Category: World

“When you are half-naked or even sometimes completely naked, it allows for deeper discussion,” said Mikko Hautala, the ambassador of Finland to the United States. “You talk in a way that doesn’t happen when you are sitting around a table with a tie on or at some formal thing.”

Diplomacy takes shape in different ways: formal meetings in the Oval Office and state dinners in the White House’s grand East Room; casual receptions at embassies; and one-on-one meetings over martinis in the lobbies of five-star hotels.

And then there is the way the Finnish government prefers to conduct business. They like for their networking and meetings to happen in the sauna and, for the most part, in the nude.

“We have a golden rule that whatever happens in the sauna stays in the sauna,” Ambassador Hautala said. “We try to make sure there is full trust and confidence.”

In Finland, the sauna is part of everyday life, the ambassador explained. “There are 5.5 million people and three million saunas,” he said. “Even a small flat has a sauna.”

The Finns use it multiple times a week in the evenings or mornings before their day begins, in a ritual that involves showering, sitting in extreme heat and cooling off in cold water. That practice, which is traditionally performed without a bathing suit, is repeated multiple times before saunagoers sit down for a healthy meal. It is a social experience.

Sixteen years ago the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., decided to invite influential people — politicians, diplomats, journalists, civil servants and academics — to experience the sauna together as a means of networking.

The Diplomatic Sauna Society, as the gatherings are now called, is now a coveted invitation in the Beltway, thanks to Finland’s growing influence in international affairs and the desire of busy professionals to live healthier lives.

“There are a lot of people trying to get a ticket, and it is very sought after,” said Robbie Gramer, 33, who writes about diplomacy and national security for Foreign Policy magazine. After he wrote about his experience, “I got a flood of people from the state department, Pentagon, congressional staffers, other reporters all asking me how I got in and ‘Can you put in a good word for me?’”

“I get inquiries from congressmen or congresswomen to come to the sauna,” Ambassador Hautala said. The embassy estimated that it fielded several requests a week.

In Washington, there are two types of Diplomatic Sauna Society events. (Similar setups exist in Finnish embassies around the world, including in Berlin and London.) In the first, the Finnish delegation gathers a group of 15 to 20 people at the embassy about once a month. The evening starts in a dark downstairs bar, lit by a neon sign that reads “Sauna.” The attendees are separated by gender, and each group is taken into a fitting room stocked with Marimekko robes and Lumene bathing products.

Participants undress — nudity is encouraged, but bathing suits are allowed — and then go through the sauna ritual: shower, heat, cold, repeat. After a few rounds, everyone changes and heads back into the bar area. Drinks and traditional Finnish snacks are served, including salmon on rye bread with dill sauce and meatballs.

The ambassador also hosts weekly sauna diplomacy sessions in his private residence. His sauna is smaller (it can fit about 10 people), and it’s located outside, with a pool to cool off.

All attendees receive a diploma that says, “Membership in the Society is awarded only to individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary sisu (grit) by conversing effortlessly and eloquently in the 180-degree Fahrenheit heat of the embassy’s diplomatic sauna.”

“I posted a photo of mine on Twitter. It was an honor,” said Marie Royce, who was an assistant secretary of state under the Trump administration.

Mr. Gramer, the journalist, said the sauna gatherings were a welcome change from other events in the nation’s capital. “Embassies in D.C. always have different events, and oftentimes they are buttoned-up and pretty boring,” he said. “The sauna is different,” he said. “It’s a lot warmer. It’s a lot more welcoming.”

Source: https://dnyuz.com/2024/08/25/whatever-happens-in-the-sauna-stays-in-the-sauna-diplomacy-conducted-in-the-nude/

San Francisco’s long relationship with X is nearly over — and city officials are far from heartbroken.

Elon Musk is shuttering his social media company’s headquarters in a gritty downtown neighborhood in the coming weeks and will move its last employees based there south to offices in Palo Alto and San Jose. New headquarters will be set up in Texas.

But city officials are not lamenting the exit. X bears little resemblance to the company that San Francisco wooed with a tax break more than a decade ago, when it was Twitter, to help anchor a budding tech hub in a downtrodden neighborhood near City Hall known as Mid-Market. The pandemic, and Mr. Musk’s 2022 acquisition of the company and subsequent gutting of its work force, reduced the headquarters to a ghost town.

“I share the perspective that most San Franciscans have, which is good riddance,” said City Attorney David Chiu, who as a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors backed the tax break that lured Twitter to Mid-Market in 2012.

Twitter once symbolized San Francisco’s status as a start-up capital. But the city’s nonchalant response to the move — amid public posts from Mr. Musk about San Francisco’s inflexible tax policies and liberal politics — shows officials are now less willing to cater to companies considering a move.

Mr. Musk and X did not respond to requests for comment.

Twitter was founded in San Francisco in 2006. In 2011, it threatened to forsake its hometown for tiny Brisbane, just over the city’s southern border, which wouldn’t levy payroll taxes.

San Francisco’s mayor then, Ed Lee, coping with the lingering effects of a recession and a nearly 10 percent unemployment rate, proposed a so-called Twitter tax break. The deal would erase the 1.5 percent payroll tax on new hires for certain companies in Mid-Market. Those companies would, in turn, create jobs and enliven a neighborhood that struggled with crime, vacancies and homelessness.

After Twitter moved into the new headquarters at 1355 Market Street, its payroll swelled from a few hundred to a few thousand people. The cavernous ground floor became home to upscale bars and restaurants — where people could eat antelope, elk and pig ears.

By 2017, 59 new companies had set up shop nearby, including Uber, Square and Zendesk. Several luxury apartment buildings went up. The boom helped expand the city budget, but also contributed to spiking housing costs.

Many of the tech companies also provided free food, so workers didn’t spend as much at local businesses as city leaders had hoped. The Twitter tax break ended in 2019, with politicians considering its success mixed.

Then came the pandemic. Offices emptied, and foot traffic dried up. Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder and its chief executive at the time, announced that employees could work from home forever.

In October 2022, Mr. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and soon slashed jobs. Last year, he renamed the company and erected on the roof a giant “X” sign that flashed at night, upsetting neighbors and landing him in trouble with the city.

“It’s like a zombie version of the old Twitter, and I think what a lot of people are feeling is: Just put this bird out of its misery,” said Yao Yue, a software engineer who worked at Twitter for 12 years and was let go after Mr. Musk’s takeover.

Mr. Musk, who clashed with state regulators over pandemic stay-at-home orders and has increasingly enmeshed himself in right-wing politics, recently indicated that he was souring on San Francisco. In July, he posted online that he had been trapped in the company’s garage “because a gang was doing drugs in the street and wouldn’t move!”

Mr. Musk said last month that he would move X’s headquarters to Austin, Texas, after California passed a law that bans school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if their children change their gender identification. He also blamed San Francisco’s gross receipts tax, which taxes local businesses for transactions that take place outside city limits.

He said the tax unfairly penalizes businesses that process payments — something he hopes X will do. “X could not remain in SF and launch payments, as it would immediately fail,” he posted in July.

Mayor London Breed said she met with Mr. Musk once several months ago and had texted with him. She said she had not offered X anything to stay, but wanted to maintain good relationships with all chief executives in her city.

Source: https://dnyuz.com/2024/08/24/elon-musks-x-is-leaving-san-francisco-city-officials-say-good-riddance/

OVER 100 people have been rescued by helicopter after they got trapped by flash floods near the Grand Canyon – but one hiker remains missing.

Searchers have been unable to find Chenoa Nickerson, 33, who is believed to have been swept away during monsoons in Havasuapi Indian Reservation in Arizona.

Nickerson was hiking about a half-mile from the Colorado River when flooding trapped her in the most remote area in the country on Thursday morning, ABC affiliate KNXV reported.

The National Guard managed to evacuate 104 other tourists and tribal members from the Grand Canyon area but are still searching for the hiker.

“My heart is with all of the people impacted by the flooding in Havasupai, including Tribal members and visitors to the area. I am closely monitoring the situation and we have deployed the Arizona National Guard to get people to safety,” Governor Katie Hobbs after the evacutaion.

“The safety and security of Arizonans and all those who visit our state is always my top concern, and I’ll continue working closely with leaders on the ground to protect the Havasupai community.”

Hobbs stated that the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs is coordinating with tribal, state, county, and federal agencies to help with evacuation efforts and to find Nickerson.

The Havasuapi Indian Reservation is one of the most desolate areas in the continental United States and is only accessible by mule, helicopter or foot, according to The Associated Press.

Nickerson’s sister Tamara Morales praised the efforts of the rescue crew for “navigating incredibly dangerous terrain with extremely limited methods of communication while leaving no stone unturned.”

“We are profoundly grateful for you and fully acknowledge that you are currently defying the impossible,” she posted on Facebook Saturday morning.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/12284103/grand-canyon-chenoa-nickerson-arizona/

He is one of the world’s richest people, often dubbed the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” – following his arrest in France, here is everything you need to know about Telegram founder Pavel Durov.

Billionaire Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested after arriving in France on his private jet at the weekend.

He was reportedly the subject of a search warrant, with French news outlets suggesting an investigation focused on a lack of moderators on the encrypted messaging app and potential criminal activity by users.

Telegram is one of the most downloaded apps in the world.

But who is the man behind it – and how does the app work?

‘Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg’

Born in Russia, Pavel Durov is the founder and owner of Telegram – a free-to-use messaging app that competes with other platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and TikTok.

His fortune is currently estimated by Forbes at $15.5bn (£11.7bn) – making him the 120th richest person in the world – and he is sometimes dubbed “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg”.

The 39-year-old left the country in 2014, a year after Telegram was launched, after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on VKontakte – an earlier social media platform he had founded with his brother, and later sold.

He moved to Dubai in 2017 and became a French citizen in August 2021.

Telegram’s popularity has led to rise in scrutiny

Bus accidents are common in Pakistan and these latest two come just days after another 28 Pakistani pilgrims died in neighbouring Iran after their bus overturned and caught fire.

At least 35 people have died, and dozens more injured, after two separate bus crashes took place just hours apart in Pakistan.

The first happened when a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims, returning from Iraq through Iran, fell from a highway into a ravine in southwest Pakistan killing at least 12 people and injuring 32 others, police and officials said.

It happened on the Makran coastal highway after the driver lost control of the bus when its brakes failed while passing through Lasbela district in Baluchistan province, local police chief Qazi Sabir said.

Hours later, dozens of people were killed when a bus fell into a ravine in Kahuta district in the eastern Punjab province, police and officials said.

Different figures are being reported by government officials and rescue coordinators, with the interior ministry saying 29 have died, while rescue works say 22 were killed and one critically injured.

Bus accidents are common in Pakistan and these latest two come just days after another 28 Pakistani pilgrims died in neighbouring Iran after their bus overturned and caught fire due to a faulty braking system.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/at-least-35-people-dead-after-two-separate-bus-crashes-in-pakistan-13202952

“Short and Sweet” might be Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth album, but even she says it feels more like her second. After the creative breakthrough of 2022’s “Emails I Can’t Send” — which we’ll call her “Disney-mancipation” after nearly a decade as a child star — “S n’ S” is the powerful next step in her evolution as an artist, person and persona.

You already know the persona from this album’s two lead singles, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” and their videos: A woman who’s pretty but tough, funny, sassy, confident, sexually up-front and with a fiery mean streak, but who’s not without insecurities and heartache. The songs here are nearly all about love, every kind of it: True love, stupid love, crushes, I-really-should-know-better love that’s actually lust, revenge, both sides of infidelity, and, especially on the last two songs, heartbreak. But mostly, along with the effervescent hooks the album’s lead singles have led fans to expect, there’s even more of the “Did she just say what I think she said?” in the lyrics, which are filled with f-bombs, sexual innuendos and hilarious put-downs that are even more withering because she sings nearly all of them so sweetly.

Like what? “Try to come off like you’re soft and well-spoken/ Jack off to lyrics by Leonard Cohen” (“Dumb and Poetic”); “Last week, you didn’t have any doubts/ This week, you’re holding space for her tongue in your mouth” (“Coincidence”); “I showed my friends, then we high-fived/ Sorry if you feel objеctified” (“Juno”); “Where art thou? Why not uponeth me?” (“Bed Chem”); “I heard you’re back together and if that’s true/ You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you” (“Taste”); “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/ I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherfucker” (“Please Please Please”); and, er, “I’m so fuckin’ horny” (“Juno”). Subtext: We can have fun but don’t mess with me.

Romanian authorities towed away a fleet of luxury vehicles Saturday from the home of the divisive social media personality Andrew Tate, days after he was placed under house arrest following new human trafficking allegations.

Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan Tate, 36, both former kickboxers and dual British-U.S. citizens with millions of followers on social media and known for their misogynistic views, are already awaiting trial in Romania, along with two women. They were charged with human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape in that case.

The luxury vehicles, impounded from their home near the capital, included a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Mercedes-Benz, McLaren and a more humble-looking classic red Lada. The seizure came two days after Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, raided four homes in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county and detained six people, including the Tate brothers. Officers also confiscated thousands of dollars in cash, laptops and data storage drives.

One of the Tates’ lawyers, Georgiana Popa, told reporters outside the brothers’ home Saturday that the seizures are “legal, but unfounded” and said it has been contested.

“The cars are not (the brothers’) property,” she said, without providing additional information.

The Tate brothers appeared on Thursday at a Bucharest court as prosecutors sought to remand them in custody. But a judge denied that request and placed Andrew Tate under house and Tristan Tate under judicial control, which typically involves restricting contact with certain people and having to periodically report to the police. The brothers’ spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said that the Tates firmly deny all allegations against them and “remain steadfast in proving their innocence.”

In the new case, DIICOT, said that it’s investigating allegations of human trafficking, including the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, forming an organized criminal group, money laundering, and influencing statements.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/andrew-tate-luxury-vehicles-seized-human-trafficking-76457ce6c2e1e394114fed7c9a106221

A rare but deadly disease spread by mosquitoes has one town in Massachusetts closing its parks and fields each evening. Four other towns are urging people to avoid going outdoors at night.

They’re concerned about eastern equine encephalitis. State health officials announced last week a man in his 80s had caught the disease, the first human case found in Massachusetts since 2020.

The town of Plymouth, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Boston, announced Friday that it’s closing public outdoor recreation facilities from dusk until dawn each day after a horse in the town was infected with the disease.

Meanwhile, state health officials warned that a cluster of four towns south of Worcester — Douglas, Oxford, Sutton and Webster — are at “critical risk” after a man from Oxford caught the virus.

State and local health officials urged people in those towns to avoid the peak mosquito biting times by finishing outdoor activities by 6 p.m. until Sept. 30 and then by 5 p.m. after that, until the first hard frost.

They also recommend that people across Massachusetts use mosquito repellents when outdoors and drain any standing water around their homes.

Jennifer Callahan, Oxford’s town manager, wrote in a memo that the family of the man who caught the virus in mid August had reached out to her office.

“They want people to be aware this is an extremely serious disease with terrible physical and emotional consequences, regardless if the person manages to live,” Callahan wrote.

Callahan said the family is urging people to take the public health advice seriously and to do their utmost to protect themselves.

While it’s her first time skydiving, Manette Baillie is no stranger to pushing herself to her limits – she celebrated her 100th birthday behind the wheel of a Ferrari racing car at Silverstone.

A woman from Suffolk plans to mark her 102nd birthday on Sunday with a record-breaking skydive.

Manette Baillie will become the oldest person in Britain to skydive when she jumps from a plane over East Anglia on Sunday.

The US presidential candidate is believed to have links to a town in County Antrim but whereas transatlantic ties are normally a cause for celebration, in the town of Ballymoney there is a strange unwillingness to embrace its most famous daughter.

In the heart of Ballymoney, a small town in Northern Ireland’s County Antrim, bike leather-clad tourists seek out a well-manicured memorial garden.

Astride his motorbike, a life-sized statue of champion racer Joey Dunlop leans back, arms folded, a victorious grin engraved for eternity. The late King of the Roads, a local legend, still commands pilgrimage from around the world.

There are statues too of his brother Robert, and nephew William, all three men taken before their time, snatched away by one of the world’s most dangerous sports.

Down the street, drinkers sip pints in the sunshine outside Joey’s Bar, beneath his smiling image. This place knows how to celebrate its sons.

Yet there is a strange reticence to embrace the ancestral ties that might see Ballymoney blood in the Oval Office. A reluctance to acknowledge the town’s most famous daughter. “You’ll not get them to talk on that,” one man told me. And I soon found out how right he was.

Five years ago, Donald J Harris, father of Kamala Harris, revealed his belief that he is descended from Hamilton Brown, born in Ballymoney around 1776. Brown emigrated to Jamaica and ran sugar plantations. He owned scores of slaves, some treated harshly.

In an essay by Harris, published by the Jamaica Global Online website, the Stanford University professor wrote: “My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (nee Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town).” Donald J Harris emigrated to the US from Jamaica in 1961.

That story has been given fresh impetus since Joe Biden paved the way for Kamala Harris to become the Democratic presidential candidate. In recent weeks, a County Antrim historian said he had found documentation shedding further light on Hamilton Brown.

Stephen McCracken told the local newspaper, the Ballymoney Chronicle, that he had discovered letters connecting Brown to his birthplace in Bracough, a townland just outside Ballymoney. He told the newspaper that Brown was “a seriously bad man, who travelled to London a few times to campaign against the abolition of slavery”.

The Irish Times picked up on the story, as did the Belfast Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

“I’ve been getting a wee bit of abuse over it,” McCracken told the Irish Times. “People have been asking me why I’ve publicised it.”

When I asked him for an interview, he declined, citing an abusive backlash via social media, including Kamala Harris supporters accusing him of trying to wreck her campaign.

