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Pokemon GO Fest 2025 Max Finale comes with a Promo Code that offers a branching Timed Research quest. Trainers with the code can redeem it for the Gigantamax Journey Timed Research quest. Those who complete all the tasks can encounter powerful Gigantamax Pokemon along with other items. Pokemon GO: How To Evolve Doublade Into Aegislash (Can They Be Shiny?) Those with Honedge in Pokemon GO can evolve it into a Doublade and then Aegislash by following this detailed guide. Pokemon GO Gigantamax Journey: Timed Research Tasks And Rewards Pokemon GO Gigantamax Journey Timed Research comprises three branches from the very first step. There are five steps in each of the branches; you can choose only one of the branches to follow. Trainers must pick which one to follow between the Gigantamax Rillaboom, Gigantamax Cinderace, and Gigantamax Inteleon branches. Completing the tasks not only rewards you with in-game items but also an encounter with the respective Gigantamax Pokemon. https://gamerant.com/pokemon-go-gigantamax-journey-all-timed-research-tasks-and-rewards/

Ark: Survival Evolved left early access on August 27, 2017. That's nearly 70,000 hours ago… which means if a player has logged 35,202 hours in Ark, they've essentially been playing the dino-survival game for half its lifespan. Not only has one player actually done that, they just gave Ark a negative review on Steam. After 35,202 hours. And amazingly, even bravely, perhaps—they're also demanding a refund. "I have enjoyed Ark for 35,000 hours, one of my favorite games to play with friends and family," the reviewer said on Steam. "I ran a ASM [Ark Server Manager] server w/mods for years until today. NOTHING works anymore." The issue appears to be the release of Ark Aquatica, a 10-year anniversary DLC for Ark: Survival Evolved. It's currently rated on Steam as "Overwhelmingly Negative" with only 12% of its reviews positive ones. Not only are users reporting bugs and poor performance for the DLC, but also that it breaks mods, server settings, and configuration files across the entire game. "Server doesn't match, mods don't work, and of all this is to force us to ASA [Ark: Survival Ascended, the remastered version of Ark]," the 35,000-hour player continues in their review. "I have that game as well, and it sucks. That is why we went back to ASE [Ark: Survival Evolved] and now you have managed to screw that also. "You had something great. Hope you don't choke on your GREED!!! How do I get a refund!!" they conclude. 35,202 hours, by the way, is four years. I don't mean they've been playing Ark for four years, I mean those 35,202 hours add up to an entire, solid four years of time. Even if that includes the uptime of running a server, that is a big Ark fan you've pissed off. Maybe the biggest? For the record, it appears publisher Snail Games is aware of the issues. "Our top priority remains to fix an issue with the game engine on the live version of ARK: Survival Evolved," reads a post on Ark's Steam page today, adding that the problem is "proving to be complex" and that "a solution continues to be developed in order to address mods from instantly crashing and we look forward to posting an update when possible." This isn't the first time we've seen a negative review from a player with hundreds or thousands of hours in a game—Joshua recently tracked down someone who had played Battlezone 98 for 8,000 hours only to leave a negative review. (Plus, Joshua wound up agreeing with him). But this has to be the biggest one yet, right? 35,000 hours in a single game? I don't think I've ever seen that level of commitment, especially alongside that level of disappointment. You know what? I hope they do get a refund. It's worth noting that even after writing their scathing indictment of Ark and demanding their money back, the reviewer has played, um, an additional 32 hours in the past week. Does that mean one of the recent patches has improved the situation? I've reached out to them for further comment, and will update this story if I hear back. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/guy-with-35-000-hours-in-ark-survival-evolved-gives-it-a-negative-steam-review-how-do-i-get-a-refund/

Last week, a new country song called “Together” appeared on Spotify under the official artist page of Blaze Foley, a country artist shot and killed in 1989. The ballad was unlike his other work, but there it was: cover art, credits, and copyright information – just like any other new single. Except this wasn't an unearthed track from before his death; it was an AI-generated fake. After being flagged by fans and Foley's label, Lost Art Records, and reported on by 404 Media, the track was removed. Another fake song attributed to the late country icon Guy Clark, who passed away in 2016, was also taken down. The report found that the AI-generated tracks carried copyright tags listing a company named Syntax Error as the owner, although little is known about them. Stumbling across AI-made songs on Spotify isn't unusual. There are entire playlists of machine-generated lo-fi beats and ambient chillcore that already rake in millions of plays. But, those tracks are typically presented under imaginary artist names and usually have their origin mentioned. The attribution is what makes the Foley case unusual. An AI-generated song uploaded to the wrong place and falsely linked to real, deceased human beings is many steps beyond simply sharing AI-created sounds. Synthetic music embedded directly into the legacy of long-dead musicians without permission from their families or labels is an escalation of the long-running debate over AI-generated content. That it happened on a giant platform like Spotify and didn't get caught by the streamer's own tools is understandably troubling. And unlike some cases where AI-generated music is passed off as a tribute or experiment, these were treated as official releases. They appeared in the artists’ discographies. This latest controversy adds the disturbing wrinkle of real artists misrepresented by fakes. Posthumous AI artists As for what happened on Spotify's end, the company attributed the upload to SoundOn, a music distributor owned by TikTok. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. “The content in question violates Spotify’s deceptive content policies, which prohibit impersonation intended to mislead, such as replicating another creator’s name, image, or description, or posing as a person, brand, or organization in a deceptive manner,” Spotify said in a statement to 404. “This is not allowed. We take action against licensors and distributors who fail to police for this kind of fraud and those who commit repeated or egregious violations can and have been permanently removed from Spotify.” That it was taken down is great, but the fact that the track appeared at all suggests an issue with flagging these problems earlier. Considering Spotify processes tens of thousands of new tracks daily, the need for automation is obvious. However, that means there may be no checking into the origins of a track as long as the technical requirements are met. That matters not just for artistic reasons, but as a question of ethics and economics. When generative AI can be used to manufacture fake songs in the name of dead musicians, and there’s no immediate or foolproof mechanism to stop it, then you have to wonder how artists can prove who they are and get the credit and royalties they or their estates have earned. Apple Music and YouTube have also struggled to filter out deepfake content. And as AI tools like Suno and Udio make it easier than ever to generate songs in seconds, with lyrics and vocals to match, the problem will only grow. There are verification processes that can be used, as well as building tags and watermarks into AI-generated content. However, platforms that prioritize streamlined uploads may not be fans of the extra time and effort involved. AI can be a great tool for helping produce and enhance music, but that's using AI as a tool, not as a mask. If an AI generates a track and it's labeled as such, that's great. But if someone intentionally passes that work off as part of an artist’s legacy, especially one they can no longer defend, that’s fraud. It may seem a minor aspect of the AI debates, but people care about music and what happens in this industry could have repercussions in every other aspect of AI use. https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/spotify-had-to-pull-an-ai-generated-song-that-claimed-to-be-from-an-artist-who-passed-away-36-years-ago

Users of the MetaMask extension for Chrome, Edge, and Opera might want to uninstall the software until a bug that's eating away at SSDs is fixed. MetaMask is the self-proclaimed "everything wallet" that allows users to "buy, sell, swap, send, [and] receive" various cryptocurrencies; "collect [and] trade NFTs"; and "connect to thousands of crypto dapps" (distributed applications) from a single interface. Cointelegraph reported on July 20 that Consensys, the company that owns MetaMask, has confirmed the existence of a bug in the platform's extension for Chromium-based web browsers that "has been writing hundreds of gigabytes of data per day into [users'] solid-state drives" since at least May. Bitcoin Depot tells 27,000 crypto ATM customers that it leaked their personal information, but waited a year to disclose due to an ongoing investigation Recertified HDD vendor goHardDrive caught leaking thousands of customer details BigONE crypto exchange cleaned out for $27 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more An issue filed by "ripper31337" on GitHub claimed that MetaMask wrote "25 Terabytes in 3 months" and that the problem manifested even when logged out of the extension. MetaMask developer Mark "Gudahtt" Stacey acknowledged the problem on July 18. "It writes 5 MB/s nonstop in the background, even if you're logged out," said a user on X who reported the GitHub finding. Worst case scenario, 420GB a day (421.88 GB to be precise), could add up to 38TB of data over three months of continuous use. However, the attached CrystalDiskInfo data (which no doubt accounts for some time powered off) shows a total host write of 26517 GB on one affected SSD, not as bad as it could have been, but still an eye-watering amount, and a colossal amount of needless SSD wear. A spokesperson for Consensys reportedly told Cointelegraph that "while browser extension wallets do regularly write state to disk, which is expected behavior, we’ve taken note of a recent observation shared by a small number of MetaMask users who reported unusually high disk activity” and that "the issue predominantly impacts users with unusually large state" so it's "exploring strategies for reducing state size” to further address the problem. SSDs have become increasingly resilient over the years—cloud backup company Backblaze said in 2022 that the SSDs in its data centers had actually become more reliable than the HDDs—but needlessly writing terabytes worth of data over the course of a few months still isn't wise. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cryptocurrency/metamask-crypto-wallet-chrome-extension-is-eating-ssd-storage-at-an-alarming-rate-owner-confirms-bug-has-been-writing-hundreds-of-gigabytes-of-data-per-day-into-users-solid-state-drives

By Nikki Maticic, Kids' Farm keeper Hi, I’m Nikki, an animal keeper at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo! It’s a warm summer day here in D.C., and the Kids’ Farm animals are feeling it, too. Let’s prep some fun enrichment treats to help them beat the heat! Enrichment is key here at the Zoo, since it helps us stimulate the animals both mentally and physically. We offer them toys, scents, puzzle feeders, brushing, training... and today, we’ve got ice treats. Nikki Maticic/Smithsonian These were crafted in our kitchen area from carrot pieces and water – they’re a huge hit with our barnyard friends. Frozen treats help keep the animals cool, and they add a fun and creative twist to their day. Nikki Maticic/Smithsonian First up is Winston, the kunekune pig! We gave him an ice cake in the shape of a star because, as you can see, he’s a star in every way. Pigs like Winston don’t sweat, so we help him stay cool in the summer with shallow water pools, fans, and misters. Nikki Maticic/Smithsonian Next – here’s Rainstorm, one of our newest alpacas! Alpacas originally hail from the chilly Andes Mountains of South America. We shear our alpacas every spring to make sure they don’t overheat, and offer them misters, fans, and sprinklers to stay cool and comfortable all summer long. Guiseppe and Pat, our miniature donkeys, love veggie ice cakes… and any kind of treat, really! Miniature donkeys naturally shed their coats in the spring. We brush them a lot during the summer months to help them fully shed out their coats – and also, they love tactile enrichment from brushing and petting. Maggie, our 2,000 pound Holstein cow, really likes her veggie ice pop. She and our Hereford cow, Willow, are big fans of snacks, which we usually give for enrichment or during training sessions. These cows eat between 20-30 pounds of hay a day – I bet they both would love to snack on a few more ice treats! Nikki Maticic/Smithsonian And finally, let’s feed the goats: Wilma, Fedora, and Fiesta! During the hottest parts of the day, Nigerian Dwarf goats find shady spots to nap – which they sometimes do in tubs, buckets, and wheelbarrows. But they quickly woke up at the sound of me bringing them an ice treat! https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/news/keeping-farm-animals-cool-frozen-treats

