Blaze was world’s deadliest residential fire since 1980, but some survivors and bereaved families say justice has yet to be served

Hong Kong’s leader has apologised for government shortcomings that contributed to a fire that killed 168 people in the city last year, a rare sign of public contrition that nevertheless failed to impress some victims’ families.

The chief executive, John Lee, and seven other officials bowed in apology at the release of a report that pointed to “decades of failure” by government bodies.

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Musician wrote a ‘love letter’ to Canada with a new album – and some pointed commentary about the US president

Lake Ontario, the vast body of water that straddles the US-Canada border, has gone by many names over the centuries: Lac Saint-Louis, Lacus Ontarius, Skaniadorio, Cataraqui Lake. But one thing it will never be called, says the Canadian rock star Bryan Adams, is Lake America.

In his new song Lake Ontario, Adams takes aim at the US president, Donald Trump, accusing him of “breaking the peace” between the people who live on the lake’s shores.

The ‘lake of shining waters’ is what the Iroquois called her

It’s a First Nations name – not an executive order.

But things weren’t going his way in Iran

So like a baby tossing the toys from the pram

You can push us to the brink

But where the open road divides

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© Photograph: Christopher Polk/Billboard/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Polk/Billboard/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Polk/Billboard/Getty Images

Gov. Kathy Hochul isn’t from New York City, but she could be its biggest mass transit defender in a generation. She has embraced that distinction in her re-election campaign.

© Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times

Blaze was world’s deadliest residential fire since 1980, but some survivors and bereaved families say justice has yet to be served

Hong Kong’s leader has apologised for government shortcomings that contributed to a fire that killed 168 people in the city last year, a rare sign of public contrition that nevertheless failed to impress some victims’ families.

The chief executive, John Lee, and seven other officials bowed in apology at the release of a report that pointed to “decades of failure” by government bodies.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

​Fronted by Mark Sandman​,​ the group brought enigmatic, elegant rock to post-grunge America. As lost demos surface, those closest to Sandman remember a man who grabbed on to life’s joys

It’s early 1998, and at Fort Apache recording studio in Massachusetts, Mark Sandman, the suave frontman of Morphine, is nearing breaking point. Morphine’s four enigmatic and blackly humorous albums have won critical acclaim and, lately, unexpected commercial success considering their uncompromising creative vision. After the excesses of grunge, Sandman considered their idiosyncratic blend of sophisticated storytelling, prowling slide-bass and Dana Colley’s atmospheric saxophone a kind of “palate cleanser”.

In 1997 Morphine had signed to DreamWorks Records, founded by industry bigwigs David Geffen and Mo Ostin. Now, working on Morphine’s first LP for his new paymasters – a batch of songs finally seeing release almost three decades later – Sandman was consumed by doubt over their direction. “For the first time, Morphine were trying to please someone other than just ourselves,” remembers Colley.

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© Photograph: Martin Beddall/Alamy

© Photograph: Martin Beddall/Alamy

© Photograph: Martin Beddall/Alamy

Jensen Huang reported to have had close relationship with tech company executive suspected of passing intel to China

US intelligence agencies believe the Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been targeted by an alleged Chinese spy who had done business with him, according to a new report by the New York Times.

Alice Huang or Huang Le, of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, is an executive at a Singapore-based datacenter company called Megaspeed. She had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, prompting American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials have determined that she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

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© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Jensen Huang reported to have had close relationship with tech company executive suspected of passing intel to China

US intelligence agencies believe the Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been targeted by an alleged Chinese spy who had done business with him, according to a new report by the New York Times.

Alice Huang or Huang Le, of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, is an executive at a Singapore-based datacenter company called Megaspeed. She had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, prompting American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials have determined that she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

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© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Mintive was founded by two engineers who have been working on AI for decades through Google Brain and Coursera. It's platform promises to help IT easily control enterprise agents.

