Mubeen Blogs

A sense of deja vu surrounds a fourth European final between the Spanish champions and French giants in Norway You could be forgiven for having a sense of deja vu before a fourth Champions League final between the Spanish champions, Barcelona, and French title-winners, OL Lyonnes, on Saturday evening. The three-time champions and eight-time champions played each other in the final of Europe’s premier competition three times in six years between 2019 and 2024, with Lyonnes earning a 4-1 win over the Catalan giants in 2019 and a 3-1 win in 2022, before Barcelona delivered a 2-0 defeat of the French side in 2024. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/0ryaQsK

Former general Petr Pavel says Moscow’s testing of alliance’s eastern flank should be met with firm line The Czech president, Petr Pavel, has urged Nato to “show its teeth” in response to Russia’s repeated testing of the alliance’s resolve on its eastern flank, suggesting a range of options including switching off its internet, cutting its banks off Russian from global financial systems and shooting down jets that violate allied airspace. Speaking to the Guardian in Prague, Pavel called for “decisive enough, potentially even asymmetric” responses to counter Moscow’s provocative behaviour against the alliance or risk the Kremlin intensifying its actions. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/41yFEzx

Policy adviser Jen Reed says tech-facilitated abuse has become ‘increasingly prevalent’ and calls for its inclusion in Domestic Abuse Act The Domestic Abuse Act fails to fully recognise the danger of technology-facilitated abuse, such as location tracking or hidden stalkerware, a Lords select committee has heard. Tech abuse has become “increasingly prevalent” and “very commonplace now within a domestic abuse context”, said Jen Reed, the head of policy at University College London’s Gender and Tech Research Lab, during an evidence session. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/v06apEu

Climate change is pushing starving grey whales to San Francisco Bay, where ship strikes led to 40% of 21 deaths Ferries, cargo ships and tankers cut through choppy waters in the San Francisco Bay on Tuesday as a whale surfaced nearby, its spout barely visible against the white caps. Until now, whales could easily go unnoticed by mariners, but an AI-powered detection network launched this week is designed to track them day and night. The system, called WhaleSpotter, scans the bay around the clock for whale blows and heat signatures up to 2 nautical miles away, alerting mariners to slow down or reroute when whales are nearby. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/E1S9F35

The bank’s interim chief executive says ‘this issue should never have happened’, but warns it may take time to process claims National Savings and Investments bank will start to contact thousands of families affected by a missing savings scandal next week, as it confirmed how much they are owed. In March, the chief executive of the state-backed bank was forced out after it emerged there had been long-running problems with the tracing of accounts belonging to customers who had died . Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Ye50j7K

The pope’s encyclical will address ‘the protection of the human person in the age of AI’, the Vatican says In the first major text of his papacy, Pope Leo will address the rapid rise of artificial intelligence . The Chicago-born pontiff will present the document, known as an encyclical, at the Vatican next week during an event attended by Christopher Olah, the co-founder of Anthropic – a US-based AI firm that has clashed with Donald Trump’s administration. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/AlHW9nK

Southbank Centre, London Between a sci-fi concert for eggs and an interview with a bee, the scarecrow broadcasters in Philippe Quesne’s oddball performance piece make the case for art as salvation and for farms as the lifeblood of humanity Bump into one of these scarecrows at night and you’d be forgiven for running a mile. But stick around to listen to this hay-laden gang of crop-protector castaways, who no longer have crops to protect nor birds to scare thanks to the climate crisis, and you’ll see they have only good intentions. The sensorily ambitious Farm Fatale joins five scarecrows with faces of melted plastic and voices of children swallowed by machines in the artificial studio of their pirate radio station. It is set in the near future, when the air is hard to breathe and birdsong is recorded. The only people getting by are the industrial farmers capitalising on the ruin of others. When the scarecrows interview a bee, with a microphone charmingly taped to a pitchfork, the little...