Category: World

Ron Falk collapsed outside a shop in Texas during a heatwave last year. As well as losing his right leg, he needed extensive skin grafts on the other. The 62-year-old fell unconscious due to heatstroke, and ended up losing his job and home.

Almost 90 million people are under heat alerts in the US – and conditions are set to worsen as the country marks Independence Day.

California has been especially hard hit, with temperatures of up to 46.1C (115F) forecast between now and Sunday night.

The dry conditions also elevate the risk of wildfires, with crews already working to put out a swiftly growing blaze in scorching conditions.

Firefighters have been lining roads in Butte County, about 70 miles (112km) north of Sacramento, in a desperate bid to stop the flames from reaching homes.

More than 13,000 have been evacuated from the area – and in 10 other counties across the state, power has been shut off to reduce the risk of further wildfires.

The outages come amid concerns that strong winds could topple power lines or cause trees to fall on them.

Californians are also being told to be mindful of wildfires while celebrating Independence Day.

“We want to urge everyone to use extreme caution when participating in activities that cause sparks, like using fireworks,” meteorologist Brad Schaaf said.

The hidden dangers of heatwaves

Estimates from the AP news agency suggest excessive heat has killed a record-breaking 2,300 people in the US over the past year – a figure that’s likely undercounted.

Americans are being urged to look out for signs of heatstroke, as the consequences can be severe.

Sizzling pavements and unshaded playgrounds increase the risk of surface burns – with young children, older adults and homeless people most at risk.

Ron Falk collapsed outside a shop in Texas during a heatwave last year. As well as losing his right leg, he needed extensive skin grafts on the other.

The 62-year-old was unconscious due to heatstroke, and ended up losing his job and home.

“If you don’t get somewhere to cool down, the heat will affect you. Then you won’t know what’s happening, like in my case,” Mr Falk said.

Contact burns can happen in seconds when skin touches a surface of 82C (10F).

Dr Kevin Foster, who works at the Southwest’s largest burn centre, says at least 50 people have been treated in hospital for such injuries since the start of June alone.

“Last year’s record heatwave brought an alarming number of patients with life-threatening burns,” he added.

The recovery process can take months – with Bob Woolley suffering second and third-degree burns to his hands, arms, leg and torso after falling in his back garden.

“The ordeal was extremely painful, it was almost unbearable,” the 71-year-old said.

Parents have also been warned small children are particularly vulnerable because they are not fully aware of the harm that touching a hot surface can cause.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/millions-under-heat-health-alerts-in-us-as-hidden-dangers-of-soaring-temperatures-revealed-13162827

At 39 years old – having come back from a heartbreaking crash in what was meant to be his final Tour de France, and five winless years marked by illness and injury which contributed to a diagnosis of depression – Mark Cavendish surpasses Eddy Merckx to achieve the historic milestone.

Mark Cavendish has broken the record for Tour de France stage wins.

The British cyclist secured the historic milestone after triumphing in Saint-Vulbas, eastern France, to win the 35th stage of his career.

Cavendish, from the Isle of Man, had been level with Belgian great Eddy Merckx on 34 victories.

“I’m in a bit of disbelief,” the 39-year-old Astana-Qazaqstan rider said shortly after the win.

“Astana put a big a gamble on this year, to make sure we got here, the Tour de France.

“A big gamble to come here and come and win at least one stage, you know?

“You have to go all in and, yeah, we’ve done it.”

His teammate and lead-out rider Cees Bol simply said: “He f****** nailed it.”

It comes after bitter disappointment for Cavendish when he crashed out of last year’s Tour – which he had said would be his last – and breaking his collar bone.

His victory comes just four days after he struggled in the heat of a punishing opening stage out of Florence, vomiting on the bike in concerning scenes – and two days after he missed the opportunity to contest stage three after being caught behind a late crash in Turin.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/mark-cavendish-breaks-record-for-tour-de-france-stage-wins-13163000

A decision by a judge not to send the solider to prison after he admitted attacking Natasha O’Brien has sparked national protests and political condemnation across Ireland. Sky News speaks to the victim at the heart of the case.

The Irish Defence Forces are facing calls for urgent reform after a solider avoided prison for assaulting a woman, reigniting the debate about misogynistic abuse within the military.

Natasha O’Brien, 24, was beaten unconscious in Limerick city when she asked a serving soldier, Cathal Crotty, to stop using homophobic slurs on the street.

Crotty, 22, hurled punches at her, later boasting to friends on Snapchat: “Two to put her down, two to put her out.”

Ms O’Brien was left with injuries including a broken nose and concussion, and says she later lost her job due to the psychological aftermath.

“As I lay in the foetal position, losing consciousness, he continued his relentless beating – my last conscious thought was, ‘he’s not stopping, I’m going to die’,” she told the court of the 2022 attack.

Crotty pleaded guilty, but the judge decided to fully suspend the three-year sentence last month, noting there would be “no doubt” the soldier’s army career would be finished by jail time.

The verdict sparked national protests and political condemnation in Ireland.

Ms O’Brien remembers leaving the court after the sentencing, “coming out alone, hopeless, just utterly devoid…feeling let down and abandoned”.

Private Crotty is subject to military disciplinary proceedings, but currently remains a serving soldier as there are still some legal proceedings outstanding.

“We have to hold the Defence Forces accountable because they’re utterly negligent in safeguarding the public,” Ms O’Brien told Sky News.

“It’s a slow process. I’m not the first to speak out about the issues and I won’t be the last, but I hope I make it easier for the next.”

Natasha wants to see a change in the “misogynistic” culture within the Irish Defence Forces, and to have the way the army deals with soldiers facing serious charges reformed.

She’s not the only one.

‘They cover it up’

Retired captain Diane Byrne says she was hounded from the army after 13 years of service, tortured by constant chauvinistic abuse.

She formed a campaign group, Women of Honour, and says she knows of hundreds of women who experienced physical violence in the Defence Forces, including rape.

“I couldn’t say there’s a blanket culture of violence against women in the Defence Forces,” she said. “But I think there’s a tolerance for inappropriate behaviour or violence in the Defence Forces because they cover it up, what has happened to people.

“I think a lot of women out there are still not coming forward and explaining what they have experienced, because they just don’t trust in who they can go to and what supports they’ll get and whether they’ll be believed.”

Years of campaigning by the Women of Honour led to the Irish government last week launching a judge-led tribunal to investigate the claims of sexual abuse and discrimination.

Hailed as a “step forward” in addressing the problem, the tribunal has appealed for women to come forward to tell their stories.

The process will not be quick, however; it’s thought the tribunal could last for up to three years.

The Defence Forces acknowledge reform is needed. It revealed 68 personnel currently have criminal convictions, or are before the courts, for a range of offences including physical assault, sexual offences and others.

‘Bravery of individuals’

Its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Sean Clancy declined to grant Sky News an interview, but in a statement noted “the unacceptable presence of personnel with serious convictions including gender-based violence within the Defence Forces. Such individuals have no place in our ranks”.

“We owe it to the bravery of individuals like Natasha O’Brien, to those impacted within our own organisation and to the values we stand for to ensure that no one within the Defence Forces can avoid the consequences of their actions.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/woman-beaten-unconscious-by-serving-irish-soldier-demands-reform-of-the-military-13163070

Smiling Putin is reunited with his ‘old friend’ President Xi as the pair meet to discuss bringing down the West and opposing US-led democratic world order

* Group expected to put aside difference to discuss terrorism threats, in Astana
* The SCO group was set up in 2001 to discuss security concerns in the region

A smiling Vladimir Putin reunited with his ‘old friend’ Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a session of an international group founded to counter Western ‘hegemony’.

‘Russian-Chinese relations, our comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation, are experiencing their best period in history,’ Putin said, reaffirming Russia’s relationship with China.

In his brief opening comments, the Chinese premier called Putin his ‘old friend’ and said Sino-Russian relations were at a ‘high level.’

‘In the face of the turbulent international situation and external environment, the two sides should continue to uphold the original aspiration of friendship for generations to come,’ Xi said.

The pair met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana – a regional political and economic bloc that the two leaders see as a counterweight to US ‘hegemony’ in international affairs.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was set up in 2001 by China and Russia to discuss security concerns in Central Asia and the wider region.

Other members are Iran, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Observer states and dialogue partners include Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13597873/putin-xi-jinping-kazakhstan-sco-summit.html

Limb amputations are performed by surgeons when a traumatic injury such as a wound from war or a vehicle accident causes major tissue destruction or in instances of serious infection or disease. But humans are not alone in doing such procedures.
New research shows that some ants perform limb amputations on injured comrades to improve their survival chances. The behavior was documented in Florida carpenter ants – scientific name Camponotus floridanus – a reddish-brown species more than half an inch (1.5 cm) long inhabiting parts of the southeastern United States.

These ants were observed treating injured limbs of nestmates either by cleaning the wound using their mouthparts or by amputation through biting off the damaged limb. The choice of care depended on the injury’s location. When it was further up the leg, they always amputated. When it was further down, they never amputated.
“In this study, we describe for the first time how a non-human animal uses amputations on another individual to save their life,” said entomologist Erik Frank of the University of Würzburg in Germany, lead author of the research published on Tuesday in the journal Current Biology

Park rangers on Japan’s sacred Mount Fuji officially started this year’s climbing season about 90 minutes before sunrise on Monday, levying new trail fees and limiting hiker numbers to curb overcrowding.
At 3 a.m., officials opened a newly installed gate at a station placed just over halfway up the 3,776-meter (12,388-ft) peak that is a symbol of Japan and a magnet for tourists, now swarming into the country at a record pace.

The yen’s slide to a 38-year low has made Japan an irresistible bargain for overseas visitors.
They are injecting record sums into national coffers but are also putting strains on facilities for travel and hospitality, not to mention the patience of locals.
Hordes of tourists became a traffic hazard at a nearby photography spot where Mount Fuji appeared to float over a convenience store, driving officials to put up a barrier of black mesh to obstruct the view that had gone viral online.

The climbing season this year on Mount Fuji, which straddles the prefectures of Yamanashi and Shizuoka about 136 km (85 miles) from Tokyo, runs until September 10, after which the weather gets too cold and snowy.

A still active stratovolcano whose last eruption was in 1707, Mount Fuji has been a site of Shinto and Buddhist worship for centuries.

The number of climbers recovered to pre-pandemic levels last year, with about 300,000 annually, the environment ministry says. Hikers typically start in the wee hours to make it to the top in time for sunrise.

For their money, climbers receive a wristband giving access to the trail between 3 a.m. and 4 p.m, excluding those with reservations for mountain huts closer to the peak, to whom the daily limit on visitors will not apply, authorities say.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-imposes-new-fees-mount-fuji-climbers-limit-tourists-2024-07-01/

Cutting the cost of public transportation is a major focus area for the government, the Road Transport and Highways minister said at the NDTV Infrashakti Awards.

New Delhi: 

Pollution has become a huge issue in India and the thrust of the government is on promoting the use of non-polluting sources to power personal and public transportation, Nitin Gadkari has said.

In an exclusive conversation during the NDTV Infrashakti Awards on Tuesday, the Road Transport and Highways minister also said work is underway on a pilot project in Nagpur involving a 132-seater bus which will have airplane-like seating and a “bus hostess”, and will run on non-polluting sources of energy while still being cheaper than regular diesel buses. The government’s aim, he said, is for India to become a net energy exporter instead of an importer.

“The most important problem in the country today is pollution – air, water and sound – especially for Delhi. We need import-substitute, cost-effective, pollution-free and indigenous transport solutions. We have electric vehicles… Now, Indian Oil is installing 300 ethanol pumps and automobile companies are bringing in flex vehicles. So, instead of filling petrol at ₹ 120 a litre, it is better to use ethanol at ₹ 60 per litre, with the vehicle running 60% on electricity and 40% on ethanol. This will also reduce pollution,” the minister said in Hindi.

The other thing the government is focusing on, Mr Gadkari said, is reducing the cost of public transportation. A diesel bus costs ₹ 115 a km to run while AC electric buses run at ₹ 41 and non-AC ones at ₹ 37, with subsidies. Without subsidies, this will now be between ₹ 50 and ₹ 60, he said, which will help reduce ticket prices by 15-20%.

Since the debate, there has been increasing voices in the ruling Democratic party for Biden to step down and let someone else run the race for the crucial November 5 presidential elections.

Source: https://www.deccanherald.com/world/kamala-harris-has-a-better-chance-of-retaining-white-house-than-joe-biden-says-cnn-poll-3090590

The storm was forecast to start losing intensity, but it will still be near major hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica early on Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Centre.

Hurricane Beryl is hurtling towards Jamaica as a powerful category four storm, after killing at least six people in the southeast Caribbean.

The destructive weather pattern was forecast to start losing intensity on Tuesday and was downgraded from a category five hurricane – the most powerful type.

But it will still be near major hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica early on Wednesday, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday, and into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Centre.

It is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica, the centre said. Officials have warned residents in flood-prone areas to prepare for evacuation.

Alerts have been put in place in Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Haiti’s entire southern coast, while the entire southern coast of Hispaniola, an island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is under a tropical storm warning.

So far, six people are thought to have died as a result of the hurricane.

Three people were reported killed in Grenada and Carriacou and another in St Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said. Two others were reported to have died in northern Venezuela, where five people are missing, officials said.

It comes after the “monstrous” weather system slammed into islands including Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados on Monday.

Widespread damage to homes and businesses has been reported, along with power cuts and other disruption.

The hurricane was upgraded to a category five storm on Tuesday before being downgraded again and is currently sweeping west across the Caribbean Sea.

Winds of up to 165mph were reported in the region just south of the Dominican Republic on Tuesday.

The prime minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness said in an address to the nation: “I am encouraging all Jamaicans to take the hurricane as a serious threat. It is, however, not a time to panic.”

It is the earliest time of the year a category four or five hurricane has ever formed in the Atlantic, fuelled by unusually warm waters, officials said.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell described the situation on the island of Carriacou, near Grenada, as “grim” and said emergency teams were on their way.

He told a news conference on Tuesday: “There is no power, and there is almost complete destruction of homes and buildings on the island.

“The roads are not passable, and in many instances, they are cut off because of the large quantity of debris strewn all over the streets.”

He added: “The possibility that there may be more fatalities remains a grim reality, as movement is still highly restricted.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/hurricane-beryl-monstrous-storm-heads-towards-jamaica-after-six-killed-13162645

Andrei Kelin says “business is pure business” as an investigation reveals glaring loopholes in the restrictions regime, which has allowed British companies – legally – to help keep Russian gas flowing and generate huge revenues for the Kremlin’s war machine.

Sanctions imposed against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine have failed to achieve any of their aims, the country’s ambassador has told Sky News.

Andrei Kelin was speaking to Sky News as an investigation by Sky’s Ed Conway revealed glaring loopholes in the restrictions regime, which has allowed British companies – legally – to help keep Russian gas flowing and generate huge revenues for the Kremlin’s war machine.

He defended the continued trade with Europe despite the heightened tensions, arguing “business is pure business”.

Ukraine war latest: Attempt to ‘overthrow Kyiv government’ foiled

He also argued the supply of weapons by the West, including Britain, to Ukraine was “bad”, as it perpetuated the conflict, which he claimed would be worse for Kyiv in the long-term.

Speaking to The World With Yalda Hakim programme, Mr Kelin said: “The goal of the sanctions was first of all to spoil (the) normal life of Russians so they will say that (Vladimir) Putin is wrong.

“The second point of sanctions was to damage the Russian economy as much as possible.

“The third point was to change the political personnel.

“So none of these goals have been reached by the sanctions.”

Despite the backdrop of fraught relations, Europe still depends on Russia for around 15% of its gas, handing over around €10bn (£8.5bn) since 2022.

However, Mr Kelin played down the importance to Russia of the trade.

He said: “It’s just a small portion of the budget, which is measured now in trillions of whatever it is – euros, dollars, pounds, roubles – the budget is big.”

He added: “We’re not so greedy as Europe. There is no ideology in it.

“Why not if they are buying it?

“Business is pure business. There’s no politics. We did not sanction Europe for purchasing anything from us.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-sanctions-against-russia-failed-to-achieve-goals-claims-moscows-uk-ambassador-13162431

The post has a million views and 14,000 likes on the platform.

Billionaire Elon Musk recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to help a young Tesla owner from China who was facing issues with the screen in her Tesla vehicle. Molly recorded a video to report “an important bug” that she observed while drawing on the screen.
She says in the clip, “Hello Mr Musk. I am Molly from China. I have a question about your car. When I draw a picture, sometimes the lines disappear like this. You see it? So can you fix it? Thank you.”

In the short clip, Molly highlights the problem. Her previous lines and markings disappear or become invisible on the screen as she draws anything new. “Molly decided to report an important bug to Mr Musk @elonmusk #Tesla $tsla,” reads the caption of the video.

The Tesla CEO took note of this and said, “Sure”.

Since being shared, the post has amassed a lot of attention on the microblogging website. It has a million views and 14,000 likes on the platform.

“That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing this bug with us all. It’s great to see Elon responding,” said a user.

“Well done on explaining the problem Molly!!!” remarked a user.

A third person commented, “TOTAL RECALL NEEDED IMMEDIATELY!!!!!”

“This girls is more polite and well spoken than most adults. Love this video!” added another person.

“Well, that’s the cutest thing I’ve seen today. I wish Molly from China the best of luck in her further testing,” commented another user.

The reality of the climate impact of long-distance passenger travel has been revealed in new research from the University of Leeds.

Despite only accounting for less than 3% of all trips by UK residents, journeys of more than 50 miles (one way) are responsible for 70% of all passenger travel-related carbon emissions.

The disparity is even greater when international travel is singled-out: international journeys are only 0.4% of total trips but are responsible for 55% of emissions.

The new research, published today in the journal Nature Energy, also shows that targeting long-distance travel may be a more effective way of tackling emissions than current efforts which focus on local and commuter journeys.

Whilst the number of long and short distance domestic journeys by car have fallen slightly over the last 25 years, international air travel has increased significantly, driven by an increase in trips for leisure and visiting friends and family.

Dr. Zia Wadud from the University’s Institute for Transport Studies and School of Chemical and Process Engineering and who led the research, said: “The scale of the impact of long-distance travel is very large indeed. That just less than 3% of our trips are responsible for around 60% of miles and 70% of emissions shows how important long-distance travel is in the fight to combat climate change.

“Worryingly, long distance trips, especially flights, have been growing; however, they offer opportunities too.”

Using a new metric they have created, called emission reduction sensitivity, the research team has calculated which types of travel could be changed to maximize a reduction in carbon emissions from passenger travel whilst affecting as few people or trips as possible.

Reducing long-distance travel
The research found that if all car journeys under eight miles were shifted to walking or cycling, there would be a 9.3% reduction in carbon emissions. However, around 55% of all journeys would need to be shifted to achieve this, as most travel is done locally and in cars.

Calculated by dividing the carbon reduction percentage by the percentage of journeys altered, the emission reduction sensitivity for this change would be just 0.17 – the lowest recorded in the study.

By contrast, if all flights of less than 1,000 miles were moved to rail, there would be a 5.6% reduction in emissions but only 0.17% of journeys would be affected – resulting in a sensitivity value of 33.2.

At the top end, theoretically limiting everyone who flies now to one return flight abroad per year would have a value of 158.3, as so few journeys would be affected.

The researchers stress that the potential changes are only suggestions meant to make us realise and reassess the impact of our long-distance travel, rather than concrete policy proposals.

Dr. Muhammad Adeel, a co-author now at the Centre for Transport and Society at the University of the West of England, added: “Whilst efforts to move local journeys to more sustainable modes of transport are really positive, by omitting aviation emissions from national statistics – as is the case at the moment in nearly all countries – we are not getting a holistic picture and ignoring a large part of the problem.”