Right-wing and pro-Trump memes have circulated since 2019, painting the Harris family as “descended from slave owners”, without any context. These tropes deliberately ignore the ugly explanation that slave owners commonly raped their female slaves, explaining why many black Jamaicans have European genes.

In the ultra-polarised world of American politics, Kamala supporters were allegedly hitting out at those publicising her heritage, seeing it as ammunition for further MAGA propaganda.

Meanwhile, the Ballymoney Chronicle carried a follow-up piece practically debunking the original claim of lineage. A qualified genealogist told the paper that the links were “unproven”, and said Hamilton Brown was not recorded as getting married or having children.

When I asked that genealogist for an interview – they agreed. The next day they abruptly cancelled, calling the story “a pile of nonsense”.

I asked McCracken for further details of his research. He stopped replying.

A third historian told me he didn’t think existing documentation would ever prove the link. “You’d need DNA testing,” he said.

I felt like I was encountering a wall of silence from others in Ballymoney. Multiple phone calls, messages and emails to a high-profile local DUP councillor went unanswered. A Sinn Fein colleague seemed unaware of the story and not overly interested in an interview. Ballymoney business owners declined to arrange interviews, or were not returning calls.

Repeated attempts to visit Ballymoney were abandoned due to rioting in Belfast. Another journey was aborted after the Sky News satellite van suffered a blow-out on a particularly inhospitable stretch of road.

The story was starting to feel a bit cursed.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/the-curious-tale-of-kamala-harris-and-the-northern-irish-slave-owner-13201008

The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed three people at a festival marking the city of Solingen’s 650th anniversary.

Police have arrested the person suspected of carrying out a knife attack that left three people dead at a festival in Germany, an official has said.

The 26-year-old man handed himself in and his involvement is currently being “intensively investigated”.

A 56-year-old woman and two men, aged 56 and 67, died following the attack in the city of Solingen on Friday. Eight people were injured, four seriously, while “many other people have suffered mental stress”.

Police said the attacker appeared to have deliberately aimed for his victims’ throats.

As part of investigations, a municipal accommodation center has been searched and a person found there who is said to have been in contact with the perpetrator – this person is currently being treated as a witness.

The internal affairs minister of North Rhein Westphalia, Herbert Reul, told the German public television network ARD on Saturday night: “We have been following a hot lead all day.

“The person we have been searching for all day has been detained a short while ago.”

Mr Reul added police not only have “clues” but also have collected “pieces of evidence”.

An Austrian chef who suffered a serious injury that left him disabled has made a remarkable comeback in the kitchen with the aid of device that allows him to “float” around his workplace.
Peter Lammer thought his career was over when he remained unable to stand despite several surgeries and six years of physiotherapy to recover from a motorbike accident.
Then his friend Bernhard Tichy, a carpenter and mountaineer who runs a nearby zipline adventure centre, came to the rescue with a hanging kitchen seat that takes the weight off his injured leg.

Boeing is also struggling with quality issues on production of commercial planes, its most important products.

Two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station in June aboard Boeing’s faulty Starliner capsule will need to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, NASA said on Saturday, deeming issues with Starliner’s propulsion system too risky to carry its first crew home.

The agency’s decision, tapping Boeing’s top space rival to return the astronauts, is one of NASA’s most consequential in years. Boeing had hoped the test mission would redeem the Starliner program after years of development problems and over $1.6 billion in budget overruns since 2016.

Boeing is also struggling with quality issues on production of commercial planes, its most important products.

Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to ride Starliner on June 5 when they were launched to the ISS for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission.

But Starliner’s propulsion system suffered a series of glitches beginning in the first 24 hours of its flight to the ISS, triggering months of cascading delays. Five of its 28 thrusters failed and it sprang several leaks of helium, which is used to pressurize the thrusters.

In a rare reshuffling of NASA’s astronaut operations, the two astronauts are now expected to return in February 2025 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft due to launch next month as part of a routine astronaut rotation mission. Two of the Crew Dragon’s four astronaut seats will be kept empty for Wilmore and Williams.

Starliner will undock from the ISS without a crew and attempt to return to Earth as it would have with astronauts aboard.

Boeing struggled for years to develop Starliner, a gumdrop-shaped capsule designed to compete with Crew Dragon as a second U.S. option for sending astronaut crews to and from Earth’s orbit.

Starliner failed a 2019 test to launch to the ISS uncrewed, but mostly succeeded in a 2022 do-over attempt where it also encountered thruster problems. Its June mission with its first crew was required before NASA can certify the capsule for routine flights, but now Starliner’s crew certification path has been upended.

Since Starliner docked to the ISS in June, Boeing has scrambled to investigate what caused its thruster mishaps and helium leaks. The company arranged tests and simulations on Earth to gather data that it has used to try and convince NASA officials that Starliner is safe to fly the crew back home.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/astronauts-sunita-williams-barry-butch-wilmore-in-space-for-80-days-will-return-february-next-year-says-nasa-6410618

Islamabad [Pakistan], August 24 (ANI): Social media users and freelancers have been facing difficulties in Pakistan due to disruption in Internet services, Pakistan-based ARY News reported. The Internet disruption has caused mental stress for many, especially youth who depend on the Internet for their livelihood, A significant number of Pakistani youth have been impacted by the slow internet speed, which has affected their work and resulted in clients not coming to them for work. In Karachi, a school student Ezhaan, who works online after school, is struggling to cope with the loss of his online clients due to slow internet speed.

He was working on a large project with 60 orders. However, he is now facing numerous hurdles due to the slow internet, according to ARY News report.

Another freelancer, Abdul Hai, who relies on the internet for his livelihood, is also facing problems. He stated that WhatsApp is not operating properly, making it difficult for him to communicate with his team.

According to the report, several firms that provide work to freelancers have stopped functioning in Pakistan due to the slow internet speed. In addition, Pakistan’s reputation in the international market has been affected due to slow internet.

Source : https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/pakistan-social-media-users-freelancers-face-problems-due-to-internet-disruption20240824192049

An Italian prosecutor has opened a manslaughter investigation into the deaths of British tech magnate Mike Lynch and six other people who were killed when a luxury yacht sank in stormy weather off Sicily this week.

The head of the public prosecutor’s office of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio, said that while the yacht had been hit by a very sudden meteorological event, it was “plausible” that crimes of multiple manslaughter and causing a shipwreck through negligence had been committed.

So far the investigation was not aimed at any individual person, he told a news conference.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was also among those who died when the family’s 56-metre-long (184-foot) boat, the Bayesian, capsized during a fierce, pre-dawn storm on Monday off Porticello, near Palermo.

Fifteen people survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian, and the yacht’s captain.

The disaster would be even more painful if the investigation showed it was caused “by behaviours that were not aligned to the responsibilities that everyone needs to take in shipping,” Cartosio said.

The captain James Cutfield and the other survivors have been questioned this week by authorities. None of them have commented publicly on how the ship went down.

Raffaele Cammarano, another prosecutor speaking at the same news conference, said that when authorities questioned Cutfield he had been “extremely cooperative”.

The sinking has puzzled naval marine experts who say a boat like the Bayesian, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have withstood the storm and in any case should not have sunk as quickly as it did.

Pulling the Bayesian out of the sea will help investigators determine what happened, but the operation is likely to be complex and costly. The wreck is lying apparently intact on its side at a depth of 50 metres (164 feet).

“It’s in the interests of the owners and managers of the ship to salvage it,” Cartosio said, adding “they have assured their full cooperation”.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group (TISGR.MI), opens new tab, which owns Perini, told Reuters this week the shipwreck was the result of a string of “indescribable, unreasonable errors” made by the crew, and ruled out any design or construction failings.

Cammarano said the meteorological event that hit the vessel was most likely a “downburst”, a very strong downward wind that is an intense but relatively frequent event at sea, rather than a water spout which involves rotating winds like a whirlwind or tornado.

He said that the passengers were all probably asleep at the time of the storm which was why they failed to escape.

Palermo’s Coast Guard Chief Raffaele Macauda, who attended the press conference, said there was no specific ban for the ship to be anchored where it was struck by the storm, as weather bulletins at the time were not reporting a major storm alert for the wide area of the southwestern Tyrrhenian Sea.

SEARCH FOR BODIES

Cartosio did not rule out that someone could be put under investigation before the ship is salvaged, on the basis of other evidence.

He said there was no legal obligation for the captain, crew and passengers to remain in Italy but authorities expected them to cooperate with the probe.

The prosecutor said it had not been possible to carry out alcohol or drug tests on the survivors as they were in a state of shock and needed treatments for injuries.

In the yacht, the bodies of the dead were found in the cabins on the left-hand side of the boat, where the passengers may have tried to search for remaining bubbles of air, the head of Palermo’s Fire Brigade, Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, said during Saturday’s news conference.

Divers scoured the submerged vessel all week to recover bodies, with Hannah Lynch’s the last to be recovered on Friday. The five other dead passengers were recovered on Wednesday and Thursday, while the body of the only crew member who died, onboard chef Recaldo Thomas, was found on Monday.

Mike Lynch, 59, was one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his acquittal in June in a U.S. fraud trial.

Source  : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italian-prosecutor-opens-manslaughter-inquiry-lynch-yacht-sinking-2024-08-24

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy touted a newly developed Ukrainian “drone missile” on Saturday that he said would take the war back to Russia and scornfully derided Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a “sick old man from Red Square”.

As Ukraine marked 33 years of post-Soviet independence, Zelenskiy said the new weapon, Palianytsia, was faster and more powerful than the domestically made drones that Kyiv has so far used to fight back against Russia, striking its oil refineries and military airfields.

“Our enemy will … know what the Ukrainian way for retaliation is. Worthy, symmetrical, long-ranged,” he said.

Zelenskiy said the new class of Ukrainian weapon had been used for a successful strike on a target in Russia, but did not say where.

He used derisive language to describe Russia’s 71-year-old president and the nuclear rhetoric coming out of Moscow.

“A sick old man from Red Square who constantly threatens everyone with the red button will not dictate any of his red lines to us,” he said in a video on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia, which has attacked Ukraine with many thousands of missiles and drones since it invaded in February 2022, has decried Ukraine’s drone attacks as terrorism. Moscow’s troops are advancing in Ukraine’s east and occupy 18% of the country.

Zelenskiy has been pressing Kyiv’s allies to allow him to use Western weapons deeper in Russian territory such as to strike airbases used by Russian warplanes that pound Ukraine with missiles and glide bombs.

“I want to stress once more that our new weapon decisions, including Palianytsia, is our realistic way to act while some of our partners are unfortunately delaying decisions,” Zelenskiy told a news conference.

Ukrainians say the word “Palianytsia”, a type of Ukrainian bread, is too difficult to pronounce for Russians and it has been used – sometimes humorously – during the war as a way to tell Ukrainians and Russians apart.

“It will be very difficult for Russia, difficult to even pronounce what exactly has hit it,” Zelenskiy said of the drone missile.

TOP COMMANDER PROMOTED

In a decree, Zelenskiy promoted his top commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, to the rank of general, a tacit gesture of praise after Ukraine’s lightning cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region launched on Aug. 6.

Slammed by Russia as an escalation and major provocation, Ukraine’s incursion has captured more than 90 settlements in the Kursk region according to Kyiv, the biggest invasion of Russia since World War Two.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Poland’s and Lithuania’s leaders, Zelenskiy told reporters the operation had in part been a preventive move to stop Russian plans to capture the northern city of Sumy.

Apart from capturing prisoners of war and creating a “buffer zone”, Zelenskiy said the operation had other objectives that he could not disclose publicly.

Polish president Andrzej Duda confirmed that Polish PT-91 Twardy tanks given to Kyiv by Warsaw were taking part in the fighting in Kursk region.

“We are touched to see how the PT-91 Twardy tanks, given by Poland (to Ukraine) more than one year ago, are defending today Ukraine on the battlefields, fighting in the Kursk region,” he said.

Russia has strongly condemned the use of western weapons for the incursion, which Putin has said will receive a “worthy response”.

Independence Day has surged in importance for Ukrainians during the invasion, which has spurred widespread patriotic sentiment.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-signs-law-ukraine-ratifying-rome-statute-2024-08-24

In the 18 months after Francine Milano was diagnosed with a recurrence of the ovarian cancer she thought she’d beaten 20 years ago, she traveled twice from her home in Pennsylvania to Vermont. She went not to ski, hike, or leaf-peep, but to arrange to die.

“I really wanted to take control over how I left this world,” said the 61-year-old who lives in Lancaster. “I decided that this was an option for me.”

Dying with medical assistance wasn’t an option when Milano learned in early 2023 that her disease was incurable. At that point, she would have had to travel to Switzerland — or live in the District of Columbia or one of the 10 states where medical aid in dying was legal.

But Vermont lifted its residency requirement in May 2023, followed by Oregon two months later. (Montana effectively allows aid in dying through a 2009 court decision, but that ruling doesn’t spell out rules around residency. And though New York and California recently considered legislation that would allow out-of-staters to secure aid in dying, neither provision passed.)

Despite the limited options and the challenges — such as finding doctors in a new state, figuring out where to die, and traveling when too sick to walk to the next room, let alone climb into a car — dozens have made the trek to the two states that have opened their doors to terminally ill nonresidents seeking aid in dying.

At least 26 people have traveled to Vermont to die, representing nearly 25% of the reported assisted deaths in the state from May 2023 through this June, according to the Vermont Department of Health. In Oregon, 23 out-of-state residents died using medical assistance in 2023, just over 6% of the state total, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

Oncologist Charles Blanke, whose clinic in Portland is devoted to end-of-life care, said he thinks that Oregon’s total is likely an undercount and he expects the numbers to grow. Over the past year, he said, he’s seen two to four out-of-state patients a week — about one-quarter of his practice — and fielded calls from across the U.S., including New York, the Carolinas, Florida, and “tons from Texas.” But just because patients are willing to travel doesn’t mean it’s easy or that they get their desired outcome.

“The law is pretty strict about what has to be done,” Blanke said.

As in other states that allow what some call physician-assisted death or assisted suicide, Oregon and Vermont require patients to be assessed by two doctors. Patients must have less than six months to live, be mentally and cognitively sound, and be physically able to ingest the drugs to end their lives. Charts and records must be reviewed in the state; neglecting to do so constitutes practicing medicine out of state, which violates medical licensing requirements. For the same reason, the patients must be in the state for the initial exam, when they request the drugs, and when they ingest them.

State legislatures impose those restrictions as safeguards — to balance the rights of patients seeking aid in dying with a legislative imperative not to pass laws that are harmful to anyone, said Peg Sandeen, CEO of the group Death With Dignity. Like many aid-in-dying advocates, however, she said such rules create undue burdens for people who are already suffering.

Diana Barnard, a Vermont palliative care physician, said some patients cannot even come for their appointments. “They end up being sick or not feeling like traveling, so there’s rescheduling involved,” she said. “It’s asking people to use a significant part of their energy to come here when they really deserve to have the option closer to home.”

Those opposed to aid in dying include religious groups that say taking a life is immoral, and medical practitioners who argue their job is to make people more comfortable at the end of life, not to end the life itself.

Anthropologist Anita Hannig, who interviewed dozens of terminally ill patients while researching her 2022 book, “The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America,” said she doesn’t expect federal legislation to settle the issue anytime soon. As the Supreme Court did with abortion in 2022, it ruled assisted dying to be a states’ rights issue in 1997.

During the 2023-24 legislative sessions, 19 states (including Milano’s home state of Pennsylvania) considered aid-in-dying legislation, according to the advocacy group Compassion & Choices. Delaware was the sole state to pass it, but the governor has yet to act on it.

Source : https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/health/assisted-death-medical-tourism-kff-health-news/index.html

Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination to lead the ticket.

The closing of the Democratic National Convention drew a big audience Thursday — topping both the final night of the party’s gathering four years ago and that of the Republican convention in July.

Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination to top the Democratic ticket and oppose Republican nominee Donald Trump. Coverage of the Democrats’ closing night averaged 26.2 million viewers across 15 broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen figures. That’s about 820,000 more people than the 25.38 million who watched the final night of the Republican National Convention.

Thursday’s total is up substantially over the first three days of the Democratic convention, which averaged 20.33 million viewers and were very consistent night to night: Monday averaged 20.03 million viewers, Tuesday brought in 20.78 million and Wednesday drew 20.18 million across broadcast and cable networks. Adding in Thursday’s total, the convention as a whole averaged 21.8 million viewers in primetime, a slight improvement the 2020 convention’s four-night average of 21.59 million viewers.

The DNC’s four-day average also topped the July Republican convention in TV viewers by a 14 percent margin; the RNC averaged 19.07 million viewers over four nights.

As it did throughout the week, MSNBC drew the biggest audience for any single network on Thursday. It averaged 6.53 million viewers from 9-11:30 p.m. ET Wednesday, well ahead of second-place ABC (4.23 million). CNN came in third with 3.94 million viewers, followed by NBC at 3.01 million. Fox News (2.45 million) narrowly beat CBS (2.42 million).

Those six networks made up about 86 percent of the total TV audience on Thursday; the remaining 3.62 million viewers were spread across PBS, Scripps News, Telemundo, Univision, BET, CNNe, Fox Business, Newsmax and NewsNation.

MSNBC also led all comers Thursday in the core news demographic of adults 25-54 with 1.28 million such viewers. CNN (1.13 million) grabbed second in the demo, and ABC was third with 1.05 million adults 25-54. NBC had 857,000 viewers in the demo, followed by CBS at 607,000 and Fox News at 358,000.

Source : https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/2024-democratic-convention-tv-ratings-beat-republicans-1235983406

Three people were killed and four others seriously wounded in a stabbing attack at a festival on Friday night in the western German city of Solingen, police said.

They said that at around 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) a single, unidentified man attacked multiple people and that the perpetrator was still at large.

