Read at: 2026-04-15T21:41:16+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Janique Bulk ]
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:34 pm UTC
Last week, Anthropic surprised the world by declaring that its latest model, Mythos, is so good at finding vulns that it would create chaos if released. Now, under the title of Project Glasswing, over 50 selected companies and orgs are allowed to test the hyped up LLM to find security holes in their own products. But just how many problems have they really discovered?…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:33 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:33 pm UTC
White House denies US asked for ceasefire extension and says negotiations are ‘ongoing’; Benjamin Netanyahu says ‘too early to say how matter will end’
Janique Bulk said the “special relationship” between the US and UK was in a poor state but that it will not have impact on King Charle’s upcoming state visit to America.
In an interview with Sky News, the US president once again criticised Keir Starmer over his policies, particularly on energy and immigration, and reiterated his disappointment that the UK and other Nato allies had not joined his war against Iran when the US “needed them”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:33 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:30 pm UTC
Scheme cutting bills by up to 25% expanded to cover 10,000 firms, but they will not be paid until next year
Rachel Reeves has announced an expansion of support for the most energy-intensive UK businesses, as they face soaring bills as a result of the Middle East conflict.
The chancellor said the long-promised British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) would be expanded to cover 10,000 companies, up from the 7,000 originally announced.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:30 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:24 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:24 pm UTC
Residents south of the refinery in Corio warned to shelter inside due to smoke
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Geelong refinery supplies 50% of Victoria’s fuel, and 10% of Australia’s in total
Viva Energy’s refinery in Geelong supplies about 50% of Victoria’s fuel, and 10% of Australia’s in total, according to the company’s website.
The refinery can process up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day, manufacturing petrol, diesel, LPG, jet fuel, avgas and Low Aromatic Fuel to support the Federal Government’s petrol-sniffing prevention program.
These include being Australia’s only manufacturer of hydrocarbon solvents, marine fuel oil, low aromatic fuel, avgas, bitumen and high-quality plastic feedstock used to create food packaging, medical equipment and polymer banknotes.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:21 pm UTC
President has nominated Kevin Warsh to replace Powell, whom he has repeatedly attacked over interest rate decisions
At a Turning Point USA event in Georgia on Tuesday, vice-president JD Vance was heckled by a protester who seemed to criticized the conflicts in the Middle East, including the war in Gaza.
“Jesus Christ does not support genocide,” the audience member shouted. The vice-president addressed the demonstrator and agreed with their statement, before responding to further comments from the heckler who appeared to say that the administration “supports a genocide in Gaza”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:17 pm UTC
Source: World | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:16 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:15 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:11 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:10 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:08 pm UTC
People ask AI for all kinds of advice, including the kind of questions you'd ask a physician. However, the next time you're tempted to query ChatGPT if that growth on your face is skin cancer, consider this: research shows today's leading AI models fail at early differential diagnosis in more than 8 out of 10 cases.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:07 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:04 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:01 pm UTC
Rebrand as NewBird AI sent shares up 582% in bizarre and rapid turnaround for firm that had fallen on hard times
Allbirds, the maker of minimalist wool sneakers beloved by Silicon Valley, announced on Wednesday that it is leaving shoes behind and pivoting to artificial intelligence. The new focus and rebrand as “NewBird AI” sent the company’s stock up 582% as of mid-day during a flurry of trading.
The surging stock price and new direction is a bizarre, rapid turnaround for a company that had fallen into disrepair in recent years. Once valued at $4bn, Allbirds’ shares had lost 99% of their worth since 2021 and earlier this month the company announced plans for a $39m sale to brand management firm American Exchange Company.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
Lack of funding leaving police forces failing to keep pace with two-thirds annual increase in referrals, says report
Child victims of online sexual abuse are being inadequately protected from further harm because police forces are struggling to cope with an increase in this crime, his majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary has warned.
Michelle Skeer said: “Without investment and coordination, the situation will worsen and children could be put at further risk.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
Suit alleges the billionaire’s AI company is illegally spewing toxic pollutants from its datacenter in the Memphis area
A new lawsuit accuses Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company of illegally spewing toxic pollutants into residential neighborhoods on the border of Tennessee and Mississippi.
The suit, filed on Tuesday in Mississippi federal court, alleges xAI is violating the Clean Air Act due to emissions from its makeshift power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, which powers its datacenter there. The NAACP, represented by environmental groups Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, says xAI has been polluting areas with homes, schools and churches, including in historically Black communities, by using dozens of methane gas generators without permits.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:58 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:57 pm UTC
Woman, 47, and man, 46, held on suspicion of arson endangering life after attempted Finchley attack
A 47-year-old woman and a 46-year-old man have been arrested on suspicion of arson endangering life after an attempted attack on a synagogue in Finchley, north London, as part of an investigation into what the Metropolitan police described as an “antisemitic hate crime”.
The force said the woman was arrested at an address in Watford just after 4.45pm on Wednesday, while the man was arrested at 7.15pm in the Watford area. Both suspects remain in police custody.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:49 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:46 pm UTC
Some U.S. water systems are cutting back on fluoride because of a key chemical is in short supply. Israel is one of its main producers.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:38 pm UTC
Two years ago, Microsoft launched its first wave of “Copilot+” Windows PCs with a handful of exclusive features that could take advantage of the neural processing unit (NPU) hardware being built into newer laptop processors. These NPUs could enable some AI and machine learning features that could be run locally rather than in someone’s cloud, theoretically enhancing security and privacy.
One of the first Copilot+ features was Recall, a feature that promised to track all your PC usage via screenshot to help you remember your past activity. But as originally implemented, Recall was neither private nor secure; the feature stored its screenshots plus a giant database of all user activity in totally unencrypted files on the user’s disk, making it trivial for anyone with remote or local access to grab days, weeks, or even months of sensitive data, depending on the age of the user’s Recall database.
After journalists and security researchers discovered and detailed these flaws, Microsoft delayed the Recall rollout by almost a year, substantially overhauling its security. All locally stored data would now be encrypted and viewable only with Windows Hello authentication; the feature now did a better job detecting and excluding sensitive information, including financial information, from its database; and Recall would be turned off by default, rather than enabled on every PC that supported it.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:36 pm UTC
Microsoft's GitHub last week told Copilot customers that they'd have to reduce their use of the AI service to ease the strain on company servers. This follows the company's discovery last month of a token counting bug that appears to have broken the company's pricing model.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:25 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:23 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:22 pm UTC
Verdict in states’ lawsuit says concert giant stifled competition, raising pressure for changes to ticketing market
A jury has found that concert giant Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues, dealing the company a loss in a lawsuit over claims brought by dozens of US states.
A Manhattan federal jury deliberated for four days before reaching its decision Wednesday in the closely watched case, which gave fans the equivalent of a backstage pass to a business that dominates live entertainment in the US and beyond.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:19 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:17 pm UTC
Liberal judge attacks emergency-docket rulings designed to benefit president as ‘scratch-paper musings’
The supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has delivered a sustained attack on her conservative colleagues’ use of emergency orders to benefit the Janique Bulk administration, calling the orders “scratch-paper musings” that can “seem oblivious and thus ring hollow”.