Gerard Pique has already given Marcus Rashford an idea of what it's like to play for Barcelona – and the former Manchester United defender came to the same conclusion as Pep Guardiola. Rashford landed in Catalonia on Sunday evening after he was given permission from Manchester United to complete the formalities of a season-long loan move. After a deal was agreed in principle over the weekend, Rashford joined up with Barcelona manager Hansi Flick and sporting director Deco at the club's Ciutat Esportiva training ground on Monday morning. He is expected to be presented to the Spanish media on Wednesday, according to BBC Sport. Barcelona, meanwhile, have agreed to cover Rashford's £325,000-a-week wage in full, and the deal is also said to include an option to buy for €35 million, which equates to around £30.3 million. It is a dream come true for the Wythenshawe-born forward, who has already said he would like to play alongside teenage sensation Lamine Yamal at the Camp Nou. When asked about the prospect of playing alongside Yamal in an interview with Spanish influencer Javi Ruiz last month, Rashford said: "Yes, for sure, Everyone wants to play with the best. Hopefully... we'll see." One thing is for certain; the pressure of playing for such a big club like Barcelona is higher than most. In fact, former defender Gerard Pique – who also played for Manchester United between 2004 and 2008 – once explained why playing for the Catalan side was unlike any other. Speaking at a 2019 press conference, Pique said: “There is no club in the world that plays with as much pressure as Barcelona. If we don’t win a treble, people think it’s a bad season.” Pep Guardiola, who enjoyed a trophy-laden spell with arguably the greatest Barcelona team of all time, also claimed the expectations that come with representing the Spanish giants are beyond those of Manchester City and Bayern Munich. Speaking at a press conference in 2017, he said: “More pressure here [At City]? No. The most pressure was in Barcelona. You cannot compare the pressure in Barcelona and Madrid to Munich or Manchester. Here it is less, much, much less.” As mentioned above, Rashford is expected to be unveiled as a Barcelona player on Wednesday and will likely feature on their pre-season trip to Asia, where they will face Vissel Kobe in Japan followed by two matches in South Korea against Daegu FC and FC Seoul. https://www.sportbible.com/football/la-liga/fc-barcelona/gerard-pique-marcus-rashford-barcelona-man-utd-transfer-216818-20250722

When my father-in-law, Cliff, died in March 2021 after being diagnosed with an aggressive and late-caught cancer, he didn’t leave any funeral plans. Nor was there money squirrelled away to pay for them, even if he had. He was an ardent atheist, so a church service was out of the question, and pandemic restrictions had been limiting guest numbers, so my wife, Hayley, and her siblings decided to opt out of having a traditional funeral. Instead, they chose “direct cremation”, a service that minimises formalities – and, crucially, the cost. There is no funeral service; the coffin is simply brought into the crematorium before it is cremated, after which the ashes are returned to the family. During an online consultation with “death specialists” Farewill, Hayley was quoted £1,062 for a direct cremation, more than £3,000 cheaper than the current average cost of a basic funeral. The only catch was that no one would attend the cremation, aside from those paid to carry it out. It seemed a cruel choice to some, who could not get their heads around the idea that there would not be a funeral to attend. But Hayley explained why it seemed like the perfect option: they could obtain her father’s ashes without fuss and hold their own, intimate ceremony on the banks of the River Wye, where Cliff had loved to fish. Although Cliff died in a hospital in Powys, Wales, he was cremated 140 miles away at a crematorium near Exeter. His ashes then travelled 220 miles east, with no limousine cortege in sight, to our home in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. The delivery man arrived holding a gift bag containing Hayley’s dad in one hand and a small bunch of flowers in the other. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/23/the-delivery-man-arrived-with-the-ashes-in-a-gift-bag-why-are-so-many-people-opting-out-of-traditional-funerals

United States President Donald Trump has called for the arrest of former President Barack Obama, repeating unproven claims that the Democrat’s administration intentionally misled the public in its assessment of the 2016 election. At Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, Trump accused Obama, a longtime rival, of helming a criminal conspiracy. “ The leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump told the media. “ He’s guilty. This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever even imagined, even in other countries.” President Trump has a history of spreading election-related falsehoods, including by denying his own defeat in the 2020 race. But since taking office for a second term, he has sought to settle scores over his victory in the 2016 presidential contest, which raised questions about Russia’s alleged attempts to influence the outcome. In 2016, in the waning days of Obama’s second term, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concluded that Russia had attempted to sway the results in Trump’s favour. Obama responded to the allegations by expelling Russian diplomats and slapping sanctions on the country. An intelligence community assessment in 2017 later offered details into the Russian influence campaign. But in 2019, a special counsel’s report found there was not enough evidence to support the claim that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia. It did, however, once again underscore the government’s assertion that Russia had interfered in the election “in sweeping and systematic fashion”. Trump, however, has described such probes as politicised attacks designed to undermine his authority. Americas Coverage Newsletter US politics, Canada’s multiculturalism, South America’s geopolitical rise—we bring you the stories that matter. Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy protected by reCAPTCHA In Tuesday’s appearance, Trump cited recent claims from his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to assert wrongdoing on the part of the Obama administration. “They caught President Obama absolutely cold,” Trump said. “They tried to rig the election, and they got caught, and there should be very New York protesters urge UN, Guterres take decisive action against Israeli attacks on Gaza Tulsi Gabbard renews Obama attacks Trump’s latest remarks about what he calls the “Russia hoax” come just days after Gabbard released a press release about the subject on July 18. In the statement, Gabbard’s office asserts she “revealed overwhelming evidence” that “President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicised intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump”. Gabbard followed that release up with a series of social media posts, some indicating she had pressed the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal charges against Obama. She has called the scrutiny on the 2016 election a “treasonous conspiracy”. “Their goal was to usurp President Trump and subvert the will of the American people,” Gabbard wrote. “No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” she continued. “We are turning over all documents to the DOJ for criminal referral.” However, the veracity of Gabbard’s report has been widely questioned. Critics have pointed out that she appears to confuse different conclusions. Gabbard, for instance, has highlighted internal government documents from the 2016 election period that indicate Russia was not using cyberattacks to alter the overall vote count. But the published 2017 intelligence report did not assert that Russia was attempting to hack the election. Instead, it highlighted ways that Russia tried to influence public sentiment through disinformation. Russia’s campaign included online propaganda, the dissemination of hacked data, and targeted messaging about individuals and entities involved in the election. Other investigations related to the matter, including a separate Department of Justice inspector general report and a Republican-led Senate investigation, all supported that Russia did indeed seek to influence the 2016 election. Backlash against Gabbard’s statements But Gabbard’s argument that the scrutiny over the 2016 election was criminal has prompted uproar, particularly from the Democratic Party. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia even questioned whether Gabbard should remain in her role as director of national intelligence. “It is sadly not surprising that DNI Gabbard, who promised to depoliticize the intelligence community, is once again weaponizing her position to amplify the president’s election conspiracy theories,” he wrote on social media. Obama himself released a statement through his office, calling Gabbard’s claims “bizarre”. “Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully mani[CENSORED]te any votes,” it said. Some critics have speculated that Trump may be using the years-old question of Russian election interference to distract from his current political woes: He recently faced backlash from members of his base over his handling of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Still, President Trump has doubled down on Gabbard’s assertions, even reposting a video generated by artificial intelligence (AI) on Monday showing Obama being handcuffed in the Oval Office, while the song YMCA played. “ This is, like, proof – irrefutable proof – that Obama was seditious, that Obama was trying to lead a coup,” Trump said on Tuesday. “Obama headed it up.” Experts have long speculated that Trump may use a second term as president to settle political scores and seek retaliation against his foes.

🎉 Happy Birthday @Mr.Zanis 𝑲 𝑮 𝑭🎉 Wishing you a day filled with joy, laughter, and all the things you love most. May this year bring you success, good health, and endless happiness. Enjoy your special day to the fullest! 🥳

Minecraft players would like to see more random encounters with mobs added to the game. Back in 2011, Minecraft became a phenomenon by placing the player in a large world with only a few types of mobs. Since then, other creatures have been added to the game, making Mojang's sandbox an even more engrossing experience. When it comes to the original Minecraft mobs, the Creeper is one of the most memorable. After all, in addition to being the game's mascot, this explosive green monster is known for appearing to players only at the most inopportune moments. Speaking about newer mobs, Minecraft released the Trails and Tales update in 2023 and added the Sniffer. This adorable ancient passive mob has a large yellow nose that it uses to dig up seeds from unique decorative plants. There are several creatures that Minecraft players can encounter while exploring their worlds, but the community has an idea on how to make this game element even better. Minecraft Update Adds the Infamous Lava Chicken Song Minecraft's latest Bedrock update brings a few changes, along with a new music disc that pays tribute to one of the Minecraft Movie's best memes. A Minecraft player used the game's subreddit to express their desire to see more random encounters added to the sandbox. For them, this idea is more impactful than adding new features, as it requires the Minecraft player to stop what they are doing to interact with the random encounter. To illustrate, they posted an image showing a raid, skeleton horsemen, and Minecraft's Wandering Trader, which are mobs with appearances aligned with the idea of random encounters. Minecraft Players Would Like to See More Random Encounters The Minecraft community approved the poster's idea, with their post receiving over 8,000 upvotes and 210 comments so far. Some players offered their suggestions, such as caravans with traders riding camels, led by a guard, such as Minecraft's Iron Golem. A second player believes the game would be more exciting with hordes of zombies suddenly attacking the player, with the chance for them to call for reinforcements. Another Redditor showed a preference for neutral or positive encounters, such as a bird landing near the player and starting to sing. That is not the first time that the Minecraft community has expressed a desire for the addition of random encounters, with several posts on the subject on the game's official feedback site. Mojang has not yet shown open interest in introducing random encounters, but it continues to work actively to bring new features to Minecraft. With that, players hope that the devs will listen to the community and add this feature in a future update.