A call to rethink travel’s carbon impact
The researchers also hope that their findings can act as a driver for policymakers to look at changes in how effort is assigned when dealing with the impact of travel on the environment.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/true-scale-of-carbon-impact-from-long-distance-travel-revealed/

Pact still needs approval by studio board’s special committee; Paramount expected to get 45-day window to shop for better offers

In a holiday week shocker, Skydance Media and Shari Redstone’s National Amusements Inc. have quietly renewed acquisition talks and have reached a tentative agreement to acquire Paramount Global.

That deal will now be reviewed by Paramount Global’s special committee of its board of directors that has steered the media giant through its roller coaster ride of M&A activity and speculation since late last year. The new pact with David Ellison’s Skydance Media and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital is believed to include a 45-day period in which Paramount and NAI, which owns Redstone’s controlling share in Paramount, have the right to shop around for a bidder to match the Skydance terms.

News of the renewed talks was first reported Tuesday by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

National Amusements abruptly ended months of talks with Skydance on June 11, saying it had concerns about the ability for the company and its partners to close the proposed $6 billion transaction. It’s not immediately clear if the economic terms of the new agreement have changed markedly from the pact that fell apart last month.

A source close to the situation said Skydance still balked at National Amusements’ request that the company’s noncontrolling shareholders get a chance to vote on the deal. The hope was that approval by a majority of common shareholders would help indemnify Redstone from inevitable shareholder lawsuits. Redstone owns some 77% of voting shares in Paramount. Common shareholders were quick to publicly criticize the terms of the Skydance deal as they steadily leaked out via media in April and May.

Paramount Global shares have been hammered for the year to date, dropping 28%. On Tuesday, however, the stock shot up nearly 6% during regular trading and hopped another 8% in after-hours activity on the heels of the Skydance headlines as well the BET Networks sale chatter.

The 45-day window for Paramount and NAI to seek a superior bid may be an artful solution to the impasse over Redstone’s push for a common shareholder vote. From Skydance’s perspective, the reason to engage with NAI in its pursuit of Paramount was to take advantage of the fact that Redstone’s NAI has iron-clad control of the company. But from Redstone’s view, the Skydance deal was likely to be bound up in costly litigation for months while the company would likely struggle amid the uncertainty.

Representatives for Paramount Global, NAI and Skydance declined to comment.

The surprise of the return of Skydance to the mix capped a busy 24 hours of rumors about the possible fate of Paramount Global and its assets. Late Monday, word surfaced that Barry Diller’s IAC was mulling a run at National Amusements in order to get ahold of Paramount. That rumor brought a historical perspective to the frenzy around the studio as Diller, who formerly ran Paramount and 20th Century Fox and launched the Fox Broadcast network, previously fought hard against Redstone’s father, the late Sumner Redstone, for the prize of owning Paramount in 1993 and 1994.

Also Tuesday, rumors surfaced about an investor group looking to acquire Paramount’s BET Networks unit for $1.6 billion, in a buyout deal led by former BET executive Scott Mills. And on Monday, Variety confirmed a CNBC report that Warner Bros. Discovery is in active talks with Paramount Global for a sale or partnership between WBD’s streaming platform Max and the Paramount+ streamer. Both WBD and Paramount Global have taken multi-billion hits from losses incurred to build up Max and Paramount+ with content, subscribers and marketing. The hope is that both services add scale and compelling content to make the enlarged platform a stronger contender against Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Hulu.

Paramount Global has struggled in the face of sector-wide headwinds. The studio conglomerate’s valuation has fallen by more than half over the past five years. But it’s still a collection of unique media assets that have value — although the bidders that have emerged are clearly looking to nab a bargain at a time when heavy streaming losses and structural changes in its core cable and broadcast businesses have put enormous pressure on the company.

If it comes to fruition, the 45-day window to play the field with other suitors was likely crafted as an alternative to a common shareholders vote but something that would generate the same result. NAI and Paramount Global board members could reasonably say they considered all options for maximizing the value paid out to common shareholders.

Source: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/skydance-media-shari-redstone-national-amusements-deal-1236059665/

Taylor Swift fans lambasted Julia Roberts for getting a little too handsy with Travis Kelce in a VIP tent at his girlfriend’s Eras Tour concert in Dublin on Sunday.

The “Pretty Woman” star, 56, was seen rubbing the 34-year-old Kansas City Chiefs tight end’s shoulders and tickling his chest as she chatted and laughed with him in a video circulating on TikTok.

Roberts — who has been married to cinematographer Danny Moder since 2002 — then grabbed Kelce’s arms as she said something that made him burst out laughing.

The touchy-feely encounter appeared mutual, as the NFL player warmly rubbed the actress’s arms and had a big smile on his face.

However, some social media users thought the interaction was highly inappropriate.

“I feel bad for Travis :/ clearly he’s uncomfortable,” one person wrote on X.

“wtf is wrong with JR? why is she scratching his chest and pushing herself into him?? he is so uncomfortable trying to push her off and she holds him up. this is uber strange,” a second person agreed.

“Wow handsy much? The scratching? What is her problem??” a third viewer wondered.

“Her physicality with him is cringe!!” another added.

However, others found the conversation to be endearing and defended the “Notting Hill” star.

“She’s old enough to be his mother, so I’m hoping she’s treating him more like a son. Kinda seems motherly,” one fan wrote.

“Please. Travis is not uncomfortable. Julia is clearly gushing over TNT [Taylor and Travis]. She has a great sense of humor so she’s probably joking around with him,” another supporter suggested.

“Julia is saying ‘I’m just so happy for you guys,’” a lip-reading X user claimed, adding, “Me thinks she was not a Joe [Alwyn] fan as well.”

Kelce turned up to the last of Swift’s three shows at Aviva Stadium after attending a teammate’s wedding in California the night before.

Swifties were convinced that the athlete had surprised the pop star, 34, as she appeared stunned when she noticed him in the crowd.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/07/01/entertainment/taylor-swift-fans-blast-julia-roberts-travis-kelce-interaction/

Scientists tracking the spread of bird flu are increasingly concerned that gaps in surveillance may keep them several steps behind a new pandemic, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen leading disease experts.
Many of them have been monitoring the new subtype of H5N1 avian flu in migratory birds since 2020. But the spread of the virus to 129 dairy herds in 12 U.S. states, opens new tab signals a change that could bring it closer to becoming transmissible between humans. Infections also have been found in other mammals, from alpacas to house cats.

Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab is set to be charged by the French antitrust regulator for allegedly anti-competitive practices, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, making it the first enforcer to act against the computer chip maker.
The French so-called statement of objections or charge sheet would follow dawn raids in the graphics cards sector in September last year, which sources said targeted Nvidia. The raids were the result of a broader inquiry into cloud computing.

The European Commission is unlikely to expand its preliminary review for now, since the French authority is looking into Nvidia, other people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The French watchdog in a report issued last Friday on competition in generative AI cited the risk of abuse by chip providers.
It voiced concerns regarding the sector’s dependence on Nvidia’s CUDA chip programming software, the only system that is 100% compatible with the GPUs that have become essential for accelerated computing.

It also cited unease about Nvidia’s recent investments in AI-focused cloud service providers such as CoreWeave.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/french-antitrust-regulators-preparing-nvidia-charges-sources-say-2024-07-01/

Having come of age in the Tumblr indie sleaze era of the early 2010s, I’d always wanted to go to Glastonbury Festival. My mood boards were littered with photos of Alexa Chung traversing Worthy Farm’s muddy grounds wearing a mini skirt and wellies, and I fantasized about being part of the seemingly miles-long, flag-laden crowd that got to watch an iconic British band like Arctic Monkeys or Blur light up the Pyramid stage. So, when I moved from L.A. to London last year, I knew where I would be come the last weekend of June.

As the festival approached, I purchased my first pair of Hunter boots, haphazardly packed camping gear and meticulously picked out my outfits to match the vibe of each headliner: Dua Lipa, Coldplay (for the fifth time, a Glastonbury record) and SZA. Though the lineup wasn’t completely my cup of tea, I was determined to make the most of the experience — and five days and 66 miles of walking later (yes, really), I did just that. Sure, it wasn’t exactly like my teenage dream — I certainly won’t be camping again anytime soon, and all three headliners in general underwhelmed me — but some things turned out even better. Read on to see how my Glastonbury expectations compared to reality.

Expectation: Camping is optional, like at Coachella.

A car has ploughed into a crowd of people killing at least nine in the South Korean capital Seoul, police say.
The traffic accident took place at around 21:30 local time (13:30 BST), they added.
As reported by Yonhap news agency, a man believed to be in his 60s drove the vehicle into pedestrians waiting at a traffic stop.
At least four more people have been taken to hospital.
Police say they are investigating the incident, but warn that casualty numbers might increase.
According to local media, the car was driving in the wrong direction and crashed into two other vehicles before it made contact with pedestrians.
Police said the accident took place at an intersection near Seoul city hall. The driver in question, who was arrested at the scene, reportedly told the police the car suddenly accelerated.
Six people died at the scene, while three others died later of their injuries.
Yonhap, South Korea’s news agency, reports that the man arrested was 68 years old.
The speed limit in the country is 50 km/h (31 mph) on general urban roads, and 30 km/h in residential areas, according to a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) into the country’s road safety.
In 2022, pedestrians in South Korea accounted for 35% of all road deaths – a high share compared to other OECD countries, the agency reported.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn08lqg0jlzo

At just 28 years old, Jordan Bardella has helped make the far-right National Rally the strongest political force in France. And now he could become the country’s youngest prime minister.

After voters propelled Marine Le Pen’s National Rally to a strong lead in Sunday’s first round of snap legislative elections, Bardella turned to rallying supporters to hand their party an absolute majority in the decisive round on July 7. That would allow the anti-immigration, nationalist party to run the government, with Bardella at the helm.

Who is the National Rally president?
When Bardella replaced his mentor, Marine Le Pen, in 2022 at the helm of France’s leading far-right party, he became the first person without the Le Pen name to lead it since its founding a half-century ago.

His selection marked a symbolic changing of the guard. It was part of Le Pen’s decade-long effort to rebrand her party, with its history of racism, and remove the stigma of antisemitism that clung to it in order to broaden its base. She has notably distanced herself from her now-ostracized father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the party, then called the National Front, and who has been repeatedly convicted of hate speech.

Bardella is part of a generation of young people who joined the party under Marine Le Pen in the 2010s but likely wouldn’t have done so under her father.

Since joining at age 17, he has risen quickly through the ranks, serving as party spokesperson and president of its youth wing, before being appointed vice president and becoming the second-youngest member of the European Parliament in history, in 2019.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/france-election-bardella-far-right-e6429b0e26ca29baedf6a72351999282

Hurricane Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in right now and the kind of season they can expect, experts said.

Beryl smashed various storm records even before its major hurricane level winds approached land. The powerful storm is acting more like monsters that form in the peak of hurricane season thanks mostly to water temperatures as hot or hotter than the region normally gets in September, five hurricane experts told The Associated Press.

Beryl set the record for earliest Category 4 with winds of at least 130 mph (209 kilometers per hour) — the first-ever category 4 in June. It also was the earliest storm to rapidly intensify with wind speeds jumping 63 mph (102 kph) in 24 hours, going from an unnamed depression to a Category 4 in 48 hours.

Beryl is on an unusually southern path, especially for a major hurricane, said University at Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero.

It made landfall Monday on the island of Carriacou with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), just shy of a top Category 5 storm, and is expected to plow through the islands of the southeast Caribbean.

“Beryl is unprecedentedly strange,” said Weather Underground co-founder Jeff Masters, a former government hurricane meteorologist who flew into storms. “It is so far outside the climatology that you look at it and you say, ‘How did this happen in June?’”

Get used to it. Forecasters predicted months ago it was going to be a nasty year and now they are comparing it to record busy 1933 and deadly 2005 — the year of Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis.

“This is the type of storm that we expect this year, these outlier things that happen when and where they shouldn’t,” University of Miami tropical weather researcher Brian McNoldy said. “Not only for things to form and intensify and reach higher intensities, but increase the likelihood of rapid intensification. All of that is just coming together right now, and this won’t be the last time.”

Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach called Beryl “a harbinger potentially of more interesting stuff coming down the pike. Not that Beryl isn’t interesting in and of itself, but even more potential threats and more — and not just a one off — maybe several of these kinds of storms coming down later.”

The water temperature around Beryl is about 2 to 3.6 degrees (1 to 2 degrees Celsius) above normal at 84 degrees (29 Celsius), which “is great if you are a hurricane,” Klotzbach said.

Warm water acts as fuel for the thunderstorms and clouds that form hurricanes. The warmer the water and thus the air at the bottom of the storm, the better the chance it will rise higher in the atmosphere and create deeper thunderstorms, said the University at Albany’s Corbosiero.

Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean “are above what the average September (peak season) temperature should be looking at the last 30-year average,” Masters said.

It’s not just hot water at the surface that matters. The ocean heat content — which measures deeper water that storms need to keep powering up — is way beyond record levels for this time of year and at what the September peak should be, McNoldy said.

“So when you get all that heat energy you can expect some fireworks,” Masters said.

This year, there’s also a significant difference between water temperature and upper air temperature throughout the tropics.

The greater that difference is, the more likely it becomes that storms will form and get bigger, said MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel. “The Atlantic relative to the rest of the tropics is as warm as I’ve seen,” he said.

Atlantic waters have been unusually hot since March 2023 and record warm since April 2023. Klotzbach said a high pressure system that normally sets up cooling trade winds collapsed then and hasn’t returned.

Corbosiero said scientists are debating what exactly climate change does to hurricanes, but have come to an agreement that it makes them more prone to rapidly intensifying, as Beryl did, and increase the strongest storms, like Beryl.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-beryl-hot-water-strong-climate-change-ddfb68c646e811e6f8b53e7451d1f6a6

Opponents of France’s far right sought to build a united front to block the path to government of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) on Monday, after the party made historic gains to win the first round of a parliamentary election.
The RN and its allies won Sunday’s round with 33% of the vote, followed by a left-wing bloc with 28% and well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s broad alliance of centrists, who scored just 22%, official results showed.

While financial markets rallied on relief the RN tally was not greater, it was still a huge setback for Macron, who had called the snap election after his ticket was trounced by the RN in the European Parliament election last month.
“I’m satisfied, because we need change,” said RN supporter Jean-Claude Gaillet, 64, in Le Pen’s northern stronghold of Henin-Beaumont. “Things have not moved, and they must move.”

But others feared the rise of the RN and its nationalist platform would cause growing tensions in French society.
“I don’t think people realise what’s happening, they are only thinking of the cost of living and short-term things like that,” said Yamina Addou outside a supermarket in the nearby town of Oignies, south of Lille. “I find it very sad.”
Whether the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic RN can form a government will depend now on how successfully other parties manage to thwart Le Pen by rallying round best-placed rival candidates in hundreds of constituencies across France.

The RN would need at least 289 seats in parliament for a majority. Pollsters calculated the first round had put it on track for anything between 250-300 seats – but that is before tactical withdrawals reshape voter intentions next weekend.
‘ATTACK!’
Leaders of both the left-wing New Popular Front and Macron’s centrist alliance indicated on Sunday night they would withdraw their own candidates in districts where another candidate was better placed to beat the RN in next Sunday’s run-off.
It was not initially clear whether such a pact would always apply if the left-wing candidate was from the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party of Jean-Luc Melenchon, a divisive figure with radical tax-and-spend proposals and class war rhetoric.
But Macron told ministers on Monday that denying the RN a majority was the top priority, according to one source at a closed-door meeting who said this was intended to confirm that the pact could apply to LFI candidates on a case-by-case basis.
The source said Macron ended his speech at the Elysee Palace meeting with the call: “Attack!”

Pollster Ipsos calculated the first round had left three-way contests in around 300 of the 577 seats in France’s National Assembly. Le Monde newspaper said third-placed candidates had already withdrawn in around 160 of those.
While the so-called “republican front” against the far-right has broadly worked in the past, analysts question whether French voters are still ready to cast second-round ballots as directed by political leaders.
A longtime pariah for many in France, the RN is now closer to power than it has ever been. Le Pen has sought to clean up the image of a party known for racism and antisemitism, a tactic that has worked amid voter anger at Macron, who is seen by many voters as out of touch with their everyday concerns.
The RN gains were welcomed by nationalists and far-right groups across Europe, including Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Spain’s Vox party. Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s Socialist premier, said left-leaning parties could still block an outright RN victory.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock signalled concern at the rise of “a party that sees Europe as the problem and not the solution” and drew parallels to the growing support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in her country.
An RN-led government would raise major questions over where the European Union was headed. Human rights groups have raised concerns about how its “France first” policies would apply to ethnic minorities, while economists question whether its hefty spending plans are fully funded.
HUNG PARLIAMENT?
Banking shares led a surge by French stocks and the premium investors demand for holding the country’s bonds dropped, while the euro rose, on Monday on market relief the RN had not done better.
The main alternative scenario to an RN-led government would be a hung parliament potentially making France ungovernable for the remainder of Macron’s presidency due to run until 2027.
In constituencies with no outright winner, the top two candidates, plus any candidate with more than 12.5% of registered voters in that constituency, have until Tuesday evening to confirm whether they will go into the second.
In the manoeuvring after the vote, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal suspended unemployment reform plans which would have reduced jobseekers’ benefits – a move that may make it easier for left-wing voters to back Macron allies.
RN lawmakers meanwhile urged centre-right politicians in the Republicans (LR) party, which received less than 7% of the first-round vote, to withdraw from districts where such a move would work in RN’s favour.
The LR, which split ahead of the vote with a small number of its lawmakers joining the RN, has yet to clarify its stance.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/far-right-bloc-wins-1st-round-french-parliament-elections-with-33-vote-ministry-2024-07-01/

Hurricane Beryl strengthened on Monday into a “potentially catastrophic” category 5 storm as it moved across the eastern Caribbean, putting Jamaica near its path after downing power lines and flooding streets elsewhere.
Beryl brings an unusually fierce and early start to this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, with scientists saying climate change probably contributed to the rapid pace of its formation as global warming has boosted North Atlantic temperatures.

The storm could dump 4 inches to 8 inches (10 cm to 20 cm) of rain on Wednesday, rising to as much as 12 inches (31 cm) in some areas, it said.

On its way, Beryl is expected to soak the island of Hispaniola on Tuesday in 2 inches to 6 inches (5 cm to 15 cm) of rain, as it moves west-northwest at nearly 22 mph (35 kph), the Miami-based hurricane center said.

Jamaica issued a hurricane warning on Monday, while tropical storm warnings were in effect for parts of the southern coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

At the Chillin’ restaurant in Kingston, waiter Welton Anderson said he felt calm despite the hurricane’s approach.
“Jamaicans wait until the last minute,” he said. “The night before or in the morning, the panic sets in. It’s because we’re used to this.”
Across other islands in the eastern Caribbean, residents had boarded up windows, stocked up on food and fuelled up cars as the storm approached.
Earlier on Monday, vehicles were seen driving through a flooded boardwalk in Bridgetown, Barbados.
The St. Vincent community of Prospect reported roofs ripped off buildings and power cuts in some areas.
In Grenada, a Reuters reporter said power was down islandwide.

Officials in Mexico began to prepare for Beryl’s arrival this week, with the federal government urging “extreme caution” on authorities and people.

Mexico is now assessing damage in its states of Oaxaca and Veracruz from heavy rain brought by former tropical storm Chris.

“What worries us is that basins are already saturated,” said Cutberto Ruiz, chief of meteorology at Oaxaca’s civil protection agency. “Then, with minimal rain … rivers will rise.”

CLIMATE CHANGE

Global warming has helped push temperatures in the North Atlantic to all-time highs, causing more surface water to evaporate, which in turn provides additional fuel for more intense hurricanes with higher wind speeds.

In May, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the

Atlantic this year, also pointing to unseasonably high ocean temperatures.

Scientists surveyed by Reuters see the powerful hurricane Beryl as a harbinger of an unusually active hurricane season made possible by record high temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Climate change is loading the dice for more intense hurricanes to form,” said Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the United States’ National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in less than 10 hours, said Andra Garner, a meteorologist based in New Jersey.

