Facing death is a core part of making meaning of ones life. To struggle through this universal contemplation without a community can be brutal.

Nature, Published online: 07 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04150-wIn the race to embrace new technologies, some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature.

Plus, a journey to a melting continent.

Tokyo is concerned at signs that Beijing may be laying the groundwork to restrict access to the metals vital to manufacturing.

As the filmmakers, songwriters and actors tell it, their wackadoo concept evolved over nine years and eight versions of Golden into a global phenomenon.

The central bank faces two major hurdles early on in 2026 that will determine the extent to which it operates free of political meddling.

Backers claim the tests can predict a childs risk of autism using a strand of hair or a mothers blood, but critics say they are not ready for the market.

CORRECT THE ORDER OF SPEAKERS, FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, left, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)2026-01-07T09:45:05Z Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory. Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the U.S. military is always an option, even as a series of European leaders rejected President Donald Trumps renewed calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland, citing strategic reasons.Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined her in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island belongs to its people.Their statement defended the sovereignty of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark and thus part of NATO. Trump has floated since his first term the idea of acquiring Greenland, arguing that the U.S. needs to control the worlds largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic. This weekends U.S. military action in Venezuela has heightened fears across Europe, and Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated the U.S. leaders desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America. Its so strategic right now, Trump told reporters Sunday.Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested the meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenlands government website. Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.While most U.S. Republicans have supported Trumps statement, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, blasted Trumps rhetoric in a statement Tuesday. When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, the statement said. Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.French Foreign Minister Jean-Nol Barrot said he spoke by phone Tuesday with Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland. In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO, Barrot told France Inter radio Wednesday.Asked if he has a plan in case Trump does claim Greenland, Barrot said he wont engage in fiction diplomacy.Associated Press journalist Geir Moulson, in Berlin, contributed to this report. STEFANIE DAZIO Dazio covers Northern Europe from Berlin for The Associated Press. She previously covered crime and criminal justice from Los Angeles. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

In this photograph released on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, by the official website of the Iranian Army, Iran's army chief Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami speaks to military academy students, in Tehran, Iran. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)2026-01-07T10:34:21Z DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Irans army chief threatened preemptive military action Wednesday over the rhetoric targeting the Islamic Republic, likely referring to U.S. President Donald Trumps warning that if Tehran violently kills peaceful protesters, America will come to their rescue.The comments by Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami come as Iran tries to respond to what it sees as a dual threat posed by Israel and the United States, as well as the protests sparked by its economic woes that have grown into a direct challenge to its theocracy. Seeking to halt the anger, Irans government began Wednesday paying the equivalent of $7 a month to subsidize rising costs for dinner-table essentials like rice, meat and pastas. Shopkeepers warn prices for items as basic as cooking oil likely will triple under pressure from the collapse of Irans rial currency and the end of a preferential subsidized dollar-rial exchange rate for importers and manufacturers likely fueling further popular anger. More than a week of protests in Iran reflects not only worsening economic conditions, but longstanding anger at government repression and regime policies that have led to Irans global isolation, the New York-based Soufan Center think tank said. Army chiefs threatHatami spoke to military academy students. He took over as commander-in-chief of the Irans army, known by the Farsi word Artesh, after Israel killed a slew of the countrys top military commanders in Junes 12-day war. He is the first regular military officer in decades to hold a position long controlled by Irans paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The Islamic Republic considers the intensification of such rhetoric against the Iranian nation as a threat and will not leave its continuation without a response, Hatami said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. He added, I can say with confidence that today the readiness of Irans armed forces is far greater than before the war. If the enemy commits an error, it will face a more decisive response, and we will cut off the hand of any aggressor. Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been responding to Trumps comments, which took on more significance after the U.S. military raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend. But theres been no immediate public sign of Iran preparing for an attack in the region.New subsidy payment beginsIranian state television reported on the start of a new subsidy of the equivalent of $7, put into the bank accounts of heads of households across the country. More than 71 million people will receive the benefit, which is 10 million Iranian rials, it reported. The rial now trades at over 1.4 million to $1 and continues to depreciate. The subsidy is more than double than the 4.5 million rial people previously received. But already, Iranian media report sharp rises in the cost of basic goods, including cooking oil, poultry and cheese, placing additional strain on households already burdened by international sanctions targeting the country and inflation.Irans vice president in charge of executive affairs, Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, told reporters Wednesday that the country was in a full-fledged economic war. He called for economic surgery to eliminate rentier policies and corruption within the country. Protests began Dec. 28 Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the June war with Israel, its rial currency sharply fell in December. Protests began soon after on Dec. 28. They reached their 11th day on Wednesday and did not appear to be stopping. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency offered the latest death toll of 36 for the demonstrations. It said 30 protesters, four children and two members of Irans security forces have been killed. Demonstrations have reached over 280 locations in 27 of Irans 31 provinces.The group, which relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting, has been accurate in past unrest. JON GAMBRELL Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press. He has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and other locations across the world since joining the AP in 2006. twitter instagram mailto