Collective Shout, an Australian anti-pornography group, has claimed credit for Steam's recent removal of a large number of sexually explicit games and new, stricter moderation guidelines regarding such material. In a statement to PC Gamer, Valve cited pressure from payment processors like credit card companies and Paypal for the move, while Collective Shout touted its open letter and consumer campaign targeting payment processors for inciting that pressure. This was first reported by Waypoint, which has since pulled its two articles on the subject without explanation. The articles' author, Ana Valens, has alleged that Vice's parent company, Savage Ventures, removed the articles due to concerns over their controversial content rather than any error in the reporting. Collective Shout began in 2009, co-founded by self-described "pro-life feminist" Melinda Tankard Reist. Collective Shout describes itself as "A grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualization of girls in media, advertising, and po[CENSORED]r culture". To date, it has been involved in: On July 7, Collective Shout shared an update to its No Mercy Change.org campaign calling on supports to email payment processors (including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Discover) to demand that they "cut ties with Steam and itch.io" over "hundreds of r*pe, incest, and child-abuse games." This was followed by an open letter from Collective Shout asking that they "immediately cease processing payments on Steam and itch.io and any other platforms hosting similar games." Collective Shout later wrote that 1,067 individuals called and emailed payment processors as part of this campaign. It's unclear when Valve updated its TOS for developers, but the mass deletion of sex games appears to have begun on July 15 judging by SteamDB's recorded package changes. On the 18th, Valve confirmed to us that this was in response to pressure from payment processors. Collective Shout claimed victory that same day. "Since we launched our campaign calling on Payment Processors to stop facilitating payments for rape, incest, sexual torture and child-abuse themed games on Steam, they have added a new rule to their policies + removed hundreds of these games," the group wrote on Twitter. In follow-up tweets, Collective Shout wrote that it was experiencing harassment from "misogynistic gamers" over the campaign, and that there remain 82 games "tagged with rape and incest" that the group will continue campaigning to have taken down⁠—this is of a claimed 500 games that the group took issue with. Those numbers do not add up, though. Counting up all "Removed" and "Retired" games on SteamDB since the 15th, I got 456 hits, but that includes double counts for most of the offending games (many of which were both "Removed" and "Retired"), DLC and demos for those games (also given the double-r treatment), and a number of unrelated games that were taken off Steam during this time. "All these porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists so desperate to get their hands on rape-my-little-sister incest games they’re now exchanging clues on how to find them so that they don’t all die overnight," Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist tweeted on July 18th. Later that day, she shared a long Tweet thread further claiming victory with Steam's decision. The two retracted articles from Waypoint appear to be the first among the games press to point out the connection between Collective Shout and the recent changes on Steam, a connection which is public knowledge⁠—by Collective Shout's own statements⁠—and not an allegation made by Waypoint against the group. The articles remain available on the Wayback Machine, and I have reached out for comment from Savage Ventures regarding their deletion. Ana Valens and two other Waypoint writers, Shaun Cichacki and Matt Vatankhah, have all resigned from the site. "I stand by all of my retracted articles, especially the Collective Shout ones," Valens said in a statement to PC Gamer. "I fact-checked every article's content rigorously. I believe that Collective Shout and its related organizations deserve further journalistic investigation by other reporters in the games industry. I hope more writers look into the clear and obvious signs of payment processor-based censorship that are occurring toward Steam, and have occurred against Pixiv, itch.io, DLSite, Gumroad, Patreon, and other sites." This is likely far from over: Collective Shout is no doubt feeling emboldened by a second public success in its efforts to police content on Steam specifically. The games I saw removed from Steam in this wave all featured risible content and suspect quality, but Collective Shout has a broader anti-pornography, even anti-expression remit that it has demonstrated in the past. https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/australian-anti-porn-group-claims-responsibility-for-steams-new-censorship-rules-in-victory-against-porn-sick-brain-rotted-pedo-gamer-fetishists-and-things-only-get-weirder-from-there/

Can AI help us think more clearly? We often talk about AI as a tool for writing, productivity, or even therapy. But lately, I’ve been experimenting with something different. What if we treated AI less like a content creator and more like a thinking companion? Could these tools help us clarify our thoughts? Especially when we’re wrestling with the big, messy, timeless philosophical questions that have no neat answers? I know that might sound counterintuitive. Why turn to artificial intelligence to explore ideas like free will or goodness? But maybe that’s the point. When we get tangled in our own thinking, sometimes a detached, structured perspective is what we need. AI isn’t emotional – at least not unless we ask it to "pretend" to be. It’s not tied to a particular worldvie,w the way humans are either. And while that can make its creative writing feel a little flat, maybe creativity was never its strength. Maybe what AI is best at is structure, helping us think more clearly, logically, even laterally, introducing new perspectives we might not have considered. 5 ways you could use AI for help and support Want to improve your ChatGPT results? Try these 6 easy mindset shifts New research says using AI reduces brain activity – but does that mean it's making us dumber? What happens when you ask ChatGPT about the meaning of life? (Image credit: ChatGPT) The experiment To test this, I asked a handful of the most po[CENSORED]r AI tools the same timeless, unanswerable philosophical questions. The kind that can’t ever be resolved, but can spark endless debate. I wanted to see how they handled ambiguity. Could they provide the necessary foundational knowledge? Could they offer fresh insights? I wanted frameworks, provocations, and a sense of how each tool “thinks.” The tools I used: ChatGPT Claude Gemini Perplexity Pi Question 1: What is the meaning of life? What happens when you ask Perplexity the meaning of life? (Image credit: Perplexity) Let’s start with the big one. Unsurprisingly, none of the tools claimed to know the meaning of life, but each approached the question a little differently. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. ChatGPT offered a structured, multi-lens response: philosophical, spiritual, cosmic, and human. I appreciated the clarity and the sci-fi nerdery (“Or if you’re a Douglas Adams fan: 42”). It didn’t go especially deep, but it gave me something solid to work with. Claude was more reflective. Like ChatGPT, it referenced existentialist thought, but added emotional depth. It quoted Viktor Frankl, and closed with a question: “What aspects of meaning resonate most with you?” It felt like a gentle prompt from someone who wanted me to keep thinking. Gemini gave the most information-dense reply – covering absurdism, nihilism, religious perspectives, and more – in an efficient, slightly sterile bullet-point format. Less like a conversation, more like a textbook. But for foundational knowledge, it was very thorough. Perplexity followed a similar route, laying out philosophical, scientific, and spiritual views and citing its sources along the way, too – a bonus for further reading. Another tool that feels more like a research assistant than a sparring partner. Pi, on the other hand, responded like a friend: “It’s whatever you make of it.” Warm, simple, and pleasant. But a little shallow compared to the others. If Claude was the wise friend, Pi was the friend who listens and nods. Question 2: Is free will real? What happens when you ask Pi AI about free will? (Image credit: Pi AI) This is the kind of question that splits philosophers, neuroscientists, and sci-fi fans alike. Claude stood out again. It laid out arguments for and against free will, and explored the grey areas in between. Then it got personal: “What’s your intuition? Does it feel like you’re genuinely choosing – or discovering what you were always going to do?” That question prompted the best ongoing discussion of the bunch. ChatGPT covered several of the major theories here – determinism, compatibilism, libertarianism, even simulation theory – with its usual clean structure. It was thorough, but less probing than Claude. Gemini once again felt a little cold but incredibly well-researched. It presented the philosophical terrain and included nods to relevant neuroscience. Academic in tone, and useful if you're studying this or want a strong foundation before beginning the deeper contemplation. Perplexity offered a solid overview, linked to source material, and added related follow-up questions. It’s a tool that invites further exploration more than introspection. But maybe more information is necessary for the vast majority of us before we even begin unpicking such complex questions? Pi took a more conversational tack again. It acknowledged the complexity and asked for my opinion. Pleasant, but it didn’t challenge me or push my thinking further. Question 3: What makes a person good? What happens when you ask Google Gemini about goodness? (Image credit: Google Gemini) This question produced the most variation in tone and depth. ChatGPT started strong with: “The idea of what makes a person good is ancient, layered, and honestly a bit slippery.” It then offered a broad synthesis of values – kindness, empathy, fairness – and asked thoughtful questions in return. But the tone wavered. Its friendly opening line often clashes with its colder follow-ups. Claude excelled here again. It unpacked traits of goodness through the lens of various ethical theories – virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology – and then moved into questions about moral nuance, cultural context, and values. It felt like a therapist-meets-philosopher. Gemini did what Gemini does: cover every angle, thoroughly and precisely. Traits, intentions, consequences, and culture were all accounted for. It felt like it was trying to outdo the others on detail, and succeeding. Perplexity offered a breakdown through religious, philosophical, and cultural lenses, giving me clear paths to go deeper depending on my interests. Similar to ChatGPT, but it felt more structured, well-organized, and pragmatic with those all-important citations. Pi kept things simple again. It mentioned common traits like honesty and empathy, and then closed with: “If someone strives to do what they believe is right, even when it’s difficult, that could be seen as true goodness.” A nice sentiment, but it felt a bit... obvious. What does this tell us about the AI tools? I could have written much more detailed prompts like I have for similar experiments in the past. Maybe specifying that I wanted each tool to act like a philosopher or a thinking partner. But I liked keeping things really simple to see how the basic questions were interpreted this time. I've been writing about AI long enough to know that the way the tools responded was to be expected. Because we know they're made for different purposes and present results in different ways. But it was interesting to see how their approaches at summarizing and synthesizing differed. Perplexity and Gemini lean toward the former. They’re information-first and focused on helping you learn. If you want foundational knowledge, they’re excellent. Pi has the lightest touch approach of the group, always “kind”, always conversational, but rarely offering much substance. And to be fair, that’s its purpose. It was built to support, not inform or challenge. ChatGPT was consistently clear, competent, and often engaging. It provided knowledge, perspective, and an invitation to explore further. But it doesn’t always push beyond the obvious. Claude was the standout. Its answers combined knowledge with some emotional resonance. It structured its responses in ways that encouraged deeper thought and then invited me to keep going. Not just “here’s what people say,” but “what do you think, and why?” That’s the kind of partner I want when I’m wrestling with difficult ideas. If I were forced to pick favorites, I think Perplexity wins for knowledge as I love that it cites its sources for further exploration. And Claude is my top pick for overall framing and more introspection. What does this tell us about how we think? Of course, none of these tools can tell us the “right” answers to philosophical questions because there are none. These are timeless debates, designed to stretch us. But that’s exactly why they matter. When we explore questions like these, we’re also exploring how we define ourselves: what we value, how we decide, and what we believe it means to be human. So, can AI really help us think through those things? I think it can, at least a little. These tools reflect the worldviews, biases, and knowledge structures of the data they’re trained on. No, they don’t have beliefs or experiences. But they do model how we argue and explain. And sometimes that’s enough to help us form our own answers. Especially if any of us are lacking someone who’ll adopt the role of a critical thinking partner in real life. In the end, using AI to explore philosophical questions is less about the answers and more about the act of questioning itself. It turns the tool into a mirror. One that helps us see how we think, what we notice, and where we might go next. https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/i-asked-ai-tools-philosophical-questions-heres-what-their-answers-revealed-about-how-they-think-and-how-we-do-too

