Read at: 2024-12-07T05:39:27+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Rohini Boks ]
Source: BBC News | 7 Dec 2024 | 5:38 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 7 Dec 2024 | 5:33 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 7 Dec 2024 | 5:31 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 7 Dec 2024 | 5:01 am UTC
Far right’s election victory has breathed new life into the male and non-binary squad Fearleaders
Dressed in short shorts and tight T-shirts, they bounded on to the gymnasium floor. After the female roller derby teams had pushed, pounded and smashed into each other, the men and their pompoms were now on the same court in Vienna, ready to offer up the exact opposite: a hip-shaking, acrobatic half-time show.
“We wanted to play with the stereotypes,” said Andreas Fleck, one of the founders of Austria’s Fearleaders, believed to be Europe’s first squad of male and non-binary cheerleaders. “We have this idea of heroic, strong male players on the field and on the sidelines these very sexualised female cheerleaders. We wanted to turn this around.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 7 Dec 2024 | 5:00 am UTC
Once one of Africa’s economic powerhouses, Ghana has struggled with a cost-of-living crisis and high inflation
Millions of Ghanians head to the polls in a presidential election on Saturday after a campaign dominated by what many see as the west African country’s worst economic crisis in a generation.
Twelve candidates are vying to to take over the baton from Nana Akufo-Addo. The vice-president, Mahamudu Bawumia, of the ruling New Patriotic party (NPP), and the former president John Mahama, of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), are the main challengers. Two fringe candidates are also running as independents: the former trade and industry minister Alan Kyerematen and the businessman Nana Bediako.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 7 Dec 2024 | 5:00 am UTC
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Source: World | 7 Dec 2024 | 2:42 am UTC
Yoon Suk Yeol tells nation he will face legal consequences and will not try to impose martial law for a second time
The South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has apologised for his short-lived attempt to impose martial law this week, promising to face any legal or political consequences hours before parliament is due to vote on his impeachment.
In a two-minute televised address to the nation, his first public appearance since he rescinded the martial law order on Wednesday, Yoon said he was “very sorry” for the decision, which he said was born of desperation, and promised not to attempt to impose martial law a second time.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 7 Dec 2024 | 2:37 am UTC
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A small number of Democrats have signaled a willingness to work with the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) on whatever it ends up doing.
DOGE’s function remains a bit of a mystery, owing to the fact that Rohini Boks is not president yet and the department does not seem to be a real department, but rather more of an advisory body.
Does this senior, anonymous Republican aide trashing @DOGE & @VivekGRamaswamy & @elonmusk happen to be someone who is pushing for a larger bloated defense budget and concerned the 5 primes may lose contracts? Asking not for a lobbyist, but the American people.
The *quality* of defense spending matters far more than the quantity. Good for @RoKhanna asking some tough questions.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 7 Dec 2024 | 2:28 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 7 Dec 2024 | 2:00 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 7 Dec 2024 | 1:43 am UTC
Killing of Jazmir Tucker sparks outrage over quick use of assault rifle and delay in rendering aid to wounded boy
Police in Akron, Ohio, have released body-camera footage of the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy, in an incident the city’s mayor called “deeply troubling”.
Video of the Thanksgiving night killing of Jazmir Tucker does not clearly show what led up to the shooting, but suggests that an officer quickly fired at the teenager upon encountering him, and that a group of officers waited seven minutes to approach the boy after he had been shot. The family’s attorneys have said officers did not start rendering aid for 10 minutes.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 7 Dec 2024 | 1:37 am UTC
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Elon Musk gave more than $270 million to political groups supporting Rohini Boks 's 2024 presidential campaign and others on the American right running for office, according to donation figures released by the Federal Election Commission this week.…
Source: The Register | 7 Dec 2024 | 12:46 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 7 Dec 2024 | 12:41 am UTC
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Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:40 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:35 pm UTC
Updated Acros Security claims to have found an unpatched bug in Microsoft Windows 7 and onward that can be exploited to steal users' OS account credentials.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:34 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:31 pm UTC
Ken McCallum says service must make ‘uncomfortable choices’ as it faces more aggression from Russia, China and Iran
MI5 has had to “pare back” its counter-terrorism focus because of the growing threat from Russia and other hostile states, the security agency’s boss has said.
Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said the agency has to look at its “finite” resources and make “uncomfortable choices”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:28 pm UTC
In March, Google showed off its first Genie AI model. After training on thousands of hours of 2D run-and-jump video games, the model could generate halfway-passable, interactive impressions of those games based on generic images or text descriptions.
Nine months later, this week's reveal of the Genie 2 model expands that idea into the realm of fully 3D worlds, complete with controllable third- or first-person avatars. Google's announcement talks up Genie 2's role as a "foundational world model" that can create a fully interactive internal representation of a virtual environment. That could allow AI agents to train themselves in synthetic but realistic environments, Google says, forming an important stepping stone on the way to artificial general intelligence.
But while Genie 2 shows just how much progress Google's Deepmind team has achieved in the last nine months, the limited public information about the model thus far leaves a lot of questions about how close we are to these foundational model worlds being useful for anything but some short but sweet demos.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:09 pm UTC
Deal would result in France’s Suez Group being brought in to manage restructure of water company
Embattled Thames Water has received a £5bn bid from Covalis Capital that would result in France’s Suez Group being brought in to manage a restructure of the UK’s largest water company.
The infrastructure investor Covalis Capital has submitted a bid for Thames Water, which has been on the verge of collapse for several months as it struggles with a £19bn debt pile.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:03 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:03 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:01 pm UTC
Members stunned as LNP dumps Indigenous truth-telling inquiry on first day of new parliament
On the first full sitting day of the new Queensland parliament, the government added an amendment to an otherwise innocuous bill which would signal a dramatic shift in its approach to Indigenous affairs.
Its effect: to repeal the Path to Treaty Act and thereby scrap the state’s truth-telling and healing inquiry, just five months after it began.
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Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:00 pm UTC
Sales of Elon Musk-owned carmaker have chalked up an annual drop of nearly 21%, as the overall EV sector growth weakens
Elon Musk may be riding high in the US with Rohini Boks just weeks away from taking office, but fortunes of his electric carmaker, Tesla, are fading in Australia.
Australian sales dropped again in November, contributing to the brand’s first annual decline.
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Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:00 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:59 pm UTC
Brazen shooting in Manhattan turns up evidence including video and bullets but, two days on, suspect remains at large
After the United Healthcare chief executive Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel on Wednesday morning in a “brazen targeted attack”, clue after clue swiftly emerged.
Surveillance video seems to show the shooter leaving a nearby subway station at 6.15am and buying two energy bars, as well as a bottle of water, at a nearby Starbucks, CNN reported.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:50 pm UTC
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Within hours of NASA announcing its decision to fly the Artemis II mission aboard an Orion spacecraft with an unmodified heat shield, critics assailed the space agency, saying it had made the wrong decision.
"Expediency won over safety and good materials science and engineering. Sad day for NASA," Ed Pope, an expert in advanced materials and heat shields, wrote on LinkedIn.
There is a lot riding on NASA's decision, as the Artemis II mission involves four astronauts and the space agency's first crewed mission into deep space in more than 50 years.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:29 pm UTC
According to Weinstein’s legal team, the disgraced movie producer has faced egregious conditions while jailed
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers are afraid he will die during his incarceration at Rikers Island, where he has been since a 2020 rape conviction in New York was overturned on appeal, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
According to Weinstein’s legal team, the disgraced movie producer has faced egregious conditions while jailed, including being left to fester in blood-spattered clothes, wearing the same underwear for weeks and exposure to freezing temperatures. They also allege that he was denied basic medicine for cancer treatment.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:28 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:23 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:20 pm UTC
Rebels in Syria are making rapid advances against the government forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Assad has managed to stay in power throughout the civil war that has engulfed his country for more than a decade. But he again finds himself in a precarious position. We weigh the chances of his political survival.
