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Fake Student Fraud in Community Colleges
2025-05-06T11:03:21Z
Reporting on the rise of fake students enrolling in community college courses:
The bots’ goal is to bilk state and federal financial aid money by enrolling in classes, and remaining enrolled in them, long enough for aid disbursements to go out. They often accomplish this by submitting AI-generated work. And because community colleges accept all applicants, they’ve been almost exclusively impacted by the fraud.
The article talks about the rise of this type of fraud, the difficulty of detecting it, and how it upends quite a bit of the class structure and learning community...
A day after being attacked by a pro-Israel mob, protesters were shot by rubber bullets — whose use is restricted by California law.
The post Police Shot Them in the Head With Rubber Bullets. Now UCLA Gaza Protesters Are Suing. appeared first on The Intercept.
After being banned from campus buildings following peaceful sit-ins, students said the disciplinary processes broke from school policies.
The post NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred From Sitting Final Exams appeared first on The Intercept.
Kaja Sokola says disgraced movie mogul forced her to touch his genitals in Manhattan apartment when she was 16
A former model has told a New York court that the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16, calling it the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced”.
Kaja Sokola told jurors at Weinstein’s retrial that he put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals at his Manhattan apartment in 2002 when she was 16.
Continue reading...Vince Vaughn plays a grieving son who decides to open an Italian eaterie with grandmothers in the kitchen in a simple but charming crowd-pleaser
There’s a great deal of warmth both in and out of the kitchen in Netflix’s remarkably charming new food comedy Nonnas, a simple yet satisfying fact-based crowd-pleaser landing just in time for Mother’s Day across many countries in the world. It’ll make for an easy post-lunch choice for families gathering this weekend, providing the sort of mechanically proficient pleasures that used to be far more common back in the 80s or 90s. The platform has tried, and mostly failed, to resurrect the kind of endlessly played, easily rewatchable cable movie favourite and while this still might not be quite as fondly remembered in the decades to come, it’s a better simulation than most.
To those with less of an Italian component to their family, a nonna is a grandmother, the stereotype of which spends a great deal of time in the kitchen, preparing food with equal parts garlic and love. For Joe (Vince Vaughn, in reliable been-around-the-block mode), the death of both his nonna and then his mother has left him feeling unmoored, questioning what to do with himself and his life going forward. We’ve seen a great deal of stories based around sons and their fathers but it’s uncommon to explore what a mother means to a man in the same serious way, a strangely untapped relationship on screen. For Joe, the loss has led to a pervading chill and his unlikely solution is to use the money from her life insurance to open a restaurant in Staten Island.
Continue reading...The US president’s proposed levies will badly hit the UK industry just as it is recovering from a series of blows
Barbieland, the Emerald City and a galaxy far, far away were all built – at least in part – at film studios just outside London. Now the UK film industry has come crashing down to earth with Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on all movies “produced in foreign lands”. “Hollywood is being destroyed,” Mr Trump announced, like an action hero on a mission. “Other nations have stolen our movie industry.” In the UK the news was met with warnings that the British film sector would be “wiped out” by such a “knock-out blow”. Brian Cox, the Succession star, called the proposed tariffs “an absolute disaster”. Roll the opening credits.
Mr Trump has a point. New instalments of Marvel’s Avengers and Spider-Man are filming around London this summer. No wonder the president wants “MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” The UK’s generous tax incentives, skills base and state-of-the-art facilities have helped make it “the Hollywood of Europe”. Now it is under threat. Without these blockbusters, Britain would be left with more than a superhero deficit.
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...Eleanor the Great, The Chronology of Water and Urchin are all in the festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard sidebar. A first step to being the next Clint Eastwood?
First-time directors with films premiering at Cannes next week would be forgiven for feeling nervous. But three of the directors who are unveiling their debut features in France are less likely than their peers to be quaking as they approach the red carpet.
Actors Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson are all among the film-makers with movies screening in Cannes’ prestigious sidebar Un Certain Regard over the next 10 days.
Continue reading...Casting A-listers such as Florence Pugh strongly suggests these misfit superhero also-rans will not be limited to just one adventure
Warning: contains spoilers
This article contains major spoilers, so do not read if you have not watched Thunderbolts*. There was always something deeply suspicious about that asterisk, and now the word is out. If you’ve been to see it during the past week, you’ll know that the motley crew of antiheroes and sometime superheroes led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and David Harbour’s Red Guardian may well be the New Avengers.
The problem is that even with the cat out of the proverbial bag, there’s something off here. First of all, the Avengers are supposed to be Earth’s mightiest heroes, a crew of idealists and icons who are never happier than when punching the likes of Thanos in the face and delivering heartfelt monologues about sacrifice and teamwork. The Thunderbolts*? They’re the last people you’d call if you were being invaded by Chitauri, Ultron, or even a moderately aggressive Roomba. This bunch of emotionally unstable grudge-holders are less “Earth’s mightiest” than “Earth’s most accessible”.
