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Searching for Justice and the Missing in the New Syria
Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:30:00 +0000
The prisons are open, the secret files are unlocked. Now Syrians are trying to figure out how to hold war criminals accountable.
The post Searching for Justice and the Missing in the New Syria appeared first on The Intercept.
Escape the gloom with these big red wines bursting with the flavours of warm countries
Cuevas de Arom Altas Parcelas, Calatayud, Spain 2021 (£18.99, shelvedwine.com) I’m open to almost any of the many suggestions for lifting the bleak, wintry post-Christmas mood proffered in columns like this at this time of the year. Whether it’s a matter of taking up running or cold swimming, practising yoga or meditation, or joining the abstinence anti-party of Veganuary or Dry January, it’s each to their own as far I’m concerned. But I would like to put in a word for another kind of self-care, one that is rooted in pure escapism and the healing power of the sun. It works best, in my experience, if you first find a diverting but not too taxing book (pioneering British food writer Elizabeth David’s Mediterranean Food from 1950 is my nostalgic choice) to set the imaginative scene; then it’s just a question of finding the right wine to provide a direct infusion of southern sun from a brighter place and season. The herbal, wild berry and blood orange tanginess of Cuevas de Arom’s intense but fluent red from Garnacha bush vines grown in the dusty bleached-out highlands of Aragón in northeast Spain is an ideal first choice.
Olifantsberg Grenache Noir, Breede River Valley, South Africa 2023 (£16, Tesco) The Mediterranean is, of course, not short on candidates for January-proof wine-mindfulness, and many of them will have one or both of the region’s great red grapes, grenache (aka garnacha) or syrah (aka shiraz), at their heart. Among those I’ll be turning to in the next few weeks are two from southern France: Sainsbury’s warm and plummy, spicy old favourite Taste the Difference Saint Chinian 2021 (£9.50), an 80% grenache / 20% syrah made by the reliable Laurent Miquel; and the sinewy, supple, plummy blackberry and peppery-spiced syrah-based Maris Minervois Vieilles Vignes 2022 (£11.99, Waitrose). The same grape varieties are also widely used to frequently fine effect even further south, in South Africa. Tesco has two Cape examples, one of each grape variety: the excellent-value Tesco Finest Swartland Shiraz 2023 (£8) a dusky mix of summer evening barbecue smokiness and juicy black and red berries, while the Olifantsberg Grenache Noir is succulent and wonderfully fragrant, almost pretty with its rosehip, cherry, citrus peel and thyme.
Continue reading...This new Mexican restaurant serves up regional dishes so well crafted that conversation stops
Fonda, 12 Heddon Street, London W1B 4BZ. Starters and small
plates £7-£14, larger plates £23-£29, desserts £6-£11, wines from £39
At Fonda, a new Mexican restaurant off London’s Regent Street, the staff have vital information and, boy, are they determined to impart it. Usually, speeches about ingredients and the best way to eat your lunch, feel like a nail puncture purposefully engineered to let all the air out of any fun you were hoping to have. Lunch becomes an exam to be passed. Am I doing this right? Will the staff approve? Oh, the social anxiety. Today, however, there is an enthusiasm to the tableside chat and an engrossing level of detail. I’m all in, at least for now. Tell me more.
Continue reading...Pair being interrogated in Kyiv, with intelligence agency SBU saying one had fake Russian military ID; Russia claims control of village near Pokrovsk. What we know on day 1,054
Ukraine said it was interrogating two North Korean soldiers after capturing the pair in Russia’s Kursk region – the first time it has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last year. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on X on Saturday the soldiers were captured by Ukraine’s special forces and were being interrogated by the SBU domestic intelligence agency in Kyiv. The SBU released a video showing the two men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw. It said their questioning was being done in Korean with the help of South Korea’s NIS intelligence agency. Neither Russia nor North Korea immediately reacted to the announcement.
The SBU said the two captured North Korean men had told interrogators they were experienced soldiers, and one said he was sent to Russia for training, not to fight. It said one PoW carried a Russian military ID card “issued in the name of another person” while the other had no documents. The SBU showed an ID issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia. The SBU added that he was a rifleman born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021. The other man, who wrote his answers because of his injured jaw, said he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper, the SBU said.
South Korea’s intelligence agency on Sunday backed up Ukraine’s account of having captured the soldiers. The NIS said it had “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on 9 January in the Kursk battlefield in Russia”. It similarly said one of the captured soldiers revealed during his interrogation that he received military training from Russia after arriving there in November. The soldier said North Korean forces had experienced “significant losses during battle”, NIS said. According to the NIS, one of the men “went without food or water for four to five days before being captured”.
Zelensyy said it was difficult to capture North Koreans alive because “Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded” to cover up “evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war”. He said he would provide media access to the prisoners of war because “the world needs to know what is happening”. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, wrote online: “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”
Russia said its army had gained control of a village near the eastern Ukrainian logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key target in its advance through the Donetsk region. Ukraine’s military made no mention of the village of Shevchenko in its latest account of frontline activity, but said Russia had launched more than 50 attacks against its forces’ positions near Pokrovsk in the past 24 hours. The Russian military report said its troops launched strikes with aircraft, drones and missiles on Ukrainian military airfields and energy infrastructure that service its army. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces repelled 46 of 56 Russian attacks around about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector. Ten clashes were continuing. The governor of the part of Donetsk region held by Ukrainian forces, Vadym Filashkin, said one resident was killed and four injured when a village north of Pokrovsk came under Russian shelling.
Russia launched 74 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said early on Saturday, adding it had downed 47 of them, while 27 others disappeared from radar without reaching their targets. The air force said buildings and vehicles in seven different regions were damaged by falling debris from downed drones, but there were no casualties.
Ukraine launched drone attacks across several regions of Russia, striking two houses in the Tambov region and injuring several people, Russia said on Saturday. Ukraine denies attacking civilian targets in Russia. The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on Telegram that people were treated for injures resulting from shattered windows as drones hit two houses in the town of Kotovsk, 480km (300 miles) south-east of Moscow. The Russian defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 85 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country, including 31 drones over the Black Sea, 16 each in the Voronezh and Krasnodar regions and 14 over the Azov Sea.
Vladimir Putin awarded Russia’s highest honour for bravery on Saturday to Cpl Andrei Grigoryev after a widely posted video showed him killing a Ukrainian opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Ukrainian media identified the soldier killed as Dmytro Maslovsky from the southern Odesa region.
Continue reading...Legislation aimed at limiting the US’s role in global warming is likely to be an early target of Donald Trump
The devastating wave of wildfires that has reduced thousands of Hollywood homes to ashes could not have afflicted the US at a more telling moment. Figures released last week revealed that for the first time the world overshot the 1.5C limit in global temperature rises that had been set as a desired upper figure by the Paris climate accord of 2015.
It is clear that the floods that engulfed Valencia last year, along with the typhoons that ripped through the Philippines and the drought that afflicted the Amazon were all made more likely by this unwanted temperature rise, say scientists. From this perspective, Hollywood’s misery is just one of many examples of the destruction heaped upon the planet by our burning of fossil fuels and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases. Crucially, such disasters are only going to worsen until humanity abandons the widespread combustion of coal, gas and oil.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...From Whole Earth and Meridian to supermarket staples, which is the best crunchy peanut butter, and how much do you really need to spend on it?
I came late to the peanut butter party, and my mum remains convinced that it’s extremely unhealthy stuff, which, to be fair to her, is probably true of the sugary versions of my childhood. In the past few years, however, peanut butter has gone back to its health-food roots. It is now championed for its protein and monounsaturated fat content, as brands stripped of their sweeteners and emulsifiers have occupied the premium end of the market. Given that these new-wave natural peanut butters tend to contain nothing but peanuts – give or take the odd pinch of salt – the difference between supermarket own-label and luxury jars tends to be slight. The biggest variations are largely in the sourcing and quality of the peanuts themselves.
This means that peanut butter is a handy thing to have in the cupboard at all times. Personally, I prefer a loose, crunchy consistency; for all the claims about sustainable palm oil, there’s simply no need for it in peanut butter, which, like tahini, separates naturally over time and is just as easily stirred back together. To slow the separation, simply beat the oil back in, then store the jar upside down in the fridge – assuming it lasts that long.
Continue reading...Is it all green juice and overnight oats, or do health experts enjoy the occasional burger or chocolate eclair? They reveal their tips and treats
What do you eat for breakfast?
A savoury breakfast bowl, including some sort of high-fibre carb, such as buckwheat, quinoa or millet, with spinach or kale, jammy eggs, some avocado and mixed seeds.
A job listing for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show offers $12 per hour — part of a long pattern of host-city residents getting the short shrift.
The post Super Bowl Halftime Show Is Recruiting Workers for Less Pay Than Fast-Food Servers appeared first on The Intercept.
Whether you’re making comforting curries, casseroles or chilli con carne, we’ve tested the top slow cookers for serving up winter warmers
• The best blenders to blitz like a pro, tried and tested, from Ninja to Nutribullet
As January beds in and our craving for cosiness increases, you may be minded to dig out the slow cooker. Coming home to a warm, bubbling meal – with very little effort – is a real treat in the cold and dark. Plus, slow cooking can be an economical method of cooking.
If you have yet to experience the comfort and joy of a slow cooker, or if your ancient model has finally died a death, it could be time to treat yourself to a season of stews, casseroles, curries and more. I’ve spent weeks testing slow cookers to compile a shortlist of the most functional, useful and well-designed recommendations to transform your dinner time.
Best overall slow cooker:
GreenPan slow cooker
£200 at GreenPan
Best basic slow cooker:
ProCook digital slow cooker
£49 at ProCook
Best multi-cooker:
Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 PossibleCooker
£120 at Argos
Best pressure-cooking slow cooker:
Sage Fast Slow Pro
£179.95 at Sage Appliances
Hi Reddit! We’re a team of tech journalists from MIT Technology Review, excited to answer all of your questions about emerging tech in 2025 and beyond.
We are:
We just published our annual list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Every year, our reporters and editors look for promising technologies poised to have a real impact on the world. We consider dozens of advances across the fields of AI, biotech, computing, and climate. We can’t see the future, but we expect these ten breakthroughs to affect our world in a big way, for decades to come.
Here are the ten items on this year’s list:
Ask us anything! (We’ll be here responding to your questions this Friday, January 10 at 12 p.m. EST, but feel free to get 'em in early.) Proof pics here.
Marauding gangs and political unrest since October’s polls have driven thousands of Mozambicans across the border into Malawi, despite its drought, food and fuel shortages
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, Manase Madia, 50, shows his Mozambican identity card. Once a sign of pride, he does not know what to believe in any more. Over the past few weeks he has seen houses being burned down, and shops and businesses looted, including his own. He now fears for his family, which has scattered.