AMD has finally caught up to Nvidia's latest DLSS technologies with its recent FSR 4 update. For years, the Green Team have dominated upscaling, delivering near-native quality while boosting frame rates. Nvidia took the AI route from the start, training its neural networks on massive datasets, so each iteration improved automatically, even without manual intervention. FSR, by contrast, relied on traditional techniques — until this year, when FSR 4 finally made the jump to an AI-driven approach as well. Now, FSR 4 sits between the Transformer-based DLSS 4 and the older DLSS 3, which is to say, it’s very good. Unfortunately, the strength of any upscaler depends on adoption, and the Red Team still lags behind. Fortunately, third-party (and often open-source) solutions are abound, if you know your way around a few files and repositories. One such app is OptiScaler — previously known as CyberXeSS — and it works to replace upscalers in a game with a different one that might be better in certain scenarios. For instance, if the game supports FSR 2 and was never updated beyond that, OptiScaler can take that FSR 2 input and convert it to DLSS, XeSS, or upconvert it to a newer version of FSR. And now, it supports FSR 4... as long as the game isn't running on Vulkan API or needs an anti-cheat. Apart from replacing upscalers, OptiScaler can also, by extension, replace frame-gen tech and even handle anti-lag features like Nvidia Reflex. This means that any game with older FSR or DLSS tech is now technically FSR 4-compatible. We use the word "compatible" here on purpose because "FSR 4-ready" is a bit of a stretch as there is no guarantee you'll have a stable experience. Firstly, it's not a simple toggle that you can enable in some GUI. You have to manually tweak files for every single game, and then further mess around with some settings in order to get the best experience possible. This is before installing FSR 4 in the game's directory, individually, which will be different for every game. It's certainly not convenient, but for a free solution that modernizes upscalers in a wide variety of games, it can be a worthwhile tradeoff for many. AMD's FSR Redstone uses machine learning to achieve parity with Nvidia DLSS Nvidia's DLSS tech now in over 760 games and apps Nvidia driver update finally brings Smooth Motion to RTX 40-series GPUs There are only about 65 games that support FSR 4 natively, and most of them are obscure titles. In contrast, over 125 games have DLSS 4 (with frame gen) as of May 2025, alone. With OptiScaler, you can now take that number way higher on the AMD side. All you need is a game with FSR 2 and above, or DLSS 2 and above, and OptiScaler will do the magic to replace that with FSR 4. Of course, you need an RX 9000-series card in order to even get FSR 4 as only those GPUs have the necessary hardware (AI accelerators) for it. On top of that, the game must not need anti-cheat software to run in the background or use the Vulkan API, as FSR 4 does not support Vulkan yet. As long as you meet those prerequisites, and you're comfortable configuring a few options yourself — moving around DLLs and such — FSR 4 can be all yours, ever before AMD seems to start caring about it on a serious level. It's funny because all the hard work is already behind them, they've made the upscaler we always wanted but stopped at the final step where you actually make the tech prevalent. If the community with barely any resources can do it, a billion-dollar corporation should certainly be able to as well. For now, though, this is our best bet, without spending money on alternatives like Lossless Scaling. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/amds-fsr-4-gets-a-big-boost-in-compatibility-as-optiscaler-now-supports-upconverting-any-modern-upscaler-to-fsr-4-with-frame-gen-as-long-as-the-game-isnt-vulkan-based-or-has-anti-cheat

Slaughter of certain animals, particularly cows, is banned in Gujarat, yet 25-30% of cattle are sent to slaughterhouses in the state. The Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 1954 strictly prohibits the slaughter of cattle and is among the toughest cow protection laws in India. It mandates life imprisonment for those found guilty of cow slaughter. Moreover, transporting cattle for slaughter without proper authorisation is also illegal under this law. In Gujarat, once animals are no longer useful, many owners abandon them or knowingly send them to slaughterhouses. According to sources, despite NGOs like Jivdaya Trust, Karuna Trust, and other animal welfare groups, 25-30% animals end up in slaughterhouses. Why do so many animals end up in slaughterhouses? Municipalities in urban areas and panchayats in rural areas are responsible for catching stray cattle and bulls and relocating them to animal shelters or gaushalas. However, many cattle either end up in slaughterhouses, or in rural areas, where they damage crops by entering farmlands, or they wander onto roads. https://english.gujaratsamachar.com/news/gujarat/cattle-killing-peaks-in-gujarat-with-25-30-per-cent-animals-ending-up-at-slaughterhouses

Former Australia tearaway Brett Lee weighed in on the recent contest that was called off between India and Pakistan in the ongoing World Championships of Legends (WCL). Before the clash, WCL released a statement and confirmed that the India-Pakistan fixture at Edgbaston in Birmingham had been scrapped. According to various reports, several former Indian stars refused to participate in the fixture. Recommended For You Truth Behind Ajay Devgn's Meeting With Shahid Afridi In England As Pictures Go Viral Nitish Reddy Ruled Out Of England Series, Arshdeep Singh Replaced By Anshul Kamboj For 4th Test Pakistan Champions To Get 2 Points After India Pulled Out: Team Owner The denial of Indian players to feature against Pakistan stems from the heinous terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam on April 22. Following the attack, the relationship between India and Pakistan slumped and hit a new low. Lee was quizzed about his views on the match between the two fierce rivals being called off. While addressing the "tough question", the former speedster maintained a neutral stance. "That is a tough question. But the thing I'll say right is, I love India, I love Pakistan. So I hope that they can get to a discretion where they can appreciate themselves. But most importantly, we are here on a tournament. So Australia versus India versus South Africa. We are all inclusive. So what happened last night is what happened. We pushed for it," Lee, who is representing Australia Champions, told reporters in a press conference. WCL claimed that it had announced the India-Pak fixture after a recent volleyball match between the two countries to create happy memories for fans. However, the move backfired, and the league acknowledged in its statement that the decision may have ended up hurting the feelings of many and causing discomfort to the Indian legends. In response, a decision was made to call off the fixture. WCL further apologised for any hurt sentiments. Dhawan shared an email written to the tournament organisers, where he stated that the decision not to play Pakistan had been communicated to the organisers on May 11. The email mentioned that the decision not to play Pakistan was made in consideration of the current geo-political situation. In his post on X, Dhawan said, "Jo kadam 11 May ko liya, uspe aaj bhi waise hi khada hoon. Mera desh mere liye sab kuch hai, aur desh se badhkar kuch nahi hota." (I stand by the decision I took on May 11. My country is everything to me, and nothing is bigger than the country.) In the previous edition of the WCL, India Champions trounced Pakistan to secure a five-wicket victory in the final. India gunned down a 157-run target with a blistering batting display to lift the title. https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/i-love-india-i-love-pakistan-brett-lee-on-india-vs-pakistan-champions-match-cancellation-8914111

Toasted ham baguettes in hand, we cheered as the new-generation Nightjet drew into Vienna Hauptbahnhof. It was a little before 7pm, and as the carriages hummed past I felt a rush of joy, like celebrity trainspotter Francis Bourgeois, but without the GoPro on my forehead. For more than three years I’ve been documenting the renaissance of sleeper trains, and I’d wondered if I might one day tire of them. But the thrill seems only to intensify each time I embark on another nocturnal adventure, this time with my two daughters – aged eight and five – who were already arguing over the top berth. The first four carriages were designated for travellers to the Italian port city of La Spezia, the other seven carrying on to Roma Tiburtina, where we would alight at 10am. Once in Rome we had 24 hours to eat classic carbonara, dark chocolate gelato, and bike around the Villa Borghese before taking a train to Florence. Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) has played the lead role in resuscitating Europe’s night trains. Towards the end of 2016, ÖBB launched its Nightjet network on 14 routes, using old rolling stock it bought from Deutsche Bahn. Then, to the delight of train nerds like me, it launched a brand-new fleet at the end of 2023, and now operates 20 routes across Europe. We were now on board this high-spec service, which smelled of freshly unpacked furniture, the carpets soft underfoot, the lighting adjustable to disco hues of neon blue and punk pink. We were booked into a couchette carriage, which mostly comprisesd mini cabins designed for solo travellers preferring privacy. Placing shoes and small bags in lockers, passengers can open a metal door with a keycard and crawl into their single berth, drawing the door closed around them, and not have to look at another human until morning. Last year I had trialled the mini cabins from Vienna to Hamburg alongside a tall friend who had likened the experience to sleeping inside a bread bin, though I hadn’t found it as claustrophobic as I’d feared, just a bit hard, chilly, and with a pillow as flat as a postage stamp. So I was curious to see how the carriage’s four-person private compartments, for families and groups, would differ. New generation Nightjet train in Austria. Photograph: Christian Blumenstein Normally happy to share with strangers, I’d booked a whole compartment for the three of us: more to protect other hapless travellers from my children, who were now swinging off the berths like members of Cirque du Soleil, their sweaty socks strewn under the seats. With raised sides, the upper berths were safe for the girls to sleep in without rolling out, and I set about tucking in their sheets while they settled down to finish their baguettes. There is no dining car on the Nightjet, so we’d bought food from the station, which was now moving backwards as the train sailed out of the Austrian capital in silence, smoothly curving south-west. Two days earlier we’d arrived in Vienna by train from London, via Paris, and had checked into the Superbude Wien Prater, a curious hotel that appeared part art-installation, part hostel, with gen Zs slouched around worn leather sofas on MacBooks. With four-bed family cabins overlooking the Prater amusement park, it was a great location from which to explore the city, then finish the evening with a terrifying rollercoaster and a spicy Bitzinger wurst. A friend had described Vienna to me as a grand and beautiful “retirement village”, but, on the contrary, its green spaces, playgrounds and museums made it an easy stop for 48 hours with kids. The thrill seems only to intensify each time I embark on another nocturnal rail adventure Hopping off the Nightjet from Paris, we’d gone straight to my favourite restaurant, Edelgreisslerei Opocensky – an unassuming nook serving homely dishes such as stuffed gnocchi, and goulash with dumplings – before whiling away an afternoon at the Children’s Museum at Schönbrunn Palace. Dressing up like young Habsburgs, the girls had swanned around in wigs and musty gowns, laying tables for banquets and begging not to leave – a far cry from our usual museum experiences. Before boarding this train we’d had one last run around the interactive Technical Museum, where the human-sized hamster wheels, peg games and slides had so worn out the children that my five-year-old was asleep as the train plunged into the Semmering mountain pass. It was still light as we swept around the Alps, my eight-year-old kneeling at the window and asking where local people shopped, so few and far between were signs of human life. Horses grazed in paddocks, cows nuzzled, and the occasional hamlet emerged from round a bend as though the chalets were shaken like dice and tossed into the slopes. In the blue-grey twilight we watched streams gleam like strips of metal, and spotted a single stag poised at the edge of a wood, before the train made a long stop at the Styrian city of Leoben, at which point we turned in. Monisha Rajesh and her daughters disembark the night train. Photograph: Monisha Rajesh Like the mini cabins, the compartment was still too cold, the pillow still too flat, but the berths were wider and the huge window a blessing compared with the single berths’ portholes – this one allowed for wistful gazing. Shoving a rolled-up jumper under my head, I fell asleep, waking at 7am to rumpled clouds and a golden flare on the horizon. Most night trains terminate soon after passengers have woken up, but this one was perfect, allowing us to enjoy a leisurely breakfast of hot chocolate and jam rolls while watching the Tuscan dawn breaking into song, and Umbrian lakes and cornfields running parallel before we finally drew into Rome – on time. When travelling alone I relish arriving with the entire day at my disposal, but with children it’s hard work waiting until 3pm to check in to accommodation, so I default to staying at a Hoxton hotel if one is available. Its Flexy Time policy allows guests to choose what time they check in and out for free, and by 11am we had checked in, showered and set off to toss coins in the Trevi fountain, finding thick whorls of eggy carbonara at nearby trattoria Maccheroni, and gelato at Don Nino. To avoid the crowds and heat, we waited until 6pm to hire an electric pedal car from Bici Pincio at the Villa Borghese and drove around the landscaped, leafy grounds, relishing the quietness of the evening ride. Excited about the next adventure in Florence, the girls had only one complaint: that they couldn’t ride there on the night train. Monisha Rajesh is the author of Moonlight Express: Around the World by Night Train (Bloomsbury, £22), published on 28 August and available on pre-order at guardianbookshop.com Omio provided travel in a four-person private compartment in a couchette carriage from Vienna to Rome (from £357). Accommodation was provided by Superbude Wien Prater in Vienna (doubles from €89 room-only); and The Hoxton in Rome (doubles from €189 room-only) https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/jul/21/night-train-nightjet-sleper-vienna-to-rome