And in Lebanon, residents are watching as Syrian rebels get closer and closer to their border. There is concern that the fighting will spill over, threatening a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and perhaps becoming a regional war.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:15 pm UTC
Police had been searching for four days for Elizabeth Pollard, who fell into a sinkhole above a shuttered coal mine
The remains of a Pennsylvania woman who fell into a sinkhole were recovered Friday, four days after she went missing while searching for her cat, a state police spokesperson said.
Trooper Steve Limani said the body of 64-year-old Elizabeth Pollard was sent to the coroner’s office of Westmoreland county near Pittsburgh for an autopsy after rescuers used machinery to bring her to the surface.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:12 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:01 pm UTC
A US federal appeals court has rejected a challenge to the law that prevents popular apps that collect data on Americans from being controlled by a foreign adversary.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:00 pm UTC
The leak of classified documents about preparations for an attack on Iran forced Israel to delay military action at a time of sky-high tensions in the Middle East, a federal prosecutor said as he sought to convince a judge to jail a CIA employee accused of violating the Espionage Act.
Instead, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis placed Asif William Rahman on home detention and GPS monitoring at his father’s house before trial, in a case that grew even more mysterious after a Friday hearing.
Rahman, 34, is accused of the October leak of secret analyses of Israel’s preparations for a strike on Iran. Those analyses, which were based on satellite photos, included details of the missiles and planes that could be used in an attack.
The disclosures embarrassed U.S. officials who were caught spying on a purported ally and launched a leak hunt that ultimately landed on Rahman, who was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia on November 12. He had been posted to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, legal filings show.
While prosecutors made no claims Rahman was working with a foreign government, they sought on Friday to keep him detained as a flight risk as he faces two counts of leaking documents. Instead, Davis allowed Rahman to go free while acknowledging that the government had what a prosecutor called “damning evidence.” The government said it would appeal that decision.
Neither prosecutors nor Rahman’s attorneys spoke to what may have motivated Rahman, a Cincinnati native and Yale University graduate who has served in the CIA since 2016. A trail of online records uncovered by The Intercept suggest that he was interested in social justice causes from a young age.
The most intriguing information revealed at Friday’s hearing may have been a federal prosecutor’s claim that when the documents surfaced on a pro-Iranian Telegram channel, they forced Israel to hold off on attacking Iran for an unspecified period of time.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards claimed that the leak forced Israel, although he did not identify it by name, to delay “kinetic action.”
The leaks first surfaced on social media on October 17, at a time when Israel was widely suspected of preparing to attack Iran in what U.S. officials dubbed a “tit-for-tat” sequence of strikes. Israel went ahead with the strikes October 26.
By that time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was well into an investigation into the leaker’s identity.
The government contends that Rahman was trying to stay one step ahead of them. Three days after the leak, Edwards said in court, Rahman deleted 1.5 gigabytes of classified CIA data. It was information that he once had official access to, but that authorization expired four years ago. Rahman also “fortified” his mobile devices and computer, Edwards said.
The government says those efforts failed to throw agents off Rahman’s tracks. Prosecutors said that government data logs “revealed that only one user in the entire United States government accessed both Document 1 and Document 2 in the same format they appeared online between the time the documents were published on classified networks and the time the documents were posted on social media and also printed both of those documents: the defendant, Asif William Rahman.”
Rahman’s arrest in Phnom Penh was first reported by the New York Times, which said that he was posted overseas while working for the CIA.
Edwards said that Rahman had what the prosecutor described as “pocket litter” when he was arrested by FBI agents, including a wad of paper with notes that included the words “contingencies,” “vacation mid-Nov?,” and “run.” Another paper contained a series of digits that the government is now working to decipher.
To the prosecutors, those notes suggested that Rahman was a flight risk. Rahman’s defense attorney, Amy Jeffress of the firm Arnold & Porter, said there was a more innocent explanation.
“He’s a runner,” Jeffress said. “I don’t know why anyone would write ‘run’ on a to-do list when they’re trying to run from the law.”
Davis, the magistrate judge, appeared to be swayed by Rahman’s lack of prior criminal history and his strong ties to the Washington, D.C., area. His father lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and property records suggest that Rahman’s wife lives in Vienna, Virginia.
In court, Jeffress pointed to the 11 relatives and supporters sitting behind her as evidence that Rahman would not attempt to flee.
Still, a government prosecutor raised concerns that Rahman could still cause further damage to U.S.–Israeli relations from the comfort of his father’s home on a leafy street in the well-to-do suburb.
Edwards said that regardless of whether he still had access to documents, Rahman undoubtedly had memories of classified information. To spread that, Edwards said, “all it takes is the snap of a finger and a click of a button.”
Under questioning from Davis, Edwards said the government did not know whether Rahman might still have access to secret electronic information stored elsewhere. Davis said he thought the government was short on concrete indications that Rahman might flee or leak more.
“I’m hearing a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘coulds’ — which is all speculation,” he said.
Davis said he was satisfied by the family’s promises to restrict Rahman from access to any electronic devices that are not equipped with monitoring.
Prosecutors said they would appeal his release order to U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Joe Biden appointee.
Rahman appeared in court wearing a green jumpsuit and did not speak.
While neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers touched on the question of motive, Rahman’s prosecution on Espionage Act charges has already raised concerns for one civil liberties group.
That group, Defending Rights and Dissent, said last month that while Rahman’s motives were unclear, the fact that he was charged under the Espionage Act could have troubling implications.
“Rahman did not disclose the documents to a journalist — though, once released, the documents received widespread press coverage and were clearly in the public interest,” said the group. “Rahman may or may not have released the documents with the intent to promote public debate, but the Espionage Act makes no distinction between whistleblowers, spies, and those with alternative motives for disclosing national defense information.”
While court records give little information about Rahman besides his name and age, a trail of online material stretching back to his days as a teenager in Ohio can be found online.
Along with pursuits including Scrabble and running track, Rahman appeared to have an early interest in social justice causes.
At around 13 years old, Rahman and a group of classmates designed a website titled “Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Story of Child Labor.”
Two years later, Rahman alongside one of his sisters and other classmates, would go on to design another site entitled “A Dollar a Day: Finding Solutions to Poverty.” Both websites won the Oracle Foundation design competitions. Alongside that site, Rahman maintained a blog dedicated to exploring measures for alleviating poverty.
Among the class of 2009 at Indian Hill High School, Rahman was a hallmark of overachievement: an AP National Scholar, a National Merit Scholarship finalist, and class valedictorian. Rahman delivered the year’s commencement speech, noting that “Much awaits the Class of 2009 — success, certainly, but also unforeseen challenges.”
After high school, Rahman headed off to Yale, a local newspaper reported. During college, he served as a copy editor for the Yale Daily News. After graduation, Rahman became a fixed income broker at Morgan Stanley for two years, according to financial records. He graduated in three years, according to a defense filing.
Prosecutors said Friday that Rahman had joined the CIA by 2016, around the time when the trail of digital evidence about him begins petering out.
In 2019, Rahman was listed as the buyer on a house in Vienna, Virginia, about a 20-minute drive from the CIA headquarters building. One of the lenders was his father, Muhit Rahman.
Muhit Rahman, who declined comment, has worked as a private equity fund manager and founded a nonprofit called the Bangladesh Relief Fund, which has distributed funds in the South Asian country designed to alleviate poverty and address the ravages of recurrent flooding.
