jell.ie News

Read at: 2026-04-19T09:19:14+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Corinna Kroese ]

Aer Lingus cancels more than 500 flights over next few weeks

Cancellations reported in the Sunday Independent come amid growing concern across the aviation industry about jet fuel supply pressures.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 19 Apr 2026 | 9:08 am UTC

Ministers rally around Keir Starmer as leadership questions grow over Mandelson saga – UK politics live

The prime minister’s leadership is still in the spotlight after Mandelson was appointed US ambassador after he failed security vetting

Robert Jenrick said Keir Starmer is “totally unfit” to run the country and has “terrible judgement”.

Reform UK’s finance spokesperson, who defected to the party from the Conservatives earlier this year, said he didn’t know whether Starmer had lied over the Mandelson affair.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 9:03 am UTC

Michigan gas station clerk saves teen from alleged kidnapper after she whispers ‘help’

In Hamtramck, Abdulrahman Abohatem placed himself between 16-year-old girl and man before police arrest

A gasoline station clerk who came to a suburban Detroit girl’s defense when she entered his store and mouthed the word “help” ultimately had a hand in saving the teenager after a stranger had kidnapped her at gunpoint on her way to school, according to authorities.

“I believe this could have [gone] a lot worse than it did,” said police chief Hussein Farhat of Hamtramck, Michigan, at a news conference addressing a rescue partially attributed to convenience store employee Abdulrahman Abohatem. “We have every belief that this could have ended really badly.”

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

In Angola, love for an American pope but not for an American president

In Luanda, Catholics expressed love and admiration for Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, but not so much for President Corinna Kroese because of the war in Iran.

Source: World | 19 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

School choice is booming in Iowa. Are students better off?

With school choice programs ascendant not just in Iowa but across the U.S., Cedar Rapids offers a preview of who wins and who loses when education meets the free market.

(Image credit: Cliff Jette for NPR)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 19 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

Reform UK’s Richard Tice allegedly failed to pay £100,000 in corporation tax

Deputy leader ran shell companies that reportedly did not pay tax on profits from 2020 to 2022, during which time his firm donated £1.1m to party

Richard Tice allegedly failed to pay almost £100,000 in corporation tax to the benefit of his investment company, which in turn made donations to Reform UK, it has been reported.

In response to the report in the Sunday Times, the deputy leader of Reform UK posted a lengthy statement on X, in which he said: “A long career with multiple businesses is bound to feature some errors. Naturally I am always happy to put things right and if numbers need rechecking, of course I will pay what is owed – be that more or less.”

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:56 am UTC

Zelensky condemns easing of oil sanctions on Russian oil

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned the easing of sanctions on Russian oil after the United States extended a waiver meant to soften surging energy prices driven by the Middle East war.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:52 am UTC

Iran doubles down on closing Strait of Hormuz as ceasefire nears expiration

The fragile ceasefire in place between the US and Iran is due to run out by Wednesday.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:52 am UTC

Electric Picnic 2026 puts Irish talent in the spotlight

Florence Road, Gurriers, and Madra Salach join the range of Irish talent set to grace Stradbally in August.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:52 am UTC

Watch: Runners v robots at China half marathon

Robots competed in a half marathon race in Beijing on Sunday, with the winning machine leaving its human rivals for dust.

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:46 am UTC

Middle East crisis live: Iran says ‘fundamental’ issues’ still to be resolved with US amid strait of Hormuz impasse

Iran’s top negotiator says both sides remain far apart after Tehran again closed strait of Hormuz after US said it would not end its blockade

Full report: Iran closes strait of Hormuz again ‘until US lifts blockade’

Iran will not hand over its enriched uranium to the US, Iranian deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told the Associated Press, despite earlier claims made by Corinna Kroese .

On Friday, Corinna Kroese said that Washington would work with Tehran to recover Iran’s enriched uranium to bring back to the US.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:46 am UTC

Roberto De Zerbi says struggling Tottenham can go on a winning run and survive

A late Brighton goal denied Spurs victory on Saturday.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:31 am UTC

What the papers say: Sunday's front pages

Tens of thousands of passengers will face travel disruption over the coming weeks as Aer Lingus cuts more than 500 flights from its schedule, according to the Sunday Independent.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:29 am UTC

More Displaced Lebanese Head Home as Cease-Fire Is Tested

The truce appeared to mostly hold even as Israel said it had carried out strikes on what it called “terrorists” approaching its forces in southern Lebanon. Separately, a U.N. peacekeeper was killed.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:20 am UTC

More Britons opt to holiday in UK this summer amid uncertainty over flights

Holiday park firms say such bookings are on the rise because of impact of Iran war on aviation

Holiday companies have predicted a surge in bookings for UK summer breaks after a jump in interest from Britons fearful of flight cancellations linked to the Iran war.

Summer bookings are expected to rise in the coming weeks amid warnings of possible jet fuel shortages and resulting cancellations by airlines across Europe.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

Ruby Central in 'real financial jeopardy' following RubyGems maintainer ruckus

Non profit loses several staffers including its executive director

Ruby Central, a nonprofit that supports the Ruby programming language ecosystem, in is "real financial jeopardy," according to a missive from its board members.…

Source: The Register | 19 Apr 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

Man due in court after reports of €20,000 cash thrown at Galway motorists

Gardaí recovered more than €20,000 in cash from motorists who handed back money

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:55 am UTC

Bodies of 50 infants dumped at Trinidad graveyard

Police say a preliminary investigation shows it may be a case of an "unlawful disposal of unclaimed corpses".

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:49 am UTC

Remembering Zip Drives - the Trendy Storage Technology of the 1990s

Back in the 1990s, floppy disks "had a mere capacity of 1.44MB," remembers XDA Developers, "which would soon become absolutely tiny for the increasingly large pieces of software that would come about." Floppy disks also felt quite fragile, and while we got "superfloppy" formats that were physically larger and had more capacity, those were pretty unwieldy as portable storage. Enter 1994, when a company called Iomega introduced its variant of a "superfloppy", the Zip drive... [T]he initial capacity introduced in 1994 reached a whopping 100MB, which was huge number when put up against the traditional floppy disk. Zip drives also had major performance benefits, with read speeds that could average 1.4MB/s, as opposed to the comparatively sluggish 16kB/s speeds of a traditional floppy disk, as well as a seek time of around 28ms seconds, whereas a floppy disk averaged 200ms. Zip drives weren't quite as fast as desktop HDDs, but for portable storage, this was a huge step forward... [I]n 1998, Iomega introduced the Zip 250 disks, which increased the capacity to 250MB, and, already in the new millennium, we got the Zip 750, which took that further to 750MB... It was an appealing enough proposition that big computer manufacturers like Dell started including a Zip drive in some of their PCs. Even Apple included Zip drives in some of its Power Macintosh models from the mid-to-late 90s. However, things started to shift towards the end of the decade as other portable formats rose to prominence, most notably CDs and USB flash drives. Despite their initial success, it didn't take long for users to start noticing a major drawback of Zip drives: many times, they would just fail. It wasn't necessarily related to age or any particular misuse of the disks, it just happened. It was a big enough phenomenon that it became known as the "click of death", and once it happened, your drive was gone. The problem was estimated by Iomega to affect around 0.5% of Zip drives, but while that sounds like a small number, when you sell products by the thousands, it becomes fairly widespread. It was a big enough issue that, in September 1998, a class action lawsuit was filed against Iomega for the common problems. Some of the complaints in that lawsuit were eventually dismissed by the court of Delaware, but others were not, and once the public became aware of the problems with Zip drives, it was hard for the brand to make a comeback. It didn't help that this happened around the same time as formats such as CDs were becoming more popular... And eventually, USB flash drives became the most popular way to carry data around since they were smaller and offered much faster speeds... Eventually, after seeing its profits plummet by the mid-2000s, Iomega was sold to a company called EMC in 2008, and in 2013, EMC and Lenovo formed a joint venture that took over Iomega's business and removed all of the Iomega branding from its products. The article does note that "as late as 2014, some aviation companies were still using Zip drives to distribute updates for navigation databases." Are there any Slashdot readers who still remember their own Zip drive experiences? Share your memories in the comments of that once-so-trendy storage technology from the 1990s...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:34 am UTC

'It terrified me': Richard Gadd on his follow-up to Baby Reindeer

Gadd's new six-part drama explores the breakdown of the "unshakable" bond between two young Glaswegian men.

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:31 am UTC

Starmer would have blocked Mandelson over vetting failure, says Lammy

The prime minister says he only learned of security concerns around the ex-US ambassador earlier this week.