Continue reading...The US president’s plan for Hollywood is full of plot holes. But when it comes to the hidden propaganda baked into movies, he may have a point
As always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as “a National Security threat” and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!”
How would a 100% tariff on films made oversees work? Just movies shot overseas? What about movies set overseas? And who would pay? How do you impose tariffs on goods without a port of entry? “Commerce is figuring it out,” said a White House official. In fact, movies are listed as an exception to presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to address national security threats, so it is likely the lawyers would end up figuring it out, if Trump’s plan went ahead. But, many executives in Hollywood are quietly nodding agreement. It is true that Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38% drop. Many major franchises such as Avatar and Mission: Impossible are shot mostly overseas, where the lure of lucrative tax breaks offset such minor inconveniences as the incursion of some sheep into one of Tom Cruise’s paragliding set-pieces, as happened in the Lake District in 2022.
Continue reading...As psycho-thriller The Surfer is released, the actor answers your questions about eating rats, loving pickled eggs and scaring Terry Wogan
What do you remember of that appearance on Wogan? What was Terry like in real life? Have you still got that leather jacket, and the snakeskin jacket from Wild at Heart? johnnysmooth, EddieChorepost and BigAl65
I remember Terry Wogan was a very nice man and I enjoyed the interview with him, although I thought I was both obnoxious and somewhat wild. I guess it’s no secret that I was promoting a movie called Wild at Heart, so I was sort of play acting to that. I remember, as a child, I was in a car, a guy was walking down the street, and he had a leather jacket on and no shirt on underneath. I thought: “Well, that’s an interesting look.” I don’t know why that came back to me when I went on Terry’s show, but I thought: “I’m going to create that look again.” It was incredibly absurd and irreverent. I don’t have that leather jacket any more.
I found the snakeskin jacket in a secondhand store on Melrose in Los Angeles called Aaardvark’s – it reminded me of the jacket Brando wears in The Fugitive Kind – and I knew at some point I was gonna put it in a movie. I ended up giving it to Laura Dern because she was such a terrific actor, I enjoyed our time together on that movie with David Lynch, so I wanted her to have it.
Continue reading...Forget modern edicts and prepare for the return of power dressing, big hair, short skirts and movie-star-in-a-convertible sunglasses
Boom boom is this year’s new vibe. It’s a vibe, not just a trend, meaning it takes tectonic rumblings in culture and gives them expression in what we wear and say and drink and watch on TV.
Boom boom is a new weather system that is sweeping away pretty much everything we thought we knew about modern fashion (gender fluidity, quiet luxury, elevated basics, ethical brands) and replacing it with ambitious power dressing for day, and traditional tropes of feminine and masculine sexual allure for evening. It is fur (real or fake), gold watches, big hair, wearing ties, sexy dancing. It is a silhouette that has inflection points at the shoulders (big), the breasts (important) and the waist (tiny) instead of worshipping a peachy bum or flat abs.
Continue reading...
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
The Polish prime minister criticised anyone seen ‘applauding President Putin’ at today’s Moscow parade
Let’s bring you some more pictures from the Moscow parade earlier today, a not very subtle attempt as showing off the Russian military power.
French president Emmanuel Macron posted a social media update on his last night’s phone call with US president Donald Trump.
I spoke several times last night with @POTUS.
I commend his strong call for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, as did our British and Nordic partners earlier this morning.
Continue reading...Trump’s proposal cuts SpaceX competitors out of the NASA budget and could add billions to the company’s defense contracts.
The post Elon Musk Set to Win Big With Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Pentagon Budget appeared first on The Intercept.
White House deputy chief of staff told reporters administration is ‘actively’ considering suspending a person’s right to challenge legality of their detention
Large institutional investors have massively increased their holdings of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) in recent months according to SEC filings, with many enlarging their positions by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The revelations raise further questions about big business’s desire to curry favor with Donald Trump and his administration via the enterprises he has maintained or commenced. TMTG runs the Truth Social social media platform – on which the US president himself posts almost daily – as well as financial services and a film and TV streaming service.
Donald Trump’s refusal to divest from his publicly traded company has predictably prompted huge investments from wealthy special interests that could use a favor from the president.
Institutional Wall Street investors and even a foreign company with business before the administration have effectively offered a form of tribute by bulk purchasing shares in DJT on the open market, which helps juice the value of Trump’s own shares.
Continue reading...Trump administration understood to have pushed for requirements to be attached to deal in effort to freeze out Chinese steel
The US deal on steel tariffs imposes conditions on the “nature of ownership” of British plants as part of its efforts to freeze out Chinese steel, it has emerged.
It is understood Donald Trump’s administration pushed for requirements to be attached to the steel deal to ensure that the Chinese-owned British Steel plant in Scunthorpe was not used by Beijing as a backdoor to circumvent US tariffs.
