The fast-paced Information Age is now on fast-forward. Some of the most imaginative futurists of the past would ogle at the gadgets and technology the average person has today. We carry or wear extremely small, extremely powerful computers and connect ourselves instantly to limitless amounts of data and information. We immerse ourselves in ever more realistic and interactive fantasies in theaters, on television and in video games. We work, learn, play and bank from cafs and couches. We order whatever we wish and have it delivered to our doors.

While we indulge in technological luxuries, at an average of eight hours per day, millions of robots assemble vehicles, stock warehouses, make food, sanitize, monitor, formulate, weld, fabricate, machine, paint, coat, load, pack, build and drive. Our quest to use human ingenuity, willpower and creativity to free us from our problems and bring us happiness has produced a world of such dazzling technology that no one can truly comprehend it all. And its only becoming more and more advancedat a faster and faster pace.

Computers are processing even more inputs, even more rapidly, providing even more goods and services to even more people in even more unexpected ways. An unimaginable amount of information has been fed into computer systems that are producing digitized outputs that seem almost to have come from human minds.

Advancements in computers, robotics, energy, materials and other technologies are promising self-driving vehicles on the ground, in the water and in the air; rocket daytrips to space; implanted communications devices; wearable augmented reality, wayfinders and health monitors; automatic law enforcement; resurrection of extinct species; fusion of human brains with computers; eradication of diseases, and even instant cures for mental problems.

This is one vision of the future. Herbert W. Armstrong included it as one of three in his booklet The Wonderful World TomorrowWhat It Will Be Like. It is a utopia of leisure, luxury and license. As author Aldous Huxley summarized it: [T]he world is destinedwithin a generation or twoto become a kind of gigantic Disneyland, in which the human race will find perpetual happiness playing with an endless assortment of ever more ingenious mechanical toys.

Futurists in Huxleys day and in Mr. Armstrongs lifetime anticipated a myriad of technologies that would transform human life within the coming years and decades, some of which have been developed, and some of which have not: artificial organs, brains linked to computers, synthesized food, the elimination of cancer, the cloning of humans, intelligence-enhancing drugs, genetic and heredity engineering, and more (sidebar, page 11).

But the second vision of the futurethen and nowis much more ominous. Besides nuclear annihilation, there are at least five other means by which mankind could be destroyed from off the face of the globe: chemical warfare, biological warfare, overpopulation and resulting famine, disease epidemics, and environmental pollution. Leading scientists look at this world picture and say they are frankly frightened.

These dangers are in our present world and in our future. So are many others, not the least of which is human beings using the incredibly powerful technologies that they have invented to deceive, degrade, manipulate, control and destroy other human beings.

From the time these predictions were written to now, humanity has moved in both directionstoward dizzying technological advancement and disastrous moral and physical perilat the same time. Where will we go from here?

For now, it is certain that we will continue to rely on our own minds, energies, tools and technologies to fix our problems, stave off threats, manufacture luxuries and try to somehow invent our way to a better world.

But The Wonderful World TomorrowWhat It Will Be Like presents a third view of the futureone more inspiring than any futurist has ever imagined.

Our generation lives in a push-button world. However, the core problems the futurists were trying to fix have only grown worse. Our technology is more advanced than our predecessors imagined, but these gadgets are not solving our problems.

Leisure, entertainment and convenience are not delivering happiness and joy. Instead, our society is more lonely, more depressed and more depraved.

Pursuing a utopia free from sickness, disease, depression and even death, human beings have invented and poured lifetimes and immeasurable resources into the science of medicine.

One example of a futuristic medical technology is manipulation of mrna. In the body, mrna molecules instruct cells to create specific proteins using their natural processes. Artificial mrna, which has now been experimentally tested on hundreds of millions of people as covid-19 vaccines, simulates a natural virus in an attempt to train the immune system to target that virus when it enters the body. Many see this gene-therapy tool as the future of combatting sicknesses.

Futurists have also looked forward to scientists altering our bodies genetic code to prevent hereditary illnesses and even improve or perfect our physical characteristics. Today, this controversial technology is beginning to take shape as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (crispr). Some think it will bring medical utopia. Others believe its unknown consequences raise serious ethical questions. The problem is, the only way to find out is to edit embryos, allow them to survive if they can, and observe the effects. Like many other technologies, the byproducts and side effects can be chillingbut they are often ignored.

Another revolutionary technology promising revolutionary change is blockchain. Blockchains most famous use is in bitcoin, the first widespread digital currency, but this type of computer code and system is used in many other applications, from banking to customs to record keeping to contracts to medical records to logistics to elections to warfare. By providing a permanent registry of the movement of goods and services along the supply chain, it promises to be a virtual replacement for human honesty.

For example, the Bank for International Settlements, called the bank for central banks, piloted a blockchain technology called mBridge to connect digital currencies of central banks and help dispense with the need for U.S. dollars in world trade. Some say the technology could be used to help poorer countries and poorer people. It could also concentrate greater power over commerce in fewer hands, who could use it for whatever purposes they see fit.

Another example of how we are using computers to try to solve our problems is the attempt, now in progress, to literally fuse man with machine.

A 2017 article titled Melding Mind and Machine: How Close Are We? argued: Just as ancient Greeks fantasized about soaring flight, todays imaginations dream of melding minds and machines as a remedy to the pesky problem of human mortality. Can the mind connect directly with artificial intelligence, robots and other minds through brain-computer interface (bci) technologies to transcend our human limitations? (The Conversation, April 9, 2017).

A company called Neuralink has already applied for permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test its brain implant on human beings. The request was reportedly denied out of fear of the unknown side effects. But the implant, already tested on animals, promises to make the paralyzed walk and the blind see and to turn humans into cybernetic organisms.

The possibilities opened up by connecting a human brain to computers, the Internet and robotic hardware are staggering. Harvard Business Review wrote: bcis can connect to a humans brain either internally or externally. They read the brain activity and process the activity into information, and can also communicate information back to the brain. bcis have the potential to amplify human intelligence to superhuman levels, which is exciting for technologists and entrepreneurs, but begs the question: Are we, our businesses and our technological systems ready for this change? (Sept. 28, 2020).

From the beginning, we human beings have faced problems and attempted to solve those problems by applying our mental and physical energies and, often, developing tools and other technologies. We are now thousands of years into this attempt, and we still believe that the problems of today are just one more invention away from being solved.

Many of the futurists of the past, and the present, have a noticeable element of naivety in how they expect new technologies to be developed and used. As some of these tools have become reality, a more dystopian flavor has become dominant. Instead of living in a future pictured by The Jetsons, it appears we are gradually becoming trapped in the pages of George Orwells 1984.

One organization aimed at shaping the future is the World Economic Forum. One of its most infamous videos proclaimed that in the near future, You will own nothing, and you will be happy. Instead of owning appliances, for example, you will rent them and take delivery by drone. Instead of owning land, a home or even a vehicle, you will live in a 15-minute city, where everything you need is nearby. Meanwhile, hospitals will be inserting 3-D printed organs into people, and spaceports will be sending humans to live on Mars. You will also be eating replacement meats, created using cells extracted from living animalsor perhaps just using crushed up insects. Your thoughts will be scanned and monitored, and not just through detailed tracking of your Internet usage.

The next phase is the surveillance going under our skin, said the World Economic Forums Yuval Noah Harari. Its not just dystopian. Its also utopian. This kind of data can also enable us to create the best health-care system in history.

Some think of it as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Some envision it as utopia. Some view it as a nightmare. But whatever you think of it, a future where problems will be addressed by powerful people wielding powerful technologies is coming at you fast.

Some of the worlds most successful men are now trying to build entire new societies with new ideologies in new cities built from scratch (article, page 14). Some have abandoned any attempt to save humanity on Earth, and instead believe utopia awaits in the heavens and depends on us building new technologies to get there.

The National Aeronautics and Space Agencys Artemis program is designed to return man to the moon and establish a long-term human presence. Following the establishment of the program in December 2017, President Donald Trump stated: The directive I am signing today will refocus Americas space program on human exploration and discovery. It marks a first step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972, for long-term exploration and use. This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprintswe will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, and perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond.

The $6 billion program will use the most powerful rocket launch system humanity has ever created, standing 30 stories tall. It has multiple stages to bring thousands of tons of equipment and supplies to the moon and prepare for a trip to Mars. Habitat capsules, exploration rovers, solar power sources and a lunar space station are all included in the program. The end goal is to have humans on Mars in the 2030s.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. So far, the technology has not caught up with the dreams. Musk and other scientists want to terraform Mars to make it more earthlike by redirecting sunlight and introducing microorganisms to create oxygen. But for now, this technology is just a pipe dream.

Billions of dollars are being spent trying to create utopia in the cosmos. Efforts to colonize other planets highlight the expansive imagination of mankind, but also reflect a hopelessness about the situation on Earth. This is a last-ditch attempt to use technology to save us from our problemsand from ourselves.

Throughout human history, we have met our problemsbe they physical, material, mental or spiritualby developing new tools. Whether it be a mega-tower on the plain of Shinar (Genesis 11) or whether it be inserting plasmids with synthetic spike proteins and genetic codes into our bodies, it is and always has been in our very nature to fix it with technology.

