Blackfire

A US householder has been charged with shooting a girl who was playing hide-and-seek outside his home, police said. The 14-year-old was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after she was shot in the back of the head in rural Louisiana, police said. David Doyle, 58, is charged with aggravated assault and battery. He told officers he opened fire after seeing "shadows outside his home". It is the latest US shooting sparked by a seemingly trivial misunderstanding. They did something by accident. Then they were shot Police responded in the early hours of last Sunday to calls about the shooting of the girl in the town of Starks, 250 miles (400km) west of New Orleans. Officers learned that "several juveniles were playing hide and seek in the area and were hiding on the neighbour's property", said a press release from Officers at the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office. The homeowner, Mr Doyle, "stated he observed shadows outside his home, at which time he went inside and retrieved his firearm," added the press release. "He then advised detectives he went back outside and observed people running away from his property, at which time he began shooting at them and unknowingly hit the girl." Mr Doyle remained in custody on Tuesday, a day after he was arrested and charged. The shooting is the latest US gun violence incident involving young Americans to make headlines: In Texas, 18-year-old cheerleader Payton Washington was shot and seriously injured on 18 April after she mistakenly tried to enter the wrong vehicle in a parking lot near Austin, Texas In New York state, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed on 15 April after a friend drove their car down the wrong driveway In Missouri, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot on 16 April in the head and arm when he rang the doorbell at the wrong address In North Carolina, a six-year-old girl and her father were shot on 18 April after police said their basketball rolled into the alleged shooter's yard [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65539174]

Adding @Mr.SnaPeR"To Journalist Staff : Welcome Back mate 👍

Name of the game: Black Mesa Price: 4.99 $ Link Store:Here Offer ends up after X hours:Offer ends 11 May Requirements: MINIMUM: OS: Windows® 7 (32/64-bit)/Vista or Greater Processor: 2.6 Dual Core Processor or Greater Memory: 6 GB RAM Graphics: 2 GB Dedicated Video Card or Greater DirectX: Version 9.0c Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 20 GB available space RECOMMENDED: OS: Windows® 7 (32/64-bit) or Greater Processor: 3.2 Quad Core Processor or Greater Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: 4 GB Dedicated Video Card or Greater DirectX: Version 9.0c Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 20 GB available space

It's hard to get away from AI at the moment, whether it's ChatGPT helping house buyers or Snapchat users getting their own AI friend. Now a new rumor suggests that Google Messages will be getting its own generative AI features. This comes from screenshots shared with 9to5Google(opens in new tab), as well as hidden code previously spotted in the app. It seems that the feature will be called Magic Compose, and expand on the smart replies that already pop up in Google Messages. We can see from the screengrabs that there are different tones to choose from, including Excited, Formal, and Lyrical – which drafts out a response in the form of a short poem, based on a prompt given by the user. It seems as though you can give Magic Compose a start when it comes to a response, or let it come up with one entirely on its own based on the context of the conversation. It's also labeled with an Experiment badge in these images. We shouldn't be surprised that something like this is rolling out for Google Messages in the near future: Google has been pushing similar tools into its Gmail, Google Docs and Google Sheets apps in recent weeks As for when we'll see this feature announced and rolled out, Google IO 2023 seems like a good bet. The keynote day is this Wednesday, May 10, and we will of course be bringing you all the news from the event as it happens. [https://www.techradar.com/news/Google-Messages-could-be-the-next-app-to-get-added-AI]