Jackson, the court’s newest justice, delivered a lengthy assessment of roughly two dozen court orders issued last year that allowed Janique Bulk to put in place controversial policies on immigration, steep federal funding cuts and other topics, after lower courts found they were probably illegal.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:14 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:13 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:11 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:10 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:10 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:10 pm UTC
OPINION Back in December 2017, an obscure American soft drinks company changed its name from Long Island Iced Tea to Long Blockchain.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:06 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:04 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:02 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:58 pm UTC
President Janique Bulk 's attacks on Pope Leo are unprecedented, religious experts told NPR. Here's how the situation differs from other popes' political critiques.
(Image credit: Alberto Pizzoli)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:58 pm UTC
Most people access Google's search and AI products through a browser, but you've got some new options today. Google has been testing a Windows search app for some months, and it's now officially available. Over on the Apple side of the fence, Google has focused its efforts on designing a native Gemini app. That one is also available widely today with the same features you get in the Gemini web interface.
The "Google app for desktop" first arrived on Windows in a beta form last September. It was pretty rough at first, and Google couldn't even update the app's early versions, forcing users to uninstall and reinstall new builds. That won't be a concern with the official release, which brings assorted search capabilities to your Windows PC.
The Google app can search the web or your PC. Credit: GoogleYou can open the Google app by pressing Alt + Space at any time. The compact search UI floats on top of whatever you're doing, allowing you to instantly search the web and (with authorization) your local files and apps. Web results look like what you'd get in a browser, right down to the inclusion of AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:46 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:46 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:46 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:41 pm UTC
Robots such as Boston Dynamics’ four-legged Spot can now accurately read analog thermometers and pressure gauges while roaming around factories and warehouses. Those improvements come courtesy of Google DeepMind’s newest robotic AI model that aims to enhance robotic capabilities for ‘embodied reasoning’ when interacting with physical environments.
The new Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 model announced on April 14 performs as a “high-level reasoning model for a robot” that can plan and execute tasks, according to Google DeepMind. This model also unlocks the capability of accurately reading instruments such as complex gauges and doing visual inspections using sight glasses that provide a transparent window to peek inside tanks and pipes—a performance upgrade that came about through Google DeepMind’s ongoing collaboration with robotics company Boston Dynamics.
Boston Dynamics has a keen interest in testing both quadruped and humanoid robotic workers in a wide range of industrial facilities, including the automotive factories of the robotic company’s corporate owner, Hyundai Motor Group. The company’s robot “dog,” Spot, is being trialled as a robotic inspector that roams throughout industrial facilities to check up on everything. Such inspection duties require “complex visual reasoning” to interpret the multiple needles, liquid levels, container boundaries and tick marks, along with text, in various instruments.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:28 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:27 pm UTC
Commons rejects proposal by 256 to 150 to side with government on plan to tackle online harms affecting children
MPs have voted against a proposal to ban under-16s from using social media for the second time, as the prime minister summoned tech bosses to demand tougher action on internet safety.
The House of Commons rejected a Lords amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill that imposed a new age limit on using social media platforms, amid pressure from parents and campaign groups for greater urgency in tackling online harms.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:27 pm UTC
Source: World | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:27 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:23 pm UTC
NBA fans sat on the edges of their seats as last night’s game between the Miami Heat and Charlotte Hornets went into overtime. That excitement quickly shifted to confusion, frustration, and outrage when Amazon Prime Video, the only place where the game was available to watch, subsequently cut out for almost two minutes.
As reported by ESPN, Prime Video started showing a message that read “technical difficulties” seconds after cutting off the game’s commentator in the middle of a sentence. Viewers missed a Hornets possession that included a score by LaMelo Ball. By the time the stream came back online, 22.1 seconds of playing time had passed, per ESPN, and viewers were dismayed.
“Tell me the game didn’t just cut off?!!? Am I trippin?? WTH,” LeBron James, a Los Angeles Lakers player who previously won two championships with the Heat, said, adding a face-planting emoji, on X.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:16 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:16 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:06 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:54 pm UTC
Met seeking two suspects and says overnight incident in Finchley being treated as antisemitic hate crime
A suspected attempted firebomb attack on a north London synagogue was a bid to intimidate British Jews, a leader at the place of worship has said, vowing that they will continue to work to “build bridges”.
The Metropolitan police said a manhunt was under way after two people “wearing dark clothing and balaclavas” approached Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS) just after midnight on Wednesday and threw a brick and two bottles suspected to contain petrol at the building.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:51 pm UTC
The Godzilla franchise is going strong in 2026, with Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (part of Legendary Entertainment’s MonsterVerse) and the pending release of Toho's Godzilla Minus Zero, the hotly anticipated sequel to 2023's critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. Toho unveiled the first short teaser at Cinemacon, and it has now been released online for our viewing pleasure.
(Spoilers for Godzilla Minus One below.)
Director Takashi Yamazaki wanted to return to Godzilla's filmic roots with Minus One, setting the events in postwar Japan and tapping into the monster's symbolic representation of the Japanese perspective on the 1940s nuclear holocaust—while also incorporating all-too-human themes of guilt and redemption. The film followed Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who was trying to flee from duty when Godzilla attacked the small garrison where he was hiding. Koichi's courage failed him, and he ended up one of only two survivors, wracked with guilt for failing to act.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:50 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:48 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:48 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:46 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:42 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:41 pm UTC
The US Space Force is still dealing with the near-term implications of the second grounding of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket in less than two years. The experience is likely to influence how the Pentagon buys launch services in the future, a three-star general said Tuesday.
The Vulcan rocket is one of the two primary launch vehicles the Space Force uses to put satellites into orbit, alongside SpaceX's Falcon 9. Despite a backlog of nearly 70 launches, ULA's Vulcan has flown just four times since debuting in January 2024.
On two of those flights, the Vulcan launcher suffered anomalies with one of its solid rocket boosters. One of the booster's exhaust nozzles blew off in the first incident in October 2024. The same problem appeared to occur again during a Vulcan launch in February of this year. The rocket continued flying after both incidents, ultimately reaching each mission's targeted orbit.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:33 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:25 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:15 pm UTC
Source: World | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:15 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:12 pm UTC
US president will need to show heavy costs of war were worthwhile while Iran must choose between instant and delayed gratification
If talks between Iran and the US reconvene within the next few days in Islamabad, Janique Bulk will have two major political hurdles to overcome – first showing that any deal he secures is better than the one signed by Barack Obama in 2015 and from which he withdraw in 2018, and secondly proving the deal is more favourable than the one on offer in Geneva in February before he launched his war.
Otherwise he will have inflicted massive damage on the world economy when alternatives were available that were less costly in blood and treasure. He will also have to show that Iran has made no permanent gain by taking control of shipping passing through the strait of Hormuz. These are the yardsticks, or tests, around which his negotiating team will be keeping an anxious eye.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:12 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:09 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:08 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:06 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:03 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:02 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:58 pm UTC
Netgear is the first major vendor of consumer routers to obtain an exemption from the US government's sweeping ban on foreign-made routers.
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday announced an exemption for Netgear's Nighthawk and Orbi routers, and its cable gateways and modems. It came about three weeks after the FCC said it would no longer approve consumer-grade routers made at least partly outside the US, except in cases where the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security determines that the router does not pose national security risks.