These attempted solutions have generated a number of consequences, intended and unintended. Many have been impossible to produce without manipulating and forcing other people. Throughout history, including today, much of the mining, manufacturing, labor and other effort needed to solve the problems of one group of people have come from the enslavement of another.

At the same time, tools have been made, buildings built, cities developed, voluminous waste disposed, inventions promulgated with little thought, and even less restraint devoted to dealing with new problems.

In earlier generations, crop yields were low, sickness was threatening, raids and wars were never too distant, and the knowledge of how to live was hidden. We have invented numerous tools, some of which have had beneficial effects, but none of which have solved our fundamental problems. Now, well into the 21st century, our problems are multiplying and intensifying. Famine, drought and weather disasters have increased over the past decade. War is raging in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and beyond. In 2021, there were 15 million excess deaths from unknown reasons. Increases in Internet devices and prescription drugs, hailed as fantastic technologies, have accompanied increases in depression and anxiety. Internet connectivity, cameras and other monitors, digital currencies and blockchain technologies promise convenience and efficiency, but also give governments tyrannical control over your money.

We have definitely succeeded in developing powerful technologies. But this should not deceive us, as it has deceived so many, into thinking that because they are advanced they can solve the fundamental sources of our problems: selfishness, slothfulness, jealousies, hatreds, corruption and more. With those fundamental sources decidedly unsolved, the more advanced and powerful our technologies, the more dangerous they are. Like an arms race between superpowers, our rapidly advancing industrial, medical, electronic and other technologies have succeeded only in dramatically increasing the stakes.

Look at the society and world around you and ask: Are we progressingor regressing?

The fantastical technology at our fingertips does not always cause problems, but we must face the fact that our problems have increased at least as fast as our technologies. And we need to ask ourselves why.

Throughout human history, we have been making the same mistake. We face problems, both physical and spiritual, that ultimately trace back to wrong thinking and we respond, We will fix it with technology. Such a solution is doomed and always has been! Steel production cannot solve covetousness. Silicon and glass cannot create fulfillment. Cameras cannot provide justice. Computer code cannot produce the same result as human honesty.

A colossal tower for resisting floodwaters cannot produce the same result as obedience to God.

Most technology is not intrinsically evil; in fact, it can be used beneficially and productively for the human race. The problem is that technology deals purely with the material, while the real root causes lie in the unseen spiritual dimension.

Mr. Armstrong explained this reality in The Wonderful World TomorrowWhat It Will Be Like: We repeat, theres a cause for every effect. If crime is to be greatly reduced, then wiped out, there will be a reason. People may have many guesses, opinions, theories about what causes crime, but the answer ishuman nature. What is the cause of wars? The answer ishuman nature. Why do people steal, murder, commit adultery or fornication, covet what is not theirs? Human nature. We shall never have utopia on Earth until human nature is changed.

We will never find utopia by applying material technological solutions to spiritual problems.

When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He gave them a choice between two ways of life: the tree of life, which symbolized Gods way of life, or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which symbolized Satans way. Adam chose the latter, thus setting the foundation of our current civilization (Genesis 2-3). Mr. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages: Adam took to himself the knowledge of good as well as evil. But it was only human good, no higher than the carnal human level of the human spirit within him. He rejected reliance on God and relied on himself for knowledge, ability and powerall limited to the fleshly human plane, deceived and led by the perverted Satan.

Our entire civilization developed on this foundation. The first child ever born grew up to develop implements to force the ground. His immediate descendants developed other tools, instruments, weapons, cities, systems and approaches to solve their problems their own ways. Yet their problems multiplied and intensified to the point that their Creator took away the lives He had made in a global flood to stop our acceleration into complete self-destruction. Yet shortly after the Flood, human beings assayed to solve even that problem, not by addressing the mental and spiritual problem and obeying God, but in developing the government, religious, labor and technological systems necessary for building a flood-proof tower!

Now, just as then, our civilization is descended from Adam and Eve, Cain and Nimrod. It is influenced and ruled by Satan the devil (Revelation 12:9; 2 Corinthians 4:4), the god of this world who broadcasts human nature into the minds of humanity (Ephesians 2:2). Adams decision sentenced all of his progeny to be automatically tuned into Satans wavelength of selfishness and meant all our endeavors would rely solely on human effort.

Mr. Armstrong continued: And so a worlda civilizationdeveloped from the original Adam and Eve. When God shut off the tree of life, that act marked the foundation of the world. It was founded on rejection of God, on disobedience to Gods law, which defines Gods way of life. And all the evils, sorrows, pain and suffering in 6,000 years of human civilization have resulted.

But what would happen if, with Gods help, we stopped trying to use technology to fix wrong attitudes and finally addressed the root causes of our problems?

This third view of the future is only found in the pages of a book written thousands of years ago, yet it is the most modern, up-to-date text you can find. The Bible records Jesus Christ teaching the solution to our modern-day problems. In Matthew 24, He said there would be wars and rumors of wars (verse 6), famines, pestilences and earthquakes worldwide (verse 7). In fact, He foretold that mankind would commit cosmocide, wiping out every human being, if He did not intervene! (verse 22).

At its very climax when delay would result in blasting all life from off this planet, Jesus Christ will return, continued Mr. Armstrong. Think of it. The glorified Christcoming in all the splendor, the supernatural power and the glory of God Almightycoming to save mankind alivecoming to stop escalating wars, nuclear mass destruction, human pain and sufferingcoming to usher in peace, abundant well-being, happiness and joy for all mankind.

A new world government is coming that will bring peace, happiness and the fulfillment of our human potential. But it wont come the way mankind wants or thinks. Jesus Christ will build a new civilization from the foundation up! Addressing human nature will solve the problems that technology has repeatedly promised, but failed, to fix.

God will abolish human nature by exercising the divine authority of this new world government and through a process of reeducation. Every human is a free moral agent who will have to choose to live Gods way of life that produces the good results we all desire, or to continue the miserable path of human nature until death results. Gods law, encapsulated in the Ten Commandments, will be the law of the land for the entire Earth!

Imagine a world ruled by the perfectly righteous and loving God, where our very nature gradually changes from being selfish to being selfless, like our Creator. With the spiritual root cause corrected, we can advance into a truly revolutionary future. Allow Mr. Armstrong to help you imagine this future utopia:

In such a world, with all loving and worshiping God with all their minds, hearts and strengthwith all having concern for the welfare of all others equal to concern for selfthere would be no divorceno broken homes or families, no juvenile delinquency, no crime, no jails or prisons, no police except for peaceful direction and supervision as a public service for all, no wars, no military establishments. But further, God has set in motion physical laws that operate in our bodies and minds, as well as the spiritual law. There would be no sickness, ill health, pain or suffering. There would be, on the contrary, vigorous, vibrant good health, filled with dynamic interest in life, enthusiastic interest in constructive activities bringing happiness and joy. There would be cleanliness, vigorous activity, real progress, no slums, no degenerate backward races or areas of Earth.

This is Gods promise for the future. And it can happen only when our perpetual cycle of doomed self-reliance is finally broken. Some of todays technology will finally reach its full potential once its correct use is ensured because mans nature has been changed. Finally, all the innovative power of the human mind will be combined with the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14; Acts 2:17). United with our Creator, we will achieve the purpose for which we were created.

What glory! A new day shall have dawned. Peace shall soon come. Men shall turn from the way of get to the way of giveGods way of love. A new civilization shall now grip the Earth! (ibid). The dawn of this utopia and a new chapter in the history of mankind is not far away. You can have real hope in this promise of the future. Catch this vision of tomorrow and it will transform your life starting today.

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Three Visions of the Future - theTrumpet.com

Last years song of the summer competition wasnt really a competition at all: As It Was, the monster hit from Harry Styles third solo album Harrys House, spent a total of 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart last year, including prolonged stays in the top spot during June and July 2022. Considering that As It Was logged the most weeks at No. 1 for any song by a solo artist in Hot 100 history, there was little doubt that Styles would finish atop Billboards annual Songs of the Summer chart, which runs each year from Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend.

But heres a fun fact about As It Was: It was released on April 1, 2022, more than a month before the Songs of the Summer chart even launched. And with its one-year anniversary just a couple of days away, its fair to suggest that the song of the summer for 2023 is about to be released or may already be out in the world at this moment.

After all, plenty of songs that have been released in the early days of a calendar year have gone on to dominate the dog days: DaBaby and Roddy Ricchs Rockstar in 2020, Lil Nas Xs Old Town Road in 2019 and Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankees Despacito in 2017, for instance, were all released months before they powered their ways to the top of the Hot 100 and were crowned the song of their respective summers. Even though its still only March, its worth taking a look at the current field of contenders, and identifying which songs are currently favorites, which tracks could swoop in from the outside, and which artists should never be counted out, especially given recent context clues.

So roll out the beach towel, put on some sunscreen and crank up the warm-weather playlist: its our annual way-too-early song of the summer breakdown!