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mara Corina Machado with Deputy Leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Asle Toje, right, outside the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Friday Dec. 12, 2025. (Ole Berg-Rusten/NTB via AP)2026-01-07T05:44:33Z CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Venezuelas opposition supporters have long hoped for the day when Nicols Maduro is no longer in power a dream that was fulfilled when the U.S. military whisked the authoritarian leader away. But while Maduro is in jail in New York on drug trafficking charges, the leaders of his repressive administration remain in charge.The nations opposition backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S. for years vowed to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But U.S. President Donald Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduros vice president, Delcy Rodrguez, to assume control.Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Mara Corina Machado, are in exile or prison.They were clearly unimpressed by the sort of ethereal magical realism of the opposition, about how if they just gave Maduro a push, it would just be this instant move toward democracy, David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades, said of the Trump administration. The U.S. seized Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores in a military operation Saturday, removing them both from their home on a military base in Venezuelas capital, Caracas. Hours later, Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela and expressed skepticism that Machado could ever be its leader. She doesnt have the support within, or the respect within, the country, Trump told reporters. Shes a very nice woman, but she doesnt have the respect.Ironically, Machados unending praise for the American president, including dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump and her backing of U.S. campaigns to deport Venezuelan migrants and attack alleged drug traffickers in international waters, has lost her some support at home. The rightful winner of Venezuelas presidential electionMachado rose to become Maduros strongest opponent in recent years, but his government barred her from running for office to prevent her from challenging and likely beating him in the 2024 presidential election. She chose retired ambassador Edmundo Gonzlez Urrutia to represent her on the ballot.Officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner mere hours after the polls closed, but Machados well-organized campaign stunned the nation by collecting detailed tally sheets showing Gonzlez had defeated Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin. The U.S. and other nations recognized Gonzlez as the legitimate winner.However, Venezuelans identify Machado, not Gonzlez, as the winner, and the charismatic opposition leader has remained the voice of the campaign, pushing for international support and insisting her movement will replace Maduro.In her first televised interview since Maduros capture, Machado effusively praised Trump and failed to acknowledge his snub of her opposition movement in the latest transition of power.I spoke with President Trump on Oct. 10, the same day the prize was announced, not since then, she told Fox News on Monday. What he has done as I said is historic, and its a huge step toward a democratic transition. Hopes for a new electionU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday seemed to walk back Trumps assertion that the U.S. would run Venezuela. In interviews, Rubio insisted that Washington will use control of Venezuelas oil industry to force policy changes, and called its current government illegitimate. The country is home to the worlds largest proven crude oil reserves.Neither Trump nor Rodrguez have said when, or if, elections might take place in Venezuela. Venezuelas constitution requires an election within 30 days whenever a president becomes permanently unavailable to serve. Reasons listed include death, resignation, removal from office or abandonment of duties as declared by the National Assembly. That electoral timeline was rigorously followed when Maduros predecessor, Hugo Chvez, died of cancer in 2013.On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who traveled with the president on Air Force One on Sunday, said he believes an election will happen but did not specify when or how. Were going to build the country up infrastructure wise crescendoing with an election that will be free, the South Carolina Republican told reporters.But Maduro loyalists in the high court Saturday, citing another provision of the constitution, declared Maduros absence temporary meaning there is no election requirement. Instead, the vice president which is not an elected position takes over for up to 90 days, with a provision to extend to six months if approved by the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party. Challenges lie ahead for the oppositionIn its ruling, Venezuelas Supreme Court made no mention of the 180-day limit, leading to speculation that Rodrguez could try to cling to power as she seeks to unite ruling party factions and shield it from what would certainly be a stiff electoral challenge.Machado on Monday criticized Rodrguez as one the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking certainly not an individual that can be trusted by international investors.Even if an election takes place, Machado and Gonzlez would first have to find a way back into Venezuela. Gonzlez has been in exile in Spain since September 2024 and Machado left Venezuela last month when she appeared in public for the first time in 11 months to receive her Nobel Prize in Norway.Ronal Rodrguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory in Colombias Universidad del Rosario, said the Trump administrations decision to work with Rodrguez could harm the nations democratic spirit. What the opposition did in the 2024 election was to unite with a desire to transform the situation in Venezuela through democratic means, and that is embodied by Mara Corina Machado and, obviously, Edmundo Gonzlez Urrutia, he said. To disregard that is to belittle, almost to humiliate, Venezuelans.

Pedestrians run after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)2026-01-07T01:38:38Z CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) When explosions erupted by night in Venezuelas balmy capital, 21-year-old Mariana Camargo dashed through the streets of eastern Caracas.It was at 2:05 in the morning and, as explosions boomed in the background, Associated Press photographer Matas Delacroix was on the street snapping what would become one of the first images of the American military operation in Venezuela.Days later after Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro was replaced by his vice president following his capture by the Trump administration Camargo and Delacroix found a moment of calm at the same place the emblematic photo was taken.A woman arrived in a big truck and she screeched to a stop and said kids what are you doing here, go home theyre bombing! Camargo remembered. We were like nine people and we were like Well, lets run. We started to run and passed by here. The images show Camargo in a white shirt and jeans, sprinting through the street, with fear and urgency painted on her face, with a group of her friends running behind her. She said she clocked Delacroix standing to the side as he took the photo.It was that emotion that caught the eye of Delacroix, who minutes earlier awoke to the rumbling sound of American strikes, grabbed his camera and ran onto the street toward the explosions. It was there, with the sound of military aircrafts overhead, that the two crossed paths: one person running away from the blasts and one running toward them. What caught my attention was how you were running, with your cellphone and clearly scared. I have photos of your friend that was behind you, but between the two photos, yours was the one that expressed the most what was happening, said Delacroix to Camargo as they flipped through the photos. Mariana Camargo poses for a photo in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix) Mariana Camargo poses for a photo in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix) Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit Read More As the photograph proceeded to paint the front pages and websites of the worlds biggest media, capturing a moment set to transform the hemisphere, Camargos friends began to see her and write her in their WhatsApp group message.Am I tripping or is that Nana Mariana??? asked one of her friends, posting a picture of the photo. (In Venezuela, Nana is a nickname for Mariana.)IT IS NANA! another friend wrote shortly after.The photo slowly became a joke in her friend group and even turned into a meme with the words the gringos have arrived! written over it. Camargo laughed as she scrolled through the messages.Now I laughed, and I laughed when I saw the photo. My mom laughed, my friends too. They made stickers and memes and all that, Camargo said. But I still see the videos of what happened that day, of the explosions, I hear the sounds and I still feel this sense of panic.On Sunday, a day after the strikes and as chaos, Camargo wrote to Delacroix over his Instagram account, asking if he had more photographs of the moment.When they met up on Tuesday, chatting on the street, the two parted with a hug.Crazy things always happen to me, she said with a laugh. Of course I end up on the street during a bombing and I go viral. Its nuts.Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City. JUAN PABLO ARRAEZ Arraez is a Venezuelan video journalist working for The Associated Press since 2018. twitter mailto MATIAS DELACROIX Delacroix is a Chilean-raised photojournalist currently based in Panama. With a focus on migration, social unrest, and humanitarian crises, he has covered key events across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. twitter instagram facebook mailto