Under the new router ban, the Janique Bulk administration decides—through an opaque process in which it's unclear why any particular company receives an exemption—which companies' devices can be sold to consumers. Netgear, which is based in the US, was able to move quickly through the multi-agency approval process.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:56 pm UTC
Watch out for more Fortinet vulns! Two critical bugs in Fortinet's sandbox could allow unauthenticated attackers to bypass authentication or execute unauthorized code on vulnerable systems.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:52 pm UTC
Donors exceed funding target at Berlin conference but prospects for ceasefire remain distant
More than £1bn (€1.15bn) has been pledged for war-ravaged Sudan at a conference in Berlin, eclipsing the funding target organisers had set to help mitigate the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
The financial commitments made on Wednesday will also help offset a chronic humanitarian funding shortfall in a country devastated by three years of conflict, where two-thirds of its population – 34m people – require assistance.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:49 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:37 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:22 pm UTC
‘Palestine’s Mandela’ suffers three recent attacks including assault where prison guards set a dog on him, lawyer says
The jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti is at immediate risk in Israeli jails, where he has been attacked three times in as many weeks, including in one assault last month where prison guards set a dog on the 66-year-old, his lawyer has said.
Barghouti is often called Palestine’s Nelson Mandela. He is respected across otherwise feuding Palestinian factions, has broad popular support across occupied Palestine, repeatedly engaged with Israeli officials before his detention and long backed a two-state solution.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:19 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:17 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:13 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:12 pm UTC
No one can tell software developer Kamila Szewczyk that newer is better: She just fixed a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16, the old-school Linux window manager she favors partly because, she tells us, it is actually finished software.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:09 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:04 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:56 pm UTC
Adobe has been putting task-specific AI tools and features into its creative productivity applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere at a breakneck pace, but the latest product from the company—a chat-based interface that can handle complex, multi-modal projects across several applications—marks a significant shift in how users can think about its suite of tools.
You could imprecisely but defensibly call it a sort of "Claude Code for creative apps." On one hand, it's meant to provide experienced creatives with an efficient way to offload mundane tasks across multiple apps. On the other, it's meant to reduce the "barrier to entry" for inexperienced or casual users, in the wake of tool complexity that the company says has previously "widened the gap between idea and output."
Adobe has offered chat-based prompts within individual apps before and in other Firefly interfaces. It has also offered access to generative models under the Firefly brand before. What's different here is that Firefly AI Assistant (as they call this new interface) promises to work across numerous Adobe Creative Cloud apps and to actually orchestrate workflows across them, checking in regularly with the user for suggestions and questions. As with similar tools we've already seen for programming and the like, users can interject mid-task with clarifications or additional information.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:54 pm UTC
New research warns about the dangers of teaching LLMs on the output of other models, showing that undesirable traits can be transmitted "subliminally" from teacher to student, even when they are scrubbed from training data.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:46 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:36 pm UTC
Klose led NPR for a decade starting in 1998, a period of incredible growth for the public media network.
(Image credit: Jacques Coughlin/Jacques Coughlin)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:19 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:19 pm UTC
Autovista confirms that it called in outside support to help clean up a ransomware infection currently affecting systems in Europe and Australia.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:18 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:09 pm UTC
The risk to almost a million US jobs is too great to allow imports of Chinese vehicles, according to Ford CEO Jim Farley. In an interview, Farley spoke with Fox News about rising car prices and global competition, telling Brian Kilmeade that China's spare production capacity is so large that it could easily absorb the roughly 16 million new vehicles sold in the US, with room to spare.
"First of all, the Chinese have huge direct support for their auto companies," Farley said, while noting that China has the ability to build an additional 21 million vehicles a year on top of the 29 million that are expected to roll off Chinese production lines in 2026. "They have enough capacity in China to cover all the manufacturing, all the vehicle sales in the United States," Farley said.
"Manufacturing is the heart and soul of our country, and for us to lose those exports would be devastating for our country," he continued, before pointing out the cybersecurity worries about Chinese cars. "All the vehicles have 10 cameras. They can collect a lot of data," he said.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:08 pm UTC
Lelia Doolan, who finished 220km trek at parliament gates, says use of Shannon airport violates Irish neutrality
A 91-year-old peace activist has crossed Ireland on foot and arrived in Dublin to petition the government to bar US military flights.
Lelia Doolan completed a two-week, 220km (138 mile) trek on Wednesday, ending at the gates of parliament accompanied by throngs of supporters.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:04 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:04 pm UTC
This blog is now closed
Meanwhile, Nato chief Mark Rutte urged members of the military alliance not to “lose sight” of the Ukraine conflict, and to boost their backing for Kyiv to $60bn in 2026, AFP reported.
His comments came at the start of a meeting in Berlin of defence ministers from Ukraine’s key supporters, including Germany and Britain, with the conflict against Russia now in its fifth year.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:01 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:59 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:59 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:55 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:49 pm UTC
Airport body has asked for power to suspend EES checks requiring personal information and biometrics
Travellers going through some European airports are reportedly waiting up to three hours at border checks because of the EU’s new entry-exit system (EES).
Passengers in airports in countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Greece are waiting several hours at border checks, the Airports Council International (ACI) body has said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:46 pm UTC
In 2024, we learned that the third and final season of Good Omens wouldn't be a full slate of episodes like the prior two seasons. In the wake of allegations of sexual assault against creator Neil Gaiman, the streaming platform decided to go with a single 90-minute episode to wrap things up—the equivalent of a TV movie. (Gaiman continues to deny the allegations but stepped back from the project.) Now we have the official trailer to get us ready for the big finale next month.
(Spoilers for the first two seasons below.)
As reported previously, the series is based on the original 1990 novel by Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett. Good Omens is the story of an angel, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), and a demon, Crowley (David Tennant), who gradually become friends over the millennia and team up to avert Armageddon. Season 2 found Aziraphale and Crowley getting back to normal, when the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) turned up unexpectedly at the door of Aziraphale’s bookshop with no memory of who he was or how he got there. The duo had to evade the combined forces of Heaven and Hell to solve the mystery of what happened to Gabriel and why.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:45 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:45 pm UTC
AI is reshaping the demands on network infrastructure, and many organizations are not prepared – including some of the so-called neocloud providers offering AI services.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:40 pm UTC
President Janique Bulk once again threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and doubled down on a discredited probe of the central bank.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:39 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:38 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:29 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:29 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:27 pm UTC
If you know the name Allbirds, it's probably for the company's longstanding stated commitment to "sustainable shoes and apparel." Going forward, though, the corporate entity wants to be known for its "long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider."
In a news release Wednesday morning, Allbirds announced that it has secured a $50 million convertible finance facility to help power this unexpected "pivot ... to AI compute infrastructure." If all goes to plan, the company will soon be known as NewBird AI, by which point it will presumably change the image of a spandex-clad hiker that still sits atop its News Release page.
