The Voice Reveal

Creative Acts works to get people out of prison with an unlikely tool reporting a 96% reduction in infractions from participants One Monday in July, Samantha Tovar, known as Royal, left her 6ft-by-11ft cell for the first time in three weeks. Correctional officers escorted her to the common area of the Central California Women’s Facility and chained her hands and feet to a metal table, on top of which sat a virtual reality headset. Two and a half years into a five-year prison sentence, Royal was about to see Thailand for the first time. When she first put on the headset, Royal immediately had an aerial view of a cove. Soon after, her view switched to a boat moving fairly fast with buildings on either side of the water. In the boat was a man with a backpack, and it was as if she were sitting beside him. With accompanying meditative music and narration, the four-minute scene took Royal across a crowded Thai market, through ancient ruins, on a tuk-tuk (a three-wheeled rickshaw) and int...

The 30-year-old Price dominated her 40-year-old opponent with a 98-93 100-90 98-92 score. from The Independent Sport https://ift.tt/XWMn1SH via IFTTT

Barbican theatre, London Thomas Ostermeier’s masterful staging has tremendous performances from a cast including Tom Burke, Emma Corrin and Kodi Smit-McPhee Chekhov described his country-house drama as a comedy, creating its serious yet silly characters “not without pleasure”. Still, it is a test of tone and performance to render, with humour, a story that scales so much thwarted life. Director Thomas Ostermeier and Duncan Macmillan’s new version rather magically balances lightness, wit and melancholy from the off, as characters gather at a country estate in hipsterish modern dress. There is the imperious actor Arkadina (Cate Blanchett) and her lover, Trigorin (Tom Burke), a famous writer who arrives from the city; her brother Sorin (Jason Watkins), whose health is failing, and her overshadowed son, Konstantin (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who aspires to be a writer and, in protest perhaps, disapproves of the middlebrow appeal of his mother’s art. Love’s arrows shoot in all the wrong directio...

Raducanu lost 6-3 6-2 while fellow Brit Jacob Fearnley was also knocked out in the first round from The Independent Sport https://ift.tt/IJ3gVDZ via IFTTT

Companies claim this is ‘fair use’. I think it’s a digital heist Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Australia’s close-knit literary community – from writers and agents through to the Australian Society of Authors – have reacted with outrage. Black Inc, the publisher of the Quarterly Essay as well as fiction and nonfiction books by many prominent writers, had asked consent from its authors to train AI models on their work and then share the revenue with those authors. Now I have a dog in this race. Actually two dogs. I have published four books with Black Inc, have a fifth coming out next month, and have a contract for a sixth by the end of the year. And I have also been an AI researcher for 40 years, training AI models with data. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/xcYLFml via IFTTT

Group claims regulator signed off on ‘broken system’ making customers pay for industry’s neglect An environmental group is to take legal action against Ofwat, the water regulator, accusing it of unlawfully making customers pay for decades of neglect by the water industry. River Action will file the legal claim this month, arguing that bill rises for customers that have been approved by the regulator could be used to fix infrastructure failures that should have been addressed years ago. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/hIkxmWf via IFTTT

The Reds rode their luck with VAR decisions and were bailed out by an inspired display from Alisson Becker. from The Independent Sport https://ift.tt/u3tW962 via IFTTT

US president tells group to ‘release all of the Hostages now ... or it is OVER for you’ as White House enters negotiations Donald Trump has posted a fresh ultimatum to Hamas, telling the group to “release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you”. “‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye,” he wrote in a social media post on Wednesday, in an apparent reference to the beginning of direct talks with the group. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/WMU7cad via IFTTT

National Gallery, London This epochal exhibition is full of works so intimate and expressive that the painters of a medieval Italian city 700 years ago suddenly seem close at hand Seven centuries ago a poet penned the most ecstatic art review ever written. Francesco Petrarca, known as Petrarch , had commissioned the Sienese artist Simone Martini to paint a portrait of his beloved, Laura. The result was so marvellous, he wrote, that if all the famous artists of ancient Greece “competed for a thousand years they wouldn’t have seen a tiny bit of the beauty that’s conquered my heart”. Petrarch’s rave review has it right. Conquering the heart is what Martini and other 14th-century painters from Siena do in the National Gallery’s devastatingly exact, epochal exhibition about the moment western art came alive. Simone’s painting of Laura is lost but you see why he was the artist for the job. He is so expressive, so tender, exploding any idea of medieval art as remote. Continue reading... ...

Oakwood Theme Park in Pembrokeshire shut due to rising costs and declining visitor numbers, owner says The largest theme park in Wales has closed with immediate effect after nearly 40 years, its owner has announced. Oakwood Theme Park, in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, announced on Tuesday that it will shut. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/rn327qv via IFTTT

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Donald Trump is upending the world order his country helped to create. He may also upend Australian foreign policy in the process The truth was written all over the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s face in the Oval Office last week. The US is an unreliable ally. “The Trump administration seems unlikely to provide Ukraine with an adequate security guarantee even as it is demanding the ability to rinse Ukraine for its resources, and on Tuesday “ paused ” all military aid. European leaders are quickly and rightly losing faith in the Nato mutual security guarantee. America has threatened to annex allies including Canada and Greenland . Administration cronies like Elon Musk are now openly musing about the US withdrawing not just from Nato but from the UN. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/CP2OdIa via IFTTT

