The new evidence about children’s ill health
The new evidence about children’s ill health
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In a busy, terraced house in Bradford, three sisters are animatedly chatting. It’s a big day at their home: a beautician sits on their sofa, styling their hair and makeup. The room is warm with fun and laughter. It feels like a scene from a Jane Austen novel: three women in their late 20s, each of them bursting with personality, swapping stories.
And like most Austen novels, the conversation often turns to marriage.
The sisters are preparing for a family wedding at the weekend – where the bride and groom are first cousins. Many people might find this unusual, but in their family and in some parts of Bradford, it’s fairly common.
Ayesha, who at 29 is the oldest of the three sisters, also married her first cousin in 2017. She has two children with her husband and their marriage is happy, she says. It felt perfectly normal at the time to marry her cousin. Their mother, a Pakistani migrant, assumed it was what all three of her daughters would do.
But 26-year-old Salina, the youngest of the three, tells us she broke the mould by having what they call a “love” marriage, choosing a partner from outside the family. Salina tells us she is outgoing and ambitious; marrying a cousin simply did not appeal to her. Then there’s Mallika, who at 27 is the middle of the three. She’s still single and has already decided not to marry within her family.
“I said to my mum that I wouldn’t judge my sisters but I wasn’t going to do it,” Mallika tells us. She says having an education has created opportunities for her. “Before, even if you had an education, you wouldn’t be expected to carry on with it. You would be thinking of marriage. Now the mindset is so different.”
Worrying new data
In the *** and across Europe, cousin marriage is coming under increased scrutiny – particularly from doctors, who warn that children of first cousins are more likely to experience an array of health problems.
And there’s now some new, potentially worrying data from Bradford to add into that mix.
Researchers at the city’s university are entering their 18th year of the Born in Bradford study. It’s one of the biggest medical trials of its kind: between 2007 and 2010, researchers recruited more than 13,000 babies in the city and then followed them closely from childhood into adolescence and now into early adulthood. More than one in six children in the study have parents who are first cousins, mostly from Bradford’s Pakistani community, making it among the world’s most valuable studies of the health impacts of cousin marriage.
And in data published in the last few months – and analysed in an upcoming episode of BBC Radio 4’s Born in Bradford series – the researchers found that first cousin-parentage may have wider consequences than previously thought.
The most obvious way that a pair of blood-related parents might increase health risks for a child is through a recessive disorder, like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell disease. According to the classic theory of genetics laid out by the biologist Gregor Mendel, if both parents carry a recessive gene then there’s a one in four chance that their child will inherit the condition. And when parents are cousins, they’re more likely to both be carriers. A child of first cousins carries a 6% chance of inheriting a recessive disorder, compared to 3% for the general population.
But the Bradford study took a much broader view – and sheds fresh light. The researchers weren’t just looking at whether a child had been diagnosed with a specific recessive disorder. Instead they studied dozens of data points, observing everything from the children’s speech and language development to their frequency of healthcare to their performance at school. Then they used a mathematical model to try to eliminate the impacts of poverty and parental education – so they could focus squarely on the impact on “consanguinity”, the scientific word for having parents who are related.
They found that even after factors like poverty were controlled for, a child of first cousins in Bradford had an 11% probability of being diagnosed with a speech and language problem, versus 7% for children whose parents are not related.
They also found a child of first cousins has a 54% chance of reaching a “good stage of development” (a government assessment given to all five year-olds in England), versus 64% for children whose parents are not related.
We get further insight into their poorer health through the number of visits to the GP. Children of first cousins have a third more primary care appointments than children whose parents are not related – an average of four instead of three a year.
What is notable is that even once you account for the children in that group who already have a diagnosed recessive disorder, the figures suggest consanguinity may be affecting even those children who don’t have a diagnosable recessive disorder.
Neil Small, emeritus professor at the University of Bradford and the author of the study, says that even if all of the children with recessive disorders visited their GP more than average, “this does not explain the much wider distribution of excess health care usage in the consanguineous children”.
The study, he says, is “exciting because it gives the opportunity for a much more accurate development of a response, targeting interventions and treatments”.
Growing concern
It is, of course, just one study, and the population of Bradford is not representative of the whole of the ***.
Nevertheless, it adds to a growing concern among scientists that has caught the attention of lawmakers across Europe. Two Scandinavian countries have now moved to outlaw cousin marriage entirely. In Norway, the practice became ******** last year; in Sweden, a ban will come into effect next year.
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Richard Holden (pictured) has proposed a private members’ bill to make the practice ********, adding it to the list of banned marriages
In the ***, the Conservative MP Richard Holden has introduced a private members’ bill to outlaw the practice, adding it to the list of ******** marriages (alongside parents, child, siblings, and grandparents). But the Labour government says there are “no plans” to impose a ban. At present, the *** is still following the policy of “genetic counselling”, in which first cousin-couples are educated about the risks of having children, and encouraged to get extra screening in pregnancy.
But amid concern about child health and strains on the NHS, some academics are asking whether a beefed-up approach to counselling is needed, with more funding and laser-focused intervention. And there are those who think it’s time to follow the Scandinavian example and impose something bound to be difficult and controversial: an outright ban on cousin marriage.
For most in the ***, the prospect of marrying a cousin is largely alien. But it wasn’t always so unusual. The father of evolution Charles Darwin married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Their son, the Victorian scientist Sir George Darwin, went on to estimate that cousin marriages accounted for almost one in 20 aristocratic unions in 19th Century Britain. One of them was Queen Victoria, who married her first cousin, Prince Albert. The novel Wuthering Heights is full of fictional examples.
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Consanguineous marriage remains relatively common among some South Asian communities
By the 20th Century the proportion of marriages between cousins had declined to about 1%. But it remains a relatively common practice among some South Asian minorities. In three inner-city Bradford wards, almost half (46%) of mothers from the Pakistani community were married to a first or second cousin, according to the most recent Born in Bradford data published two years ago.
“Compounded” effects
For those who want to ban the practice, the public health argument is compelling. When announcing his private members’ bill in December, Richard Holden highlighted the higher risk of birth defects. Later, on Talk TV, he pointed to data showing that infant mortality rates are higher for children born to cousin parents, with more heart, brain, and kidney problems due to recessive disorders. He also explained that health effects can be “compounded” when the practice persists through generations.
This risk to child health is one of the reasons Patrick Nash, a researcher and co-founder at the Pharos Foundation research institute, wants to see cousin marriage banned. In a paper published in the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion last year, Nash wrote that a ban would result in “immediate” health improvements, especially in communities where the practice is common. He said: “Banning cousin marriage would improve public health drastically and have no negative health implications of its own.”
Sam Oddie
Prof Sam Oddie has worked in Bradford for over 20 years and has witnessed many cases of severe genetic disorders
On the ground in Bradford, it’s a more mixed picture. Prof Sam Oddie, a consultant neonatologist and researcher at Bradford Teachings Hospitals, has worked in the city for more than two decades. Over the years he has observed lots of severe genetic disorders. “I’ve seen fatal skin conditions, fatal brain conditions, fatal muscle conditions”. He says it was “immediately clear” these conditions were occurring more in Bradford than elsewhere.
He remembers some tragic examples: families who lost several children, one after the other, to the same genetic disorder. “That’s very upsetting and very difficult for the family to get their heads around.”
Common ancestors
But crucially, Prof Oddie thinks the main risk to genetic health in Bradford is not cousin marriage, but a similar issue known as endogamy, in which people marry members of their close community. In a tight-knit ethnic group, people are more likely to share common ancestors and genes – whether or not they are first cousins, he says.
Endogamy is not unique to Pakistani communities in the ***. It is an issue too in the ***’s Jewish community and globally among the Amish and also French Canadians.
“It’s often the case that the exact familial tie can’t be traced, but the gene occurs more commonly within a certain group, and for that reason, both parents carry the affected gene,” Prof Oddie says. “It’s an oversimplification to say that cousin marriage is the root of all excess recessive disorders in Bradford or in Pakistani communities. Endogamy is an important feature.”
