********** HEALTH **********
return to top
Keep forgetting things? Worried about your brain? Here’s what I learned when I had mine scanned
Sun, 19 May 2024 13:00:36 GMT
From dementia to mild cognitive impairment, it’s easy to be terrified of what ageing will do our minds. But the vast majority of us can reduce the danger – especially if we look after our bodies
Like a lot of people who are getting on, I find myself wondering about my brain. If I mislay my glasses, or struggle with a name, is it just common-or-garden forgetfulness – the sort of slip I might have made well before hitting 60 – or something more worrying?
Why, I think, did I have to ask my wife to remind me what we’re doing for her birthday? Why can’t I remember if I locked the front door? Why did I fail to send that email I desperately need an answer to?
Continue reading...Our desires are an essential part of who we are – as I discovered when I lost my appetite for six months
Mostly, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is the cinematic, euphoric ideal of what it is to be alive. It’s the thing I looked forward to for decades. It meant to me, back then as a kid in Ireland, listening to songs about Lexington and 14th Street, freedom: an almost deranged amount of freedom.
Sometimes, though, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is agonising in both a physical and spiritual sense. This may be so, for instance, if you have no health insurance and are very stupid. Like me. That was in February 2023. I had been in increasingly acute pain for days, but because of a stubborn ability to ignore bodily breakdown and also a reluctance to spend money on healthcare in the US when I was only visiting, I kept going until I collapsed into an urgent care centre that I luckily passed one evening as I was dragging myself with manic good cheer to another dinner, despite being barely able to walk.
Continue reading...Ebrahim Raisi was travelling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province as interior minister says officials are awaiting further details
Here is a video of the Israeli war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, threatening to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza:
Here are some of the latest images coming out from the newswires:
Continue reading...Rescuers struggle to reach location of incident involving Ebrahim Raisi because of poor weather conditions
A helicopter carrying Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, was involved in a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state media reported.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, about 375 miles (600km) north-west of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Continue reading...The pioneering photographer, who would have been 100 next month, showcases her eye for the uncanny with this image of a newspaper stand
From the moment her father took his Leica camera from around his neck and gave it to Dorothy Bohm as she boarded a train out of Nazi-occupied Lithuania in June 1939, she seemed fated to her vocation. Bohm – then Dorothea Israelit – was 14 at the time and the journey took her to England as a refugee; she lodged with a family in Hassocks in the heart of the Sussex countryside. She did not see her parents – eventually sent by Russian forces, separately, to detention camps in Siberia – for another 20 years. The separation, she later said, gave her a profound sense of impermanence; the Leica felt like one antidote to that: “The photograph fulfils my deep need to stop things from disappearing,” she wrote. “It makes transience less painful.”
Over her long life – Bohm died last year aged 98 – that need never left her. This picture, taken in Lisbon in 1996, is included in a small exhibition and a wonderful retrospective book of the photographer’s work, Dorothy Bohm at 100, in which notable friends and fellow photographers pay tribute to her pioneering influence. Her career began when she set up a portrait studio in Manchester in 1946, but she subsequently travelled extensively with her camera across Europe and beyond, before settling in London, where she was a prime mover in creating the Photographers’ Gallery in 1971.
Dorothy Bohm at 100 is published by Beam Editions on 20 June (£35). A print sale exhibition of her work is at the Photographers’ Gallery, London W1 until 23 June
Continue reading...Passengers were left abandoned and humiliated after operator banned staff from providing assistance
Eurostar has reversed a new accessibility policy that left a wheelchair user stranded and has retrained its London staff following pressure from the Observer.
Travellers with disabilities claimed that they would be barred from Eurostar services after the company banned its London staff from pushing passenger wheelchairs. Those who require assistance were told they must travel with a companion or cancel their ticket if they were unable to access services unaided, according to passengers who contacted the Observer.
