All posts tagged: Breaking

Sky News halted for breaking King Charles announcement | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

Sky News halted for breaking King Charles announcement | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

Published by Sam Flores

Sky News was abruptly halted for a King Charles III announcement this afternoon as the monarch met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As the breaking news banner flashed across the screen, the host Jayne Secker said: “Breaking news, we can bring you. It’s just been announced that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, has visited the King this afternoon. We knew he was across in the UK and had a meeting with the Prime Minister yesterday.” She continued as she delivered the update: “It’s not the first time he has met the King, but it’s another meeting between the President of Ukraine and the King.” It comes a day after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, and Zelenskyy met to discuss their unwavering support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s war on the nation. On Sunday evening, in London, they debated “the urgent need to scale up” Ukraine’s air defences and deep-strike capabilities. The meeting with various world leaders came hours after a Russian …

The Delivery You Didn’t Order: Breaking Down the ‘Free Phone’ Scam

The Delivery You Didn’t Order: Breaking Down the ‘Free Phone’ Scam

Published by skeptic

You probably already know you need to worry about thieves stealing packages from your porch, but now you also need to be wary of criminals leaving packages there. This is the surprising first step in a scam you might not have heard of. You open your front door and — surprise! There’s a package that looks like it was delivered by FedEx or UPS. Your name is even on the label. Inside is a new phone. The only problem? You never ordered one. It looks like you’ve just received a free phone, but in all likelihood, you’re about to get scammed. This is the first stage of a classic high-tech identity theft scheme, sort of a modern-day Trojan horse. It happened in New York earlier this year, and in Canada and England a few years ago. The “free phone” scam doesn’t seem to happen very often — it does involve a lot of effort on the scammer’s part. But since it begins in the real world rather than with an email, it might be more …

The Flu-Vaccine Routine Is Breaking

The Flu-Vaccine Routine Is Breaking

Published by Sam Flores

In a typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines. This, however, is not a typical year. Vaccine manufacturers have prepared updated versions of the annual flu shot, as they normally do. The FDA has green-lighted those recipes, as it normally does. And normally, the next step would fall to the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, which guides the agency’s recommendations for which Americans should take those shots. The CDC almost always accepts ACIP’s advice verbatim—and those recommendations inform health-care providers’ advice to their patients and coverage from private insurance and government programs. But in March, a ruling from a federal judge effectively suspended ACIP, on the grounds that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had violated the lawful procedure for selecting new members when he hastily remade the panel’s roster last June. Currently, no functional ACIP exists to guide this autumn’s immunization campaigns. (The Trump administration has appealed the judge’s order.) Although ACIP itself doesn’t make …

📚 At a breaking point

📚 At a breaking point

Published by Jenni Sidey

Cindy Pham is a BookTuber (Read With Cindy) whose first novel, The Secret World of Briar Rose, is out today from Kokila. Below, she discusses how being an avid reader influenced the writing of her debut. In 2018, I started a YouTube channel where I talked about books. Most viewers tune in for the rants; besides the entertainment of watching someone dramatically read faerie smut, people also enjoyed my critical eye for prose and characterization. Naturally, when I announced my debut novel coming out in 2026, people were curious about how my own book would match up. I’m sorry to tell you the bad news: being a reader didn’t make me a good writer. Making that assumption sets both the reader and author up for failure. Writing is so incredibly subjective that no book is universally loved, and even the most popular ones have the biggest critics. Rather than strive to meet impossible standards and conflicting opinions, I wrote my book for one person: my 11-year-old self, who wished she could sleep forever and never …

Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point

Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point

Published by Jenni Sidey

I’ve noticed a trend in the news stories coming out about queer books and authors: it’s clear that five years of unrelenting and escalating censorship has brought us to a breaking point. It’s not sustainable for authors, librarians, and teachers to endure years of anti-LGBTQ abuse. It’s becoming harder to get queer books published, harder to sell queer books, and harder to make a living doing it—especially when it comes to queer kidlit and YA. For queer authors of color and other multiply marginalized people, the pressure is even more intense. There’s no sign of this slowing down, either: a national “Don’t Say Trans” bill just passed the House. The fight for queer books badly needs reinforcements. … School Library Journal published an article called “Are LGBTQIA+ Voices Being Pushed Out of Kid Lit?” that includes interviews with authors and agents describing how publishers have stopped acquiring “diverse” books or dramatically reduced their numbers. For queer books that have already been published, sales have cratered. Small publishers focusing on diverse books have seen their sales …

Reverend Richard Coles admits to breaking the law by burying people with pets’ ashes

Reverend Richard Coles admits to breaking the law by burying people with pets’ ashes

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Reverend Richard Coles has revealed that he broke the law by burying people with their pet’s ashes during his time at a Northamptonshire church. The former Bronski Beat star-turned-priest, 64, admitted to doing so to honour the last wishes of his parishioners, slipping pets’ ashes into their coffins when the undertaker wasn’t looking. Coles was a vicar at Northamptonshire’s St Mary the Virgin church between 2011 until 2022 before retiring. Speaking to Dawn French at the Hay Festival on Saturday (23 May), he said: “It is illegal to bury a dog’s ashes with a body. The reason is that there are different jurisdictions over the disposal of remains. Human remains are one thing, and all other remains are another thing. Reverend Richard Coles at Hay Festival (Hay Festival) “So I would quite often go to the undertaker – I can’t tell …

Breaking Down the Steam Machine Price Drama and Predictions

Breaking Down the Steam Machine Price Drama and Predictions

Published by skeptic

Valve’s Steam Machine has sparked significant debate within the gaming community, particularly around its pricing strategy. With estimates ranging from $500 to $1,000, the discussion highlights the tension between delivering affordable hardware and maintaining high-quality components. Deck Ready explores how Valve’s pricing decisions are influenced by factors like fluctuating component costs and market positioning. For instance, while the Steam Machine subreddit predicts higher price points based on hardware trends, industry analyst “Moore’s Law is Dead” suggests a more moderate range of $500 to $700, reflecting a potential focus on competitive pricing. In this guide, you’ll gain insight into the key pricing tiers Valve may adopt, including configurations like a $700 2TB model and potential bundles reaching $1,000. Explore how Valve’s approach balances cost-effectiveness with ecosystem integration, appealing to both new PC gamers and those seeking a secondary device. By examining market challenges, community speculation and industry analysis, this breakdown offers a comprehensive look at the factors shaping the Steam Machine’s pricing and its place in the gaming landscape. Community Speculation on Pricing TL;DR Key Takeaways …

AI is breaking our political reality

AI is breaking our political reality

Published by Sam Flores

The Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump. He is the Big Boss. Cross him, and you will be punished. Just ask Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who earned the president’s wrath by supporting the release of the Epstein files, opposing tax cuts for the rich in the “Big Beautiful Bill” and criticizing the president’s failed war of choice against Iran. In retaliation, Trump endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in the party’s May 19 primary. Soon after, a pro-Trump super PAC called “MAGA Kentucky” targeted Massie with an artificial intelligence-generated video suggesting the Kentucky Republican was involved in a romantic “throuple” with Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, both members of the progressive group informally known as “the Squad.” “Thomas Massie, caught in a throuple in Washington,” the ad’s narrator says. “He’s cheating with the Squad on the America First movement. This is worse than adultery — it’s a complete and total betrayal of President Trump and Kentucky conservatives.” Massie condemned the ad in a social media post: “It reeks …