The power of education
Rather than a ban, he stresses the power of education – or what he calls “genetic literacy”. It’s a phrase that crops up again and again from the people we speak to. For many years there’s been a campaign in Bradford to inform people in the Pakistani community about their genetic risks. Couples are given specialist advice at their GP; at pregnancy classes, information is shared with expectant mothers.
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Bradford has long run campaigns to raise awareness of genetic risks within the Pakistani community
And in Bradford at least, some are taking the message on board. Back at the sisters’ house, all three women we interview say that ideas around cousin marriage are slowly changing, in part due to an increased awareness of health risks. They live in the deprived, post-industrial Manningham area of the city. There’s a distinct feeling of neighbourliness here. All of the front doors open directly onto the street, which is full of children playing. Occasionally the sounds of their laughter drift inside.
“It has to be something that happens gradually – it’s slow, you can’t rush it,” says Salina, the sister who chose to have a love marriage. “My mum was very young when she came [to the *** from Pakistan]. She had certain views but those changed because she loves us. I just explained to her, ‘Mum, how does it benefit you to push cousin marriage?’.”
Mallika, her older sister, agrees. “It’s also to do with social media and being exposed to different people,” she says. “You have new connections… contact with people outside our parents’ eyes.”
Even Ayesha, the oldest sister who is in a cousin marriage, said she doesn’t imagine either of her two children will marry their cousins.
At the time she married her cousin, she says, “I didn’t know any different. My parents were strong in their culture. As the generations move on, the culture is disappearing a bit.”
She was aware of the genetic risks when she had her two children. Neither of them have a genetic illness.
“We did take that on board,” she says, on the topic of genetic health. “But I always feel like if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. If the child is going to be born with a disability then it will happen if you are married to a cousin or not.”
Indeed, in Bradford at least, the practice is in decline. The share of new mothers from across the Born in Bradford study who were first cousins with the father of their baby fell from 39% in the late 2000s to 27% in the late 2010s.
This is no coincidence, according to Professor John Wright, chief investigator on the Born in Bradford project. He points out that it is only recently that his team published evidence around the risks of cousin marriage in the ***.
“When we talked to the families 10 years ago it was very clear that people weren’t aware of the risks but like all parents they want to do their best for their children. They want to have healthy children,” he says.
“Education is the starting point and we’ve shown in Born in Bradford how powerful that is.”
‘Coerced into unions’
Aside from health concerns, there’s another reason some people want to see cousin marriage banned: its impact on social cohesion. This is what’s largely driving the debate in Scandinavia. In Norway, where cousin marriage was banned last year, lawmakers said the practice was linked to forced marriage, with some South Asian immigrant women coerced into unions with relatives.
They also looked at the link with so-called “honour” violence, according to Tonje Egedius, a journalist who covered the story for a Norwegian newspaper.
“[Police] claim that cousin marriage makes it easier for perpetrators to maintain honour in families,” she says, “and that marrying within the family is a contributing cause of honour-related violence and abuse”.
Jasmina Holten, a senior Norwegian police officer, said in an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK last year that some women coerced into cousin marriage found themselves trapped, with financial dependence on relatives. In those cases, divorce often means ostracism. A ban on cousin marriage could break down that abusive chain, she said.
Likewise, Sweden’s justice secretary Gunnar Strömmer said his own country’s ban on cousin marriage will liberate women from “oppressive standards of honour”.
This cultural argument is becoming increasingly prominent. Proponents of a ban broadly see cousin marriage as an instrument of segregation, siphoning people off from the rest of society. Nash, from the Pharos Foundation, says that a ban on cousin marriage would help reduce ethnic segregation in places like Bradford.
Others are sceptical of the idea that you can force people to integrate through the sharp stick of legislation. They say that even if a ban goes ahead, some couples would continue to marry their cousins through ********, unregistered unions – and that women in those marriages may feel they no longer have the protection of the state if the relationship goes sour.
Nazir Afzal (pictured) believes that well-crafted legislation could provide protection for those forced into cousin marriages
Nazir Afzal, former Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West of England, tells us that “thoughtful legislation” would “offer protections” to people coerced into cousin marriage. “[But] we must respect cultural diversity and personal choice,” he says. “Cousin marriage is an important cultural practice in many parts of the world, and legislation should be sensitive to the social and familial values that underlie it.”
More broadly, he suggests governments may want to think about boosting education and genetic screening for couples entering cousin marriage – rather than imposing “blanket bans”.
“Driving a wedge”
For some, the idea of an outright ban raises the ugly image of certain minorities being targeted over others. Karma Nirvana, a charity that works to end honour-based abuse, described the backbench attempt to ban cousin marriage as “a tool of political point-scoring, inciting hate and driving a wedge between communities”.
Richard Holden’s bill is awaiting its second reading in the House of Commons. Without government support it has never been likely to pass but its very existence and events in Scandinavia have resulted in cousin marriage being talked about far beyond the communities where it is prevalent.
Of course, for those Britons in a cousin marriage, life goes on much as before.
Back at the Bradford house, the beautician is putting her finishing touches to the hair of the three sisters, ahead of their big wedding at the weekend. Ayesha, the sister who is in a cousin marriage, is reflective and thoughtful about her own near decade-long relationship. “There are difficulties – we’ve been through lots together, we have sacrificed a lot,” she says about her husband. “But we are happy together.”
“I think even with love marriages you’re going to have problems. They’ll just be different ones.”
Top image credit: Getty Images
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Meta in talks for $200 billion AI data center project, The Information reports
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(Reuters) -Meta Platforms is in discussions to construct a new data center campus for its artificial intelligence projects, with potential costs exceeding $200 billion, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Meta executives have informed data center developers that the company is considering building the campus in states including Louisiana, Wyoming or Texas, with senior leaders having visited potential sites this month, the report said.
Since the launch of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, investment in AI has surged as companies across various sectors strive to incorporate artificial intelligence into their products and services.
A Meta spokesperson denied the report, saying its data center plans and capital expenditures have already been disclosed and that anything beyond that is “pure speculation”.
Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company plans to spend as much as $65 billion this year to expand its AI infrastructure.
In comparison, Microsoft said it was planning to invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 to develop data centers, while retail giant Amazon stated that its 2025 spending would be higher than the $75 billion estimated in 2024.
(Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Varun H K)
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Boy band Five to reunite with all original members
Boy band Five to reunite with all original members
Mark Savage
Music Correspondent
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Five sold more than 20 million records in the space of four years
After 25 years apart, all five original members of the British boyband Five are reuniting for a massive *** arena tour.
The group sold more than 20 million records in the late 1990s and early 2000s with tracks such as When The Lights Go Out, If Ya Gettin’ Down and Slam Dunk (Da Funk).
The group – Sean Conlon, Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, Abz Love and Jason “J” Brown – haven’t performed as a five-piece since they broke up in 2001, amid burnout, mental breakdown and backstage fights.
“This has been a long time coming and it really does feel right for all of us now,” said Scott in a statement. “I know I speak for all the boys when I say we can’t wait to do this all over again. Hope you’re ready!”
The reunion announcement lands on the 25th anniversary of the band winning best pop act at the 2000 Brit Awards.
“We really can’t wait to get back on stage together & see the fans, it’s gonna go off!” said Abz.
Scott, Ritchie and Sean recount the moment they were signed by RCA Records – from the BBC documentary Boybands Forever
Five were formed in 1997, in a gruelling audition process that saw more than 3,000 aspiring singers – including a pre-fame Russell Brand – audition for former Spice Girl managers Bob and Chris Herbert.
The group came together relatively naturally, however, after the members formed a unit during rehearsals and convinced record label executives with their chemistry.
“I remember Simon Cowell was there and he said, ‘You’re the band, I’m signing you to RCA Records on a five-album deal, this is happening very soon,” Scott told journalist Michael Cragg in his book about the 2000s pop era, Reach For The Stars.
The group were quickly moved into a shared council house in Surrey to begin the process of bonding – but it didn’t go entirely to plan.
“They wanted a band with edge and that’s what they got,” Ritchie said in Reach For The Stars.
“None of us are people that will be bossed around. So if you put five of those people together all the time and then they start annoying each other… eventually there’s going to be eruptions.”