Continue reading...Ghofran Hamza is on a solo mission to bring glorious Syrian cuisine to lucky mid-Wales
Arabic Flavour, 4 Northgate Street, Aberystwyth SY23 2JS (01970 228 078). Starters and meze £4.75-£8.25, mains £14.50-£18.95, desserts £2.95-£7.75, wines from £21
Occasionally, during the wait for our starters at Arabic Flavour, one of us would pop off to the loo; a moment of magical thinking perhaps, in which a sudden absence from the table could somehow make the food arrive. They would stop by the kitchen door to sneak a look in through the window, willing there to be more people in there. Perhaps the rest of the brigade had simply popped out when last we looked. But no, there really was just one person in that kitchen doing everything: the compact, completely focused and utterly poised figure of Ghofran Hamza, the young Syrian refugee by way of Lebanon, who is determined to tell her 21st-century story at the stove. The lack of kitchen personnel means a dinner at Arabic Flavour is unlikely to be quick. Do not go ravenously hungry. Prepare a few conversational gambits. Perhaps do not go in a large group. But really, do go.
Continue reading...Operation will aim to retake road linking airport with Noumea, as the capital’s mayor says the situation is ‘not improving’
French forces have launched a “major operation” to regain control of a road linking New Caledonia’s capital Noumea to the main international airport, as another person was killed in a sixth night of violent unrest.
Officials said more than 600 heavily armed gendarmes were dispatched to secure Route Territoriale 1, the main road connecting the capital with the airport. Flights to and from New Caledonia’s main island have been cancelled since the unrest began, stranding travellers and cutting off trade routes.
Continue reading...For her debut book, the Irish photographer Eimear Lynch travelled around Ireland to photograph groups of girls immersed in the, often lengthy, ritual of dressing up and applying their makeup together
Girls’ Night is available now from IDEA
Continue reading...When asked what makes this an “emotional support squid” and not just another stuffed animal, its creator says:
They’re emotional support squid because they’re large, and cuddly, but also cheerfully bright and derpy. They make great neck pillows (and you can fidget with the arms and tentacles) for travelling, and, on a more personal note, when my mum was sick in the hospital I gave her one and she said it brought her “great comfort” to have her squid tucked up beside her and not be a nuisance while she was sleeping.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered...
The 71-year-old veteran peace activist discusses the war on Gaza, the Biden administration, and shaking up Congress.
The post Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin on Disrupting the U.S. War Machine appeared first on The Intercept.
The 22-year-old woman and her child were civilian casualties of a U.S. drone strike, but the Pentagon won't return the family's messages.
The post Pentagon Compensated Zero Civilian Victims in 2022 — Despite Evidence That the U.S. Killed a Mom and Child in Somalia appeared first on The Intercept.
“We’re continuing to work around the clock with the government of Israel and with the government of Egypt to work on this issue,” the State Department said.
The post American Medical Missions Trapped in Gaza, Facing Death by Dehydration as Population Clings to Life appeared first on The Intercept.
A new anti-terrorism bill would allow the government to take away vital tax exemptions from nonprofit news outlets.
The post Criticizing Israel? Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process appeared first on The Intercept.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...As brutal police repression sweeps campus encampments, schools have been cutting ties with pro-Palestine faculty members without tenure.
The post University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over “New McCarthyism” on Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
Dali L Yang’s critique of China’s response in the early days of the Covid pandemic is thoroughgoing if academic, while poet Liao Yiwu’s account mixes fact and fiction to extraordinary effect
Cast your mind back, if you will, to the beginning of the pandemic, before the World Health Organization had coined the term Covid-19. Back then, it was the “Wuhan virus”, a mysterious pathogen from a city that few people outside China had visited.
On 12 January 2020, China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the virus’s genome on an international database, permitting scientists anywhere in the world to see that it was a coronavirus closely related to Sars – the pathogen that had caused a mini-pandemic in 2002-2004.
Continue reading...Protectionism in the form of tariffs is justified but the focus will be on whether Beijing retaliates
The global economy is fragmenting and a new era of protectionism has dawned. Dreams by free marketeers of a frictionless world in which goods and services moved seamlessly from country to country are dead.
That was the clear message from Joe Biden’s decision last week to target China with a range of new, much higher tariffs on electric vehicles and a range of other products crucial to sectors seen by the White House as vital to the future health of the US economy and to national security.
Continue reading... submitted by /u/Saltedline [link] [comments] |
submitted by /u/Elliottafc1 [link] [comments] |
submitted by /u/titanjungkim [link] [comments] |
submitted by /u/machinade89 [link] [comments] |
submitted by /u/machinade89 [link] [comments] |
Local authorities will be allowed to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing
China will cut mortgage rates and allow local authorities to turn unsold homes from developers into affordable housing, in a series of drastic measures by Beijing aimed at propping up the country’s faltering property market.
