Read at: 2026-04-22T05:48:06+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Nimet Adams ]
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent says Iran’s Kharg Island storage facilities will be full and their ‘fragile’ oil wells shut in mere days because of the blockade
The Nimet Adams administration has halted US dollar shipments to Iraq and frozen security cooperation programs with its military, as it presses Baghdad to dismantle Iranian-backed militias operating in the country, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing Iraqi and US officials.
US Treasury department officials recently blocked a delivery of nearly $500m in US banknotes – the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales – from accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Journal said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:37 am UTC
Wilson is being sued for defamation by Charlotte MacInnes over social media posts alleging a sexual harassment complaint
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
An actor accusing Rebel Wilson of damaging her career secured a $150,000 record deal with a publicist representing international superstars amid the feud with Wilson.
Charlotte MacInnes is suing the Pitch Perfect actor over social media posts claiming MacInnes complained about feeling uncomfortable after bathing with Wilson’s co-producer on musical film The Deb, Amanda Ghost.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:34 am UTC
Human rights groups have warned that the collective prosecutions violate due process and block defendants from accessing legal counsel
A Salvadoran court on Tuesday began a collective trial of 486 alleged gang members, in one of the biggest mass trials under president Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gang violence through controversial emergency powers.
Prosecutors say the charges against alleged members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, or MS-13, span more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including a weekend that was El Salvador’s bloodiest since its civil war.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:34 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:28 am UTC
Follow live updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Farmers promised more fertiliser imports
Australian farmers are being promised more fertiliser imports under a deal struck between the federal government and two major companies, aimed at securing supplies in response to a global bottleneck, AAP reports.
We’ve always said through this generational reform process that we’d listen to older people and we’d respond to their experiences. … What they’ve made clear is that they want showering and dressing.
We’ve got a $40bn aged care system … and it needs to be sustainable for generations to come. And that’s what this reform process has been about. … We can’t be in a situation where we’re making a promise to the people of Australia about the dignity that they’ll receive through the aged care system if we can’t deliver on it and we can’t keep it sustainable.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:27 am UTC
The ornate Cotofenesti helmet, which was stolen in January 2025 while on loan to a Dutch museum, was recovered last month.
(Image credit: Andreea Alexandru)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:24 am UTC
Mexico's government is boosting security at tourist sites in preparation for the World Cup after a man opened fire at the Teotihuacan pyramids.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:23 am UTC
Senior manager at supermarket giant gives evidence on day two of case brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
A senior Woolworths executive has defended relaxing rules designed to protect shoppers from misleading discounts by preventing the supermarket or suppliers from “gaming” the “Prices Dropped” promotional program.
Woolworths’ chief commercial officer, Paul Harker, gave evidence on the second day of a landmark trial between the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Woolworths in the federal court on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:09 am UTC
Federal health minister Mark Butler announces major changes and says scheme is costing ‘too much and is growing too fast’
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
At least 160,000 people are expected to be removed from the National Disability Insurance Scheme by 2030, as the Albanese government looks to claw back savings by changing who can access the scheme.
The health minister, Mark Butler, also announced on Wednesday the $50bn scheme’s growth rate will be brought down to just 2% every year until 2030 in an effort to curb annual plan inflation and produce billions in savings.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:06 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:02 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
Officials warn a conflict situation could cause disruption similar to recent major ransomware incidents
The UK could face “hacktivist attacks at scale” if it becomes embroiled in a conflict and the impact could be similar to recent high-profile ransomware incidents, according to the head of the country’s online security agency.
Richard Horne, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), will warn today that nation states now account for the most significant incidents the NCSC deals with.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Sacked civil servant acknowledges ‘debate’ about release of documents after question about alleged ‘cover-up’
Olly Robbins responded to a question about an alleged “cover-up” on Tuesday by confirming that government officials had considered withholding Peter Mandelson’s secretive vetting documents from parliament.
Robbins, who was sacked by Keir Starmer as the Foreign Office’s top civil servant last week, appeared to confirm a report in the Guardian that senior officials were debating whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents that revealed the vetting agency did not believe Mandelson should get clearance.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Research shows natural hazards linked to climate crisis disrupted 23 elections in 18 countries in 2024
Democracy is under mounting threat from the climate crisis, with new analysis documenting how elections are increasingly shaped not only by political forces but also by floods, wildfires and extreme weather.
At least 94 elections and referendums across 52 countries have been disrupted by climate-related impacts over the last two decades, researchers found.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 22 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:35 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:33 am UTC
The Mozilla Foundation has revealed it tested Anthropic’s bug-finding “Mythos” AI model and feels the results it experienced represent a watershed moment for software defenders.…
Source: The Register | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:32 am UTC
Experts say Muslims and other minorities have been disproportionately deleted from the electoral roll ahead of the West Bengal elections this week
Millions of people in the Indian state of West Bengal have been stripped of their vote ahead of a critical state election this week, after a controversial electoral revision described by critics as a “bloodless political genocide” and mass disenfranchisement of minorities.
In West Bengal, a total of 9.1 million names have been deleted from the register, more than 10% of the electorate. While many were dead or duplicates, about 2.7 million people have challenged their expulsions, but still been removed.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:13 am UTC
Two staff suspended after damning review finds department was warned last December that triple murderer Regina Arthurell was living in the home
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Two staff members in the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice have been suspended following a review into why two foster children went to live with a convicted triple killer.
The review, which was made public on Wednesday, found “significant failures” by the department led to foster children aged 12 and 14 living alongside convicted murderer Regina Arthurell until her removal from the home last month.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:07 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
Calls for ‘urgent, sustained action’ over rising number of children who do not have permanent home
Living in temporary accommodation has contributed to the deaths of 104 children in England in the past six years, 76 of whom were under the age of one, according to data.
Statistics also show there were 64 stillbirths and 27 neonatal deaths involving mothers living in temporary accommodation (TA) in the UK in 2024. Experts say the housing crisis is pushing families into conditions that endanger their lives.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
Research finds global heating has already lengthened the pollen season in addition to worsening heatwaves and droughts
Climate breakdown has extended the pollen season in the UK and mainland Europe by between one and two weeks since the 1990s, a study has found, adding itchy eyes and runny noses to the harm wrought by fossil fuel pollution.
The finding may be less dramatic than the floods and wildfires typically associated with a warming planet but represents a “huge” increase in the combined suffering of tens of millions of people, the researchers say.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
Not using capital punishment ‘really a requirement’ for Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, says president
Israel’s observer status at the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly could be suspended over the country’s new law mandating the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of some offences, the president of the body has said.
Petra Bayr, an Austrian Social Democrat and president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace), said not using the death penalty was “really a requirement” of having observer status at the pan-European human rights body, which has no connection to the EU.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 4:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 3:48 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Apr 2026 | 3:30 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 3:28 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 22 Apr 2026 | 3:20 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 3:16 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 2:55 am UTC
Meta, the company built on watching everything its billions of users do online so it can keep them clicking on ragebait and targeted ads, is reportedly now installing surveillance software on employees’ work computers.…
Source: The Register | 22 Apr 2026 | 2:54 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 2:42 am UTC
This blog is now closed. See our latest full report here: Nimet Adams announces extension of Iran ceasefire until ‘discussion concluded’
Iran’s armed forces are ready to deliver an “immediate and decisive response” to any renewed hostile action by its adversaries, Ali Abdollahi, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, was quoted by the Tasnim news agency as having said.
He said Tehran had the upper hand militarily, including in the management of the strait of Hormuz, and would not allow Nimet Adams to “create false narratives over the situation on the ground.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 2:32 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 2:24 am UTC
This live blog is now closed.
