Why the secrecy? Investigation unveils activists targeting the 'radical left' in Regina's municipal election
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Biden announced on Sunday afternoon in a letter that he will not be seeking a second term in this year's presidential election and threw his support behind Harris.
Craig Snyder, the group's director, told Newsweek in an email on Sunday afternoon that the organization believes Harris "is best suited to defeat Donald Trump in November."
Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations (U.N.) ambassador running for the GOP ticket, ended her campaign in March following losses on Super Tuesday in competition with Trump who is the Republican Party's presidential nominee.
She also polled well among moderates and college-educated voters that don't support Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda.
Snyder told Newsweek that Haley's "disparaging comments" were "motivated by political rather than substantive concerns, and we are certain that those comments will not be a decisive factor in the ultimate voting decision of the Haley voters whose extraordinary act in the primaries of protest against Donald Trump as the leader of the Republican Party means they are going to give the Democratic nominee at the very least serious consideration in November."
In another social media post, the PAC expressed support for Harris and wrote "We welcome @KamalaHarris taking the torch that @JoeBiden passed to her."
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🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Created by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a road map for the next Republican president, presented in the form of a hefty 922-page playbook.
Some of its most extreme priorities include: eliminating the Department of Education, prohibiting the FBI from fighting misinformation and disinformation and ending the "war on fossil fuels."
Some of the goals outlined in the project don't require a president's involvement at all, and can be carried out by local and state governments.
When asked for comment, Trump's spokesman Steven Cheung told BI: "Kamala is the one with the radical, out-of-touch agenda," adding that she is "soft on crime" and "hates American energy production and jobs."
Harris' statement comes shortly after President Biden quit the race, following weeks of calls from top Democrats telling him to step aside or risk losing the election.
"While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden wrote in a letter posted on social media.
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🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Researchers at the University of Hull recently unveiled a novel method for detecting AI-generated deepfake images by analyzing reflections in human eyes.
Adejumoke Owolabi, an MSc student at the University of Hull, headed the research under the guidance of Dr. Kevin Pimbblet, professor of astrophysics.
In some ways, the astronomy angle isn't always necessary for this kind of deepfake detection because a quick glance at a pair of eyes in a photo can reveal reflection inconsistencies, which is something artists who paint portraits have to keep in mind.
They used the Gini coefficient, typically employed to measure light distribution in galaxy images, to assess the uniformity of reflections across eye pixels.
The approach also risks producing false positives, as even authentic photos can sometimes exhibit inconsistent eye reflections due to varied lighting conditions or post-processing techniques.
But analyzing eye reflections may still be a useful tool in a larger deepfake detection toolset that also considers other factors such as hair texture, anatomy, skin details, and background consistency.
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A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, to six-and-a-half years in prison after a rushed, secret trial.
Gershkovich’s trial was similarly concluded with unusual haste, raising hopes of a prisoner swap involving the Wall Street Journal reporter, which has long been the subject of private discussions between Russian and US officials.
Still, Kurmasheva’s verdict, handed down on the same day as Gershkovich’s, suggests that Russia might be seeking to trade her for Russians wanted by the Kremlin, including several deep-cover spies behind bars in the west.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on protesters, independent news outlets and foreign social media networks.
In March 2023, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed off on a draconian law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military, in effect criminalising any public criticism of the war.
Stephen Capus, the RFE/RL president and CEO, on Monday denounced the trial of Kurmasheva and her conviction as “a mockery of justice” and said that “the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors”.
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🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary In the biggest news of all, Rivian and Volkswagen announced a $5 billion joint venture that will co-develop core parts of the hardware and software platform to be used in cars from both automakers.
We love that because it aligns so beautifully with our mission: the ability to help accelerate putting highly compelling electric vehicles into the market, which will ultimately drive more demand.
A core objective of how we’ve structured the joint venture is that we don’t lose the velocity and the speed and the decisiveness and lack of bureaucracy that exists within our software function today.
Beyond just simplification of how we manage running over-the-air updates across so many different instances, it also gets us a lot of supply chain leverage in a way that we, Rivian, haven’t had in the past.