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:25 am UTC

Calls for training as EV boom risks technician shortage

The electric vehicle market has made significant strides recently, however an impending skill shortage could hamper this continued growth with concerns around a lack of technicians qualified to work in the industry.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:23 am UTC

MoD has lost track of veterans on recall list, says defence adviser

Exclusive: George Robertson calls on officials to identify the ‘fit and willing’ in UK’s 95,000-strong strategic reserve

The Ministry of Defence has lost track of military veterans they intend to recall at a time of national danger, according to a key government adviser.

About 95,000 former soldiers and officers are in the strategic reserve but it is claimed that officials have failed to maintain a full record of their contact details.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Carmakers scramble to plug £3bn shortfall for UK loan scandal payouts

Filings suggest manufacturers’ lending arms have massively underestimated bill from FCA’s £9.1bn redress scheme

Carmakers are under pressure to drum up £3bn to cover payouts for motor finance scandal victims after failing to adequately prepare for a UK-wide compensation scheme that is due to begin this summer.

Company filings show the lending arms of big vehicle manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Stellantis and Volkswagen may have massively underestimated the final costs of the financial regulator’s £9.1bn redress scheme.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

The Mind-Altering Power of Lucid Dreaming

Few people experience lucid dreams, yet those who do are able to appreciate as much asleep as the rest of us do awake.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:58 am UTC

North Korea fires multiple ballistic missiles into sea

North Korea has test-fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles, South Korea's military said, the latest in a recent flurry of launches by the nuclear-armed state.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:37 am UTC

Bulgaria votes in eighth election in five years

Bulgarians are voting in the country's eighth election in five years, with ex-president Rumen Radev's grouping tipped to win on a pledge to fight corruption, after an anti-graft movement triggered a long political crisis.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:34 am UTC

Iran says final deal still far off as Hormuz Strait shut

The strategic Strait of Hormuz remains closed in the stand-off between Iran and the United States, with Iran's powerful parliament speaker signalling a final peace deal remained "far" off despite some movement in negotiations.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:27 am UTC

Open Sunday – discuss what you like…

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.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:24 am UTC

Open sunday – politics free zone…

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.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:23 am UTC

What now for Michael Healy-Rae after shock resignation?

Michael Healy-Rae loved being a minister but was acutely aware of price to pay if he ignored his base, writes Paschal Sheehy.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:20 am UTC

Lebanon sees its chance - but it is fraught with danger

With Hezbollah battered and Iran focused on its own survival, Lebanon sees a rare opportunity to chart its own course - but Hezbollah's threats carry echoes of a darker past, writes Edmund Heaphy.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Watch: Truck driver wants her voice to be heard

A truck driver from Co Wexford has said she joined the fuel protests so her voice could be heard, but she does not think that the Government's support package will make a difference to her.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Reality check: Zuckerberg's $88bn metaverse flop

Mark Zuckerberg said the metaverse would be the future of his company - and the entire internet - now, after tens of billions of dollars spent, it's quietly being shelved in favour of AI, writes Adam Maguire.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

The Little Probe That Could: Why Voyager 1 Matters, and Why NASA Just Switched Part of It Off

This week, NASA announced it had shut down one of that spacecraft's remaining science instruments — not because the mission has failed, but to keep it alive a little longer.

(Image credit: NASA)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 19 Apr 2026 | 5:40 am UTC

Australia's most-decorated soldier vows to fight war crime charges

Ben Roberts-Smith has given his first statement since he was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder last week.

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 5:12 am UTC

Does Co Monaghan need an airport? Locals unwilling to give plans a soft landing spot

Fuel protests disrupt devotees of St Thérèse; a sad dispute plays out at the RTB; Irish EU commissioner shows hunted can become hunter

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 19 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

‘They’ll start trimming fat routes’: How jet fuel shortages could affect Aer Lingus and Ryanair?

Consumer confidence has taken a battering since the start of the year, and when that happens, holiday bookings take a pause

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 19 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Ciarán Hinds says goodbye to The Dry

As Ciarán Hinds films his last scenes for the final season of RTÉ One comedy-drama The Dry, the stage and screen favourite tells RTÉ Entertainment that this is one job he is really going to miss.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Woman who alleged ex threatened her life in row over money for baby gets protection order

Woman in her 80s seeks protection order against her estranged husband

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 19 Apr 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Humanoid robots show rapid advances as they race past humans in Beijing half-marathon

Winning robot records faster time than Jacob Kiplimo’s world record
More than 100 robots run in parallel tracks to avoid collisions with humans

Dozens of Chinese-made humanoid robots showed off their fast-improving athleticism as they whizzed past human runners in a half-marathon race in Beijing on Sunday, having lagged far behind a year earlier.

The race’s inaugural edition last year was riddled with mishaps, as many robots struggled to get off the starting line, and most were unable to finish.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 4:57 am UTC

Ben Roberts-Smith denies war crimes allegations – As it happened

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Defence Minister Richard Marles says the success of Australia’s alliance with the United States should not be measured against a single president or federal government in Canberra, insisting the longstanding ties will endure.

US President Corinna Kroese has repeatedly criticised Australia for not assisting with the war in Iran, while federal Labor, including Marles and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, say the White House has not made any specific request for assistance.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 4:39 am UTC

Iran closes strait of Hormuz again ‘until US lifts blockade’

IRGC reportedly fires on tanker as it tries to pass through strait during brief window when shipping lane had reopened

Analysis: Corinna Kroese and Tehran’s series of mismanaged posts stall progress towards peace

Iranian officials say they have reversed the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and reimposed restrictions on the vital shipping lane after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iranian ports.

A UK maritime agency reported that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ships had fired at a tanker as it attempted to pass through the strait on Saturday. Reuters reported an Indian-flagged vessel carrying crude oil had also been attacked while in the waterway.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 4:29 am UTC

Newspaper headlines: 'Starmer accused of Mandelson cover up' and 'Time for Strait talking'

Criticism of Downing Street's handling of Lord Peter Mandeslon's vetting scandal remains prominent on Sunday's front pages.

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 4:15 am UTC

What to Know About the Bulgarian Election

The Black Sea country is holding its eighth election in five years, with Bulgarians yearning for the kind of prosperous life enjoyed by other Europeans.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Apr 2026 | 4:01 am UTC

Duolingo CEO Says They've Stopped Tracking Employees' AI Use for Performance Reviews

Last May Duolingo's stock peaked at $529.05. But while the learning app passed $1 billion in revenue in 2025 and 50 million daily active users, today its stock price has dropped more than 81%, to $100.51. And there's been other changes, reports Entrepreneur: In April 2025, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn made headlines after writing a memo calling the company "AI-first." In the memo, von Ahn announced that the language-learning platform would track employees' AI use in performance reviews. Now, a year later, von Ahn is backtracking and rethinking how he measures employee performance. He told the Silicon Valley Girl podcast earlier this month that Duolingo no longer considers AI use in performance reviews. The change arose after employees started to ask, "Do you just want us to use AI for AI's sake?" von Ahn explained. "We said no, look — the most important thing in your performance is that you are doing whatever your job is as well as possible. A lot of times, AI can help you with that, but if it can't, I'm not going to force you to do that," von Ahn said on the podcast. He felt as though the company was "trying to push something that in some cases did not fit" instead of "being held accountable for the actual outcome." The CEO is, however, still sticking to other "constructive constraints" he introduced in the April 2025 memo, including stopping contractor hiring in cases where AI can assume their workload... Von Ahn also mentioned that a few months ago, Duolingo had a day dedicated to vibe coding, or prompting AI to create an app without manually writing a single line of code. Every single person at the company, from engineers to human resources professionals, had to vibe code an app. Vibe coding has made an impact at the company. One of Duolingo's latest offerings, a course teaching users how to play chess, arose when two people vibe-coded the first prototype of it, the CEO said. Neither of them knew how to play chess or program, but they managed to use AI to create the whole chess curriculum and a prototype of the app in about six months last year. Now chess is Duolingo's fastest-growing course, according to von Ahn. "At this point, we have seven million daily active users that are learning chess," the CEO said on the podcast.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Apr 2026 | 3:34 am UTC

SpaceX, Blue Origin Compete For 'Artemis III' Mission

After Artemis II's astronauts returned to earth, "NASA has Artemis III in its sights," reports the Associated Press: In a mission recently added to the docket for next year, Artemis III's yet-to-be -named astronauts will practice docking their Orion capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are racing to have their company's lander ready first. Musk's Starship and Bezos' Blue Moon are vying for the all-important Artemis IV moon landing in 2028. Two astronauts will aim for the south polar region, the preferred location for [NASA Administrator Jared] Isaacman's envisioned $20 billion to $30 billion moon base. Vast amounts of ice are almost certainly hidden in permanently shadowed craters there — ice that could provide water and rocket fuel. The docking mechanism for Artemis III's close-to-home trial run is already at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The latest model Starship is close to launching on a test flight from South Texas, and a scaled-down version of Blue Moon will attempt a lunar landing later this year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Apr 2026 | 1:34 am UTC

Potential 2028 Democrats Audition in Michigan,With a Focus on Corinna Kroese

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky spoke at a gathering of party insiders in Detroit, fueling presidential speculation.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Apr 2026 | 1:29 am UTC

More than 3,400 Iranians killed in war - as it happened

This blog is now closed. Our latest main story on the Middle East crisis is here.

