All posts tagged: giant

Trump threatens EU tariffs over U.S. tech giant fines

Trump threatens EU tariffs over U.S. tech giant fines

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration will launch a trade probe into the European Union that will cancel hefty fines levied against U.S. tech giants and likely result in a “substantial” tariff on the 27-member bloc. Trump, in a lengthy Truth Social post, accused the EU of “‘ROBBING’ American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer” as he raged over its recent $1 billion fine on Google for allegedly giving search priority to its own services. “The European Union is at it again and, as usual, taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies!” Trump wrote in the post, which also railed against prior European fines against Apple, Meta and Amazon. Trump claimed the latest penalty against Google was issued “without explanation.” But the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, said in a press release Wednesday that the fines totaling 890 million euros were due to Google’s alleged noncompliance with the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, which aims to scrutinize Big Tech’s practices. Trump claimed the EU’s behavior is “not going to continue during the Trump …

NASA’s Webb telescope detects a third giant planet orbiting Beta Pictoris

NASA’s Webb telescope detects a third giant planet orbiting Beta Pictoris

Published by Jenni Sidey

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope discovered Beta Pictoris d, a third giant planet orbiting the young star Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years from Earth. The system is now only the second known to contain at least three directly imaged planets. Astronomers identified the planet through its atmospheric “barcode,” including absorption patterns from carbon monoxide, methane and water vapor, rather than relying solely on a visible point of light hidden within the star’s bright debris disk. Beta Pictoris d is estimated to have two to four times Jupiter’s mass and may orbit more than 30 astronomical units from its star, placing it beyond Beta Pictoris b but inside the debris disk’s inner edge. The planet’s gravity may help explain gaps, clumps and other unusual structures in the disk. Its discovery also shows that spectroscopy can reveal planets concealed by dust and scattered starlight while simultaneously measuring their chemistry, temperature and motion. Beta Pictoris d spent years concealed inside one of the brightest debris disks astronomers know. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found it not as a clean …

Russia’s Amazon-style giant is in Ukraine’s crosshairs

Russia’s Amazon-style giant is in Ukraine’s crosshairs

Published by Sam Flores

Firefighters drive past the smoke of a fire at the Russian e-commerce firm Wildberries’ logistics complexes in the town of Elektrostal outside Moscow on July 18, 2026. A Ukrainian drone attack on two logistics centres in Russia killed eight people and injured 24, officials said on July 18, 2026. Tatyana Makeyeva | Afp | Getty Images Ukraine has ratcheted up its attacks on Russia’s Amazon-style retail giant Wildberries, signaling a new phase in the war as Kyiv seeks to inflict fresh pain on the Russian economy. Ukrainian Defense Forces have struck major logistics centers on Russian territory over the past week, including five facilities belonging to Wildberries in the period from Saturday through to Wednesday. The attacks, which follow months of drone strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries, appear designed to severely disrupt Moscow’s supply chains and increase the financial burden facing the country’s businesses and state budget. Wildberries is Russia’s biggest online retailer and its equivalent of U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon. Founded in 2004, the company currently employs some 48,000 people. “Ukraine has …

Matt Damon reveals female stunt double with ‘greatest arms’ stood in for him during The Odyssey giant battle

Matt Damon reveals female stunt double with ‘greatest arms’ stood in for him during The Odyssey giant battle

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 Matt Damon revealed that some of the most talked-about shots of his muscular transformation in The Odyssey were made possible by a female stunt performer with “the greatest arms I’ve ever seen”. Damon, 55, plays Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, an adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic, which follows the hero’s long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he battles monsters, gods and mythical foes while his wife Penelope fends off suitors and his son Telemachus searches for him. The ensemble cast also includes Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, Samantha Morton as Circe, Charlize Theron as Calypso, and Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Bill Irwin, and Mia Goth feature as well. Damon said his stunt …

50 years later, Viking 1’s legacy is powering NASA’s next giant leap on Mars

50 years later, Viking 1’s legacy is powering NASA’s next giant leap on Mars

Published by Jenni Sidey

Half a century after NASA first placed working hardware on Mars, the agency is preparing to explore not only the planet’s surface, but its skies. The story began on July 20, 1976, when Viking 1 touched down in the western reaches of Chryse Planitia, a broad plain north of the Martian equator. It was NASA’s first successful landing on Mars. Viking 2 followed on Sept. 3, 1976, landing in another region of the Red Planet. A Soviet probe, Mars 3, had reached the ground in 1971, but stopped transmitting less than two minutes later. The Viking spacecraft arrived as paired landers and orbiters. They returned more than 52,000 images. The landers added over 4,500 more, giving humanity its first sustained view from the ground. Viking 1. (CREDIT: NASA) Mars comes into focus Mars still appeared through Earthbound telescopes as a mottled orange sphere with few recognizable features. NASA flybys in the 1960s captured grainy images of small portions of the planet. Then Mariner 9 entered orbit in 1971 and photographed about 85 percent of the …