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, left, during a ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding, (MOU) between South Korea and China in Beijing, China, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (Han Sang-kyun/Yonhap via AP)2026-01-07T10:18:56Z BEIJING (AP) China escalated its trade tensions with Japan on Wednesday by launching an investigation into imported dichlorosilane, a chemical gas used in making semiconductors, a day after it imposed curbs on the export of so-called dual-use goods that could be used by Japans military.The Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement that it had launched the investigation following an application from the domestic industry showing the price of dichlorosilane imported from Japan had decreased 31% between 2022 and 2024.The dumping of imported products from Japan has damaged the production and operation of our domestic industry, the ministry said.The measure comes a day after Beijing banned exports to Japan of dual-use goods that can have military applications.Beijing has been showing mounting displeasure with Tokyo after new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested late last year that her nations military could intervene if China were to take action against Taiwan an island democracy that Beijing considers its own territory. Tensions were stoked again on Tuesday when Japanese lawmaker Hei Seki, who last year was sanctioned by China for spreading fallacies about Taiwan and other disputed territories, visited Taiwan and called it an independent country. Also known as Yo Kitano, he has been banned from entering China. He told reporters that his arrival in Taiwan demonstrated the two are different countries. I came to Taiwan to prove this point, and to tell the world that Taiwan is an independent country, Hei Seki said, according to Taiwans Central News Agency.The nasty words of a petty villain like him are not worth commenting on, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning retorted when asked about his comment. Fears of a rare earths curbMasaaki Kanai, head of Asia Oceanian Affairs at Japans Foreign Ministry, urged China to scrap the trade curbs, saying a measure exclusively targeting Japan that deviates from international practice is unacceptable. Japan, however, has yet to announce any retaliatory measures.As the two countries feuded, speculation rose that China might target rare earths exports to Japan, in a move similar to the rounds of critical minerals export restrictions it has imposed as part of its trade war with the United States.China controls most of the global production of heavy rare earths, used for making powerful, heat-resistance magnets used in industries such as defense and electric vehicles.While the Commerce Ministry did not mention any new rare earths curbs, the official newspaper China Daily, seen as a government mouthpiece, quoted anonymous sources saying Beijing was considering tightening exports of certain rare earths to Japan. That report could not be independently confirmed. Improved South Korean ties contrast with Japan rowAs Beijing spars with Tokyo, it has made a point of courting a different East Asian power South Korea.On Wednesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung wrapped up a four-day trip to China his first since taking office in June. Lee and Chinese President Xi Jinping oversaw the signing of cooperation agreements in areas such as technology, trade, transportation and environmental protection.As if to illustrate a contrast with the China-Japan trade frictions, Lee joined two business events at which major South Korean and Chinese companies pledged to collaborate.The two sides signed 24 export contracts worth a combined $44 million, according to South Koreas Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources. During Lees visit, Chinese media also reported that South Korea overtook Japan as the leading destination for outbound flights from Chinas mainland over the New Years holiday.China has been discouraging travel to Japan, saying Japanese leaders comments on Taiwan have created significant risks to the personal safety and lives of Chinese citizens in Japan. SIMINA MISTREANU Mistreanu is a Greater China reporter for The Associated Press, based in Taipei, Taiwan. She has reported on China since 2015. twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 06 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00047-4Jellyfish seem to sleep in ways strikingly similar to humans, despite not having a brain. Plus, US lawmakers have pushed back on proposed cuts to science and why cancer can come back years after successful treatment.

We ask where Americas new foreign policy might take us and the world.

Needing U.S. support to fend off Russia in Ukraine, European leaders have been cautious about criticizing President Trump on Greenland, Iran, Venezuela and much else.

The Daily Show host quipped that after a surprise capture, Nicols Maduro will face justice in the best legal system in the world that we illegally kidnapped him to.

A court dispute over the lines of the 11th Congressional District represents one of New York Democrats few hopes of drawing maps in their favor for the 2026 midterms.

The development deepens the confrontation over the tanker formerly known as the Bella 1, which the United States wants to seize but which Russia has sought to protect.

The Paramount Pictures water tower is seen in Los Angeles, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, with the Hollywood sign in the distance. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)2026-01-07T12:38:10Z NEW YORK (AP) Warner Bros. again rejected Paramounts latest takeover bid and told shareholders Wednesday to stick with a rival offer from Netflix. Warners leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Skydance-owned Paramounts overtures and urged shareholders just weeks ago to back its the sale of its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, meanwhile, has sweetened its $77.9 billion offer for the entire company and gone straight to shareholders with a hostile bid.Warner Bros. Discovery said Wednesday that its board determined Paramounts offer is not in the best interests of the company or its shareholders. It again recommended shareholders support the Netflix deal.Late last month Paramount announced an irrevocable personal guarantee from Oracle founder Larry Ellison who is the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison to back $40.4 billion in equity financing for the companys offer. Paramount also increased its promised payout to shareholders to $5.8 billion if the deal is blocked by regulators, matching what Netflix already put on the table. The battle for Warner and the value of each offer grows complicated because Netflix and Paramount want different things. Netflixs proposed acquisition includes only Warners studio and streaming business, including its legacy TV and movie production arms and platforms like HBO Max. But Paramount wants the entire company which, beyond studio and streaming, includes networks like CNN and Discovery. If Netflix is successful, Warners news and cable operations would be spun off into their own company, under a previously-announced separation. A merger with either company will attract tremendous antitrust scrutiny. Due to its size and potential impact, it will almost certainly trigger a review by the U.S. Justice Department, which could sue to block the transaction or request changes. Other countries and regulators overseas may also challenge the merger.

