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Britain's Conservative Party suffered major setbacks on Friday in local elections that are seen as a barometer for how the party will perform in the next general election and a key test for embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.Only a small part of the results had been announced by midday on Friday, but the signs were already ominous for Sunak's Conservatives. The party has lost around 150 seats so far, including six in Hartlepool, north-east England, where it made inroads after Brexit but more recently lost ground to the resurgent Labor Party.The Conservatives have won a notable victory in a closely watched race for mayor of Tees Valley, also in the north-east of England, where the Conservative incumbent, Ben Houchen, held on, winning a narrow majority.Elsewhere, however, the pict...

Listen and follow "Hard Fork"Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YoutubeWe asked listeners to tell us the wildest ways they've used AI at work. This week we bring you their stories. Then, Hank Green, a legendary YouTuber, stops by to talk about how creators are reacting to the prospect of a ban on TikTok and how he's navigating an increasingly fragmented online environment. And finally, the deep fakes are coming to Main Street: We'll tell you the story of how they caused riots at a Maryland high school and what, if anything, can be done to combat them.Guests:Additional reading:Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose AND Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones AND Rachel Cohn. The show is edited by Poyant only. Engineering by Alyssa Moxley and original music by Dan Powell,...

Rebuilding all the homes destroyed by Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip could take until the next century if the pace of reconstruction matches that seen after the 2014 and 2021 wars, according to a United Nations report released Thursday.Citing data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the UN report said that as of April 15, around 370,000 homes in Gaza had been damaged, 79,000 of which had been destroyed. If the destroyed homes were rebuilt at the same rate at which they were rebuilt after the previous two wars – an average of 992 per year – it would take 80 years, according to projections in the report by the United Nations Development Program and the Office economic and social issues of the United Nations. Social Commission for West Asia.The report detai...

Prairie voles are stocky, Olympic tunneling rodents that emerge into grassy areas to feast on grass, roots and seeds with their chisel-like teeth, causing migraines in farmers and gardeners.But for Larry Young they were the secret to understanding romance and love.Professor Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, used prairie voles in a series of experiments that revealed the chemical process for pirouetting the throbbing emotions that poets have tried to put into words for centuries.He died on March 21 in Tsukuba, Japan, where he was helping to organize a scientific conference. He was 56 years old. The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Anne Murphy.With their beady eyes, thick tails and sharp claws, prairie voles aren't exactly cuddly. But among rodents they a...

Security forces clashed with protesters in Georgia's capital on Wednesday evening after the eastern European nation's parliament advanced controversial new legislation that triggered weeks of demonstrations.Since the ruling Georgian Dream party pushed through Parliament a bill early last month that the pro-Western opposition says could be used to repress dissent and hinder the country's efforts to join the European Union, protesters took to the streets of the country. capital, Tbilisi, night after night.Their numbers increased on Wednesday after Parliament approved the bill in the second of three required votes.The bill would require non-governmental groups and media outlets that receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as organizations “bearing ...

The difficulties for Apple have piled up. In recent months it has been sued by the Justice Department, fined by European regulators and challenged by the resurgence of a Chinese smartphone competitor.The company added to the list of its problems on Thursday, signaling that its business was in crisis.Apple said sales fell by 4 percent to $90.8 billion for the three months ended in March. Revenue from iPhones, iPads and wearables like the Apple Watch fell from the same quarter last year, while sales of software and services increased. Profit fell 2% to $23.64 billion, Apple's first quarterly decline in a year.Apple's struggles were most concerning in China, the world's second-largest smartphone market, where sales fell 8%. The iPhone's popularity has declined since Huawei...

President Biden broke days of silence on Thursday to finally speak out about the wave of anti-Israel protests on American college campuses that have inflamed much of the country, denouncing violence and anti-Semitism while defending the right to peaceful dissent.In an unscheduled televised statement from the White House, Biden strongly condemned students and other protesters who he said had taken their complaints about Israel's war against Hamas too far. But he has rejected Republican calls to deploy the National Guard to rein in the campuses.“The destruction of property is not a peaceful protest. It's against the law," Biden said. “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, closing campuses, forcibly canceling classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest. Threaten...

Scientists observed a wild male orangutan repeatedly rubbing chewed leaves of a medicinal plant on a facial wound in a forest reserve in Indonesia.It was the first known observation of a wild animal using a plant to heal a wound, and adds evidence that humans are not alone in using plants for medicinal purposes.The male orangutan, Rakus, lives in Gunung Leuser National Park on the island of Sumatra and is believed to be around 35 years old. For years, researchers have followed orangutans like him on his travels through the forest, picking his way through the canopy in search of fruit to eat.Scientists at the park's Suaq Balimbing research area first noticed a wound on his face on June 25, 2022, when they saw his self-medicating behavior begin.“When I heard about it, I was very excited...

Few famous Britons, it seems, can resist the chance to be painted by Jonathan Yeo. David Attenborough, the 97-year-old legend of the show, was among those who recently climbed the spiral stairs to his cozy studio, tucked away at the end of an alley in west London, to pose for Mr Yeo, one of its most famous characters. of Great Britain. portrait artists.However, when it came to painting his last portrait, that of King Charles III, the artist had to address the subject.Mr Yeo hired a lorry to transport his 7.5 x 5.5 foot canvas to the king's London residence, Clarence House. There, he erected a platform so he could apply the final brushstrokes to the strikingly contemporary portrait, which depicts a uniformed Charles against an ethereal backdrop.The painting, which will be unveiled at...

The United States' greatest challenge yet to the vast power of today's tech giants has reached its climax.On Thursday and Friday, lawyers from the Justice Department, state attorneys general and Google will present their closing arguments in a years-long case: US et al. against Google – over whether the tech giant broke federal antitrust laws to maintain its dominance in online search.The government alleges that Google competed unfairly when it paid billions of dollars to Apple and other companies to automatically handle searches on smartphones and web browsers. Google insists that consumers use its search engine because it is the best product.In the coming weeks or months, the judge who oversaw the trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Amit P. Mehta, wil...