In fact, you can imagine the day of the announcement, I had a handful of phone calls from CEOs of big semiconductor suppliers, and they’re like, “Hey, we can work harder on pricing.” So, that was awesome.
So, taking away all those mechanical design studio packaging constraints that we had before, and then solving the biggest challenge, which was network architecture by this being that as a project, it’s just a very different type of relationship.
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Typically, after a launch failure, a rocket will be sidelined for months while engineers and technicians comb over the available data and debris to identify a cause, perform tests, and institute a fix.
However, according to multiple sources, SpaceX was ready to launch the Falcon 9 rocket as soon as late last week.
SpaceX was confident enough in this determination to resume launches of the Falcon 9 rocket one week after the failure.
To that end, a week ago on July 15, SpaceX submitted a request to the FAA to resume launching its Falcon 9 rocket while this investigation into the anomaly continues.
So, as of today, SpaceX is waiting for a determination from the FAA as to whether it will be allowed to resume Falcon 9 launches less than two weeks after the failure occurred.
There is still a slight possibility that the Polaris Dawn mission, led by commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman, could launch in early August.
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🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary EMILYs LIST, the PAC focused on electing Democratic women, explicitly endorsed Harris in a tweet and, in a more subtle show of support, also added the tree and the coconut to its username.
The “coconut tree” meme originates from a May 2023 speech Harris gave at a White House event for advancing opportunities for Hispanic Americans.
At one point near the end of her remarks, Harris talked about how the initiative's work would be focused on young people, but it should also take into account the needs of their families, teachers and communities, "because none of us just live in a silo."
But the meme tookon new life this summer, after President Biden’s disastrous debate performance fueled speculation that he might step aside as the Democratic nominee.
The RNC compiled a supercut of Harris being "unburdened" and shared it on social media, arguing that it shows she is “unoriginal, annoying, and highly incompetent.” But her supporters have taken ownership of the line.
As Washington Post internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz wrote: "Harris’s new online prominence could help give the Democratic Party new prominence with young people — including major content creators — who are hesitant to vote for Biden again due to his climate policies, support of Israel’s war in Gaza, mishandling of the ongoing pandemic, and signing a bill that could ban TikTok."
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Critics say the legislation is fundamentally undemocratic and would undermine Israeli academia, because it restricts free speech and allows politicians to weaponise accusations that should be handled by the legal system.
Sivan said the legislation was dangerous for its broad restrictions and its narrow focus on universities, adding that Israel already had laws against incitement to terror that cover all residents.
“What they are trying to do is subject academics to stricter rules than other residents of Israel, where a violation of state laws is not judged in court but rather by a government-appointed administrator, with no process or opportunity for the accused one to defend him or herself.
The Association of University Heads, Israel (Vera) said in a public letter that the student union billboards backing the law were a divisive “campaign of persecution and incitement” that could lead to violence.
One of the academics targeted, Anat Matar from the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University, said the role of students in drafting and promoting a law to silence their lecturers was particularly disturbing.
Vera warned in a public letter that the draft law would also fuel international sanctions campaigns against Israeli universities by undermining their academic independence.
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The Philippines occupies Second Thomas Shoal but China also claims it, and increasingly hostile clashes at sea have sparked fears of larger conflicts that could involve the United States.
Chinese coast guard and other forces have used powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel at Manila’s outpost at the shoal, on a long-grounded and rusting warship, the BRP Sierra Madre.
The violent faceoff wounded several Filipino navy personnel, including one who lost his thumb, in a chaotic skirmish that was captured in video and photos that were later made public by Philippine officials.
In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been locked in separate but increasingly tense territorial disputes in the waterway, which is regarded as a potential flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China regional rivalry.
The U.S. military has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets for decades in what it calls freedom of navigation and overflight patrols, which China has opposed and regards as a threat to regional stability.
Washington has no territorial claims in the disputed waters but has repeatedly warned that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
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The United Nations has blamed Facebook for the dissemination of hate speech against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar that resulted in their ethnic cleansing.
