Blackfire

China's economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of the year, as the country emerged from its tough Covid restrictions. Compared to the same period last year, gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.5%, official figures show. The key measure of economic activity was driven up by a boost in household spending and rising factory activity. Beijing pledged to boost the world's second largest economy when it lifted coronavirus measures in December. Also on Tuesday, separate data for March showed that retail sales, the main indicator of household consumption, jumped by 10.6%, compared to a year earlier. At the same time, output from the country's factories rose by 3.9%, although that slightly missed forecasts. Meanwhile, there was also evidence of a strong rebound for the country's airline industry. China Civil Aviation Administration data showed that more than 45 million air passenger trips were taken last month, an almost threefold increase on the same time last year. The country resumed processing visa applications in March after announcing a major easing of restrictions. Investors had been eagerly waiting for the figures to get clues on the strength of China's recovery after the government lifted coronavirus measures. Beijing has also eased a three-year-long crackdown on big technology companies and property developers. However, one analyst told the BBC that, while the latest figures are strong, that pace of growth is unlikely to continue. "What's more likely to happen in the coming months is that people might get over the initial high after the reopening," Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank (China) said. "Manufacturing demand might decline, which cannot sustain a boom in exports because the global economy is slowing down rather than speeding up," she added. Authorities, including the People's Bank of China, have promised to increase support for the pledged to step up support for China's economy to help curb unemployment but are limited in what measures they can take. Last year, China's GDP growth slumped to one of the lowest levels in nearly half a century due to coronavirus measures. GDP is one of the most important tools for looking at how well, or badly, an economy is doing. It helps businesses judge when to expand and hire more people, and lets governments work out how much to tax and spend.

The birthday girl at an Alabama party where four people were shot dead was saved by her brother, she has told the BBC. He later died in her arms. Alexis Dowdell was celebrating her 16th birthday at a dance studio in rural Dadeville when her 18-year-old brother Phil Dowdell came to get her after hearing that someone at the party had a gun. Her mother, LaTonya Allen, had also heard the rumours. She said that she turned on the lights, went to the DJ booth, and asked whoever had a firearm to leave the party. But when no-one spoke up, she turned the lights back off. The gunfire erupted shortly after. "All of a sudden you hear gunshots and you just see everybody running towards the door and people falling and screaming," Alexis told the BBC. Her brother Phil pushed her to the ground, she said, before the two became separated in the chaos. She was able to escape the venue and took cover outside before someone came to help her up. Alexis said she hid behind another building in case the attacker was still on the loose. When she eventually went back inside, she discovered that her brother had been shot. He had lost a lot of blood. She stayed with him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was unable to talk, though he opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows as she cradled him in her arms. "The last thing I told him was to stay strong," she said. She added that her birthday would never be the same. Thirty-two others were injured in Saturday night's attack at the party in Dadeville, a small, close-knit town of roughly 3,000. Police have yet to name a suspect or a motive and have urged the public to come forward with information. Alexis and her mother said they did not know what had led to the shooting. The city's local pastor told the BBC the gunman was still at large. Jimmy Frank Goodman Sr, the mayor of Dadeville, told the BBC that the scene at the hospital after the shooting was chaotic, even worse than what he had witnessed during his time serving in the Vietnam War. "There were people crying, bodies going into the emergency room and bloody clothes on the ground," he said. The oldest of three siblings, Phil Dowdell was remembered by members of his community as a star athlete and a loyal friend. He had been due to go to Jacksonville State University on a sports scholarship. Alexis said she had enjoyed watching her brother play football and sharing laughs with him. He always used to open the door for others and come into her room to apologise whenever the two of them had fought, she said. Ms Allen said her son made her proud "in every way". "A piece of my heart is ripped out," she said. "He was supposed to graduate next month. Instead of me going to graduation I'll be going to the cemetery to see my son." Shaunkivia Smith, 17, Marsiah Collins, 19, and Corbin Holston, 23, were also killed. Relatives and friends of Ms Smith said she had been about to graduate from high school. Mr Collins was a varsity football player who hoped to become a lawyer. Mr Holston came to the party to check on a family member once he heard trouble was brewing, his family said. The flags outside Dadeville High School have been lowered to half-mast. A vigil was held on Sunday for all four victims. Hundreds of people, including some who were injured in the shooting, attended. Casey Davis, a deputy superintendent at the local board of education, said clergy and grief counsellors would be available to the community. The US has seen more than 160 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines such events as ones in which four or more people are shot. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65275839]