An Nvidia researcher, presenting at SIGGRAPH in the summer(opens in new tab), will show off the most realistic barbershop simulator I've ever seen. And weirdly now I really want to get my hands on some virtual scissors and go to town on this digital Barbie head. The tens of thousands of hairs simulated here are using neural physics, a technique which harnesses the AI processing power of your graphics card to predict how something will move and interact with other objects in the real world. Looking at the video, there's an RTX Real-Time at the top, suggesting Nvidia's RTX cards will be the ones with the specific processing power for this technique. "This technique finally enables both accurate and interactive physically based hair grooming," reads the description on the video. Now, the 'finally' is doing a lot of heavy lifting for me there, because I wasn't aware there was such a genuine desire out there for hair grooming simulators. But now I've seen one in action, it could be a real nice cozy game for those times where you don't want the stress of saving the universe, or blasting zombies/Nazis. To be fair, the sim genre is a bit of an oddity in gaming terms, because even the most banal of endeavours can be transformed into the most absorbing hobby simply by its recreation as a PC-based sim. Farming Simulator is huge; Bus and Truck Simulators have large followings; Jet Wash Simulator picked up its share of fans, and I've whiled away hours on Car Mechanic Simulator myself. That's not to mention the people simming of The Sims, the classic bug-tracking Sim Ant, and of course Flight Simulator. So yeah, I could absolutely get behind Hair Salon Simulator. You get the combination of business management, the joy of brand marketing, potential franchising, and the heady thrill of seeing your follicle creations rendered in physically accurate 3D on-screen. I've seen enough Queer Eye, I reckon I could ace it. Gilles Daviet, the author of the paper, Interactive Hair Simulation on the GPU using ADMM(opens in new tab), mostly references the difficulty for digital artists to create high-quality hair strands for virtual characters. This new method is designed to make it both more realistic than the current mostly geometry-based methods, and less computationally intensive as it leverages the parallel processing power of modern GPUs. Should you wish to bathe in the algorithmic beauty of Daviet's hair sim techniques then you can download the .pdf(opens in new tab) and give it a look ahead of its publication at SIGGRAPH in August. And it really goes to highlight the statements from earlier this week about how the majority of Nvidia's work goes into the software(opens in new tab) rather than the hardware. Anyways basically, it should lead to a really awesome new version of Hairworks. Hopefully in time for The Witcher 4, eh? [https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-dropped-a-video-of-an-incredible-ai-powered-hairdressing-sim-and-now-i-want-a-digital-barbershop/]

A howler from David de Gea gifted West Ham victory over Manchester United to boost their chances of Premier League survival and deal a blow to the Red Devils' top-four hopes. De Gea let a tame Said Benrahma effort from distance slip through his grasp to put the Hammers in front midway through the first half. The win moved David Moyes' side seven points clear of the relegation zone with a superior goal difference to all the sides below them. Fourth-placed Manchester United missed the chance to move above Newcastle into third as they remain just a point ahead of Liverpool in fifth, with a game in hand. Tomas Soucek twice went close for the home side after the break as they pushed for a second, while Michail Antonio had a goal disallowed for a foul on De Gea. Marcus Rashford and Antony both struck the post early on for the visitors, who started the brighter of the two teams but faded after the opening goal. Substitute Anthony Martial came closest to an e qualiser in stoppage time, but Lukasz Fabianski palmed away his rasping effort from a tight angle. De Gea error opens door to top-four rivals David de Gea has saved Manchester United on plenty of occasions during his 12-year career at Old Trafford, but his terrible error at the London Stadium has just opened the door for their rivals looking to pip them to a Champions League qualification spot. Benrahma was surrounded by three Manchester United players and without a team-mate in sight when he attempted a hopeful effort from distance, but De Gea appeared to lose his footing before allowing the ball to slip from his grasp and into the net. His reaction said it all, with the Spaniard lying face down on the turf as the West Ham fans erupted. With Liverpool and Tottenham both winning on Saturday and Brighton playing the first of their three games in hand on Monday, Erik ten Hag's side now find themselves under pressure to cling on to a top-four spot with four games still to play. The visitors had actually started the brighter of the two sides before the opening goal but lacked a cutting edge, having 10 shots without hitting the target before Christian Eriksen finally found Fabianski's gloves in first-half stoppage time. Their energy levels dipped in the second half, with their only real opportunities a Rashford shot tipped over from a tight angle before Martial went close late on. Their tame finish to the match suggests their relentless schedule, in which they have played 57 matches already this season, may be taking its toll. Europe next for Hammers with safety all but secure This is the perfect start to a huge fortnight for West Ham, who face a two-legged Europa Conference League semi-final against Dutch side AZ Alkmaar either side of a Premier League trip to London rivals Brentford. Like Manchester United, the Hammers have had a long and hard season, with their exploits in Europe meaning this was their 51st match of the campaign. But after a slow start, they put in a performance full of zeal and verve that suggests there is plenty of energy left in the legs for the closing weeks of the season. Although not technically safe, it would take an extraordinary set of results for them to get dragged into the bottom three, meaning they can fully focus on trying to reach a first European final since 1976. They were excellent in the second half as they took the game to Manchester United, driven on by the superb Declan Rice, who showed no ill effects of the sickness big that caused him to miss the midweek defeat at Manchester City. It was also a satisfying night on a personal level for Moyes, who secured his first victory over Manchester United since he was Everton boss in 2012, a year before he succeeded Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford. `https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65439740]