During a relatively quiet moment in Selena Gomezs recording career, the superstar has unwittingly tossed her hat in the ring of the summer songs showdown: Her appearance on the remix to Calm Down, the dynamic single from Afrobeats star Rema, has helped it become an even bigger smash, both within the United States (No. 8 peak on the Hot 100 this week) and outside of it (No. 1 on the Global Excl. U.S. last year). Combine the songs major presence on streaming, continued growth at radio, current No. 1 spot on the Shazam Top 200, correct tempo for summer dance parties and Gomezs presence providing a familiar face to programmers, and what do you have? A summer thats defined by Calm Down, potentially.

As it climbs to No. 9 on this weeks Hot 100, Players and its playful flip of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Fives The Message hook seem primed for a big spring: Coi Lerays breakthrough hit took off on TikTok and has now crossed over to multiple radio formats, with a bright, bouncy sound that will be perfect for warm-weather playlists. If Players can preserve its momentum and perhaps add a bit more with a new summer-ready remix? Leray could be in the drivers seat of the summer song conversation.

Last Night recently became Morgan Wallens first Hot 100 chart-topper, but more importantly to the song of the summer competition, has turned into the de facto breakout hit from the country superstars huge-streaming One Thing at a Time album. Wallens 36-track opus already boasts five songs that have reached the top 10 of the Hot 100, and none have spent as much time at or near the pinnacle as Last Night, which comes in at No. 2 on this weeks chart. As One Thing at a Time logs another week atop the Billboard 200 and Wallen prepares for his stadium tour, its clear that he and this album will be commercial forces this summer and that Last Night is in this race for the long haul.

Although this union of two ultra-promising newcomers went viral and zoomed into the top 10 of the Hot 100 last month, could PinkPantheress Boys a Liar remix with ice Spice have already peaked, sliding down to No. 6 on the chart after previously reaching No. 3? Not necessarily: Boys a Liar Pt. 2 can still grow by leaps and bounds at radio, is still holding strong on streaming platforms, and is brimming with the type of hooks that arent likely to burn up too fast. PinkPantheress and Ice Spice could each hypothetically release new singles in the coming months to contend this summer, but Boys a Liar Pt. 2, with their powers combined, has too much potential right now to dismiss.

The lead single to Ed Sheerans upcoming album (Subtract) is a meditation on grief, more subtly produced and decidedly downbeat compared to his previous smashes. As such, Eyes Closed may be in for a muted chart bow by Sheerans standards, based on early streaming returns. Still, you cant count him out in this race: the stadium headliner has a tendency of turning relatively slow-starting singles, from Perfect to I Dont Care with Justin Bieber to Shivers, into juggernauts that spend months in heavy rotation on pop radio. Eyes Closed has the hook, and Sheeran has the pedigree, to keep this among the biggest contenders.

Kill Bill was both one of the defining songs of the winter as well as SZAs biggest solo hit to date, and even as were approaching four months since the release of SOS, the album and its breakout single both remain in the top 3 of the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 charts, respectively. Meanwhile, Snooze continues to linger on streaming charts and within the top 40 of the Hot 100, as the presumptive next single from SOS once Kill Bill starts to slip; the sumptuous love song may not carry the tempo of a typical summer song, but nothing SZA does is typical including her mainstream stardom and Snooze shouldnt be discounted.

Speaking of songs that could follow an A-list artists current hit, Watch This turned into an unexpected streaming sensation for Lil Uzi Vert, whos currently riding high with the top 10 hit Just Wanna Rock, after producer ARIZONATEARS scooped up the unreleased track and his Pluggnb Remix was officially sanctioned by Uzis Atlantic Records home. Uzi still has juice with Rock they just brought a choreo-heavy performance of the song to Fallon a few days ago but the frenetic Watch This has stayed on the Hot 100 after a viral breakthrough last month, and has made waves on multiple international charts. If Team Uzi switches their promotional focus to this excavated hit in the next month or two, we might have something to, ahem, watch.

Two years after BTS took home the Song of the Summer 2021 crown with Butter, Jimin is representing the world-conquering group in this years showdown with Like Crazy, the focus track (available in both Korean and English versions) from his recently released project Face. Like Crazy is a bit of soulful synth-pop that establishes Jimins solo approach, and has shown promising signs on global streaming charts in its first week of release. Well see if the track can carve out a spot at U.S. radio in the coming months, although if ARMY focuses its attention on Like Crazy, its crossover potential is high.

After collaborating with artists like Latto, DaBaby and Fivio Foreign and touring with Rod Wave, Toosii has a bonafide solo hit on his hands with Favorite Song, which rode plenty of sped-up TikTok versions onto the Hot 100 last month and has been flying up the chart, jumping 15 spots to No. 21 this week. The woozy R&B hook of Favorite Song is definitely worthy of a breakthrough moment, and while Toosii doesnt have the mainstream history of some of his competitors, the velocity with which his single keeps rising gives it a shot in this race.

Right below Favorite Song on the current Hot 100 chart, at No. 22, is TQG, the kinetic team-up between Karol G whose Maana Ser Bonito album made history last month by becoming the first all-Spanish language album by a female artist to top the Billboard 200 chart and Shakira, in the middle of a career renaissance thanks to her Bizarrap collaboration Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53, and now this. Both tracks reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 for the veteran superstar upon their respective debuts, and TQG has topped charts around the world in the weeks since. Once the weather heats up, well be hearing TQG a whole lot in club mixes, which will certainly help its shot at a prolonged chart run.

Former Disney Channel star Coco Jones appears to have a legitimate hit on her hands with the tender R&B ballad ICU, which debuts at No. 88 on this weeks Hot 100. After Jones (who is also starring in the Peacock series Bel-Air) signed to Def Jam a year ago, ICU was released as part of her debut EP, What I Didnt Tell You, in November, and has since spent the past few months becoming a favorite of TikTok lip-syncers. Radio prospects for ICU are already pretty strong, and signs point to upward momentum for Jones, whos harnessing the support of her longtime Disney fans to ensure a successful adult crossover.

When one of the most consistent hitmakers in modern pop confirms plans to release an album this year, that artist deserves to be factored into the summer song competition. Doja Cat teased a 2023 release for the follow-up to 2021s Planet Her one of the most hits-packed albums in recent memory, with Kiss Me More, Woman and Need to Know all becoming enduring top 10 smashes earlier this year, then floated a potential title, Hellmouth, a week ago. Even if a new album gets scheduled for the fall, perhaps a lead single would arrive for the summer months?

The Australian rapper-singer is gearing up for the release of his first official album this year, having already issued multiple new tracks Love Again, Kids are Growing Up (Part 1) and I Guess Its Love? in the first quarter of 2023. Those tracks have yet to gain mainstream traction, but it only takes one flash point for LAROI to leap into this race especially considering that he scored one of the biggest hits of this decade, the Justin Bieber collaboration Stay, barely 18 months ago. The multi-quadrant success of that song wasnt a fluke, and dont be surprised if LAROI has something else up his sleeve in the coming months.

Will All of the Girls You Loved Before, an unreleased Lover-era castoff that was recently unveiled, continue to push upwards on the Hot 100 after debuting at No. 12 this week? How about Lavender Haze, which is climbing back up the chart (at No. 17 this week) and gaining radio momentum as the follow-up to Midnights smash Anti-Hero? What if there are more re-recorded songs, more unreleased tracks, more Midnights hits, or even more new music? Its hard to say exactly which Swift song is going to be in contention this summer, but as she forges ahead with her mega-selling Eras tour, Taylor will be top of mind, and cant be counted out.

Utopia, Scotts long-awaited follow-up to his blockbuster 2018 album Astroworld, has long been rumored for a June 2023 release, although nothing official has been announced. Whenever it arrives, Scotts next solo project is going to have enormous commercial potential, considering that he was able to drive multiple non-album singles, from Highest in the Room to The Scotts with Kid Cudi to Franchise with Young Thug and M.I.A., to the top of the Hot 100. Time will tell how much fallout from the 2021 Astroworld Festival tragedy impacts his commercial prospects, but his track record as a mainstream fixture puts him in play for the top spot of the Hot 100 whenever he does fully return.

And finally, we have the hope that Renaissance, Beyoncs 2022 house music opus, really is going to be Act I of a three-part project! Although no details of a potential Act II, including the timetable of its release, have emerged, Queen Bey has the chance to rule consecutive summers, after Renaissance arrived last July and brought lead single Break My Soul with it to the top of the Billboard charts. The Renaissance world tour kicks off in May lets cross our fingers that theres a new song of the summer contender to help launch it in style.

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Song of the Summer 2023: Early Breakdown of Pop Contenders - Billboard

Federal officials have discovered a new outbreak of infections caused by Salmonella Infantis.

Investigators with the Food and Drug Administration have not yet determined what food or beverage is the source of the Salmonella. A dozen people have been confirmed sick, but the FDA has not reported their ages or where they live.

The agency has initiated traceback efforts but has not revealed what food or foods are being traced. It is not uncommon for the FDA to spend weeks investigating an outbreak without reporting what foods might be involved.