At a community ground where officials are processing new arrivals before being transferred to a shelter, Madia is one of about 13,000 people who have crossed into Malawi in the past two months, seeking refuge from post-election violence in Mozambique. The arrival of the refugees, albeit in smaller numbers, is reminiscent for people here of the civil war when almost a million Mozambicans sought refuge in the neighbouring southern African nation in the 1980s and early 1990s.
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...Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is one of six medical workers with the Chicago-based organization MedGlobal who remain in Israeli custody.
The post The Scramble to Find the Gaza Doctor in the White Coat appeared first on The Intercept.
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
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Critics worry that a sweeping ban based on predictions rather than more concrete proof of TikTok’s security risks sets a precedent in line with repressive regimes.
The post To Ban TikTok, Supreme Court Would Rank “National Security” Before First Amendment appeared first on The Intercept.
Senior cabinet minister promises not to dilute new measures despite Zuckerberg’s attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content
Britain’s new laws to boost safety and tackle hate speech online are “not up for negotiation”, a senior government minister has warned, after Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg vowed to join Donald Trump to pressure countries they regard as “censoring” content.
In an interview with the Observer, Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, said that the recent laws designed to make online platforms safer for children and vulnerable people would never be diluted to help the government woo big tech companies to the UK in its defining pursuit for economic growth.
Continue reading...Fire is an inextricable part of the region’s identity, as the writers knew. But the way this divided city burns has been transformed
Talking about fire and Los Angeles is an exercise in repetition. Southern California does have seasons, Joan Didion once noted in Blue Nights, among them “the season when the fire comes”.
Fire in Los Angeles has a singular ability to shock, with its destruction that takes “grimly familiar pathways” down the canyons and into the subdivisions. The phrase comes from the writer and activist Mike Davis’s 1995 essay The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, and it is as true for the fires as for our talk of the fires. Even our reflections take on that grim familiarity: we cite Didion citing Nathanael West. We fall in with the great writers of this great city who are always so ready to judge it.
Continue reading...Public defenders and legal professionals said they never see the leniency offered to Trump given to other defendants.
The post A Tale of Two Justice Systems: Only Trump Gets Convicted of 34 Felonies and Receives No Punishment appeared first on The Intercept.
The judgment has been welcomed as an important shift in perceptions by human rights and mental health groups
A Kenyan judge has declared as unconstitutional sections of the country’s laws that criminalise attempted suicide. In a landmark ruling on Thursday, Judge Lawrence Mugambi of the country’s high court stated that section 226 of the penal code contradicts the constitution by punishing those with mental health issues over which they may have little or no control.
While the constitution says in article 43 that a person has the right to the “highest attainable standard of health”, criminal law states that “any person who attempts to kill himself is guilty of a misdemeanour and is subject to imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both”, with the minimum age of prosecution for the offence set at eight years old.
Continue reading...The prisons are open, the secret files are unlocked. Now Syrians are trying to figure out how to hold war criminals accountable.
The post Searching for Justice and the Missing in the New Syria appeared first on The Intercept.
Israeli military’s new rules intended to protect reservists travelling overseas from facing allegations of war crimes
The Israeli military has placed new restrictions on media coverage of soldiers on active combat duty because of growing concern about the risk of legal action against reservists travelling abroad over allegations of involvement in war crimes in Gaza.
The move came after an Israeli reservist vacationing in Brazil left the country abruptly when a Brazilian judge ordered federal police to open an investigation following allegations from a pro-Palestinian group that he had committed war crimes while serving in Gaza.
Continue reading...Whether it’s banning articles on X or killing fact checks on Meta, the only constant is that it benefits the powerful.
The post My Ban From X Is About One Simple Thing: Elon Musk Controlling the Flow of Information appeared first on The Intercept.
Washington Post reporter says he never made comments to James Comer published in the congressman’s new book
The Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward forcefully denied making statements attributed to him by James Comer, the Republican chair of the powerful House oversight committee, in which Woodward supposedly said Joe Biden was financially corrupt.
“The statements attributed to me in what is apparently his book are false,” Woodward said. “I made none of those statements he attributes to me. I repeat none, and not even in a paraphrased form.”
Continue reading...Under Meta’s relaxed hate speech rules, users can now post “I’m a proud racist” or “Black people are more violent than whites.”
The post Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” appeared first on The Intercept.
Conservatives have been hyperfixated on TikTok content that’s sympathetic with Gaza — and accused the company of algorithmic bias against Israel.
The post The TikTok Ban Is Also About Hiding Pro-Palestinian Content. Republicans Said So Themselves. appeared first on The Intercept.
And why those that do aren’t just trading in meme coins for the lulz.
The post Congress Loves Crypto. So Why Do So Few Members Buy It? appeared first on The Intercept.
Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
The post Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better. appeared first on The Intercept.
Rep. Sara Jacobs is trying to raise the alarm about the key U.S. ally’s conduct after the Christmas strike killed 10 civilians.
The post Nigeria’s Military Gets Billions in U.S. Aid. On Christmas Day, It Bombed Its Own Civilians Again. appeared first on The Intercept.
The Louisiana Republican blamed “wokeness” in part for police’s failure to stop the New Orleans attack that left 15 dead.
The post Steve Scalise Knows Exactly What Led to the Bourbon Street Attack: DEI Initiatives appeared first on The Intercept.
A banner 2024 whet the appetites of banks and crypto bros. Now the largest companies are salivating over Trump’s economic policies.
The post Trump’s Tariffs Will Create a Hunger Games Landscape Where the Little Guy Is Guaranteed to Lose appeared first on The Intercept.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is one of six medical workers with the Chicago-based organization MedGlobal who remain in Israeli custody.
The post The Scramble to Find the Gaza Doctor in the White Coat appeared first on The Intercept.
Quake damaged buildings in Shigatse and could be felt hundreds of kilometres away in Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar
A strong earthquake has struck near Shigatse, one of Tibet’s holiest cities, killing scores of people, damaging buildings, and sending people running to the streets in neighbouring Nepal and India.
Chinese state media said at least 126 people had died, more than 188 had been injured, and about 1,000 houses were damaged in the quake, which hit at 9.05am on Tuesday. The US Geological Survey said the earthquake was centred in the Tibet region at a depth of about 10km (6 miles). It measured the tremor at magnitude 7.1, while China recorded it as 6.8.
Continue reading...Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
The post Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better. appeared first on The Intercept.
From the Washington Post:
The sanctions target Beijing Integrity Technology Group, which U.S. officials say employed workers responsible for the Flax Typhoon attacks which compromised devices including routers and internet-enabled cameras to infiltrate government and industrial targets in the United States, Taiwan, Europe and elsewhere.
After 30 years of relentless growth and capitalism, a new trend has emerged in China. The search for a simpler, calmer life is leading some Chinese people to seek a life abroad. The trend is so popular that it’s gained its own internet buzzword: the 'run philosophy'.
Chiang mai, in northern Thailand is the country’s second biggest city. It’s a tourist hotspot popular with backpackers but has recently become an unlikely second home for thousands of Chinese people seeking alternative lifestyles.
Continue reading...Suspension of executive order until 18 June gives courts time to review steelmakers’ legal challenge
The Biden administration has delayed until June an order for Nippon Steel to abandon its $14.9bn bid for US Steel, potentially giving the companies some time to revive the politically contentious deal.
Joe Biden blocked the acquisition on national security grounds on 3 January and the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said this week the proposed deal had received a “thorough analysis” by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Continue reading...Chancellor’s mission to Beijing weighted with greater expectations
Rachel Reeves hailed a new era of “respectful and consistent future relations with China” as pressure grew on the embattled chancellor to deliver on her government’s central promise to fire up UK economic growth.
After meeting China’s vice-premier, He Lifeng, in Beijing, Reeves said Britain’s relationship with the world’s second largest economy would be “frank and open on areas where we disagree”, while stressing it would be pragmatic in “finding opportunities for safe trade and investment”.
Continue reading...UK chancellor becomes first holder of her office to make an official visit to China in a decade
Rachel Reeves has said the UK “must engage confidently with China”, as she arrived in Beijing amid market turbulence at home.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had demanded the chancellor call off her China trip after the value of the pound plummeted to its lowest level in a year. But ministers argue that improved relations with the world’s second-largest economy will help boost growth, and that under the Conservatives the UK lagged behind the US and EU when it came to high-level engagement with Beijing.
Continue reading...News:
A sponge made of cotton and squid bone that has absorbed about 99.9% of microplastics in water samples in China could provide an elusive answer to ubiquitous microplastic pollution in water across the globe, a new report suggests.
[…]
The study tested the material in an irrigation ditch, a lake, seawater and a pond, where it removed up to 99.9% of plastic. It addressed 95%-98% of plastic after five cycles, which the authors say is remarkable reusability.
The sponge is made from chitin extracted from squid bone and cotton cellulose, materials that are often used to address pollution. Cost, secondary pollution and technological complexities have stymied many other filtration systems, but large-scale production of the new material is possible because it is cheap, and raw materials are easy to obtain, the authors say...
Under Meta’s relaxed hate speech rules, users can now post “I’m a proud racist” or “Black people are more violent than whites.”
The post Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” appeared first on The Intercept.
Conservatives have been hyperfixated on TikTok content that’s sympathetic with Gaza — and accused the company of algorithmic bias against Israel.
The post The TikTok Ban Is Also About Hiding Pro-Palestinian Content. Republicans Said So Themselves. appeared first on The Intercept.
 | submitted by /u/Forward-Answer-4407 [link] [comments] |
Whether it’s banning articles on X or killing fact checks on Meta, the only constant is that it benefits the powerful.
The post My Ban From X Is About One Simple Thing: Elon Musk Controlling the Flow of Information appeared first on The Intercept.
Critics worry that a sweeping ban based on predictions rather than more concrete proof of TikTok’s security risks sets a precedent in line with repressive regimes.
The post To Ban TikTok, Supreme Court Would Rank “National Security” Before First Amendment appeared first on The Intercept.
Pair being interrogated in Kyiv, with intelligence agency SBU saying one had fake Russian military ID; Russia claims control of village near Pokrovsk. What we know on day 1,054
Ukraine said it was interrogating two North Korean soldiers after capturing the pair in Russia’s Kursk region – the first time it has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last year. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on X on Saturday the soldiers were captured by Ukraine’s special forces and were being interrogated by the SBU domestic intelligence agency in Kyiv. The SBU released a video showing the two men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw. It said their questioning was being done in Korean with the help of South Korea’s NIS intelligence agency. Neither Russia nor North Korea immediately reacted to the announcement.
The SBU said the two captured North Korean men had told interrogators they were experienced soldiers, and one said he was sent to Russia for training, not to fight. It said one PoW carried a Russian military ID card “issued in the name of another person” while the other had no documents. The SBU showed an ID issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia. The SBU added that he was a rifleman born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021. The other man, who wrote his answers because of his injured jaw, said he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper, the SBU said.
