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  • Expert Picks: LIV Golf Andalucia

    Expert Picks: LIV Golf Andalucia

    The 10th event of the LIV Golf League season gets started this week at LIV Golf Andalucia. Serving as the host course for the third consecutive season is iconic Real Club Valderrama.

    RELATED: Power Rankings | Fantasy Preview | Play LIV Golf Fantasy

    Here is who our experts (in alphabetical order) like this week in Andalucia.

    JASON CROOK, SENIOR DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

    INDIVIDUAL

    Bryson DeChambeau – The Crushers have been on a tear with three straight team victories, and their captain Bryson DeChambeau has been leading by example – it’s no accident he currently resides in second place in the season-long individual standings. He broke a string of four consecutive top-five LIV Golf finishes in Dallas, but even there he made a Sunday charge with a with a 4-under 68 to finish just two strokes out of a playoff, eventually won by Patrick Reed. He also has a solid track record at Valderrama, finishing 9th last year and 2nd in 2023, so expect to see more brilliance out of DeChambeau this weekend in Spain.

    TEAM

    4Aces GC – The 4Aces have flown under the radar this season, but they quietly sit fourth in the season-long team standings as they enter LIV Golf Andalucia fresh off back-to-back runner-up finishes. Patrick Reed is the obvious current headliner for the 4Aces, looking for his second straight LIV Golf individual victory with an eye on a Ryder Cup captain’s pick – it also doesn’t hurt that he finished T4 at Valderrama in 2024 and T5 in 2023. But captain Dustin Johnson , Harold Varner III and Thomas Pieters have all shown some form recently that should lead to this team’s fifth podium finish of 2025, or possibly their first victory since 2023.

    MIKE MCALLISTER, DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL

    INDIVIDUAL

    Patrick Reed – No LIV Golf player has a better average finish the last two years at Valderrama than Patrick Reed, who was T4 last year and T5 in 2023. The course sets up well for his game, and he’s obviously in form after the win in Dallas. He could join Talor Gooch as the only players to win consecutive individual LIV Golf titles.

    TEAM

    Crushers GC – Speaking of winning streaks … the Crushers has won three straight and now come to a course that probably owes them one. In 2023, they shared the second-round team lead but had a rare Sunday stumble and finished third. Last year, they lost in a playoff to the Fireballs. Four straight wins doesn’t seem unlikely this week.

    BRYAN MULLEN, DIGITAL PRODUCER

    INDIVIDUAL

    Tyrrell Hatton – Tyrrell Hatton finished solo third at LIV Golf Andalucia last season and his game is primed for another high finish. The Legion XIII star was in position to win at LIV Golf Dallas two weeks ago before falling in a playoff. His major championship juices are also flowing with The Open taking place next week, and his memories of a stellar T4 finish recently at the U.S. Open are still fresh.

    TEAM

    Legion XIII – Jon Rahm’s team is coming off a third-place showing in Dallas and is the only team to notch points in every event this season. They enter this week No. 2 in the season-long team standings, a mere 5.34 points behind leader Crushers GC. Legion has five top-3 finishes in 2025 and two team victories.

    MATT VINCENZI, SENIOR WRITER

    INDIVIDUAL

    Louis Oosthuizen – This season, Louis Oosthuizen ‘s three best finishes have come outside of the United States. The Stinger GC captain has always played his best golf as evidenced by his 10 DP World Tour wins and Open Championship victory. Oosthuizen may not be able to keep up with some of LIV Golf’s big hitters on tracks that favor distance over accuracy, but Valderrama will be a test of strategy and precision, which is where Oosthuizen can shine.

    TEAM

    Stinger GC – Stinger GC is winless this season, but I believe this could be the week they break through. Louis Oosthuizen had his best start of the season in Dallas and may now be the best LIV Golf player without a win after Patrick Reed’s victory. Dean Burmester is coming into the week confident with a medalist finish at The Open Championship qualifier and Branden Grace has quietly strung together three solid performances in a row.

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  • Earth faces hidden mechanical stress from carbon emissions

    Earth faces hidden mechanical stress from carbon emissions

    Every year, humanity tallies its carbon emissions, but it rarely considers how the planet itself bears that burden. A new study flips the script by treating Earth as a stressed material rather than a passive scoreboard.

    A team led by Matthias Jonas of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) converted gigatons of emissions into units engineers use to test bridges.


    The researchers borrowed tools from rheology, the science of how substances deform. Their numbers suggest the carbon‑climate system is already flexing beyond its natural range.

    Earth feels stress from carbon pollution

    Instead of tonnes, the team measured atmospheric pressure in pascals, the metric engineers apply to describe a push on a square meter of surface. They model Earth as a Maxwell body, a simple combination of elastic and viscous parts that stretch and flow when forced.

    In that picture, accumulated emissions create stress while expansion of the air column and slower absorption of carbon by land and sea show up as strain. The ratio of the two reveals how quickly the global fabric is wearing thin.

    “We wanted to see how the entire Earth system stretches and strains under that burden,” explained Jonas.

    By calculating the change from 1850 to 2021, the team uncovered hidden thresholds invisible in the usual mass‑balance charts.

    Even low stress reshapes Earth

    The calculations show that by 2021 humanity was injecting between 12.8 and 15.5 pascals per year of extra energy per unit volume, a value Jonas calls stress power.

    Spread over every cubic yard of air, water, and soil, that push compares to the force of a light breeze yet persists nonstop.

    Such steady pressure, tiny at any single point, becomes enormous once multiplied across the oceans and atmosphere. Earth’s natural buffers can accommodate only so much before their response time slows.

    Jonas compares the phenomenon to leaving a garden hose on low all night; the gentle trickle still floods the yard by morning. In the same way, low but unrelenting stress alters atmospheric volume and ocean chemistry alike.

    Weakening of Earth’s natural systems

    The study charts delay time, the lag between a pulse of emissions and the planet’s structural response. That metric peaked in the early 1900s, revealing that land and ocean sinks began to lose agility far sooner than expected.

    For their mid‑range estimate, the tipping year is 1932 – almost two decades after the Model T rolled off assembly lines.

    After that point, the land‑ocean system no longer recovered in step with stress, it merely absorbed the hit and carried scars forward.

    “Even if we hit our emissions targets, the weakening of Earth’s natural systems could still leave us facing major disruptions sooner than expected,” noted Jonas.

    Growing strain makes climate action urgent

    Carbon dioxide output topped 40.9 billion tons in 2022, a record that nudged stress power up another notch. As emissions grow roughly 0.5 percent per year, the energy injected into the planet’s framework rises even if temperature targets appear on paper.