“It tears my heart apart that there was an attack on our city. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we have lost,” Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said in a statement. “I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives.”

Fatal stabbings and shootings in Germany are relatively uncommon.  The police said the attack occurred at a festival to honour the town’s 650th anniversary.

Solingen is in North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous and bordering the Netherlands.

The state’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene, telling reporters it was a targeted attack on human life but declining to speculate on the motive.

The attack occurred at the Fronhof, the mayor’s statement said, a market square where live bands were playing.

The German government has been aiming to toughen rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the length allowed.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/several-people-dead-stabbing-incident-western-germany-bild-reports-2024-08-23

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday and announced a new military aid package ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day on Saturday, their offices said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who also spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov on Friday, said on social media the package was worth $125 million.

In the call with Zelenskiy, Biden reaffirmed Washington’s support, which the White House called “unwavering”, for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

The aid package includes air-defense missiles, counter-drone equipment, anti-armor missiles and ammunition, the White House said in its statement.

The calls came ahead of Ukraine’s independence day.

“Ukraine critically needs the supply of weapons from the announced packages, particularly additional air defence systems for the reliable protection of cities, communities, and critical infrastructure,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after call released by his office.

After seizing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. The United States has since provided military assistance and aid to Ukraine while also imposing sanctions on Moscow over the invasion.

Washington has provided Ukraine with more than $50 billion worth of military aid since 2022.

The war escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia’s western Kursk region. Kyiv has since announced a string of battlefield successes, but Russian forces continue to steadily inch forward in eastern Ukraine.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-spoke-ukraines-zelenskiy-friday-2024-08-23

When a shell exploded near Oleksandr Budko, the 26-year-old found himself buried alive and in “terrible pain” from injuries that would lead to the amputation of both his legs.

The Ukrainian soldier was helping to defend the north-eastern Kharkiv region from invading Russian forces in August 2022, when his unit was attacked.

Two years on, he’s the star of a reality TV show in which multiple women battle for his affection.

One advert for the Ukrainian version of hit US series The Bachelor shows a smartly-dressed Oleksandr staring wistfully at a flower. In another, he answers questions in military fatigues before performing a series of pull-ups in a gym.

Speaking to me in a rose garden in Kyiv, the veteran-turned-celebrity is in good spirits despite being tired after a busy week.

Oleksandr says he’s hoping to find love on the show after breaking up with his girlfriend last January – but thinks it will be difficult to choose a partner with “millions of people watching”.

His motivations aren’t just romantic. He also wants to use his appearance on the show to raise awareness of the challenges facing disabled Ukrainians.

“This show is watched by millions of people, and it presents a huge opportunity to positively influence their outlook,” he says.

He wants to show that injured veterans are not “outsiders, but full members of society who are living a good life.
“In my case, my life is now even better than before the war, better than before I got injured.”

Oleksandr is always on the go, telling me he spent the previous night filming a music video.
His life wasn’t always like this. In the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he was working as a barista in a Kyiv restaurant while studying graphic design.

He says his dreams were “down to earth”: travelling, discovering the world, and growing professionally. He wanted to start a family.

But Oleksandr’s life was turned upside down two years ago, when he became one of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men to join the army.

In August 2022, he was stationed near Izyum, an occupied city on the front lines of the Russian advance. It was invaded in the early days of the war and used by Russia as a key military hub to supply its forces from the east.
The city was liberated by Kyiv just a month after Oleksandr was seriously injured while defending the nearby Ukrainian position.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clywj08d89no

Having a pet crocodile in the backyard sounds like a far-fetched Australian fable – like riding kangaroos to school or the existence of drop bears.

But in the Northern Territory (NT), it’s a reality.

And Trevor Sullivan has 11 of the reptiles sharing his tropical home in Batchelor, about an hour south of Darwin.
Among them is Big Jack, who is named after a Jack in the Box toy due to his alarming propensity for lunging. Despite his antics, the giant predator is adored, having joined Mr Sullivan’s household as a hatchling the same day his daughter was born 22 years ago.

“He’s been part of our family ever since… [my daughter] refers to him as brother.”

Also on the 80-acre property is Cricket, still a tiny critter, and Shah, who – at the complete other end of the scale – is more than a century old and has truly lived a life.

“He’s possibly seen two world wars and maybe federation in Australia [in 1901],” Mr Sullivan says of the 4.7m (15.4ft) beast.

He claims Shah once killed a man, has been used for scientific research, was almost poisoned to death at a bird park, and lost half his bottom jaw in a fight at a Queensland crocodile farm, all before joining Mr Sullivan a few years ago.
The 60-year-old lights up as he tells the BBC about his crocodiles: “There’s nothing like them… crocodiles are the Harley Davidson of pets.”

But as the famously quirky region heads to the polls on Saturday, the right to own a pet croc has turned into a somewhat unlikely – and very Territory – election issue.

The cost of living, housing and crime are the prime concerns for many voters, but Mr Sullivan is one of scores left heartbroken after the governing Labor Party moved to ban crocodiles as pets.

It is one of the last places in the country the practice is allowed, but the government says they’re concerned for the wellbeing of both humans and the reptiles. The Country Liberal Party opposition, however, has pledged its support for the practice and has promised a review of the “rushed” decision if elected.

About 250,000 people call the NT home, but relatively few of them own crocodiles. The environment minister’s office said they could not provide a figure because the government is in election caretaker mode, but previous estimates have put the number of permit holders at around 100.

Many of the captive crocs are raised from hatchlings, others rehomed from farms or after causing trouble in the wild.
Regulations have long dictated strict conditions about where, and under what conditions, the animals can be kept. For example, hatchlings can only live in urban areas until they are 60cm long – usually about a year old – at which point they must be handed over to authorities or moved to a property outside the town limits.

Under those rules, however, owners were not required to have any special training or knowledge to keep the beasts.
Tom Hayes says owning – or “saving” – a crocodile is part of the Territory’s appeal, and one of the factors which drew his young family to the Darwin region, from Queensland, earlier this year.

The 40-year-old grew up taking trips to the NT with his dad, fishing in the Mary River alongside giant crocodiles, instilling a love of predators and, eventually, a dream to have his own one day.

“I’m not just some dude that wants a crocodile [for] when I’m having a barbecue with my mates on the weekend,” the tattooist and self-styled conservationist told the BBC.

“I wanted to have somewhere I could bring these poor old buggers and they could just live their lives out – happy, fed… not having to worry about people shooting them.”

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rxyz1p830o

Elon Musk sent an email to X staff overnight about their much-anticipated stock grants — but there’s a catch.

In an email to staff viewed by The Verge, the company is planning to award stock options based on the anticipated impact of employees. That means staff have to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company in order to get their stock.

These long-awaited stock grants add to the tensions between X leadership and staff after the promotions process was recently delayed without explanation, we previously reported. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.

What’s more, a source at X told The Verge that the company still owes staff their annual equity refresher, which was supposed to be doled out in April. Musk previously assured employees that they could regularly cash out stock, similar to SpaceX staff, according to two employees. However, he has not yet followed through on this promise.

The most recent stock refresh for X employees was in October 2023, valuing the company at $19 billion — significantly less than the $44 billion Musk paid for it. During this refresh, employees received RSUs at a share price of $45, I previously reported.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/23/24226830/elon-musk-email-x-twitter-stock-grants

It will be a long time before we get answers as to exactly how the UK-flagged Bayesian yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.
The luxury superyacht was carrying 22 people when a heavy storm that created waterspouts struck early on Monday 19 August.
Seven bodies have been recovered from the wreck of the boat.
As Italian authorities continue to investigate the circumstances around the incident, speculation has swirled about what went wrong, with fingers being pointed at the captain, the crew, and faults with the yacht itself.
But experts have told the BBC that this was likely a “black swan” occurrence of freak weather – and that no-one is necessarily at fault.
Here are the key questions that investigators will be asking as they look into the tragedy.

The attack, which has also left seven police officers injured, was one of the deadliest on police in recent years.

At least 11 police officers have been killed during an ambush by armed attackers in eastern Pakistan, according to local officials.

The attackers were armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), police said, and seven other officers were injured.

The convoy of officers was targeted in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, in the Rahim Yar Khan district.

The convoy was passing through a deserted area as part of an operation targeting robbers in the region, Punjabi police said in a statement.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in attacks by militants in recent years, but such a high number of police casualties in a single attack is rare.

Pakistani security forces often carry out operations against bandits in the eastern Punjab and southern Sindh provinces, where they hide in rural, forested areas.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/attackers-armed-with-guns-and-rpgs-kill-11-police-officers-in-pakistan-ambush-13201225

Tate and his brother Tristan are facing new allegations after Romania’s organised crime agency DIICOT said it was searching four properties in the counties of Bucharest and Ilfov. The brothers have previously denied all the claims against them.

Andrew Tate has been placed under house arrest in Romania.

Prosecutors in Romania have requested Tate be detained for 30 more days, while his brother Tristan has been placed under lighter restrictions by the country’s authorities.

It comes after Tate and Tristan were among six people taken into custody in an investigation into human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

The divisive influencer’s home was raided this week over new allegations made against him.

Romania’s anti-organised crime agency DIICOT searched four homes on Wednesday in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county, over allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering, it said.

It’s not yet clear which of the individual charges apply to which of the six suspects.

Dozens of police officers and forensic personnel were seen scouring Tate’s large property on the edge of the capital Bucharest and the former professional kickboxer’s brothers were seen on video accompanying police out of the house.

Tate’s spokesperson Mateea Petrescu said yesterday in response to the raids that “although the charges in the search warrant are not yet fully clarified, they include suspicions of human trafficking and money laundering” and added that his legal team was present.

Ms Petrescu did not comment on the allegations involving minors.

Tate, 37, and Tristan, 36, grew up in Luton and have millions of social media followers. The older brother also appeared in the UK version of Big Brother in 2016.

Self-described misogynists, their views shared on social media platforms such as TikTok and X have been widely criticised, particularly as they have a predominately young, male audience.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/andrew-tate-under-house-arrest-over-fresh-allegations-after-home-raided-13200973

Doctor Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s Europe director, has urged EU countries to remember the lessons of COVID-19 and share mpox jabs with Africa as a means of protecting people globally.

Surveillance and the sharing of mpox vaccines with Africa will be integral to preventing a global outbreak of the virus, the World Health Organization’s Europe director has said.

Mpox was declared a global emergency by the WHO last week, with a new strain spreading across Africa at an alarming rate and causing more than 571 deaths on the continent this year.

Doctor Hans Kluge said while “there’s no need to panic”, people “always need to be vigilant” to ensure the world doesn’t suffer from yet another global health emergency just years after it was brought to a standstill by COVID-19.

“The key message from me to the countries is surveillance,” WHO’s Europe director told Sky News.

“Good surveillance, knowing what’s happening because you never know how a virus may behave in the future.”

Dr Kluge said he was “worried for the African region” and about cases spreading further, as more than 17,000 have already been recorded on the continent this year.

He called on European countries to send vaccines to Africa and “not sit” on them in order to prevent another global pandemic.

“This is the big test,” he said. “Just to see, did we as an international community learn from COVID-19 or not? Are we going to halt or to share the vaccines?”

Asked about measures such as airport screenings being introduced, Dr Kluge said people “may come easily into the country without any obvious symptoms”.

According to the UK government’s website, the incubation period for mpox is between five and 21 days. People usually recover from the “self-limiting” illness within a few weeks, it added.

Dr Kluge added: “Also, we have to be careful not to push people away because they will find alternative routes like we saw [during] COVID.

“So the key for now in Europe is good surveillance, particularly in high risk groups.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/dont-sit-on-mpox-vaccines-and-keep-up-surveillance-whos-europe-chief-says-13201175

We’ve all heard the warnings about superbugs, but a new study suggests we may be overlooking their most likely source: our dinner plates. Scientists are raising the alarm about antimicrobial resistance in food animals, warning that our current practices could be setting the stage for a global health catastrophe.

A recent review published in the International Journal of Food Science & Technology warns that the animals we eat could become the gateway for a devastating pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This silent threat, brewing in farms across Southeast Asia, has the potential to render our most potent medicines useless and unleash a wave of untreatable infections.

“There is a big pandemic waiting to happen in the form of antimicrobial resistance,” says Professor Rajaraman Eri, a veterinarian and Associate Dean of Biosciences and Food Technology at RMIT University, in a media release. “We’re going to face a situation in the world where will run out of antibiotics. That means we will not be able to treat infections.”

The World Health Organization’s prognosis is equally grim, estimating that drug-resistant diseases could cause up to 10 million deaths each year by 2050. This looming crisis isn’t just a distant concern for Southeast Asia – it’s a global threat with far-reaching implications, including for countries like Australia that have strong ties to the region.

The review, co-authored by Eri along with microbiologist Dr. Charmaine Lloyd from RMIT University and public policy expert Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram from Thailand, sheds light on two interconnected issues plaguing the food animal industry in Southeast Asia: antimicrobial resistance and residue.

Southeast Asia, home to billions of farm animals, has become what the researchers call an “epicentre” of antimicrobial resistance in animals. The region’s livestock sector, dominated by smallholder farmers, is not just a cornerstone of food security and economic well-being – it’s also a potential breeding ground for superbugs.

“On the farm, the presence of antibiotics in food, soil, water run-off and animal waste can contribute to this resistance developing,” explains Dr. Lloyd. “The overuse and misuse of antimicrobial drugs, especially for growth promotion in healthy animals, have resulted in the increased rate of resistance.”

However, resistance is only part of the problem. The review also highlights the issue of residues – leftover traces of drugs and chemicals in animal products. These residues, while different from resistance, pose their own set of health risks to consumers.

“Veterinary drug residues commonly arise from overusing and improper use of antimicrobial agents, growth promoters and other veterinary drugs in animal husbandry practices,” Eri notes.

The researchers emphasize the critical need to differentiate between residue and resistance, as each requires distinct strategies to address. They call for a multifaceted approach, including improved surveillance, responsible antibiotic use, better farming practices, stronger regulations, and regional cooperation.

Central to their recommendations is the adoption of a “One Health” approach, which recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. This holistic perspective is crucial for developing effective solutions to combat both residue and resistance.

“Efforts in the region to regulate antimicrobial use are underway, but there’s growing concern over consuming products with antimicrobial residues, which can impact human health due to the presence of antibiotic-resistant microbiota and pathogens in hosts,” Dr. Sundram points out.

The review offers a stark reminder that in our globalized world, health threats know no borders. What happens on farms in Southeast Asia can have ripple effects across the globe, potentially compromising the efficacy of our most important medicines.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/looming-pandemic-hiding-food/?nab=0

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

2025 Oscars Predictions: All Categories

Weekly Commentary (Updated Aug. 22, 2024): The Telluride and Venice Film Festivals are set to kick off next week, officially signaling the start of the fall awards season. While many films remain unseen, early buzz and industry rumors hint at a strong year ahead, featuring a mix of mainstream studio projects, musicals, and sequels that could dominate the conversation.

Leading the charge this week is Jacques Audiard’s musical “Emilia Pérez,” a Netflix production that has already garnered significant attention. The film’s unconventional narrative, coupled with Audiard’s distinctive directorial style, could position it as a serious contender in the race. Notably, this could be the streaming giant’s best shot yet at securing its first best picture Oscar after being the arguable “runner-up” for “Roma” (2018) and “The Power of the Dog” (2021). Despite Audiard’s impressive body of work, he has yet to receive his own Oscar nom, adding more juice to its chances.

Another highly anticipated film is Searchlight’s “A Complete Unknown,” a Bob Dylan biopic directed by James Mangold and still in the editing process. Timothée Chalamet takes on the lead role, with Monica Barbaro potentially delivering a breakout performance as Joan Baez. The film is set for a Christmas release, strategically bypassing the festival circuit. This could make it a late-breaking contender in the vein of past successes like “Million Dollar Baby” (2004). However, it will undoubtedly try to steer focus from an array of high-profile sequels, including Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux,” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.”

Watch out for potential surprise category placements for several actors as the season unfolds. Among those that could call an “audible” during the season are Denzel Washington (“Gladiator II”), Lady Gaga (“Joker: Folie à Deux”), Danielle Deadwyler (“The Piano Lesson”), Saoirse Ronan (“Blitz”), and any of the ensemble cast members of “Emilia Pérez” and “His Three Daughters.” An added unexpected twist to the awards race would create an exciting and unpredictable season.

And let’s not forget potential acquisitions on the horizon, which could come for Pamela Anderson’s lead vehicle, “The Last Showgirl,” or Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5, ” which looks at the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis from the sports broadcasting perspective.

With such a diverse slate of films and performances, the upcoming awards season promises to be one of the most competitive in recent memory. Stay tuned as the festival premieres begin, setting the stage for what could be a memorable year in cinema.

Overall updates are below. The charts will continue to be updated throughout the week.

Top 5 projected nomination leaders (films): “Emilia Pérez” (12); “A Complete Unknown” (11); “Gladiator II” (9); “Dune: Part Two” and “Joker: Folie à Deux” (7); “Blitz” (6)

Top 3 projected nomination leaders (studios): Netflix (20); Warner Bros. (16); Searchlight Pictures (12)

The 97th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2. All movie listings, titles, distributors, and credited artisans are not final and are subject to change.

The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said.
Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still unaccounted for, interior ministry official Massimo Mariani told Reuters after being briefed by the emergency services.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-foot) superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in minutes after bad weather struck early Monday.

The body of the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was recovered near the wreck on Monday.
Mariani said it was possible that Hannah Lynch’s body was not in the boat, but might have been swept out to sea.
Fire brigade spokesperson Luca Cari said if her body was still in the yacht it could take time to find, given the difficulty divers were having in accessing all areas of the boat, which is lying on its side at a depth of 50 metres (165 feet).

