Author: Gulf News Week
AFP via Getty ImagesSharp falls in the value of chip makers have stoked investor concerns that the euphoria around artificial intelligence (AI) related companies is fading.The AI revolution has promised to reshape the way we work and live and has created vast wealth for investors in a handful of companies predominantly in the US and Asia. Companies are desperate to be the winners of a transformative technology that many have compared to the advent of the internet, the telephone, even electricity itself. As Sir Demis Hassabis, founder of UK company Deepmind, which was eventually bought a decade ago by US…
Planes dump water on French wildfires as temperatures riseThe aerial cavalry of three Canadair aircraft flying overhead look as impressive as they sound.They arrive in formation, before sharply banking over towards the thick plume of black smoke ahead of us.Their individual payloads of more than 1,000 gallons of water are then dumped onto the flames below.A succession of helicopters then follows with their own streams of red fire retardant.As the smoke eases, firefighters then move into the forest on foot to try and contain the latest flare-up.They are the principal concern for the thousands of crews and volunteers combating the…
Watch: Explosion at Japan mall after earthquakeJapan’s south-western Kyushu region has had more than 100 aftershocks since it was struck on Tuesday by a powerful earthquake which left at least 13 people dead.Many others were said to be in cardiac arrest – a term often used in preliminary reports in Japan before a death is officially confirmed.In searing heat, rescue crews are digging through the rubble at a paper factory and a shopping mall in Kumamoto prefecture, looking for trapped survivors. The mall suffered an explosion in the hour after the quake struck. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned it…
Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in showdown with Republican lawmakersFormer top US health official Anthony Fauci refused to answer questions at a US Senate hearing about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying he feared Republican lawmakers would try to use his testimony to prosecute him for perjury. He invoked the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, which says no individual can be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself”. Days before the hearing, Republican Senator Rand Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era diary, in which he mused about his fame and the origins…
Fifa offers $40m if nations back controversial planFifa has set a deadline of 19 September for member associations to access cash as FA voice disapproval of world governing body’s funding plan before emergency Uefa meeting.33 mins agoWorld Cup
Getty ImagesGlen Hansard was the lead singer of The Frames and an Oscar-winning songwriterOscar-winning Irish musician Glen Hansard has died in a motorbike crash in Dublin.Hansard, 56, was the frontman for rock group The Frames and also featured in The Commitments.He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Falling Slowly in 2008 which he wrote for the low-budget film Once.Hansard was born in Dublin in 1970 and busked on its streets before landing the role of Outspan Foster in Alan Parker’s The Commitments, a 1991 film about a soul band made up of a group of working-class young…
AFP via Getty ImagesThis woman returned home for the first time since fire swept through her town of Navas del ReySpanish authorities have allowed thousands of people evacuated because of wildfires to return to their homes after restrictions were lifted in the areas of Toledo, Madrid, Ávila, and Castellón.In the Madrid region alone, 24,000 people have been told they can return and lockdowns on another 20,000 have been lifted.Spain and France are both braced for the start of the fourth heatwave so far this summer and some fires have continued to burn, including one at Burgohondo 150km (93 miles) west…
Amy Sussman / Getty ImagesBTS have been nominated for five Grammys since 2020, but have never won an awardKorean pop group BTS have announced they will not submit their music for consideration at the 2027 Grammy Awards.The news came in a co-ordinated Instagram post, with all seven members of the band uploading an identical statement.”We have decided not to enter the Grammys this year,” a translation of the message read. “I hope that music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.”The band were widely expected to be in competition for…
AFPTens of thousands of young people participated in the protests led by the Cockroach Janta PartyThe language of India’s young, perpetually-online population has finally reached one of its oldest institutions.Days after a youth-led protest movement forced the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s parliament found itself speaking the protesters’ language.”Delulu.” “FOMO.” “Clock it.”Until recently, those words belonged to Instagram comment sections, group chats and meme pages. On Tuesday, they echoed across the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) instead.Shiv Sena party’s Shrikant Shinde accused the opposition of being “MIA” – missing in action – gripped by “FOMO”, or the…
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. scientist who helped lead the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response, is set to face off — again — with a Republican senator probing the origins of the coronavirus.Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky subpoenaed Fauci to appear before a Senate committee Wednesday. It’s part of Paul’s yearslong accusations that the now-retired infectious disease expert had lied about the pandemic, something Fauci has called “preposterous.”Leading up to the hearing, Paul released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary covering the pandemic years. Pointing to some notes about early efforts at understanding how the virus emerged, Paul…