South Korea’s intelligence agency on Sunday backed up Ukraine’s account of having captured the soldiers. The NIS said it had “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on 9 January in the Kursk battlefield in Russia”. It similarly said one of the captured soldiers revealed during his interrogation that he received military training from Russia after arriving there in November. The soldier said North Korean forces had experienced “significant losses during battle”, NIS said. According to the NIS, one of the men “went without food or water for four to five days before being captured”.
Zelensyy said it was difficult to capture North Koreans alive because “Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded” to cover up “evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war”. He said he would provide media access to the prisoners of war because “the world needs to know what is happening”. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, wrote online: “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”
Russia said its army had gained control of a village near the eastern Ukrainian logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key target in its advance through the Donetsk region. Ukraine’s military made no mention of the village of Shevchenko in its latest account of frontline activity, but said Russia had launched more than 50 attacks against its forces’ positions near Pokrovsk in the past 24 hours. The Russian military report said its troops launched strikes with aircraft, drones and missiles on Ukrainian military airfields and energy infrastructure that service its army. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces repelled 46 of 56 Russian attacks around about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector. Ten clashes were continuing. The governor of the part of Donetsk region held by Ukrainian forces, Vadym Filashkin, said one resident was killed and four injured when a village north of Pokrovsk came under Russian shelling.
Russia launched 74 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said early on Saturday, adding it had downed 47 of them, while 27 others disappeared from radar without reaching their targets. The air force said buildings and vehicles in seven different regions were damaged by falling debris from downed drones, but there were no casualties.
Ukraine launched drone attacks across several regions of Russia, striking two houses in the Tambov region and injuring several people, Russia said on Saturday. Ukraine denies attacking civilian targets in Russia. The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on Telegram that people were treated for injures resulting from shattered windows as drones hit two houses in the town of Kotovsk, 480km (300 miles) south-east of Moscow. The Russian defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 85 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country, including 31 drones over the Black Sea, 16 each in the Voronezh and Krasnodar regions and 14 over the Azov Sea.
Vladimir Putin awarded Russia’s highest honour for bravery on Saturday to Cpl Andrei Grigoryev after a widely posted video showed him killing a Ukrainian opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Ukrainian media identified the soldier killed as Dmytro Maslovsky from the southern Odesa region.
Continue reading...Lawyer for suspended president says concerns about ‘potential incidents’ have arisen following thwarted attempt to arrest him at his residence
South Korea’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, will not attend the first hearing of his impeachment trial next week because of safety concerns, his lawyer has said.
Yoon has been holed up in the presidential residence and protected by an elite guard force since being suspended and impeached last month following a short-lived declaration of martial law that plunged the country into political chaos.
Continue reading...Recording of flight data ceased four minutes before Jeju Air crash that killed 179 people, says transport ministry
Flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air plane that crashed in South Korea in December, killing 179 people, stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at Muan airport, the transport ministry said.
Authorities investigating the disaster, the worst plane crash on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what caused the black boxes to stop recording, the ministry said.
Continue reading...The Franco-Haitian artist’s 2002 portrait exemplifies his gift for taking photographs that transcend time and place
Henry Roy’s book, Impossible Island, a survey of 40 years of his photography, is threaded with images of sleepers and dreamers in different corners of the world – Thailand, Tunisia, his adoptive France, his native Haiti. Roy took this picture of a girl making an impromptu cradle of a wheelbarrow in Congo-Brazzaville in 2002. Like all of his most evocative photographs, it asks several questions of the viewer – but the overriding one seems to be: how sleepy do you have to be to take a nap here?
Roy’s photos often work this way: they create little mythologies that seem to take their subjects outside their particular time and place. As he noted of his practice in his 2017 book Superstition, what he is always restless for are images that “murmur the secret language of a world free from what contaminates us”. Here, the vibrant Sunday-best floral prints of the girl, the precision of her hair, seem to elevate her above the clay and dust of her surroundings. It comes as no surprise, looking at Roy’s pictures, that they have been cited as primary inspirations by cinematographers and film-makers, notably Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins, who has suggested that he was inspired to create some of the visual sensuality of Moonlight by looking at Roy’s work.
Impossible Island is published by Loose Joints
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/Logical_Welder3467 [link] [comments] |
The prisons are open, the secret files are unlocked. Now Syrians are trying to figure out how to hold war criminals accountable.
The post Searching for Justice and the Missing in the New Syria appeared first on The Intercept.
Legislation aimed at limiting the US’s role in global warming is likely to be an early target of Donald Trump
The devastating wave of wildfires that has reduced thousands of Hollywood homes to ashes could not have afflicted the US at a more telling moment. Figures released last week revealed that for the first time the world overshot the 1.5C limit in global temperature rises that had been set as a desired upper figure by the Paris climate accord of 2015.
It is clear that the floods that engulfed Valencia last year, along with the typhoons that ripped through the Philippines and the drought that afflicted the Amazon were all made more likely by this unwanted temperature rise, say scientists. From this perspective, Hollywood’s misery is just one of many examples of the destruction heaped upon the planet by our burning of fossil fuels and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases. Crucially, such disasters are only going to worsen until humanity abandons the widespread combustion of coal, gas and oil.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...Mukesh Chandrakar had reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry and had a popular YouTube channel
Indian media rights groups have called for an investigation after the body of a missing journalist was found hidden in a septic tank.
Mukesh Chandrakar, 32, was a well-known freelance journalist in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh who contributed to some of the country’s biggest news channels. He had also widely reported on alleged corruption in the construction industry on his popular YouTube channel.
Continue reading...Anti-money laundering officials ask banks for information on UK minister and seven of her family members
Anti-money laundering officials in Bangladesh have demanded bank account details for Tulip Siddiq, the UK anti-corruption minister, in the latest escalation of the inquiries into her family’s financial interests.
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), which investigates money laundering and suspicious transactions, wrote to the country’s main banks on Tuesday asking them to provide account details for Siddiq and seven of her family members.
Continue reading...The US government has identified a ninth telecom that was successfully hacked by Salt Typhoon.
Ohio has become the latest state to allow police to charge high fees for access to footage.
The post Ohio Puts Police Bodycam Footage Behind a Paywall appeared first on The Intercept.
Civilian and armed groups in conflict-ridden state of Manipur using SpaceX’s satellite internet, sources say
Elon Musk’s satellite-based Starlink – currently unlicensed for use in India – is being used by militant groups in the conflict-ridden state of Manipur to circumvent government internet shutdowns, fighters and security sources have said.
The satellite internet service provider, operated by Musk’s SpaceX company, is not permitted to legally operate in India amid security concerns but is allowed by Myanmar, which neighbours Manipur.
Continue reading...And why those that do aren’t just trading in meme coins for the lulz.
The post Congress Loves Crypto. So Why Do So Few Members Buy It? appeared first on The Intercept.
A banner 2024 whet the appetites of banks and crypto bros. Now the largest companies are salivating over Trump’s economic policies.
The post Trump’s Tariffs Will Create a Hunger Games Landscape Where the Little Guy Is Guaranteed to Lose appeared first on The Intercept.
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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
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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
Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
The post Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better. appeared first on The Intercept.
And why those that do aren’t just trading in meme coins for the lulz.
The post Congress Loves Crypto. So Why Do So Few Members Buy It? appeared first on The Intercept.
California governor calls president-elect’s claim that water is being withheld from southern California ‘delusional’
Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, appeared briefly to put his long-running feud with Donald Trump to one side on Friday, when he invited the president-elect to Los Angeles to survey devastation from the wildfires and meet with first responders, firefighters and the “Americans” affected.
“In the spirit of this great country, we must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump on Friday. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans – displaced from their homes and fearful for the future – deserve to see all of us working in their best interests to ensure a fast recovery and rebuild.”
Continue reading...Many in Youngstown, Ohio, believe the president-elect will tackle the town’s decline this time. Others are worried about his character flaws. Their concerns help explain how he returned to power – and how his second term might play out
The last time Donald Trump was president, he travelled to Youngstown, Ohio, among the most depressed of America’s rust belt cities, and promised voters the impossible.
The high-paying steel, railroad and car industry jobs that once made Youngstown a hard-living, hard-drinking blue-collar boom town were coming back, he said. “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house,” he crowed to a rapturous crowd in 2017. “We’re going to fill up those factories – or rip ”em down and build brand new ones”.
Continue reading...Whether it’s banning articles on X or killing fact checks on Meta, the only constant is that it benefits the powerful.
The post My Ban From X Is About One Simple Thing: Elon Musk Controlling the Flow of Information appeared first on The Intercept.
Conservatives have been hyperfixated on TikTok content that’s sympathetic with Gaza — and accused the company of algorithmic bias against Israel.
The post The TikTok Ban Is Also About Hiding Pro-Palestinian Content. Republicans Said So Themselves. appeared first on The Intercept.
Washington Post reporter says he never made comments to James Comer published in the congressman’s new book
The Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward forcefully denied making statements attributed to him by James Comer, the Republican chair of the powerful House oversight committee, in which Woodward supposedly said Joe Biden was financially corrupt.
“The statements attributed to me in what is apparently his book are false,” Woodward said. “I made none of those statements he attributes to me. I repeat none, and not even in a paraphrased form.”
Continue reading...UK chancellor becomes first holder of her office to make an official visit to China in a decade
Rachel Reeves has said the UK “must engage confidently with China”, as she arrived in Beijing amid market turbulence at home.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had demanded the chancellor call off her China trip after the value of the pound plummeted to its lowest level in a year. But ministers argue that improved relations with the world’s second-largest economy will help boost growth, and that under the Conservatives the UK lagged behind the US and EU when it came to high-level engagement with Beijing.
Continue reading...The prisons are open, the secret files are unlocked. Now Syrians are trying to figure out how to hold war criminals accountable.
The post Searching for Justice and the Missing in the New Syria appeared first on The Intercept.
Critics worry that a sweeping ban based on predictions rather than more concrete proof of TikTok’s security risks sets a precedent in line with repressive regimes.
The post To Ban TikTok, Supreme Court Would Rank “National Security” Before First Amendment appeared first on The Intercept.
Public defenders and legal professionals said they never see the leniency offered to Trump given to other defendants.
The post A Tale of Two Justice Systems: Only Trump Gets Convicted of 34 Felonies and Receives No Punishment appeared first on The Intercept.
As the TikTok ban goes up before the Supreme Court on Friday, TikTok creator Pearlmania500, Shawn Musgrave, and Jessica Washington discuss what’s at stake.
The post TikTok SCOTUS Battle appeared first on The Intercept.
Kristrún Frostadóttir, who entered politics just four years ago, speaks to the Observer about feminism, the far right and reopening talks on joining the EU
Nearly 45 years ago, Iceland made history by producing the world’s first elected female president of a country, setting it on a path to being the global feminist frontrunner it is today.
