The political pitch sounded familiar: The country is in crisis. The government must slash immigration, crack down on crime, ditch green energy targets and reopen factories to “make Britain great again.” The words of Nigel Farage to his Reform UK party’s two-day annual convention that ended Saturday echoed themes that propelled U.S. President Donald Trump back to the White House. Farage, the veteran hard-right politician, hopes a similar strategy can make him prime minister – a once-unthinkable idea that allies and opponents alike are taking seriously. Analysis by Sunder Katwala, director of the British future think tank in London.
This story originally appeared on France24
Pro-Brexit party 'Reform UK' on the rise after Keir Starmer's reshuffle
Vet warns against dangers of common autumn fruit to cats and dogs
Autumn is here — which means it’s officially conker season. Conkers are the glossy brown fruit of the horse chestnut tree which are encased in a spiky green casing.
Conkers fall to the ground in large volumes during autumn months, and while they are a food source for some species, like squirrels and deer, they are extremely poisonous to dogs, cats, and humans.
Conkers contain a poisonous substance called aesculin that can trigger severe health complications in dogs and cats, even when consumed in tiny quantities.
This hazard has prompted veterinary professionals to issue urgent alerts to pet owners as the autumn period brings these threats to gardens, walking routes, and popular woodland paths.
Pet marketing agency Bubblegum Search has now consulted with a seasoned vet who has cautioned that it’s absolutely crucial to ensure our beloved furry companions don’t ingest conkers this autumn.
Quick response saves lives
Dr Berkcan Yanar, a licensed veterinarian and reviewer at PawsRank, explains that conkers can provoke various symptoms in dogs that owners must monitor.
He cautions: “Conkers contain a toxic compound called aesculin that is toxic to dogs even in small amounts. If a dog swallows or chews conkers, the aesculin can irritate the gastrointestinal tract and, in some cases, the nervous system of the dog.”
Typical symptoms can appear within hours of ingestion and include drooling, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and loss of appetite. In more severe cases, dogs may exhibit signs of restlessness, shivering, or even seizures.
Hidden dangers beyond toxicity
Dr Yanar points out that the risks go beyond toxicity: “Something few owners know is that conkers also have the potential to cause choking or intestinal blockage even if the toxin does not result in major poisoning.
“Larger dogs will chew them, and smaller dogs swallow them whole, causing potentially life-threatening obstructions that in some cases must be surgically operated on,” he adds.
Autumn vigilance is crucial
The seasonal nature of the threat means dog walkers must be particularly vigilant during the fall.
Dr Yanar stresses: “I always advise owners to be extra vigilant in autumn months when conkers are abundant in parks, gardens, and woodlands.”
Search data collected by Bubblegum Search shows public awareness peaks each autumn, with searches by dog owners for “are conkers poisonous to dogs?” coinciding with the main conker-fall season across British parks and streets.
What should the emergency response be
Immediate action is crucial if you suspect your dog has eaten conkers, according to Dr Yanar.
The vet advises: “In case there is a chance that a dog has ingested a conker, it becomes paramount to seek veterinary assistance immediately. Early treatment, such as inducing vomiting, giving activated charcoal, or injecting IV fluids, can greatly tip the odds in your favour and prevent serious complications.”
Veterinarians have urged dog owners to take the following precautions:
- Inspect walking routes for conkers during autumn.
- Consider alternative walking locations away from horse chestnut trees.
- Train dogs with reliable recall and “leave it” commands.
The NHS cautions that horse chestnuts differ from sweet chestnuts and the two mustn’t be mistaken for one another. It also warns that horse chestnuts should never be consumed by humans or animals due to their poisonous nature.
Horse chestnut trees are widespread throughout UK parks, streets, and woodlands, making autumn an especially dangerous period for inquisitive pets.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
Is This Where Future Business Owners Will Start Their Education?
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In the early stages of running a business, your venture lives or dies based on your expertise. Before you have your own skilled team, everything is on you: management, marketing, data analysis, everything. It sounds intimidating, but there are actually ways to get a broad education in the skills you’re looking for.
EDU Unlimited is a learning platform with more than 1,000 courses across subjects, so you can refine all your essential skills in one place. Right now, lifetime access is also on sale for only $19.97.
What can EDU Unlimited teach you?
