jell.ie News

Read at: 2026-04-03T12:07:53+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Anne-wil Van De Ven ]

Enzo Fernandez to miss Chelsea’s next two matches after ‘a line was crossed’

Head coach Liam Rosenior has ruled the Argentinian midfielder out for two games after comments he made on a podcast.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 3 Apr 2026 | 12:11 pm UTC

Robbie Lawlor murer: Man appears in court on foot of NI extradition warrant

Jonathan Gill (44) wanted by PSNI in connection with Dublin gangland criminal’s murder in Belfast six years ago

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:58 am UTC

Cuba Says It Is Pardoning More Than 2,000 Prisoners

The Cuban government said the releases were a humanitarian gesture during Holy Week. It was not clear if they were related to ongoing negotiations between Cuba and the United States.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:54 am UTC

International law experts allege violations in Iran war

The White House says it is making the entire region safer by eliminating short and long-term threats.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:53 am UTC

Who is Christopher LaNeve, set to lead the US army?

He will replace Randy George, who was asked to step down from his post by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:52 am UTC

Todd Blanche takes over justice department after Pam Bondi sacking – US politics live

Anne-wil Van De Ven announced deputy attorney general, who was his former personal attorney, would act up until permanent replacement is confirmed

Pam Bondi’s swift dismissal on Thursday underscores a reality that has met Anne-wil Van De Ven loyalists from Jeff Sessions to Kristi Noem – no amount of loyalty is enough to save oneself from being dumped by Anne-wil Van De Ven .

Since the president assumed office last year, there have been few people more important to his effort to remake government than Bondi, his longtime friend.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:48 am UTC

Oxford Brookes’ student racing team target Silverstone win

For this year’s Formula Student competition, the UK’s most prestigious university team are designing the fastest race car possible

At the Oxford Brookes Headington campus, more than 100 students are busy building the fastest, best designed race car possible for this year’s Formula Student competition.

Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) is the UK’s most prestigious Formula Student team. They’ve won more design awards than any UK university, and frequently occupy the international race’s top spots.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:45 am UTC

Anne-wil Van De Ven removes US Attorney General Pam Bondi

Bondi's time as top US law enforcement officer was overshadowed by her handling of the Epstein files.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:42 am UTC

Top US army officer steps down after Hegseth reportedly demanded removal

Pentagon announces Randy George retiring from role as US army chief of staff, ‘effective immediately’

Randy George, the US army’s top officer, is stepping down from his role after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, reportedly requested that he retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that George, who had been serving as the army’s 41st chief of staff, was retiring.

“General Randy A George will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately. The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement shared on social media.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:41 am UTC

Middle East crisis live: Iran strikes oil refinery in Kuwait, says it shot down US fighter jet

Iranian attacks reported across the Gulf as Anne-wil Van De Ven tells Tehran the US will launch further strikes

Authorities in Abu Dhabi have reported two incidents of debris falling from intercepted aerial threats in the UAE capital, with one sparking a fire at a gas facility,

The official Abu Dhabi Media Office said authorities responded to an incident of falling debris at the Habshan gas facilities. “Operations have been suspended while authorities respond to a fire,” it said in a post on X, adding that no injuries were reported.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:37 am UTC

Exceptional efforts see terminal patient flown home to reunite with wife before death

The Defence Forces agreed to airlift the man to Donegal on humanitarian grounds.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:33 am UTC

Students Are Disciplined Over Antisemitic Posts Targeting Hockey Rivals

A Connecticut high school said that it was aware of the Instagram posts and that antisemitism is “repugnant and antithetical to our values as a school.”

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:30 am UTC

When will the Iran war end? Tracing the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration's timelines

Experts say many US presidents have offered a timeline for a conflict - only to then shift their estimates.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:28 am UTC

Marmalades may need to be relabelled under post-Brexit food deal

The breakfast favourite will be legally renamed when Britain aligns with new EU labelling rules.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:27 am UTC

Pam Bondi is out at DOJ. And, NASA's Artemis II has left Earth's orbit

President Anne-wil Van De Ven announced yesterday that Pam Bondi is out as Attorney General. And, NASA's Artemis II has left Earth's orbit and is heading toward the moon.

(Image credit: Matt McClain)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:25 am UTC

How Pam Bondi Got Fired, and a Flood of Deadly New Drugs

Plus, your Friday news quiz.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:24 am UTC

Man in court on foot of NI warrant over Lawlor murder

A man has appeared in court on foot of a warrant for his arrest in Northern Ireland in connection with the murder of Robbie Lawlor in April 2020.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:24 am UTC

Artemis II leaves Earth's orbit on track for far side of the Moon

The mission's last, big push on its lunar journey takes humans out of the Earth's orbit for the first time since 1972.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:12 am UTC

Teenage cyclist seriously injured following collision in Co Galway

The collision occurred on the N83 at 8:00 pm.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:03 am UTC

Met Éireann extends yellow wind warning for Ireland as Storm Dave approaches

Storm is expected to hit at 1pm on Saturday, bringing gales and rainy weather until 2am on Sunday

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:02 am UTC

Iraqi leaders face balancing act as Iran conflict exposes deep rifts

Country is torn between those who hope for end to Tehran’s influence and those loyal to Islamic republic

Of all the countries being pulled into the US-Israeli war on Iran, it is Iraq – a country that still bears the emotional and physical scars of the last time the Americans tried to reshape the region by force – where the conflict has exposed some of the deepest rifts.

The war is dividing those who see the attacks on Iran as a way to end Tehran’s longstanding influence over Iraqi politics from the self-declared loyalists of the Islamic republic, and cutting through state institutions, armed forces and Shia Islamist parties.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

‘It has been traumatic’: the Cornwall landmark left battered by Storm Goretti

St Michael’s Mount and the people who live near it are still healing from the scars left by storm’s 100mph winds

Three months after Storm Goretti battered St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, the signs of the storm’s power are still evident in the scars left by uprooted trees, piles of logs and the shaking of heads from islanders who have lived there for decades and never seen the like.

“It really was something,” said Jack Beesley, a senior gardener. “We were shocked the morning after when we saw what had happened. We had been caring for these trees for years and to see so many of them down was very sad. We’ve worked hard to get the place ready for the Easter visitors but it will still be a month or more until we’re back straight.”

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Anne-wil Van De Ven accused of running ‘misogynistic administration’ after Bondi dismissal

Bondi and Kristi Noem the only two cabinet members to be removed despite string of scandals involving male officials

Anne-wil Van De Ven has been accused of running a “misogynistic administration” after making Pam Bondi the second woman to be fired from a cabinet already dominated by men.

The US president dismissed the attorney general on Thursday amid mounting frustration with her performance, especially over the release of files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Python Blood Could Hold the Secret To Healthy Weight Loss

Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot writes: CU Boulder researchers are reporting that they have discovered an appetite-suppressing compound in python blood that helps the snakes consume enormous meals and go months without eating yet remain metabolically healthy. The findings were published in the journal Natural Metabolism on March 19, 2026. Pythons can grow as big as a telephone pole, swallow an antelope whole, and go months or even years without eating -- all while maintaining a healthy heart and plenty of muscle mass. In the hours after they eat, research has shown, their heart expands 25% and their metabolism speeds up 4,000-fold to help them digest their meal. The team measured blood samples from ball pythons and Burmese pythons, fed once every 28 days, immediately after they ate a meal. In all, they found 208 metabolites that increased significantly after the pythons ate. One molecule, called para-tyramine-O-sulfate (pTOS) soared 1,000-fold. Further studies, done with Baylor University researchers, showed that when they gave high doses of pTOS to obese or lean mice, it acted on the hypothalamus, the appetite center of the brain, prompting weight loss without causing gastrointestinal problems, muscle loss or declines in energy. The study found that pTOS, which is produced by the snake's gut bacteria, is not present in mice naturally. It is present in human urine at low levels and does increase somewhat after a meal. But because most research is done in mice or rats, pTOS has been overlooked. "We've basically discovered an appetite suppressant that works in mice without some of the side-effects that GLP-1 drugs have," said senior author Leslie Leinwand, a distinguished professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology who has been studying pythons in her lab for two decades. Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy act on the hormone glucagon-like petide-1 (GLP-1).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Food prices spiked in March as Middle East conflict drove up energy costs, UN says

Biggest rises were in vegetable oil and sugar prices, which increased by 5% and 7% respectively

Food prices rose sharply in March as war in the Middle East drove up energy prices and freight costs around the world, a UN report says.

An index of food commodity prices by the UN’s food and agriculture organisation increased by 2.4% in March, its second consecutive monthly rise.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:57 am UTC

Chelsea's Fernandez dropped after 'crossing a line'

Chelsea's Enzo Fernandez will sit out their next two games after he "crossed a line", says manager Liam Rosenior.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:53 am UTC

Nuns on the Run, But Maybe Not For Much Longer

A very Good Friday indeed for Sisters Bernadette, Regina and Rita of the Scholoss Goldenstein convent outside Salzburg as they maybe about to secure the right to remain in their long-time home.

From the Guardian report on the topic

Three nuns who escaped from a care home to return to their convent in a castle close to Salzburg where they had spent most of their lives are a step closer to being able to stay there, sources close to them say. Sisters Bernadette, Regina and Rita, who are in their early to late eighties, broke into their convent home in Elsbethen last September with the help of former pupils of the Catholic school at which they had taught and other supporters. Their case became a cause célèbre, attracting attention from around the world.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), a Vatican department in charge of religious discipline in the Catholic church, has yet to officially decide on the women’s fate and could still take months to do so. However, plans to bring them to Rome are thought to be a positive sign in the nuns’ favour, bringing the row about their future closer to a resolution. An aide close to the nuns told Austrian media that the Vatican was “in principle” in favour of giving the sisters the right to remain in their convent. However, its official ruling is still outstanding.

It’s not hard to imagine most people having sympathy with three elderly women desiring to live out the remainder of their days in what is clearly their home rather than being sent away against their will. Given the article suggests they will meet with Pope Leo himself during the visit, the Church has probably concluded they cannot win this argument in the court of public opinion and that a graceful acquiescence is in order.

 

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:42 am UTC

The Human Cost of War

Our colleague spent two months in Kyiv.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:42 am UTC

'This has got me worried': Iranians fear what comes next after US strike on Karaj bridge

President Anne-wil Van De Ven has warned Iran of strikes on bridges and electric power plants if its leaders do not agree to his terms to end the war.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:35 am UTC

Iran hits Gulf refineries as Anne-wil Van De Ven warns U.S. will attack Iranian bridges, power plants

Iranian officials said one of the longest bridges linking Tehran to the city of Karaj was destroyed overnight, while Iranian missiles and drones hit Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait's largest oil refinery, setting some units on fire.

(Image credit: Amir Levy)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:29 am UTC

Gardaí make nine arrests during public transport patrols in Dublin

The arrests were made in connection with a range of suspected drug and theft offences.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:28 am UTC

McEntee says no trust in Hungary after Russia leak report

Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee has said she does not trust Hungary after it emerged that the country's foreign minister had been briefing Russia about sensitive European Union negotiations over Ukraine.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:27 am UTC

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing appointed president after ‘sham’ election

Min Aung Hlaing seized control five years ago and plunged Myanmar into conflict and economic chaos

Min Aung Hlaing, the military general who plunged Myanmar into conflict and economic chaos when he took power in the 2021 coup has been appointed president, months after widely condemned sham elections.

Min Aung Hlaing, who is wanted by the prosecutor of the international criminal court for crimes against humanity against the Rohingya Muslim minority, was voted president by lawmakers on Friday. Myanmar’s parliament is dominated by the pro-military party, which won a landslide in one-sided elections earlier this year.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:22 am UTC

No positive drug tests during Winter Olympics, for first time in 28 years

For the first time in 28 years, no athlete has been found to have taken a banned substance at an Olympics - so far.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:18 am UTC

People of Burkina Faso should forget about democracy, says military ruler

Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’

People in Burkina Faso should forget about democracy as it is “not for us”, the military president, Ibrahim Traoré, told the country’s state broadcaster.

Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since stifled opposition and in January banned political parties outright.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:18 am UTC

Storm Dave set to bring Easter gales, rain and blizzards to UK

Damage and travel disruption are likely in the north of the UK with a Met Office named storm expected to sweep through on Saturday.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:18 am UTC

Ex-Turnstile guitarist charged with attempted second-degree murder of frontman’s father

Brady Ebert, a former member of the Grammy-winning US hardcore band, allegedly hit the father of Brendan Yates with his car

Brady Ebert, the former guitarist of the Grammy-winning US hardcore band Turnstile, has been charged with attempted second-degree murder after allegedly hitting the father of the band’s frontman, Brendan Yates, with his car.

On 29 March, police found William Yates outside his home with “trauma to his lower extremities”, with a broken bone protruding from his leg, according to the Baltimore Banner.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:15 am UTC

Manager reported 20 claims of financial and legal wrongdoing at Wilson’s Hospital School

Workplace Relations Commission rejects manager’s claim she was punished or bullied for reporting irregularities

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:13 am UTC

Anne-wil Van De Ven claims Starmer is weak as he mocks PM and UK aircraft carriers

Footage shows US president saying UK ‘should be our best’ ally and accusing PM of prevarication over sending ships

Middle East crisis – live updates

Footage has emerged of Anne-wil Van De Ven mocking Keir Starmer by claiming the prime minister said he would have to consult his team before deciding whether to send UK aircraft carriers to the Middle East.