The People’s Bank of China said it would scrap the minimum rate of interest and reduce down-payment ratios to 15% for first-time buyers and 25% for second homes. It will also create a 300bn yuan (£32.8bn) facility to support local state-owned companies to buy homes at reasonable prices, it said in a series of statements on Friday.
Continue reading...Targeting posts boasting of personal wealth appears to be part of campaign to ‘purify the internet cultural environment’
Chinese social media companies have launched a new crackdown on user content, targeting posts that show off personal wealth and financial extravagance.
In a statement posted online on Wednesday, Weibo said it had spent this month carrying out special management work on “undesirable value-orientated content”, including content “showing off wealth and worshipping money”.
Continue reading...Human-caused climate crisis brought soaring temperatures across Asia, from Gaza to Delhi to Manila
The record-breaking heatwave that scorched the Philippines in April would have been impossible without the climate crisis, scientists have found. Searing heat above 40C (104F) struck across Asia in April, causing deaths, water shortages, crop losses and widespread school closures.
The extreme heat was made 45 times more likely in India and five times more likely in Israel and Palestine, the study found. The scientists said the high temperatures compounded the already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where displaced people are living in overcrowded shelters with little access to water.
Continue reading...PFAS chemicals present in air, rain, atmosphere and water in basin, which holds nearly 95% of US freshwater
Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are ubiquitous in the Great Lakes basin’s air, rain, atmosphere and water, new peer-reviewed research shows.
The first-of-its-kind, comprehensive picture of PFAS levels for the basin, which holds nearly 95% of the nation’s freshwater, also reveals that precipitation is probably a major contributor to the lakes’ contamination.
Continue reading...From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
The post The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show the Opposite. appeared first on The Intercept.
Ukrainian military says its has forced Russia to reduce tempo of offensive; Russian president thanks Xi Jinping for ‘trying to solve Ukraine crisis’. This live blog is closed
Vladimir Putin has said that Russia-China cooperation is not directed against any other power and is a stabilising factor for the world, during his meeting with Xi Jinping.
It is of crucial significance that relations between Russia and China are not opportunistic and are not directed against anyone. Our cooperation in world affairs today acts as one of the main stabilising factors in the international arena.”
In our new journey we intend to remain good neighbours, trusted friends and reliable partners, consistently strengthening the relationship between our two nations … defending international equality.”
Continue reading...The volcano on the remote island of Halmahera spewed grey ash clouds into the sky as streaks of purple lightning flashed around its crater
A volcano on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera has spectacularly erupted, spewing a grey ash cloud into the sky and forcing people from seven nearby villages to evacuate, authorities have said.
Mount Ibu erupted on Saturday evening, sending ash 4km into the sky, as streaks of purple lightning flashed around its crater, according to information and images shared by Indonesia’s volcanology agency.
Continue reading...As much as 40cm fell in less than a day in part of Seoraksan national park. Plus, a powerful tornado in Australia
There was unusually heavy snowfall this week in the highlands of the mountainous region of eastern Gangwon province in South Korea. Between 5.30pm local time on Wednesday and 9am on Thursday, as much as 40cm fell at the Socheong shelter of Seoraksan national park, while 20cm was recorded at its Jungcheong shelter.
This unexpected snowfall has caused damage ahead of a harvest on wild vegetable farms that operate on the mountains. Conditions over the next few days are expected to improve, with warmer and drier weather over the weekend.
Continue reading...Since Dobbs, state-level Republicans have sought to strip power from DAs elected in Democratic cities who won’t prosecute abortion care.
The post Republicans Can’t Decide: Do They Hate Prosecutors Because of Bail Reform or Abortion? appeared first on The Intercept.
Opposition say ruling party undermining democracy by using police to harass candidates into not contesting in elections
When the people of Gujarat cast their votes last week in India’s six-week-long election, there was one constituency in the state that stood silent. There were no polling stations or impatient queues of people, and no one with the tell-tale inky finger. In Surat, no voting was necessary – the outcome was already decided.
Mukesh Dalal, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), won the seat by default after every other candidate was either disqualified or dropped out of the race. It was the first time in 73 years that Surat’s candidate was appointed, not elected.
Continue reading...“We’re continuing to work around the clock with the government of Israel and with the government of Egypt to work on this issue,” the State Department said.