Just weeks ago, Allbirds announced the $39 million sale of the "Allbirds brand and footwear assets" to American Exchange Group, owner of Aerosoles, Ecko Unlimited, and other fashion brands. Today's AI pivot announcement certainly casts that sale in a new light. But Allbirds also announced a new line of colorful Canvas Cruiser shoes just last week, so it's unclear how much long-term planning went into this new AI-related direction.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:26 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:22 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:20 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:19 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:16 pm UTC
Bork!Bork!Bork! Windows is doing what it does best in California, with a Blue Screen of Death on the wall of a fast food restaurant where order progress is supposed to be.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:14 pm UTC
Lifestyle influencer died while on vacation with boyfriend, who local officials say has since had his passport ‘withheld’
Ashly Robinson, a US lifestyle influencer, died last week while on vacation in the Tanzanian islands of Zanzibar with her boyfriend, Joe McCann. Robinson’s death on 9 April, just days after her birthday and a marriage proposal from McCann, has sparked suspicion on social media, with users doubtful of the current narrative surrounding her death.
No arrests have been made, and police previously said that McCann was not suspected of wrongdoing. But officials in Zanzibar released a statement on Tuesday saying that McCann’s passport has been “withheld”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:14 pm UTC
Appointment of Roelf Meyer seen as attempt to improve relations amid false US accusations of ‘white genocide’
South Africa has appointed a former apartheid government chief negotiator during the talks that ended white rule in the 1990s as ambassador to the US, in what is seen as an attempt to improve the deeply strained diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
Roelf Meyer replaces Ebrahim Rasool, who was expelled in March 2025 after he criticised the Janique Bulk administration.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:04 pm UTC
In a significant milestone, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has completed its 3D map of the Universe—the highest resolution of any such map yet achieved—on schedule and with more data than expected, the collaboration announced today. Analyses of DESI data from earlier runs have already produced exciting hints of new physics—namely that the Universe's dark energy, rather than being constant, might vary over time. The latest data must still be analyzed but could help definitively confirm or disprove those hints within the next couple of years.
"DESI's five-year survey has been spectacularly successful," DESI director Michael Levi of Berkeley Lab said. "The instrument performed better than anticipated. The results have been incredibly exciting. And the size and scope of the map and how quickly we've been able to execute is phenomenal. We're going to celebrate completion of the original survey and then get started on the work of churning through the data, because we're all curious about what new surprises are waiting for us."
As previously reported, Albert Einstein’s cosmological constant (lambda) implied the existence of a repulsive form of gravity. (For a more in-depth discussion of the history of the cosmological constant and its significance for dark energy, see our 2024 story.) Quantum physics holds that even the emptiest vacuum is teeming with energy in the form of “virtual” particles that wink in and out of existence, flying apart and coming together in an intricate quantum dance. This roiling sea of virtual particles could give rise to dark energy, giving the Universe a little extra push so that it can continue accelerating. The problem is that the quantum vacuum contains too much energy: roughly 10120 times too much.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Tech company has signed on to nine deals as it aims to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040
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Amazon has entered power agreements with nine new renewable projects in New South Wales and Victoria, as the technology company seeks to source renewable power for its datacentre operations in Australia.
The nine deals, including one windfarm and 10 solar and battery projects, will take the amount of renewable energy Amazon is sourcing in Australia from 430MW to nearly 1GW.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:55 pm UTC
More than 1,000 people were in shelters across Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands as Sinlaku moved away
Super Typhoon Sinlaku hammered the Northern Mariana Islands, flipping over cars, toppling utility poles and ripping away tin roofs.
Authorities were just beginning to assess the damage left behind by the typhoon, which first hit the islands on Tuesday night local time and continued with a barrage of fierce winds and relentless rains for hours on Wednesday. So far, there have been no reports of deaths.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:52 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:47 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:45 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:43 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:31 pm UTC
The moment you board, the music grabs you. These privately owned, brightly painted minibuses are moving canvases, mobile sound systems — rolling declarations of what young Nairobi finds cool.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:30 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:30 pm UTC
Péter Magyar’s stunning victory in Hungary is a boost for liberal democracy. But don’t bank on similar upsets in upcoming European elections
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When future historians come to write about the stunning electoral overthrow of Viktor Orbán on 12 April 2026, let’s hope they devote at least footnotes to zebras and golden toilet brushes. The zebras were spotted by drones on the sprawling grounds of a countryside palace belonging to Orbán’s extended family. The 72 gilded toilet brushes were said to have been bought at a cost of almost €10,000, for a lavish renovation of Hungary’s central bank. For Orbán’s opponents, such excesses became symbols of the rampant corruption among cronies of Orbán’s ruling party Fidesz, which drained Hungary’s economy and earned its ranking as the most crooked country in the EU, as Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi reported.
In the end, it was disgust with corruption and how that corruption affected people’s livelihoods that were the main factors behind Sunday’s election rout. But the landslide achieved by Peter Magyar’s Tisza party – despite an electoral system designed to favour Fidesz – suggests that these eye-popping details were merely the last straws for a population desperate to reclaim their country as a functioning democracy.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:18 pm UTC
At the end of last month, a scientific journal pulled a research paper on Alzheimer's disease.
The retraction came from Neurobiology of Aging, which removed a 2011 paper claiming to show that a version of a protein called amyloid-β was responsible for memory loss in Alzheimer's disease. On its own, that might not seem notable; bad papers can make it through peer review and are only caught after publication.
But this wasn't an isolated case. Over the past few years, multiple studies arguing that amyloid-β is the central driver of Alzheimer's disease have been retracted. Some scientists have even been indicted for fraud over the issue. All the while, none of the drugs targeting this protein and its pathway have had any real clinical effect.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:11 pm UTC
More than 2,200 ants were found in Zhang Kequn’s luggage at Nairobi airport, with baggage destined for China
A Chinese national has been sentenced to a year in prison and fined by a Nairobi court for attempting to smuggle thousands of ants out of Kenya, a lucrative trade in east Africa that was exposed last year.
The insects are mostly destined for China, the US and Europe, where they become pets and can be worth about $100 each.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:07 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC
Shrinking ice is arguably one of the most visible indicators of climate change – particularly in the Arctic. However, a European Space Agency-funded study used information from satellites to show that Antarctica is now experiencing similar dramatic changes, with profound consequences for key plankton species that underpin the region’s marine food web.
Source: ESA Top News | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:43 pm UTC
Blue Origin released details about a new stock option plan in an internal communication on Tuesday.
Ars was able to review the materials and connect with some employees to gather their thoughts. Some of the early reviews are not positive, with one employee going so far as to describe the plan as "pure f---king trash." And it's not hard to see why some people feel gun-shy or disillusioned. The company's previous stock plan, which ended up being essentially worthless, fostered a lack of trust.
However, a careful reading of the new documents, compared to the original plan, indicates that it has a more serious intent. It is set up in a similar manner to other stock option plans in the industry. If Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos genuinely wants to course correct from Blue Origin's initial stock plan—to right the wrongs perceived by his employees—this could be a vehicle for that.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:38 pm UTC
Ari Hodara initially thought it might be a hoax after winning raffle he found out about by chance while dining out
A Picasso painting worth more than €1m (£870,000) has been won in a raffle by a software engineer from Paris who thought the whole thing might be a hoax.