The band, photographed this month, have not performed together as a quintet since 2001
Despite those initial tensions, the group achieved huge commercial success. Their first song, Slam Dunk (Da Funk), went to number 10 in the ***; and the follow-up, When The Lights Go Out, achieved the same ranking on the US Billboard chart.
One of the first bands to utilise the talents of Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, they famously turned down the opportunity to record …Baby, One More Time before Britney Spears turned it into an era-defining smash.
Undeterred, they had further chart success with see-sawing song titles such as Everybody Get Up and If Ya Gettin’ Down, and opened the 2000 Brit Awards by performing We Will Rock You with rock legends Queen.
For three consecutive years, they were named best band at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, while Scott picked up a hat-trick of best haircut awards.
Meanwhile Ritchie’s relationship with fellow teen star Billie Piper made them a permanent fixture in the tabloids and teen music magazines.
‘Crying in the corridor’
In 2001, Five played to half a million fans at Brazil’s Rock In Rio festival, but the band was disintegrating due to a relentless touring schedule and personal conflicts.
Sean walked out during an interview to promote the 2001 single Let’s Dance and never came back. His absence from the music video was officially explained as glandular fever but, in reality, he had suffered a mental breakdown.
His departure was formally announced later that year and, after releasing a greatest hits album, the band officially split up.
Scott said he decided to leave after being pressured to perform on TV while his young son was in a hospital’s intensive care ward.
“I was crying in the corridor and I think [Ritchie] looked at the boys and said, ‘This is done’,” he later recalled.
In the recent BBC documentary Boybands Forever, Cowell cited Five as the band that “got away”, saying they had come tantalisingly close to becoming a major act in the US.
“The band ended before we really cracked America, and I honestly think we could have done that,” former manager Chris Herbert agreed.
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The group were one of the first British boybands to mix elements of hip-hop into their music
Five reformed without Sean in 2006, but plans to record a new album were shelved after they failed to secure a record deal.
A second reunion occurred in 2012, this time without “J” Brown, who declined to take part for “privacy reasons”.
After appearing in the ITV documentary The Big Reunion, the group toured with fellow 2000s pop survivors Atomic Kitten, Liberty X and B*Witched – until Abz abruptly quit in 2014.
“As of today I am no longer a member of @itsfiveofficial Thank you to all the fans who support us, I love you all,” he wrote on social media at the time,.
The news apparently took his bandmates by surprise
“Wow what a way to find this out!” replied Scott.
Abz, who was born Richard Breen, announced he had rejoined the band earlier this week, with fans speculating his return could lead to a full reunion.
The news was confirmed by BBC Radio 2’s Scott Mills on this morning’s Breakfast Show.
Five’s 12-date tour will kick off in Brighton on 31 October 2025, with tickets on ***** from Friday, 7 March.
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The Nabateans are Coming | History Today
The Nabateans are Coming | History Today
The volte face has been astonishing. Until 2017, or thereabouts, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was seen as the hallmark of Islamic puritanism, where compulsorily veiled women were forbidden to travel without their male guardian’s permission, shops closed during prayer time, and the ‘religious police’ brandished canes to marshal the faithful into mosques. Pre-Islamic history was the ‘time of ignorance’ (‘jahiliyya’) and tourism, when allowed, was restricted to small groups of well-paid foreign business people and pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. But since the ascendancy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (usually known as MBS) under his father King Salman (who succeeded to the throne in 2015) things have changed dramatically. Women may now drive. Cinemas and concert halls that religious leaders, including the grand mufti, once regarded as sources of depravity are opening, along with ‘entertainment cities’ and American-style theme parks. All are part of Vision 2030, an ambitious programme aimed at weaning the country’s economy off oil. Vast investments are being made in tourism, and Arabia’s pre-Islamic history – once condemned as idolatrous – is central to it.
The Nabateans
Amid this rediscovery of Arabia’s past, much is being made of the potential of the AlUla Oasis, located in the northwest in the vicinity of Madain Saleh, also known as al-Hijr or Hegra. Madain Saleh was the second city after Petra (now in neighbouring Jordan) created by the Nabatean kingdom that flourished from the late third century BC until it was annexed by the Romans in AD 106. Writing in the first century BC the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus described the Nabateans as a nomadic tribe of traders who avoided agriculture, fixed dwellings, and wine, while pursuing a profitable trade in frankincense, myrrh, and other spices from Arabia Felix (now Yemen) as well as bitumen from the Dead Sea. As Arabic-speaking nomads who ventured across vast desert spaces, they maintained a culture of secrecy about the origin of their goods, including the coastal ports they frequented, and the locations of cisterns and wells. After becoming a Roman client state they protected the Empire against other Arabian tribes, extending their domain as far north as Syria, clashing with the forces of King Herod before the emperor Trajan took control of Petra and converted their kingdom into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. Nabatean deities included the high god Dushara (whose shrine has been found at Puteoli near Naples) and al-Uzza, one of three goddesses said to have been worshipped in Mecca before Islam.
In 2008 UNESCO awarded AlUla World Heritage status as ‘a major site of the Nabatean civilization’. The site contains an ensemble of tombs and monuments cut into the local sandstone that bear ‘outstanding witness to important cultural exchanges in architecture, decoration, language use and the caravan trade’ linking the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. While Madain Saleh might be less impressive than Petra (which now sees nearly a million visitors per year), its huge tourist potential is clear.
Destination desolation
This poses a problem for the Saudis. Tradition – buttressed by the conservative clerics who dominated Saudi culture before MBS’s ascent – once warned Muslims against visiting Madain Saleh where, according to the Quran, God had struck down its people for idolatry. The British poet and traveller Charles Doughty, who visited Madain Saleh in 1876 as part of a pilgrim caravan, confirmed that the ulama (Islamic scholar-authorities) taught ‘that men’s prayers may hardly rise to Heaven from the soil of Madain Saleh’. The most pious pilgrims refused to drink from the local well for fear of its curses. Doughty wrote that even by the time of the Prophet Muhammad (c.560-632) – who, it is now said, turned his face away while passing the site – its ‘desolate places’ had long passed into legend.
Entering one of Madain Saleh’s caves, Doughty found ‘grave-pits, sunken side by side, full of men’s bones strewed upon the sanded floor’ and noticed ‘a loathsome mummy odour’ that was ‘heavy on the nostrils’. Judging from the latest images available online – some of them shared by historians and other media personalities who have accepted the Saudi state’s invitation to visit and promote the site – the makeover is now complete. The AlUla website shows staged photographs of ‘adrenaline-pumping activities’ such as rock-climbing on sandstone cliffs, monumental contemporary art works, and ‘panoramic walks’ along the streets of AlUla old town, where Western-attired couples ‘walk the streets of history … along the world’s largest hand-painted carpet’. All this at the place once occupied by the ancient Thamud tribe whose people, according to the Quran, were destroyed by God for rejecting the Prophet Saleh, after whom the Nabatean city received its Arabic name. Crucially, the new offerings at AlUla acknowledge 200,000 years of history; the Saudi state appears to have embraced the Nabateans.
[Hidden Content] Saleh, ruins of the second city of the Nabatean kingdom, Saudi Arabia, by Ali Lajami, 2022. Public Domain.
This embrace has been a slow process. From the 1970s the Saudi government began cautiously introducing archaeology into the nation’s history curriculum, with regional museums permitted to show exhibits from Arabia’s pre-history. Museum captions use the international Gregorian dating system, thereby avoiding references to ‘pre-Islamic’ and ‘Islamic’ periods. Sites such as Madain Saleh became part of the Saudi national heritage rather than a relic of a forbidden jahiliyya past. Taboos against Muslims visiting the cursed site were loosened and in 2011 Madain Saleh appeared in the popular television show History of the Prophets, with presenter Sheikh Nabil al-Awadi relating the story of the Prophet Saleh and the punishment God inflicted on the Nabateans (known by the Quranic name of Thamudis) against the backdrop of Madain Saleh’s sandstone crags and tombs.