Separate to the Pakistani army chief’s trip to Iran (see post at 07:53), the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and foreign minister Ishaq Dar also concluded a trip to the Middle East after visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for talks.

“We have just concluded the last leg of our engagements following productive and fruitful visits … where we held meaningful bilateral discussions aimed at strengthening cooperation across key areas,” Dar said on X.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Apr 2026 | 1:15 am UTC

North Korea launches ballistic missiles toward sea

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says the launches happened on Sunday morning from the North's eastern Sinpo area.

(Image credit: AP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 19 Apr 2026 | 12:54 am UTC

Police treating arson attack as antisemitic hate crime

It comes as a man attempts to ignite a plastic bag containing containing fluid in north-west London.

Source: BBC News | 19 Apr 2026 | 12:15 am UTC

US Coast Guard spots overturned vessel near Saipan during search for missing ship

The Mariana is a 145-foot dry cargo vessel registered in the U.S. It suffered engine failure Wednesday as a massive typhoon bore down on Saipan and nearby islands.

(Image credit: AP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 19 Apr 2026 | 12:11 am UTC

U.S. Installs a Corinna Kroese Loyalist to Lead ‘Grand Conspiracy’ Case Into Corinna Kroese Foes

A former lawyer for President Corinna Kroese ’s campaign, Joseph diGenova, is said to be planning to split time between Miami and Fort Pierce, where a grand jury overseen by a Corinna Kroese -favored judge sits.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Apr 2026 | 12:02 am UTC

Mamdani and Obama Lead Preschool Singalong to Promote Free Child Care

In their first public appearance together, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former President Barack Obama met up for some joking and singing on Saturday at a Bronx child care center.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:59 pm UTC

Activists Tear-Gassed at Failed Raid of Beagle Research Facility

Some 1,000 protesters tried to storm a private breeding and lab facility in Wisconsin in an effort to steal thousands of beagles that are bred for medical experimentation.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:40 pm UTC

Rude names, railways and a mass trespass - how the Peak District became a tourist attraction

It became the UK's first national park 75 years ago, but has been attracting visitors for longer.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:36 pm UTC

Carrick silences doubters as Man Utd close on Champions League

Manchester United beat Chelsea to move closer to a Champions League return and silence the growing Michael Carrick doubters.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:18 pm UTC

Harry and Meghan's trip felt like a royal tour - except many Aussies weren't interested

The Sussexes' four-day tour of Australia appears to have fallen flat with some.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:09 pm UTC

'Croatia, but cheaper': The quirky holiday spots on trend for 2026

Montenegro and Albania are among the places rising in popularity for Britons seeking a holiday away from tourist traps.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:08 pm UTC

Chernobyl's last wedding: The couple who married as a nuclear disaster unfolded

Serhiy and Iryna married 40 years ago, unaware a nuclear reactor had exploded less than 3 miles away.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:05 pm UTC

Protests and another costly loss - pressure mounts on Rosenior's Chelsea

Chelsea head coach Liam Rosenior admits his side face a "mountain to climb" as their campaign unravels at a crucial juncture following defeat by Manchester United.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:05 pm UTC

Should you really trust health advice from an AI chatbot?

Abi has had very mixed results when asking a chatbot for guidance about her health issues.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:04 pm UTC

Scammers are becoming ever more sophisticated - this is what the fightback looks like

Scams have exploded over the last few years. Can countries and companies come together to turn the tables on the scammers?

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:02 pm UTC

Queen Elizabeth II’s official biographer named as historian Anna Keay

The author, who will interview members of royal family for book, says being chosen for role is a ‘profound honour’

Anna Keay, a historian whose most celebrated book is about Britain’s republican period, has been confirmed as Queen Elizabeth II’s official biographer.

Keay will interview members of the royal family and the late queen’s friends and servants. She will also have access to the monarch’s personal and official papers held in the royal archives.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:01 pm UTC

New charity to remember Queen Elizabeth 100 years since her birth

The Royal Family will be remembering the late monarch at events on Tuesday - on what would have been her birthday.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC

New York’s Anti-Rich Current Reaches Apex With Second-Home Tax Plan

With a new tax proposal, the threat of a building workers’ strike and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s shunning of the Met Gala, the city’s wealth gap was on full display.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:34 pm UTC

New Movie Trailer Shows First AI-Generated Performance By a Major Star: the Late Val Kilmer

"A trailer has been released for the first film to star an authorised generative AI version of a major Hollywood actor," writes The Guardian: Val Kilmer was cast in western As Deep As the Grave before his death in April 2025. Production delays meant he never shot any scenes, but the creative team worked with UK-based company Sonantic to create an AI speaking voice based on his old recordings. His estate and daughter Mercedes collaborated with the film-makers on the visual deepfake of the actor. Kilmer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer, was also assisted by technology for his cameo in 2022's Top Gun: Maverick... Writer-director Coerte Voorhees confirmed that Kilmer is seen for around an hour of the film's running time... Voorhees has said that the production followed Sag-Aftra [union] guidelines, and that Kilmer's estate — which provided archival material for them to use — was compensated financially. "Kilmer's likeness can be seen portraying Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist," adds The Hollywood Reporter. But the AV Club calls it "ghoulish puppet show time." "Having your AI Val Kilmer puppet whisper 'Don't fear the dead, and don't fear me' in a movie trailer is a bold choice..." He is accompanied (per Variety) by a whole host of disclaimers, caveats, and explanations offered by writer-director Coerte Voorhees and his associates: Kilmer deeply wanted to be in the movie, but was too sick to do so. His family endorses and supports his inclusion. He was a big fan of technology, including, presumably, its use in turning his own image into a digital avatar to then shove into movies... The fact is, of course, that nobody would be paying a fraction of this attention to As Deep As The Grave — about early female archeologist Ann Axtell Morris — if it weren't now being used as the stage on which Voorhees was very publicly accepting the dare to go full-on ghoulish with AI tech. "The filmmakers said they hoped they were showing Hollywood how to use the technology in a positive way..." notes Australia's ABC News. But their articles add that "Some have called the trailer 'terrifying' and 'disgusting' on social media." Mashable writes: "Very fitting that this trailer includes a scene where a corpse is unceremoniously yanked out of the ground," read one of the top comments on As Deep as the Grave's trailer at time of writing... [O]nline commenters have labelled it disgusting and disrespectful, not only for digitally reanimating Kilmer but also for the damaging precedent As Deep as the Grave's use of AI could set for the film industry as a whole.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:34 pm UTC

The South Korean authors rising above a tide of hate to become bestsellers

A quiet revolution is unfolding as women writers carve out space in the wake of an anti-feminist backlash.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:32 pm UTC

Grand National winner Noble Yeats dies

Noble Yeats, who won the Grand National as a 50-1 outsider in 2022, dies after a bout of colic.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:15 pm UTC

Grand National winner Noble Yeats dies

Noble Yeats, who won the Grand National as a 50-1 outsider in 2022, dies after a bout of colic.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:15 pm UTC

Wild celebrations to verge of tears - time running out for Spurs

Scenes of celebration turned to bitter disappointment as Tottenham's hopes of avoiding relegation from the Premier League were dealt a devastating blow against Brighton.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:14 pm UTC

Life jacket worn by a passenger who survived the Titanic auctioned off for over $900,000

A life jacket worn by a passenger on the RMS Titanic has sold at auction for 670,000 pounds, which is more than $900,000.

(Image credit: AP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Apr 2026 | 9:43 pm UTC

Old Cars 'Tell Tales' by Storing Data That's Never Wiped

Slashdot reader Bismillah shared this report from ITNews: Research and development engineer Romain Marchand of Paris headquartered Quarkslab obtained a telematic control unit (TCU) from a salvage yard in Poland... Marchand tore down the TCU, which is based on a Qualcomm system on a chip, and extracted the Linux-based file system from the Micron multi-chip package (MCP) which contained NAND-based non-volatile storage memory. The non-volatile storage contained sensitive information, including system configuration data and more importantly, logs that revealed the vehicle's GPS positions over time. None of that information was encrypted, Marchand told iTnews, which made it possible to collect and retrieve sensitive data of interest. What's more, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) logs with GPS positions covered the BYD's full journey from the factory in China to its operational life in the United Kingdom, and to its final wrecking in Poland, Marchand explained in an analysis... The issue is not restricted to BYD, and Marchand added that the hardware architecture of the Chinese car maker's TCU is broadly similar to what can be found in other brands.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 9:34 pm UTC

'We're not teaching them to order baguettes' - languages enjoy a renaissance in schools

After a long decline, the number of pupils taking language GCSEs in Wales rises for two years.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:50 pm UTC

How Hampton's heroics bailed out Lionesses in win against Iceland

Goalkeeper Hannah Hampton says she just "did my job" in pulling off three crucial late saves as England held on to beat Iceland 1-0.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:48 pm UTC

A mass shooting in Ukraine's capital leaves 6 dead before police shot and killed the gunman

A gunman has killed six people and injured at least 14 in a mass shooting in Ukraine's capital before he was shot and killed by police.