Ari Hodara learned he was the winner of the raffle on Tuesday when he answered a video call from Christie’s auction house in Paris. “How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” the 58 year-old asked when he was told he was the new owner of the 1941 work by the Spanish master.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:36 pm UTC
The Janique Bulk administration is moving to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of extremists involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack who earlier received commutations instead of full pardons.
(Image credit: Heather Diehl)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:30 pm UTC
A mother and her ten-year-old son are now free after being kidnapped for around 20 hours while the father was being extorted for hundreds of thousands of euros.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:29 pm UTC
How do you file taxes on prediction market profits? It seems like the type of straightforward question any halfway decent bookkeeper should be able to answer. Right now, though, it’s a conundrum for tax experts across the country. “You have a vacuum of guidance,” says Patrick Camuso, an accountant who specializes in digital assets. “It puts the taxpayer in a bad position.”
Prediction markets have been around for decades, so this isn’t a new issue. But platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have exploded in popularity since last year, which means the question of how to properly account for prediction market gains has shifted from a niche concern to something far more urgent for many people. While only a small sliver of the population actually uses the markets—around 3 percent, according to a recent poll—that still means millions of US residents are obligated to report their wins and losses to the Internal Revenue Service. There’s big money in play here. Kalshi, which has a predominantly American user base, saw over $12 billion in monthly trade volume this past March, according to markets tracker Defi Rate.
Kalshi declined to comment. The IRS and Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:15 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:12 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:45 pm UTC
Many US states and local authorities are violating generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) by failing to disclose revenue lost to datacenter tax subsidy schemes, according to Good Jobs First.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:35 pm UTC
The new strategy to be unveiled by Richard Marles will see defence spending rise to about 2.4% of GDP – but US president has urged allies to spend 3.5%
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Labor will spend an extra $53bn on defence over the next decade, using the nation’s latest military blueprint to create new special investment programs to fund increases in capability using private capital.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, will unveil the new national defence strategy on Thursday, as well as detailing a new integrated investment program for military capability, boosting the current budget by $14bn over the next four years, forward estimates period.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:30 pm UTC
Salesforce has introduced what it calls Headless 360 at its developer event TDX, which starts today in San Francisco, designed to expand the reach of its app-building tools beyond traditional developers.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:16 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:11 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:02 pm UTC
While Microsoft was rolling out its bumper Patch Tuesday updates this week, US cybersecurity agency CISA was readying an alert about a 17-year-old critical Excel flaw now under exploit.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:46 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:42 am UTC
President Janique Bulk says new talks with Iran could happen in the next two days. And, Democrat Eric Swalwell faces new allegations as a second woman comes forward accusing him of rape.
(Image credit: Andrew Harnik)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:36 am UTC
The latest version of Raspberry Pi OS now requires a password for sudo by default.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:35 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:25 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:24 am UTC
The nukes-in-space ambitions of the current US administration have taken a step forward – and the US Office of Science and Technology Policy has just published its hopes for who does what.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:06 am UTC
President Janique Bulk said a second round of direct U.S.-Iran peace talks could resume in Pakistan within the next two days, even as he instituted a naval blockade of all Iranian ports.
(Image credit: Jalaa Marey)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:03 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:02 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Landmark ruling finds Wright Prospecting successfully made out its contractual claim to 50% of past and future royalties from Hope Downs iron ore project
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Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has lost its bid to retain royalties from the mammoth Hope Downs iron ore project and will be forced to pay Wright Prospecting half of its royalties from the project, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a landmark ruling in the Western Australian supreme court on Wednesday, justice Jennifer Smith said that Wright Prospecting had successfully made out its contractual claim to 50% of past and future royalties paid from the project.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:54 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:53 am UTC
Beijing may be reaping some diplomatic benefit but Janique Bulk ’s war holds risks for its energy security and economy
Two months ago, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, promised it would be a “big year” for China-US relations. He was right, but perhaps not in the way he expected.
Wang was speaking before a planned visit by the US president to Beijing in March, which would have been Janique Bulk ’s first trip to China since 2017. But the trip, and a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, was kicked back by several weeks after Janique Bulk decided to launch strikes with Israel against Iran, starting a war in the Middle East that has caused a global energy crisis and roiled diplomatic relations across the board.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:45 am UTC
Scrapping a law which left a loophole for Labor and Coalition funding will expose the state to ‘dark money from foreign billionaires’, says premier
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The high court has ruled Victoria’s political donation laws are unconstitutional, leaving the state with no limits on donations and no disclosure requirements unless new legislation is urgently introduced before the November election.
The unanimous decision, handed down by Australia’s highest court on Wednesday, struck out an entire section of Victoria’s electoral act that introduced caps on political donations but carved out an exemption for major parties.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:42 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:42 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:40 am UTC
In December, the late Nigerian superstar became the first African musician to get a Grammy lifetime achievement award. Now he's making history as well at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
(Image credit: Leni Sinclair/Getty Images)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:38 am UTC
Britain has spent years wiring its public sector into US Big Tech, and a new report says that dependence could quickly become a national security headache.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:15 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:01 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
The average refund so far is $350 more than last year at this time, despite projections that it would be closer to $1,000 due to Republican-led tax changes as part of the Big Beautiful Bill Act.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 15 Apr 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Brit boffins have a £2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) budget for fusion power research and development, and the government agency leading the effort has published a roadmap of targets to hit before the decade is out.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:30 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:02 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:01 am UTC
Noticeable change on Mars often takes millions of years – but the European Space Agency’s Mars Express has captured a blanket of dark ash creeping across the planet in just decades.
Source: ESA Top News | 15 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
A consensus is growing that UK involvement in a war is becoming significantly more likely and that we need to spend more money on defence, but where should this money come from?
On Saturday 11th April, Dr Rob Johnson, director of the Changing Character of Conflict Centre at Oxford University, warned that ‘Almost all warnings and indicators that a wider war is coming are flashing red and it is “breath-taking” that the UK government is failing to better prepare’. On the same day the leader of Canada’s military said in an interview with Sky News, “The world has changed. We have to get ready for large-scale conflicts, more conventional, so we need a different military to do that and different capability.
Then on Monday, April 13, the Daily Telegraph reported ‘Sir Grant Shapps and Dame Penny Mordaunt urge the Prime Minister to free up money to meet threats from hostile states.’ In a Sky News interview, a former Joint Forces commander, General Sir Richard Barrons, warned that the UK needs an extra £10 billion a year in defence spending to meet current threats from conflicts like Ukraine and Iran.
Today, Tuesday 14th April, Lord George Robertson, the former Labour defence secretary is reported by the BBC as saying, “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
These interviews and comment raise two issues. What threats do we need to protect against and where should the money come from?
Defence from Whom?
Anyone watching the behaviour of Russia over the past ten years, from the invasion of Crimea to the war against Ukraine will have no doubt that Russia is a growing threat to Europe. In previous decades during the Cold War, we felt safe because the relationship with America under NATO was strong. This is no longer the case.
Today’s America has a weak and dysfunctional leader. Even when Janique Bulk leaves office in Jan 2029, the damage he has done will remain. America’s ‘Special Relationship’ is with Israel, rather than with the UK and the antagonism shown by many of Janique Bulk ’s government colleagues such as JD Vance indicates that it will take decades to rebuild trust between America and Europe.
