Human rights council names and shames businesses with ties to illegal Israeli settlements in West Bank The UN human rights office has added 61 more companies to a blacklist of firms that it says are involved in violating Palestinian human rights through business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The vast majority of the total 214 companies, which are based in 11 countries, are Israeli. Five of the 158 companies listed last year were removed in the latest update. Continue reading...
University staff voice concerns over reputational risk of partnering with company behind ChatGPT The University of Oxford has allowed the company behind ChatGPT to train its AI models on historical texts from its Bodleian library, as tech companies scour academic institutions for fresh data. The Bodleian material digitised by OpenAI has been used to “populate the OpenAI training set”, according to internal documents. Continue reading...
I had always ignored my anguished mental state or tried to push it aside, and CBT didn’t work for me – then one song seemed to articulate my pain Six months ago, I was driving past John Lewis on the M40 with my wife and stepdaughter, Raye’s I Know You’re Hurting playing on the stereo, when I realised I was crying. It was the third time I’d listened to the song, but it was the first time I’d really heard it. It was as though the lyrics were speaking directly to me: “I can see you standing on the edge … You give when you have little left to give.” Music had made me emotional before, but only ever because of the melody or the arrangement or the orchestration. I have worked in music since I was 21, and as a recording and mix engineer, I’ll listen to a song all day, taking it apart to work out how to make it better. After listening to a song 200 times, it inevitably loses its meaning, and over the years, I’ve become desensitised to the power music can have. But this time, for the first time, it was the lyrics that brought me to tears. Continue reading...
Locals say Google’s $15bn project in Andhra Pradesh has resulted in smallholdings being taken back off them by the government When the government officials arrived in Tarluvada last year, they came with abundant promises. Google, one of the world’s richest and most powerful tech companies, would soon be bringing a “golden opportunity” to this tiny village in south India: a $15bn AI datacentre. Continue reading...
Ten years ago, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback refused to stand for the national anthem. He was accused of disrespecting the flag, the game, and America. In a rare interview, he talks about inspiring a global gesture of civil rights Colin Kaepernick still gets up at 4.30am every morning to train. “Strength training, speed training, position training – still do all of the same type of workouts I did while I was playing,” he says cheerily. “And then go about the rest of my day.” It is almost 10 years since Kaepernick last played a game of top-flight football. His career was abruptly and cruelly cut short just as it was peaking, after the National Football League (NFL) effectively closed ranks and shut him out for being too political. Now, at 38 years old, he is well aware that his chances of a return are dwindling by the day, but he remains as game-ready as ever. “I stay relentless at it,” he continues in his easy drawl. “I look at it from the perspective of, ‘What are the things that I can control?’ And what I know I can control is being prepared for when opportunity knocks, and to also continue knocking, on my end, looking for ways and opportunities … just staying resilient an…
️ F1 updates from Baku from 12pm BST ️ Preview link | Sign up for the Recap | Mail Dominic “Today’s a big opportunity,” says Antonelli, speaking to the broadcasters. “The car is very quick, so hopefully we can gain a lot of places.” The 20-year-old is a confident young man. Continue reading...
Fighter blames feud between rival promoters ‘He’s cost us the biggest fight in boxing history ’ Tyson Fury insists his blockbuster showdown with Anthony Joshua is in doubt because of a feud between rival promoters Eddie Hearn and Dana White. The standout British heavyweights of their generation have agreed to fight in Cardiff on 11 December and are scheduled to face off at a press conference in London on Wednesday. Continue reading...
The US’s oil deal with Venezuela faces multiple legal and logistical problems, including questions about whether it can be implemented Donald Trump has long coveted the oilfields of other nations and declared an agreement with Venezuela to be “the biggest oil deal in world history”. But the deal, reached after the US seized Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, is almost certainly doomed to collapse amid a wide array of legal and logistical issues, a Guardian investigation has found. The US president first mused about taking oil from Iran in 1987, when he told ABC’s Barbara Walters that Iranian attacks on American shipping during the Iran-Iraq war required an extreme response. “Why couldn’t we go in and take over some of their oil, which is along the sea?” he asked. Over the ensuing years, he has returned frequently to the idea that America should seize oil from other countries after military conflict, from Libya to Iraq. Continue reading...