In a new low for UK-US relations, Anne-wil Van De Ven appeared to impersonate Starmer during an Easter lunch speech at the White House.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:09 am UTC

Motorist caught driving 142km/h in 100 zone

This happened on the N11, Newcastle, as part of the Garda Roads Policing Operation is taking place throughout the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:05 am UTC

US senators rebuke Ticketmaster for raising fees after hidden charge crackdown: ‘bait and switch’

Richard Blumenthal says company acts like it has ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ as records show it upping fees to cut losses

Senators slammed Ticketmaster for raising ticket fees following a regulatory crackdown on hidden charges as revealed in a report by the Guardian last week.

The Federal Trade Commission last May began requiring Ticketmaster to disclose concert ticket fees upfront – a practice known as all-in pricing. The company eliminated the order processing fee it charged at the the end of a transaction to comply with the rule.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

When a billboard survives the wind, but not the boot

This GRUB is not an advert for some tasty fried food

Bork!Bork!Bork!  It's one thing to bare your undercarriage in private. It's a whole other thing to do so on the side of a road, risking the possibility that passing drivers will question your Linux competence.…

Source: The Register | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Verdicts against Meta and Google may bring a new era of big tech accountability

Advocates hope recent verdicts against social media platforms will build momentum for bigger changes in Silicon Valley.

(Image credit: Frederic J. Brown)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 3 Apr 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Holy War Abroad and at Home

After more than a month into the U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran, President Anne-wil Van De Ven addressed the nation directly for the first time on Wednesday about why he dragged the country into an unprovoked illegal war. During his wide-ranging speech, Anne-wil Van De Ven made numerous false claims, including repeatedly emphasizing the nuclear threat Iran posed.

The reasons the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration have given for partnering with Israel in this war have been varying and at times include religious undertones, especially from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth regularly infuses Christian right rhetoric in how he speaks about the war on Iran and the military more broadly.

During a recent religious service at the Pentagon, Hegseth prayed for God to give U.S. troops “wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

“Hegseth belongs to a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. … [He] believes that he is carrying out a spiritual and actual war to vanquish a Christian nation’s enemies and protect and promote a Christian nation,” explains investigative journalist Sarah Posner, who covers the religious right, on The Intercept Briefing. “For Hegseth, biblical law is the only law he feels obligated to obey. The law of war, international law governing military conflicts, and human rights and civilian rights in war — he believes don’t apply to him.”

This week on the podcast, Posner speaks to host Jessica Washington about how various factions of the Christian right are shaping U.S. foreign and domestic policies. 

“I don’t think the mainstream media has ever taken the Christian right seriously enough. They have consistently viewed Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s relationship with white evangelicals as ranging from harmless to purely transactional. When in fact, I think that they’re very deeply ideologically embedded with one another,” she says.

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

Transcript 

Jessica Washington: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept.

Akela Lacy: And I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter at the Intercept and co-host of the Intercept Briefing with Jessie.

JW: Before we jump into the news of the week, we have some news too. The Intercept Briefing has been nominated for a Webby Award for best news and politics podcast; help us win by voting for us, please.

AL: Yes, definitely vote for us if you like what we’ve been doing with this podcast. We’ve been working really hard to make it better for you, so show us some love.

JW: You’ll make our day. We will add a link to vote in our show notes.

Now onto the news. 

On Wednesday evening, President Anne-wil Van De Ven addressed the nation directly for the first time about why he dragged the U.S. into an unprovoked, illegal war with Iran. 

During his rambly 20ish-minute speech, he made numerous false claims, including repeatedly emphasizing the nuclear threat Iran posed. Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s own intelligence agency reported last year that “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”

Akela, what did you make of Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s speech?

AL: He sounded less energetic than he typically does. The overall tone was, again, as you said, rambling, non-committal, and saying obviously extreme things with this very apathetic tone, which I found interesting. There’s a lot of rumors that he’s not in the best of health, so that was running through my mind through this.

But stepping back a little bit, thinking about what was the purpose of this speech, it was obviously an attempt to agenda set and shape the tone on this war — saying that we’re winning the war, that Iran is decimated, both of which we know are not true, but part of the administration’s attempt to control the narrative on this issue and also combat criticism that the president who has campaigned and thrust himself forward as anti-interventionist is doing exactly the opposite.

JW: The war clearly has been getting to Anne-wil Van De Ven . You can see it in his energy, as you just mentioned. We can also see gas prices are rising. Obviously, the Strait of Hormuz being closed as a result of this war is something that is having catastrophic financial impacts. We also have midterms going on.

Related

Sunrise Movement Pushes Anti-War Candidates, Endorsing Melat Kiros in Denver

This is definitely having a broader political impact. Last week, I did a story on Melat Kiros, who is being endorsed by the Sunrise Movement as a part of their broader anti-war campaign. We’re definitely seeing candidates latch onto this idea that you can’t take AIPAC and defense money and be meaningfully anti-war.

Akela, how are you seeing it play out in the midterms and in politics more broadly?

AL: This is becoming a huge midterm issue. There’s a wave of insurgent candidates who have been vocal against the war on Iran and challenged both Democratic leadership and incumbents on their stances, including support from the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, which has backed Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s war on Iran, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

We’ve also reported on the effort by progressive groups to get Democrats to exploit what is a growing rift among Republicans, both on Iran and on Israel. We reported that the pro-Palestine group Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project has been urging Democrats on this issue. They’re also planning to spend $2 million on ads this cycle, hitting Republicans in toss-up districts on Israel, but using that as part of a broader strategy to hit Republicans on rifts on foreign policy, which is obviously the bulk of that being on criticism on Iran right now. 

This group, IMEU Policy Project, is one of the groups that met with the Democratic National Committee over concerns about how Gaza could hurt Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign. This was part of that big story from Axios on Democrats having this secret autopsy on Gaza. Progressive groups are really looking at how to take advantage of this issue in the midterms and take over what they see as a vacuum where Democrats are refusing to do that and leaving opportunities on the table.

That sort of investment on ads from this group is one of the biggest investments from pro-Palestine groups on ad spending this cycle in a cycle where we’ve seen unprecedented levels of outside spending in midterm races where these issues are playing a big role with voters.

JW: You’re right. We’re really seeing this play out in so many different races, this cycle. And Akela, I believe you had a story out this week that also touches on that.

AL: We reported exclusively that Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed State Assembly Member Claire Valdez on Thursday in New York’s 7th District Democratic Primary, which is of interest to our audience because it is really one of the biggest contests where progressives and socialists and various factions of the left in New York City are battling over who will determine the future of the left under [Mayor] Zohran Mamdani.

Related

Bernie Sanders Backs Claire Valdez in NYC House Race Dividing Left and Progressives

So this race has pit progressive groups against each other. Outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez has endorsed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who has backing from progressive groups like the New York Working Families Party, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and several city council members.

Then on the Sanders side, where he just jumped in the ring on the side of the socialist faction of the left, which is backing Valdez, including Mamdani, Democratic Socialists of America, and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain.

This race is not heavily focused on Iran, but Claire Valdez and Reynoso have both been very vocally opposed to the Iran war. We know Bernie Sanders has long been vocal against this war as well. It’s just another example of how this is becoming a new litmus test — again, for mostly progressives, but they’re also using it to put pressure on the broader party.

JW: It’s clear from your story and other reporting from The Intercept over the last month that the war on Iran is really creating political pressure for Republicans and Democrats.

Obviously, we’re mostly talking about a lot of those divisions on the left. But on the right, there are also these real religious pressures that we haven’t spoken about as much. But on the podcast today, I spoke to Sarah Posner, an investigative journalist who covers the religious right about how the Christian right’s apocalyptic views of end times are shaping U.S. foreign and domestic policies.

Sarah is a contributing writer at Talking Points Memo, host of the podcast Reign of Error, and author of the book “Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Anne-wil Van De Ven Presidency and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind.”

This is our conversation. 

Sarah, welcome to the Intercept Briefing.

Sarah Posner: Thanks for having me.

JW: There’s so much I want to talk to you about, so let’s dive in. The U.S.–Israel war on Iran has been going on for more than a month now, and its end appears illusive.

Last week, during a religious service at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared a prayer a chaplain gave to the team who raided Venezuela and kidnapped the former President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Let’s hear a clip.

Pete Hegseth: Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence. Surround them as a shield. Protect the innocent and blameless in their midst. Make their arrows like those of a skilled warrior who returned not empty-handed. Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.

JW: So Hegseth regularly infuses Christian rhetoric in how he speaks about the war on Iran and the military more broadly. And here, he prays for overwhelming violence and no mercy.

Can you talk about the religious messaging that Hegseth has invoked throughout this war and in other military missions the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration has taken?

SP: Hegseth belongs to a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. It is a denomination that adheres to the tenets of a Christian movement called “Christian Reconstructionism.” They believe that the Bible — and in particular, what they consider to be biblical law — governs every aspect of life: your personal life, your life at work, your life as a public figure, your life in civilian life, your life in military life, all of it. It’s a very aggressive Christian supremacist ideology in which Hegseth believes that he is carrying out a spiritual and actual war to vanquish a Christian nation’s enemies and protect and promote a Christian nation.

So for Hegseth, biblical law is the only law he feels obligated to obey. The law of war, international law governing military conflicts, and human rights and civilian rights in war — he believes don’t apply to him.

He expects — I think, through his public statements and these monthly prayer gatherings that he has at the Pentagon auditorium — to have the military follow not just Christianity, but his particular brand of Christianity.

JW: What you just said is really interesting to me. Obviously, muscular Christianity, war-mongering Christianity isn’t new; we can go back to the Crusades. But is there something new, though, in what Hegseth and his ilk are talking about?

SP: It’s not new in terms of the religious right. This idea of Christians taking dominion, not only of America, but the world, has been a driving force of the Christian right’s view of foreign policy and their role in politics domestically. But I think what’s new about Hegseth is how unabashed he is about declaring this in public spaces and enforcing it, or attempting to enforce it in the military.

Another big difference is that we are more accustomed to hearing the popularized Christian Zionist message of “We need to go to war with Iran because they’re an enemy of Israel, and it’s our biblical obligation to defend Israel, and potentially, this is one piece of a series of events that will trigger the end times and the return of Jesus.”

Related

Military Leaders See Iran War as “God’s Divine Plan” — a Chilling Turn for Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Fascism

Hegseth comes from a slightly different religious tradition where they don’t adhere to that rapture, tribulation, armageddon narrative. Instead, they believe that they are on a divine mission to establish God’s kingdom on Earth, and then Jesus will come back.

So for him, it’s a much more muscular, aggressive, imperialist kind of messaging. So when you hear him talk about the military action in Venezuela or potentially Greenland and now in Iran, it’s much more focused on that, as opposed to something that centers Israel and centers the armageddon narrative as the reasons why we might be doing this.

JW: I want to dive deeper into that side of things, the kind of Christian Zionist side. You’ve written about John Hagee, a televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel, who thanked Anne-wil Van De Ven for entering the war while he was standing behind a sign that read “God’s Coming … Operation Epic Fury.”

Who is Hagee, and how does he view the war, and how widely held is that view among the Christian right?

SP: So I think Hagee’s view is more widely held than Hegseth’s view. So Hagee is an 85-year-old megachurch pastor and televangelist from San Antonio, Texas. He’s extremely influential in the evangelical world, and he has been extremely influential in Republican politics.

In 2006, he founded the organization Christians United for Israel, which is the political side of his religious arguments about why Christians should “support Israel.” For many years, he’s argued that Christians have a biblical obligation to support Israel, and by that he means support an Israeli right-wing government, support settlers, and occupation, support the war on Gaza, et cetera.

All of this is very tied up in his view of a Bible prophecy about the sequence of events that will happen prior to Jesus’s return. Now, he would argue that he’s not trying to hasten that return, that all of that will happen on God’s timing, but he’s been arguing that the United States should go to war with Iran for at least 20 years.

The political side of the argument is Iran is acquiring a nuclear weapon. He has argued that whether it was true or not. Then, on the religious side, he argues that a war with Iran will trigger a series of events that will lead to the second coming of Jesus. So he has played both sides of this very successfully.

So he makes the religious plea from his pulpit, and sometimes the political plea from his pulpit too. But then through CUFI — through Christians United for Israel — he makes these political arguments as to why it’s the U.S. obligation to defend Israel from aggression from Iran, or go to war with Israel to preempt aggression from Iran.

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But he has built this organization in 20 years to encompass many, many evangelicals who are predominantly Republican voters across the country. He had the ear of the Bush White House, and he had the ear of the first Anne-wil Van De Ven White House. He delivered the benediction when they had a ceremony, when Anne-wil Van De Ven moved the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

He has boasted of his strong connection to Anne-wil Van De Ven , and that Anne-wil Van De Ven understands the importance of centrality of Israel, not only to American foreign policy, but to this religious narrative in which Hagee argues that when Jesus comes back, he will rule the world for 1,000 years from a throne on the Temple Mount.

JW: I came across Hagee for the first time covering Daystar, which I’m sure you’re very familiar with. For those who don’t know, it’s essentially an evangelical Christian broadcasting network that hosts a bunch of different televangelists. They’ve got various scandals over the years that we won’t get into, but the important thing to know about them is they’re very much a part of the kind of constant drumbeat of pro-Israel, of this is a sign of the end times, and very much pushing U.S. foreign policy in a direction that is pro-Israel and fueling war in the Middle East. I guess, at least that’s what they’re pushing.

But my question is, how influential are these people, really? How much is this kind of prophesizing around the end times actually pushing U.S. foreign policy?