Scientists have already predicted that events like Beryl will grow more likely with climate change, added Garner, whose research has shown rising water temperatures over the last five decades have made it more than twice as likely for weak storms to grow into major hurricanes within less than 24 hours.

On the island of Tobago, a hotel and tourism group said limited damage had been reported to hotel properties.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/extremely-dangerous-hurricane-beryl-hurtles-towards-caribbean-2024-07-01/

The flight, from Spain to Uruguay, was forced to make an emergency landing in Brazil on Monday at around 2.30am local time. The airline said passengers suffered injuries of “varying severity”.

A plane was forced to make an emergency landing after dozens of passengers were hurt during “severe” turbulence.

A total of 30 people were taken to hospital following the incident on board the Air Europa flight from Madrid.

The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft had been due to land in Montevideo, Uruguay, but was instead forced to touch down in Natal airport in northeastern Brazil at around 2.30am local time on Monday.

Photographs and video clips posted online, purporting to be of the aftermath, showed several passengers being treated for injuries – including a woman wearing a neck brace. Small splatters of blood could also be seen.

Several seats and the ceiling of the aircraft were also badly damaged, while there were unverified claims that a man got stuck after being thrown upwards into an overhead compartment.

The airline said in a statement: “Our flight bound for Montevideo was diverted to Natal due to strong turbulence.

“The plane landed normally and those injured of varying severity are already being treated.”

Health officials in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte said in a statement that 30 passengers had been taken to hospitals in Natal with “minor abrasions or orthopaedic traumas”.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/dozens-injured-after-air-europa-flight-hit-by-severe-turbulence-13162073

Blazes have been raging across parts of Greece already this year as a prolonged drought has created tinderbox-like conditions and strong winds have fanned the flames.

A British holidaymaker has described “apocalyptic” scenes on a Greek island as she and her family wait to be evacuated from their hotel due to nearby wildfires, while the Greek prime minister warned tourists further blazes this summer could “be particularly dangerous”.

Parts of Greece have seen tinderbox-like conditions after prolonged drought and dry weather, which have combined with unusually strong winds to create raging infernos in places.

In the eastern Aegean, the islands of Chios and Kos experienced dangerous wildfires on Monday.

Clare Smith, 38, who is on holiday in Kos with her husband and nine-year-old daughter, told Sky News the situation had “got significantly worse” over the day, with “thick plumes of black smoke” billowing into the sky.

The family from Edinburgh were staying at a hotel outside the resort town of Kardamena when they received alerts on their phones telling people in the area to relocate due to the wildfire.

“Everyone is anxious,” Ms Smith said. Her family and other guests waited for most of the evening before they were told their hotel was being evacuated and coaches were on the way to pick them up.

She said they had been watching several planes and helicopters as they “constantly” worked throughout the day to combat the wildfire, which she estimated to be around five to six miles away.

“It’s really windy here, it will be like a tinderbox,” she said. “The sky is covered in smoke. You feel like you’re in the apocalypse, or some sort of war film.”

More than 100 firefighters assisted by 11 aircraft and five helicopters were trying to put out blazes on the islands of Kos and Chios.

Two further fires affected a 24-acre area not far from the capital, Athens.

During a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: “It is a summer which is expected to be particularly dangerous [for wildfires]… the most difficult times are still ahead of us.”

He added: “We have had an exceptionally difficult June regarding weather conditions, with high levels of drought and unusually strong winds for this season.”

Mr Mitsotakis said the use of drones as an early warning system for wildfires had been particularly useful, and increased coordination between authorities and volunteer firefighters had limited the extent of the damage so far as well.

Public help would be vital as the country enters “the tough core of the anti-fire period” through the heart of summer, he added.

Greece has scaled up its preparation this year, hiring more staff and increasing training, after last year’s extensive fires across the country killed more than 20 people and forced 19,000 to flee.

“Our arsenal might be stronger, but nothing – and that is seen in practice – beats being prepared, and for the public to also be involved in this collective defence against natural hazards,” Mr Mitsotakis added.

Hot, dry weather combined with strong winds have already proved to be fertile conditions for forest fires in both Greece and Turkey.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/warning-to-holidaymakers-as-greeces-pm-says-more-wildfires-on-the-way-this-summer-13161868

The court’s decision passed with the help of the three conservative judges Donald Trump appointed when he was president – and it could prove pivotal to his future.

Joe Biden has said the historic ruling that former presidents have immunity violates the principle “there are no kings in America” and means the commander-in-chief can now “ignore the law”.

He was speaking after the US Supreme Court decided immunity exists from criminal prosecution for official acts while in office, but not for unofficial ones.

“Each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Mr Biden said.

The ruling is a victory for Donald Trump, who is accused of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“I know I will respect the limits of presidential power as I have for the three-and-a-half years,” Mr Biden added.

“But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.”

The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of Trump’s case, but referred it back to a lower court to decide how to apply the ruling.

It must now decide whether Trump was acting officially or privately in relation to the charges.

President Biden said Monday’s ruling also meant the ex-president was now “highly unlikely” to go on trial before US voters have their say again in four months’ time.

“It’s a terrible disservice to the people in this nation,” he said.

If Trump becomes president again in November, he may be able to use his powers to dismiss the charges against him.

He earlier celebrated the ruling, posting online: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

The three liberal justices all dissented with the majority opinion – with Sonia Sotomayor warning it was a dangerous step for democracy.

She said it made a “mockery” of the principle that “no man is above the law”.

“In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” she wrote.

The chief justice, John Roberts, insisted that wasn’t true but said they have “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution” for official acts.

The decision passed with the help of the three conservative judges Trump appointed when he was president.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/biden-says-supreme-court-immunity-ruling-means-presidents-can-ignore-the-law-as-trump-celebrates-big-win-13162150

The U.S. Justice Department will criminally charge Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab with fraud over two fatal crashes and ask the planemaker to plead guilty or face a trial, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
The Justice Department planned to formally offer a plea agreement to Boeing later in the day, which includes a financial penalty and imposition of an independent monitor to audit the company’s safety and compliance practices for three years, the sources said.

Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s two largest cities on Sunday, with missile fragments falling on a suburban Kyiv apartment building and a guided bomb killing one person in Kharkiv.
More than 28 months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces maintain regular attacks on Ukrainian cities as well as on energy infrastructure.
Attacks on Kyiv are less frequent than other cities, although the capital endured a series of assaults in March. Kharkiv has come under regular attack, but military analysts say the frequency has dipped since the United States authorised Ukrainian use of its weapons on certain Russian targets.

Coldplay were joined by Michael J Fox, Dua Lipa joined the crowd, and loads of other celebrities joined the masses to enjoy another brilliant Glastonbury Festival. Here are the highlights.

Glastonbury 2024 has come to an end, with US singer-songwriter SZA closing the show on the Pyramid Stage following a spectacular weekend of celebrity cameos, fireworks and crowd-surfing.

Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Little Simz, Shania Twain, Janelle Monae and Cyndi Lauper were among the big names performing, and that was just on the main stage – which is one of more than 100 across Glastonbury’s massive Worthy Farm site in Somerset.

It has been a record-breaking year. With SZA’s nature-inspired set on Sunday following Lipa’s on Friday, this year’s event is the first ever to feature two female headliners. And Coldplay have now headlined five times, more than any other act.

Let’s relive the highlights of another weekend that showed exactly why this is the greatest festival in the world, from the main events to the bits you might have missed.

Michael J Fox on stage, Tom Cruise backstage

Some sniffy corners of the internet had been sceptical about Coldplay’s return to headline Glastonbury for a record-breaking fifth time, but on Saturday night Chris Martin and co proved exactly why they are perfect for this slot.

Their celebrity fans certainly seem to think so. On stage, after appearances from other artists including Little Simz, they were joined by none other than Hollywood legend Michael J Fox playing guitar for the tearjerker Fix You.

Behind the scenes, Tom Cruise was among those watching stage-side, while Martin’s partner Dakota Johnson also appeared to be seen on camera.

Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis was also watching, and received a dedication ditty from the Coldplay frontman, who told him: “We just want to thank you, as humans go you’re the best of all sorts. You’re a musical charmer, you’re the world’s greatest farmer. Whoever got knighted wearing shorts? Thank you Michael, we love you.”

The following day, Fox shared pictures from the festival on Instagram. “Oh yeah in case you were wondering… it was f****** mind blowing. There is a time for every band and a band for every time. This is Coldplay’s time.”

Dua Lipa joins the crowd

During her headline performance on the Friday night, Dua Lipa explained to fans how she “manifested” the experience, saying she had “written this moment down… wished for it… worked so hard in the hopes that maybe one day I’ll get to do it”.

More than this, her wish was specifically to headline on a Friday, “because then I knew I could party for the next two days in the best place on Earth”.

Well, we can confirm that for the Saturday at least, the star did get to enjoy the festival as a punter (albeit one with access to a proper bed and a shower, probably). We spotted her walking through the crowd at the Other Stage ahead of The Streets’ evening slot, and later backstage in the hospitality area, with her actor boyfriend Callum Turner.

Other celebrity appearances

Ever since the days of Kate Moss in her micro shorts and wellies in the mid-2000s, Glastonbury has been synonymous with celebrity spotting.

This year was no exception, with former headliner Stormzy, Maya Jama, Alexa Chung, Paul Mescal, Sienna Miller, Cara Delevingne, Leo Woodall and Anya Taylor-Joy among the stars seen around the site.

Noel Gallagher and Dave Grohl (a surprise performer at last year’s event) were also reportedly spotted watching LCD Soundsystem stage-side, and Gallagher was later pictured with Belfast rap trio Kneecap, while Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett went to see Paloma Faith.

Russell Crowe was also on site – as a performer, not a guest – with his band Indoor Garden Party, while Idris Elba gave a speech on the West Holts stage to speak about knife crime and discuss his campaign, Don’t Stop Your Future.

Secret (and not-so secret) sets

“It’s Happening! See you 6pm at Woodsies @glastonbury.”

It was supposed to be hush hush, but with bookies and secret Glastonbury sources putting their money on Kasabian being the big surprise act in the days beforehand, the Leicester band decided to spill the beans a few hours ahead of the show.

Their message on X was all the confirmation needed to bring thousands to the Woodsies Stage – so many, in fact, the area was closed off almost an hour ahead of the group’s start time as a mass of people tried to gain access in sweltering sunshine.

Kasabian headlined the festival back in 2014, so the tent was in capable hands. Theirs was the biggest secret set slot – and featured crowd-surfing from frontman Sergio Pizzorno – but there were numerous others happening across the site.

Plus, lots of star cameos, such as Mel C and Tilda Swinton joining Orbital, Sam Smith making an appearance with Disclosure, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor teaming up with Peggy Gou.

Mike Skinner for PM?

Another set featuring some energetic crowd-surfing, The Streets slot on the Other Stage was one of the highlights of the weekend.

Mike Skinner was in and out of the crowd during a performance that embodied the spirit of Glastonbury, featuring hits including Blinded By The Lights, Weak Become Heroes, Fit But You Know It, Dry Your Eyes and more.

One fan at the front sharing messages on his phone managed to get them picked up by the cameras. “Mike Skinner for PM,” read one, getting a huge cheer.

Is it too late for next week, do you think?

Glastonbury’s youngest fan?

As DJ Annie Mac opened the Other Stage with a dance set on Friday morning, there was one fan in the crowd who stole the show.

Wearing stripey pyjamas and ear protectors, perched on top of his dad Tom Kay’s shoulders, 10-week-old Finlay was met with cheers as he appeared on the big screen several times throughout the set, with special effects turning his image turn into a hallucinatory visual.

“Oh my god, this baby, what a little legend,” Mac said to the crowd. She later signed off her performance by thanking “everyone, Glastonbury, and this baby”.

Asked what tips they would give to parents thinking of bringing their young children to a festival, mum Rosie Lewis said: “Do it – you can overthink it and it can put you off. But take more nappies than you think you’ll need and take more vests and outfits than you think you’ll need.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/glastonbury-2024-celebrity-cameos-secret-sets-and-a-10-week-old-star-the-festival-highlights-from-a-brilliant-year-13161600

The buzz on potential Oscar contenders from the first half of 2024 seems quieter than usual. Nonetheless, stars such as Zendaya, Cannes winner Jesse Plemons and Hollywood’s new “hit man,” Glen Powell, will be among those hoping to stay afloat in the awards conversation until the end of the season.

Significant financial successes from the top of the box office charts are worth celebrating. Warner Bros.’ sci-fi epic sequel, “Dune: Part Two,” could become the seventh movie nominated in all seven technical categories, following its 2022 predecessor. Pixar’s big comeback, “Inside Out 2,” might vie for more than just a spot in the best animated feature category.

This year also features several one-offs — films hoping for one or two mentions in a year likely to be dominated by legacy studios and streaming giants. As we approach this year’s midpoint, Variety is listing possible awards contenders in 20 of the 23 Oscar categories that could be in the running by the end of the year.

Amazon MGM’s “Challengers,” directed by Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino, boasts an impressive turn from Zendaya in a femme fatale role that could bring the 27-year-old her first Oscar nod. If it can sustain until the fall season, it might also contend for original screenplay or a best picture slot.

Yorgos Lanthimos’s anthology film “Kinds of Kindness” may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s typical for the Greek filmmaker’s audacious outings (“The Favourite,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”). After debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, the black comedy garnered a best actor trophy for Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons (“The Power of the Dog”). Depending on whether he campaigns for lead or supporting actor, Plemons could earn his second nod. However, anything outside of Plemons might be too tall of an order.

Netflix is also in the running with the animated adaptation of the Japanese superhero “Ultraman: Rising” and, more notably, Richard Linklater’s dark rom-com “Hit Man.” The streamer acquired the film at TIFF in 2023, resulting in another big win for star Glen Powell, who also co-wrote the script adapted from the Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth. Netflix will work to keep it on voters’ minds throughout the year, aiming for at least some Golden Globes traction.

Box office receipts fuel awards campaigns, which is why we might see efforts from studios with franchise movies such as DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 4,” 20th Century Studios’ “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” and WB’s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” among the top 10 domestic grossers so far.

However, money isn’t everything. Sony’s “The Garfield Movie,” featuring Chris Pratt as the world-famous Monday-hating cat, has accumulated an impressive $207 million globally. But that won’t be enough to overcome the film’s critical panning and mount an Oscar campaign.

What happens when a movie doesn’t get audiences in the door? Is the 81% Rotten Tomatoes score enough for Universal Pictures to push for recognition for David Leitch’s action-ode to stunt performers, “The Fall Guy”? Or perhaps a Golden Globes push in the comedy races for stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt? It’s worth it, especially for sound and editing, and with a stunt Oscar on the horizon.

The first official best picture rankings will be posted on Monday, July 1.

** Not all listed crew members are official. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its various committees ultimately decide on credits.

International Feature: ‘The Devil’s Bath’

While no official country selections have been made yet, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Austrian hopeful “The Devil’s Bath,” which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, could be a strong contender for the International Feature prize.

Acquired by IFC Films, the film follows Agnes in 18th-century Austria as she begins to have evil thoughts while preparing for marriage. As Jessica Kiang for Variety beautifully stated in her review: “If the story is so pitilessly bleak you may want to look away, the filmmaking craft is so compelling that you can’t.”

“The Devil’s Bath” marks another standout entry in what promises to be a stellar year for the horror genre.

Documentary Feature: ‘Frida’

Not to be confused with the 2002 drama “Frida” that earned Salma Hayek a Best Actress nomination, Carla Gutierrez’s animated documentary aims to follow in the footsteps of “Flee” (2021), which became the first movie to be nominated in the animated, documentary, and international Feature categories.

Premiering at Sundance, where it won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award, this magical and engaging portrait of the iconic Mexican artist, told through diaries, letters, essays, and interviews, has the potential to be a multi-hyphenate contender in the awards race. It’s a gorgeous and compelling achievement.

Also in the discussion: “I Am: Céline Dion” (Amazon MGM); “Power” (Netflix)

Original Song: ‘Jeezu’ from ‘The Book of Clarence’

Writer-director Jeymes Samuel’s sophomore feature effort, following “The Harder They Fall,” showcases the talents of Doja Cat, Kodak Black, and Adekunle Gold with the foot-tapping song “Jeezu” in Sony Pictures’ “The Book of Clarence.”

It’s rare for such an audacious endeavor to have a January release. Modest reviews and tepid box office might impact its Oscar chances, but the contemporary music set against a biblical backdrop offers a unique twist.

Alongside a bold performance by Lakeith Stanfield, Samuel collaborates with prominent Black music artists to maintain the film’s integrity. Any of the tracks from the movie, such as “Hallelujah Heaven,” could be considered for awards. However, rap and hip-hop have often come up short at the Oscars, despite wins like Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” from “8 Mile” and Three 6 Mafia’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from “Hustle & Flow.”

Original Score: ‘Young Woman and the Sea’

Talented composer Amelia Warner has shown promise as a future Oscar-nominated musician, with notable works in “Mary Shelley” and “Mr. Malcolm’s List.” She delivers the best musical cues of her career in the crowd-pleasing sports drama “Young Woman and the Sea,” directed by Joachim Rønning and starring Daisy Ridley.

With a big name like Jerry Bruckheimer as a producer, Disney will ensure the film is part of its awards roster later in the year, positioning the music as a key element in its feel-good moments.

Also in the discussion: “Challengers” (Amazon MGM); “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “Inside Out 2” (Pixar)

Visual Effects: ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’

We’ve been here before with the “Planet of the Apes” franchise.

For over 50 years, the visuals have impressed audiences, bringing awe and wonder with its depiction of highly intelligent apes, especially with the 2011 reboot. Though the well-reviewed trilogy has been financially successful, the visual effects Oscar has remained elusive.

20th Century Studios, now under Disney, hopes to change that with well-received continuations that could finally earn the franchise its overdue recognition.

Also in the discussion: “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “The Fall Guy” (Universal Pictures); “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (Warner Bros.)

Sound: ‘Stopmotion’

How the horror genre isn’t recognized continuously in the sound categories is beyond my comprehension. IFC’s mix of live-action and adult animation (not meeting the 75% threshold to be considered in animated feature, unfortunately) boasts an eerie, often spine-tingling aural work that almost feels like it’s infiltrating your DNA.

While the indie company can do its best to get the Academy voters to recognize this story about an animator who struggles to control her demons, a concentrated effort on the artisans could be enough to get it minimally in the awards race.

Also in the discussion: “The Bikeriders” (Focus Features); “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (20th Century Studios)

Makeup and Hairstyling: ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’

Living in the shadow of a technical masterpiece like “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), which won six Oscars, is challenging. However, “Furiosa” rises to the occasion with its epic scope, featuring Anya Taylor-Joy stepping into Charlize Theron’s iconic role as the titular character. The transformative makeup on Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth’s unrecognizable portrayal of Warlord Dementus ensures the film will likely make the Oscar shortlist for makeup and hair design.

Also in the discussion: “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “Kinds of Kindness” (Searchlight Pictures); “Young Woman and the Sea” (Walt Disney Pictures)

Film Editing: ‘We Grown Now’

I love “We Grown Now.” Writer-director Minhal Baig’s bold and beautiful story of two young boys who discover the joys and sorrows of growing up in a public housing complex in 1992 is a sensitive distant cousin to another Oscar-embraced fantasy-esque coming-of-age film, “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

It encompasses textured editing from Stephanie Filo, already recognized at last year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, giving the film its ultimate heartbeat. Sony Pictures Classics picked it up, and if enough voters discover it, it would be a fine and very worthy addition to the awards race.

Also in the discussion: “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “The Fall Guy” (Universal Pictures); “Thelma” (Magnolia Pictures);

Costume Design: ‘One Life’

Director James Hawes’s British biopic tells the poignant true story of humanitarian Nicholas Winton, portrayed exquisitely by Anthony Hopkins, who recalls his efforts to save groups of Jewish children before World War II.

Among the familiar genre of Holocaust-themed films, the memorable costumes of this drama stand out. Costume designer Joanna Eatwell, a two-time Emmy nominee for “Wolf Hall” and “Carnival Row,” brings her finest attention to detail, significantly contributing to the film’s artistry.