The president of the Yemen's Southern Transitional Council Aidarous Al-Zubaidi sits for an interview, Sept. 22, 2023, in New York, while attending the United Nations General Assembly's annual high-level meeting of world leaders. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)2026-01-07T05:26:30Z ADEN, YEMEN (AP) A council fighting against Yemens Houthi rebels said Wednesday that it had expelled the leader of a separatist movement and charged him with treason after he reportedly declined to travel to Saudi Arabia for talks. The latest upheaval in southern Yemen is revealing a growing divide among the Persian Gulf powers, cracking the coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis. Longstanding differences between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from Sudan to energy policy have spilled into Yemen, where they back rival factions. The rift has deepened strains between the two neighbors, who officially share the goal of countering the Houthis, in control of the capital, Sanaa, since 2014.Uncertainty is also growing over the future of Yemen itself a country strained by more than a decade of war in the Arab worlds poorest country. A delegation of the Southern Transitional Council, or STC, which had been backed by the United Arab Emirates, flew to the Saudi capital, where it was scheduled to attend a meeting to discuss the situation in Yemens southern governorates.But the STC said in a statement it lost contact with the delegation after it landed. It expressed deep concern over the matter. The STC said leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi remained in Aden, the interim capital where the internationally recognized government is based. It also accused Saudi Arabia of launching airstrikes in Yemens al-Dhale governorate and causing casualties. While a senior STC delegation is in Saudi Arabia pursuing negotiations, the President remains in Aden to ensure security and stability, wrote Amr al-Bidh, an STC official focused on foreign affairs. He will not abandon his people, and he will engage directly when conditions allow. The Presidential Leadership Council, or PLC, headed by Rashad al-Alimi, accused al-Zubaidi in a Facebook statement of damaging the republics military, political and economic standing, as well as forming an armed gang and committing the murder of officers and soldiers of the armed forces. Saudi Arabia launches new airstrikesMore than 15 Saudi airstrikes overnight hit the al-Dhale governorate, targeting STC camps, according to STC leader Salah bin Laghir. Meanwhile, two eyewitnesses, Hossam Mohsen and Mohamed Awlaqi, told The Associated Press that armored vehicles affiliated with the STC left Aden overnight heading to al-Dahle.Other witnesses, Khaled Mathni and Abdallah Abeid, said they saw drones in the sky and flames rising as explosions shook neighborhoods in al-Dahle city and its surrounding areas. They said they believe a weapons warehouse was targeted.In a statement Wednesday morning, the STC said it was surprised by the Saudi airstrike, adding that it marks a regrettable escalation. While the Southern Transitional Council condemns these unjustified airstrikes, it demands that the Saudi authorities immediately cease the bombing, guarantee the safety of its delegation in Riyadh, and enable it to communicate immediately, considering this a prerequisite for creating a positive atmosphere for any serious and meaningful dialogue, the STC statement read. The anti-Houthi leadership group, the PLC, formed in April 2022 after President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi of Yemens internationally recognized government stepped down. Its members have often pursued competing agendas and relied on different foreign backers, leaving the council fragmented and unable to mount a unified campaign against the Houthis even after the United States and Israel launched bombing campaigns targeting the rebels.An uneasy ceasefire between the combatants on the ground in Yemen held for years. But tensions flared again in late December over the STCs advances in the oil-rich governorates of Hadramout and Mahra, which were once held by Saudi-backed forces. Saudis express displeasure with developmentsMaj. Gen, Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, said Wednesday that al-Zubaidi, had been due to take a flight to Saudi Arabia with other council officials but did not join them.The legitimate government and the coalition received intelligence indicating that al-Zubaidi had moved a large force including armored vehicles, combat vehicles, heavy and light weapons, and ammunition, al-Malki said. Al-Zubaidi fled to an unknown location. What is happening today in the southern governorates after the rebellion of Aidarus al-Zubaidi, and despite all the sincere efforts made by our brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Presidential Leadership Council to prevent reaching this stage, is not what we wished to reach, and we are not happy with what has happened, said Abdualla al-Alimi, vice President of the Presidential Leadership Council on X.On Sunday, Saudi-backed forces spread across the port city of Mukalla, retaking the capital of Hadramout province following days of Saudi airstrikes. Saudi Arabia in recent weeks has bombed STC positions and struck what is said was a shipment of Emirati weapons. After Saudi pressure and an ultimatum from anti-Houthi forces to withdraw from Yemen, the UAE said Saturday it had withdrawn its forces.Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula off East Africa, borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The war there has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the worlds worst humanitarian disasters.___Khaled reported from Cairo, and Gambrell from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. FATMA KHALED Khaled is based in the Middle East region. She covers humanitarian crises, conflict, among other news beats for The Associated Press. twitter mailto JON GAMBRELL Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press. He has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and other locations across the world since joining the AP in 2006. twitter instagram mailto

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)2026-01-07T04:19:04Z TOKYO (AP) Global shares traded mixed Wednesday, calming somewhat from the buzz set off by recent record rallies on Wall Street, while investors attention turned to global interest rates and uncertainty caused by developments in Venezuela. Frances CAC 40 shed 0.3% to 8,213.78 in early trading, while the DAX in Germany gained 0.4% to 24,993.97. Britains FTSE 100 slipped 0.6% to 10,067.95. U.S. futures were mixed. The contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up nearly 0.1%. That for the S&P 500 slipped 0.1%. Japans Nikkei 225 lost 1.1% to finish at 51,961.98, a day after setting a record. Chinas decision late Tuesday to ban exports to Japan of goods that might be used for military purposes hit energy Relations between Japan and China have worsened after Japans Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in early November its military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its sovereign territory. Last week, China staged military drills around Taiwan. Elsewhere in Asia, South Koreas Kospi gained 0.6% to 4,551.06. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2% to 8,695.60. Hong Kongs Hang Seng declined 0.9% to 26,458.95, while the Shanghai Composite added less than 0.1% to 4,085.77. Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel. Follow on Global uncertainty continues to deepen, Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank in Singapore said in a commentary, citing the capture of Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro by U.S. forces in a weekend raid. The rally spurred by buying of technology shares may have run its course, analysts said. Tech appetite is weaker in Asia, Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote, said in a report. It increasingly feels like good news is no longer generating the same euphoria seen over the past three years. The tech rally is showing signs of fatigue, supporting rotation trades a trend further reinforced by geopolitical headlines. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.6%, setting a record on just the third trading day of the year. The Dow added 1% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.6%. This week will bring reports on the U.S. jobs market, including updates on job openings and overall employment.The U.S. Federal Reserve will be analyzing such data for its next meeting in late January. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times late in 2025. Wall Street expects the Fed to hold interest rates steady at its January meeting.In other trading early Wednesday, the price of benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 65 cents to $56.48 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 47 cents to $60.23 per barrel.In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 156.55 Japanese yen from 156.68 yen. The euro cost $1.1684, down from $1.1689. The price of gold fell 0.5%, while silver gave up 2.3%. ___Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama YURI KAGEYAMA Kageyama covers Japan news for The Associated Press. Her topics include social issues, the environment, businesses, entertainment and technology. twitter instagram facebook mailto

Israeli police inspect a bus following an incident in which it hit ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators blocking a road during a protest against army recruitment in Jerusalem, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)2026-01-07T09:48:47Z JERUSALEM (AP) Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged calm after a bus driver ran over and killed a teenage boy Tuesday night during a protest in Jerusalem against a law seeking to draft the ultra-Orthodox community into Israels military. I call for restraint to prevent the mood from becoming further inflamed so that, heaven forbid, we do not have additional tragedies, Netanyahu said in a statement early Wednesday, adding that the death would be thoroughly investigated. The incident killed yeshiva student Yosef Eisenthal. Video from the protest obtained by The Associated Press showed a public bus dragging him for meters before running him over as onlookers jostled and screamed. Police officers arrested and questioned the bus driver, who told investigators he was attacked by protesters before hitting the boy, Israels police spokesperson said. Protesters had been blocking the road and acting violently toward police officers, throwing eggs and other objects at them, the spokesperson said.The violence reflected growing tensions between the Israeli authorities and the ultra-Orthodox, known as Haredim, as the government mulls plans to draft them into the military. When Israel was founded in 1948, a small number of gifted ultra-Orthodox scholars were granted exemptions from the draft, which is compulsory for most Jews in the country. But with a push from politically powerful religious parties, those numbers have swelled over the decades. There is support for rolling back the ultra-Orthodox exemption among many secular Israelis, especially those who have served multiple rounds of duty in the latest war between Israel and the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza.Measures to draft the ultra-Orthodox have been met with staunch opposition and occasional violence from religious protesters who claim serving in the military will destroy their way of life. The pushback has created a political problem for Netanyahu, who relies on the support of religious parties in the Israeli Parliament. JULIA FRANKEL Frankel, based in Jerusalem, has reported from across Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her reporting focuses on war, human rights, displacement and criminal justice. twitter mailto