A judicial investigation has been opened into the disaster, which has baffled naval marine experts, who say a boat like the Bayesian, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have withstood the storm.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group (TISGR.MI), opens new tab, which owns Perini, told Italian media the Bayesian was “one of the safest boats in the world” and blamed the crew for failing to follow correct safety procedures.
The captain, James Cutfield, and his eight surviving crew members, have made no public comment on the disaster. The prosecutor leading the investigation, Ambrogio Cartosio, has scheduled a press conference for Saturday.
CHALLENGING CONDITIONS
Specialist rescuers have been searching inside the hull of the sunken yacht for the past three days in what they said were extremely challenging conditions due to the depth and the narrowness of the places that the divers are scouring.
The fire brigade compared the efforts to those that were carried out, on a larger scale, for the Costa Concordia, a luxury cruise liner that capsized off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, killing 32 people.
Once the final body is recovered, experts will have to decide whether, or how, to salvage the vessel.
The CEO of Italian Sea Group said the yacht’s automatic tracking system suggested that it took 16 minutes from the moment the storm first hit to the sinking.
He said it was clear the ship took in large amounts of water, adding that investigators would need to see what doorways or hatches might have been left open, focusing notably on a main door located on the left side of the yacht.
“A Perini boat survived the Category 5 Katrina hurricane. Do you think one couldn’t survive a waterspout here,” he told Corriere della Sera newspaper, referring to a type of tornado which is believed to have hit the Bayesian.
Under maritime law, a captain has full responsibility for the ship and the crew, as well as the safety of all those aboard.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/two-bodies-still-missing-mike-lynchs-sunken-yacht-sicily-2024-08-22/

A transgender woman from Australia has won a discrimination case against a women-only social media app, after she was denied access on the basis of being male.
The Federal Court found that although Roxanne Tickle had not been directly discriminated against, she was a victim of indirect discrimination – which refers to when a decision disadvantages a person with a particular attribute – and ordered the app to pay her A$10,000 ($6,700; £5,100) plus costs.
It’s a landmark ruling when it comes to gender identity, and at the very heart of the case was the ever more contentious question: what is a woman?
In 2021, Tickle downloaded “Giggle for Girls”, an app marketed as an online refuge where women could share their experiences in a safe space, and where men were not allowed.
In order to gain access, she had to upload a selfie to prove she was a woman, which was assessed by gender recognition software designed to screen out men.
However, seven months later – after successfully joining the platform – her membership was revoked.
As someone who identifies as a woman, Tickle claimed she was legally entitled to use services meant for women, and that she was discriminated against based on her gender identity.
She sued the social media platform, as well as its CEO Sall Grover, and sought damages amounting to A$200,000, claiming that “persistent misgendering” by Grover had prompted “constant anxiety and occasional suicidal thoughts”.
“Grover’s public statements about me and this case have been distressing, demoralising, embarrassing, draining and hurtful. This has led to individuals posting hateful comments towards me online and indirectly inciting others to do the same,” Tickle said in an affidavit.
Giggle’s legal team argued throughout the case that sex is a biological concept.
They freely concede that Tickle was discriminated against – but on the grounds of sex, rather than gender identity. Refusing to allow Tickle to use the app constituted lawful sex discrimination, they say. The app is designed to exclude men, and because its founder perceives Tickle to be male – she argues that denying her access to the app was lawful.
But Justice Robert Bromwich said in his decision on Friday that case law has consistently found sex is “changeable and not necessarily binary”, ultimately dismissing Giggle’s argument.
Tickle said the ruling “shows that all women are protected from discrimination” and that she hoped the case would be “healing for trans and gender diverse people”.
“Unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated. The fight for women’s rights continues,” Grover wrote on X, responding to the decision.
Known as “Tickle vs Giggle”, the case is the first time alleged gender identity discrimination has been heard by the federal court in Australia.
It encapsulates how one of the most acrimonious ideological debates – trans inclusion versus sex-based rights – can play out in court.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue.

The laws were issued Wednesday after they were approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, a government spokesman said. The Taliban had set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” after seizing power in 2021.

The ministry published its vice and virtue laws on Wednesday that cover aspects of everyday life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations.

They are set out in a 114-page, 35-article document seen by The Associated Press and are the first formal declaration of vice and virtue laws in Afghanistan since the takeover.

“Inshallah we assure you that this Islamic law will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice,” said ministry spokesman Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq on Thursday.

The laws empower the ministry to be at the frontline of regulating personal conduct, administering punishments like warnings or arrest if enforcers allege that Afghans have broken the laws.

Article 13 relates to women. It says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.

Women are obliged to cover themselves in front of non-Muslim males and females to avoid being corrupted. A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public. It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

Article 17 bans the publication of images of living beings, threatening an already fragile Afghan media landscape.

Article 19 bans the playing of music, the transportation of solo female travelers, and the mixing of men and women who are not related to each other. The law also obliges passengers and drivers to perform prayers at designated times.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-vice-virtue-laws-women-9626c24d8d5450d52d36356ebff20c83#

The largest diamond found in more than a century has been unearthed at a mine in Botswana, and the country’s president showed off the fist-sized stone to the world at a viewing ceremony Thursday.

The Botswana government says the huge 2,492-carat diamond is the second-biggest ever discovered in a mine. It’s the biggest diamond found since 1905.

The as-yet-unnamed diamond was presented to the world at the office of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi. It weighs approximately half a kilogram and Masisi was one of the first to get to hold it.

“It is overwhelming,” Masisi said. “I am lucky to have seen it in my time.” He gasped and said “wow” before calling senior government officials over to take a closer look.

Officials said it was too early to value the stone or decide how it would be sold. Another smaller diamond from the same mine in Botswana was sold for $63 million in 2016, a record for a rough gem.

“This is history in the making,” said Naseem Lahri, Botswana managing director for Lucara Diamond Corp., the Canadian mining company that found the diamond. “I am very proud. It is a product of Botswana.”

Lucara said in a statement Wednesday that it recovered the “exceptional” rough diamond from its Karowe Mine in central Botswana. Lucara said it was a “high-quality” stone and was found intact. It was located using X-ray technology designed to find large, high-value diamonds.

“We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara President and CEO William Lamb said in a statement.

The weight would make it the largest diamond found in 119 years and the second-largest ever dug out of a mine after the Cullinan Diamond that was discovered in South Africa in 1905. The famous Cullinan was 3,106 carats and was cut into gems, some of which form part of the British Crown Jewels.

A bigger, less pure black diamond was discovered in Brazil in the late 1800s, but it was found above ground and was believed to have been part of a meteorite.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/diamond-botswana-largest-carats-mining-0a736574d7cadaa8d9fe23c651ece97a#

Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman, became the world’s oldest living person at age 116, following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas, according to the Guinness World Records.

Her age and birthdate — May 23, 1908 — were confirmed by the Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, and put her at the top of its World Supercentenarian Rankings List.

Itooka lives in a nursing home in the city of Ashiya, a city in Hyogo Prefecture that also confirmed her birthdate. She assumed the title of world’s oldest person after Branyas’ family announced the 117-year-old’s death Tuesday. Guinness confirmed Itooka’s new status on Thursday.

When told about her becoming the oldest person, she replied, “Thank you,” a phrase she also relays often to the caretakers at her home.

Itooka celebrated her birthday three months ago, receiving flowers, a cake and a card from the mayor. Every morning, she has a popular yogurt-flavored drink called Calpis. Her favorite food is bananas.

Born in Osaka, Itooka was a volleyball player in high school. She married at 20, and had two daughters and two sons, according to Guinness.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/oldest-person-japan-guinness-records-0ee529d0fe6490143cc878a85bdf05cc#

Ben Herskowitz stood on a hill overlooking the ancient archaeological landscape of Bamiyan, nestled among the high mountains of the Hindu Kush. In the distance, he could see white snow-capped mountains, greenery and blossoming trees spread across Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.

It was “one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to in my life,” Herskowitz said. “So many different diverse landscapes in one area. I’ve never seen contrast like that in one place.”

Herskowitz, a 22-year-old from Vermont in the United States, found himself thousands of miles from home in May, with Afghanistan’s spectacular landscapes nearly all to himself.

“You go to Rome or Greece to see ruins and there are thousands of tourists blocking your way all around you, but here you can sit up in these beautiful places that have so much history from so many periods, and you’re the only one there,” Herskowitz explained.

The conflict-ravaged country, not known as a vacation hot spot, has seen an increase in tourism since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 after the US withdrawal.

Visitors from around the world have been immersing themselves in Afghanistan’s scenic landscape and ancient history. They’ve been taking dips in the turquoise lakes of Band-e-Amir National Park, exploring Buddhist art and ruins in Bamiyan and shopping in the bustling bazaars of Kabul, all while experiencing the legendary hospitality of Afghans.

About 691 tourists visited Afghanistan in 2021, rising to 2,300 the following year and 7,000 in 2023, according to the Associated Press, citing Mohammad Saeed, head of the Tourism Directorate in Kabul. More than 10,179 have visited the country since August 2021, a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Tourism told CNN.

While those figures seem low, the steady increase points to a new buzz around tourism in Afghanistan even while the country struggles with a humanitarian crisis and poverty following decades of war. Many countries have not formally recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, and the United Nations calls Afghanistan under the Taliban the most repressive country in the world for women’s rights.

“There’s a flow of tourists coming into the country since the fall of the republic,” says Khyber Khan, founder of Afghan tour company Unchartered Afghanistan. The country is known as a conflict zone, but “we have so many things to offer – culture, people, landscape,” Khan said. One now sees “a lot of tourists especially in Kabul, you always see a group of tourists,” Khan said.

Taliban officials say they are supporting tourism.

“The growth of the tourism industry has a positive effect on the country’s economy,” the spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture said. The country sees most tourists coming from the United States, the European Union, China, India, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, the spokesperson added.

A department has been created under the ministry to provide services to tourists and train students in the tourism industry and hotel management, the spokesperson said.

Bringing tourism money into a country largely isolated by international sanctions is seen by some as lending unwarranted legitimacy to the Taliban’s repressive regime at a time when it continues to deny many of its citizens basic human rights.

The UN’s special rapporteur for human rights, Richard Bennett, said this week that he had been barred from Afghanistan, a move that sent “a concerning signal about [the Taliban’s] engagement with the United Nations and the international community on human rights.”

‘Hospitality there is so welcoming’

Herskowitz, a part-time social media content creator and traveler, says he was intrigued to explore Afghanistan after hearing how “beautiful” and “hospitable” it is from other tourists who recently visited.

While many travelers have reported positive experiences, many Western governments warn against traveling to the country.

Afghanistan carries a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory from the US State Department, which cites “terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, civil unrest, kidnapping and crime” as reasons for its rating. The United Kingdom also “advises against all travel to Afghanistan.”

In May 2024, three Spanish tourists were among four people killed when gunmen opened fire on a group of international tourists and Afghans in Bamiyan. It was not clear who was behind the attack.

Despite being aware of the travel advisories warnings, Herskowitz still opted to go to Afghanistan after learning from his community of fellow “extreme travelers” that it’s a relatively safe place for tourists.

“I prefer to get my information from friends who have actually been to these places recently and give me an update on what it’s actually like to visit,” Herskowitz told CNN. “From my experience, I felt super safe the entire time.”

With his best friend from Vermont and two other UK travelers and content creators, Herskowitz embarked on a private eight-day tour across the country with two local Afghan tour guides.

Bamiyan, a central Afghanistan city and region that’s listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was Herskowitz’s favorite destination they visited.

“It’s an ancient city” and has “these amazing ruins that are really spectacular to see,” Herskowitz said. He described staying in a hotel with views of the remains of monumental sixth-century Buddha statues. Two of the standing Buddha statues in this area were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Herskowtiz also explored Band-e-Amir’s series of six lakes by pedal boat amid picturesque red-hued cliffs and rocky natural dams. The park was “just out of this world,” Herskowitz said.

But experiencing Afghan hospitality is what really struck Herskowitz. The “hospitality there is so welcoming,” Herskowitz said.

“Locals were so happy to see a tourist in their country. You’re a guest in their country and so they want to invite you for something to show their hospitality.”

When shopping in Kabul, Herskowitz said shopkeepers constantly offered him and his friends tea, food and even safe lodging if they needed it.

Herskowitz also said he saw a “good amount” of other tourists during his time in Afghanistan. He said he came across three different 14-member tour groups from Italy, Greece and Indonesia.

‘Everyone is coming’

To accommodate the increase in tourists, tourism companies have popped up in Afghanistan.

“The presence of tourists has increased because it’s not an active war zone anymore,” Khan said. He started Unchartered Afghanistan in 2023.

Ehsan Barakzai, founder of Afghan tour company Destination Afghanistan, says the “gate (to Afghanistan) has just opened, so everyone is coming.”

Barakzai personally gave 130 people tours of Afghanistan in 2023, he said, adding that most of his customers come from China, Germany, Canada and the United States.

“A lot of tourists came from watching YouTubers and people on social documenting their travel to Afghanistan,” Barakzai explained.

Tourists can enter Afghanistan only after obtaining a tourist visa from one of Afghanistan’s consulates. A consulate will normally provide the visa if an individual has a letter of invitation from a tour company in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has consulates in the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan as well as embassies in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, among other countries.

Additionally, tour companies must be registered and licensed to operate with the Ministry of Culture for “better coordination,” the ministry spokesperson said.

Bookings for Afghanistan in 2023 were at the highest ever level for tour company Untamed Borders, founder James Wilcox told CNN. Untamed Borders has been offering tours in Afghanistan since 2007, Wilcox said.

“Since the Taliban took over, the security situation has changed. One of the biggest risks isn’t there anymore – before the risk was the Taliban,” Wilcox explained. A security risk for tourists traveling to Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover was the deadly fighting between the Taliban as an insurgency group against US forces and the previous US-backed government of Afghanistan.

“That major … risk has diminished,” he said, adding, “there are a lot of historical things to see. It’s culturally very rich.”

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/afghanistan-tourism-under-the-taliban/index.html

Thailand on Thursday confirmed Asia’s first known case of a new, deadlier strain of mpox in a patient who had travelled to the kingdom from Africa.

The patient landed in Bangkok on August 14 and was sent to hospital with mpox symptoms.

The Department of Disease Control said laboratory tests on the 66-year-old European confirmed he was infected with mpox Clade 1b.

“Thailand’s Department of Disease Control wishes to confirm the lab test result which shows mpox Clade 1b in a European patient,” the department said in a statement, adding that the World Health Organization (WHO) would be informed of the development.

“We have monitored 43 people who have been in close contact with the patient and so far they have shown no symptoms, but we must continue monitoring for a total of 21 days.”

Anyone travelling to Thailand from 42 “risk countries” must register and undergo testing on arrival, the department said.

Mpox cases and deaths are surging in Africa, where outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda since July.

The World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency over the new variant of mpox, urging manufacturers to ramp up production of vaccines.

The disease — caused by a virus transmitted by infected animals but passed from human to human through close physical contact — causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

While mpox has been known for decades, a new deadlier and more transmissible strain — known as Clade 1b — has driven the recent surge in cases.

Clade 1b causes death in about 3.6 percent of cases, with children more at risk, according to the WHO.

Source: https://www.barrons.com/news/thailand-confirms-asia-s-first-case-of-new-mpox-strain-2973c134

VIEWERS of the Democratic National Convention were left disappointed on the final night after Beyoncé didn’t show up ahead of Kamala Harris’ headlining speech.

The Grammy award-winning singer was rumored to be in Chicago and gearing up for a surprise performance before Vice President Harris was set to officially accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

TMZ reported that the rumored Beyoncé performance put the Chicago Police Department on high alert for night four of the event with tightened security at the United Center.

One political account on X, The Angry Staffer, which is run by a former White House staffer, alluded to the rumors in a post.

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but you don’t want to miss the DNC tonight,” they wrote, garnering nearly 17 million views on their post.

“If you thought the Oprah surprise was big, just wait.”

However, the Washington Post later reported that DNC organizers have denied any rumors of a special guest.

“A person who has spoken with convention organizers, including Ricky Kirchner, Stephanie Cutter, Minyon Moore, and Jen O’Malley Dillon, said there is no such special guest planned,” reported the Post.

Not to mention, a representative for Beyoncé told The Hollywood Reporter that the singer was not scheduled to attend the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

“The report of a performance is untrue.”

Even TMZ later admitted to sharing incorrect information.

“To quote the great Beyonce: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down … we got this one wrong,” the outlet wrote on X.

It was rumored that Beyoncé may perform her song, Freedom, before Harris’s speech.

The rumor garnered excitement since the singer recently sent Trump’s campaign a cease and desist for using the same song.

It comes as talks have swirled all week on whether Beyoncé or Taylor Swift would make an appearance at the event.

Viewers were left in a frenzy when White House Political Director Emmy Ruiz tweeted a bee emoji on X.

However, once Harris’ speech started and the DNC ultimately came to a close, fans were left disappointed and upset.

“Whoever started the Beyoncé at the DNC rumor better start running now,” one user wrote on X.

“Now why yall say Beyoncé was gone be at this damn convention,” said another.

“You don’t ever lie on Beyoncé ,” proclaimed someone else under TMZ’s post that said the singer was set to perform Thursday night.

Beyoncé, who is also known as Queen Bey, is often associated with a bee – her dedicated fanbase is even called the BeyHive.

“Sorry guys, my 6 year old took my phone,” Ruiz explained, however, many believe she was hinting at a possible appearance from Beyoncé.

Delaware Senator Chris Coons even said there would be an “unexpected musical guest” before Harris’ speech, according to White House correspondent Christian Datoc.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also has ties to the singer after declaring July 20, 2023, Beyoncé Day ahead of her performance at Huntington Bank Stadium last summer.