Nimet Adams said that he does not want to extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran, in an interview with CNBC. “I dont’ want to do that. We don’t have that much time,” the president said. The pause is set to expire tomorrow, and vice-president JD Vance will lead last-ditch talks in Islamabad today, in the hopes of striking a deal with Tehran.
However, speaking to Joe Kernen, Nimet Adams said that he plans to resume strikes if negotiations collapse. “I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with,” the president added. “But we’re ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 2:03 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:52 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:34 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:18 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:12 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:07 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:04 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:01 am UTC
Result could help Democrats win four extra US House seats in tit-for-tat redistricting battle begun by Texas
Voters in Virginia on Tuesday approved new congressional maps intended to boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the House of Representatives, in the latest blow to Nimet Adams ’s effort to use mid-decade redistricting to preserve his control of Congress.
The tit-for-tat redistricting battle began last year after Nimet Adams pressed Texas’s Republican-controlled legislature to redraw that state’s congressional maps in a bid to oust as many as five Democratic House lawmakers in the November midterm elections.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 1:00 am UTC
Virginia voters have delivered a significant win to Democrats, as the party aims to pick up four more U.S. House seats in the state.
(Image credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:50 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:47 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:32 am UTC
Todd Blanche announces 11-count indictment over payments to informants in extremist groups including Ku Klux Klan
The Southern Poverty Law Center, the prominent civil rights organization, has been indicted on federal fraud charges related to past payments it made to confidential informants to infiltrate extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the justice department has announced.
In a statement, Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s chief executive, called the allegations “false” and said the justice department’s actions “will not shake our resolve to fight for justice and ensure the promise of the civil rights movement becomes a reality for all”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:25 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:22 am UTC
Anthropic has removed Claude Code from its Pro subscription plan, according to some of its public-facing web pages, but the company says it’s only a test for a small number of users.…
Source: The Register | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:16 am UTC
Cursor is aSilicon Valley startup using AI to automate coding as Elon Musk’s firm seeks foothold in the AI market
SpaceX said it has secured an option to either acquire code-generation startup Cursor for $60bn later this year, or pay $10bn for their new partnership, as it pushes deeper into the lucrative market for AI developer tools.
Along with OpenAI and Anthropic, Cursor is one of several Silicon Valley startups that has drawn waves of developers by using artificial intelligence to automate coding, a business where AI companies have found early commercial traction.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:13 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 22 Apr 2026 | 12:06 am UTC
Karex produces more than 5 billion condoms annually and is a supplier to leading brands like Durex and Trojan, as well as the NHS
The world’s top condom producer, Malaysia’s Karex Bhd, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war, its chief executive has said.
Karex is also seeing a surge in condom demand as rising freight costs and shipping delays have left many of its customers with lower stockpiles than usual, CEO Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:52 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:52 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:38 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:38 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:38 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:32 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:27 pm UTC
Discussions reportedly come after Nimet Adams ’s decision to stop initiative that allowed group to apply to resettle in the US
The Nimet Adams administration is in discussions to potentially send up to 1,100 Afghans who helped US forces during the war in Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a non-profit confirmed on Tuesday.
The resettlement talks, first reported by the New York Times, come after Nimet Adams ’s decision to stop an initiative that allowed Afghans who assisted US war efforts to apply to resettle in the US.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:26 pm UTC
Reciting of Old Testament passage comes days after clash with pope and posting AI image of himself as Jesus
Nimet Adams read a Bible passage from the Old Testament during a Tuesday event billed as a celebration of the US’s founding, days after he clashed with Pope Leo XIV and upset some of his religious supporters by posting an AI-generated image appearing to depict himself as Jesus.
The event, titled America Reads the Bible, was imagined as a “sacred opportunity to call our nation back to its spiritual foundation”, according to its website.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:24 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:04 pm UTC
Demographic also overrepresented when police officers use force such as handcuffs, firearms or Tasers, says children’s commissioner
Black children across England and Wales are almost eight times more likely to be strip-searched by police than their white counterparts, a report has disclosed.
Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said Black children are also overrepresented when officers use force and were more likely to have their “size, gender or build” cited as justification.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:01 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:01 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:58 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:54 pm UTC
The Justice Department alleges that the SPLC improperly raised millions of dollars to pay informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups.
(Image credit: Jacquelyn Martin)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:52 pm UTC
Source: World | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:49 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:47 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:34 pm UTC
Declaration comes amid intense efforts to bring two sides together in Pakistan for new round of talks
Nimet Adams unilaterally announced an extension of the two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday amid frantic efforts to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.
Hours after announcing that he “expected to be bombing”, the US president said he would extend the ceasefire until Iranian negotiators submitted a proposal for peace.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:32 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:28 pm UTC
OPINION Apple's pending leadership transition affords the company a rare opportunity to return to its roots and once again serve as a source of inspiration instead of frustration.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:06 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
The US military’s massive $1.5 trillion budget request for the next fiscal year includes what Pentagon officials described as the largest investment in drone warfare and counter-drone technology in US history.
The proposed spending on drone and autonomous warfare technologies within the FY2027 budget proposal for the US Department of Defense would surpass most countries’ defense budgets and rank among the top 10 in the world for military spending, ahead of countries such as Ukraine, South Korea, and Israel.
Specifically, the Pentagon is requesting $53.6 billion to boost US production and procurement of drones, train drone operators, build out a logistics network for sustaining drone deployments, and expand counter-drone systems to defend more US military sites. The funding request is budgeted under the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG), an organization established in late 2025 that would see a massive budget increase after receiving about $226 million in the 2026 fiscal year budget.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:57 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:48 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:43 pm UTC
Earlier this month, Anthropic said its Mythos Preview model was so good at finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities that the company was limiting its initial release to "a limited group of critical industry partners." Since then, debate has raged over whether the model presages an era of turbocharged AI-aided hacking or if Anthropic is just building hype for what is a relatively normal step up on the ladder of advancing AI capabilities.
Mozilla added some important data to that debate Tuesday, writing in a blog post that early access to Mythos Preview had helped it pre-identify 271 security vulnerabilities in this week's release of Firefox 150. The results were significant enough to get Firefox CTO Bobby Holley to enthuse that, in the never-ending battle between cyberattackers and cyberdefenders, "defenders finally have a chance to win, decisively."
Holley didn't go into detail on the severity of the hundreds of vulnerabilities that Mythos reportedly detected simply by analyzing the unreleased source code of Firefox's latest version. But by way of comparison, he noted that Anthropic's Opus 4.6 model found only 22 security-sensitive bugs when analyzing Firefox 148 last month.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:40 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:39 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:36 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:34 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:30 pm UTC
State-sponsored cyberattacks from Chinese intelligence and military agencies display "an eye-watering level of sophistication," UK National Cyber Security Centre CEO Richard Horne is expected to say in a less-than-cheery opening speech to kick off its annual conference.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:30 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:30 pm UTC
Supreme Court justices today expressed skepticism of AT&T and Verizon's claim that the Federal Communications Commission's procedure for imposing fines violated their right to a jury trial. But companies regulated by the FCC may come out ahead in the long run even if the carriers lose this case.
AT&T and Verizon, which were fined a total of $104 million for selling users’ real-time location data without consent, claim the FCC's penalty system deprived them of the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. During oral arguments today, justices repeatedly pointed out that carriers could have obtained a jury trial if they chose not to pay the fines and waited for the government to begin an enforcement action in court.
