Riot police have fired water cannon and rounds of teargas at thousands of stone-throwing protesters in Indonesia’s capital as anger over the lavish allowances of parliament members has fuelled public anger.
Thousands of students, workers and activists demonstrated outside the nation’s parliament on Monday against a monthly housing allowance of 50 million rupiah ($US3,075) for MPs, which is almost 10 times the Jakarta minimum wage.
The demonstrators demanded the abolition of what they view as lavish allowances, which are in addition to lawmakers’ salaries
Finland has inaugurated an industrial-scale sand battery this week in the southern town of Pornainen, where it'll take over heating duties from an old woodchip power plant for the municipality. It's set to reduce carbon emissions from the local heating network by as much as 70%, and is the largest one of its kind in the world.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee opened a probe into alleged organized efforts to inject bias into Wikipedia entries and the organization’s responses.
Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), chair of the panel’s subcommittee on cybersecurity, information technology, and government innovation, on Wednesday sent an information request on the matter to Maryana Iskander, chief executive officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia.
Three multi-billion dollar corporations, with headquarters located in United States and Europe (namely Elsevier, Wiley and American Chemical Society) have recently joined their forces in a new attack against free dissemination of academic knowledge, pleading to block all access to Sci-Hub and Sci-Net projects to Indian users. Previous week, the court in New Delhi fulfilled their request, ordering Indian Telecom companines to block websites within 3 days.
Oil-funded groups are engaging in strategic harassment to stop scientists from revealing the nature of their politically-linked disinformation networks – in what should be a surprise to nobody.
A new report came out last week from the Climate & Development Lab (CDL) at Brown University, titled “Legal Entanglements: Mapping Connections of Anti-Offshore Wind Groups and their Lawyers in the Eastern United States.”
The study focuses on several examples of law firms with connections to anti-wind groups, the fossil fuel industry, and the American political right wing. These fossil-funded groups have spread disinformation to slow the adoption of clean and cheap wind power, in order to keep America addicted to the poison that the fossil fuel industry wants to keep selling us.
The Polish government aims to complete work on a digital tax by the end of the year, despite threats by U.S. President Donald Trump against countries with such a tax.
“Work is currently underway to prepare the draft bill, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025,” a spokesperson for the Polish Digital Ministry said in written remarks shared with POLITICO when asked about Trump’s comments.
On Monday, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries with a digital tax.
Digital taxes are “designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology,” Trump said in a post on his social network, Truth Social.
However, the ministry said in the remarks, the Polish digital tax would not be “aimed at entities from any specific country.”
“It is intended to apply to all relevant market participants.”
To combat malware and financial scams, Google announced today that only apps from developers that have undergone verification can be installed on certified Android devices starting in 2026.
This requirement applies to “certified Android devices” that have Play Protect and are preloaded with Google apps.
The Play Store implemented similar requirements in 2023, but Google is now mandating this for all install methods, including third-party app stores and sideloading where you download an APK file from a third-party source.
Ukraine can now strike deep into Russia without needing coordination with the US, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
"As of today, we are using our domestically produced long-range weapons. And to be honest, we haven't been discussing such matters with the US lately," Zelenskyy said at a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
"There was a time when there were different signals regarding our retaliatory strikes after their attacks on our energy system," Zelenskyy said, referring to Russia's strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. "That was already a very long time ago. Today, we don't even mention it."
Rick Beato's face just didn't look right. "I was like 'man, my hair looks strange', he says. "And the closer I looked it almost seemed like I was wearing makeup." Beato runs a YouTube channel with over five million subscribers, where he's made nearly 2,000 videos exploring the world of music. Something seemed off in one of his recent posts, but he could barely tell the difference. "I thought, 'am just I imagining things?'"
A central Japan city said Thursday it will seek to pass an ordinance recommending all residents limit smartphone use to two hours a day outside of work and school amid concerns over the impact of excessive technology exposure, though there will be no penalties proposed.