Since then it has had multiple female presidents and prime ministers, but it wasn’t until three weeks ago, when social democrat Kristrún Frostadóttir took office, that the country’s two top positions were both held by women at the same time. It comes after Halla Tómasdóttir became Iceland’s second female president in August.
Continue reading...Countries that cherish democratic values need to take a stand against the president-elect’s throwback to unabashed American expansionism
Watching politicians promise one thing, then do another, is a common experience in all democratic countries. Situations in which voters do not expect a politician to keep his word, and in many instances fervently hope and pray he will not, are rarer. Donald Trump, the US president-elect, fits this latter category. When Trump threatens to subjugate Canada, a Nato ally, by force, unilaterally annex Greenland, the autonomous territory of a friendly EU state, and override Panama’s sovereignty for bogus security reasons, most people assume he is not serious and his remarks carry little real significance. This response, while comforting, is a mistake.
It’s entirely possible that Trump, pumped with hype, hot air and testosterone in the lead-up to his 20 January inauguration, is being gratuitously disruptive. He likes to shake things up. It amuses his Make America Great Again (Maga) hyper-nationalist fanclub. It may be that this former property developer and convicted felon, who counts himself a shrewd negotiator, is deliberately raising the stakes before more reasoned discussions about security and trade. But it is also possible Trump means what he says.
Continue reading...From bashing Keir Starmer to promoting the AfD, the X owner is not shy about intervening
A limited – at best – understanding of the continent of Europe and its component countries has not prevented the world’s richest man from intervening in the domestic politics of several of them, as well as attacking the EU itself.
Here we take a brief look at some of the occasions on which X owner Elon Musk has used his position as proprietor of one of the world’s largest social media platforms to meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign democratic states outside the US.
Continue reading...Exclusive: SDF leader says removal of 2,000-strong force would leave door open for Islamic State resurgence
The leader of the Kurdish forces that control north-eastern Syria has called on Donald Trump to maintain a US military presence in the region, warning that a retreat would risk a resurgence of Islamic State in the country.
Gen Mazloum Abdi, the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said IS had increased its strength in the desert after seizing arms from the collapsed Assad regime, while the Kurdish forces were coming under increased pressure from Turkey and its Syrian proxies.
Continue reading...There was his log cabin story, an official slogan and – later in the day – a policy booklet, but no new announcements in Melbourne
Peter Dutton emerged from his summer break on Sunday to launch the Coalition’s unofficial election campaign.
In a 38-minute pre-prepared speech to MPs and party loyalists at a campaign-style rally in Melbourne, the federal opposition leader framed the upcoming contest as a “sliding doors moment” for Australia.
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Continue reading...In another era, the outgoing president would have made a great cold war leader. Instead, his tenure was dogged by errors, naivety and overcaution
In a week when the US bade a sad farewell to Jimmy Carter, presidential legacies came under particular scrutiny. Yet few presidents are widely remembered beyond their lifetimes, their “historic” achievements even less so. In the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon make the truly memorable list. Most of the rest are mere school-book names and dates.
Joe Biden’s standing in this unprepossessing pantheon is now being assessed, as he prepares to depart the White House on 20 January. Like his 44 predecessors, he reportedly frets about his “place in history”. All presidents do this. It smacks of vanity. They give valedictory lectures, endow foundations, build libraries, write memoirs. They confuse fame with continuing relevance.
Continue reading...Heavy police presence in place as far-right party meets in Saxony to finalise details of campaign platform
Thousands of people have demonstrated against a convention of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as political parties launched their campaigns for the country’s election next month.
A heavy police presence was in place in Riesa – in the eastern state of Saxony, an AfD stronghold – and officers cleared some protesters from the streets. However, the two-day convention started a little more than two hours late as many delegates’ trips to the venue were slowed by blockades.
Continue reading...The president-elect has disparaged DEI. As Meta and Walmart drop diversity goals, here’s how others may follow
Even before Donald Trump won the election in November, multiple companies with announced they were ending their diversity initiatives. After the election, some of the country’s largest companies announced they too were sunsetting some of their corporate programs.
In December, Walmart said it was rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals and would drop using the term altogether. McDonald’s made a similar statement in January. On Friday, Meta became the latest major company to announce the end of its DEI goals, saying that the company will scrap its DEI team, its equity and inclusion training programs and requirements to have a “diverse slate” of applicants when hiring.
Continue reading...US announces $65m bounty for arrest of president, who has led country since 2013 and failed to prove he won recent vote
Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has been accused of a shameless and fraudulent power-grab after swearing himself in for a third term, despite domestic outrage and a chorus of international condemnation at his alleged theft of last year’s election.
“This is a great victory for Venezuelan democracy,” the 62-year-old autocrat boasted during a sparsely attended oath-taking ceremony in Caracas that was boycotted by the leaders of democratic nations.
Continue reading...Under Meta’s relaxed hate speech rules, users can now post “I’m a proud racist” or “Black people are more violent than whites.”
The post Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” appeared first on The Intercept.
Hosting a radio show on ethics made me see that moral instinct isn’t the inferior cousin of reason
A decade ago, I’d have proudly – and smugly – donned my “I’m a liberal” badge. What’s not to like about liberalism, the idea that people are free to live their lives the way they want, so long as they’re not harming anyone else, and the state promotes equality of opportunity through a decent welfare state? It’s the politics of liberalism that paved the way for legislative reforms on race discrimination and gay marriage that have gone hand in hand with declining levels of social prejudice.
I still regard these as important markers of progress. But today I feel sheepish about how simplistic my worldview used to be. Liberalism has much to offer, but there are risks in embracing it as an overarching political philosophy without a degree of humility about its shortcomings: its hollow silence over how to navigate knotty ethical issues where society needs some kind of shared understanding. This queasiness about morality means liberals sometimes look the other way when others smuggle in controversial ethical assumptions under the guise of choice and autonomy.
Continue reading...Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage are among those who have earned large sums from broadcasters, but a tightening of rules on MPs’ outside interests is being considered
MPs would no longer be able to rake in huge sums that can see them more than double their parliamentary salaries by signing contracts with media outlets, under plans being considered by ministers.
The Observer has been told that talks on further tightening rules on MPs’ outside interests, including media contracts, will be started by leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, at a hearing of the all-party standards committee on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer accuses opposition leader of spending ‘a lot of time on social media over Christmas’
When Kemi Badenoch used prime minister’s questions this week to echo Elon Musk’s demands for a new inquiry into sexual grooming gangs, the MPs behind her were trying to interpret the intentions of their fledgling leader. Was it a long-held view? A short-term move to wrong-foot Labour or appeal to Reform voters? A sign she was adopting a more radical politics?
There was one point, however, that seemed to unite those with differing theories about their leader’s motives. Her decision to warn Keir Starmer that refusing a fresh inquiry could prompt speculation about a “cover-up” was the kind of political gamble they had expected her to be willing to take.
Continue reading...This week we learned that Meta is dropping third-party fact-checking, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, spiked a cartoon that made fun of him and other tech leaders kneeling before a statue of Donald Trump, and just about all the big Silicon Valley companies are donating $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. Jonathan Freedland and Blake Montgomery look at who will hold the power between big tech and the White House over the next four years
Archive: ITV, CBS, PBS Newshour, News Nation, CNN, Fox Business, Bloomberg Television, CNBC, BBC
Continue reading...Venâncio Mondlane went into self-imposed exile after disputed elections in October, saying he feared being assassinated
Mozambique’s opposition leader, Venâncio Mondlane, has returned to the country from self-imposed exile, saying he is ready for talks with the government after claiming October’s elections were stolen from him.
In large dark sunglasses, Mondlane dropped to his knees as he exited the arrivals door of Maputo’s international airport and appeared to be praying. He spoke to journalists outside, wearing a fake flower garland, before his car edged through crowds of cheering supporters.
Continue reading...Amid deepening debt and an onslaught by the president-elect, Labour must calm the markets, then think big economically
It’s certainly not 2008, nor even Truss 2022, but the men and women who move the financial markets are suddenly darkly pessimistic. Some of the private emails and WhatsApp messages circulating last week matched any efforts by Cassandra. The mood has turned against Britain.
It is not one single thing, but a toxic mix. There is the prospect of a long period of stagflation, the consequence, as even the markets recognise, of 14 years of epic misgovernment. The problem now is partly that Labour does not have a plausible growth story, partly that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is painted as having an economic tin ear that douses capitalist animal spirits, and partly because Trump’s arrival has exposed just how dependent an indebted, economically wounded Britain is on the kindness of strangers. It’s not yet a crisis – the stock market has held up – but without some skilful economic and political statecraft, and a measure of luck, it may become one.
Continue reading...Colour-coded output from smartwatch device would be easy for public to read
They remain some of the most complex diagnostic procedures carried out by doctors. To take an electrocardiogram, or ECG, they first have to attach 10 or more electrodes to a patient’s chest, arms and legs to measure the heart’s electrical activity. Then, once these signals have been recorded, a cardiologist has to interpret them to determine if a person has a particular heart ailment.
It is a life-saving technology – but a complicated, expensive one. However, UK scientists now believe they could soon overcome these limitations by developing devices which will allow patients to take their own detailed ECGs at home and be provided with easily interpreted diagnoses about the state of their hearts.
Continue reading...Elon Musk’s pot stirring over child sex abuse gangs has renewed focus on the issue, but why was so little done after the IICSA report in 2022?
Has anything about the past week in politics felt a bit familiar to you? Some elements, like the political class suddenly talking about a years-long scandal merely because a tech billionaire started stirring the pot, have been novel. But others have been a depressingly normal part of Westminster culture, such as the flurry of activity from ministers as they announced they were implementing recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, while resisting calls to set up another inquiry into the specific question of grooming gangs.
Resisting an inquiry is a stage that every government seems to go through with every scandal. Initially, they argue that another inquiry won’t tell us anything new, and that it will cost money and time. Then, they tend to agree to a limited non-statutory inquiry. Then it becomes clear that the problem with a non-statutory inquiry is that it can’t summon witnesses to give evidence under oath, and so the very thing ministers didn’t want to happen ends up going ahead anyway. We have seen that with inquiries into hospitals, such as the Mid Staffs inquiry, which initially wasn’t a public inquiry but ended up having to take on those powers just to get to the bottom of what had happened, and the continuing inquiry into mental health deaths in Essex.
Continue reading...Statement from groups including BMA and royal colleges says current law is causing ‘trauma and cruelty’
Medical leaders are calling for reform of abortion laws in England and Wales after an “unprecedented” rise in women and girls being prosecuted for ending their own pregnancies.