Also in the discussion: “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (Warner Bros.); “Kinds of Kindness” (Searchlight Pictures)

Cinematography: ‘I Saw the TV Glow’

Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s surreal horror film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, showcases a visually compelling aura thanks to cinematographer Eric K. Yue. While the indie circuit is more likely to embrace elements from the genre (you can too, Academy), it’s remained on my mind with its powerful meditation on the trans experience, and an often hypnotic framework that shows beauty through terror.

Also in the discussion: “Civil War” (A24); “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.); “We Grown Now” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Source: https://variety.com/lists/oscars-contenders-first-half-2024/production-design-civil-war/

Thousands of Jewish ultra-Orthodox men clashed with Israeli police in central Jerusalem on Sunday during a protest against a Supreme Court order for them to begin enlisting for military service.

The landmark decision last week ordering the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition as Israel wages war in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of men rallied in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood to protest the order. But after nightfall, the crowd made its way toward central Jerusalem and turned violent.

Israeli police said protesters threw rocks and attacked the car of an ultra-Orthodox Cabinet minister, pelting it with stones. Water cannons filled with skunk-scented water and police mounted on horses were used to disperse the crowd. But the demonstration was still not under control late Sunday.

Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel. But politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won exemptions for their followers to skip military service and instead study in religious seminaries.

The long-standing arrangement has bred resentment among the broader public, a sentiment that has grown stronger during the eight-month war against Hamas. Over 600 soldiers have been killed in fighting, and tens of thousands of reservists have been activated, upending careers, businesses and lives.

The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reached its exuberant grand finale on Sunday, bringing rainbow-laden revelers to the streets for marquee parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere across the globe.

The wide-ranging festivities functioned as both jubilant parties and political protests, as participants recognize the community’s gains while also calling attention to recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as bans on transgender health care, passed by Republican-led states.

“We’re at a time where there’s a ton of legislation, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation,” Zach Overton, 47, said at the New York parade. “It feels like we’re taking a step backwards in the fight for equality and so it’s a great moment to come out and be with our community and see all the different colors of the spectrum of our community and remind ourselves what we’re all fighting for.”

Thousands of people gathered along New York’s Fifth Avenue to celebrate Pride. Floats cruised the street as Diane Ross’ “I’m Coming Out” played from loudspeakers. Pride flags filled the horizon, and signs in support of Puerto Rico, Ukraine and Gaza were visible in the crowd.

This year, tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza also seeped into the celebrations, exposing divisions within a community that is often aligned on political issues. Protesters temporarily blocked the New York parade on Sunday, chanting: “Free, free, free Palestine!” Police eventually took some of them away.

Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted pride parades earlier in June in Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. Several groups participating in marches Sunday said they would seek to highlight the victims of the war in Gaza, spurring pushback from supporters of Israel.

“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Pérez, the executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”

The first pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.

Nick Taricco, 47, who was at the New York parade with Overton, said he attended Friday’s opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, where President Joe Biden spoke. Taricco said he has concerns about politics in the U.S., including the presidential election.

“Even given how old he is, I still think that’s the direction we need to go in,” Taricco said of Biden. “But it’s a very uncertain time in general in this country.”

Ireland Fernandez-Cosgrove, 23, celebrated at the New York parade.

“New York City is a great place to live, but this is one of the only days where you can come out and be openly queer and you know you’re going to be OK and safe about it,” she said. “I came out here today with my partner to be able to be ourselves in public and know that other people are going to be supporting us.”

In addition to the NYC Pride March, the nation’s largest, the city also played host Sunday to the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched five years ago amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.

Another one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations took place Sunday in San Francisco, with throngs of spectators lined up along Market Street.

Brian Peterson, the secretary of queer-friendly motorcycling club Homoto, rode his motorcycle along the parade route.

“This is an event where I can celebrate myself as well as my friends and make new friends, and reaffirm that I belong in this world,” Peterson told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-pride-nyc-san-francisco-parade-protest-0c8dd29c5f0d09c9e52b8b47a39efcd2

Hurricane Beryl is expected to hit on Monday morning in the southeast Caribbean, where governments are urging people to take shelter.

An “extremely dangerous” storm is approaching the southeast Caribbean amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter.

Hurricane Beryl is expected to hit the Windward Islands on Monday morning.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“This is a very dangerous situation,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge”.

Beryl is expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica.

It is expected to weaken by midweek, but still remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/hurricane-beryl-extremely-dangerous-storm-approaches-southeast-caribbean-13161632

Both southern and western parts of Switzerland have been affected by heavy rain, while thunderstorms and landslides have also hit northern Italy. Wildfires have broken out south of Athens and in the Turkish district of Izmir.

Extreme weather across Europe has left four people dead in storms in Switzerland and northern Italy, while wildfires force people from their homes in Greece and Turkey.

The bodies of three people were recovered following a landslide in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley in the Italian-speaking Ticino state on the southern side of the Swiss Alps.

The body of a man whose partner had reported him missing was found at a hotel in the Alpine resort of Saas-Grund early on Sunday. It is believed floodwater caught him by surprise.

Police said another man had been missing since Saturday evening in the Binn area in the upper Rhone valley close to the Italian border.

Meanwhile, searing temperatures and strong winds have sparked wildfires near Athens and in the Turkish district of Izmir, with residents and holidaymakers evacuated from their homes.

Both southern and western parts of Switzerland have been affected by heavy rain. Campsites along the River Maggia have been evacuated, while part of the Visletto road bridge collapsed.

One person has been reported missing in the nearby Lavizzara valley.

Further north, the River Rhone burst its banks in several areas of Valais state, flooding a road and railway line.

80 rescue missions in northern Italy

Floods, thunderstorms, and landslides have also hit various regions in northern Italy.

Italian firefighters in the northern Piedmont region said they carried out about 80 rescue operations, evacuating dozens of people.

Two adults and a three-month-old girl were rescued after rising waters left them stuck in their car between Montanaro and San Benigno Canavese, firefighters said.

In the Valle D’Aosta region, several villages were isolated because of overflowing streams.

After President Joe Biden’s shaky performance at the debate with former President Donald Trump on Thursday night, some Democrats openly questioned whether he should be replaced as their candidate for the 2024 election.
There is a process for doing so, but it would be messy.
For answers on how that would work, Reuters spoke to Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, a Democratic National Committee (DNC) member, and author of the book “Primary Politics” about the presidential nominating process.

This explainer is based largely on interviews with her.
Q: WHAT OPTIONS DO DEMOCRATS HAVE?
A: The Democratic Party has had no real Plan B for Biden as its presidential candidate. He ran virtually unopposed for the party’s presidential nomination this year.
He will not be nominated officially until later this summer, so there is still time to make a change and a handful of scenarios to enact one: Biden could decide himself to step aside before he is nominated; he could be challenged by others who try to win over the delegates he has accrued; or he could withdraw after the Democratic convention in Chicago in August, leaving the Democratic National Committee to elect someone to run against Trump in his place.

Q: SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
A: Right now, the process largely depends on Biden. He would have to agree to step down or face a challenger this late in the process who would try to force him to do so. So far Biden has shown no indications of wanting to step aside and no opponents have challenged him directly.
In fact some of his top potential replacements – Vice President Kamala Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom – spoke passionately in his defense after the debate, serving in a surrogate role that showcased their support but also contrasted their smooth delivery with his faltering one on the Atlanta debate stage.

Q: WHAT HAPPENS IF BIDEN STEPS DOWN?
A: Biden has spent the last several months accruing nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates by winning primary elections in U.S. states and territories.
Those delegates would normally vote for him, but the rules do not bind or force them to do so; delegates can vote with their conscience, which means they could throw their vote to someone else.
If Biden “releases” his delegates by stepping aside, there could be a competition among other Democratic candidates to become the nominee.
Q: WHO WOULD REPLACE BIDEN?
A: Several candidates could step into the fray, but there is no obvious number one.
Vice President Harris would almost certainly be at the top of the list, but she has had her own problems after a rocky start in the job and poor polling, opens new tab numbers. The U.S. Constitution dictates that the vice president becomes president if the president dies or becomes incapacitated, but it does not weigh in on an inter-party process for choosing a nominee.

California Governor Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have all been floated as possible replacements, but they are Biden supporters and campaign surrogates who are working to help get him elected now.
Q: HOW WOULD A NOMINEE BE CHOSEN?
A: There would likely be a free-for-all of sorts between the Democratic heavyweights vying for the job.
Candidates would have to get signatures from 600 convention delegates to be nominated. There are expected to be some 4,672 delegates in 2024, including 3,933 pledged delegates and 739 automatic or superdelegates, according to Ballotpedia, opens new tab.
If no one gets a majority of the delegates, then there would be a “brokered convention” in which the delegates act as free agents and negotiate with the party leadership to come up with a nominee.
Rules would be established and there would be roll call votes for the names placed into nomination.
It could take several rounds of voting for someone to get a majority and become the nominee. The last brokered convention when Democrats failed to nominate a candidate on the first ballot was in 1952.
Q: WHAT HAPPENS IF BIDEN STEPS DOWN AFTER THE CONVENTION?
A: If Biden steps down after the August convention, the 435 members of the Democratic National Committee would choose a new candidate. The members would meet in a special session to select a nominee.
Q: WHO ARE THESE 435 DNC MEMBERS?
A: They are divided equally between men and women as well as various constituency groups including labor leaders, LGBTQ representatives, and racial minorities. Of the total, 75 are appointed at-large by the chair, while the rest are elected in their respective states.
Q: WHO COULD NOMINATE AN ALTERNATIVE IN THAT CASE?
A: To nominate a candidate to replace Biden on the ballot, that person would have to have the support of a minimum number of DNC members — perhaps around 60, though the exact number would be determined by the DNC’s rules committee, which would lay out the rules for the proceedings before they started.
There would likely be nominating speeches and seconding speeches. Multiple candidates could be nominated before the list is whittled down.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-democrats-could-replace-biden-presidential-candidate-before-november-2024-06-28/

The gun – a 9-milimeter pistol – blazed a violent trail even by the standards of one of Ecuador’s most dangerous neighborhoods, the Nueva Prosperina precinct of Guayaquil.
Shell casings from bullets fired by the weapon, recovered at the scenes of 27 separate violent incidents, were linked to 34 deaths, according to a police forensic unit. And a police forensic official told Reuters the authorities believe the pistol remains on the streets.

But it is slow work.

Of the more than 40,000 guns seized since 2019, just 900 have been traced, Major Efrain Arguello, who heads a national forensic investigations unit, told Reuters.

The weapon used in Nueva Prosperina may belong to, or have been rented out, among five rival drug gangs fighting for control of the precinct, Arguello said.

Police are investigating killings, robberies and other violent incidents in connection with the same gun.

“A gun connected to 30 crimes means there isn’t just an increase in trafficking, but in the circulation or internal sales of illicit guns,” said Renato Rivera, the director of the Ecuadorean Organized Crime Observatory research group.

The Pacific port city of Guayaquil is a hub for drug trafficking and the scene of turf wars between Mexican, Albanian and other foreign cartels that have led to a sharp rise in homicides.

Noboa in January designated 22 gangs – including the five operating in Nueva Prosperina – as terrorist organizations.

Since taking office last November, after he was elected to finish out his predecessor’s term, Noboa has increased funding for security forces by 6.6% to $3.52 billion.

EQUIPMENT SHORTAGES

But two senior police officials told Reuters that Ecuador is struggling to choke off gun trafficking routes from the United States, Peru and other countries in the region because of a lack of funding, forensic equipment and trained personnel.

Ecuador has just eight microscopes in a country of 17 million for bullet tracing, police said, and 247 trained technicians.

“We are tracing with what we have,” Arguello said.

In a small room in Quito’s police forensic building, technician Jhony Tapia peered through the only ballistic microscope in the city at shell casings and bullets from five guns used to kill four people at a bar in the Amazon.

Distinctive markings from the firing pins of individual firearms, visible under a high power microscope, allow technicians to match bullets to guns or to other bullets fired from the same weapon.

“The firing pin leaves a mark that is more effective (for tracing) than a fingerprint,” said Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Molina, head of the national police arms and explosives trafficking unit.

Tapia will spend the next several hours studying 126 shell casings of varying sizes, he told Reuters.

His findings will be checked against a national police database of bullets and shell casings.

Finding a match is simpler if police also recover the gun, allowing technicians like Tapia to compare markings on the barrel, called rifling, with the marks left on bullets.

Seized guns are checked against international databases run by the United States and Interpol.

Forensic staff did not say whether the guns in the Amazon case had been recovered.

Unlike neighboring Colombia, which has fought drug trafficking networks for decades, Ecuador until recently was considered one of Latin America’s safest countries – a popular destination for foreign tourists and retirees.

But after increased drug interdiction along Colombia’s Pacific Coast, traffickers shifted their route to Ecuador and violent crime soared.

Ecuador’s police have identified seven gun trafficking routes, Noboa’s office said.

Three run overland through Peru while a fourth route enters northern Ecuador near the border with Colombia, though police did not specify if the weapons came from there.

GUN-TRAFFICKING ROUTES FROM THE U.S.

Three more gun-trafficking routes originate in the United States: one by air from Miami to coastal Manta, another through Lima and then overland, and a third by sea via the storied Galapagos Islands, police and Noboa’s office said.

Police said they have also found gun parts shipped by courier services from Miami or produced using 3-D printing.

In April police seized a 3-D printer in coastal Manabi province which they said was used to make up to 20 gun parts.

Police would not share estimates for the prices of illegal guns but the Ecuador Organized Crime Observatory said that Glocks and other pistols go for up to $4,000 new and $500 used.

Rifles can cost between $8,000 and $15,000, the research group said, while guns made with 3-D printers go for $3,000. There is also a market for homemade guns, it said.

Police seized nearly 10,000 guns across Ecuador last year, according to police data, more than half of them revolvers or pistols, close to double the number of seizures in 2019.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/one-gun-34-dead-inside-ecuadors-war-black-market-weapons-2024-06-29/

With tens of millions from his own pocket and a movie star’s ego on the line, what will this lengthy theatrical gamble cost the ‘Yellowstone’ star?

A covered wagon’s worth of ink has been spilled in recent weeks on “Horizon: An American Saga,” the potentially ruinous three-hour dice roll that writer, producer, director and star Kevin Costner makes this weekend when the first of four planned films about the American West opens in theaters.

You’ve probably heard that the films — long-gestating passion projects from a movie icon who in recent years reclaimed his cultural relevance with the hit series “Yellowstone” – are pricey. The first cost $100 million to produce and will be followed only weeks later by its sequel. You’ve also likely seen headlines where Costner bluntly revealed he spent $38 million of his own cash to get the movies made, an unusually candid disclosure from an A-lister who has been forced to bet on himself. Maybe you’ve seen the box office projections, predicting that the film will take home a troubling $10 to $15 million in its opening weekend, or the reviews, which averaged to a dismal 40% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.

What you might not know is the backstory that led him to this moment. It comes at an inflection point in traditional moviemaking in Hollywood – where directors like Costner and Francis Ford Coppola (with his lightning rod “Megalopolis”) have had to go it alone to fulfill bold visions that were not seen as commercially viable by studios or streamers.

As it stands, the “Dances With Wolves” Oscar-winner mortgaged prime undeveloped real estate in Santa Barbara, Calif. to cough up his piece of the action, and raised additional financing for the films through mysterious investors. His longtime studio partner Warner Bros. is in the mix as a distributor for hire. However, the company isn’t spending any of its own money on “Horizon,” not even for marketing.

But Costner’s saga was originally shopped as two films. Warner Bros. came in as an interested party prior to a 2022 merger with Discovery. Then known as WarnerMedia, its CEO Jason Kilar had given a mandate to his studio chief at the time, Toby Emmerich: release one “quality movie” per month exclusive to streaming, according to three sources familiar with that regime. HBO Max was the fledgling service now known as Max, and millions were being spent in pursuit of content that would help lure subscribers to compete with the likes of Netflix (what a difference three years makes, as streaming budgets today couldn’t be tighter while corporations scramble to monetize their platforms).

Emmerich and his team were approaching the project as package acquisition, insiders said, meaning Warner Bros. would be on board to finance both films. Costner would be a splashy get for a straight-to-streaming movie, and the actor was a company man. Warner Bros. has released some of Costner’s career-defining films, including “JFK” and “The Bodyguard.” He was also recruited for franchise properties like DC’s “Man of Steel,” playing the adoptive father of Superman. But after AT&T ended its disastrous marriage with WarnerMedia and Discovery merged with the studio, the game changed. Costner went to its new leaders Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy with a different vision – not only to give “Horizon” a wide theatrical release but to make two additional films, bringing the count to four movies. The films unfold over a 12-year span, before and after the American Civil War, as a large ensemble of characters seek better lives in new terrain.

Max’s streaming mandate for movies had changed overnight, but De Luca and Abdy wanted to honor the studio’s relationship with Costner, sources said. The package was briefly developed under the Warner Bros. Label, New Line, but the economics soon became troubling (the New York Times reported this week that the studio has a small financial stake in the first two chapters of “Horizon.” A representative for the studio wouldn’t comment, but one source close to the film said those costs would have been related to development expenses at New Line).

Source: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/kevin-costner-horizon-stakes-box-office-career-1236056644/

Party donors and congressmen have called on the 81-year-old to abandon his run for re-election to the presidency after appearing frozen and muddling his words multiple times during the first head-to-head debate of the 2024 election campaign.

Trump was widely acknowledged the winner of the debate.

However, the President has clapped back at criticism and taken to the stand at a rally in North Carolina.

Mr Biden was met with chants of “four more years” – less than 24 hours after his presidential debate had been labelled ‘disastrous’.

He had been told he has a week to win over the Democrats before they try and get rid of him in the first presidential debate.

Former President Barack Obama has also weighed in on the matter saying “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know.”

In a tweet, the Mr Obama said: “Bad debate nights happen.

“Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.

“Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit.

“Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November. http://joebiden.com“

However, multiple high-profile democrats have voiced their concerns over Mr Biden’s position in the party.

One congressman told Matthew Yglesias, a US political blogger: “I think the president has one week to prove he is not dead.”

David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, told CNN: “It’s kind of a Defcon 1 moment…they are three years apart, but they seemed about 30 years apart tonight.”

David Axelrod, another Obama adviser, said: “There are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.”

Mark Buell, a well-known Democratic donor, said: “Do we have time to put somebody else in there?”

Addressing Thursday’s debate, Mr Biden immediately went on the offensive as he told the crowds: “I don’t know what you did last night, but I spent 90 minutes on a stage debating with a guy who has the morals of an alley cat.

“Did you see Trump last night? My guess is he set, and I mean this sincerely, a new record for the most lies told in a single debate.”

He then hit out at Mr Trump’s conviction from last month’s hush money trial, as he said: “Donald Trump isn’t just a convicted felon, Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave.”

He then added he has “more trials coming up”.

“The thing that bothers me maybe most about him, he has no respect for women or the law,” Mr Biden added.

The US president also addressed concerns expressed by voters about his age after some of his recent appearances.

Source: https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/joe-biden-donald-trump-barack-obama-usa-election-politics/

As hundreds of thousands of people took to London’s streets on Saturday to celebrate LGBT+ pride, politicians were accused of using the community for political point scoring.

Politicians were accused of “deeply shameful” “point-scoring” over LGBT+ issues as London’s Pride parade took over the centre of the capital today.

1.5 million LGBT+ people and supporters were expected to take to the streets for the annual parade, with community groups, sports clubs, performers and companies taking part.

Ginger Johnson, the most recent winner of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK, was performing on one and spoke to Sky News before going on stage.

“It is deeply shameful that politicians think they can use LGBT+ issues to score points against each other,” said Ginger.

“It’s easy for them to rile people up with conversations like that [whether trans people should be allowed into single sex bathrooms],” she said.

“I don’t think they understand the danger that puts especially the trans community in.”

Dr Who star David Tennant was called “the problem” by Rishi Sunak this week after he told Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch to “shut up” because of her views on trans rights.

