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A Big Win For A Lonely Woman
Human Interest Opinion / Perspective For forty years, a stoneware crock sat on a porch in New York, a silent sentry against the biting winters and the humid, heavy summers of the Northeast. It was, for all intents and purposes, a piece of lawn debris. It held no flowers; it served no function. To the woman who lived behind the screen door, it was simply "there"—a familiar shape in a life that had slowly become a series of familiar, quiet shapes. When her birthday approached, she looked at the heavy salt-glazed vessel and allowed herself a modest, almost apologetic hope: perhaps it was worth a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars for a birthday treat, or perhaps a utility bill, or just the smal… |
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France ready to summon US ambassador over far right comments
According to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, US Ambassador Charles Kushner will be summoned in response to the US embassy's recent statements regarding the murder of a far-right French activist in Lyon, a city located in the southeastern region of France, earlier this month. On Sunday, Barrot informed the French newspaper Le Monde and public broadcasters France Inter and France Info that he intended to summon the United States ambassador to France due to the US embassy's commentary on the tragedy, which affects the national community. He further stated, "We are opposed to any attempt to exploit this tragedy for political gain." The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs did not sp… |
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The exodus of California tech billionaires from the Golden State to Florida Gold Coast
This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. MIAMI and PALM BEACH, Fla. — Last December, a large coterie of Silicon Valley billionaires descended upon Miami to attend Art Basel, the ritzy, contemporary art fair that marks the end of the moneyed set’s yearly social calendar. Much of the buzz surrounded the spectacle of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, among the world’s richest men, docking his 466-foot, $450-million yacht, the Dragonfly, in Biscayne Bay while he stepped ashore to view the art installations. But the chatter pivoted quickly among a contingent of a dozen California billionaires. Weeks earlier a new ballot measure — backed by the SEIU-United… |
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UFC fighting cage rises on White House lawn for US and Trump celebrations
Yet another White House construction project is under way in the United States, though this one is meant to be only temporary. Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn that will host next month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout, marking the nation’s 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like before the June 14 event. It will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars-and-stripes patterns and two large screens showing the action live. The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporar… |
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Jordan Jones shot dead
Local police reported that a security officer at a Georgia club was shot and murdered while trying to break up a quarrel between a guy and a woman. The Acworth Police Department reported in a news statement that Jordan Alexander Jones, 28, of Lawrenceville, Ga., was shot and killed approximately 2:42 a.m. local time while trying to break up the altercation. According to the news release, when APD officers got to the site, they "found a victim with a gunshot wound." "As soon as they got there, officers started helping until Cobb County Fire and Metro EMS arrived. The APD said, "The victim was taken to Kennestone Hospital, where he later died from his injuries." The police agency stated it got… |
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Humans are on the way out and there may be no way to stop
Extinction Isn’t a Metaphor I walk through this world like a man pacing a burning house. The walls are cracking, the air is poison, and everyone else is sipping cocktails as if the smoke is just weather. Extinction isn’t a metaphor—it’s the goddamn bill collector at the door, pounding, and we keep turning up the music to drown him out. I see forests gutted like carcasses, oceans foaming like rabid dogs, skies thick with the exhaust of our arrogance. We’re clever enough to split atoms, to stitch genes, to whisper to satellites—but too stupid to stop sawing through the floor we stand on. I want to grab humanity by the collar, slam it against the wall, and snarl: Are you aware of the implicatio… |
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Man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie convicted of terrorism charges
After being found guilty of federal "terrorism" charges, a man who is already serving a jail sentence in New York for attempting to assassinate novelist Salman Rushdie is now facing the risk of spending the rest of his life behind bars. A knife attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, which took place during a public engagement in New York, led in Rushdie being half blind. Hadi Matar, who is now 28 years old, is currently serving a sentence of 25 years for his crime. In May of the previous year, Matar was given a sentence of twenty-five years in prison. A New York jury found Matar guilty on all charges, including an effort to offer material support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, after deliberating for tw… |