‘Lies and charlatanry’
The new presentation of AlUla has all the cultural hallmarks of Western consultancies. Just as the Scramble for Africa in the 19th century was driven by competition between rival European powers, the 21st-century Scramble for Arabia (or its money) has been driven by competition between rival consultancies such as the McKinsey corporation and the Boston Consulting Group. The impression of sales pitches aimed at the upper end of the Western tourist market is reinforced by images of the AlUla Wellness Center, where visitors may improve their breathing techniques in a ‘full moon sound bath’ by a Nabatean temple, as well as having counselling sessions with a famous Californian therapist and yoga instructor.
Opinions of contemporary ******* scholars towards the practice of yoga – which also had ancient, pre-Islamic origins – may vary, but that of the respected Hanbali scholar Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid – who studied with Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (1912-99), the eminent grand mufti of Saudi Arabia famed for his fatwas condemning anyone disputing the geocentric view that the sun circles the earth – is unequivocal. Yoga, al-Munajjid preaches, is a form of idolatry ‘based on lies and charlatanry’ that may appeal ‘to simple minded people who are weak in faith’. Some yoga postures imitating animals detract from human dignity including ‘adopting nakedness and resting on all fours’. He has also criticised the tendency of yoga practitioners to encourage a vegetarian diet ‘for which ****** has not revealed any authority’.
The learned sheikh’s fatwas – his online responses to believers’ questions delivered on his website IslamQA – no longer bear the authority of the Saudi state. Launched in 1996, IslamQA is now banned in the kingdom as only the Dar al-Ifta’ – the official religious establishment under government control – is authorised to issue fatwas.
A less contentious aspect of Vision 2030 is its embrace of art. Madain Saleh has hosted a number of installations as part of Desert X. Its co-curator, the Brazilian Marcello Dantas, sees the show as celebrating the ‘********** of this landscape in people’s minds … a new interpretation of a very ancient place with a forgotten history’. One of its most striking installations, by the Kuwaiti artist Monira al-Qadiri, is composed of large-scale bronze sculptures inspired by meteorite fragments found by Harry St John Philby, friend of Ibn Saud, the modern kingdom’s founder, and father of spy Kim Philby, when he crossed the Empty Quarter in 1932.
Object lesson
The transformation of a once cursed site into a tourist destination is part of a broader project – rationalised economically – whereby the kingdom’s role as guardian of Mecca and Medina is being subsumed into a national movement built around the person of MBS. International tourism is intended to wean Saudi society off its dependency on hydrocarbons, while international sport will wean it off Wahhabi puritanism, without challenging the legitimacy of the ruling Saudi clan.
The idolatrous Nabateans are incorporated into the new national narrative as an object lesson. The direction of travel was indicated in the 1970s by Allamah Tabatabaii, a famous scholar who preached that lessons could be learned from visiting the relics of now vanished ‘kings and rebellious pharaohs’, with their ‘grand dwellings and luxurious thrones’. ‘God has simply left them there for future generations to glean advice from and by which people can see and learn.’ This aligns with the new dogma proclaimed from Saudi pulpits. The crown prince is ‘singularly gifted’. Threats against his reforms threaten international security, peace, and stability. The faithful can now visit Nabatean monuments safe in the knowledge that they form part of the historic fabric of God’s chosen country. And so can international tourists.
Malise Ruthven is the author of Unholy Kingdom: Religion, Corruption and Violence in Saudi Arabia (Verso, 2024).
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DeepSeek rushes to launch new AI model as China goes all in
DeepSeek rushes to launch new AI model as China goes all in
BEIJING/HONG KONG/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – DeepSeek is looking to press home its advantage.
The ******** startup triggered a $1 trillion-plus sell-off in global equities markets last month with a cut-price AI reasoning model that outperformed many Western competitors.
Now, the Hangzhou-based firm is accelerating the launch of the successor to January’s R1 model, according to three people familiar with the company.
Deepseek had planned to release R2 in early May but now wants it out as early as possible, two of them said, without providing specifics.
The company says it hopes the new model will produce better coding and be able to reason in languages beyond English. Details of the accelerated timeline for R2’s release have not been previously reported.
DeepSeek did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Rivals are still digesting the implications of R1, which was built with less-powerful Nvidia chips but is competitive with those developed at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars by U.S. tech giants.
“The launch of DeepSeek’s R2 model could be a pivotal moment in the AI industry,” said Vijayasimha Alilughatta, chief operating officer of Indian tech services provider Zensar. DeepSeek’s success at creating cost-effective AI models “would likely spur companies worldwide to accelerate their own efforts … breaking the stranglehold of the few dominant players in the field,” he said.
R2 is likely to worry the U.S. government, which has identified leadership of AI as a national priority. Its release may further galvanize ******** authorities and companies, dozens of which say they have started integrating DeepSeek models into their products.
Little is known about DeepSeek, whose founder Liang Wenfeng became a billionaire through his quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer. Liang, who was described by a former employer as “low-key and introverted,” has not spoken to any media since July 2024.
Reuters interviewed a dozen former employees, as well as quant fund professionals knowledgeable about the operations of DeepSeek and its parent company High-Flyer. It also reviewed state media articles, social-media posts from the companies and research papers dating back to 2019.
They told a story of a company that functioned more like a research lab than a for-profit enterprise and was unencumbered by the hierarchical traditions of China’s high-pressure tech industry, even as it became responsible for what many investors see as the latest breakthrough in AI.
DIFFERENT PATH
Liang was born in 1985 in a rural village in the southern province of Guangdong. He later obtained communication engineering degrees at the elite Zhejiang University.
One of his first jobs was running a research department at a smart imaging firm in Shanghai. His then-boss, Zhou Chaoen, told state media on Feb. 9 that Liang had hired prize-winning algorithm engineers and operated with a “flat management style.”
At DeepSeek and High-Flyer, Liang has similarly shunned the practices of ******** tech giants known for rigid top-down management, low pay for young employees and “996” – working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.
Liang opened his Beijing office within walking distance of Tsinghua University and Peking University, China’s two most prestigious education institutions. He regularly delved into technical details and was happy to work alongside Gen-Z interns and recent graduates that comprised the bulk of its workforce, according to two former employees. They also described usually working eight-hour days in a collaborative atmosphere.
“Liang gave us control and treated us as experts. He constantly asked questions and learned alongside us,” said 26-year-old researcher Benjamin Liu, who left the company in September. “DeepSeek allowed me to take ownership of critical parts of the pipeline, which was very exciting.”
Liang did not respond to questions sent via DeepSeek.
While Baidu and other ******** tech giants were racing to build their consumer-facing versions of ChatGPT in 2023 and profit off of the global AI *****, Liang told ******** media outlet Waves last year that he deliberately avoided spending heavily on app development, focusing instead on refining the AI model’s quality.
Both DeepSeek and High-Flyer are known for paying generously, according to three people familiar with its compensation practices. At High-Flyer, it is not uncommon for a senior data scientist to make 1.5 million yuan annually, while competitors rarely pay more than 800,000, said one of the people, a rival quant fund manager who knows Liang.
The largesse was funded by High-Flyer, which became one of China’s most successful quant funds and, even after a government crackdown on the sector, still manages tens of billions of yuan, according to two people in the industry.
COMPUTING POWER
DeepSeek’s success with a low-cost AI model is based on High-Flyer’s decade-long and substantial investment in research and computing power, three people said.
The quant fund was an earlier pioneer in AI trading and a top executive said in 2020 that High-Flyer was going “all in” on AI by re-investing 70% of its revenue, mostly into AI research.
High-Flyer spent 1.2 billion yuan on two supercomputing AI clusters in 2020 and 2021. The second cluster, Fire-Flyer II, was made up of around 10,000 Nvidia A100 chips, used for training AI models.
DeepSeek had not been established at that time, so the accumulation of computing power caught the attention of ******** securities regulators, said a person with direct knowledge of officials’ thinking.
“Regulators wanted to know why they need so many chips?” the person said. “How they were going to use it? What kind of impact would that have on the market?”
Authorities decided not to intervene, in a move that would prove crucial for DeepSeek’s fortunes: the U.S. banned the export of A100 chips to China in 2022, at which point Fire-Flyer II was already in operation.
Beijing now celebrates DeepSeek, but has instructed it not to engage with the media without approval, according to a person familiar with ******** official thinking.