The ordinance drafted by the city of Toyoake in Aichi Prefecture is likely to be the first such municipal regulation in Japan that targets a limit on the use of smartphones and other electronic devices, according to the city. If passed by the local assembly, the ordinance will come into effect on Oct. 1.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the U.S. government has taken a 10% stake in Intel.
President Donald Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan are set to meet.
Earlier this week, Intel announced that SoftBank would make a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America's closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.
That effectively cuts America's Five Eyes partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — out of the loop, stunning the intelligence community that has relied on the network since the end of World War II.
A lawyer representing the online message board 4chan says it won't pay a proposed fine by the UK's media regulator as it enforces the Online Safety Act.
According to Preston Byrne, managing partner of law firm Byrne & Storm, Ofcom has provisionally decided to impose a £20,000 fine "with daily penalties thereafter" for as long as the site fails to comply with its request.
"Ofcom's notices create no legal obligations in the United States," he told the BBC, adding he believed the regulator's investigation was part of an "illegal campaign of harassment" against US tech firms.
Ofcom has declined to comment while its investigation continues.
"4chan has broken no laws in the United States - my client will not pay any penalty," Mr Byrne said.
The Israeli military says it is calling up about 60,000 reservists ahead of a planned ground offensive to capture and occupy all of Gaza City.
A military official said the reservists would report for duty in September and that most of the troops mobilised for the offensive would be active-duty personnel.
They added that troops were already operating in the Zeitoun and Jabalia areas as part of the preparations for the plan, which Defence Minister Israel Katz approved on Tuesday and will be put to the security cabinet later this week.
A U.K. government official wants tougher rules to stop kids from using VPNs to dodge the country’s latest online safety laws.
The Online Safety Act, which went into effect this summer, puts new legal pressure on online platforms, including search engines and social media sites, to protect users from harmful content. The laws are mostly aimed at keeping children away from porn and other “harmful” material tied to self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders.
One of the act’s main provisions is that pornography sites and platforms with user-uploaded content must use technology to verify or estimate a user’s age. That typically means requiring people to upload a government-issued ID or a photo of themselves to prove they meet the age requirement.
Tel Aviv University researchers have grown human spinal cord stem cells, aiming to help paralyzed patients walk again; after successful animal trials, Health Ministry approves moving forward with human testing
In 2022, researchers at Tel Aviv University successfully engineered a human spinal cord in a laboratory for the first time. Since then, progress has been rapid, and animal experiments have shown unprecedented success. Now, Ynet has learned, the real test is approaching: the first surgery in a human patient, which could enable a paralyzed person to walk again within a year.
SoftBank Group has agreed to invest $2 billion in Intel, a boost from the private sector that coincides with a U.S. government rescue effort for the embattled chip maker.
Trump administration officials are discussing taking a 10% stake in Intel in a bid to revive the company’s fortunes and bolster semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., according to people briefed on the talks
We are still alive and kicking. In recent weeks we’ve seen increased attacks on our mission. We are taking steps to harden our infrastructure and operational security. The work of securing humanity’s legacy is worth fighting for.
Since we started in 2022, we have liberated tens of millions of books, scientific articles, magazines, newspapers, and more. These are now forever protected from destruction by natural disasters, wars, budget cuts, and other catastrophes, thanks to everyone who helps with torrenting.
Anna’s Archive itself has organized some of the largest scrapes: we acquired tens of millions of files from IA Controlled Digital Lending, HathiTrust, DuXiu, and many more.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Tel Aviv to call for an end to the war in Gaza and the release of hostages, one of the largest demonstrations in Israel since the start of the fighting in October 2023.
The rally on Sunday evening was the culmination of a day of nationwide protests and a general strike to pressure the government to halt the military campaign. “Bring them all home! Stop the war!” shouted the vast crowd, which had converged on the so-called Hostage Square in Tel Aviv plaza – a focal point for protesters throughout the war.
Some 200 climate activists including Greta Thunberg of Sweden blocked Norway's largest oil refinery on Monday, August 18 in a protest demanding an end to the country's oil industry, organizers and police said.