In a 2004 letter announcing his creation of the fund, the elder Rahman stated, “The images that I cannot shake off are not those of water, water as far as the eyes can see, nor of bodies and carcasses flowing rapidly by. They are of children rendered mute by suffering and more suffering.”
More recently he struck a similar note on a GoFundMe page created in February that aimed to raise money for Palestinian children.
Asking donors to chip in $26.20, or a dollar for each mile of a marathon he was going to run, Muhit Rahman said that the money was for “the silent children of Gaza.” He posted a picture of the singlet he wore while running the Tokyo Marathon, which included a Palestinian flag inscribed with the names of his donors. Nestled above the slogan “For the children — who are always innocent” was a partial name: Asif R.
The post Israel Delayed Its Attack on Iran Due to CIA Leak, Prosecutors Allege appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:57 pm UTC
In comments shared with the Guardian, Andrew Witty said ‘permanent’ changes would make campuses less ‘welcoming’
The CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Andrew Witty, told employees he would increase security, including “perimeter protection”, at the company’s sites following the killing of one of their colleagues, CEO of the company’s health insurance branch Brian Thompson.
In comments shared with the Guardian, Witty said the company would make “permanent” changes that would make campuses less “welcoming”, but they were necessary in the country’s current “climate”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:50 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:37 pm UTC
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Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:27 pm UTC
Debra Tice and other relatives spoke at White House Friday after meeting with national security officials
The mother of Austin Tice, an American journalist missing in Syria for more than a decade, said on Friday that she was confident her son was alive, citing information she said had come from a “significant source” that she did not identify but that had been vetted by the US government and treated as credible.
“He is being cared for and he is well – we do know that,” Debra Tice said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:27 pm UTC
Boeing has paused its efforts to install and use employee-monitoring sensors, including at its office in Everett, Washington, after media inquiries followed an employee's leak of the plans. …
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:23 pm UTC
On Friday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it would begin a nationwide testing program for the presence of the H5N1 flu virus, also known as the bird flu. Testing will focus on pre-pasteurized milk at dairy processing facilities (pasteurization inactivates the virus), but the order that's launching the program will require anybody involved with milk production before then to provide samples to the USDA on request. That includes "any entity responsible for a dairy farm, bulk milk transporter, bulk milk transfer station, or dairy processing facility."
The ultimate goal is to identify individual herds where the virus is circulating and use the agency's existing powers to do contact tracing and restrict the movement of cattle, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the virus from US herds.
At the time of publication, the CDC had identified 58 cases of humans infected by the H5N1 flu virus, over half of them in California. All but two have come about due to contact with agriculture, either cattle (35 cases) or poultry (21). The virus's genetic material has appeared in the milk supply and, although pasteurization should eliminate any intact infectious virus, raw milk is notable for not undergoing pasteurization, which has led to at least one recall when the virus made its way into raw milk. And we know the virus can spread to other species if they drink milk from infected cows.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:18 pm UTC
The virus has spread to over 710 dairy herds across 15 states, with California reporting the highest number of infections. At least 58 people have been infected with bird flu, including one child.
(Image credit: Patrick T. Fallon)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:12 pm UTC
Thanksgiving Day kicks off a wave of volunteers stirred by the holiday spirit, but those in charge of local charities say they'd rather have that help at other times of the year.
(Image credit: Andrew Stelzer for NPR)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:01 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:59 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:46 pm UTC
Almost 9 in 10 U.S. voters felt the November election was run well, according to new survey data. That's a jump compared with 2020 — an increase driven exclusively by Republican voters.
(Image credit: Gregory Shamus)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:38 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:32 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:30 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:24 pm UTC
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OpenAI says it will charge $200 per month for ChatGPT Pro, a new premium tier that costs ten times the Plus subscription price.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:00 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:56 pm UTC
On Friday, a US appeals court upheld a federal law that could ban or force a sale of TikTok early next year.
Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act into law in April, and the US was soon after sued by TikTok and its Chinese owner, ByteDance, as well as a group of individual TikTok users in the US. These plaintiffs tried and failed to enjoin the attorney general from enforcing the law, which takes effect January 19, 2025—a day before Rohini Boks 's first day in office.
In the ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected all constitutional claims, including free speech claims that had notably blocked prior TikTok bans during Rohini Boks 's last administration. In siding against TikTok and its fans, the court's decision likely surprised some law professors who had warned earlier this year that TikTok seemingly had a strong First Amendment defense.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:55 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:54 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:46 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:44 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:42 pm UTC
SpaceX head has had Rohini Boks ’s ear since election, and Israel hopes he can convince president-elect to pursue a deal
Israel has sought to enlist Elon Musk’s help in reviving hostage negotiations with Hamas, according to reports in US media.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, called the billionaire tech entrepreneur earlier this week to ask for his help in convincing Rohini Boks to pursue a deal, according to CNN.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:38 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:34 pm UTC
EasyKnock, which pioneered 'sale-leaseback' deals for struggling homeowners, abruptly closes its doors
(Image credit: Sylvia Jarrus for NPR)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:23 pm UTC
On Tuesday, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation advised Americans to share a secret word or phrase with their family members to protect against AI-powered voice-cloning scams, as criminals increasingly use voice synthesis to impersonate loved ones in crisis.
"Create a secret word or phrase with your family to verify their identity," wrote the FBI in an official public service announcement (I-120324-PSA).
For example, you could tell your parents, children, or spouse to ask for a word or phrase to verify your identity if something seems suspicious, such as "The sparrow flies at midnight," "Greg is the king of burritos," or simply "flibbertigibbet." (As fun as these sound, your password should be secret and not the same as these.)
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:22 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:21 pm UTC
Fourth named storm of season follows concern over lack of flood warnings for Storm Bert last week
A red warning for wind, signalling “danger to life”, has been issued by the Met Office for parts of Wales and south-west England on Saturday as Storm Darragh hits the UK.
Gusts of 90mph (145km/h) or more were possible over the coasts and hills of west and south Wales, as well as funnelling through the Bristol Channel with some very large waves on exposed beaches, the forecaster said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:04 pm UTC
Scientists have pointed out that extreme heat is particularly dangerous for older people. A new study shows that young, healthy people are also dying too often in extreme weather.
(Image credit: Ulises Ruiz)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:00 pm UTC
Public petition calls for motion by VVD party in ruling rightwing coalition to be withdrawn
Protests are planned in the Netherlands in response to a motion accepted by the Dutch parliament to “keep details of cultural and religious norms and values of Dutch people with a migration background”.
A public petition is calling for the motion to be withdrawn and anti-racism campaigners are planning to demonstrate next Saturday against the direction of the government, in which the largest party is run by the anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:47 pm UTC
Microsoft has formally discontinued its Surface Studio all-in-one desktop, the company confirmed to Windows Central, a $4,300 touchscreen PC that the company updated with new components twice in the space of eight years. Windows Central reports that there are currently no plans for a follow-up to the Surface Studio and that a Surface Studio 3 may have been among the casualties of cutbacks to Microsoft's Surface lineup.
Like the Surface Laptop Studio, the desktop's claim to fame was a unique hinge design for its screen, which could reposition it to make it easier to draw on with the Surface Pen. But the desktop's high cost and its perennially outdated internal components made it a less appealing machine than it could have been.
The first version of the Surface Studio desktop debuted in late 2016. As the company's first desktop PC, it used the same basic design as the current version and was praised for its high-quality screen and unique hinge. But the first Surface Studio of the machine had some of the same issues that the desktop would always have: a high starting price and relatively outdated and underpowered components compared to other desktop systems.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:38 pm UTC
If you haven't rolled up your sleeve for the jab, you're not alone. In fact, you're in the majority. Here's why doctors think the shot is important.