The post American Medical Missions Trapped in Gaza, Facing Death by Dehydration as Population Clings to Life appeared first on The Intercept.
Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, has been slowly swallowed by the sea over the past few decades. This has led to the relocation of the school and many homes, resulting in a dwindling population. Currently, there are only four students attending the school, often leaving just one in each classroom. The village has experienced severe coastal erosion, causing 1.1-2km (0.5-1.2 miles) of shoreline to disappear since the mid-1950s
Continue reading...Growing up in a poor household is one of the biggest barriers to opportunity, yet it affects millions of children
• Gordon Brown on the UK’s child poverty scandal
• Torsten Bell: We can easily end child poverty
• Archbishop urges Starmer to ditch ‘cruel’ benefit cap
Almost one in three British children now live in relative poverty. Former prime minister Gordon Brown last week referred to this generation as “austerity’s children”: children who have known nothing but what it is to grow up in families where money concerns are a constant toxic stress, where a lack of a financial cushion means one adverse event can trigger a downward debt spiral, and where parents have to make tough choices about essentials such as food and heating. Rising rates of child poverty are a product of political choices; that we have a government that has enabled them is a stain on our national conscience.
The headline rate of child poverty is underpinned by other alarming trends. Two-thirds of children living in relative poverty, defined as 60% of median income, after housing costs, are in families where at least one adult works, a product of the number of low-paid jobs in the economy that do not allow parents to adequately provide for their children. Unsurprisingly, child poverty rates are higher in families where someone has a disability, and 58% of children from Pakistani and 67% of Bangladeshi backgrounds live in relative child poverty. Child homelessness is at record levels – more than 140,000 children in England are homeless, many living for years on end in temporary accommodation that does not meet the most basic of standards. One in six children live in families experiencing food insecurity, and one in 40 in a family that has had to access a food bank in the past 30 days.
Continue reading...Historians estimate a quarter of settlers of the US west were Black, moving cattle on horseback, settling towns and keeping the peace
When Larry Callies went to the movies as a boy in Rosenberg, Texas, the heroes riding horses and wearing 10-gallon hats were all white men.
But the real cowboys Callies knew were Black. His great-grandfather Lavel Callies was an enslaved cowboy who worked with horses professionally after emancipation. “We’re cowboys for three generations back,” says Callies, 71, who runs the Black Cowboy Museum.
Continue reading...Alexis Bloom’s documentary captures the sheer charisma of the actor, model and 60s rock survivor, though little of her background
The terrifying magnetism of Anita Pallenberg – the German actor, model, style icon, muse and, according to some, murderer who dated two Rolling Stones and epitomised rock chick cool – is captured in Alexis Bloom’s suitably enigmatic documentary portrait. Composed of interviews with those in Pallenberg’s orbit, and home movies that crackle with chaotic energy, Catching Fire is more concerned with the mercurial essence of its subject than it is with the nuts and bolts of her life. We learn little, for example, about her family background.
But Pallenberg was, it becomes clear, a self-created creature; a woman who kicked back with equal force against the restrictive gender roles prevalent in 60s and 70s society, and against the misogyny of the music scene. The girlfriend of Brian Jones, then Keith Richards, with whom she had three children, she did everything on her own terms; be it acting (Performance, Barbarella) or parenting, her approach was unconventional. But even Pallenberg’s formidable strength of character was no match for the drugs that were ubiquitous in the world in which she moved.
In UK and Irish cinemas now
Continue reading...It was like I was trapped in a movie – with a hideous plot twist
I met Eric on a dating app in early 2018 when I was living in New York. He was handsome, talkative and interesting. I was falling for him – but there was something he needed to know. In 2015, I’d been in love with a guy called Mike. On my 30th birthday, my parents threw me a party at their house. Everyone was having a great time until I heard my brother scream Mike’s name. As I ran towards the noise, I saw Mike on the ground by my parents’ pool. He’d slipped into the water and wasn’t breathing. I frantically tried to do CPR on him, but he remained unconscious.
At the hospital, I was told that Mike wouldn’t ever wake up. No one knows how he got hurt. He broke some bones in his back, and had a brain injury, but we don’t know how that happened.
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
And for some reason Justice Samuel Alito can’t stop talking about this witch trial judge.
The post The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau Is Constitutional, After All appeared first on The Intercept.