More than 30 groups – including the British Medical Association, the Faculty of Public Health, the British Society of Abortion Care Providers and the royal colleges of GPs, nurses, psychiatrists, midwives and anaesthetists – issued a joint statement warning that the current legislation is causing “trauma and cruelty” and demanding “immediate action” to safeguard reproductive rights.
Continue reading...Campaigners claim no progress made with government on implementing recommendations until Elon Musk row
Campaigners met government officials months ago to urge them to implement recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales, but said no progress had been made until recent days.
One campaigner who was present at the meeting with Home Office officials in September to ask why the recommendations had not been implemented accused the government of a “kneejerk reaction” and said it had been pushed into action by the political storm sparked by Elon Musk’s posts on X about grooming gangs. “We’ve been trying to get the government interested in implementing the recommendations for months and, lo and behold, Elon Musk turns up and something happens,” they said.
Continue reading...Diplomats have advised the UK prime minister to have a face-saving response just in case he comes low down on the list at the inauguration
Donald Trump may invite populist rightwing leaders from Europe such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to the White House before Keir Starmer, senior UK diplomats believe.
Downing Street and the Foreign Office are eagerly pressing for the prime minister to be at the head of the traditional “beauty parade” of overseas leaders who are called to see the new president in the days after the inauguration on 20 January. Representations are being made via the UK embassy in Washington.
Continue reading...How can we publicly debate policy in the face of the rising – and polarising – influence of the X owner and others whose only aim is to serve themselves
How should we as a society interact with one another, debate, come to decisions? What impels politicians to focus and act on one thing and not another?
The Athenians had the Agora, where (male, slave-owning) citizens gathered to debate and decide the issues of the day. In the early 20th century, John Reith envisioned the BBC, in a most patrician way, as a space where the nation could come together to enhance the (supposedly) British values of democracy, reasonableness and debate.
Continue reading...One in three people born today will develop the disease, meaning pressures will become ever more acute
I agree with Sonia Sodha that there are risks to doing nothing on social care (“Labour had plenty of time to ponder social care. Now it has a chance to deliver”, Comment). Dementia is the biggest health and social care challenge of our time but the current system is not set up to meet the needs of almost 1 million people living with dementia in the UK.
We welcome the announcement of an independent commission on adult social care in England, but with the commission’s final report not due until 2028, many people with dementia cannot afford to wait for change. We need to see clear, concrete actions set out in the commission’s interim findings next year and see progress on these actions within this parliament.
Continue reading...Dan Carden says government must heed calls for justice and show ‘whose side it on’
A Labour MP has become the first to break ranks and publicly call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs and has urged the prime minister to “use the full power of the state to deliver justice”.
Keir Starmer and other ministers have suggested they are open-minded about a future inquiry but have said the government’s priority is acting on the recommendations of the 2022 report on child sexual abuse led by Prof Alexis Jay.
Continue reading...Senior cabinet minister promises not to dilute new measures despite Zuckerberg’s attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content
Britain’s new laws to boost safety and tackle hate speech online are “not up for negotiation”, a senior government minister has warned, after Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg vowed to join Donald Trump to pressure countries they regard as “censoring” content.
In an interview with the Observer, Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, said that the recent laws designed to make online platforms safer for children and vulnerable people would never be diluted to help the government woo big tech companies to the UK in its defining pursuit for economic growth.
Continue reading...Chancellor’s mission to Beijing weighted with greater expectations
Rachel Reeves hailed a new era of “respectful and consistent future relations with China” as pressure grew on the embattled chancellor to deliver on her government’s central promise to fire up UK economic growth.
After meeting China’s vice-premier, He Lifeng, in Beijing, Reeves said Britain’s relationship with the world’s second largest economy would be “frank and open on areas where we disagree”, while stressing it would be pragmatic in “finding opportunities for safe trade and investment”.
Continue reading...Retail assistants on low pay using YoungOnes platform docked cash or told to wait up to 30 days for earnings
Retail assistants have accused a gig economy firm of “holding them to ransom” by making them pay a fee if they want to receive their wages within a month.
A new payment system brought in by YoungOnes, which supplies “freelance” retail assistants to many well-known high street stores, charges gig workers 4.8% of their earnings to be paid in one minute or 2.9% to be paid in three days. If they decline, they typically have to wait 30 days. Previously the workers were paid in three days, without a charge.
Continue reading...Critics flag ‘worrying trend’ of keeping royal files under lock and key as thousands set for release to public
Researchers fear that thousands of government documents about the late queen and Prince Philip due for release in the next two years could be censored.
The files are scheduled to be made public in 2026 and 2027, five years after the royal couple’s deaths, and internal discussions have begun in Whitehall about how to process them and what should remain secret.
Continue reading...Committee says it wants urgent update on support for hospitals declaring critical incidents under winter pressure
MPs have written to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, asking for his action plan to help the 14 hospitals declaring critical incidents under winter pressure.
The health and social care committee wrote to Streeting on Friday asking him to spell out “what specific immediate additional support, including financial support” would be provided to trusts declaring critical incidents.
Continue reading...Common Wealth thinktank warns that communities and taxpayer may have to pick up pieces when production ends
North Sea oil and gas must be brought under greater public control to avoid a cliff-edge collapse of the industry and secure a sustainable future for workers and communities, according to a report.
Under the current private ownership model the inevitable end of North Sea oil and gas production – whether through government action or the lack of viable oilfields – will lead to private companies abruptly abandoning the basin, leaving frontline communities and the state to deal with the social and economic consequences, the authors predict.
Continue reading...Sites have until end of the month to tell HMRC how much money users have made but confusion surrounds system
A push by HMRC to uncover details of how much people are earning from selling goods and services online in “side hustles” could cause confusion because of the way the UK’s tax system operates, a charity has warned.
Sites such as eBay, Vinted and Airbnb have until the end of this month to tell HMRC about the amount of money some users made in 2024, details that may lead to the sellers having to pay more tax.
Continue reading...Every barrel of oil, every cubic meter of gas, and every ton of coal burned brings us closer to environmental catastrophe
Apocalyptic flames and smoke are raging through southern California in the worst fire in Los Angeles county’s history. At least seven people have died. Thousands of structures have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. The private forecaster AccuWeather estimates initial damage and economic loss at more than $50bn and has the potential to be the costliest wildfire disaster in American history. The impacts of the disruption and loss faced by community members is incalculable.
While some media outlets are discussing the link between the Los Angeles fires and the climate crisis, the president-elect Donald Trump and rightwing media are using this devastating event to foster misinformation including denying the role of climate crisis.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Departures will add to scrutiny of party leader after Elon Musk said he was ‘not up to the job’
A group of 10 councillors representing Reform UK have given notice of their intention to resign en masse in protest at Nigel Farage’s leadership.
The resignations will add to pressure on the Reform leader after Elon Musk said he was “not up to the job”. They are timed to overshadow the party’s south-east conference this weekend.
Continue reading...US president moves to shield roughly 230,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans against Trump administration
The Biden administration on Friday extended temporary humanitarian protections for about 230,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans living in the US, in an effort to shield those groups from an incoming Trump administration that has promised to deport them.
The decision in the dying days of Joe Biden’s presidency came after immigrant advocates and lawmakers urged the Department of Homeland Security to extend temporary protected status (TPS), designed to protect immigrants from being deported to countries that are engulfed in disaster or conflict.
Continue reading...Who is accountable for what happens in an offshore processing centre? It’s remarkable this is still a question in Australia
Aarash lost his youth to offshore processing. Sixteen when he was sent to Nauru, he says he cannot remember a single birthday in more than a decade.
“When I see younger ones that age, having fun, playing, going to school, it reminds me of everything I lost,” he says. “I felt less human, not human at all.”
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Continue reading...Premier of most populous province says rhetoric clouds trade relationship worth hundreds of billions of dollars
The United States will “feel pain” if Donald Trump doesn’t back down from his threat to impose steep tariffs on its northern neighbour, the leader of Canada’s most populous province has warned.
After a tumultuous week that left Canadian leaders flailing for a coherent national response to Trump’s provocations – including the suggestion that the US would annex its closest ally – the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, told the Guardian: “We will never be for sale.”
Continue reading...Culture secretary says it should go ahead despite pressure for it to be cancelled over Taliban’s treatment of women
England should be allowed to play next month’s cricket match against Afghanistan, the culture and sport secretary has said, despite calls for a boycott over the Taliban government’s treatment of women.
Lisa Nandy backed a decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to allow the game to go ahead, saying on Friday that cancelling it would “deny sports fans the opportunity that they love”.
Continue reading...Sebastian Gorka says letting people in prison camps return to Britain would benefit the ‘special relationship’ with US
British nationals being held in Syrian prison camps for fighting on behalf of Islamic State should be allowed to return to the UK, Donald Trump’s incoming counter-terrorism chief has said.
Any country that wants to be a “serious ally” to the United States should commit to the international fight against the extremist group by repatriating its citizens, according to Sebastian Gorka.
Continue reading...Edmundo González, widely believed to have won July election, gives address after autocrat sworn in for third term
The man widely believed to be the real victor of last year’s presidential election in Venezuela has accused Nicolás Maduro of staging a coup and “crowning himself dictator” after the South American autocrat claimed another six years in power.
Maduro, a former union leader who has governed since 2013, in increasingly authoritarian fashion, was sworn in for a third term on Friday, despite claims that he stole the election from the actual winner, the retired diplomat Edmundo González.
Continue reading...Zuckerberg’s appointment of the UFC supremo to Meta’s board appears to be a calculated move to solidify ties with Trump through one of his most influential allies
In the four months since Donald Trump accused Mark Zuckerberg of conspiring against him during the 2020 presidential election and threatened him with life imprisonment, the Meta CEO has gone to great lengths to curry favor with the incoming president.
Shortly after Trump’s victory in November, Zuckerberg traveled to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the president-elect and his transition team, even donating $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. He has also culled Meta’s third party fact-checking program, lifting restrictions on topics like immigration and gender. And this week, Zuckerberg took his efforts to align with the incoming administration a step further by appointing Dana White – the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a close Trump ally – to Meta’s board of directors.
Continue reading...A job listing for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show offers $12 per hour — part of a long pattern of host-city residents getting the short shrift.
The post Super Bowl Halftime Show Is Recruiting Workers for Less Pay Than Fast-Food Servers appeared first on The Intercept.
Army commander’s election increases confidence that ceasefire with Israel will hold
Lebanon’s parliament has elected the army commander Joseph Aoun as the country’s new president, ending a more than two-year vacancy and increasing confidence that a ceasefire with Israel will hold.
Aoun received 99 out of 128 votes in the 13th attempt by a deeply divided parliament to elect a new head of state after the departure of the former president Michel Aoun, who is no relation, in October 2022. Aoun was the favoured candidate of international powers such as Saudi Arabia, France and the US, which enjoyed good relations with him in his role as head of Lebanon’s armed forces.