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Name of the game: The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt Price: 11.99$ Link Store:Here Offer ends up after X hours:Offer ends 23 April Requirements: MINIMUM: OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) Processor: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD A10-5800K APU (3.8GHz) Memory: 6 GB RAM Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 / AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 50 GB available space RECOMMENDED: OS: 64-bit Windows 10/11 Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 / Ryzen 5 1600 Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1070 / Radeon RX 480 DirectX: Version 12 Storage: 50 GB available space

Wndows 11 has witnessed the debut of a much-anticipated feature for File Explorer, namely an integrated photo gallery. Build 23435 for the Dev channel introduces this new piece of functionality, which represents a large piece in a bigger puzzle Microsoft is busy solving – that of how to make File Explorer better with a full revamp. File Explorer is the very folders you open on the desktop, no doubt on a daily basis, so it’s very much a core part of the Windows 11 interface. And in this case, the addition of a Gallery gives you an easy way to browse through your photos, right there when using File Explorer. As Microsoft points out in the blog post(opens in new tab) for build 23435, the Gallery takes the same form as the ‘All Photos’ view in the Photos app. It’s possible to decide which images get included in the new Gallery via a dropdown menu that lets you add folders. Also, Gallery will show up in the ‘file picker dialog’, which is the panel that pops up to choose a file, for example, when you’re attaching something to an email (so if that something is a pic, you can browse via the Gallery). Analysis: gauging the reaction to Gallery This is a major addition to File Explorer, but not one that’s a surprise. Mainly because we’ve seen the File Explorer photo gallery already, thanks to intrepid Windows 11 testers who’ve dug under the hood of the OS. In short, Gallery has been present in preview builds for some time, and has previously been enabled using configuration tools, so we’ve already had a couple of decent peeks at the new Windows 11 feature. Still, it’s great to see Gallery up and rocking in its full form, finally, and to discover more about the nuances of how it works. Albeit there’s a caveat here – not all Windows 11 testers will see this right now, as Microsoft is taking it slowly with the Gallery rollout. The software giant notes that it will monitor feedback on the feature to “see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone”, and that currently, we’re at the start of the rollout. So, reading between the lines, you might have to get rather lucky to see the photo gallery in File Explorer with build 23435, but we’d imagine it’ll be coming to a good deal more testers pretty soon. Speaking of expected timelines, when might Microsoft’s big overhaul of File Explorer, complete with Gallery, actually arrive in the release version of Windows 11? That’s still a good way off, and we’re likely looking at the big annual update for Windows 11 later in 2023 (known as 23H2). [https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-has-big-changes-in-the-works-for-windows-11-and-one-just-arrived]