A Ruhr treat: can a giant pigeon and a pink basketball revive Germany’s depressed industrial heartland? | Architecture

A Ruhr treat: can a giant pigeon and a pink basketball revive Germany’s depressed industrial heartland? | Architecture

Published by Sam Flores

After Germany’s Ruhr conurbation – the third-largest urban area in western Europe – was pummelled during the second world war, planners came up with an ingenious idea. About 80% of the sprawl – which incorporates big cities such as Essen and Duisburg, and dozens of smaller towns like Bochum and Gelsenkirchen – had been destroyed. And so, for the reconstruction, a newly formed Diocese of the Ruhr built literally hundreds of closely packed Pantoffelkirchen or “slipper churches”, so named because they were close enough to housing developments for churchgoers to walk to mass in their slippers. Today, Pantoffelkirchen are declining sharply. Estimates of the amount of disused or derelict churches are as high as 300, and 100 have been sold off in the last year alone. Until October, 12 of them are home to Manifesta, the travelling art biennale. They stand as centrepieces of communities that have been ravaged this time not by war, but by deindustrialisation, mass unemployment and environmental decline. Manifesta 16 Ruhr is not the Venice Biennale. Think more a Capital of …

FCC approves giant space mirror as astronomers warn of risks to the night sky

FCC approves giant space mirror as astronomers warn of risks to the night sky

Published by Jenni Sidey

Night may soon become something that companies can switch off, briefly and selectively, from hundreds of miles above Earth. The Federal Communications Commission approved Reflect Orbital’s plan to launch Eärendil-1, an experimental satellite carrying an 18-meter-wide reflective surface. The mirror would redirect sunlight toward a targeted area after dark, producing a beam roughly five kilometers wide. The July 9 authorization applies to one demonstration satellite, not the enormous constellation the California company eventually hopes to build. Reflect Orbital has described plans for more than 50,000 mirrors by 2035, creating what it calls “sunlight on demand.” Supporters see possible uses in solar energy, agriculture, construction and emergency response. Critics see a system designed to brighten the night sky while regulators debate whether anyone has authority to consider its broader effects. Reflect Orbital has described plans for more than 50,000 mirrors by 2035. (CREDIT: Reflect Orbital) The decision has therefore opened a much larger argument. It is not simply about whether a mirror can work in orbit. It is about who decides how darkness, the atmosphere and …

A giant cake for Venezuelan quake child survivors as death toll passes 5000 | Earthquakes

A giant cake for Venezuelan quake child survivors as death toll passes 5000 | Earthquakes

Published by Sam Flores

NewsFeed Volunteers made a giant cake to cheer up around 3,000 Venezuelan children displaced by last month’s powerful twin earthquakes. The disaster has claimed at least 5,069 lives and left an estimated 1.8 million, including 680,000 children, in need of humanitarian aid. Published On 19 Jul 202619 Jul 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Source link

‘Gentle giant’ – uncle of Ann Widdecombe suspect breaks silence on nephew’s personality | UK | News

‘Gentle giant’ – uncle of Ann Widdecombe suspect breaks silence on nephew’s personality | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

The uncle of the man arrested over the alleged murder of Ann Widdecombe has described his nephew as a “very shy” and “gentle giant”, saying he was left “absolutely flabbergasted” by the news of his arrest. The 73-year-old relative, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he had always known the 28-year-old as a quiet and polite man and struggled to believe he had been linked to the death of the former Conservative MP. Ann, 78, is believed to have been killed at her home in Devon last week. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of murder before later being re-arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and commission of a terrorist act. Officers are continuing to pursue what they have described as multiple lines of inquiry. The Metropolitan Police’s Assistant Commissioner for Counter Terrorism, Laurence Taylor, said investigators had found evidence of “planning” but were still working to establish a motive. The suspect’s uncle spoke of his shock after learning his nephew had been arrested and also paid tribute to Ann, saying he …

Giant skeletons are staying up long past Halloween in Los Angeles

Giant skeletons are staying up long past Halloween in Los Angeles

Published by Sam Flores

The undead are invading L.A. They wear Santa hats and sunglasses, American flags and pool floaties. Some stand erect, towering over houses and neighborhoods. Others rot in the California sun, disintegrating into bony fragments. A pelvis atop two legs in a driveway. A skull peering over a rooftop. They are, of course, giant 12-foot skeletons. And if they’re not in your neighborhood already, they probably will be soon. Released by Home Depot in 2020, the Halloween prop known as “Skelly” has transmogrified from a meme into a movement. At first mostly limited to the month of October and maybe a week or two in November, many skeletons now stay up year-round as their proud owners deck them out with whatever theme fits the latest holiday: Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, etc. Giant skeletons sit in the yard of a home on N. Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. (Arwen Clemans / Los Angeles Times) Some are political: a Putin skeleton puppeteering an undead Trump, or a skeleton with a sign that says “Not vaccinated, see …