Activists from Extinction Rebellion sat on the road, blocking the entrance to the Mongstad refinery in Bergen on Norway's southwestern coast, while kayaks and sailboats obstructed the port's entrance. "We are here because it's crystal clear that there is no future in oil. Fossil fuels lead to death and destruction," Thunberg said in a statement, adding that oil producers like Norway "have blood on their hands." The burning of fossil fuels releases planet-heating carbon emissions.
Student loans are the last thing Stephen Jakubowski is worried about.
The 32-year-old doesn’t have a job right now. And he can barely afford his rent and groceries, not to mention the payments on his credit card debt and personal loans.
With his budget stretched, Jakubowski is ignoring his $10,000 in federal loans from a roughly two-year stint at San Diego Christian College more than a decade ago, joining millions of other former students who are skipping the bills.
Over the past few years, technology has been integrated into the automotive market in major ways, not just in the manufacturing process, but also in terms of the consumer experience. A recent example is Samsung and Tesla collaborating on developing high-end technologies. Now, Hyundai has made the rather baffling decision to charge customers for a cybersecurity patch.
US wholesale inflation accelerated in July by the most in three years, suggesting companies are passing along higher import costs related to tariffs.
The producer price index increased 0.9% from a month earlier, the largest advance since consumer inflation peaked in June 2022, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report out Thursday. The PPI rose 3.3% from a year ago.
European military industrial production in support of Ukraine has overtaken American output for the first time since Russia’s invasion, new numbers released Tuesday show.
According to the tally by the German Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe allocated at least €35.1 billion ($41.1 billion) in military industrial output to Ukraine between the start of the war in February 2022 and the end of June 2025. This is €4.4 billion ($5.15 billion) more than the U.S. committed in the same period.
A fresh expansion of UK crimefighters' access to live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being described by officials as "an excellent opportunity for policing." Privacy campaigners disagree.
The Home Office said today that more police forces across England will gain LFR capabilities thanks to ten new "cutting edge" vans being wheeled out, adding to those already in use by London's Metropolitan Police and forces in South Wales.
Donald Trump deploys the National Guard to Washington DC as he announces a crackdown on crime and homelessness in the city
The US president says the capital has been "taken over by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals"
After almost four decades of a bloody conflict that until recently had no end in sight, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a peace agreement in the presence of the US President Donald Trump. Notably absent in this historic moment is Russia, which no longer plays a central role in the South Caucasus.
Leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev signed a peace agreement on Friday in the presence of US President Donald Trump in Washington, after almost four decades of a bloody Karabakh conflict.
“We are today establishing peace in the South Caucasus,” Azerbaijan's President Aliyev said. "Today we writing a great new history."
Europe’s largest digital bank, Revolut, has stopped accepting money transfers from Russia, even if routed through third countries such as Kazakhstan. The bank warned clients that breaching the ban could lead to account suspension or closure.
This was reported by The Moscow Times on August 8, citing financial adviser Natalia Smirnova.
According to The Moscow Times, Smirnova said all those who received such notices are Russian passport holders living in various EU states with residence permits. The restrictions apply to any funds originating from Russia, not just from sanctioned individuals.
A randomized controlled trial of 108 people with HIV-associated lipohypertrophy found that weekly Ozempic treatment for 32 weeks reversed biological age by an average of 3.1 years.
The study used epigenetic clocks to measure biological aging, showing the most pronounced anti-aging effects in the inflammatory system and brain, where aging was delayed by almost 5 years.
Researchers believe the anti-aging effects stem from semaglutide's ability to improve fat distribution and reduce inflammation, both major drivers of cellular aging.
The Prime Minister's Office said to the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir that, "If this does not suit him, you should resign."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Monday that a decision has been made for the full occupation of the Gaza Strip, including military operations in areas where hostages are believed to be held.
"We're committing to free Gaza from the tyranny of these terrorists," Netanyahu said in a video address posted on X.