Continue reading...Anti-money laundering officials ask banks for information on UK minister and seven of her family members
Anti-money laundering officials in Bangladesh have demanded bank account details for Tulip Siddiq, the UK anti-corruption minister, in the latest escalation of the inquiries into her family’s financial interests.
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), which investigates money laundering and suspicious transactions, wrote to the country’s main banks on Tuesday asking them to provide account details for Siddiq and seven of her family members.
Continue reading...Marauding gangs and political unrest since October’s polls have driven thousands of Mozambicans across the border into Malawi, despite its drought, food and fuel shortages
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, Manase Madia, 50, shows his Mozambican identity card. Once a sign of pride, he does not know what to believe in any more. Over the past few weeks he has seen houses being burned down, and shops and businesses looted, including his own. He now fears for his family, which has scattered.
At a community ground where officials are processing new arrivals before being transferred to a shelter, Madia is one of about 13,000 people who have crossed into Malawi in the past two months, seeking refuge from post-election violence in Mozambique. The arrival of the refugees, albeit in smaller numbers, is reminiscent for people here of the civil war when almost a million Mozambicans sought refuge in the neighbouring southern African nation in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Continue reading...A banner 2024 whet the appetites of banks and crypto bros. Now the largest companies are salivating over Trump’s economic policies.
The post Trump’s Tariffs Will Create a Hunger Games Landscape Where the Little Guy Is Guaranteed to Lose appeared first on The Intercept.
Suspension of executive order until 18 June gives courts time to review steelmakers’ legal challenge
The Biden administration has delayed until June an order for Nippon Steel to abandon its $14.9bn bid for US Steel, potentially giving the companies some time to revive the politically contentious deal.
Joe Biden blocked the acquisition on national security grounds on 3 January and the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said this week the proposed deal had received a “thorough analysis” by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Continue reading...Alfred Bourgeois’s daughter is convinced of his innocence. In the four years since his execution, she has waged a sometimes-lonely battle to prove it.
The post She Lost Her Dad to Trump’s Killing Spree. Now She Wants Biden to Clear His Name. appeared first on The Intercept.
The architectural photography artist is captivated by colour and abstract forms, and one sunny afternoon, something caught his eye …
Ömer F Kuranli describes Istanbul’s Levent-Nispetiye district as a “skyscraper-filled business hub with an enclave of detached properties, home to various vibrant startups”.
He says that the day he took this shot had got off to a dull start. “I had been immersed in my usual routine, but around midday I headed out with a friend to meet some company executives and discuss a project we were working on. It’s not uncommon for people here to step away from the office grind for a while and find solace in lunchtime sports. Where we were meeting, a startup company had set up a basketball and tennis court to bring their employees together and encourage a social spark.”
Continue reading...Caroline Darian, daughter of Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot, tells of the ‘crushing double burden’ of being the child of both victim and perpetrator. Plus Philippa Perry invites one reader to see what happens when you prioritise someone who offers you stability and decency
Continue reading...The judgment has been welcomed as an important shift in perceptions by human rights and mental health groups
A Kenyan judge has declared as unconstitutional sections of the country’s laws that criminalise attempted suicide. In a landmark ruling on Thursday, Judge Lawrence Mugambi of the country’s high court stated that section 226 of the penal code contradicts the constitution by punishing those with mental health issues over which they may have little or no control.
While the constitution says in article 43 that a person has the right to the “highest attainable standard of health”, criminal law states that “any person who attempts to kill himself is guilty of a misdemeanour and is subject to imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both”, with the minimum age of prosecution for the offence set at eight years old.
Continue reading...John Calhoun designed an apartment complex for mice to examine the effects of overcrowding. It was hailed as a groundbreaking study of social breakdown, but is largely forgotten. So what happened? By Lee Alan Dugatkin
Continue reading...Biodiversity writer Phoebe Weston hears from farmers on the west coast of Scotland who claim they are losing hundreds of lambs a year in a case of rewilding gone wrong
“Fair enough, if it was a select number of birds … ,” one farmer said to biodiversity writer Phoebe Weston during her trip to Scotland, “but when it’s mass murder, then it’s not acceptable.”
Out on the cold west coast, there is a heated dispute about one of the country’s most successful ever rewilding programmes: the reintroduce of sea eagles to their natural habitat more than 50 years ago.
Continue reading...Max Rushden, John Brewin, Chris Paouros and Ceylon Andi Hickman discuss Spurs taking a half-time lead over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semis, and look ahead to the FA Cup third round
Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.
On the podcast today: Spurs beat Liverpool 1-0 in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg. A big win on the elusive quest for silverware and possibly an even bigger one for Ange Postecoglou. The panel debate whether Lucas Bergvall should have been on the pitch to score the winner.
Continue reading...The Louisiana Republican blamed “wokeness” in part for police’s failure to stop the New Orleans attack that left 15 dead.
The post Steve Scalise Knows Exactly What Led to the Bourbon Street Attack: DEI Initiatives appeared first on The Intercept.
Ohio has become the latest state to allow police to charge high fees for access to footage.
The post Ohio Puts Police Bodycam Footage Behind a Paywall appeared first on The Intercept.
Rep. Sara Jacobs is trying to raise the alarm about the key U.S. ally’s conduct after the Christmas strike killed 10 civilians.
The post Nigeria’s Military Gets Billions in U.S. Aid. On Christmas Day, It Bombed Its Own Civilians Again. appeared first on The Intercept.
Near the eastern city of Goma, charities such as MSF are reporting rising numbers of refugees experiencing rape and torture
They arrive every few minutes, survivors of the unrelenting sexual violence that defines one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. And among the first to assess the exhausted women after they reach the squalid camps on the outskirts of Goma, regional capital of the war-ravaged east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is Irengue Trezor.
The 35-year-old works for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), overseeing the charity’s sexual violence clinics within the sprawling camps of grubby white tents that are home to 650,000 people who have fled the fighting.
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
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is one of six medical workers with the Chicago-based organization MedGlobal who remain in Israeli custody.
The post The Scramble to Find the Gaza Doctor in the White Coat appeared first on The Intercept.
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.
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Continue reading...As he prepares to retire from journalism, James Risen warns of press missteps in the Trump era.
The post Media’s Biggest Failures appeared first on The Intercept.
The stars play Jewish American cousins touring Poland in honour of their grandmother in Eisenberg’s sharp, highly personal comedy boasting an Oscar-tipped performance from Culkin
It’s a slip of a thing, clocking in at a tight 90 minutes; a deft, light-footed amalgamation of two potentially formulaic comedy genres: the road movie and the mismatched buddy flick. But the second directorial venture from actor Jesse Eisenberg, which he also wrote and stars in, is considerably more than the seemingly slight sum of its parts. A Real Pain is a whip-sharp comedy driven by the rattling verbal sparring between uptight, neurotic David (Eisenberg) and his outgoing, unpredictable cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin). It’s also a profound character study – a substantial and emotionally nourishing journey that contains, courtesy of Culkin, perhaps the most devastating final shot of any film you will see this year.
It’s a notable step up for Eisenberg as a writer-director. His 2022 debut, When You Finish Saving the World, was an abrasive comedy of discomfort which, like A Real Pain, dug into the tensions between disconnected family members (in this case, Julianne Moore’s steely, do-gooder mother and Finn Wolfhard’s feckless aspiring musician son). It was a passably entertaining comedy drama; however it failed to connect with audiences largely because Eisenberg leaned on tired archetypes instead of creating fleshed-out characters for the central roles. There’s no such problem with A Real Pain: the writing is sublimely satisfying and textured, the characters persuasively realised, and the jostling, combative dialogue feels fully alive and refreshingly unpredictable, rather than a laboured assortment of words on a page.
Continue reading...Responding to letters calling for the Games to run every two years, Charles Harris says that, like sightings of the great white in the film Jaws, less is more
In calling for the Olympics to run every two years, I suspect people are falling into what I’ve called the Jaws delusion, as discovered by Steven Spielberg (Letters, 2 January).
While showing an early cut of Jaws, Spielberg found a particular shock effect with the shark worked so well with preview audiences that he inserted a similar effect earlier in the movie. As he expected, audiences were nicely shocked by the new effect. However, to his dismay, when the original scene came along later in the film it had lost its power to surprise. He removed the new one.
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
Alyssa Healy’s stated ambition on the eve of this Women’s Ashes was to “throw the first punch”. Mission very much accomplished. England limped away from North Sydney on Sunday evening with a bloody nose, whimpering to 204 all out in 43.1 overs – a total that, despite their best efforts, proved impossible to defend.
England undoubtedly missed the parsimonious bowling of Kate Cross, whose back injury continues to plague her; her fitness for the remainder of the series remains in doubt. But the real blame lay with the England batters, who played in classic “Jonball” fashion (the aggressive style to which coach Jon Lewis lends his name), lacking the patience required to see off Australia’s world-class attack. The hosts’ eventual margin of victory was just four wickets. Imagine what alternative outcome we might now be contemplating had England scored even 30 more runs.
Continue reading...404 Media is reporting on all the apps that are spying on your location, based on a hack of the location data company Gravy Analytics:
The thousands of apps, included in hacked files from location data company Gravy Analytics, include everything from games like Candy Crush to dating apps like Tinder, to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. Because much of the collection is occurring through the advertising ecosystem—not code developed by the app creators themselves—this data collection is likely happening both without users’ and even app developers’ knowledge...
We want to hear from people about their gym membership and whether they have done anything to keep costs down
We would like to find out more about gym membership costs, and whether these have increased.
How long have you had your membership? How much has it gone up by, if at all? Have you done anything to keep your costs down, such as ditching your gym membership, changing your plan, going less or signing up to free trials? What reason did your gym give for the price hike?
Continue reading...Is it all green juice and overnight oats, or do health experts enjoy the occasional burger or chocolate eclair? They reveal their tips and treats
What do you eat for breakfast?
A savoury breakfast bowl, including some sort of high-fibre carb, such as buckwheat, quinoa or millet, with spinach or kale, jammy eggs, some avocado and mixed seeds.
Pair being interrogated in Kyiv, with intelligence agency SBU saying one had fake Russian military ID; Russia claims control of village near Pokrovsk. What we know on day 1,054
Ukraine said it was interrogating two North Korean soldiers after capturing the pair in Russia’s Kursk region – the first time it has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last year. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on X on Saturday the soldiers were captured by Ukraine’s special forces and were being interrogated by the SBU domestic intelligence agency in Kyiv. The SBU released a video showing the two men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw. It said their questioning was being done in Korean with the help of South Korea’s NIS intelligence agency. Neither Russia nor North Korea immediately reacted to the announcement.
The SBU said the two captured North Korean men had told interrogators they were experienced soldiers, and one said he was sent to Russia for training, not to fight. It said one PoW carried a Russian military ID card “issued in the name of another person” while the other had no documents. The SBU showed an ID issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia. The SBU added that he was a rifleman born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021. The other man, who wrote his answers because of his injured jaw, said he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper, the SBU said.