This platform gives you unlimited access to beginner and advanced courses in business, IT, graphic design, coding, finance, digital marketing, and more. Whether you’re building a website, developing a product, or managing your own bookkeeping, you’ll find courses designed to help you grow your skill set. New content is added regularly, so you can stay current with the tools and trends that matter most.
You also get course certifications, access to quarterly instructor webinars, and simple progress tracking to keep you on task. Lessons are self-paced and easy to follow, whether you’re squeezing in a few hours after work or dedicating full days to leveling up.
EDU Unlimited works on desktop and mobile, with no limit to how many devices you can use. After redeeming your code, you have lifetime access with no subscription fees or added charges. That makes this a one-time investment in a long-term learning resource.
If you’re building something from the ground up, having the right knowledge makes a difference. EDU Unlimited gives you the flexibility to learn what you need, when you need it.
Right now, it’s only $19.97 to get lifetime access to EDU Unlimited, but it won’t stay that way.
EDU Unlimited by StackSkills: Lifetime Access
StackSocial prices subject to change.
In the early stages of running a business, your venture lives or dies based on your expertise. Before you have your own skilled team, everything is on you: management, marketing, data analysis, everything. It sounds intimidating, but there are actually ways to get a broad education in the skills you’re looking for.
EDU Unlimited is a learning platform with more than 1,000 courses across subjects, so you can refine all your essential skills in one place. Right now, lifetime access is also on sale for only $19.97.
What can EDU Unlimited teach you?
The rest of this article is locked.
Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.
This story originally appeared on Entrepreneur
Trump cuts tariffs on Japanese cars after in trade deal with Tokyo
President Trump slashed tariffs on Japanese cars Thursday in a sweeping trade deal that opens Tokyo’s markets to US rice and farm goods while pledging hundreds of billions in new Japanese investment on American soil.
The executive order cuts levies on Japanese auto imports from 27.5% to 15%, easing pressure on motor giants Toyota, Honda and Nissan and formalizing an agreement first unveiled in July.
The White House said the deal also compels Tokyo to pour $550 billion into US projects while pledging to buy at least $8 billion worth of American goods every year.
“This is a massive agreement — a great deal for everybody,” Trump boasted when the pact was first announced.
“I always say it has to be great for everybody. It’s a great deal.”
The order caps months of tense negotiations that began after Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on countries worldwide in April, rattling allies and adversaries alike.
“Finally,” Japan’s top trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, wrote in Japanese as he reposted the White House announcement on social media.
According to the order, the pact is designed to cut America’s stubborn trade deficit with Japan while giving US businesses “breakthrough openings” in tightly protected sectors.
Tokyo agreed to gradually expand access to its agriculture market, including a 75% increase in purchases of US-grown rice — a concession long resisted by Japanese farmers.
In addition to rice, Japan will step up imports of US agricultural products, fertilizers and bioethanol, the White House said.
The deal is a lifeline to American farmers hit hard by Trump’s earlier tariff fights with China and the European Union. By locking in Japanese demand, the administration hopes to calm rural voters heading into the thick of the election cycle.
For Japan, the compromise buys relief for its auto sector, which is the backbone of its export economy and directly targeted by Trump’s America First trade crusade.
Cars account for roughly 20% of Japan’s total exports, and the US is its single biggest market. Toyota alone warned last month that American tariffs could cost it about $10 billion this year.
Japanese automaker stocks jumped in Tokyo on Friday as investors cheered the cut in US tariffs. Parts suppliers also rallied on hopes of renewed demand.
“We are pleased with the Trump administration’s efforts in establishing a clear and constructive trade agreement between the United States and Japan,” a Nissan spokesperson told The Post.
“With the majority of our volume manufactured at our US plants, as well as our commitment to expand local vehicle production, this development strengthens our ability to provide customers with a wide range of vehicles at accessible price points.”
The agreement also signals a thaw after months of friction. Trump’s blanket tariffs jolted global markets when they took effect in August, forcing governments and multinationals to scramble.
Tokyo had balked at Washington’s hard line, insisting its farmers could not withstand a flood of US rice and meat. Japanese leaders also feared ceding too much to an unpredictable Trump, who has previously blasted the country for “taking advantage” of US security guarantees.
But faced with mounting trade losses and the specter of a full-blown clash with its largest buyer, Japan blinked.
Trump crowed that the concessions prove his tariff gambit is working.