In another outbreak the number of confirmed patients continues to consistently increase week by week. There are now 53 patients in an outbreak of Salmonella Hartford compared to 50 a week ago and 47 two weeks ago.

The FDA has not released any specific information about the patients in the Salmonella Hartford outbreak, including where the patients live or what their ages are.

Investigation efforts include on-site inspection and collection of samples for testing, in addition to traceback work. The FDA has not revealed what food or foods are being traced and tested or where the on-site samples are being collected.

Other ongoing outbreaksInvestigation continues in an outbreak that has caused liver infections from the hepatitis A virus in five patients. Two of the patients have required hospitalization.

Patients range in age from their 30s through their 60s, according to the Washington State Department of Health.

The outbreak has been traced to frozen, organic strawberries and recalls have been initiated for berries sold at Costco and a variety of other stores and under various brand names.

For an outbreak of infections from Listeria monocytogenes, the Food and Drug Administration is continuing traceback efforts. The source of the outbreak continues to be listed as unknown.

The FDA has also begun on-site inspection and sample analysis but still hasnt reported what food or locations are involved in the investigation.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 11 people infected across 10 states. Ten of the patients have been so sick that they had to be admitted to hospitals. No deaths have been reported.

The outbreak is long-running with patients having been identified from July 2018 through January this year, according to the CDC. The patients range in age from 47 to 88 years old, with a median age of 73. One-fourth of the patients are female.

Public health officials are continuing to interview patients to find out what foods they ate in the weeks before becoming sick. It can take from a few days up to more than two months for symptoms of Listeria infection to develop.

The patients have been identified and linked using whole genome sequencing, which provides DNA fingerprints of the bacteria. The patients samples have the same genetic signatures, which shows they are all part of a single outbreak.

The sick people live across the country, suggesting nationally distributed food. The patients live in Washington, California, Colorado, South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

In another outbreak, the FDA has identified enoki mushrooms distributed by Utopia Foods Inc. of Glendale, NY, and imported from China, and enoki mushrooms labeled as Producer: Shandong Youhe Biotechnology, Co., with an address in China and Distributed By: Sun Hong Foods Inc. as likely sources of Listeria monocytogenes infections.

Enoki mushrooms are long thin white mushrooms, usually sold in clusters. They are especially popular in East Asian cuisine and are also known as enokitake, golden needle, futu, seafood, or lily mushrooms. There have been about 20 recalls of a wide variety of brands of imported enoki mushrooms in the United States in the past two years because of contamination with Listeria.

As of its most recent outbreak update on Jan. 18, the CDC reported three patients included in this outbreak. Through ongoing import and product sampling of enoki mushrooms, two strains of Listeria monocytogenes detected on enoki mushroom products have been determined through Whole Genome Sequencing to be the same strains of Listeria monocytogenes linked to illnesses in this outbreak. Both strains are included in this outbreak investigation.

Additional sample collection and analysis conducted by the Maryland Department of Health have also identified both outbreak strains of Listeria monocytogenes in two product samples of enoki mushrooms. These products that tested positive have the following printed on their packaging Producer: Shandong Youhe Biotechnology Co., with an address in China, and Distributed By: Sun Hong Foods, Inc.

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FDA announces new Salmonella outbreak; other investigations ... - Food Safety News

What we take for granted might not be here for our children.

So said former Vice President Al Gore over and over again in his Inconvenient Truth presentations. Gores argument at the time was that to prevent climate change from destroying our childrens future, human societies needed to transition to 100% renewable sources of energy and that we had 10 years to do so. (This was in 2006.)

As this arbitrary deadline came and went, it was only a matter of time before Gores rhetorical invocation of aphoristic children evolved into the recruitment of actual, real-life children for activist purposes.

Which brings us to Greta Thunberg. Thunberg, 15 years old at the time, gained overnight celebrity in 2018 as the face of Fridays for Future, a global strike of school-aged students advocating more ambitious climate action. Since then, she went viral with her infamous "How dare you?" speech at the United Nations, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean as a symbolic alternative to carbon-intensive air travel, and helped launch Climate Live, a series of pop music concerts modeled after the 1985 Live Aid festival.

Thunberg more recently came under criticism for surreptitiously deleting a 2018 tweet in which she quoted a climate scientist as having claimed that climate change will wipe out all humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years. The criticism amounts to so much concern trolling, according to Thunbergs defenders. Right wingers have been dunking all week on Thunberg deleting a hyperbolic tweet she made when she was 15 years old, journalist David Bernstein responded.

And here we see the Teflon moral clarity of Thunbergs particular brand of childhood climate activism. When she demands aggressive action and adherence to scientific principle, hers is an urgent and authoritative voice speaking with the unspoiled wisdom of youth. When she gets something wrong, hey, what do you expect? Shes just a child!

Thunberg is out with her most recent book, her third, released in February and titled The Climate Book. The book collates the perspectives of over 100 figures in the climate discourse. They include climate scientists Elizabeth Kolbert and Michael Mann, activists Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben, and liberal economists Thomas Piketty and Kate Raworth. These figures are overwhelmingly more established and senior than Thunberg of those whose birthdays could be verified on Wikipedia, the average contributors age is 52.

And so it is somewhat conspicuous that most of the words in Thunbergs new book do not come from the young activist but from those older, familiar luminaries of the climate movement. Her presence is constrained to short introductions to the five sections of the book and, of course, her name on the cover. Now 20 years old, its almost as though Thunbergs particular power her youth, at once fortifying her truth and forgiving her mistakes is wearing off.

Thunberg herself has wrestled with the pitfalls of childhood as a part of activist performance art. Im a completely different person in private. I appear very angry in the media, but Im not, Thunberg told the BBC in 2021. But Thunbergs performative, youthful anger may have just been proof of concept, preceding a rising tide of climate anxiety lamented, some would say fomented, by the climate community.

The leading scholar on climate anxiety is Britt Wray, a planetary health postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health. Last year, Wray published a popular book titled Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis, as well as a widely covered survey of climate anxiety in children around the world.

A majority of the surveys respondents agreed with the statement humanity is doomed, an uptick over older people that Wray attributes to the messages the young receive from media about climate change. Its shameful that we have left young people with that kind of emotional reality, Wray recently told Yale E360. But I dont think theyre overreacting.

Like Gore with his trusty aphorism and the climate advocates channeling their message through Thunberg, Wray here is conscripting children to advance a political argument. After all, it is far from settled whether humanity is, in fact, doomed. As many of the chapters in The Climate Book attest, recent socioeconomic and technological developments have bent the global carbon emissions curve to within striking distance of activists climate goals. And indeed, it is highly plausible that many of the priorities advanced by the wider climate movement including "degrowth," bans on industrial agriculture, and programs to reverse overpopulation pose even greater threats to human well-being than carbon emissions do.

In many ways, Gores abstract children have given way to living, breathing little humans, and not just captains such as Thunberg but infantry, too. Consider the group of elementary school-aged children the Sunrise Movement brought to the soon-to-retire Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinsteins office in 2019. Senator, if this doesnt get turned around in 10 years, youre looking at the faces of the people who are going to be living with the consequences, said the childrens chaperone, gesturing at the cherubic faces of the young proto-activists. Its not going to get turned around in 10 years. Ive been doing this for 30 years, responded the senator. You come in here, and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I dont respond to that.

The exchange, which was captured on video, was activist catnip. This is how @SenFeinstein reacted to children asking her to support the #GreenNewDeal resolution with smugness + disrespect, the Sunrise Movement tweeted. But if you watch the video, it is clear that the senator was responding to the adult chaperone as much as the children themselves.

Or consider the so-called Childrens Climate Lawsuit, a suit brought against the U.S. federal government by 21 young people seeking damages caused by fossil fuel consumption. That suit was filed by Our Childrens Trust, an organization supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Patagonia, and other major climate donors, to protect the Earths climate system for present and future generations by representing young people in global legal efforts to secure their binding and enforceable legal rights to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate.

Dragooning child soldiers into activist causes is nothing new. Yet for a distinctly intergenerational challenge, in which either utopia or apocalypse allegedly awaits at the end, children offer a particularly potent force in climate debates. The invocation of childrens voices is the advocates way of short-circuiting those debates.

What makes Thunbergs new book so discomfiting is the sense that she has aged out of this function, that she has, literally, outlived her usefulness to the movement. This is the end of the book, she writes. It is where I am supposed to round up my thoughts and write some inspirational words worthy of last sentences. But I will not do that. Instead, I will leave that to you. It feels like a curtain closing on her entire project. Her fleeting youth is both message and messenger.

One wonders how many of the young people named in the Childrens Climate Lawsuit, or the students paraded in front of Feinstein, or the survey respondents whose anxieties Wray cultivates, will have the same platform to reflect and reckon with their role in climate advocacy that Thunberg has. Even if theyre so lucky, they might wind up where she is: a footnote to, not an author of, older and more powerful adults agenda.

Alex Trembath is the deputy director at the Breakthrough Institute.