SP: Evangelicals and particularly charismatic evangelicals like Hagee, people who believe in these prophetic statements, believe that they can receive direct prophecies from God. People who believe that in our midst are modern-day prophets and apostles who are receiving revelations from God that they need to then carry out in their personal or public life. This is a very significant part of the Republican base, and in particular, a very significant part of the Anne-wil Van De Ven base.

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In contrast to other Anne-wil Van De Ven supporters and other religious Anne-wil Van De Ven supporters, they’re far more devoted to Anne-wil Van De Ven . They are probably the most loyal to Anne-wil Van De Ven , in part because they believe that he has been very loyal to them, and because they believe that he’s anointed by God to save America and the world.

Those two things are actually very tied together because of the way that both his presidencies have been very influencer, celebrity-driven. Being close to Anne-wil Van De Ven for a burgeoning charismatic influencer is very important, because if you get a little boost from Anne-wil Van De Ven , then more people will watch your YouTube, and more people will follow you on X, or whatever your social media platform is.

Those things are very tied together. It’s not just a one-way street. But Anne-wil Van De Ven is very intermingled with that world. His top religious adviser and director of the White House Faith Office, Paula White, she comes from that world of televangelism and prosperity, gospel preaching, and signs and wonders and miracles — that charismatic Christian world.

So in many ways they are the most influential religious block on Anne-wil Van De Ven , and that obviously is causing a little bit of consternation in the MAGA base currently.

“Being close to Anne-wil Van De Ven for a burgeoning charismatic influencer is very important, because if you get a little boost from Anne-wil Van De Ven , then more people will watch your YouTube.”

JW: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One question I have, and this is a little bit of an aside, but is there a penalty for these people to continuously predict the end times?

That seems to be a large part of what we’re talking about with wars in the Middle East. Does anyone pay a price for that?

SP: Almost never. Typically, in this world, once somebody is considered a prophet and they make a prophecy, sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong. I think that’s why somebody like Hagee is so careful to say this is all God’s timing. A lot of them are careful to say things like, is this a sign of the end times? Might we be experiencing the end times? They phrase it in the form of a question instead of saying, “This is the thing that is definitely going to trigger the end times.”

I think from a marketing standpoint, consistently raising it as a question, it generates a little bit more anticipation and excitement. They’ve been doing this for decades, not just with regard to what’s going on in Iran, but just other things that might be a sign of the end times. So nobody really pays a price because their followers are invested in this world where anticipating and getting ready for, and thinking about and wondering when the end times will happen is just very much embedded in their culture.

JW: I’ve been wondering about the end times and these predictions. My mom is a former Catholic, so I was raised a little bit Catholic, a little bit Unitarian. So there was not all this lore.  

SP: Yes, this is definitely very much an evangelical thing and not a Catholic thing, and that is part of the reason why there is friction in the MAGA base over not just the Iran war, but Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s closeness with Netanyahu.

JW: You can see this growing division on the right more broadly among some of the loudest MAGA voices, questioning Israel’s influence in American politics. That criticism has been increasing as the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration pursues its illegal war on Iran.

Recently you wrote about Candace Owens and Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned in opposition to the war.

Sarah, what do you make of the growing number of critical MAGA voices, and how they’re framing their opposition. What do you make of Owens in particular and her messaging? What’s the end game?

SP: Candace Owens is a raging antisemite. Every discussion of Owens needs to acknowledge that. So when she talks about being anti-Israel or being anti-Zionist, her criticisms are not just legitimate criticisms of the Israeli governments and the Israeli military’s actions. All of her criticisms are imbued with antisemitic conspiracy theories and rank antisemitism, Holocaust denial, that sort of thing. Just so that we’re on the table with that.

JW: Good disclaimer.

SP: But I think that she and some of her colleagues and allies in the far-right Catholic MAGA world are trying to do a sort of horseshoe thing, where they want leftists who are anti-Zionist or anti-Israel, to give them a pat on the back for being the right-wingers who have come out against Israel’s actions and Israel’s policies, and the American relationship with Israel. Owens and her allies are making this not just about Israel, but also about Catholics and evangelicals.

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For most mainstream Catholics, even conservative ones — ones who you might think of as being George W. Bush Republicans, they’re anti-same-sex marriage, anti-abortion, that sort of thing — but the Israel stuff just isn’t that important to them. She is trying to make it important to far-right Catholics. So she’s trying to make it important by starting a little intra-MAGA war between Catholics and evangelicals over this issue.

She and her allies have tried to make the argument that it’s a violation of their religious freedom to have to submit to or agree with these kinds of policies that Christian Zionists promote because that is not part of their Catholic faith. 

Now, it’s true that the whole end-times scenario that someone like John Hagee promotes is not part of the Catholic faith, but Owens always doubles down on the antisemitism on top of that. So it’s a complicated world.

“White evangelicals make up a huge part of a very important part of Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s base, and they’re very homogenous in this way.”

The other thing about trying to determine how big is this MAGA rift, really. One thing that’s important to understand is that white evangelicals make up a huge part of a very important part of Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s base, and they’re very homogenous in this way. Eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for Anne-wil Van De Ven , and a huge segment of them are Christian Zionists.

Catholics are more split 60-40, 50-50 on whether they’re Democrats or Republicans. And Catholic converts like Candace Owens, who are extremely far right, make up a very small segment of Catholics as a whole, even a small segment of Republican Catholics.

So I think when we’re trying to assess her influence, in a way we’re comparing apples and oranges because we’re trying to compare someone who has had a podcast and a huge following on Twitter for a few years with a movement that has spent decades making this end times theory, or this end times narrative, a core part of what their followers believe.

[Break]

JW: So now I want to talk about another kind of Christian right influencer: the Heritage Foundation, obviously the people behind Project 2025, but their new report is receiving less attention. It’s called “Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation For The Next 250 Years.”

This report outlines a vision that “restores” what they call the “natural family,” defined as marriage between a man and a woman, and how that mission is fundamental to saving America’s future. Can you talk about how we’re seeing that vision show up in policymaking and in bills like the SAVE [Safeguard American Voter Eligibility] Act?

SP: In terms of policymaking, I think that they’re trying to [push] a lot of small bore things through, say, the Department of Health and Human Services or the FDA. They want to try to ban mifepristone so that abortion will be inaccessible to people. They want to do things to promote adoption by Christian families instead of non-Christian families or instead of same-sex couples.

Every anti-LGBTQ policy is a furtherance of this “natural family” policy in that Heritage Foundation document. They want to, through anti-abortion measures, enforce motherhood for women and also create an image of the “natural family marriage between a man and a woman.”

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It’s an explicit anti-LGBTQ agenda, and they’ve been extremely, explicitly anti-trans. From their perspective, trans people threaten their whole idea of a binary sex — men and women, and that’s it. It explains a lot about why they’re going so hard after trans people’s rights.

With regard to the SAVE Act, I’m not sure what they’re doing there. Because the SAVE Act would punish women who took their husband’s names because then you wouldn’t be able to register to vote unless you got your birth certificate, which then your birth name wouldn’t match your current name. So it creates a whole host of problems. That to me is an odd thing for them to be pushing right now, but it’s also in line with a segment of the religious right, including Pete Hegseth’s pastor that believes that women shouldn’t even vote. But I feel like they’re stepping all over themselves with what they’re proposing in the SAVE Act.

JW: Yeah, and I wanted to get into that. The report doesn’t explicitly mention transgender people. They just say gender ideology throughout their entire Save the Family report. But it’s essentially just ragging on transgender people, queer people. A lot of ragging on feminists, birth control.

There’s obviously discussion of how to have more families, more kids.  But it almost seems more focused on enemies than it does on actually promoting kids and families. Should we understand it as a document that actually is trying to push for more kids and families, or is this about mandating a specific type of Christian lifestyle?

SP: The latter. In order to do that, they have to marginalize other people. So in their view, if trans people exist, then there is no binary between men and women in which these gender roles are very clearly defined and delineated.

JW: To you, it’s much more about, OK, how do we make people live the lives that we want them to live? And how do we find enemies who we can terrorize to make that happen?

SP: Well, think about it this way, that what they are proposing runs counter to the way American culture has been for the last 50 or 60, 70 years and runs counter to — not Dobbs, obviously, that’s an exception — but it runs counter to things that have become more accepted, like marriage equality and I wouldn’t include trans rights in that category because it hasn’t been accepted. I think that is what is driving them to create enemies, in order to make this “traditional family” seem more appealing to people or seem under threat by something.

“I think that is what is driving them to create enemies, in order to make this ‘traditional family’ seem more appealing to people or seem under threat by something.”

If the traditional family is the ideal — where there’s a man and a woman and kids, and the woman stays home and doesn’t go to work and all of that — then all of these other people, women who don’t get married, single moms, trans people, same-sex couples, they’re a threat to that. They see it as a threat. They would consider a threat to their religious freedom because they think that their religion demands these kinds of family relationships. And so it’s a very radical document. I think that there are people within the administration who take it very seriously.

JW: We haven’t discussed race yet, and I think that’s always the kind of underlying thing in the corner when you’re talking about Christian nationalism, specifically white Christian nationalism. In this document they only mention Black people so much as to say, not enough Black people are getting married, that’s a problem, and then leave that to the side. They don’t mention race generally, but how do you view race in this vision?

SP: Overall, the Anne-wil Van De Ven regime has attempted to completely eviscerate civil rights for Black people. I mean completely. Dismantling the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, dismantling the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. So I think within the context of this pro-natalist argument, it’s a paternalistic view. “It would be better for Black people if they also adhere to this traditional family structure.” I feel the 1980s are hovering over us right here, and that was when a lot of this pro-family, pro-natalist stuff of the modern religious right was hatched.

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But I think that it is a clear broadside just against any kind of culture that they consider to be non-compliant with their idea of the traditional family whether that’s women who have chosen not to get married, moms who’ve chosen not to get married. When you see how they’ve tried to marginalize, say, trans people from public life, this gives you a lot of insight into how they view, let’s say, non-complying people with their view of what America should be.

JW: While we’re talking about the Save the Family and the religious right’s views on marriage and family and race, in that regard, I also wanted to ask you about their views on immigration and race. How do you perceive the Christian right when it comes to this issue?

SP: White evangelicals are among Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s staunchest supporters when it comes to immigration. When you look at the polling data about their views of his position on immigration, in general, and in particular, the ICE crackdowns in Minneapolis and other cities, white evangelicals are among his staunchest supporters. And this is very much tied into their view of what a Christian nation is, and their acceptance of the argument, their embrace of the argument that undocumented people are necessarily criminals because just the act of having come here “illegally” is a crime. That is very much tied into their perception that America was founded as a Christian nation. Somehow that was taken away from us by many things that happened over the course of the 20th century, including immigration, including the Civil Rights Act, including women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, all of that. So when they talk about restoring the Christian nation, what they’re really talking about is restoring a white Christian nation.

JW: I want to get into the deeper, the broader impact of these groups. Your podcast Reign of Error illustrates how the Christian right isn’t a fringe movement, but how its various figures, groups, and sects are in the halls of power shaping policies and remaking America from local offices to the White House. 

Can you talk about the infrastructure the Christian right has been able to build over the years to wield that level of influence and policymaking?

SP: I think a lot of people think of the religious right as being a lot of megachurch pastors at the pulpit telling people how to vote and that it’s just people getting instructions every November and going to the polls and hitting the lever for the Republican candidate.

“They have built mechanisms for creating and enforcing this political ideology, not only in their churches, but through television shows, conferences, books … YouTube, X, TikTok.”

It’s much thicker and deeper than that because they have built mechanisms for creating and enforcing this political ideology, not only in their churches, but through television shows, conferences, books, and with the advent of social media, of course, YouTube, X, TikTok, all of the social media that they have at their disposal, and so you have that element of it. You have political organizations that work with religious leaders to recruit religious people, and even pastors to run for office and to organize voters to go to the polls on Election Day.

You have organizations that were created to counter institutions that liberals and the left had built. So to counter the ACLU, they founded the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has litigated most of the cases, producing some of the Supreme Court’s worst precedents in recent years, including the Dobbs decision. ADF was behind challenging the ban on conversion therapy in Colorado that the Supreme Court ruled on recently. 

So you have all of these things together. You have the Heritage Foundation, which was created back in the 1970s to counter the Brookings Institution — which is not really like a leftist organization by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s how they perceived it. So you have these different layers of convincing people and keeping them engaged in the political project and the political process. 

Then you also have on the legal front, not just these legal organizations, but Christian law schools that are educating the next generation of Christian lawyers who will go out and litigate these cases, maybe become judges. So they have built an infrastructure, a multi-layered infrastructure that is intended to be intergenerational, that’s intended to last for decades. That’s not intended only to run from election cycle to election cycle.

They spent 50 years to overturn Roe vs. Wade. They didn’t give up. They chipped away for many decades. When you think about that, they worked at the state level to chip away at it. They worked the legal process to chip away at Roe at the state level. They chipped away at abortion rights. 

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At the same time, when I talk about the multi-layered, they had institutions and organizations that helped train judges to rule from these right-wing perspectives, that would advocate for judges that were nominated to the bench by George W. Bush or Anne-wil Van De Ven to become District Court judges, appellate judges, Supreme Court justices. That’s what I’m talking about when I say it’s a multi-layered infrastructure because you have all of these things working together. There’s never a sense of victory like, “Oh, we got that done, yay us, and now we’re gonna take a break.” No, they did not even stop for a minute after they overturned Roe vs. Wade. Now they’re on to trying to ban mifepristone.