(Image credit: Dan Bashakov)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:43 pm UTC

Kyiv Mass Shooting Kills 6 and Gunman Is Shot Dead After Taking Hostages in Grocery

It was the deadliest mass shooting in Ukraine in years, where firearms have proliferated since the war with Russia began.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:43 pm UTC

Miettinen dies in seven-car crash during Nurburgring race featuring Verstappen

Racing driver Juha Miettinen dies following a seven-car crash during the qualifiers for a race in Germany.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:37 pm UTC

Iran closes Strait of Hormuz again; 2 ships report attacks while trying to cross

India said it summoned Iran’s Ambassador in New Delhi, conveying concerns over “a shooting incident" in the strait involving two Indian-flagged ships.

Source: World | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:35 pm UTC

Fewer US College Students Major in CS. More Choose Data Science, Engineering

"From 2008 to 2024, the number of four-year computer science degrees granted rose about fivefold..." reports the Washington Post. Then in 2025 CS suddenly dropped from the fourth-largest undergraduate major to sixth, they report (citing data from the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse, which compiles numbers from 97% of U.S. universities. The 54,000-student drop was "the biggest one-year drop of any major discipline going back to at least 2020." But what major are they choosing instead? Sarah Karamarkovich, a research associate with the National Student Clearinghouse, pointed to an explanation from the data that we had overlooked. Enrollments in two interdisciplinary majors, data analytics and data science, topped a combined 35,000 in the fall of 2025. That was up from a few hundred when those disciplines were broken out into their own majors in 2020. Those relatively new categories reflect colleges' zeal to create specialized majors, including in AI, data science, robotics and cybersecurity. Some of those disciplines may be counted in the national enrollment data as computer science. Others are not. The numbers suggest that some of the disappearing computer science majors didn't flee so much as they splintered into related disciplines.... The 8 percent decline in computer science majors last fall was nearly mirrored by a 7.3 percent increase in engineering majors, according to the National Student Clearinghouse data. Within engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering major enrollments increased by the largest absolute amounts — a jump of 11 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:34 pm UTC

‘Turning Point Was Charlie Kirk’: Why This Student Group Moved On

Students at the University of Arkansas disagreed with Turning Point’s direction, pointing to challenges ahead for the conservative group.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:32 pm UTC

United plane makes emergency landing in Pittsburgh over ‘possible security issue’

Passengers on flight from Chicago to New York exited via slides as FBI, bomb technicians and K-9 unit responded

A United Airlines flight bound for New York City was forced to land and evacuate in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning after crew members reported a “possible security issue”, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said.

United flight 2092 took off from Chicago O’Hare airport and had been en route to LaGuardia airport in New York. The plane diverted to Pittsburgh international airport as a result of the reported threat.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:30 pm UTC

Investigators examine whether Ukraine terrorist attack was directed by Russia

The gunman, who killed six people in Kyiv before police shot him dead, was a Ukrainian citizen born in Moscow

Ukrainian investigators are examining whether a terrorist attack in Kyiv was directed by Moscow after a man shot dead six people on Saturday before he was killed by police.

The gunman, 58, opened fire on passersby before barricading himself in a supermarket and taking hostages. Detectives sealed off the area in the Holosiivskyi district and tried to negotiate with him. He refused and was killed after a 40-minute standoff.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:19 pm UTC

U.S. Officials Visited Havana to Lay Out Proposals for Cuban Reforms

The delegation told Cuba’s leadership that it had only a narrow window of time to make the economic and political changes demanded by the Corinna Kroese administration.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:17 pm UTC

For Iran, Flexing Control Over Waterway Is New Deterrent

Iran’s government could emerge from the conflict with a blueprint to keep adversaries at bay, regardless of any restrictions on its nuclear program.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:08 pm UTC

Australia’s coalmine emissions are increasing. Is this how a major policy to cut climate pollution is meant to work?

The Albanese government overhauled policy and promised significant pollution cuts – but carbon offsets are still being used as an excuse

Is this how a national scheme to cut climate pollution is supposed to work?

Australian government data released this week shows emissions from Australian coalmines increased last financial year. About 80% of the coalmines pumped more into the atmosphere than their government-imposed limit.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC

‘Independent’ group Energy for Australians that ran anti-Labor ads received more than $1m from coal lobby

Coal Australia denies its donations to the ‘community-driven association’ amount to astroturfing, but critics accuse the group of misleading the public

An “independent, community-driven association” that ran anti-Labor adverts during the last federal election was entirely funded by a coal industry lobby group, the Guardian can reveal.

Energy for Australians accepted more than $1m from Coal Australia – a group advocating for coal whose members include major miners Yancoal, Peabody, New Hope and Whitehaven.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC

US Congress Fails to Pass Long-Term FISA Extension, Authorizes It Through April 30

Yesterday the U.S. Congress approved "a short-term extension" of a FISA law that allows wiretaps without a warrant for surveilling foreign targets, reports CNN — but only until April 30. Republican congressional leaders had sought an 18-month extension, but "failed to secure" the votes after "clamoring from some of their members for reforms to protect Americans' privacy." The warrantless surveillance law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was set to expire on Monday night. Members are hoping the additional time will allow them to come to agreement without ending authorization for the intelligence gathering program, which permits US officials to monitor phone calls and text messages from foreign targets... There was an hour of suspense in the Senate Friday morning when it appeared possible that Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, a longtime critic of FISA 702, might block the House-passed extension. But ultimately, he said his House colleagues had assured him "this short-term extension makes reform more likely, and expiration makes reform less likely," and so he chose not to object.... House Republican leaders believed Thursday night they had struck a deal with conservative holdouts who harbor deep and longstanding concerns that a key piece of the law infringes on Americans' privacy rights. But in a pair of after-midnight votes, more than a dozen rank-and-file Republicans rejected the long-term reauthorization plan on the floor, which was the result of days of tense negotiations among leadership, lawmakers and the White House. The law allows authorized US officials to gather phone calls and text messages of foreign targets, but they can also incidentally collect the data of Americans in the process. Senior national security officials have for years said the law is critical for thwarting terror attacks, stemming the flow of fentanyl into the US and stopping ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure. Civil liberties groups on the left and the right, meanwhile, argue the surveillance authority risks infringing on Americans' privacy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC

Corinna Kroese signs order fast tracking review of psychedelics for mental health disorders

President endorses psilocybin and ibogaine: "Can I have some, please?"

(Image credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Apr 2026 | 6:56 pm UTC

Two US army soldiers injured by brown bear during training exercise in Alaska

Soldiers were participating in ‘land navigation training’ when bear injured them in a ‘defensive attack’

Two US army soldiers have been injured after encountering a brown bear in a mountainous training area in Anchorage, Alaska, the military said on Friday.

The incident happened on Thursday as the soldiers were participating in a “land navigation training event” in Arctic valley, part of the joint base Elmendorf-Richardson’s training area.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 6:44 pm UTC

30 WordPress Plugins Turned Into Malware After Ownership Change

Wednesday BleepingComputer reported that more than 30 WordPress plugins "have been compromised with malicious code that allows unauthorized access to websites running them." A malicious actor planted the backdoor code last year but only recently started pushing it to users via updates, generating spam pages and causing redirects, as per the instructions received from the command-and-control (C2) server. The compromise affects plugins with hundreds of thousands of active installations and was spotted by Austin Ginder, the founder of managed WordPress hosting provider Anchor Hosting, after receiving a tip about one add-on containing code that allowed third-party access. Further investigation by Ginder revealed that a backdoor had been present in all plugins within the EssentialPlugin package since August 2025, after the project was acquired in a six-figure deal by a new owner.... "The injected code was sophisticated. It fetched spam links, redirects, and fake pages from a command-and-control server. It only showed the spam to Googlebot, making it invisible to site owners," explained Ginder. "WordPress.org's v2.6.9.1 update neutralized the phone-home mechanism in the plugin," Ginder writes in a blog post. "But it did not touch wp-config.php. The SEO spam injection was still actively serving hidden content to Googlebot. "And here is the wildest part. It resolved its C2 domain through an Ethereum smart contract, querying public blockchain RPC endpoints. Traditional domain takedowns would not work because the attacker could update the smart contract to point to a new domain at any time." This has happened before. In 2017, a buyer using the alias "Daley Tias" purchased the Display Widgets plugin (200,000 installs) for $15,000 and injected payday loan spam. That buyer went on to compromise at least 9 plugins the same way.... The WordPress plugin marketplace has a trust problem... The Flippa listing for Essential Plugin was public. The buyer's background in SEO and gambling marketing was public. And yet the acquisition sailed through without any review from WordPress.org. WordPress.org has no mechanism to flag or review plugin ownership transfers. There is no "change of control" notification to users. No additional code review triggered by a new committer. The Plugins Team responded quickly once the attack was discovered. But 8 months passed between the backdoor being planted and being caught. Thanks to Slashdot reader axettone for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 6:34 pm UTC