The Dublin-born chef talks about realising the culinary value of Irish food, plus six recipes from her new cookbook, Cooking with Anna
When Anna Haugh decided to write a cookbook after more than two decades in professional kitchens, pitching her recipes at the right skill level was a challenge. “Trying to simplify and reduce was an interesting learning curve,” says the Dublin-born chef, who opened her restaurant Myrtle in London’s Chelsea five years ago. “Even when I was doing the photoshoot [for the book] I would think, ‘No, that’s a bit too much,’ and I’d remove an element.”
The result is accessible enough for even the most hesitant cooks. It begins, irresistibly, with a section on 20-minute dinners, featuring potato cakes, speedy pasta dishes and a sea bream bake “for which you need zero cooking ability”. But Haugh, who has appeared as a judge on MasterChef, believes that sometimes a little extra effort at the stove can yield outsized rewards. “There are some dishes that might look complicated, but then you do it and realise, I’ve just injected loads of flavour and it wasn’t that hard. There weren’t 15 pots in the sink, a broken marriage and somebody weeping on the floor, questioning their life decisions.”
Continue reading...Tigran Gambaryan faces allegations of ‘serious criminality’ on behalf of world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange
A Nigerian court has ruled that Tigran Gambaryan, the Binance executive detained on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, can face trial on behalf of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
In a judgment in Abuja on Friday – Gambaryan’s 40th birthday – the presiding judge, Emeka Nwite, denied the American national bail, saying he was likely to abscond.
Continue reading...Lawyers urge international court of justice to issue urgent measures over assault on Gaza’s southernmost city
South Africa has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to urgently order Israel to end its assault on Rafah, halt its military campaign across Gaza, and allow international investigators and journalists into the territory.
In a court hearing, lawyers for South Africa expanded a written request for judges to issue an emergency order to stop the offensive into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
Continue reading...Since Dobbs, state-level Republicans have sought to strip power from DAs elected in Democratic cities who won’t prosecute abortion care.
The post Republicans Can’t Decide: Do They Hate Prosecutors Because of Bail Reform or Abortion? appeared first on The Intercept.
After inquiries from The Intercept, Duane Kees stepped down from his ethics panel position.
The post This U.S. Attorney Resigned Amid an Ethics Investigation. Yet He Wound Up Overseeing Judges’ Ethics. appeared first on The Intercept.
From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
The post The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show the Opposite. appeared first on The Intercept.
With Bowman’s challenger handpicked by AIPAC, the Israel lobby is cementing its status as the biggest player in Democratic primary politics.
The post Outside Groups Spent $285,000 Backing Jamaal Bowman. AIPAC Alone Just Dropped Nearly $2 Million to Attack Him. appeared first on The Intercept.
As brutal police repression sweeps campus encampments, schools have been cutting ties with pro-Palestine faculty members without tenure.
The post University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over “New McCarthyism” on Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
The 71-year-old veteran peace activist discusses the war on Gaza, the Biden administration, and shaking up Congress.
The post Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin on Disrupting the U.S. War Machine appeared first on The Intercept.
The 22-year-old woman and her child were civilian casualties of a U.S. drone strike, but the Pentagon won't return the family's messages.
The post Pentagon Compensated Zero Civilian Victims in 2022 — Despite Evidence That the U.S. Killed a Mom and Child in Somalia appeared first on The Intercept.
A new anti-terrorism bill would allow the government to take away vital tax exemptions from nonprofit news outlets.
The post Criticizing Israel? Nonprofit Media Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status Without Due Process appeared first on The Intercept.
The powerful lobbying group is going against a Capitol Police officer who fended off January 6 insurrectionists.
The post Neither Candidate Has Much to Say About Israel. So Why Is AIPAC Pouring Money Into This Race? appeared first on The Intercept.
Antony Blinken’s report identifies “incidents that raise concerns,” but says Israel is not blocking humanitarian aid.
The post Israel “Likely” Used U.S.-Supplied Weapons in Violation of International Law. That’s OK, Though, State Department Says. appeared first on The Intercept.
Four lawsuits alleging Hamas ties against Students for Justice in Palestine, the AP, UNRWA, and a cryptocurrency exchange share many of the same plaintiffs.
The post October 7 Survivors Sue Campus Protesters, Say Students Are “Hamas’s Propaganda Division” appeared first on The Intercept.