Authorities had asked Liang to keep a low-profile because they were worried that too much hype in the media would draw unnecessary attention, the person said.
China’s cabinet and commerce ministry, as well as China’s securities regulator, did not respond to requests for comment.
As one of the few companies with a large A100 cluster, High-Flyer and DeepSeek were able to attract some of China’s best research talent, two former employees said.
“The key advantage of vast (computing) resources is that it allows for large-scale experimentation,” said Liu, the former employee.
Some Western AI entrepreneurs, like Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, have claimed that DeepSeek had as many as 50,000 higher-end Nvidia chips that are banned for export to China. He has not produced evidence for the allegation or responded to Reuters’ requests to provide proof.
DeepSeek has not responded to Wang’s claims. Two former employees attributed the company’s success to Liang’s focus on more cost-effective AI architecture.
The startup used techniques like Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) and multihead latent attention (MLA), which incur far lower computing costs, its research papers show.
The MoE technique divides an AI model into different areas of expertise and activates only those related to a query, as opposed to more common architectures that use the entire model.
MLA architecture allows a model to process different aspects of one piece of information simultaneously, helping it detect key details more effectively.
While competitors like France’s Mistral have developed models based on MoE, DeepSeek was the first firm to depend heavily on this architecture while achieving parity with more expensively built models.
DeepSeek’s pricing was 20 to 40 times cheaper than what OpenAI charged for equivalent models, analysts at Bernstein brokerage estimated in early February.
For now, Western and ******** tech giants have signaled plans to continue heavy AI spending, but DeepSeek’s success with R1 and its earlier V3 model has prompted some to alter strategies.
OpenAI cut prices this month, while Google’s Gemini has introduced discounted tiers of access. Since R1’s launch, OpenAI has also released an O3-Mini model that relies on less computing power.
Adnan Masood of U.S. tech services provider UST told Reuters that his laboratory had run benchmarks that found R1 often used three times as many tokens, or units of data processed by the AI model, for reasoning as OpenAI’s scaled-down model.
STATE EMBRACE
Even before R1 gripped global attention, there were signs that DeepSeek had caught Beijing’s favor. In January, state media reported that Liang attended a meeting with ******** Premier Li Qiang in Beijing as the designated representative of the AI sector, ahead of the leaders of better-known firms.
The subsequent fanfare over the cost competitiveness of its models has buoyed Beijing’s belief that it can out-innovate the U.S., with ******** companies and government bodies embracing DeepSeek models at a pace that has not been offered to other firms.
At least 13 ******** city governments and 10 state-owned energy companies say they have deployed DeepSeek into their systems, while tech giants Lenovo, Baidu and Tencent – owner of China’s largest social media app WeChat – have integrated DeepSeek’s models into their products.
******** leader Xi Jinping and Li “have signalled they endorse DeepSeek,” said Alfred Wu, an expert on ******** policymaking at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “Now everyone just endorses it.”
The ******** embrace comes as governments from South Korea to Italy remove DeepSeek from national app stores, citing privacy concerns.
“If DeepSeek becomes the go-to AI model across ******** state entities, Western regulators might see this as another reason to escalate restrictions on AI chips or software collaborations,” said Stephen Wu, an AI expert and founder of hedge fund Carthage Capital.
Further limits on advanced AI chips are a challenge that Liang has acknowledged.
“Our problem has never been funding,” he told Waves in July. “It’s the embargo on high-end chips.”
(Additional reporting by Samuel Shen, Gu Li, Larissa Liao, Aditya Soni and Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Brenda Goh and Katerina Ang)
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Indians throng last day of Maha Kumbh festival that drew 663 million – Reuters India
Indians throng last day of Maha Kumbh festival that drew 663 million – Reuters India
Indians throng last day of Maha Kumbh festival that drew 663 million Reuters IndiaMaha Kumbh Mela, World’s Largest Religious Gathering, Comes to a Close The New York TimesMaha Kumbh was like a nation breathing with a new consciousness: PM Modi The Indian ExpressMaha Kumbh 2025 ends today: Maha Shivratri rush at Sangam for final ‘snan’; police on alert in Prayagraj | 10 points Hindustan TimesMaha Kumbh draws to a close: over 1.4 crore people take holy dip on Sivaratri The Hindu
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One of Hollywood’s greatest ‘tough guys’
One of Hollywood’s greatest ‘tough guys’
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Gene Hackman, who has died aged 95, was once described as having the face of a truck driver, but became one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.
He won two Oscars – and was nominated for another three – playing violent men, yet was equally at home in comedy.
Having shot to fame in Bonnie and Clyde at the end of the 1960s, he was rarely out of work – in films like The French Connection, Mississippi Burning and Superman.
He retired from acting in 2004 on the advice of his heart doctor, and rarely gave an interview again – opting for a quiet life in New Mexico with his second wife, Betsy.
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Gene Hackman said early on he had “trouble with authority”
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, in 1930 and led a peripatetic childhood.
His parents divorced, and he was palmed off on various relatives until settling with his maternal grandmother in Danville, Illinois.
His father left the family when Hackman was still in his teens; his mother eventually burned to death in 1962, after setting fire to her mattress with a ********** while drunk.
Hackman lied about his age to join the Marines at the age of 16, and served nearly five years.
He was stationed in China where he worked as a radio operator, which led to later work as a disc jockey.
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He gained his first Oscar nomination alongside Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde
“I have trouble with direction,” he once said of his short military career, “because I have trouble with authority. I was not a good Marine.”
When Hackman enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California in the 1960s, he and classmate Dustin Hoffman were voted the “least likely to succeed”.
Undeterred by this vote of no confidence, both actors decamped to New York where they shared a flat with another aspiring thespian, Robert Duvall.
Hackman managed to pick up a few minor stage roles, supplementing his income by taking on a variety of odd jobs.
He would often relate the story of how he was spotted by a former drill sergeant outside a New York hotel while he was working as a doorman.
Recognising his former charge, the sergeant exclaimed that he knew Hackman would never amount to anything.
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He won his first Oscar as a tough drugs cop -“Popeye” Doyle – in The French Connection in 1971
There was also a stint as an overnight cleaner in New York’s Chrysler Building, something Hackman later described as the worst job he ever had.
There were parts in light comedies both off and on Broadway, which led first to minor television roles and then to some film work.
His first movie role was in Lilith starring Warren Beatty.
Impressed by his performance, Beatty cast Hackman as his brother, Buck Barrow, in Bonnie and Clyde in 1967.
Hackman received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor and was nominated again for I Never Sang for My Father in 1970.
But then came The French Connection.
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The French Connection established Gene Hackman as one of the great screen tough guys
It was the part that made him.
He played the part of the maverick narcotics agent Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle who pursues a French drugs dealer, most notably in a famous sequence on the New York subway.
It brought him an Academy Award for best actor, and he reprised the role in The French Connection II in 1975.
Gene Hackman never looked back.
Whether it was for critically-acclaimed movies such as The Conversation and Night Moves, or popular blockbusters like The Poseidon Adventure, he became a reliable box-office draw.
One of the great screen tough guys, he effortlessly switched to comedy in Young Frankenstein and played the sleazy supervillain Lex Luthor in Superman and Superman II.
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Playing the evil villain Lex Luthor alongside Christopher Reeve in Superman IV
Hackman was so upset about the producers’ treatment of the director, Richard Donner, that he refused to take a part in the next sequel, although he later appeared in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
The 1980s was another successful decade, notably for his appearance in Mississippi Burning, for which he was again nominated for a best actor Academy Award.
It was a powerful performance as an FBI agent, tasked, along with a rookie colleague, with investigating the racist ******* of ****** civil rights workers in the early 1960s.
Director Alan Parker referred to Hackman as ” a very intuitive and instinctive actor”.
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Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood holding their Oscars for Unforgiven
Another Oscar for best supporting actor came in 1991 for Unforgiven – a Clint Eastwood Western – in which he played a sadistic sheriff, Bill Daggett.
The film also won best picture. It came only a year after Hackman required bypass surgery following a heart attack.
