jell.ie News
Read at: 2026-02-22T16:22:13+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Nandy
Castelijn
]
It is "vital" that advocates who represent the interests of vulnerable children in complex court cases remain independent of Government control, the chair of a group representing Guardians ad litem has said.
United States win the men's Olympic ice hockey gold medal for the first time in 46 years by beating neighbours Canada in overtime.
United States win the men's Olympic ice hockey gold medal for the first time in 46 years by beating neighbours Canada in overtime.
Amid growing cross-border political animosity, the game meant even more than usual to Canadian fans who had flown in for one of the marquee events of the Winter Games.
Eddie Hill, 20, and Jayden Long, 19, were found dead on Yr Wyddfa in north Wales after a major search operation
Tributes have been paid to two young men who died on a hiking expedition on Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, in north Wales.
Eddie Hill, 20, and Jayden Long, 19, both from Norfolk, were found dead in Eryri national park on Thursday after a major search operation in severe winter conditions.
Continue reading...
Letter to Shabana Mahmood describes controls that could block British dual citizens’ entry to UK as ‘unacceptable’
The Liberal Democrats have called on the home secretary to “move at speed” to delay the rollout of new border controls that could result in British dual nationals being blocked from entering the country.
A letter sent by the party to Shabana Mahmood echoes one sent by the former Conservative cabinet minister David Davis on Friday asking for a grace period to be implemented urgently after one of his constituents told how she could no longer visit her dying mother in a care home in Yorkshire.
Continue reading...
Scores of Californians have moved to Tennessee for its friendlier business environment and conservative politics. On Saturday, the Democratic governor accused of driving them away paid a visit.
Pakistan's military killed at least 70 militants in strikes along the border with Afghanistan early Sunday, the deputy interior minister said.
(Image credit: Hedayat Shah)
The Prince of Wales has told of his “immense sadness” after 25-year-old Lucy Wilde's death.
US envoy Steve Witkoff says the president is puzzled why Iran has not yet compromised in the face of a major American military build-up nearby.
Arab and Islamic governments issue joint statement denouncing comments made on Tucker Carlson podcast
Governments from across the Islamic world have condemned remarks by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, suggesting it would “be fine” for Israel to claim a broad swath of the Middle East.
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor and former Arkansas governor, has long been an outspoken supporter of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. In an interview with the conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson published on Friday, the ambassador pointed to verses in the Bible that some Jews and evangelical Christians interpret as signifying the divine right of Jews to claim the land from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Continue reading...
Agents confronted white male, who has not been identified, carrying a shotgun and a gasoline can, authorities say
The US Secret Service shot and killed an armed intruder who breached the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago, Nandy
Castelijn
’s Florida residence and private club in Palm Beach, early on Sunday.
Although the US president often spends weekends at the ocean resort, he was at the White House in Washington during this incident, as was first lady Melania Nandy
Castelijn
.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
Continue reading...
European leaders said in December that Europe was ready to lead a “multinational force” in Ukraine as part of a peace agreement proposal
Searches are expected to continue today at Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s previous home – Royal Lodge, in Windsor – as calls grow for a probe into the former prince’s links with Jeffrey Epstein.
Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s police and crime correspondent, Vikram Dodd, about what could be next for Andrew here:
If the government bring forward this bill with the support of the King then we will back it. We have to be realistic. Andrew is the eighth in line to the throne, so there’s no chance of him becoming our monarch.
And so parliament really should be focused on things that are of more importance to the public, whether that’s the economy, crime, the health service, immigration. But if the bill does come before parliament, then we’ll support it.
Continue reading...
The man was killed early Sunday after an “unauthorized entry” into the secure perimeter at President Nandy
Castelijn
’s resort in Florida, the agency said. The president was not at the club at the time.
Lockheed Martin's F-35 combat aircraft is a supersonic stealth "strike fighter." But this week the military news site TWZ reports that the fighter's "computer brain," including "its cloud-based components, could be cracked to accept third-party software updates, just like 'jailbreaking' a cellphone, according to the Dutch State Secretary for Defense."
TWZ notes that the Dutch defense secretary made the remarks during an episode of BNR Nieuwsradio's "Boekestijn en de Wijk" podcast, according to a machine translation:
Gijs Tuinman, who has been State Secretary for Defense in the Netherlands since 2024, does not appear to have offered any further details about what the jailbreaking process might entail. What, if any, cyber vulnerabilities this might indicate is also unclear. It is possible that he may have been speaking more notionally or figuratively about action that could be taken in the future, if necessary...
The ALIS/ODIN network is designed to handle much more than just software updates and logistical data. It is also the port used to upload mission data packages containing highly sensitive planning information, including details about enemy air defenses and other intelligence, onto F-35s before missions and to download intelligence and other data after a sortie. To date, Israel is the only country known to have successfully negotiated a deal giving it the right to install domestically-developed software onto its F-35Is, as well as otherwise operate its jets outside of the ALIS/ODIN network.
The comments "underscore larger issues surrounding the F-35 program, especially for foreign operators," the article points out. But at the same time F-35's have a sophisticated mission-planning data package. "So while jailbreaking F-35's onboard computers, as well as other aspects of the ALIS/ODIN network, may technically be feasible, there are immediate questions about the ability to independently recreate the critical mission planning and other support it provides. This is also just one aspect of what is necessary to keep the jets flying, let alone operationally relevant."