This influence on others is known as a (positive) network effect, where increased numbers of people improve the value of a product.
In doing so, one could be helping Facebook to refine its algorithms so that it can better single out specific individuals for certain purposes, some of which could be as nefarious as those of Cambridge Analytica.
For those of us who do not engage in such objectionable behavior, it is helpful to consider whether Facebook has crossed certain moral “red lines,” entering the realm of outright wickedness.
Likewise, Facebook would have crossed a red line if it had intentionally assisted in the dissemination of hate speech in Myanmar.
The recent worrisome revelation that Facebook hired an opposition-research firm that attempted to discredit protesters by claiming that they were agents of the financier George Soros is not encouraging.
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Donald Trump said he’d like to take North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to a baseball game as he boasted about their friendship at a Michigan rally on Saturday.
Under Kim’s leadership, “the government maintains fearful obedience by using threats of torture, executions, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, and forced labor,” Human Rights Watch reports.
Trump mentioned Orbán during the same Michigan rally, celebrating praise he claimed to have received from the authoritarian leader.
“Viktor Orbán... said when asked what happened with the world it’s falling to pieces, the wars all over, he said, ‘Bring back Trump.
The Hungarian leader has similarly praised Trump, calling the former president his “good friend” earlier this year when the duo met in Washington, DC.
Trump has also repeatedly praised Russia’s Vladimir Putin – even taking his side over that of US intelligence at a press conference in Helsinki in 2018 – and Xi Jinping of China.
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An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.
Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.
Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.
Portes later told Le Parisien newspaper that French diplomats should put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban the Israeli flag and anthem at the Games, which open on Friday, “as is done for Russia”.
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “The hints of antisemitism in his [Portes’] comments are obvious.”
Israel’s football team is scheduled to play its first match of the Olympics against Mali in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony.
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A gunman has shot dead five people in a nursing home in the Croatian city of Daruvar, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of the captial, Zagreb, Croatian media reported on Monday.
The Index news portal said five people died immediately, while others were wounded and still receiving medical assistance.
The suspect fled the scene, but the police soon caught him in a cafe near the facility in the town of Daruvar, the report said.
Police officials were not available immediately to confirm the shooting.
Shootings in the Balkan country are rare.
This is a breaking news story.
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An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.
Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.
Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.
Portes later told Le Parisien newspaper that French diplomats should put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban the Israeli flag and anthem at the Games, which open on Friday, “as is done for Russia”.
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “The hints of antisemitism in his [Portes’] comments are obvious.”
Israel’s football team is scheduled to play its first match of the Olympics against Mali in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony.
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Donald Trump is scrambling to pivot his campaign against Kamala Harris, with attack ads hitting her current record in office and her past in California, according to two sources familiar with the matter, after Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race on Sunday.
The Trump campaign is viewing Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee, especially after Biden gave his endorsement, and started preparing opposition research dossiers against her in recent weeks.
Trump-aligned political action committees such as MAGA Inc will unleash a wave of attacks against Harris, including a $5m television ad in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, casting her as the puppet master in the Biden administration.
Harris has been vocal on abortion rights, an issue that Trump has told advisers he thinks is an electoral loser after Republicans greatly underperformed in the 2022 midterms following the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
And Harris’ past work as a prosecutor could negatively highlight Trump’s recent criminal conviction in New York on 34 felonies of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election.
Some Trump allies, including people at the influential MAGA Inc and Save America Pacs, have also noted she can be humorous at times; clips of her quirky phrases – “did you just fall out of a coconut tree” – have gone viral on TikTok and other social media sites.
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Apple is failing to effectively monitor its platforms or scan for images and videos of the sexual abuse of children, child safety experts allege, which is raising concerns about how the company can handle growth in the volume of such material associated with artificial intelligence.
In a year, child predators used Apple’s iCloud, iMessage and Facetime to store and exchange CSAM in a higher number of cases in England and Wales alone than the company reported across all other countries combined, according to police data obtained by the NSPCC.