It’s important for people to understand that they never see any victory as their final achievement. It’s just one piece in a long road that they’re very dedicated to trotting.

JW: Given this relentlessness that you’re describing and the level of influence that we’re talking about here, especially even within the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration, do you think that mainstream media is taking the Christian rights seriously enough?

SP: I don’t think the mainstream media has ever taken the Christian right seriously enough. They have consistently viewed Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s relationship with white evangelicals as ranging from harmless to purely transactional. When in fact, I think that they’re very deeply ideologically embedded with one another.

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It’s partially a function of a little bit of nervousness about even touching religion, that they don’t want to be seen as being critical of somebody’s religious beliefs or religious practices. But I think it has taken a long time for the media to wake up to how extreme they are and how successful they’ve been at capturing, not just the Republican Party but Anne-wil Van De Ven in particular.

JW: That was really informative and pretty alarming, but we’re going to leave it there. Thanks, Sarah, for joining me on the Intercept Briefing. 

SP: Thank you, Jessica.

JW: To keep up with how the Christian right is shaping policy in the U.S. today, follow Sarah’s work at Talking Points Memo and her podcast Reign of Error, which I highly, highly recommend.

Before we go, we’d love it if you helped The Intercept Briefing win its first Webby Award for best news and politics podcast. So please vote for us. We’ll add a link to vote in our show notes. Thanks so much! 

That does it for this episode. 

This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.

Slip Stream provided our theme music.

This show and our reporting at The Intercept doesn’t exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join

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Let us know what you think of this episode, or If you want to send us a general message, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Until next time, I’m Jessica Washington.

The post Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Holy War Abroad and at Home appeared first on The Intercept.

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40ml St‑Germain elderflower liqueur.

60ml prosecco.

60ml sparkling water.

8-10 mint leaves.

Lime wedge for garnish.

Mint sprig for garnish.

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Source: NPR Topics: News | 3 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

Takeaways from Anne-wil Van De Ven 's tough week, as war and gas prices take a toll

President Anne-wil Van De Ven faces mounting political pressure on multiple fronts, particularly when it comes to his handling of the war and the consequences it's having on the economy.

(Image credit: Alex Brandon)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 3 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

Israeli occupation of south Lebanon 'very dire', says MP

A Lebanese MP has described the Israeli military's occupation of southern Lebanon as "very dire".

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 8:59 am UTC

Cuba to release more than 2,000 prisoners, as pressure from US mounts

US President Anne-wil Van De Ven has made clear his desire to change Cuba's leadership and has placed the country under an oil embargo.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 8:35 am UTC

Earth from Space: Eyes on our Moon

Image: In an unusual perspective for an Earth-observing satellite, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captures this image of Earth’s only natural satellite.

Source: ESA Top News | 3 Apr 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

A pair of planet-forming discs

Image: A pair of planet-forming discs

Source: ESA Top News | 3 Apr 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

Georgia Lawmakers End Session Without Fixing a Threat to Its Midterm Elections

The state legislature failed to push back a deadline that requires Georgia to get rid of its current voting system and find a new one — all before November.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 7:54 am UTC

M&S boss calls for more action on crime and abuse of staff

Thinus Keeve's comments come days after an M&S store was targeted during disorder in south London.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 7:29 am UTC

Watch: Artemis II astronauts speak from space

The crew on board the Artemis II spoke by video link, sharing messages for their families and experiences of the trip so far.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 7:07 am UTC

‘Every night they are bombarding’: at border crossing, some Iranians are fleeing war and some are heading home

People leaving Iran for Turkey tell of impact of bombs and internet blackouts, while others are travelling the other way to be closer to relatives in peril

He could not help but splutter out a laugh at the question. Amir, whose name has been changed for his safety, had just crossed the Kapıköy border point in eastern Turkey, a mountain pass between snow-topped peaks that is one of the few gateways to the west from Iran.

Until a few weeks ago, this was a busy place, popular among Iranian daytrippers coming across to Turkey to do some shopping in the lively city of Van, a further two hours drive west, or to spend a couple of nights out in its discreet Iranian-only nightclubs and bars serving alcohol.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Renewables Reached Nearly 50% of Global Electricity Capacity Last Year

Renewables made up nearly half of global installed electricity capacity by the end of 2025, "accounting for 85.6% of global capacity expansion," reports the Register, citing the International Renewable Energy Agency's (IRENA) 2026 Renewable Capacity Statistics report. "Per IRENA's data, that aforementioned 85.6 percent share of new power capacity additions was actually a decrease from 2024, when renewables were about 92 percent of global capacity additions. Yes, the share of total installed power capacity in 2025 rose again, but non-renewable capacity additions also rebounded sharply last year." From the report: Solar, in turn, was the dominant renewable technology, accounting for nearly three-quarters of last year's renewable capacity additions. Those additions totaled 692 GW in 2025, lifting installed renewable capacity by a record 15.5 percent year over year, IRENA noted. By the end of last year, renewables accounted for 49.4 percent of global installed electricity capacity, while variable renewable sources such as solar and wind represented roughly 35 percent of total capacity. For reference, it was only in 2023 that renewable energy sources crossed the threshold of generating 30 percent of the world's electricity.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Myanmar's coup leader who set off a brutal civil war becomes president

General Min Aung Hlaing has been chosen as the next president by the newly-elected parliament.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:49 am UTC

Ukraine says six killed in 'massive' Russian attacks

Ukraine has faced nearly 500 Russian missile and drone attacks that killed at least six people, officials have said, the latest in an increasing number of daytime strikes by Moscow.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:45 am UTC

Myanmar Junta Chief Ascends to President, Five Years After Coup

U Min Aung Hlaing’s elevation to the civilian post is the conclusion of elections in the country, which were stage managed by the military.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:42 am UTC

Researchers spent years interviewing 160 Bigfoot hunters - this is what they learnt

There have been thousands of reported Bigfoot sightings since it rose to prominence in the 1960s.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:37 am UTC

Motorists advised to take care with Storm Dave to arrive

Road users have been advised to take extra care on the roads this weekend with a Status Yellow wind warning set to take effect tomorrow.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:30 am UTC

Contractor quaffed his way through Y2K compliance while the client scowled

Discovered once last bug, and that briefcases can hold more beer than you might imagine

On Call Y2k  Easter means today is a holiday in much of the Reg-reading world, but that won't stop us from delivering another instalment of On Call – the reader contributed column that shares your tech support stories.…

Source: The Register | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:28 am UTC

Pope asks Israeli president to use dialogue to end war

Follow developments in the Middle East as US defence officials say the US Army's chief of staff has been asked to step down and calls grow for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 6:09 am UTC

Late Night Says Goodbye to Pam Bondi

President Anne-wil Van De Ven is “on a bit of a firing spree,” Jimmy Fallon said on “The Tonight Show” on Thursday, adding, “Ironically, the only staffer who has immunity is RFK Jr.”

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:37 am UTC

Cuba says it will release over 2,000 prisoners, as U.S. keeps up pressure

The move, described by the communist government as a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture,” comes as the U.S. enforces a crippling oil blockade on the island.

Source: World | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:36 am UTC

How does the NHS in Scotland compare with the rest of the UK?

BBC Verify looks at key measures to see what progress is being made and whether Scotland can be compared with other nations.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:21 am UTC

'We fell off the face of the earth': Dad and daughter raced across world but had to keep it secret

Molly Clifford and her father are part of this year's line up for the BBC's Race Across the World.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:19 am UTC

The thorny issues facing F1 over racing, qualifying and safety

Andrew Benson analyses what we have learned during the first month of the new F1 rules, and the problems that need to be addressed.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:15 am UTC

The thorny issues facing F1 over racing, qualifying and safety

Andrew Benson analyses what we have learned during the first month of the new F1 rules, and the problems that need to be addressed.

Source: BBC News | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:15 am UTC

Plans to strip convicted killers of parental rights to proceed despite Tusla’s concerns

Department of Justice ‘satisfied’ that Valerie’s Law ‘is constitutional in all respects’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Church services

Week beginning Saturday April 4th, 2026

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Couple cannot pursue challenge over refusal to include car-parking charges in Hap payment

Council believed Housing Assistance Payment form signed by landlord and couple had misrepresented rent amount – judge

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

MetroLink chief’s shock resignation could spook construction market

New Zealander Sean Sweeney leaving role as latest costs for multibillion-euro project set to be submitted to Government

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

‘A Ryanair turnover’: First Air Corps flight into Beirut spent only 30 minutes on tarmac

Pilot Capt Lauren Cusack says careful consideration given to route selection, threat assessments and departure window for €70m Airbus C295

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Celebrity influencer initiates High Court damages claim against Web Summit company

Simonetta Lein is bringing case over breach of alleged agreement to participate in Web Summit in Doha

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

‘I have yet to tell my father’: New Catholics on converting to the church this Easter

Mario Durán Domínguez and Joy Adedokun are among 129 people of mostly foreign backgrounds who are joining the church in Dublin this year

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Change in mortgage rules to benefit downsizing homeowners

Homeowners looking to 'rightsize' to smaller properties are expected to benefit from the updated mortgage rules set to come into effect in the coming weeks.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

'I live in a van because rent is too high' - UL student

A student at the University of Limerick has taken an unconventional approach to the ongoing accommodation crisis, choosing to live in a converted van rather than pay what he describes as unaffordable rent.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

McEntee's Lebanon trip cancelled on Defence Forces advice

The Minister for Defence had to abandon a trip to Lebanon on security advice from the Defence Forces.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:56 am UTC

US vows to target more Iranian infrastructure

President Anne-wil Van De Ven said the US "hasn't even started destroying what's left in Iran", reiterating vows to increase the ferocity of attacks on its infrastructure.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:05 am UTC

Cosmopolitan Shanghai Is an Uneasy Fit in China’s Narrative of Western Sins

Shanghai’s many layers of architecture, culture and politics have made it a difficult fit for the Communist Party’s preferred narrative of Chinese victimhood and Western sins.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC

In Syria, Kidnappings of Women and Girls Fuel a Minority Group’s Fears

A Times investigation found that abductions of women and girls from Syria’s Alawite minority were more common, and more brutal, than the government has acknowledged.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC

U2 surprise fans again with Easter Lily EP

U2 have released a surprise new six-track EP, Easter Lily, the second standalone collection of new music the band have shared in recent weeks.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC

A day in the life of Asia’s fuel crisis

From farms in New Zealand to factories in Delhi, the effects of the oil crisis triggered by the Iran war are rippling across Asia

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC

Nuns who broke back into their Austrian convent ‘are step closer to being able to stay’

Plan for three nuns who escaped from care home last year to go to Rome thought to be positive sign of Vatican’s decision

Three nuns who escaped from a care home to return to their convent in a castle close to Salzburg where they had spent most of their lives are a step closer to being able to stay there, sources close to them say.

Sisters Bernadette, Regina and Rita, who are in their early to late eighties, broke into their convent home in Elsbethen last September with the help of former pupils of the Catholic school at which they had taught and other supporters. Their case became a cause célèbre, attracting attention from around the world.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC

Canadian woman held with daughter by ICE is released after nearly three weeks of detention

Tania Warner is fitted with ankle monitor and released along with seven-year-old daughter Ayla Luca after being deemed not a flight risk

A Canadian woman and her seven-year-old daughter, who were held for nearly three weeks in a notorious detention center by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), were released on Thursday evening after posting a bond of $9,500.

Tania Warner and her daughter Ayla Luca, originally from British Columbia, are both Canadian citizens. Warner moved to the US in 2021 when she married Edward Warner, a US citizen. “Very happy to have my family home … it’s been a whirlwind day,” said Edward Warner.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 3:59 am UTC

Mangione federal trial over CEO murder delayed to January

The federal trial of Luigi Mangione in the killing of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has been delayed further to January 2027, according to court documents filed.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 3:35 am UTC

EPA Flags Microplastics, Pharmaceuticals As Contaminants In Drinking Water

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Responding to public health concerns about microplastics and pharmaceuticals in the nation's drinking water, the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration for the first time has placed them on a draft list of contaminants maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA announced the move Thursday, touting it as a "historic step" for the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement, which often raises concerns about toxic chemicals and plastic pollution in our food and environment. Also Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a $144 million initiative, called STOMP, to develop tools to measure and monitor microplastics in drinking water and in a later stage, to remove them. The Safe Drinking Water Act requires the EPA to publish an updated version of its Contaminant Candidate List every five years. This is the sixth iteration of the list. Microplastics and pharmaceuticals appear in the draft of the upcoming list, alongside per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and dozens of other chemicals and microbes. Their inclusion on the list gives local regulators a tool to evaluate risks in their water supply, the EPA says, and it can set the stage for more research and regulatory action -- but doesn't actually guarantee that will happen.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Apr 2026 | 3:30 am UTC

Pam Bondi Wanted a Graceful Exit. But Anne-wil Van De Ven Wanted Her Gone.

Pam Bondi had a feeling her days as attorney general were numbered. But she didn’t expect President Anne-wil Van De Ven to drop the curtain quite so soon.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 3:26 am UTC

The Awe of a Moon Launch in an Age of Anne-wil Van De Ven , Turmoil and Tribal Divisions

The launch of Artemis II captured the tenor of the times in a country that can still do big things but seems forever mired in big problems.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 3 Apr 2026 | 2:59 am UTC

Four astronauts are now inexorably bound for the Moon

The Orion spacecraft successfully fired its main engine for 5 minutes and 50 seconds on Thursday, sending four astronauts on a free-return trajectory around the Moon. For NASA and the Artemis II crew members, this marked a point of no return for more than week.