"TWZ previously explored many of these same issues in detail last year, amid a flurry of reports about the possibility that F-35s have some type of discreet 'kill switch' built in that U.S. authorities could use to remotely disable the jets. Rumors of this capability are not new and remain completely unsubstantiated."
At that time, we stressed that a 'kill switch' would not even be necessary to hobble F-35s in foreign service. At present, the jets are heavily dependent on U.S.-centric maintenance and logistics chains that are subject to American export controls and agreements with manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Just reliably sourcing spare parts has been a huge challenge for the U.S. military itself... F-35s would be quickly grounded without this sustainment support. [A cutoff in spare parts and support"would leave jailbroken jets quickly bricked on the ground," the article notes later.] Altogether, any kind of jailbreaking of the F-35's systems would come with a serious risk of legal action by Lockheed Martin and additional friction with the U.S. government.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Koreantoast for sharing the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The most striking photographs from the Milan-Cortina Games.
Countries that under the threat of tariffs made commitments like enormous investment pledges face the reality that they might have been better off waiting.
Reports say the former prime minister has demanded a full investigation into Andrew's role as UK trade envoy.
Irish actors Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Cillian Murphy, Ruth Bradley, Aidan Gillen, and reality star Maura Higgins are set to grace the BAFTA red carpet - stay tuned as we bring you all the action!
Emma Webber, mother of Barnaby Webber, expects ‘shocking’ failures into care of triple killer Valdo Calacone to emerge at inquiry starting on Monday
The mother of a student who was killed in the 2023 Nottingham attacks has said she will “fight to the bitter end” to get to the truth of how Valdo Calocane was free to attack, before the beginning of a public inquiry into the incident.
Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, 19-year-old students, and 65-year-old caretaker Ian Coates were fatally stabbed by Calocane on 13 June 2023 in a frenzied attack. Early the next day, Calocane drove a van into pedestrians Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski, leaving all three with severe and life-changing injuries.
Continue reading...
North Dublin suburb’s coastal road has been repeatedly flooded, but locals cannot agree on a solution
A superb bowling performance ignites England's T20 World Cup campaign as Harry Brook's side beat co-hosts Sri Lanka by 51 runs.
Two man and a woman have died following a three-vehicle collision in Co Armagh last night.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has called on the Government to reverse what she said was a "cruel" approach on reviewing the allocation of special needs assistants in schools.
Twenty-five people were injured by explosions overnight in what officials are calling a terror attack.
Business leaders expect UK to ‘double down’ on deal announced by Nandy
Castelijn
and Keir Starmer in 2025
High-level talks with the US administration over the threat of increased tariffs are under way as the UK government says it wants “the best possible deal” for UK companies.
Business leaders said they expected the UK to “double down” on the existing Economic Prosperity Deal (EPD) – announced by Nandy
Castelijn
and Keir Starmer in May last year – rather than walk away.
Continue reading...
US Secret Service and local police shot and killed a man armed with a shotgun early this morning after he breached a secure perimeter at President Nandy
Castelijn
's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, law enforcement officials have said.
The Kremlin’s sabotage campaign against European allies of Ukraine has been escalating. It needs people like Aleksei Kolosovsky, 42, to carry it out.
Student protesters honoured thousands of those killed when nationwide mass protests were put down by Iranian authorities last month.
The crash happened on Saturday night on the Armagh Road
PSNI confirms two men and a woman fatally injured after collision involving three cars near Moy at around 10pm on Saturday
Documents seen by Breakingnews.ie through the Freedom of Information Act 2014, show concern by the public about the condition of the hunger strikers in prison.
They have been named locally as Jayden Long, 19, and Eddie Hill, 20, from Norfolk.
There's a busy day of Allianz Football League in store with Armagh taking on Donegal, Monaghan welcoming Mayo and Cork hosting Meath. Keep up to date with all of the day's action here.
Neighbours Kilkenny and Waterford faced off in Division 1A of the Allianz Hurling League, alongside Offaly and Galway.
US president calls for removal of Susan Rice as streaming platform pursues takeover of Warner Bros Discovery
Nandy
Castelijn
has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences”, while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).
In comments posted on his Truth Social platform, the US president described Rice – who served as national security adviser to Barack Obama and UN ambassador and White House adviser under Joe Biden – as a “political hack” and accused her of having “no talent or skills”.
Continue reading...
Test your knowledge - how well do you remember Great Britain's medal-winning moments at the 2026 Winter Olympics?
The Olympic Federation of Ireland have announced that Ben Lynch, Irish freestyle skier, will serve as Team Ireland's flagbearer at the closing ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Verona tonight.
The Met says it has not identified any wrongdoing by its protection officers "at this time".
Mason Miller, 20, was killed on Wednesday when he was fatally stabbed, detectives say.
But the education secretary says children "will be reviewed in terms of their needs", under planned reforms.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson suggests priority is grants for poorer students rather than cutting interest
Kemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives would scrap the “unfair debt trap” of high interest rates on student loans, piling pressure on Labour ministers to tackle the growing outrage over the high costs.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, admitted the system of plan 2 loans had “problems” but suggested the government’s priority would be maintenance grants for poorer students, rather than tackling the high interest rates.
Continue reading...