Nvidia has rolled out its $600 killer, the GeForce RTX 4070(opens in new tab). And wouldn't you know it, prices of AMD's last-gen Radeon RX 6950 XT(opens in new tab) have tumbled to just over $600. Which immediately begs the question, which is the best graphics card for your roughly 600 bucks? We'll skip over the question of where the hell the rest of AMD's RX 7000-series graphics cards are, because right now its strategy seems to be relying on its last-gen options to take the fight to Nvidia outside of the $999 RX 7900 XTX(opens in new tab). This then is a classic contest between a last-gen GPU with traditional enthusiast specs including a big memory bus and loads of VRAM versus the young upstart with more advanced technology and features but hailing from lower down the model line. Just enough. That's Nvidia's MO when it comes to graphics memory. And, I'm sorry, but 'just enough' isn't actually good enough for $600. Especially when just enough applies today and can't be relied on tomorrow. AMD's Radeon RX 6950 XT, you see, is a proper enthusiast-spec card. You get a 256-bit memory bus and 16GB of VRAM and that means plenty of bandwidth and indeed sufficient VRAM for the latest games. You could argue that the increased cache of newer GPUs like the RTX 4070 makes memory bandwidth less critical. I'm sure Dave will. And it's true. But the problem with the RTX 4070's stingy 192-bit bus isn't bandwidth, it's the limitations it makes for graphics memory allocation. Long story short and without getting into the technicalities, a 192-bit bus means Nvidia had to go for 12GB of VRAM. 16GB isn't an option with a 192-bit bus. And for better or worse, 12GB is marginal when it comes to the most demanding current games. That is only going to get worse. Sure, if you're only planning to keep your new card for a year, 12GB versus 16GB may not prove much of an issue. But I'd say within around 18 months to two years 12GB is going to be a real barrier. Already, numerous games can exceed 12GB depending on the settings used, including The Last of Us, Resident Evil 4, Forspoken and a fair few others. That roster will only increase. The real irony is that turning on ray tracing, which the RTX 4070 is inherently better at, only makes matters worse. It tends to bump up VRAM usage significantly, only making it more likely that the RTX 4070 runs into problems as more and more games use ray tracing in future. Of course, I haven't even mentioned the fact that the 6950 XT is around 15% faster than the RTX 4070 at pure raster rendering even when running out of VRAM isn't an issue. All of which isn't to say that I don't value the RTX 4070's feature set. In my view, DLSS scaling is definitely that little bit sharper and more effective than AMD's FSR. And frame generation in DLSS 3 is a nice feature, even if it's absolutely not the same thing as adding more frames and will do nothing to help the RTX 4070 in those instances when it runs out of VRAM. But the point is that I do think the RTX 4070 has a better feature set. The problem is that it's been unnecessarily hobbled by Nvidia's stinginess. With 16GB of VRAM, I'd overlook the RTX 4070's raster performance deficit happily. But I ain't paying $600 for a card that's already flirting with obsolescence Part of it is going to be a bit of pride, but I don't think I could reasonably spend $600 on an RX 6950 XT over an RTX 4070. Even now I'm typing that, it doesn't seem right, considering the AMD Radeon card was a $1,100 GPU at launch. So, is it just an innate struggle on my behalf to drop such a significant amount of money on a last-gen piece of tech? I'm going to say, no. If you're looking at straight raster performance the AMD card has a fairly significant edge, especially for two cards that now cost the same amount of cash with the red team dropping its pants on pricing for its once flagship GPU. And a few years ago that would have absolutely been enough for me to say 'stuff the RTX 4070, imma get me some AMD goodness.' But we no longer live in a world where the old rules of graphics card performance apply. Native resolution and rasterised rendering aren't the only things to consider anymore. Since Nvidia dropped real-time ray tracing as a genuine ting in 2018 it's gained ever more traction in the intervening years. Sure, at the outset it was only in a handful of games, and such a performance hog that it felt more a proof of concept feature than anything people would actually use on a day-to-day basis. And Nvidia's own data bears this out(opens in new tab), with it reporting that only 37% of RTX 20-series gamers enabled the feature back in 2018. Less so the emergent upscaling magic of DLSS, where only 26% of gamers who could use it would. Both technologies have significantly improved, and so have the GPUs which run them, making ray tracing, this top end of the graphical feature stack actually playable on a wide range of Nvidia cards. And that name dropping of the green team there is deliberate, because however much more prevalent ray tracing has become in the gaming consciousness, and in actually released games, AMD is still not great at the ol' tracing of rays. Though it's improved in the RDNA 3 architecture, any game that uses even a smidge of ray tracing effects puts the RX 6950 XT behind the RTX 4070 in our benchmarks. Jeremy's argument that the difference between 16GB and 12GB of VRAM is going to make the real difference going forward is fine, but I'm yet to be convinced that is going to be a real battle outside of some very specific instances. Then there's upscaling, which lowers the demands on VRAM, and the extra L2 cache Nvidia's slapped onto its Ada GPUs means it has the bandwidth, too. While AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution is an impressive upscaler in its own right, the company is still playing catchup with DLSS and even more so now that Nvidia has dropped the RTX 40-series' not-so-secret weapon: Frame Generation. AMD's got its own frame interpolation feature(opens in new tab) reportedly incoming, but Nvidia's Frame Generation is here, and already gifting RTX 40-series gamers free frame rate upgrades with no visible fidelity hit and super smooth gaming even at 4K. It's not enabled in every game, and needs to be coded in by the devs, but it's being baked into game engines now and will certainly become more widely used. I don't want to find myself with an RX 6950 XT, proud of its old school raster performance, when I really want to be running some shiny new lighting effects at 4K in a new game. Granted, there aren't many new games these days, but I still think I'd find it hard taking a step back in GPU generational terms. Especially given the performance gap between the RTX 4070 and RX 6950 XT could well end up getting wider over time. [https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-rtx-4070-vs-amd-rx-6950-xt/]