Barbican Hall, London
For this celebration of the composer in his 90th year, the Colin Currie Group focused on works written in the last two decades, including the brand new In All Your Ways

There have been a fair few 90th birthday concerts celebrating Steve Reich this year, but the Colin Currie Group came up with something a little different. Eschewing the signature works of the 1970s and 80s, and with the exception of 1972’s still mind-expanding Clapping Music, everything here was written by a composer over the age of 71. Furthermore, the London premiere of In All Your Ways featured the work of a man entering into his tenth decade.

After a bitty start, the group got into its stride with a series of four masterworks back-to-back. Radio Rewrite is Reich at his coolest, five continuous movements that riff on a pair of classic Radiohead songs; those in the know can just about perceive them in the harmonic atmosphere of the slow sections and the faster music’s lyrical outlines. Currie conducted a nicely chilled reading, the playing as tight as a drum.

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© Photograph: Mark Allan

© Photograph: Mark Allan

© Photograph: Mark Allan

As John Lewis reports a 96% rise in searches for CD players, music fans share their reasons for ditching streaming

CDs appear to be having a resurgence. John Lewis said searches for CD players are up 96% since July, while another report on trends in music and film this year found that CD sales are up 16%.

With this in mind, we asked music fans why they favour discs over other formats, and if it is a new preference or a lifetime habit.

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© Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy

© Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy

© Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy

As John Lewis reports a 96% rise in searches for CD players, music fans share their reasons for ditching streaming

CDs appear to be having a resurgence. John Lewis said searches for CD players are up 96% since July, while another report on trends in music and film this year found that CD sales are up 16%.

With this in mind, we asked music fans why they favour discs over other formats, and if it is a new preference or a lifetime habit.

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© Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy

© Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy

© Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy

‘Compliance managers’ to have discussions with authority’s wealthiest customers in attempt to raise tax revenues

• Business live – latest updates

The UK’s tax authority is assigning dedicated “customer compliance managers” to more than 200 billionaires as part of a crackdown meant to raise £500m for the public purse.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said it had for the first time compiled a list of billionaires who are required to pay tax in the UK, regardless of whether they formally live in the country, to tackle a “wealthy tax gap” caused by those who do not pay what they ought.

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© Photograph: Rosemary Roberts/Alamy

© Photograph: Rosemary Roberts/Alamy

© Photograph: Rosemary Roberts/Alamy

Играть вдвоём в Minecraft с модами сложнее, чем кажется: нужны одинаковые версии, загрузчик, моды и конфиги, а потом ещё Hamachi или аренда сервера. Я написал лаунчер на Rust и Tauri, где всё это заменяет одна ссылка. Расскажу, как устроены P2P-комнаты на iroh (QUIC), туннель игрового трафика, передача сборки в формате .mrpack и голосовой чат на Opus с RNNoise. А ещё про то, как я делал проект вместе с Claude Code

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(Fiction)
After frontperson Juliette Jackson lost half her hearing, she wrote sad songs and felt frustrated. So she pivoted, writing herself a happy ending. The results are joyfully convincing

From the outside, it looks as if things have gone swimmingly for the Big Moon. Fronted by Juliette Jackson, a former waitress who dreamed big, they have been active for 12 years, a success in itself in these days, notching up four albums including this latest. They have enjoyed a Mercury nomination (for 2017 debut Love in the 4th Dimension), decent chart positions, good-sized gigs and streaming figures in the hundreds of thousands, or millions in the case of 2019 single Your Light.

Delve beneath the surface, however, and things haven’t always been so sunny. After their debut’s ramshackle wide-eyed pop, second album Walking Like We Do detailed the travails of contemporary womanhood, and Your Light found Jackson bemoaning her generation’s lot with a weary resignation: “We were promised the world, but so was everyone else”. 2022’s Here Is Everything was conceived during Covid and processed Jackson’s life-changing experience of becoming a mother, including the disorienting experience of lack of sleep. Tricky stuff, if nothing that made Jackson’s concerns much different from vast swathes of the population.