Zhao was out jogging around Treasure Island, near San Francisco, when he spotted a lonely tower stabbing through the clouds Every morning, Derek Zhao jogs the perimeter of Treasure Island, his home, situated an eight-minute ferry ride from San Francisco. “It’s an endless source of frustration for me that I can’t bring my cameras with me,” he says. “When the island gifts me its beautiful scenes, I should be grateful that phones have pretty decent cameras, too.” Zhao works as a machine-learning engineer at Disney California. He relocated from Texas last year to take up the role, finding the 400-acre human-made island to be the perfect location, “close enough to the office and all the culture the city has to offer, but far enough that I’m waking up to the sound of seagulls instead of car horns”. Continue reading...
This year’s ‘godzilla’ climate phenomenon has already broken temperature records. We ask a climate scientist what is happening This year’s huge El Niño, which comes less than two years since the last one, has already broken temperature records . To understand what is happening, and why, the Guardian interviewed Prof Mat Collins , a climate scientist at the University of Exeter, the author of some of the world’s most important climate reports and an expert on the dynamics of the El Niño southern oscillation. Continue reading...
Aminata Seck’s detention shows the bargain facing international college athletes: universities eagerly recruit them, but support can disappear when their immigration status becomes precarious Earlier this week, news broke for the first time that Senegalese Division II Kentucky State women’s basketball player Aminata Seck was abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport on 7 August during a trip to attend the HBCU All-Star game in New York. Seck is listed as a Kentucky State senior and last year started 20 of 26 games, earning third-team all-conference honors and an SIAC Elite 16 award for academic achievement. According to a lawyer involved with her case, Sadiqa Reynolds, Seck has been moved through four different ICE facilities since her initial apprehension: Clay County, Chicago, Clark County and Grayson County. Reynolds noted that the reason for Seck’s imprisonment was a missed student visa deadline – what she characterized as “a paperwork situation” – due to back surgery. Reynolds also said that Seck has been suffering from an ACL injury while detained and has received only ibuprofen but no proper medical care. ICE ar…
The actor on getting caught gossiping, the footballer she has a crush on, and having both her best and worst kiss in one night Born in London, Amelia Bullmore, 62, studied drama at Manchester University. In 1990, she became a regular on Coronation Street and her later TV credits include I’m Alan Partridge, Ashes to Ashes, Twenty Twelve, Happy Valley and Riot Women. She appeared in and wrote episodes of the long-running series Scott & Bailey and also wrote for This Life. In 2005, her first play, Mammals, co-won the Susan Smith Blackburn award. From 10 to 31 October she stars in Margaret Atwood’s play The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal . She is married to actor Paul Higgins, has two daughters and lives in London. When were you happiest? I’m often very happy when I’m in – or just out of – the sea. Continue reading...
Do we really want a slick digital message board overseen by Amazon? It’s the neighbourhood nonsense we treasure Ring, the Amazon subsidiary of camera-enabled doorbells fame, wants to be an even bigger part of your neighbourhood. Next month in the UK, it will be launching Neighbours , a community app that seeks to replace the now traditional neighbourhood Facebook or WhatsApp group. It will be available inside the Ring app, free to everybody, including people without Ring products, and will include a community requests feature wherein the police can ask for footage from residents living near reported crimes, who can then choose whether or not to share it. My first thought was that this is curtain-twitching culture gone mad. If you must have a Ring doorbell (and my instinctive feeling as someone without one, a feeling I will no doubt have until I get one and decide it’s great, is that it’s narc-coded behaviour) then: OK. But does Amazon need to be in charge of a digital village messageboard too? Imogen West-Knights is a writer and journalist Continue reading...