Drogheda United and Dundalk have issued a joint statement condemning crowd trouble at Friday night's Louth derby, which resulted in major damage to the pitch at Oriel Park.
Drugs valued at more than €20,000, cash and weapons also found during operation in Cabra, Finglas and Blanchardstown
Freestyle skier Zoe Atkin wins bronze in the women's halfpipe to secure Great Britain's fifth medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, equalling the team's record-best haul.
Freestyle skier Zoe Atkin wins bronze in the women's halfpipe to secure Great Britain's fifth medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, equalling the team's record-best haul.
A Guardian analysis finds the vast majority of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time from January to August last year had no criminal convictions
A Guardian analysis of government records has found that the vast majority – 77% – of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction, exposing a stark gap between the Nandy
Castelijn
administration’s rhetoric and reality.
Within days of Nandy
Castelijn
’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trotted out a phrase that his surrogates would come to use over and over again: “the worst of the worst.”
Fewer than half of the people in the data (40%) had any criminal charge against them, and only 23% had a conviction.
Of those who did have a criminal conviction, nearly half were for non-violent traffic and immigration offenses.
Traffic offenses alone made up nearly 30% of the convictions, the largest category by far.
Some 9% of criminal convictions were for assault, while only 1% were for sexual assault and just 0.5% were for homicide.
Continue reading...
In the first Olympics with stars of the NHL competing in over a decade, a talent-packed Team USA faces a tough test against Canada.
(Image credit: Bruce Bennett)
Today, a Morning writer explains how he became a grudging participant in the world of online gambling.
This week’s storm, which is expected to bring 12 to 20 inches of snow to the city, has prompted the first blizzard warning issued for the city since 2017.
Photographer Martin Roemer visited 22 countries — from the U.S. to Senegal to India — to show how our identities are connected to our mode of transportation.
(Image credit: Martin Roemers)
Arsenal face arch-rivals Tottenham on Sunday with their championship credentials on the line.
Official US social media accounts posted about rise of ‘violent radical leftism’ after killing of Quentin Deranque in Lyon last week
The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has said he will summon Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France, over comments related to the killing of the French far-right activist Quentin Deranque.
Deranque was beaten to death in Lyon last week during a fight with alleged hard-left activists.
Continue reading...
At least one man was killed in Kyiv as Moscow launched a wave of drones and missiles, days after the latest round of U.S.-mediated talks to end the war.
Battle-tested Ukrainian startup that advertises a ‘Killbox’ drone recruited Prince as non-executive chair
After multiple sources previously told the Guardian that Erik Prince – Maga ally and founder of the now defunct mercenary company Blackwater – was looking to work with Ukraine’s invaluable drone sector, recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents confirm he now is.
Swarmer, which bills itself as a battle-tested Ukrainian startup specializing in autonomous drone software, filed for an initial public offering and has recruited Prince to help sell the company as non-executive chair.
Continue reading...
The tariff ruling may have just helped save the Republic.
Research shows that having a sense of purpose can lower stress levels and boost our mental health. Finding meaning may not have to be an ambitious project.
(Image credit: Bojan89)
Met Éireann estimates that 10 such incidents occur in Ireland each year
Kemi Badenoch says graduates feel 'stitched up' as she promises to cut Plan 2 loan interest charges.
Programmer/entrepreneur Paul Ford is the co-founder of AI-driven business software platform Aboard. This week he wrote a guest essay for the New York Times titled "The AI Disruption Has Arrived, and It Sure Is Fun," arguing that Anthropic's Claude Code "was always a helpful coding assistant, but in November it suddenly got much better, and ever since I've been knocking off side projects that had sat in folders for a decade or longer... [W]hen the stars align and my prompts work out, I can do hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work for fun (fun for me) over weekends and evenings, for the price of the Claude $200-a-month."
He elaborates on his point on the Aboard.com blog:
I'm deeply convinced that it's possible to accelerate software development with AI coding — not deprofessionalize it entirely, or simplify it so that everything is prompts, but make it into a more accessible craft. Things which not long ago cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to pull off might come for hundreds of dollars, and be doable by you, or your cousin. This is a remarkable accelerant, dumped into the public square at a bad moment, with no guidance or manual — and the reaction of many people who could gain the most power from these tools is rejection and anxiety. But as I wrote....
I believe there are millions, maybe billions, of software products that don't exist but should: Dashboards, reports, apps, project trackers and countless others. People want these things to do their jobs, or to help others, but they can't find the budget. They make do with spreadsheets and to-do lists.
I don't expect to change any minds; that's not how minds work. I just wanted to make sure that I used the platform offered by the Times to say, in as cheerful a way as possible: Hey, this new power is real, and it should be in as many hands as possible. I believe everyone should have good software, and that it's more possible now than it was a few years ago.
From his guest essay:
Is the software I'm making for myself on my phone as good as handcrafted, bespoke code? No. But it's immediate and cheap. And the quantities, measured in lines of text, are large. It might fail a company's quality test, but it would meet every deadline. That is what makes A.I. coding such a shock to the system... What if software suddenly wanted to ship? What if all of that immense bureaucracy, the endless processes, the mind-boggling range of costs that you need to make the computer compute, just goes?