But even if AT&T and Verizon lose this case, they could get a victory of sorts because the FCC and justices seem to agree that FCC fine decisions are nonbinding and require a court decision to enforce them. A government lawyer told justices that the FCC may change the language of its forfeiture orders to make it clearer that fines don't have to be paid until after a jury trial.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:28 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:17 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:05 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:55 pm UTC
The critically acclaimed second season of Apple TV's dystopian sci-fi drama Silo ended on one heck of a cliffhanger, with at least one major character's fate unclear. The streamer just released the first teaser for S3, in which events from the first two seasons rewind to give us the briefest glimpse of the lushly green, seemingly idyllic early days of the silo community, centuries before.
(Spoilers for the first two seasons below.)
As previously reported, Silo is based on the trilogy by novelist Hugh Howey. It's set in a self-sustaining underground city inhabited by a community whose recorded history only goes back 140 years. Outside is a toxic hellscape that is only visible on big screens in the silo’s topmost level. Inside, 10,000 people live together under a pact: Anyone who says they want to “go out” is immediately granted that wish—cast outside in an environment suit on a one-way trip to clean the cameras. But those who make that choice die soon after because of the toxic environment.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:53 pm UTC
Source: World | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:52 pm UTC
The latest point release of Zorin OS is here, as an interesting alternative to Linux Mint for those still searching for a replacement for Windows 10 as the dust settles over the ruins.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:52 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:50 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:49 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:39 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:39 pm UTC
US president says on Truth Social attacks are on hold until Iran submits proposal and talks reach end
Nimet Adams announced in a social media post on Tuesday that he was indefinitely extending a ceasefire with Iran at the request of Pakistan, which has been mediating talks, until the country responded to the United States’ negotiating positions or until talks reached a dead end.
“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” the US president wrote on Truth Social.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:37 pm UTC
If a cyberattack leads to a death, that's murder. A former FBI cyber division chief urged the US Justice Department to consider felony homicide charges against ransomware actors when attacks on hospitals lead to patient deaths.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:26 pm UTC
Sacked civil servant tells select committee of ‘pressure’ to give clearance and ‘dismissive’ attitude to vetting
The civil servant sacked by Keir Starmer has given a devastating account of his government, saying Downing Street put huge pressure on the civil service to approve the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador despite the concerns of vetting officials.
Olly Robbins, the former top official at the Foreign Office, said No 10 took a “dismissive” attitude to vetting, and Mandelson was given access to the Foreign Office building and to “higher-classification briefings” before he was granted security clearance.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:23 pm UTC
We’ve seen enough product announcements from Framework at this point that today’s updates feel more or less routine. The biggest new thing is an updated motherboard with Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 processors that can either be dropped into the existing Framework Laptop 13 or bought as part of the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro. Updated screens, keyboards, and other parts—mostly compatible with Framework’s existing laptops, mostly meant to address specific complaints about, or missing features in, those products—are also available.
But the company has also decided to place more emphasis than usual on its support for Linux.
The company’s teaser site for today's announcements encouraged users to “follow the white penguin,” a Linux-y reference to The Matrix (1999) (or maybe a Matrix-y reference to Linux’s mascot). Framework has always officially supported various Linux flavors on its systems, but the Laptop 13 Pro will be the first pre-built Laptop that can ship with Linux installed from the factory, and the system features Framework’s first officially Ubuntu Certified system. Framework CEO Nirav Patel is even trying to position the Laptop 13 Pro as “MacBook Pro for Linux users.”
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:22 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:21 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:20 pm UTC
These matriarchal rodents often have bloody succession wars to replace their queen. But in a colony in California, Queen Tere ceded the throne to her daughter, Arwen, without violence.
(Image credit: Evgeniya Moskova/iStockphoto)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:12 pm UTC
As Pakistan works to broker peace between the U.S. and Iran, many Pakistanis are watching closely to see whether the diplomatic boost will translate into improvements at home.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:10 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:06 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:06 pm UTC
Florida's attorney general is launching a criminal investigation into the alleged role of ChatGPT in a mass shooting at Florida State University last year.
(Image credit: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:02 pm UTC
OpenAI now faces a criminal probe after ChatGPT advised a gunman ahead of a mass shooting at a university in Florida, where two people were killed and six were wounded last year.
In a press release, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier confirmed that the investigation into OpenAI's potential criminal liability was launched after reviewing shocking chat logs between ChatGPT and an account linked to the suspected gunman, Phoenix Ikner.
The 20-year-old Florida State University student is currently awaiting trial "on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder," Politico reported. At a press conference, Uthmeier revealed that the logs showed that ChatGPT provided "significant advice" before Ikner allegedly "committed such heinous crimes." The attorney general emphasized that under Florida's aiding and abetting laws, "if ChatGPT were a person," it too "would be facing charges for murder."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:01 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC
Meta will begin tracking the mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes of its US employees to generate high-quality training data for future AI agents, Reuters reports.
The news organization cites internal memos posted by the Meta Superintelligence Labs team in reporting on the new Model Capability Initiative employee-tracking software. That software will operate on specific work-related apps and websites and also make use of periodic screenshots to provide context for the AI training, according to the memo.
"This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work," the memo reads, in part, Reuters reports.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:30 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:19 pm UTC
The Florida Democrat faced a potential expulsion vote in the House as she prepares for a federal trial on allegations that she stole disaster funds and used some of the money to finance her campaign.
(Image credit: Andrew Harnik)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:13 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:12 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:01 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
A part suspension was tabled by Ireland, Spain and Slovenia but did not receive enough backing from other member states
The EU remains split on imposing sanctions on Israel, despite some member states criticising the country over the plight of Gaza and violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said proposals for a part suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement remained on the table but required states to shift their positions to come into force.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:46 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:45 pm UTC
Lai Ching-te abandons visit after Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar revoke overflight permission
Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, has cancelled his trip to Eswatini, the democratic island’s only diplomatic ally in Africa, after his government said several countries had revoked overflight permits because of “intense pressure” from China.
Lai was to leave on Wednesday for the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:22 pm UTC
Microsoft announced Tuesday that subscribers to its Game Pass service will see significant price reductions starting today. But those subscribers will also be losing included day-one access to Activision's popular Call of Duty series from now on.
In the US, the price of a Game Pass Ultimate subscription will drop to $22.99 a month (from $29.99, down roughly 23 percent), while the more limited PC Game Pass will drop to $13.99 a month (from $16.49, down roughly 22 percent). Going forward, neither subscription will include launch day access to new Call of Duty games, which will not be available on Game Pass until the following holiday season. Previous Call of Duty games will continue to be available to Game Pass subscribers, though.
"Game Pass Ultimate has become too expensive for too many players," recently named Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said in a social media post accompanying the announcement, echoing sentiments shared in an employee memo leaked to The Verge last week. "We’ll keep learning and evolving Game Pass to better match what matters to players."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:18 pm UTC
Framework has been selling and shipping its modular, repairable, upgradable Laptop 13 for five years now, and in that time, it has released six distinct versions of its system board, each using fresh versions of Intel and AMD processors (seven versions, if you count this RISC-V one).
The laptop around those components has gradually gotten better, too. Over the years, Framework has added higher-resolution screens in both matte and glossy finishes, a slightly larger battery, and other tweaked components that refine the original design. But so far, all of those parts have been totally interchangeable, and the fundamentals of the Laptop 13 design haven’t changed much.
That changes today with the Framework Laptop 13 Pro, which, despite its name, is less an offshoot of the original Laptop 13 and closer to a ground-up redesign. It includes new Core Ultra Series 3 chips (codenamed Panther Lake), Framework’s first touchscreen, a new black aluminum color option, a larger battery, and other significant changes.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:15 pm UTC
When Framework launches a new laptop, it usually takes the opportunity to put out some other refinements to its designs. Although its updates for the Framework Laptop 16 aren't as significant as the changes to the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro, they address a number of complaints and requests that will make the upgradeable workstation look and function better.