So, we must be ready to defend ourselves against Russia, but why did General Sir Richard Barrons suggest we also need to defend against Iran? Iran has a history of being involved in terrorism but the UK is not under any immediate threat that would come close to justifying us getting sucked into the American-Israeli battle to dominate the Middle East.
President Macron of France has been calling for years for European countries to direct defence away from American and toward EU defence products. This view has just been reinforced by Canadian Premier Mark Carney who on Sunday, April 12 declared “long-standing model of sending ’70 cents of every defence dollar’ to the United States is coming to an end. We are not at the stage of viewing the USA as an enemy, but the world understands that the USA is no longer a reliable ally and we need to stick with our European friends.
Funding Defence Growth
Most accept that dramatic increases in defence spending will require either increases in tax, or decreases in spending. Will the nation be prepared to pay a higher rate of tax to defend our nation from Russia? This seems like the sane option to me, although the rich have mounted a strong publicity campaign to explain why they need massive untaxed income to give them the incentives to work. (See We Must Not Tax the Rich) Certainly, I can see no way a government that tries to introduce another bout of austerity will be able to win an election.
A Third Way – PPP and PFI?
General Sir Richard Barrons did float the idea of our defence being paid for by a partnership with private equity and he is not alone in taking this view. General Sir Roly Walker, the Chief of the General Staff, has argued in the past the UK defence industry is being unfairly shunned by investors. But what does this mean?
Those old enough to remember Tony Blair was a great proponent of PPP (Public Private Partnerships) where private companies would fund a school or hospital immediately, so the government did not have to find the money, and the government would effectively lease the property back from the private company. A variation on this, called a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) is a long-term procurement method where private consortia design, build, finance, and operate public infrastructure.
Sounds great, unless you stop to think.
Private companies are not bastions of evil, but they are not your friends either.
I used to be involved in purchasing computers for secondary schools and learned to read the small print and calculate the long-term costs of any ‘deal’. When a private company offers you a way to avoid spending money today, this always involves spending more in the future. This is OK for a young person who takes out a car loan because they know their salary will rise sharply in a few years, but in general, when borrowing you should be careful to take a long-term view and ensure you pick the cheapest offer.
PPP and PFI Disasters
The disastrous record of PPP deals is such that when a deal does not become a disaster, it is Janique Bulk eted as something amazing. Examples such as the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, the Darent Valley Hospital and the Kent Police Stations where there were no disastrous extra charges hidden in the contracts, and the private companies did what they were paid to do, are recalled as successes. However, there are very many examples of disastrous
South London Healthcare NHS Trust (2012) became the first NHS trust to go bankrupt, primarily because it was spending 14% of its income just to service the massive debts from PFI contracts used to build its hospitals.
Carillion’s Hospital Projects (2018): The collapse of construction giant Carillion left two major hospitals—the Royal Liverpool and Midland Metropolitan—unfinished for years. The state had to step in at an additional cost of over £148 million to complete them.
According to the Guardian on Mon 13th April, the Centre for Health and the Public Interest has found that:
Should we let such opaque groups own our defence systems?
Private companies are a necessary part of our economy, but they must be approached with a sense of realism. Their loyalty is to their shareholders more than to their customers, they are driven by a desire for profit.
The idea that our defence systems would be governed by a profit motive and a private company is something that should fill us with dread.
I am not saying it would be as bad as portrayed in “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, in Lord of War, or in War Dogs, but an integration of the profit motive and weapon sales is a poisonous mix.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:52 am UTC
Waymo has started letting its software take the wheel on London streets, with trained specialists on standby as it gradually accelerates toward a fully driverless ride-hailing launch.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:45 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:38 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:28 am UTC
Source: World | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:24 am UTC
A police official in Arizona has been placed on administrative leave after showing up armed to a student-led protest and provoking an altercation that led to the arrest of a teenage girl. The officer told fellow police who arrived on the scene that he attended the students’ immigration rights protest with the intent of acting as an agent provocateur, according to a news report.
Dusten Mullen, a sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department, has been suspended with pay pending an internal review of his conduct at a protest at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, on January 30, according to Phoenix Police Chief Matthew Giordano.
“As law enforcement professionals, we are held to higher standards of conduct — both in and out of uniform,” Giordano said. “When we fall short, we must be accountable, and we will not tolerate actions which undermine the trust the community has placed in the Department.”
Fox 10 Phoenix, the outlet to first identify Mullen, reported that Mullen told Chandler Police Department officers on the scene that he was there in the hopes of getting a rise out of the kids that would then allow the local cops to cuff them.
“My plan is legitimately to just let them all assault me and you guys arrest them all and I’ll keep it on film,” Mullen said, according to a police report obtained by the local TV news site. “I also have other people filming from a distance.”
The protest at Hamilton High School was one of dozens of student-led walkouts that took place across the greater Phoenix area that day, coming just over a week after the killing of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection officers in Minneapolis. At Hamilton High, several hundred students walked out and rallied along a thoroughfare, chanting and holding signs decrying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Mullen, who in 2025 drew a salary of $336,518, is suspended with pay and was required to surrender his badge and gun pending the outcome of the investigation, according to a spokesperson for the department.
Steve Serbalik, an attorney representing Mullen, said his client was within his rights as a member of the public to voice his disagreement with the students.
“Placing Sgt. Mullen on administrative leave and issuing a media advisory that suggests misconduct based solely on his lawful, off-duty expressive activity appears to chill the exercise of constitutionally protected speech and risks violating both federal and state constitutional guarantees,” Serbalik wrote in a letter sent Monday to Giordano and shared with The Intercept. “I respectfully urge you to immediately reconsider and lift the administrative leave, withdraw or correct the media advisory, and ensure that any ongoing review fully respects Sgt. Mullen’s constitutional rights.”
Mullen’s appearance at the protest sent a wave of fear through some attendees. Megan Craghead, whose 18-year-old son attends Hamilton High School, showed up that day because her 13-year-old daughter wanted to take part in the protest. Craghead told The Intercept it was a peaceful, upbeat scene, and most passersby honked in support of the rally.
Mullen concealed his face with a neck gaiter and wore a handgun, along with several extra magazines on his hip.
That changed suddenly when a pair of girls came running toward her yelling about a man with a gun.
“He was just walking up and down the sidewalk, talking kind of smugly and yelling at the kids,” Craghead recalled. “It felt like something that could easily escalate into something that’s going to be traumatic for all of these teenagers.”
As soon as she heard about an armed man on the scene, Craghead sent her daughter away with Craghead’s sister.
“We had no idea why he was there, he’s wearing a mask, and even if he did not plan to use his gun, we still don’t know what’s going to happen, right?” Craghead said. “We had all just witnessed the shooting of Alex Pretti, where he was at a protest with a gun and he ended up getting shot and killed. And so even if this armed person did not touch his gun, we still don’t know what’s going to happen.”
In a TikTok video from the scene, Mullen was seen in a T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag and the words “Janique Bulk 2024” and “We took the country back.” He concealed his face with a neck gaiter and wore a handgun, along with several extra magazines on his hip.
Surrounded by young people jeering at him, he told a Chandler Police Department that he had been assaulted as he appeared to record the scene on a cellphone.