The local elections on Thursday 4 May are big both in terms of size and significance. Thirty-two out of 34 councils in the North West are being contested, with 17 being all-out elections, with every seat up for grabs rather than only one third. This means control of several local authorities could change hands, altering the face of politics in our region. Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool Jon Tonge said: "Only a fool would make definite predictions about what's going to happen in these local elections. "There's a lot of uncertainty associated with them but these are probably the biggest set of local elections we've seen in the North West in terms of the size and number of council seats being contested." But they're also significant nationally. With a general election 18 months away, they'll be a real indication of how voters are feeling. Of the 32 councils being contested, Labour are defending 18 whole the Conservatives are battling to stay in control of the four they run in Lancashire. Ten are under no overall control - meaning there's either a minority administration or a coalition. Labour need to do well and will hope to take some of those 'under no overall control' local authorities like Bolton, Burnley, Hyndburn, West Lancashire, Wirral, Cheshire West and Chester, and South Ribble. If they can make gains here, it would help leader Sir Keir Starmer feel more confident about getting his hands on the keys to Number 10 next autumn. "Labour needs to take back overall control of about five councils," Prof Tonge says. "That really is the benchmark that they are making adequate progress, that they can be confident at the next general election." The Conservatives should be confident of holding on to Wyre, Fylde and Ribble Valley, but there could be a real battle for Pendle. The Tories are defending six of their 17 seats there and Labour party bosses have eyes on them. Should the Conservatives hold on in Pendle, it will give Rishi Sunak real confidence that his party still has a real chance at the general election. "If the Conservatives can hold Pendle, then Rishi Sunak will be cock-a-hoop," Prof Tonge explained, "because that's a sign that Labour cannot inflict damage upon the Conservatives." He thinks the Tories will also be watching their overall level of seats in councils which are having big all-out contests. "Like in Bolton, where you have a Conservative minority administration running the council, can the Tories stay in charge albeit under no overall control?" [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-65277014]

A man had to return early from his first holiday in years when his emu decided it also needed a break - and went off on its own adventure. Runaway Rodney, aged one, jumped a fence at his Suffolk home on Thursday after a pet-sitter had locked him in. Owner Jon Cardy drove home to Chedburgh and spent the day reporting his pet as missing and scanning social media. His "pet dinosaur", as he calls Rodney, was spotted about a mile away and he said he was "so relieved" he was back. Mr Cardy, a former consultant in anaesthesia and critical care medicine, and his wife, Laura, a former frontline NHS nurse, and now a nursing lecturer, took in Rodney when the emu was just two weeks old. He grew up in our kitchen and he is like one of the family," Mr Cardy said. The couple have a variety of animals including a two-legged cat, a pig, a tortoise, several ducks and geese, a "lot" of rabbits - and Rodney - Mr Cardy's "favourite". "Rodney is definitely a character," he said. The energetic emu has managed to jump the fence before but has usually been swiftly found. Mr Cardy reported Rodney's disappearance to the RSPCA and RSPB, scoured social media groups and even informed the police - "in case anyone called them to say they'd found an emu". "I didn't expect the police to go and look for him. "He's a big running bird and can cover a lot of ground quite quickly, so we didn't know where he might be," said Mr Cardy. "I think he might have been spooked by the storm overnight, and while he's very friendly, he's also very large and inquisitive - and he has a very large beak. "Rodney is fascinated by anything shiny like rings and earrings and I was worried that if someone saw him coming towards them at high speed they might be a bit freaked out." Eventually Mr Cardy spotted a video posted in a local group, asking if anyone was missing their peacock. "I thought, that's not a peacock - that's my little Rodney," he said. With the help of a friend he found the feathered fugitive and brought him home. Many of the couple's rescue pet menagerie are used as therapy animals. "Rodney is adorable but not too smart," he added. "But he loves to be cuddled, and when he lies down he's like a four foot-long feathered draught excluder. "In our jobs, my wife Laura and I were used to mending people's bodies - now we try to help mend broken minds with our animals," he said. "My own health is not that good, but Rodney? He is like my therapy." [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-65277452]