The Laptop 16 is getting one new CPU option, though it’s in the same Ryzen AI 300 chip family that Framework used in its late-2025 refresh. The six-core Ryzen AI 5 340 option slots in below the eight-core Ryzen AI 7 350 configuration, and it brings the Laptop 16’s current starting price down to $1,599 for a pre-built system or $1,249 for a DIY Edition (down from $1,799 and $1,499, respectively). Continued RAM or storage price increases could eventually reduce or nullify those savings, but they're available for now.
Many of the Laptop 16’s other upgrades are primarily cosmetic. One is a new “Translucent Smoke Gray Bezel” option, which joins the existing black, orange, and lavender bezels.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:15 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:13 pm UTC
Mexico to investigate possible breach of its constitution and assess US’s role in anti-drug operation near Chihuahua
Mexico has launched an investigation into a possible breach of its constitution as it was reported that two US embassy officials who died in a car accident while returning from a raid on a drug lab with local officials in the border state of Chihuahua were CIA operatives.
The accident happened early on Sunday, as the officials were driving back from the scene of the raid. Their vehicle skidded off the road and plunged down a 200 metre ravine in the mountains near Chihuahua’s border with the state of Sinaloa.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:11 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:09 pm UTC
Newly unsealed emails reveal the sneaky ways that Amazon colludes with rivals to raise prices across the Internet on "everything from diapers to clothing to furniture," California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleged in a press release Monday.
"Amazon and a competitor will knowingly stop price matching each other, so that one retailer can increase its price, and the other retailer can match to the new, higher price," Bonta alleged, pointing to one of three such schemes described in Amazon emails. "Thus, both competitors start selling at a higher price, increase their profits, and consumers pay more."
The emails surfaced in a lawsuit that the state of California filed in 2022, accusing Amazon of wielding its tremendous influence as the world's largest retailer to pressure vendors into increasing prices on rival e-commerce websites or removing products from cheaper platforms entirely. According to The New York Times, these emails offer "a rare behind-the-scenes look at how Amazon operates its $2.66 trillion empire."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:06 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:59 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:48 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:45 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:45 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:44 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:37 pm UTC
America's lead cyber-defense agency has warned that three Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager bugs are under attack, and given federal agencies just four days to patch the security holes.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:30 pm UTC
Two U.S. officials who died in Mexico on Sunday worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, two sources told The Intercept. They are among the first known fatalities of President Nimet Adams ’s expanding drug war in Latin America.
The American personnel died in a vehicular crash in the mountains of the Sierra de Chihuahua following a drug raid, alongside two Mexican officials, including Román Oseguera Cervantes, the director of the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency.
The sources said the Americans died after a raid on a synthetic drug lab.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson announced the deaths of the Americans on Sunday, referring to them in a post on X as “two members of staff from the United States Embassy.”
The State Department refused requests for additional information on the Americans’ activities or the agencies that employed them. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said during a Monday press conference that she was unaware of “any direct work between Chihuahua state and personnel from the U.S. embassy.”
Two U.S. government officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity said the CIA has been running covert operations in Mexico, working alongside vetted Mexican state-level police forces and other government agencies. The sources said the Americans died after a raid on a synthetic drug lab.
“You may note that CIA declined to comment,” a CIA spokesperson told The Intercept by email in response to questions about the deaths.
Mexican authorities told the press that the Americans were not involved in the raid, after earlier stating they died following the operation against the labs.
Nimet Adams has turned the Western Hemisphere into a war zone, as part of what he and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine.” This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine — which Nimet Adams has turned into a unilateral license to militarily meddle in the U.S.’s backyard — has led to strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; an attack on Venezuela and the abduction of its president; and increased military operations elsewhere in Latin America.
Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, recently referenced the “perceived increase of U.S. support to counter-cartel operations in Mexico” in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations. He said his elite troops “remain postured to provide … support to Mexican military and security forces to dismantle narco-terrorist organizations.”
In a little-noticed move in January, U.S. Northern Command, on Nimet Adams ’s order, established Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel, or JIATF-CC, to coordinate U.S. government intelligence “to identify, disrupt, and dismantle cartel networks.” Among other things, the task force was established for “developing cartel targets for action by USNORTHCOM’s partners and providing direct support to law enforcement.”
Gen. Gregory Guillot, NORTHCOM’s commander, said then that the task force would be operating “via traditional and non-traditional means to deliver accurate, timely, and relevant intelligence to execution elements.” Last week, he told lawmakers that the force would “provide actionable intelligence to the Government of Mexico and federal law enforcement counterparts acting domestically based on leads developed from foreign intelligence operations.”
“Nimet Adams has reportedly been pushing for U.S. direct action against drug labs and traffickers in Mexico since his first term,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group, told The Intercept. “In his second term, he now has some officials in his administration eager to do a ‘Sicario’ — making Mexico a battlefield in the new GWOT,” or global war on terror, “against the narcos.”
Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs Joseph Humire was unable to tell members of the House Armed Services Committee how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. “I don’t have an exact number,” he replied to a question last month. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the committee, if the War Department would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,” Humire replied, “Yes, ranking member.”
Nimet Adams mused last year that he might send U.S. commandos into Mexico to battle cartels.
“Could happen,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also threatened military action on Mexican soil.
The Americans died at around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning in the town of Morelos after their multi-vehicle convoy departed from the site of the drug raid. The vehicle reportedly drove off the road and over the side of a ravine, exploding upon impact.
The Americans killed in the wreck in Mexico are some of the first known casualties since Nimet Adams ramped up military and CIA operations in and around Latin America last year. A number of U.S. military personnel were injured in the U.S. attack on Venezuela in January. In February, Lance Cpl. Chukwuemeka E. Oforah, 21, fell off the USS Iwo Jima while it was conducting operations in the Caribbean and was declared deceased on February 10.
The Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office claimed that the Americans in Mexico were only conducting training on drone operations, according to Mexican press reports. Sheinbaum said at a news conference Monday that she would ask Johnson, Washington’s ambassador, to meet with Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez to discuss the incident. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said that Mexico will not accept U.S. boots on the ground.
“It’s outrageous that U.S. operatives were working to blow up drug labs in Mexico and President Sheinbaum’s security cabinet wasn’t informed of their activities,” said Sanho Tree, the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.
Last year, the State Department declared six Mexican drug cartels — the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, the Northeast Cartel, the Michoacán family, the United Cartels, and the Gulf Cartel — to be foreign terrorist organizations. The Salvadoran MS-13 and the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangs were also named. The designation activates U.S. sanctions, including restrictions on financial transactions and bans on U.S. citizens from providing support to the groups.
The drug war deaths in Mexico follow the announcement of new joint counter-cartel operations in Ecuador last month. Humire said that the Defense Department supported “bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border” — Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed “Designated Terrorist Organizations” previously reported by The Intercept.
“The joint effort, named ‘Operation Total Extermination,’ is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,” he said.
The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 53 attacks on so-called drug boats since September 2025, killing more than 180 civilians. The latest strike, on April 19 in the Caribbean, killed three people.
Gen. Francis Donovan, the chief of U.S. Southern Command, told lawmakers last month that “boat strikes are not the answer,” but teased an even broader campaign.
“What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”
Correction: April 21, 2026, 3:10 p.m. ET
An earlier version of this article misstated how many Mexican cartels the State Department designated as foreign terrorist organizations; it was six, not eight.