Continue reading...This week’s trade deal is a boost for Keir Starmer. But a lasting win will only come by joining forces with other nations to resist the US president’s entire destructive agenda
Donald Trump wanted Thursday, like every day, to be all about him. He thought the news cycle would be dominated by his sealing of the first US trade deal since he blew a hole in the world economy with the dynamite of tariffs. He gathered his vice-president and several cabinet members in the Oval Office to announce the new agreement – with the UK, as it happens – only for the gaze of the world to be diverted. All eyes were on Rome, where Trump was upstaged by one of the few global players who can outdo him when it comes to putting on a show.
Don’t think Trump is not simultaneously wondering how he can use that whole white-smoke thing – perhaps to signal his winning of a constitutionally prohibited third term in 2028 – and worrying that Leo XIV is a serious rival for the commodity he craves more than any other: attention. There now lives an American with more global followers than he has, and it happened in an instant.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...The Labour veteran looked an awkward choice for the court of Trump, but now the president is holding his hand and complimenting his beautiful accent
Peter Mandelson, with his elegant suits, smooth patter and high-end lifestyle, has always had a dark secret: an interest in the minutiae of trade deals, left over from his period as EU trade commissioner, a period when he could bore for Europe on the virtues of the Mercosur trade deal. Alongside his networking skills, and political antennae, it was his knowledge of trade that possibly persuaded Keir Starmer to take the political risk of appointing him ambassador to Washington.
A pro-European social democrat with a full record of insulting remarks about Donald Trump’s racism, Lord Mandelson might not have been the obvious man to open previously closed doors in the US administration.
Continue reading...Prop-maker at Shepperton Studios fears for future after post by US president throws sector into uncertainty
It is a sunny May afternoon in leafy Surrey, and Richard St Clair is carefully preparing a bomb. It is not real, but it will look like it is when shown on a Netflix TV show. Across the workshop a colleague is cheerfully sandpapering a pile of hip bones for the 28 Years Later zombie film – trailers suggest a lot of skeletons will be involved.
They are working at db Props, a small company based at Shepperton Studios that has made everything from Thor’s hammer to Alan Turing’s computer in The Imitation Game.
Continue reading...Finally, a British prime minister has landed a trade agreement with the US. It’s just a shame it’s not a very good one
A huge day in import-export yesterday, as even Rome’s billion-per-cent tariff on American popes was lifted. The much bigger news, though, concerned the partial easing of recently imposed import taxes on British goods in the form of a starter UK-US trade deal, leaving the biggest little country in the world basking in the glow of an achievement our own prime minister seemed to hint had something of VE Day to it. In Britain, we have an old saying about dejection – “you look like you’ve lost a pound and found a sixpence” – but this was an entirely new spin on that scenario, given we were mostly celebrating being back to paying 10% more tariffs than we were subject to a few weeks ago. Yessss! A sixpence! Good times.
Before we get to the specifics of the deal, the theatre. I do find myself increasingly mesmerised by Trump’s Oval Office tableaux, which typically feature him surrounded by a cluster of sniggering mooks (eg the vice-president). Trump is like the boss in a cartoon about a crew of gangster dogs. Like Fat Sam from Bugsy Malone – but a bloodhound-chinese crested cross. Call him The Dogfather. So yes: the big dog was seated at his desk, while the henchdogs stood awkwardly round ready to laugh obsequiously on cue. And, bless them, they hit every single one. On this occasion, the boss dog was basking in their oleaginously indulgent chuckles, but you get the feeling that on a bad day it could go quite the opposite way. “Shaddup, Vance, you idiot. Did I say you could snigger?” “No, boss. Sorry, boss.”
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Airline assesses options but there is no automatic form of recovery from insurers or the airport
The power outage that closed Heathrow airport for a day in March cost British Airways £40m, the national carrier has revealed.
The airline said it was “assessing options” but said it had no recourse to compensation from Heathrow.
Continue reading...Meeting aimed at de-escalating trade war after Chinese exports beat expectations despite slump in trade
Donald Trump has floated cutting tariffs on China from 145% to 80% before a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.
Top US officials are expected to meet a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first significant talks between the two nations since Trump provoked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.
Continue reading...“Many of the potential issues we see with the Trump family’s crypto practices are a feature — not a bug — of the crypto industry.”
The post Democrats Woke Up to Trump’s Crypto Grift. Will They Stop Other Scammers? appeared first on The Intercept.
The Bank of England has voted to cut the cost of borrowing, reducing the base rate to 4.25%. Here’s what it means for you
The Bank of England has cut interest rates from 4.5% to 4.25%. It follows two interest rate cuts in the second half of last year, and another one in February this year.
Continue reading...After The Intercept revealed Michael Obadal’s equity in Anduril, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for him to sell his shares.
The post Trump Army Appointee Should Sell His Anduril Stock, Sen. Warren Demands appeared first on The Intercept.