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Spotify will be shutting down its Wordle-like music guessing game Heardle on May 5 less than a year after its initial purchase. If you head over to the website(opens in new tab), you’ll be greeted with a message informing you of the impending shutdown and a reminder to take a screenshot of your stats by May for the sake of posterity. After that date, your data will be gone forever. Heardle was released in the aftermath of Wordle’s successful launch and proved to be pretty po[CENSORED]r in its own right with 69 million monthly visitors at its peak(opens in new tab). Similar to Wordle, you have six guesses to figure out what song is playing by listening to snippets. For every miss, the game expands the snippet to give you better odds of winning. Whether you guess correctly or throw in the towel, the game concludes every session by giving you a link to the song on Spotify for you to check out. Refocusing efforts The company originally bought Heardle back in July 2022(opens in new tab) where it was pitched as a music discovery tool to help users find old, forgotten songs or “amazing new artists”. However, it appears Heardle wasn't po[CENSORED]r enough to keep around. A Spotify spokesperson told TechRadar “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to say goodbye to Heardle as we focus our efforts on other features for music discovery.” Recently, the platform rolled out a substantial redesign implementing a TikTok-style discovery feed offering an infinite carousel of “music, podcast [clips], and playlists suggestions” some of which come with video clips. Spotify also implemented its new DJ feature with the help of OpenAI tech back in late February. It pulls together “tracks based on the music you normally like” to create a personalized playlist complete with a cheesy DJ voice. If you’re worried about another round of Spotify layoffs, you don’t have to be – at least in this case. A source close to Spotify stated “that no Spotify employees will be impacted” by the shutdown. Spiritual successor All is not lost for Heardle as it lives on in Heardle Decades(opens in new tab), a similar game that expands on the original by providing music challenges based on certain decades and genres. You have one each for the 1980s, 90s, early 2000s, plus some artist-specific games. It doesn’t appear this version is associated with Spotify as it’s seemingly run by just one person. Everything is free to play, but if you would like to support Heardle Decades, they do have a Ko-fi account available on the web page where they accept donations to pay for server costs. Be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best music streaming services for 2023 if you're looking for Spotify alternatives. Tidal, for example, is well-known for its high-quality streams and spatial audio support. [https://www.techradar.com/news/Spotify-just-killed-the-best-Wordle-like-game-for-music-fans]

Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus SSD is one of the best SSDs around. Now imagine glomming 21 of these PCIe 4.0 SSDs together, because that's precisely what Sabrent has planned for the company's next product. The upcoming Sabrent Apex X21 Destroyer will arrive with 21 Rocket 4 Plus 8TB drives to offer unprecedented storage capacity and transfer speeds. Sabrent is still conducting in-house testing on the Apex X21 Destroyer. However, the company said it easily achieved sequential read and write speeds of 31 GB/s. Sabrent's results even surpassed Apex Storage's figures, which rate the X21 with a sequential performance of 30.5 GBps reads and 28.5 GBps writes. If you look at the brand's past products, such as the Sabrent RocketQ Battleship, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer, or Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, it's easy to see that Sabrent has a sweet tooth for big storage solutions. However, the Sabrent Apex X21 Destroyer is on an entirely different level. Previous solutions saw Sabrent assembling a crew of eight SSDs. Now, the Sabrent Apex X21 Destroyer has enough landscape for 21 drives, offering almost three times the storage and significantly more performance. Sabrent's Apex X21 Destroyer is based on the X21 from Apex Storage. While Sabrent's prior AICs leverage the HighPoint SSD7540 PCIe 4.0 x16 RAID card, the Apex Storage X21 doesn't feature a RAID controller. Instead, it utilizes a pair of unnamed PCIe 4.0 switches. This allows consumers more freedom to set up the AIC to suit their needs. Nonetheless, the Apex Storage X21 is bootable and supports RAID arrays through software or third-party hardware solutions, like the ones from GRAID. The X21 features a passive cooling design because the riser card's primary target is the server market. However, when deployed inside a regular system or even a workstation, the X21 will require some form of active cooling assistance. This is because so many PCIe 4.0 SSDs packaged together will output a fair amount of heat. Apex Storage recommends at least 400 LFM of airflow for the X21. In addition, given the considerable number of drives on the X21, the AIC needs two 8-pin PCIe power connectors to feed the entire lot of SSDs. It's basically like a high-end graphics card when fully loaded, at least from the power requirements perspective. It's worth pointing out that maximum performance ends up being limited by the x16 PCIe 4.0 connection to the card. A single Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB can hit peak transfer rates of just over 7,000 MB/s in our testing, so 21 of them in aggregate could theoretically deliver 147 GB/s. However, an x16 PCIe 4.0 slot tops out at 16 GT/s per lane, and with 128b/130b encoding you're limited to at most 31.5 GB/s of actual throughput. Sabrent hasn't established a price tag for the Apex X21 Destroyer yet, and there's no estimated time frame for when the AIC will release. Considering that each Rocket 4 Plus 8TB SSD currently retails for $1,099(opens in new tab) (down from an official MSRP of $1,999 at launch), it would be foolish to think that the Apex X21 Destroyer will sell for less than $23,000. Moreover, the X21 sells for $2,800, so we have to factor that into the pricing. Even if Apex Storage offers discounts on volume purchases, the X21 still costs an am and a leg. [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/over-dollar23000-worth-of-sabrent-ssds-deliver-168tb-at-31-gbs]