President Donald Trump ousted the head of the Labor Department’s statistical arm Friday after the latest monthly jobs report came in well under expectations.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
The removal of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer came after Trump reprised prior accusations that BLS surreptitiously put out overly rosy jobs numbers at the tail end of the Biden administration that were revised in an effort to influence the election. Economists have roundly dismissed those claims as a misunderstanding of the agency’s revision processes.
Efforts to introduce pirate site blocking to the United States continue with the introduction of the "Block BEARD" bill in the Senate. The bipartisan proposal, backed by Senators Tillis, Coons, Blackburn, and Schiff, aims to create a new legal mechanism to combat foreign piracy websites.
Block BEARD is similar to the previously introduced House bill "FADPA", but doesn't directly mention DNS resolvers.
Awdah Hathaleen a Palestinian community leader who was a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” died Monday after an Israeli settler allegedly shot him to death in the occupied West Bank.
“No Other Land” filmmaker and subject Yuval Abraham announced his colleague’s death Monday, writing on X (formerly Twitter), “[Hathaleen] just died. Murdered.” Two hours prior, Abraham shared video of the confrontation that led to Hathaleen’s death. In the video, the settler in a dark shirt can be seen shoving people in a group, pulling out and pointing his pistol in their direction. The video shows him firing at people off-screen.
Searches and sign-ups for VPN providers have surged in the wake of online age checks that were introduced on July 25 as part of the UK's Online Safety Act.
ProtonVPN reported a more than 1,400 percent increase in sign-ups in the UK after age verification requirements took effect.
"Unlike previous surges, this one is sustained, and is significantly higher than when France lost access to adult content," it said. In June, a French law took effect requiring adult websites to verify users.
When Aret Oymakas started selling diamonds years ago, engagement ring shoppers came in looking for one thing for their brides-to-be: a real, mined diamond.
"It was just a diamond," said Oymakas, owner of Livia Diamonds in Toronto. "And you got what you were able to get … in terms of design and budget."
These days, not so much.
Lab-grown diamonds have become massively popular in recent years, giving the traditional, mined version a run for its money.
Oymakas says natural diamonds made up 100 per cent of his business until 2018 when lab-grown diamonds came on the market in a big way. Now, natural diamonds account for only three to four per cent of his business.
Nearly 4,000 NASA employees have opted to leave the space agency through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, NASA said on Saturday.
The cuts amount to an estimated 20% of NASA's workforce, and will reduce the agency from 18,000 to 14,000 employees, NASA spokesperson Cheryl Warner said in a statement shared with NPR. The total number includes the agency's loss of 500 other workers due to normal attrition, she said.
The Royal Thai Air Force deployed a total of four F-16 and Gripen fighter jets to carry out airstrikes against Cambodian military targets in the Phu Ma Kua area and Ta Muen Thom temple, where Cambodian forces had positioned indirect fire weapons. The mission was successfully completed, and all aircraft returned safely to base.
President Donald Trump was called the “ultimate dealmaker” by the lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, when asked about the possibility of a pardon for the disgraced socialite.
David Oscar Markus and his client met for a second day with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss the Epstein case that has rattled the Trump administration for weeks. Maxwell is serving 20 years for her role in sex trafficking minors for the financier.
Maxwell had initiated the meetings and was granted a form of limited immunity to talk to the Justice Department, according to an ABC News report.
Google will officially deprecate links generated with its URL shortening tool next month. On August 25th, 2025, all links in the “https://goo.gl/*” format will no longer work and return a 404 error message.
Google shut down its URL shortener in 2019, citing “changes we’ve seen in how people find content on the internet.” Links created with the tool continued to work since then, but Google announced last year that it would begin deprecating them as traffic to the shortened URLs declined. “In fact more than 99% of them had no activity in the last month,” Google said in its July 2024 blog post.
Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu says Israel is advancing the destruction of Gaza, and that the Strip will be made totally Jewish.
“The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu tells Haredi radio station Kol Barama. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on Mein Kampf.”