Morgan Freeman shared a note giving thanks to his fans Friday morning, expressing gratitude for users’ efforts calling out unauthorized AI imitations of the actor’s recognizable voice.

The celebrated 87-year-old actor has become legend for his narration in films such as “March of the Penguins,” “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Million Dollar Baby.” The sterling reputation of Freeman’s voice has made him a particularly popular target of AI-generated voice imitations, including in a recent viral series of TikToks created by a woman posing as the actor’s “nepo niece.” Freeman is not a fan of the practice.

“Thank you to my incredible fans for your vigilance and support in calling out the unauthorized use of an A.I. voice imitating me,” the actor wrote. “Your dedication helps authenticity and integrity remain paramount. Grateful. #AI #scam #imitation #IdentityProtection”

Freeman’s representation had no further comment.

The actor’s comments come at a time where AI imitations have faced scrutiny in the entertainment industry. Scarlett Johansson’s legal team recently called for OpenAI to disclose how it created its AI personal voice assistant, Sky, and to pull the chatbot down for sounding extremely similar to her own voice. Johansson said she was approached by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last September with a request to use her voice for a conversational form of ChatGPT, but she declined for “personal reasons.” The actor said last month that she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” that the AI company went ahead and used a voice extremely similar to hers after she refused to work with them.

Altman also allegedly contacted her agent two days before the voice assistant demo was released asking her to reconsider. The company paused the use of the voice assistant, but stated that the voice was not an imitation of Johansson.

In April, Drake also came under fire from Tupac Shakur’s estate for using an AI imitation of the West Coast rapper on his song “Taylor Made Freestyle” dissing Kendrick Lamar. Howard King, who reps Shakur’s estate, sent a cease-and-desist to Drake, stating that the song was a “blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time.”

Source: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/morgan-freeman-slams-ai-voice-imitations-tiktok-1236057405/

Dua Lipa did not come to mess around.
The pop star stormed through her first ever headline slot at Glastonbury with an ambitious and dynamic performance that was stacked with smashes from beginning to end.
She took to the Pyramid Stage shortly after 10pm, opening with a flawless run of five songs: Training Season, One Kiss, Illusion, Break My Heart and Levitating.
Each one had the breathless choreography of an award show performance – and the pace didn’t let up all night.

Almost 100,000 people watched her play, with fans stretching all the way back to Rowmead, an area that used to be reserved for campers, but which has been opened up in 2024 to allow bigger crowds to the Pyramid Stage.
“It’s a lot, innit? A lot to take in,” Lipa said.
“Little me would just be beside herself right now.”
It was a tiny moment of vulnerability in an armour-plated set. No song was left unpolished, no vocal left unharmonised, no hair left untossed. Dua hit every mark with the precision of someone who’d been building towards this moment for years.
But if that makes it sound clinical and sterile, it wasn’t the case.
Take the moment she ran down to the barriers to join the crowd as they sang along to her early hit Be The One.
It wasn’t entirely spontaneous (in fact it riffed on a moment from her last Glastonbury performance in 2017) but the joy on the star’s face as she climbed the fences and stood face to face with her fans was genuine.

Shortly afterwards, she brought out Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker – a collaborator on her new album Radical Optimism – to sing the band’s song The Less I Know The Better.
Freed from the iron grip of choreography, she simply vibed out with him on stage, giving a glimpse of the person behind the tightly-controlled public persona.
“Tonight I get to pretend I’m in Tame Impala,” she beamed.
If there was a criticism of her set, it was that such moments were few and far between.
The show sometimes felt aimed at the global TV audience as much as the people in front of her, and the aerobic dance routines – while undoubtedly impressive – didn’t allow for much spontaneity.
But the audience’s attention never wavered. Even the less familiar new material was cleverly sequenced, so that you were never more than 3 minutes away from a certified banger.

New Rules mash-up
Before the show, Lipa said her goal was to turn Glastonbury “into a nightclub” and she kept to her word.
All the songs were given a sonic overhaul – adding sounds from the 90s rave scene or beefing up her beats with trunk-rumbling sub bass.
Her breakout hit, New Rules, was even combined with the festival staple Glue, by Northern Irish dance act Bicep.
The result was a show that felt like the VIP room of a gritty European nightspot, only delivered on a gigantic scale.

Even the outfits were planned to complement the club theme, with Dua’s fashion choices blending in with (rather than standing out from) those of her dancers – from a chunky studded belt, to red-and-black flamed hotpants.

Notably, she also wore flat shoes to facilitate the dancing – enhancing the feeling that we were joining her on a night out, rather than watching an untouchable pop icon.

With fireworks and confetti throughout the set, it felt like she was staking a claim on Glastonbury immortality. And, watching from the front row, she more than succeeded.

The other acts at the top of this weekend’s bill – including five-time headliners Coldplay – have their work cut out to match her ambition.

Dua Lipa’s Glastonbury setlist

1. Training Season
2. One Kiss
3. Illusion
4. Break My Heart
5. Illusion
6. These Walls
7. Be The One
8. The Less I Know The Better (Tame Impala cover)
9. Be The One
10. Falling Forever
11. Love Again
12. Pretty Please
13. Hallucinate
14. New Rules
15. Electricity
16. Cold Heart
17. Happy For You
18. Physical
19. Don’t Start Now
20. Houdini

Other sets on Friday came from dance collective Jungle, rock band Idles and Jamie xx – who packed out the Woodsies tent, and rewarded fans by reuniting with his bandmates Romy and Oliver from The xx for an emotional performance of You’ve Got The Love.
He was also joined on stage by Swedish pop star Robyn, playing their new collaboration Life.
Surprise guests were the order of the night, in fact.
Anne-Marie introduced Aitch to The Other Stage to perform Psycho, and Bombay Bicycle Club were joined by Damon Albarn to play Blur’s Tender and Heaven – which featured on Bombay Bicycle Club’s 2023 album My Big Day.
Albarn also urged people to vote in next week’s general election, and appeared to criticise Thursday night’s debate between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, saying: “Maybe it’s time we stopped putting octogenarians in charge of the world.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgl8xxnegeo

The only thing connecting each tiny room at the Happiness Factory to the outside world is a feeding hole in the door.

No phones or laptops are allowed inside these cells, which are no bigger than a store cupboard, and their inhabitants have only bare walls for company.
Residents may wear blue prison uniforms but they are not inmates – they have come to the centre in South Korea for a “confinement experience”.
Most people here have a child who has fully withdrawn from society, and have come to learn for themselves how it feels to be cut off from the world.

Solitary-confinement cell
Reclusive young people like these residents’ children are referred to as hikikomori, a term coined in Japan in the 1990s to describe severe social withdrawal among adolescents and young adults.
Last year, a South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare survey of 15,000 19- to 34-year-olds found more than 5% of respondents were isolating themselves.
If this is representative of the wider population of South Korea, it would mean about 540,000 people were in the same situation.
Since April, parents have been participating in a 13-week parental education programme funded and run by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) the Korea Youth Foundation and the Blue Whale Recovery Centre.
The aim of the scheme is to teach people how to communicate better with their children.
The programme includes three days in a facility in Hongcheon-gun, Gangwon Province, where participants spend time in a room that replicates a solitary-confinement cell.
The hope is isolation will offer parents a deeper understanding of their children.

Beryl grew into a hurricane Saturday as it churned toward the southeastern Caribbean, with forecasters warning it was expected to strengthen into a dangerous major storm before reaching Barbados late Sunday or early Monday.

A major hurricane is considered Category 3 or higher, with winds of at least 111 mph (178 kph). On Saturday night, Beryl was a Category 1 hurricane, marking the farthest east that a hurricane formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.

A hurricane warning was issued for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. A tropical storm warning was posted for Martinique and Tobago and a tropical storm watch for Dominica.

“It’s astonishing to see a forecast for a major (Category 3+) hurricane in June anywhere in the Atlantic, let alone this far east in the deep tropics. #Beryl organizing in a hurry over the warmest waters ever recorded for late June,” Florida-based hurricane expert Michael Lowry posted on X.

Beryl’s center was forecast to pass about 26 miles (45 kilometers) south of Barbados, said Sabu Best, director of the island’s meteorological service. Forecasters then expect the storm to cross the Caribbean on a path toward Jamaica and eventually Mexico.

Late Saturday, Beryl was centered about 595 miles (955 kilometers) east-southeast of Barbados, and its maximum sustained winds had risen to 85 mph (140 kph). It was moving west at 20 mph (31 kph).

“Rapid strengthening is now forecast,” the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Atmospheric science researcher Tomer Burg noted that Beryl was just a tropical depression with 35 mph winds Friday.

“This means that according to preliminary data, Beryl already met rapid intensification criteria before even becoming a hurricane,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Warm waters were fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher.

Beryl also is the strongest June tropical storm on record that far east in the tropical Atlantic, according to Klotzbach.

“We remain absolutely vigilant and need to take every precaution that is possible for ourselves, for our family and for our neighbors,” Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a public address Saturday night, asking that all businesses close by Sunday evening. “We do not want to put anybody’s life at risk.”

She noted that thousands of people are in Barbados for the Twenty20 World Cup cricket final, with India beating South Africa on Saturday in the capital of Bridgetown. It is considered cricket’s biggest event.

Some fans, like Shashank Musku, a 33-year-old physician who lives in Pittsburgh, were rushing to change their flights to leave before the storm.

Musku said by phone that he has never experienced a hurricane: “I don’t plan on being in one, either.”

He and his wife, who were rooting for India, found out about Beryl thanks to a taxi driver who mentioned the storm.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a public address Saturday that shelters would open Sunday evening and he urged people to prepare. He ordered officials to refuel government vehicles and asked grocery stores and gas stations to stay open later before the storm.

“There will be such a rush … if you keep limited hours,” he said as he apologized ahead of time for government interruptions on radio stations with storm updates. “Cricket lovers have to bear with us that we’ll have to give information … this is life and death.”

Beryl is the second named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in northeastern Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.

Lowry noted that in records dating back to 1851 only five named storms had ever formed in June in the tropical Atlantic east of the Caribbean, and only one of those was a hurricane. He said that one was the first hurricane of 1933, which was the most active hurricane season on record.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/tropical-system-beryl-caribbean-0a61043f36a9439f8037147d60e3c9e3

America’s adversaries didn’t just think President Biden got pummeled in Thursday’s debate, they claim the United States was the real loser.

Russia, China, Iran and others weighed in after Biden’s faltering performance left viewers stunned. Media outlets in those countries, many of which are government-run, seized on the debate debacle to criticize the U.S.

“Every outlet, big and small, carries a piece describing what happened,” Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital. “Some have more than one. Most of them, if not all, are derogatory of both candidates and mocking America.”

“What [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is seeing is that the American Society is deeply fractured and consumed by its own problems,” Koffler said. “Putin likely believes that Russia wins either way, no matter who wins, because he expects the U.S. to plunge into chaos in the aftermath of the elections, because the country is so divided and polarized.”

“Bottom line, Moscow feels confident that the societal crisis that has engulfed the U.S. is good for Russia,” she added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Putin “was too bored to wake up and watch the U.S. debate,” but that “we have seen media reports about these debates.”

Peskov added that the Kremlin has made no attempt to “assess this debate” or make “official conclusions” and insisted that Russia has “never interfered in the election campaigns of the United States.”

Outside the Kremlin, Russian media have reportedly touted the debate as a victory for Russia, with Putin positioned to dictate terms in the war in Ukraine – especially if Donald Trump were to win the White House.

They highlighted Biden’s “half-open mouth, unblinking eyes” and “blank expression on his face.”

“This is how Joe Biden appeared before an audience of millions,” Russian state TV New York bureau chief Valentin Bogdanov said on Kremlin-backed RT.

The news report especially focused on the reaction from CNN, calling the anchors “powerless” and the Democratic Party in the throes of a “deep panic,” according to East2West.

China also took an unfavorable view of the debate. Official media appeared to generally ignore it, but the state-run Global Times labeled it “the most chaotic presidential debate ever” and “like a reality show” while also highlighting the times Biden and Trump talked about China, according to the BBC.

The Global Times most specifically took issue with Trump blaming Beijing for “the raging COVID-19 epidemic and U.S. economic woes.”

BIDEN AIMS TO CHANGE NEGATIVE NARRATIVE AFTER ROUGH DEBATE WITH TRUMP

State-owned Beijing News claimed that the debate exposed both candidates’ shortcomings, with a “habitually confused” Biden and Trump spreading “rumors” instead of answering questions directly.

The Xinhua news agency framed the debate within the context of an America “weary of another Biden-Trump match-up” and focusing on Biden’s “several verbal slips” and “unclear” speech, while hitting Trump for failing to answer questions directly while providing statements that “contained many exaggerations and falsehoods.”

Chinese social media personalities were even more pointed. Former state media editor Hu Xijin on social media platform X mocked the U.S. presidential debate for proving “very entertaining for many Chinese people,” according to Newsweek.

“Objectively speaking, the low-quality performance of these two old men was a negative advertisement for Western democracy,” he wrote.

Other social media users described the debate as a “disaster,” “train wreck” and “waste of time, though it should be noted that Chinese media has regularly tried to paint the U.S. as a country in turmoil with an uncertain political future.

Iran’s Republic News Agency did not appear to focus much on the debate as the country holds its own presidential elections this weekend, which dominated coverage, but Middle East expert and The Foreign Desk editor-in-chief Lisa Daftari warned that the mediocre showing at the debate will interest all of America’s rivals.

“Any American adversary may look at President Biden’s performance as a reminder that the leader of the free world is currently less than competent,” Daftari said. “It’s always been the case that the United States has the ability to defend its interests and bring about stability throughout the world just through deterrence and proper rhetoric and positioning.”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/world-reaction-us-presidential-debate-mockery-china-russia-concern-allies

Emmanuel Macron has taken many risks in a political career marked by countless crises but his decision to call snap elections may be one too many, marring his legacy and ushering in an era of extremes.

The tremors from Macron dissolving the National Assembly after his centrist party suffered a drubbing in European polls remain strong, with even figures close to the president acknowledging unease over the political turmoil.

“It was the president who killed the presidential majority,” said former prime minister Edouard Philippe, an ally of Macron.

The far-right National Rally (RN) is tipped to win, potentially giving the party of Macron’s longtime rival Marine Le Pen the post of prime minister for the first time in a tense “cohabitation”.

Macron’s popularity has sunk to the extent that allies suggested he take a back seat in the campaign, with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal leading the way.

For one of Macron’s most loyal supporters, some of the resentment stems from his unexpected rise to the presidency.

“There’s a desire for revenge on the part of politicians who resent his success,” said Francois Patriat, head of the pro-Macron deputies in the upper house Senate.

Born in Amiens to two doctors, Macron met his future wife Brigitte when she was a teacher and 25 years his senior.

“He fell in love with his drama teacher when he was 16, and he said he was going to marry her, and then he married her. That’s pretty strong stuff,” said a former classmate from the elite graduate school ENA.

With that same self-confidence, he quit the government of former president Francois Hollande in August 2016 to prepare his run for the presidency, a risky move at the time.

He went on to create En Marche (On the Move), a political movement with the same initials as its leader and won the presidential election in 2017 at the age of 39.

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia should resume production of intermediate and shorter range nuclear-capable missiles and then consider where to deploy them after the United States brought similar missiles to Europe and Asia.
Putin’s move finally kills off all that remains from one of the most significant arms controls treaties of the Cold War amid fears that the world’s two biggest nuclear powers could be entering a new arms race together with China.

In Russia’s far northeastern Yakutia region, local scientists are performing an autopsy on a wolf frozen in permafrost for around 44,000 years, a find they said was the first of its kind.
Found by chance by locals in Yakutia’s Abyyskiy district in 2021, the wolf’s body is only now being properly examined by scientists.
“This is the world’s first discovery of a late Pleistocene predator,” said Albert Protopopov, head of the department for the study of mammoth fauna at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences.

“Its age is about 44,000 years, and there have never been such finds before,” he said.
Sandwiched between the Arctic Ocean and in Russia’s Arctic far east, Yakutia is a vast region of swamps and forests around the size of Texas, around 95% of which is covered in permafrost.

Winter temperatures in the region have been known to drop to as low as minus 64 degrees Celsius (-83.2°F)
“Usually, it’s the herbivorous animals that die, get stuck in swamps, freeze and reach us as a whole. This is the first time when a large carnivore has been found,” said Protopopov.

President Joe Biden said on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would consider dropping out of the race after a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” an ebullient Biden said at a rally one day after the head-to-head showdown with his Republican rival, which was widely viewed as a defeat for the 81-year-old president.

“I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, as the crowd chanted “four more years.”
“I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job. The stakes are too high,” Biden said.
Biden’s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses in the debate heightened voter concerns that he might not be fit to serve another four-year term and prompted some of his fellow Democrats to wonder whether they could replace him as their candidate for theNov. 5 U.S. election.

Campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said there were no conversations taking place about that possibility. “We’d rather have one bad night than a candidate with a bad vision for where he wants to take the country,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The campaign held an “all hands on deck” meeting on Friday afternoon to reassure staffers that Biden was not dropping out of the race, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Though Trump, 78, put forward a series of falsehoods throughout the debate, the focus afterward was squarely on Biden, especially among Democrats.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Party leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, avoided answering directly when asked whether he still had faith in Biden’s candidacy.
“I support the ticket. I support the Senate Democratic majority. We’re going to do everything possible to take back the House in November. Thank you, everyone,” he told reporters.
Some other Democrats likewise demurred when asked if Biden should stay in the race. “That’s the president’s decision,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed told a local TV station in Rhode Island.
But several of the party’s most senior figures, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, said they were sticking with Biden.
“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and somebody who only cares about himself,” former Democratic President Barack Obama wrote on X.
The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed Biden in 2020, called on him to drop out of the race to give the Democratic Party a better chance of beating Trump by picking another candidate. “The greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” the editorial said.

TRUMP TARGETS VIRGINIA

Jan and Els were married for almost five decades. In early June, they died together after being given lethal medication by two doctors. In the Netherlands, this is known as duo-euthanasia. It’s legal, and it’s rare – but every year, more Dutch couples choose to end their lives this way.

Some people might find this article upsetting.

Three days before they voluntarily take their last breath, Jan and Els’ campervan sits on a sunlit marina in Friesland, in the Netherlands’ north. They’re a couple who love being mobile, and have lived most of their marriage in a motorhome, or on boats.
“We tried sometimes [to live] in a pile of stones – a house,” jokes Jan, when I visit them, “but it doesn’t work.”
He’s 70, and sits in the swivel driving-seat of the van, one leg bent underneath him in the only position that eases his continuous back pain. His wife, Els, is 71 and has dementia. Now, she struggles to formulate her sentences.
“This is very good,” she says, standing up easily and pointing to her body. “But this is terrible,” she says, pointing to her head.
Jan and Els met in kindergarten – theirs was a lifelong partnership. When he was young, Jan played hockey for the Netherlands’ national youth team, and then became a sports coach. Els trained as a primary school teacher. But it was their shared love of water, boats, and sailing that defined their years together.
As a young couple they lived on a houseboat. They later bought a cargo boat and built a business transporting goods around the Netherlands’ inland waterways.
Meanwhile, Els gave birth to their only son (who asked not to be named). He became a weekly boarder at school and spent weekends with his parents. During school holidays when their child was onboard too, Jan and Els looked for work trips that would take them to interesting places – along the river Rhine, or to the Netherlands’ islands.
By 1999, the inland cargo business had become very competitive. Jan was experiencing serious back pain from the heavy-duty work he had been doing for more than a decade. He and Els moved on land, but after a few years they were again living on a boat. When that became too much to manage, they bought their spacious campervan.
Jan had surgery on his back in 2003, but it didn’t improve. He had halted a heavy regime of pain killers and could no longer work, but Els was still busy teaching. Sometimes they talked about euthanasia – Jan explained to his family he didn’t want to live too long with his physical limitations. It was around this time the couple joined NVVE – the Netherlands’ “right to die” organisation.
“If you take a lot of medicine, you live like a zombie,” Jan told me. “So, with the pain I have, and Els’ illness, I think we have to stop this.”
When Jan says “stop this”, he means – stop living.