Ukraine is front and centre of a number of classified Pentagon documents which a 21-year-old US National Guard airman is suspected of leaking online. The leaks include details about the West's military assistance to Ukraine, such as weapons deliveries and training, and perhaps more revealing, dire assessments of the war by US officials, making public concerns that for some time had been discussed in private. The timing of the leaks is sensitive for Kyiv. The military is expected to launch a counter-offensive within weeks, in what is likely to be a crucial phase in the nearly 14-month-long war that is believed to have killed tens of thousands of people. Such is the anxiety here that, last month, the defence ministry urged people to stop discussing potential plans. One leaked document, quoted by the Washington Post, said the Ukrainian army faced challenges in massing troops, equipment and ammunition, and could fall well short of its original goals for an expected counter-offensive. The document warned that only modest territorial gains could be achieved in Russian-occupied areas. It is grim but hardly surprising. One senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that the problems faced by the army were already known, and that the revelations would not affect relations between the two countries. "[The leaks] aren't the main problem. The problem is what's happening on the front line," the official said. "The decision to provide weapons doesn't mean they get to the front lines immediately. It takes weeks, sometimes months." For months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has talked openly about ammunition and weapons shortages; others have repeatedly complained of delays in the delivery of aid promised by Western countries, while the Ukrainian army grapples with difficulties in mobilising fresh troops. Major territorial gains for Ukraine would undoubtedly boost morale and could also help efforts to secure additional military support. But the opposite could result in pressure on Kyiv to consider negotiating with Moscow. Few Ukrainian officials have reacted in public to the leaks, and the revelations have not attracted significant media coverage. Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said the leaks did not affect the military's plans as "everything will be decided at the last moment". "All the speculation about the plans of the Ukrainian military," he said, "in particular regarding the counter-offensive, are utterly baseless". Earlier this week, Biden administration officials tried to reassure their allies in Kyiv of their enduring support despite the leaks. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Ukrainian military had "much of the capability that they need to continue to be successful". Crucially, the leaks have so far not included Ukraine's plans for its much-discussed counter-offensive. documents, which are from February and March, reveal the timeline for the training of Ukrainian brigades, details about tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces being provided by Western countries, and concerns that Kyiv might run out of critical missiles for its vital air defence systems. The front lines have remained largely static since Ukraine recaptured the southern city of Kherson, in November, and nearly a fifth of the country remains under occupation. Most of the recent fighting has been in the east, especially around Bakhmut, where a months-long battle has destroyed most of the city and inflicted heavy losses on both sides. In the south, satellite images show that Russian forces are fortifying some of their positions, including in areas around Melitopol, seen as a main Ukrainian target. In Russia, meanwhile, the deputy foreign minister suggested the documents that have appeared online might be an intentional US leak aimed at deceiving Moscow as part of a "hybrid war". The main suspect, Jack Teixeira, a junior member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been accused of the unauthorised removal and retention of classified documents and the unauthorised retention and transmission of national defence information. The senior Ukrainian official, who spoke anonymously, said it was "insane" that officials at that level had access to this kind of sensitive information. "Can you imagine the reaction from our Western partners if it had happened in Ukraine?" documents, which are from February and March, reveal the timeline for the training of Ukrainian brigades, details about tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces being provided by Western countries, and concerns that Kyiv might run out of critical missiles for its vital air defence systems. The front lines have remained largely static since Ukraine recaptured the southern city of Kherson, in November, and nearly a fifth of the country remains under occupation. Most of the recent fighting has been in the east, especially around Bakhmut, where a months-long battle has destroyed most of the city and inflicted heavy losses on both sides. In the south, satellite images show that Russian forces are fortifying some of their positions, including in areas around Melitopol, seen as a main Ukrainian target. In Russia, meanwhile, the deputy foreign minister suggested the documents that have appeared online might be an intentional US leak aimed at deceiving Moscow as part of a "hybrid war". The main suspect, Jack Teixeira, a junior member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been accused of the unauthorised removal and retention of classified documents and the unauthorised retention and transmission of national defence information. The senior Ukrainian official, who spoke anonymously, said it was "insane" that officials at that level had access to this kind of sensitive information. "Can you imagine the reaction from our Western partners if it had happened in Ukraine?" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65277838