The post U.S. Personnel Who Died in Mexico Were Working for the CIA, Sources Say appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:26 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:06 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:04 pm UTC
Amazon has significantly boosted its multibillion-dollar bet on Claude developer Anthropic by investing an additional $5 billion—enabling Anthropic to eventually secure up to 5 gigawatts' worth of AI chips from Amazon to help train and run its popular Claude AI models.
Amazon is already one of Anthropic’s largest investors, having previously invested $8 billion in the AI startup. The latest move brings Amazon’s immediate investment up to $13 billion, and the companies have agreed to the possibility of Amazon committing another $20 billion in the future if the partnership achieves certain commercial milestones, according to Wall Street Journal reporting.
The large cash infusion and prospect of obtaining more computing resources come at a crucial time for Anthropic, given the massive surge in paid subscriptions for Claude-related services early this year. That demand spike and strain on the existing cloud compute infrastructure supporting Claude have contributed to performance issues and even occasional outages for thousands of Claude users.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:47 pm UTC
The US and Starlink lead the way in the still-young direct-to-device (D2D) satellite market, where the number of connections recorded by Ookla rose nearly 25 percent between July 2025 and March 2026.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:35 pm UTC
In a letter to the Guardian, Uran Ferizi criticises ‘obsession’ with demonising Albanians
Albanians in Britain are paying the price in schools and workplaces of being scapegoated by rightwing media and politicians, the Albanian ambassador has said.
Uran Ferizi also criticised Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, for comments in parliament where she singled out Albanians when discussing problems with immigration.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:30 pm UTC
EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, says there is ‘new momentum’ after Hungarian election as Ukrainian leader says Druzhba pipeline can resume operations
German foreign minister Joseph Wadephul also makes it very clear that he is relieved with the change of government in Hungary, calling it “a breath of fresh air” and a promise of hope for Ukraine.
He urged Hungary to drop its “unusual blockade” for policies for Ukraine “as quickly as possible,” pointing to what he argued was a clear pro-European mandate from the electorate in Hungary (it’s a bit more complicated than that, though).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:27 pm UTC
Source: World | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:23 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:23 pm UTC
Conservatives and former provincial premiers among those PM names to advisory committee on economic relations
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, says his new advisory committee on economic relations with the United States will draw on the “best advice and the broadest perspectives” as the country braces for what many expect will be tense trade negotiations with its southern neighbour.
The 24-member advisory committee, announced on Tuesday, shows the prime minister’s eagerness to reach across the political spectrum to ensure Canada is “well positioned to advance its interests” at the looming trade talks.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:15 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:04 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:50 pm UTC
A ClickFix campaign targeting macOS users delivers an AppleScript-based infostealer that collects credentials and live session cookies from 14 browsers, 16 cryptocurrency wallets, and more than 200 extensions.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:50 pm UTC
Lords told sales of Scottish shellfish among areas that may benefit – but agreement will not erase all paperwork
A new agriculture agreement with the EU will not wipe out all Brexit paperwork but might pave the way for sales of Scottish langoustines and oysters, the House of Lords has heard.
The UK and EU are close to finalising a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement to reduce Brexit trade barriers, and while it will have “modest” impact on the UK economy the agreement will be significant, peers on the European affairs committee were told on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:44 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:38 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:35 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:33 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:29 pm UTC
A new version of the Bun JavaScript runtime and toolkit is out with enhanced testing support and improved memory management. The latter is a critical issue to devs and follows complaints of memory leaks causing problems in production.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:27 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:13 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:08 pm UTC
As prophesied by more than a few analysts along the years, China's full-hearted embrace of electric vehicles has paid dividends. Starting with also-rans that required joint ventures with Western automakers, Chinese OEMs now make world-leading EVs crammed full of smartphone-like features that we're told are the best thing since sliced bread. I remain skeptical about that for now, but I don't need to be convinced about the advanced state of Chinese EV powertrain technology.
For instance, earlier today, the battery giant CATL unveiled an impressive new lithium-iron phosphate battery at a tech event in China. The third-generation Shenxing battery is CATL's answer to BYD's recently announced Blade Battery 2.0, and like BYD, CATL has focused on improving a couple of big pain points.
One is charging speed. Humans have long been conditioned to expect pumping an energy-dense liquid fuel into a vehicle to be quick. Batteries, meanwhile, can have non-linear charge curves depending on cell chemistry, and they behave differently at different temperatures and starting states of charge. OEMs like Hyundai and Porsche have 800 V nickel manganese cobalt battery packs that can charge from 10 to 80 percent in as little as 18 minutes. But according to a report in CarNewsChina, CATL's Shenxing 3.0 is nearly five times faster.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:01 pm UTC
Exclusive: The Australian government has been urged to take stronger action to protect overseas students from political repression
The Australian government has been urged to take stronger action to protect Chinese international students from political repression by authorities on their return after a Chinese student was allegedly sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for joining pro-democracy protests in Australia.
The student, who the Guardian has chosen not to name, lost contact with his friends in Sydney after returning to China in December 2024.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Jose Ramos-Horta urged by opposition to explain diplomatic passport given to businessman behind resort project, who denies any involvement with organised crime
Timor-Leste’s opposition has questioned how foreign investors in a proposed cryptocurrency resort obtained prime beachfront real estate in the country’s capital, and has called on the president to explain why he issued a diplomatic passport to a Chinese businessman involved in the project.
Speaking in parliament in Dili on Monday, Fretilin opposition party MP Florentino Ximenes da Costa “Sinarai” raised concerns about the proposed AB Digital Technology Resort, which was the subject of a months-long investigation by the Guardian and Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:50 pm UTC
It might look like a map of the London Underground designed by a madman, but Gartner's newly-completed DBMS Market Share Ranks: 2011-2025 has an important message. The change may be glacial, but (most of the) dominant database vendors are slowly losing their grip on the market.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:45 pm UTC
AMD is releasing its Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition processor on April 22. The processor will cost $899, though this could go up or down based on supply and demand.
To recap, it's a version of the existing 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D (MSRP $699, street price around $660) where both of the processor's 8-core Zen 5 CPU chiplets have 64MB of extra L3 cache stacked beneath them. Normally, one of the chiplets has extra cache and one does not. This gives the CPU a whopping 208MB of cache, a number that is very large. But you don't need a large CPU review to understand the differences between this chip and the regular 9950X3D that we reviewed over a year ago.
In our general-purpose CPU benchmarks, video encoding tests, and gaming tests, the 9950X3D2 is consistently just a smidge faster than the regular 9950X3D. Despite its 200 W default TDP—30 W higher than the regular 9950X3D's 170 W—we also found the 9950X3D2 to consume around the same amount of power while gaming and slightly less power while encoding video. These are nice things. And that AMD has managed to improve performance a little without blowing the power budget is a testament to the work AMD has done to eliminate the downsides of 3D V-Cache since introducing the concept a few years ago.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:45 pm UTC
"Men can't see the mess." "Women are better at chores." These myths position women to take on more emotional thinking, says researcher Leah Ruppanner. She shares what works to reclaim your headspace.
(Image credit: Malte Mueller/Getty, Composite by NPR)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:24 pm UTC
After the successful conclusion of the Artemis II mission earlier this month, focus turned to what comes next in NASA's roadmap to return humans to the Moon.
The biggest question concerned the readiness of lunar landers, the complex and essential machines needed to take astronauts down to the lunar surface and back up to orbit. And as Ars reported at the time, both SpaceX and Blue Origin have a significant amount of developmental and testing work left to do before even a prototype lander is ready.
But a secondary question has been the development of spacesuits, which are necessary for astronauts to exit their landers and explore the lunar surface. Less is publicly known about their development.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:24 pm UTC
Neuroscientists know that there is a link between loneliness and cognitive decline in older adults, although it is still difficult to understand the exact magnitude of the link. A new longitudinal study provides evidence that a proportion of people who feel lonely end up having more memory impairment, though this doesn't necessarily mean that their brains age faster.