A donor to Dexter in the Portland congressional race tells The Intercept: “I give all my contributions through AIPAC.”
The post AIPAC and Republican Donors Raising Big Money for Maxine Dexter Against Susheela Jayapal in Oregon appeared first on The Intercept.
An open letter from government attorneys questions the legal cover for arms transfers to Israel.
The post Even Biden’s Lawyers Are Urging the White House to Change Course on Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
The Dublin-born chef talks about realising the culinary value of Irish food, plus six recipes from her new cookbook, Cooking with Anna
When Anna Haugh decided to write a cookbook after more than two decades in professional kitchens, pitching her recipes at the right skill level was a challenge. “Trying to simplify and reduce was an interesting learning curve,” says the Dublin-born chef, who opened her restaurant Myrtle in London’s Chelsea five years ago. “Even when I was doing the photoshoot [for the book] I would think, ‘No, that’s a bit too much,’ and I’d remove an element.”
The result is accessible enough for even the most hesitant cooks. It begins, irresistibly, with a section on 20-minute dinners, featuring potato cakes, speedy pasta dishes and a sea bream bake “for which you need zero cooking ability”. But Haugh, who has appeared as a judge on MasterChef, believes that sometimes a little extra effort at the stove can yield outsized rewards. “There are some dishes that might look complicated, but then you do it and realise, I’ve just injected loads of flavour and it wasn’t that hard. There weren’t 15 pots in the sink, a broken marriage and somebody weeping on the floor, questioning their life decisions.”
Continue reading...The novelist’s love triangle has its sights set on the elite insularity of the New York art world but its plot is programmatic
I’ve always admired Hari Kunzru’s novels for their dense, satirical plunge into subcultures. His characters are nervy, laconic, forever looking for a chance to escape their domestic lives, brimming not so much with feelings as ideas. Mike Frame, the protagonist of My Revolutions (2007), may be living the “rich person’s fantasy” of a country life with his spouse and stepdaughter at the turn of the millennium, but once upon a time he went by a different name and was involved too deep with a militant ultra-left activist group in the late 1960s and early 70s. White Tears explored the American popular music scene, with two twentysomething New York-based hipster record producers who grow obsessed with old blues singers because their songs were “more intense and authentic than anything made by white people”. In Red Pill, a middling British writer has a nervous breakdown while on an artists’ retreat in Berlin and becomes curious about the nihilistic visions of neo-Nazis and edgelords.
Blue Ruin is a pandemic novel and opens with Jay, an erstwhile British conceptual artist now living out of his car in New York, who encounters his ex-girlfriend, Alice, while delivering groceries for an app upstate. He is mindful of looking old and exuding the “stink of ill health and gas station food”, having been kicked out of a cramped bunk-bed housing situation in Queens after he tested positive for the coronavirus. Meanwhile, she is standing all masked up at the door of a sylvan cottage, her skin looking “glossy” and “radiant”. He runs out of breath while dropping her bags, and she doesn’t just recognise him, but insists that he stay in an unkempt barn in the same property. Years ago she’d cheated on him with Rob, Jay’s closest friend in art school, now a commercially successful painter. Imagine Jay’s surprise on learning that Alice ended up marrying Rob and they are quarantining with another couple – Rob’s gallerist, Marshal, and his girlfriend, Nicole – in the house upstate.
Continue reading...Mum added it to pretty much everything and I start every day with ginger and hot water
I should be a ginger spokesperson – I love it in every form. My all-time favourite is stem ginger. It’s underused in baking although not by me. One bulb will be quite zingy, but if you grate or finely dice half a bulb and mix it through a standard vanilla sponge mix, it adds a nice level of warmth. You can use the syrup as a glaze. I have a recipe for a sticky-toffee, self-saucing pudding that has chocolate and stem ginger in the sauce.
I grew up having ground ginger in curries, with my mum adding it to pretty much everything. You can add fresh ginger to curry bases as well, which gives a different flavour profile. I always keep root ginger in the freezer, never in the fridge, so it lasts longer. And whether a dish is sweet or savoury, I’ll always grate it straight in, using a very fine grater. It is a good way of introducing the flavour without it being too “bitty” or risk someone biting into a massive chunk of it – I get it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Continue reading...The author on how his mission to improve our national diet began – and where it needs to go
Chris van Tulleken has suggested we meet at his local pizza place, Sweet Thursday, in Hackney, east London. If the choice seems counterintuitive for a man with a mission to improve our national diet, he puts me right when we sit down. “Pizza has become emblematic of junk food,” he says, “but proper homemade pizza is very healthy.”