She’s quite literally rocking the vote.

Dr. Jill Biden sent a strong message to Americans at husband President Joe Biden’s post-debate rally in Raleigh, NC on Friday, clad in a navy blue silk crepe Christian Siriano dress with an all-over “Vote” print.

“Dr. Biden wearing my dress sends a clear message to us all. A vote for Biden is a vote for human and civil rights,” the designer tells Page Six Style in a statement.

“As a young American brand and designer, what we can do is give our clothes a voice and I hope this speaks to you. Now let’s get to work!”

The first lady, 73, accessorized with pearl drop earrings, a dainty necklace, several bracelets and coordinating navy pointed-toed pumps.

The designer’s “Vote” print has become a Hollywood favorite in recent years, with similar styles popping up on the likes of Lizzo, Julianne Moore, Julia Roberts and Sarah Hyland.

Siriano has dressed Dr. Biden in the past, as well as other White House women like former first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“When you get to dress those people, it definitely feels really great because the whole world sees them,” the “Project Runway” alum told Business Insider last week.

“You feel so great because a person who everyone’s looking up to chose to wear something. It’s kind of like the ultimate compliment.”

The Bidens had traveled to North Carolina from Atlanta, where the 81-year-old president debated former POTUS and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, 78.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/06/28/style/first-lady-jill-biden-makes-a-statement-in-vote-dress-after-debate/

He might not have two thumbs — but he’s getting nearly $2 million.

A jury awarded a Long Island man $1.9 million in damages after he had part of his thumb chopped off in 2016 by the motorized — and ironically named — “soft close” door of his BMW.

Godwin Boateng, a now-68-year-old software engineer from Valley Stream, was “giddy” over the verdict in Brooklyn federal court Thursday — which came nearly a decade after the life-changing amputation, his lawyer told The Post.

“We’re very happy with the award,” said Boateng’s lawyer, Avi Cohen.

Cohen added he and Boateng were happy they held out on BMW’s last settlement offer weeks before trial, which amounted to “peanuts.”

Iranians voted for a new president on Friday (Jun 28) following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, choosing from a tightly controlled group of four candidates loyal to the Supreme :eader at a time of growing public frustration and Western pressure.

The election coincides with escalating regional tension due to war between Israel and Iran’s allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as increased Western pressure on Iran over its fast-advancing nuclear programme.

Khamenei called for a high turnout to offset a legitimacy crisis fuelled by public discontent over economic hardship and curbs on political and social freedom.

“The durability, strength, dignity and reputation of the Islamic Republic depend on people’s presence,” Khamenei told state television after casting his vote. “High turnout is a definite necessity.”

The next president is not expected to usher in any major policy shift on Iran’s nuclear programme or support for militia groups across the Middle East, since Khamenei calls all the shots on top state matters.

However, the president runs the government day-to-day and can influence the tone of Iran’s foreign and domestic policy. A hardline watchdog body made up of six clerics and six jurists aligned with Khamenei vets candidates, and approved only six from an initial pool of 80. Two hardline candidates subsequently dropped out.

THREE HARDLINE CANDIDATES, ONE RELATIVE MODERATE

Three candidates are hardliners and one is a low-profile comparative moderate, backed by the reformist faction that has largely been sidelined in Iran in recent years.

Critics of Iran’s clerical rule say that low and declining turnouts in recent years show the system’s legitimacy has eroded. Just 48% of voters participated in the 2021 presidential election and turnout plumbed a record low of 41% in a parliamentary election in March.

State television showed queues inside polling stations in several cities. Polling was extended two times for a total of four extra hours until 18:30 GMT because “people wanted to vote, state TV said. Voting in Iran is usually extended as late as midnight. Authorities said the result would be announced on Saturday.

If no candidate wins at least 50% plus one vote from all ballots cast, including blank votes, a run-off between the top two candidates is held on the first Friday after the result is declared.

Prominent among the remaining hardliners are Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, parliament speaker and former commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator who served for four years in Khamenei’s office.

All four candidates have vowed to revive the flagging economy, beset by mismanagement, state corruption and sanctions re-imposed since 2018, after the United States ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers.

“I think Jalili is the only candidate who raised the issue of justice, fighting corruption and giving value to the poor. Most importantly he does not link Iran’s foreign policy to the nuclear deal,” said Farzan, a 45-year-old artist in the city of Karaj.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/iran-votes-new-president-amid-voter-apathy-4444151

Eagles singer Don Henley filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday seeking the return of his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s hit “Hotel California” album.

The civil complaint filed in Manhattan federal court comes after prosecutors in March abruptly dropped criminal charges midway through a trial against three collectibles experts accused of scheming to sell the documents.

The Eagles co-founder has maintained the pages were stolen and had vowed to pursue a lawsuit when the criminal case was dropped against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski.

“Hotel California,” released by the Eagles in 1977, is the third-biggest selling album of all time in the U.S.

“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” Daniel Petrocelli, Henley’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages remain in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment Friday on the litigation.

Lawyers for Kosinski and Inciardi dismissed the legal action as baseless, noting the criminal case was dropped after it was determined that Henley misled prosecutors by withholding critical information.

Queen Camilla has said Britain’s armed forces are “a source of inspiration, reassurance and pride” to mark Armed Forces Day – as the monarch’s latest portrait is released.

A new portrait of King Charles has been released to mark Armed Forces Day, as Queen Camilla gave a rare national statement praising servicemen and women.

“Our armed forces support and strengthen our nation. You are a source of inspiration, reassurance and pride – and I salute you all,” she said in a message filmed in Clarence House’s morning room.

In his new portrait released at the same time as the Queen’s message, the King is wearing his Field Marshal Number 1 ceremonial frock coat with medals, sword and decorations.

The photo was taken in the Grand Corridor at Windsor Castle last November by Hugo Burnand, a favourite photographer of the Royal Family who took the official coronation photographs.

The King and Queen travelled to Normandy on 6 June to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings with world leaders.

In her message, Camilla remembered the “incredible bravery” of the forces that liberated Europe from Hitler’s regime.

“Eight decades later, I know that same spirit and those same qualities remain much in evidence throughout our armed forces, as you undertake your duties in the face of a multitude of challenges and dangers.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/new-portrait-of-king-released-as-queen-camilla-issues-rare-statement-in-support-of-armed-forces-13160689

The private funeral will take place on 7 July, the day each year the club celebrates Rob Burrow Day because of the iconic number seven shirt he wore.

Details of Rob Burrow’s funeral have been released to allow fans of the former Leeds Rhinos star to pay their respects.

Burrow died aged 41 earlier this month, four years after he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND).

A private funeral will take place on 7 July, the day each year the club celebrates Rob Burrow Day because of the iconic number seven shirt he wore during his illustrious career.

The details of his funeral procession have been released so members of the public can pay their respects to Burrow and his family.

The cortege will travel along the A656 (Park Road) passing the Xscape leisure complex on their right as it travels towards the M62 junction.

The cars will continue along the A639 towards Pontefract passing Pontefract Racecourse before turning onto Park Lane (B6134) near Pontefract Tanshelf train station.

The cortege will follow along Ackton Lane into Ackton before turning left onto Sewerbridge Lane and Common Side Lane (B6133) heading towards Featherstone.

At the War Horse sculpture, the cars will turn left, slowing for a moment at Featherstone Lions ARLFC’s ground on Wakefield Road (A645).

The cortege will slow again as it passes through Featherstone and near to where Rob played his junior rugby.

The cars will continue along Pontefract Lane towards the crematorium

However, members of the public are asked to leave at this part of the journey so the Burrow family can have a few moments to themselves before arriving at the crematorium for the service.

A joint statement from the family and Leeds Rhinos, said: “Entry to the crematorium and service will be for invited guests only and the purpose of publishing the route is to give the public the chance to pay their respects before allowing Rob’s family and friends to grieve his loss in private.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/rob-burrow-funeral-plans-revealed-with-poignant-date-set-13160575

New court documents show the dire financial situation the King of Pop was in when he died aged 50 of acute propofol intoxication

Michael Jackson was more than $500m (£395.3m) in debt when he died in 2009, new court documents allege.

The King of Pop was in a deep financial hole when he died aged 50 of acute propofol intoxication, according to a petition the executors of his estate filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court and seen by Sky’s US partner network NBC News

“At the time of Michael Jackson’s death, Michael Jackson’s most significant assets were subject to more than $500 million of debt and creditors’ claims, with some of the debt accruing interest at extremely high interest rates, and some debt in default,” the filing said.

The pop superstar had been preparing for a 50-show concert residency called This Is It at London’s O2 Arena before he died on 25 June 2009 – 18 days before the first performance had been scheduled.

His death left his estate financially liable for $40m (£31.6m) to the tour promoter, AEG, the filing said.

The filing requests that money from Jackson’s estate be used to reimburse the executors’ lawyers for legal services and other expenses.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/singer-michael-jackson-500m-in-debt-when-he-died-13160334

A private jet at the centre of a mysterious fake gold smuggling case belongs to a well-connected Egyptian tycoon, Ibrahim Al Organi, Sky News can reveal.

Last August, authorities in Zambia raided a private jet, which had landed at the African country’s largest airport after flying more than 3,000 miles from Cairo.

Acting on a tip, Zambia’s Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) found $5.7m in cash, five pistols and 127kg of what appeared to be gold.

Zambian authorities later tested the pieces and discovered they were mostly made up of copper and zinc.

“This has been a clear case of scamming, gold scamming,” said DEC director Nason Banda at a news conference after the operation.

Zambian authorities seized the jet and detained 10 people on board, including six Egyptian nationals. For almost a year, however, the owner of the jet has remained a mystery.

Documents obtained by Sky News, in collaboration with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), show that the plane is owned by prominent Egyptian businessman Ibrahim Al Organi.

In an affidavit filed to Zambia’s High Court in December, Al Organi identified himself as the owner of the aircraft.

Who is Al Organi?

The Egyptian businessman is chairman of the Organi Group, a sprawling network of companies in construction, real estate, travel, and security. In January 2023, Al Organi became an official sponsor of Al Ahly, the most successful football team in Africa.

Al Organi’s affidavit, submitted in a bid to regain possession of the aircraft, says he is the “sole director” of the company World Aviation Sinai International Mountain Limited, which is registered with the aviation authority in San Marino, a tiny landlocked country surrounded by Italy.

President Joe Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance while his Republican rival Donald Trump battered him with a series of often false attacks at their debate on Thursday, as the two oldest presidential candidates ever exchanged personal insults ahead of the November election.
The two men traded barbs on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, their handling of the economy and even their golf games as they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months.

Biden’s allies tried to put a brave face on the evening, and two White House officials said Biden had a cold.
But the president’s poor performance rattled his fellow Democrats and will likely deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another four-year term.
One top Biden donor, who did not want to be identified while criticizing the president, called his performance “disqualifying” and said he expected a fresh round of calls for him to step aside ahead of the party’s national convention in August.

Vice President Kamala Harris, appearing on CNN after the debate, acknowledged what she called Biden’s “slow start” but argued that voters should judge him and Trump based on their years in office.
“I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I’ve been watching the last three-and-a-half years of performance,” she told CNN host Anderson Cooper.
A hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions during the debate’s first half-hour. But he found his footing at the halfway mark when he attacked Trump over his conviction for covering up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, calling him a “felon.”

In response, Trump brought up the recent conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter, for lying about his drug use to buy a gun.
Moments later, Biden noted that almost all of Trump’s former cabinet members, including former Vice President Mike Pence, have not endorsed his campaign.
“They know him well, they served with him,” he said. “Why are they not endorsing him?”
Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of criticisms, many of which were well-worn falsehoods he has long repeated, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave, that Democrats support infanticide and that he actually won the 2020 election.
Biden and Trump, 78, were both under pressure to display their fitness for office. Biden has been dogged by questions about his age and sharpness, while Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and sprawling legal woes remain a vulnerability.
“Obviously, the biggest factor is that Biden still seemed old and raspy and less coherent than when he ran last time,” said Matt Grossmann, a political science professor at Michigan State University. “I don’t think Trump really did anything to help himself beyond his existing supporters, but I think it’s eclipsed by people’s impressions of Biden on his biggest vulnerability.”
Asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, the former president refused to accept any responsibility and claimed that many of those arrested were innocent.
“This guy has no sense of American democracy,” Biden scoffed in response.
Biden also blamed Trump for enabling the elimination of a nationwide right to abortion by appointing conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court, an issue that has bedeviled Republicans since 2022.
Trump countered that Biden would not support any limits on abortions and said that returning the issue to the states was the right course of action.
Trump said Biden had failed to secure the southern U.S. border, ushering in scores of criminals.

“I call it Biden migrant crime,” he said.
Biden replied, “Once again, he’s exaggerating, he’s lying.”
Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
NAME-CALLING
The televised 90-minute clash on CNN took place far earlier than any modern presidential debate, more than four months before the Nov. 5 Election Day.
The two candidates appeared with no live audience, and their microphones automatically cut off when it was not their turn to speak – both atypical rules imposed to avoid the chaos that derailed their first debate in 2020, when Trump interrupted Biden repeatedly.
The two men – who have made little secret of their mutual dislike – did not shake hands or acknowledge each other before or after the debate.
But there were plenty more moments in which their bad blood was evident. Each called the other the worst president in history; Biden referred to Trump as a “loser” and a “whiner,” while Trump called Biden a “disaster.”
At one point, the rivals bickered over their golf games, with Trump bragging about hitting the ball farther than Biden and Biden retorting that Trump would struggle to carry his own bag.
The first question focused on the economy, as polls show Americans are dissatisfied with Biden’s performance despite wage growth and low unemployment.
Biden acknowledged that inflation had driven prices substantially higher than at the start of his term but said he deserves credit for putting “things back together again” following the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump asserted that he had overseen “the greatest economy in the history of our country” before the pandemic struck and said he took action to prevent the economic freefall from deepening even further.
The debate took place at a time of profound polarization and deep-seated anxiety among voters about the state of American politics. Two-thirds of voters said in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll that they were concerned violence could follow the election, nearly four years after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Trump took the stage as a felon who still faces a trio of criminal cases, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The former president, who persists in falsely claiming his defeat was the result of fraud, has suggested he will punish his political enemies if returned to power, but he will need to convince undecided voters that he does not pose a mortal threat to democracy, as Biden asserts.
Biden’s challenge was to deliver a forceful performance after months of Republican assertions that his faculties have dulled with age.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-trump-face-off-first-debate-with-age-fitness-focus-2024-06-27/

Satellite images showing much of the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab in ruins after months of Israeli air strikes offer a glimpse of the scale of damage in one of Hezbollah’s main bastions in south Lebanon.
The images from private satellite operator Planet Labs PBC, taken on June 5 and analysed by Reuters, show at least 64 destroyed sites in Aita al-Shaab. Several of the sites contain more than one building.

The number of days reaching a sizzling 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) in 20 of the world’s largest capitals – from Delhi to Jakarta to Buenos Aires – has risen 52% over the past three decades, a think tank analysis found on Friday.
More than 300 million people live in the world’s 20 most populous capital cities, where they are uniquely vulnerable to rising temperatures fueled by climate change, as asphalt and buildings absorb and retain heat.

Capital cities including Delhi, Dhaka and Manila already this year have been plagued by dangerous heatwaves – leading to a spate of heat-related deaths and school closures.
Delhi alone documented its longest and most severe heatwave in 74 years, registering 39 consecutive days with maximum temperatures at or above 40 C (104 F) from May 14 to June 21, according to weather station data.
Now, an analysis by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), quantifies the growing threat of extreme heat in some of the world’s largest urban centers.

Using surface temperature data from airport weather stations, the researchers found that from 2014 to 2023, there were nearly 6,500 cumulative days, or instances, when one of the 20 cities reached temperatures of 35 C or higher. In the decade from 1994 to 2003, there were just 4,755.
“We know that hot weather is not felt evenly across cities,” said Tucker Landesman, a researcher with IIED. “Pockets of extreme heat are more likely in certain types of neighborhoods and commercial districts. This is tied to inequality and how we design buildings and public infrastructure.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/number-days-over-35-c-surges-worlds-scorching-capitals-2024-06-28/

About 4,000 years ago, the last of Earth’s woolly mammoths died out on a lonely Arctic Ocean island off the coast of Siberia, a melancholy end to one of the world’s charismatic Ice Age animals. But what doomed this last mammoth population on Wrangel Island? A new genomic analysis deepens the mystery.
The study offers the fullest account to date of the inbreeding, deleterious mutations and low genetic diversity experienced by this population during 6,000 years of isolation on the island but concluded that, despite previous suggestions, these factors are unlikely to have doomed the Wrangel mammoths.

“This suggests that something else, and very sudden, caused the population to collapse,” said evolutionary geneticist Marianne Dehasque of Uppsala University in Sweden, lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Cell, opens new tab.
The researchers examined genome data obtained from the remains of 14 Wrangel mammoths and seven mammoths from a Siberian mainland population ancestral to the island dwellers, dating to up to 50,000 years ago.

As the Ice Age eased, the dry steppe tundra where mammoths long had thrived transformed, gradually from south to north, into wetter temperate forests amid rising global temperatures, confining these animals to Eurasia’s northernmost reaches.
“This is probably also how mammoths eventually ended up and became isolated on Wrangel Island, which lost its connection to the mainland around 10,000 years ago due to rising sea levels. It may have even been a single herd that populated the island,” Dehasque said.

The genome data indicated that the population isolated on mountainous Wrangel originated with at most eight individuals, then grew to 200 to 300 mammoths within about 20 generations – around 600 years – and remained stable.
The study detected reduced diversity in a group of genes crucial to the immune system. But while the mammoths slowly accumulated moderately harmful mutations, the most deleterious defects were disappearing from the population, apparently because individuals carrying these were less likely to survive and reproduce.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/science/genome-study-deepens-mystery-what-doomed-earths-last-mammoths-2024-06-27/

The ‘Espresso’ and ‘Please Please Please’ singer is true at every turn to the sly, witty persona she’s crafted.

The pop rollout is a tricky thing to nail. And few, lately, have done it better than Sabrina Carpenter.

The 25-year-old is preparing to release her sixth album, “Short n’ Sweet,” next month, but it’s already a breakthrough — this week, she notched her first Billboard Hot 100 hit, “Please Please Please.” Some of the song’s success may be owed to its video, which stars Carpenter and her rumored real-life boyfriend, the much-memed Irish actor Barry Keoghan, as a mismatched pair, a ne’er-do-well and a regretful partner: He robs banks, as she looks on with sorrowful recognition that she’s in love with a criminal. This follows on the remarkable success of “Espresso,” which — though not quite topping the charts, peaking at No. 3 — managed to carve a phrase into the zeitgeist in a manner that recalls “Hollaback Girl” or “Wrecking Ball.” If the song gets stuck in your head at some point this summer — well, that’s that Sabrina espresso.

The songs are strong. But songcraft alone isn’t quite enough in the age of virality, and few have lately proven themselves as adept at surfing the waves of public attention as Carpenter. An early sign, perhaps, was her late-2023 and early-2024 booking as the opening act for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Latin America, Australia, and Asia; the mere fact of the gig was one thing, but Carpenter cannily turned each night into an event. Her single “Nonsense” ends with a slightly blue, rhyming three-line joke, and each night of the tour, she came up with a new one, referencing the language and culture of wherever she was visiting. (To wit, in Buenos Aires: ​​“When I’m in the bedroom I feel sexy / He’s having a ball, he call me Messi / Argentina, will you be my bestie?”) This was showmanship designed less for the stadium crowd than for PopCrave. And it worked, continuing up to her “Saturday Night Live” performance, in which she joked about a guy being “30 Rock hard.”