On a wall next to his new house, Paul points to four Rawlplugs embedded in the bricks, a few inches from a small grey junction box. "That's where my EV charger was," he says. "When I first viewed the house a few months ago, it was there, but the day I moved in, I noticed it and the cable connecting it to the junction box had disappeared." Paul, not his real name, is one of a number of home owners on the newly built Lancaster Park development outside Hungerford whose 7kW uPowa EV chargers, some mounted on posts as well as walls, have suffered a similar fate. "The housing association said they'd get on to it but I haven't heard anything since," he said. "Neither has my neighbour, whose charger has also disappeared." The issue came to light at a recent meeting of Hungerford Town Council's Highways and Transport Committee. Councillor Fyfe told members that up to 15 chargers had been stolen from Lancaster Park. "Some have been stolen from garages and some from unoccupied premises," he said. "The management company is dealing with the problem Press reports had mentioned charger cables also being stolen. Given the difficulty of detaching one from a car, the risk of an electric shock should it be cut and the proximity of home owners, Autocar was intrigued and decided to visit the estate to learn first hand what had occurred. A short walk from Paul, Rik, whose charger had not been stolen, said he and other residents had formed a WhatsApp group to debate the problem. "I think around 20 chargers have been stolen, most of them when the houses were unoccupied," he said. "I've not heard of charging cables being taken from cars." Some chargers on the estate are mounted on posts at the ends of driveways. A few of these also appeared to have been stolen. Power cables hung from a couple while blue nylon cords dangled from others. It was at one of these missing chargers that we met Dan, another home owner. "I don't have a car, never mind an electric one, but my dad and my brother each have an EV and were shocked to see my charger had been taken." Dan's neighbour was missing hers too, but at the two houses along from her, the chargers had escaped the thieves' attention and remained on their posts. Chris Montgomery, a director of EV Chargers Direct, which supplies charging equipment, speculated that thieves might be stealing the chargers to resell online. "The prices of new 7kW chargers average around £550 so one for £100 could tempt someone who also might not ask too many questions. Manufacturers should design lockable charger boxes that would make it harder for a thief to access the mounting screws." https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/residents-shock-thieves-target-electric-car-chargers

On Saturday, residents of central Khartoum were shaken by the sound of gunfire as clashes erupted between army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group. It’s not yet clear what triggered the fighting, but tensions have been high in Sudan following a stand-off between the two factions. On Thursday, the RSF - commanded by Sudan’s deputy leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo - deployed forces near a military base in the northern town of Merowe. Sudan’s leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has said he’s willing to talk to his second-in-command and resolve the dispute over who will lead a unified army in a proposed civilian government. Western powers and regional leaders have urged the two sides to de-escalate and return to talks aimed at returning the country to civilian rule. Sudan has been in political turmoil since Gen Burhan led the military in toppling a civilian government in October 2021 Sudan, once the largest and one of the most geographically diverse states in Africa, split into two countries in July 2011 after the people of the south voted for independence. The government of Sudan gave its blessing to an independent South Sudan, where the mainly Christian and Animist people had for decades been struggling against rule by the Arab Muslim north. However, various outstanding issues - especially the question of shared oil revenues and border demarcation - have continued to create tensions between the two successor states. Sudan has long been beset by conflict. Two rounds of north-south civil war cost the lives of 1.5 million people, and a continuing conflict in the western region of Darfur has driven two million people from their homes and killed more than 200,000. Generals have been running the north-east African country of Sudan through what is called the Sovereign Council since a coup in October 2021. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is under the command of the council's vice-president, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The army, meanwhile, is led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is the head of the Sovereign Council. A proposed move to a civilian-led government has floundered on a timetable to integrate the RSF into the national army. The RSF wanted to delay the move for 10 years, but the army said it should happen in two. You can find out more about Sudan's attempts to revert to civilian-led government here. [https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-africa-65285254]

