Judge orders disgraced crypto mogul to forfeit $11bn in assets and says he showed no remorse for his crimes
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul who perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11bn in assets. His lawyer reiterated a pledge to appeal the sentence the same day.
The judge, Lewis Kaplan, issued the penalty in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday. Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy to launder money late last year.
Continue reading...aWe donat know if they were warned before the impact,a says wife of one of eight construction workers who was on the bridge
The construction workers who were on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday were on break in their cars, according to the wife of one of the construction workers who survived.
Speaking to NBC on Thursday, the wife of Julio Cervantes, one of the eight construction workers who was on the bridge when it collapsed, said: aAll of the men were on a break in their cars when the boat hit. We donat know if they were warned before the impact.a
Continue reading...Federal court allows map to be used for 2024 election despite earlier finding it discriminates against Black voters
A federal court will allow South Carolina Republicans to use their congressional map for the 2024 election, it said on Thursday, despite an earlier finding that the same plan discriminates against Black voters. The decision is a big win for Republicans, who were aided by the US supreme courtas slow action on the case.
In January 2023, a three-judge panel struck down the stateas first congressional district, which is currently represented by Nancy Mace, a Republican. The judges said legislative Republicans had impermissibly used race when they redrew it after the 2020 census. As part of an effort to make it more solidly Republican, lawmakers removed 30,000 Black voters from the district into a neighboring one. Republicans argued that they moved the voters to achieve partisan ends, which is legal. The district was extremely competitive in 2020, but Mace easily won the redrawn version in 2022.
Continue reading...Judges issue unanimous decision and say Palestinians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance
The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where sections of the population are facing imminent starvation, in a significant legal rebuke to Israelas claim it is not blocking aid deliveries.
A panel of judges at the UNas top court, which is already considering a complaint from South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, issued the ruling after an emergency measure in January obliging Israel to admit emergency aid.
Continue reading...Trump lawyers argue the first amendment is grounds for dismissing Georgiaas 2020 election case; progressive groups call for afair and prompta hush money case
The White House announced that Joe Biden called Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, to offer condolences on the death of Jonathan Diller, a police officer killed on Monday.
aThe president offered Mayor Adams, the City of New York, and the New York Police Department his support in the wake of the tragedy,a the White House said.
Continue reading...Afghan regimeas return to public stoning and flogging is because there is ano one to hold them accountablea for abuses, say activists
The Talibanas announcement that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death has been enabled by the international communityas silence, human rights groups have said.
Safia Arefi, a lawyer and head of the Afghan human rights organisation Womenas Window of Hope, said the announcement had condemned Afghan women to return to the darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s.
Continue reading...National security spokesperson says US passed on warnings and dismissed Russian allegations Ukraine was involved as anonsensea
The US repeatedly alerted Russia that extremists were planning to attack large gatherings in Moscow ahead of last weekas concert hall attack that claimed more than 140 lives, the White House has said.
The national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday that US officials passed on warnings a including one in writing a and dismissed Russian allegations that Ukraine was involved as anonsensea.
Continue reading...IS has stalled in Iraq and Syria but officials believe it has been planning new attacks on west for years
Islamic State (IS) remains defeated in its core strongholds of the Middle East but has made significant progress in Africa and parts of south Asia, winning territory and resources that could serve as a launchpad for a new campaign of extremist violence, analysts and officials believe.
European governments have moved to their highest levels of alert for years after the attack on a concert hall in Moscow last week by militants from IS which killed 140 people.
Continue reading...Christian Soto, 22, in custody after rampage leaves girl, 15, woman, 63, and two men aged 49 and 22 dead
A man has been charged with murder following a stabbing attack that left four people dead in northern Illinois.
Police said that Christian Soto, 22, has been charged with multiple counts of murder, intent to kill and home invasion after the stabbings on Wednesday in Rockford, which is 90 miles north-west of Chicago.
Continue reading...aMomentous changea will permit lawmakers in Canadian province to address chamber in afirst languagesa
Lawmakers in Ontario will now be able to address the provinceas legislature using Indigenous languages, in a amomentous changea that belatedly recognizes the afirst languagesa of the region.