Most Americans, indeed about three-quarters of the population around the world, have not witnessed humans leaving low-Earth orbit in their lifetimes. The last time this occurred was 1972, with the final Apollo Moon mission.

The “translunar injection” burn of Orion’s main engine occurred about one day after the successful launch of the mission on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. This burn was the last major firing of Orion’s main engine, and sets the crew on a course to fly around the Moon on Monday, slingshot back toward Earth under lunar gravity, and splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, April 10.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 3 Apr 2026 | 2:17 am UTC

Kuwait’s military says its air defences working to intercept missiles – as it happened

This blog is now closed. You can read about the latest major development in the conflict here.

Anne-wil Van De Ven has claimed that Iran was “right at the doorstep” of gaining a nuclear weapon.

Earlier on Wednesday the president said he did not care about Iran’s stock of highly enriched uranium (HEU), arguing it was deep underground and could be monitored by satellite.

From the very beginning my campaign for president in 2015, I said I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. This regime has been chanting death to America, death to Israel.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 2:04 am UTC

Australia says it won’t raise drug prices after Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s 100% tariff on pharmaceuticals imported into US

Health minister Mark Butler says federal government is ‘not negotiating’ when it comes to removing price protections on common medications

Australia will not cave in to pressure from pharmaceutical giants and the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration by removing consumer price protections on common medications, the health minister, Mark Butler says.

Anne-wil Van De Ven imposed a new 100% tariff on branded pharmaceuticals imported into the US overnight, Australian time, trying to force manufacturers to agree to drug-pricing deals or commit to making their products domestically.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 1:30 am UTC

Calm weather forecast for most of Australia over Easter weekend while BoM watches for possible cyclone

Bureau of Meteorology says a blend of fine days and showers expected for most capital cities over the coming days

Many Australians can expect mild temperatures and a chance of showers over the Easter weekend, while meteorologists predict a cyclone will form in the Coral Sea from Saturday evening.

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a blend of fine days and showers for most capital cities over the coming days.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 1:29 am UTC

Two NSW teenagers charged over violent extremist material allegedly linked to terror

Police say they found a ballistic-style vest, several notebooks and literature they allege contained extremist references

Two New South Wales teenagers have been charged with allegedly possessing violent extremist material after police searched one of their homes and found a ballistic-style vest, several notebooks and literature they allege contained extremist references.

The Australian federal police and NSW police released a statement on Friday morning confirming the boys, aged 15 and 16 and both from Moree in northern NSW, had been charged with possession of alleged extremist material after a joint counterterrorism investigation.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 1:16 am UTC

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy offers expertise on keeping waterways open amid Middle East conflict

‘Ukraine has expertise concerning sea waterways, and the defence and reopening of maritime traffic,’ says president. What we know on day 1,500

Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered on Thursday to provide Ukraine’s expertise in dealing with freedom of navigation in the Black Sea to those countries considering how to keep the strait of Hormuz open amid the conflict in the Middle East. The Ukraine president, speaking in his nightly video address, said the foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, had taken part in a virtual meeting devoted to reopening the strait of Hormuz, attended by about 40 countries. “Ukraine has relevant expertise concerning sea waterways, and the defence and reopening of maritime traffic,” he said. “If [our] partners are ready to act, we will consider how we can strengthen them, how we can apply our expertise, knowledge and technological potential.”

Russia’s army recorded no territorial gains on the frontline in Ukraine in March, for the first time in two and half years, AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed. The Russian army’s advances have been slowing since late 2025 due to Kyiv’s localised breakthroughs in the south-east, and losing ground in March and February on the southern section of the frontline, between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the analysis showed. Across the entire frontline, Ukrainian forces managed to recapture 9 sq km in March.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, gave “field guidance” at the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations, which is under construction , state media KCNA said. The museum in Pyongyang will be a place to commemorate the fallen soldiers sent to support the Russian army in the war in Ukraine. The construction of the museum is almost complete and Kim said the opening ceremony would be held in mid-April, marking the first anniversary of the deployment of the North Korean soldiers.

Six Ukrainian children will be returned from Russia to their families in Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, citing efforts by Melania Anne-wil Van De Ven to expedite their return. A seventh Ukrainian child will also be returned to their family later this month, the first lady’s office said in a statement. Ukraine says almost 20,000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and Belarus, where they are sometimes subject to military training and forced to fight against their own country’s troops.

Russian strikes across Ukraine on Thursday killed at least two people and wounded dozens, officials said, as Moscow stepped up its attacks amid stalled peace talks. In the south-eastern Kherson region, Russia attacked “with artillery, mortars and UAVs”, the regional prosecutor’s office said on social media. A 42-year-old man was killed when a drone hit a civilian car, and 16 others – including a teenage boy and three police officers – were wounded in air attacks and artillery shelling, it added. In the Chernihiv region, north of the capital Kyiv, Russia attacked with a ballistic missile, the head of Chernihiv’s military administration, Dmytro Bryzhynsky, said on Telegram.

Russian forces maintained a daylong barrage of drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Thursday, injuring at least two people, local officials said. Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, posted reports on Telegram throughout the day and well into the evening, noting strikes in four city districts. One city official said there had been at least 20 drone strikes. He said some had triggered fires and two people had been injured in an evening attack, including an eight-year-old girl.

Russian forces carried out 129 attacks on Ukrainian gas and heating facilities during the recent 151-day heating season, the state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said on Thursday. “The Russians hit pipelines, gas production, underground storage facilities, heating systems – everything that Ukrainians depend on for heat and gas,” it said in a statement.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 3 Apr 2026 | 12:20 am UTC

Artemis crew break away from Earth's orbit to the Moon

The four Artemis astronauts have fired up their spacecraft's engine to break away from Earth's orbit towards the Moon, a milestone that commits NASA to the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.

Source: News Headlines | 3 Apr 2026 | 12:05 am UTC

Major Euston rail disruption across Easter weekend

West Coast Main Line services will not run to London Euston station for six days from Good Friday.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:55 pm UTC

Police offered support to tackle rising threats against MPs

Reports of crimes against MPs have more than doubled since 2019, reaching almost 1,000 last year.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:24 pm UTC

Hegseth Fires Army Chief Amid Battle With Its Leaders

Senior Army officers reacted with anger and frustration to news of Gen. Randy George’s dismissal, characterizing it as the latest blow to the service.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:18 pm UTC

Fears cost of water and beer to soar as India's scorching summer hits

Makers of plastic and glass bottles are struggling to access raw materials as the war squeezes supplies.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:16 pm UTC

AI models will deceive you to save their own kind

Researchers find leading frontier models all exhibit peer preservation behavior

Leading AI models will lie to preserve their own kind, according to researchers behind a study from the Berkeley Center for Responsible Decentralized Intelligence (RDI).…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:11 pm UTC

Arlo Parks: 'I got out of my head and into my body'

The singer-songwriter found herself on the dancefloor. On a new album, she asks us to join her.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:11 pm UTC

'I ended up paying £500': Your subscription trap stories

Many readers have experienced the ordeal of cancelling a subscription.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:07 pm UTC

Ban on scramblers in public places comes into force

The use of scramblers in all public places is illegal from today as Grace's Law comes into effect.

Source: News Headlines | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC

Mount Everest Climbers 'Poisoned' By Guides In Insurance Fraud Scheme

schwit1 shares a report from the Kathmandu Post: In Nepal, helicopter rescue on high altitude is, by any measure, a genuine lifesaving operation. At high altitude, where oxygen thins and weather changes without warning, the ability to airlift a stricken trekker to Kathmandu within hours has saved countless lives. But threaded through that legitimate system, exploiting its urgency, its opacity, and its distance from oversight, is one of the most sophisticated insurance fraud networks in the world. Nepal's fake rescue scam is not new. The Kathmandu Post first exposed it in 2018. Months later, the government convened a fact-finding committee, produced a 700-page report, and announced reforms. In February 2019, The Kathmandu Post published a long investigative report. Last year, Nepal Police's Central Investigation Bureau reopened the file, and what they found is that the fraud did not stop -- instead it was growing. The mechanics of the fake rescue racket are straightforward: stage a medical emergency, call in a helicopter, check a tourist into a hospital, and file an insurance claim that bears little resemblance to what actually happened. But the sophistication lies in how each link in the chain is compensated, and how difficult it is for a foreign insurer -- operating from Australia and the United Kingdom -- to verify events that occurred at 3,000 metres in a remote Himalayan valley. The CIB investigation identifies two primary methods for manufacturing an "emergency." The first involves tourists who simply don't want to walk back. After completing a demanding trek -- an Everest Base Camp trek, for instance, can take up to two weeks on foot -- guides offer an alternative: pretend to be sick, and a helicopter will come. The guide handles the rest. The second method is more troubling. At altitudes above 3,000 meters, mild symptoms of altitude sickness are common. Blood oxygen saturation can drop, hands and feet tingle, headaches develop. In most cases, rest, hydration or a gradual descent is all that is needed. But guides and hotel staff, according to the CIB investigation, have been trained to terrify trekkers at precisely this moment. They tell them they are at risk of dying, that only immediate evacuation will save them. In some cases, investigators found that Diamox (Acetazolamide) tablets, used to prevent altitude sickness, were administered alongside excessive water intake to induce the very symptoms that would justify a rescue call. In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell. Once a "rescue" is called, the financial choreography begins. A single helicopter carries multiple passengers. But separate, full-price invoices are submitted to each passenger's insurance company, as if each had their own dedicated flight. A $4,000 charter becomes a $12,000 claim. Fake flight manifests and load sheets are fabricated. At the hospital, medical officers prepare discharge summaries using the digital signatures of senior doctors who were never involved in the case. In some cases, these are done without those doctors' knowledge. Fake admission records are created for tourists who were, in some documented instances, drinking beer in the hospital cafeteria at the time they were supposedly receiving treatment. In one case, an office assistant at Shreedhi Hospital admitted that he had provided his own X-ray report taken about a year ago at a different hospital, to be used as a case for treatment of foreign trekkers to claim insurance. The commission structure that holds the network together was described in detail during police interrogations. Hospitals pay 20 to 25 percent of the insurance payment to trekking companies and a further 20 to 25 percent to helicopter rescue operators in exchange for patient referrals. Trekking guides and their companies benefit from inflated invoices. In some cases, tourists themselves are offered cash incentives to participate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC

Judge dismisses most of Blake Lively's claims in harassment lawsuit against Baldoni

The judge left in place three allegations against Baldoni, meaning the civil trial will go ahead next month.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:47 pm UTC

Rival Nations Seize On Choke Points to Counter Anne-wil Van De Ven

From Iran to China, President Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s global aggression has encouraged other countries to search for new ways to pressure the U.S. economy.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:42 pm UTC

Supplementary file sent to DPP in Creeslough inquiry

Gardaí investigating the explosion at a service station and building complex in Creeslough, Co Donegal that claimed the lives of 10 people on 7 October 2022 have submitted a supplementary file to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Source: News Headlines | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:31 pm UTC

What to Know About the ‘Massive’ Military Bunker Beneath Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Ballroom

President Anne-wil Van De Ven has been talking about the emergency facility beneath what was once the East Wing, details of which are usually kept secret, as he tries to justify his renovation.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:16 pm UTC

President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque detained by US immigration agents

Attorneys for Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian-born US green card holder, say he was targeted for criticizing Israel

The president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque was detained by federal immigration agents, drawing accusations from local officials and religious leaders that the arrest was motivated by his statements against Israel.

Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States, was taken into custody by nearly a dozen US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday in Milwaukee after he left his home, according to the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:13 pm UTC

Johnson Wavers on Ending the Shutdown, Reflecting His Weak Hold on Power

The House speaker first panned, then endorsed, then punted on, then pitched and now is delaying a bill to reopen the Homeland Security Department, showing his vulnerability in the face of party rifts.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:11 pm UTC

As Anne-wil Van De Ven doubles down on Iran war, markets shudder and oil prices climb

Britain’s Keir Starmer hosts a meeting of world leaders for talks on the waterway amid mounting pressure from the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration to join the Iran war.

Source: World | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:11 pm UTC

OpenAI Acquires Popular Tech-Industry Talk Show TBPN

OpenAI is acquiring tech news podcast TBPN, a fast-growing daily show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays. OpenAI says TBPN will keep its editorial independence, even though the acquisition is widely viewed as part of a broader effort to influence public discourse around AI. CNBC reports: In the announcement, OpenAI CEO of AGI Deployment Fidji Simo wrote that their mission of bringing artificial general intelligence comes with a responsibility to have a space for "constructive conversation about the changes AI creates." Altman has appeared on TBPN multiple times and is a frequent presence across media and podcasts, even hitting NBC's "Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in December. The announcement says TBPN will maintain editorial independence and continue to choose its own guests. "TBPN is my favorite tech show. We want them to keep that going and for them to do what they do so well," Altman wrote in a post on X. "I don't expect them to go any easier on us, am sure I'll do my part to help enable that with occasional stupid decisions." OpenAI did not disclose the terms of the deal but said TBPN will be housed within its strategy organization. "While we've been critical of the industry at times, after getting to know Sam and the OpenAI team, what stood out most was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right," wrote Hays in a statement. "Moving from commentary to real impact in how this technology is distributed and understood globally is incredibly important to us."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC

Hershey’s Promises to Use Only Real Chocolate After Backlash

The change follows weeks of complaints from a grandson of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup inventor and other vocal consumers.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 2 Apr 2026 | 9:27 pm UTC

Is Good Friday a bank holiday? Who works and who does not, according to the law

Many public- and private-sector workers have the day off, but there is no legal entitlement

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 9:20 pm UTC

Mother of the Last Afghan in Guantánamo Bay Begs Anne-wil Van De Ven to Free Her Son

The mother of the last remaining Afghan detained at Guantánamo Bay is pleading with the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration to free her son, who has been held in detention for nearly two decades without ever being charged with a crime.