    Delay also magnifies costs, because infrastructure built for a cooler baseline may degrade faster under compounded thermal and mechanical strain. Counting only temperature ignores those hidden maintenance bills.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that to keep global warming close to 2.7 °F, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 and decline by 43 percent by 2030.

    Jonas’ numbers imply that every year of delay increases baseline stress, meaning future cuts must be steeper just to arrest further strain on the planet.

    Natural sinks are losing their strength

    Natural sinks still sponge up about half of human CO₂, but their efficiency is waning, especially in the Southern Ocean and tropical forests. In 2023, extreme heat left land vegetation absorbing almost no net carbon according to global monitoring.

    Ocean uptake has slowed by as much as four percent in the past decade, while land sink efficiency has swung in and out of negative territory during major droughts.

    The strain analysis corroborates those field observations by showing the ocean side of the equation weakening faster than the terrestrial side.

    In the model, the damping constant linked to ocean uptake falls 30 percent between 1850 and today, a sign that heat and acidity may already be reshaping marine chemistry. The land constant declines, too, but at a gentler pace.

    Past stress and future climate risks

    Because stress power grows with cumulative emissions, simply hitting net‑zero late in the century will not reset the clock. The strain frozen into the system can persist for decades, lengthening the time before sinks regain strength.

    Carbon‑removal schemes therefore act less like an optional extra and more like a structural repair kit, needed to relieve pressure already baked in. Yet large‑scale removal is not ready at the speed or cost required.

    If nations wait for the alarm of higher temperatures alone, they may overlook mechanical fatigue building under the surface. Jonas likens the risk to pushing a steel beam until microscopic cracks race ahead of visible bending.

    Earth stress and hidden damage

    The authors hope to weave their rheology framework into coupled climate models so that fatigue dynamics appear alongside temperature and precipitation outputs.

    The goal is to identify regions where local shocks, from dieback to ice‑shelf loss, propagate globally.

    The researchers also plan to refine sink parameters with satellite and autonomous buoy data, reducing uncertainty in the damping constants.

    Better bounds will reveal whether the 1930s shift was a global threshold or the first of several steps.

    Ultimately, the approach offers another yardstick for progress: a direct readout of how quickly Earth relaxes once stress is reduced. Watching that number fall may prove as motivating as any temperature curve.

    The study is published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

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  • Cancellations at Canadian film festivals raise questions about accountability

    Cancellations at Canadian film festivals raise questions about accountability

    Film festivals are unique cultural institutions, spaces to see diverse films by local and global filmmakers and an important market for distributors. These films are often difficult to see, or even know about, outside of festival circuits.

    Festivals are also answerable to funders and to different stakeholders’ interests. Cancellations of planned films raise questions about festivals’ roles and accountability to community groups who find certain films objectionable, the wider public, politicians, festival sponsors, audiences, filmmakers and the films themselves.

    In September 2024, The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) faced a backlash from pro-Ukrainian groups — and former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent — when the documentary Russians at War was included in the program.




    Read more:
    ‘Russians at War’ documentary: From the Crimean to the Iraq War, soldier images pose questions about propaganda


    The Ukrainian Canadian Congress and other advocates called on TIFF to cancel the film, directed by Russian Canadian Anastasia Trofimova, which they accused of being Russian propaganda.

    TIFF did cancel festival screenings after it was “made aware of significant threats to festival operations and public safety,” but once the festival was over, showed Russians at the TIFF Lightbox Theatre.

    In November, the Montréal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) cancelled the Canadian premiere of Rule of Stone, directed by Israeli Canadian director Danae Elon. As a film and media professor, I supervised Elon’s research for the film while she pursued a master’s degree at Queen’s University.

    RIDM acknowledged Elon’s “personal commitment to criticizing and questioning the state of Israel” through her story about the stone that, by Israeli law, has to be used on the exterior of every new building in Jerusalem.

    In the film, Elon examines how, in post-1967 Jerusalem, “architecture and stone are the main weapons in a silent, but extraordinarily effective colonization and dispossession process” of Palestinians.

    As a documentarist and a researcher in Israeli and Palestinian media representations of fighters, I have analyzed both films and followed the controversies. Each focuses on contemporary political issues relevant to our understanding of current affairs.

    While the reasons for the cancellations are different, in both cases the festivals responded to pressures from community groups, placing the public right to a robust debate at the festival and beyond as secondary.

    People protest the screening of ‘Russians at War’ at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto in September 2024.
    THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paige Taylor White

    ‘Russians at War’

    Director Anastasia Trifamova embedded herself in a Russian supply unit, and later a medical team, eventually making her way to the front lines in occupied Ukraine.

    Trifamova comes across as a naive filmmaker, using an observational, non-judgmental form of filmmaking common in 21st-century war documentaries, as seen in films like Armadillo and Restrepo (respectively following Danish and U.S. troops in Afghanistan).

    As noted by TIFF, Russians was “an official Canada-France co-production with funding from several Canadian agencies,” and Trifamova said she did not seek or receive official permission from the Russian army to film.

    The film documents the machination of war, where soldiers are both perpetrators of violence and its victims. It humanizes the soldiers, which understandably can be upsetting to Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian publics. But should emotions of one group, outraged and incensed as they may be, prevent the public from having the difficult conversations promoted by the film?

    Early in the film, Trifamova confronts the soldiers about why they are fighting and they respond with Russian propaganda (fighting Nazism, defending the borders).

    Later, soldiers approach Trifamova — on camera — to express doubts about the justification of the war and their presence in Ukraine. The film provides an unflattering view of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, emphasizing the futility of the war and the incredible toll on soldiers and civilians (including some Ukrainian civilians). Russian troops appear untrained and poorly equipped to fight in chaotically managed battles.

    Like Armadillo and Restrepo, Russians at War represents the soldiers without judgment and contributes to necessary conversations about war. In my analysis, while Trifamova refrains — in her sporadic voice-over — from condemning the war outright, it is difficult to read the film as Russian propaganda.

    While TIFF cited security concerns as the reason for cancellation, security was in place for another film that attracted controversy, Bliss.

    A cancellation from such an established festival likely has an effect on how a film is able to circulate. For example, TVO, one of the funders of Russians at War, cancelled its scheduled broadcast days after the TIFF cancellation.

    ‘Rule of Stone’

    Rule of Stone, as noted by RDIM, “critically examines the colonialist project of East Jerusalem following its conquest by Israeli forces in 1967.”

