Author: Press Room

The United Kingdom’s open land border with the Republic of Ireland is under the microscope after it emerged the alleged Belfast knifeman who is said to have tried an “attempted beheading” entered the country through that porous route. The revelation that 30-year-old Hadi Alodid, said to be a former policeman from a “prominent” Sudanese family, travelled to the United Kingdom through the “backdoor” migrant route through European Union member the Republic of Ireland has prompted a hard look at the border. Alodid, who appeared in court this week over his alleged role in an “attempted beheading” in Belfast, the outrage over…

SpaceX opened trading Friday at $150 per share under the ticker SPCX following the largest IPO in history, with shares quickly climbing above $160 and pushing the company’s market capitalization beyond $2 trillion. CNBC reports that SpaceX began public trading on the Nasdaq exchange Friday morning after pricing its initial public offering at $135 per share. The opening price of $150 represented an approximately 11 percent gain over the IPO price, though initial indications to trading desks had suggested a higher opening around $175. Shortly after the market opened, SpaceX stock climbed above $160 per share, valuing Elon Musk’s aerospace…

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, is traveling across Texas to highlight progress in the battle against the New World Screwworm. Rollins visited the Zavala County Ranch where the first case of the flesh-eating parasite was discovered and highlighted the full recovery of case one after nine days of treatment. On Thursday, Secretary Rollins visited the Rock Creek Ranch alongside John Bellinger, the new Senior Advisor for New World Screwworm Preparedness, where South Texas rancher Robbie spoke to the pair about the full recovery of the first detected case in La Pryor, Texas. Rollins posted a video of the…

Anthropic will now disclose when requests are downgraded or rejected after criticism over hidden restrictions US artificial intelligence giant Anthropic said on Wednesday it would make the safeguards governing its most advanced AI models more transparent, including by disclosing when user requests are downgraded or rejected. The move follows criticism over restrictions that were previously not visible to users.Previously, Anthropic could silently route requests involving areas such as cybersecurity, biology, and advanced AI development from its Fable 5 model to the less capable Opus 4.8. Under the new policy, users will be notified when a request is flagged, while Application…

BlackCore has targeted elections in France, New York, Scotland, and two African states, officials in Paris have claimed An Israeli cyber company suspected of interfering in French local elections and targeting pro-Palestinian candidates also allegedly meddled in votes in New York City and Scotland and ran operations in Angola and Togo, officials in Paris have said.Last month, a Reuters report claimed that French authorities believed Israeli firm BlackCore was behind an online smear campaign targeting three French mayoral candidates from the left-wing, pro-Palestine France Unbowed party (LFI) – in Marseille, Toulouse, and Roubaix – ahead of March local elections.French Interior…

Three children and one adult died on Thursday in the rural Netherlands town of Vogelwaarde, Zeeland, after a vehicle reportedly driven by a 19-year-old man veered off the road and crashed into a elementary school cycling group. Dutch outlets explained that the tragic accident occurred  around 12:30 p.m. (local time) when a vehicle veered off course at the provincial road between Vogelwaarde and Terhole. The victims were part of a broader group — fourteen kids and two adult supervisors — organized by the De Warande Elementary School in Axel, and were on the way to a school camp along a bike path.…

Diana Kastenbaum is the Moms Demand Action-endorsed candidate for New York’s 24th Congressional District and she is pushing for a ban on all semiautomatic firearms. Semiautomatic firearms which actions designed to eject a spent shell casing after a bullet is fired and place a fresh cartridge into battery so the gun is ready to shoot again. Such guns shoot one round, and only one round, with each trigger pull. Semiautomatic pistols are by far the most popular for concealed carry and their popularity with women cannot be overstated, as the semiautomatic action reduces recoil, thereby making it possible for people…

Sen. John Cornyn isn’t a card-carrying member of the Senate GOP’s growing YOLO caucus. But with less than seven months left in office after losing his primary, the Texas Republican appears to be feeling newly free to speak his mind. The latest clap-back came Thursday night and the early hours of Friday morning, when Cornyn called a conservative influencer a “grifter” and told Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on social media to stop publicly blaming fellow Republicans — including Senate Majority Leader John Thune — for the fact that the GOP elections bill doesn’t have support to pass inside the party.…

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire experienced a significant outage on Friday morning, with many users reporting issues accessing Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. The New York Post reports that a widespread service disruption affected Meta’s primary social media platforms on Friday, leaving many users unable to access Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. The outage, which began during morning hours, was documented through a surge of user reports on Downdetector, a website that tracks service interruptions across digital platforms. According to data from Downdetector, Instagram experienced a dramatic spike in problem reports, escalating from a typical baseline of approximately 25 complaints to several…

LONDON (AP) — Artist David Hockney, whose paintings of pools shimmering in the Los Angeles sunshine became icons of 20th-century art, has died. He was 88. Hockney was born in the north of England but lived much of his life in Southern California, making its sun-drenched suburban views a major motif. Later in life he returned to Europe, finding renewed inspiration in the wooded hills of his native county of Yorkshire and the fields and trees of France’s Normandy region. He became one of the U.K.’s most treasured artists, his works selling for record prices at auction. Historian Simon Schama…