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Taiwan has long prepared for a Chinese military invasion, but wars in Iran and Ukraine are exposing new potential threats.Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has raised fears China may emulate its tactics in the Taiwan Strait.Beijing has always claimed Taiwan as part of its territory and with the US caught in the Iran war, there are fears they would not come to Taiwan’s aid.A blockade by China would have dire global consequences for a world dependent on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.101 East investigates Taiwan’s preparations for a maritime blockade and meets the residents determined to never surrender.Published On 15…

One of the earliest applications of ‘AI scientists’ was to research AI itself.Credit: La Pico de Gallo/GettyArtificial intelligence has made leaps in AI research itself, finding ways to make existing algorithms smarter — or writing new ones. But computers are not yet ready to replace their makers, according to a study posted on the preprint server arXiv1 in late July.“I don’t think full automation of open-ended research is on the horizon right now,” says Sayash Kapoor, a computer scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey and a co-author of the preprint.The effort to fully automate the scientific process, from idea…

First Test, Darwin (day three of five)Australia 198: (Smith 71; Mahmud 6-55) and 161-4 (Green 43*; Mahmud 2-33) Bangladesh 426: (Tanzid 101, Shanto 84, Miraz 65; Hazlewood 6-89)Australia trail by 67 runsScorecardSpinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz took the crucial wicket of Steve Smith as Bangladesh moved closer to a historic first Test victory in Australia on day three in Darwin.Smith, so often Australia’s talisman, chipped a leading edge straight back to the off-spinner to depart for 44 and leave his side 122-4 in their second innings.Australia safely batted out the rest of the session but they face a tough task to…

GRAMADO, Brazil — Vet Brazilian helmer-producer Paulo Nascimento will lense “A Chocolate Christmas,” a Portuguese-language holiday-themed feature film in the mountain resort of Gramado, in southern Brazil, and New York City, he told Variety.  The film will shoot over December and January. Nascimento is set announce the film project t his panel on Sunday at the Gramado Film Festival. “A Chocolate Christmas” weighs in as a romantic drama set mainly during Natal Luz de Gramado, recognized by Guinness as the world’s longest Christmas festival.  The pic is produced by Nascimento’s Accorde Filmes and H2O Films, with co-production from NYC-based indie…

Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo  The National Treasuer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Diran Odeyemi, has revealed that the traditional ruler of his hometown, Ibokun, the headquarters of Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State, made politicians to swear to a traditional oath of maintaining peace during today’s election. Odeyemi, in an interview with THISDAY in Ibokun after assessing the turnout of voters in the town, said the peace currently being recorded in the town could be linked to the traditional oath reportedly taken by prominent politicians and security agents in Ibokun and Imesi-Ile towns before the election. He said…

The 26-year-old striker cost the Ligue 1 champions a reported 50 million euros ($58m) and has signed a five-year deal.Published On 15 Aug 202615 Aug 2026Spain international Ferran Torres, who scored the only goal in last month’s World Cup final, has signed for two-time Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona.The 26-year-old striker cost the Ligue 1 champions a reported 50 million euros ($58m).Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“Paris Saint-Germain is delighted to announce it has secured the services of Ferran Torres. The Spanish World Cup-winning forward has signed with the Club until 2031,” read a club statement…

Harvesters pick grapes in vineyards during the 2025 Champagne harvest in Hauvillers, north-eastern France on August 28, 2025. Francois Nascimbeni | Afp | Getty ImagesSweltering summer temperatures look set to spur the earliest Champagne harvest on record and potentially one of the most challenging. The French region’s winemakers face lower crop yields, weaker consumer demand and a threat to the iconic drink’s famed fresh taste.The Champagne season officially starts on Aug. 15 this year, with the majority of picking expected between Aug. 20 and 25, around two weeks earlier than usual in recent years. Before the early 2000s, harvesting the…

Strings of code in Samsung’s Galaxy Wearable app hint at an upcoming pair of over-ear headphones that could compete with the AirPods Max, SamMobile reports. Samsung’s reportedly referring to the headphones as the “Galaxy H1,” and SamMobile says they could launch sometime in 2027. That would make these the company’s first pair of over-ear headphones since the Level On in 2015, which was released well before Samsung acquired Harman and a number of other audio brands.Connection status icons in the app standard show the design of over-ear, wireless Bluetooth headphones, but not necessarily exactly what these will look like in…

Labour marked its worst performance in more than 50 years when voters went to the polls in Barnsley in May, but 100 days on from those seismic local elections, the political landscape has shifted drastically.Could the South Yorkshire town, where Reform UK reaped the benefits of dissatisfaction with Labour, prove to be a test case for whether the governing party has turned the tide?Labour had run Barnsley’s council since its inception in 1974, but was left with just 11 councillors after Reform triumphed with 42 seats.“I knew that it would be the most challenging set of elections that we’ve ever…

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.Glueballs are made of gluons, which bind quarks to form protons and neutrons.Credit: Sefa kart/GettyA team of physicists says it has observed strong evidence of a mysterious ‘glueball’, a particle made up of force-carrying gluons. The team says that a particle known as X(2370) is mostly made up of these glueballs — clusters of the gluons that bind quarks to form protons and neutrons and hold them inside the nucleus of an atom. There is no single smoking gun that proves that…