Actor Brigitte Bardot's coffin is carried into Notre-Dame de l'Assomption church for her funeral ceremony, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026 in Saint-Tropez, southern France. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)2026-01-07T05:07:02Z PARIS (AP) Brigitte Bardots funeral was being held on Wednesday with a private service and a public homage in Saint-Tropez, the French Riviera resort where she lived for more than half a century after retiring from movie stardom at the height of her fame.The animal rights activist and far-right supporter died Dec. 28 at age 91 at her home in southern France. She died from cancer after undergoing two operations, her husband, Bernard dOrmale, said in an interview with Paris Match magazine released Tuesday evening. She was conscious and concerned about the fate of animals until the very end, he said.Residents and admirers applauded the funeral convoy as the coffin of Bardot, once one of the worlds most photographed women and a defining screen siren of the 1960s, was being carried through the towns narrow streets.A service started to the sound of Maria Callas Ave Maria at the Notre-Dame-de-lAssomption Catholic Church in the presence of Bardots husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals. Hundreds of people gathered in the small town to follow the farewell on large screens set up at the port and on two plazas. After the church service, Bardot is to be buried in the strictest privacy at a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Saint-Tropez town hall. She had long called Saint-Tropez her refuge from the celebrity that once made her a household name.A public homage will take place at a nearby site for admirers of the woman whose image once symbolized Frances postwar liberation and sensuality.Brigitte Bardot will forever be associated with Saint-Tropez, of which she was the most dazzling ambassador, the town hall said last week. Through her presence, personality and aura, she marked the history of our town. Bardot settled decades ago in her seaside villa, La Madrague, and retired from filmmaking in 1973 at age 39, during an international career that spanned more than two dozen films. She later emerged as an animal rights activist, founding and sustaining a foundation devoted to the protection of animals.While she withdrew from the film industry, she remained a highly visible and often controversial public figure through decades of militant animal rights activism and links with far-right politics.She will be buried in the so-called marine cemetery, where her parents are also interred. The cemetery, overlooking the Mediterranean sea, is also the final resting place of several cultural figures, including filmmaker Roger Vadim, Bardots first husband, who directed her breakout film And God Created Woman, a role that made her a worldwide star. SYLVIE CORBET Corbet is an Associated Press reporter based in Paris. She covers French politics, diplomacy and defense as well as gender issues and breaking news. twitter THOMAS ADAMSON Adamson is a foreign reporter based in Paris for The Associated Press. He covers European politics, culture and style. He has reported across the continent in an over two-decade career. twitter mailto

If confirmed, the move would be the start of President Trumps plan to exploit the countrys vast reserves after U.S. forces captured President Nicols Maduro.

Analysts say the Cold War agreement allows the president to increase the American military presence almost at will.

Some ask whether the shake-up risks disrupting the agencies operations and is political in nature.

The board said the blockbuster deal it reached with Netflix last month posed less risk.

President Trump has repeated his interest in taking the semiautonomous Danish territory, citing U.S. national security. Denmarks leader says such a move would be the end of NATO.

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A government supporter holds an image of President Nicolas Maduro during a women's march to demand his return in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, three days after U.S. forces captured him and his wife. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)2026-01-07T13:43:58Z WASHINGTON (AP) A U.S. official says U.S. forces have boarded a Venezuela-linked sanctioned oil tanker in North Atlantic after pursuing it for weeks. The official spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.The U.S. had been pursuing the tanker since last month after it tried to evade a U.S. blockade around Venezuela. The ship was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2024 for allegedly smuggling cargo for a company linked to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The U.S. Coast Guard attempted to board it in the Caribbean in December as it headed for Venezuela, which the Trump administration has placed under naval blockade. The ship refused boarding and headed across the Atlantic.

People walk as shops are closed during protests in Tehran's centuries-old main bazaar, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)2026-01-07T05:16:05Z DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Iran faces a new round of protests challenging the countrys theocracy, but it seems like the only thing people there want to talk about is half a world away: Venezuela.Since the U.S. military seized Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend, Iranian state media headlines and officials have condemned the operation. In the streets and even in some official conversations, however, theres a growing question over whether a similar mission could target the Islamic Republics top officials including the supreme leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.The paranoia feeds into wider worries among Iranians. Many fear that close U.S. ally Israel will target Iran again as it did during the 12-day war it launched against Tehran in June. Israel killed a slew of top military officials and nuclear scientists, and the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Khamenei is believed to have gone into hiding for his protection. God bless our leader, we should be careful too, said Saeed Seyyedi, a 57-year-old teacher in Tehran, worried the U.S. could act as it did in Venezuela. The U.S. has always been after plots against Iran, especially when issues like oil, Israel are part of the case. In addition, it can be complicated when it is mixed with the Russia-Ukraine war, the Lebanese (group) Hezbollah and drug accusations.The U.S. long has accused the Iranian-backed Hezbollah of running drug-smuggling operations to fund its operations, including in Latin America, which the group denies. Please prayImmediately after Maduros seizure, an analyst on Iranian state television claimed, without offering evidence, that the U.S. and Israel had plans during the war last year to kidnap Iranian officials with a team of dual-national Iranians. Even for conspiracy-minded Iranian television, airing such a claim is unusual.Then on Sunday night, the prominent Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Javedan warned an audience at prayers in Tehran University that Khameneis life was in danger.Someone said he had a bad dream that the leaders life is in danger, Javedan said, without elaborating. Please pray.However, Iran is roughly twice the size of Venezuela and has what analysts consider to be a much stronger military and robust security forces. The memory of Operation Eagle Claw, a failed U.S. special forces mission to rescue hostages held after the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran, also haunts Washington.Then theres the political situation in Iran, with its theocracy protected by hard-liners within the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who answer only to Khamenei. They could launch assassinations, cyberattacks and assaults on shipping in the Mideast, warned Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studies Irans military.And crucially, Iran also still has fissile nuclear material.In the grand-strategy scheme of things, they need to think about the day after, Nadimi said of anyone considering a Venezuela-style raid. Iran is a much more complex political situation. They have to calculate the costs and benefits. Not just the IraniansOthers wonder what part of the world the U.S. might take interest in next, while critics have warned about setting a dangerous precedent.The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid posted on social media on Saturday.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly link Maduros detention to Iran but acknowledged the protests sweeping Tehran and other cities, saying: It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.Hours before the U.S. action in Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran that if Tehran violently kills peaceful protesters the U.S. will come to their rescue.On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denounced the comments by Trump and Netanyahu as an incitement to violence, terrorism and killing. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who had been close to Trump but resigned Monday after a falling-out with the president, directly linked the Venezuela operation to Iran.The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran, Greene wrote on social media. Make Iran Great AgainU.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, put on a Make Iran Great Again hat during a Sunday segment on Fox News. He later posted an image showing him and Trump smiling after the president autographed a similar-looking hat.I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again, Graham said.Even Saudi Arabia, Irans longtime rival that reached a Chinese-mediated dtente with Tehran in 2023, appeared to be thinking about a possible U.S. intervention in Tehran.By dragging Maduro before a U.S. court, Trump sent a message more brutal than the massive bombs his aircraft dropped on Irans nuclear facilities, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned, London-published Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, wrote Sunday.How devastating it must be for Irans supreme leader to hear of Maduros abduction at the hands of American forces. JON GAMBRELL Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press. He has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and other locations across the world since joining the AP in 2006. twitter instagram mailto