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Greta Thunberg is out with her most recent book, her third, released ... - Washington Examiner

A sunny evening a few Tuesdays ago, the actor and filmmaker Thom Hilton strutted past the vinyl chairs and black velvet paintings of Dots Cafe and ordered a Diet Coke at the bar. Youre over 21? the bartender asked. Hilton, who is 25, thanked her for the compliment through a conspiratorial smirk. The dull pulse of Black Sabbath bounced off the rococo wallpaper and over the pinball machines.

Across the street was the historic Clinton Street Theater, the set of Hiltons upcoming short film (his fourth), set to begin filming in May, and from where he hosts Rocky Horror for Virgins the second and fourth Saturday of every month. He's currently raising funds for the project inpartnership with the Portland Art Museums Center for an Untold Tomorrow. Genre Flick will center on a rotating cast of moviegoers trapped in the worlds of the films theyve just seen, including local drag legend Carla Rossi as a version of the emblematic femme fatale, Vera, from the 1945 noir, Detour. The script received a slew of praise last year in screenwriting competitions and was a finalist at the Cordillera International Film Festival and the Plot Point International Screenwriting Awards.

I like my funny stuff really fast, Hilton says, eyeing the theaters marquee from Dots sidewalk patio. He wrote the script around characters he developed while performing as a stand-up comic. In a way, he had to cast different versions of himself, but he plans to play one character himself. The actor Harrison Sheehan (Beach Rats) stars as Robby, an excessively handsome theater employee who gets asked on a series of dates by the genre-bound characters, including a John Wayneinspired cowboy. (Red River is this great, classic, gaymeaning homoeroticcowboy movie.)

Despite the fact that Robby dates boys, girls, drag queens, you know, all that, in the film, nobodys like, Well whats that persons sexuality? Hilton says. Nobody will refer to Carla as a drag queen in the text. Nobody will say anything about [Robby] going on a date with a woman. In the text, queerness is like, beyond normal. We are in Queer Utopia World.

Aside from Carla Rossi, Sheehan, and of course Hilton, Genre Flick will feature Portland actress Lauren Modica, a star of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as well as several Portland Center Stage productions. John Henry Ward, who you may recognize from the Elle Fanning Hulu drama The Girl from Plainville, will act opposite Sheehan.

Through the fundraising process, the film has grown into a community project. The Clinton couldnt be a more perfect venue, Hilton explains, being specifically queer and avant garde, like the script. Other local endorsements havent had as explicit of an impact on the film, but with everything from local sex toy retailer She Bop to pizza places to thrift stores as sponsors, theres truly a village rallied behind the project. Fiscal sponsorship from PAM CUT means that donations to the film are tax deductible and the museums backing provides crucial access to equipment and promotional opportunities.

Each scene in the film will begin with a shot of the Clintons marquee, introducing the to-be-referenced film while holding a constant listing for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, as it does in real life. Hilton started going to the Clintons Rocky Horror screenings as a teenager. And when he moved back to Portland during the pandemic from New York, he pitched the idea of running a series of educational virgin night screenings. He would share his decade-plus of yelling at Susan Sarandon and teach a new generation of viewers how to watch this bad movie that doesnt make any sense.

Its a lot of yelling, Hilton explains between sips of Diet Coke.

Like shouting, Hey, Ma. Whats for dinna? before Meatloaf bursts through a wall on a motorcycle, and making sure you know Brad is an asshole! Hilton brings rice and newspaper and toilet paper and fake flowers to throw and teaches you how to do the time warp. A recent virgin night screening drew an audience of nearly 100, complete with a kid celebrating their 10th birthday (accompanied by parents), 20-year-olds on dates, and you know, adults, too.

Hilton cites Kevin Williamsons Scream films, known for their callouts to old horror movies, as a major inspiration. But, like he believes of Williamsons campy classics, Hilton doesnt want to use past cinema as a pretentious mode of film school; hes interested instead in the sharpness of the archetype that naming a reference can bring, not the potential didactic clout citing 80-year-old films might garner. I dont personally think that there is a value inand there was just a big movie that did this, Babylonin making a movie that tells people to watch other movies when they're watching the movie that you've just made, he says. Even if you havent seen Detour, you know what a femme fatale is, and having the reference brings specificity to the character. You know what a cowboy is; why not make it John Wayne himself?

Above all, Hilton is adamant that Genre Flick will be an extremely queer movie that has nothing to say. It has the freedom to celebrate what it is, where it is, and whos in it. It started with: Me and my friend are gonna make this joke movie, right? And has since grown into: Oh, the whole neighborhood is in it, Hilton says. And isnt that great?

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A Movie About Movies Is Filming at One of Portland's Oldest Cinemas - Portland Monthly

Like much dystopian fiction, Jacqueline Goldfingers Babel takes factual elements of a societys past or present and imagines how they might play out in the future. In this case, the playwright hones in on eugenics a dark part of our nations history and artificial intelligence, an increasingly pressing issue in the present day. In its current production at Redtwist Theatre, directed by Rinska Carrasco-Prestinary, the play raises important questions with the aid of some clever dramatic devices but is less successful in its attempt to capture the human cost of striving for utopia.

Set in what is presumably the future United States (although the location isnt named), Babel centers on two expecting couples, one who has been trying to get pregnant for eight years, the other happily surprised. However, a positive pregnancy test, even when greatly desired, immediately leads to anxiety about pre-certification a mandatory process of in-utero testing to determine the physical, cognitive and behavioral desirability of the fetuss genetic code. These standards have curbed a host of societal ills, from mass shootings to cancer, and ensured population control in the face of dwindling resources and climate change.

All the adults in this society are certified all the visible ones, anyway meaning their genes have passed muster in each of the three categories. Despite the careful pairing of certified partners, pregnancy is still a gamble; should a fetus fail the pre-certification process, the parents are strongly encouraged to terminate. Alternatively, they can put their child through rehabilitation and try to have them certified later, but those who do so risk ostracization and, of course, potential failure.

When Dani (Shannon Leigh Webber) and Renee (Monique Marshaun) get the news that their long-awaited pregnancy has failed pre-certification, their marriage quickly spirals into crisis. A powerful female executive, Dani is a true believer who voted to make certification the law of the land. Surely, the doctor must be wrong in her familys case. It doesnt apply to us, she insists.

Michael Sherwin (Stork) and Monique Marshaun (Renee) in "Babel" from Redtwist Theatre. (Tom McGrath)

Meanwhile, Renee reveals that she has always doubted the wisdom of the certification laws. Who gets to play God? she wonders, as this question takes on new immediacy in her own life. As she agonizes over what to do with her pregnancy, an anthropomorphic stork (Michael Sherwin) tries to influence her decision in a series of hallucinatory visions. These bizarre episodes add levity to a show thats billed as a dark comedy but leans heavily toward the dark.

The other couple, Ann (Soleil Prez) and Jamie (Sherwin), is best friends with Dani and Renee, although you wouldnt know it from some of their chilly interactions. Its clear that suspicion and surveillance are part of their everyday lives. Throughout the show, actors make their entrances and exits with robotic movements, eyes straight ahead, while stark red and blue lighting (by Cat Davis) and ominously cheerful voice-overs promoting the certification program (sound design by Jake Sorgen) reinforce an ever-present Big Brother.

Jamie also has his doubts about the certification laws, for reasons that become clear later in the play. As the two couples try to make decisions about their futures, they debate issues of bodily autonomy, nature versus nurture, the dice toss of genetics and the caste system that they live under. Referencing the biblical tale of human hubris and divine wrath for which the play is named, Renee says to Dani, Remember Babel? Brought down a civilization and broke the world.

This discourse, while thought-provoking, often feels more academic than emotionally grounded in the high stakes that these characters face. Elements of the story remind me of Celeste Ngs acclaimed 2022 novel Our Missing Hearts, which is also set in a dystopian United States, albeit one that enforces McCarthyite patriotism rather than genetic perfection. Ngs novel and Goldfingers play both center on families whose lives are upended by oppressive regimes, but in Babel, world-building gets in the way of deeper character development.

Nevertheless, the play addresses significant ethical questions through the lens of an imaginary, yet plausible, future. Since 2020, when Redtwist first planned to produce it, the legislative landscape surrounding reproduction has drastically changed in the U.S. not in ways that directly parallel the world of Babel, but enough to make its concerns about individual autonomy all the more urgent.