    The title references a colonial bylaw to clad building with stone, first introduced by the British, which still exists today.

    The film, which examines architecture’s role in creating modern Jerusalem, is led by Elon’s voice-over. It mixes her memories of growing up in 1970s Jerusalem and her reckoning with the “frenzy of building,” which included projects by architect Moshe Safdie, a citizen of Israel, Canada and the United States. Elon recounts that her father, journalist and author Amos Elon, was a close friend of Safdie, as well as legendary Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kolek.

    Safdie is among the Israeli architects, architectural historians and planners who Elon interviews. The expansion of Jewish neighbourhoods is contrasted with the restrictions on and disposession of Palestinians in Jerusalem. Multiple scenes show the demolition of Palestinian homes or the aftermath. In intervwoven segments, Izzat Ziadah, a Palestinian stonemason who lives in a stone quarry, gives a tour of what is left of his destroyed home.

    Viewers hear how the planning, expansion and building of Jewish neighbourhoods, post-1967, were designed to evoke biblical times. As architectural historian Zvi Efrat notes, the new neighbourhoods look like, or attempt to look like, they were there forever.

    ‘Rule of Stone’ trailer.

    As reported by La Presse, the RIDM cancellation came after the festival received information about the documentary’s partial Israeli financing, something that “embarrassed” them with some of the festival’s partners. Funding for the development of the film came from the Makor Foundation for Israeli Films, which receives support from Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sport.

    Two organizations, the Palestinian Film Institute and Regards Palestiniens, opposed the film’s showing on the basis of their commitment to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

    In the organizations’ logic, Israel state funding means a film should be subject to boycott as “PACBI specifically targets Israeli institutional funding in the arts which serves to culturally whitewash and legitimize the Israeli state.”

    In my view, this position differs from the PACBI guidelines, which state:

    “As a general overriding rule, Israeli cultural institutions, unless proven otherwise, are complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, whether through their silence or actual involvement in justifying, whitewashing or otherwise deliberately diverting attention from Israel’s violations of international law and human rights.”

    Makor should be exempted since it regularly funds films that draw attention to Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights. In 2024 alone, the list includes The Governor, The Village League and Death in Um al hiran.

    RIDM’s website does not disclose support for a boycott. In the end, RIDM announced that Elon withdrew her film. She stated: “Screening my film at RIDM does not serve the long-term purpose of the festival, nor is it possible now to address the nuances in our common fight for justice for Palestine. I am deeply saddened and distressed by [what] has brought it to this point.”

    To date, the film has not found a cinema in Montréal willing to screen it.

    Provoking important conversations

    The two festivals’ mission statements promise high-quality films that transform or renew audiences’ relationships to the world.

    It is clear why programmers chose both films, since they’re cinematically innovative and provoke important conversations.

    However, both festivals silenced these films and signalled to other filmmakers that these festivals are not brave spaces to have difficult and necessary conversations.


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  • Meet the 30 Finalists of Astronomy Photographer of the Year

    Meet the 30 Finalists of Astronomy Photographer of the Year

    Left to right: Michael Jäger, Tianyao Yang, and Vincent Beudez

    Awe-inspiring scenes of the Milky Way, dancing aurorae, and serene galaxies all feature on the shortlist for this year’s ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year.

    The competition is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported by ZWO and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. In 2025, the competition received over 5,500 entries from passionate amateur and dedicated professional photographers, submitted from 69 countries across the globe. Shortlisted images include a moonrise over the Dolomites, red-hued Northern Lights at Mono Lake, California and Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS).

    The overall winner will take home £10,000 ($13,555). There are also prizes for runners-up £500 ($676) and highly commended £250 ($338) entries. The special prize winners will receive £750 ($1,016). All the winning entrants will receive a one-year subscription to BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

    One of this year’s astronomical highlights was the solar eclipse visible from North America. Included in the ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year category is a 22-megapixel panorama capturing the event. Total Solar Eclipse by Louis Egan shows the different stages of the solar eclipse, photographed from Canada. Further highlights include peaks in solar activity. PengFei Chou’s photograph 500,000 kilometer (311,000 miles) Solar Prominence Eruption shows a massive solar outburst that lasted approximately an hour.