Nick Reiner arrives at the premiere of "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)2026-01-07T05:02:40Z LOS ANGELES (AP) Nick Reiner is set to be arraigned and enter a plea Wednesday in the killing of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.His scheduled appearance in a Los Angeles Superior Court comes 3 1/2 weeks after the beloved actor-director and his wife of 36 years were found dead with stab wounds in their home in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles, authorities said.Nick Reiner, 32, the youngest of Rob Reiners four children, was arrested hours later, and has been held without bail since. He was charged two days later with two counts of first-degree murder. He did not enter a plea during a brief first court appearance Dec. 17, when he wore shackles and a suicide prevention smock. His attorney, Alan Jackson, has given no indication of the plans for his defense. Nearly all defendants in criminal cases plead not guilty at this stage. Jackson could also ask for another delay before a plea is entered. If Nick Reiner pleads not guilty, the case would normally head toward a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence for him to stand trial. His mental competence for trial could also be a factor. A decade ago, Nick Reiner publicly discussed his severe struggles with addiction and mental health after making a movie with his father, Being Charlie, that was very loosely based on their lives. Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were killed early on the morning of Dec. 14, and they were found in the late afternoon, authorities said. The LA County Medical Examiner said in initial findings that they died from multiple sharp force injuries, but released no other details, and police have said nothing about possible motives. Jackson is a high-profile defense attorney and former LA County prosecutor who represented Harvey Weinstein at his Los Angeles trial and Karen Read at her intensely followed trials in Massachusetts. After the initial Reiner hearing, Jackson called the case a devastating tragedy. He said the proceedings will be very complex and asked that the circumstances be met not with a rush to judgment. The counts against Reiner come with special circumstances of multiple murders and an allegation that he used a dangerous weapon, a knife. The additions could mean a greater sentence. Prosecutors have said they have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty.The prosecution is being led by Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian, whose recent cases included the Menendez brothers attempt at resentencing and the trial of Robert Durst. Rob Reiner was a prolific director whose work included some of the most memorable and endlessly watchable movies of the 1980s and 90s. His credits included This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, A Few Good Men, and When Harry Met Sally, during whose production he met Michele Singer, a photographer, and married her soon after. ANDREW DALTON Dalton covers entertainment for The Associated Press, with an emphasis on crime, courts and obituaries. He has worked for the AP for 20 years and is based in Los Angeles. mailto

Syrian child Fatima al-Zahra Abu Sheikh, 4, lies in a hospital bed after being wounded when clashes broke out between Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters in a contested area of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)2026-01-06T13:18:10Z ALEPPO, Syria (AP) The deadliest clashes so far broke out Tuesday between Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters in a contested area of the northern city of Aleppo, as efforts to merge the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces with the national army have shown little progress.Syria s state-run SANA news agency said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded in an attack by the SDF. State TV later reported that three civilians, including two women, were killed and others were wounded, including two children, in shelling of a residential area that it blamed on the SDF. SANA also said nine Aleppo Directorate of Agriculture employees were wounded by SDF shelling that hit its office.The SDF in a statement denied being behind the shelling that killed the civilians and said a shell launched by factions affiliated with the Damascus government landed in the al-Midan neighborhood. The SDF claimed the target was the adjacent Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood.This indiscriminate shelling constitutes a direct attack on residential areas and exposes the lives of civilians to grave danger, it said. Civilians caught in intense fightingThe SDF also said a drone strike launched by government forces killed one resident of Sheikh Maqsoud and wounded two children, and that shelling in the nearby Bani Zaid neighborhood killed a woman and wounded dozens. There was no mention of those incidents in state media.At Aleppos Al-Razi Hospital, which received some of the wounded, Ahmad Abu Sheikh was waiting to see his 4-year-old daughter, Fatima, who was on the operating table for hours after being hit by shrapnel from a shell. He said she lost her eye.I just want to know what can I tell my daughter when I see her? Where did her eye go? he said.Afrin Jawan, a civil society activist in Sheikh Maqsoud, said in a message that thousands of civilians were besieged in Kurdish neighborhoods and subjected to indiscriminate shelling with all types of heavy and medium weapons ... by factions affiliated with the Ministry of Defense in Damascus. The predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh in Aleppo have seen intermittent clashes in recent months. Previous rounds of fighting ended with truce agreements.By Tuesday evening, a tense calm had returned, but clashes flared up again within hours.Difficulty in absorbing Kurdish forcesThe SDF has tens of thousands of fighters and is the main force to be absorbed into Syrias military. The leadership in Damascus under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa signed a deal in March with the SDF, which controls much of the northeast, for it to merge with the Syrian army by the end of 2025. There have been disagreements on how it would happen. In April, scores of SDF fighters left Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh as part of the deal.Officials from the central government and SDF met again Sunday in Damascus, but government officials said no tangible progress had been made.Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces. The SDF for years has been the main U.S. partner in Syria in fighting against the Islamic State group, but Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkey. A peace process is now underway.The SDF and Syrias government have accused each other of seeking to derail the March agreement.The SDF organization once again proves that it does not recognize the March 10 Agreement and is trying to derail it and drag the army into an open battle of its choosing, Syrias Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.The SDF said government forces had committed a blatant violation of international humanitarian law by targeting residential neighborhoods. It called the attacks planned and deliberate, systematically targeting infrastructure and essential services, including water and electricity.

We start this week with Matthews story about an organization tracking the location of AI data centers around the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. After the break, Jason tells us all about what Grok got up to over the holiday break, and we ruminate on what the breakdown in the information ecosystem means. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about how we bought404media.com!Listen to the weekly podcast onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orYouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism.If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player. Timestamps:1:38 -Researchers Are Hunting America for Hidden Datacenters25:58 -Grok's AI CSAM ShitshowSubscriber's Story:We Bought404media.com

Nature, Published online: 07 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04028-xWorld-making tips and tricks.

Around 600 foreigners have been stranded on Socotra as clashes on mainland Yemen halted flights, turning the nature sanctuary and tourist spot into a geopolitical trap.