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Review: Babel (2.5 stars)

When: Through April 30

Where: Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Tickets: $40 at redtwisttheatre.org

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Review: In 'Babel' at Redtwist Theatre, expecting couples face ... - Chicago Tribune

Including an exploration of the roots of reggae, a theatrical portrayal of immigrant life and a deep dive into string theory

1 Formed in 1990 by singer-songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox and drummer Tobi Vail, Bikini Kill ushered in a new era of female rockers. With their feminist lyrics, abrasive melodies and hardcore performances, the band is credited with inciting the riot grrrl movementa subculture at the intersection of feminism and punk. Much to the chagrin of their fans, they disbanded in 1997, but the group has now reunited for this 29-show tour, hitting 23 cities in Australia and North America. April 13, The Danforth Music Hall

2 Since reggaes beginnings in Jamaica in the 1960s, its sweet sounds have reverberated across the globe. Jamaican Canadian singer JahMila and orchestral conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser explore the evolution of the islands iconic sound with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Reggae Roots. This is the duos first tour together since JahMila released her debut LP, Roots Girl, in 2022. Bartholomew-Poyser has conducted shows with a myriad of orchestras across North America, including the TSOs Thorgy Thor and the Thorchestra, starring drag performer Thorgy Thor. April 16, Roy Thomson Hall

3 Ghanaian-born, Toronto-based theatre artist Tawiah MCarthy is a serious triple threat. Last year, he directed a spectacular Stratford Festival production of the African classic Death and the Kings Horseman. This spring, he takes on the roles of playwright and performer for an intimate new drama co-produced by Blue Bird Theatre Collective and Canadian Stage. In Maanomaa, My Brother, MCarthy and his co-creator and co-star, Brad Cook, portray Kwame and Will, two childhood friends who reunite in Ghana for a funeral. As they attempt to reconnect, the pair are forced to confront the legacies of their fathers and the events that tore their families apart 25 years earlier. April 11 to 30, Berkeley Street Theatre

4 In Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World, the witty and poignant follow-up to Dashtgards debut memoir, Breaking the Ocean, the author uses interlocking essays and vignettes to share stories of racial exclusion while asking readers to imagine what a complete self would look like in a culture centred around whiteness. Bones of Belonging combines Dashtgards sharp writing and humour with powerful insights drawn from her personal experiences as a brown woman. Out April 18

5 Fluff your pillows and don your comfiest jammies, because International Pillow Fight Day is upon us. Nathan Phillips Square will morph into a pillow fort to host Torontos very own slumber-party-esque celebration. From 3 to 6 p.m., participants are free to run wild and do (soft) battle with light, featherless pillows (so as not to poke any eyes out). The joyful event is part of a 100-year-old tradition thats still celebrated in numerous city squares around the world, including in London, Milan and Berlin. April 1, Nathan Phillips Square

6 In a near-future world, the wealthy global elite seek refuge from the intolerable summer heat by relocating to floating cities while the rest of the population remains on the mainland. When Rose, the protagonist of Sterlings captivating debut, Camp Zero, is offered a job as a sex worker at an American building project in northern Canada, she finds herself contending with high emotions and tensions as a handful of climate crisis survivors navigate their fates. Camp Zero is both chilling and seductive, asking readers to examine the underside of utopia and the sustaining power of love. Out April 4

7 Creation mythology gets flipped on its head in The Hooves Belonged to the Deer, an epic coming-of-age story from Lebanese Canadian playwright Makram Ayache. When an Arab Muslim boy moves to the Prairies, he becomes the focus of a pastor bent on converting him to Christianity. As religions and cultures collide, the boy discovers his budding queerness through fantasies about the Garden of Eden. Until April 23, Tarragon Theatre

8 The final short story collection from celebrated author Steven Heighton invites us to explore love, fear and all the ways we try to care for one another. As Instructions for the Drowning pulls readers into lifes most vulnerable moments, the power and depth of Heightons talents shine through each page. Out April 18

9 Frantz Brent-Harris, a Jamaican artist based in Toronto, has created a love letter to Blackness. His new installation, Afrophilia, is a series of busts rendered in vibrant oranges and reds, inspired by the generation of young Black people who are rejecting the politics of respectability, refusing narratives of oppression and practising Black love as a revolutionary act. The pieces are also a reclamation of the sculptural bustan art form historically reserved for rich, white, European menusing it to reframe Black youth as cultural heroes. Until August 21, Toronto Sculpture Garden

10 Boston-based act Ripe was born at the Berklee College of Music, where the bandmates would jam together at parties. Their joyful melodies and funky grooves earned their EPsProduce the Juice and Hey Hellocritical acclaim. The groups latest album, Bright Blues, is a mix of head-bopping tunes that combines funk, jazz and R&B into one delicious 12-song collection. April 7, The Danforth Music Hall

11 After a three-year pandemic postponement, director Daniel Brooks finally brings his vision of Anton Chekhovs masterpiece The Seagull to the Soulpepper Theatre stage. On a quiet lakeside estate, Nina, a young aspiring actor, finds herself torn between her idealistic boyfriend, Konstanin, and the cynical, older Boris. Chekhovs tragicomedy about love, art and the clash of generations has been speaking to audiences since its 1898 triumph at the Moscow Art Theatre. Brookss production uses British playwright Simon Stephenss new adaptation, which transports Chekhovs classic to modern times. April 6 to 30, Young Centre for the Performing Arts

12 The time to eat, pray and love is upon usbestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert is coming to Toronto. In 2006, Gilberts globe-spanning memoir captured the worlds attention. Now, shes heading to the city for a talk on creativity. Its the perfect event for anyone seeking wisdom on the nature of inspiration. April 22, Metro Toronto Convention Centre

13 Nothing calls the 80s to mind like the sound of synth pop, and we have a handful of leather-clad trailblazers to thank for that. Depeche Mode launched in Essex, England, in 1980 and went on to produce 14 studio albums and more than 50 music videos over the next four decades. In 2020, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This March, their global fanbasewhich includes artists like Shakira, The Killers and Coldplayhailed yet another iconic record with the release of Memento Mori. April 7, Scotiabank Arena

14 When Stephen Hawking was working at Cambridge, he struck up a long-term friendship and collaboration with Belgian cosmologist Thomas Hertog. They used string theory to study the big bang, which led to a startling conclusion about the unique quality of our universe. Hertogs new book, On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawkings Final Theory, provides a fascinating perspective on Hawkings ultimate achievement. Out April 11

15 South asian tradition clashes with Western social upheaval in Pamela Mala Sinhas comedy New, set in 1970s Winnipeg. When a Bengali bride arrives in the prairie city for an arranged marriage, she causes turmoil among her husbands circle of westernized immigrants. Sinha, an actor and playwright best known for her gut-wrenching solo show, Crash, taps into her comedic side for this story. The play, produced by Toronto company Necessary Angel, premiered to rave reviews earlier this season at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. April 25 to May 14, Berkeley Street Theatre

16 Get caught up on the hottest trends of the season at Fashion Art Torontothe citys longest-running fashion week, with a reputation for spotlighting emerging Canadian designers and artists. This years event promises to be the biggest yet, featuring over 40 classic runway shows and multimedia presentations, including performances, photography and art exhibits. Previous shows have featured Toronto-based talents like Lesley Hampton and House of Etoile. The four-day affair at Black Creek Assembly also includes a fashion-and-beauty retail pop-up shop, lounge spaces, interactive displays, and after-parties galore. New York, eat your heart out. April 27 to 30, Black Creek Assembly

Recommended by Devyani Saltzman, writer and cultural programmer

I loved this show at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Its one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous stitching and beadwork from across Turtle Island, and the work is remarkable, including a beaded depiction of the brain scans of people suffering from depression.

Recommended by Jean Paul, stand-up comedian

I love music, comic books and art, so Entergalactic indulgedall of my creative interests. Its a multi-sensory journey through an age-old plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl reunite. The film is the companion piece to Kid Cudis album of the same name, so the music is amazing too.

Recommended by Layla Ahmad, producer at CTVs Your Morning

This podcast by the CBC and the BBC is wild. Its about romance scammers who have conned victims out of a ton of money, all using photos of the same womanJanessa Brazil. The host is trying to find both the real Janessa and the person behind the scams. I cant get enough!

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Sixteen things to see, do, read and hear in Toronto this April - Toronto Life

SINGAPORE Media OutReach 24 March 2023 Hellven Metaverse is a new generation Web3.0 ecosystem built on Arbitrum, and has announced a $2 million seed investment. It uses 3D Hero NFT as the ecological pass card to access boards such as the RPG game Hellvens Gate, and the business and social space Hellven Utopia. By attracting talented developers and buidlers, Hellven is targeting to build an open and free commercial metaverse platform.

Hellven Metaverse has launched Three Pillars of landing scenarios, including Hellvens Gate, Hellven Utopia, and the Open and Free Business Metaverse.

About The Flagship Game: Hellvens Gat In Hellven Metaverse, games are one of the most important landing scenes and serve as the primary carrier. As the first game in Metaverse matrix, Hellvens Gate is a game that combines traditional strategic gameplay with blockchain technology. It is a 3v3 turn-based tactical game where players take on the role of heroes, crossing Hellvens Gate to uncover hidden secrets. Along the journey, players can constantly adjust their lineup, upgrade their heroes, search for valuable equipment, and upgrade to enhance their characters.

Hellven plans to launch more types of games in the future, covering various game genres such as action, role-playing, racing, and shooting. Besides the games, Metaverse also plans to provide an open platform where creators can create and publish their own virtual content and share it with other players. They will support various creation tools and technologies such as 3D modeling, AIGC and augmented reality, so creators can unleash their imagination and unlimited creativity.

About The Social E-Commerce: Hellven Utopia The future of the digital world will depend on the development of emerging technologies and Hellven Utopia is the practice of combining these technologies into social space. Hellven Utopia can perform airdrop, minting and auction in real time while interact and show individual personality. It provides a novel, interesting and low-threshold platform for the huge non-gaming community.