    A close-up image of the Sun shows a glowing orange sphere with visible dark spots, swirling textures, and bright, fiery prominences extending from its surface against a dark background.
    500,000-km Solar Prominence Eruption © PengFei Chou. On 7 November 2024, the Sun experienced a massive solar prominence eruption, with a length exceeding 500,000 km (311,000 miles). The eruption lasted approximately one hour from its initial outburst to its conclusion. The eruption phase of the prominence is composed of more than 20 stacked data sets highlighting the entire process of this spectacular event. Taken with a Lunt LS60T telescope, Lunt B1200 filter, Proxisky UMI17R mount, ToupTek ATR428M camera, 500 mm f/7, ISO 100, 5-millisecond exposure.
    A vibrant image of a colorful nebula in space, featuring swirling clouds of orange, blue, purple, and red gas, with scattered bright stars against a dark background.
    A Rainbow Mosaic of the Rosette and the Christmas Tree Nebulae © Shaoyu Zhang. This work consists of two mosaics, each panel exposed for 75 hours, capturing numerous popular targets. It highlights the Rosette Nebula and Christmas Tree Nebula, both symbols of beauty. The image supports multiple viewing angles, offering fresh experiences with clockwise, anticlockwise and vertical flips. Taken with a Takahashi FSQ-106EDXIII telescope, Astrodon LRGBHSO filters, 10Micron GM 2000 HPS mount, Moravian Instruments G4-16803 camera, 382 mm f/3.6,150 hours total exposure.
    A vibrant nebula in space, featuring a blue, bubble-like structure surrounded by swirling red gas clouds and scattered stars on a dark background.
    Abell 85: Pomegranate in the Universe © Deqian Li. Abell 85 is a supernova remnant situated in the Milky Way galaxy that appears to some to be shaped like a pomegranate. This target is faint. The OIII signal in particular is exceedingly weak. To fully capture the signal, Deqian Li spent six days camping in Hongyuan County. Taken with a Takahashi Epsilon-160ED telescope, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera, 530 mm f/3.3, ISO 100, 23.4 hours total exposure.
    Tall, jagged tufa rock formations rise from the calm waters of Mono Lake at night, illuminated by vibrant red and pink aurora lights in the sky, with stars visible above.
    Aurora Over Mono Lake: A Rare Dance of Light © Daniel Zafra. This photograph captures the rare occurrence of Northern Lights in California. Vibrant ribbons of magenta and green light up the sky, reflecting in the still waters among the rock formations. Taken with a Sony ILCE-7III camera, 14 mm f/1.8, ISO 8,000, 5-second exposure
    A large, red full moon appears to rise directly behind modern skyscrapers in a city skyline at night, including the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Oriental Pearl Tower, creating a dramatic and vivid urban scene.
    Blood Moon Rising Behind the City Skyscrapers © Tianyao Yang. This photograph captures a red Full Moon rising beside Shanghai’s tallest skyscrapers in Lujiazui. Taken from a distance of 26.5 km (16.5 miles) from the skyscrapers in a single exposure, this image’s alignment took five years of planning. The Full Moon appears perfectly positioned next to the illuminated skyline, creating a striking contrast. Taken with a Sony ILCE-7RM4 camera, 600 mm f/4, ISO 250, 1/10-second exposure.
    View from inside a dark rocky cave looking out to a calm sea under a dramatic night sky, featuring a vivid, colorful galaxy and stars illuminating the scene beyond the cave entrance.
    Cave of Stars © Yoshiki Abe. Realising that it was possible to photograph the Milky Way from this remote cave, Yoshiki Abe waited for the perfect conditions to take the image. This is a composite photograph. Both parts were taken on the same night and at the same location, but the foreground was shot during the blue hour then the tripod was shifted to capture the Milky Way. Taken with a Sony ILCE-7RM5 camera, 20 mm. Foreground: f/16, ISO 200, 30-second exposure, 3-frame panorama; Sky: f/1.4, ISO 800, 60-second exposure (stack of 51 frames); H-alpha: ISO 3,200, 90-second exposure (stack of 64 frames).
    A vibrant Milky Way galaxy stretches across a starry night sky above pine-covered hills and a valley, with dry bushes and trees in the foreground under a fading sunset.
    Celestial Symphony © Andreas Karaolis. A panorama of the Cygnus region of the Milky Way from Gerakies, Cyprus. The foreground was captured during blue hour to achieve more detail on the distant mountains and trees directly in front of the camera. Taken with a Sony ILCE7M4 camera, Move Shoot Move Nomad, 35 mm f/2, ISO 400, multiple 30– and 120-second exposures.
    A bright comet streaks through space, displaying a wide white dust tail and a narrow blue ion tail against a dark, star-filled background.
    Close-up of a Comet © Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger. The photographers travelled to Namibia to view Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in the southern hemisphere. Due to the angle of the observation, the dust and ion tails seem to have overlapped, but the impact of solar winds on the day caused noticeable kinks in the ion tail. Taken with a ASA 12-inch Astrograph, ASA DDM85 mount, ZWO ASI6200MM Pro camera, 1,097 mm f/3.6,L 200-second exposure, R 100-second exposure, G 100-second exposure, B 100-second exposure.
    A bright comet with a long glowing tail streaks across the night sky above a city skyline with illuminated high-rise buildings. Thin clouds hover above the horizon, and stars are visible in the sky.
    Comet Over Waikiki © Ran Shen. Taken on the evening of 12 October 2024 at Pu’u O Kaimukī Park, Ran Shen joined many residents and astrophotographers in Honolulu, Hawaii, to witness the passage of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), one of the most anticipated astronomical events of the year. Taken with a Nikon Z8 camera, 110 mm f/4.5, ISO 2,500, 2.5-second exposure.
    A dragon blood tree stands alone under a night sky filled with colorful, circular star trails, creating a surreal, hypnotic effect above a rocky landscape.
    Dragon Tree Trails © Benjamin Barakat. A solitary dragon tree stands tall in the heart of Socotra’s Dragon Blood Tree forest – an otherworldly landscape unlike anywhere else on Earth. The final image is composed of 300 individual exposures. Taken with a Sony Alpha 7 IV camera, 24 mm f/2.8, ISO 400, 30-second exposure.
    A detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy, showing a bright central core, spiral arms with pinkish nebulae, and countless surrounding stars set against the dark backdrop of space.
    Eight-Panel Mosaic of M31 [Andromeda]: Stars, Nebulae and Central Bulge © Chuhong Yu, Jingyao Hong, Xi Zhu, Yaguang Wan. This image shows countless resolved stars, emission nebula and a mysterious central bulge. The photo is incredibly detailed, the mist surrounding the galaxy is actually tens of thousands of yellowish tiny stars. PixInsight and AstroPixelProcessor were used for pre-processing and the mosaic. Defects were corrected using a technique called Multi-Scale Gradient Removal, using wide-field data. During the process, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator were used and the final adjustment was done in Photoshop. Taken with a William Optics 12″ f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Truss Tube, GSO 14″ f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Truss Tube and Takahashi Epsilon 160 telescopes, iOptron CEM120EC and Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro mounts, ZWO ASI6200MM Pro camera, 2,272 mm f/6.4, Gain 100, 216 hours total exposure time.