Move sparks outrage in Iran as diplomats try to broker deal between Tehran and Washington over nuclear programme
Donald Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the US will now refer to the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia rather than the Persian Gulf.
The move has prompted outrage from Iranian leaders, and last-minute efforts are being made to persuade Trump to pull back from offending Iran in the midst of vital talks on the future of the Iranian nuclear programme. “If Trump went ahead with the proposal he would manage to unite every Iranian, pro- or anti-regime, against him, and that is a near impossible achievement,” one diplomat said.
Continue reading...After being banned from campus buildings following peaceful sit-ins, students said the disciplinary processes broke from school policies.
The post NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred From Sitting Final Exams appeared first on The Intercept.
A day after being attacked by a pro-Israel mob, protesters were shot by rubber bullets — whose use is restricted by California law.
The post Police Shot Them in the Head With Rubber Bullets. Now UCLA Gaza Protesters Are Suing. appeared first on The Intercept.
Ras Baraka, who has spoken out against Trump’s immigration policies, was at the center with Democratic members of Congress
The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for trespass at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in New Jersey on Friday as Democratic members of Congress also attempted to conduct what they say was a visit to the controversial facility to conduct “federal oversight”.
News of Baraka’s arrest at Delaney Hall was reported on X by Alina Habba, the acting US attorney for the district of New Jersey, and a former personal attorney and adviser to Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Exclusive: The intervention to marginalize Ricky Buria is aimed at insulating the Pentagon from any more missteps
Exasperated by the turmoil that has dogged Pete Hegseth’s office in recent weeks, the White House will block the US defense secretary’s choice of chief of staff and select a candidate of its own, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides.
Continue reading...Officials float idea of compact of free association (Cofa), used by US to keep close ties with Pacific Island nations
US officials are discussing a plan to pull Greenland into America’s sphere of influence using a type of agreement that the United States has used to keep close ties with several Pacific Island nations, according to two US officials and another person familiar with the discussions.
Under the plan being considered, the Trump administration would propose to Greenland’s leaders that the island enter into a so-called compact of free association, or Cofa, with the United States.
Continue reading...Judge says detainment of Rümeysa Öztürk, who was arrested for political speech, ‘raises very significant due process concerns’
A federal judge in Vermont on Friday morning ordered the release on bail of a Tufts University student arrested in March for her political speech and now held in Louisiana in what she and her lawyers argue is a breach of her constitutional rights.
The judge had ordered Rümeysa Öztürk’s return to Vermont, where she was briefly held after being grabbed on the street by masked immigration agents near Boston, for hearings. But the judge decided not to wait for her physical transportation and she appeared remotely from Louisiana at the hearing in Burlington on Friday.
Continue reading...Any Trump administration efforts to send non-Libyans to the north African country would violate a prior court order
Immigrants in Texas who were told they would be deported to Libya sat on a military airfield tarmac for hours on Wednesday, unsure of what would happen next, an attorney for one of the men has said.
The attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.
Continue reading...President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change
Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.
“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.
Continue reading...The first pontiff from the United States can be a powerful countervailing voice in the Trump era, and help protect Francis’s legacy
Twelve years ago, in the words of the late Pope Francis, the Catholic church went “to the ends of the Earth” in its search for a new pontiff. On Thursday, after surprisingly brisk discussions, the most geographically diverse conclave in history went to the heart of a superpower to find his successor.
The election of the first American pope is a remarkable moment. In part the cardinals’ choice of the Chicago-born Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, can be seen as a robust progressive response to the signs of the times. While senior Catholic figures around Donald Trump prosecute an insular Maga agenda, the new pope is as at home in Latin America, having spent two decades working in one of the poorest regions of Peru. Previous posts on a social media account under his name suggest he shared Francis’s withering views on the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies.
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 US president’s proposed levies will badly hit the UK industry just as it is recovering from a series of blows
Barbieland, the Emerald City and a galaxy far, far away were all built – at least in part – at film studios just outside London. Now the UK film industry has come crashing down to earth with Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on all movies “produced in foreign lands”. “Hollywood is being destroyed,” Mr Trump announced, like an action hero on a mission. “Other nations have stolen our movie industry.” In the UK the news was met with warnings that the British film sector would be “wiped out” by such a “knock-out blow”. Brian Cox, the Succession star, called the proposed tariffs “an absolute disaster”. Roll the opening credits.
Mr Trump has a point. New instalments of Marvel’s Avengers and Spider-Man are filming around London this summer. No wonder the president wants “MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” The UK’s generous tax incentives, skills base and state-of-the-art facilities have helped make it “the Hollywood of Europe”. Now it is under threat. Without these blockbusters, Britain would be left with more than a superhero deficit.
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 Bukele model is built upon Kilmar Abregos — there are thousands of them.”
The post CECOT Is What the Bukele Regime Wants You to See appeared first on The Intercept.