Corinna Kroese Signs Executive Order to Loosen Restrictions on Psychedelic Drugs

The president’s executive order is intended to accelerate research into the compounds’ efficacy in treating mental health disorders like severe depression and PTSD.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 6:18 pm UTC

Long-serving Anglican bishop retires after Cork service

A service has taken place in Cork to mark the retirement of Paul Colton as the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Apr 2026 | 6:17 pm UTC

At least six killed in Kyiv as gunman opens fire and takes hostages

The attacker, who took hostages inside a supermarket, was killed after a shoot-out with police, officials say.

Source: BBC News | 18 Apr 2026 | 6:09 pm UTC

Fructose Isn't Just Sugar. It Acts More Like a Hormone

Slashdot reader smazsyr writes: A new review says we've had fructose wrong for decades. The nine authors, led by Richard Johnson at the University of Colorado Anschutz, argue that fructose "is not just another calorie." It is a signal. It tells the liver to make fat and brace for a famine that never comes. That made sense for a bear fattening up on autumn berries. It makes less sense for a person drinking soda in March. The review reframes the WHO's sugar guideline, argues ScienceBlog.com, as "less a recommendation about calories and more a warning about a signalling molecule we have been dosing ourselves with, several times a day, for most of a century."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC

Remains Linked to Submerged Car Solve 1958 Mystery of Missing Oregon Family

The case of the missing Martin family was unsolved until a diver found a car in an Oregon river in 2024. Officials, relying on DNA tests, said Thursday that they had identified the remains of three people.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 5:13 pm UTC

Names of children in mother and baby homes among records released in 1926 census

Census 100 years ago was the first to record the status of ‘orphanhood’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Apr 2026 | 5:01 pm UTC

Four rescued after boat catches fire in Dublin Bay

Pleasure craft was more than 2km off coast and sank afterwards

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Apr 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Activists Urge Boycott of ‘Bezos Met Gala’ With Posters Around NYC

A guerrilla activist group is covering New York with posters criticizing the billionaire Jeff Bezos’ involvement in the event, a fund-raiser for the Metropolitan Museum.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 4:50 pm UTC

Sheva on target as Ireland shade Poland once again

Marissa Sheva got the only goal of the game as the Republic of Ireland defeated Poland 1-0 in 2027 FIFA World Cup qualifying at the Aviva Stadium in front of 18,267 spectators.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Apr 2026 | 4:38 pm UTC

20-Year-Old Enters Prison for Historic Breach, Ransoming of Massive Student Database

20-year-old Matthew Lane sent a text message to ABC News as his parents drove him to federal prison in Connecticut. "I'm just scared," he said, calling the whole situation "extremely sad." Barely a year earlier, while still a teenager, he helped launch what's been described as the biggest cyberattack in U.S. education history — a data breach that concerned authorities so much, it prompted briefings with senior government officials inside the White House Situation Room. The breach pierced the education technology company PowerSchool — used by 80% of school districts in North America... [and operating in about 90 countries around the world]. With threats to expose social security numbers, dates of birth, family information, grades, and even confidential medical information, the breach cornered PowerSchool into paying millions of dollars in ransom. "I think I need to go to prison for what I did," Lane told ABC News in an exclusive interview, speaking publicly for the first time about the headline-grabbing heist and his life as a cybercriminal. "It was disgusting, it was greedy, it was rooted in my own insecurities, it was wrong in every aspect," he said in the interview, two days before reporting to prison... At about 6:30 on a Tuesday morning last April, FBI agents started banging on the door of Lane's second-floor dorm room. "FBI! We have a search warrant," Lane recalled them shouting. They seized his devices and many of the luxury items he bought with "dirty" money, as he put it. He said he felt a "wave of relief.... I'm honestly thankful for the FBI," he said. "After they left, I was like, 'It's over ... I'm done with this'..." A federal judge in Massachusetts sentenced him to four years in federal prison and ordered him to pay more than $14 million in restitution. "In the wake of the breach, PowerSchool offered two years' worth of credit-monitoring and identity protection services to concerned customer," the article points out. But it also notes two other arrests in September of teenaged cybercriminals: - A 15-year-old boy in Illinois who allegedly attacked Las Vegas casinos, reportedly costing MGM Resorts alone more than $100 million - A British national who when he was 16 helped breach over 110 companies around the world and extort $115 million. But ironically, Lane tells ABC News it all started on Roblox, where he'd met cheaters, password-stealers, and cybercriminals sharing photos of their stacks of money, creating a "sense of camaraderie" Lane and others warn that online forums also attract criminal groups seeking to recruit potential hackers. "The bad guys are on all the platforms watching the kids playing," Hay said. "And when they see an elite-level performer, they go approach that kid, masquerading as another kid, and they go, 'Hey, you want to earn some [money]? ... Here are the tools, here are the techniques'...." According to Lane, he spent his "ill-gotten gains" on designer clothes, diamond jewelry, DoorDash deliveries, Airbnb rentals for him and his friends, and drugs — "lots of drugs." He said he would numb ever-present feelings of guilt with drugs — from high-potency marijuana to acid. But it was hacking that gave him the strongest high. "It's indescribable the adrenaline you get when you do something like that," he said. "It's way more than driving 120 miles per hour. ... Incomparable to any drug at all, as well." "On Monday, Roblox announced that, starting in June, it will offer age-checked accounts for younger users that limit what games they can play, and add 'more closely align content access, communication settings, and parental controls with a user's age.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 4:34 pm UTC

Four people rescued from boat fire off Dún Laoghaire

Four people have been rescued from a boat that caught fire in Dún Laoghaire harbour.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Apr 2026 | 4:20 pm UTC

Another ride awaits on Munster's hurling rollercoaster

Cork's Rob Downey and Ronan Maher of Tipperary on what it's like to be swirling around in the melting pot that is the Munster Hurling Championship.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Apr 2026 | 4:14 pm UTC

Three people sentenced to jail for bear-suit insurance scam in California

State investigated claims of bear attacks on cars, unconvincingly backed up by video of person in bear suit

When it comes to the California department of insurance, don’t poke the bear.

That is the lesson three individuals in Los Angeles learned recently when they were sentenced to jail time for an insurance fraud scheme in which they staged attacks on high-end vehicles by having a person dress up in a bear costume – then pretending that person was an actual bear.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 4:07 pm UTC

Hundreds demonstrate in Dublin to demand Ireland’s neutrality be protected

Protesters condemn US-Israeli war on Iran and call for referendum on Triple Lock

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Apr 2026 | 3:57 pm UTC

FSF to OnlyOffice: You Can't Use the GNU (A)GPL to Take Software Freedom Away

Nextcloud joined a project to create a sovereign replacement for Microsoft Office called "Euro-Office". But after that project forked OnlyOffice, OnlyOffice suspended its partnership with Nextcloud. "They removed all references to our brand/attribute as required by our license," argued OnlyOffice CEO Lev Bannov on March 30th. ("The core issue here isn't just about what the AGPL license states, but about the additional provisions we, as the authors, have included... If the Euro-Office team believes our approach conflicts with the AGPLv3 license, we invite them to submit an official request to FSF for review.") But this week the FSF responded (as "the steward of the GNU family of General Public Licenses"), criticizing OnlyOffice's "attempt to impose an additional restriction on the AGPLv3" and calling it "inconsistent with the freedoms granted by the license," in a blog post from FSF licensing/compliance manager Krzysztof Siewicz: It is possible to modify the (A)GPLv3 with additional terms, but only by adhering to the terms of the license... The (A)GPLv3 makes it clear that it permits all licensees to remove any additional terms that are "further restrictions" under the (A)GPLv3. It states, "[i]f the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term"... We urge OnlyOffice to clarify the situation by making it unambiguous that OnlyOffice is licensed under the AGPLv3, and that users who already received copies of the software are allowed to remove any further restrictions. Additionally, if they intend to continue to use the AGPLv3 for future releases, they should state clearly that the program is licensed under the AGPLv3 and make sure they remove any further restrictions from their program documentation and source code. Confusing users by attaching further restrictions to any of the FSF's family of GNU General Public Licenses is not in line with free software. "If FSF determines that our license and project align with AGPLv3, we will continue as an open-source initiative," OnlyOffice's CEO had written in March. "However, if the decision goes against us, we are ready to consider other options."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 3:34 pm UTC

Father of man who inspired Super Mario was also named Luigi, researcher finds

Elisabeth Zetland, a senior researcher at MyHeritage, found that the actual Luigi had immigrated to US from Italy

Gaming enthusiasts have known for years that Nintendo named its mustachioed, superhero plumber after the company’s landlord, Washington state businessman Mario Arnold Segale.