    A vibrant nebula in space with wispy, glowing red and blue filaments forming a cloud-like structure against a background of stars and faint objects.
    Electric Threads of the Lightning Spaghetti Nebula © Shaoyu Zhang. This full-spectrum image of the Spaghetti Nebula unveils the faint and elusive nature of this supernova remnant (SNR), hidden behind a vast cloud of dust that obstructs its emission light. To enhance its visual appeal, Shaoyu Zhang dedicated considerable time to capturing OIII data, intensifying the blue and green hues, while allowing SII and H-alpha to support high dynamic range stretching for added depth. Taken with a Takahashi FSQ-106EDXIII telescope, Astrodon LRGBHSO filters and Chroma LRGBHSO filters, 10Micron GM 2000 HPS and Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 mounts, Canon EF 400 mm f/2.8 II IS USM lens, Moravian Instruments G4-16803 and ZWO ASI6200 cameras, 382 mm and 391 mm, f/3.6 and f/2.8, 148.33 hours total exposure.
    An orange, detailed image of the Sun with a dotted, diagonal black line crossing it, representing the silhouette of the International Space Station transiting in front of the Sun.
    Encounter Within One Second © Zhang Yanguang. This image captures the International Space Station (ISS) transiting across the solar disc. The solar background was captured separately with double-stacked etalon[an optical filter that isolates specific wavelengths, used to observe solar details], and reveals high-contrast chromospheric details. The imaging sequences were strategically combined during post-processing to preserve both the spacecraft’s crisp silhouette and the Sun’s intricate surface features. Taken with a Takahashi Teegul 60 telescope, Coronado SolarMax 60 double stacked, Vixen polaris mount, Player One Astronomy Neptune-M camera, 500 mm f/8.3, 0.3-millisecond exposure.
    A bright, colorful spiral galaxy with glowing clouds of gas and dust, sparkling stars, and clusters scattered throughout the image against the dark backdrop of space.
    Fireworks © Bence Tóth, Péter Feltóti, Bertalan Kecskés. The image shows M33, the Triangulum Galaxy from a new perspective. Due to tidal interaction with M31, there is very prominent star-forming activity in M33, which results in a spectacular structure of emission nebulae. During processing, a separate SHO picture was created with a strong SII/H-alpha presence, the glowing red structures in the picture, and blended with a high-resolution LRGB processing of the continuum data, representing the ‘background’ light. Taken with a custom-built 250/1000 Newtonian astrograph and Lacerta 300/1200 Photo Newtonian telescope, Antlia V-Pro LRGB and 3 nm H-alpha, OIII and SII filters, Astronomik LRGB and 6 nm H-alpha, OIII and SII filters, Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro mount, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro and ASI294MM Pro cameras,1,000 and 1,200 mm f/4, 8.4-hour L exposures, 6.8-hour R exposures, 6.7-hour G exposures and 6.3-hour B exposures, 39.3-hour H-alpha exposures, 15.3-hour OIII exposures, 28.3-hour SII exposures
    A narrow coastal road curves past a small boat shed and fishing nets, with boats on the side. The night sky above sparkles with stars and the bright arc of the Milky Way, creating a dramatic contrast over the calm sea.
    Galactic Catch: Salt and Vinegar With Your Cosmos? © Paul Joels. The Milky Way arcs over Lulworth Cove, where just a short walk from the water’s edge, there’s a fish and chip shop, boathouse, and a little boat that sit quietly at night. Taken with a CanonR6 Mark II camera, Benro Polaris mount, Foreground: Tamron 24-70 mm lens, 38 mm f/22, ISO 800, 3.2-second exposure, Sky: Samyang 14 mm lens,14 mm f/2.8, ISO 3,200.
    A dramatic night sky filled with stars and the glowing Milky Way above angular, dark stone structures reflected in calm water, creating a surreal and striking scene.
    Gateway to the Galaxy © Yujie Zhang. Under the night sky, several black geometric buildings appear to stand on the water’s surface, resembling gateways to the galaxy. The bright Milky Way stretches across the sky behind them, with stars twinkling. The reflections of the buildings shimmer in the water, blending reality and illusion, as if opening a passage to the mysteries of the Universe, inspiring endless reverie and a longing to explore the vast starry sky. Taken with a Nikon Z 8 camera, 15 mm f/4, ISO 2,000, multiple 480-second exposures.
    A stunning nightscape of a rugged, eroded canyon under a star-filled sky, with the Milky Way forming a bright, colorful arc above the rocky landscape.
    Into the Past © Jim Hildreth. This impressive panorama is a view from the Utah desert. 23,000 pixels wide, the photograph shows the desolate, character rich landscape, below a starry Milky Way. Taken with an astro-modified Canon EOS R and EOS R5 cameras, 28mm f/2.8 and f/8, ISO 800 and 100, Sky: 59-second exposure, Land: 3-second exposure.
    Green northern lights dance in the night sky above rugged mountain peaks and a calm lake, framed by the trunks of birch trees in the foreground.
    Kongen © Filip Hrebenda. The photograph captures a remote location on the Senja Peninsula in northern Norway. In the foreground, birch trees beautifully reflect the colours of the dancing aurora in the sky. Taken with a Sony Alpha 7R V camera, 12 mm f/2.8 (with focus stacking for foreground), ISO 4,000, 2-second exposure.
    Panoramic view of an observatory under a vivid, star-filled night sky with the Milky Way arched overhead, glowing above buildings and a rocky, open landscape.
    Looking Beyond © Chester Hall-Fernandez. This image shows the western view from Mount John Observatory, New Zealand’s premier optical observatory. To the right is the MOA-II telescope, the largest telescope in the country. Due to the southern hemisphere location of the observatory, the Milky Way sets in parallel to the horizon, which allows for striking compositions. Taken with a Nikon Z 6 camera, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer mount, 35 mm f/1.4, ISO 1,600, 25-panel mosaic.
    A detailed, color-enhanced image of the Moon shows a series of small, bright dots in a diagonal line along the left edge, illustrating the path of a satellite or object moving across the lunar surface.
    Lunar Occultation of Saturn © Chayaphon Phanitloet. This is a composite image that brings images of both the Moon and Saturn together to show the lunar occultation of Saturn. A lunar occultation of Saturn occurs when the Moon passes in front of Saturn, temporarily blocking its light from Earth. This event is brief and can be observed as the Moon obscures the planet. Taken with a Svbony SV503 80ED telescope, Svbony 2x Barlow lens, iOptron CEM70 mount, QHYCCD QHY485C camera, 560 mm f/7, Moon: 0.23-millisecond exposure, Saturn: 4-millisecond exposure.
    A large, orange full moon rises over a historic hilltop village with stone buildings, a church, and a castle, surrounded by trees at dusk.