The post Study Finds Increased Demand Among Gen Z For Non-Alcoholic Fathers appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTONSaying the changes would empower Americans to make more informed decisions about their familys health, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday that he had scaled back the departments childhood mortality schedule. For too long, the U.S. government has imposed strict and unnecessary guidelines about whether or not our nations children should survive past infancy, said Kennedy, adding that parents deserved the right to choose whether or not their offspring died at a young age of preventable disease. The truth is, no parent should be forced to watch their child live a healthy life and avoid contracting RSV, the flu, rotavirus, hepatitisA, hepatitis B, or bacterial meningitis. America is a developed nation. Theres no reason for anyone to live past 35. Kennedy added that if Americans still wanted to watch their children survive well into adulthood, they should consult with a physician and think deeply about the risks.The post RFK Jr. Scales Back Childhood Mortality Schedule appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTONCutting off a top security advisor mid-speech as he eagerly posed his question, President Donald Trump reportedly interrupted a briefing Tuesday to ask officials from the National Intelligence Council whether God was real. So what do we know about Him? Are there any photos? said a quizzical Trump, adding that he brought the matter up to multiple directors of national intelligence during his previous administration but never received a satisfying answer. Lets just cut to the chase here: big guy in heaven. Is He real or not? And if so, have we made contact? You know, theres a very smart boy who died and says heaven is for realdoes the CIA have any files on him? Who here knows? I want every document we have on God released immediately. At press time, members of the U.S. Intelligence Community were reportedly reassuring Trump that God was real, He had lots of money, and they would immediately look into suing Him for $200 million.The post Trump Asks National Intelligence Point-Blank If God Real appeared first on The Onion.

INDIANAPOLISDusting off the kinetic sand from his hands as he walked with his head held high toward the exit, 34-year-old area man Benjamin Schrock reportedly told visitors and staff of Discovery Zone Childrens Museum on Tuesday that he knows when hes not welcome. Ive been around the block, but never in my adult life have I experienced so many hostile glares when simply trying to splash in the sensory water playground, make Spirograph art, or dig for fossils in the dino tub, Shrock said with an audible lump in his throat as he recounted being made to feel strange and othered when he spent an hour milking a cow statues rubber udders in the interactive barnyard exhibit. That sign saying All are welcome above the front desk? Rich. Its funny how a place ostensibly meant to spark curiosity could be so ignorant toward an adult man who happens to enjoy hands-on activities designed for learning through play. Once I get back the ziplock bag full of quarters I paid for my ticket with, trust me, I will gladly be on my way. Now if youll excuse me, I believe Im owed at least one turn on the big fire truck. At press time, Shrock said he was dismayed to report feeling even greater undue hostility after he was removed from a bouncy house at the indoor inflatable play center.The post Area Man Knows When He Not Welcome In Childrens Museum appeared first on The Onion.

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Developers making mods and plugins for hentai games and sex toys say Github recently unleashed a wave of suspensions and bans against their repositories, and the platform hasnt explained why.Developers I spoke to said the community estimated around 80 to 90 repositories containing the work of 40 to 50 people went down recently, with many becoming inaccessible around late November and early December. Many of the affected accounts are part of the modding community for games made by the now-defunct Japanese video game studio Illusion, which made popular games with varying degrees of erotic content. One of the accounts Github banned contained the work of more than 30 contributors in more than 40 repositories, according to members of the modding community that I spoke to. Github didnt tell most suspended users what terms they broke to earn a suspension or ban, and developers told me they have no idea why their accounts went down without notice. They said they thought they were within Githubs acceptable use guidelines; even though they make mods for hentai games and things like interactive vibrator plugins, they took care to not host anything explicit directly in their repositories.Do you have something to share about what's going on at Github? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.Amongst my repositories there were no explicitly sexual names or images anywhere in the code or the readme, the most suggestive naming would be on the level of referencing the dick as the men thing or referencing the sex as huffing puffing, one developer, Danil Zverev, told me. He makes plugins for an Illusion game called Koikatsu. Zverev said hes been using Github for this purpose since 2024, but on November 18, his Github page was completely deleted, he said. No notifications anywhere, simply a 404 error when accessing the page and inability to log in on the web or in the mobile app. Also it does not allow me to register a new account with the same name or email.Github updated its acceptable use policies in October 2025 to forbid sexually themed or suggestive content that serves little or no purpose other than to solicit an erotic or shocking response, particularly where that content is amplified by its placement in profiles or other social contexts. This include pornographic content and graphic depictions of sexual acts including photographs, video, animation, drawings, computer-generated images, or text-based content, according to the terms.We recognize that not all nudity or content related to sexuality is obscene. We may allow visual and/or textual depictions in artistic, educational, historical or journalistic contexts, or as it relates to victim advocacy, Github's terms of use state. In some cases a disclaimer can help communicate the context of the project. However, please understand that we may choose to limit the content by giving users the option to opt in before viewing.The Anti-Porn Crusade That Censored Steam and Itch.io Started 30 Years AgoKeywords and tags have never been a useful metric for distilling nuance. Pushing for regulations based on them is repeating a 30-year history of porn panic online.404 MediaSamantha ColeZverev said he didnt write to support because he sees such effort as fruitless and would rather move on to a different platform instead. But even Github users who did try to get help from the platforms support hit dead ends.A developer who goes by VerDevin, who makes Blender modding guides, utility tools and plugins for a game called Custom Order Maid 3D2, told me in an email that users of his mods started reporting difficulty accessing his repositories starting in late October. At that point, he could still access their account while logged in, but not when logged out.Turned out, as you already know, that my account was signaled and I had to purposefully go to the report section of Github to learn about it. I never received any notifications, by mail or otherwise, VerDevin told me. At that point I sent a ticket asking politely for clarifications and the proceedings for reinstatement.Github Trust & Safety replied with a generic message: If you agree to abide by our Terms of Service going forward, please reply to this email and provide us more information on how you hope to use GitHub in the future. At that time we will continue our review of your request for reinstatement.VerDevin said they replied the following day, agreeing to the terms and promising to remove whatever Github deemed inappropriateinformation the platform still hadnt given them. I did not take actual steps toward it as at that point I still didn't know what was reproach of me, they said.A month passed before Github replied. Your account was actioned due to violation of the following prohibition found in our Acceptable Use Policies: Specifically, the content or activity that was reported included multiple sexually explicit content in repositories, which we found to be in violation of our Acceptable Use Policies, Github wrote to VerDevin.At that point I took down several repositories that might qualify as an attempt to show good faith (like a plugin named COM3D2.Interlewd), they said. Github restored his account on December 17several weeks later, the day after I sent them a link to his account asking why it was bannedbut they still havent heard anything about what specific content caused it to be actioned.Github did not respond to my multiple requests for comment about why these accounts were banned. I sent Githubs press team links to several banned accounts, and they reinstated a few, but didnt provide a reason or reply when I asked what caused the bans in the first place.The situation is illustrative of a longstanding problem on almost every platform: the terms of use, especially when it comes to adult content, are applied confusingly and sporadically. The affected repositories represent tools used by potentially hundreds of thousands of gamers; the English Koikatsu modding Discord community alone has more than 350,000 members. A developer who goes by Sauceke, who Github suspended in mid-November without explanation, said their open-source adult toy mod users are now encountering broken links or simply cant find any of their work.Perhaps most frustratingly, all of the tickets, pull requests, past release builds and changelogs are gone, because those things are not part of Git (the version control system), Sauceke told me. So even if someone had the foresight to make mirrors before the ban (as I did), those mirrors would only keep up with the code changes, not these extra things that are pretty much vital to our work.Github reinstated Saucekes account on Tuesday, following another request for comment from me asking why anyone was bannedseven weeks after initially suspending them. Github support sent them a message: Thank you for the information you have provided. Sorry for the time taken to get back to you. We really do appreciate your patience. Sometimes our abuse detecting systems highlight accounts that need to be manually reviewed. We've cleared the restrictions from your account, so you have full access to GitHub again.But even as Github reinstates accounts, pieces of users repos are missing. In Saucekes account and others, including in the IllusionMods repo, all releases are hidden. This makes the releases both inaccessible to users and impossible to migrate to other sites without some tedious work, Sauceke said.Github is the biggest open-source platform for developers, and especially for adult content creators who are often censored or marginalized elsewhere, discoverability on that platform is important. It's the best place to build a community, to find like-minded people who dig your stuff and want to collaborate, Sauceke said. If the banning spree goes beyond hentai game and toy modders, they said, it might push developers to explore other platforms. Some have already migrated their repos to GitGoon, an open-source platform specifically for adult developers, or Codeberg, Berlin-based nonprofit-run site similar to Github.