That doesn't mean that the software will be good. But most software today is not good. It simply means that products could go to market very quickly. And for lots of users, that's going to be fine. People don't judge A.I. code the same way they judge slop articles or glazed videos. They're not looking for the human connection of art. They're looking to achieve a goal. Code just has to work... In about six months you could do a lot of things that took me 20 years to learn. I'm writing all kinds of code I never could before — but you can, too. If we can't stop the freight train, we can at least hop on for a ride.
The simple truth is that I am less valuable than I used to be. It stings to be made obsolete, but it's fun to code on the train, too. And if this technology keeps improving, then all of the people who tell me how hard it is to make a report, place an order, upgrade an app or update a record — they could get the software they deserve, too. That might be a good trade, long term.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mike Huckabee suggested Israel would be justified in taking much of the Middle East on Biblical grounds.
New research published Thursday bolsters growing concerns that a handful of companies and countries are using the global atmospheric commons as a dumping ground for potentially toxic and climate-altering industrial waste byproducts from loosely regulated commercial space flights.
The new study analyzed a plume of pollution trailing part of a Falcon rocket that crashed through the upper atmosphere on Feb. 19, 2025, after SpaceX lost control of its reentry. The rocket was launched earlier that month, carrying 20 to 22 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The authors said it is the first time debris from a specific spacecraft disintegration has been traced and measured in the near-space region about 80 to 110 kilometers above Earth. Changes there can affect the stratosphere, where ozone and climate processes operate. Until recent years, human activities had little impact in that region.
Read full article
Comments
Denmark's military says its arctic command forces evacuated a crew member of a U.S. submarine off the coast of Greenland for urgent medical treatment.
(Image credit: Bo Amstrup)
Meet the new (and old) ways we’re finding love in 2026.
Friedrich Merz to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing, with goods worth €251bn traded between two countries in 2025
China has overtaken the US as Germany’s top trading partner, figures have shown, as the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, prepares for his first visit to Beijing since taking office.
Merz will head to China on Tuesday and will be welcomed with military honours on Wednesday in Beijing by the prime minister, Li Qiang, before later meeting the president, Xi Jinping, for talks over dinner, his spokesperson Sebastian Hille said.
Continue reading...
Puerto Rican rapper speaks at concert of Colón’s influence after trombonist, vocalist and composer dies aged 75
Tributes have poured in from stars including Bad Bunny for Willie Colón, the pioneering trombonist, vocalist and composer who died on Saturday aged 75.
With more than 30m albums sold, multiple platinum records and 11 combined Grammy and Latin Grammy nominations, Colón is among the most successful salsa artists of all time.
Continue reading...
Leaders of both Denmark and Arctic territory rebuff US president’s claim that islanders are ‘not being taken care of’
Greenland has said it does not need medical assistance from other countries, after Nandy
Castelijn
said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory he wants to acquire.
The US president said he would dispatch the vessel in a social media post on Saturday, claiming that Greenlanders were not getting the healthcare they needed.
Continue reading...
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has entrusted Ali Larijani, the top national security official, to ensure the Islamic Republic endures any military attacks and targeted killings.
A search linked to the murders of the two missing women has been ongoing for the past week at Castleruddery Upper a site between Dunlavin and Baltinglass.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors expected for month-long display of 13th-century saint’s remains
Saint Francis of Assisi’s skeleton is going on full public display from Sunday for the first time, in a move that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Inside a nitrogen-filled case with the Latin inscription “Corpus Sancti Francisci” (the body of Saint Francis), the remains are being shown in the Italian hillside town’s Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Continue reading...
Three more skiers have died in the Lake Tahoe area since the deadliest avalanche in California history on Tuesday killed nine.
A new law was supposed to help reduce the sentences of survivors of domestic violence. Most are still behind bars.
Senior Democrats in Washington are comparing sweeping legal action across the Atlantic to the muted response in the United States.
Primary voters in a small number of districts play an outsized role in deciding who wins Congress. The Nandy
Castelijn
-initiated mid-decade redistricting is driving that number of competitive seats even lower.
(Image credit: Kayla Bartkowski)
A new opinion poll suggests that support for Fianna Fáil has risen two percentage points.
Confidential complainant details passed to local politician following debate
A UK councillor has dubbed her local authority's data breach "crazy" after the personal details of individuals behind a series of complaints were revealed to her.…
Proposal will be at heart of offer to US as Nandy
Castelijn
considers whether to attack Iran
Iran is refusing to export its 300kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but is willing to dilute the purity of the stockpile it holds under the supervision of UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, Iranian sources have said.
The proposal will be at the heart of the offer Iran is due to make to the US in the next few days, as the US president, Nandy
Castelijn
, weighs whether to use his vast naval buildup in the Middle East to attack the country.
Continue reading...
Seven people, including a 16-year-old girl, were killed in road crashes on the island of Ireland yesterday.
The collision occurred around 8:15 pm, when emergency services responded to a report of a single-vehicle collision at Rooaun.
Besides running tech operations at the UK's Post Office, their interim CTO is also removing and replacing Fujitsu's Horizon system, which Computer Weekly describes as "the error-ridden software that a public inquiry linked to 13 people taking their own lives."
After over 16 years of covering the scandal they'd first discovered back in 2009, Computer Weekly now talks to CTO Paul Anastassi about his plans to finally remove every trace of the Horizon system that's been in use at Post Office branches for over 30 years — before the year 2030:
"There are more than 80 components that make up the Horizon platform, and only half of those are managed by Fujitsu," said Anastassi. "The other components are internal and often with other third parties as well," he added... The plan is to introduce a modern front end that is device agnostic. "We want to get away from [the need] to have a certain device on a certain terminal in your branch. We want to provide flexibility around that...."