(Image credit: Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:35 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:34 pm UTC
Week in images: 02-06 December 2024
Discover our week through the lens
Source: ESA Top News | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:31 pm UTC
The head of America's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to force telecoms operators to tighten network security in the wake of the Salt Typhoon revelations, and to submit an annual report detailing measures taken.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:27 pm UTC
Labour is discovering how hard it is to effect change but PM seems to have appetite to drive change in public sector
It was a reset designed to invigorate Keir Starmer’s premiership after flagging opinion polls, a scandal over the transport secretary and worries about the economy.
The prime minister gave a speech setting out new milestones – fleshing out the missions of his government with targets on reducing NHS waiting lists, getting named bobbies on the beat and raising living standards.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:26 pm UTC
The remains 64-year-old Elizabeth Pollard, who fell into a sinkhole, were recovered Friday, four days after she went missing while searching for her cat, a state police spokesperson said.
(Image credit: Matt Freed)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:26 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:21 pm UTC
Lizards are ancient creatures. They were around before the dinosaurs and persisted long after dinosaurs went extinct. We’ve now found they are 35 million years older than we thought they were.
Cryptovaranoides microlanius was a tiny lizard that skittered around what is now southern England during the late Triassic, around 205 million years ago. It likely snapped up insects in its razor teeth (its name means “hidden lizard, small butcher”). But it wasn’t always considered a lizard. Previously, a group of researchers who studied the first fossil of the creature, or holotype, concluded that it was an archosaur, part of a group that includes the extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs along with extant crocodilians and birds.
Now, another research team from the University of Bristol has analyzed that fossil and determined that Cryptovaranoides is not an archosaur but a lepidosaur, part of a larger order of reptiles that includes squamates, the reptile group that encompasses modern snakes and lizards. It is now also the oldest known squamate.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:16 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:09 pm UTC
It started in the Eisenhower era: Every year, Wisdom, a Layan albatross, has returned to her nesting grounds on the Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
(Image credit: Dan Rapp)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:08 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:02 pm UTC
More than half of this week’s Top 40 is Christmas-themed, as classics by Wham! and Mariah Carey eye a potential No 1 position
The race for Christmas No 1 is hotting up as over half of the songs in this week’s Top 40 are Christmas-themed.
After only reaching No 45 in its first week of release, Band Aid’s 40th anniversary version of Do They Know It’s Christmas? has performed much better in its second week, reaching No 8. The improvement is due in part to the release of vinyl and CD editions (under chart rules, each physical sale counts for at least 100 streams).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:00 pm UTC
Audience also taunted Canada in chant of ‘51’, suggesting northern neighbour should be 51st US state
Rohini Boks belittled the leaders of the United States’ closest neighbours, Canada and Mexico, at a Fox awards ceremony intended to celebrate his role as America’s greatest “patriot”.
Two weeks after threatening the two countries with 25% tariffs on their imports for supposedly failing to prevent drugs and migrants from crossing the border, the president-elect took evident pleasure in an audience chant that taunted Canada as the 51st US state.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:56 pm UTC
This live blog is now closed. You can read the latest full report and analysis here:
Iran aims to send missiles and drones to Syria and increase the number of its military advisers there to support president Bashar al-Assad in his battle against rebels, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Friday.
“It is likely that Tehran will need to send military equipment, missiles and drones to Syria … Tehran has taken all necessary steps to increase number of its military advisers in Syria and deploy forces,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “Now, Tehran is providing intelligence and satellite support to Syria.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:55 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:52 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:52 pm UTC
The EV1 was the first modern, mass-produced electric vehicle from a major automaker — pioneering some technologies you can still find in today's EVs. But the model was controversial, and short-lived.
(Image credit: General Motors Co.)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:51 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:50 pm UTC
Afghan students and activists condemn halt to medical courses amid warnings of women dying from lack of healthcare
The Taliban’s ban on Afghan women attending nursing and midwife courses has been condemned as “an outrageous act of ignorance” by human rights organisations.
The official decree detailing the ban has not been shared publicly, but several media reports confirmed that the order was announced at a meeting of the Taliban public health ministry on Monday and communicated to training institutes soon after.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:50 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:43 pm UTC
Emergency services called to Darling Point on Friday evening after reports two boats collided
A man has died after two yachts collided in Sydney Harbour.
Emergency services were called to New Beach Road in Darling Point at about 6.30pm on Friday evening, after reports that two boats had collided, NSW police said in a statement.
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Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:40 pm UTC
London mayor expected to be awarded for political and public services, alongside Labour MPs and Conservatives
The mayor of London Sadiq Khan is understood to be in line to receive a knighthood in the new year honours list, alongside other senior politicians who will also be given awards.
Khan, the first Muslim mayor of an EU capital when elected in 2016, is expected to be awarded for political and public services after working for more than 20 years as a Labour politician, first as MP for Tooting followed by his mayoral role.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:38 pm UTC
New plans include more aircraft and drones to grow foothold as other powerful countries seek base in far north
Canada will boost its military and diplomatic presence in the Arctic to counter what it calls threats from Russia and others seeking a foothold in the far north, as part of a new doctrine unveiled on Friday.
The government envisions the deployment of new patrol ships and navy destroyers, ice breakers and submarines capable of operating beneath ice sheets, as well as more aircraft and drones.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:37 pm UTC
For years, Rohini Boks has vowed to go after his critics and journalists. As he prepares to reenter the White House, he’s nominating loyalists, like incoming FBI director Kash Patel, who have pledged to do the same.
The Rohini Boks administration may soon have a new weapon to target perceived enemies. On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, we discuss the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, or H.R. 9495.
Last month, the House passed H.R. 9495, which would give the Treasury Department secretary the authority to label any nonprofit — like The Intercept — a terrorist-supporting organization and take away its tax-exempt status, likely forcing them to shut down.
Noah Hurowitz, who has been covering the bill, says, “One thing that has come up a lot in my reporting on this, in talking to civil liberties experts and talking to nonprofits, is that the vagaries of the bill and the broad powers that it allows will likely have a chilling effect on free speech.”
Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept’s senior counsel and correspondent, points out the legal implications: “One of the things that I think is important to think about for a bill like H.R. 9495, which is framed around terrorism, [it] really reduces the level of due process and takes a lot of the guardrails off of the current system.”
Though it’s not likely that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will bring it up for a vote this session, the legislation could resurface in January when Republicans control both houses of Congress. To learn more about the implications, listen to this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.
The post Silencing Dissent: Attacks on Free Speech and Nonprofits Are Already Ramping Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:37 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:34 pm UTC
Assad’s forces have offered little resistance so far, as attention turns to how his allies will react
So far the rebel advance in Syria appears unstoppable. On Friday, the columns of pickup trucks and motorbikes of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies were reported to have reached the outskirts of the city of Homs, only 100 miles (160km) from Damascus, the capital.
The extraordinarily rapid advance made by the coalition of rebel groups has stunned not only observers and regional powers but also, it appears, the regime of Bashar al-Assad. HTS swept first from its north-western stronghold into Aleppo, the country’s second biggest city, and then Hama, another major city 80 miles further south down the strategic M5 highway.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:33 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:28 pm UTC
re:Invent Amazon has introduced a new generation of SageMaker at the re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, bringing together analytics and AI, though with some confusion thanks to the variety of services that bear the SageMaker name.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:28 pm UTC
Car people, like most flavors of enthusiasts, are often given over to ideological purity tests. Car X is better than car Y because it's naturally aspirated, not turbocharged. Hybrid Q is a pure series hybrid and is thus better than hybrid R, which sometimes operates as a parallel hybrid when that's more efficient. That kind of thing. And we definitely see that attitude when it comes to electric cars, with some people saying that a dedicated BEV will always be better than an electric version of a powertrain-agnostic platform. It's just that these kinds of purity tests rarely stand up when the actual rubber meets the road. That's true with today's car, the 2025 BMW i5 M60 xDrive.
