Anyone on social media will find infinite references to horoscopes, mediums, tarot and other practices. This seems to contrast with the era in which we live which is hyperconnected and technologically advanced.
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Giorgos Vardinoyannis, one of the best-known figures in Greek business and sports, who also had a significant presence in the commercial shipping industry, died on Friday at the age of 90. Widely known by the nickname “The Captain”, Vardinoyannis was associated not only with the Athens soccer team Panathinaikos FC but also with the Vardinoyannis […]
The post Giorgos Vardinoyannis, shipping magnate and former Panathinaikos FC owner, dies at 90 appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
Highlighting stories by Melanie Challenger, Eve Livingston, M.R. O’Connor, Gordon Peake, and Blair Braverman.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recorded its highest number of deportations in a single day since President Donald Trump returned to office, border official Tom Homan said, as the administration pushes to expand removals.
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Homan announced the record in a social media post, saying ICE had also carried out more removals last month than in any other month. Figures for fiscal year 2026 are still being finalized, he added.
He also said monthly ICE arrest totals and voluntary departures recorded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had been higher since June than in any previous months.
This morning I was on the ground with the ICE Air Operations team in Alexandria, LA to observe and assess removal operations. First up, a plane load of Haitians being sent back home—including those with criminal records for aggravated assault, sex assault, kidnapping, battery,… pic.twitter.com/Ajb9mgd2EA
— Thomas D. Homan (@RealTomHoman) October 15, 2026
The announcement followed Homan’s visit to ICE Air Operations in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he said he had observed and assessed deportation operations. He described a flight carrying Haitian nationals back to Haiti, including people he said had criminal records for aggravated assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, battery and other offenses.
The administration has urged people whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has expired, as well as those without legal immigration status, to use its voluntary departure program to return to their countries of origin.
“This Administration has made it clear that temporary means TEMPORARY,” Homan wrote, warning that those who remain in the country without legal status would face arrest and deportation.
If you are here illegally, we will find you, arrest you, and DEPORT you.
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) September 1, 2026
Yesterday, the men and women of ICE REMOVED these criminals from our communities:
Homan said the administration was expanding its enforcement capacity to increase removals beyond current record levels and fulfill Trump’s pledge to carry out mass deportations. He described the effort as part of a broader campaign to restore law and order, protect communities and promote economic prosperity.
ICE’s enforcement practices have drawn both support and opposition among members of the public and political figures.
The federal government tried to turn our public servants into deportation agents and force New York City to carry out ICE’s cruel agenda.
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) October 16, 2026
Today, a federal court rejected that effort and upheld our laws.
Every New Yorker deserves to seek help from their city without fear of…
The final fiscal-year figures remain pending, while the administration continues to pursue expanded deportation operations.
Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told employees an in-house model was better than a similar offering from OpenAI, one of the software giant's biggest customers and partners.
"We now have a stronger pre-trained base model than the model that currently powers GPT 5.6 Sol," Suleyman said during a town hall meeting with employees on Thursday. "And in fact, we used one-quarter of the compute that OpenAI used to train their model."
Pre-training is the first stage of building an AI model, when it learns patterns from huge amounts of text, images, and other information. This takes massive amounts of expensive computing power, so Microsoft could save money if it's worked out a way to do this more efficiently.
Microsoft announced the model, MAI-Base-2, earlier on Thursday.
Suleyman said Microsoft privately tested this model against OpenAI models, including one nicknamed "Spud" that powers GPT-5.6. He added that Microsoft's model performed better on tests measuring how well AI can understand and predict patterns in information.
The comparisons are based on technical information Microsoft has about OpenAI's models, Suleyman said.
"Privately and confidentially, we've also compared it to the OpenAI models," Suleyman told employees, while suggesting that Microsoft has special access to information on how OpenAI models perform.
It's notable that Suleyman would choose to highlight limitations of OpenAI models, even in private discussions. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, and owns a stake in the startup that is likely worth more than $100 billion. Any criticism of OpenAI could potentially dent the value of this huge investment.
The two companies also have a major partnership, with Microsoft offering OpenAI models to its Azure cloud customers. Microsoft has used OpenAI models for its own products such as Copilot, too.
But the relationship between the two companies has frayed in the past year or so. Increasingly, Microsoft has tried to branch out from OpenAI, including by working on its own models.
Suleyman also said Microsoft's new AI model used "12 times less computation than was used for DeepSeek, for example, on compute efficiency."
Suleyman didn't specify which DeepSeek model, but a public blog post described the pre-training of MAI-Base-2 being a lot more efficient than a similar offering from the Chinese lab, called DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Base.
Microsoft in March created a new combined team for its commercial and consumer Copilot products and reassigned Suleyman to focus on building AI models in the company's superintelligence unit.
Microsoft declined to comment and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
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O brasileiro Rafael Câmara foi anunciado nesta quinta-feira (15) como piloto titular da Haas para a temporada 2027 da Fórmula 1. O pernambucano de 21 anos ocupará a vaga do francês Esteban Ocon e dividirá a equipe com o britânico Oliver Bearman.