The biggest night in telly is back. So will Richard Gadd’s stalker drama come up trumps? Will Katherine Parkinson triumph for her turn in Rivals? And will Ruth Jones finally get a gong for Gavin & Stacey?
Rarely has a Bafta TV awards ceremony taken place against such a background of industry anxiety: plummeting terrestrial ratings, aggressive streamer competition, a precipitous drop in UK production. Even sponsors P&O Cruises will rarely have seen such troublesome seas.
Bafta voters (I am one, but don’t know any final results) will also have brought other external concerns. Jurors may worry that Mr Bates vs the Post Office (premiered January 2024) now feels too old, which could count against Monica Dolan and Toby Jones in the acting categories. (Because of calendar year qualification, Adolescence may have the same problem in 2026.) Also, older voters can be reluctant to see pushy rich streamers thriving: they’ve just about come to terms with Netflix but Disney+ and Apple TV+, who have a strong shortlist presence, may, for some, be the future too far. Here are my preferences and predictions.
Continue reading...Groups say plan to resume limited humanitarian assistance under strict Israeli rules ‘risks enabling war crimes’
Aid groups have voiced alarm at US moves to pressure them into accepting an Israeli proposal to resume limited humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged territory under strictly controlled conditions.
The Trump administration has attempted to strong-arm international agencies – including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) – into accepting Israel’s stringent rules for resuming deliveries, according to sources familiar with the discussions and news reports.
Continue reading...Pope Francis spoke for the most vulnerable, from Palestinians in Gaza to immigrants in the US. Let’s hope that Leo will follow in his footsteps
America is back, baby. Not only has the Gulf of Mexico been successfully Americanized, the Vatican is now officially US territory. OK, fine, not officially, but, on Thursday, the Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost was announced as pope. The 69-year-old, who has taken the papal name Leo XIV, is the first clergyman from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic church.
While Prevost was a frontrunner for the papacy, his victory seems to have taken many experts by surprise. There has long been resistance to an American pope for a number of reasons, including the fact that it might make it appear as if the Vatican is aligned with the world’s strongest economic and military power.
Continue reading...The US president’s plan for Hollywood is full of plot holes. But when it comes to the hidden propaganda baked into movies, he may have a point
As always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as “a National Security threat” and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!”
How would a 100% tariff on films made oversees work? Just movies shot overseas? What about movies set overseas? And who would pay? How do you impose tariffs on goods without a port of entry? “Commerce is figuring it out,” said a White House official. In fact, movies are listed as an exception to presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to address national security threats, so it is likely the lawyers would end up figuring it out, if Trump’s plan went ahead. But, many executives in Hollywood are quietly nodding agreement. It is true that Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38% drop. Many major franchises such as Avatar and Mission: Impossible are shot mostly overseas, where the lure of lucrative tax breaks offset such minor inconveniences as the incursion of some sheep into one of Tom Cruise’s paragliding set-pieces, as happened in the Lake District in 2022.
Continue reading...Private prison firms CoreCivic and GEO Group are thrilled about ICE’s spending spree, but they’re already facing local opposition.
The post Private Prison CEO on ICE Contracts: We’re a Better Deal Than El Salvador’s CECOT appeared first on The Intercept.
From militarized crackdowns to legal impunity, Trump’s policing agenda is designed to crush dissent and critics.
The post A Trumped Up Police State Is Coming appeared first on The Intercept.
US agency will no longer update major weather database in latest showing of Trump’s influence on climate resources
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer track the cost of climate crisis-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heatwaves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.
Noaa falls under the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.
Continue reading...Lawyers say they’re ‘still in dark’ about government’s efforts to free the man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador
The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege ” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its erroneous deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador.
US district judge Paula Xinis disclosed the government’s position in a two-page order on Wednesday. She set a Monday deadline for attorneys to file briefs on the issue and how it could affect Ábrego García’s case. Xinis also scheduled a 16 May hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, to address the matter.
Continue reading...UN World Food Programme says $50m is urgently needed amid fears that Uganda may now begin forced repatriations
Food rations for a million people in Uganda have been cut off completely this week amid a funding crisis at the United Nations World Food Programme, raising fears that refugees will now be pushed back into countries at war.
The WFP in Uganda warned two weeks ago that $50m (£37m) was urgently needed to help refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.
Continue reading...The injured aviators are the latest in a growing number of casualties in the Middle East that the Trump White House prefers to ignore.
The post More Troops Injured as U.S. Planes Keep Plunging Into Red Sea appeared first on The Intercept.
The court let a military trans ban go into effect — potentially setting a precedent to accept the anti-trans myth behind Trump’s executive order.
The post The Supreme Court Just Imperiled the Rights — and Lives — of All Trans People appeared first on The Intercept.