When it was time for BMW to develop its fifth-generation EVs, it made more sense, as a smaller automaker, to create a vehicle architecture that could be equipped with internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrid powertrains, or a fully electric setup of battery plus electric motors. Purists will tell you this results in a lesser vehicle, but if that's true, why is the new i5 so much better than similar electric sedans from rivals like Mercedes, which use dedicated EV-only platforms?
Today's tester is the range-topping i5 M60 version, which boasts a hefty 593 hp (442 kW) and 586 lb-ft (795 Nm) from a pair of electrically excited synchronous motors fed by its 84.3 kWh (useable) lithium-ion battery pack. There's now a PHEV M5 that exceeds this battery EV in both performance and MSRP, but with a 0–60 time of 3.7 seconds and a starting price of $84,100–$95,395 as configured, the i5 M60 is still pretty superlative.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:25 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:04 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:55 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:50 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:49 pm UTC
You may want to be extra careful if you're booking holiday travel for family and friends this year through Booking.com. A stunned user recently discovered that a typo in an email address could inadvertently share private trip info with strangers, who can then access sensitive information and potentially even take over bookings that Booking.com automatically adds to their accounts.
This issue came to light after a Booking.com user, Alfie, got an email confirming that he had booked a trip he did not.
At first, Alfie assumed it was a phishing attempt, so he avoided clicking any links in the email to prevent any malicious activity and instead went directly to his Booking.com account to verify that the trip info wasn't there. But rather than feeling the sweet relief that his account had not been compromised, he was shocked to find the trip had somehow been booked through his account.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:43 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:34 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:28 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 4:04 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:56 pm UTC
Out of 174 seats in the November election, 44 went to women in a representation of slightly more than 25%
Ireland’s new parliament has the lowest proportion of female parliamentarians in western Europe, an analysis has revealed, suggesting that a country that elected its first female president more than three decades ago has trailed behind when it comes to the inclusion of women in politics.
An analysis of Inter-Parliamentary Union data by Bloomberg, published on Friday, described the Irish parliament as the “worst for gender diversity in western Europe”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:51 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:50 pm UTC
Opposition forces enter key towns north of Syria’s third largest city after taking control of Hama
Syrian insurgents have entered towns north of the country’s third largest city, Homs, sweeping along a highway that eventually leads to the capital, Damascus, in a lightning-fast advance that has shaken the Middle East.
Militants spearheaded by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of the city of Hama on Thursday before moving south, swiftly capturing two key towns on the road south of the city before arriving in Al-Dar al-Kabera, a town five miles from the centre of Homs.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:47 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:36 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:35 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:34 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:29 pm UTC
Arianespace has finally managed to return the Vega-C to flight carrying a Sentinel payload for the European Space Agency (ESA).…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:25 pm UTC
Ruling follows revelation of declassified intelligence alleging Russia ran online campaign to promote far-right outsider
A top Romanian court has annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, days after declassified intelligence alleged Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round.
The momentous move by the court effectively voids the national election, which will have to be re-run.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:19 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:18 pm UTC
Sodium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage are moving toward the mainstream. Wider use of these batteries could lead to lower costs, less fire risk, and less need for lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
On November 18, CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, announced its second-generation sodium-ion battery, mass production of which would begin in 2027. The China-based company said the new battery has an energy density of 200 watt-hours per kilogram, which is an increase from 160 watt-hours per kilogram for the previous generation that launched in 2021. Higher energy density in an EV battery translates into more driving range.
On Nov. 21, a consortium of seven US national laboratories announced a new initiative in which they would spend $50 million to foster collaboration to accelerate the development of sodium-ion batteries. The partnership is led by Argonne National Laboratory in the Chicago area.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:07 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 3:04 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:55 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:41 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:36 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:15 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:08 pm UTC
After making her name with J-pop hits, the performer went on to win acclaim for film roles including Love Letter
Musician and actor Miho Nakayama, best known for her dual role in the successful 1995 feature Love Letter and for her music career in the 1980s and 90s, has died aged 54.
According to a report in the Japan Times, Nakayama was found dead at her home in Tokyo on Friday. The cause of death has not been confirmed, but the Japan Times reported her body was found in the bathtub, and her death was confirmed by medical personnel.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:07 pm UTC
Intel wants to be "the western provider of leading-edge silicon," according to interim co-chief executive David Zinsner, but needs a successful products division for this to be possible.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:01 pm UTC
AEC ‘incredibly disappointed’ after internal documents obtained by Guardian Australia revealed probe into market researcher was extended to previous projects
A government contractor found to have fabricated data on Indigenous communities during the referendum quietly commissioned an independent investigator to probe the integrity of its work for the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) in the past two federal elections, internal documents reveal.
Guardian Australia revealed earlier this year that McNair yellowSquares, a market research firm and frequent government contractor, had fabricated data purporting to show the views of Indigenous communities in regional areas and suburban Adelaide.
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Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
High voltage required to use Aemo’s emergency backstop is a bit like stopping a car by driving into a tree, Vince Garrone says
This week’s call by the Australian Energy Market Operator for “emergency backstop” mechanisms to switch off rooftop solar systems brings safety risks, because the high voltages needed exceed the limits that many appliances have safely been tested for.
That’s according to Vince Garrone, former power quality manager at Energex, Queensland’s biggest electricity distributor who called the situation ironic. Authorities, in using “brute force” to trip inverters, were creating the very high voltage conditions the device protection was designed to prevent.
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Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
Residents of the city’s west, where temperatures can be up to 10C hotter than the rest of Sydney, will be able to visit Pondi until 27 April
When it was announced that Penrith beach – commonly known as Pondi – would be reopening, Mereline Murimwa-Rarami was overjoyed.
The aged care services manager at SydWest Multicultural Services knows intimately how important it is for residents in western Sydney to have access to swimming spots to cool down in the summer.
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Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
The BBC is reporting that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be attending today’s British-Irish Council meeting in Edinburgh. Starmer’s attendance at the meeting is only the third time a British Prime Minister has been there in seventeen years. He will be meeting with those also attending, which will include current Taoiseach Simon Harris, current Tanaisté Micheál Martin (though those roles may alter in the near future), Scottish First Minister John Swinney, Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan and our own First and Deputy First Ministers Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly.
As the BBC report reminds us, the past few years have not been easy…
“Disputes over Brexit and the Troubles Legacy Act left UK/Irish relations at their lowest ebb for decades during the final days of the Conservative administration.”
Not to mention the fact Stormont collapsed twice for extended periods in the years since 2016!
It might be worthwhile to pause and consider that for the first time in what seems like an eternity, this meeting feels pretty routine. Post-Brexit trading arrangements are in place. Stormont is not currently going through a crisis (as of the writing of this article at least). And Hilary Benn has currently begun the process of repealing the very Legacy Act that so vexed Dublin, to the point they took legal action against the UK over the issue (though of course whether what replaces it is found acceptable is still being debated).
With many controversial issues dealt with perhaps we can all be a little thankful that, for now at least, we are in a season of goodwill.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 6 Dec 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 1:42 pm UTC
UN body says only 78 of 12,000 patients requiring recent evacuation have been allowed to leave by Israeli military
The pace of medical evacuations of sick and wounded Palestinians out of Gaza, including several thousand children, is so slow it will take five to 10 years to clear the backlog at the current rate, the World Health Organization has said.