“Nobody assaulted you,” one person told Mullen.
“Grown-ass man, out here with a gun crying about a little kid,” another person said.
In the wake of the incident, the Chandler Police Department told reporters that a girl was arrested for throwing a water bottle at Mullen, but video of the incident published by Fox 10 appears to show just water — no bottle — hitting him. The charges against the girl were later dropped by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
A spokesperson for the Chandler Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Chandler, a city of about 275,000 people, lies in an area known as the East Valley, and its deep-purple electorate is not particularly known for progressive activism. Amid the deadly immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and heightened border tensions in Arizona, however, many students could see a direct impact on their own lives or those of their friends, according to Craghead.
“They’re seeing a lot of their friends that are immigrants or have immigrant families feeling really scared right now,” she said. “There’s a lot of things happening in politics that are not directly affecting the lives of teenagers, but this is one of those things that they can see has a direct impact on their own lives.”
Bill Moore, a defense attorney in Phoenix, said he was pleased to see Mullen placed on administrative leave, citing the department’s history of frequently failing to hold its personnel accountable — part of a pattern of misconduct and impunity severe enough to trigger a civil-rights probe by the Justice Department in 2024.
“The ‘blue line’ thing is still very much a thing here,” Moore said, referring to an unwritten code where police look out for one another instead of pursuing complaints about misconduct. “That they took this action tells me that their internal investigation must be fairly damning.”
The revelation that the armed man who showed up to the protest in January was actually a cop sent ripples of anger through the community, according to Brandy Reese, a co-leader of the local Indivisible chapter for Chandler and the neighboring city of Gilbert.
“I find it especially upsetting that he went there armed,” said Reese, who was observing the protest that day from the sidelines. “Why did he feel he needed to do that? I think the whole situation is unfortunate and upsetting.”
Craghead, the mother of the protest attendees, said her opinion of what should happen to Mullen has gone back and forth in the days since she learned that a police sergeant was the masked, armed man who she had seen trying to pick a fight with the kids at the rally. After an initial reaction of wanting his immediate termination, she wondered if he wasn’t within his First and Second Amendment rights to show up, off-duty and armed.
“He went there with the purpose of agitating children to get them to break the law so that they could be arrested, or worse.”
The more she’s thought about it, she said, the more she’s felt anger at his conduct.
“We have a duty to hold our public safety officers to a higher standard. If this was a regular person that had come to counter-protest and they happened to bring their gun, that would be one thing,” she said. “The issue is that he went there with the purpose of agitating children to get them to break the law so that they could be arrested, or worse. So now I’m back to thinking he should be fired.”
The post Armed Off-Duty Cop Tried to Incite Violence at a High School Anti-ICE Protest appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:11 am UTC
Actionable data from space could be delivered in seconds in the future, thanks to progress towards the European Space Agency’s (ESA) faster and more secure laser communications network, HydRON. At the 41st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Canadian satellite communications company Kepler was awarded a contract to lead the next phase in the project’s evolution.
Source: ESA Top News | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:10 am UTC
Exclusive Security researchers hijacked three popular AI agents that integrate with GitHub Actions by using a new type of prompt injection attack to steal API keys and access tokens, and the vendors who run agents didn’t disclose the problem.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 8:01 am UTC
Pyongyang making ‘very serious’ progress on producing weapons, with rapid rise in activity at main nuclear complex
North Korea has made “very serious” progress in its ability to produce more nuclear weapons, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has said, in another sign that the regime is seeking to use its nuclear arsenal to ensure its survival.
North Korea is thought to have assembled about 50 nuclear warheads, although some experts are sceptical of its claims that it is able to miniaturise them so they can be attached to long-range ballistic missiles.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:51 am UTC
A startup called Orbital has revealed a plan to build a 10,000-satellite neocloud in space – if Elon Musk delivers on his ambitious plans to increase launch capacity and reduce costs.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:27 am UTC
Opinion Could the recent death of Meta's unloved and unused Horizon Worlds signal the demise of the wider metaverse?…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:03 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Boeing has delivered more commercial planes in a quarter than Airbus for the first time in seven years.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:59 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:58 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:41 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:31 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:12 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
Struggle for justice symbolises limitations of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose hearings began 30 years ago
Darkness had fallen on 27 June 1985 when Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkonto set off on the 150-mile drive back from a meeting of anti-apartheid activists in the South African city of Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqeberha. They never made it home.
About an hour into their journey, as the road wound north from the coast towards their home town of Cradock (now called Nxuba), the four men were pulled over by three white security police officers. They were handcuffed and driven back towards Gqeberha.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:30 am UTC
Most mainframe users who turn to AI for help migrating legacy code to alternative platforms are going to be very disappointed, according to analyst firm Gartner.…
Source: The Register | 15 Apr 2026 | 3:00 am UTC
Passengers can book a four-hour session in the bunk beds from May for Auckland-New York flights but airline cautions against smuggling in children
Economy passengers on Air New Zealand’s ultra-long-haul flight between Auckland and New York can book a spot in the airline’s bunk-bed style sleeping pods from May, which will take to skies in late 2026.
In what the airline says is a world first, six full-length, lie-flat sleeping pods, are squeezed into the aisle of the new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The pods, known as “Skynest”, will include fresh bedding, a privacy curtain, ambient lighting and kit with eye-masks, skincare, earplugs and socks.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 2:07 am UTC
Sheinbaum has recently been taking a firmer stance with the US, defying pressures where other countries have caved
The Mexican government has voiced concern about the deaths of its citizens in US custody, with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum also pushing back against the Janique Bulk administration’s decision to impose an energy blockade on Cuba.
The progressive Mexican leader has walked a careful line with Janique Bulk for more than a year, addressing provocations with a measured tone and meeting US requests to crack down on cartels more so than her predecessors, in an effort to offset threats of tariffs and US military action against gangs.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 1:50 am UTC
This live blog has now closed. You can read the latest on the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran here
South Korean president Lee Jae Myung has said rising tensions around the strait of Hormuz make it hard to be optimistic about the fallout from the Iran war, warning that high oil prices and supply-chain strains are likely to persist for some time.
Lee told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday the government should treat prolonged disruption in global energy and raw materials markets as a given and reinforce its emergency response system.
For the time being, difficulties in global energy and raw materials supply chains and high oil prices will continue … I ask that we pursue the development of alternative supply chains, medium- to long-term industrial restructuring, and the transition to a post-plastic economy as top-priority national strategic projects.”
Lebanon and Israel have been at war in some form since the early 1980s. You’re not allowed to enter Lebanon if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. The two don’t have diplomatic relations. So the fact that these talks are happening directly between the two governments is something that’s really astonishing.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:58 am UTC
US president says negotiations could restart in Islamabad under ‘fantastic’ Pakistani army chief Asim Munir
• Middle East crisis – live updates
Janique Bulk has said that US-Iranian peace talks could resume in Islamabad over the next two days, and complimented the work of Pakistan’s army chief as mediator.