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Steve McQueen Almost Died the Night of the Manson Murders
Steve McQueen moved fast, decided fast, lived like the next moment might be the one he'd lose. And he nearly died. August, 1969. Los Angeles was heavy with heat and something less visible, something people would only recognize later as tension. Hollywood still floated on its own myth—parties, open doors, the sense that everyone important was only one introduction away. McQueen was in that orbit, not circling it. Inside it. Known, wanted, expected. That night, there was a house on Cielo Drive where people were gathered with friends, acquaintances, drifting connections—the kind that defined that era of Hollywood, loose and overlapping. McQueen had reason to be there. Not as an outsider, not as… |
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New Epstein file photos appear to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on floor with woman
Photos included in newly released files on pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein appear to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor crouched over a woman on the floor. In the undated images, the royal appears to kneel on the ground as he leans over an unidentified woman, while another angle shows the woman’s abdomen being touched. The images, among more than three million documents published by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, have no captions and it is not known where they were taken. But they will likely put further pressure on Andrew, who has faced ongoing questions over his friendship with the late financier. The royal has always denied any wrongdoing. Other files revealed Andrew—str… |
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Three Family Lives Brutally Taken in a Single Night
The small Alabama town of Wilmer has been plunged into grief after the discovery of three lives brutally taken in a single night. Inside a modest home, investigators found a mother, her young son, and a pregnant teenager—all bound with zip ties, all slain in acts of chilling precision. The silence of that house now echoes with the weight of tragedy, a place once filled with love now marked forever by violence. It was a phone app alert that led loved ones to the scene, a digital whisper that revealed horror beyond imagination. Lisa Ferguson, 46, her 17-year-old daughter Keziah Luker, who was eight months pregnant, and 12-year-old Thomas Cordelle were each confined to separate rooms, their fin… |
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US Olympic medalist Jenny Simpson rushed to hospital after collapsing during North Carolina race
Jenny Simpson collapsed at an event in North Carolina on Tuesday night Removed from bookmarks I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Olympic bronze medalist and world champion runner Jenny Simpson suffered a medical episode and collapsed while pacing a mile group at a community event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night. The 39-year-old 1,500-meter specialist received CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED) was used at the track before she was transported to a hospital. The incident was first reported by LetsRun. Simpson was participating in a Sir Walter Running event, which encourages runners of all levels … |
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The assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will likely backfire
A favourite tactic of war is to try to decapitate the enemy leadership. While such strategies might work in certain contexts, in the Middle East, they have proven to be a disastrous choice. For sure, the assassination of an enemy leader might give a quick boost of popularity amid war. Certainly, United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are basking in the limelight of their perceived “success” in assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But killing an 86-year-old man who had already been planning his succession due to his ill health is not that much of a feat considering the overwhelming firepower that the US and Israel together possess. Mor… |
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AI companies accused of copyrighted infringement
Opinion | Editorial The open letter signed by Scarlett Johansson and hundreds of other creatives didn’t land because it was polite. It landed because it said the quiet part out loud: training commercial AI systems on copyrighted work without permission is theft dressed up as inevitability. The industry has spent years insisting this was a philosophical debate about progress. It isn’t. It’s a business choice—and a corrosive one. The letter, organized through the Human Artistry Campaign, rejects the soothing language that has insulated AI companies from accountability. “Learning,” “absorption,” “transformation.” These words are doing legal work, not descriptive work. They exist to blur a simpl… |
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Melania Trump set to make history at UN Security Council meeting