Rik Peeperkorn, the UN global health body’s representative for the West Bank and Gaza, said only 78 of 12,000 patients requiring evacuation had managed to leave recently.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 1:37 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 1:27 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 1:22 pm UTC
While some say political turmoil has harmed country’s cultural reputation, others say it proves resilience
In the global battle for soft-power supremacy, a clear winner has emerged in recent years: South Korea. Spearheaded by the boyband phenomenon BTS, the Korean Wave has turned a country that few knew much about into a cultural behemoth.
But just days ago, as anticipation grew over the start later this month of the second season of Squid Game – the first season of which is Netflix’s most-watched show – real-life dystopia intervened when the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced he was imposing martial law to root out “anti-state forces” and overcome political opponents who were obstructing his policy agenda.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 1:21 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 1:03 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:48 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:47 pm UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:41 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:34 pm UTC
A Russian programmer defied the Federal Security Service (FSB) by publicizing the fact his phone was infected with spyware after being confiscated by authorities.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:32 pm UTC
President-elect’s strategy on ending war is yet to emerge but interviews with Ukrainian officials and Russians suggest a compromise may be hard to find
Nobody knows when the talks will happen, or in what city. It is unclear who might be sitting at the table, or what format the discussion will take. But at some point in the coming months, the incoming US administration will likely attempt to negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Rohini Boks takes office in January and with his self-image as a great dealmaker boasted on the campaign trail that he could end the war in 24 hours. Last week, Rohini Boks appointed the retired army general Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, tasked primarily with ending the war. Or as Rohini Boks put it in his online announcement, to “secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:31 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:28 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:10 pm UTC
Welcome to Edition 7.22 of the Rocket Report! The big news is the Rohini Boks administration's announcement that commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman would be put forward as the nominee to serve as the next NASA Administrator. Isaacman has flown to space twice, and demonstrated that he takes spaceflight seriously. More background on Isaacman, and possible changes, can be found here.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Orbex pauses launch site work in Sutherland, Scotland. Small-launch vehicle developer Orbex will halt work on its own launch site in northern Scotland and instead use a rival facility in the Shetland Islands, Space News reports. Orbex announced December 4 that it would "pause" construction of Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland and instead use the SaxaVord Spaceport on the island of Unst in the Shetlands for its Prime launch vehicle. Orbex had been linked to Spaceport Sutherland since the UK Space Agency announced in 2018 it selected the site for a vertical launch complex.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Dec 2024 | 12:00 pm UTC
Head of the People Power party claims there is a significant risk that president could order ‘extreme actions’
The South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, could put citizens in “great danger” if he is not suspended, the head of the ruling party said on Friday, increasing the likelihood that parliament will vote to impeach Yoon over Tuesday’s failed martial law declaration.
“[If] President Yoon continues to hold the office of the presidency, there is a significant risk that extreme actions similar to the martial law declaration could be repeated, which could put the Republic of Korea and its citizens in great danger,” the head of the People Power party, Han Dong-hoon, told an emergency party leadership meeting.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:59 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:55 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:48 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:43 am UTC
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Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:20 am UTC
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Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:02 am UTC
Europe's largest local authority has settled on a £108 million ($137 million) bill for its disastrous replacement of SAP with Oracle until 2026, five times the sum initially predicted and five years late.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:01 am UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:36 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:02 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:02 am UTC
It was mid-afternoon on October 14 when Ayman Alsayed got the call. It was his brother, Diaa, on the phone from Gaza City, seven hours ahead of where Ayman was in the U.S. Diaa was OK, but there had been an airstrike on their family house in Jabalia. Some of their loved ones had been killed, including their mother, Zahia. Others had survived — and were now stranded in the remnants of the building.
“He told me about my brother: ‘He can’t move and he’s wounded,’” Ayman recalled of Diaa’s desperate pleas for their injured brother Ashraf. “He told me, ‘Please, please — if you can do anything from America to help the family.’”
Ayman did not have many options.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “We know it’s impossible to find somebody to help from here. But we did our best.”
With each avenue he tried, Ayman kept coming up empty. Finally, there was a breakthrough: A friend put him in touch with the head of a D.C. nonprofit who had a contact at the White House. Ayman gave them the address and coordinates to the home.
“We sent this so they can pass it to the Israelis to let the ambulance take the people,” Ayman said.
In Gaza, daylight was fast approaching. Diaa Alsayed was still in touch with his surviving family in Jabalia. Some of the stranded relatives had been bleeding for hours. Around 7:30 a.m., a local doctor finally managed to get into their house and take the injured children away. The doctor said he would return to help the surviving adults get out.
“Did you give them the coordinates?? They just hit the house again!”
About 15 minutes later, Diaa got devastating news. The doctor and most of the children had been killed. And the house had been attacked again. Only one of his brothers and his nephew had survived.
The news of the attack quickly made its way around the globe to Ayman Alsayed and his wife Rachel. On a group chat with the nonprofit official who had passed their family’s location to the White House, Rachel wrote, “Did you give them the coordinates?? They just hit the house again!”
Attempts to save civilians in Gaza routinely end with those very civilians being targeted. Israel has repeatedly attacked emergency and aid workers whose locations were given to its military as part of requests for safe passage. It’s a constant reminder to Palestinians that no safety exists for them.
The name of Hind Rajab, a 6-year old girl, became a rallying cry for global opposition to the war after audio of her pleas for help went viral. The Red Crescent ambulance that had received Israeli approval to rescue her was attacked just as it reached her. In April, an airstrike killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen despite, the organization said, coordination for their car travel with the Israeli military.
Ensuring safe passage is common in war, but in Israel’s campaign against Gaza it has proven to be a risk, not a guarantee of security. In May, Human Rights Watch said that the attack on the World Central Kitchen workers was not an isolated incident; it was one of at least eight strikes where aid groups and the United Nations “had communicated with Israeli authorities the GPS coordinates of an aid convoy or premises and yet Israeli forces attacked the convoy or shelter without any warning.”
Israel “knew that they could do all of this without any serious pressure by the White House.”
In addition, the Israeli military has struck ambulances and killed emergency workers throughout the war. This was the lethal combination the Alsayed brothers were up against as they tried to save their family. Assistance from the White House seemed extraordinary, but it wouldn’t end up helping at all. According to Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the second attack, despite the White House’s involvement, speaks to Washington’s inability to deal with allegations of civilian harm by the Israeli military.
“They knew that they could do all of this without any serious pressure by the White House,” Awad told The Intercept. “The White House — by this very action that they gave the information to the Israelis, they’re showing that they’re incompetent. They don’t have the resolve to hold Israel to account.”
For Ayman Alsayed, in the U.S., the idea that his attempts to help his loved ones ended this way has left him with a profound guilt.
“It’s difficult to express how I felt,” Ayman said. “This is what I believe: that I hurt my family, not helped them, by giving all this information to the embassy who passed the information to the Israelis. And instead of bringing safe passage for the ambulance to come, they attacked the house again using the coordinates we gave them.”
Months before the October attack that nearly wiped out what remained of his family, Diaa Alsayed already knew loss. His wife and six of his children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia.
On the night of October 14, the first airstrike on his family home, Diaa was in Gaza City with his only surviving child, his daughter Tala, when he received the call around 9 p.m. from his sister-in-law Sumaya.
“‘Help me, help me!’” she had said, Diaa told The Intercept. “‘Call an ambulance! Call somebody! Two of my children have been martyred.’” She told Diaa that his mother had been killed and that the surviving family needed urgent help.