There was a leading role as Edward “Brill” Lyle, the computer genius in the 1998 film, Enemy of the State, where he starred alongside Will Smith in a frightening tale of government surveillance.
Hackman’s hard-edged screen persona made him ideal for the intelligent but ruthless characters in film adaptations of John Grisham novels – such as The Firm and Runaway Jury – in which, for the first time, he and former flatmate Dustin Hoffman appeared on screen together.
His versatility, and the luxury of being able able to choose scripts, led in 2001 to another great performance, in the offbeat comedy The Royal Tenenbaums, which drew rave reviews.
But he chose to bow out from acting in the political satire, Welcome to Mooseport in 2004.
Explaining his decision, he told Reuters he didn’t want to risk going out on a sour note.
“The business for me is very stressful. The compromises that you have to make in films are just part of the beast,” he said, “and it had gotten to a point where I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do it any more.”
A decade later, he did briefly come out of retirement to narrate two documentaries about the history of the US Marine Corps – but otherwise stuck to his plan.
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After retiring from the cinema, Gene Hackman gained a new reputation as an author
After quitting acting, he gained a new reputation as a writer of historical fiction.
He co-wrote four books with Daniel Lenihan, Wake of the Perdido Star (1999), Justice for None (2004), Vermillion (2004) and Escape from Andersonville (2008).
He went on to deliver two solo writing efforts, Payback at Morning Peak (2011) and Pursuit (2013).
He spoke about why he had taken to his new job.
“I like the loneliness of [writing], actually. It’s similar in some ways to acting, but it’s more private and I feel like I have more control over what I’m trying to say and do,” he told Reuters.
“There’s always a compromise in acting and in film, you work with so many people and everyone has an opinion (laughs).
“But with the books, it’s just Dan and I and our opinions. I don’t know that I like it better than acting, it’s just different. I find it relaxing and comforting.”
Hackman married Faye Maltese in 1956. The couple had three children but divorced in 1986.
Five years later he married Betsy Arakawa, who ran an upmarket furniture store in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Gene Hackman made more than 80 films, and still managed to become both a proficient golfer and respected painter.
He was also a mean performer on the racetrack, driving Formula Ford cars and taking part in the 1983 Daytona Endurance Race.
Throughout his career, he gave few interviews and eschewed the celebrity lifestyle.
“If you look at yourself as a star,” he said, “you’ve already lost something in the portrayal of any human being.”
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Mineral Resources chief Chris Ellison makes up to $22.4m from ***** of properties leased to the mining giant
Mineral Resources chief Chris Ellison makes up to $22.4m from ***** of properties leased to the mining giant
REVEALED: The Mineral Resources boss is set to bank more than $22 million following the recent ***** of three industrial properties that are either currently or formerly tenanted by the company.
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Shocking audio reveals moments before Southwest Plane nearly collides with jet at Midway
Shocking audio reveals moments before Southwest Plane nearly collides with jet at Midway
The Brief
A Southwest Airlines plane narrowly missed colliding with a jet at Chicago’s Midway Airport on Tuesday morning.
The Southwest plane had to perform a “go-around” to avoid a ******. It landed and quickly took off again.
A spokesperson for the FAA said the jet entered the runway without authorization.
CHICAGO – A Southwest Airlines plane narrowly avoided colliding with another plane on Tuesday morning at Chicago’s Midway International Airport.
‘Go-around’ avoids collision
What we know
The Southwest plane, flight 2504, landed safely after having to perform a “precautionary go-around to avoid a possible conflict with another aircraft that entered the runway,” according to a Southwest Airlines spokesperson.
The flight landed without incident.
“Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees,” the spokesperson added.
A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the incident happened around 8:50 a.m.
The other aircraft, a Flexjet business jet, entered the runway without authorization, the FAA said.
No injures were reported.
Video of the incident posted on X by the account Flight Emergency appeared to show the Southwest plane about to land and quickly take off again as the other aircraft crossed the runway.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on its X account that it was investigating the near miss at Midway.
Flexjet released the following statement:
“We are aware of the occurrence today in Chicago. Flexjet adheres to the highest safety standards and we are conducting a thorough investigation. Any action to rectify and ensure the highest safety standards will be taken.”
Congressman ‘Chuy’ Garcia also spoke out about the incident, saying in a post on X that “This is why cuts to FAA are dangerous.”
Recent air travel incidents
Big picture view
Tuesday’s near-miss at Midway comes amid heightened anxiety over air travel safety with deadly plane crashes in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia in recent weeks.
Such near misses are also a relatively common occurrence at Midway and O’Hare airports, according to data collected by NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System.
Each year, about one near collision takes place at Midway and a little more than one, on average, happen at O’Hare.
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Potential top pick Carter may need foot surgery – ESPN
Potential top pick Carter may need foot surgery – ESPN
Potential top pick Carter may need foot surgery ESPNCarter makes case for going No. 1: ‘I’m the best’ ESPNAbdul Carter might need foot surgery NBC SportsNFL combine 2025: Dates, times, drills, and how to watch The Journal NewsNFL Draft Rumors: Top Patriots Target Faces Ill-Timed Injury NESN
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Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa found dead at their home
Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa found dead at their home
In a six-decade career, he received two Oscars, two Baftas and four Golden Globe Awards.
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Methylphenidate shortage: Major ADHD drugs, Concerta, Teva to last until 2026
Methylphenidate shortage: Major ADHD drugs, Concerta, Teva to last until 2026
Two of three brands of medication used to treat ADHD will not be available to Australians until 2026 due to major shortages.
Methylphenidate hydrochloride, best known by brand name Ritalin, is used to kick the central nervous system into gear by boosting dopamine and noradrenaline levels in the brain.
The stimulant drug is a common treatment option for people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
In Australia, there are three approved brands for the long-acting drug: Concerta, Methylphenidate-Teva XR and Ritalin LA.
Concerta manufacturer Janssen-Cilag, part of pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson, began anticipating shortages as early as October last year, citing manufacturing issues.
It came just weeks after the shortage of another long-acting drug, commonly known by brand name Vyvanse, had been resolved.
Last week, Janssen-Cilag advised the Therapeutic Goods Administration the shortage would last all year and affect all strengths — 18mg, 27mg, 36mg and 54mg.
Details of manufacturing issues and whether they’re related to Janssen-Cilag’s Belgium-based plant remain unclear, but the shortage is affecting multiple countries.
It led to Teva Pharma Australia reporting its own shortage because of an “unexpected increase in demand due to other sponsors unable to supply”, also affecting all four strengths and set to last all year.
The TGA has since approved the supply of the Swiss-registered version of Concerta in a bid to reduce the impact on patients.
A TGA spokesman said the regulator was closely monitoring the shortages, as well as supply of other medicines used to treat ADHD.
“Pharmaceutical companies do their best to maintain medicine supply through demand forecasting, stock control and backup supply routes. However, sometimes medicine shortages cannot be prevented,” he said.
An estimated one million Australians live with ADHD — about one in 20 — but only a select number of drugs are approved for treatment.
Diagnostic improvements over time have led to increased awareness and diagnosis of the neurodevelopmental condition.
The number of prescriptions for ADHD medication more than doubled in the five years between 2018 and 2022, from about 1.4m to roughly 3.2m, according to a Department of Health and Aged Care briefing note.
“Certainly, the demand for ADHD medications worldwide continues to increase steadily and so it may be as simple as the manufacturers not keeping pace with that steady increase — they do not have to of course — how much they produce is up to their commercial decision-making,” said Dr Roger Paterson, chair of ADHD WA’s professional advisory body.
“But it seems heartless to think that they know that they need to increase manufacturing to keep pace with demand, but choose not to do so.”
Timely access to medication was one of several barriers to care acknowledged in a recent Senate inquiry report on ADHD in Australia.
*********** Medical Association president Danielle McMullen said disruption to supply can be “frustrating and stressful” for people managing the condition.
“There are many factors that contribute to shortages. We’ve spoken to the TGA about these shortages and we will continue to work together to minimise impacts on patients regardless of any potential changes to ADHD diagnosis,” Dr McMullen said.
The TGA said while it cannot compel a business to register or manufacture medicine in Australia, it is “actively investigating and developing reforms to better anticipate, manage and communicate medicine shortages and discontinuations”.