The Ontario government house leader, Paul Calandra, this week moved to amend a standing order that previously required lawmakers to use either English or French. Following a vote, that order now allows for an aIndigenous language spoken in Canadaa to be used when addressing the speaker or chamber.
Continue reading...The Rev Al Sharpton makes comment to MSNBC amid backlash over Republicanas latest moneymaking scheme
The spectacle of Donald Trump selling $60 Bibles is aa spit in the face of people that really believea, the Rev Al Sharpton said, amid widespread backlash over the presumptive Republican presidential nomineeas latest moneymaking scheme.
aBlasphemy certainly comes to mind,a Sharpton told MSNBC.
Continue reading...There have been no changes since the ex-mogulas conviction as lawmakers fail to pass regulations to protect the public
There is a palpable feeling of relief in the cryptocurrency industry. Evangelists are preaching the good news that the industry has been purged of the Sam Bankman-Frieds, the Alex Mashinskys, the Do Kwons and the Changpeng Zhaos of the world. They proclaim that crypto can finally ascend from its purgatorial, awild westa days to become a respectable sector of the financial world blessed by regulators and speculators alike.
That exultant attitude has contributed to surging cryptocurrency prices, which surpassed previous all-time highs in the weeks leading up to Bankman-Friedas sentencing of 25 years in prison on Thursday.
Continue reading...The Republican challenger to Democrat Sherrod Brown for US Senate in Ohio has made dubious claims in his campaign
Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio who expected to mount a stern challenge to Sherrod Brown, the incumbent leftwing Democrat, says his family fled socialism when they came to the US from Colombia in 1971, when he was four years old.
Though such statements formed a central part of Morenoas campaign message on his way to securing the Republican nomination with support from Donald Trump, they do not withstand historical scrutiny.
Continue reading...Too often cemeteries for enslaved people have been all but erased from history but how we remember matters
For archeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free a defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming peopleas humanity through acts of remembrance.
When I first visited the British overseas territory of St Helena in 2018 and saw the burial ground in Rupertas Valley, I was astounded by its size and significance. It unambiguously placed the island at the centre of the Middle Passage a tying the British empire to the institution of slavery in the US, the Caribbean, and globally.
Continue reading...A process called biofortification puts nutrients directly into seeds and could reduce global hunger, but itas not a magic bullet
In 2004, Donald Davis and fellow scientists at the University of Texas made an alarming discovery: 43 foods, mostly vegetables, showed a marked decrease in nutrients between the mid and late 20th century.
According to that research, the calcium in green beans dropped from 65 to 37mg. Vitamin A levels plummeted by almost half in asparagus. Broccoli stalks had less iron.
Continue reading...Thereas a likable, light-hearted zip to the monster mash follow-up but energy dissipates when weare stuck with the humans
It was a strange old time when the creature feature mash-up Godzilla vs Kong was released, the first major blockbuster in cinemas since Covid shuttered them all a year prior. Expectations were low, thanks to how rotten the last two Godzilla films had been, but thirst for something, anything, truly escapist was high and the big screen equivalent of a kid smashing his toys together became an unlikely saviour, both commercially and critically.
Three years later with normality resuming, thereas arguably less audience demand for another instalment, although the industry could definitely do with another monster hit, the strikes leaving the first few months of 2024 a little weakened. Thereas enough easily marketable simplicity to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire that it should become a swift global hit (the film is tracking to make $135m worldwide in its opening weekend) but, especially in the shadow of the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, there will be predictably diminishing returns for those who venture out. Itas a still fun yet far sloppier outing, a second round thatas less of a win for us and more of a draw.
Continue reading...The league is transforming kickoffs. But there are other tweaks to football that could improve the sport for players and fans
The NFL will look radically different next season. The leagueas owners voted on Tuesday to approve a new kickoff rule originally adopted in the XFL.
It is one of the most groundbreaking changes in league history. After slowly legislating the kickoff out of the sport, the league is embracing a new ahybrida approach that turns the kickoff into something approaching a traditional football play. No longer will kickoffs be passing moments, a chance for broadcasters to cram in a couple of commercial breaks.