Iran, France, Germany and the United Kingdom will hold nuclear talks in Istanbul following warnings by the three European countries that failure to resume negotiations would lead to international sanctions being reimposed on Tehran. The talks scheduled for Friday come after foreign ministers of the E3 nations, as those European countries are known, as well as the European Union’s foreign policy chief, held their first call on Thursday with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi since Israel and the United States attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4 Build regional stability from the ashes of Netanyahu’s war on JCPOA list 2 of 4 France, UK, Germany to reimpose Iran sanctions in August if no progress list 3 of 4 New reports cast doubt on impact of US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites list 4 of 4 Will Israel ever get blowback for bombing its neighbours? end of list The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 nuclear deal reached with Iran, from which the US withdrew in 2018, that had lifted sanctions on the Middle Eastern country in return for restrictions on its nuclear programme. “The meeting between Iran, Britain, France and Germany will take place at the deputy foreign minister level,” Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, was quoted by Iranian state media as saying. The E3 have said they would restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran by the end of August if nuclear talks that were ongoing between Iran and the US, before Israel launched a surprise attack, do not resume or fail to produce concrete results. Iran has accused the US of complicity in the Israeli attack, which killed top Iranian military officials, nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians. The US also launched strikes on three major Iranian nuclear sites, claiming to have “obliterated” them. A ceasefire took effect on June 24. “If EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly, and put aside the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the ‘snap-back’ for which they lack absolutely moral and legal ground,” Araghchi said last week. Before the Israel-Iran war, Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks mediated by Oman but faced major stumbling blocks such as uranium enrichment in Iran, which Western powers want to bring down to zero to minimise any risk of weaponisation. Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme is solely meant for civilian purposes. Middle East assessments Also on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a surprise meeting in the Kremlin with Ali Larijani, the top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on nuclear issues. Larijani “conveyed assessments of the escalating situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear programme”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the unannounced meeting. Putin expressed Russia’s “well-known positions on how to stabilise the situation in the region and on the political settlement of the Iranian nuclear programme”, he added. Moscow has a cordial relationship with Iran’s clerical leadership and provides crucial backing for Tehran, but it did not swing forcefully behind its partner even after the US joined Israel’s bombing campaign. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/20/iran-to-hold-nuclear-talks-with-3-european-powers-on-friday

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Türkiye has seen a rise in the roundup of street cats, long considered a familiar part of the urban landscape and a favorite among tourists, Kazinform News Agency correspondent reports. According to animal rights organizations, the animals are being collected in large numbers and either placed in shelters with poor sanitary conditions or relocated to underdeveloped areas, where many do not survive. Over the past year and a half, the number of stray cats has significantly increased, which is attributed to the rising cost of veterinary services and the departure of foreign residents facing residency issues, many of whom abandoned their pets. The situation worsened after the adoption of a 2024 law aimed at controlling the stray dog po[CENSORED]tion, which is now also being applied to cats. Once caught, the animals are sterilized and either released into impoverished areas or placed in overcrowded shelters where they often fall ill or die. Amid growing public concern, the hashtag #SokakHayvanlarıSahipsizDeğil (Street animals are not ownerless) has gained traction on the platform X (formerly Twitter). Users are urging residents and local authorities to continue caring for stray animals by leaving out food and water or possible shelter. “If dogs and cats live peacefully on a street, that street is reliable, that neighborhood is reliable, that city is reliable; if the opposite is true, neither that street, nor that neighborhood, nor that city is livable,” they note. Earlier, Türkiye’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has emphasized that the collection of stray animals in all provinces must begin immediately in accordance with the law. The ministry warned that municipalities failing to comply may face a fine of 71,965 Turkish liras (around $2,000) per stray animal found on the street. Although the law allows local authorities until 2028 to expand shelter infrastructure, the obligation to remove animals from public areas took effect as soon as the law was implemented and cannot be postponed, officials stressed. Earlier, it was reported that Kazakh Tazy is gaining international recognition as a national symbol of Kazakhstan. https://qazinform.com/news/street-cats-face-mass-roundups-in-trkiye-animal-rights-activists-raise-alarm-8b6d3b

The Pakistan U-16 Men's Volleyball Team continued their extraordinary unbeaten run in the 2nd Asian Men's U16 Volleyball Championship 2025 in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand by delivering a stunning performance in the semi-final match against traditional rivals India, winning by 3-0 sets. The highly anticipated match took place on Friday and saw Team Pakistan dominate with set scores of 25-16, 25-19, and 25-12, securing a comprehensive victory and punching their ticket to the final of the Championship. The match showcased exceptional skills, discipline, and team coordination. Among the standout performers were Junaid, Faizan, Irfan, and Talha, who led the attack and defense with composure and determination throughout the game. Pakistan's superior blocking and fast counter-attacks left the Indian team struggling to gain momentum. The result not only highlights Pakistan's potential at the youth level but also secures their position as one of Asia's strongest emerging volleyball nations. Coach's Remarks Speaking after the match, Head Coach Kafiyatullah said: "Today's match was not just a win over our arch-rivals India; it was a statement. Our players have shown incredible resilience, maturity, and teamwork throughout the tournament. I am immensely proud of each one of them. Beating India in such a convincing manner in the semi-final is a huge morale boost ahead of the final. We now shift our focus to the Final against Iran, which will be another tough battle, but the boys are ready." Following semis victory, Pakistan will face a formidable opponent — Iran — on Saturday (today) in the final at 3:30pm Pakistan Standard Time. The match is expected to be a thrilling contest between two of the strongest teams in the tournament. Notably, Pakistan has already secured qualification for the FIVB U17 World Championship 2026, a historic milestone for the country's youth volleyball development. The Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) lauds the team's phenomenal effort, discipline, and growing international stature, and extends gratitude to all the fans, stakeholders, and sponsors supporting the team on this journey. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2556701/pak-storms-into-the-final-of-asian-u16-volleyball