the British firm behind electric conversions of the Citroën DS, Land Rover Defender and Jaguar E-Type, has launched a ‘plug and play’ powertrain for the classic Mini. The pre-assembled kit swaps the Mini’s A-Series engine for a water-cooled electric motor outputting 60bhp and 100lb ft through a fixed-ratio gearbox. That’s on a par with the twin-port-injection variant of the A-Series featured in the 1997-2000 Rover Mini, which produced 63bhp and 70lb ft. However, it is a significant uplift compared with the 34bhp, 44lb ft powerplant in the original 1959 Mini (then called the Austin Seven). A 20kWh battery pack gives the Electrogenic kit an 80-mile range around town – where the motor can nearly constantly recover energy in stop-start traffic, and at low speeds – but this figure is likely to fall significantly on faster roads. An extended-range variant, which adds a second battery inside the boot, will be offered at a later date. Type 2 charging port can be accessed through a replacement front grille that features a cutout for the cable. The conversion kit requires no modification to the Mini’s structure, which makes it completely reversible – similar to the existing Electrogenic Porsche 911. It is incorporated into a replacement front subframe to make it easier to swap with the Mini’s existing petrol engine. A mechanic just bolts the new subframe in and wires the powertrain into the dashboard. The Electrogenic package goes on sale this autumn, priced from £15,000 (excluding VAT). Electrogenic co-founder Steve Drummond said: “We’ve converted a number of beautiful Minis over the years to electric drive and have seen significant demand for a solution that’s both easy to fit and budget-friendly. Our new drop-in kit meets those requirements perfectly. It’s cost effective and simple to install, yet still delivers superb electric performance, thanks to our latest-generation EV powertrain tech. “It turns the iconic classic Mini into an ideal modern city machine, one that’s perfect for zipping about town cleanly and reliably – and sure to bring a smile to the faces of drivers and pedestrians alike." https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/electrogenic-launches-ev-conversion-kit-classic-mini