“I might be Governor of Minnesota, but we all know who runs the world,” Walz wrote on X at the time.

“Welcome to Minnesota, Beyoncé.”

CONSTANT RUMORS
The two singers were initially thought to be potential speakers who would introduce Harris, however, the official program revealed that North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper was given the spot.

Cooper and Harris, who both served as attorney generals of their respective states, have known each other for a long time.

The inside of the convention, however, is buzzing with anticipation of Beyoncé’s rumored appearance.

Several delegates at the United Center were seen wearing colorful cowboy hats with sashes that read “Cowboy Kamala,” a nod to Beyoncé’s latest album, Cowboy Carter.

“If the Queen Bee Beyoncé performs [Friday] it will be fitting, a gift from one queen to the other,” Harris’s former classmate Cramer Osaghae told the Daily Beast.

“But a democratic one.”

Oregon delegate Stephanie Newton-Azorr told The Hill that she heard the rumors of Beyoncé performing.

“I know she can also mobilize her fan base and help turn out the vote,” said Newton-Azorr.

“People listen to Beyoncé. They listen when she speaks.”

KHIVE
Online supporters drew comparisons to Harris and Beyoncé after creating a fanbase for the then-California senator called the KHive in 2017 – an obvious reference to the BeyHive.

Harris referred to the KHive by name in a 2020 post on X, thanking them for the support they’ve given her “during these difficult times.”

“Your support does not go unnoticed, so thank you.”

The KHive grew in popularity in 2019 during Harris’ unsuccessful presidential run before growing quiet after becoming Joe Biden’s running mate.

However, after Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21, the fandom became reinvigorated.

Many have associated Harris with the viral TikTok term Brat Summer, made famous by British singer Charli XCX who released her album of the same name.

After Biden dropped out of the race, Charli famously tweeted: “Kamala IS brat.”

‘GET IT RIGHT’
Night Four host Kerry Washington gave the audience the rundown on how to pronounce Harris’ first name with the help of the vice president’s nieces, Amara and Leela Ajagu.

“Confusion is understandable. Disrespect is not,” said Washington, best known for playing Olivia Pope in the drama series Scandal.

“Tonight, we’re gonna help everybody get it right.”

Washington, Amara, and Leela involved the crowd in an exercise to pronounce Harris’ first name – pronouncing it “Comma” and “La.”

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly mispronounced Harris’ name on the campaign trail, even spelling it incorrectly on social media.

Harris’ stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, appeared with Harris’ niece, Meena, and her goddaughter, Helena Hudlin.

“Kamala came into my life when I was 14,” said Ella, 25. “Famously, a very easy time for a teenager.

“Like a lot of young people, I didn’t always understand what I was feeling.

“But no matter what, Kamala was there for me. She was patient, caring, and always took me seriously.”

Helena, whose mother introduced Doug Emhoff to Harris back in 2013, said Harris’ advice means everything to her.

“She taught me that making a difference means giving your whole heart and taking action.”

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/12269726/beyonce-surprise-performance-dnc-final-night/

A Hollister, California, family is urging parents to be cautious after their 2-year-old daughter was mistakenly served alcohol at a Salinas restaurant, resulting in a trip to the emergency room.

According to KSBW 8, the family was at a large family dinner at a local Salinas restaurant, Fujiyama Japanese Restaurant, when their 2-year-old daughter was mistakenly served alcohol, resulting in a night at the emergency room.

The parents ordered apple juice for their daughter’s drink, but it was not until their daughter started showing signs of intoxication that they realized the juice cup she had been drinking had house-made cooking wine inside.

It was then served inside a normal juice cup with a lid. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until later, when the toddler’s behavior became alarming.

The parents immediately noticed something was wrong and smelled the drink themselves, realizing it was wine.

“She was swaying, she was falling over, she was leaning on walls, she couldn’t hold her head up, she was slurring her words,” mom Noemi Valencia said.

The parents spent the night at Salinas Valley ER. They said a blood test revealed an alcohol level of 0.12% in their daughter’s system.

They hope the restaurant has learned from the mistake.

KSBW 8 spoke to the manager of the restaurant who said it was a mistake. The wine was being stored inside a large container labeled “apple juice” when their server made the mistake.

Salinas police did confirm with KSBW 8 that there was a police report filed on Aug. 17, 2024, for the incident and that they are looking into the matter.

“Take proper precautions and how you store things or label things properly so that this doesn’t happen to anybody else,” Valencia said.

The little girl has since sobered up and fully recovered.

Source: https://6abc.com/post/toddler-mistakenly-served-alcohol-salinas-california-restaurant/15219869/

Elon Musk’s own AI system Grok has created videos of him committing armed robbery and it is surprisingly realistic.

Not long after the X/Twitter CEO Musk participated in a glitch-ridden talk with controversial former president Donald Trump, people have used his own AI tech to create a video of both of them committing crimes.

Musk alleges to be a proponent of free speech despite threatening to sue competitor platform Threads, the Anti-Defamation League and other critics of his. He has also reposted fake news posts with ring-wing sentiment to his 195 million followers.

Now, he has had his own beliefs thrown back at him after AI Visuals studio The Dor Brothers made an AI deepfake clip depicting him as a criminal.

They used Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Musk’s company xAI, to create footage of Musk robbing a convenience store at gunpoint and also using a flaming gun. The AI-generated clip then showed Musk in handcuffs being perp-walked by police officers.

Captioning the clip, they wrote: “Somebody said uncensored? Thank you @grok for letting us all have some fun.”

Other generated clips showed Trump and Kamala Harris doing the same thing.

Some viewers seemed concerned by how good the images were and questioned whether we will soon be able to tell what is a deepfake and what is real.

“AI has gotten so crazy! Who knows what’s real anymore,” someone wrote.

Ben Affleck appeared stressed as he was seen puffing on a cigarette one day after his estranged wife, Jennifer Lopez, filed for divorce on their second wedding anniversary.

The “Argo” star smoked with his windows down as he drove to his Los Angeles office on Wednesday afternoon.

Affleck noticeably ditched his wedding ring as his arm dangled out the window.

The actor returned to work after arriving back on the West Coast Tuesday alongside his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner.

The former couple have spent the past week helping their 18-year-old daughter, Violet, move into her dorm at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Affleck, 52, appeared in good spirits as he was photographed getting off a private jet with Garner, 52, and their 15-year-old child, Seraphina, hours before Lopez pulled a plug on their marriage.

Later that day, the “Gone Girl” star was spotted walking in a parking garage outside of his workplace amid the news the actress had filed for divorce.

Lopez, 55, submitted the papers in a Los Angeles court on the second anniversary of their Georgia wedding ceremony.

A source told Page Six that the “On the Floor” songstress initially filed the docs on the milestone date to show she is “a woman standing up in her own way.”

The former couple, who initially eloped in Las Vegas in July 2022, didn’t sign a prenup.

Lopez listed their split date as April 26.

Insiders previously told Page Six that the duo’s marriage has been over since March, as another added Affleck had “come to his senses” about his relationship with the pop star.

While the duo haven’t addressed their separation, they noticeably have spent time apart as Lopez attended the Met Gala solo and traveled to New York sans the actor.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/08/21/entertainment/ben-affleck-looks-stressed-puffs-on-cigarette-one-day-after-jennifer-lopezs-divorce-filing/

How long does it take a large desert tortoise to get to the other side of a southern Arizona highway?

It’s still a mystery, after a state Department of Public Safety trooper recently helped rescue an escaped sulcata tortoise that was attempting to cross Interstate 10 near Picacho.

A motorist contacted authorities on July 30 to report a tortoise trying to cross the busy highway that’s halfway between Casa Grande and Tucson in Pinal County.

The motorist and DPS Sgt. Steven Sekrecki managed to get the tortoise off the roadway unharmed.

Troopers saw the name “Stitch” labeled across the tortoise’s shell and contacted an ostrich ranch that was 3 miles away.

Source:https://apnews.com/article/escaped-desert-tortoise-highway-rescue-0ad2ec215fed38a7b898b45430d28e3f

The mugshot shows the man with the remnants of bandages on the back of his head and dried blood on his scalp.

A man bleeding after a hair transplant was arrested when he refused to leave a plane.

Eugenio Ernesto Hernandez-Garnier and a female companion were hauled off the aircraft at Miami airport on Tuesday, according to local media.

Staff were concerned about the state of his head and potential body fluid contamination, but the 27-year-old reportedly said he didn’t have any fresh bandages to clean up the wound.

The pair refused to leave with an arrest report stating the woman, Yusleydis Blanca Loyola, told crew “if they could not fly, no one else can either”.

Police were called on board and warned the pair they would be arrested.

The woman started live streaming the incident on TikTok and they were eventually handcuffed and taken off the American Airlines flight to Las Vegas.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/man-bleeding-after-hair-transplant-arrested-for-refusing-to-leave-plane-at-miami-airport-13200529

Just an hour away from where the Democratic National Convention is being held, it is clear the stakes of November’s election are not yet known.

In Woodstock, Illinois, they know all about the cycle of repetition.

The small town, around an hour’s drive from Chicago, where this week’s Democratic National Convention is being held, is actually where the movie Groundhog Day was filmed.

Its part in movie history is marked by a huge mural on the main street, a poster of the film’s star Bill Murray in the estate agent window and a plaque at the bed and breakfast which featured as one of the sets.

But in a place where a narrative of monotony is celebrated, the story now is about the upcoming presidential election and a new offer that goes beyond re-electing an incumbent. But for many here, Kamala Harris is an elusive candidate.

“It’s tough to make a decision on something where you were thinking one way and now you have to switch your gears because it’s a whole new person,” says Matt Drennan, who owns a shop on the main square selling model trains.

“I want to hear what she’s going to do, what’s going to be different than what’s already been done.”

Usually, by the time a national convention arrives, there is a clear sense of the policy platforms of the nominee.

When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, she had more than 200 distinct policy proposals. Four years ago, Joe Biden had a 110-page policy document for his White House bid.

Now, Vice President Kamala Harris doesn’t even have a policy page on her campaign website, perhaps owing to her late entry into the race. Her campaign seems to be propelled at the moment by good vibes and the overall energy she brings.

“I mean, honestly, she just got into the race,” says Matt. “She was the vice president and if you look at the history – other than Al Gore – most of the vice presidents nobody knows much about.

“The big problem is you don’t totally know her policies yet,” he adds, “so I’m reading up on that to see what works, to see who is the best candidate for small business and the economy.

“I’m doing my research and my due diligence now. A lot of people take that instant 60-second sound bite and decide their lives on it.”

McHenry County, the district Woodstock is in, voted narrowly for Trump in 2020. It’s a community shaped by the railroads and home to the United States’ largest railway museum.

Linda is visiting with her grandsons. She believes the momentum in the 2024 race is now firmly with Harris.

“She’s smart and I believe she’s going to win,” Linda says. “I’m very excited about this. She just has that energy and that enthusiasm. I liked Joe Biden, but there’s a difference from being 80 to 60, there just is.”

In the nearby village of Island Lake, they’re celebrating the annual corn fest. Bands play, kids climb on inflatable slides and money is raised for local charities.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/therell-be-a-revolution-if-trump-loses-tensions-boil-10-weeks-before-us-election-as-kamala-harris-settles-into-the-race-13200453

Divers have continued to search for survivors off the coast of Sicily amid hopes some survivors might be trapped in air pockets inside the ship.

Five bodies have been found by divers searching the wreck of the superyacht that sunk off the coast of Sicily.

Four bodies have been brought ashore and efforts to recover the fifth will continue on Thursday.

The body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, had been recovered already, the Italian coastguard confirmed to Sky News on Tuesday. The discoveries bring the total number of confirmed dead to six.

Authorities are yet to confirm the identity of the bodies found on Wednesday. One person remains missing.

British tech billionaire Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter were among those missing after the Bayesian went down as a result of being hit by a tornado on Monday morning.

Six were missing in total – with Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and US lawyer Chris Morvillo also unaccounted for, along with their wives, Judy Bloomer and Neda Morvillo.

Twenty-two people were on board the vessel, 15 of whom were rescued – including Briton Charlotte Golunski and her one-year-old daughter Sofia.

Giovanni Costantino, the CEO of The Italian Sea Group, which owns the firm which built the yacht, said he had been left in “disbelief” at the news of the Bayesian sinking while anchored off the coast of Sicily.

“Being the manufacturer of Perini and knowing very well how the boats have always been designed and built,” he said, “and as Perini is a sailing ship… sailing ships are renowned to be the safest ever.”

He added their structure and keel made them “unsinkable”.

Divers involved in the search and rescue operation for the sunken Costa Concordia in 2013 have been called in to stretch the amount of time underwater to 20 minutes per dive. For the past two days, a major challenge for divers had been their limit of 12 minutes on each dive, including the time to go down and come back up.

But the Costa Concordia divers have cylinders containing particular micelles which allow for a longer dive.

Divers have been looking for survivors in the hope that some might be trapped in air pockets inside the ship, but experts believe the chances any are left alive are slim.

Divers from the local fire service have been entering the water with torches attached to their headgear at the site of the shipwreck on Wednesday afternoon.

A police boat was also at the scene, while a helicopter hovered overhead.

Ford Motor (F.N), opens new tab on Wednesday said it was killing a planned three-row electric SUV and pushing back a new electric version of its best-selling pickup, the F-150, the latest delay by the U.S. automaker as it focuses on cutting costs to stimulate demand.
Ford, General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab and other carmakers have delayed or cancelled new electric models to avoid spending heavily on vehicles that consumers are not buying as quickly as anticipated.

“With pricing and margin compression, we’ve made the decision to adjust our product and technology roadmap and industrial footprint to meet our goal of reaching positive EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) within the first 12 months of launch for all new models,” Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said in a statement.
Ford also said it is adding a new electric mid-sized pickup and van to its future lineup as it doubles down on a strategy it has used in recent years, focusing on segments where it is already strong: pickup trucks and commercial vehicles. Ford’s shares rose 1.1%.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker has instead thrown more investment into hybrid vehicles, which combine an electric motor with a gasoline engine. Hybrid sales by Ford, Toyota (7203.T), opens new tab and other carmakers have surged as consumers turn to the technology as a less costly halfway step between gas-powered cars and EVs.
“The criticism Ford will have to face is why its product plan was not more flexible from the beginning, why it has been slow to implement these changes, and why investors will need to wait for a comprehensive update until next year,” Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska said in a research note.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has said one of the main solutions to slowing EV sales growth is bringing the production costs around those models down. That is a key goal for the future health of the company, which is expected to lose up to $5.5 billion on EVs this year alone.
As Chinese competitors and Tesla(TSLA.O), opens new tab continue to drive down costs on EV production, Farley has said he is staking the future of Ford on its specialized team in California, which has been developing an architecture for affordable EVs. The first vehicle based on that new technology will be the mid-sized electric pickup released in 2027.
The automaker will take a special non-cash charge of about $400 million for the write-down of certain assets for the previously planned three-row SUVs, which may also result in additional expenses and cash expenditures of up to $1.5 billion.
Given the increasing emphasis on hybrids, Ford said its share of annual capital spending dedicated to pure EVs will decline to about 30% from 40%.

‘AFFORDABLE BATTERY’
Ford said it will start making an electric commercial van at its Ohio Assembly plant in 2026, hoping to capitalize on its success in the gas-engine commercial vehicle market.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited successor to Ford’s F-150 Lightning electric truck is again delayed, now to the second half of 2027 from an initially planned 2025 launch, a move the company said will allow it to take advantage of lower-cost battery technology.
While Ford is shelving plans to produce an electric three-row SUV, it is moving to hybrid vehicles in that segment, aiming to woo customers with longer-range vehicles for road trips.
Ford also said it will relocate some battery production to qualify for incentives under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and further drive down costs, a top priority for Farley.
The carmaker will move some production of the batteries it makes with South Korean battery partner LG Energy Solution (373220.KS), opens new tab for its Mustang Mach-E cars from Poland to Holland, Michigan.
“An affordable electric vehicle starts with an affordable battery,” Farley said in the statement.
Another battery joint venture, with SK Innovation (096770.KS), opens new tab in Kentucky, will begin manufacturing cells for the E-Transit van beginning in mid-2025 and batteries for Ford’s new electric commercial van in Tennessee in late 2025.
The automaker said lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery production is on track to begin in 2026 at its battery park in Michigan and will qualify for IRA benefits.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-plans-new-low-cost-ev-pickup-truck-launching-2027-2024-08-21/

Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.

While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.

“Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying,” said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade. “When they don’t use the weapon, they are ineffective.”

The accounts come from commanders and soldiers who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about sensitive military matters. Others spoke on the condition that they be identified only by their call signs in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.

U.S. President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, stressed the urgent need to conclude a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal and pointed to upcoming Cairo talks as crucial, the White House said.
Their call followed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s whirlwind trip to the Middle East that ended on Tuesday without an agreement between Israel and Hamas militants on a truce in the Palestinian enclave.

Day three of the Democratic National Convention has come to an end, with vice presidential candidate Tim Walz delivering his headline address. We’ve also heard from former house speaker Nancy Pelosi who took aim at Donald Trump.

What happened on day three of the Democratic convention?
Many of you will just be waking up to read about the third day of the Democratic National Convention.

We’ve been bringing you all the latest updates through the night, which you can read by scrolling through this blog – we’ll be doing the same again this evening for the convention’s finale.

If you’d prefer a quick recap, here are the key moments you might have missed…

Tim Walz delivers headline ‘pep talk’

Tim Walz accepted the nomination for vice president in a “pep talk” that vowed to “turn the page on Donald Trump”.

The Minnesota governor, little-known before his selection by Kamala Harris, gave the audience an overview of his career, starting with his work as a high school teacher and football coach.