Information Commissioner’s Office says it aims to learn about wider market by looking into two sites plus Imgur TikTok is to be investigated by the UK’s data protection watchdog, which is looking into whether social media algorithms are serving up inappropriate or harmful content to children. Growing concerns over how social media platforms are using data generated by children’s online activity have prompted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to launch an investigation into the Chinese platform, along with the forum site Reddit and the image-sharing site Imgur. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/C283OAK via IFTTT

The Manchester City midfielder returned to individual training this week as he recovers from an ACL injury. from The Independent Sport https://ift.tt/BUeJGb4 via IFTTT

Midfielder sustained serious knee injury in September ‘Maybe in the Premier League, it’s going to happen’ Rodri could be back in action before the end of the Premier League season according to the Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola. The Ballon d’Or-winning midfielder, who was initially ruled out for the remainder of the campaign after sustaining anterior cruciate ligament damage in September, returned to individual training this week. While Rodri has spoken optimistically of playing again this term, Guardiola has been far more cautious, suggesting it was not worth the risk even if possible. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/pFeOHrI via IFTTT

Head coach ponders different Test, ODI and T20 captains McCullum may look to domestic game for new leader Brendon McCullum is open to the concept of three England men’s captains – and possibly even appointing one from outside the current setup – as he attempts to revive the white-ball teams and ensure a winter of misery does not bleed into the Test side. Signing off from the Champions Trophy with a seven-wicket shellacking at the hands of South Africa – a seventh successive one-day-international defeat – McCullum admitted England were poor in “all facets of the game” and lessons needed to be learned. His review will also mean identifying a successor to Jos Buttler as white-ball captain. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Cl8GYnP via IFTTT

The defending champions ran in eight tries – all by different scorers – in the first Super League match to be played in the United States. from The Independent Sport https://ift.tt/HFv65oU via IFTTT

Dance-pop artist picks up album and artist of the year prizes, while Ezra Collective see off big names to become first jazz artists to win British group • The Brit awards – in pictures • The full list of winners Charli xcx has won five Brit awards, including album of the year for her summer-defining, green-hued, magnificently debauched album Brat. At the ceremony in London’s O2 Arena, she was also awarded British artist of the year, song of the year for Guess (featuring Billie Eilish), and one of the five genre awards, for dance act. Earlier in the week she was named songwriter of the year. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/BnVh9zF via IFTTT

Early mornings, razor-like broken window panes, private property restrictions and territorial fellow recycling collectors – it’s all in a day’s work for a growing cohort of elderly Australians Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Liz Lee peers into a recycling bin, laughs and slams the lid shut. The 79-year-old has struck gold: the bin is three-quarters full of empty cans, each representing a 10 cent refund at recycling collection points. She reopens the bin and reaches in, passing each can to her friend, Julie Griffin, 63. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/my0HCdp via IFTTT

For the Ukrainian leader, there’s no coming back from the debacle. His country’s best hope now lies with Europe No matter their position on the Russia-Ukraine war, people who view the televised encounter between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office will likely be shocked. It didn’t morph into a full-on screaming match, but it came close. The meeting might have gone sideways anyway, but JD Vance ’s presence ensured that it became ugly – and quickly. The vice-president spoke over Zelenskyy, accused him of ingratitude for the assistance provided by the United States (“Have you ever said thank you?”) and of disrespecting Trump , his host, and, for good measure, scolded him for litigating his country’s case in public. That raised the temperature – a lot. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/v9AGDrN via IFTTT

EU foreign secretary says US wouldn’t have sat down with Bin Laden to ask what he wanted after 9/11; strikes on Kharkiv energy targets. What we know on day 1,101 Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign minister, has accused Donald Trump of falling for a Russian narrative by closing the door on Nato membership for Ukraine. “Why are we in Nato? It is because we are afraid of Russia. And the only thing that really works – the only security guarantee that works – is Nato’s umbrella,” she said. Trump said last week of the war that Ukraine potentially joining Nato was “probably the reason the whole thing started”. In an interview published on Thursday by Agence France-Presse, Kallas said: “These accusations are totally untrue. That is the Russian narrative that we should not buy.” Kallas – a former prime minister of Estonia, which borders Russia – said Nato countries had never attacked Russia which instead was “afraid of democracy”. Interviewed in Washington, the EU high representative for foreign a...

Prisoners, including Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited as Mexico faces pressure to show it’s tackling fentanyl trafficking Don’t let a billionaire’s algorithm control what you read. Download our free app to get trusted reporting Mexico has extradited 29 high-level organised crime operatives to the US, as it faces intense pressure from the Trump administration to show that it is tackling fentanyl trafficking. Among the prisoners sent to the US was Rafael Caro Quintero, the drug lord who was convicted of the murder of an undercover US Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/fBKpMHv via IFTTT

Dozens of protesters gathered to demand the reinstatement of two students expelled for disrupting a class on Israel Don’t let a billionaire’s algorithm control what you read. Download our free app to get trusted reporting . Several dozen anti-war student protesters gathered outside Columbia University and Barnard College in New York on Thursday to protest against the expulsion of two students who interrupted a class on Israel last month. Wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestinians, students chanted a series of anti-war slogans amid a heavy New York police department (NYPD) presence outside the sister schools, where only students and faculty with ID cards are allowed in. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/kQw6uol via IFTTT

Manchester United’s manager also defended Patrick Dorgu who was sent off against Ipswich from The Independent Sport https://ift.tt/jVdhETn via IFTTT