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A star-crossed Kentucky Derby lost its early favorite when Forte was scratched and two more horses died, making it seven in all, at Churchill Downs earlier Saturday, further blows to a sport already reeling from a series of doping suspensions and breakdowns. “This is part of racing and it’s the cruel part,” Mike Repole, co-owner of Forte, said in an interview with FanDuel TV. Forte was the fifth scratch from the Derby in the days leading up to the $3 million race for 3-year-olds. Chloe’s Dream, a 3-year-old gelding, and Freezing Point, a 3-year-old colt, were injured in their races on the Derby undercard, becoming the sixth and seventh horses to have died at Churchill Downs in recent days. The string of horse deaths cast a pall for some Derby-goers on a mostly cloudy and warm day. “It’s concerning, and I hope they’re quickly trying the best they can to correct whatever’s going on,” said Michael Freeze, who along with his friend dressed up as jockeys. “They need to do whatever is best for the horses, and the sport in general.” Chloe’s Dream got hurt in the second race Saturday. The horse was taken off in an equine ambulance with a right front knee injury and was euthanized, trainer Jeff Hiles confirmed to The Associated Press. “He just took a bad step out there,” Hiles said. “They could do the same thing running in the field as they could on the track. So it’s very unfortunate. That’s what we deal with.” Freezing Point suffered a left ankle injury in the Pat Day Mile and was euthanized, trainer Joe Lejzerowicz told the AP. He said Fort Bragg, who finished third, came over and slammed into Freezing Point during the race. “He just got bumped in the backstretch,” Lejzerowicz said. “He never took a bad step or bobble. He had a big heart.” New antidoping and medication rules enforced by a central governing body of the sport are scheduled to take effect May 22. “There’s something going on,” said Pat Murtha, who was attending his first Derby. “They need to find out, and set some rules and regulations to protect these animals.” Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, a two-time Triple Crown winner, is nearing the end of a two-year ban issued by Churchill Downs Inc. One of his horses, Medina Spirit, crossed the finish line first in the 2021 Derby and failed a post-race drug test. The horse was disqualified and Baffert was punished. In 2019, over 30 horse deaths occurred at California’s Santa Anita racetrack, rattling the industry and leading to safety reforms. Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Rick Dutrow had his license revoked in 2011 for 10 years by New York officials. Regulators found syringes loaded with unauthorized medication in a desk in his barn. Dutrow re-opened his stable last month. Forte had been the early 3-1 favorite; his absence reduces the field to 18 horses for the 1 1/4-mile race. Repole said veterinarians from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission diagnosed Forte with a bruised foot. He said the colt had developed the bruise a few days ago. The colt stumbled during a workout Thursday, although trainer Todd Pletcher had downplayed it publicly. Behind the scenes was a different story. “We did X-rays, we brought in vets, the state vets came in and they watched him every single day,” Repole said in the interview. “He’s fine. He probably needs a couple more days (to recover).” Pletcher still has two horses in the Derby: Tapit Trice and Kingsbarns. A crowd of about 150,000 is expected to jam Churchill Downs to wager and watch the Derby. Post time is 6:57 p.m. EDT. The horse deaths included Derby contender Wild On Ice. Two of the horses were trained by Saffie Joseph Jr. He was indefinitely suspended by the track, although investigators have yet to determine a cause for the deaths of his horses. “It doesn’t make me happy to see a horse get euthanized,” said racegoer Joe Conforto, wearing jockey goggles and a stuffed horse on his head. “But I think a lot of it is bad luck. Most race horses are taken better care of than human beings.” Four horses were scratched — Practical Move, Lord Miles, Continuar and Skinner — in recent days. Practical Move and Skinner had fevers, while Continuar wasn’t in peak condition, according to his Japanese trainer. Lord Miles was Joseph’s Derby horse. Forte was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has a five-race winning streak. “You can only be a 3-year-old colt on the first Saturday in May one time in your life,” Repole said. “I feel bad for the horse.” [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/early-kentucky-derby-favorite-forte-scratched-race-rcna83193]

Police Scotland consulted the National Crime Agency about its investigation into the SNP's finances. The BBC understands the national force asked the UK agency to carry out an independent review of its inquiry last year. The terms and outcome of this exercise have not been made public. The investigation has intensified since then with high profile arrests, searches and the seizure of a motorhome. Former SNP spindoctor attacks 'grotesque' police probe Colin Beattie resigns as SNP treasurer after arrest Leaked video shows Sturgeon dismiss finance concern Police sources said it was "good practice" in cases of this nature for the inquiry team to ask another force to double check their work. This is known as a "peer review". According to one senior police source, a peer review is typically "conducted to check on the status, strategy and direction of an investigation". They added: "The review checks that the lines of inquiry are correct, that nothing has been missed and that the rationale is proportionate and necessary". The National Crime Agency specialises in the investigation of serious and organised crime across the UK. It is not otherwise involved in the investigation into the SNP's finances and fundraising, known as Operation Branchform. That began in July 2021 following complaints about how more than £600,000 of donations for a future independence referendum were used. The SNP's former chief executive Peter Murrell and the party's ex-treasurer Colin Beattie were arrested, questioned as suspects and released without charge. The former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she would fully cooperate with police if they wanted to speak to her. The Uddingston home she shares with Mr Murrell, who is her husband, was searched for two days last month. She later described the experience as "traumatic". A further search was carried out at SNP headquarters in Edinburgh with officers removing boxes of material from the premises. Police also removed a luxury motorhome from the driveway of Mr Murrell's mother's home in Fife. Some in the SNP have publicly questioned Police Scotland's approach with the Glasgow MSP James Dornan describing it as a "fiasco" on social media. Murray Foote, the party's former communications chief at Holyrood, last week said he was prepared to bet that no charges would be brought. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "As the investigation is ongoing we are unable to comment further". [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-65513265]

