Author: damazah@gmail.com

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldThe writer is a professor at MIT and Politecnico di Milano, and founder of Carlo Ratti AssociatiFor once, I should thank the Trump administration. It has forced academia to confront a problem that has long needed attention: the shortcomings of peer review. The proposed cure, however, is far worse than the disease.The modern American research system grew out of the vision of a single engineer from my own university, MIT. In 1945, Vannevar Bush proposed a grand three-way bargain: government…

Meta has axed a controversial feature that allowed users to modify photos from public Instagram accounts using AI. The feature, which was rolled out earlier this week along with a batch of other AI tools, “missed the mark” and is no longer available, according to the company. Earlier this week, Meta announced Muse Image, a new AI image generator built by Meta Superintelligence Labs, its dedicated AI unit. Meta promoted one feature that allowed individuals to generate images by @-mentioning public Instagram accounts that they wanted to reference. The feature, which wasn’t designed to alert a user if their photos…

Reform UK would have held just 15% of the donations it received last year if a proposed £100,000 cap on political donations had been in force, according to analysis shared with the Guardian.The analysis by Friends of the Earth using Electoral Commission data highlights the party’s reliance on a handful of wealthy backers in advance of a showdown over political funding.It registered donations between April 2025 and March 2026 and assumed union affiliation payments would be exempt from the cap, in line with recommendations made by the Phillips review into party funding.The findings suggest Reform UK would have raised just…

Key eventsSinner (7)6-7 7-6(2) 6-3 2-3 Zverev* At 30-0, Sinner finds a flat, hard, deep return straight down the middle, denying Zverev angle … so he responds with an ace down the T, but a backhand down the line is wide by almost nothing; 40-30. No matter: a service winner, muscled out wide, secures the hold, and we’re almost back to the attritional tennis of the first two sets.Share*Sinner (7)6-7 7-6(2) 6-3 2-2 Zverev Zverev guides a return close to the baseline and Sinner’s half-volley riposte is wide, then two forehands towards opposite corners are backed up with an overhead…

A moment that started out as a disagreement between Tracestin Shepherd and his girlfriend has been at the center of a swirl of questions about the tragic death of 18-year-old Mississippi football player Nolan Wells. The video posted to social media of a group of young people seemingly in a heated altercation has been believed to be the last time Wells was pictured or heard on video before his disappearance and death, which has made national news. But Shepherd, a close friend of Wells, says what really happened in the video isn’t how it’s been portrayed.   At around 3:30 p.m.…

Civil society organisations from Africa have called on governments to move beyond anti-corruption commitments and focus on enforcing existing laws, warning that weak accountability continues to fuel grand corruption and deprive the continent of billions of dollars needed for development. The groups made the call in a joint statement shared with PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday to mark the 2026 African Anti-Corruption Day observed under the African Union (AU) theme, “Scaling Up the Promotion of Integrity and Anti-Corruption Actions Across Africa.” Observed annually on 11 July, African Anti-Corruption Day commemorates the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating…

By Davies Iheamnachor, Port Harcourt Youth leaders of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the South-South geopolitical zone have warned against any attempt to manipulate the 2027 elections in the region, insisting that the polls must be free, fair and credible. The youths also pledged to mobilise 30 million votes from the region for the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, in the 2027 election. The position was reached at the end of a two-day strategic leadership awakening summit organised by South-South ADC in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Speaking at the event, the National Youth…

Donald Trump has rejected Iranian claims to have closed off the strait of Hormuz, as both sides battled for control over the waterway, leaving a ceasefire agreed last month at the point of collapse.US forces said they had attacked 140 targets in Iran on Saturday night and Sunday morning, after Tehran struck and disabled a container ship in the strait, whose transit it said had not been approved. In a statement, US Central Command said its targets had included missile and drone sites, naval facilities, ammunition depots, communication networks and surveillance locations.Iran on Sunday struck back with drone and missile…

While ancestral Polynesians were highly adaptable and accustomed to seasonal droughts, prolonged and severe droughts during times of high population density might mean an island could no longer support its human population. Ultimately, island survival hinges on a single critical resource: rainfall. Unlocking the climate record Until recently, scientists lacked evidence from the Tonga and Samoa region of what the climate was like in this critical migration era. But we were able to reconstruct these past changes by analyzing hydrogen isotopes—slightly different forms of the same element—preserved in ancient mud from swamps and lakes. In the tropics, the isotopic composition…

There has been an outpouring of shock and grief from across the political divide following the news of her death.Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Widdecombe, describing her death as a “significant loss” as he called on people to “rise above” political differences.”My heart is breaking for her family,” said Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, describing Widdecombe as a “very fun and feisty woman”. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who visited Dartmoor to pay his respects to Widdecombe, described her as a “remarkable individual” and “the fiercest defender of free speech”. “She was an extraordinary lady,” shadow chancellor Mel…