South Korea’s intelligence agency on Sunday backed up Ukraine’s account of having captured the soldiers. The NIS said it had “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on 9 January in the Kursk battlefield in Russia”. It similarly said one of the captured soldiers revealed during his interrogation that he received military training from Russia after arriving there in November. The soldier said North Korean forces had experienced “significant losses during battle”, NIS said. According to the NIS, one of the men “went without food or water for four to five days before being captured”.
Zelensyy said it was difficult to capture North Koreans alive because “Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded” to cover up “evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war”. He said he would provide media access to the prisoners of war because “the world needs to know what is happening”. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, wrote online: “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”
Russia said its army had gained control of a village near the eastern Ukrainian logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key target in its advance through the Donetsk region. Ukraine’s military made no mention of the village of Shevchenko in its latest account of frontline activity, but said Russia had launched more than 50 attacks against its forces’ positions near Pokrovsk in the past 24 hours. The Russian military report said its troops launched strikes with aircraft, drones and missiles on Ukrainian military airfields and energy infrastructure that service its army. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces repelled 46 of 56 Russian attacks around about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector. Ten clashes were continuing. The governor of the part of Donetsk region held by Ukrainian forces, Vadym Filashkin, said one resident was killed and four injured when a village north of Pokrovsk came under Russian shelling.
Russia launched 74 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said early on Saturday, adding it had downed 47 of them, while 27 others disappeared from radar without reaching their targets. The air force said buildings and vehicles in seven different regions were damaged by falling debris from downed drones, but there were no casualties.
Ukraine launched drone attacks across several regions of Russia, striking two houses in the Tambov region and injuring several people, Russia said on Saturday. Ukraine denies attacking civilian targets in Russia. The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on Telegram that people were treated for injures resulting from shattered windows as drones hit two houses in the town of Kotovsk, 480km (300 miles) south-east of Moscow. The Russian defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 85 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country, including 31 drones over the Black Sea, 16 each in the Voronezh and Krasnodar regions and 14 over the Azov Sea.
Vladimir Putin awarded Russia’s highest honour for bravery on Saturday to Cpl Andrei Grigoryev after a widely posted video showed him killing a Ukrainian opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Ukrainian media identified the soldier killed as Dmytro Maslovsky from the southern Odesa region.
Continue reading...Diplomats have advised the UK prime minister to have a face-saving response just in case he comes low down on the list at the inauguration
Donald Trump may invite populist rightwing leaders from Europe such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to the White House before Keir Starmer, senior UK diplomats believe.
Downing Street and the Foreign Office are eagerly pressing for the prime minister to be at the head of the traditional “beauty parade” of overseas leaders who are called to see the new president in the days after the inauguration on 20 January. Representations are being made via the UK embassy in Washington.
Continue reading...The prisons are open, the secret files are unlocked. Now Syrians are trying to figure out how to hold war criminals accountable.
The post Searching for Justice and the Missing in the New Syria appeared first on The Intercept.
Billionaires gonna billionaire — and lick the boots of whoever will bring them more riches and impunity.
The post Facebook Fact Checks Were Never Going to Save Us. They Just Made Liberals Feel Better. appeared first on The Intercept.
Countries that cherish democratic values need to take a stand against the president-elect’s throwback to unabashed American expansionism
Watching politicians promise one thing, then do another, is a common experience in all democratic countries. Situations in which voters do not expect a politician to keep his word, and in many instances fervently hope and pray he will not, are rarer. Donald Trump, the US president-elect, fits this latter category. When Trump threatens to subjugate Canada, a Nato ally, by force, unilaterally annex Greenland, the autonomous territory of a friendly EU state, and override Panama’s sovereignty for bogus security reasons, most people assume he is not serious and his remarks carry little real significance. This response, while comforting, is a mistake.
It’s entirely possible that Trump, pumped with hype, hot air and testosterone in the lead-up to his 20 January inauguration, is being gratuitously disruptive. He likes to shake things up. It amuses his Make America Great Again (Maga) hyper-nationalist fanclub. It may be that this former property developer and convicted felon, who counts himself a shrewd negotiator, is deliberately raising the stakes before more reasoned discussions about security and trade. But it is also possible Trump means what he says.
Continue reading...Premier of most populous province says rhetoric clouds trade relationship worth hundreds of billions of dollars
The United States will “feel pain” if Donald Trump doesn’t back down from his threat to impose steep tariffs on its northern neighbour, the leader of Canada’s most populous province has warned.
After a tumultuous week that left Canadian leaders flailing for a coherent national response to Trump’s provocations – including the suggestion that the US would annex its closest ally – the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, told the Guardian: “We will never be for sale.”
Continue reading...And why those that do aren’t just trading in meme coins for the lulz.
The post Congress Loves Crypto. So Why Do So Few Members Buy It? appeared first on The Intercept.
Whether it’s banning articles on X or killing fact checks on Meta, the only constant is that it benefits the powerful.
The post My Ban From X Is About One Simple Thing: Elon Musk Controlling the Flow of Information appeared first on The Intercept.
Los Angeles county sheriff says death toll expected to rise, with firefighters racing to contain Palisades fire
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far of the LA fires – that have already destroyed at least 12,000 structures - at between $135bn (£111bn) and $150bn (£123bn).
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Los Angeles wildfires that have destroyed 12,000 structures and killed 16 people.
Continue reading...Amid deepening debt and an onslaught by the president-elect, Labour must calm the markets, then think big economically
It’s certainly not 2008, nor even Truss 2022, but the men and women who move the financial markets are suddenly darkly pessimistic. Some of the private emails and WhatsApp messages circulating last week matched any efforts by Cassandra. The mood has turned against Britain.
It is not one single thing, but a toxic mix. There is the prospect of a long period of stagflation, the consequence, as even the markets recognise, of 14 years of epic misgovernment. The problem now is partly that Labour does not have a plausible growth story, partly that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is painted as having an economic tin ear that douses capitalist animal spirits, and partly because Trump’s arrival has exposed just how dependent an indebted, economically wounded Britain is on the kindness of strangers. It’s not yet a crisis – the stock market has held up – but without some skilful economic and political statecraft, and a measure of luck, it may become one.
Continue reading...California governor calls president-elect’s claim that water is being withheld from southern California ‘delusional’
Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, appeared briefly to put his long-running feud with Donald Trump to one side on Friday, when he invited the president-elect to Los Angeles to survey devastation from the wildfires and meet with first responders, firefighters and the “Americans” affected.
“In the spirit of this great country, we must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump on Friday. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans – displaced from their homes and fearful for the future – deserve to see all of us working in their best interests to ensure a fast recovery and rebuild.”
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Steve Witkoff meets Israeli PM in renewed efforts to secure hostage release deal with Hamas
The US Middle East envoy chosen by the president-elect, Donald Trump, met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday amid efforts to secure a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza, an Israeli official said.
On Friday, Steve Witkoff met the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, to discuss “the latest developments in the region, especially the efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip”, the Qatari foreign ministry said.
Continue reading...Legislation aimed at limiting the US’s role in global warming is likely to be an early target of Donald Trump
The devastating wave of wildfires that has reduced thousands of Hollywood homes to ashes could not have afflicted the US at a more telling moment. Figures released last week revealed that for the first time the world overshot the 1.5C limit in global temperature rises that had been set as a desired upper figure by the Paris climate accord of 2015.
It is clear that the floods that engulfed Valencia last year, along with the typhoons that ripped through the Philippines and the drought that afflicted the Amazon were all made more likely by this unwanted temperature rise, say scientists. From this perspective, Hollywood’s misery is just one of many examples of the destruction heaped upon the planet by our burning of fossil fuels and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases. Crucially, such disasters are only going to worsen until humanity abandons the widespread combustion of coal, gas and oil.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...Senior cabinet minister promises not to dilute new measures despite Zuckerberg’s attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content
Britain’s new laws to boost safety and tackle hate speech online are “not up for negotiation”, a senior government minister has warned, after Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg vowed to join Donald Trump to pressure countries they regard as “censoring” content.
In an interview with the Observer, Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, said that the recent laws designed to make online platforms safer for children and vulnerable people would never be diluted to help the government woo big tech companies to the UK in its defining pursuit for economic growth.
Continue reading...In another era, the outgoing president would have made a great cold war leader. Instead, his tenure was dogged by errors, naivety and overcaution
In a week when the US bade a sad farewell to Jimmy Carter, presidential legacies came under particular scrutiny. Yet few presidents are widely remembered beyond their lifetimes, their “historic” achievements even less so. In the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon make the truly memorable list. Most of the rest are mere school-book names and dates.
Joe Biden’s standing in this unprepossessing pantheon is now being assessed, as he prepares to depart the White House on 20 January. Like his 44 predecessors, he reportedly frets about his “place in history”. All presidents do this. It smacks of vanity. They give valedictory lectures, endow foundations, build libraries, write memoirs. They confuse fame with continuing relevance.
Continue reading...Profits are poised to dominate in a new era shorn of years of hard-won regulatory restrictions
When some of the biggest banks on Wall Street reveal their full-year earnings this week, they will have more to celebrate than just rising profits.
Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on 20 January – scheduled the Monday after US bank results week – will raise the curtain on a period of looser regulation, lower corporation tax, and weak climate commitments.
Continue reading...Many in Youngstown, Ohio, believe the president-elect will tackle the town’s decline this time. Others are worried about his character flaws. Their concerns help explain how he returned to power – and how his second term might play out
The last time Donald Trump was president, he travelled to Youngstown, Ohio, among the most depressed of America’s rust belt cities, and promised voters the impossible.
The high-paying steel, railroad and car industry jobs that once made Youngstown a hard-living, hard-drinking blue-collar boom town were coming back, he said. “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house,” he crowed to a rapturous crowd in 2017. “We’re going to fill up those factories – or rip ”em down and build brand new ones”.
Continue reading...Alfred Bourgeois’s daughter is convinced of his innocence. In the four years since his execution, she has waged a sometimes-lonely battle to prove it.
The post She Lost Her Dad to Trump’s Killing Spree. Now She Wants Biden to Clear His Name. appeared first on The Intercept.
Every barrel of oil, every cubic meter of gas, and every ton of coal burned brings us closer to environmental catastrophe
Apocalyptic flames and smoke are raging through southern California in the worst fire in Los Angeles county’s history. At least seven people have died. Thousands of structures have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. The private forecaster AccuWeather estimates initial damage and economic loss at more than $50bn and has the potential to be the costliest wildfire disaster in American history. The impacts of the disruption and loss faced by community members is incalculable.
While some media outlets are discussing the link between the Los Angeles fires and the climate crisis, the president-elect Donald Trump and rightwing media are using this devastating event to foster misinformation including denying the role of climate crisis.