Continue reading...Author of sci-fi epic The Three-Body Problem a newly serialised by Netflix a on athe greatest uncertainty facing humanitya and how finding a secret copy of a Jules Verne novel inspired his career
Chinese author Liu Cixinas science-fiction novels have sold millions of copies all over the world, and have won him numerous awards, including the global Hugo award for science fiction in 2015. Now, the English translation of the first book in Liuas Remembrance of Earthas Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, is back in the Amazon bestsellers charts, after the release of a TV adaptation by the creators of Game of Thrones.
But a decade ago, few in the UK had heard of Liu and The Three-Body Problem, which begins as a contemporary murder mystery and gradually builds into a story of alien contact. When it was first published here, Nic Cheetham, managing director of Liuas UK publisher Head of Zeus, remembers being unsure if anyone would turn up for a book signing with the author in a London bookshop.
Continue reading...Late-night hosts discuss ex-president hawking $60 Bibles while preparing for trial over paying hush money to an adult film star
Late-night hosts spoke about Donald Trumpas ad for a $60 Bible as well as some good news about one of his upcoming trials.
Continue reading...A small team of skilled players set themselves a near-impossible task: to complete every level of Super Mario Maker before Nintendo shut its servers. Did they manage it?
On 14 March, Team 0% was close to finishing its seven-year mission to complete every single uncleared level in the 2015 Nintendo game Super Mario Maker a all 80,000 of them. Two hellish maps stood in their way: Trimming the Herbs and The Last Dance. And time was ticking. Nintendo had announced it was shutting down the gameas servers on 8 April, and if the levels werenat completed by then, they would remain forever unfinished. Team 0% would fail at the last stretch of their marathon.
When Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for its Wii U console, it was packed with platforming levels made by its design team. But the gameas lasting appeal came from the tools it gave players to make their own levels that they could share online. The only barrier to uploading was that its creator must have completed the level at least once, proving that it was possible.
Continue reading...The star of The First Omen takes your questions on working as a chimney sweep, finessing his perfect sandwich a and hoping to die in a hail of bullets
Thereas an argument that youare the person James Bond matures into: women still want to sleep with you and men want to be you. Whatas your secret? MarcoPoloMint
I have no idea. I donat get out much and I donat identify with whomever theyare talking about. I did used to quip that I could be James Bondas grandfather and Iave always wanted to say: aThe nameas Nighy. Bill Nighy.a Iam very happy to hear, but itas a bit of a stretch for me to grasp.
When you were younger, you travelled to Paris to write a book, but never completed it. Will you ever dust down your great unfinished novel to realise your literary ambitions? VerulamiumParkRanger
I had a very romantic idea a I was a walking cliche in my 20s a of running away to Paris to write the great English short story. The pathetic thing is that I went and stood in the TrocadA(c)ro, outside the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and under the Arc de Triomphe, hoping to catch some vibes. I sat down for an hour in front of a blank page and drew a margin, like at school, for the teacheras remarks, but the doorbell went or the phone rang and that was the end of my literary career.
Godas Ghostwriters by Candida Moss aims to shine a light on the contributions to Christianity by imprisoned workers
Enslaved people wrote the Bible, carried the messages of the apostles and spread the word of Jesus around the Roman empire, according to a shocking new book by the theology professor Candida Moss. Godas Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible argues that apostles and early Christians used enslaved scribes, secretaries and messengers to write the New Testament and shape the very foundations of Christianity.
aThe overwhelming literary and archeological evidence shows that this kind of work was done by enslaved or formerly enslaved people,a says Moss, the Edward Cadbury professor of theology at the University of Birmingham. Scholars think only about 5-10% of Romans were literate: the very wealthy a and the people they enslaved.
Continue reading...The Stanford neuroscientist is highly credentialed and endearingly earnest on his popular wellness podcast, but is now facing claims against his credibility
Iam going to divulge something rather embarrassing: earlier this year I got sucked deep into the aHuberspherea, the cult-like following of Andrew Huberman, the controversial neuroscientist and podcaster who is the subject of a viral New York Magazine article that came out this week. Huberman has racked up a massive (and lucrative) following with his data-driven aprotocolsa for a better life. These protocols involve things like taking enormous amounts of expensive supplements, ensuring you view early morning sunlight for 10-30 minutes after waking, carefully timing when you drink coffee and plunging yourself in ice baths.