“We’ve rebalanced global trade,” he said at the signing. “It’s America First, but it’s also fair for everyone.”
Critics countered that slapping duties on allies to force bilateral deals risks destabilizing the global trading system.
Economists have warned the president’s approach could boomerang on US consumers through higher prices and restricted choice.
Japanese leaders framed the outcome more cautiously, with negotiator Akazawa praising the compromise but avoiding the triumphalism heard in Washington.
For Tokyo, the biggest win may be simply avoiding the chaos of an escalating trade war.
Analysts say the real test will be whether Japan follows through on its pledges to boost US imports, especially rice. Previous promises to open its agricultural sector have faced fierce pushback from rural voters and entrenched lobby groups.
Even with concessions, the Japanese economy remains highly export-dependent. Any slowdown in US demand for cars and electronics could rattle growth in Tokyo.
Meanwhile, Trump’s aggressive tariff diplomacy continues to ripple worldwide. Governments from Brussels to Beijing are recalibrating trade strategy to avoid clashes with Washington.
The Post has sought comment from the White House, Toyota, Honda and the Japanese government.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
NYC public schools are focused on ideology — and failing kids
It’s back-to-school time in New York City, but the Department of Education isn’t ready.
As the DOE faces the new academic year, let’s bring out its latest report card to see where it can keep up the good work and where it must do better.
Unfortunately, what needs improvement far exceeds the positives to maintain.
New York City’s most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results, “The Nation’s Report Card,” shows 71% of our eighth-graders fail grade-level proficiency in reading, and 77% fail in math — in other words, the vast majority of our kids fell off the minimum literacy and numeracy tracks by eighth grade.
That’s more than a failing report card. It’s a scandal.
But even a failing student can — with hard work — become a (non-grade-inflated) C student. How about our DOE?
The usual quarters always blame insufficient funding, and with Democratic politicians in the teachers union’s pocket, taxpayers will lose again, despite a budget that exceeds $41 billion for maybe 815,000 students, spending more per student than almost anywhere else in the world again, without the results to match — again.
Let’s instead examine what the DOE thinks it should be doing: its Vision and Mission statement.
Of its eight sections, three — “Big Apple Awards,” “Teacher and Principal Evaluation” and “Teacher Appreciation Week” — focus on showering recognition on teachers and staff.
“Big Apple Awards” honors teachers who “inspire students to be their best selves, dream, and advocate for their future,” “model equitable learning with high expectations for the diverse and dynamic needs” and “affirm students’ identities, unique gifts, and genius.”
Quite a fanfare of lofty platitudes, but apparently forgotten are any accountability for results in student learning and academic mastery.
“Teacher and Principal Evaluation” is worse. It applauds that “students learn to think for themselves when teachers are always learning,” gushing “when teachers reflect on both data about student learning and meaningful comments from their leaders, they learn, grow, and thrive.”
How was such word salad ever permitted on the DOE’s website, of all places?
Of the remaining sections, two regard the chancellor’s letter and a listening tour, and the last three tout diversity, safe, restorative-justice schools and identity-driven education.
In the nearly 300 words of Vision and Mission, not once do the words or variants of the words “arithmetic,” “reading,” “writing,” “math” or “science” appear, except when the word “read” appears in “Read the chancellor’s letter.”
Instead, ideology dominates, saturating Vision and Mission and its linked subsidiary pages with well-known code words for critical-race theory — “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusive” (jointly, DEI), “identity,” “restorative justice,” “anti-racist education.”
If that’s what the DOE wants its schools to do — recruit little kids into CRT’s bitter, paranoid battleground to enact oppressor-oppressed conflicts everywhere and beat the kids into learned helplessness — then no wonder it gets failing report cards for academics.
Taking cover behind buzzwords like “reimagining” or “reenvisioning,” such as “reenvisioning the school experience” — variants of the much-mocked “see what can be, unburdened by what has been” — just means throwing facts, logic and reality out the window.
The DOE’s Vision and Mission clearly shows CRT and DEI, and their operationalizations like the deceptively named culturally responsive-sustaining education and social-emotional learning, remain entrenched in DOE schools, defying the federal government’s order that New York institutions remove DEI.
Regardless of threats from Washington, though, our schools should ditch CRT and DEI because they corrupt schools’ proper mission.
Once freed from the shackles of CRT and DEI, schools can return to academics, starting with the 3 Rs — reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic — delivered in classrooms that set rigorous, no-excuses, objective standards.