Hellven Utopia aims to create a brand new digital space where people can freely express their individuality and creativity, interact with others. Utopia will use NFT technology to endow unique digital assets with value and rights. Utopia will also use AI technology to provide users with more intelligent social experiences. By analyzing user behavior and interests, Utopia will recommend activities and characters that match their taste, allowing users to better integrate into the social network. At the same time, Utopias AR will enable users to interact with virtual objects and other users in real-time, creating an immersive experience.

About The Open and Free Business Metaverse The metaverse is continuously eating the world, and an immersive world full of interactive experiences is coming.

Thanks to emerging AIGC and Create to Earn marketplace models, the business paradigm revolution has emerged. Hellven is building the engine of business growth and the infrastructure for traditional brand, crypto-native brand, and individual IP.

Artists can design their NFT artwork using the tools provided by the platform and earn legitimate income, or showcase them to the world through the encrypted art galleries of Hellven Utopia. Merchants can open their own metaverse stores and sell products in different events, offer interesting rewards with NFTs.

Individuals can also build their own room in Utopia, become the meta-landlords to earn by renting or selling digital assets, or through advertising partnerships.

The origin of the Hellven Metaverse.

What if we have a second chance to become the protagonist of our own story?, Hellvens founder keeps asking and thats why Hellvens vision is to create a truly open, free and trustworthy business model for Web3 creators in decentralized value internet.

As a virtual digital world, the metaverse requires advanced technical support, the Hellven team has decades of start-up experiences in gaming and blockchain, and possesses sufficient business insights, which help to achieve the platform vision. encourage users and creators to build an open and free Web3 ecosystem.

About Team members Vit Le as CEO has 15 years of IT consulting and blockchain development experience, and was previously co-founder of L7.digital and SportE.net. Quoc Le has 15 years in gaming and enterprise solutions as CTO, 6 years as a blockchain architect at GINAR, and was the technical lead for Infinity Blockchain Labs (IBL) and Moonstake. Tung Dam as COO has 6 years of software engineering and full-stack blockchain development, and was the co-founder of yberk.io and Skymore.

In addition, Michael Bei, Hellvens game advisor, was the core team member of Fantasy Westward Journey, a AAA blockbuster with over 200 million PC users and 20 million mobile users, ranked No.1 in AppStore & GooglePlay. And Andy Daniel, technical advisor, was a core team member of Google Chrome, and led a team of more than 100 engineers.

About Financing Situation Hellven Metaverse has announced a $2 million seed investment led by industrial capital Macau New World Development, NICE Capital, Polaris Venture, Z&Y Capital and other angel investors. The investment is used for product development, business expansion and recruitment of talented people.

Conclusion The metaverse, which combines virtual and real, is essentially mankinds beautiful vision of the future. We are eager to expand the boundaries of interaction and experience. We are building a beautiful new world of freedom and equality while creating a new continent. Hellven Metaverse is born based on these ideas. It will be a decentralized digital world with a new economic system and identity system at its core, bringing users a brand new virtual interactive experience.

Follow Hellven Metaverse Twitterhttps://twitter.com/HellvenGate Discordhttps://discord.gg/hellvensgate

Hashtag: #Hellven

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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Hellven Metaverse: First Metaverse Social Platform Based on Arbitrum - Macau Business

The Western community of states is facing a quandary. It is hardly possible to effectively protect Ukraine militarily without accepting an endless war of attrition, the risk of a massive escalation, or the revanchist after-effects of a Russian defeat. On the other hand, immediate peace negotiations with Russia would mean unacceptably sacrificing Ukraine as a state and the self-determination of the Ukrainian people. In both cases, moreover, the post-war situation would be even more conflict-ridden than the situation before the war. The chances of a lasting peace would be slim.

There seems to be no way out of this dilemma at least not as long as the military upgrading of Ukraine is thought of as being inevitably bound up with the countrys acceptance into Western configurations and alliances, the EU and/or NATO. This Western integration meets Ukraines legitimate security needs and is also intended to protect the rest of Europe from further Russian aggression. However, the coupling of arms aid and Western integration also blocks the way out of the current war and sets the course for a new, cold, but also possibly hot conflict between the blocs that are forming as a result.

The aim of combining military assistance to Ukraine with the prospect of EU or NATO accession is to force Russia into a negotiating position from which Ukraines territorial and political integrity can no longer be called into question. But in this scenario, even a weakened Russia will hardly become prone to enter peace talks on the Wests terms all negotiations will have become futile by the already accomplished Western integration of Ukraine. Driving Russia into negotiations that cannot take place will thus actually lower the chances of an early and lasting end to the war, not increase them.

If we wish to strive for an end to the war that will ensure the existence and future of Ukraine, through which a lasting peace can be achieved and which, at the same time, creates favourable conditions for internal political change in Russia itself, then military assistance and Western integration should be decoupled from one another. For as long as the military repulsion of the Russian attack remains linked to the ongoing Western integration of Ukraine, a militarily weakened Russia has no prospect of any desirable objective of negotiations. A Western-integrated Ukraine is the exact opposite of what the Kremlin thought it could achieve with this war, which was unleashed with the intention to force Ukraine under Russias control. Accepting it therefore as an inalterable fait accompli would be tantamount to political surrender: the survival of Putinism depends on not suffering defeat in this war.

Such a surrender is therefore not to be expected and the West has good reasons for ruling out the sort of direct confrontation with Russia that could possibly force this step. This would leave the Kremlin with the only choice being either escalation not necessarily, but possibly of a nuclear nature or perpetuation of the war. Both would be fatal from a moral point of view and with regard to the global conflict and peace constellation.

The situation is very different if the project of military peace enforcement is not linked to Ukraines integration into the West. In this case, Russias decision-making calculus would change fundamentally. The perspective of indefinitely continuing the war respectively escalating it and bearing its enormous costs would not be the only option anymore; there would be an alternative: Russia could negotiate in such a way that the result of Ukraines non-integration into the Western configurations could be read on the Russian side as a prevention of this Western integration as a result of the war and thus as a partially successful end to the war. Under these conditions, negotiations would make sense for the Kremlin, and an end to the war would be within reach, provided that Russia was pushed back militarily prior to that point.

Abandoning the Western integration scenario does not mean abandoning armament and permanent military security guarantees.

However, abandoning the Western integration scenario only seems to expose Ukraine all the more to Russian aggression, and thus undermine the countrys territorial and political integrity in just the same way that immediate peace negotiations would. But this objection applies only if this integrity cannot be ensured in any other way. However, it can, albeit in an unconventional manner.

Abandoning the Western integration scenario does not mean abandoning armament and permanent military security guarantees. On the contrary, armament could even be linked to the question of Western integration in the opposite way, i.e. negatively rather than positively, as has been the case up to now. The more armament Ukraine receives, the more it has to distance itself from Western integration, while also making it clearer to Russia that a military concession opens up the prospect of a non-Western-integrated Ukraine. As the militarisation of the armed conflict increases, so does the attractiveness of ending it diplomatically.

In this way, Ukraine would continue to be equipped with Western weapons possibly even more effectively. In addition, it would have access to resources for upgrading and thus step up the armament process at any time in the event of a renewed threat.

It may sound paradoxical: the West should continue to arm Ukraine, not so that it can subsequently become part of the West, but so that it doesnthave to become one. NATO and the EU would therefore need to act not in accordance with their alliance logic but contrary to it. This is because international interests and presumably also those of Ukraine itself require achieving the objective of an early end to the war while at the same time securing Ukrainian statehood and paving the way to a sustainable peace.

Strengthening Ukraines ability to defend its state integrity and political freedom of action in a well-fortified and self-determined manner must not be limited to Western arms deliveries. In the long run, it can be achieved only through concerted international action. To this end, the expansion of international economic relations with Ukraine is just as necessary as the internationalisation of military aid itself. As a first step, it would be the task of NATO and the EU to initiate diplomatic alliances with BRICS countries such as India or Brazil and possibly even China. This, too, is only conceivable on the condition that the participation of these states does not promote Western integration but only serves to secure Ukraines autonomous position militarily and economically.

Since the UN is paralysed, NATO itself must act like a UN.

If one looks at the scenario of military upgrading without integration into Western alliances from a global perspective, it shows strong parallels to initiatives that one would expect from the United Nations. However, as is well known, the UN Security Council is unable to act due to Russias veto power. The consequence of this, however, must not be a re-provincialisation of international politics, as is currently the case. Instead, the globally strongest player in the current conflict, namely NATO, should, of its own accord, ensure that the conflict is internationalised and that a solution is reached outside and above the existing power dynamics and alliance structures. In other words, since the UN is paralysed, NATO itself must act like a UN. Russias aggression would effectively be stopped but in an international-consensual way and, thus from the Kremlins perspective in a more neutral manner, which would have considerable implications for the whole of the settlement process.

Such (seemingly) selfless action by NATO would bring a number of positive side effects. NATO would counteract the expansionist image that is attached to it in many parts of the world and present itself as a genuinely defensive alliance that efficiently works towards building a peaceful global society of states. The protection of international law and the state integrity of Ukraine, which the UN cannot provide in its current configuration, would be taken over by a broad-based international initiative without creating new occasions for conflict through direct military intervention.