Seven people have been killed in the US state of Texas after a car struck a group at a bus stop close to a shelter for the homeless and migrants. The incident happened in the city of Brownsville near the Mexican border at about 08:30 local time (14:30 GMT). At least six other people were been injured, some of them critically. The driver has been arrested and charged. Brownsville police say it is not clear whether the incident was intentional. Earlier US media reports quoted police as saying it appeared to be a deliberate attack. The director of the nearby Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, Victor Maldonado, said surveillance footage showed an SUV that "ran the light that was about a hundred feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop". He told the Associated Press that most of the victims were Venezuelan men. Lieutenant Martin Sandoval of the Brownsville Police Department told local media that the driver had also been taken to hospital for treatment and was undergoing drug and alcohol tests. According to US border protection officials, the city of Brownsville has recently seen a sharp increase in illegal migrant arrivals. Mr Maldonado told local media quoted by AP that in the past two months the Ozanam Center, an overnight shelter that can hold up to 250 people, has been handling up to 380 people a day. "I've had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us," Mr Maldonado told KRGV-TV. Officials in Brownsville issued a disaster declaration last month, following other Texas border cities that have done the same. That's ahead of an anticipated influx of migrants due to the upcoming expiry of a Covid-era policy that allowed the US to automatically expel [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65521233]

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Adding @The GodFatherAs Project Coordinator, Welcome my friend Adding @MERNIZ To Journalist Staff , Welcome mate Adding @[Ty]M@g0k1l3r To Journalist Staff, Welcome mate Removing @SH3LBONA @ CSBDfrom Team, Reason : EXAMS / Retirement Thank you for your activity 👌👍

WhatsApp is so easy to use that it's managed to become the messaging mainstay for most families, but it's still possible to run into the odd quirk or frustration. Fortunately, the app is in the process of fixing three of those annoyances with some new updates. The first two refinements are coming in an iOS and Android update that has started rolling out globally and will be "available to everyone in the coming weeks". To get these boosts to polls and sharing photos, you'll need to wait for new version to arrive or check your app store for the latest update. WhatsApp's poll improvements are particularly handy for social organizing. You can now create single-vote polls, to stop people from skewing the results with multiple votes. To do that, you'll just need to un-toggle the 'allow multiple answers' option when creating a poll If you've ever had trouble finding a poll in a chat, you'll be pleased to hear that you can also now search for polls in your chats with the new update. On the 'Chats' screen, just tap the search box and you'll now see 'Polls' in the list of results. Lastly, you'll also now get notifications when people vote on your polls and will be shown how many people have voted in total. A report from WABetaInfo(opens in new tab) has revealed that WhatsApp has made a handy new feature available to some beta testers that lets them transfer chats to another iPhone without having to go via iCloud. This is particularly useful for those who don't pay for extra iCloud storage beyond the free 5GB limit. That limit can prohibit you from transferring lengthy chat histories to a new iPhone, but this new method could get around that by letting you do the transfer within WhatsApp. Apparently, the process will be as simple as registering on WhatsApp with your usual phone number, then using your old phone to scan the QR code shown on your new phone in order to transfer your chat history. There'll also be a similar feature available for Android fans who don't want to transfer their chats via Google Drive. Unfortunately, right now this feature is currently only available to WhatsApp beta testers on iOS and Android, and this beta program is currently closed to new testers. On Android, you can check to see which beta testing programs are available by going to the Play Store, tapping your profile icon in the top right, tapping 'Manage apps and devices installed', and then tapping an app to see if it has a 'join the beta' option. Still, beta features do frequently get rolled out to the full version of WhatsApp, so this is one we're hoping to see in a full release in the coming months. [https://www.techradar.com/news/whatsapp-is-getting-3-super-useful-features-heres-how-to-get-them]