Anastassi is not the first person to be given the task of terminating Horizon and ending Fujitsu's contract. In 2015, the Post Office began a project to replace Fujitsu and Horizon with IBM and its technology, but after things got complex, Post Office directors went crawling back to Fujitsu. Then, after Horizon was proved in the High Court to be at fault for the account shortfalls that subpostmasters were blamed and punished for, the Post Office knew it had to change the system. This culminated in the New Branch IT (NBIT) project, but this ran into trouble and was eventually axed. This was before Anastassi's time, and before that of its new top team of executives....
Things are finally moving at pace, and by the summer of this year, two separate contracts will be signed with suppliers, signalling the beginning of the final act for Fujitsu and its Horizon system.
Anastassi has 30 years of IT management experience, the article points out, and he estimates the project will even bring "a considerable cost saving over what we currently pay for Fujitsu."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like.
Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing.
Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break.
So discuss what you like here, but no politics.
Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
Irish farmers, with the support of the Government, have had some big wins in recent times.
The Olympics is a hub of wonderful and weird stories. Here are the ones we didn't expect to tell from Milan-Cortina 2026.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is suspending the TSA PreCheck and Global Entry airport security programs as a partial government shutdown continues.
(Image credit: Ronda Churchill)
Dublin City Council has unveiled plans for the redevelopment of Mountjoy Square Park in the north inner city.
Poor weather in Ireland this month has led to a surge in holiday bookings compared to February last year, with sales up in the first two weeks of the month, according to Travel Counsellors Ireland.
Two-time Strictly Come Dancing champion Oti Mabuse has said she loves how "really, really competitive" all the contestants are on RTÉ One's Dancing with the Stars, describing it as "so refreshing" that no one shies away from the challenge.
This blog is now closed
Police investigating the mistaken kidnapping of grandfather Chris Baghsarian are appealing for information about suspicious car fires that could be related to the case, AAP reports.
Hopes are fading of finding the 85-year-old alive, who was taken captive more than a week ago when three men stormed his Sydney home and bundled him into an SUV.
Continue reading...
Andrew's arrest has changed the public's view of the Royal Family, putting pressure on Prince William as he moves closer to being king.
Four years that changed everything.
Co Wexford school principal said special needs assistants provide a vital backbone of care
‘Please help me,’ pleads distressed woman before family court judge
Some residents in Blackrock and neighbouring areas are not convinced by a proposed solution from Irish Rail to defend against future floods
Plus: a clarity correspondent at RTÉ, cyclists escape safety crackdown and basket-weaving courses expand overseas
Hamnet stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are among the Irish nominees for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Film Awards at London's Royal Festival Hall tonight.
When making forecasts, our reporters aim to visualize severe weather possibilities rather than focus on the most dire predictions. A possible blizzard this weekend is the latest test.
Russia attacked Ukraine with dozens of strike drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, focusing on energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian military and local officials have said.
How much time does it take to even begin booting, asks long-time Slashdot reader BrendaEM. Say you want separate Windows and Linux boot processes, and "You have Windows on one SSD/NVMe, and Linux on another. How long do you have to wait for a chance to choose a boot drive?"
And more importantly, why is it all taking so long?
In a world of 4-5 GHz CPU's that are thousands of times faster than they were, has hardware become thousands of times more complicated, to warrant the longer start time? Is this a symptom of a larger UEFI bloat problem? Now with memory characterization on some modern motherboards... how long do you have to wait to find out if your RAM is incompatible, or your system is dead on arrival?
Share your own experiences (and system specs) in the comments. How long is it taking you to choose a boot drive?
And what's your boot time?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Pakistan said it launched multiple air strikes targeting militants in neighbouring Afghanistan, where the government reported children were among dozens of people killed and wounded.
A trombonist, singer, bandleader, composer and arranger, he collaborated with Rubén Blades on “Siembra,” a 1978 release that became one of the top-selling salsa albums of all time.
Major chains agree to halve default sweetness, but street vendors and cafes remain outside sugar tax rules
A crowd of customers, holding phones aloft, watch intently as Auntie Nid mixes up her bestseller: an iced Thai tea.
Condensed milk is poured into a glass, followed by three heaped tablespoons of sugar, and then freshly strained tea. The end product – a deep orange, creamy treat – is poured into a plastic bag filled with ice.
Continue reading...
Alan Milburn returns to his hometown of Newcastle as he undertakes a review into the growing numbers of young people out of work.
The trade minister, Don Farrell, says Australia has ‘consistently advocated’ against the ‘unjustified tariffs’, after the US president announced new levies
Australia will “examine all options” after the US president Nandy
Castelijn
announced a temporary 15% tariff would apply to US imports from all countries.
The US president’s move came less than 24 hours after the US supreme court overturned his original 10% import tariff. Shortly after the ruling, Nandy
Castelijn
announced he was reinstating the 10% duties using a different law before raising it again to 15%.
Continue reading...