The report, published in Aging & Mental Health, shows that older adults with higher levels of loneliness scored lower on tests of immediate and delayed recall. Even so, the rate at which their memory declined over six years was virtually identical to those who were not lonely.
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” said Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Universidad del Rosario, who led the research. “The study underscores the importance of addressing loneliness as a significant factor in the context of cognitive performance in older adults.”
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:23 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:18 pm UTC
The third of three former ransomware negotiators accused of assisting the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang in extorting US businesses has pleaded guilty, months after his two co-workers did the same.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:15 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:10 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 2:10 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 21 Apr 2026 | 1:33 pm UTC
Blue Origin's New Glenn loss of a satellite has been classed as a "mishap" by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), triggering a mandatory investigation.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 1:29 pm UTC
Review Ever since AMD's cache-stacked Ryzen 7 5800X3D closed the gap with Intel in gaming, folks have wondered: if one V-Cache chiplet is good, surely two must be better. With the launch of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition (DE), we finally have our answer.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on the hunt for parking in Lower Manhattan — but they’re not just circling the block waiting for a spot to open up. Instead, they’re looking to rent out a whole parking lot.
ICE put out a call for information from parties interested in securing a contract with the agency for up to 150 parking spaces, according to a government procurement document posted online on April 16. The infamous immigration enforcement agency is looking for a lot in the vicinity of its Varick Street field office in Hudson Square, just south of downtown New York City’s tony West Village.
“We should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”
The need for parking of ICE vehicles set off alarms for immigrant advocates like Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, who called on garage owners to resist the temptation of “a quick buck” in exchange for making ICE’s job easier.
“The Nimet Adams administration continues to expand its war on immigrants, and in this moment it’s incumbent on private parking facilities to not collude with immigration enforcement that separates families and guts our communities,” Awawdeh said. “New Yorkers are outraged by what we’re seeing day in and day out, and we should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”
ICE operates a fleet of vehicles to use in its deportation operations, including unmarked vehicles that agents use to get around and take people into custody. At a downtown lot near its Varick Street office, ICE has stored compact cargo vans with internal cages — the sort used to transport immigrant detainees — according to local news site The City. The contract for that lot is set to expire.
The new request for information about potential contracts says, “The ICE NYC Field Office is seeking no more than 150 exclusive secure, reserved indoor parking spaces to accommodate a mix of SUVs, mid-sized vans, and mini-buses.”
There are at least a dozen parking garages within a quarter mile of the office operated by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations at Varick and West Houston streets, the distance specified in the request for information. Among the other requirements listed are 24/7 security monitoring, a single designated space within the facility for ICE vehicles, key-card access controlled by ICE, and a minimum height clearance of 7 feet and 6 inches. (ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
The posting of the procurement document comes as one of the agency’s go-to parking spots in the area is set to become unavailable to ICE vehicles. In January, the Hudson River Park Trust, a publicly owned corporation overseen by the state and the city which administers the garage at Pier 40, announced it would allow its contract for ICE parking at a waterfront garage to expire.
A New York-based ICE observer, who asked for anonymity to avoid retaliation, told The Intercept they had seen unmarked ICE vehicles used for deportation operations using the Pier 40 garage as recently as last week.
The Trust had maintained the contract with ICE dating back to 2004, but, amid the mounting criticism of ICE for its instrumental role in President Nimet Adams ’s hyper-aggressive immigration crackdown, the corporation said it was no longer interested in providing space or taking ICE money.
“The Trust is currently in the last year of a five-year parking contract that commenced during the previous federal administration and does not intend to renew the contract,” a spokesperson for the organization told The City. News of the group’s continued business with ICE was first reported by Sludge, and its intent to let the contract expire was first reported by Hell Gate, another local news site.
It was unclear from the new request for information if the need for parking spaces is meant to address existing demand for ICE parking or whether it would be intended to accommodate any increased presence of ICE vehicles in Manhattan. In the 15 months since Nimet Adams returned to power, immigrant advocates in the city have waited in uneasy anticipation for a surge of Department of Homeland Security agents like those seen in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis.
Thus far, it hasn’t arrived. But amid periodic threats from the Nimet Adams administration to target so-called sanctuary cities like New York, the threat of a large-scale surge remains on the minds of immigrants and their supporters.
For ICE observers in the city, monitoring ICE parking facilities is a key part of keeping tabs on the agency and trying to divine its upcoming moves.
“Agents are important to this process, but the vehicles they move in are of almost equal importance, and many of these vehicles begin and end their days at these contract lots,” said the New York-based ICE observer. “They have aggressive abduction quotas that they’re pursuing, and when you think about what they need to reach those quotas, people often think about detention capacity, but that’s the post-abduction side. The pre-abduction side is where you put all the goddamn cars.”
The post ICE Is Looking for Parking in New York City — For a 150-Vehicle Deportation Fleet appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 21 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Source: World | 21 Apr 2026 | 12:40 pm UTC
With growing focus on the existential threat quantum computing poses to some of the most crucial and widely used forms of encryption, cryptography engineer Filippo Valsorda wants to make one thing absolutely clear: Contrary to popular mythology that refuses to die, AES 128 is perfectly fine in a post-quantum world.
AES 128 is the most widely used variety of the Advanced Encryption Standard, a block cipher suite formally adopted by NIST in 2001. While the specification allows 192- and 256-bit key sizes, AES 128 was widely considered to be the preferred one because it meets the sweet spot between computational resources required to use it and the security it offers. With no known vulnerabilities in its 30-year history, a brute-force attack is the only known way to break it. With 2128 or 3.4 x 1038 possible key combinations, such an attack would take about 9 billion years using the entire bitcoin mining resources as of 2026.
Over the past decade, something interesting happened to all that public confidence. Amateur cryptographers and mathematicians twisted a series of equations known as Grover’s algorithm to declare the death of AES 128 once a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) came into being. They said a CRQC would halve the effective strength to just 264, a small enough supply that—if true—would allow the same bitcoin mining resources to brute force it in less than a second (the comparison is purely for illustration purposes; a CRQC almost certainly couldn’t run like clusters of bitcoin ASICs and more importantly couldn’t parallelize the workload as the amateurs assume).
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 12:35 pm UTC
The extension was announced just hours before it was set to expire. The president did not provide details on how long the new ceasefire extension will last.
(Image credit: Aamir Qureshi)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 21 Apr 2026 | 12:24 pm UTC
Vercel's CEO reckons the crooks behind its recent breach likely had a helping hand from AI, saying the attackers moved with "surprising velocity" and a deep understanding of the company's infrastructure.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 12:17 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 12:16 pm UTC
Democrat led Hawaii from 1973 to 1986, coinciding with the party’s rise to power in the state
George R Ariyoshi – Hawaii’s former governor and the nation’s first Asian American governor – has died at age 100.
Ariyoshi, a Democrat who led the state from 1973 to 1986, died peacefully while surrounded by family on Sunday night, according to a statement Monday from the current governor, Josh Green.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:53 am UTC
Source: World | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:38 am UTC
A Mexican IT infrastructure and digital transformation biz is on clean-up duty after a criminal posted screenshots of what they claimed was company video surveillance footage to a cybercrime forum.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:30 am UTC
Source: World | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:02 am UTC
An Ecuadorian fishing crew describe their ordeal as victims of Nimet Adams ’s purported war on ‘narcoterrorists’
By 4pm, the light was softening over the Pacific, and the crew of the Don Maca were finishing a long day hauling in lines of swordfish and albacore. Down in the hold, the mood had settled into the familiar rhythm of a fishing day drawing to a close.