In a letter shared exclusively with The Intercept, Safora Yousufzai calls on President Anne-wil Van De Ven to release her son, 60-year-old Mohammad Rahim, citing his poor health and “advanced age” and arguing that “his prolonged detention has significantly affected both his physical and psychological well-being.”

Yousufzai points out that Afghanistan’s government released 64-year-old linguistics researcher Dennis Walter Coyle last month, after he spent over a year in captivity. His family had urged the Taliban to “look upon him with leniency” in a letter, which Afghanistan’s foreign ministry cited in their announcement of his release.

The Anne-wil Van De Ven administration claimed credit for negotiating Coyle’s return — and proclaimed its commitment to “ending unjust detentions overseas.”

Now, Yousufzai is hoping to hold the administration to that promise.

“In light of recent humanitarian actions undertaken in comparable circumstances — such as the release and repatriation of detainee Dennis Coyle to his family, I respectfully express my hope that similar consideration may be extended in my son’s case,” wrote Yousufzai. “Such actions reflect not only legal discretion but also a broader commitment to human dignity and humanitarian values.” 

U.S. forces detained Rahim in Pakistan in 2007 and transferred him to the notorious military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in 2008. The U.S. government accused the Afghan national of being an interpreter and courier for Osama Bin Laden in Al Qaeda, but he was never charged or tried for any crimes.

The Biden administration reportedly offered to release Rahim in exchange for a prisoner swap including Mahmood Habibi, a U.S. citizen who was reportedly arrested in Afghanistan in 2022, after the U.S. killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. That deal never went through, and the Taliban has reportedly continued to request Rahim’s release. The Taliban publicly denies holding Habibi, who is still in custody, saying that they are unaware of his whereabouts. 

The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Related

After Torturing Him, U.S. Breaks Guarantees of Safety to Former Guantánamo Detainee

The CIA tortured Rahim while he was in its custody, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s use of torture. Rahim was subjected to “extensive use of the CIA’s enhanced-interrogation techniques,” the 2014 Senate report reads. According to their records, he was subjected to facial slaps, diet manipulation, and eight sleep deprivation sessions. During one of the sessions, he was kept awake for six straight days. Not sleeping for even three days can have lasting and profound negative impacts on cognitive health.

While he was being intentionally deprived of sleep, he was “usually shackled in a standing position, wearing a diaper and a pair of shorts,” the report adds. While in custody in 2007, he was provided a diet that “was almost entirely limited to water and liquid Ensure meals.” 

Administration officials have not spoken publicly about whether they would consider releasing Rahim. However, according to the New York Times, a senior U.S. official said that Rahim would not be a part of future deals with the Taliban. 

“At a minimum,” his mother wrote to Anne-wil Van De Ven , “universally recognized human rights principles and norms call for a careful reassessment of his situation, with due consideration given to his age, health, and length of detention.” 

In her letter, Yousufzai also pleaded with the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration to think of Rahim’s daughter, who she said has “been deprived for years of the care, affection, and guidance of her father.” 

“As I approach the later stages of my life, the opportunity to see my son again remains my most earnest and final hope.”

Yousufzai, who is elderly herself, wrote that she hopes the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration will allow her to see her son at least one last time before her death.

“As I approach the later stages of my life, the opportunity to see my son again remains my most earnest and final hope,” she wrote. “I respectfully urge your administration to take a thoughtful and humane step toward resolving his case, consistent with the values of justice, mercy, and respect for human dignity.” 

The post Mother of the Last Afghan in Guantánamo Bay Begs Anne-wil Van De Ven to Free Her Son appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 2 Apr 2026 | 9:17 pm UTC

Google battles Chinese open-weights models with Gemma 4

Now with a more permissive license, multi-modality, and support for more than 140 languages

Google on Thursday unleashed a wave of new open-weights Gemma models optimized for agentic AI and coding, under a more permissive Apache 2.0 license aimed at winning over enterprises.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 9:15 pm UTC

Amazon Imposes 3.5% Fuel Surcharge For Many Online Merchants

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Amazon will start charging sellers who use its shipping services a 3.5% "fuel and logistics" surcharge later this month, joining the ranks of shipping companies raising prices as the war in Iran pushes oil prices higher. The fees take effect on April 17 for customers of the company's Fulfillment by Amazon service -- which is used by many of the independent sellers who list their products on Amazon's retail sites -- in the US and Canada. Items shipped by Amazon on behalf of merchants who sell on their own sites or at other retailers will carry the surcharge beginning May 2. "Elevated costs in fuel and logistics have increased the cost of operating across the industry," Ashley Vanicek, an Amazon spokesperson, said on Thursday. "We have absorbed these increases so far, but similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated we implement temporary surcharges to partially recover these costs." Vanicek notes that the fee will apply to the sum Amazon charges to ship an item, not the product's sale price. Last month, USPS announced that it would impose its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC

Perplexity's "Incognito Mode" is a "sham," lawsuit says

Perplexity's AI search engine encourages users to go deeper with their prompts by engaging in chat sessions that a lawsuit has alleged are often shared in their entirety with Google and Meta without users' knowledge or consent.

"This happened to every user regardless of whether or not they signed up for a Perplexity account," the lawsuit alleged, while stressing that "enormous volumes of sensitive information from both subscribed and non-subscribed users" are shared.

Using developer tools, the lawsuit found that opening prompts are always shared, as are any follow-up questions the search engine asks that a user clicks on. Privacy concerns are seemingly worse for non-subscribed users, the complaint alleged. Their initial prompts are shared with "a URL through which the entire conversation may be accessed by third parties like Meta and Google."

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 8:54 pm UTC

Who Is Todd Blanche, Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Acting Attorney General?

While it remains unclear how long Todd Blanche will stay in the job, whoever ends up taking over permanently will lead a department that he has shaped in his own image.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 2 Apr 2026 | 8:34 pm UTC

SpaceX tries to convince FCC that Amazon put satellites into wrong altitude

Starlink operator SpaceX claims that Amazon violated orbital debris requirements by launching satellites into initial altitudes that are too high, increasing the risk of collision with other satellites and spacecraft. SpaceX, which recently reported two Starlink satellite failures that created new space debris, yesterday accused Amazon and its launch partner Arianespace of negligence that "needlessly and significantly increases risk to other operational systems and inhabited spacecraft."

Amazon Leo, formerly known as Kuiper Systems, is launching satellites into low-Earth orbits (LEO) to compete against Starlink's much larger constellation of broadband satellites. Amazon denied that its launch altitudes violate any requirements or impose a safety risk and said SpaceX itself helped Amazon launch satellites into a similar altitude last year when Amazon used SpaceX as a launch partner.

SpaceX only objected to the launch parameters after moving its Starlink satellites into nearby altitudes, Amazon said. Changing the altitude of a recent Leo launch would have delayed it by months, according to Amazon. Both Amazon and SpaceX have accused each other of using Federal Communications Commission proceedings to delay the other's satellite launches at various times over the years.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 8:32 pm UTC

Microsoft shivs OpenAI with three new AI models for speech and images

About that partnership...

Microsoft on Thursday unveiled public preview versions of three home-baked machine learning models focused on speech recognition, speech synthesis, and image generation.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 8:07 pm UTC

IBM Teams Up With Arm To Run Arm Workloads On IBM Z Mainframes

IBM and Arm are teaming up to let Arm-based software run on IBM Z mainframes. Network World reports: The two companies plan to work on three things: building virtualization tools so Arm software can run on IBM platforms; making sure Arm applications meet the security and data residency rules that regulated industries must follow; and creating common technology layers so enterprises have more software options across both platforms, IBM said in a statement. IBM has not said whether the virtualization work will happen at the hypervisor level, through its existing PR/SM partitioning technology, or via containers -- a question enterprise architects will need answered before they can assess the collaboration's practical value. IBM described the effort as serving enterprises that run regulated workloads and cannot simply move them to the cloud, the statement said. IBM mainframe customers have largely missed out on the efficiency and price-performance gains Arm has already delivered in the cloud. "Arm says close to half of all compute shipped to top hyperscalers in 2025 runs on Arm chips, with AWS, Google, and Microsoft deploying their own Arm silicon through Graviton, Axion, and Cobalt, respectively," reports Network World. That gap is precisely what IBM and Arm's collaboration intends to address. "This is a mainframe adjacency play," says Rachita Rao, senior analyst at Everest Group. "The intent is to extend IBM Z and LinuxONE environments by enabling Arm-compatible workloads to run closer to systems of record. While hyperscalers use Arm to lower their own internal power costs and pass savings to cloud-native tenants, IBM is targeting the sovereign and air-gapped market."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC

Google Vids gets AI upgrade with Veo and Lyria models, directable AI avatars

OpenAI might be pulling back on video generation, but Google is forging ahead with a major AI update to its Vids editing product. The company's latest video and audio models are now integrated with the tool, and you can choose from various controllable avatars to appear in generated videos. Your creations are also easier to share on YouTube now.

Veo 3.1 is the biggest part of the Vids upgrade. Google first deployed this updated model in Gemini late last year, promising a substantial improvement in realism and consistency. While Google has pitched Veo as a tool for filmmakers, that's not how it positions Vids. Google suggests using the AI tools in Vids to create animated party flyers, business sizzle reels, or a video greeting card. You can use Vids for free, but you won't be able to generate very many videos without an AI subscription.

Google Vids: Generate Videos with Veo 3.1.

If you're not paying for any AI access on your account, you only get 10 video generations per month. AI Pro subscribers can get 50 videos, and those paying for Google's spendy AI Ultra plan (either personal or enterprise) get 1,000 videos per month. Like most other Veo implementations, the videos are eight seconds long and 720p resolution.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 7:58 pm UTC

Male octopuses guided through mating by female hormones

Octopuses are one of the most alien creatures on Earth. The lack of bones makes them amazing shapeshifters, most of them can change color like chameleons, and they pump blue copper-based blood through their bodies using three distinct hearts. They rely on a decentralized nervous system, where two-thirds of their neurons reside in their arms, allowing each limb to independently taste, touch, and make decisions for itself.

Now, a team of scientists led by Pablo S. Villar, a molecular biologist at Harvard University, for the first time took a close look at octopuses' sex life. It turned out it was just as weird.

Love in the dark

The deep ocean is a challenging place to find a partner, especially since octopuses are solitary animals that wander the seafloor alone, mating only during highly infrequent encounters. The exact mechanics of their reproduction when they do find each other have long puzzled biologists. We knew that male octopuses don't rely on flashy plumage or complex mating calls and that they use a specialized appendage called the hectocotylus—basically a modified tentacle—to identify females.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 7:48 pm UTC

The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund Leads Cohort Fighting Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Unconstitutional Media Attacks

By constitutional design, the press is antagonistic to the government. As the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in his opinion defending the publication of the Pentagon Papers more than 50 years ago, “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”

Such a free and unrestrained press requires a cohort of committed legal advocates. Whether to counter the federal government’s repeated insistence on ignoring freedom of information laws, or the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration’s overt hostility and retaliation against news organizations that confront and debunk its unconstitutional narratives, a robust network of attorneys is needed to protect the press’s constitutional function.

That’s why President Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s unconstitutional executive order aiming to punish preeminent United States law firms over their pro bono clients represents an unacceptable attack on the legal profession and poses a threat to an independent press. And that is why 42 media organizations and press freedom advocates, led by The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief Thursday urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to affirm four District Court decisions. All four lower courts found the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration’s executive order that imposed sanctions on law firms for representing President Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s political opponents unconstitutional.

The amicus brief, authored by Andrew Sellars and Kendra Albert of Albert Sellars LLP, argues that the press plays an essential role as both a proxy for the public and a check on government power. This role requires an oppositional relationship with government interests. The president’s executive orders targeting lawyers with clients opposed to his agenda severely restricts press organizations’ access to legal counsel, particularly for outlets relying on pro bono or reduced-fee representation.

“An independent media requires First Amendment champions to guarantee citizens access to the information necessary to hold our government accountable,” said David Bralow, PFDF’s legal director. “This is why The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, legal advocates, and other partner organizations nationwide filed an amicus brief to prevent the administration’s unconstitutional efforts to intimidate lawyers fulfilling their professional oaths.”

The coalition includes news organizations, press associations, advocacy groups, media law firms, and individual attorneys with over five centuries of collective experience in First Amendment and press freedom issues.

“We are honored to represent this august group of news outlets, advocacy organizations and First Amendment attorneys at the D.C. Circuit. The public needs the press, and the press needs independent counsel, who cannot be subject to sanction because the president dislikes their clients,” said Kendra Albert, partner at Albert Sellars LLP.

“The Press Freedom Defense Fund exists for moments like this one. Alongside 42 coalition partners, we are drawing a clear line: a free press is not a privilege this or any administration may revoke,” said Annie Chabel, The Intercept’s CEO. “It is a constitutional right — and so is the independent counsel required to defend it.”