Athens is now a food capital where you can enjoy bustling bars, traditional taverna fare or unearth a new-wave gem in its many restaurants – but it wasn’t always this way See our recommendations for eating and drinking around Athens Visiting Athens for its food might have sounded like a joke to previous generations. Unlike many other Mediterranean countries, including Italy, Spain and Turkey, Greece had no renaissance and no aristocracy to fund chefs and develop sophisticated cuisines. Simple village dishes didn’t always translate well: in the past, tourists would suffer a summer scorching and some desiccated moussaka so they could puff up the Acropolis in August before skedaddling to an island. However, recently the Greek capital has undergone a gastronomic renaissance. Athens always offered the joys of eating outdoors – by the sea in summer, or winter sunshine on the city’s streets – but these days chefs are rethinking the uses of Greece’s unrivalled ingredients, such as scented, sun-ripened tomatoes, barrel-aged feta, and the best olive oil in the world. Enlightened visitors are also re-thinking their trips, arriving at more temperate times of year, and taking advantage of how…
France’s offer to the American people was a point made on a colossal scale, and world leaders’ exchange of tokens remains a complex art It was one of the most potent political gifts of modern times: the Statue of Liberty, a colossal neoclassical sculpture made in France and offered to the American people in the late 19th century.The size and symbolism of Liberty Enlightening the World (the statue’s original name) was intended as a mark of friendship to commemorate the centenary of the 1776 US declaration of independence. Delivered a decade late, it was also a reminder – perhaps a pointed one – of France’s critical role in helping the US break free from Britain. The Statue of Liberty is now one of the world’s most recognised monuments, its creator, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, less so – a state of affairs Paris’s Musée d’Orsay is seeking to remedy with an exhibition highlighting the sculptor’s life and career. Continue reading...
Manchester City news and Nations League buildup Today’s games | Read Football Daily | Mail Emillia Today’s Nations League fixtures Slovenia v Scotland Faroe Islands v Kazakhstan San Marino v Finland Iceland v Estonia Bulgaria v Luxembourg Czech Republic v Croatia North Macedonia v Switzerland England v Spain Slovakia v Moldova Albania v Belarus Continue reading...
Club’s owners FSG move swiftly to fill key post Move comes amid upheaval in Anfield hierarchy Liverpool have appointed Julian Ward as their sporting director for a second time following the departure of Richard Hughes to Al-Hilal. Ward, who was Liverpool’s sporting director for one season in 2022-23, has returned to the role after spending the past two years as technical director for Fenway Sports Group, the club’s owners. Continue reading...
Her Troubles-set debut became a hit TV series starring Gillian Anderson. Now the novelist has returned to her teen years for a follow-up. She talks about her journey from chef to author, and how her cancer diagnosis inspired her to write Louise Kennedy’s life has hardly wanted for dramatic events, but the recent past has been spectacularly busy, even by her standards. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, as we chat in the sitting room of the house in Sligo that she shares with her husband, son and daughter, but this is the home that she once thought would be repossessed. The couple bought it “for stupid money” in 2007, when they also opened a restaurant, initially so successful that the only way seemed to be up. The following year, financial mayhem descended on Ireland, their customers ebbed away, and the Celtic Tiger years morphed into a country racked with job losses, bankruptcies, apparently endless debt. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to keep the house,” she says, glancing around an elegant room dotted with beautiful objects and plants, but nonetheless relaxed and comfortable. “I’d say we only got out of negative equity about a month ago. There are probably arguments for mov…
As Britain goes mad for yam, shortage of planting material and concerns over control of crop prompts sales halt In a corner of north London on a weekday morning, Filipino cuisine is thriving: diners at Mama & Sons in Kentish Town are making their choices, and one of the most popular items on the menu is the ube ice-cream sandwich. It’s easy to see the appeal of the light, fluffy bun encasing a purple scoop of ice-cream. The owner of the cafe, Omar Shah, says ube – a vibrantly purple root vegetable long-beloved in the Philippines – has exploded in popularity in the UK . Just when he thinks it has reached its peak, it becomes “even more popular”. And this year, he says, has been no exception. Continue reading...