With high expectations in schools and agency in students, kids might actually show up more, reducing the abysmal chronic-absenteeism rates reaching 40% in 2022, and do what they are supposed to do in school: learn.
Long term, initiatives and alternatives such as charters schools are key.
Success Academy charter schools, for example, trounce DOE district schools with 95% of their black students passing New York state math tests against the DOE’s 43%, showing what’s possible with high expectations and agency.
But immediate action is needed. Start with rewriting Vision and Mission to reflect real educational priorities and meritocratic accountability, not CRT indoctrination.
Another school year is too much to waste.
Wai Wah Chin is the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York founding president and a Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
Geoffrey Hinton says AI will cause massive unemployment and send profits soaring
Pioneering computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, whose work has earned him a Nobel Prize and the moniker “godfather of AI,” said artificial intelligence will spark a surge in unemployment and profits.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times, the former Google scientist cleared the air about why he left the tech giant, raised alarms on potential threats from AI, and revealed how he uses the technology. But he also predicted who the winners and losers will be.
“What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton said. “It’s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That’s not AI’s fault, that is the capitalist system.”
That echos comments he gave to Fortune last month, when he said AI companies are more concerned with short-term profits than the long-term consequences of the technology.
For now, layoffs haven’t spiked, but evidence is mounting that AI is shrinking opportunities, especially at the entry level where recent college graduates start their careers.
A survey from the New York Fed found that companies using AI are much more likely to retrain their employees than fire them, though layoffs are expected to rise in the coming months.
Hinton said earlier that healthcare is the one industry that will be safe from the potential jobs armageddon.
“If you could make doctors five times as efficient, we could all have five times as much health care for the same price,” he explained on the Diary of a CEO YouTube series in June. “There’s almost no limit to how much health care people can absorb—[patients] always want more health care if there’s no cost to it.”
Still, Hinton believes that jobs that perform mundane tasks will be taken over by AI, while sparing some jobs that require a high level of skill.
In his interview with the FT, he also dismissed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s idea to pay a universal basic income as AI disrupts the economy and reduce demand for workers, saying it “won’t deal with human dignity” and the value people derive from having jobs.
Hinton has long warned about the dangers of AI without guardrails, estimating a 10% to 20% chance of the technology wiping out humans after the development of superintelligence.
In his view, the dangers of AI fall into two categories: the risk the technology itself poses to the future of humanity, and the consequences of AI being manipulated by people with bad intent.
In his FT interview, he warned AI could help someone build a bioweapon and lamented the Trump administration’s unwillingness to regulate AI more closely, while China is taking the threat more seriously. But he also acknowledged potential upside from AI amid its immense possibilities and uncertainties.
“We don’t know what is going to happen, we have no idea, and people who tell you what is going to happen are just being silly,” Hinton said. “We are at a point in history where something amazing is happening, and it may be amazingly good, and it may be amazingly bad. We can make guesses, but things aren’t going to stay like they are.”
Meanwhile, he told the FT how he uses AI in his own life, saying OpenAI’s ChatGPT is his product of choice. While he mostly uses the chatbot for research, Hinton revealed that a former girlfriend used ChatGPT “to tell me what a rat I was” during their breakup.
“She got the chatbot to explain how awful my behavior was and gave it to me. I didn’t think I had been a rat, so it didn’t make me feel too bad . . . I met somebody I liked more, you know how it goes,” he quipped.
Hinton also explained why he left Google in 2023. While media reports have said he quit so he could speak more freely about the dangers of AI, the 77-year-old Nobel laureate denied that was the reason.
“I left because I was 75, I could no longer program as well as I used to, and there’s a lot of stuff on Netflix I haven’t had a chance to watch,” he said. “I had worked very hard for 55 years, and I felt it was time to retire . . . And I thought, since I am leaving anyway, I could talk about the risks.”
Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.
This story originally appeared on Fortune
Is it time to consider this FTSE 250 12.4%-yielding dividend share?
Image source: Getty Images
The FTSE 250 is full of dividend shares. In fact, as I write in early September, the index is yielding 3.38%. Perhaps surprisingly, this is a tiny bit higher than the 3.36% offered by the FTSE 100.
Some of this differential can be explained by share buybacks. So far in 2025, instead of returning cash directly to shareholders, members of the Footsie have spent £39bn buying their own shares.