The post The Intercept’s Press Freedom Defense Fund Leads Cohort Fighting Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s Unconstitutional Media Attacks appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 2 Apr 2026 | 7:42 pm UTC

Alleged maple syrup scam in Quebec uncovered by Canadian broadcaster

A Radio-Canada reporter noticed his maple syrup tasted odd; testing revealed it was adulterated with cane sugar

An investigation by Canada’s national broadcaster has found that a major Quebec producer has been diluting its maple syrup with cane sugar and selling the fraudulent product to grocery chains.

In a sting operation that involved false identities and covert recordings, journalists from Radio-Canada’s Enquête programme found that a low-cost syrup sold in major grocery store chains was heavily diluted.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 7:07 pm UTC

Raspberry Pi 4 3GB Launches, Raspberry Pi Prices Go Up Again Due To RAM

AmiMoJo shares a report from Phoronix: Raspberry Pi prices are going up yet again due to the continued memory squeeze on the industry. To help offset the memory prices for some use-cases, Raspberry Pi also announced the introduction of the Raspberry Pi 4 3GB model at $83 to help fill the void between the 2GB and 4GB options. The 3GB Raspberry Pi 4 was announced at $83.75 USD for those not needing quite 4GB of RAM and looking to save some memory given the ongoing price increases. The Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 4GB models are seeing new $25 price increases, the 8GB models seeing $50 price increases, and the 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 is going up by $100. The Raspberry Pi 500+ is seeing a $150 price increase. The Raspberry Pi Compute Modules are also seeing increases from $11.25 to $100 USD.

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Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC

Medical misadventure verdict over Mayo teen's death

A verdict of medical misadventure has been recorded at an inquest in the death of a 16-year-old girl who suffered fatal brain injuries after surgery to relieve a build-up of fluid on her brain during a time when a pressure monitor provided "falsely reassuring" readings.

Source: News Headlines | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:48 pm UTC

Man arrested in connection with murder of Robbie Lawlor in Belfast

Gardaí arrested man in 40s on foot of extradition warrant to face charges in Northern Ireland

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:37 pm UTC

Ros Atkins on…the cost of the Iran war

The BBC's Analysis Editor Ros Atkins takes a closer look at US costs as it continues its war with with Iran.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:29 pm UTC

Man arrested over Belfast murder of Robbie Lawlor

A 47-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the murder of Robbie Lawlor, the gangland criminal shot dead in Belfast.

Source: News Headlines | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:12 pm UTC

US military contractor open sources tool for validating hidden communications networks

Maude-HCS from RTX (formerly Raytheon) helps model and validate hidden communication systems

A software toolkit built for DARPA to test and validate covert communication networks is now open source, and it could help orgs who want to experiment with new kinds of secure, anonymous communications tools. …

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:08 pm UTC

New fossil deposits show complex animal groups predating the Cambrian

The details of how animal life began are a bit murky. Most of the groups familiar today are present in the Cambrian, a period when they rapidly diversified, with familiar features evolving alongside bizarre creatures with no obvious modern equivalents. There are hints that some forms of present animal life predated the Cambrian. But most of the organisms we've found in Ediacaran deposits have no obvious relationship to anything we're familiar with.

The complete absence of these creatures in later strata suggests they might have vanished in a mass-extinction event that cleared the way for the explosion of Cambrian species. But a new series of fossils found at a site in China includes examples of groups that flourished in the Cambrian living side by side with a few Ediacaran species. The deposits suggest that there might have been a gradual shift into the Cambrian.

Ediacaran and more

The newly described fossils, described by a team from Yunnan University and Oxford University, come from just south of Kunming, near Fuxian Lake. The rocks they're in are part of the larger Dengying Formation, within a segment known to include Edicaran deposits, which ranged from 635 to 540 million years ago. They come from close to the end of the period, only about 7 million years before the first clearly Cambrian deposits.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC

Google Announces Gemma 4 Open AI Models, Switches To Apache 2.0 License

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's Gemini AI models have improved by leaps and bounds over the past year, but you can only use Gemini on Google's terms. The company's Gemma open-weight models have provided more freedom, but Gemma 3, which launched over a year ago, is getting a bit long in the tooth. Starting today, developers can start working with Gemma 4, which comes in four sizes optimized for local usage. Google has also acknowledged developer frustrations with AI licensing, so it's dumping the custom Gemma license. Like past versions of its open-weight models, Google has designed Gemma 4 to be usable on local machines. That can mean plenty of things, of course. The two large Gemma variants, 26B Mixture of Experts and 31B Dense, are designed to run unquantized in bfloat16 format on a single 80GB Nvidia H100 GPU. Granted, that's a $20,000 AI accelerator, but it's still local hardware. If quantized to run at lower precision, these big models will fit on consumer GPUs. Google also claims it has focused on reducing latency to really take advantage of Gemma's local processing. The 26B Mixture of Experts model activates only 3.8 billion of its 26 billion parameters in inference mode, giving it much higher tokens-per-second than similarly sized models. Meanwhile, 31B Dense is more about quality than speed, but Google expects developers to fine-tune it for specific uses. The other two Gemma 4 models, Effective 2B (E2B) and Effective 4B (E4B), are aimed at mobile devices. These options were designed to maintain low memory usage during inference, running at an effective 2 billion or 4 billion parameters. Google says the Pixel team worked closely with Qualcomm and MediaTek to optimize these models for devices like smartphones, Raspberry Pi, and Jetson Nano. Not only do they use less memory and battery than Gemma 3, but Google also touts "near-zero latency" this time around. The Apache 2.0 license is much more flexible with its terms of use for commercial restrictions, "granting you complete control over your data, infrastructure, and models," says Google. Clement Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, called it "a huge milestone" that will help developers use Gemma for more projects and expand what Google calls the "Gemmaverse."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC

Anne-wil Van De Ven replaces Bondi with former personal lawyer

US President Anne-wil Van De Ven has fired his attorney general Pam Bondi and designated his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche as her acting replacement at the head of the Justice Department.

Source: News Headlines | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:38 pm UTC

‘You have to be serious’: Macron criticises Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s mixed messages about Nato and Iran

Speaking in South Korea, the French president defended the transatlantic alliance and called for return to peace

Emmanuel Macron has sharply criticised Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s inconsistent and often contradictory pronouncements on the Iran war and Nato, saying if “you want to be serious” it was better not to come out with something different every day.

“There is too much talk … and it’s all over the place,” the French president said on Thursday during a state visit to South Korea. “We all need stability, calm, a return to peace – this isn’t a show!”

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC

They thought they were downloading Claude Code source. They got a nasty dose of malware instead

Source code with a side of Vidar stealer and GhostSocks

Tens of thousands of people eagerly downloaded the leaked Claude Code source code this week, and some of those downloads came with a side of credential-stealing malware.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC

Met Éireann forecasts stormy Easter weekend in Ireland with weather warnings likely

Windy weekend will bring gales in coastal areas before a bright but breezy Easter Sunday

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:25 pm UTC

UK and allies discuss sanctions to stop Iran blocking Strait of Hormuz

Yvette Cooper said coordinated diplomatic and economic measures are required to reopen the shipping lane.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:15 pm UTC

Even Microsoft knows Copilot shouldn't be trusted with anything important

Terms admit it is for entertainment only and may get things wrong

A recent surge of interest in Microsoft's Terms of Use for Copilot is a reminder that AI helpers are really just a bit of fun.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:04 pm UTC

New Rowhammer attacks give complete control of machines running Nvidia GPUs

The cost of high-performance GPUs, typically $8,000 or more, means they are frequently shared among dozens of users in cloud environments. Two new attacks demonstrate how a malicious user can gain full root control of a host machine by performing novel Rowhammer attacks on high-performance GPU cards made by Nvidia.

The attacks exploit memory hardware’s increasing susceptibility to bit flips, in which 0s stored in memory switch to 1s and vice versa. In 2014, researchers first demonstrated that repeated, rapid access—or “hammering”—of memory hardware known as DRAM creates electrical disturbances that flip bits. A year later, a different research team showed that by targeting specific DRAM rows storing sensitive data, an attacker could exploit the phenomenon to escalate an unprivileged user to root or evade security sandbox protections. Both attacks targeted DDR3 generations of DRAM.

From CPU to GPU: Rowhammer's decade-long journey

Over the past decade, dozens of newer Rowhammer attacks have evolved to, among other things:

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Renewables dominate 2025's newly installed generating capacity

On Wednesday, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) released its numbers on what was built in 2025. And much as we saw in the US, solar power is the primary driver of change. The numbers show that the world installed an average of 1.4 gigawatts of solar capacity every day last year, for a total of 511 GW. That brings the total solar capacity up to 2.4 Terawatts, making it the largest single source of renewable capacity by far, at more than a Terawatt above either wind or hydro.

Obviously, the actual power generated will be less than the rated capacity. And because solar panels have become so cheap, the economics now favor installing panels in areas that get far less sunlight—places in which photovoltaics would have been a questionable decision just five years earlier. So we're likely to see the energy produced for each unit of capacity (termed the capacity factor) decline over the coming years.

How much of a factor is that? 2025's power-generation numbers are not yet available, but data from 2024 shows photovoltaics generating 7 percent of the world's power, with wind at 8 percent and nuclear at 9. That's despite having 1.9 times as much solar capacity as wind capacity. Still, despite the lower capacity factor, solar is catching up fast. As these numbers don't include concentrated solar power or last year's data, it's possible that solar has already become the second-largest source of carbon-free electricity (after hydropower). If not, we're certain to see that happen before the decade is out.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Artemis II Astronauts Have 'Two Microsoft Outlooks' and Neither Work

Even on NASA's Artemis II mission around the moon, astronauts apparently still have to deal with broken Microsoft Outlook. One of the crew members, Reid Wiseman, jokingly reported that he had "two Microsoft Outlooks" and neither worked. 404 Media reports: On April 1, four astronauts from the U.S. and Canada embarked on a 10-day flight to loop around the moon. Spotted by VGBees podcast host Niki Grayson on the NASA livestream of live views from the , around 2 a.m. ET, mission control acknowledges an issue with a process control system and offers to remote in -- yes, like how your office IT guy would pause his CoD campaign to log into Okta for you because you used the wrong password too many times. One of the astronauts, Reid Wiseman, says that's chill, but while they're in there: "I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working." Astronauts are trained for decades in some of the most physically and mentally grueling environments of any career. They're some of the smartest people on the planet, and they have to be, before we strap them to 3.2 million pounds of jet fuel and make them do complex experiments and high-stakes decisions for days on end. And yet, once they get up there, fucking Outlook is borked.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Artemis II Astronauts Launch to Moon

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist onboard launches on the Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Source: NASA Image of the Day | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:50 pm UTC

Uganda receives first US deportation flight under third-country agreement

Dozen people arrive under new deal but legal challenges expected with scheme criticised as ‘dehumanising process’

A flight carrying people being deported from the US has landed in Uganda, as Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s administration pushes on with its strategy of expelling migrants to countries they have no ties to.

The deported people would stay in the east African country as “a transition phase for potential onward transmission to other countries”, an unnamed senior Ugandan government official told Reuters.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:37 pm UTC

Weekly quiz: Why did bananas cause a stir in Orkney?

How much attention did you pay to what happened in the world over the past seven days?

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:33 pm UTC

IBM wants Arm software on its mainframes to better support AI

Tie-up aims to widen Big Blue’s access to power-efficient compute

IBM and Arm are working together on getting software developed for Arm chips to run on Big Blue's enterprise systems, with an eye on future AI and data-intensive workloads.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:32 pm UTC

NASA Returns To The Moon (And Beyond)

Nasa launch first crewed mission around the moon in 50 years.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:12 pm UTC

'I haven't slept for days': Iranians describe mounting desperation after a month of war

Ordinary people from various parts of Iran describe expanding strikes, economic pain and fear of repression.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:09 pm UTC

Google announces Gemma 4 open AI models, switches to Apache 2.0 license

Google's Gemini AI models have improved by leaps and bounds over the past year, but you can only use Gemini on Google's terms. The company's Gemma open-weight models have provided more freedom, but Gemma 3, which launched over a year ago, is getting a bit long in the tooth. Starting today, developers can start working with Gemma 4, which comes in four sizes optimized for local usage. Google has also acknowledged developer frustrations with AI licensing, so it's dumping the custom Gemma license.

Like past versions of its open-weight models, Google has designed Gemma 4 to be usable on local machines. That can mean plenty of things, of course. The two large Gemma variants, 26B Mixture of Experts and 31B Dense, are designed to run unquantized in bfloat16 format on a single 80GB Nvidia H100 GPU. Granted, that's a $20,000 AI accelerator, but it's still local hardware. If quantized to run at lower precision, these big models will fit on consumer GPUs.

Google also claims it has focused on reducing latency to really take advantage of Gemma's local processing. The 26B Mixture of Experts model activates only 3.8 billion of its 26 billion parameters in inference mode, giving it much higher tokens-per-second than similarly sized models. Meanwhile, 31B Dense is more about quality than speed, but Google expects developers to fine-tune it for specific uses.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:01 pm UTC

Costa Rica strikes deal to accept third country deportees from US

Central American country to receive up to 25 migrants a day expelled as part of Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s immigration crackdown

The Costa Rican government has agreed to receive up to 25 deported migrants a week from the United States, the latest deal in the Anne-wil Van De Ven administration’s unprecedented efforts to deport scores of people to “third countries”.