“It was those players and my students who inspired me to run for Congress,” he said.

“Never underestimate a public school teacher,” he laughed. “I represented my neighbours in Congress for 12 years, and I learned an awful lot.”

He also spoke about his family’s struggle with infertility and, turning to gun control, bragged about having a “better shot than most Republicans”.

Warning about Project 2025 – a controversial right-wing set of policy proposals – he called it a “playbook” for the next Republican administration.

“Look, I coached high school football long enough to know and trust me on this – when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it,” he said.

As he wrapped up his speech to wild applause, his walk-off song Rockin’ In The Free World played – Neil Young having signed off on its use after suing Mr Trump for using the song at campaign rallies without permission.

Bill Clinton urges people to vote for ‘president of joy’

Former president Bill Clinton used his convention speech to denounce Mr Trump as selfish and urged Democrats to back the “president of joy” Kamala Harris.

Slating Mr Trump, he compared him to a tenor who warms up by singing “me, me, me”.

“What does her opponent do with his voice? He mostly talks about himself,” he said. “So the next time you hear him, don’t count the lies, count the I’s.

“We need Kamala Harris, the president of joy, to lead us,” he said.

Looking forward, he said Ms Harris was a “clear choice” for president and praised her ‘McDonalds approach’ to public office.

“When she was a student, she worked at McDonald’s. She greeted every person with that thousand-watt smile and said, ‘How can I help you?’ And now, at the pinnacle of power, she’s still asking ‘How can I help you?'” he says.

“I’ll be so happy when she actually enters the White House because, at last, she’ll break my record as the president who has spent the most time at McDonald’s.”

Chris Martin gave a special performance in Vienna after Taylor Swift fans were unable to attend her Austria shows due to a last-minute cancellation.

The Coldplay frontman played a cover of “Love Story” for the crowd at Austria’s Ernst Happel Stadium during the band’s Wednesday show — two weeks after the pop star was forced to cancel her Eras Tour performances due to a violent threat.

“If this is not good, please, please don’t put it on YouTube because I don’t want to get in trouble with Taylor,” Martin told the audience, per a clip posted on X.

Martin was joined onstage by Maggie Rogers for the rousing rendition.

Swift had been scheduled to perform three nights in Vienna beginning on Aug. 8.

The day before, Barracuda Music announced that all three shows were canceled following the arrest of several people with ISIS connections.

“With confirmation from the government officials of a planned terrorist attack … we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” a statement shared on Instagram read.

The suspects, who were apprehended by authorities, reportedly planned to drive a car filled with bombs into the crowd.

On Wednesday, the “Bad Blood” singer, 34, broke her silence on the cancellation and terror plot, defending her decision to remain silent about the harrowing incident as she looked out for the safety of her fans.

“Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating. The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows,” she posted on Instagram.

“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/08/21/entertainment/chris-martin-covers-taylor-swifts-love-story-in-vienna-after-foiled-terror-plot/

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ election effort has raised around $500 million since she became the Democratic presidential candidate, sources told Reuters, an unprecedented money haul that reflects donor enthusiasm going into the Nov. 5 election.
Four sources familiar with the fundraising effort told Reuters that figure had been banked for Harris in the four weeks since she jumped into the race on July 21.

Campaign cash is critical for advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts that help bring people to the polls and persuade undecided voters to swing a candidate’s way.
Harris entered the fray after President Joe Biden stepped aside from the top of the Democratic ticket, unleashing floods of funding that had dried up in the weeks after Biden’s disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump.
Harris raised $200 million in the first week of her campaign while she quickly wrapped up support to become the party’s nominee.

Harris’ team raised $310 million in July, bringing the total amount of money raised by her and Biden before he dropped out to more than $1 billion, the most rapid crossing of that fundraising threshold in history, according to the campaign.
Trump’s campaign said it raised $138.7 million in July and had cash on hand of $327 million. The former president’s campaign outraised Biden in the second quarter.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-election-effort-raises-around-500-million-month-sources-say-2024-08-20/

A U.S. appeals court said Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab must face a revived lawsuit by Google Chrome users who said the company collected their personal information without permission, after they chose not to synchronize their browsers with their Google accounts.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the lower court judge who dismissed the proposed class action should have assessed whether reasonable Chrome users consented to letting Google collect their data when they browsed online.

Tuesday’s 3-0 decision followed Google’s agreement last year to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming the Alphabet unit tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, including in Chrome’s “Incognito” mode.
Google said in a statement: “We disagree with this ruling and are confident the facts of the case are on our side. Chrome Sync helps people use Chrome seamlessly across their different devices and has clear privacy controls.”

Argentine authorities have quarantined a cargo ship in the Parana River over a suspected case of mpox onboard, the government said on Tuesday, as global public health authorities remain on alert for a new faster-spreading variant of the virus.
The quarantined Liberian-flagged ship was sailing from Santos, Brazil – also a major commodities hub – to pick up soy cargo, according to the health ministry and industry body the Argentine Naval League.

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years as a new variant of the virus spread rapidly in Africa. A day later, a case of the clade 1b variant was confirmed in Sweden, the first sign of its spread outside Africa.
The ship near Argentina’s inland grains port of Rosario alerted authorities that “one of its crew members of Indian nationality showed cyst-like skin lesions predominantly on the chest and face,” the ministry said in a statement, adding the person had been isolated from the rest of the crew.

The ministry said public health emergency protocol was then activated and the ship, which had been bound for the San Lorenzo port in the Santa Fe province, had to drop anchor in the river.
Only medical personnel will be able to board the ship, while the whole crew will be required to quarantine pending test results, the ministry added.
Mpox, a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill. The clade 1b strain has caused concern because it seems to spread more easily through routine close contact.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ship-argentinas-parana-river-is-quarantined-suspected-mpox-case-local-media-2024-08-20/

Around 25 people were believed to be stuck on the ride, according to reports. Police, fire and ambulance services attended.

A number of people were stuck mid-air for hours after an amusement park ride malfunctioned in Skegness.

Police attended the incident at Skegness Pleasure Beach after the ride broke down.

Fire and ambulance services were also pictured at the scene.

Around 25 people were believed to be stuck on the ride, called the Super Trooper, according to local reports.

At around 6pm, Lincolnshire Police said they were “attending an incident at Skegness Pleasure Beach where a ride has malfunctioned and remains suspended in the air with a number of people stuck on the ride”.

And at around 8pm they issued an update, saying “everyone has been safely rescued and there are no serious injuries”.

“Thank you for your patience whilst we worked through the incident,” the police added.

Officers had earlier asked the public to avoid the area to allow emergency services to “work together to ensure the safety of the people on the ride whilst they are being rescued”.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/people-stuck-mid-air-after-skegness-pleasure-beach-ride-malfunctions-13200358

The Russian president visited army volunteers in Chechnya and told them Russia will be “invincible” as long as it has men like them.

Vladimir Putin has paid his first visit to Chechnya in 13 years to visit military volunteers – who he hailed for making Russia “invincible”.

Mr Putin’s visit came against the backdrop of Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region, which shows no signs of abating.

Vladimir Putin has paid his first visit to Chechnya in 13 years to visit military volunteers – who he hailed for making Russia “invincible”.

Mr Putin’s visit came against the backdrop of Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region, which shows no signs of abating.

The Kremlin leader started his unscheduled visit to the Muslim-majority republic of the Russian Federation by saluting Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Mr Putin then visited a special forces academy bearing his own name and spoke to volunteer fighters who train there before being sent to Ukraine.

The 71-year-old praised the volunteers and said as long as Russia had men like them, it would be “invincible,” according to reports by Russian state agencies.

Mr Kadyrov said in a post on his official Telegram channels that more than 47,000 fighters, including volunteers, have trained at the facility since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

The visit came a day after billionaire Elon Musk denied gifting the Chechen warlord a cybertruck after Mr Kadyrov filmed himself riding the vehicle.

Fighters from Chechnya, whose bid for independence after the Soviet Union’s collapse led to years of war with Russian government forces, are participating in both sides of the conflict in Ukraine.

Pro-Kyiv volunteers loyal to Dzhokhar Dudayev, the late Chechen pro-independence leader, are the sworn enemies of Chechen forces who back Mr Putin and Mr Kadyrov.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/vladimir-putin-visits-chechnya-for-the-first-time-in-13-years-and-praises-invincible-volunteers-for-ukraine-war-13200437

Maria Branyas Morera was listed by the Gerontology Research Group as the oldest known person in the world after the death of French nun Lucile Randon last year.

Maria Branyas Morera, an American-born Spaniard believed to be the world’s oldest person at 117, has died, her family said on Tuesday.

In a post on Ms Morera’s account on X, her family wrote: “Maria Branyas has left us. She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, at peace, and without pain.”

They then wrote that she had told them in the days before her death: “I don’t know when, but very soon this long journey will come to an end.

“Death will find me worn down from having lived so much, but I want to meet it with a smile, feeling free and satisfied.”

A search for six people, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his daughter, who have been missing since a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily, continues. Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, Chris Morvillo, and his wife are also missing.

The mother of a crew member who survived the sinking of a superyacht off the coast of Sicily has said she is “beyond relieved that my daughter’s life was spared by the grace of God”.

Leah Randall, from South Africa, was among the crew members who survived the sinking of the British-flagged yacht, called Bayesian, which had 10 crew and 12 passengers on board when it sank at about 5am local time on Monday.

The vessel was struck by a tornado off the coast of Palermo.

While a huge search for six missing people – four of whom are British – continues, the body of the vessel’s Canadian-Antiguan chef, Recaldo Thomas, has been found, the Italian Coastguard confirmed on Tuesday evening.

Leah’s mum, Heidi, told Sky News she was “beyond relieved” to hear her “daughter’s life was spared by the grace of God”.

She added: “It doesn’t make it any easier living with the heartache of those who have lost their lives/missing.

“My very deepest condolences to the chef’s family as they formed a great friendship.”

The search also continues for Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at major firm Clifford Chance, and both of their wives – Judy Bloomer and Neda Morvillo.

A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley said they were “deeply shocked and saddened” and added: “Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular the Bloomer family, as we all wait for further news from this terrible situation.”

UK insurer Hiscox, which Mr Bloomer also chaired, confirmed his wife was also among the missing on Tuesday.

A Clifford Chance spokesperson added its priority was “providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident”.

Meanwhile, crew members Katja Chicken and Leo Eppel have been confirmed as survivors.

Survivors have been seen at the Di Cristina hospital in Palermo, while the coastguard said it believes Mr Lynch and the five others missing may still be inside the sunken yacht.

Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency said: “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Mum held baby above water to save her

Among the survivors is a mother who held her one-year-old baby above the waves.

Charlotte Golunski, 35, told la Repubblica she lost her baby Sofia for “two seconds”, adding: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.

“It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”

The baby’s father James Emsley also survived, Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency said. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms Golunski is a partner at Mr Lynch’s firm, called Invoke Capital.

Lynch’s co-defendant killed in car accident

Mr Lynch, described as the British Bill Gates, was cleared earlier this year in a high-profile fraud case relating to the sale of software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

His co-defendant in that trial, Stephen Chamberlain, was separately confirmed dead after he was hit by a car on Saturday.

Gary Lincenberg, his lawyer, said in a statement: “Our dear client and friend Steve Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running.

“He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him.

“Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family.”

Cambridgeshire Police said in a statement on Monday evening that the driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/sicily-superyacht-sinking-survivor-spared-by-grace-of-god-relieved-mum-says-as-search-for-missing-continues-13200332

Pakistan’s parliament has a problem – and it is nothing to do with the politicians.
No, the problem besieging the building – terrifying new starters and turning its offices into overnight “marathon” tracks – is rats. Big ones.
The scale of the problem came to light after an official committee asked to see the records of meetings from 2008. When the records were collected, it was found most had been badly gnawed by rats.
“The rats on this floor are so huge that even cats might be afraid of them,” National Assembly spokesman Zafar Sultan admitted to the BBC.

If you want the old Sonos app back, it’s not coming. In a Reddit AMA response posted Tuesday, Sonos CEO Spence says that he was hopeful “until very recently” that the company could rerelease the app, confirming a report from The Verge that the company was considering doing so. But after testing that option, rereleasing the old app would apparently make things worse, Spence says.

Since the new app was released on May 7th, Spence has issued a formal apology and announced in August that the company would be delaying the launch of two products “until our app experience meets the level of quality that we, our customers, and our partners expect from Sonos.”

Here’s Spence’s explanation as to why it can’t bring back the old app:

The trick of course is that Sonos is not just the mobile app, but software that runs on your speakers and in the cloud too. In the months since the new mobile app launched we’ve been updating the software that runs on our speakers and in the cloud to the point where today S2 is less reliable & less stable then what you remember. After doing extensive testing we’ve reluctantly concluded that re-releasing S2 would make the problems worse, not better. I’m sure this is disappointing. It was disappointing to me.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/20/24224754/sonos-ceo-old-s2-app-re-release-cant-be

Bennifer 2.0 is over.

Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, Page Six can confirm.

According to TMZ, who was first to report the news, Lopez filed pro per, meaning by herself and without an attorney.

Tuesday also marks the two-year anniversary of the pair’s lavish Georgia wedding ceremony, which they held after eloping in Las Vegas in July 2022.

The singer listed the date of separation as April 26, 2024.

Lopez did not say in her filing whether she and the actor have a prenuptial agreement in place, with sources telling the outlet that they do not have one.

She went on to waive spousal support and asked the judge to deny Affleck such support as well.

Lopez, 55, and Affleck, 52, first sparked breakup rumors in May 2024 amid reports that they started going to couples therapy.

Although neither Lopez nor Affleck addressed the speculation, the “Air” actor was spotted without his wedding ring a week later, seemingly confirming there was trouble in paradise.

TMZ also reported that Affleck no longer lived in their Beverly Hills mega-mansion.

According to the outlet, the Oscar winner had been seen staying at a house in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles for about a week — despite it being nearly 30 minutes from their Beverly Hills home.

He was photographed coming and going from the property without the “Jenny from the Block” singer on numerous occasions.

Attentive fans later realized the pair hadn’t been photographed together in over a month and a half.

Soon after, Page Six learned that Affleck was “house-hunting” in the area.

Meanwhile, the “Wedding Planner” actress was also photographed touring homes in Los Angeles alongside her longtime producing partner, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, in mid-May.

A source told us at the time that Affleck would “divorce on grounds of temporary insanity” if he could because he finally came “to his senses” following what felt like a “fever dream.”

In June, Lopez took a solo vacation to Italy, while her beau remained in Los Angeles.

She enjoyed time on a luxury yacht before traveling to Paris for the Dior fashion show.

While the mom of two was in Europe, Affleck reportedly moved all of his belongings out of their Beverly Hills home.

The divorce rumors ramped up when the couple listed their marital home on the market in July.

The couple listed the 38,000-square-foot new home, which features 12 bedrooms, 24 bathrooms and a full basketball court, for $68 million — nearly $8 million more than what they paid when they bought it in 2023.

The “On the Floor” singer and the “Good Will Hunting” star reportedly paid all cash for the pricey property — which was originally listed for $135 million in 2018.

Ahead of Fourth of July weekend, Lopez jetted off to the Hamptons to enjoy time with family — including Affleck’s daughter Violet.

The pop star and the teen were spotted walking with their arms wrapped around each other in Southampton, NY, on July 14 and were seen at the East Hampton Antiques & Design Show outside the Historic Mulford Farm Museum the day prior.

Lopez and Affleck also spent their second wedding anniversary apart.

On their special day, the “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” singer drove around with her longtime manager, Benny Medina, in the Hamptons while the “Argo” actor arrived at his LA office.

Affleck was not present for any of his wife’s 55th birthday activities, including her “Bridgerton”-themed party and her private lunch at Arthur & Sons in the Hamptons.

However, he did spend Lopez’s birthday purchasing a new $20 million LA mansion.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/08/20/entertainment/jennifer-lopez-and-ben-affleck-divorcing-after-2-years-of-marriage/

Specialist divers continue to search for six people who were onboard a luxury superyacht which capsized off the coast of Sicily on Monday morning – but questions have been asked about why the vessel sank.
According to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder, the boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on 14 August and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor”.
It is believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water – otherwise known as a waterspout – causing Bayesian to capsize.
There are separate reports the boat’s mast snapped during the freak storm and other factors in the boat’s sinking include water entering through hatches and doors which had been left open because of warm weather off the Italian coast.

Soaring across the scenic landscape, it’s indisputably one of the most beautiful bridges in the world.

Often swathed by mist, so that it feels like crossing through clouds, it is so famous that it has its own visitor center, and people plan trips to the area solely to drive across it. The bridge can even be easily seen from space.

The Golden Gate? No. This is the Millau Viaduct, a perfect example of where engineering meets art. Cantilevered high over the Tarn gorge in southern France, and yawning 2,460 meters (8,070 feet) in length, the Millau Viaduct is the world’s tallest bridge, with a structural height of 336.4 meters (1,104 feet).

But not even those impressive statistics do it justice.

Unlike other famous bridges, which usually connect two points of similar altitude, the Millau Viaduct effectively becomes the opposite of a rollercoaster, plying a flat course across the valley, as the land ripples up and down underneath it.

The seven piers range from 78 meters to 245 meters (256-804 feet) in height, each calculated to the millimeter to make a perfectly smooth experience for drivers soaring across the Tarn. There’s a 342m (1,122ft) span between each pairing – large enough for the Eiffel Tower to slot in the gap. The piers are coupled with seven steel pylons, each 87 meters (285 feet) high, with 11 cable stays fanning out on either side. This all helps keep the “deck” – the road surface, which is around 14 feet thick and weighs 36,000 tons, or the equivalent of 5,100 African elephants – steady.