At Sweet Thursday, purist Italian chefs work their fresh sourdough bases in an open kitchen (rumour has it they are so purist in this vocation that they draw the line at making salad). But it is not just authenticity that counts, it is also community. Van Tulleken lives around the corner; the owner grew up nearby and this is where local families tend to come to catch up or to celebrate. “Above all, a restaurant should never be just a way of extracting money in exchange for nutrition,” Van Tulleken says. “Or for paying dividends to offshore investors. And I think these things are actually obvious even if you don’t live, like me, in a world of nutritional studies.”
Continue reading...In this extract from her memoir, A Woman’s Place Is in the Kitchen, Sally Abé recalls the job she had to leave
• Read the interview with Sally Abé
‘You’ll never amount to anything, young lady.” These are words that no one, no matter what industry they are in, ever wants to hear. If you’re a chef, it’s likely someone will have screamed them in your face at least once. For me, it happened at a restaurant I don’t include on my CV. I have never admitted that I worked for this chef in interviews and rarely speak about my experience, even to friends and family. Because I don’t want to trash someone’s reputation for the sake of my own, I’m not going to use the real name of the restaurant or of anyone who worked there. However, people need to understand that places like this exist, and that the experience was formative, if awful. So, let’s call the restaurant “Jeff’s” after the chef patron, then let me tell you about the worst time of my career.
I wanted to work at the Ledbury, a restaurant in Notting Hill that everyone was talking about but after trying to arrange a trial a couple of times and not being able to make the dates work, I looked elsewhere as my notice period at Claridge’s was coming to an end and I needed to have money coming in. I settled on Jeff’s.
Continue reading...Our desires are an essential part of who we are – as I discovered when I lost my appetite for six months
Mostly, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is the cinematic, euphoric ideal of what it is to be alive. It’s the thing I looked forward to for decades. It meant to me, back then as a kid in Ireland, listening to songs about Lexington and 14th Street, freedom: an almost deranged amount of freedom.
Sometimes, though, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is agonising in both a physical and spiritual sense. This may be so, for instance, if you have no health insurance and are very stupid. Like me. That was in February 2023. I had been in increasingly acute pain for days, but because of a stubborn ability to ignore bodily breakdown and also a reluctance to spend money on healthcare in the US when I was only visiting, I kept going until I collapsed into an urgent care centre that I luckily passed one evening as I was dragging myself with manic good cheer to another dinner, despite being barely able to walk.
Continue reading...As the prestige flower event begins, horticulturalists are shown how a waterlogged patch can help counter climate crisis
Gardeners should “embrace the bog” that has formed in backyards across the country after record rain, a designer at this week’s Chelsea flower show has said.
Naomi Slade will unveil her design for a floodproof garden on 21 May, showing that even with the unusually wet weather seen in recent months, British gardens can still be full of colourful flowers.
Continue reading...Ghofran Hamza is on a solo mission to bring glorious Syrian cuisine to lucky mid-Wales
Arabic Flavour, 4 Northgate Street, Aberystwyth SY23 2JS (01970 228 078). Starters and meze £4.75-£8.25, mains £14.50-£18.95, desserts £2.95-£7.75, wines from £21
Occasionally, during the wait for our starters at Arabic Flavour, one of us would pop off to the loo; a moment of magical thinking perhaps, in which a sudden absence from the table could somehow make the food arrive. They would stop by the kitchen door to sneak a look in through the window, willing there to be more people in there. Perhaps the rest of the brigade had simply popped out when last we looked. But no, there really was just one person in that kitchen doing everything: the compact, completely focused and utterly poised figure of Ghofran Hamza, the young Syrian refugee by way of Lebanon, who is determined to tell her 21st-century story at the stove. The lack of kitchen personnel means a dinner at Arabic Flavour is unlikely to be quick. Do not go ravenously hungry. Prepare a few conversational gambits. Perhaps do not go in a large group. But really, do go.