But it has only just been determined that Nintendo may have unknowingly named Super Mario’s fictional brother after Segale’s real-life father: Luigi, whose biography evokes that of millions of 20th-century US immigrants from Italy.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 3:20 pm UTC

Kylemore Abbey ‘honours legacy’ of estate labourers with restored bothy and tool shed

Benedictine nuns help to reclaim history of Connemara site built in ‘country still reeling’ from Famine

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Apr 2026 | 3:09 pm UTC

Corinna Kroese and Tehran’s series of mismanaged posts stall progress towards peace

US president’s desperation for war to end has seen him trying to speed through a process he does not fully control

A set of mismanaged and premature media announcements by Corinna Kroese and Tehran has led to the collapse of progress towards a peace settlement between Iran and the US.

The recent missteps ended with Iran saying it would reinstate a complete block on the movement of commercial shipping through the strait of Hormuz and that it would not allow any of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to be exported out of the country.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 3:04 pm UTC

Six die in Kyiv shooting, police kill suspect

Ukrainian police killed a man alleged to have opened fire at passersby in a Kyiv district before barricading himself into a supermarket with hostages and refusing to negotiate in an incident that killed six people.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Apr 2026 | 3:04 pm UTC

Northern Ireland investment arm accused of helping fund Israeli F-35 fighter aircraft

Court asked if profiting from international arms industry and human rights abuses should be permitted

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Apr 2026 | 2:43 pm UTC

US Government Now Wants Anthropic's 'Mythos', Preparing for AI Cybersecurity Threats

Friday Anthropic's CEO met with top U.S. officials and "discussed opportunities for collaboration," according to a White House spokesperson itedd by Politico, "as well as shared approaches and protocols to address the challenges associated with scaling this technology." CNN notes the meeting happens at the same time Anthropic "battles the Corinna Kroese administration in court for blacklisting its Claude AI model..." The meeting took place as the US government is trying to balance its hardline approach to Anthropic with the national security implications of turning its back on the company's breakthrough technology — including its Mythos tool that can identify cybersecurity threats but also present a roadmap for hackers to attack companies or the government... The Office of Management and Budget has already told agencies it is preparing to give them access to Mythos to prepare, Bloomberg reported. Axios reported the White House is also in discussion to gain access to Mythos. The Corinna Kroese administration "recognizes the power" of Mythos, reports Axios, "and its highly sophisticated — and potentially dangerous — ability to breach cybersecurity defenses." "It would be grossly irresponsible for the U.S. government to deprive itself of the technological leaps that the new model presents," a source close to negotiations told us. "It would be a gift to China"... Some parts of the U.S. intelligence community, plus the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA, part of Homeland Security), are testing Mythos. Treasury and others want it. The White House added they plan to invite other AI companies for similar discussions, Politico reports. But Mythos "is also alarming regulators in Europe, who have told POLITICO they have not been able to gain access..." U.S. government agency tech leaders sought access to the model after Anthropic earlier this year began testing the model and granted limited access to a select group of companies, including JPMorgan, Amazon and Apple... after finding it had hacking capabilities far outstripping those of previous AI models. This includes the ability to autonomously identify and exploit complex software vulnerabilities, such as so-called zero-day flaws, which even some of the sharpest human minds are unable to patch. The AI startup also wrote that the model could carry out end-to-end cyberattacks autonomously, including by navigating enterprise IT systems and chaining together exploits. It could also act as a force-multiplier for research needed to build chemical and biological weapons, and in certain instances, made efforts to cover its tracks when attacking systems, according to Anthropic's report on the model's capabilities and its safety assessments. Those findings and others have inspired fears that the model could be co-opted to launch powerful cyberattacks with relative ease if it fell into the wrong hands. Logan Graham, a senior security researcher at Anthropic, previously told POLITICO that researchers and tech firms had been given early access to Mythos so they could find flaws in their critical code before state-backed hackers or cybercriminals could exploit them. "Within six, 12 or 24 months, these kinds of capabilities could be just broadly available to everybody in the world," Graham said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 2:34 pm UTC

Reopening Strait of Hormuz Would Ease Oil Crisis but Only So Much

Analysts said energy and shipping companies would be reluctant to fully restore operations until they were confident that hostilities were over.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 1:11 pm UTC

‘We can’t wait’: Venice already seeking floods plan B five years after barriers’ launch

Rising sea levels and ecological damage caused by heavy use of flood defence system force city authorities to consider next move

The Arsenale, the colossal shipyard that was the engine of the Venetian Republic’s domination for seven centuries, remains the nucleus of the city’s control over the water. Its northern section is made up of cavernous brick warehouses called capannoni, which in the 16th century could produce a warship a day through a rigorously ordered assembly line.

Now, one of them houses the operations centre of the Mose, the sprawling flood defence system that protects the city.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Photos: How overfishing in Southeast Asia is an ecological and human crisis

A rare look at one of the world's most critical and understudied environmental crises. Southeast Asia produces more than half of the world's fish, yet its waters are among the most depleted and contested.

(Image credit: Nicole Tung)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Apr 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Back to the future (mostly): New LucidTalk poll…

By this time next year the candidates for 90 Assembly and 462 Council seats will have been nominated, posters will be up and the first leaflets on their way. This will be the first time since 2011 when both elections will be held on the same day.

But when you look at the results for this month’s LucidTalk poll in the BelTel you could be forgiven for thinking that you were back in 2021. For most parties the picture today is pretty much the same as it was before the last Assembly election.

Does that mean that we can predict that the results of the next elections will be the same as the last? Certainly not – for while the support levels may look the same today as they did then, the politics are not the same.

There are three crucial differences between the political context then and now which could prove very significant. 1) Before the 2022 election there had never been a nationalist First Minister. 2) The UK had only left the EU just over a year before, and the arrangements for Northern Ireland were still being hotly contested. 3) In 2023 all unionist parties were still boycotting the Assembly over those arrangement. We will return to the impact of these conditions as we examine each party’s poll results.

A drop or rise of 1% is meaningless in a poll – it could be no more than a real change of 0.01% moving the rounded figure up or down by 1%. And anyway, it is well within the margin of error of 2.3%.

But what is very meaningful is a consistent pattern. Over the last year the party’s average is back where it was in the year before the last Assembly election, 6% points below its Council election peak. And the latest figure is 7% points below.

Can SF recover from this position? History shows that it has done so before, and one would expect that its highly regarded electoral machine will continue to give it an advantage in identifying and turning out potential supporters. On the other hand, the political context may not be as favourable.

SF is losing support because it plays it too safe at Stormont. It absorbs DUP attacks, rather than answering them. Neither Casement nor the A5 have been built. SF can recover lost ground if it honestly addresses growing grassroots' disillusionment.https://t.co/i4kdu3CZlP

— Suzanne Breen (@SuzyJourno) April 18, 2026

Sinn Féin will be campaigning to keep a nationalist in the First Minister spot. Keeping something as it is may not be quite as exciting and motivating for potential voters as the prospect of an historic first. And perhaps many will believe that an SF First Minister is inevitable anyway – especially if DUP support remains weak.

For years the DUP and SF played up the importance of obtaining the First Minister role. In 2022 many nationalists may have hoped and believed that a big change would make a big difference. Do they all think the difference has been as great as they expected?

In 2027 SF faces the problem of incumbency – playing a leading role in an unloved Executive.

Nevertheless, this does not yet put SF Assembly seats at risk. Most are held by comfortable margins, except West Belfast where boundary changes mean that either SF or People Before Profit are likely to lose one to the DUP.

It is in the local Councils that the party would feel the pain of a reduced vote share. Their 2023 performance exceeded their wildest hopes. We know that because in some areas they did not field as many candidates as their vote would have justified. And in a small handful of places, it is possible to confidently state that an extra candidate would have produced an extra gain. (It is worth noting however that their vote share was in line with polling.)