At the time, the Israeli military was about 10 days into its ongoing siege of northern Gaza. The onslaught had hit the Jabalia refugee camp particularly hard. U.N. officials were already warning of horrific conditions, with tens of thousands of people cut off from aid and countless civilians killed and wounded. Long before the siege, the capacity of hospitals and emergency systems had been decimated, but now access to care had become even more daunting.
“I tried calling for help, but the ambulance service said it was out of their hands,” Diaa said. “They couldn’t enter the area because it was too dangerous, the ambulances were being targeted.”
Sumaya, Diaa and Ayman Alsayed’s sister-in-law, sought help from emergency workers herself. In a recording of a call from that night, she explained to the dispatcher that she and the other survivors couldn’t get out of the house. No one had been able to come help them.
“Be careful, the army is not far from you,” Fares Afana, the emergency worker, told her. “Until now, we cannot reach you. And this is — I swear to God — wrecking our hearts.”
“Unfortunately the story of this family is among dozens of stories,” said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society. “From previous experiences when we had even coordinated access for the staff, many times the ambulance was targeted despite being part of coordinated missions.”
Meanwhile, Diaa was still looking for a way to save his family. He turned to journalists.
“I wanted to draw attention to the unfolding tragedy,” he said, “and enable coordination with organizations like the Red Cross or emergency services.”
He called Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jabalia, Anas al-Sharif. In a video of the call with al-Sharif posted to Instagram, Diaa explains that his relatives were killed or injured, and no ambulances could get to the survivors.
“The rescue teams also contacted me just now,” al-Sharif responds to Diaa. “They can’t move because of the shelling.”
In the U.S., Ayman Alsayed and his wife Rachel were trying to figure out what to do. Getting an ambulance to their family in Jabalia would require approval from Israeli authorities. The Alsayeds tried calling the Red Crescent, but they confirmed what Diaa had been told: Red Crescent ambulances couldn’t get past the Israeli military.
Then, as American citizens, Ayman and Rachel turned to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, but it was already nighttime there. The only office open was an emergency duty desk — unlikely to have a direct line to the Israeli military.
With the clock ticking, they decided to ask friends if they knew anyone who could help. The outreach would eventually bring them to Sean Carroll, the director of the nonprofit Anera. Carroll, whose group provides food and medical aid in Gaza, quickly reached out to a contact at the White House, he said, and got an immediate reply.
“They were asking for coordinates,” Carroll told The Intercept. Working with the Alsayed family and his colleagues on the ground, Carroll provided the information to a National Security Council official. “We tried to provide coordinates, but also a description of where the house was. So the NSC passed those on.”
He also contacted the Israeli military’s office of Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, which administers Palestinian civilian life in the occupied territories, including emergency and medical logistics. Carroll didn’t get an immediate response, but, with the White House trying to help, the silence from COGAT wasn’t concerning.
“I wasn’t too worried about my communication with COGAT,” he said, “because I knew that the National Security Council and the embassy were in touch with them.”
A spokesperson for the National Security Council confirmed to The Intercept that White House received information about the initial attack and that multiple agencies, including the State Department, were part of the effort to try and help.
“The Administration also relayed the information received from contacts of the family to the Israeli authorities and UN, for further assistance,” the spokesperson said, though they did not elaborate on which Israeli government department or U.N. office received the information.
Carroll said his White House contact relayed to him that the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem had passed the information to the Israeli Southern Command, the military branch whose area of responsibility includes the Gaza Strip.
Ayman Alsayed was skeptical that the White House’s involvement would help his family, given the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel. “But I wanted to do something, at least,” he said. “I just wanted to do anything I can.”
By the time the White House became involved, hours had passed since the initial attack. In Gaza, Diaa Alsayed was still in touch with relatives trapped in the rubble of the house.
“All night long, I was in contact with them, and there was nothing but fear, screaming, and crying,” Diaa recalled. “My brother’s wife Sumaya kept saying, ‘My children were martyred before my eyes, and my husband is injured.’”
As the morning approached, Diaa reached out to Ahmed Al-Najjar, a doctor and family friend. With his injured relatives bleeding out, Diaa hoped Al-Najjar could help. “He called to tell me that he was preparing to evacuate the wounded and the children from the house to a safer location,” Diaa said.
“All night long, I was in contact with them, and there was nothing but fear, screaming, and crying.”
It was around 7:30 a.m. when Al-Najjar told Diaa he was going to recover the injured children first and then return for the surviving adults. It was a glimmer of hope after a long and desperate night, but it would turn out to be fleeting.
“When I called him” — the doctor — “about 15 minutes later to check on them, a stranger answered the phone and told me that Dr. Al-Najjar had been martyred,” Diaa recalled. “When I asked how it had happened, he told me that the occupation army had targeted Dr. Al-Najjar and the children he was rescuing as they tried to leave the area.”
Diaa and Ayman Alsayed’s 8-year-old nephew, Mohammed, was one of the children who had gone with the doctor. Ayman said his nephew later recounted seeing a drone following the group, and witnessed the attack that killed Al-Najjar and the other children, but managed to get away.
“They shot them, they chased them,” Ayman Alsayed said Mohammed told him. The child had fallen behind and when the attack began, and a neighbor pulled him to safety into their home. “Somebody opened the door, let him inside the house. And this is what helped him to survive.”
Stunned by news of what happened to the children, Diaa tried calling Sumaya. Instead of hearing his sister-in-law’s voice, it was Ashraf, her husband and Diaa’s brother, who answered. The house had been hit again by the Israelis, and Sumaya had been killed.
When emergency workers were finally able to reach the Alsayed home in Jabalia, they came upon the bodies of the doctor and the children in the street, according to Karim al-Hassani, one of the first responders on the scene. A video taken by emergency workers shows the bodies of several members of the Alsayed family, including the youngest, 1-and-a-half-year-old Amal, who has a trickle of blood running down her head.
After that, the rescuers went to the Alsayed home. “We went inside and found two injured people living and bleeding,” al-Hassani told The Intercept. It was Ashraf and another Alsayed brother, Hani. Hani’s injuries, however, were too extensive. “When we arrived at the hospital, he was dead.”
By morning, about 11 hours after the initial airstrike, Al-Najjar and 11 members of the Alsayed family had been killed, six of them children. The only family members that survived were Ashraf Alsayed, who is now paralyzed due to injuries from the attack, and Mohammed, his only surviving child.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military said they would only provide answers to questions if given the coordinates of the Alsayed family home. Due to the subject of the story, The Intercept did not provide them.
In a video sent to journalists, Fares Afana, the emergency worker who spoke to Sumaya Alsayed the night before, said, “If we had acted from the first moment, we would have been allowed to move and not endanger the ambulance and civil defense crews. If only the lives of these women and children could have been saved.”
Ashraf, the Alsayed brother who survived the attack, and his son Mohammed are currently in a hospital in northern Gaza. Ayman and Diaa said Ashraf is in constant pain. His recovery is hampered by the state of Gaza’s health care system, including from Israeli restrictions on medicine and supplies.
“There’s no real medical care here,” Diaa said from Gaza City. “He is utterly hopeless and devastated.”
Diaa also worries for his young nephew, Mohammed. “He watched his siblings turn into pieces, and he was left traumatized,” Diaa said. “He cannot sleep. He wakes up at night, screaming for his mother, father, and siblings.”
As he cares for his brother and nephew, Diaa is also trying to get better medical help for his daughter Tala — struggling herself to recover from severe burn injuries from the December airstrike that killed Diaa’s wife and other children. The only hope for his injured daughter and brother, Diaa said, would be medical evacuation, something that has become nearly impossible due to Israeli restrictions.