Judge confirms move would breach order as Libya’s rival governments say both would refuse any US deportees
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to deport a group of immigrants to Libya, despite a judge’s efforts on Wednesday to block any such flights and the state department’s previous condemnation of the “life-threatening” prison conditions in the country.
Reuters cited three unnamed US officials as saying the deportations could happen this week. Two of the officials said the immigrants, whose nationalities are not known, could be flown to the north African country as soon as Wednesday, but they added the plans could still change. The New York Times also cited a US official confirming the deportation plans.
Continue reading...As Trump talks of a ceasefire with the Houthis, soldiers in the Middle East have faced steady and seldom discussed attacks.
The post U.S. Troops Are Being Attacked Every Other Day in the Middle East appeared first on The Intercept.
African country looks to position itself as a useful option for countries’ anti-migration policies
Talks between Rwanda and the US to host deported migrants are the latest move by the African country to position itself as a useful option for the anti-migration policies of allied governments.
Previous high-profile attempts, however, including with the UK, Israel and Denmark, failed after becoming beset by controversy.
Continue reading...“We are concerned at the appearance of targeting publicly pro-union worker leaders,” said a union official about a raid in western New York.
The post “They Actually Had a List”: ICE Arrests Workers Involved in Landmark Labor Rights Case appeared first on The Intercept.
Prog rockers score seventh No 1 album with recording of Italian gig, extending their chart run following final studio album The Endless River in 2014
A recording of Pink Floyd’s eerie and evocative 1972 gig in the ruins of Pompeii, entitled Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, has become the band’s seventh UK chart-topping album.
The album captures the gig that was documented by director Adrian Maben for one of rock’s most arresting concert films, which has been restored to 4K quality and rereleased in cinemas, including in Imax format. A recording of the gig was previously included as part of a larger Pink Floyd box set, but this is the first standalone version, featuring a new sound mix helmed by prog rock musician Steven Wilson.
Continue reading...Lander probe of Kosmos 482, launched in 1972, is expected to re-enter the atmosphere some time between 9 and 10 May
Part of a Soviet spacecraft is expected to crash back down to Earth this weekend, with experts still unsure of where it will land.
Kosmos 482 was launched in March 1972 on a Soyuz rocket a few days after the Venera 8 atmospheric probe, and was thought to have a similar purpose. Intended to reach Venus, it failed to escape low Earth orbit and instead broke into four pieces.
Continue reading...The world need to act now, writes Stephen McCloskey; Bernie Evans calls on Labour to force an emergency debate
Re your editorial (The Guardian view on Israel’s aid blockade of Gaza: hunger as a weapon of war, 4 May), what we are witnessing in Gaza is the collective punishment of a civilian population, mostly refugees, who were already living in highly vulnerable conditions following 18 months of what the international court of justice found to be a plausible risk of genocide and 18 years of an Israeli blockade.
That blockade has been tightened further for the past two months, during which hunger has been weaponised, with the apparent aim of ethnically cleansing Gaza. The author Omar El Akkad describes the term “genocide” as a “mechanic of forewarning”, not some “after‑the-fact resolution”. The world should consider itself warned that the genocide in Gaza has entered a new phase of mass starvation with hunger, thirst and disease stalking 2 million people.
Continue reading...Moscow stages largest Victory Day parade since start of Ukraine war with Putin using celebrations to justify invasion
Russian troops fighting in Ukraine have marched with Chinese forces on Moscow’s Red Square to mark the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in a Victory Day celebration marked by greater spectacle than in recent years.
After several scaled-back Victory Days – with reduced military displays and few foreign guests – Vladimir Putin on Friday addressed the largest parade since his 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Robert Fico and Aleksandar Vučić accept Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend Victory Day celebrations
Despite warnings from European Union officials, Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, shook hands with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before becoming the only EU leader to attend Russia’s 9 May parade of military forces waging war on Ukraine.
The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, whose country aspires to join the 27-nation union, also accepted the Russian president’s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.
Continue reading...Katrin Ivanova’s barrister says her sentence should reflect her admin duties and not equate her with ‘classic spy cases’
A woman said to be “chief minion” in a ring of Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia in Britain should not be treated like George Blake, the double agent sentenced to four decades in jail in the 1960s, the Old Bailey has heard.
Katrin Ivanova was said by her barrister, Rupert Bowers KC, to have been manipulated by her partner, Biser Dzhambazov, and to then have endured the discovery of his affair with a fellow member of the spy ring while in prison.
Continue reading...Ukho Ensemble Kyiv/Gaggero
(Kyiv Dispatch)
Gérard Grisey’s extraordinary expressive work, performed here by Ukraine’s leading new-music group, is one of the finest compositions of the late 20th century
Ukho Ensemble Kyiv is Ukraine’s leading new-music group, founded in 2015 by the Italian conductor Luigi Gaggero. Since the Russian invasion of the country in 2022, its members have inevitably been dispersed and its activities curtailed, but it has continued to perform a wide range of 20th and 21st-century repertories outside Ukraine. This performance of what is one of Gérard Grisey’s most important achievements, and one of the finest scores of the final decades of the last century, is taken from concerts the group gave in Stuttgart in December 2022.