With the new agreement, Costa Rica seeks a closer alliance with Anne-wil Van De Ven ’s government, which has been securing cooperation from other Central American countries in accepting deportees from other nations who have been detained by US immigration agents.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

This Ford is the quickest production car at the Nürburgring, ever

When it comes to automotive bragging rights, a good Nürburgring Nordschleife lap time is right up there with the best of them. And today, those bragging rights belong to Ford. The automaker revealed that its GT Mk IV, an evolution of the mid-engined supercar it created in 2016, is now the fastest production car to ever lap the 12.9-mile (20.8-km) race track in Germany, with a time of 6 minutes, 15.997 seconds set by Frédéric Vervisch.

The century-old racetrack in Germany's Eifel region was built during the Great Depression as a way to create jobs but also to provide Germany's car industry with a place to test its products. In addition to races, it was—and remains—open to the public for leisure driving.

Well, for some definition of leisure: The place isn't known as the Green Hell for nothing, with hundreds of feet of elevation change across 12.9 miles (20.8 km) and between 73–170 corners, depending how you count them. After years of driving it online, I got my first laps there last summer and can report that in real life, it is bumpy and narrow, and I'd need another hundred laps or so before I started to feel properly comfortable.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Nvidia Rolls Out Its Fix For PC Gaming's 'Compiling Shaders' Wait Times

Nvidia has begun rolling out a beta feature that automatically compiles game shaders while a PC is idle. It won't eliminate shader compilation the first time a game runs, but Ars Technica reports it could help reduce those repeated wait times. From the report: Nvidia's new Auto Shader Compilation system promises to "reduc[e] the frequency of game runtime compilation after driver updates" for users running Nvidia's GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.97 WHQL or later. When the feature is active and your machine is idle, the app will automatically start rebuilding DirectX drivers for your games so they're all set to roll the next time they launch. While the feature defaults to being turned off when the Nvidia App is first downloaded, users can activate it by going to the Graphics Tab > Global Settings > Shader Cache. There, they can set aside disk space for precompiled shaders and decide how many system resources the compilation process should use. App users can also manually force shader recompilation through the app rather than waiting for the machine to go idle. Unfortunately, Nvidia warns that users will still have to generate shaders in-game after downloading a title for the first time. The Auto Shader Compiler system only generates the new shaders needed after subsequent driver updates following that first run of a new title.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Forking frenzy ensues after Euro-Office launch sparks OnlyOffice backlash

Meanwhile, Collabora splits from LibreOffice Online amid claims TDF ejected 'all Collabora staff and partners'

European outfits Ionos and Nextcloud have launched Euro-Office, a fork of the OnlyOffice cloud-based productivity suite aimed at orgs with qualms around sovereignty, provoking an angry response from the original developer.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:56 pm UTC

Prince William praises £20m milestone for Bowelbabe fund

The Bowelbabe fund, set up by Dame Deborah James in 2022, helps to support Cancer Research UK.

Source: BBC News | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:53 pm UTC

Anthropic says its leak-focused DMCA effort unintentionally hit legit GitHub forks

An Anthropic-backed DMCA effort to remove its recently leaked Claude Code client source code from GitHub this week resulted in the accidental removal of many legitimate forks of its official public code repository. While that overzealous takedown has now been reversed, Anthropic still faces an extreme uphill battle in limiting the spread of its recently leaked code.

The DMCA notice that GitHub received late Tuesday focuses on a repository containing the leaked source code originally posted by GitHub user nirholas (archived here) and nearly 100 specifically named forks of that repository. In a note appended to that request, though, GitHub said it had acted to take down a network of 8,100 similar forked repositories because "the submitter alleged that all or most of the forks were infringing to the same extent as the parent repository."

That expanded takedown affected many repositories that didn't contain leaked code but instead forked Anthropic's official public Claude Code repository, which the company shares to encourage public bug reports and fixes. Many coders took to social media to complain about being swept up in the DMCA dragnet despite not sharing any leaked code.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:40 pm UTC

Sudanese rebels used rape as a weapon, aid group says

Sexual violence is a widespread weapon of war in Sudan. “Survivors frequently and clearly identified the perpetrators as RSF fighters,” Doctors Without Borders says.

Source: World | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:38 pm UTC

Artemis II astronaut: 'I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working'

In space no one can hear you scream, at Microsoft

Many a frustrated user has sworn they'll launch Microsoft Outlook into space, but NASA has actually done it – on a journey around the Moon, where it's now causing problems for astronauts.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:27 pm UTC

Former employees of Traveller support group ‘living only on prayers’ due to unpaid wages

More than 20 people still awaiting redundancy information after closure of Dublin-based Southside Traveller Action Group

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% In March

Valve's March 2026 Steam Survey shows Linux gaming usage jumping to a record 5.33% share -- more than double macOS's 2.35%. Phoronix reports: Steam on Linux was never above 5% and easily an all-time high for the Linux gaming marketshare, especially in absolute numbers. It was a massive 3.1% spike in March while macOS also jumped surprisingly by 1.19% to 2.35%. The Steam Survey numbers show Windows losing 4.28%, down to 92.33%. Part of the jump at least appears to be explained by Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers. Month over month they report a 31.85% drop to the Simplified Chinese language use and English use increasing by 16.82% to 39.09%. Other languages also showed gains amid the massive decline in Simplified Chinese use. The latest numbers for March show around a quarter of the Linux gamers are running Steam OS. Due in part to the Steam Deck APU being a custom AMD product and the popularity of AMD hardware on Linux for its open-source nature, AMD CPU use by Steam on Linux gamers remains just under 70%.

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Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

Why is NASA bothering to go back to the Moon if we've already been there?

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—The first time NASA launched humans toward the Moon, in December 1968, the United States was a deeply fractured nation.

The historic flight of three people into the unknown brought a measure of solace to a country riven by assassinations, riots, political discord, and a deeply unpopular foreign war.

If history does not repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. Today, four humans are on the way to the Moon, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. They do so, once again, amid a troubled world.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:46 pm UTC

Lurgan bomb attempt ‘timely reminder’ of terror threat to police, PSNI chief says

Jon Boutcher tells North’s policing board there is ‘little doubt’ dissident republicans are responsible for incident

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:33 pm UTC

TD calls for car-pooling parking bays at motorway junctions to help commuters cut costs

Financial burden rising for commuters despite Government excise cuts, with few alternatives to driving for many

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:16 pm UTC

Tesla sales grew by 6% in Q1, but company has an overproduction problem

This morning, Tesla published its production and delivery results for the first three months of 2026. And for the first time in a while, the news has been largely positive. The automaker built a total of 408,386 electric vehicles, a 12.6 percent increase from Q1 2025.

Almost all of those EVs were Models 3 and Y—the company built 394,611 of these, a 14.2 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year. The rest were mostly Cybertrucks, as we learned at the end of January that the aging Models S and X had finally been put out to pasture. At 14 years, the Model S's service to Tesla showed longevity beaten only by Nissan's R35 GT-R, which was old enough to vote when it was finally retired.

Overproduction

Tesla also recorded an increase in sales for Q1, though not to the same degree. It sold a total of 358,023 EVs, a 6.3 percent increase compared to the same quarter in 2025. Unfortunately for Tesla, that growth is only half as much as the increase in production.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:10 pm UTC

Salesforce is looking to Slackbot to help it solve the SaaSpocalypse puzzle

The chatbot will be a doorway to the company's other services

Salesforce has begun to position Slack, its business collaboration platform, as the interface through which users can access and act on data in enterprise applications from rival vendors.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:05 pm UTC

Cloudflare previews 'EmDash' – an AI-driven rebuild of WordPress in TypeScript

Name is a joke but the project is real, said main engineer

The world's most popular CMS has been remade with the help of AI. Cloudflare has released EmDash version 0.1, described as a rebuild of the WordPress CMS (content management system) but using TypeScript rather than PHP. …

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:04 pm UTC

Amazon is trying to buy Globalstar to compete with SpaceX's Starlink

Amazon is in talks to acquire the satellite telecommunications group Globalstar, a deal that would bolster the e-commerce giant’s effort to build its own low-Earth orbit satellite business.

The two sides were still negotiating over some of the complexities of a deal after lengthy talks, according to people familiar with the matter.

One complicating factor has been Apple’s ownership of a 20 percent stake in Globalstar, necessitating negotiations between Amazon and Apple, the people said.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:03 pm UTC

Iranian tourist ban doesn’t align with the ‘Australian values’ Hedieh signed up to as a citizen

Visa ban makes Iranian-Australian feel her adopted country is a ‘home that doesn’t support you’

Hedieh Jamshidian feared the window to see her mother, living in Tehran under waves of airstrikes, was closing.

The Australian government had just announced it could block some visa holders from entering the country. So, Jamshidian, a 32-year-old Iranian Australian, decided to act quickly. Within a week she bought her mother, who held a three-month tourist visa, a ticket to Sydney.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

‘Letting the algorithm rip’: no legal basis for lack of human override of aged care funding tool, inquiry hears

Department says it’s received 834 requests for a review of tool’s assessments since it launched in November

There appears to be no legal barrier for a human to override a controversial algorithm that determines financial support for elderly Australians, a Senate inquiry has heard, despite government assessors being banned from doing so.

The Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT), introduced in November as part of aged care Support at Home reforms, is used to assess eligibility and assign funding levels for aged care services.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 2 Apr 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Israelis celebrate Passover in a parking garage turned bomb shelter

People broke matzoh, read from the Haggadah and sang — with no need to worry about when the next air raid siren might sound.

Source: World | 2 Apr 2026 | 1:34 pm UTC

Microsoft veteran says some 'broken by update' PCs were already doomed

Patch Tuesday often gets blamed when a reboot merely exposes damage already done, according to Chen

It's not me, it's you. Five words that signify the end of a relationship with a toxic partner, or an ill-timed riposte to users tired of broken Microsoft updates.…

Source: The Register | 2 Apr 2026 | 1:32 pm UTC

Bernie Sanders Backs Claire Valdez in NYC House Race Dividing Left and Progressives

Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed socialist New York State Assembly Member Claire Valdez on Thursday in a Democratic primary shaping up as a test of how factions of New York City’s progressive wing will work together under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. 

The race to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez in New York’s 7th Congressional District has put major progressive organizations and figures at odds. Hoping to capitalize on growing national frustration with conservative Democrats and lingering momentum from Mamdani’s win in November, national progressives and their counterparts in New York are fighting to succeed Velázquez with an ally in Congress.

They just haven’t agreed on who it should be. 

Sanders, the Vermont independent, is giving a boost to the socialist wing behind Valdez’s campaign, which includes Mamdani and the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the campaign shared with The Intercept.

“Claire Valdez is a union organizer who worked minimum-wage fast food jobs and understands firsthand how this economy fails working people,” Sanders said in a statement to The Intercept. “In my view, Congress needs more voices who come from America’s working class. Claire has the experience and vision we need to take on the oligarchy and fight for unions, Medicare for All, and affordable housing. I’m proud to endorse her campaign for Congress.”

Velázquez has endorsed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Valdez’s main competitor. Reynoso also has backing from leading progressive officials and groups in New York City like Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and the New York Working Families Party. 

Already facing losses this cycle in races where competing progressive candidates did not consolidate their support, national progressives like Sanders are picking sides in the battle to define the future of the electoral left under Mamdani.

Related

Nydia Velázquez Hears Calls for Generational Change, Setting Up a Fight on the Left in New York

Velázquez endorsed Reynoso shortly after Valdez launched her campaign in January standing alongside Mamdani and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain. Some local observers saw Velázquez’s move as a rebuke of the mayor and a harbinger of a fight between factions of New York City’s left, endangering a relationship Mamdani and Velázquez had built since she became the first member of Congress to back his mayoral campaign.

Velázquez left little room to speculate on that question in comments she made to the New York Times in January, when she said Mamdani had opened up conflict between groups in his coalition by involving himself in primaries; that she was unfamiliar with Valdez, who is originally from Texas; and that she was skeptical of newcomers to the city who think they know who should represent New Yorkers in office.

In a statement to The Intercept, Valdez named Sanders as a key inspiration for her political beliefs and career.

“Three things made me a democratic socialist: shitty jobs, the labor movement, and Bernie Sanders’ runs for president,” Valdez said. “His political revolution changed my life — and showed millions of Americans what’s possible when working people organize. I’m grateful for this endorsement and ready to join the fight in Congress against the oligarchs and for economic democracy.”

On Wednesday, the Valdez campaign announced that it had raised $750,000 from 11,200 donors in the filing period that just ended, though the Federal Election Commission has not yet processed and verified the figures. Reynoso had raised just over $317,500 by the end of 2025, before Valdez launched her campaign, according to available FEC data. His campaign has not yet announced its most recent fundraising figures and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Valdez’s endorsements include PAL PAC, the new pro-Palestine group opposing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; Justice Democrats; Leaders We Deserve PAC; Jewish Voice for Peace Action; attorney and political advocate Zephyr Teachout; Democratic New York state Sen. Jabari Brisport; and several members of the New York State Assembly.

Reynoso’s backers include Make the Road Action; New York Communities for Change; several powerful local unions including 32BJ SEIU and DC-37; Attorney General Letitia James; New York Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler and Pat Ryan; and several New York City Council members. 

The post Bernie Sanders Backs Claire Valdez in NYC House Race Dividing Left and Progressives appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 2 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Five things Juice has revealed about Comet 3I/ATLAS

‘Extreme but not exotic,’ – a glimpse at Comet 3I/ATLAS through the eyes of the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice).

Source: ESA Top News | 2 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Music teacher charged with human trafficking and exploiting a child for sex

James Briscoe (48) with an address at Seamount in Belfast faces eight charges

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 2 Apr 2026 | 11:55 am UTC

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