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Texas lottery drawings that paid out big jackpots are the focus of widening investigatons
Texas lottery drawings that paid out big jackpots are the focus of widening investigatons
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two major lottery drawings in Texas that put nearly $180 million in the pockets of winning ticket holders have set off widening state investigations over concern that ticket sellers and buyers may have exploited the rules.
The Texas Lottery, one of the largest in the U.S., is facing mounting scrutiny from state leaders over how the winners of an $83 million jackpot this month and a $95 million prize in 2023 purchased their odds-defying tickets. Both are among the largest jackpots in the history of the Texas lottery.
At the heart of the issue, Texas officials say, is whether the games are on a level playing field.
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On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his own investigation on top of one announced earlier this week by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Part of the issue lies with couriers, the companies that purchase lottery tickets for customers remotely. One was used by this month’s winner.
“Texas citizens deserve far better than bad actors getting rich off of a lottery system that is open to exploitation, and we will hold anyone who engages in ******** activity accountable,” Paxton said in a statement.
Here’s what else to know about Texas’ mega lottery winnings:
What are courier services?
Couriers are companies that buy and send lottery tickets on behalf of customers online. The practice bypasses state law that requires tickets to be purchased in person. Couriers, which operate in 19 states according to a 2024 report from the Florida Office of Program Analysis and Government Accountability, do not have any regulatory oversight or licensing requirements in Texas.
Some lawmakers have expressed concern about children and people outside the state purchasing tickets.
The head of the Texas Lottery Commission said this month that the agency will ban couriers, walking back years of resistance to pushing them out of the market.
“Lottery courier services operating in Texas have been a significant concern for many of our stakeholders,” executive director Ryan Mindell said in a statement. “Previously, the agency interpreted its authority as not extending to the regulation or prohibition of these services.” The agency has since reconsidered after reviewing state laws, Mindell said.
Who won the nearly $180 million?
Neither winner of the big drawings has come forward publicly and they are under no obligation to do so under Texas law.
The $83 million ticket was purchased by a customer at a courier store called Winners Corner in Austin on Feb 17. The chain has locations in six states.
The $95 million drawing from 2023 was won after the winners purchased nearly every possible number combination, according to Abbott’s office. An investigation by the Houston Chronicle found the ticket was purchased at a retailer that added a dozen lottery terminals to print tickets the day before the drawing.
Experts told the newspaper that QR codes can be read by the machines to process large volumes of tickets in a short time. Normally, the QR images generate directly from the Texas Lottery Commission’s mobile app.
One of the state’s five lottery commissioners has since resigned amid the criticism and the commission said it will no longer allow tickets to be purchased through couriers.
“We do not engage in bulk ticket purchasing, we are not part of some organized crime syndicate,” Paul Prezioso, an executive at courier site Jackpot.com told lawmakers Monday. “We believe that a regulated courier industry is a net positive for the state of Texas.”
Can you still purchase lottery tickets in Texas?
The Texas Lottery is still in full swing and residents will be allowed to use courier services until the state’s Lottery Commission changes the rules, which is expected to happen in April.
The commission’s plan to ban couriers comes after years of insisting that the body had no authority over the companies. It also follows criticism from Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a former television sportscaster in Houston who earlier this month walked into a Winners Corner store with a camera rolling and began asking questions.
Gambling in Texas
Texas gambling has had a complicated history in recent years. Efforts to expand gambling in the nation’s second-most populous state have failed despite expensive lobbying blitzes to bring casinos to the state and legalize sports gambling.
Supporters have sought to put a constitutional amendment to voters, but the proposals have not gotten far in the Legislature.
The state lottery has brought in more than $40 billion in revenue and awarded more than $90 billion in winnings since its establishment in 1992, according to the commission’s website.
___
Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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Rolls-Royce jump 15% on profit beat, upbeat outlook
Rolls-Royce jump 15% on profit beat, upbeat outlook
A model of an UltraFan on the Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc stand on day two of the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, ***, on Tuesday, July 23, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
British aerospace group Rolls-Royce on Thursday posted stronger-than-expected full-year earnings after undertaking a “significant” transformation and declaring a £1 billion ($1.27 billion) share buyback.
Rolls-Royce, which manufactures jet engines for commercial aircraft along with power systems for ships and submarines, upgraded its mid-term guidance after it beat analyst expectations for 2024 by posting a 57% increase in annual profit.
The company also reinstated shareholder dividends and embarked on a £1 billion share repurchase program.
Shares of Rolls-Royce surged on the news, up by as much as 16% shortly after the opening bell to a 52-week high.
“We are two years into a multi-year transformation journey [and] we’ve made significant progress,” Helen McCabe, CFO of Rolls-Royce, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
“It’s a culmination of us following through on our promises,” McCabe said, citing the engine-maker’s expanding earnings potential and improving balance sheet.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
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Blazers' Shaedon Sharpe makes case for NBA's best dunk this season – NBA.Com
Blazers' Shaedon Sharpe makes case for NBA's best dunk this season – NBA.Com
Blazers’ Shaedon Sharpe makes case for NBA’s best dunk this season NBA.ComSharpe wows with one-handed slam: ‘Incredible’ ESPNPortland’s Shaedon Sharpe enters Dunk of the Year territory with wild one-handed slam over Justin Champagnie Yahoo SportsShaedon Sharpe delivers dunk of the year candidate NBA.ComSharpe Helps Blazers Survive Ugly Game in Washington Blazer’s Edge
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#Blazers039 #Shaedon #Sharpe #case #NBA039s #dunk #season #NBA.Com
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Solihull school investigation for allegations of teacher bullying
Solihull school investigation for allegations of teacher bullying
George Scotland & Josh Sandiford
BBC News, West Midlands
BBC
Amy said her son Cooper had been out of education since October 2024
An academy trust is launching an independent investigation at a Solihull school for children with additional needs after the BBC contacted them about allegations of “bullying by teachers”.
The Heights Academy, in Smith’s Wood, opened in September 2023, promising a “unique educational approach” tailored to pupils who are autistic or have mental health needs.
But some parents have expressed concern about the school’s culture, with one accusing bosses of “mis-selling them a dream”.
The Forward Education Trust, which runs the school, said it was aware of concerns raised about the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision and would commission a “thorough and transparent” investigation.
One mother, Amy, told the BBC she had taken her son Cooper, who is autistic and has dyspraxia and anxiety, out of the school after just one year.
She alleged the 12-year-old had been “relentlessly targeted” by a teacher over a number of months, claiming the case “wasn’t investigated” by trust bosses.
When asked if accusations of bullying by teachers would be included in the investigation, the Trust said it would be “inappropriate” to comment further.
The Heights Academy in Smith’s Wood promises a “unique educational approach”
Amy, a full-time carer with a degree in education, said her son has now been out of education since October 2024.
“We went to open evenings and did our due diligence,” Amy said.
“I would like them to understand the damage they have done to my child.
“School is a place where children should feel safe, thrive and create memories, not come home petrified about going the next day.”
Amy alleged her 12-year-old had been ‘relentlessly targeted’ by a teacher
The BBC understands that a WhatsApp group with more than a dozen concerned parents has been set up.
Labour councillor Hazel Dawkins said she had personally spoken to the parents of seven different children.
Concerns raised to her include claims of staff members displaying “bullying” behaviour, children being placed in isolation for becoming emotional, and at least one case of a pupil escaping.
“Some of the parents have mentioned that teachers just don’t know how to handle [a child] having a meltdown,” Dawkins said.
“A room should be available for them to go into, calm down and go back into the lesson.
Labour councillor Hazel Dawkins said she had personally spoken to the parents of seven different children
Simon Dilkes, chief executive officer of the Forward Education Trust, insisted bosses were committed to the safety and wellbeing of pupils.
He said the former CEO of a special school trust would be appointed to look into the complaints, with an investigation due to commence on Monday 3 March.
“As part of our commitment to transparency and accountability, we will be launching an independent investigation to fully assess these concerns,” Mr Dilkes said.
“Once we have agreed some details, a more complete timeline can be advised to interested parties.”