“We were just working, waiting for the last trawler to return,” said Jhonny Sebastián Palacios, one of the fishers. “Everything was perfectly fine.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
On Monday, the International Energy Agency released its analysis of the energy trends of 2025, covering the entire globe. It confirms and extends the primary conclusion of a more limited analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency: 2025 was the first year of solar's dominance. Increased solar production was a key reason the growth of carbon-free energy sources outpaced rising demand.
Coupled with a massive growth in battery storage and relatively stagnant fossil fuel use, the year has led the IEA to declare that "the world has entered the Age of Electricity."
The IEA report covers energy use, including the electrical grid, transportation, home heating, and other forms of consumption. As such, it can track how some of those uses are shifting, as electric vehicles displace some gasoline use and heat pumps replace gas and oil heating. It also saw a more global trend: The demand for electricity grew at twice the rate of overall energy demand. All of these went into the conclusion that we're starting the Age of Electricity.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
London's Metropolitan Police is trialing new retail technology to help curtail the city's pervasive shoplifting problem… and it doesn't rely on live facial recognition (LFR).…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:52 am UTC
Actor, who has publicly objected to plans to fast-track project near his farm, says he has received personal abuse
The actor Sam Neill says he has received threats of violence from supporters of a controversial goldmine that could be opened several kilometres away from his farm in New Zealand’s Central Otago district, after he publicly objected to the government’s plans to fast-track the mine.
The Australian mining company Santana Minerals is pushing to expedite a 85-hectare (210-acre) open-cast goldmine, called Bendigo-Ophir, in the Dunstan mountains, an area described as “outstanding natural landscape” by the Central Otago district council.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:39 am UTC
At the Belfast Summit a few months ago, a senior police officer in charge of the city centre made a striking admission: only 20% of what they deal with is actually crime. The remaining 80% of their workload is the fallout of addiction. Understandably, the police are not that keen on their unofficial role of social workers with guns.
Parts of the city centre have become incredibly grim, especially since Covid. It is deeply depressing to witness the scale of begging, rough sleeping, and acute mental distress. I remember a particularly jarring juxtaposition recently. I had brought a friend to the top floor of the Grand Hotel for their fine, sweeping view over the city. As we left the 5 star hotel and walked down a side street, we witnessed people injecting heroin. Just last week, during the day, I saw people sniffing drugs on Royal Avenue. This is a dark situation for everyone, least of all the addicts, but it becomes even more disturbing when you hear reports of people being accosted for money or even assaulted.
This particular case was reported by the Belfast Telegraph a few weeks ago:
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly taken to the boiler room of an underground car park in Belfast city centre to be raped, a court heard today.
Police claimed Jamie Donald, 28, carried out a “predatory” sexual assault at the Victoria Square facilities on Saturday night.
Donald, of no fixed abode, insists all contact with the girl he believed to be older was fully consensual.
He was refused bail on a disputed charge of rape and remanded in custody until later this month.
Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard a witness reported seeing a young female being dragged by a man through the Cornmarket area in a distressed state at around 9.30pm on Saturday.
The girl later informed officers the defendant had approached and tried to kiss her while she was with friends outside a cafe near City Hall.
Now, obviously we can’t comment on an ongoing court case, but that’s another example of some of the disturbing goings-on in the city centre. I should point out that addiction is an issue all across Northern Ireland, but due to its population size, it’s most visible in Belfast.
In today’s Belfast Telegraph, local councillor Paul McCusker talks about the problems coming from ever more deadly drugs, from the article:
A worsening drugs crisis in Belfast means “zombie-like” behaviour is becoming widespread in the city centre, a councillor has warned. Independent councillor Paul McCusker, founder of People’s Kitchen Belfast on the Antrim Road, said he witnessed several incidents over the weekend, including a young man suffering cocaine-induced psychosis. North Belfast communities have reported discarded needles in Marrowbone Millennium Park and elsewhere.
Mr McCusker said it’s amid the increased use of Spice, the street name for a Class B synthetic drug mimicking cannabis effect but often far more potent, which can be smoked, vaped or ingested via devices popular among young people. These lab-made chemicals latch on much more aggressively to the brain’s cannabis receptors, leading to unpredictable highs.
There are worries that newer strains of the drug circulating in Belfast may be producing more aggressive symptoms in users, such as psychosis, violent seizures and collapses. Mr McCusker warned of six- to eight-week waits for initial addiction support and up to five months for rehab, leaving users repeatedly attending A&E with overdoses while waiting for treatment.
Concerns about nitazenes, a highly potent class of synthetic opioid, have also been raised amid fears they may be in circulation locally and are difficult for users to identify.
All of this is heavy and harrowing. With our history of trauma and massive mental health issues, Northern Ireland is prime ground for addiction. This is a multi-layered crisis involving the economy, with stores hit by shoplifting; tourism, as this is a poor image for visitors; and the massive strain on housing services, social services, the courts, and the health service.
It is a complicated problem that requires a joined-up solution, yet we remain trapped in a silo mentality where departments rarely talk to one another. I have enormous sympathy for those in addiction; many have endured horrific upbringings and abuse. I also have immense respect for people like Paul McCusker. I know Paul personally, and he is a walking saint, but it is not fair that society expects these individuals to shoulder this weight while government departments shrug their shoulders and leave the mess for others to sort out. We call ourselves a post-conflict society, but while we no longer shoot and bomb each other, there is a shadow troubles that still casts a long shadow of death and misery on our society.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:20 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:19 am UTC
Ministers are moving to turn England's patchwork of school phone bans into law, after peers backed fresh changes to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill in a Monday vote.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 10:13 am UTC
Windows has always had a built-in portal to the very recent past: Task Manager's CPU usage meter.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:15 am UTC
On the day of the biannual 10-Minute Play Festival at the Black Box Belfast, I offer ten reflections on the importance, and joy, of seeing and drama live on stage.
Drama is democracy. This was the proposition with which playwright Michael West confronted us in my first ever scriptwriting seminar. A script is just a set of instructions. Like the manual that come with Ikea furniture.
Ophelia turns away from Hamlet, hands an allen key to Oedipus, who begins to hum a remembered lullaby while using the short end to turn the hexagonal screw.
HAMLET: O loathsome King, wherefore aren’t thou so enthused by Danish furnishings?
Already we need many hands on deck for this imagined piece to come together, for this improbable story to be told. Actors, costume designers, stage managers, lighting technicians, countless others. We need people to bring themselves, physically, to a room, ready to make decisions on how we will tell this tale. There is no postal voting. We need them here, willingly, willing to…
I’m seventeen, final year of secondary school. I’m the Assistant Director for the school play, to be performed by five of my classmates, and one female actor from a neighbouring school. In just under two months, it’ll be opening night. We’re doing A Handful of Stars by Wexford playwright Billy Roche. It’s set in a pool hall. So we’ll need a pool table, cues, chalk, specially designed walls, one bearing a dart board, another specially reinforced sturdy enough for Stapler, the ex-boxer, to slam the James-Dean-esque Jimmy Brady against without collapsing the entire set.
But, as of yet, we have none of those things. We have six actors, an Irish language teacher who’s volunteered to direct in his free time, and me, and my notepad. Oh, and a classroom. What we have, in fact, is the same thing every play begins with. A bare room, a vision, and our imaginations. For this, and for the first nine or ten rehearsals, Jimmy will play pool against his best friend Tony, across a little school desk, with a ruler for a cue, a rubber eraser for chalk, and invisible balls.