At the same time as being a work of absolute precision, it’s also beautiful. The Gorges du Tarn area is a protected landscape, yet instead of spoiling the view, the Millau Viaduct enhances it.

It’s a “wonder of the modern world” and an “engineering marvel,” says David Knight, director of design and engineering at Cake Industries and specialist adviser to the Institution of Civil Engineers.

“It’s that perfect interplay of architecture and engineering that means that everybody who sees it thinks it’s spectacular.”

Those living in the valley below look up with wonder; those driving across it – this road, the A75 from Clermont-Ferrand to Béziers, is one of the main north-south routes in France – see the gentle curve arcing across the landscape as they approach. “It gives everyone who uses it a sense of awe,” says Knight.

No wonder that for many, driving across the viaduct is something you travel to do, not something you do while traveling.

So how did this wonder of the modern world come to be built in the middle of France? Why did it take two decades to plan, before opening to traffic in December 2004? And how did it effectively change the map of Europe?

A bridge too far?

The answer to all those questions is geography. The Massif Central is a vast area of highlands cut by deep valleys and gorges, roughly located in the middle part of the bottom half of France. Sprawling across about 15% of the country, and bordered by the Alps to the east, it’s one of the obstacles anyone traveling from north to south of the country – or from northern Europe to Spain – must pass.

So important was this viaduct – but also so difficult – that it was two decades in the planning, according to Michel Virlogeux, the engineer who led the design team – and who first started work on it in September 1987.

“The first problem was not what bridge to build, but where the motorway would pass,” he says.

At the time the Massif Central was remote, despite its central location. There was a single-track railway line, and the roads “weren’t very good,” he says. “The central part of France couldn’t develop due to lack of transport.”

So in the 1980s, the French government decided to upgrade the road network, with then-president Valery Giscard d’Estaing deciding on a freeway. One of the aims was to unclog the notoriously choked road around Millau, where the road descended into the valley and crossed the Tarn river in the city center. Every day there were tailbacks of around 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) either side of the town.

“Going through Millau used to be a traffic blackspot for tourists,” says Emmanuelle Gazel, current mayor of Millau. “There were lots of traffic jams. There were kilometers and kilometers of tailbacks. It gave a very bad image of our area… in terms of pollution it was terrible. And locals took a long time getting from one point to another.”

In the words of Lord Norman Foster, who became the architect of the bridge, the area was “a valley of extreme beauty which had become one of France’s worst bottlenecks.”

The decision to build a bridge around Millau was taken in September 1986, says Virlogeux, who at the time was head of the large bridges division of the French administration. There was just one problem: the geography of the area meant there was no obvious solution. “We started looking where was possible, but many options were bad, and it took almost three years to find a solution,” he says.

One idea was to route the freeway east of Millau, keeping the road on the plateaus, with two suspension bridges to cross the valleys on either side. But that wouldn’t have allowed a connection with Millau – “the only big city between Clermont-Ferrand and Béziers,” says Virlogeux – which needed the economic boost.

So they called in the experts: geologists, geo technologists, road engineers and Virlogeux, who had already designed the Pont de Normandie – the 7,032-foot bridge spanning the river Seine in the northern region of Normandy.

The team’s first idea was to run west of Millau, bringing the road lower in altitude down into the valley, across a bridge at a lower level and up again to the plateau and then a tunnel. They were in the stages of planning when the team’s road engineer, Jacques Soubeyran, had a lightbulb moment.

“He asked, ‘Why are you going into the valley?’ and it was a big shock,” remembers Virlogeux. “The motorway was passing 300 meters above the river. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of passing at a high level. Immediately, I said we were being stupid. We started working on the idea of passing plateau to plateau.”

After just eight days they had detailed drawings of the rippling ground levels, as well as a possible altitude for a freeway snaking across it.

The importance of elegance

They knew where they wanted the viaduct – but what should it look like?

Virlogeux immediately knew that the best option would be a cable-stayed bridge. “Cable is the most efficient structure to carry a load, and you can have a very slender deck so it’s much better to look at,” he says.

Slenderness was important. There was already controversy about the idea of running a bridge through such a famous landscape. To avoid ruining the landscape, it had to “look very quiet.”

Getting the go-ahead took some years. The French government started a competition for the design of the bridge, and in 1996 the commission was won by a group led by Virlogeux as engineer (who had left his previous job a year earlier) and the UK’s Norman Foster – now Lord Foster – as architect. Foster calls their plan to span the valley, rather than the river, a “philosophical concept” that distinguished them from other competitors.

But with the local community up in arms at the idea of their area of natural beauty being spoiled, they face what Foster calls a “design challenge… to create something that would enhance the landscape, sit gently on the floor of the valley – to be the most delicate and light intervention.” Virlogeux says it had to be “pure and simple.”

Yet this precious landscape, which had to be protected aesthetically, was extremely difficult to work around.

“The wind forces at this level are huge and the columns have to accommodate the enormous expansion and contraction of the deck,” says Foster. And we’re not just talking a gentle bounce. The 2,460-meter (8,070-foot) bridge can expand or contract by 50 centimeters (1.6 feet) depending on the weather. Their solution was to add extension joints.

Luckily, while the old adage is that architects and engineers should be at loggerheads, and while you might imagine that two titans of architecture and engineering might clash, Foster and Virlogeux have nothing but praise for each other. Virlogeux says it was a “very easy” working relationship, while for Foster it was a “meeting of minds.” The team had twice-monthly meetings in London while working on the design. “He would ask me, ‘Why do you want this and not that?’ and after that he’d take a decision in five minutes,” says Virlogeux. “Once there was a major controversy about the shape of the deck. He asked me what I proposed, if I was sure it would work. Then he said, ‘OK – architecture must not go against scientific needs.’”

Above the road, the sturdy columns “split” into two more flexible arms, making an artistic statement out of an engineering necessity.

The same goes for the curve of the road, which gently arcs across the valley. It’s not just beautiful; it ensures that there’s no visual overlap – and therefore confusion – for drivers at such a great height. Meanwhile the piers become slimmer as they rise towards the roadway, more or less halving from 24 meters wide at the bottom to 11 meters at the top.

Their design for a cable-stayed bridge with seven elegant piers marching across the landscape and what Foster calls “the snake of a road, improbably thin like a razor blade,” has stood the test of time.

The anxious build

If the design wasn’t challenging enough, then came the construction which started in October 2001. The project cost a cool 400 million euros ($437 million) and was financed by Eiffage, a private construction company which still has the concession for the bridge today. There were 290,000 tons of steel and concrete used to build it, and around 600 builders working on it.

“The huge challenge is what happens when you build it,” says Knight. “As you put the weight in different locations, it moves in different directions. There are different materials interacting with each other – this is as difficult as engineering gets.”

Foster calls the assembly of the deck “a true challenge.”

“It was serenely and slowly launched simultaneously from both sides over the temporary structural supports, meeting in the middle with millimeter precision.”

Virlogeux remembers the “critical wind situation” which risked damaging the structure during the build. Each “launching” operation – during which the deck was installed from both sides – would take up to three days, so they had to monitor the five-day forecast before starting out, to avoid causing damage before the deck reached the next pier.

It was only as the viaduct was put into place that the team could see if their design had worked – from an aesthetic point of view as much as an engineering one.

Every detail had been considered for its potential effect on the landscape, as well as whether it could resist the forces at that altitude.

Foster says that the first time he went to see it, “I was anxious to the point of almost being physically ill.” He had “agonized” over the color of the 154 cable stays – if they were light, they’d blend in with the sky but stand out against the landscape. He went with white – “but the agony was that I wouldn’t know if it was the right decision until it was built – and then it would be too late to change it.”

Luckily for him, the white worked. “I was almost sick with apprehension, but I remember arriving in a car and the bridge gradually coming into view and finally realizing that it was, after all, the right decision.”

Virlogeux was more sanguine. For him, the greatest challenge was overcoming local opposition to be able to build. Getting the contract signed, he says, was the most stressful part. Signing it was “the moment I knew we would build it.”

President Jacques Chirac came to open the bridge and shake hands with the construction workers. Two days later, Virlogeux drove across it on his way back to Paris.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/millau-viaduct-tallest-bridge-construction/index.html

“America, I love you,” declared President Joe Biden tonight in his keynote speech at the first night of the Democratic National Convention as delegates from across the land cheered “We love Joe!” over and over.

Even with his constant evocation of Irish poetry over the decades, Biden has never been anyone’s idea of a great orator. However, on Monday, the 46th President of the United States gave one of the best speeches of his long stint in public life.

Combative, on-point, evocative and relatively succinct for Biden, the valedictory had a job for the campaign. A job that Biden obviously enjoyed. Ripping his 2020 antagonist Donald Trump as a “loser” and “a liar,” Biden went on to lament how “sad” his predecessor is “putting himself first and America last.”

“I’ve got five months left in my presidency and I’ve got a lot to do,” Biden told the crowd, many of whom had tears dripping down their faces. “I intend to get it done,” Biden added after cataloging his efforts to get a ceasefire in the Gaza War and bring a greater peace to the Middle East.

Quoting Norah Jones’ “American Anthem” song, Biden recited “America, America, I gave my best to you.”

“I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you,” the president continued as an almost chorus. “For 50 years, like many of you, I gave my heart and soul to our nation, and I have been blessed a million times in return with the support of the American people,” Biden added to a suddenly near silent arena. “I may have been too young to be in the Senate, because I wasn’t 30 yet, and too old to stay as president,” he went on, to sounds of near shock at his bluntness. “But I hope you know how grateful I am to all of you.”

As the convention thundered for Biden at the end of his just over 45-minute speech, Vice President and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff came on-stage with the president’s family. The 2024 nominee could clearly been seen telling the 2020 nominee that she loved him as the two hugged.

Biden being Biden, there was an occasional stumble. A bizarre reference to a compliment over his Ukraine policy from the now dead Henry Kissinger didn’t get the reception the president sought. A nod to the ancient Greeks could have gone off the rails. Much of the occasional self-mocking Biden’s bellowed remarks were a litany of achievements and well-worn anecdotes that clearly came from the acceptance speech he intended to be giving this week as recently as two months ago.

It didn’t really matter.

Playing to those at home and on the go more than those in Chicago’s United Center, the 81-year-old Biden was in a fighting spirit that we haven’t seen since the State of the Union earlier this year. In fact, you could say the gist of this speech was the state of the Biden-Harris administration. According to the president, it was in a very good state and good hands.

No wonder Harris was smiling as the man who wants to be her predecessor heaped acclaim on his party’s new standard bearer and the “47th President of the United States.” Beside calling his choice of Harris to be his running mate in 2020 “the best decision of my whole career,” the aside of “thank you Kamala” from Biden to chants of “thank you Joe!” was a spontaneous moment that said it all.

In a scene unseen in America since career politician Lyndon Baines Johnson withdrew from the 1968 race, career politician Joe Biden tonight figuratively handed over power in the pursuit of defeating a long-time foe. Unlike LBJ, who never showed his face at the chaotic ’68 DNC and was listless in his support of his VP Hubert Humphrey’s pursuit of the White House, Biden basked in love and respect from his party.

With a constant chorus of “Thank You Joe!” the DNC’s opening night and intimate words from First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and First Daughter Ashley Biden, the President was preceded over Monday evening by a tribute to Civil Rights leaders and trailblazers like Shirley Chisholm, an array of governors, senators, congressmen and congresswoman.

For a newly streamlined party that has stressed discipline over the change of nominees, it got flabby with too many speeches from too many politicians we see every day. James Taylor (but not Taylor Swift) was set to play but ended up getting bounced because of runaway program. The film that extolled documentary director Dawn Porter made as part of a Biden tribute was pushed off the schedule too to make up time — though both POTUS and VPOTUS put the 11 minute effort up on social media on Monday.

More importantly, the overflow of speakers took President Biden out of primetime with POTUS not taking the stage until 11:26 pm ET.

Then again, from the “We love you Joe!” roar of the on the feet Democrats when consummate retail pol Biden did step up to the microphone, it sure sounded like they could have gone all night.

It was a remarkable shift from just over a month ago when Biden was insisting he was staying in the race despite POTUS’s disastrous and sometimes painful debate performance against Trump on June 27 on CNN.

After loyal donors like Watchmen boss Damon Lindelof, in a Deadline exclusive, and George Clooney started withholding checks, party insiders like Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi moving the chess pieces in the background, the writing was on the wall for Biden. Even with crashing numbers, only a fool would think that the president planned to drop out before hosting the NATO Summit in D.C. in early July. After a press conference of ups and downs on July 11 at the end of the summit, Biden suddenly revealed on Sunday July 21 that he was stepping aside. Minutes later POTUS endorsed VPOTUS for the Democrats’ nomination, which the California native clinched within less than 36 hours.

In a handover that appeared improbable just a few weeks ago, Biden’s decision to pass the torch to his loyal VP has been near seamless – as was evident tonight. Biden’s forced hand turned this into a real race with the Democrats now holding a thin lead. If Harris is elected, that handover is set to be as much a part of the incumbent’s legacy as his legislative and foreign policy successes.

Also on stage at the DNC on Monday night were singers Mickey Guyton and Jason Isbell and various labor leaders. Tellingly, Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien, who spoke to mixed results at the hard-nosed GOP convention last month, was not among those at the lectern on Monday.

Source: https://deadline.com/2024/08/biden-dnc-speech-1236044394/

In eight years of working as a taxi driver in Kenya’s capital, Judith Chepkwony has never seen business this bad.
A bruising price war between ride-hailing companies Uber Technologies (UBER.N), opens new tab, Estonia’s Bolt and local start-ups Little and Faras has driven fares down to a level that many drivers say is unsustainable, forcing them to set their own higher rates.
“Most of us have these cars on loan and the cost of living has risen,” Chepkwony told Reuters. “I try to convince the customers to agree to the higher rates. If they can’t pay, we cancel and let them find another driver.”

Mike Lynch is missing along with his daughter, Hannah, though his wife has been rescued. Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at major firm Clifford Chance, are also among the missing.

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are among six tourists missing after a luxury yacht sank in a tornado off the coast of Italy.

One person has been confirmed dead, believed to be the vessel’s Canadian chef, while four of the missing passengers are British and two American, according to Italian newspaper la Repubblica.

The Palermo Port Authority told Canadian broadcaster CBC News officials recovered the body of Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian-born man who had been living in Antigua.

The British-flagged yacht, called Bayesian, had 10 crew and 12 passengers on board and sank at about 5am local time off the coast of Palermo.

Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency said: “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He added Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at major firm Clifford Chance, are among the missing.

Mr Lynch’s daughter, Hannah Lynch, also remains unaccounted for but his wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued along with 14 others – including a mother who held her one-year-old baby above the waves.

Charlotte Golunski, 35, told la Repubblica she lost her baby Sofia for “two seconds”, adding: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.

“It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”

The girl’s father James Emsley also survived, Mr Cocina said. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms Golunski is a partner at Mr Lynch’s firm, called Invoke Capital.

Mr Lynch, described as the British Bill Gates, was cleared earlier this year of conducting a massive fraud over the sale of software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

His co-defendant in that trial, Stephen Chamberlain, was separately confirmed dead after he was hit by a car on Saturday.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/search-continues-for-british-tech-tycoon-mike-lynch-and-daughter-after-yacht-sinks-in-sicily-tornado-13200009

One child is strip searched every 14 hours, according to a new report by the children’s commissioner.

When Marlon realised his daughter was being groomed and sexually exploited by grown men, he engaged with police, doing everything he could to keep his 14-year-old child safe.

But one day, the police, who Marlon thought would protect his daughter, added to her trauma – when she was strip searched by officers after being accused of concealing an E-cigarette.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are hardly the only examples of politicians who work well into their golden years. Members of the baby-boom generation – Americans born between 1946 and 1964 – are the most numerous in the House, and in the Senate they outnumber lawmakers from all other generations combined.

All told, two-thirds of U.S. senators and nearly half of House lawmakers are eligible for full retirement benefits through the Federal Employees’ Retirement System. And yet they keep working. So do the four Supreme Court justices who are over 65.

They’re not alone. When given the choice, many Americans seem to prefer to work more rather than less. This is true in their weekly and annual work hours as well as the period of their life they spend working. About 1 in 5 Americans over 65 are working, even though they’ve passed the point where they are eligible for full retirement benefits and Social Security payments.

The share of older adults in the workforce is rising, although it’s not clear how many of them are still punching a clock because they want to and how many can’t afford to stop because of holes in the U.S. safety net.

As a historian and anthropologist of medicine in the U.S., I have spent years researching the ways that American adults have generally chosen to earn higher wages rather than reduce their work hours.

I believe that Biden’s decision to retire after years of public service offers an opportunity to consider what is at stake as a society when so many people over the age of 65 keep working, especially in prominent roles.

Retirement conventions in other countries
Maybe not for politicians, but in many occupations, it now takes fewer hours of work to achieve the same labor output as a century ago, thanks to advances in manufacturing and computing.

Yet, hardly anyone is reducing their workloads despite these increases in efficiency. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency, most full-time U.S. employees log about 40 hours of work each week.

Many Europeans work shorter hours, take longer vacations, and get more generous retirement benefits from their governments than their U.S. counterparts. Not coincidentally, support of retirement at the age of 65 or earlier has broad support in the European Union.

In the U.S., later retirement is partly due to policy changes. For Americans born in 1960 or later, the federal retirement age has edged up to 67 from 65. That includes the tail end of those born during the baby boom, who will turn 65 between 2025 and 2028. Retirees eligible for Social Security benefits can collect a lower level of them at 62 and get rewarded with higher levels of Social Security benefits if they work until they turn 70.

As economist Dora Costa recounts in her book “The Evolution of Retirement,” the convention of a set retirement age arose in the early 20th century as a result of actuarial data on life expectancy and the establishment of pensions and social security systems.