Grisey completed Vortex Temporum, for two winds, three strings and piano, in 1996, two years before his shockingly sudden death. If the work that followed it, the extraordinary Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil, suggested that Grisey’s music was about to enter a new phase that he did not live to explore, then Vortex Temporum is perhaps a stylistic end point, a masterly demonstration of the techniques and utterly lucid structural thinking that he had elaborated over the previous decade. What develops from a motif borrowed from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé into a study in how musical time unfolds at different rates generates ideas of extraordinary expressive power along the way, whether it’s the piano solo in which the opening section climaxes, the unwinding chorale of the second part or the steadily accumulating third.
Continue reading...New leader says he wants a Catholic church that ‘illuminates the dark nights of this world’
Pope Leo XIV said he hoped to lead a Roman Catholic church “that illuminates the dark nights of this world” as he held his first mass as pontiff under Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.
The surprise election of Robert Francis Prevost, the first US pope, came after a conclave that lasted less than 26 hours, one of the shortest in modern Catholic history.
Continue reading...Our crime-solving heroine is utterly charming, it’s stuffed with A-list stars and some episodes are just great. If only the cases were a bit more clever
This tribute to case-of-the week crime dramas is so nearly a brilliant TV show. Starring Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black, Russian Doll) as Charlie Cale, a woman with a foolproof ability to tell truth from falsehood, the series follows in the footsteps of classic story-of-the-week crime dramas; each episode features a tranche of excellent guest stars and a freshly covered-up misdeed for our thoroughly charming citizen-detective to uncover. With her gravelly-chipmunk New York tones – or “voice like a rusty clarinet”, as one character has it – Lyonne ensures Cale is an idiosyncratically charismatic protagonist you can really get behind. She’s cool: her catchphrase is “bullshit” and her aesthetic is 1970s-hued indie sleaze; shades, spray-on jeans, biker boots, shrunken T-shirts, wild, matted hair. She’s chaotically good, too: mischievous enough to bend the rules but essentially golden-hearted, in possession of an old-timey garrulousness and an inability to let things lie. What’s not to love?
The mysteries themselves, mainly. Most episodes of Poker Face – which was created by Knives Out director Rian Johnson, although he is not a credited writer on this second season – involve a 10ish-minute Cale-free opening, during which the viewer bears witness to a crime, usually a murder. Afterwards, we discover how our hero came to be acquainted with both the perpetrators and victims. Since the end of the very first episode, Cale has been on the run: first from a shady casino boss who wanted her dead (she was involved in the destruction of his business and the suicide of his son); then, as of the start of this new season, another shady casino boss who wants to exploit her lie-detection skills. To evade capture, she zigzags across the States at random – and into the path of a host of inadvertent murderers.
Continue reading...Chinese leader describes talks as ‘friendly and fruitful’ during visit for Victory Day commemorations
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin exchanged warm words in the Kremlin on Thursday during a grand ceremony welcoming the Chinese leader for his 11th visit to Russia, ahead of a military parade to mark 80 years since the end of the second world war.
After nearly four hours of talks, Xi described his meeting with his Russian counterpart as “in-depth, friendly and fruitful”.
Continue reading...South Korean skincare retailers want to capitalise on viral sales of beauty ranges by opening stores across the UK
Korean beauty products are moving from phone screens to UK high streets as social media drives sales of skincare with the help of eye-catching ingredients such as snail slime and salmon sperm.
Retailers are looking to capitalise on the TikTok and Instagram trend for skincare and makeup ranges from South Korea – known as K-beauty – by opening physical stores and launching brands in a push to get consumers to pick up products that havegone viral online.
Continue reading...PC, PS5, Xbox; id Software/Bathesda Softworks
This prequel takes a blunt force trauma approach to problem-solving and demon-killing, with a slower pace but more spectacular weaponry
Billed as a prequel to id Software’s 2016 revival of Doom, The Dark Ages is about as different as it could be from its predecessors while remaining recognisably part of the series. Where 2020’s Doom Eternal was about speed and evasion, The Dark Ages emphasises standing your ground. Where Eternal involved picking off enemies one by one, The Dark Ages empowers you to obliterate dozens of demons simultaneously. Where Eternal saw you juggling rapid-fire weapons in a finger-cramping frenzy, The Dark Ages lets you solve most problems by hitting things ferociously hard. Ripping and tearing are out. Blunt force trauma is in.
The kernel of The Dark Ages’ combat stretches back to the 1993 original, inspired by the slow-moving projectiles fired by enemies such as imps, cacodemons, and hell knights. The Dark Ages empowers most of its enemies to shoot such projectiles, making its interdimensional battlefields glow with drifting fireballs, scudding orbs and floating energy barriers.