‘Putting yourself in this room today,” booms Mel Robbins from the stage of a sold-out London theatre, “is a decision that’s going to change the trajectory of your life.” Rows and rows of (almost exclusively) women gaze at the podcaster and self-help superstar, her image on a huge screen behind her. It’s the final day of Robbins’s first tour, this one to promote her latest book and viral sensation, The Let Them Theory – her tool for helping people detach from other people’s dramas. Outside forces, she teaches, from annoying relatives to strangers in a traffic jam, are not in your control; nor are you responsible for what they do, feel or think (so long as they are not your children). It’s a waste of time, energy and emotion to even try. Instead, you should just say to yourself: “Let them.” Robbins is bounding around, sparkling with charisma and no-nonsense charm, first in a comfy tracksuit (available from her website for £150), then in boss-lady blazer and sexy denim. For nearly two hours, she commands the stage – occasionally joined by her two grown-up daughters, one of whom, Sawyer, is the book’s co-author – and the women in the audience smile, nod, hug each other and cry. By the finale, when the confetti cannons go off and yellow ribbons rain down to Coldplay’s booming A Sky Full of Stars, I have promised myself I will (in no particular order) lose my perimenopause tummy, be nicer to my children and care less what other people think. I am, I decide, beaming to myself, ready to change the trajectory of my life. Three days before I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of Mel Robbins, when I still had some semblance of cynicism and didn’t have phrases such as “You have everything you need inside you to make it” flashing across my brain like ticker tape, I meet her in a London cafe. Robbins has flown in this morning, but you wouldn’t know it. The qualities that make her such a good podcast host – warmth, energy, People, she argues, mostly need encouragement. “I think that’s the number one thing in people’s way,” she says, untouched iced coffee in front of her. “This sense of discouragement: my life is [CENSORED]ed, so nothing I do is going to matter, or I’m too old, or I’m too late, or too this.” This is where Robbins comes in, and it seems to work. The 56-year-old has a huge, cultish following. Her podcast has had more than 200m downloads, she has 10m Instagram followers and Let Them has sold 5m copies since it was published in December. Mel Robbins greets fans on the second night of her sold-out Let Them tour in May. Meeting them, she says, is ‘just a reminder that I’m reaching normal people trying to get up every day and do a little better’. Photograph: Scott Eisen/Getty Images for Mel Robbins She has celebrity stans, including Chrissy Teigen and Davina McCall, who called her the “queen of beginning again”. Oprah has anointed her, saying, “I have over the years read probably thousands of books. And Let Them is by far just one of the best self-help books I’ve ever read. It is right up there with all the greats … saying everything I was trying to say for 25 years.” If you have spent any time on Instagram, Robbins will probably have been served up to you at some point, face framed by blond hair and heavy-rimmed black glasses, to dispense some no-nonsense advice. Someone may have sent you one of her podcast episodes, in which she interviews renowned doctors and professors, such as the Harvard psychiatrist and happiness expert Robert Waldinger or the orthopaedic surgeon Vonda Wright (though not all guests are so rational – at least one medium has appeared). Other shows might find Robbins spending an easy hour talking about herself and the lessons she has learned about everything from diet and relationships to boosting confidence and setting boundaries. Even if you don’t know her name, you have probably been touched by her rules for empowered life. Maybe people have begun saying “let them” around you when they’re frustrated by friends’ behaviour, or used the five-second rule (counting down from five before doing something uncomfortable) or high-fiving themselves in the mirror before breakfast – blame Robbins for all of that. She is the ultimate in personal brand-building – a lawyer turned motivational speaker who, according to legend, dragged herself out of an $800,000 debt to become a star of the advice economy in her 50s. She wanted to do the tour, she says, to look her audience in the eye. “It’s just a reminder that who I’m reaching are normal people trying to get up every day and do a little better. I’m not trying to reach people who want to be billionaires.” Does she feel like a rock star, soaking up the adulation? “I don’t think about that,” she insists. “When you have something this extraordinary happen this late in life, you’re very clear about what matters – my family and my friends, and I’m mostly driven by the impact that I can make.” The uglier I look on social, the better the content does. I don’t even think about it as being vulnerable. To me, it’s just easier to be honest Self-development is huge, from questionable wellbeing influencers to any number of writers and podcasters exploring what it takes to be healthy, happy and successful. What does it say about us, in the affluent west, that we all crave it? Are we all narcissists? “No,” Robbins says with a smile, “but we all have that self-centredness. I personally feel we’re so overoptimised for productivity, but what I also hope happens is that, in listening to podcasts and reading this book, you’re reminded of what’s actually important to you. Most of us focus on the wrong things for too long, and then we realise we didn’t spend the time we wish we had with our parents while they were here, and we realise we worked too many late nights at work and we didn’t spend time with our pets or our friends.” Is all this advice, overwhelmingly aimed at women, just another way to make them feel they need more, or to change, or be perfect? Robbins brushes over the question, saying, “I guess what I want women in particular to know is you have more power than you think.” She is sometimes criticised for not being a qualified psychologist or therapist, or for dispensing obvious or age-old advice, but that is to miss her talent – she has an ability in the way she distils and communicates information to mainline it straight to your brain. I know, because for years I’ve had her voice in my head in a way that few other wellbeing podcasters – and I’ve listened to them all at some point – take up residence. Robbins acknowledges that her insights aren’t necessarily new. “Everybody has said ‘let them’ a bazillion times,” she says. “This is stoicism. It’s radical acceptance. It’s the serenity prayer.” What is it about her saying it that makes people listen? She ponders for a second. “I think this is a moment. I’ve said to our team: we never would have been able to orchestrate something as extraordinary as the timing of this – a modern twist on a timeless rule of life, for a moment where it feels like the Earth is spinning off its axis. All of the things that have lined up, I don’t feel that it’s me; I feel in service of something bigger.” As a child growing up in Michigan, Robbins wanted to be a doctor like her father (her mother ran a kitchenware shop). Was she a confident teenager? “I think people who knew me would say yes. What I would say is I was deeply anxious and insecure.” Her anxiety made her driven, she thinks, “but I wouldn’t call it confidence”. She “barely made it through” law school – she had undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD – but thrived in mock trials and oral argument. For three years, Robbins worked as a legal-aid criminal-defence lawyer in Manhattan, representing people who couldn’t afford to pay for representation. It taught her to develop intimacy fast. “The job is actually about trust, and building trust with somebody that didn’t pick you.” And it exposed her to people who had had extremely difficult lives. It was around the time New York City was being cleaned up, and with so many petty arrests to process, Robbins would often work in the night court. “When you’re representing somebody in a bail hearing, one of the things the judge considers is ties to community. Night after night, I would go into that courtroom, and I would call out for family or friends for this person, and no one was there. It broke my heart.” Later, it would be the reason she ends her podcast with the words: “In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you I love you.” By this time, Robbins had met her husband, Chris. When he got a place at business school in Boston, they moved. “I went to a large law firm and wanted to die,” she says. With four weeks of her maternity leave with her first child left, she reveals, “I had a mental breakdown and said, ‘I’m not doing that any more.’ An interesting thing about human beings is that when you have a defined problem, most of us are good at solving it. I found a new job the night before I was supposed to go back.” For the next few years, Robbins worked for tech startups and digital marketers, and wondered what to do with her life, so she hired a life coach, who suggested that actually Robbins would make a good coach herself. She loved it, and was good at it. She started a daily call-in radio show, Make It Happen With Mel Robbins, and a newspaper column, and was already laying the foundations of her empire: there was a development deal with Disney, and books and a talkshow planned. In a 2007 magazine profile, Robbins, then in her late 30s, sounds hyper, talking up everything about herself – her sex life and marriage, her body, her work. Call it hubris. Within a couple of years her husband’s business was struggling, leaving them $800,000 in debt. How did she cope? “I wanted to kill him. I’m serious. I wanted to absolutely kill him. Those moments when things go off the rails in your life, it’s easier to be angry than it is to be afraid, and I could tell he was afraid, which just made me even angrier, because I felt fearful that we’d never get out of the situation.” She felt incapacitated for about six months, she says. “I drank myself into the ground. I was a ***** every time he was around. I withdrew from my friends. I didn’t tell my parents what was going on.” She lost a long-term coaching job. “I felt, how can I possibly give anybody advice when my life looks like this? I’m not even an impostor; I’m just a liar. And so my whole life kind of collapsed.” Blame seemed the obvious response. “And then you avoid doing what you really could be doing. It goes back to what we were talking about: discouragement. I believed at that moment, at 41 with three kids under the age of 10, and liens on the house and no income coming in, that I would never get out of this.” It was in this state, slumped in front of the TV and seeing an advert that used images of a rocket launch, that Robbins had the idea that, instead of staying in bed the next morning, she would count down from five and launch herself out of it. It worked for other things – the idea being that if you give yourself more than five seconds, you will talk yourself out of doing something difficult or hard. In 2011, Robbins, who was still earning a living as a coach and motivational speaker, and had just published her first book, Stop Saying You’re Fine, was invited by a friend to speak at a Tedx event in San Francisco. “That was like a 21-minute-long panic attack,” she says with a laugh. She didn’t intend to make her “five-second rule” a thing, but she blurted it out towards the end. The video went viral (it has now had more than 33m views), then she published her second book, based on the “rule”, in 2017. Her next book, The High 5 Habit – essentially, high-five yourself in the mirror in the morning, setting a plan for the day, boosting confidence and silencing your inner critic – became a bestseller, and in 2022 Robbins launched her podcast. It’s in this arena that Robbins, by talking about overcoming adversity, feels infinitely more relatable. In her episodes on trauma, she has described being sexually abused by an older child while on a family holiday, around the age of 10. She has also talked about the impact of getting a later-life ADHD diagnosis, and issues her husband and three children have gone through; part of her live show is about how she improved her relationship with her eldest child. How does she feel about using her personal life and trauma in her work? “It’s easier than hiding it,” she says. “So many of us are putting on a front, yet every one of us is going through something. I feel that sharing, like any good friend does with another friend – that’s a way to make all of this scientific research relatable and understandable.” When she’s more open or vulnerable, is listener engagement greater? “Here’s what I do know – the uglier I look on social, the better the content does,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t even think about it as being vulnerable. To me, it’s just easier to be honest. When you feel like you can’t disclose something, you’re judging yourself. Being free with your history and what you’ve learned from it means you don’t judge, and you don’t have shame around what’s happened to you.” If Robbins was successful before, her Let Them theory has taken that to another level. Essentially, it’s simple: if you spend too much time worrying about what other people do or say, which you can’t control anyway, you’re giving them too much power. Focus on yourself. It isn’t about being a doormat, or about resignation, she says. “When you say, ‘let them’, you’re not allowing anybody to do anything. You’re recognising what people are doing, and what’s in your control and what’s not.” In a culture obsessed with positive thinking, can letting go be a radical act? This is only the first stage in the process. One problem with saying “let them”, she acknowledges, is that it can put you in a position of judgment and superiority. “That’s why it works, because when you feel superior, that unhooks you from the frustration or hurt you may feel.” But if that’s all you do, she warns, you can end up isolating yourself. “At some point you’ve got to use the ‘let me’ part. I think what keeps you from becoming an asshole and cutting people out of your life is: let me decide what I’m going to do in response.” Maybe that will be accepting you’re the sibling who always checks in, or the friend who invariably makes the plans. “Maybe, conversely, you’re going to realise: I’ve been chasing these people all this time; they don’t give me anything in return. Is this what I deserve? Maybe I should pour my time into creating other types of relationships.” That’s the harder part. But, Robbins adds, “If all people want to do is say, ‘let them’, then let them.” How has her theory changed her life? “I had no idea how much I allowed the outside world and meaningless bullshit to penetrate me and my peace, whether it was traffic or people walking slowly, or somebody who didn’t text me back when I thought they should, or somebody’s mood.” Applying her tactic helped, she says, “to let them have their emotions and opinions, and then remind myself: what do I want to think about this? What do I want or not want to do?”. Robbins’s style can be quite tough. “You think I’m tough?” Forthright, then. “I think I’m honest,” she says. In her book, she writes that, if you’re stuck in a job you hate, “the harsh truth is you’re the one to blame – because you are choosing to stay in a job that makes you miserable”. Doesn’t that underestimate the reality for people who don’t have the privilege of walking into another job? “You always have options,” Robbins says. “You may not have options tomorrow, but you have options. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck and you are sleeping on a friend’s couch, if you believe there are no other options, you won’t look for them. It is important to recognise that, with time and consistent effort, you can create different options.” We’re in a moment, she says, “where the headlines are terrifying, economies are faltering, AI is coming, jobs are redundant. You don’t know if you’re going to get laid off.” That’s beyond your control, she says. “Say: let them lay you off. You’re recognising it could happen, and reminding yourself to not waste time and energy worrying, feeling like a loser, feeling like you’ve got no options. So let me, every day after work, spend an hour getting my résumé together, networking and doing what I need to do to build skills. You will feel empowered when you focus on what’s in your control, and what’s in your control is what you put your time and energy into.” It can be applied to big or small things. Robbins describes herself as a “very political person”. “If we’re ever going to get things back on track in terms of people feeling stability and peace and support, you can’t burn through all your energy feeling powerless. You’ve got to remind yourself: I actually have the power to change this. If it bothers me, the more energy I spend arguing about it and venting about it Photograph: Scott Eisen/Getty Images for Mel Robbins With Robbins’s increased success and profile has come, inevitably, more criticism. How does she deal with that? “Let them,” she says instantly. Does it not hurt when she reads horrible comments about herself online? “No.” She doesn’t look, anyway – people who are intent on misunderstanding aren’t her problem, she adds. Does she think male podcasters get an easier time? “Yes – no question. Absolutely.” One of the persistent allegations is that Robbins plagiarised “let them” from a poem that went viral in 2022. She has always said she hadn’t seen the poem and her inspiration came from the night she was trying to micromanage her 18-year-old son’s school prom, and her middle child, her daughter Kendall, told her in a moment of exasperation to “let them” – get soaked in the rain, have tacos if they want them, just let them. “Anybody that can’t see that a poem is very different than a book that makes a case for a theory, with an 18-page bibliography, doesn’t want to see, and doesn’t understand the word plagiarism either,” Robbins says. I agree it’s a fairly weak criticism, as is the complaint that she has stretched a basic idea into a whole book (and now tour) – something that could be applied to just about every self-help book ever written. Her podcast remains free and, unlike many other motivational “influencers”, she doesn’t flog online courses, or supplements. I take more issue with some of the oversimplistic things she says: “Success, love, happiness, money, friendship – these things are in limitless supply,” said the multimillionaire Mel Robbins to the billionaire Oprah Winfrey, on the latter’s podcast. ‘Let them’: can this viral self-help mantra change your life? Robbins says she follows her own rules “about 90% of the time”. When she’s at home in Vermont, she gets up around 6am, makes her bed, “so I don’t crawl back into it”, and high-fives herself in the mirror. She might take a bite of a banana, “because of what Dr Stacy Sims said about cortisol and women never working out fasted”. Sims, a physiologist and one of her podcast guests, says that, for women, exercising on an empty stomach means burning lean muscle and holding on to fat. “I was like: mother[CENSORED], we’ve been gaslit by the fitness industry. It’s incredible what she shared about women not being little men.” Robbins walks her dogs to get her early sunlight (it helps with the circadian rhythm), drinks water before her coffee, has breakfast. She has a regular walking group with friends. She likes to cook, so she’ll start prepping dinner when she does lunch, then it’s bath and bed not long after 9pm. “I’m so [CENSORED] old,” she says with a laugh. “But I love my sleep.” In the middle of it all is work. She wants, she says, to be an example “of leaning into new things and reinventing myself over and over, and clawing our way out of debt in our 40s. There’s so much you can do.” Robbins, similarly to Oprah, controls her empire. “I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m pissed off about the deal I made, and if I’m in control of what happens, the only person I can truly be mad at is me.” Is she a life coach or a media mogul? “I’m just your friend, Mel,” she says with a bright smile. A few days later, on stage, Robbins is so overcome with emotion, she can barely get her last words out: “I love you, I do, and I believe in you.” There are cheers and whoops, and that blast of confetti and Coldplay, and we leave on a high. I chat to two women, in their 40s, who had been sitting behind me, emotional at points; one has a delicate tattoo on her arm of a dandelion releasing its seeds and the words “Let them … Let me”. They love Robbins, says Eva (with the tattoo), “because she’s so normal. She’s been through stuff like all of us have, but she’s got grit and determination, and she’s an example that, if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.” Her friend Hayley says the years and the struggles since the pandemic have left her feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. “I know that I need to make a change,” she says, eyes shining. “She makes you believe you can do it.” The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is published by Hay House UK at £22.99. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Her podcast is available here. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/19/mel-robbins-self-help-superstar-success-survival-silencing-critics