    Moonrise Over Villebois-Lavalette © Flavien Beauvais. This unique photograph was taken 6.4 km (4 miles) from the château of Villebois-Lavalette, just north of Bordeaux. The distortions are related to the distance between the imaged Moon and the foreground but also with respect to the atmospheric disturbance, hence the curves on the surface of the Moon. Taken with a Canon EOS R7 camera, Sigma 150-600 mm lens at 600 mm f/6.3, ISO 2,500, 1/50-second exposure.
    A large, full moon rises over rugged, reddish-orange mountain peaks at dusk, contrasting against the darkening sky. A small structure is silhouetted on the ridge below the moon.
    Moonrise Perfection Over the Dolomites © Fabian Dalpiaz. The full Moon rising above the rugged peaks of the Dolomites. With no clouds in sight and in flawless conditions, the golden light of sunset bathes the mountains, creating harmony between Earth and sky. Taken with a Sony Alpha 7R V camera, 400 mm f/9, ISO 320, 1/200-second exposure.
    A glowing, colorful torus with swirling patterns of purple, pink, yellow, and orange on a black background. The ring appears luminous and abstract, with a shiny, marbled texture.
    Neon Sun © Peter Ward. The data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observer (SDO) probe was used here to show the Sun’s inner corona in a way that hints at a process that is similar to that which energises colourful neon lights on Earth. Images taken by the SDO in the ultraviolet spectrum (at 171, 193 and 304 nm) were re-mapped to a more vibrant palette, with the same coronal data turned ‘inside out’ to surround the Sun, creating the illusion of it being enclosed in a neon tube. While neon tubes use electrical current to cause the low-pressure gas within them to glow, it is the heat from nuclear fusion that ionises the gas of the Sun’s atmosphere. While this ultraviolet light is undetectable to human eyes, it can easily cause sunburn on unprotected human skin within just few minutes of exposure. Remapped in Photoshop, the data was then polar inversed to mirror the inner coronal image. Colour saturation was increased by around 30 per cent and given one pass of a noise reduction filter.
    A colorful spiral galaxy surrounded by countless stars is set against a backdrop of red glowing nebulae and deep space. Bright blue and white stars are scattered throughout the image.
    NGC 2997: The Antlia Cabbage Galaxy © Xinran Li. NGC 2997 is a barred spiral galaxy (type SBc) in the constellation of Antlia. At 35 million light years distance, it has a visual magnitude of about 9.5, making it visible with binoculars in dark sites. The region is full of background H-alpha emissions, giving wonderful colour to the image. Taken with a ASA 500N telescope, Astrodon LRGB and H-alpha filters, ASA DDM85 mount, FLI ProLine 16803 camera, 1900 mm f/3.8, 600 seconds per frame for LRGB, 1,200 seconds per frame.
    A composite image shows the stages of a solar eclipse, with the sun partially covered on the left and right, and the fully eclipsed sun, surrounded by its corona, at the center.
    Progression of Baily’s Beads © Damien Cannane. Baily’s Beads are bright spots around the Moon during a solar eclipse that are caused by sunlight passing through lunar valleys. This composite shows the progression, from left to right, from the first ‘diamond ring’ – a moment when one last bright point of sunlight shines beside the faint corona, resembling a diamond on a ring – fading through Baily’s Beads into totality and beyond until a ‘diamond ring’ occurs again as the Sun starts to reappear. Taken with a Sky-Watcher Evolux 62 ED telescope, Celestron NexStar Evolution mount, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, 360 mm f/5.8, Gain 100, Diamond Rings: 200 x 1/ 3-second exposures Baily’s Beads: 400 x 1/ 6-second exposures, Totality: stack of 7 x 1/400-second exposure.
    Colorful nebula in deep space with glowing clouds of blue, orange, and red gas and dust, surrounded by smaller bright formations and set against a backdrop of countless stars.
    Radiant Canopy: The Lustrous Realms of the Running Chicken Nebula © Rod Prazeres. IC 2944, the Running Chicken Nebula is known for its unique avian shape. NGC 3766, an open star cluster, appears as a sparkling jewel box that contrasts with the diffuse nebulosity. In the top left, filamentary shell G296.2-2.8, displays delicate, thread-like structures that weave through the cosmic backdrop. Taken with a William Optics RedCat 51 II telescope, Antlia 3 nm SHO 36mm and Baader CMOS Optimized RGB 36 mm filters, Sky-Watcher NEQ6–Pro mount, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera, 250 mm f/4, 42 hours 15 minutes total exposure.
    A lineup of the eight planets in the solar system, shown in order and to scale, against a black background: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
    Solar System Portrait © Sophie Paulin. This image presents all the planets of our Solar System, excluding Earth, showcasing their unique characteristics. Mercury, the closest to the Sun, is a barren, cratered world, while Venus is shrouded in thick clouds. Mars, the Red Planet, has vast deserts and the largest volcano in the Solar System. The gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, dominate with their immense size and swirling storms, while Saturn’s rings make it especially striking. Uranus and Neptune, the ice giants, are rich in methane, giving them their blue hue. Taken with a Spacewalk Telescopes Horizon 20″ f/3.2 Dobsonian, Tele Vue 5x 1.25″ Powermate, Spacewalk Telescopes EQ-Platform ‘Trackie’, Player One Astronomy Uranus-C camera, thousands of <10-millisecond exposures.
    Aurora borealis in green and purple hues lights up the night sky above snow-covered mountains and a calm body of water.
    The Arctic Flower © Vincent Beudez. In April, there is no ‘true’ night in northern Norway. This is why the Northern Lights look much more blue than usual. Vincent Beudez captured the visually pleasing aurora shape above the Norwegian background. Taken with a Sony Alpha 7S III camera, 14 mm f/1.8, ISO 4,000, 1.3-second exposure.
    A detailed, full view of the Moon showing craters and maria in shades of gray, blue, and brown, highlighting varied surface textures and colors against a black background.
    The Last Mineral Supermoon of 2024 © Karthik Easvur. The Beaver Moon was the last supermoon of 2024. This photograph was taken from the hazy, Bortle 9 skies of Delhi. The full-disc mosaic is composed of 24 images then stitched together to create a seamless mosaic. Taken with a GSO RC 6″ telescope, ZWO IR/UV cut filter, Explore Scientific EXOS-2 PMC-Eight mount, ZWO ASI662MC camera, 1,370 mm f/9, 24 x 30-second videos, 50% of frames stacked per video.
    A sequence of images shows the stages of a solar eclipse, from partial coverage through totality (with a bright corona), and back to partial coverage, set against a black background.
    Total Solar Eclipse © Louis Egan. This 22-megapixel panorama shows the different stages of the full solar eclipse, with a high dynamic range (HDR) image of totality in the middle. This reveals both the bright corona and finer details otherwise lost in standard exposures. The final image uses approximately 200 images with varying exposure times to create a HDR totality, before combining everything together. Taken with a Canon EOS 60D camera, SWSA 2I mount, Sigma 70-300 DG lens, Baader solar filter, 300 mm f/6.3, ISO 100, approximately 1,200 x 1/200-second exposures and 200 x 1/25-second exposures.