Not that we were expecting anything else, but new trade body listings confirm that AMD's RX 7600 and Nvidia's RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards are both imminent. And both will run with just 8GB of graphics memory The listings are posted on the Eurasian Economic Commission's website, which is the governing body of the Eurasian Economic Union, which roughly speaking is a former Soviet bloq equivalent of the EU. Anyway, one listing for ASRock(opens in new tab) includes entries for the RX 7600 indicating 8GB of graphics memory, while another for Gigabyte(opens in new tab) has both the RX 7600 and Nvidia's RTX 4060 Ti, both running 8GB of graphics memory. The listings also imply that these cards will be launched shortly and indeed the expectation for some time is that both cards will appear later in May just before the Computex tech trade fair, or possibly at the fair itself at the beginning of June. The big remaining unknown is pricing. And it will be pricing and how it combines with those 8GB frame buffers that defines these cards. As we've reported previously, games that breach the 8GB barrier, even running at just 1080p, are becoming more widespread(opens in new tab). If these new cards are super affordable, the fact that they may run into occasional VRAM issues will be acceptable. But if they're positioned in line with the current trend for sky-high GPU prices, 8GB will be much harder to tolerate. Put it this way, a $400 GPU with just 8GB? No thanks. Of course, the problem for both cards is that there really is no option other than 8GB. Both are said to run 128-bit memory buses, and current graphics memory is available in 1GB and 2GB module formats, both with 32-bit interfaces. That means you have the option of either 4GB or 8GB on a 128-bit board. And 4GB is a total non-starter. 12GB of memory would require a 192-bit bus and 16GB a 256-bit bus. Increasing the bus width, meanwhile, would require a total redesign of a GPU. Incidentally, the listings seem to indicate RX 7600 rather than 7600 XT. And we are kinda expecting XT variants at launch, so it's unclear for now whether both XT and non-XT models will be available from the get go. Anyway, we have a feeling these cards will come in lower, price-wise, than might be expected purely going on the positioning of existing AMD RX 7000 and Nvidia RTX 40-series GPUs, partly due to this specific 8GB concern. That said, we're also expecting Nvidia's RTX 4060 Ti cards to be the faster of the two, so that would imply higher pricing for the Nvidia offering. But we'll know soon enough as both are expected before the end of the month. [https://www.pcgamer.com/hope-you-like-gpus-with-8gb-because-both-amd-and-nvidia-have-new-cards-ready-to-go/]

Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from next week's Italian Open but says his condition has improved as he bids to be fit in time for the French Open. The 36-year-old Spaniard has not played since January because of a hip injury and says he needs more time to train. Unless he plays one of the events in Geneva or Lyon starting May 21, the 14-time champion will go to Roland Garros without a match on clay this year. "I'm very sorry to announce that I will not be able to be in Rome," he said. "You all know how much it hurts to miss another one of the tournaments that have marked my professional and personal career for all the love and support of the Italian fans," the 22-time Grand Slam champion continued in a statement on social media. "Despite having noticed an improvement in recent days, there have been many months without having been able to train at a high level and the re-adaptation process has its times and I have no choice but to accept them and continue working." His statement is considerably more optimistic than his post of two weeks ago when he said he had paused training to consider alternative treatments. The French Open begins in Paris on 28 May. [https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/65502314]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Churchill Downs suspended trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. indefinitely and Lord Miles, who is trained by Joseph, was scratched from the Kentucky Derby on Thursday, days after the sudden death of two of his horses at the track. The suspension prohibits Joseph, or any trainer directly or indirectly employed by him, from entering horses in races or applying for stalls at all Churchill Downs Inc.-owned tracks. The decision comes after the deaths of Parents Pride on Saturday and Chasing Artie on Tuesday. Both collapsed on the track and died after races. “Given the unexplained sudden deaths, we have reasonable concerns about the condition of his horses, and decided to suspend him indefinitely until details are analyzed and understood,” Bill Mudd, CDI president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. “The safety of our equine and human athletes and integrity of our sport is our highest priority. We feel these measures are our duty and responsibility.” Investigators have yet to find any cause in the deaths of Joseph’s two horses in a 72-hour span, along with two others over the past week, which has cast a pall over Churchill Downs in the final preparations for the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. “This is the worst part of the game,” said Mike Repole, co-owner of early Derby favorite Forte. “It’s very sad.” Joseph said earlier Thursday he was questioned by investigators from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Churchill Downs. “They found no wrongdoing on our part,” he said. Joseph received permission from the KHRC to scratch five horses from races on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the Daily Racing Form. He already had scratched one on Wednesday. He told reporters earlier in the day that he scratched any horse that had been in contact with the two that died out of an abundance of caution. Despite the deaths, Joseph had planned to run Lord Miles in the Derby. The colt arrived from Florida; the two dead horses had been at Keeneland in Lexington. Joseph, a 36-year-old third-generation trainer, said earlier Thursday that investigators examined his barn, checked the horses’ veterinary records and took blood samples from each of his horses, which showed nothing abnormal. The feed, hay, straw and supplements used by the horses were checked, too. The deaths are the first for Joseph, who came to Florida in 2011 after training in his native Barbados. “It crushes you. It knocks your confidence, it makes you doubt everything,” he said. At the same time, he added, “There’s two ways: You can run away from it and pretend it didn’t happen or you could face it and find out what we can do.” Meanwhile, two horses dumped their exercise riders during on-track training Thursday, including Derby entrant Verifying. Neither rider was injured. Besides Joseph’s horses, Derby long shot Wild On Ice and 3-year-old filly Take Charge Briana broke down with musculoskeletal injuries during training or racing at Churchill Downs. Both were euthanized. Joseph said the first necropsy done on his horse didn’t reveal a cause of death. “We’re living on unknown terms right now, so that’s the uneasy part,” he said. Spectators at morning training were startled when Verifying, one of trainer Brad Cox’s four Derby runners, got loose on the track, triggering a warning siren. The colt was caught by an outrider and turned over to Cox, who led him back to the barn. The exercise rider dislocated his right shoulder. “He was galloping by and looked great. Next thing I know the rider was on the ground,” Cox said. “We got lucky, we dodged a bullet.” Cox said he had “no concern” about any issues with the track as a result of the horse deaths. Not long after, And Tell Me Nolies reared and dumped her rider before tearing off the track at full speed and rampaging through the stable area in search of her barn. Trainer Peter Miller said the filly appeared to be fine and is scheduled to start in the Kentucky Oaks on Friday. “Luckily, she didn’t go down or anything, so she’s OK,” he said. Repole believes it would help if the sport did more to reassure the public how seriously it takes safety. “People will understand injuries,” he said. “People won’t understand injuries with death.” The industry was rocked in 2019, when more than 40 horses died at Santa Anita in California. As a result, a raft of safety reforms were enacted that have spread around the country. “The horses get great care and we do our best to prevent these kind of things, but they still happen,” Joseph said. “A lot of times in those sudden deaths you never get answers [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kentucky-derby-2023-trainer-suspended-two-horses-mysteriously-die-race-rcna83021]

Reform UK - formerly the Brexit Party - has made little headway in England's local elections. The party, founded in 2018 with Nigel Farage's backing, fielded hundreds of candidates, mainly in areas that had voted heavily to leave the EU in 2016. But with all but three results now declared, Reform has won just six seats, averaging just 6% of the vote in the wards where it stood. In the last equivalent poll in 2019, UKIP averaged 19% in wards it fought. At the time, Prime Minister Theresa May had failed to get her Brexit deal through the Commons - and the UK was yet to leave the European Union. Weeks later, the then-Brexit Party would go on to win the UK's elections to the European Parliament, by which time Mrs May had resigned as Tory leader - paving the way for Boris Johnson to enter Downing Street. Reform UK leader aims to wipe out Tories at polls Reform UK leader attacks Tories as high-tax party Labour aims for No 10 after Tory poll drubbing The political influence of Reform - now led by former MEP Richard Tice - has waned since then, but it has been ahead of the Green Party and the Lib Dems in some national opinion polls. On Friday, Mr Tice told The Telegraph his party had "changed the course of numerous seats" in the local elections, at the Tories' expense. On Reform's failure to make greater inroads, he added: "Look, Rome was not built in a day. We're a new party. First-past-the-post is brutally hard, which is why we support proportional representation." In January, Mr Tice said he was on a mission to ensure the Conservatives "never have a majority government again". Both the Tories and Labour had run out of ideas to fix "broken Britain", and only his party offered "bold, brave solutions", he argued. Reform, which has no MPs, says it plans to field candidates in every constituency in England, Scotland and Wales at the next general election. UKIP, whose political fortunes have declined sharply since Mr Farage stood down as its leader in 2016, has so far lost all the seats it was defending in these elections. But party chairman Ben Walker dismissed claims the party had been wiped off the electoral map, saying: "The seats being reported as being lost today haven't been our seats for some time due to defections to other political parties or independents. "UKIP still has elected councillors across the country on various councils." In 2014, the defection of Tory MPs Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, and the wider electoral threat thought to be posed by UKIP to the Conservatives, were major factors in prompting then-Prime Minister David Cameron to announce a referendum on Britain's future in the EU. [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65502990]