Continue reading...Far right accused of misinformation over turbines at Reinhardswald, which has left local people divided
Deep in the woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm, past the tower from which Rapunzel threw down her hair and the castle in which Sleeping Beauty slumbered, lies a construction site that the far right has declared a crime against national soil and identity.
In this quiet corner of Germany’s “fairytale forest”, workers are clearing land and building access roads to erect 18 wind turbines.
Continue reading...Bills continued to arrive despite calls, emails and legal firm handling probate sending copy of death certificate
My sister passed away nearly two years ago but I am struggling to get British Gas to accept she is dead.
Since her death in July 2023 I have emailed, called and even got the legal firm handling probate to contact it. They sent a certified copy of her death certificate but all that happened was the address on the account was changed to the solicitor’s.
Continue reading...“I’m not someone who says, ‘History will judge them’ — they will have to be judged before then,” Francesca Albanese said in an exclusive interview.
The post EU President Should Be Investigated for Complicity in Israel’s War Crimes, Says Top U.N. Expert on Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
The Send Nudes author’s follow-up conveys a profound message about the insufficiency of the nuclear family
To be selected for Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists list two years before your debut novel comes out must bring a certain amount of pressure. Saba Sams had already been named a rising star for her short-story collection, Send Nudes; one of the stories, Blue 4eva, won the 2022 BBC National short story award. Now comes Gunk, titled for the grotty student nightclub managed by the thirtysomething protagonist, Jules. The fried egg on the cover hints at a sleazy edge: expect hangover breakfasts with a dawn chorus soundtrack. It’s also a playful nod to more tender themes of fertility panic, unplanned pregnancy and young motherhood.
At the heart of Gunk is a not-quite-love-not-quite-triangle between Jules, her feckless ex-husband Leon, nightclub owner and irredeemable waster, and the young, mysterious nim – that lower case “n” is all part of her vibe. Nim arrives one night at the club and captivates both Jules and Leon with her shaved head, her alluring mouth (“big and wet and laughing”), and the sense that she’s on the run from her old life. Much of the novel is told through flashback. Before we encounter nim at the club, we know that she has had a baby, left him with Jules, and vanished. Jules is alone trying to comfort a newborn that “knew by smell, by taste, that I was not his mother”. The main narrative consists of Jules telling us how this state of affairs came to pass.
Continue reading...Vice-president says US will seek to de-escalate but cannot force either nuclear power to ‘lay down their arms’
JD Vance has said that the US will not intervene in the conflict between Pakistan and India, calling fighting between the two nuclear powers “fundamentally none of our business”.
The remarks came during an interview with Fox News, where the US vice-president said that the US would seek to de-escalate the conflict but could force neither side to “lay down their arms”.
Continue reading...A Chinese company has developed an AI-piloted submersible that can reach speeds “similar to a destroyer or a US Navy torpedo,” dive “up to 60 metres underwater,” and “remain static for more than a month, like the stealth capabilities of a nuclear submarine.” In case you’re worried about the military applications of this, you can relax because the company says that the submersible is “designated for civilian use” and can “launch research rockets.”
“Research rockets.” Sure.
...Our in-house ferment fanatic Tom Hunt assesses a range of widely available versions of the increasingly popular Korean condiment
Spicy, salty, sweet and sour all at the same time, kimchi is perhaps the perfect condiment. This Korean staple is traditionally made by salting cabbage to preserve it and add crunch, then fermenting it in a pungent paste often made from glutinous rice porridge, gochugaru (Korean chilli flakes), onion and enough garlic to keep a vampire at bay. Fish sauce is another common addition, as is, sometimes, even raw seafood such as crab or squid, but most kimchi sold in the UK is plant-based, and so appeals to a much wider audience.
The magic behind kimchi lies in the lactic acid bacteria naturally present on vegetables. These beneficial microbes are encouraged to thrive during fermentation, creating the complex, tangy flavours and deep umami that make kimchi so distinctive. All kimchi brings bold flavour, but only raw, unpasteurised ones deliver the probiotic benefits that come from live fermentation, so look for the words “raw” and “unpasteurised” on the label. Gochugaru, meanwhile, is what gives kimchi its signature vermilion hue. The brightness of its red-orange colour is a good visual cue as to how much chilli has been used and, as a result, how spicy the kimchi is.
Continue reading...With his new executive order on policing, Trump just wants to make sure he’s the one holding the lead.
The post Cops Are Already Unleashed. Trump Is Telling Them to Run Wild. appeared first on The Intercept.
The U.S. government is keeping American casualty numbers for the undeclared war on Yemen secret. This is not normal.
The post The Trump Administration Is Hiding American Casualties of War appeared first on The Intercept.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal talks to Akela Lacy about pushing Dems from the opposition to proposition party.
The post Rep. Jayapal: Democrats Need a Bold Agenda, Starting With Medicare for All appeared first on The Intercept.
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