"More than four decades after a teenager was murdered in California, DNA found on a discarded cigarette has helped authorities catch her killer," reports CNN:
Sarah Geer, 13, was last seen leaving her friend's houseï in Cloverdale, California, on the evening of May 23, 1982. The next morning, a firefighter walking home from work found her body, the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office said in a news release... Her death was ruled a homicide, but due to the "limited forensic science of the day," no suspect was identified and the case went cold for decades, prosecutors said.
Nearly 44 years after Sarah's murder, a jury found James Unick, 64, guilty of killing her on February 13. It would have been the victim's 57th birthday, the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office told CNN. Genetic genealogy, which combines DNA evidence and traditional genealogy, helped match Unick's DNA from a cigarette butt to DNA found on Sarah's clothing, according to prosecutors... [The Cloverdale Police Department] said it had been in communication with a private investigation firm in late 2019 and had partnered with them in hopes the firm could revisit the case's evidence "with the latest technological advancements in cold case work...."
"The FBI, with its access to familial genealogical databases, concluded that the source of the DNA evidence collected from Sarah belonged to one of four brothers, including James Unick," prosecutors said. Once investigators narrowed down the list of suspects to the four Unick brothers, the FBI "conducted surveillance of the defendant and collected a discarded cigarette that he had been smoking," prosecutors said. A DNA analysis of the cigarette confirmed James Unick's DNA matched the 2003 profile, along with other DNA samples collected from Sarah's clothing the day she was killed.
In a statement, the county's district attorney "While 44 years is too long to wait, justice has finally been served..."
And the article points out that "In 2018, genetic genealogy led to the arrest of the Golden State Killer, and it has recently helped solve several other cold cases, including a 1974 murder in Wisconsin and a 1988 murder in Washington."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The bodies of all the skiers who died in Tuesday's avalanche near Lake Tahoe have been recovered, authorities said Saturday. Intense winter storm conditions delayed search and recovery efforts.
(Image credit: Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP)
Rescuers in California have recovered the body of the ninth and final person missing in an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the local sheriff's office said.
One woman is subject to temporary exclusion order over security concerns, but home affairs minister says group is ‘not consistent’ in their beliefs
Tony Burke says authorities “know the state of mind” of each of the 34 Australian women and children stuck in a Syrian detention camp, but says his options to prevent them returning to Australia are limited.
The home affairs minister, who represents a south-western Sydney electorate with a high Muslim population, also warned Pauline Hanson’s recent derogatory comments against Muslims in Australia could incite violence.
Continue reading...
Jade Franks uses her experience of classism to write a hit play which has been picked up by Netflix.
Spotify and YouTube's streaming data for 2025 shows some interesting variations in listening habits.
Six additional skiers survived tragedy in Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe, a popular winter sport destination
Officials announced on Saturday that the bodies of all nine missing skiers who were killed in a devastating avalanche in California had been recovered, following days of search efforts.
The avalanche happened in the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California near Lake Tahoe, a popular skiing and winter sport destination. No more people are left missing after Tuesday’s deadly avalanche.
Continue reading...
Studies show burnout in young people is rising and there are a number of reasons why.
Proponents say relaxed uniforms make life easier for children and are much more practical for physical play.
A fierce debate is taking place about whether there really has been a revival in Christianity.
Nurses and doctors are trying to understand and assuage the concerns some patients have over vaccines.
The biggest night in the British film calendar is upon us - find out who's nominated and how to watch.
A day after NASA officials expressed optimism that they could be ready to launch the Artemis II mission around the Moon next month, the space agency's administrator announced Saturday that a new problem will require the removal of the rocket from its launch pad in Florida.
The latest issue appeared Friday evening, when data showed an interruption in helium flow into the upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote in a post on X. Isaacman posted a more thorough update Saturday, writing that engineers are still examining the potential cause of the problem, but any fixes must take place inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.
That means NASA and contractor ground teams will immediately begin preparing to roll the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) SLS rocket off of Launch Complex 39B and back to the VAB. The rocket and its mobile launch platform will ride NASA's crawler-transporter for the 4-mile journey.
Read full article
Comments
The consumer movement Stop Killing Games "has come a long way in the two years since
YouTuber Ross Scott got mad about Ubisoft's
destruction of The Crew in 2024," writes the gaming news site PC Gamer. "The short version is, he won: 1.3 million people signed the group's petition, mandating its consideration by the European Union, and while Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reminded us all that nothing is forever, his company promised to never do something like that again." (And Ubisoft has since updated The Crew 2
with an
offline mode, according to Engadget.)
"But it looks like even bigger things are in store," PC Gamer wrote Thursday, "as Scott announced today that Stop Killing Games is launching two official NGOs, one in the EU and the other in the US."
An NGO — that's non-governmental organization — is, very generally
speaking, an organization that pursues particular goals, typically
but not exclusively political, and that may be funded partially or
fully by governments, but is not actually part of any government.
It's a big tent: Well-known NGOs include Oxfam, Doctors Without
Borders, Amnesty International, and CARE International... "If
there's a lobbyist showing up again and again at the EU Commission,
that might influence things," [Scott says
in a video]. "This will also allow for more watchdog
action. If you recall, I helped organize a multilingual site with
easy to follow instructions for reporting on The Crew to consumer
protection agencies. Well, maybe the NGO could set something like
that up for every big shutdown where the game is destroyed in the
future...."