Continue reading...A quarter of Britain’s children live below the poverty line. Near his Fife home, the former PM shows how charities help families and says this issue must be a priority for any government
• The Observer view: Labour must tackle this scourge
• Torsten Bell: We can end child poverty
• Archbishop urges Starmer to ditch ‘cruel’ benefit cap
Outside a warehouse squeezed between a waste recycling plant, an auto parts outlet and a scaffolding company in Lochgelly, Fife, a blur of figures in hi-vis jackets are busily packing boxes into headteacher Ailsa Swankie’s car. Not for the first time, she is taking delivery of household essentials, hygiene products and food from the area’s heaving “multibank” – an institution she describes as an “absolute lifeline”.
The specific items differ with each pick-up – sometimes toilet rolls, other times washing powder or hot water bottles, donated by local businesses or sourced cheaply. But the need for each trip is always the same: an increasing number of families at her school who have found themselves struggling to afford what should be basic products. “We do have a lot of working families who work very, very hard, but they’re still really struggling,” Swankie says. “If I took nappies back to school, they’d all be gone by 3pm.”
Continue reading...Growing up in a poor household is one of the biggest barriers to opportunity, yet it affects millions of children
• Gordon Brown on the UK’s child poverty scandal
• Torsten Bell: We can easily end child poverty
• Archbishop urges Starmer to ditch ‘cruel’ benefit cap
Almost one in three British children now live in relative poverty. Former prime minister Gordon Brown last week referred to this generation as “austerity’s children”: children who have known nothing but what it is to grow up in families where money concerns are a constant toxic stress, where a lack of a financial cushion means one adverse event can trigger a downward debt spiral, and where parents have to make tough choices about essentials such as food and heating. Rising rates of child poverty are a product of political choices; that we have a government that has enabled them is a stain on our national conscience.
The headline rate of child poverty is underpinned by other alarming trends. Two-thirds of children living in relative poverty, defined as 60% of median income, after housing costs, are in families where at least one adult works, a product of the number of low-paid jobs in the economy that do not allow parents to adequately provide for their children. Unsurprisingly, child poverty rates are higher in families where someone has a disability, and 58% of children from Pakistani and 67% of Bangladeshi backgrounds live in relative child poverty. Child homelessness is at record levels – more than 140,000 children in England are homeless, many living for years on end in temporary accommodation that does not meet the most basic of standards. One in six children live in families experiencing food insecurity, and one in 40 in a family that has had to access a food bank in the past 30 days.
Continue reading...From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
The post The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show the Opposite. appeared first on The Intercept.
There was more business than usual and some bemused regulars after El Califa de León was rewarded for its ‘exceptional’ offering
El Califa de León, an unassuming taco joint in Mexico City, measures just 3 metres by 3 metres and has space for only about six people to stand at a squeeze. Locals usually wait for 5 minutes between ordering and picking up their food.
All that changed on Wednesday, however, when it became the first Mexican taco stand ever to win a Michelin star, putting it in the exalted company of fine dining restaurants around the world, and drawing crowds like it has never seen.
Continue reading...After inquiries from The Intercept, Duane Kees stepped down from his ethics panel position.
The post This U.S. Attorney Resigned Amid an Ethics Investigation. Yet He Wound Up Overseeing Judges’ Ethics. appeared first on The Intercept.
AI Overviews, announced this week, are the culmination of a long line of products dedicated to keeping you on Google.com
Google announced this week that it would begin the international rollout of its new artificial intelligence-powered search feature, called AI Overviews. When billions of people search a range of topics from news to recipes to general knowledge questions, what they see first will now be an AI-generated summary.
Google touted AI Overviews at its annual I/O developer conference as a way of delivering customers quick answers and simplifying the online search experience, but it also has another effect on the way that people engage with the internet: keeping users, and advertisers, on Google.com. It’s a new era in Google’s years-long quest for your attention.
Continue reading...“We’re continuing to work around the clock with the government of Israel and with the government of Egypt to work on this issue,” the State Department said.
The post American Medical Missions Trapped in Gaza, Facing Death by Dehydration as Population Clings to Life appeared first on The Intercept.
A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
Continue reading...South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases
What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?
‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid
On the last day of his Huginn mission, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months: the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of Cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the Space Station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward.
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
Continue reading...Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
RSS Rabbit links users to publicly available RSS entries.
Vet every link before clicking! The creators accept no responsibility for the contents of these entries.
Relevant
Fresh
Convenient
Agile
We're not prepared to take user feedback yet. Check back soon!