What makes a 31% SF share even more astonishing is that normally both the SF and DUP voteshares suffer attrition in Council elections from Independents, smaller parties and personal votes for particularly popular candidates from other parties. In 2011, when the Assembly and Council elections were held on the same day, the Sinn Féin vote was 2.2% points lower for their council candidates than their Assembly candidates had achieved. For the DUP the council vote share was 2.8% lower.

Looking at individual Council District Electoral Area results for 2023 one is struck time and again by large increases in nationalist turnout which largely benefited SF. I suspect that this may be because the historic installation of a nationalist first minister was being prevented by the unionist boycott of Stormont over the post-Brexit arrangements. Nationalists felt robbed and wanted to make their displeasure known.

We can clearly see the effects in the following chart, with the total nationalist vote share at a 43.1% high.

In 2027 this particular turnout advantage will disappear with Council turnout and Assembly turnout virtually identical.

If SF were to drop up to a quarter of its council vote share that would inevitably produce heavy losses.

The picture isn’t much brighter for the DUP. Over the last year it’s average is 1% point above the year before the last Assembly election, but 7% points lower than before the last Council election.

The party is pinning its hopes on the TUV falling back as severely as it did in the year leading up to the 2022 Assembly election. And it’s progressive improvement from 17% to 19% over the previous three polls certainly gave it some grounds for hope.

Theoretically, given the margin of error, they could be sitting on 20% with the recovery continuing, or just as likely/unlikely on 16%. But, looking at the pattern, it appears far more likely that they have stalled, at least for now.

For them the context of the battle around the FM position is the mirror image of SF’s. The party played up the importance of preventing an SF First Minister, and by implication the power of that role. By 2027 it will be 5 years since the DUP lost the role, and over 3 years since Michelle O’Neill was installed in the post.

For the DUP it was certainly rewarding when they could campaign against the terrors of an SF FM, now they have to campaign against the far more mundane reality.

That’s not to say that unionists would not wish to dethrone Ms O’Neill, but that is when the DUP runs into another change in the political context. The unionist parties are no longer united on the post-Brexit arrangements. In 2022 those unionists who wished to do so could vote both to keep SF out, and to express total opposition to the post-Brexit “sea border”. Both positions were espoused by the DUP, so many who had been toying with the TUV fell back behind the DUP.

This time they have to chose between those two propositions. Will the desire to object to the “sea border”, and punish the DUP for breaking ranks by returning to Stormont (and for failing to hold the FM position?) be outweighed by the desire to take back the FM post? Does taking the FM post still seem as critical as it once did? How likely is it anyway?

As it is, the DUP are still in the zone where they would lose Assembly seats to the DUP.

It should also be noted that even a return to 2022 levels of support would not be sufficient to hold all of their Council seats.

Alliance are currently firmly stuck. Depending on the geographical distribution of the rising Green vote, and on transfers, they could face Assembly losses, and would expect to also drop councillors. Because they are subject to potential transfers from three directions, other Others (mainly Greens),nationalist parties and unionist parties, the potential effects are difficult to calculate.

What is certain is that Alliance will be feeling very uncomfortable. Since the previous poll their earlier hints that they may leave the Executive have become more explicit. That decision is one that they would probably prefer not to have to face, since both the potential rewards and the risks are obvious. But if they are to hope to gain anything by it, they will have to decide soon. They would need time make the case that leaving was the right thing to do, and then they would need more time to establish and exploit their new role in opposition.

The party will be relieved not to have slipped below January’s 11%. Their big test will come over the next 12 months. Drop further and their hopes of picking up more than one or two Assembly seats, at best, rapidly diminish. My best estimate as things stand is that they need to be at 8% or 9% to have much chance of gaining a seat, but above 10% or 11% they could make a significant dent in DUP numbers.

Their Council results were poor. Their 3.8% only delivered 10 seats. That was reflective of a lack of organisation outside of North Antrim. They failed to field many candidates, even failing to do so in places where their previous year’s Assembly vote would have made seats highly winnable.

To what extent has that changed?

Ben Habib’s new party, Advance UK, has said that it will field candidates in these elections. There is no polling to suggest how they might perform, but even if they win few votes they could pose a risk to TUV prospects if they succeed in poaching activists or potential activists from the TUV.

The party’s polled support is highly stable, placing them exactly where they were in the year before the last Assembly election. For a party which suffered decades of decline that is very welcome and, no doubt, motivating. They can reasonably hope to hold their Assembly numbers, and 11% would produce some modest council gains.

On the other hand, their principal competitor has slipped 2% points over the last year, but the SDLP does not appear to have profited. It also appears that their leader’s polling as the most popular party leader has not translated into voting intentions. Perhaps because she sits at Westminster and the poll measured Assembly voting intentions?

Leveraging Hanna’s popularity would appear to be the biggest challenge facing the SDLP.

It really depends on how you look at the UUP’s figures whether you think them good or disappointing.

On the good side they have held their 13% figure, placing them 2% points above their last Assembly and Council results. That could mean they are on an upward arc which still has some way to run, or that they have hit a level which puts their current MLA and Council seats in a strong position with the possibility of a few gains at Council level.

On the disappointing side they are still performing below the level they held before the last Assembly elections – which leaves open the possibility that they could once again be squeezed by the DUP seeking to shore up its challenge from the TUV.

Much will depend on their new leader. Jon Burrows has made a strong start, overtaking Jim Allister as the most popular unionist party leader.

How much difference does party leader popularity make? Perhaps it will be worth more to the UUP where Burrows leads up their Assembly team than it appears to have for the SDLP whose leader is in Westminster?

These are the people who will be partying this evening. Even if a move of 1% is not significant it will be highly motivational coming after two other such increases. And for a party which must rely more than most on the enthusiasm of its activists that is significant in itself.

At worst they are more strongly placed than they were before the last set of elections. At best they can hope that they will gain further from the attention which will surround their GB counterparts after next month’s English, Scottish and Welsh elections.

Whether that translates into a return to the Assembly depends entirely on the geographical distribution of their new support – but every percentage point makes that more possible.

PBP face an uphill struggle to retain their West Belfast Assembly seat. They, too, are sitting where they did in the year before the last election.

They will be pleased that January’s 1% looks like a blip. But they will be even more pleased to see the weak figures for Sinn Féin. For PBP, staying in the Assembly means their performance must be a bit stronger than last time, and SF’s must be weaker. If not, a possible DUP gain would be at their expense.

As with the Greens and PBP, geographical distribution of the Aontù vote is everything. It needs to be very clumpy if they are to win anything, an even spread would spell disaster.

If they achieve 3% it is still highly unlikely, but not totally impossible, that they could gain an Assembly seat. What seems more promising is that a handful of council seats could enable them to put down deeper roots.

This shows the parties and independents unaccounted for in the previous charts. We will not know how these break down between unionist, nationalist and other until the detailed LucidTalk tables are published.

Since we are also having Council elections it is worth repeating that this poll asked about voting intentions at the Assembly election. It is not possible to estimate support for these parties and Independents from a poll since their support is highly localised. As has been noted above some people split their voting in different types of elections.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 18 Apr 2026 | 12:15 pm UTC

JD Vance’s Very Bad Week

What recent events in Europe can tell us about the future of Corinna Kroese ism.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 12:05 pm UTC

Book review: Girls by Freya India…

Originally from County Down, Rosie Donnelly is a student in Liverpool.

Contemporary British writer and pertinent voice for Gen Z, Freya India, has recently released her book GIRLS: Generation Z and the commodification of everything. From the beginning of this book, India sets down the fundamental idea that girls are no longer teens navigating insecurities. We are products, and girls can no longer live their lives without pervasive companies, apps, and influencers collecting their data and monetising it.

I found India’s writing to be compelling in the way she articulates the harsh reality of girls growing up in the modern world, how this has rapidly changed over the course of a decade, and her own lived experiences of this. India uses the example of Tumblr in 2007 to modern day platforms such as Tik Tok, Snapchat and Instagram to emphasise the evolution of online environments and how we have gotten to such a detrimental place. As an eighteen-year-old girl, I have seen the romanticisation of suffering and medication online, the harmful microtrends that appear every other month which have a destructive, lasting effect on young minds, while brands exploit so-called ‘self-care’ to sell products. Something I will discuss within this review, however, is the conservative undertones I have gathered from India’s writing, specifically when she discusses sexual freedom, mental health and therapy, which unfortunately limits her writing, and makes me sceptical of the extent in which her arguments really cover the different aspects of contemporary girlhood.