Natural do Recife, Câmara será o primeiro piloto nascido no Nordeste a disputar a principal categoria do automobilismo mundial. A contratação coroa uma trajetória de destaque nas categorias de formação, com títulos na Fórmula Regional Europeia, em 2024, e na Fórmula 3, em 2025.
O brasileiro também faz parte da Academia de Pilotos da Ferrari desde 2021. Nesta temporada, ele disputa a Fórmula 2 pela Invicta Racing e lidera o campeonato.
Após o anúncio, Câmara afirmou que pretende manter o ritmo de trabalho e se preparar para o desafio na categoria. O piloto também destacou o desejo de representar o país e conquistar bons resultados em sua estreia.
“Vou continuar trabalhando, como sempre vim trabalhando, evoluindo. Se Deus quiser, vou fazer um bom ano no ano que vem e trazer bastante orgulho para o Brasil e todo mundo que estiver acompanhando”, declarou.
Sobre a adaptação à nova equipe, o brasileiro disse que pretende se preparar da melhor maneira possível, aprender sobre o carro e trabalhar em conjunto com os integrantes da Haas.
A chegada de Câmara fará com que o Brasil volte a ter dois pilotos titulares na Fórmula 1. Ele se juntará a Gabriel Bortoleto, da Audi, e encerrará um intervalo de 11 anos desde a última temporada em que o país contou com dois representantes na categoria.
Em 2016, Felipe Massa corria pela Williams, enquanto Felipe Nasr defendia a Sauber. Desde então, o Brasil passou por períodos sem pilotos titulares, embora Pietro Fittipaldi tenha disputado duas provas pela Haas em 2020.
Câmara será o 34º brasileiro a competir na Fórmula 1. O pioneiro foi Chico Landi, que estreou em 1951.
O país não conquista o título mundial de pilotos desde 1991, quando Ayrton Senna venceu pela terceira vez, pela McLaren. A nova geração brasileira busca recolocar o país entre os protagonistas da categoria.
The post Rafael Câmara é anunciado pela Haas e Brasil terá dois pilotos na F1 em 2027 appeared first on Diário da Manhã - O Jornal do leitor Inteligente.
Ukraine has completed its Operation Vivaldi, aimed at protecting its fortress belt cities of Donetsk Oblast, which helped Kyiv preserve the region from Russian occupation for 12 years. Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of the Third Army Corps behind the operation, has reported that the fourth phase secured 101 km² of territory. Among the latest achievements is the liberation of three settlements—Zelena Dolyna, Lypove, and Kolodiazi.
The operation's main objective was to move Ukrainian troops into more advantageous defensive positions, Biletskyi said in the first days after the operation was made public. Vivaldi has now summed up the results of all four phases: Ukraine has established full control over 16 settlements, liberated 277 km² of territory, and inflicted 8,000 casualties on Russian forces.
During Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces have prevented Russian troops from outflanking the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration and cutting the Kharkiv–Sloviansk highway, a key supply route for Ukraine’s forces in Donbas, Biletskyi says.
“We thwarted the offensive of the Zapad grouping and forced it to redeploy some units of the 1st Tank Army, which eased pressure on Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi,” Biletskyi announces.
Previously, the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin was confident that Russian forces would be able to seize the entire Donetsk Oblast by the end of 2026 — the Kremlin’s latest deadline for achieving this goal.
Ukraine’s military was on a mission to prevent this.
On 15 September 2026, Ukraine’s Third Army Corps announced Operation Vivaldi in northern Donetsk Oblast. During the first phase, Ukrainian troops cleared Russian groups from 75 km² of territory and liberated another 10 km².
The Third Army Corps said it had struck Russian supply routes and fuel infrastructure, prompting Russia to relocate its fuel and lubricant reserves to Voronezh Oblast. According to the corps, Russian forces lost around 1,500 troops, more than 12,000 drones, and hundreds of pieces of equipment.
On 20 September, the Third Army Corps reported the liberation of Shandryholove and Derylove and the establishment of full control over Drobysheve.
During the second season, Russian forces lost another 800 troops, bringing their total losses across the first two seasons to more than 3,000, according to the corps.
During the first two seasons of the operation, Ukrainian troops and attached units regained control of 125 km² of territory, including 50 km² that had been fully liberated.
The first phase of Vivaldi involved eliminating Russian groups that had infiltrated Ukrainian positions, explained the commander of a battalion in the 125th Brigade, callsign Darwin, per ArmyInform. After clearing those groups, the Defense Forces moved on to the operation’s second phase, using reconnaissance drones to detect Russian forces, he added.
For this, Ukraine used UAVs and ground robotic systems.
“The Third Army Corps was the first in the world to begin deploying ground robotic systems by air. Our heavy bombers deliver kamikaze ground robotic systems more than 10 kilometers behind enemy lines,” Biletskyi noted.