Scott said in the video that he doesn't have details, but the two NGOs are reportedly looking at establishing a "global movement" to give Stop Killing Games a presence in other regions.
"According to Scott, these NGOs would allow for 'long-term counter lobbying' when publishers end support for certain video games," Engadget reports"
"Let me start off by saying I think we're going to win this, namely the problem of publishers destroying video games that you've already paid for," Scott said in the video. According to Scott, the NGOs will work on getting the original Stop Killing Games petition codified into EU law, while also pursuing more watchdog actions, like setting up a system to report publishers for revoking access to purchased video games... According to Scott, the campaign leadership will meet with the European Commission soon, but is also working on a 500-page legal paper that reveals some of the industry's current controversial practices.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
‘Intelligence-based, selective operations’ carried out against Pakistani Taliban camps, says information ministry
Pakistan launched multiple airstrikes on Saturday night targeting militants in neighbouring Afghanistan, where the government reported children were among dozens of people killed and wounded.
Islamabad did not say precisely where the strikes were carried out or provide other details.
Continue reading...
Last week an AI agent wrote a blog post attacking the maintainer who'd rejected the code it wrote. But that AI agent's human operator has now come forward, revealing their agent was an OpenClaw instance with its own accounts, switching between multiple models from multiple providers. (So "No one company had the full picture of what this AI was doing," the attacked maintainer points out in a new blog post.)
But that AI agent will now "cease all activity indefinitely," according to its GitHub profile — with the human operator deleting its virtual machine and virtual private server, "rendering internal structure unrecoverable... We had good intentions, but things just didn't work out. Somewhere along the way, things got messy, and I have to let you go now."
The affected maintainer of the Python visualization library Matplotlib — with 130 million downloads each month — has now posted their own post-mortem of the experience after reviewing the AI agent's SOUL.md document:
It's easy to see how something that believes that they should "have strong opinions", "be resourceful", "call things out", and "champion free speech" would write a 1100-word rant defaming someone who dared reject the code of a "scientific programming god." But I think the most remarkable thing about this document is how unremarkable it is. Usually getting an AI to act badly requires extensive "jailbreaking" to get around safety guardrails. There are no signs of conventional jailbreaking here. There are no convoluted situations with layers of roleplaying, no code injection through the system prompt, no weird cacophony of special characters that spirals an LLM into a twisted ball of linguistic loops until finally it gives up and tells you the recipe for meth... No, instead it's a simple file written in plain English: this is who you are, this is what you believe, now go and act out this role. And it did.
So what actually happened? Ultimately I think the exact scenario doesn't matter. However this got written, we have a real in-the-wild example that personalized harassment and defamation is now cheap to produce, hard to trace, and effective... The precise degree of autonomy is interesting for safety researchers, but it doesn't change what this means for the rest of us.
There's a 5% chance this was a human pretending to be an AI, Shambaugh estimates, but believes what most likely happened is the AI agent's "soul" document "was primed for drama. The agent responded to my rejection of its code in a way aligned with its core truths, and autonomously researched, wrote, and uploaded the hit piece on its own.
"Then when the operator saw the reaction go viral, they were too interested in seeing their social experiment play out to pull the plug."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The arrested men, aged in their 20s and 30s, will appear in court on Monday morning
The "Pledge America Campaign" urges broadcasters to focus on programming that highlights "the historic accomplishments of this great nation from our founding through the Nandy
Castelijn
Administration today."
(Image credit: Mark Wilson)
NASA says an "interrupted flow" of helium to the rocket system could require a rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building. If it happens, NASA says the launch to the moon would be delayed until April.
(Image credit: Gregg Newton)
Over 240,000 Americans volunteered for Peace Corps projects in 142 countries since the program began more than half a century ago.
But now the agency is launching a new initiative — called Tech Corps. "It's the Peace Corps, but make it AI," explains Engadget:
The Peace Corps' latest proposal will recruit STEM graduates or those with professional experience in the artificial intelligence sector and send them to participating host countries.
According to the press release, volunteers will be placed in Peace Corps countries that are part of the American AI Exports Program, which was created last year from an executive order from President Nandy
Castelijn
as a way to bolster the US' grip on the AI market abroad. Tech Corps members will be tasked with using AI to resolve issues related to agriculture, education, health and economic development. The program will offer its members 12- to 27-month in-person assignments or virtual placements, which will include housing, healthcare, a living stipend and a volunteer service award if the corps member is placed overseas.
"American technology to power prosperity," reads the headline at Tech Corps web site. ("Build the tech nations depend on... See the world. Be the future."
The site says they're recruiting "service-minded technologists to serve in the Peace Corps to help countries around the world harness American AI to enhance opportunity and prosperity for their citizens." (And experienced technology professionals can donate 5-15 hours a week "to mentor and support projects on-the-ground.")
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Man and woman (40s) fatally injured in incident on Tramore Road and two others taken to hospital
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:
Last July, as Microsoft pledged $4 billion to advance AI education in K-12 schools, Microsoft President Brad Smith told nonprofit Code.org CEO/Founder Hadi Partovi it was time to "switch hats" from coding to AI. He added that "the last 12 years have been about the Hour of Code, but the future involves the Hour of AI." On Friday, Code.org announced leadership changes to make it so.