Something, here, recalls what Katy Perry once referred to as her own “soft-serve sexiness”: It’s a gleefully innocent raunch, delivered with a wink that brings everyone, Carpenter included, in on the joke. (The “Nonsense” outros are either stupidly intelligent or brilliantly dumb, and they’re always delivered with slyness and control.) A key difference with Perry, though, is the overarching sense of strategy and cohesion. Perry, when launching an album — as she’s currently doing, showing up in Paris in a dress with a 100-yard-train bedecked with the lyrics sheet for her next single — will try just about anything. (Most notably, perhaps, was her 96-hour “Big Brother”-style livestream promoting the 2017 album “Witness”: It was a can’t-look-away spectacle that seemed, ultimately, to do little for the music.)

And it’s hard to blame her: For those with lower profiles than Taylor Swift — which is to say, for every other working musician — figuring out the right angle of approach on an album rollout is tricky. In recent months, Dua Lipa pumped out content, live performances, and various pre-launch singles ahead of her new album “Radical Optimism”; Billie Eilish, by contrast, withheld any singles ahead of “Hit Me Hard and Soft.”

Source: https://variety.com/2024/music/columns/sabrina-carpenter-short-n-sweet-album-rollout-campaign-1236049669/

When Americans choose their next president, the contest is always closely watched around the world.
There are countless ways US foreign policy – and the actions of the White House – has an impact on different parts of the globe.
American influence abroad is sure to play a part in the first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on Thursday.
But it’s not just in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza that this election matters.
Eight of the BBC’s foreign correspondents explain why this election rematch is making waves where they are.

Midnight in Paris looks a little different when you’re a multi-millionaire.

Kendall Jenner went barefoot during a private late-night tour of the Louvre earlier this week, causing a stir online.

Between Paris Fashion Week shows, the 28-year-old model spent most of her time exploring the City of Love alongside rumored boyfriend Bad Bunny.

In fact, the lovebirds seemingly rented out the famous Parisian museum on Tuesday for a lavish date night.

“The Louvre at midnight,” Jenner captioned photos standing in front of some of the most famous art pieces in the world — including the Mona Lisa.

Although the “Kardashians” star ditched her shoes for the late-night escapade, she wore a long black skirt with an asymmetrical hemline and a backless black top.

While the “Me Porto Bonito” singer, 30, was not pictured in the Instagram carousel, fans joked that they knew “who took these pics.”

Meanwhile, other users couldn’t help but comment on the model’s lack of footwear in the famed art gallery.

“We get it. You’re so filthy rich you can get the louvre to open at midnight just for you to walk barefoot around the historic halls 😭😩,” one user commented.

“Where are your shoes girl 😭,” another asked, which a third dittoed, “I’m so thrown off by barefeet at the Louvre.”

While wearing footwear is typically an unspoken rule at most indoor facilities, the Louvre doesn’t state that shoes are required anywhere on its website.

Before their stop at the famous art museum, the duo made separate cameos at Vogue World: Paris on Sunday, where Jenner arrived on horseback while Bad Bunny put on a short performance.

They were also spotted at an event for Fwrd, where Jenner serves as a creative director, and at celeb-loved restaurant Ferdi.

For their romantic date night, the couple coordinated in matching light gray looks, with the hitmaker rocking a slightly oversized suit and the model showing off her svelte physique in a skintight set from sister Kylie Jenner’s brand Khy.

The reality TV star and the Puerto Rican rapper first sparked dating rumors in February 2023. Although things briefly fizzled around the holidays, the two were linked again in May 2024.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/06/27/celebrity-news/kendall-jenner-goes-barefoot-on-late-night-tour-of-empty-louvre/

The collapse happened above a mine, according to local media, and all activities at the sports facility have been cancelled while investigations continue. Footage shows a huge light pole swallowed by the sudden opening.

A sinkhole said to be up to 100ft deep and just as wide opened up in the middle of a field of football pitches in the US, swallowing a huge light pole.

The collapse, in the centre of Gordon Moore Park in Alton, Illinois, happened above a limestone mine on Wednesday morning, according to local reports.

No injuries have been reported and all sports and events have been cancelled for a second day, Alton City Hall said in a post on Facebook, while investigations continue.

“No one was on the field at the time and no one was hurt, and that’s the most important thing,” said Alton Mayor David Goins.

According to local media, the mine is operated by New Frontier Materials, which said in a statement there was a “surface subsidence”.

Locals are counting their blessings that the incident did not happen while the pitch was being used. Only last week the Marquette Explorers Soccer Camp was being held there between 9am and 11am every day.

Lucky break

“Last week at that time, we had 60 to 70 people out there on the field for our soccer camp,” Marquette Catholic High School athletic director Brian Hoener told the Alton Telegraph. “This could have been much worse.”

Officials locked down the entire area and closed nearby roads, the Alton Telegraph reported.

A spokesman added: “The impacted area has been secured and will remain off limits for the foreseeable future while inspectors and experts examine the mine and conduct repairs.

“Safety is our top priority. We will work with the city to remediate this issue as quickly and safely as possible to ensure minimal impact on the community.”

Video footage shows a light pole in the middle of the field sink suddenly into the opening.

‘It all went’

“At the surface, it was all at once,” said director of Alton Parks and Recreation Michael Haynes, according to local broadcaster Fox 2.

“It all went. Actually, one of our lights was in the middle and it’s all gone.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/huge-sinkhole-100ft-deep-opens-up-in-middle-of-illinois-football-pitch-13159803

Simon Harris said the intimidation of politicians and their families cannot be allowed to continue.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris has said a hoax bomb threat made to his home on Wednesday night is “utterly unacceptable”.

“I have young children. I have a wife,” said Mr Harris.

He added the intimidation of politicians and their families cannot be allowed to continue.

Three men were arrested last week over the alleged harassment of an elected official after they gathered outside Mr Harris’ home.

People are increasingly gathering outside the homes of Irish ministers, sometimes wearing masks and erecting anti-migrant banners.

Migration has become a heated debate in Ireland as the government struggles to accommodate record numbers of refugees and occasionally violent protests have been held outside accommodation centres where migrants are living.

“This is an utterly unacceptable situation,” Mr Harris told reporters at a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

“Even the word “hoax” I’m not sure is a fair word, with respect, because I’ve no doubt these things are done to intimidate, to upset,” he said.

“I do think all of us in our discourse, including [the] media, need to reflect on how we comment on these matters.

“If masked men turned up outside your house, it wouldn’t be described as [a] protest,” said Mr Harris.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/i-have-young-children-irish-pm-condemns-hoax-bomb-threat-made-to-his-home-13160106

A senior Russian diplomat says Putin is reviewing the country’s nuclear doctrine – and warns the West it is “playing with fire”. Meanwhile, a Russian navy missile cruiser carries out drills in the Mediterranean. Listen to a Sky News podcast on Putin and North Korea while you scroll.

Two killed in Russian shelling
Two people have been killed and two more are wounded as a result of Russian shelling in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, an official has said.

Vadym Filashkin, head of the regional military administration, said Russian forces struck the centre of Kurakhove city, killing a woman and a 40-year-old man.

Two injured people were taken to hospital, he said.

He added that the extent of the damage in the attack was being assessed.

Zelenskyy and Hungarian PM appear to have animated chat ahead of summit
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had a seemingly lively chat ahead of a meeting of European leaders in Brussels today.

It’s not known what that the two men discussed – but relations between Budapest and Kyiv have become more strained since the Russian invasion in 2022.

Hungary is Russia’s closest ally in the EU and Mr Orban has maintained a friendship with Vladimir Putin while criticising the EU’s strategy on Ukraine.

In December, Mr Orban blocked a €50bn aid package for Ukraine in a move that frustrated other EU leaders. He lifted the veto several months later.

Two injured in Kherson drone attack
Two people have been injured in a Russian drone attack on southern Ukraine, an official has said.

The Kherson regional administration said Russian forces launched an attack on the village of Novodmytrivka, leaving a 66-year-old man and 71-year-old woman hurt.

Both have blast injuries and have been taken to hospital for treatment, it said on Telegram.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-russia-putin-north-korea-soldiers-12541713

More than 100 people were on board the Eurocity service when the accident happened shortly after 5pm local time (4pm BST), railway company ZSSK says.

Six people have been killed after a train and a bus collided in Slovakia.

A further five were injured in the southern town of Nove Zamky, 68 miles east of the capital, Bratislava, officials said.

Six people have been killed after a train and a bus collided in Slovakia.

A further five were injured in the southern town of Nove Zamky, 68 miles east of the capital, Bratislava, officials said.

The injured were treated at hospitals in nearby towns and cities because the local one was closed after parts of it were flooded following heavy rain overnight.

The train driver, a Czech national, escaped with light burns, Czech Railways said. The other four injured were railway passengers.

Authorities are investigating, while the crossing where it happened is protected by gates.

More than 100 people were on board the Eurocity service when the accident happened shortly after 5pm local time (4pm BST), ZSSK added.

It was travelling from the Czech capital, Prague, to the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

Dozens of stranded passengers were being taken by bus to the town of Sturovo on the Hungarian border, ZSSK said.

The main railway track linking Bratislava and Budapest has been closed.

Interior minister Matus Sutai Estok is heading to the crash site, police said.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/slovakia-four-people-killed-after-train-and-bus-collide-13160090

EU leaders have nominated current European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen for a second five-year term in the bloc’s top job at a summit in Brussels.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was picked as the EU’s next foreign affairs chief and former Portuguese prime minister António Costa was chosen as the next chairman of EU summits.
All three candidates are from centrist, pro-EU factions.
The European Parliament is due to vote on the nominations next month.

Ursula von der Leyen is from Germany’s centre-right, António Costa is a socialist and Kaja Kallas a liberal.
There had been resistance from Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Before the summit she said the plans ignored the successes of hard-right parties like her own in the recent elections for the European Parliament.
Ms Meloni abstained from the vote for Ms von der Leyen and voted against Mr Costa and Ms Kallas.
Approval from the European Parliament could be a trickier challenge.
“I would plain and simply like to express my gratitude to the leaders who endorsed my nomination for second mandate as president of the European Commission,” Ms von der Leyen said after the vote.
Kaja Kallas said she was “really honoured by the support of the Council” and described the role as an “enormous responsibility”.
“My aim is definitely to work for European unity, protect European interests.”
António Costa praised Ms Kallas and Ms von der Leyen, saying: “I’m sure our collaboration will be very successful to serve Europe and European citizens.”
“Europe and the world are facing challenging moments, yes,” he said after his nomination.
“But the European Union has demonstrated its resilience in the past, always finding strengths in the unity, and building unity between member states will be my main priority when I take up my position in December focused on putting on track the strategic agenda which European Council has approved today.”
Mr Costa, who resigned as prime minister last year, will replace Belgium’s former prime minister Charles Michel. Ms Kallas will take over from Spain’s Josep Borrell.
Ms Meloni, who heads the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) bloc in the European Parliament, was notably not included in talks on the nominations despite the fact that the ECR became the third largest group in the parliament following the European elections.
Addressing the Italian parliament on Wednesday, she said angrily that European voters had asked the EU to “take a different path to the one it has travelled on so far”.
Without naming names, she criticised “those who argue that citizens are not mature enough to take certain decisions, and [who believe] that oligarchy is essentially the only acceptable form of democracy”.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4vyg6jq6yo

When Alessandra Ferri, one of the most celebrated dramatic ballerinas of this or any time, takes the stage Friday at the Metropolitan Opera House to channel Virginia Woolf, logic dictates it will be her last dance appearance.

It’s not merely that she’s now 61 — albeit dancing exquisitely — and sharing a stage with dancers one-third her age. It’s also that she’s about to embark on an exciting new chapter as artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet, and plans to devote herself “200%” to the task.

But back to that logic thing: It hasn’t played much of a role in Ferri’s rather astounding career.

After all, she’s retired before — in 2007, from American Ballet Theater — with fanfare and glittery confetti and countless bouquets. Logic would have dictated she stay retired, but there she was in 2015, creating the Woolf role in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works,” which she’s reprising this week with ABT. And there she was in 2016 dancing Juliet, her signature role, at ABT for a night, somehow making a lovesick teenager believable at age 53.

So it’s understandable if Ferri will not, even now, say “never again.”

“I’m not going to think about it!” the dancer said laughingly (but firmly) in an interview last week, taking a break between rehearsals. ”I mean, I do THINK this is it, because I know what’s coming next.” But life, she adds, can be very surprising.

Like that time she ran into choreographer Martha Clarke on the street, six years after retiring, feeling “like I was missing what I loved.” That led to a dance-theater piece called “Cheri” at New York’s Signature Theater, opposite soulful ABT principal Herman Cornejo (who rejoins her onstage this week.)

In the audience one day was choreographer Wayne McGregor, of the Royal Ballet in London, where Ferri began her career. He’d arrived with a major proposal about a new ballet he was mounting. “Will you please be my Virginia?” he asked.

“There’s always a little voice inside me who recognizes when I have to do something,” Ferri says. But still, she had to ask McGregor: “Wayne, are you really aware of how old I am?”

“And he said yes, that he needed a dancer who can embody (Woolf’s) soul, her essence,” Ferri says. “So I thought, okay. We can lead each other in this.”

In an interview, McGregor expressed wonder at how Ferri, a petite dancer, can project ripples of emotion across a vast opera house in such an effortless way.

“What’s amazing about the world’s greatest performers, of which Alessandra is one, is that they bring the audience to them, they don’t need to project OUT,” McGregor said. “Alessandra is tiny, right? But there’s this ability, this magnetism, to be able to bring the audience to her.”

Both dancer and choreographer also note how rare it is for classical ballet, a world of fluttering swans and dainty princesses, to feature a fully fleshed-out female character of a certain age.

“Alessandra is about the age of Virginia Woolf was when she died,” McGregor notes (the writer took her own life, walking into a river at age 59.) “We’re so accustomed to seeing or thinking about dance as a young person’s game. We’re not used to seeing the power and expressivity of older bodies, inhabiting roles that reflect much more clearly our living in a contemporary world.” Ferri can do that, he says, and people respond.

“Alessandra is still dancing so beautifully,” adds ABT artistic director Susan Jaffe, herself a former ABT principal of the same generation. “As well as her incredible dramatic ability — she knows how to make the moment so alive, so electric and so authentic. In a way, the movements become sort of an extended gesture of what she’s doing emotionally.”

That phenomenon was clear at a recent studio rehearsal. Many young dancers there had never met Ferri in person. As she practiced the death scene, surrounded, lifted and carried by dancers representing waves, all eyes were on Ferri’s Virginia and the tortured yet determined look in her eyes. At the end of her duet with Cornejo, she lay down in watery death. The room erupted in applause.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/alessandra-ferri-last-dance-woolf-works-8faf583b8cd640da21ccfed3b680d071

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Idaho doctors to give emergency abortions, for now, reopening the constitutional question following the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that emergency abortions in Idaho can go ahead.

When a patient’s health is at serious risk, hospitals in the northwestern state, for now, are allowed to perform emergency abortions.

This comes almost exactly two years after the landmark overturning of Roe v Wade, after which Idaho was among 14 states that outlawed abortion at all stages of pregnancy with incredibly limited exceptions.

The US justices found they had pre-emptively got involved in the case, and a 6-3 majority reinstated a lower court order that had allowed hospitals in the state to perform emergency abortions to protect a patient’s health.

The opinion, coming during an election year, means the Idaho case will continue to play out in lower courts, and could end up before the Supreme Court once again.

The same justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right to abortion could soon be again considering when doctors can provide abortion in medical emergencies – meaning the issue is still far from settled.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said: “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay.

“While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”

Conservative judge Samuel Alito, who was key in the initial decision overturning Roe v. Wade, also disagreed with the decision to dismiss the case – though for different reasons than Justice Jackson.

Joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, he suggested the court should side with Idaho

The limited ruling seemingly attempts to sidestep putting the issue centre stage during an election year where abortion rights have been a contentious topic.

The court ruling is expected to have a significant effect on emergency care in other states with strict abortion bans.

The Supreme Court previously allowed the ban, which does permit abortion to save a pregnant patient’s life, to go into effect.

But since then, several women have needed medical airlifts out of state in cases where abortion is a routine treatment to avoid infection, haemorrhage and other dire health risks, Idaho doctors have said.

It was previously reported by Bloomberg that the Supreme Court briefly posted the opinion on the court’s website, before taking it down.

The Supreme Court acknowledged a document was inadvertently posted before the decision was confirmed Thursday.

President Joe Biden, in a statement, said: “Today’s Supreme Court order ensures that women in Idaho can access the emergency medical care they need while this case returns to the lower courts.

“No woman should be denied care, made to wait until she’s near death, or forced to flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs.

“This should never happen in America. Yet, this is exactly what is happening in states across the country since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/us-supreme-court-allows-emergency-abortions-in-idaho-13160012

The Henley and Marlow River Action Group tested the water 27 times over the last month at the spot where racing at the world famous rowing festival takes place, finding it failed to reach DEFRA’s safe for swimming quality standard.

There is an “alarmingly high” level of the E.coli bacteria in the section of the River Thames used for next week’s Henley Royal Regatta, making it unsafe for swimming, an anti-pollution campaign group has warned.

Around 4,000 rowers will try to qualify for the regatta, which has taken place along the waterway since 1839, with the first of around 400 races taking place on Tuesday.

Henley and Marlow River Action Group tested the water 27 times between 23 May and 25 June, finding an average of 1,213 E.coli colony forming units (CFUs) per 100ml of water.

Anything higher than 900 CFUs per 100ml fails the Environment Agency’s inland bathing water quality standards, meaning it is unsafe for swimming.

River Action Group said the highest figure, recorded on 19 June, was 25,000 CFU, more than 27 times the acceptable limit and it was not included in their report.

The second highest reading reached 8,001 on 16 June.

River Action said that almost half (47%) of its measurements taken in Fawley Meadows, where effluent from the Henley sewage treatment works enters the river and where racegoers can hire hospitality chalets to watch the races, were above 900 CFU/100 ml.

Thames Water, the water company responsible for sewage along the Henley stretch of the Thames, says its monitoring has found E.coli levels in the Henley area at a level the Environment Agency would deem as “good” when the conditions are dry and said spikes only occurred on four days in May and June after rainfall.

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “What these laboratory tested results show so far is that E.coli levels in the Henley stretch of the Thames are consistently achieving levels the Environment Agency would deem as ‘Good’ for bathing waters, during dry conditions.

“There have been two days in May and two days in June where there were spikes in the readings following rainfall. Notably, our Sewage Treatment Works in the area have not released untreated effluent since 14 May, demonstrating that multiple sources are likely to have contributed to these elevated readings, which could include farming, industry, road runoff and wildlife.”

It accused River Action of taking “an alarmist approach that tries to apportion blame”.

The warning comes three months after rowers on the Oxford University crew complained of feeling sick and seeing “poo in the water” as they lost the Boat Race, further along the Thames, in London after warnings about pollution levels in the river before the event.

Regatta organisers have advised rowers to cover cuts, grazes, and blisters with waterproof dressings, try not to swallow river water, wear suitable footwear when launching or recovering a boat, and clean all equipment thoroughly.

E.coli, which is found in faeces and can survive in the environment, can cause a range of infections including urinary tract infection, cystitis, intestinal infection, stomach cramps, bloody diarrhoea, and vomiting.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/henley-royal-regatta-alarmingly-high-ecoli-levels-found-in-thames-days-before-event-13160004

Prince Harry has been ordered by a High Court judge to explain how messages between him and the ghostwriter of his memoir, Spare, came to be “destroyed”.

There is a suggestion they may be relevant to his legal action against the publisher of The Sun newspaper, News Group Newspapers (NGN).

Mr Justice Fancourt said the apparent deletion of the duke’s exchanges with John Moehringer on the Signal messaging platform, as well as drafts of Spare prior to its publication, was “not transparently clear”.

He also said there was evidence that a “large number of potentially relevant documents” and “confidential messages” between Harry and his ghostwriter “were destroyed some time between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was under way”.

He ordered the duke’s lawyers to carry out further searches of his laptop and examine his texts, Whatsapp and Signal messages from 2005 to January last year.

Harry has also been ordered to make an interim payment of £60,000 in legal costs to NGN, as the judge ruled largely in favour of the publisher’s request for a wider search for evidence.