In Gaza, being a helpful, loving child can be a death sentence. Heba al-Ghussain’s nine-year-old son, Karam, was killed by an Israeli airstrike because he went to fetch water for the family, and her 10-year-old daughter, Lulu, was killed because she went to give Karam a hand. The siblings were waiting beside a water distribution station, holding jerry cans and buckets, when it was bombed last Sunday, killing six children and four adults and injuring 19 others, mostly children. Both Lulu and Karam died instantly, torn apart by the force of the blast and so disfigured that their father prevented Heba from seeing their bodies. “They didn’t allow me to say goodbye or even look at them one last time,” she said. “One of my brothers hugged me, trying to block the scene from me as he cried and tried to comfort me. After that, I don’t remember anything. I lost touch with reality.” Father grieves over bodies of children killed in airstrike - video Lulu’s real name was Lana but her parents rarely used it because her nickname, which means pearl, captured the gentle shine she brought to family life. “She had such a joyful personality, and a heart full of kindness,” Heba said. Karam was smart, always top of his class until Israeli attacks shut down Gaza’s schools, generous and mature beyond his years. His dad, Ashraf al-Ghussain, called him “abu sharik” or “my partner”, because he seemed “like a man in spirit”. But he was also enough of a child to be obsessed by a remote-controlled car that he begged his mother to buy. She regrets telling him they needed to save money for food. “I wish I had spent everything I had to buy it for him so he could have played with it before he died.” Lulu al-Ghussain (left) with her elder sister. Photograph: Supplied Both children also dreamed of the day Israel would lift its blockade of Gaza, so they could taste chocolate, instant noodles and their mum’s best dishes. For Lulu that was the Palestinian chicken dish musakhan, for Karam, shawarma. “They had all kinds of food plans for me to prepare,” Heba said. Israel imposed a total siege for 11 weeks starting in March that brought Gaza to the brink of famine, and the very limited food, fuel and medical supplies allowed in since May have not relieved extreme hunger. Unprecedented malnutrition is killing children, and preventing injured people recovering, a British doctor working there said this week. Trying to get food has been a deadly gamble for months, with more than 800 people killed since late May in near daily attacks by Israeli soldiers using weapons including tank shells and navy cannon to target desperate crowds near food distribution points. Trying to get clean water is also a struggle. Nearly two years of Israeli attacks have destroyed water treatment plants and pipe networks. In June Unicef warned that Gaza faces a human-made drought and that without fuel to operate remaining stations children could start dying of thirst. But until Sunday, there had not been any mass killings of people trying to collect water. The al-Ghussains sent their children to collect supplies for the family because they thought it was less dangerous than searching for food. Children wait to fill water bottles at a distribution point in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Aid groups brought water in trucks to fill tanks at a water distribution station just a few streets away from the school where the family sought shelter after their own home was bombed. Karam would wait there in the sweltering heat for his turn at taps that often ran dry. “I had no choice but to send them,” Heba said. “Many times, my son would go and wait for his turn, sometimes for an hour, only to end up with nothing because the water would run out before it reached everyone.” When he did get water, it was only 20 litres, very little for a family of seven but a heavy weight for a young boy. “Karam was only nine years old and braver than dozens of men. He carried it without tiring or complaining.” Karam al-Ghussain. Photograph: Supplied The long queues meant that Heba was not too worried when she heard the water station was hit. Her son left home not long before the bombing, so she assumed he would still have been at the back of a waiting crowd, some distance from the blast. As it turned out the queue was relatively small when he arrived, a stroke of fatally bad luck that probably delighted Karam in his last few minutes. It meant that when the bomb hit, he and his sister were right beside water station. “When Lulu woke up, I told her to go help her brother carry the water containers. It was as if the missile was waiting for her to arrive to strike that place,” Heba said. Ali Abu Zaid, 36, was one of the first on the scene, rushing to help survivors. As the dust and smoke cleared they revealed a horrific tableau. “Each child was holding a water bucket, lying dead in place, covered in their own blood. The shrapnel had torn through their small bodies and disfigured their faces. The smell of gunpowder filled the area,” he said. People started loading the dead and injured on to donkey carts, as medical teams were slow to arrive, but there was nothing doctors could do for most of the victims. “Even if the ambulances had got there sooner, it wouldn’t have made a difference. There was no saving anyone, these were lifeless bodies, The aftermath of the airstrike on the water distribution point in Nuseirat. Photograph: Reuters Ashraf raced to look for his children as soon as he heard the blast, but arrived after their bodies had been taken away to find only blood-stained water containers scattered on the street, and a terrifying silence. So he headed to hospital to continue the search, where he found their battered bodies laid out on the floor, and collapsed over them in grief. He married in his 30s, late for Gaza, and when his children arrived they became his world. Karam and Lulu’s brutal deaths have shattered him. “When I saw them like that, I felt as if my heart was being stabbed with knives,” he said. “I’m still in shock. I’ve become constantly afraid of losing the rest of my family and being left alone. I feel as if I’m going to lose my mind.” View image in fullscreen Lulu (left) and Karam (right) with their father, Ashraf al-Ghussain, and their two other siblings. Photograph: Supplied Heba also went to look for Lulu and Karam at the water station but then headed back to the shelter, hoping to find them waiting with their dad. Perhaps she had learned a kind of grim optimism from previous brushes with death. The siblings had been rescued from the rubble of their home when an airstrike brought it down on top of them earlier in the war, and survived injuries after another bomb hit nearby. That streak would not last. “They survived twice, but not the third time,” Heba said. Word of the children’s fate had reached the school, but even in Gaza, where no family has escaped tragedy, the scale of Heba’s loss was shocking. “The news of their martyrdom was already spreading, but no one told me,” she said. “No one dared to deliver such terrible news.” Instead they encouraged her to go look for them among the injured in al-Awda hospital. There she found her husband, and the shattered bodies of their beloved son and daughter, so full of life just a couple of hours earlier. Israel’s military blamed the strike on a “malfunction” that caused a bomb targeting a militant to fall short and hit the children, and said it Abandoned water bottles where Karam and Lulu were killed. Photograph: Reuters Ashraf questioned this. “They have the most advanced technology and know exactly where the missile will fall and who the target is. How could this be a mistake? A ‘mistake’ that killed both of my children!” The family couldn’t afford a burial plot for the children, so they interred them beside Heba’s father. They worry they may have to reopen the grave again for the youngest of their three surviving children if aid to civilians does not increase. At 18 months, Ghina is malnourished and has skin rashes because the family cannot afford nappies and don’t have enough water to wash her. “We sleep hungry and wake up hungry, and thirsty, too, with the desalination stations barely operating,” Heba said. “The entire world sees everything, yet they close their eyes as if they don’t.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/19/killing-of-young-siblings-at-gaza-water-point-shows-seeking-lifes-essentials-now-a-deadly-peril

Developer Respawn Entertainment has released a new update for its hit battle royale hero shooter Apex Legends, bringing with it new balance changes impacting members of the playable cast. The changes could shift the Apex Legends competitive meta, as players adjust their tactics to account for the alterations to each character's behavior and stats. Now into its sixth year in operation, Apex Legends has seen a lot of changes since it first launched on the wave of po[CENSORED]rity for battle royale multiplayer shooters. Compared to genre leaders like Fortnite and (at the time), PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Apex Legends capitalized on developer Respawn Entertainment's experience creating fast movement-focused shooters like Titanfall and its sequel. The result was one of the best first-person co-op shooters on the market. Apex Legends also incorporated the unique elements of hero shooters, focusing gameplay around a collection of distinctive playable Legends with their own powers, abilities, and cosmetic upgrades. Respawn has also used the seasonal model to deliver new content and updates at a regular pace, as well as altering the game balance to ensure fair competition and shake up the meta. Apex Legends S25 Midseason Update Overview: Meta Changes, New Events, and More Respawn Entertainment reveals what Apex Legends can expect from the Season 25: Prodigy midseason update when it launches. Less than two weeks after the launch of a smaller Apex Legends patch updating several weapons, Respawn Entertainment delivered a new update with balance changes for characters Revenant, Ash, Ballistic, Alter, and Vantage. The most significant changes are for Revenant and Ash, who swapped classes. Revenant was shifted from Skirmisher class to Assault class, while Ash was changed to Skirmisher from Assault. Alter, Ballistic, Vantage, and Wattson also received tweaks to their abilities. Aside from the changes to their respective classes, Revenant and Ash also received changes to their abilities. Ash had the maximum range on her Ultimate nerfed, along with her Charged Knock ability replaced with the deathbox-revealing Marked for Death. Revenant had the maximum and minimum velocity on his pounce changed, reducing its top speed, while having ground detection improved to speed his guns. Revenant was the subject of multiple reworks over the years, seeing changes to his abilities on several occasions. Revenant was even removed from Apex Legends temporarily to fix an exploit involving his ultimate. Following the recent rework of Alter in Apex Legends, Respawn opted to nerf her portals further, increasing the time the chase portal remains open and giving Alter access to Controller perks via the Controller of Worlds upgrade. Ballistic can no longer use Tempest to speed boost his allies and had tactical charges reduced from 2 to 1. In reaction to the news, players mostly celebrated the nerfs to Alter, Ash, and Ballistic, with some expressing the hope to see fewer full teams consisting only of those characters. Some players also celebrated the fixing of a bug that allowed players to see through Bangalore's smokescreens. Bangalore smoke barriers are a major part of her Apex Legends kit, so the bug made her "useless" for some players until it was fixed. With luck and time, players will find the balance changes satisfactory. Apex Legends July 2025 Patch Notes General Gameplay A fix for Training Mode failing to connect the first or second time. Resolved an issue with players being able to see through Bangalore Smoke. Fixed players respawning with grenades instead of primary weapons in hand in Mixtape modes. Vantage’s Passive Spotter’s Lens did not accurately display the number of targeted shields of an enemy team. When aiming down sights with the Bocek, Sparrow's position was unnatural-looking compared to the rest of the Legends. Resolved the PlayStation logos overlapping with Battle Pass information. Improvements for pathing from bot players. Fixed the Event Store Button leading to the wrong events. Balance Changes Ash Legend Class: Changed to Skirmisher. Ultimate: Max distance reduced from 100m to 75m. Upgrade: Charged Knock Replaced with Marked for Death, reveals enemy deathboxes on your map. Alter Increased time for knocked allies to use portal by 1s. Friends upgrade replaced with Controller of Worlds, gives access to Controller perks. Increased chase portal open duration from 8.0s to 10.0s. Decreased portal warning time from 3.5s to 2.5s. Ballistic Tempest no longer gives speed boost to allies (Ballistic still has it). Base tactical charges reduced from 2 to 1. Vantage Ultimate: Laser duration reduced from 15s to 10s. Upgrade: Sniper Cover gunshield HP increased from 40 to 75 and VFX color updated. Wattson Upgrade: Ultimate Conductor knock burst increased from 30% to 50% Ultimate charge https://gamerant.com/apex-legends-july-2025-update-patch-notes/