Through data gathered via freedom of information requests and shared exclusively with the Guardian, the children’s charity found Apple was implicated in 337 recorded offenses of child abuse images between April 2022 and March 2023 in England and Wales.
The company instead directed the Guardian to statements it made last August, in which it said it had decided not to proceed with a program scanning iCloud photos for CSAM because it instead chose a path that “prioritizes the security and privacy of [its] users”.
Apple’s tool, called neuralMatch, would have scanned images before they were uploaded to the iCloud’s online photo storage, comparing them against a database of known child abuse imagery via mathematical fingerprints known as hash values.
“Apple does not detect CSAM in the majority of its environments at scale, at all,” said Sarah Gardner, chief executive officer of Heat Initiative, a Los Angeles non-profit focused on child protection.
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An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.
Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.
Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.
Portes later told Le Parisien newspaper that French diplomats should put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban the Israeli flag and anthem at the Games, which open on Friday, “as is done for Russia”.
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “The hints of antisemitism in his [Portes’] comments are obvious.”
Israel’s football team is scheduled to play its first match of the Olympics against Mali in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony.
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🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary “This week’s visit from Netanyahu is emblematic of that, as is President Biden’s refusal to hold his red lines, enforce Leahy or Foreign Assistance Act, or achieve a permanent ceasefire or return Palestinian and Israeli hostages.”
The International Court of Justice’s latest advisory opinion on Friday asserted that every state has a legal obligation ‘not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation’ created by Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights.”
I’m still disheartened that the Democratic Party doesn’t care about Palestinians and continues to offer unconditional support to Israel,” Livermore told The Intercept, repeating that he resigned due to Biden’s policies on Gaza, not his age.
One senior Democratic aide told The Intercept that they were wary of the rushed process to replace the candidate that had little to do with how Biden’s support for a war that’s killed 15,000 children in Gaza may have already irreparably hurt his chances among crucial voting blocs.
Late last year, Harris reportedly pushed the White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinian suffering, and more forceful against Netanyahu to seek a long-term peace.
Waleed Shahid, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement — which has garnered over 700,000 people nationwide casting protest votes against Biden’s hard-line support for Israel — also noted dissenters’ openness to Harris.
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After a week saturated with the endlessly repeated and parsed video of former President Donald Trump being shot at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, and the carefully choreographed four-day television show of the Republican National Convention that followed it, here was a dramatic news story that lacked the visual element in almost every way.
Because it was a summer Sunday afternoon, TV news’ first string wasn’t immediately available, giving opportunities to ABC’s Rachel Scott, CBS’ Kristine Johnson and NBC’s Hallie Jackson to anchor the initial reports.
Biden’s former White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was in a studio after finishing her Sunday show, which put her in place to break the news about her former boss.
The networks quickly pivoted to talking about a Harris-Trump general election matchup, even before Harris announced — again, via a printed statement — about two hours after Biden’s endorsement that she would be a candidate.
That was a complete surprise, compared to the seemingly endless discussion that absorbed the political world during the past three weeks about whether the 81-year-old Biden could effectively continue as a candidate following his disastrous performance in a June 27 debate against Trump.
But Biden had repeatedly and emphatically insisted he was staying in the race, and the Sunday morning political talk shows featured surrogates pushing that line.
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Since 2021, the anonymous group, Advance Regina, has been running thousands of dollars worth of advertising on social media and billboard campaigns complaining about crime, taxes and city services.
Advance Regina bills itself as "local residents who love our city," but its website and social media presence provides no names of actual people behind the organization.
In the past, she was the Saskatchewan Party's director of training and a constituency organizer, and just last year Premier Scott Moe nominated her for the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal for public service, according to her Facebook page.
Aaron Moore, a political science professor from the University of Winnipeg, said that as cities have grown and their budgets have inflated, this issue of third-party activism and donations has become more important.
"Advance Regina has transitioned to focus on issue-based advocacy, citizen and voter engagement, and promoting awareness of the current council's poor performance."
Moore, the University of Winnipeg political science professor, said that while there are stringent rules for third-party advertising in provincial and federal elections in Canada, that's generally not the case for municipalities.
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