FlashMobOfOne

Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off for alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.

With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.

Janessa Goldbeck, chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organisation, said: “Pete Hegseth is a very dangerous person. He’s a white Christian nationalist and has the arsenal of the United States government at his disposal and a permission slip from President Trump to deploy carnage wherever he wishes against whomever he wishes.”

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Thrasivoulos Marakis grew up hearing stories about the grandfather he was named after but who he never met — about how the tall man was executed during Nazi reprisals in Greece during World War II.

For decades, the only image Marakis had of his grandfather came from a worn family portrait picture.

But last month another photograph emerged. An online auction contained a photograph showing his grandfather walking calmly toward a firing squad alongside other prisoners.

The image shook the Marakis family and has stirred powerful emotions across Greece, where the execution of 200 prisoners by Nazi occupation forces on May 1, 1944 remains one of the country’s most poignant symbols of wartime resistance.

For Marakis, the photographs carry a deeply personal meaning.

“They went to their deaths with their heads held high so that we could be free today,” he said.

The reels of film were old and battered and no one knew what was on them.

They were from before World War I and had been shuttled around from basements to barns to garages and had just been dropped off at the Library. There were about 10 of them and they were rusted. Some were misshapen. The nitrate film stock had crumbled to bits on some; other strips were stuck together.

The librarians peeled them apart and gently looked them over, frame by frame.

And there, on one film, was a black star painted onto a pedestal in the center of the screen. The action was of a magician and a robot battling it out in slapstick fashion. It took a bit, but then the gasp of realization: They were looking at “Gugusse and the Automaton,” a long-lost film by the iconic French filmmaker George Méliès at his Star Film company.

The 45-second film, made around 1897, was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot, which had endeared it to generations of science fiction fans, even if they knew it only by reputation. It had not been seen by anyone in likely more than a century. The find, made last September but now being announced publicly, is a small but important addition to the legacy of world cinema and one of its founders.

The reels of film were old and battered and no one knew what was on them.

They were from before World War I and had been shuttled around from basements to barns to garages and had just been dropped off at the Library. There were about 10 of them and they were rusted. Some were misshapen. The nitrate film stock had crumbled to bits on some; other strips were stuck together.

The librarians peeled them apart and gently looked them over, frame by frame.

And there, on one film, was a black star painted onto a pedestal in the center of the screen. The action was of a magician and a robot battling it out in slapstick fashion. It took a bit, but then the gasp of realization: They were looking at “Gugusse and the Automaton,” a long-lost film by the iconic French filmmaker George Méliès at his Star Film company.

The 45-second film, made around 1897, was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot, which had endeared it to generations of science fiction fans, even if they knew it only by reputation. It had not been seen by anyone in likely more than a century. The find, made last September but now being announced publicly, is a small but important addition to the legacy of world cinema and one of its founders.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The sound of the school nurse’s office door opening. Light reflecting off a stained-glass window. Tearful outbursts and fear of getting on the school bus.

For many survivors of clergy abuse, memories like these linger for decades.

A report released this week by the Rhode Island attorney general detailed decades of abuse inside the state’s Catholic Diocese of Providence, identifying 75 clergy members who sexually abused more than 300 children since 1950. The investigation drew on thousands of church records and years of interviews with victims and witnesses. Officials said the true number of victims is likely much higher.

This is the tough guy senator who broke a veteran's arm, making sure he got mobbed by a bunch of donut eaters before doing so.

US and Ecuadorian forces have launched joint operations to combat drug trafficking, the US Southern Command said on Tuesday, but neither side gave more details.

Southern Command, which encompasses 31 countries through South and Central America and the Caribbean, said in a statement on X that the “decisive action” was aimed at combating illicit drug trafficking.

The Ecuador defense ministry said details of the offensive operations were classified.

The father of a teenage boy accused of killing two students and two teachers in a mass shooting at a Georgia high school in 2024 was found guilty on Tuesday of second-degree murder and other charges.

After roughly two weeks of testimony, jurors deliberated for just a few hours before convicting 54-year-old Colin Gray on more than two dozen charges, including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, related to the 4 September fatal shooting at Apalachee high school in Georgia.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday ⁠to take up the issue of whether art generated by artificial intelligence can be copyrighted under U.S. law, turning away ​a case involving a computer ​scientist from Missouri who was ​denied a copyright for a piece of visual art made by his AI system.

Plaintiff Stephen Thaler had appealed to the justices after lower courts upheld a U.S. Copyright Office decision that the AI-crafted visual ⁠art ‌at issue in the case was ineligible for copyright protection ⁠because it did not have a human creator.

Thaler, of St. Charles, Missouri, applied for a federal copyright registration in 2018 covering “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” visual art he said his AI technology “DABUS” created. The image shows train tracks entering ‌a portal, surrounded by what appears to be green and purple plant imagery.

The Copyright Office rejected his application in 2022, finding that creative works must have human authors ​to be eligible to receive a copyright. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration had urged the Supreme Court not to hear Thaler’s appeal.

Nevada’s ban on taking drugs to end a pregnancy after the 24th week makes it the only state left in the nation that explicitly criminalizes abortions, advocates say, and legislative efforts last year to change that fell flat.

Patience Rousseau was the only person ever charged and convicted under the law, according to Laura FitzSimmons, a Carson City-based lawyer who has represented her since 2020. FitzSimmons helped get Rousseau’s conviction vacated in 2021 for ineffective assistance of counsel.

Now Nevada will pay Rousseau $100,000 for her ordeal, a settlement approved without comment during last Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Examiners — a panel consisting of the governor, the attorney general and the secretary of state.

The compensation marks the conclusion of an eight-year fight that upended Rousseau’s life and brought national attention to a Nevada law that abortion advocates describe as uniquely punitive toward women who want to end their pregnancy.

Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight, as the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran quickly spread to the rest of the Middle East on Saturday.

Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured.

One resident said that “everyone is very scared” as the situation in Dubai continued to deteriorate.

“There is footage of missile interceptions all over the city,” they said. “I am packing a suitcase just in case … not that we can leave, because airspace is closed. It is the thing we have all been frightened about happening, and now it has.”

Instagram said Thursday it will start alerting parents if their kids repeatedly search for terms clearly associated with suicide or self-harm. The alerts will only go to parents who are enrolled in Instagram’s parental supervision program.

Instagram says it already blocks such content from showing up in teen accounts’ search results and directs people to helplines instead.

The announcement comes as Meta is in the midst of two trials over harms to children. A trial underway in Los Angeles questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm minors. Another, in New Mexico, seeks to determine whether Meta failed to protect kids from sexual exploitation on its platforms. Thousands of families — along with school districts and government entities — have sued Meta and other social media companies claiming they deliberately design their platforms to be addictive and fail to protect kids from content that can lead to depression, eating disorders and suicide.