On 28 September, the Third Army Corps reported the liberation of Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and the restoration of control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka. Ukrainian forces regained another 51 km² of territory, bringing the total area liberated since the start of the offensive to 176 km². Russian forces lost around 2,000 troops, and more than 250 were taken prisoner, the corps said in its summary of the operation’s third phase.
“The Russians were convinced that the main axis of attack was Shandryholove–Zelena Dolyna. This led it to squander its reserves in counterattacks along that very axis. The Russians slept through the actual strike, which was focused on capturing Nove,” Biletskyi said.
The need for Operation Vivaldi arose amid Russian attempts to encircle Ukraine’s fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces conducted preparatory efforts aimed at degrading Russia’s offensive capabilities, including strikes on Russian drone operators, the Institute for the Study of War reported on 9 October.
Ukrainian counterattacks in the Lyman direction and east of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were intended to complicate Russian efforts to seize the fortified belt in Donetsk Oblast, the report noted.
The corps advanced gradually, reclaiming small areas instead of attempting a large-scale breakthrough.
Suella Braverman says her Asian ancestry means she is British but not English. Clive Pinder argues that Englishness can be ethnic, cultural or both. If we demand assimilation, we should recognise the belonging it creates.
The post You Can Become English appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
One person has died as stormy weather with high volumes of water is sweeping across Greece, affecting mostly Greek islands. Rhodes is one of the Greek islands severely hit by the bad weather front, while Evia and the Sporades islands (Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos) are also at the mercy of the intense weather phenomena. RHODES […]
The post One dead as stormy weather sweeps across Greek islands appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
A Russian attack on Sloviansk on 13 October wounded members of a Ukrainian Red Cross team, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society reported. The same day, a Russian bomb hit the city’s invincibility point, one of the state-run hubs where residents warm up and charge phones when power goes out.
Help is getting harder to reach in Sloviansk. Public transport stopped after a Russian strike on two buses in nearby Kramatorsk killed 30 people on 8 October. From 1 November, a curfew from 16:00 to 11:00 will cover nearly all of Donetsk Oblast’s free territory. The people providing help are hit too. Russian drones struck three ambulances in Kramatorsk on 5 October. In August, a Russian strike destroyed a World Health Organization humanitarian warehouse in Dnipro.
Three members of the society’s Lyman city branch were hurt. The branch had moved to Sloviansk because of the security situation and kept working there. All three were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and burns. The building where the team worked took heavy damage, and a fire caused by the attack damaged the organization’s property.
The society’s Donetsk Oblast branch later added that a fourth person suffered a concussion, and that all four were hospitalized. The Red Cross condemned attacks on civilian infrastructure and humanitarian workers.
The strike came at 12:45 in the Lisnyi microdistrict, Sloviansk city military administration head Vadym Liakh wrote. He later identified the weapon as a FAB-250, a 250-kg air-dropped bomb. Eight people were injured, and five apartment blocks were damaged, Liakh said. He described the warming center’s building as damaged, while Suspilne Donbas reported it destroyed.
Two Russian strikes on Sloviansk that day killed at least one person, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin wrote. Liakh said a Russian attack on the Semenivka neighborhood killed a 55-year-old woman. On 14 October, Filashkin reported that Russian attacks killed three people across Donetsk Oblast on 13 October, in Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, and Starovarvarivka.
Ukraine wants the EU to force Moscow into a ceasefire with frozen Russian assets, trade and transit embargoes, maritime bans, and entry bans, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X after the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 12 October 2026. He also welcomed new EU sanctions listings adopted that day and progress in Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
Kyiv has spent this month laying out truce formats it would accept while awaiting Russia’s position on talks, and the levers it is pressing the EU to use include frozen Russian assets that EU leaders failed to agree on tapping last December.
Sybiha called it “devastating pressure.” He also wants Russian combatants and their families barred from the EU, maximum visa restrictions, and Russia’s isolation in culture and sports.
I was pleased to attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council today.
— Andrii Sybiha
It is time for Europe to define its strong role. Our future and our security are in our hands.
Now is the time for real European pressure on Moscow. Not half-measures, but devastating pressure: frozen assets, trade… pic.twitter.com/AnI8h6HXbs
His post named three types of ceasefire—energy, food security, and a full ceasefire—without saying whether Kyiv would accept them separately. Earlier this month, he told journalists Ukraine was ready for an energy and Black Sea ceasefire “but only in such a combination.”
The minister welcomed the EU’s 12 October adoption of new sanctions listings against Russia—the largest single expansion of the bloc’s blacklist. EU ambassadors agreed on the 1,646 names on 7 October. They include 1,569 tied to Russia’s military industry and 77 to its so-called State Duma elections. The listings are separate from the EU’s 22nd sanctions package, which the EU has yet to adopt.
He also welcomed the EU’s “green light” for opening two more clusters in Ukraine’s EU accession talks: Internal Market, and Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth. The formal opening was scheduled for an intergovernmental conference on 13 October.
Sybiha said he briefed European colleagues on the front-line situation, Russia’s plans, and ways to deprive it of its advantages, and that he passed partners specific requests for aid. He reaffirmed Ukraine’s commitment to reforms.
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