Sounds like your run-of-the-mill scammy wellness influencer, right? Not quite. What makes Huberman different from others in the aGoop for brosa wellness space is that he is highly credentialed and endearingly earnest. The 48-year-old describes himself as a neuroscience professor at Stanford and a lab director at Stanford School of Medicine. He leans heavily on his affiliation with the Ivy League to bolster his credibility and frequently has other Stanford professors on his podcast, which was the third most popular in the world last year, according to Spotify.
Continue reading...After a Trump-backed purge of the RNC this month, promoting the 2020 stolen election lie has become a litmus test for loyalty
If youare seeking employment at the Republican National Committee (RNC), youare likely to be asked in your job interview if you believe the 2020 election was stolen. And if you say no, well, you might as well seek a job with George Santos.
After a Trump-backed purge of the RNC this month, agreeing to the false claim has become a kind of litmus test for gaining employment a no less than itas become a litmus test for running for public office as a Republican.
Continue reading...Donald Tusk is working hard and fast on a great transformation, but travel the country and itas clear what a difficult task that is
My formative journalistic years were spent reporting on the final freeze of the cold war a days of hard times and soft currencies. When I return to those countries now, I test myself on how well I guessed what would follow in the three decades since. On Poland in particular, I would have been hard pressed to predict the giddy zigzag of power still featuring a generation who marched to topple communism, but whose protagonists feud bitterly about how to govern the country in the 21st century.
We talk a lot about places that have recently bought a one-way ticket towards authoritarian politics a Russia and Turkey for the full-fat versions, and Hungaryas democratic backsliding and stifling of independent institutions.
Continue reading...The way musicians are compensated is highly unfair. A new bill in the US Congress could fix that a and itas about time
Many of the younger musicians I know a musicians in the full flush of their career a donat see a path forward toward making a living. These arenat artists failing to connect with a public; on the contrary, they are releasing widely reviewed albums, going on tours and communicating (constantly) with their fans via social media. But this work is not paying them enough to manage without second jobs or side hustles.
Thatas a broken system. Itas not just broken for individual artists, itas broken for our society as a whole. We all benefit from music. And I believe we as a society want that music to come from as wide and deep and rich and varied sources as exist. How could we not?
Continue reading...Although there are significant financial and emotional benefits to returning to the nest, it should be a choice
The 2021 census already confirmed it: more adult children than ever are still living with their parents. But the Financial Times has recently revealed just how drastically the scales have tipped: about 40% of 18- to 34-year-olds now live with their parents, making it the most common domestic arrangement for this age group. Previously, it was living as a couple with children.
Itas not just an epidemic of Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum a Iave moved back home twice since graduating in 2018, and I know plenty of young well-to-do professionals who have felt obliged to do the same, or not moved out at all. There are also plenty of people who are unable to live in their family home due to distance and perhaps wish they could.
Continue reading...A braid from a formerly enslaved African buried on the island was the catalyst for Annina van Neelas work to preserve and share these histories
At the end of January 2012, I arrived on St Helena after a six-day journey by ship from Cape Town. After being surrounded by water for nearly a week, the sight of land on the midnight-blue horizon was overwhelming. It was as though someone had forgotten their piece of land in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. 47 square miles of volcanic rock, 2,810 miles from the coast of Brazil and 1,610 miles from Angola a an oasis in a desert, an enigma.
I arrived on the island as part of the project team constructing St Helenaas first airport. Previously accessible only by sea, this incredible community, which had been defined by its isolation as an outpost and a place of exile for 500 years, would for the first time be easily reached by the rest of the world.
Continue reading...British overseas territory may face legal action over alleged failure to honour reburial plan after remains found during airport project
A British overseas territory is being urged to return the remains of 325 formerly enslaved people to their ancestral kingdoms in Africa, or potentially face legal action.
The remains were excavated in 2008 when an access road to a new airport was being built on the remote South Atlantic Ocean island of St Helena. They were held in storage for 14 years before being reburied.
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