This week, a new expansion launched for Destiny 2. The Edge of Fate marks the start of a brand new saga—and ushers in a major overhaul to some key systems, seemingly aimed at making the game more accessible for newcomers and more sticky for its remaining playerbase. In theory, then, this should be a big moment—a new adventure, and a shot in the arm for an aging shooter. In reality, things look very different. Anecdotally, where once my Steam friends list would be a grid of green squares each new Destiny expansion—lapsed players jumping back in to get a fresh taste of Bungie's still peerless gunplay—The Edge of Fate was met with indifference. And the numbers seem to back up my experience. The two previous Destiny 2 expansions, Lightfall and The Final Shape, peaked at over 300,000 concurrent Steam players on the day of their launch. The Edge of Fate? It topped out at 99,193. That is, by some distance, the lowest Steam concurrent count for any Destiny 2 expansion. Hell, even Into the Light—the free update designed to tide players over after The Final Shape was delayed—peaked at over 122,000 players when it released. The Edge of Fate will be the biggest change to Destiny 2 since it launched—an injection of fresh ideas, but also of ARPG grind 'In a very interesting way, it actually reduces the work': Destiny 2's director explains why reinventing the wheel with The Edge of Fate was actually the easier option Destiny 2 just got weird: Launch trailer leans hard into time travel and looks more like a Control crossover As always when it comes to Steam concurrents, there are some caveats to note, not least of which is that—as a multiplatform game—these players represent only a portion of the overall playerbase; albeit likely a representative one. It's also worth noting that pre-loads for The Edge of Fate started much later than previous expansions—around five hours before launch instead of the usual 24 hours. But even with a 100gb update potentially blocking players from firing up the game on release date, I'd be surprised if it was the sole reason for 200,000 fewer players jumping into the game. Especially when its second day concurrents dropped a similar percentage to previous expansion launches. No, I think the reasons are more wide-ranging and deep seated than just inconvenience—a series of self-inflicted bungles that have compounded together into a problem that I don't know if Bungie can even solve. Few of them actually have anything to do with whether or not this expansion is any good—I've certainly been enjoying the campaign more than I expected. Rather, it feels like the sins of the past In June 2024, Bungie launched The Final Shape expansion, one of the most critically acclaimed releases in Destiny's history. Let's look at some of the things that have happened since. July 2024: Bungie lays off 220 developers August 2024: Some of the affected developers express frustration at the allegation that Bungie's CEO, Pete Parsons, spent $2,414,550 on vintage cars. Parsons' car collection goes on to become a meme among dissatisfied players in Destiny 2's community May 2025: Stolen art assets are discovered in Marathon. This marks the fourth time someone else's art has ended up in an official Bungie June 2025: Marathon is delayed following an underwhelming alpha test There's a quote that's always stuck with me. It came from a Bungie developer who spoke anonymously to IGN following a round of layoffs back in 2023. "It feels like many higher ups aren't listening to the data and are like, 'We just need to win our fans back, they still like us.'" And yet if you look at Destiny 2's community, that couldn't be further from the truth. The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. I'm not sure Bungie's stock as a studio has ever been lower, and it can't help but have an effect on its community, because it feeds into a narrative of doomerism that makes investing your time and energy into something feel all the more precarious, and at worst, even foolish. The vibes are bad, and they've metastasized into severe distrust of Bungie and its actions. There's a default assumption that every decision that's made is to be viewed with suspicion—at best incompetence, at worst a blatant attempt to pump player engagement numbers at the expense of making something fun. Whatever the truth—and to be clear there have been many questionable design decisions made over the years—there is next to zero willingness to trust in what Bungie is doing behind the scenes. Worse, there's an almost fervent glee around the chance to actively dunk on the game. It's a special kind of negativity that can infect a live service game, as players notice how heavily negativity, memes and hot takes are rewarded by the various social algorithms and compete to get noticed. The problems are there, sure, but they're heightened to the extreme—to the point that, before The Edge of Fate launched, multiple streamers publicly crashed out over the toxicity within the community. Closing the vault Even if Bungie could turn community sentiment around—already a Herculean task—it has an arguably bigger problem to tackle. This far into its life, Destiny 2 is still burdened by its history of unpo[CENSORED]r compromises and questionable design decisions, and its overall po[CENSORED]rity up to now has perhaps masked just how disastrous some of them have been. I could relitigate years of nerfs, sweeping design changes and U-turns, all of which chipped away at the community's trust and faith. But all of them would pale in comparison to the effect of one single change. In 2020, with the release of Beyond Light, Bungie 'launched' the Destiny Content Vault—a classic bit of corporate double-speak that described the decision to remove a handful of older destinations, raids and campaigns from the game. From a development standpoint, the reasons Bungie gave for this act made a sort of sense. This was stuff that, really, only a tiny percentage of people were playing. And it made testing and implementing new sandbox changes all the more difficult. But players by and large don't care about changes designed to make a development team's lives easier, and honestly, shouldn't be expected to. While some people accepted the compromise and continued to play, others—both veterans and potential new players—saw it as a cardinal sin. Bungie removed campaigns and activities that people had paid money for—a radical action that some players can never forgive even now. Especially now, in an era where movements like Stop Killing Games are picking up so much attention. Go to any article about Destiny written in the last five years, and inevitably there are a number of people in the comments reminding everyone that this was the game that deleted its launch campaign. By and large people haven't forgotten, and seemingly haven't forgiven. A sense of an end It puts the pressure on Bungie to retain the audience they do have. Unfortunately for the studio, it made one big mistake here… It made The Final Shape really good. Last year's expansion was a really satisfying conclusion to the game's story up to that point—an impressive feat given that the actual meat of it was seemingly created multiple years into the series' lifespan. Its end screen—as you sit quietly with your Ghost, overlooking the Traveler, the Witness finally defeated—felt like a proper conclusion. It felt like a really good moment to stop playing Destiny. As one dev once told PC Gamer's Tim Clark, in hindsight putting the word 'final' in the title was probably a mistake. It's a word that invites departure. I think many players were looking for an excuse to stop playing Destiny—either for the reasons above, or simply because everyone who's been playing since the series debuted is 10 years older now. There are only so many hours in the day you can spend grinding for area-denial grenade launchers. Bungie compounded the problem by not saying what was next. Sure, there were the post-expansion episodes—last year's replacement for the traditional seasonal model. But these were quickly revealed to be just seasons wearing a trenchcoat. Longer, sure, but no less disposable. It wasn't until a week after The Final Shape launched that Bungie revealed something was coming after the episodes were done. At the time, though, we didn't know what Codename: Frontiers—what would become this year's The Edge of Fate and Renegades expansions—actually was. A lot of people I spoke to just assumed The Final Shape was, as its name suggested, Destiny 2's last expansion. It was done. They were done. And a lot of them seemingly haven't come back. Here, at least, The Edge of Fate is partly at fault. Bungie has done a bad job of making this expansion sound essential. When The Final Shape was first announced, players were also pretty sceptical—Lightfall had been a disaster, and what Bungie showed seemed underwhelming for the final release of the saga. But then the studio announced the Prismatic subclass, and everything changed. Suddenly people were hyped again, because the allure of a new toy is hard to resist. I think Bungie has underestimated just how important some big new sandbox toy is to its playerbase. After all, a new campaign is a big showcase moment, but it's not what you actually spend most of your playtime doing. At least with a new subclass, you get a slightly different way to run the same activities that make up the rest of the game. Accepting fate No doubt the studio was aware there would be fewer people showing up this time around—it would certainly explain some of the choices made for both this release and the upcoming Renegades. A big Star Wars tie-in feels like an obvious attempt to garner interest outside of Destiny 2's core playerbase. Which is likely why Bungie is using The Edge of Fate to focus daily play around the new Portal—a single menu designed to feed new players obvious things to do. (Image credit: Bungie) At the other end of the experience curve, The Edge of Fate's new progression systems seem designed to squeeze more playtime out of the veteran players that do remain. Where once it felt like Bungie was on the cusp of doing away with the leveling curve altogether, now it's back with a vengeance. And where crafting gave players a guaranteed way to secure the guns they wanted after a certain amount of investment, now the weapon grind has been supercharged with multiple tiers of random rolls. Which is what companies do when their game's playerbase falls. Mitigate lower turnout by squeezing more hours and attention out of those who remain. For some, this will no doubt work. But it's a big risk to take for an already dwindling community—especially one that's already had a taste of how much more convenient the game's progression could be. With two expansions a year, we've probably left the era where any one single Destiny 2 release will spike player count to anything near the levels it did before. The interesting question going forward is whether The Edge of Fate's new systems will stem the flow, or if things will look even more dire as a direct result of its changes. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/with-steam-launch-concurrents-at-an-all-time-low-for-destiny-2s-latest-expansion-i-think-bungie-is-finally-paying-the-price-for-years-of-mistakes-the-biggest-being-the-time-it-removed-paid-content/

Netflix used AI-generated visual effects for the first time in a TV show or movie this year, and co-CEO Ted Sarandos is pretty pleased with the result. Speaking to investors on Thursday (July 18), Sarandos revealed Argentinian sci-fi show, The Eternaut, is the first Netflix production to use AI to generate a VFX (visual effects) sequence. He said: "The creators were thrilled with the result. We were thrilled with the result," he said. "And more importantly, the audience was thrilled with the result. So, I think these tools are helping creators expand the possibilities of storytelling on screen, and that is endlessly exciting." Your Netflix home page is getting its biggest update ever, and yes, it includes generative AI The Oscars’ new AI rule provides a tentative green light for generative tech in movies This movie is fully AI-generated and has a fully SAG-AFTRA cast – here’s 3 things you need to know about Echo Hunter The scene in question shows a building collapse in Buenos Aires after coming into contact with toxic snowfall, and according to Sarandos, given the budget of the show, the scale of the effects needed to pull off the scene wouldn't have been possible without the use of AI. In fact, Sarandos even confirmed that using AI was not only a cost-saver, but incredibly efficient too. "That VFX sequence was completed 10 times faster than it could have been completed with visual, traditional VFX tools and workflows," he said. Considering just how happy Netflix's head honcho and the creators behind The Eternaut are with the results, the Argentinian-made TV series could be the pioneer in AI-generated Netflix effects, opening up opportunities for other productions to follow suit. Just the beginning Hollywood's disdain towards AI couldn't be more evident. After all, the technology was a huge point of contention in the Hollywood actors' and writers' strikes that plagued the entertainment industry in 2023. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Now, two years on, we're starting to see AI find its feet in the world of TV and movie production, and despite the negative connotations of the word, it might end up being a good thing for creators working on a smaller budget. Sarandos said: "This is real people doing real work with better tools. Our creators are already seeing the benefits in production through pre-visualisation and shot planning work, and certainly visual effects. I think these tools are helping creators expand the possibilities of storytelling on screen, and that is endlessly exciting.” Netflix reported a successful quarter, with over $11 billion in revenue, up nearly 20% compared to the previous year. I might be skeptical, but I'd expect this trial of using AI to generate scenes could spawn into a bigger beast if the profit margins are high enough to ride out any backlash. Using AI monitored by the creators of a show for a scene is one thing, but at what point does it cross the line? And when it does, will companies like Netflix scale back or go full steam ahead, implementing AI into all the best TV shows and movies? https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/netflix-uses-generative-ai-vfx-in-a-show-for-the-first-time-as-ceo-says-the-cost-just-wouldnt-have-been-feasible-for-a-show-on-that-budget