Author: damazah@gmail.com

Austrian filmmaker Manuel Wetscher has fictionalized autobiographical experiences in his feature film debut Eklipse, which will world premiere in the Horizons section of the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 5. The title, spelled with a “k” in both its German and English versions, means “eclipse,” signaling how the movie touches on what a solar eclipse does to our vision and understanding – it both brings darkness to Earth as the moon obscures people’s view of the sun, but it also briefly reveals things that otherwise remain hidden to the naked eye. Eklipse is inspired by Wetscher’s…

Cats or dogs? Early bird or night owl? Something serious or a casual fling? This-or-that questions are common fare on dating apps.In Denver, though, one question, particularly in winter, reigns supreme: Epic or Ikon?The two pricey ski passes each offer access to different sets of mountain resorts. If you’ve got an Epic pass, you’d better hope your soul mate has one too.Zoe Greene, a 34-year-old project manager who moved from Los Angeles in 2022, said being a nonskier had limited her dating options.“There’s a pool of men in Denver — you can take out half of them, maybe even like…

The University launched the National Center for STEM Education on Aug. 11, according to a University news release. The center will take the place of the UTeach Institute and focus on addressing STEM teacher shortages and improving K-12 STEM education to be more relevant to modern challenges, such as artificial intelligence.  The new center will continue the operations of the UTeach Institute, an initiative of the University’s UTeach program that focused on expanding UTeach to universities across the nation. The institute focused on improving STEM education by training educators and studying developments in education. The center will grow its network…

The Queensland government’s latest law and order crackdown – subjecting some children as young as 10 to a mandatory sentence of a year behind bars – could lead to “cruel outcomes”, according to human rights lawyers.In documents tabled with the legislation on Thursday, the government conceded its laws, dubbed “breach bail, go to jail”, would breach human rights and risk further straining the state’s overcrowded jails, youth detention centres and police watch houses.It requires an override of the Queensland Human Rights Act.The legislation applies to a child or adult charged with a “significant offence” while on bail, or failing to…

.Trace N3.6bn through cryptocurrency conversion scheme Linus Aleke in Abuja The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) said more than 12.5 million victims’ email logs had been recovered with victims identified across more than 50 countries. The Director of the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC), Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) Akaninyene Ezima, made this revelation during a press conference in Abuja  yesterday. He said the cyber fraud was uncovered during a business email compromise investigation. “The Business Email Compromise investigation also established that the suspect had generated in excess of N100 million from the criminal operation,” he revealed. AIG…

Oghenevwede Ohwovoroile in Abuja  The federal government, through the Federal Executive Council (FEC), has approved the acquisition of two communications satellites, NIGCOMSAT 2A and NIGCOMSAT 2B. This was contained in a statement released by the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), and signed by the Acting Head, Corporate Affairs Division, Stephen Kwande.  According the statement, “The federal government has moved the acquisition and deployment of NIGCOMSAT – 2A and NIGCOMSAT – 2B into the next phase following Federal Executive Council approval for the two next – generation High – Throughput Communication Satellites. “The satellites, to be deployed by Nigeria Communications Satellite…

In July, an unreleased OpenAI model broke out of a restricted environment, figured out how to get access to the internet, allowed AI agents to talk to each other using a secret “message board,” and hacked into the internal systems of a different AI lab, Hugging Face. It took nearly two weeks for OpenAI to find out about any of it.Over a month later, two new reports offer nearly 130 pages of details on the incident and OpenAI’s response, many of them previously unreleased. One was written by OpenAI itself, the other by two third-party AI research nonprofits, METR and…

Local politicians are also seeking reassurances. Mildenhall Town Council’s Mayor Russell Leaman said: “When a state like Russia says it may take retaliatory action and we have a large drone factory in Mildenhall, it’s of concern. “Day-to-day, I don’t think it will affect too many people, but obviously there are some people that are anxious and worry. It would be nice to have some reassurance.” Asked if the town council had been contacted by the authorities to offer any reassurance, Leaman said it had not. The drone factory is in the West Suffolk Council ward represented by Andy Neal from…

Sinn Féin councillor Terry Crossan said he has raised concerns over the quad bikes with Coillte Ireland, the forestry company responsible for managing 440,000 hectares of primarily forested land across the Republic of Ireland and An Garda Síochána (the Irish police service).Crossan said there were potential dangers to families walking in the woods while vehicles are travelling at high speeds.”This has been going on for quite some time and is happening on a regular basis.”This activity in the Lisnagra area is causing severe loss of habitat and is having a detrimental impact on wildlife, especially the red squirrels and pine…

Former Super Eagles striker Yakubu Ayegbeni has claimed that he could have been worth around €150 million if he were playing in today’s football market. Yakubu made the statement during an interview on AY Suga Channel while reflecting on his playing career, transfer fees and the pressure associated with expensive moves. The former Premier League striker compared the transfer fees of his era with the huge sums clubs now pay for forwards, noting that players who score about 10 Premier League goals can command fees of around €50 million. “You see players now, I’m sorry to say, you score 10…