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© Photograph: Melanie Lehmann

© Photograph: Melanie Lehmann

© Photograph: Melanie Lehmann

23:14. Ночная смена в SOC — центре мониторинга, где аналитики круглосуточно разбирают сигналы о возможных атаках. Аналитик смотрит в экран шестой час. За смену пришло больше 400 алертов, первые полсотни оказались ложными. Он это понял быстро, а система — нет: система продолжает присылать предупреждения с той же частотой и с той же пометкой «высокая важность». К 340 алерту рука тянется к кнопке «Закрыть» раньше, чем глаза дочитывают текст. На 388 аналитик пропускает реальную атаку.

Разбор инцидента займет неделю, а то и больше. Вывод будет стандартный: человеческий фактор. Аналитик не среагировал, значит, нужно усилить контроль, дописать регламенты, провести обучение.

Никто не посмотрит на экран, перед которым аналитик просидел шесть часов.

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‘Miracle’ cache of letters written by French scientist who died in ill-fated La Pérouse mission give personal account of 1785 voyage

As he prepared to climb the scaffolding to be publicly executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, Louis XVI is reported to have asked: “Is there news of Monsieur de la Pérouse?”

He was referring to Jean-François de Galaup, the count of Pérouse, a naval officer and navigator whom the French king had dispatched in 1785 on a round-the-world scientific mission to rival discoveries made by the English explorer Captain James Cook.

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© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

© Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Liquid Static Studio; PC
You take on the role of flight attendant in this clever and absorbing retro-style game that veers from daft horror spoof to genuinely disturbing

There was always something creepy about the job-simulator genre. All those mindless automatons queueing up to use your bus, bar or bed store, or whatever workplace you are trapped in for the duration of the game. The endless repetitive tasks. The emptiness of the world beyond your corporate existence. Together, these elements scream existential terror … which is perhaps why we are now seeing a new indie sub-genre of job sim horror games, including Home Safety Hotline, Dredge and more recently, Grease Trap ’99, a Lovecraftian mystery set in a Scottish chip shop.

Now, we have Night Plane, in which you take on the role of a flight attendant on a jumbo jet to hell. It all starts kind of normally. You turn up for the first day of your new job, meet your colleagues, then take your spot at the departure gate, checking in customers and being careful to root out anyone with invalid tickets. Once on the plane, you roll your trolley down the aisle, serving booze and inedible meals, and occasionally dealing with passenger complaints. Then the plane crashes and, frankly, it all goes downhill from there.

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© Photograph: Liquid Static

© Photograph: Liquid Static

© Photograph: Liquid Static

Sanrio ends association with TV drama Vivant after China says portrayal of ruthless Chinese agents is ‘deliberate smear’

The company behind the successful Hello Kitty franchise has apologised and ended its commercial tie-up with a Japanese TV drama after Chinese state media and netizens condemned the show’s “deliberate smears” against China.

Sanrio, a Japanese firm whose characters are popular around the world, said in a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo that it had decided to end its association with the TV drama Vivant after concluding that it “contained elements inconsistent with Sanrio’s core values”.

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© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Is there anything you would like to ask the former Celtic, Arsenal and Scotland forward?

Ever wanted to ask Charlie Nicholas a question? Well, this is your chance. Whether you want to know about the season he scored 50 goals for Celtic, or the day he scored both goals as Arsenal beat Liverpool in the League Cup final, or his time on Soccer Saturday, let us know.

Nicholas was a true character. Not many footballers can say they have played for Scotland at a World Cup, been on the cover of NME, had one of their transfers announced on the stage of His Majesty’s Theatre on Hogmanay, and turned out for Clyde. Nicholas can. Drop your questions in the form below and we will put them to him.

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© Photograph: ANL/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ANL/Shutterstock

© Photograph: ANL/Shutterstock

Survivors tell rights group that serving officers who worked as guards administered electric shocks and beatings

Cambodian police and military officers worked as private security guards in scam compounds where thousands were forced to work in the online fraud industry, according to a report by Amnesty International.

The global rights group alleged they worked for security companies as part of a system that enabled slavery and rape in the compounds, with some guards using electric batons to keep people trapped.

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© Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images