Author: The Guardian

Sinclair, one of the largest owners of US television stations, has established itself as an influential player in the conservative movement by using trusted local news channels to spread disinformation and manipulated video of Joe Biden, media analysts say.The company, which gained notoriety in 2018 for requiring local anchors across the country to read the same segment, has since created a national news show that produces stories distributed to its stations – often at the expense of local news coverage, the experts say.As local journalism continues to decline, that formula could have an especially big impact on the upcoming presidential…

Cristiano Ronaldo was left in tears during Portugal’s Euro 2024 match against Slovenia before scoring a penalty in the shootout win, describing them as “baffling moments”.Ronaldo played the villain role in a scoreless game as he missed a series of chances and had a penalty saved by Slovenian goalkeeper Jan Oblak in overtime. The 39-year-old was in tears in extra time and was consoled by his teammates, but he took the penalty in the shootout, with Diogo Costa saving all three of Slovenia’s goals Penalty kick, Portugal won 3-0.”Even the strongest people have their [bad] A few days later,” Ronaldo…

Tony is in his 50s and recently did a rough calculation of how much of his life he has spent looking at pornography. “The result was horrifying,” he says. It was eight years. “I can barely think about it. The sense of failure is intense.”Tony saw his first “hardcore” film on VHS in the 1980s when he was 12. In his 20s, he connected to the internet for the first time, which turned his habit into a “full-blown addiction”. Over the past 30 years, he has just about managed to maintain a double life: he works in a caring profession,…

Hurricane Beryl has been upgraded to Category 5 as it passes through the southeastern Caribbean islands.The National Hurricane Center said in a post onBeryl ripped off doors, windows and roofs from homes in the southeastern Caribbean after record-warm waters pushed it ashore on Grenada’s Carriacou island on Monday. The earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic Ocean.Grenada Prime Minister Deacon Mitchell said late Monday that one person had died and authorities were unable to assess the situation on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.Initial reports indicated heavy damage, but communications were largely disrupted.”Within half an hour, Carriacou was razed…

A controversial competition that allows children to hunt feral cats in rural New Zealand for cash prizes has produced its biggest haul yet, with roughly 340 animals killed – about 100 more than last year’s event.The annual North Canterbury fundraising event, which wrapped up this weekend, is open to children and adult participants and targets deer, pigs, ducks, possums and rabbits.In 2023, it introduced feral cats to its suite of other hunting categories, prompting furious backlash from animal rights activists.Event organiser Matt Bailey said the feline category was created to help manage feral cats, which threaten native wildlife and carry…

Florida prosecutors knew the late millionaire and financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted teenage girls two years before they cut a plea deal that has long been criticized as too lenient and a missed opportunity to imprison him a decade earlier, according to transcripts released Monday.The 2006 grand jury investigation was the first of many by law enforcement over the past two decades into Epstein’s rape and sex trafficking of teenagers – and how his ties to the rich and the powerful seem to have allowed him to avoid prison or a serious jail term for more than a decade.The investigations…

Ukraine is turning to its prisoner population to help address battlefield shortages as Russian continues to build up forces in eastern Ukraine. More than 3,000 prisoners have been released on parole and assigned to military units after such recruitment was approved by parliament in a controversial mobilisation bill last month, Ukrainian deputy justice minister Olena Vysotska told the Associated Press. The news agency visited a rural penal colony in south-east Ukraine where several convicts were offered a chance at parole in return for battlefield service. “You can put an end to this and start a new life,” one recruiter, a…

Apology accepted. In fairness, Cristiano Ronaldo simply does not shirk responsibility and by taking and scoring the first penalty in a shootout victory over Slovenia, the Portugal captain made amends for failing to score his spot kick in extra time, which was saved magnificently by Jan Oblak.Ronaldo blubbered uncontrollably after the first but second time around he took another deep intake of breath, relaxing his super-sized muscles, pausing the gazillion thoughts running over in his mind and coolly dispatched his spot kick into the opposite corner to his earlier effort, before clasping his hands together to make a praying gesture…

British female politicians have become the victims of fake pornography, with some of their faces used in nude images created using artificial intelligence.Political candidates targeted on one prominent fake pornography website include: the Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner; the education secretary, Gillian Keegan; the Commons leader, Penny Mordaunt; the former home secretary, Priti Patel; and the Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, according to Channel 4 News.Many of the images have been online for several years and attracted hundreds of thousands of views.While some are crude Photoshops featuring the politician’s head imposed on to another person’s naked body, other images appear to…

Four games into Euro 2024, no France player has found the net from open play but here they are, unbeaten and into the quarter-finals, the tournament favourites progressing thanks to another strike from their top scorer: own goal.For a moment in Düsseldorf, 66 shots and almost six hours into the competition, it seemed that the wait was finally over when Randal Kolo Muani’s shot, their 18th on an often frustrating and oddly flat evening, beat Koen Casteels. When it came though, the shot was scuffed, deflected off the defender’s knee and so ultimately awarded to poor Jan ­Vertonghen instead.Unfair? Perhaps,…