Even so, those looking to boost their incomes — with cash in their hands — could consider taking a closer look at some of the highest-yielding FTSE 250 stocks.
A rising yield
One example is Ithaca Energy (LSE:ITH), the North Sea oil and gas producer, which has had a turbulent week.
Its shares fell heavily after its two of its largest shareholders — DKL Energy and Eni UK — announced on 2 September that they had sold 3% of the group to institutional investors at a 10% discount to the prevailing share price.
During the following four days, the share price tanked more than 18%.
For new investors, this means the stock’s yield has increased further. Already one of the best on the index, it’s now offering a return of 12.4%.
However, in its short existence (the group’s only been listed since November 2022) its dividend has proven to be erratic. This is typical of the energy sector where earnings can be volatile.
| Year | Dividends per share (cents) |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 39.63 |
| 2024 | 34.04 |
| 2025 (to 5 September) | 10.10 |
Helping to fix the nation’s finances
Another major problem for the group is that profits made in the North Sea are subject to an effective corporation tax rate of 78%. A windfall tax means the sector’s being heavily squeezed by the government.
The impact of this can be seen from Ithaca’s results for the six months ended 30 June. During this period, the group reported a profit before tax of $513m but its tax charge was an eye-watering $731m. This is a tax rate of 143%.
However, some of the charge includes deferred tax ($292m). This isn’t payable until a later date — possibly many years into the future — even though it’s shown to reduce this year’s post-tax earnings.
Fortunately for income hunters, the group remains cash generative. Although dividends are a distribution of a company’s profit to shareholders, they are paid using cash. So those wanting to understand how secure the group’s dividend is should take a look at its cash-generating potential. During the first six months of 2025, its operating cash flow was $1bn. This helped reduce its net debt by $214m.
And a series of acquisitions means the group’s production was 133% higher compared to the same period in 2024. Ithaca plans to return $500m to shareholders in respect of its 2025 financial year. And due to its “excellent operational performance” it recently announced that it’s going to bring forward the timing of its next two dividend payments.
The industry is lobbying hard to persuade the government to introduce an alternative to the energy profits levy. We will know in November whether the Chancellor is sympathetic. Until then, even with oil and gas prices at relatively low levels, Ithaca Energy appears to be doing well. It could be one for income investors to consider.
This story originally appeared on Motley Fool
AI and the end of proof
Garbage bags are being thrown out a White House window, or so a popular video seems to show.
“Probably AI generated,” said President Trump in a Tuesday press conference.
Earlier, a White House official suggested to TIME magazine that the video was real and showed a contractor doing “regular maintenance.”
Here we are, like other events captured or not captured by cameras. Are the bags real or made by AI? If they’re real, was it an interesting mystery or just boring home improvement? We can’t know.
In entertainment news, actor and rapper Will Smith’s official channels posted a video promoting his Based on a True Story tour, showing crying fans and hand-written signs, which critics slammed for being AI-generated or enhanced to show a bigger, more emotional audience than may have existed. (Expert analysis showed the video probably mixed real and AI-made content.)
Smith responded to the accusation by posting a new Instagram video showing that his audience was made of AI-generated cats.
Of course, opposing claims about whether a picture or video is AI-generated are arising over more serious issues than falling garbage bags or cat crowds.
He said, she said
The US military this week reportedly killed 11 people in a strike on a speedboat from Venezuela said to be carrying illegal drugs in the southern Caribbean on Tuesday. The government posted a video of the strike. But Venezuela’s Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez said the video looks to be AI-generated.
Taiwanese politicians and the military have faced repeated use of AI-generated fake images in disinformation campaigns. When caught in compromising situations on video or audio, targeted public figures claimed the recordings were “deepfakes” to create doubt, even when fact-checkers and tech experts found no proof of manipulation.
In India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Brazil, accused politicians often say that the proof against them is made by AI. They’re not outliers. They’re just ahead of the political rhetoric curve.
Rise of the ‘liar’s dividend’
In 2019, when deepfake audio and video became a serious problem, legal experts Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron came up with the term “liar’s dividend” to describe the advantage a dishonest public figure gets by calling real evidence “fake” in a time when AI-generated content makes people question what they see and hear.