With the United States assuming the rotating presidency of the 15-member council for March, Trump’s office confirmed the meeting would "emphasise education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace." Children in conflict have been a signature issue for Trump, who previously wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of a summit with Donald Trump, an effort that reportedly led to children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war reuniting with their families. This engagement comes amidst ongoing criticism of the United Nations by Trump, who has repeatedly stated the 193-member body has not lived up to its potential. His administration has withdrawn the U.S. from UN organizations, includin… |
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Will America Go To War With NATO Over Greenland
Feature Editorial The United States is now openly challenging NATO, which theoretically could lead to WW3. What began as a crude discussion about purchasing has evolved into strategic pressure, which often transcends boundaries when power disregards its obligations. This conflict is no longer solely about Arctic bases or melting ice lanes; it raises the critical question of whether the United States is willing to fracture the very system it established, whether an alliance built to stop war can hold when the danger comes from the United States itself. The Arctic used to feel distant, a white silence at the edge of maps where ambition froze before it could speak. That illusion is gone. Greenl… |
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The Evil Queen of Homeland Security
Kristi Noem’s defense of the ICE agent who killed Renee Nicole Good has ignited one of the most explosive political firestorms of her career. Her remarks—branding Good a “domestic terrorist” and standing behind a podium emblazoned with a Nazi-era slogan—have drawn condemnation from lawmakers, activists, and ordinary citizens who see her as emblematic of authoritarian excess. The controversy is not a passing headline; it is a defining moment that reveals the deeper instincts of a politician who has built her career on toughness, loyalty, and spectacle, but who now finds herself accused of weaponizing cruelty into policy. The reaction to her stance has been visceral because it touches a raw ne… |
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Will Marco Rubio Last As Secretary Of State
Editorial A cabinet room is not built for silence. Cameras hum, chairs shift, the choreography of agreement unfolds before anyone speaks. Praise is currency there, but it is never free. When Donald Trump turned toward Marco Rubio after the Munich speech, smiling, approving, and joking that he was doing so well he might be fired, the line landed the way these lines always do—laughter first, interpretation later. The remark lived in that peculiar space Trump has mastered, where humor is both shield and message, where admiration carries a reminder about gravity: the center must remain the center. Rubio smiled. Politicians learn that smile early, the one that acknowledges the joke while absorbin… |
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Amber Glenn Shocked Over What Madonna Said About Her
The collision of elite sport and pop iconography rarely transcends the level of a well-managed PR stunt, yet the moment Amber Glenn stared into a screen to find Madonna staring back was different. It was a rupture in the sterile, high-pressure atmosphere of the Olympic village. Glenn, a 26-year-old from Plano, Texas, was already carrying the weight of a nation’s expectations and the personal history of a career defined by "almosts" and "not quites." When the Queen of Pop—the woman whose 1989 anthem "Like a Prayer" Glenn had chosen as her battle cry—spoke directly to her, the athlete’s physical composure dissolved. "I’m legitimately shaking," Glenn admitted. In that trembling, we saw the inte… |
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Nvidia CEO Huang denies he is unhappy with OpenAI says 'huge' investment planned
Business TAIPEI, Jan 31 : Nvidia plans to make a "huge" investment into OpenAI, probably its largest ever, CEO Jensen Huang said on Saturday, denying he was unhappy with the ChatGPT maker. The chipmaker in September announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, a deal that would give OpenAI the cash and access it needs to buy advanced chips that are key to maintaining its dominance in an increasingly competitive landscape. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the plan had stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal. The report said Huang had privately underlined to industry associates in recent months that the original $100 billion agreement … |
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Pope Leo not afraid of Trump and we should not be either
This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. “I’m not afraid.” With these three words Sunday morning, Pope Leo XIV offered as powerful a rebuke of President Trump and everything he has wrought on the world as anyone ever has. Three words to inspire all good people to fight against Trump — because if a mild-mannered man of God such as Leo isn’t afraid, no one should be. Pope Leo’s words thrilled me as an American—becauseially as a Catholic. His quiet, confident witness since becoming pontiff in May had already reignited a spiritual light in me to adhere closer to the faith I was brought up in. Rather than cower before a despot who makes the Pharaoh in … |