation, and no ads.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
In conclusion, LimeWire emerges as a democratizing force in the creative landscape, providing an inclusive platform where anyone can unleash their artistic potential and effortlessly share their work. With the integration of AI, LimeWire eliminates traditional barriers, empowering designers, musicians, and artists to publish their creations and earn revenue with just a few clicks.
The ongoing commitment of LimeWire to innovation is evident in its plans to enhance generative AI tools with new features and models. The upcoming expansion to include music and video generation tools holds the promise of unlocking even more possibilities for creators. It sparks anticipation about the diverse and innovative ways in which artists will leverage these tools to produce and publish their own unique creations.
For those eager to explore, LimeWire's AI tools are readily accessible for free, providing an opportunity to experiment and delve into the world of generative art. As LimeWire continues to evolve, creators are encouraged to stay tuned for the launch of its forthcoming AI music and video generation tools, promising a future brimming with creative potential and endless artistic exploration
Climate Change Authority chair says his job is to provide ‘frank and fearless advice’ after he criticised opposition’s nuclear energy proposal
The chair of the Climate Change Authority, Matt Kean, has hit back over an opposition suggestion that his criticism of its nuclear energy proposal could lead to him being sacked if the Coalition wins government.
Kean said the shadow climate change and energy minister, Ted O’Brien, should explain if a Peter Dutton-led government would seek retribution on the authority’s expert staff that prepared the nuclear report.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing Musk out of politics.
The post This Is the Way to Stop Elon Musk appeared first on The Intercept.
In a tweet announcing his attack on the Climate Justice Alliance, EPA head Lee Zeldin linked it to the group’s protected speech about Palestine.
The post Trump’s EPA Kills Grant to Climate Nonprofit Over Its Support for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
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.
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!