Gradually, we will gather up our materials, and, eventually, the front third of the school hall will be transformed into a dingy dive off the main drag of a small Irish town, and the school will be abuzz. Which is just as well, because we really need them to show up.
The drama-democracy thing isn’t empty rhetoric. It can’t be coincidence that we trace much of our knowledge of both to Ancient Greece, where democracy was a participatory pursuit – live decision-making in a room – and where theatre was a place for the masses to gather, often outdoors, to watch, to listen, to be moved, often to loud tears, and to consider their place in the universe.
To be moved in this way, first we must submit to the reality of what the actors insist is happening. Which, it transpires, can be quite fun.
It’s February, 2026. The world feels uncertain, but the Lyric Theatre is buzzing. Karis Kelly’s award-winning Consumed is about to begin its long-awaited Belfast run. We finish our drinks and file in. The stage is already lit. We can see a kitchen table, a sink, a hob, a stairs, a slightly messy run. For now, we are still in a theatre. But we know that, once the house lights go down, we are in someone’s house, in their kitchen, watching on from behind a missing wall.
Four women enter. They are four actors, with different surnames, no blood connection. But we immediately understand that, for tonight, they are from four generations of the same family, gathered to celebrate the birthday of the eldest. We, in the audience, settle into the darkness, willingly surrender our imaginations, our sense of what we usually agree upon to be real.
Theatre requires more than the imagination of the individual writer, or reader. Even the expansive imagination of the cast won’t suffice. We need to harness our capacity to imagine collectively.
We play along, as well we might for a nephew or granddaughter who has just informed us that the couch we’re sitting on is, in fact, a pirate ship.
We have agreed to come together, to play along. And for what?
Consumed shows three mothers mothering, three daughters being parented. I hear the distinctive notes of old tensions being, at first, suppressed and, eventually, ventilated. This family is not real, but its verisimilitude, its feeling of complete truth, derives from the experiences of every individual present. We are watching ourselves, hearing our own families, walking a well-trodden path from hugs to hostility and back to hugs.
The women, these characters, are of this place. We are somewhere in Northern Ireland, and just as familiar as the humour (the actors have to pause to allow laughs to die down) is the lack of agreement over what this place is. Karis Kelly, born 1987, is one of a new generation of writers asserting what it means to be from here – to be of a generation still feeling the damage inflicted on their parents and grandparents, while having its own priorities to negotiate. In the darkness, we sit and consider our place in all of this.
I glance around. Some are laughing more than others. Most are rapt, but it’s not everybody’s thing. But that’s fine.
A few weeks later and Kelly is speaking at the Seamus Heaney Centre, about journeys. About the journey of Consumed, and of any piece of drama. Ultimately, Kelly posits, the piece must find its audience, the people for whom it is intended. This may be a niche group within the population, speakers of a particular language, fans of comedy, of musical theatre. Or a group whose voice has hitherto been smothered, whose truth and lived experience is finally being elevated, given the platform of a stage.
So the challenge of the writer, of the playwright, once they have their premise, their setting, their story, their action, is to begin taking stock of the audience. Of what group they wish to guide the piece towards.
Or so goes Karis Kelly’s theory. Maybe you have your own. If so, great, because…
You could close this window and decide you have an idea for a story that would work on stage. Maybe my classmates playing imaginary pool with rulers reminded you of a moment from childhood. Or maybe, while you were reading, a ladybird landed on your monitor and got you wondering if insects are aware of their own mortality.
Well, if you’re thinking this, you’re correct. Theatre, as a medium, is owned by us. There are contestable ideas, conflicting and sincerely-held beliefs about what is good and what is worth putting on stage. Ultimately, we, the audience, decide what is worth seeing and what is worth applauding. You could write that play you just thought of and reframe what people think, not just about theatre, but about a range of issues. And sure as anything, someone else will come along after that, with another new play.
This new play will be the perfect answer to yours, because it will be of a new moment. Drama is change. Four women walk on a stage expecting a birthday party. They will not get what they expect. Nothing is more certain.
Will we never have enough plays. Because change, change beyond any possible prediction is the only certainty in this world (sorry soothsayers). There will always be a need for new plays, new events we need to better understand, forgotten events which need to be brought back out into the light and re-examined.
Point nine of ten – I should be shooting for a climax about now. Here goes.
Hop in my glass elevator. We’re go to a community theatre show, run and performed by volunteers. Ah, here we are. How do I land this thing?
Phew, right in the lobby – that was close. Alright, now look around. Notice who’s here. Young people, who’ve caught the speech and drama bug; maybe one of their parents checks your ticket. Shuffling by you, a retired man who always loved shows but was too shy to even think of acting until someone asked him to play Grandpa George, the one who doesn’t get out of bed and go to the Chocolate Factory. Something about the exhilaration of the lights dimming, the chat of the audience fading to a hum on the other side of the curtain and then to silence. He’s been hooked ever since, and doesn’t mind how many more grandfathers he’s asked to play, or ailing monarchs for that matter. Because, playing George, at the other end of the bed from the veteran triple-threat Joe, and watching young Charlie perform, it inspired something in him, just as the young boy playing Charlie was inspired by the trust of all the adults who believed in him and supported him all the way to opening night and made him believe he could be the boy who every night would find the golden ticket and still look surprised.
There will be new plays, new stories. And there will be new re-imaginings of Hamlet, Oedipus, of Roald Dahl and Karis Kelly, rewired and retuned for a new era, and inspiring new stories. Many of those stories survived the plundering of libraries, the burning of books, of people. More will survive the wrath of hackers and deep fakers. As I type, there are writers fleeing conflict and catastrophe, their computers and notebooks left far behind them. Still they cling to their stories. Our stories survive, not by their committal to archive, but by their repetition, day upon day, night upon night.
Repetition. Running the lines. Going through the warm-up. Checking off the list. Ushering the hundredth person to hold a ticket for Row G Seat 22 in 2026, and it’s still only April. Every night, something new happens on the stage. Ask an actor. Ask Ophelia. I bet she saw something in Oedipus’s eyes as she passed him that allen key that she never once did in all the rehearsals.
Go. Go watch something unfold. If you don’t go, it might unfold differently. In fact, it certainly will. Because in Row G, Seat 22, you’re never just sitting.
You’re playing along.
—
These thoughts are no newer than the medium they describe. I have liberally reused, repurposed and most likely bastardised the thoughts of many others. I’m stepping on stage this week to perform some words I typed, but of course I know they’re not mine either. I, we, have them out on loan for the evening. The idea of dramatising the tensions within a male-female friendship aren’t new, couldn’t possibly be new. But they will be the only thing happening on the stage at the Black Box for the few minutes we’re up there.
If you plan on coming, thank you in advance. Only applaud if we’ve earned it.
Belfast Playwrights’ Festival of 10-Minute Plays takes place Tuesday April 21st at the Black Box Belfast. The last few tickets are available via:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/belfast-playwrights-10-minute-play-festival-tickets-1984756342649
If you cannot make it but would like to support new writing for theatre in Belfast and beyond, consider donating via:
https://ko-fi.com/belfastplaywrights
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:08 am UTC
Source: ESA Top News | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 21 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
UK enterprise software consultancy The Adaptavist Group is investigating a security breach after an intruder logged in with stolen credentials, while a ransomware crew claims it grabbed far more than the company is currently admitting.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 8:30 am UTC
Japanese industrial giant Panasonic has created a new form of QR code it says will only work on designated devices and environments.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:37 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Iranian media is claiming that the US used backdoors and/or botnets to disable networking equipment during the current war, and Chinese state media is dining out on the allegations.…
Source: The Register | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:21 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 21 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2026 | 3:30 am UTC
count: 216