Aging and health

To be sure, everyone ages differently, and there are benefits for society when older people remain on the job after their 65th birthday, including institutional memory and workplace experience.

There are recurrent debates about the benefits of working through one’s later life. In some cases, research supports the benefits some people derive from working after 65. But research also supports the importance of having hobbies and their health-promoting effects. What is clear is that remaining active later in life is the most important thing in staying healthy in old age.

But there are several drawbacks, too, related to the health issues associated with aging.

For example, routine illnesses can have outsized effects on aging bodies, and recovery from injuries and sickness can take longer when you’re over 65 than it does for younger adults. That can mean long stretches where an employee can’t do their job.

Cognitive abilities may barely decline for some people, while others experience the dramatic changes associated with age-related dementia.

Unfortunately, figuring out who really should retire if they don’t volunteer to do so is tough because cognitive tests are not always reliable. They often assess the capacities needed to take the test rather than underlying capacities.

For example, aural tests inadvertently assess hearing comprehension by attempting to measure the ability to remember a sequence of words. Many tests functionally test someone’s personality rather than their cognitive capacities. People with certain personality types can mask their cognitive changes. Moreover, bias in assessing cognitive changes is often based in the assessor’s experience of their interactions with the testee.

Except in cases where someone is obviously experiencing clear-cut changes in their cognitive capacity and ability to interact with others, arguing that somebody must retire is often rooted in ableist assumptions.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/mandatory-retirement-politicians/?nab=0

Madonna’s 66th birthday was a family affair.

The “Material Girl” singer shared a rare photo with all six of her children on Monday while giving fans an inside look at her birthday celebration in Italy.

She posted a carousel of heartwarming snaps on Instagram, including one that showed the pop star cozied up to Lourdes “Lola” Leon, 27, Rocco Ritchie, 24, David Banda, 18, Mercy James, 18, and twins Stella and Estere, 11.

Madonna looked glammed up in a white-laced dress with a black bustier underneath. She accessorized with a gold belt around her waist and chunky jewelry.

The “Vogue” songstress’ four daughters also donned dresses, with Leon and the twins topping off their looks with head scarves.

As for Ritchie, he wore a partially buttoned-up white shirt with black slacks, while Banda sported a striped polo shirt.

Another picture saw Madonna beaming as Banda lovingly hugged her from behind, while a third showed the seven-time Grammy winner posing in between her twin daughters.

The “Like a Prayer” hitmaker’s rumored boyfriend, Akeem Morris, was also involved in the festivities and was photographed holding hands with the music icon.

“La Dolce Vita……………..  ♥️,” she captioned the post.

Clutching a toothbrush and toothpaste, Kevin Lik waited for six hours in the main office of penal colony 14, near Arkhangelsk in Russia’s far north-west. It was late in the evening of Sunday 28 July, and the 19-year-old says he had no idea what was about to happen.
“Maybe you’re taking me to be shot,” he said to the governor of the colony.
“Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” came the reply.
Kevin says he was told the same thing by an officer from Russia’s FSB state security agency a year and a half ago, before they locked him up.
“I lost a lot of weight in the colony,” he explains shyly, as we speak on a video call. Kevin is about 6ft 4in tall (1.9m) but weighs only 11 stone (70kg).
Along with American journalist Evan Gershkovich, he is one of 16 people released by Russia on 1 August in a prisoner swap with the US and other Western countries.

He enthusiastically shows me certificates from national and local academic competitions that he won.

It was the 2018 Russian presidential election that sparked his interest in politics, he says. His mother – a public sector healthcare worker – would come home and say she and her colleagues had been bussed to polling stations where they were told: “Vote for Putin, or we’ll take away your bonus.”

He was only 12 at the time, but says he understood “there was almost no democracy in Russia”.

Kevin was enraged that almost every classroom in his school had a portrait of Putin.

“They constantly told us that school is not a place for politics. It’s just not right to hang portraits and promote a personality cult like that,” he says.

A year or so later, he caused a scandal when he swapped a school portrait of Putin for one of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

“One teacher said that during Stalin’s time, I would have been shot,” Kevin recalls – while a sympathetic teacher, he says, advised him to be careful.

His mother was called to the school: “They scolded her, yelled at her,” he says.

The BBC has asked the school for comment, but has not had a response.

Pizza but no handcuffs

As Kevin approached his final school year, his mother decided they should move back to Germany.

By this time, Russia had invaded Ukraine and, in order to leave the country permanently, Kevin’s name had to be removed from the military register.

Victoria was invited to the enlistment office to sort out her son’s paperwork. When she got there on 9 February 2023, the police met her. Kevin says they groundlessly accused her of swearing in public. She was sentenced to 10 days’ detention, which meant they had to delay their plans to leave.

Left alone, Kevin stopped going to school. He ventured out for a few hours one day, and says that when he returned to the apartment “things had been moved around”.

When Victoria was released, they tried to get to Germany by heading south to the city of Sochi, which has an international airport. After checking into a hotel, Kevin says they went out for a snack and he noticed a man in a medical mask and hoodie filming them on his phone. Within seconds, he says a minibus pulled up.

“Eight or nine FSB officers jumped out. One grabbed me by the arm. Another came up, showed his ID, and said: ‘A criminal case has been opened against you under article 275: treason.’

“My eyes were wide with shock.”

The minibus took them to the hotel, where they collected their luggage. On the way back to Maykop they were put in a car without licence plates and taken to a pizzeria.

“They ordered pizza and offered us some. They didn’t handcuff me or restrain me. I was thinking everything over in my head but couldn’t understand how I had committed treason,” says Kevin.

He asked if he would be put in jail. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” came the response.

Kevin remembered a former FSB operative, Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a man in Berlin on Kremlin orders. He started wondering if Russia planned to use him – a German citizen – “as a hostage” to get Krasikov back.

‘It’s a chess game – there was no justice’

They got home in the middle of the night. He shows me the video FSB officers made as they searched the apartment. They found a broken telescope – an old birthday present from his mother.

The authorities suspected he had used it to photograph military vehicles from his window to send to German intelligence. They took his phone and laptop and found pictures of the base.

Kevin freely admits he took the photos but says he had no intention of passing them on to anyone.
At 03:00, Kevin was taken to the local FSB building for interrogation. Because he was only 17, his mother went with him. He was scared.
Kevin says the lawyer assigned to him told him straight away that he should confess to reduce the sentence.
As we speak, he reels off details of Russia’s criminal code and uses legal terms to explain why he was wrongfully accused. But, back then, he had no idea how to handle the situation.

A confession had already been typed and Kevin agreed to sign it, which he later regretted. He says he was afraid if he didn’t sign, things would have “got worse because they could have started pressuring my mum”. The FSB investigator told them he had the power to seize their apartment, says Kevin.

“The testimony was absolute nonsense,” he says. “It’s a chess game, it was clear there was no justice.”

Because he was still a minor, he was taken to a special facility two hours’ drive away in Krasnodar and placed in a solitary cell. He had been up all night but couldn’t sleep.

“They brought me food but I couldn’t eat it. I really wanted to see my mum.”

A few months later, when he turned 18, he was moved to a different prison on the outskirts of Krasnodar where he mixed with other inmates.

Kevin says he was left terrified after a group of inmates beat him up. “They tied my hands, beat me, and even put out a cigarette on me. They hit me so hard in the chest I couldn’t breathe.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v5rn8jr82o

A British mother on board a yacht which sank off the coast of Sicily has described holding her baby girl above the surface of the sea to save her from drowning.
The mother, named locally as Charlotte Golunski, her partner and one-year-old daughter are reported to be among 15 people to have been rescued from the luxury yacht Bayesian early on Monday.
Six people – including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch – are missing with one man found dead outside the wreckage.
The 56m (183ft) vessel, which was carrying 10 crew and 12 passengers, sank half a mile off the coast of Palermo after encountering a heavy storm overnight that caused waterspouts, or rotating columns of air, to appear over the sea.
Charlotte told Italian newspaper La Repubblica her family survived because they were on deck when the yacht sank.
She said they were woken by “thunder, lightning and waves that made our boat dance”, and it felt like “the end of the world” before they were thrown into the water.

Queen Elizabeth II said Donald Trump was ‘very rude’: Astonishing claim revealed in new book which also reports that late monarch believed former US President must have an ‘arrangement’ with wife Melania

Queen Elizabeth found Donald Trump ‘very rude’, a sensational new biography of the late monarch claims.

The sovereign, who hosted the ex-US president twice during her reign, is said to have ‘particularly disliked’ the way he looked over her shoulder as if ‘in search of others more interesting’.

She also mused over his relationship with his wife Melania and said she believed they must have ‘some sort of arrangement’.

The astonishing claims are made by Craig Brown in his new book, A Voyage Around The Queen, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.

He reports the conversation occurred at a lunch ‘weeks after’ one of Mr Trump’s visits.

In his final serialisation instalment today, Brown writes: ‘Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty entertained many controversial foreign leaders, including Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin.

‘She may not have found their company convivial; upon their departure, she may even have voiced a discreet word of disapproval.

‘A few weeks after President Trump’s visit, for instance, she confided in one lunch guest that she found him “very rude”: she particularly disliked the way he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting.

‘She also believed President Trump “must have some sort of arrangement” with his wife Melania, or else why would she have remained married to him?

‘For his part, Donald Trump was confident he had been her favourite guest ever. “There are those that say they have never seen the Queen have a better time, a more animated time,” he later told America’s Fox News.’

Buckingham Palace has not commented on the claim as they do not, by convention, comment on books or biographies generally.

The fascinating account will no doubt come as a blow to Mr Trump, who is currently seeking re-election as President.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13758993/queen-elizabeth-donald-trump-melania-craig-brown.html

He’s a daredevil.

Robert De Niro’s oldest daughter, Drena De Niro, shared a video of her father leaping off a yacht in honor of his 81st birthday.

“Happy 81st Bday to my Dad and #1 ride or die,” she captioned the Instagram post. “Love you with all my ♥️♥️♥️ #BobbyD forever ✨👑.”

In the video, the shirtless “Goodfellas” actor jumped off a yacht into the ocean, wearing only a pair of red-and-blue striped Vilebrequin swim shorts.

Though Robert dived head first, he ended up hitting the water on his back.

“He’s so crazy. Oh my God. Oh my God. Are you alright?” Drena, 56, asked her father once he resurfaced in the water.

The dad of seven replied, “I’m OK.”

Drena then told Robert he was “sick” and “crazy” for the epic leap.

The actress asked a yacht employee how many feet her father jumped from, to which they responded, “36 feet.”

Drena’s comments section was flooded with birthday wishes for the legendary actor.

“HBD to 1 of 1, New York’s finest.🏛️🥂,” wrote one user.

“Happy Birthday To The Best Actor In The World❤️,” added another.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/08/18/entertainment/robert-de-niros-daughter-drena-shares-video-of-actor-leaping-off-a-yacht-for-81st-birthday/

Directors including Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino have acknowledged their debt to the film star.

French actor Alain Delon has died at the age of 88 after suffering from ill health, his family has announced.

The star was known for his roles in films such as Purple Noon in 1960, The Leopard in 1963, and Le Samourai in 1967.

A local councillor warns the operation to deal with the apparent “historic piece of munition” could take at least five days to resolve.

Hundreds of homes have been evacuated in Northern Ireland after a suspected Second World War bomb was discovered.

The “suspected historic piece of munition” was found on Friday at the Rivenwood housing development in Newtownards.

On Sunday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland evacuated around 450 nearby homes as they warned the operation “will continue for a number of days”.

Local councillor Pete Wray confirmed it was a suspected Second World War bomb and described the situation as “complex”.

He added that it would likely take at least five days to resolve.

An emergency support centre for affected residents is operating at the Ards Blair Mayne Leisure Complex.

Shiveluch started erupting after the earthquake struck off the east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula at a depth of 29km (18 miles).

One of Russia’s most active volcanoes has erupted, spewing massive plumes of ash into the atmosphere and putting aircraft on alert.

It was triggered by a powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula at 7.10am local time on Sunday (8.10pm UK time on Saturday), according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The quake struck at a depth of 18 miles (29km) and there were reports of “severe shaking” and “moderate to heavy damage” in the nearest city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which has a population of more than 150,000 people.

According to the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT), aircraft have been issued a “red” code warning, the highest alert level, for a significant amount of ash in the atmosphere.

It describes explosions from the Shiveluch volcano, sending ash up three miles (5km) in the air, with the plume extending about 930 miles (1,500km) to the east-south-east.

Initially the USGS reported the magnitude as 7.2 but – as more data was analysed – the figure was revised downward.

Satellite images show two lava domes growing on the volcano’s southwestern flank, according to the website volcanodiscovery.com.

Meanwhile, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) has issued a map showing the extent of the ash plume.

The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) in Tokyo is warning that “explosive activity” is continuing.

Duke of Sussex previously said he feared for his family’s safety visiting UK due to intense media scrutiny

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s latest trip abroad has raised eyebrows among royal experts about their alleged safety concerns.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent the past four days in Colombia at the invitation of Vice President Francia Márquez.

They arrived Thursday in Bogota where they met with Márquez and visited a charter school before taking part in an Insight Session about social media, according to People.

Prince Harry and Markle also met with the country’s Invictus Games athletes on Saturday. That same day, they joined in on a drum lesson and took in other cultural traditions and tours. Similar events continued through Sunday.

The couple also took part in several discussions and panels on digital safety, a primary focus of the couple’s work through their Archewell foundation.

During one such panel on Aug. 16, Markle told the audience, “We should model how we want our kids to be raised and for the world in which we raise them. It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter who you are. Either you personally or someone you know is a victim to what’s happening online. And that’s something we can actively work on every day to remedy,” per People.

The concerns over safety both online and during travel have some experts questioning Harry and Meghan’s thought process.

“This entire tour is the height of Harry‘s hypocrisy,” Hilary Fordwich, royal expert, tells Fox News Digital. “Yet another stop on their ‘worldwide privacy tour.'”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/prince-harry-meghan-markles-colombia-trip-height-hypocrisy-regarding-couples-safety-concerns-experts

The zoo says the piece, featuring an image of a gorilla, has been removed for “safekeeping” and replaced a reproduction of the work and a sign that said: “Banksy woz ere.”

London Zoo says it has removed a Banksy artwork for “safekeeping”.

The mural was the ninth and final piece in a series of animal-themed work by the illusive artist to appear across the capital over nine consecutive days.

The artwork at the zoo depicted a gorilla holding up part of a roll-down shutter allowing birds and a sea lion to escape.

London Zoo said it removed the Banksy work on Friday evening to preserve it and to return the zoo’s entrance to full operation after visitors flocked to see it over five days last week.

It was replaced with a reproduction of the work and a sign that said: “Banksy woz ere.”

Kathryn England, the zoo’s chief operating officer, said: “We’re thrilled by the joy this artwork has already brought to so many, but primarily, we’re incredibly grateful to Banksy, for putting wildlife in the spotlight.

“This has become a significant moment in our history that we’re keen to properly preserve.”

The zoo protected the mural when it was on display behind a see-through plastic shield and guarded by security officers.

It has not yet announced what it will do with the artwork.

The zoo said the mural had sparked thought-provoking conversations, with some suggesting it was a play on guerrilla art or a comment on the role of zoos.

Israel lured out an elusive Hezbollah commander with a mysterious phone call moments before launching the deadly airstrike that would kill him and cause the terror group to vow revenge, according to a new report.

Fuad Shukr, who had evaded even the US for four decades, was killed on July 30 when he received a phone call in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah official told the Wall Street Journal.

The evening call instructed the Hezbollah commander to go up to the seventh floor of his building, with an Israel missile slamming into the complex at around 7 p.m., killing him, his family and injuring 70 others, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Officials in the terror group believe the call came from someone who had breached its internal communications network, exposing failures in Hezbollah’s intelligence network that compromised one of its most senior and elusive leaders.

Shukr was one of Hezbollah’s key founders and trusted ally of chief Hassan Nasrallah, both of whom backed the terror group’s ongoing attacks on Israel since Oct. 8.

Despite his high-ranking position, the commander had remained out of the public spotlight since the 1983 Beirut bombings, where militants detonated two truck bombs at military barracks in the city, killing 241 American servicemen.

Shukr was so elusive that even people living in the same building where he hid and operated had no idea who he was.

“What was their crime? … Did they kill a Jew? Did they shoot at the Jews? Did they launch rockets at the Jews? … What did they do to deserve this?” asked Khattab.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has denied targeting civilians as it hunts down Hamas militants, accusing the group of operating from civilian facilities including schools and hospitals. Hamas denies this.

The Israeli military said it destroyed rocket launchers used to hit Israel from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the scene of intense fighting in recent weeks, and killed 20 Palestinian militants.
In the occupied West Bank, where violence has escalated since the war in Gaza broke out in October last year, an Israeli man died from wounds sustained in an attack, according to a hospital spokesperson.
CLOSING GAPS
The talks towards a ceasefire are set to continue this week in Cairo, following a two-day meeting in Doha last week. Blinken will try to secure a breakthrough after the U.S. put forward bridging proposals that the mediating countries believe would close gaps between the warring parties.
The war erupted on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants rampaged into Israel, killing around 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities, and reduced much of Gaza to rubble. Israel says it has killed 17,000 Hamas combatants.
There has been increased urgency to reach a ceasefire deal amid fears of escalation across the wider region. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.
Israel remained firmly committed to principles established for its security in the May 27 outline proposals, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement following a meeting of the cabinet.
“I would like to emphasise: We are conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give,” Netanyahu told the meeting. “There are things we can be flexible on and… things that we cannot be flexible on, which we will insist on.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/blinken-push-gaza-ceasefire-israel-launches-fresh-strikes-2024-08-18/