Continue reading...The president-elect has disparaged DEI. As Meta and Walmart drop diversity goals, here’s how others may follow
Even before Donald Trump won the election in November, multiple companies with announced they were ending their diversity initiatives. After the election, some of the country’s largest companies announced they too were sunsetting some of their corporate programs.
In December, Walmart said it was rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals and would drop using the term altogether. McDonald’s made a similar statement in January. On Friday, Meta became the latest major company to announce the end of its DEI goals, saying that the company will scrap its DEI team, its equity and inclusion training programs and requirements to have a “diverse slate” of applicants when hiring.
Continue reading...Zuckerberg’s appointment of the UFC supremo to Meta’s board appears to be a calculated move to solidify ties with Trump through one of his most influential allies
In the four months since Donald Trump accused Mark Zuckerberg of conspiring against him during the 2020 presidential election and threatened him with life imprisonment, the Meta CEO has gone to great lengths to curry favor with the incoming president.
Shortly after Trump’s victory in November, Zuckerberg traveled to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the president-elect and his transition team, even donating $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. He has also culled Meta’s third party fact-checking program, lifting restrictions on topics like immigration and gender. And this week, Zuckerberg took his efforts to align with the incoming administration a step further by appointing Dana White – the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a close Trump ally – to Meta’s board of directors.
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Public defenders and legal professionals said they never see the leniency offered to Trump given to other defendants.
The post A Tale of Two Justice Systems: Only Trump Gets Convicted of 34 Felonies and Receives No Punishment appeared first on The Intercept.
US president moves to shield roughly 230,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans against Trump administration
The Biden administration on Friday extended temporary humanitarian protections for about 230,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans living in the US, in an effort to shield those groups from an incoming Trump administration that has promised to deport them.
The decision in the dying days of Joe Biden’s presidency came after immigrant advocates and lawmakers urged the Department of Homeland Security to extend temporary protected status (TPS), designed to protect immigrants from being deported to countries that are engulfed in disaster or conflict.
Continue reading...California wildfires, Donald Trump’s sentencing, hunger in Khan Younis and freezing temperatures in London: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing
Continue reading...This week we learned that Meta is dropping third-party fact-checking, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, spiked a cartoon that made fun of him and other tech leaders kneeling before a statue of Donald Trump, and just about all the big Silicon Valley companies are donating $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. Jonathan Freedland and Blake Montgomery look at who will hold the power between big tech and the White House over the next four years
Archive: ITV, CBS, PBS Newshour, News Nation, CNN, Fox Business, Bloomberg Television, CNBC, BBC
Continue reading...Under Meta’s relaxed hate speech rules, users can now post “I’m a proud racist” or “Black people are more violent than whites.”
The post Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” appeared first on The Intercept.
In a speech to Israel’s parliament, Jonathan Greenblatt admits the ADL’s battle against antisemitism is losing — but blows it on what to do.
The post ADL Chief Invokes Pager Attack as Inspiration for Taking on Internet Trolls appeared first on The Intercept.
Conservatives have been hyperfixated on TikTok content that’s sympathetic with Gaza — and accused the company of algorithmic bias against Israel.
The post The TikTok Ban Is Also About Hiding Pro-Palestinian Content. Republicans Said So Themselves. appeared first on The Intercept.
Exclusive: SDF leader says removal of 2,000-strong force would leave door open for Islamic State resurgence
The leader of the Kurdish forces that control north-eastern Syria has called on Donald Trump to maintain a US military presence in the region, warning that a retreat would risk a resurgence of Islamic State in the country.
Gen Mazloum Abdi, the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said IS had increased its strength in the desert after seizing arms from the collapsed Assad regime, while the Kurdish forces were coming under increased pressure from Turkey and its Syrian proxies.
Continue reading...From the Washington Post:
The sanctions target Beijing Integrity Technology Group, which U.S. officials say employed workers responsible for the Flax Typhoon attacks which compromised devices including routers and internet-enabled cameras to infiltrate government and industrial targets in the United States, Taiwan, Europe and elsewhere.
Sebastian Gorka says letting people in prison camps return to Britain would benefit the ‘special relationship’ with US
British nationals being held in Syrian prison camps for fighting on behalf of Islamic State should be allowed to return to the UK, Donald Trump’s incoming counter-terrorism chief has said.
Any country that wants to be a “serious ally” to the United States should commit to the international fight against the extremist group by repatriating its citizens, according to Sebastian Gorka.
Continue reading...Critics worry that a sweeping ban based on predictions rather than more concrete proof of TikTok’s security risks sets a precedent in line with repressive regimes.
The post To Ban TikTok, Supreme Court Would Rank “National Security” Before First Amendment appeared first on The Intercept.
Russian world No 9 has become as well-known for hurting himself on court as for his tennis but feels he has turned a corner
‘I’m definitely feeling much better,” Andrey Rublev says as, with disarming honesty, he offers fresh insight into his long struggle with depression and physically hurting himself on court. “I’m still not in a place where I would like to be but, finally, I have a base. I have something to step on because, half a year ago, I arrived at the worst moment of my life in terms of how I feel about myself.”
We are talking just days away from the Australian Open and Rublev, the No 9 seed who has reached the quarter-finals in three out of the past four years in Melbourne, is charming, interesting and just a little tortured as he tries to understand the reasons for his psychological complexities in a manner as friendly as it is forensic. He turns a sports interview into a free-flowing conversation in which he is not afraid to share revealing personal truths.
Continue reading...Lawyer for suspended president says concerns about ‘potential incidents’ have arisen following thwarted attempt to arrest him at his residence
South Korea’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, will not attend the first hearing of his impeachment trial next week because of safety concerns, his lawyer has said.
Yoon has been holed up in the presidential residence and protected by an elite guard force since being suspended and impeached last month following a short-lived declaration of martial law that plunged the country into political chaos.
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Joe Stone says authorities ‘trying everything’ to find Aziz Ziriat after body of Sam Harris discovered on Wednesday
A close friend of a British hiker who has been missing in the Dolomites since New Year’s Day has said “there is an acceptance that it won’t be good news” as search efforts continued.
Sam Harris, 35, and Aziz Ziriat, 36, from London, last sent messages home on 1 January and the pair did not check in to their flight home on 6 January. Friends and relatives have travelled to Italy.
Continue reading...Recording of flight data ceased four minutes before Jeju Air crash that killed 179 people, says transport ministry
Flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air plane that crashed in South Korea in December, killing 179 people, stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at Muan airport, the transport ministry said.
Authorities investigating the disaster, the worst plane crash on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what caused the black boxes to stop recording, the ministry said.
Continue reading...The musician describes herself as many things: artist, introvert, activist, Scorpio, matriarch, punk, joker, optimist… We step inside the multiverse of the incomparable Björk
Björk is in Paris, and her laptop camera isn’t working. The laptop is eight years old, she explains, and she doesn’t want to replace it, for environmental reasons. “But let’s just say I haven’t exactly been crying about the fact that it doesn’t work.” She is a black square on my computer screen, which feels quite un-Björk-like, somehow, and yet also very Björk-like, too. Even without the visuals, she is instantly familiar. She jokes, she teases, her answers unravel slowly as she weighs up every side of a response, pin-balling between as many angles as she can find.
She says she has always felt a bit weird about video calls anyway. “Even when they started, I would find more distance in talking to loved ones, because it’s sort of fake. You see people, but it’s not real. You’re not getting the presence. So maybe it’s just because I’m a musician, and musicians are weird creatures, because we’re so sound-driven, that if you don’t get to hang out with a person and feel what it’s like to be next to that person, or get the energy, or whatever, in the same room, you might as well just have audio. At least that’s 100% audio, you know?”
Continue reading...Common Wealth thinktank warns that communities and taxpayer may have to pick up pieces when production ends
North Sea oil and gas must be brought under greater public control to avoid a cliff-edge collapse of the industry and secure a sustainable future for workers and communities, according to a report.
Under the current private ownership model the inevitable end of North Sea oil and gas production – whether through government action or the lack of viable oilfields – will lead to private companies abruptly abandoning the basin, leaving frontline communities and the state to deal with the social and economic consequences, the authors predict.
Continue reading...Heated airers claim to dry your clothes whatever the weather, without costing the earth in energy. From covered options to mini drying racks, we put 13 to the test to reveal the best
An energy crisis and perma-drizzle have conspired to keep the nation’s laundry damp, not least by making it such a turn-off to turn on the heating. No wonder heated clothes airers are having a moment. These modish appliances sell out within hours of reaching shops and inspire evangelistic fervour among owners, who call them “life-savers” and “gamechangers”.
Can a hot clothes horse really change your life, let alone dry your washing as fast as a tumble dryer for a fraction of the cost and with none of the noise? I needed to be convinced, so I put 13 bestsellers through their paces with my soggy washing to find out whether they’re the best thing in laundry since the clothes peg – or destined for the loft.
Continue reading...Authorities now have access to cockpit dialogue from Azerbaijan Airlines plane that went down on Christmas Day
Brazil’s air force has extracted the data from two black box recorders belonging to a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane that Baku claims was downed by Russia on Christmas Day, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
The Brazilian-made Embraer 190 crash-landed in Kazakhstan after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in southern Russia. Azerbaijan believes the plane was shot down by Russian air defences, which Moscow says were operational in the area at the time.
Continue reading...A banner 2024 whet the appetites of banks and crypto bros. Now the largest companies are salivating over Trump’s economic policies.
The post Trump’s Tariffs Will Create a Hunger Games Landscape Where the Little Guy Is Guaranteed to Lose appeared first on The Intercept.
As he prepares to retire from journalism, James Risen warns of press missteps in the Trump era.
The post Media’s Biggest Failures appeared first on The Intercept.
The Louisiana Republican blamed “wokeness” in part for police’s failure to stop the New Orleans attack that left 15 dead.
The post Steve Scalise Knows Exactly What Led to the Bourbon Street Attack: DEI Initiatives appeared first on The Intercept.
The mass murder in New Orleans and Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas fit a troubling pattern among U.S. vets, research says.
The post U.S. Military Service Is the Strongest Predictor of Carrying Out Extremist Violence appeared first on The Intercept.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is one of six medical workers with the Chicago-based organization MedGlobal who remain in Israeli custody.
The post The Scramble to Find the Gaza Doctor in the White Coat appeared first on The Intercept.
For the first group of ESA’s Astronaut Reserve, two intensive months of Astronaut Reserve Training (ART) have come to a close. During this initial training phase, members of the ESA Astronaut Reserve Sara García Alonso from Spain, Andrea Patassa from Italy, Arnaud Prost from France, Amelie Schoenenwald from Germany, and Aleš Svoboda from Czechia were introduced to essential skills required for future space exploration and scientific research.
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