1 week ago Now British drone troops destined to aid Ukraine's war effort face new enemy: Health and safety!

Troops have been told to stop flying drones that weigh more than 250g (9oz) - the weight of a cucumber - over their comrades while training on Salisbury Plain.

Events

2 w. ago Maga’s sinister obsession with IQ is leading us towards an inhuman future | Quinn Slobodian

A coalition fixated on intelligence is staking the US economy on AI – which will devalue the very skills the right fetishisesOne thing that Donald Trump and his Silicon Valley partners share is an obsession with IQ. Being a “low-IQ individual” is a standard insult in the president’s repertoire, and being “high-IQ” is an equally standard form of praise for those on the tech right. Yet in the drive for US supremacy in artificial intelligence – signalled by the $500bn (£375bn) Stargate project announcement in the White House and an executive order to integrate AI into public education, beginning in kindergarten – there is a hidden irony. If their vision for our economic future is realised, IQ in the sense that they value will lose its meaning.IQ testing arose at a time when the US and other industrialised nations were worried about the health of their populations. Recruitment campaigns for the Boer war in the UK, and then the first world war elsewhere, showed male populations that were...

Events

2 w. ago US fast food under threat as Trump's health secretary RFK Jr launches war on sugar

US President Donald Trump's health secretary RFK Jr has launched a war on sugar, saying Americans are killing themselves with their diets and wants radical action taken

Society

3 w. ago ‘I hope I’ll one day be at peace’: civilians seek mental health help in war

People traumatised by conflict have queued outside the Saint Vincent de Paul neuropsychiatric hospital in Goma each day since free scheme launchedOn a sunny morning in the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where fighting between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese army raged earlier this year, men and women rushed towards a line of chairs outside a medical facility.Since 24 March, the Saint Vincent de Paul neuropsychiatric hospital, a medical facility for people with mental health issues, has been offering free consultations on a first-come first-served basis for people affected by the fighting. Dozens have lined up to be seen each day. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago RFK's claims about people with autism offer a sinister insight into how Trumpism sees us all | John Harris

The war on science being waged by the US health secretary and the White House is bound to spread. We must be on our guardIn the recent past, Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that Donald Trump is “a terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath”. But in the US’s new age of irrationalism and chaos, these two men are now of one voice, pursuing a strand of Trumpist politics that sometimes feels strangely overlooked. With Trump once again in the White House and Kennedy ensconced as his health and human services secretary, what they are jointly leading is becoming clearer by the day: a war on science and knowledge that aims to replace them with the modern superstitions of conspiracy theory.Nearly 2,000 members of the US’s National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have warned of “slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration”. Even work on cancer is now under threa...

Politics

3 w. ago Zelenskyy says Russia has intensified shelling despite ‘Easter truce’ as Moscow also accuses Ukraine of breaching ceasefire – live

‘Easter truce’ ordered by Putin on Saturday but Ukraine president says Russian army continuing efforts to advanceEaster falls on the same day this year for orthodox and western churches, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Ukrainians not to give up hope that peace will one day return.Here are some of the latest images coming out of the newswires from Ukraine where festivities continue despite Russian attacks:We are documenting every Russian violation of its self-declared commitment to a full ceasefire for the Easter period and are prepared to provide the necessary information to our partners. In practice, either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favorable PR coverage. It’s a good thing, at least, that there were no air raid sirens. Continue reading...

Events