The leader of Russia's Wagner mercenary group says he will withdraw his troops from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on 10 May because of ammunition shortages. Yevgeny Prigozhin's statement came after he posted a video of him walking among his dead fighters' bodies, blaming top Russian defence officials. "Tens of thousands" had been killed and injured there, Prigozhin said. Russia has been trying to capture the eastern city for months, despite its questionable strategic value. Wagner troops have been heavily involved. Earlier this week, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby - citing newly declassified intelligence - said that more than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and another 80,000 wounded in fighting in Ukraine since December. Half of the dead were from the Wagner group. In his statement on Friday, Prigozhin, 61, pinned his decision to withdraw from Bakhmut squarely on the defence ministry, using expletives. "Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the... ammunition?... They came here as volunteers and die for you to fatten yourselves in your mahogany offices." Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov have often been the focus for Prigozhin's anger, amid reports of fierce infighting among different power groups in Russian President Vladimir Putin's entourage. In the statement, Prigozhin said his Wagner's casualties were "growing in geometrical progression every day" because of the lack of ammunition. But he stressed that his fighters would stay on their positions until 9 May, when Russia marks Victory Day in World War Two, and would only withdraw from Bakhmut the following day. In the video released earlier, Prigozhin - seen standing in front of his men - said he would "transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds". "My lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition," he added. One of the videos released by Prigozhin on Friday appears to have been filmed about 2km (1.2 miles) from the centre of Bakhmut. The BBC has matched ground features, including bushes and pylons, with satellite imagery of the location. Prigozhin is a publicity seeker, and his influence has seemingly waned in recent months. He has previously made threats he has not followed through with - subsequently dismissing them as jokes and military humour. Only last week he told a Russian pro-war blogger that Wagner fighters in Bakhmut were down to their last days of supplies of bullets, and needed thousands of rounds of ammunition. The Kremlin has not commented on Prigozhin's latest statements. Meanwhile, Ukraine's military said it was not seeing any decline in the intensity of fighting near Bakhmut. "For months, Prigozhin has been trying to make outrageous statements in order to draw attention to himself," Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for Ukraine's Eastern Command, has told BBC Ukrainian. And Ukraine's deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said Russia was desperately trying to seize Bakhmut by 9 May. Prigozhin has emerged as a key player in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022, in charge of a private army of mercenaries leading the Russian onslaught. He recruited thousands of convicted criminals from jail for his group - no matter how grave their crimes - as long as they agreed to fight for Wagner in Ukraine. Prigozhin hails from St Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin's home city. The two most likely first met at one of Prigozhin's restaurants in the city. Years later, Prigozhin's catering company Concord was contracted to supply food to the Kremlin, earning him the nickname "Putin's chef". From Putin's chef to head of Russia's private army The battle for Bakhmut has dragged on for months. Wagner troops and regular Russian forces have fought on the same side, against the Ukrainian military. Ukraine decided to defend the city at all costs in an apparent attempt to focus Russian military resources on one place of relatively little significance. In February, Prigozhin posted another image of his dead troops and blamed army chiefs for their deaths. Although the military denied deliberately starving his Wagner group of shells, at the time they did respond by increasing supplies to the front line. US-based military analyst Rob Lee argues that Wagner's latest complaint of shortages likely reflects Russia's defence ministry rationing ammunition ahead of Ukraine's long anticipated counter-offensive. The ministry has to defend the whole front, but Prigozhin's sole concern lies in taking Bakhmut, he wrote on Twitter. If Wagner did manage to take the city Prigozhin could claim the political credit, Mr Lee added. The mercenary chief has himself predicted that Ukraine's counter-offensive will begin by 15 May, as tanks and artillery will be able to advance in dry weather, after the last spring rain. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65493008]

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