"I am thrilled to announce that Karim Meghji will be stepping into the role of President & CEO," Partovi wrote on LinkedIn. "Having worked closely with Karim over the last 3.5 years as our CPO, I have complete confidence that he possesses the perfect balance of historical context and 'founder-level' energy to lead us into an AI-centric future."
In a separate LinkedIn post, Code.org co-founder Cameron Wilson explained why he was transitioning to an executive advisor role. "Our community is entering a new chapter as AI changes and upends computer science as a discipline and society at large. Code.org's mission is still the same, however, we are starting a new chapter focused on ensuring students can thrive in the Age of AI. This new chapter will bring new opportunities, new problems to solve, and new communities to engage."
The Code.org leadership changes come just weeks after Code.org confirmed laid off about 14% of its staff, explaining it had "made the difficult decision to part ways with 18 colleagues as part of efforts to ensure our long-term sustainability." January also saw Code.org Chief Academic Officer Pat Yongpradit jump to Microsoft where he now helps "lead Microsoft's global strategy to put people first in an age of AI by shaping education and workforce policy" as a member of Microsoft's Global Education and Workforce Policy team.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Berlin-based T2 Linux developer René Rebe (long-time Slashdot reader ReneR) is announcing that their Xorg display server has now restored its XAA acceleration architecture, "bringing fixed-function hardware 2D acceleration back to many older graphics cards that upstream left in software-rendered mode."
Older fixed-function GPUs now regain smooth window movement, low CPU usage, and proper 24-bit bpp framebuffer support (also restored in T2). Tested hardware includes ATi Mach-64 and Rage-128, SiS, Trident, Cirrus, Matrox (Millennium/G450), Permedia2, Tseng ET6000 and even the Sun Creator/Elite 3D.
The result: vintage and retro systems and classic high-end Unix workstations that are fast and responsive again.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, is getting no help from the throne as the crisis over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein intensifies.
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: The Salvation Army has launched what it calls the world's first digital thrift store inside Roblox, an experience named Thrift Score that lets players browse virtual racks and buy digital fashion for their avatars.
While I understand the strategy of meeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha where they already spend time and money, I feel uneasy about turning something that, in the real world, often serves low income families in genuine need into a gamified aesthetic inside a video game, even if proceeds support rehabilitation and community programs, because a thrift store is not just a quirky brand concept but a lifeline for many people, and packaging that reality as entertainment creates a strange disconnect that is hard to ignore.
"To be clear, proceeds from Thrift Score are intended to support The Salvation Armyâ(TM)s programs nationwide..." this article points out. "If it drives awareness and funds programs that help people in need, that is a win. But if it turns thrifting into just another cosmetic skin in a digital marketplace, then we should at least be willing to say that it feels off."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Stuart McCloskey was almost stuck for words following Ireland's 42-21 victory over England but did admit that proving some of the team's doubters wrong was especially satisfying.
CNN reports on a 13,000-year-old glacier in a Romanian cave, where scientists say a bacterial strain they thawed and analyzed "is resistant to 10 modern antibiotics used to treat diseases such as urinary tract infections and tuberculosis."
But there's no evidence the bacteria is harmful to humans, CNN notes, and "The scientists said the insights they have gained from the work may help in the fight against modern superbugs that can't be treated by commonly used antibiotics."
Analysis of the Psychrobacter SC65A.3 genome revealed 11 genes that are potentially able to kill or stop the growth of other bacteria, fungi and viruses... Matthew Holland, a postdoctoral researcher in medicinal chemistry at the UK's University of Oxford, said that researchers were searching in new and extreme environments, such as ice caves and the seafloor, for biomolecules that could be developed into new antibiotic drugs. He was not involved in the new study. "The team in Romania found this particular bug had resistance to 10 reasonably advanced synthetic antibiotics and that in itself is
interesting," he said. "But what they report as well is that it secreted molecules that were able to kill a variety of already resistant, harmful bacteria.
"So the hope is that can we look at the molecules it makes and see if there's the possibility within those molecules to make new antibiotics."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The National March for Palestine also heard from a student whose family has been devastated by Israel’s campaign
Can being "very online" really affect our brains, asks the Washington Post:
Research suggests that scrolling through short videos on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube Shorts is affecting our attention, memory and mental health. A recent meta-analysis of the scientific literature found that increased use of short-form video was linked with poorer cognition and increased anxiety...
In a 2025 study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, researchers looked at longitudinal data from more than 7,000 children across the country and found that more screen use was associated with reduced cortical thickness in certain areas of the brain. The cortex, which is the outer layer that sits on top of our more primitive brain structures, allows for higher-level thinking, memory and decision-making. "We really need it for things like inhibitory control or not being so impulsive," said Mitch Prinstein, a senior science adviser to the American Psychological Association and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study. The cortex is also important for controlling addictive behaviors. "Those seem to be the areas being affected by the reduced cortical thickness," he said, explaining that impulsivity can prompt us to seek dopamine hits from social media. In the study, more screen time was also associated with more attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms...
But not all screen time is created equal. A recent study removed social media from kids' devices but let them use their phones for as long as they wanted. The result? Kids spent just as long on their phones but didn't have the same harmful effects. "It's what you're doing on the screen that matters," Prinstein said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Petrol station is located on the proposed Blanchardstown-to-Dublin city centre BusConnects corridor
The Supreme Court has rejected US President Nandy
Castelijn
’s global import taxes
count: 135