    In this year’s competition, The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation has become The Annie Maunder Open Category where entrants can experiment with different approaches to astronomy art, showcasing high concept, creative work. The striking image, Neon Sun by Peter Ward, uses images taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) remapped with a more vibrant palette. The same coronal data is turned ’inside out’ to surround the Sun, creating the illusion of it being enclosed in a neon tube.

    The ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is now in its seventeenth year and returns with an expert panel of judges from the worlds of art and astronomy. The winners of the competition’s nine categories, two special prizes and the overall winner will be announced on Thursday September 11. The winning images will be displayed in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum from Friday September 12, alongside a selection of exceptional shortlisted images. The competition’s official book, published by Collins in association with Royal Museums Greenwich, will be available exclusively on-site and online at Royal Museums Greenwich from the exhibition opening date. It will then be available more widely from bookstores from Thursday September 25.

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  • Gamma Knife Radiosurgery Targets Ovarian Brain Mets

    Gamma Knife Radiosurgery Targets Ovarian Brain Mets

    Brain metastases from ovarian cancer (BMFOC) are rare but associated with poor prognosis. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery (GKSRS) in managing patients with BMFOC.

    Methods

    A retrospective analysis was conducted on 22 patients with BMFOC who were treated with GKSRS between January 2015 and May 2019. The median age at the start of treatment was 57.7 years (range, 46–72 years). A total of 70 brain metastases were treated, with each patient having between one and nine metastatic tumors. The mean tumor volume was 3.6 cm3 (range, 0.1–22.7 cm3). The mean peripheral dose was 16 Gy (range, 7–20 Gy), and the mean isodose curve was 54.6% (range, 45–80%).

    Results

    At 12 months post-GKSRS, 68 metastatic tumors were assessed: 32 (47.1%) showed complete response, 20 (29.4%) had partial response, 14 (20.6%) remained stable, and two (2.9%) progressed, leading to a tumor control rate of 97.1%. No acute or chronic toxicity was observed.

    Conclusions

    The findings of this study indicate that GKSRS may serve as an effective treatment modality for selected BMFOC patients, offering high intracranial tumor control rates. The data indicate that GKSRS is generally well tolerated, with no significant adverse effects observed in this study. While GKSRS may be a valuable option for managing BMFOC, treatment decisions should be individualized, taking into account factors such as tumor burden, extracranial disease status, performance status, and patient preferences.

    Full text:

    https://www.xiahepublishing.com/3067-6150/NSSS-2024-00009

    The study was recently published in the Neurosurgical Subspecialties .

    Neurosurgical Subspecialties (NSSS) is the official scientific journal of the Department of Neurosurgery at Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. NSSS aims to provide a forum for clinicians and scientists in the field, dedicated to publishing high-quality and peer-reviewed original research, reviews, opinions, commentaries, case reports, and letters across all neurosurgical subspecialties. These include but are not limited to traumatic brain injury, spinal and spinal cord neurosurgery, cerebrovascular disease, stereotactic radiosurgery, neuro-oncology, neurocritical care, neurosurgical nursing, neuroendoscopy, pediatric neurosurgery, peripheral neuropathy, and functional neurosurgery.

    /Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.

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  • Training and deploying AI models around the world: the territorial issues at stake in Getty Images v. Stability AI

    Training and deploying AI models around the world: the territorial issues at stake in Getty Images v. Stability AI

    This has become more apparent following Getty’s withdrawal during the trial’s closing submissions of its primary copyright infringement allegations regarding training and output. This raises the general question of how national copyright laws apply to the training and deployment of AI models around the world.

    Getty Images et al. v. Stability AI: background

    Getty Images (Getty) filed an action in the UK (and an equivalent in the U.S.) alleging copyright, trademark, and database rights infringement. In the UK action, Getty originally asserted that Stability AI unlawfully copied in the UK millions of images, protected by UK copyright and owned or represented by Getty Images, to train its Stable Diffusion image generator.

    It also claimed that there was further unauthorized copying or communication to the public in the UK of a substantial part of its images at the point of use, i.e., in the images output from Stable Diffusion. These claims were, however, withdrawn by Getty on the first day of the trial’s closing submissions.

    The importance of where to train AI systems

    Stability AI had admitted that at least some Getty images were used to train Stable Diffusion. However, Getty’s difficulty with its training allegation was proving that any infringing act occurred in the UK, i.e., whether Getty’s works were copied in the UK during training such as by downloading them onto hardware in the UK.

    Stability AI had argued that no infringing acts took place in the UK in training Stable Diffusion because Stable Diffusion was wholly developed and trained outside of the UK and, as such, there was no infringement of UK copyright in this respect.

    As this claim has now been withdrawn, we are unlikely to get a judgment on that issue. Nevertheless, it is of real importance to any company deciding where to develop and deploy its AI models. Copyright protection is territorial, and at a high level, the jurisdiction where any infringing acts take place affects the risks of copyright infringement, in particular which defenses to copyright infringement are available.

    Currently, different countries have differing approaches to exempting copyright reproduction for text and data mining (TDM) purposes:

    • Japan and Singapore allow TDM for commercial purposes.
    • The EU allows copyright owners to opt-out works from commercial TDM.
    • The UK currently only allows TDM for non-commercial research. However, as explained in our previous blog post, it is considering introducing an exception for commercial TDM with the ability for rights holders to reserve their rights (an “opt-out”).

    The U.S. takes an entirely different approach, deciding on the particular facts of each case whether the use in training could be considered to be “fair.” In one case, the use of legal headnotes to train a competitor’s AI tool was held not to be fair use given the particular use case1. On the other hand, in a recent federal court judgment in California, AI foundation model developer Anthropic has been allowed to assert fair use against copyright claims for training its Claude AI models on copyrighted books that Anthropic had lawfully acquired2.

    However, the judge in that case ruled that the same “fair use” argument would not apply in respect of Anthropic’s collection and use of pirated works, which will be the subject of a separate damages hearing (with potentially significant amounts at issue).

    Meanwhile, in a separate federal court proceeding in California against Meta, the judge concluded that “fair use” was likely not available given the market dilution impact of large language models (although the judge found in favor of Meta for other reasons)3.

    Accordingly, reproducing copyright works during AI training may be exempted in countries with more expansive exceptions, but it will only be possible to fully take advantage of such expansive exemptions if one can restrict all acts of reproduction to that country and nothing is downloaded or stored elsewhere.

    Furthermore, these TDM exemptions will only apply (if at all) to the steps of training the AI model. Subsequent acts of reproduction or communication to the public following completion of the AI training may involve new infringing acts that may not be covered by the TDM exceptions. These may include, for example, further reproduction (e.g., uploading protected content) or making any data resulting from TDM activities available to the public (e.g., making it accessible on the internet).

    Deployment

    Despite the withdrawal of the training claim, Stability AI will not necessarily avoid UK copyright liability. This is because Getty continues with two secondary infringement claims that cover the deployment of Stable Diffusion in the UK:

    1. Stable Diffusion is alleged to be an article that is, and that Stability AI knows or has reason to believe, is an infringing copy of Getty’s copyright works, which has been imported into the UK (s23 CDPA ’88).
    2. Stability AI is alleged to have possessed and distributed in the course of business, sold, offered, or exposed for sale, an article that is, and that it knows or has reason to believe, is an infringing copy (s33 CDPA ’88).