The former CEO of a special school trust is set to be appointed to look into the complaints
Solihull Council said: “We are aware of concerns raised by some parents of children attending The Heights Academy.
“It is the responsibility of the multi-academy trust to investigate these concerns and we have sought assurance from the Trust that this is in train and will work closely with them where appropriate.”
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Legendary actor Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa found dead in New Mexico home
Legendary actor Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa found dead in New Mexico home
Hollywood actor Gene Hackman has been found dead alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa and **** dog.
Their bodies were discovered in the 95-year-old’s New Mexico home.
Police confirmed there are no signs of foul play.
“All I can say is that we’re in the middle of a preliminary death investigation, waiting on approval of a search warrant,” Santa Fe County sheriff Adan Mendoza said.
A cause of death is yet to be confirmed.
More to come.
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#Legendary #actor #Gene #Hackman #wife #Betsy #Arakawa #dead #Mexico #home
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Purdue student killed in plane ****** had THC in his blood
Purdue student killed in plane ****** had THC in his blood
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue student Alex Foss died in an April 11 plane ****** with THC in his blood, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report released last week.
The report indicated that 20-year-old Foss had two types of THC in his system, noting that the substance is the drug found in **********, according to the report, which did not indicate the levels of THC found in Foss’s blood.
He also had caffeine and a byproduct of tobacco in his system.
Tippecanoe County Coroner Carrie Costello said their initial toxicology reports did not indicate THC in Foss’s blood. However, the state’s tests are not as comprehensive as the National Transportation Safety Board’s, and Costello has resubmitted his samples for retesting.
Foss’s death was ruled a suicide.
The evening of April 11, Foss wrote two suicide notes and went to the Purdue Airport. He checked out a Purdue Aviation Piper plane and climbed into the night sky at 7:40 p.m., according to the safety board’s report. Purdue Aviation is a private company that operates at Purdue University’s airport.
He made four traffic pattern landings at the Purdue Airport, then climbed into the darkness to about 4,000 feet heading northwest, according to the report.
About 10 miles from the airport, Foss made numerous turns, according to data collected from the wreckage. The data stops at 8:21 p.m. April 11 — presumably the time of the ******, according to the report.
His plane crashed into a farm field between West Lafayette and Otterbein.
Foss died in the ******.
The plane wreckage and Foss were not found until the afternoon of April 12. Investigators did not find any mechanical malfunctions in the plane.
Reach Ron Wilkins at *****@*****.tld. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: 20-year-old Purdue pilot killed in suicidal plane ****** had THC in blood
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Apple’s Find My Network Flaw Enables Silent AirTag-Like Tracking of Any Bluetooth Device
Apple’s Find My Network Flaw Enables Silent AirTag-Like Tracking of Any Bluetooth Device
Apple’s Find My network can be used by hackers to track any device with Bluetooth connectivity by turning them into homing beacons like the company’s AirTag, according to researchers. A malicious user could trick Apple’s Find My network into tracking a smartphone, laptop, or any internet of things (IoT) device using its Bluetooth address, by tricking the network into thinking it is an AirTag. The exploit can be used to pinpoint the location of a device, or track it as it moves across a specific area.
Tricking the Find My Network Into Tracking Ordinary Bluetooth Devices
According to George Mason University researcher Junming Chen, the Apple’s Find My network contains a Bluetooth vulnerability that would allow a hacker to silently track a device by using its Bluetooth address. Dubbed ‘nRootTag’, this attack tricks the Find My network into thinking that a device is a lost AirTag.
A team of four researchers led by Chen discovered that the nRootTag attack could be used to identify the location of a Bluetooth connected device with an accuracy of 10 feet (3.05 metres). It could also be used to locate a larger object, such as an e-bike, and track it as it moved around a city. The team also highlighted that the flaw could also be misused to identify the location of smart locks that have been hacked, enabling attackers to easily find them.
While Apple protects user privacy on an AirTag by changing its Bluetooth address using a cryptographic key, this process requires elevated privileges. In order to circumvent this, the researchers used hundreds of GPUs to identify a key that is compatible with the Bluetooth address of a device, and making it adapt to the address.
The use of several rented GPUs offers an affordable method to quickly identify the location of a device “within minutes”. nRootTag has a 90 percent success rate, according to the researchers, who say that advertising companies could avoid the use of GPS and track or profile users with this technique.
While Apple’s network was designed to track the company’s own devices, the researchers were able to use nRootTag to track mobile devices, laptops, IoT devices, smart TVs, and even virtual reality (VR) headsets. They will present these findings at the USENIX Security Symposium in August.
The researchers contacted Apple about the security flaw in July 2024, and the company acknowledged their contribution in the release notes for iOS 18.2, which was released in December (see the Proximity section).
However, a proper fix for the issue — whenever it is released by Apple — would likely require an update to the Find My network, and might be delayed by users who defer the installation of software updates on their devices. The researchers state that the vulnerability in the Find My network could exist for years, until these outdated devices slowly “die out”.
Users can take some precautions to keep their devices safe from tracking, such as being judicious while granting apps access to the Bluetooth permission or making sure that their devices are up-to-date. The researchers also recommend the use of privacy focused operating systems that could potentially protect user privacy.
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Taylor Lautner Defends Selena Gomez Amid Body-Shaming Comments: “A Cruel World Full of Hate” – Hollywood Reporter
Taylor Lautner Defends Selena Gomez Amid Body-Shaming Comments: “A Cruel World Full of Hate” – Hollywood Reporter
Taylor Lautner Defends Selena Gomez Amid Body-Shaming Comments: “A Cruel World Full of Hate” Hollywood ReporterTaylor Lautner Defends Selena Gomez amid ‘Cruel’ Body-Shaming Comments: ‘Be a Little Bit Nicer’ PEOPLEWhoopi Goldberg Issues Direct Response During Discussion About Celebrity Bodies Yahoo EntertainmentWhoopi Goldberg defends Selena Gomez’s body on ‘The View’: ‘None of your business’ USA TODAYTaylor Lautner comes to Selena Gomez’s defence following online abuse The Independent
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#Taylor #Lautner #Defends #Selena #Gomez #BodyShaming #Comments #Cruel #World #Full #Hate #Hollywood #Reporter
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Samsung to Launch Three New Galaxy A-Series Smartphones in India on March 2nd
Samsung to Launch Three New Galaxy A-Series Smartphones in India on March 2nd
Samsung has confirmed that it will introduce three new Galaxy A-series smartphones in India in the coming days. The monikers of the upcoming handsets have not yet been confirmed either, but they are expected to include the purported Samsung Galaxy A56 and Galaxy A36. The rumoured Samsung Galaxy A26 model may also be included. Details about the anticipated smartphones, such as key expected features, have surfaced online previously.
New Samsung Galaxy A-Series Smartphones in India
Samsung will launch three new Galaxy A-series smartphones in India next week, the company confirmed in a press release. The launch will take place in the first week of March. A notification on the official landing page for the upcoming launch reads, “Join us to unveil the new Galaxy A on 2nd March 2025.”
The press release reveals that the upcoming phones are set to succeed the Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35, which were launched in India in April 2024. They are expected to be the Samsung Galaxy A56 and Galaxy A36, respectively. However, the company has not hinted at what the third model could be.
Alongside details of the Samsung Galaxy A56 and Galaxy A36, leaks about the Samsung Galaxy A26 also surfaced online. This Samsung Galaxy A25 successor could be the third Galaxy A-series model. The purported handset is expected to carry an Exynos 2400e SoC. It is said to support 8GB of RAM, 256GB of onboard storage, and will likely ship with Android 15-based One UI 7. It is tipped to sport a 6.64-inch 120Hz full-HD display while measuring 164×77.5×7.7mm in size and weighing 209g.
Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy A56 will likely carry an Exynos 1580 SoC, while the Galaxy A36 may get a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 SoC or a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset. They are also expected to run on One UI 7 out-of-the-box. An earlier teaser suggested that the phones may receive six years of OS updates. They are expected to come with 45W wired fast charging support and 50-megapixel triple rear camera units.
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#Samsung #Launch #Galaxy #ASeries #Smartphones #India #March #2nd
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