Regarding the issue with connecting to the server, it's possible that the server is configured to only accept connections from the original IP address. You might need to check the server's settings to see if there's an option to allow connections from the reserved IP as well. Another possibility is that there's a firewall rule in place that's preventing the reserved IP from accessing the server. You might want to check the firewall settings and see if you can modify them to allow access from the reserved IP. Overall, it's important to carefully review your network configuration to ensure that everything is set up correctly. If you're still having issues, you might want to consider reaching out to a network specialist for further assistance.

Hi Nadeem, To start your server with a reserved IP address, you will need to follow a few steps: Log in to your cloud hosting account and locate the section for managing your IP addresses. Assign your reserved IP address to your CS1.6 server. The process for doing this will vary depending on your hosting provider, so you may need to consult their documentation or contact their support team for assistance. Once your reserved IP address is assigned to your server, you will need to update your DNS settings to point to the new IP address. This is typically done through your domain registrar or DNS provider. After updating your DNS settings, you should test to ensure that players can connect to your server using the DNS name. You can do this by attempting to connect to the server using the DNS name yourself, or by asking a friend to try connecting from a different location. If you continue to have trouble connecting to the server using your reserved IP address, you may need to check your server configuration settings to ensure that they are correctly configured to use the new IP address. I hope this helps you get your server up and running with your reserved IP address. Good luck

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Name of the game: Assetto Corsa Price: 3.99 $ Link Store:Here Offer ends up after X hours:Offer ends 17 April Requirements: SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MINIMUM: OS: Windows 7 Sp1 - 8 - 8.1 - 10 Processor: AMD Athlon X2 2.8 GHZ, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHZ Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: DirectX 10.1 (e.g. AMD Radeon HD 6450, Nvidia GeForce GT 460) DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 15 GB available space Sound Card: Integrated VR Support: SteamVR or Oculus PC. Keyboard or gamepad required RECOMMENDED: OS: Windows 7 Sp1 - 8 - 8.1 - 10 Processor: AMD Six-Core CPU, Intel Quad-Core CPU Memory: 6 GB RAM Graphics: DirectX 11 (e.g. AMD Radeon 290x, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970) DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 30 GB available space Sound Card: Integrated

Strava is one of the world's most po[CENSORED]r workout apps, and now it's added a much-needed feature that could give your workout motivation an extra boost – in-app Spotify integration. Until now, fitness fans who use both Strava and Spotify have had to clunkily switch between the apps during workouts. But the new integration between the services, which is rolling out now, will let you browse and select Spotify songs and playlists from within Strava's iOS and Android apps. The extra good news is that you'll get this functionality even if you're on the free tiers for both Strava and Spotify, which means no subscription is needed. While Strava hiked the pricing for its paid version last year, the free tier still lets you record and share your workouts. So what does Strava's new Spotify integration look like? As you can see below, you get more than just basic playback controls. The Spotify integration appears in Strava's Record section – once you tap that to start a workout, you'll see a new music icon that lets you connect your Spotify account and choose your music, podcast or audiobook Once you've connected your Spotify account, you'll get a new menu in the Strava Record section showing some of the most po[CENSORED]r workout mixes or your most recently played tracks. Below that menu you'll also get the option to play, pause, resume or skip songs, which theoretically means you should rarely need to delve into the Spotify smartphone app while you're working out. This new integration is naturally aimed at Strava users who mainly rely on the service's iOS or Android app. Many Strava users instead sync their data to the service from some of the best fitness trackers, while we also rate Strava as being one of the best Apple Watch apps around. Still, while using Spotify with Strava on a smartwatch will remain a more fiddly experience, this new smartphone app integration will be a good quality-of-life boost for anyone who regularly uses both on their iOS or Android phone. [https://www.techradar.com/news/stravas-new-spotify-integration-makes-it-the-ultimate-workout-partner]