False claims of deepfakes can be just as harmful as real deepfakes during elections. Arguments about what is real, unreliable detection tools, and general mistrust allow dishonest politicians to cry wolf about “fake news” or deepfakes to avoid blame.
An American Political Science Review article by Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Daniel S. Schiff, and Natália S. Bueno is based on five planned experiments with more than 15,000 US adults from 2020 to 2022. They found that across scandals involving politicians from both major parties, false claims of misinformation increased support more than staying quiet or apologizing.
Why Nano Banana has appeal
Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, also called by its internal code name, “Nano Banana,” is a new image generation and editing model that can create photorealistic images.
It can modify existing photos using simple prompts. For example, you can upload a photo of a person petting a puppy, and with a simple natural-language sentence, transform it into a believable picture of a person slashing a car tire.
Character consistency — keeping the same face, clothes, or object details stable across scenes — makes fake shots look like a real photo series. The model leverages Gemini’s broader “world knowledge” to follow complex instructions and make edits that match real‑world contexts, like believable lighting or object placement.
Nano Banana is available to developers in preview through the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI, priced at $30 per 1 million output tokens and $0.039 per image based on 1,290 output tokens. Because Nano Banana is in the Gemini API, other companies will likely integrate it. Confirmed sites and tools are OpenRouter, fal.ai, Adobe Firefly and Adobe Express, Poe (Quora), Freepik, Figma, and Pollo AI, with WPP Open and Leonardo.ai.
The ability to make fakes will be everywhere, along with the growing awareness that visual information can be easily and convincingly faked. That awareness makes false claims that something is AI-made more believable.
The good news is that Gemini 2.5 Flash Image stamps every image it makes or edits with a hidden SynthID watermark for AI identification after common changes like resizing, rotation, compression, or screenshot copies. Google says this ID system covers all outputs and ships with the new model across the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI.
SynthID for images changes pixels without being seen, but a paired detector can recognize it later, using one neural network to embed the pattern and another to spot it.
The detector reports levels like “present,” “suspected,” or “not detected,” which is more helpful than a fragile yes/no that fails after small changes.
OpenAI takes a different approach for DALL-E 3 and ChatGPT image creation by attaching C2PA “Content Credentials” metadata that records the tool used and a cryptographically signed manifest, verifiable with the Content Credentials Verify site. OpenAI began adding these credentials in February 2024 and admits they can be removed by social platforms or screenshots, so missing metadata doesn’t prove an image is made by a person.
Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service adds C2PA Content Credentials, signed to trace back to Azure OpenAI, with fields like “AI Generated Image,” the software agent, and the timestamp. These credentials remain on downloads but can be removed.
Meta labels realistic images made with its tools and uses IPTC metadata and invisible watermarks, and its researchers published “Stable Signature,” a model-integrated watermark for open-source generators.
Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative and the C2PA standard want to make verified “Content Credentials” work across different apps and websites, so people can see where photos and videos come from and how they were edited. TikTok has started adding content credentials and can automatically label AI media from partners that already ship C2PA metadata, with verification through the standard’s public tools.
SynthID makes the most sense to me. But all these verification methods can be defeated by anyone trying to pass off fake pictures or videos as real. This means when someone says image-based evidence is fake, nobody can prove them wrong.
Photography was first used as courtroom evidence in 1859, began to influence public opinion in 1862 with Civil War photos, and became a trusted source of proof in newspapers in 1880 when halftone printing allowed publishers to print real photos on newspaper presses.
That means camera-made visual content served as reliable and convincing proof for 166 years.
Farewell, reliable photographic and video evidence that we could all agree on. We hardly knew ye.
This story originally appeared on Computerworld
The Ivalice Chronicles team had to remake the original Final Fantasy Tactics’ source code from scratch
The Square Enix team behind Final Fantasy Tactics — The Ivalice Chronicles didn’t just remaster the iconic strategy RPG, they had to go through the trouble of remaking the source code from scratch, according to Bloomberg. In an interview with Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier, the game’s director Kazutoyo Maehiro explained the arduous process of designing The Ivalice Chronicles, which is set to release at the end of the month.
When getting to work on the remake, Maehiro and his team discovered they had to rebuild the source code from the ground up since it was lost thanks to the industry’s unstandardized practices in the ’90s, according to Bloomberg. When translating Final Fantasy Tactics from Japanese to English for the global release, the company would overwrite the original Japanese version’s code. For Maehiro, that meant the team had to undertake a ground-up overhaul and recreate the source code by playing the original game that released in 1997, consulting the game’s master disc and looking at the 2011 version called Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, according to Bloomberg. Maehiro also said during a PAX West 2025 panel that the team gleaned a lot of lost info from fan-made databases.