Earlier, the prince was accused of creating an “obstacle course” in his legal battle against NGN.

Lawyers for the publisher also claimed the Duke of Sussex had to be dragged “kicking and screaming” into disclosing more than 11,000 emails from a now-closed account.

Anthony Hudson KC, representing NGN, said it appeared that “all documents relating to the writing of Spare [the duke’s memoir] were destroyed before publication and after the commencement of these proceedings”.

Legally, the purpose of disclosure is to ensure all parties are aware of any documents that have a bearing on the case, the government website says.

NGN wants Harry to disclose information that could relate to when he knew he could bring a potential case against the publisher.

NGN also wants to know whether the filing of the prince’s claim, in September 2019, was made within a legal time limit, the court was told.

The publisher is asking Mr Justice Fancourt to order Harry’s current and former solicitors to carry out searches of various communications.

The duke’s legal team accused the publisher of embarking on a “classic fishing expedition” that was “entirely unnecessary and disproportionate”.

Harry, 39, alleges he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for NGN, which also published the News Of The World, which folded in 2011.

He is one of a number of people bringing cases against the publisher. A full trial of some of those cases is due to be held in January.

NGN has previously denied unlawful activity took place at The Sun.

Mr Justice Fancourt heard that 11,570 emails from the duke’s now-closed ha@sjpkp.com email account were being reviewed for potential disclosure by his lawyers.

Mr Hudson said: “We’ve had to drag those out of the claimant kicking and screaming,” adding that the disclosure process is “incredibly simple but for the obstacle course created by the claimant”.

“He doesn’t want to have to do this for whatever reason,” Mr Hudson added.

In written arguments, he said conversations Harry had on messaging service Signal with the ghostwriter of Spare, John Moehringer, had been “wiped” before the memoir was published, adding: “It therefore appears that a substantial source of relevant documents in the claimant’s control has been deleted during the currency of these proceedings.”

Mr Hudson continued: “It appears that all documents relating to the writing of Spare were destroyed before publication and after the commencement of these proceedings, a matter which gives rise to real concern as to whether the claimant has complied with his obligation to preserve potentially relevant documents.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/prince-harry-ordered-by-judge-to-explain-why-messages-destroyed-as-he-battles-publisher-of-the-sun-13160023

Bolivian armed forces pulled back from the presidential palace in La Paz on Wednesday evening and a general was arrested after President Luis Arce slammed a “coup” attempt against the government and called for international support.
Earlier in the day, military units led by General Juan Jose Zuniga, recently stripped of his military command, had gathered in the central Plaza Murillo square, home to the presidential palace and Congress. A Reuters witness saw an armored vehicle ram a door of the presidential palace and soldiers rush in.

Inside the presidential palace, Arce swore in José Wilson Sanchez as the military commander, Zuniga’s former role. He called for calm and order to be restored.

“I order that all personnel mobilized on the streets return to their units,” Sanchez said. “We entreat that the blood of our soldiers not be spilled.”

The United States said it was closely monitoring the situation and urged calm and restraint.

Tensions have been building in Bolivia ahead of general elections in 2025, with leftist ex-President Evo Morales planning to run against former ally Arce, creating a major rift in the ruling socialist party and wider political uncertainty.

Many do not want a return of Morales, who governed from 2006-2019 when he was ousted amid widespread protests and replaced by an interim conservative government. Arce then won election in 2020.

Zuniga said recently that Morales should not be able to return as president and threatened to block him if he attempted to, which led Arce to remove Zuniga from his post.

Ahead of the attack on the presidential palace, Zuniga had addressed reporters in the square and cited growing anger in the landlocked country, which has been battling an economic slump with depleted central bank reserves and pressure on the boliviano currency as gas exports have dried up.

“The three chiefs of the armed forces have come to express our dismay,” Zuniga told a local TV station, calling for a new cabinet of ministers.

“Stop destroying, stop impoverishing our country, stop humiliating our army,” he said in full uniform, flanked by soldiers, insisting the action being taken was supported by the public.

Zuniga told reporters later on Wednesday that Arce had on Sunday asked him to “raise something up” to boost his popularity, without offering evidence.

Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo later said Zuniga was seeking to court popular support and that the nine people injured in the attempt proved “this was not a drill.”

‘STRONGEST CONDEMNATION’

Morales, head of the ruling MAS socialist party, said that his supporters would mobilize in support of democracy.

“We will not allow the armed forces to violate democracy and intimidate people,” Morales said.

Bolivia’s public prosecutor’s office said it would launch a criminal investigation against Zuniga and others involved in the attempted coup.

Public support for Arce and Bolivia’s democracy has poured in from regional leaders and beyond.

“We express the strongest condemnation of the attempted coup d’état in Bolivia. Our total support and support for President Luis Alberto Arce Catacora,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on X.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/bolivias-president-slams-irregular-mobilization-army-units-2024-06-26/

As the temperatures rose in southern Pakistan, so did the body count.
The Edhi ambulance service says it usually takes around 30 to 40 people to the Karachi city morgue daily.
But over the last six days, it has collected some 568 bodies – 141 of them on Tuesday alone.
It is too early to say exactly what the cause of death was in every case.
However, the rising numbers of dead came as temperatures in Karachi soared above 40C (104F), with the high humidity making it feel as hot as 49C, reports said.
People have been heading to hospitals seeking help.
Civil Hospital Karachi admitted 267 people with heatstroke between Sunday and Wednesday, said Dr Imran Sarwar Sheikh, head of the emergency department. Twelve of them died.
“Most of the people who we saw coming into the hospital were in their 60s or 70s, although there were some around 45 and even a couple in their 20s,” Dr Sheikh told the BBC.
Symptoms including vomiting, diarrhoea and a high fever.
“Many of those we saw had been working outside. We’ve told them to make sure they drink plenty of water and wear light clothes in these high temperatures.”
The high temperatures – described as a “partial heatwave” by one meteorologist – began at the weekend.
Heatwave centres and camps were set up to try to provide relief to the public.
Pictures show children playing in fountains as they tried to cool off.
“Look at me! My clothes are totally drenched in sweat,” Mohammad Imran told Reuters news agency as he struggled to keep cool on Monday.
Not all those who needed help made it to hospital.
Wasim Ahmed knew he wasn’t feeling well when he arrived home.
The 56-year-old security guard had just finished a 12 hour overnight shift outside. Even then, he had found the temperatures too much.
“He came through the door and said I can’t deal with this hot weather,” Adnan Zafar, Wasim’s cousin, told the BBC. “He asked for a glass of water. Soon after he finished it, he collapsed.”
By the time Wasim’s family got him to hospital, the medics said he had already died of a suspected heart attack.
He had an existing heart condition, Adnan says, but he hadn’t suffered in the heat before.
Karachi’s struggle to cope with the high temperatures is, some fear, being made worse by regular power cuts which cut off the fans and air conditioning many rely on to keep cool.
Muhammad Amin was among those who was suffering with loadshedding – where the electricity supply was cut off; a common practice across Pakistan by the electricity board to try to preserve supply.
His relative says their flat experienced consistent constant power cuts.
According to his family, Muhammad who was in his 40s suddenly became sick, then died.
Cause of death has not been established, but his family suspect it was heat-related.
According to Dawn newspaper, almost 30 people have been found dead by emergency services on the city’s streets.
Many are suspected drug addicts, Police Surgeon Summaiya Syed told the newspaper. They did not, however, have any signs of injury.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn05rz3w4x1o

An aircraft mechanic who was contracted to repair Boeing planes has alleged he was labelled a “snitch” and then sacked for speaking up over safety concerns.
Richard Cuevas claimed he witnessed substandard manufacturing and maintenance work on a crucial section of Boeing 787 aircraft.
Boeing, which has been dogged by questions over whether its safety culture is rigorous enough, said the issues had been investigated and “did not present a safety concern”.
Lawyers representing Mr Cuevas alleged he reported critical issues that could create a serious public safety risk and have filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
Mr Cuevas, who has worked in the aviation industry for 40 years, was contracted to Spirit Aerosystems, to work on Boeing’s 787 forward pressure bulkhead, a dome at the nose of the aircraft which serves as a barrier.
“He recognised the substandard work and expressed concern,” Mr Cuevas’ lawyers said. “But Spirit and Boeing failed to stop the faulty manufacturing processes.”
According to the legal filings a colleague then remarked: “We’ve got a snitch among us.”
Mr Cuevas said he was sacked by Spirit Aerosystems in March 2024.
Boeing told the BBC: “A subcontractor’s employee previously reported concerns to us that we thoroughly investigated, as we take seriously any safety-related matter.”
However, the issues raised were found not to present a safety concern and had been addressed, Boeing said.
Spirit Aerosystems spokesperson Joe Buccino, said the firm was “looking into the matter”.
“We encourage all Spirit employees with concerns to come forward, safe in knowing they will be protected,” he said.
Mr Cuevas’ lawyers Debra Katz and Lisa Banks have previously represented another Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, who earlier this year told US Congress he had been harassed and threatened after he alleged there were quality problems at Boeing.
Mr Salehpour’s concerns were also focused on production of the Boeing 787 model.
That is a different model to the 737 Max which was involved in mid-air cabin blow out in January.
That incident prompted heightened scrutiny of Boeing’s safety standards.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce4q55gvde2o

Bill Cobbs, the veteran character actor who became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man, has died. He was 90.

Cobbs died Tuesday at his home in the Inland Empire, California, surrounded by family and friends, his publicist Chuck I. Jones said. Natural causes is the likely cause of death, Jones said.

A Cleveland native, Cobbs acted in such films as “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “The Bodyguard” and “Night at the Museum.” He made his first big-screen appearance in a fleeting role in 1974’s “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.” He became a lifelong actor with some 200 film and TV credits. The lion share of those came in his 50s, 60s, and 70s, as filmmakers and TV producers turned to him again and again to imbue small but pivotal parts with a wizened and worn soulfulness.

Cobbs appeared on television shows including “The Sopranos,” “The West Wing,” “Sesame Street” and “Good Times.” He was Whitney Houston’s manager in “The Bodyguard” (1992), the mystical clock man of the Coen brothers’ “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994) and the doctor of John Sayles’ “Sunshine State” (2002). He played the coach in “Air Bud” (1997), the security guard in “Night at the Museum” (2006) and the father on “The Gregory Hines Show.”

Cobbs rarely got the kinds of major parts that stand out and win awards. Instead, Cobbs was an familiar and memorable everyman who left an impression on audiences, regardless of screen time. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding limited performance in a daytime program for the series “Dino Dana” in 2020.

Wendell Pierce, who acted alongside Cobbs in “I’ll Fly Away” and “The Gregory Hines Show,” remembered Cobbs as “a father figure, a griot, an iconic artist that me by the way he led his life as an actor,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

Wilbert Francisco Cobbs, born June 16, 1934, served eight years in the U.S. Air Force after graduating high school in Cleveland. In the years after his service, Cobbs sold cars. One day, a customer asked him if he wanted to act in a play. Cobbs first appeared on stage in 1969. He began to act in Cleveland theater and later moved to New York where he joined the Negro Ensemble Company, acting alongside Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Cobbs later said acting resonated with him as a way to express the human condition, in particular during the Civil Rights Movement in the late ‘60s.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/bill-cobbs-dies-obit-b5f5aa95370533c03b8558eac34c85ed#

Stars including Sabrina Carpenter, Katy Perry, Kendall Jenner, Cara Delevingne and more attended Vogue World: Paris at Place Vendome on Sunday, June 23. Ahead, see what all the celebrities wore in the front row (and on the runway).

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/06/23/style/vogue-world-2024-in-paris-sabrina-carpenter-katy-perry-kendall-jenner-and-more-attend/#27

Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe finally confirmed she is dating Paul McCartney’s grandson Arthur Donald.

Eight months after sparking romance rumors, the 21-year-old referred to Donald as her “boyfriend” while documenting her Stanford University graduation for Nylon.

“My boyfriend, Arthur, giving me a lift post-ceremony,” Phoebe wrote alongside a sweet snap of her beau carrying her on his back on Friday.

She shared another shot with Donald, noting that her partner “cleans up nicely.”

The couple first made headlines in October 2023 when she posted a photo with Donald to her Instagram account from a trip to Paris.

She tagged the 25-year-old in the social media upload.

Later that month, the duo attended the “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” premiere.

However, when Phoebe was interviewed by Bustle five months later, she declined to comment on their relationship status.

She is the youngest of Bill and Melinda’s three children, with the former couple also sharing daughter Jennifer, 28, and son Rory, 25.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2024/06/26/entertainment/bill-gates-daughter-phoebe-confirms-romance-with-paul-mccartneys-grandson/

French prime minister Gabriel Attal accused his far-right and leftwing political opponents of “promising the moon” in a three-way televised debate late on Tuesday ahead of next Sunday’s first round of early parliamentary elections.
In a muddled, confusing TV debate between leaders of the three top-polling blocs, Attal came under pressure from his far-right opponent, Jordan Bardella, who repeatedly interrupted him and accused him of “lecturing” and lacking credibility.

“The difference between my competitors and me is that, as prime minister, I don’t want to lie to the French. I don’t want to promise them the moon,” Attal said in the 90 minute debate that produced no major policy announcements.
Opinion polls show the far-right National Rally (RN) winning the two-round election on June 30 and July 7, but without an absolute majority, potentially sharing power with centrist President Emmanuel Macron, who surprised the country by calling snap elections earlier this month.

Reality TV star Paris Hilton called for greater federal oversight of youth care programs at a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on Wednesday as she described her traumatic experience in youth care facilities.
Hilton, 43, the great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton, has spoken publicly about the emotional and physical abuse she endured when she was placed in residential youth treatment facilities as a teen.

Hilton said private equity firms that have taken a greater stake in the industry in recent years focus on maximizing profits, prompting them to hire unqualified workers.
“They’re caring more about profit than the safety of children,” she said.
Hilton first described her experience at a Utah facility – which she said has left her with post-traumatic stress disorder that she continues to suffer from – in 2021, and has been a vocal advocate for greater oversight of the system.

“These programs promised ‘healing, growth, and support,’ but instead did not allow me to speak, move freely, or even look out of a window for two years,” Hilton told the committee. “My parents were completely deceived – lied to and manipulated by this for-profit industry – so you can only imagine the experience for youth who don’t have anyone checking in on them.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/paris-hilton-testify-us-house-hearing-youth-care-programs-2024-06-26/

U.S. President Joe Biden’s top aides told the visiting Israeli defense chief this week that Washington is maintaining a pause on a shipment of heavy bombs for Israel while the issue is under review, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.
The official, briefing reporters about national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said the allies remain in discussions about the single shipment of powerful munitions, which was paused by Biden in May over concerns they could cause more Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza.
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Without providing specifics, the official said other U.S. weapons will continue to flow to Israel as it battles Hamas militants in Gaza and faces Lebanese Hezbollah fighters on its northern border, where increased hostilities have spurred fears of a wider regional conflict.
Gallant warned during his visit that Israel was capable of taking Lebanon “back to the Stone Age” in any war with Iran-backed Hezbollah but stressed that his government prefers a diplomatic solution being pursued by the United States.

Wrapping up his trip, Gallant said on Wednesday that there had been significant progress on the issue of U.S. munitions supply to Israel, adding that “obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed.”
Gallant and U.S. officials sought to cool tensions following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent claims that Washington was withholding weapons, prompting Biden’s aides to express disappointment and confusion over the Israeli leader’s remarks

The United States in May paused a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in densely populated areas in Gaza in the war that began with Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 cross-border raid. But Israel is still due to get billions of dollars worth of other U.S. weaponry.
“We are in discussions ultimately to find a resolution,” the senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. “But I think the president has expressed his concerns about that one shipment, and those are very valid concerns.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/israeli-defense-chief-says-progress-made-munitions-supply-us-talks-2024-06-26/

The traffickers, who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders, say Hernandez protected the likes of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life prison term in the US.

Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez has been sentenced to 45 years in a US prison over charges he enabled drug traffickers to use his military and national police force to help get tonnes of cocaine over the border.

Hernandez was also fined $8m (£6.3m) by a federal court in Manhattan, New York, following a trial which saw him accused by traffickers of protecting some of the world’s most powerful cocaine dealers.

The traffickers, who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders, said he protected the likes of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life prison term in the US.

A jury convicted Hernandez, 55, in March after a two-week trial, which was closely followed in his home country.

“I am innocent,” he said at his sentencing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”

The sentencing judge P Kevin Castel called Hernandez a “two-faced politician hungry for power”, who protected a select group of traffickers.

US prosecutors say Hernandez worked with drug traffickers as long ago as 2004, taking millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.

His brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, a former Honduran congressman, was sentenced to life in a US prison in 2021 for his own conviction on drug charges.

Juan Orlando Hernandez served two terms as the leader of the central American nation of roughly 10 million people.

He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after leaving office in 2022 and was extradited to the US in April that year.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/juan-orlando-hernandez-ex-honduras-president-who-protected-el-chapo-and-helped-traffickers-transport-tonnes-of-cocaine-jailed-in-new-york-13159517

Denmark wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030.

Denmark will introduce the world’s first emissions tax on agriculture from 2030, requiring farmers to pay for greenhouse gases released by their cows, sheep and pigs.

The Danish government said the aim is to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030.

“We will take a big step closer in becoming climate neutral in 2045,” Taxation Minister Jeppe Bruus said.

Bruus said he hoped other countries would follow suit and implement a similar tax.

Livestock farmers will be taxed $43 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2030. The tax will increase to $108 by 2035.

The agreement was reached on Monday between the center-right government and representatives of farmers, industry and unions.

New Zealand passed a similar law which was set to be implemented in 2025, but it was quashed on Wednesday, after criticism from farmers.

Livestock account for more than 30 percent of human-caused methane emissions.

Around 90 percent of the methane from raising livestock comes from the way they digest and is released as burps through their mouths. Cows contribute to most of this belched methane.

Maria Reumert Gjerding, Head of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, said the tax was “a historic compromise.”

Source: https://www.the-express.com/news/world-news/141514/gassy-cows-carbon-tax-denmark

The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder told Sky’s The World With Yalda Hakim that artificial intelligence would make innovation “far easier to do”. But he also warned of the dangers of the technology being used in cyber attacks and political interference.

Bill Gates has said artificial intelligence (AI) will accelerate innovation and make it easier to combat climate change – but also warned it must be “used by people with good intent”.

The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder made the comments during an interview with Sky News at the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London.

Gates told The World With Yalda Hakim that AI had so far “played a fairly modest role” in helping to combat climate change, but was going to make innovation “far easier to do”.

He said: “AI helps us model things in the sciences: understand materials better, and catalysts, and how to make proteins.

“AI, in every field of endeavour, will be accelerating innovation, whether that’s in medicine or helping with tutoring, education.

“[With] climate [change], some of the complex things like modelling fusion energy – thank goodness AI is going to make that far easier to do.”

When asked if he was worried about suggestions that such technologies could be used to overthrow governments, Gates said he had “not heard that particular scenario”.

“AI is so important that we have to make sure it’s mostly being used by people with good intent,” he said.

He added that “anytime you have a new technology” it is “mostly used by teachers, doctors and scientists to help them be more effective,” but said “AI could be used by” people engaged in cyber attacks or political interference.

“So you have to make sure the good guys are staying ahead in detecting and preventing that type of usage,” he said.

‘Penalties for fooling people’

Gates went on to say there was nothing “gigantic” about AI, adding: “Misinformation is there, but that’s nothing to do with AI.”

He said we have to “anticipate” that AI could be used in the making of fake videos, which he said should be marked as inauthentic.

“Because we know when something’s printed on a piece of paper, anybody could have typed it, but we still think of videos as somehow authentic because it used to be hard to fake,” he said, as he urged people to ask themselves: “Where did this come from?”

“There’ll be laws creating penalties for fooling people,” he added.

However, he remained optimistic for the future, adding: “The biggest thing is going to be advancing medical science, advancing education and taking this climate issue and getting that innovation to move even faster.”