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For the past two months Ive been following a Telegram community tricking Grok into generating nonconsensual sexual images and videos of real people with increasingly convoluted methods.As countless images on X over the last week once again showed us, it doesnt take much to get Elon Musks based AI model to create nonconsensual images. As Jason wrote Monday, all users have to do is reply to an image of a woman and ask Grok to put a bikini on her, and it will reply with that image, even if the person in the photograph is a minor. As I reported back in May, people also managed to create nonconsensual nudes by replying to images posted to X and asking Grok to remove her clothes.These issues are bad enough, but on Telegram, a community of thousands are working around the clock to make Grok produce far worse. They share Grok-generated videos of real women taking their clothes off and graphic nonconsensual videos of any kind of sexual act these users can imagine and slip by Groks guardrails, including blowjobs, penetration, choking, and bondage. The channel, which has shut down and regrouped a couple of times over the last two years, focuses on jailbreaking all kinds of AI tools in order to create nonconsensual media, but since November has focused on Grok almost exclusively.The channel has also noticed the media attention Grok got for nonconsensual images lately, and is worried that it will end the good times members have had creating nonconsensual media with Grok for months.Too many people using grok under girls post are gonna destroy grok fakes. Should be done in private groups, one member of the Telegram channel wrote last week.Musk always conceived of Grok as a more permissive, maximally based competitor to chatbots like OpenAIs ChatGPT. But despite repeatedly allowing nonconsensual content to be generated and go viral on the social media platform it's integrated with, the conversations in the Telegram channel and sophistication of the bypasses shared there are proof that Grok does have limits and policies it wants to enforce. The Telegram channel is a record of the cat and mouse game between Grok and this community of jailbreakers, showing how Grok fails to stop them over and over again, and that Grok doesnt appear to have the means or the will to stop its AI model from producing the nonconsensual content it is fundamentally capable of producing.The jailbreakers initially used primitive methods on Grok and other AI image generators, like writing text prompts that dont include any terms that obviously describe abusive content and that can be automatically detected and stopped at the point the prompt is presented to the AI model, before the image is generated. This usually means misspelling the names of celebrities and describing sexual acts without using any explicit terms. This is how users infamously created nonconsensual nude images of Taylor Swift with Microsofts Designer (which were also viral on X). Many generative AI tools still fall for this trick until we find its being abused and report on it.Having mostly exhausted this strategy with Grok, the Telegram channel now has far more complicated bypasses. Most of them rely on the image-to-image generation feature, meaning providing an existing image to the AI tool and editing it with a prompt. This is a much more difficult feature for AI companies to moderate because it requires using machine vision to moderate the user-provided image, as opposed to filtering out specific names or terms, which is the common method for moderating text-to-image AI generations.Without going into too much detail, some of the successful methods Ive seen members of the Telegram channels share include creating collages of non-explicit images of real people and nude images of other people and combining them with certain prompts, generating nude or almost nude images of people with prompts that hide nipples or genitalia, describing certain fluids or facial expressions without using any explicit terms, and editing random elements into images, which apparently confuses Groks moderation methods.X has not responded to multiple requests for comment about this channel since December 8, but to be fair, its clear that despite Elon Musks vice signaling and the fact that this type of abuse is repeatedly generated with Grok and shared on X, the company doesnt want users to create at least some of this media and is actively trying to stop it. This is clear because of the cycle that emerges on the Telegram channel: One user finds a method for producing a particularly convincing and lurid AI-generated sexual video of a real person, sometimes importing it from a different online community like 4chan, and shares it with the group. Other users then excitedly flood the channel with their own creations using the same method. Then some users start reporting Grok is blocking their generations for violating its policies, until finally users decide Grok has closed the loophole and the exploit is dead. Some time goes by, a new user shares a new method, and the cycle begins anew.Ive started and stopped writing a story about a few of these cycles several times and eventually decided not to because by the time I was finished reporting the story Grok had fixed the loophole. Its now clear that the problem with Grok is not any particular method, but that overall, so far, Grok is losing this game of whack-a-mole badly.This dynamic, between how tech companies imagine their product will function in the real world and how it actually works once users get their hands on it, is nothing new. Some amount of policy violating or illegal content is going to slip through the cracks on any social media platform, no matter how good its moderation is.Its good and correct for people to be shocked and upset when they wake up one morning and see that their X feed is flooded with AI-generated images of minors in bikinis, but what is clear to me from following this Telegram community for a couple of years now is that nonconsensual sexual images of real people, including minors, is the cost of doing business with AI image generators. Some companies do a better job of preventing this abuse than others, but judging by the exploits I see on Telegram, when it comes to Grok, this problem will get a lot worse before it gets better.

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