Revealing more of the behind-the-scenes decisions for The Ivalice Chronicles, Maehiro told Bloomberg about the debate surrounding Count Cidolfus Orlandeau. Better known as Cid, and appropriately nicknamed Thunder God Cid, this overtuned character joins you later in the game, but many fans complained about him being overpowered. Instead of nerfing Cid, Maehiro told Bloomberg that keeping this character’s power level the same would better represent the storyline since “his role in the story is being that very powerful character who joins your party.” To quell any concerns of Cid being too broken, Maehiro told Bloomberg that the team decided to buff the other characters to even things out. Looking ahead, Maehiro also hinted at exploring sequels for the Final Fantasy Tactics franchise or even brand new games in the strategy RPG genre, given that The Ivalice Chronicles does well, according to Bloomberg.
This story originally appeared on Engadget
From Then to Now – Hollywood Life
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![Justin and Hailey Bieber enjoy dinner at Craig’s. 08 Oct 2020 Pictured: Justin and Hailey Bieber enjoy dinner at Craig’s. Photo credit: Rachpoot/MEGA TheMegaAgency.com +1 888 505 6342 (Mega Agency TagID: MEGA706490_001.jpg) [Photo via Mega Agency]](https://hollywoodlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/justin-bieber-hailey-baldwin-date-nights-2.jpg?fit=293%2C440)
Justin Bieber and Hailey Bieber have been friends since they were young kids in 2009. They struck up a brief romance at the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016 before getting back together for good in May 2018. The reconciliation led to an engagement that July, followed by a courthouse wedding in September.
Even though Justin and Hailey have now been happily married for several years, fans have continued to wonder whether or not there was ever any overlap in his relationship with Hailey and his on/off romance with ex Selena Gomez. Hailey set the record straight during her interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, confirming that Justin and Selena were not together when she reconciled with Justin in the spring of 2018. Although Justin and Selena had been spotted hanging out on a number of occasions from October 2017 to March 2018, Hailey insisted that it was just them “closing the door” on their relationship.
Just two weeks after the interview — in which Hailey also confirmed she has spoken with Selena since getting married — the two women posed for photos together at the Academy Museum’s 2nd annual gala. Selena and Hailey were all smiles as they cozied up for the snaps, proven there’s zero drama between them.
The “I Do” singer puts his leading lady first, and proved it once again when he defended her against fans of his relationship with ex Selena Gomez. Justin quickly clapped back at a fan video urging fans to “go after” Hailey via social media. “This sad excuse of a human just encouraged people on video to literally go after my wife telling people to say that my previous relationship was better so on and so forth,” he wrote. “It is extremely hard to choose the high road when I see people like this try and rally to gather people to bully the person I love most in this world. It is not right,” he also said.
Let’s take a look back at Justin and Hailey’s relationship timeline from the early aughts to now.
First Memories Together
After meeting in 2009 and hanging out on certain occasions in 2014, Justin and Hailey were first romantically linked when they appeared to look much closer in Miami in 2015. The sighting stirred up speculation of a romance, as they enjoyed laying out by a pool and jet skiing. It was around this time that they also went on a vacation to Anguilla with Justin’s family. They celebrated the New Year together, ringing in 2016 with a kiss that popped up on social media. However, the relationship was short-lived, as they split just a few months into 2016.
Reuniting In 2018
After his split from Hailey, Justin briefly dating Sofia Richie in the summer of 2016. By the fall of 2017, though, he was linked to Selena once again when they were spotted on a bike ride together after her split from The Weeknd. They were seen on various dates over the next several months, with their last public acknowledgment of each other on March 1, 2018, when Selena wished Justin a happy birthday.
Less than two months later, Justin and Hailey were spotted together again. The timing had fans confused, with Jelena shippers accusing Hailey of home-wrecking Selena and Justin’s relationship. Hailey shut this down in Sept. 2022 during her Call Her Daddy interview. In addition to revealing that she never hooked up with Justin while he was with Selena, she also clarified what was going on between Justin and Selena during this time when the public thought they were back together.