    These allegations raise some interesting legal questions:

    Can an intangible AI model like Stable Diffusion that is accessible from the internet ever constitute an “article” capable of being imported or dealt with in the course of business?

    Can the AI model itself (like Stable Diffusion) be said to be an infringing copy (i.e., a substantial reproduction) of one or more works that were used to train the model?

    What if Stable Diffusion does not retain internally in the model any copies of any of the works on which it was trained in material form?

    Is it sufficient that the model weights (the associations and patterns developed through the training process) contain an abstracted representation of all the model’s training data?

    The answer to these questions will depend on the court’s interpretation of UK legislation as much as the technology itself. As with all AI-related legal risks, it will be technology-led and the decision in this case may not be relevant to AI models trained using different techniques.

    Is an AI model an infringing copy if its making constituted a copyright infringement or would have constituted a copyright infringement if it were made in the UK?

    Another fundamental requirement is that Stability AI knew or had reason to believe that Stable Diffusion was an infringing copy. Is it sufficient that it is common knowledge that photographs are protected by copyright, and that copyright in them would be infringed by copying them, or by importation of infringing copies of them? Or did Stability AI hold a reasonable belief that Stable Diffusion was not an infringing copy because none of the model, source code, or output was a substantial reproduction of any copyright work from its training dataset?

    Other AI developers need to pay close attention to the court’s ruling on these issues because it should clarify whether AI models trained in other countries will infringe under UK copyright law, and if so, how. The UK government in its recent Consultation on Copyright and AI specifically noted that it wanted to avoid UK-trained AI models from being disadvantaged compared to those trained elsewhere but operating within the UK.

    Takeaways

    International copyright disputes are never straightforward and those involving global AI operations are no exception. The Getty case has illustrated how important it is for a successful claim to establish an infringing act in the relevant jurisdiction, and this will depend not only on the specific techniques and datasets used to train the model, but also the differing exceptions to copyright infringement around the world.

    The crux of the (UK) Getty case is now whether UK copyright law bites on an AI model that was trained elsewhere but made available to UK consumers. Even if most AI training currently occurs in the U.S. or China, the UK remains a valuable commercial market and developers wishing to sell into it need to take note.

    This is at the same time, of course, as following the many ongoing proceedings in other markets (particularly the U.S., where much of the AI training takes place) as well as assessing the impact of the EU AI Act, which requires AI developers offering their products in the EU to have complied with EU copyright laws when training their models (even if trained outside the EU). It is a very complex and fast-moving global picture.

    Footnotes

    1. Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence No. 1:20-cv-613-SB (E.D. Pa. Feb. 11, 2025)—a summary judgment.

    2. Andrea Bartz v. Anthropic C 24-05417 WHA

    3. Richard Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms Inc. No. 23-cv-03417-VC

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  • CM Punjab announces to launch 'Punjab Development Program' to rehabilitate dilapidated roads, streets across province – RADIO PAKISTAN

    1. CM Punjab announces to launch ‘Punjab Development Program’ to rehabilitate dilapidated roads, streets across province  RADIO PAKISTAN
    2. Maryam Nawaz’s Vision: A sigh of relief for Rawalpindi commuters as traffic projects launch  Ptv.com.pk
    3. Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz inaugurates major infrastructure projects in Rawalpindi, announces clean water and health initiatives  Ptv.com.pk
    4. Six new underpasses, flyovers on cards  The Express Tribune
    5. Punjab approves Rs9.53 billion for roads and education projects  Profit by Pakistan Today

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  • This Amazon Prime Day deal slashes Apple’s AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation to their best price ever

    This Amazon Prime Day deal slashes Apple’s AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation to their best price ever

    Amazon Prime Day week has begun, running from July 8th to 11th, so expect lots of deals flying around during the massive online shopping event. Amazon Prime Day is best known for its deals on electronics, so it should come as no surprise that there are some great discounts on earphones.

    If you’re looking for an audio accomplishment to your indoor training or just some music as you go through your day, one Amazon Prime Day deal that caught our eye was this discount on Apple’s AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation earphones.

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  • Fitch Upgrades Hauck Aufhaeuser Lampe Privatbank AG to 'A'; Outlook Stable – Fitch Ratings

    1. Fitch Upgrades Hauck Aufhaeuser Lampe Privatbank AG to ‘A’; Outlook Stable  Fitch Ratings
    2. Fosun Secures EUR670 Million Through Completion of German Private Bank HAL Sale  Yahoo Finance
    3. ABN AMRO’s HAL Acquisition: A Strategic Play for European Wealth Management Dominance  AInvest
    4. Fosun’s €670M Bank Sale Powers Asset-Light Strategy While Retaining €100B Luxembourg Unit  Stock Titan
    5. Dutch bank ABN AMRO finalizes acquisition of German private bank HAL  Yahoo Finance

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  • Diogo Jota’s car likely speeding before accident

    Diogo Jota’s car likely speeding before accident

    All the evidence so far suggests Portuguese footballer Diogo Jota was driving when his car crashed on a Spanish motorway, and he was likely speeding, say police.

    The 28-year-old Liverpool player was killed with his brother André Silva, 25, when their Lamborghini car had a suspected tyre blowout in northwestern Zamora province early last Thursday.

    Spain’s Guardia Civil police force said at the time the car had apparently been overtaking on the A52 motorway near Palacios de Sanabria when it left the road and burst into flames.

    “Everything also points to a possible excessive speed beyond the speed limit of the road [highway],” said Zamora’s local traffic police.

    Police said they had studied the marks left by one of the Lamborghini’s tyres and that “all the tests carried out so far indicate that the driver of the crashed vehicle was Diogo Jota”.

    The expert report is being prepared for the courts on the accident, and their investigation is understood to have been made more complex by the intensity of the fire that almost completely destroyed the car.

    The accident happened 11 days after Jota had married his long-term partner Rute Cardoso in Portugal. The couple had three children.

    The brothers had been heading to the Spanish port of Santander so Jota could return to Liverpool for pre-season training.

    Their funeral took place in their hometown of Gondomar, near Porto at the weekend.

    Tyre marks were reportedly visible about 100m (330ft) from the moment of impact.

    Although there had been suggestions that the asphalt on the road was uneven where the crash took place, police told Spanish media it was not an accident “black spot” and the road should have been driveable beyond the speed limit of 120km/h (75mph).

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