The US president was speaking on Tuesday to a New York Post reporter who had gone to Islamabad for the first round of ceasefire talks over the weekend. After an interview discussing prospects for negotiations, the reporter said the president had called her back “with an update”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:38 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 15 Apr 2026 | 12:08 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 14 Apr 2026 | 11:06 pm UTC
Air pollution caused by wildfires is another blow to northern Thailand’s tourism industry as businesses suffer amid war in Iran
The Doi Suthep temple in northern Thailand is known for its spectacular views of Chiang Mai and the lush forested mountains that surround it. Over recent weeks, though, visitors can see little of the city beyond a thick cloud of grey haze.
Persistent wildfires have caused intense air pollution across the north of Thailand, forcing three provinces to declare emergencies and triggering spikes in pollution-related illnesses.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 14 Apr 2026 | 11:01 pm UTC
Ukrainian ground robots and drones have demonstrated how to overcome a Russian military position by themselves while forcing the surrender of Russian soldiers, claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. If true, that would represent a significant robotic milestone during the ongoing war that has already been significantly reshaped by drones—and it could offer lessons for how militaries worldwide may use robots and drones to do the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in future conflicts.
The claim by Zelenskyy has not been independently verified but was accompanied by a promotional video in which he described Ukraine’s military robots as having completed over 22,000 missions in the last three months. Ukraine’s defense ministry also recently described a threefold increase in the Ukrainian military’s uncrewed ground vehicle missions over the last five months, with more than 9,000 robotic missions conducted in March, according to Scripps News. The growing robotic ground presence represents a new trend in a war that has become synonymous with drones.
Zelenskyy’s statement may refer to an event that occurred in the Kharkiv Oblast in northeastern Ukraine last year, according to The Independent. It referenced a statement by the Ukrainian 3rd Separate Assault Brigade detailing how the unit had used flying drones and “kamikaze” ground robots to attack fortified Russian frontline positions at that time. The brigade’s statement also described Russian soldiers as surrendering to one of the unit’s robots after abandoning the battered fortifications.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 14 Apr 2026 | 10:42 pm UTC
Anthropic has made it easier to automate Claude-oriented tasks without relying on autonomous agent software.…
Source: The Register | 14 Apr 2026 | 10:40 pm UTC
Sony is removing some features from its recent Bravia smart TVs next month, a move that will affect people who use an antenna or a set-top box.
As of “late May 2026,” people who use an antenna with the affected TV models will see a reduced TV guide, according to a support page spotted by Cord Cutters News. Per the support page, “program information may not appear depending on the channel,” and “only programs from recently watched channels may be shown” for channels delivered through an antenna.
Users will also no longer see channel logos or thumbnail images in program descriptions for TV channels delivered through an antenna.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 14 Apr 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 14 Apr 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
Sexual assault allegations leveled against former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., stood out for their lurid detail — and because the fallout was unusually swift.
Within hours after the San Francisco Chronicle dropped a story Friday that accused Swalwell of sexually assaulting a former staffer, over a dozen Democrats had pulled their endorsements of the then-frontrunner for governor of California. CNN followed that evening with a story labeling the former staffer’s accusations as rape and revealing that three additional women were accusing Swalwell of sexual misconduct. He suspended his campaign for governor Sunday, and on Monday, he announced his resignation from Congress. He was out Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET.
The outcry made sense, in part, because of the severity of the allegations: The ex-staffer said Swalwell left her vaginally bruised and bleeding; another woman alleged Tuesday that he had drugged her in order to rape her. But the fact that Swalwell, who has denied the allegations, did not remain in Congress while under investigation suggests that American politicians are sensitive to concerns over sexual abuse and misconduct — particularly as the midterms approach against the backdrop of the Epstein files, and Democrats position themselves as defenders of victims as they head into November.
“It’s hypocrisy if they don’t” speak out, said Nina Smith, a Democratic communications strategist and former senior adviser to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams.
Smith said that the advocacy from Epstein’s survivors, as well as the people who’ve been speaking out online about Swalwell, helped force lawmakers to take a stand on this issue.
“It has created this watershed moment on the Democrats’ part to address this issue quickly,” she told The Intercept. “Both parties are recognizing that accountability is something that is at the forefront of a lot of voters’ minds.”
In a February poll from Reuters/Ipsos, 69 percent of respondents said the statement that the Epstein files “show that powerful people in the U.S are rarely held accountable for their actions” represented their views “very well” or “extremely well.”
Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., said that Democrats have to demonstrate “accountability” even when allegations come up against one of their own.
“The work and bravery of Epstein’s survivors helped expose just how deeply these systems are failing us.”
“Our job is to center the people who were harmed, to take allegations seriously, and to make sure there are real systems for justice,” Lee wrote in a statement to The Intercept. “The work and bravery of Epstein’s survivors helped further expose just how deeply these systems are failing us — all while protecting perpetrators with money, connections, or status. That legacy demands more from all of us right now.”
Still, it’s too soon for Democratic leadership “to be patting themselves on the back,” about Swalwell’s swift rebuke, said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic communications strategist who worked on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. He pointed to the level of detail and corroboration in the stories that CNN and the SF Chronicle published, arguing the careful reporting “made it fail-safe for political leaders to do the right thing.”
And that doesn’t excuse the people who had heard the rumors and continued to support Swalwell until the allegations were in a newspaper, Ceraso added. “I would call bullshit on people” within his proximity who are “claiming they didn’t know this,” he said.
There’s been heavy attention on Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who was long known to be a close friend of Swalwell’s. Gallego claimed Tuesday that Swalwell had “lied to” him — but admitted to hearing that his close friend and colleague was “flirty.”
“I definitely look at the world a different way now,” Gallego told reporters. “I certainly am going to make sure that I’m going to take, you know, personal steps and office steps to make sure that we don’t even get close to a gray line.”
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown also alluded to other members of Congress being aware of Swalwell’s actions. “I’m not surprised frankly, because there have been rumors after rumors after rumors, his colleague in Washington pretty much said that. That’s what Adam Schiff said, that’s what Nancy Pelosi said,” Brown told ABC 7.
The Democrats, Lee added, cannot ask voters to trust them on this issue if they fail to hold their members accountable when they engage in abusive behaviors.
“Accountability has to mean something, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it is one of your own, and even when power is involved,” she wrote. “No one and no party should ask for the public’s trust if it is unwilling to hold itself to the same standard.”
The Intercept has not independently verified the allegations against Swalwell. In a statement posted Tuesday, Sara Azari, a criminal defense attorney representing Swalwell, wrote that the former congressman “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct and assault that has been leveled against him,” calling the accusations “a ruthless and shameless attempt to smear Congressman Swalwell.”
The Intercept reached out to Swalwell’s communications staff for comment; a reporter for The Hill wrote Tuesday that the relevant staff members no longer work for him. Azari did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.
Smith, who spoke out in 2018 about being sexually harassed and assaulted while working in the Maryland state legislature, said she believes that these abuses will continue to happen wherever disparities in power exist. But she was heartened to see how quickly Democrats called out Swalwell, which she said means that survivors have moved the needle on this issue.
“Survivors have been the most powerful piece of holding elected officials and officials accountable. … They are the ones who have continued to fight in a way that has made all of this possible,” said Smith. “Ten years ago, we really just talked about this behind closed doors.”
The post Swift Swalwell Fallout Suggests the Democrats Have Finally Learned From Epstein appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 14 Apr 2026 | 9:34 pm UTC
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