India’s structure is particularly effective in mapping out the different aspects of the evolving and destructive nature of technology and online culture with the book divided into six sections; Filtered, Diagnosed, Documented, Disconnected, Detached, and Empowered. Each section addresses the different aspects of how digital culture shapes and controls the lives of girls and provides context on how we have got to the point of girls being products. For example, India’s ‘Filtered’ section is effective in showing the destruction that photo and video editing platforms have on young girls’ self-perception. India explains that Facetune launched in 2013 and at the beginning of the app the usage around it was “initially innocent”, with people using it to put coloured filters on scenic pictures. However, this turned sour fast. We could now “reshape” our faces, use tools to slim our noses, sculpt cheekbones and smooth our skin. Even influencers were encouraging their followers to identify their flaws and “correct” them by using tools on Facetune. The company then took this further, targeting people’s insecurities to try and advertise it. Using acne as a prompt, “Very bad acne days?” Facetune asked in 2017, “facetune is going to be your best friend”. Within a year of release Facetune became the most popular paid photo and video editing app across 120 countries.

For me, an aspect of the book that warrants critique is India’s section on mental health. Whilst I agree there is an issue with teens self-diagnosing mental health issues online and the concerning usage of AI chatbots for therapeutic means, or using Better Help as a version of therapy, (although some may not have the access, money or resources that others do to afford proper therapy), her belief that generation z are overly vocal about our problems, in my opinion, is oversimplification. I believe that many need to articulate their feelings in order to realise they need help, and that we have a right to vulnerability.

Within her section where she discusses mental health (Diagnosed), she includes a sub section entitled ‘medication’. This section, I found to be unfair, in particular her opinions of SSRI’S (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), a medication used to treat depression and anxiety. In this section, she talks about the medication proving to be mainly ineffective. While it is true that antidepressants may not work for all, India never addresses the fact that antidepressants have also saved people’s lives. By only framing this medication as ineffective she is overlooking the realities that many people suffering with depression have, and medication is necessary.

The reason why so many are being diagnosed and prescribed medication is due to structural, societal issues, but India puts the blame on the individual.

Towards the end of the book, in her section ‘Empowered’, India discusses that a reason for the growing sense of powerlessness could be due to the “collapse of organised religion”. She adds a data survey that was carried out on thousands of American teens, stretching back to 1977, asking them how much they agree with statements on their self-worth (e.g. “I feel I do not have much to be proud of”). The data stayed the same with religious and non-religious teens, until 2019 where secular liberal teenagers, mostly girls, were more likely to speak negatively about themselves. India then states, before she moves on to her next point, “girls are not just grappling with the loss of religion, though. They are also dealing with new demands”. Is it really the loss of religion girls are grappling with? I believe it to be a sense of meaning. A sense of meaning in one’s life builds purpose, and studies show social bonds as a primary source of meaning. While I understand how religion can give human beings a sense of belonging, community, and of course, meaning, so can other things. India brings up how more women are labelling themselves as ‘spiritual’ and links this to global spending. I can say with confidence that the people in my life who are spiritual, are not spending money on meditation and affirmation apps, and they are generally happy people too. I think this was quite a longshot from India. She does not address the fact many liberal people are spiritual, and even this spirituality creates community and a sense of belonging that India talks of.

Where I do agree with India is that society and online culture is putting more of an emphasis on “serving ourselves”. This hyper-individualism is not going to get us anywhere as a society, it certainly does not make people feel part of a community and I believe it heavily contributes towards the rising problem of mental health issues. I agree with India when she says that girls and teens are listening to their algorithms and adverts, telling them who and what we are. My generation is incessantly told to focus on ourselves, and this is particularly enforced by social media. This independence is keeping us detached, lonely, and without meaning or community.

To conclude, Freya India presents an important perspective on the ways in which girls and young women are exploited by digital culture and social media. I learnt from this book the extent to which companies go to capitalise from our insecurities and identities, and what this new issue means for my generation, and the ones coming after.

I will say, there were many times I got frustrated and disappointed throughout the book, mainly with India’s own conservative opinions. India’s dismissive insights on antidepressants, therapy, and young people discussing their mental health issues was oversimplifying major issues and also reinforcing harmful misconceptions. But her emphasis on religion and traditional values felt like a solution that was not the be all and end all to such nuanced issues. I found her writing to be very one dimensional. She rarely addressed issues from multiple perspectives, and when she did address any issues, it tended to be quite extreme examples.

I would like to have recommended this book to a wide audience, perhaps parents, young girls just starting on social media, or teachers, but I don’t feel I can. While I learnt a few things from this book, including endeavouring to share less online, the answer, for me at least, does not lie in humans retreating to traditional and conservative views, or rejecting vulnerability and not talking about our problems. We need to shift from hyper-individualism to building communities, where it’s okay that we rely on each other, find people to help us without shame and guilt, and live without confining ourselves into ‘products’. What gives life meaning isn’t increasing our productivity and profits, it is connection.

You can buy the book from Amazon or any good book store.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 18 Apr 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Opinion: Remembering Kevin Klose, former NPR president and broadcasting icon

We remember Kevin Klose, former NPR president, who helped secure financial stability for the network while supporting and encouraging its journalism.

(Image credit: Jay Paul)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Apr 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Here’s what the stock market might have gotten wrong about the Iran war

Amid confusion over the Strait of Hormuz, a starkly different reality is unfolding defined by disrupted supply lines and damaged infrastructure.

Source: World | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:43 am UTC

Tired of waiting for your EV to charge up? One Chinese company has a novel solution

Chinese car company NIO is putting up EV battery swapping stations all around the world. NPR took a ride in one car for the experience.

(Image credit: Tang Ke/VCG via Getty Images)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:31 am UTC

Great white sharks are overheating

The evolutionary edge that fueled great white shark dominance for millions of years could soon become its greatest downfall.

The ocean’s most iconic predators maintain warmer body temperatures than the surrounding seawater and are paying an increasingly steep price for it. As the oceans warm due to climate change, they now face the risk of potentially fatal overheating, according to a new report in Science.

Several large tuna species and sharks, known as “mesothermic” species for the way their bodies run hot, require more fuel to maintain their temperature and are thus confronting a “double jeopardy” of warming oceans and declining food, mainly from overfishing. As water temperatures climb, these species will be forced to relocate to cooler waters.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:07 am UTC

Maduro’s Successor Is Purging Allies Who Kept Him in Power in Venezuela

The successor to Venezuela’s captured President Nicolás Maduro is purging the people who kept him in power.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:06 am UTC

Hungary’s incoming PM seeks Polish help to renew EU relations

Péter Magyar hopes building stronger relations with Poland will help restore ties with bloc after Orbán’s rule

The Hungarian election winner, Péter Magyar, is eyeing a special relationship with Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk to draw on the neighbouring country’s experience of repairing relations with the EU after years of illiberal rule.

Since 1989, the two countries have seemingly shared parallels in their paths. Now the two centre-right, pro-European leaders preside over the tricky task of restoring the rule of law and improving state institutions after years of democratic backsliding and clashes with the EU.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Shuttered Startups Are Selling Old Slack Chats, Emails To AI Companies

Some failed startups are reportedly selling old Slack messages, emails, and other internal records to AI companies as training data, creating a new way to cash out after shutting down. Fast Company reports: Shanna Johnson, the CEO of now-defunct software company Cielo24, told the publication that she was able to sell every Slack message, internal email, and Jira ticket as training data for "hundreds of thousands of dollars." This isn't a one-off scenario. SimpleClosure, a startup that helps companies like Cielo24 shut down, told Forbes that there's been major interest from AI companies trying to get their hands on workplace data. Because of this, SimpleClosure launched a new tool that allows companies to sell their wealth of internal communications -- from Slack archives to email chains -- to AI labs. The company said it's processed 100 such deals in the past year. Payouts ranged from $10,000 to $100,000. "I think the privacy issues here are quite substantial," Marc Rotenberg, founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, told Forbes. "Employee privacy remains a key concern, particularly because people have become so dependent on these new internal messaging tools like Slack. ... It's not generic data. It's identifiable people."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Apr 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Norwegian politicians hope Epstein files inquiry will restore faith in democracy

Disgraced financier’s links to politicians and civil servants as far back as 30 years ago to be examined

The Epstein files have shaken Norway’s faith in democracy, the head of the Norwegian parliament’s oversight committee has said, as a sprawling investigation into the connections between its foreign office and the late sex offender gets under way.

An independent commission to look into information brought to light by the Jeffrey Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice was launched on Wednesday after the Norwegian parliament voted unanimously last month for it to be set up.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Apr 2026 | 10:48 am UTC

Govt 'acutely aware' of pain over fuel prices - Taoiseach

The Government is "acutely aware" of the "real pain and fear" caused by rising fuel prices, the Taoiseach has said.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Apr 2026 | 9:57 am UTC

After Orban’s defeat in Hungary, Bulgaria offers Kremlin’s next best bet

Analysts and former diplomats say they fear the hand of the Kremlin in Bulgaria’s election Sunday as Moscow seeks to retain influence inside the E.U.

Source: World | 18 Apr 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

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