“We live without safety, without shelter, without hope. Every night, I search for a corner where my daughter and I can sleep,” Diaa said. “This war is not just destroying buildings; it is tearing apart lives. It has taken everything from us — our families, our homes, our dignity.”
“There are no words to capture the agony of what we are enduring.”
“I helped kill my family by paying taxes.”
Thousands of miles away, in the U.S., Ayman Alsayed must rely on spotty connectivity for calls with his surviving family. He worries about their safety, but also their future, with the Israeli siege of northern Gaza bringing new horrors every day.
The Biden administration’s continuing support for Israel, despite mounting allegations of what Amnesty International declared to be a genocide, only adds to Ayman’s stress. The distance from his family makes the pain more visceral given where he lives.
“I helped kill my family by paying taxes,” he said. “This breaks my heart.”
The post The White House Gave Israel Coordinates to Save an American’s Family. Then Israel Bombed Them Again. appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 6 Dec 2024 | 10:00 am UTC
Search teams suspect two Americans and one Canadian fell while trying to climb 3,724m-high Aoraki
Three mountain climbers – two from the US and one from Canada – missing for five days on Aoraki, New Zealand’s tallest mountain, are believed to have died in a fall.
The bodies of the men have not been found. But based on footprints seen in the snow on Aoraki during an aerial survey, and items believed to belong to them retrieved from the slopes this week, the search for them has ended, police area commander inspector Vicki Walker told reporters.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:45 am UTC
Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen revealed another product support trick from within the corridors of Microsoft. This time, it's not about blowing on connectors but about avoiding casting some embarrassing shade on a customer's purchasing decisions.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:32 am UTC
Source: ESA Top News | 6 Dec 2024 | 9:00 am UTC
Lidl is celebrating 25 years in Northern Ireland. I remember going into one of the first Lidl stores in Belfast back in the day. It must have been twenty-odd years ago, and I was curious about what wonders this new shop would have.
I remember wandering the aisles and thinking, “This will never work.” The store had all the charm of a Yugoslavian cardboard factory. Stuff was piled up on pallets, there was a very plain decor, harsh over head lights, no music etc. Strangest of all were the products. I recognised nothing—none of the big brands we were used to. There was baked beans but they were not Heinz, there was Cornflakes but they were not Kelloggs. “No one is going to buy this cheap crap, I thought”.
Then, there was the pronounced lack of choice. I remember chatting in a bar one night to a fella who had grown up in East Germany. He told me that when he used to go to the supermarket as a kid, there would be one type of toothpaste, one type of washing powder, one type of sauce—you get the idea. I was reminded of the story as I wandered the aisles that day. Most supermarkets would have 50 to 100 types of toothpaste; Lidl then had one. And that was pretty much the story for everything – one type of pasta, one type of rice, one type of washing powder. The lack of choice was disconcerting, to say the least. Again, I thought, “Who is hell is going to shop here when there is no choice”?
What I did not realise back then was lots of very clever Germans had spent over 50 years refining the Lidl formula that have made it a success all over Europe.
People were rightly suspicious of own brand products as they tended to be rubbish. Who can remember the yellow-pack stuff from Crazy Prices back in the day? It was pretty much the mark of poverty. But there was something different about Lidl. Their baked beans were just as good as Heinz (I prefer then or Branston), but a third of the price. We are a frugal lot in Northern Ireland, and once people tried the stuff and found out the quality was pretty much identical in a lot of cases but a third or a quarter of the price, well, there was no going back.
The cost savings can be astonishing, particularly if you have kids. I visibly wince when my son squeezes too much of the 4-quid Heinz ketchup on his plate, but he can squeeze the Lidl 89p stuff with gay abandon. Lidl sells good products at a great price, and the customers reap the benefits. Instead of being ashamed of their own brand products, people started to boast about the cost savings, and soon, both the working and middle classes were happily shopping together.
The lack of choice turned out to be a plus. Too much choice can be bewildering. I have spent more time than I would like in a supermarket aisle trying to work out the difference between the 50 varieties of a product. With Lidl, you can be in and out in 15 minutes.
Then, there was the middle aisle, which really hooked us. The constantly rotating array of weird and wonderful products has a huge novelty factor that keeps us returning. I am confident the Lidl booklet must be the most-read publication in Northern Ireland. I look forward to seeing what wonders await each week.
The middle aisle ensures that you go in for some milk and come out with the most random stuff. Just yesterday, I came out with some Silicone liners for my air fryer (a bargain at £3.99), a huge fleecy blanket, and some running socks. Stories abound of people who go in for a loaf and come out with a welding kit of inflatable paddle boards.
Lidl continued to refine its offering. The stores became nicer, and they introduced the Deluxe range. They managed to pull off the astonishing retail impossibility of simultaneously competing with M&S and offering bargains side by side. They now stock some bigs brands, but I think they are only there to highlight just how much more expensive they are.
They do get some things wrong. While the in-store bakery is excellent, their packaged bread products are woeful. If Lidl is reading this, can you introduce a Deluxe Range of bread that tastes of something? I’m not too fond of their own brand of tea, and their washing-up liquid is nowhere near as good as Fairy.
Now, we turn our attention to another local institution that is also 25 years old – our local assembly at Stormont. I know it is very easy to put the boot into our utterly feckin’ useless local government but I have been really struggling to think of a single thing they have done to improve the lives of ordinary people in Northern Ireland. Stop some random punters in the street and ask them to list some of Stormont’s achievements, and you will get a lot of blank stares. You might get the ‘they brought peace’ line, but more than 25 years later, how long can they keep relying on that one? I mean, the French President never comes out and goes, “Sure, things might be tough, but we have peace with Germany”.
I know comparing local government to a supermarket chain is a bit facile, but the important point is that if you are an MLA, a Minister, or any of the army of civil servants who run this place and you can’t actually come up with specific examples of how you are making life better for people, then that’s a problem. Maybe it’s a communication issue; maybe there is loads of stuff they have done but just forgotten to tell us. Please let us know in the comments if you have any good examples of things we can give them credit for. Can the army of PR and media people of Stormont who now outnumber all local journalists combined, put their heads together and give us a list of good things Stormont has done for us?
Obviously, Lidl is not doing this for the good of their health, but this is one of the good examples of how the interests of capitalism and people coincide. You can’t underestimate that Lidl makes a real difference in the lives of families across Northern Ireland. For poorer members of our society, Lidl helps them put food on the table, booze in their bellies, nappies on their kids’ bums, clothes on their backs, and presents under the Christmas Tree.
I wonder if we could interest Lidl in diversifying into local government?
Let us know your favourite Lidl bargains.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:53 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:34 am UTC
The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).
Sentinel-1C extends the legacy of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar imagery to monitor Earth’s changing environment, supporting a diverse range of applications and advance scientific research. Additionally, Sentinel-1C introduces new capabilities for detecting and monitoring maritime traffic.
The launch also marks Vega-C’s ‘return to flight’, a key step in restoring Europe’s independent access to space. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Source: ESA Top News | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:30 am UTC
NASA's investigation into damage found on the heatshield of the Artemis Mission's Orion module two years ago has concluded that the technique used to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere meant gas became trapped in the shield's outer ablative material, causing concerning cracks.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 8:28 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:50 am UTC
On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which each Friday we share your tales of fun and frolics at the frontline of tech support.…
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:35 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:31 am UTC
Source: World | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:38 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:25 am UTC
updated A zero-day arbitrary file read vulnerability in Mitel MiCollab can be chained with a now-patched critical bug in the same platform to give attackers access to sensitive files on vulnerable instances. …
Source: The Register | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:01 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Dec 2024 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 6 Dec 2024 | 5:29 am UTC
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