Eliyahu says Gaza will be cleared for Jewish settlement, but says Jewish towns won’t be “fenced in inside cantons.”
“All Gaza will be Jewish,” he says, though he clarifies that Arabs who are loyal to Israel will be tolerated.
“We aren’t racists,” the far-right Otzma Yehudit politician adds.
Today, the United States informed Director-General Audrey Azoulay of the United States’ decision to withdraw from UNESCO. Continued involvement in UNESCO is not in the national interest of the United States.
UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy. UNESCO’s decision to admit the “State of Palestine” as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.
The International Mathematical Olympiad (“IMO”) is the world’s most prestigious competition for young mathematicians, and has been held annually since 1959.
Each country taking part is represented by six elite, pre-university mathematicians who compete to solve six exceptionally difficult problems in algebra, combinatorics, geometry, and number theory. Medals are awarded to the top half of contestants, with approximately 8% receiving a prestigious gold medal.
Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls. Quality and care for craftsmanship seem to be things of the past
Donald Trump once hosted a party with “young women” where the disgraced late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein "was the only other guest,” according to a report.
The president is under pressure to release all files relating to the Epstein case, which he has so far refused to do despite a 2024 election promise.
The anecdote was part of a New York Times piece on Saturday entitled “Inside the Long Friendship Between Trump and Epstein.”
It states that “For nearly 15 years, the two men socialized together in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., before a falling out that preceded Mr. Epstein’s first arrest.”
The piece goes on to describe Trump hosting “a party at Mar-a-Lago for young women in a so-called calendar girl competition, Mr. Epstein was the only other guest.”
The four plants in the Central Taiwan Science Park, designated Fab 25, would consist of four 1.4-nanometer wafer manufacturing plants, TSMC said
The decision comes after a Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to slash the federal work force and dismantle agencies.
The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would eliminate its scientific research arm and begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, after denying for months that it intended to do so.
The move underscores how the Trump administration is forging ahead with efforts to slash the federal work force and dismantle federal agencies after the Supreme Court allowed these plans to proceed while legal challenges unfold. Government scientists have been particular targets of the administration’s large-scale layoffs.
A city fire marshal used FDNY’s access to a facial recognition software to help NYPD detectives identify a pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University, circumventing policies that tightly restrict the Police Department’s use of the technology.
Details of the arrangement emerged in a recent decision by a Manhattan criminal court judge and in a lawsuit seeking information from the FDNY filed this month by the Legal Aid Society, which represented the protester, Zuhdi Ahmed, now a 21-year-old pre-med CUNY student going into his senior year of college.
Police identified Ahmed after searching for a young man accused of hurling what they said was a rock at a pro-Israeli protester during an April 2024 skirmish at Columbia. Thanks to the FDNY’s assistance and its use of Clearview AI software, the police were able to identify Ahmed.
It's Mastercard's world; we just live in it. That's my understanding based on a recent communiqué from Valve to PC Gamer, which confirmed that, yup, the company sure did recently remove a whole spate of adult games from its storefront because it made payment processors upset.
"We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks," said Valve. "As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store."
Reddit has announced it will begin verifying the ages of users in the UK, responding to a new law coming into effect this month.
"[T]he UK Online Safety Act has new requirements to implement additional measures to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content," Reddit's chief legal officer Ben Lee aka u/traceroo posted to r/RedditSafety on Monday. "So, starting July 14 in the UK, we will begin collecting and verifying your age before you can view certain mature content."
A budget-writing panel in the House of Representatives passed a $24.8 billion NASA budget bill Tuesday, joining a similar subcommittee in the Senate in maintaining the space agency's funding after the White House proposed a nearly 25 percent cut.
The budget bills making their way through the House and Senate don't specify funding levels for individual programs, but the topline numbers—$24.8 billion in the House version and $24.9 billion the Senate bill—represent welcome news for scientists, industry, and space enthusiasts bracing for severe cuts requested by the Trump administration.