“I understand how it looks from the outside, and there’s a lot of perception there, but that was a situation where I know, for a fact, that it was the right thing for them to close the door,” Hailey explained. “As a woman, I would never want to get into a relationship with someone and be engaged to them and get married to them and think, in the back of my mind, ‘I wonder if that [chapter] was really closed for you.’ And I know for a fact that the reason we were able to get back together is because it was very much, completely closed.”
The 2018 reunion brought on many outings that were full of PDA, proving their romance was back on and stronger than ever. From coffee dates, like the one above, to more vacations – this time only with each other – they were back in full force.
Engagement
Shortly after reconnecting in June 2018, Justin proposed to Hailey in July while they were on vacation in the Bahamas. The blonde beauty was first spotted wearing a gigantic diamond ring on July 8 and one day later, on July 9, Justin took to Instagram to share the happy news. “Hailey I am soooo in love with everything about you! So committed to spending my life getting to know every single part of you loving you patiently and kindly,” part of his announcement read.
Once they went public with their engagement, the duo proudly expressed even more PDA whenever they were out and about, including during a fun outing in Aug., which can be seen in the pic above, and when they attended New York Fashion Week in early Sept. Their time to get hitched couldn’t come soon enough!
Legally Married
Justin and Hailey shocked everyone when they became legally married without a wedding during a visit to a New York courthouse on Sept. 13, 2018. They eventually revealed that they would plan an official wedding ceremony and reception for close family and friends when the time was right, but they were definitely already in post-marriage bliss from the moment they legally said “I do”. In Dec. 2018, they took part in a wedding style photo shoot, which can be seen in the pic above.
Official Wedding
After continuing to enjoy being newlyweds, a little over a year after they legally got hitched, Justin and Hailey had a lavish wedding ceremony and reception with their closest family and friends in South Carolina on Sept. 30, 2019. The adoring groom looked incredibly handsome in a classy suit and the blushing bride looked stunningly beautiful in a figure-flattering white gown and long veil. After the memorable event, they shared photos and videos of the special time they had together and it was truly inspiring and loving to see!
1 Year Anniversary
The pair celebrated the one-year anniversary of their South Carolina wedding in Sept. 2020 with romantic posts! They both shared stunning black and white photos of their wedding day on Instagram in their tributes along with heartfelt captions that expressed their feelings about looking back on the special moment.
“1 year ago we had the best wedding. Wish I could live this day over and over,” Hailey’s caption read, while Justin’s got a little more in depth. “Hailey Bieber. I am so lucky to be YOUR husband!” he wrote. “You teach me so much everyday and make me such a better man! I am committed for the rest of our lives to empower you to be the woman God has called you to be! My heart is to enable you to achieve all of your wildest dreams! I promise to always put you first, to lead with patience and kindness!! Happy anniversary my beautiful sweet girl.”
Planning A Family
The couple don’t have kids yet, but babies are definitely on the mind! The Canadian born singer is no stranger to kids with baby sister Bay and siblings Jaxon, Jazmyn, and stepsister Allie — and he wants a big brood just like his dad Jeremy Bieber. “I’m going to have as many [kids] as Hailey is wishing to push out,” he said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in Dec. 2020. “I’d love to have myself a little tribe, but it’s her body, so whatever she wants to do…think Hailey still has some things she wants to accomplish as a woman. I think she’s just not ready yet and I think that’s okay.”
In a post celebrating Hailey’s 23rd birthday, Justin teased that their “next season” was “babies” back in Nov. 2019. JB also had fans speculating that Hailey could be pregnant on his Changes track “All Around Me”, which ends with a baby sound at the end of the song.
Meanwhile, The BareMinerals model has also revealed her desire to start a family. “The strange thing is, I’ve always wanted to have children early,” Hailey said to Vogue Italia in Nov. 2020. “But now that I’m married, I feel less of an urge. I am an ambitious girl with many projects. It will happen, but not now.”
Pregnancy Announcement
On May 9, 2024, Justin and Hailey announced that she was pregnant and expecting their first child together. The couple posted an Instagram video montage from their vow renewal, which also served as a maternity photo shoot.
Justin’s Swag II Album
Justin’s 2025 album has a lot of songs that are clearly about the love of his life. From “Mother in You” to “I Do” and “Love Song,” it’s clear that the proud parents of son Jack Blues are happy together.
This story originally appeared on Hollywoodlife