Above all, however, this scenario opens up concrete opportunities for domestic political change in Russia, which would be of the utmost importance for the way forward. There is no question that Russia can become a state capable of peace in the medium and long term only if it manages to overcome aggressive, neo-imperial Putinism. However, a change through defeat such as with Germany at the end of the Second World War is hardly to be expected. A disastrous Russian defeat would instead most probably lead to the development of the Russian version of a stab-in-the-back myth, while a Russian state collapse is neither likely nor desirable in terms of security policy.

If, on the other hand, the outcome of the war contains an element of ambiguity due to Ukraines non-integration with the West under international guarantees of security and integrity a new, less catastrophic path of change could arise. Such an outcome of the war could domestically be interpreted as some quite heavily discounted victory in Russia, but it suggests at least as much of an interpretation as a partial or main defeat. This asymmetrical double bind could possibly create the preconditions for struggles over interpretation within the Russian state elite and civil society, which could actually lead to a political and ideological rethinking. This desired change can hardly be achieved through external coercion, would then arise from Russias internal political constellation.

One wonders how realistic the well-known scenarios of delivery of arms until victory, attrition to exhaustion, or even peace negotiations now are in the first place? Each of these contains its own sometimes considerable portion of utopia.

But is a scenario in which NATO acts in such a selfless and internationalist way even feasible? First of all, a preliminary sketch like this one inevitably seems to be more speculative than other alternatives that have already been widely discussed. But then, one also wonders how realistic the well-known scenarios of delivery of arms until victory, attrition to exhaustion, or even peace negotiations now are in the first place? Each of these contains its own sometimes considerable portion of utopia, from which stems the persistent feeling that, despite all sincere efforts, we are dealing with a frighteningly hopeless situation.

It seems that in order to end this terrible, senseless war and protect Ukraines right to exist, something unrealistic needs to be made happen anyway. And if the strategies currently being pursued lead to results that no one would wish for, then the scenario of NATO acting paradoxically is perhaps the most realistic of all.

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Yes to arms aid, no to Western integration Foreign and security ... - IPS Journal

AI-lands in the Stream

Sorry, but not even Dolly Parton is sacred amid the encroachment of AI into art.

Holly Herndon, an avant garde pop musician, has released a cover of Dolly Parton's beloved and frequently covered hit single, "Jolene." Except it's not really Herndon singing, but her digital deepfake twin known as Holly+.

The music video features a 3D avatar of Holly+ frolicking in what looks like a decaying digital world.

And honestly, it's not bad — dare we say, almost kind of good? Herndon's rendition croons with a big, round sound, soaked in reverb and backed by a bouncy, acoustic riff and a chorus of plaintive wailing. And she has a nice voice. Or, well, Holly+ does. Maybe predictably indie-folk, but it's certainly an effective demonstration of AI with a hint of creative flair, or at least effective curation.

Checking the Boxes

But the performance is also a little unsettling. For one, the giant inhales between verses are too long to be real and are almost cajolingly dramatic. The vocals themselves are strangely even and, despite the somber tone affected by the AI, lack Parton's iconic vulnerability.

Overall, it feels like the AI is simply checking the boxes of what makes a good, swooning cover after listening to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" a million times — which, to be fair, is a pretty good starting point.

Still, it'd be remiss to downplay what Herndon has managed to pull off here, and the criticisms mostly reflect the AI's limited capabilities more than her chops as a musician. The AI's seams are likely intentional, if her previous work is anything to go off of.

Either way, if you didn't know you were listening to an AI from the get-go, you'd probably be fooled. And that alone is striking.

The Digital Self

Despite AI's usually ominous implications for art, Herndon views her experiment as a "way for artists to take control of their digital selves," according to a statement on her website.

"Vocal deepfakes are here to stay," Herndon was quoted saying. "A balance needs to be found between protecting artists, and encouraging people to experiment with a new and exciting technology."

Whether Herndon's views are fatalistic or prudently pragmatic remains to be seen. But even if her intentions are meant to be good for artists, it's still worrying that an AI could pull off such a convincing performance.

More on AI music: AI That Generates Music from Prompts Should Probably Scare Musicians

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This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good

COP Out

Ever since she lambasted world leaders at a UN conference in 2018 when she was only 15 years old, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has had the ear of the international community.

Now, Thunberg says she's skipping out on next week's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt. Why? Because it's rife with "greenwashing."

"I'm not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited," Thunberg said at a press event for her book, "The Climate Book," as quoted by The Guardian. "The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing."

Ultimately, in Thunberg's view, the COP conferences "are not really meant to change the whole system" and instead only promote incremental change. Bluntly put, they're feel-good events that don't accomplish much, so she's bowing out.

Wasted Breath

It's not an unfair assessment. For all the pledges made to drastically cut back emissions and achieve net carbon zero by 2050, very few nations have followed through in the short term. And in Europe, the energy crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine has further sidelined those climate commitments.

So we can't blame her for not going. But it's a bit disheartening that even a tenacious young spokesperson like Thunberg has given up on convincing world leaders at the biggest climate summit in the world.

Maybe it's indicative of the frustrations of her generation at large. When Thunberg was asked what she thought about the recent wave of Just Stop Oil protests that included activists throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting, she said that she viewed what many detractors perceived as a dumb stunt to be symptomatic of the world's failure to effect meaningful environmental change.

"People are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we have been doing up until now has not done the trick," she replied, as quoted by Reuters. "It's only reasonable to expect these kinds of different actions."

Maybe the real question is: if even a UN climate conference isn't the place to get the message out and change hearts, where's the right place, and what's the right way? If the headlines are any indication, zoomers are struggling to figure that out.

More on Greta Thunberg: Greta Thunberg Thinks Germany Shutting Down Its Nuclear Plants Is a Bad Idea

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Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending

A provocative manslaughter case is about to kick off in Los Angeles later this month, involving a fatal crash caused by a Tesla vehicle that had the company's controversial Autopilot feature turned on.

It's the first case of its kind, and one that could set a precedent for future crashes involving cars and driver-assistance software, Reuters reports.

We won't know the exact defense until the case gets under way, but the crux is that the man who was behind the wheel of the Tesla is facing manslaughter charges — but has pleaded not guilty, setting up potentially novel legal arguments about culpability in a deadly collision when, technically speaking, it wasn't a human driving the car.

"Who's at fault, man or machine?" asked Edward Walters, an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University, in an interview with Reuters. "The state will have a hard time proving the guilt of the human driver because some parts of the task are being handled by Tesla."

The upcoming trial is about a fatal collision that took place in 2019. The crash involved Kevin George Aziz Riad, who ran a red light in his Tesla Model S, and collided with a Honda Civic, killing a couple who were reportedly on their first date.

According to vehicle data, Riad did not apply the brakes but had a hand on the steering wheel. Perhaps most critically, though, the Tesla's Autopilot feature was turned on in the moments leading up to the crash.

Riad is facing manslaughter charges, with prosecutors arguing his actions were reckless.

Meanwhile, Riad's lawyers have argued that he shouldn't be charged with a crime, but have so far stopped short of publicly placing blame on Tesla's Autopilot software.

Tesla is not directly implicated in the upcoming trial and isn't facing charges in the case, according to Reuters.

A separate trial, however, involving the family of one of the deceased is already scheduled for next year — but this time, Tesla is the defendant.

"I can't say that the driver was not at fault, but the Tesla system, Autopilot, and Tesla spokespeople encourage drivers to be less attentive," the family's attorney Donald Slavik told Reuters.

"Tesla knows people are going to use Autopilot and use it in dangerous situations," he added.

Tesla is already under heavy scrutiny over its Autopilot and so-called Full Self-Driving software, despite conceding that the features "do not make the vehicle autonomous" and that drivers must remain attentive of the road at all times.

Critics argue that Tesla's marketing is misleading and that it's only leading to more accidents — not making the roads safer, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued in the past.

In fact, a recent survey found that 42 percent of Tesla Autopilot said they feel "comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving."

Regulators are certainly already paying attention. The news comes a week after Reuters revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Tesla over Autopilot.

Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an investigation of accidents in which Teslas have smashed into emergency response vehicles that were pulled over with sirens or flares.

This month's trial certainly stands the chance of setting a precedent. Was Riad fully at fault or was Tesla's Autopilot at least partially to blame as well?

The answer now lies in the hands of a jury.

READ MORE: Tesla crash trial in California hinges on question of 'man vs machine' [Reuters]

More on Autopilot: Survey: 42% of Tesla Autopilot Drivers Think Their Cars Can Drive Themselves

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Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

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Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

Fill 'Er Up

A team of Chinese researchers say they managed to convert actual lunar regolith samples into a source of rocket fuel and oxygen — a potential gamechanger for future space explorers hoping to make use of in-situ resources to fuel up for their return journey.

The researchers found that the lunar soil samples can act as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide and water from astronauts' bodies and environment into methane and oxygen, as detailed in a paper published in the National Science Review.

"In situ resource utilization of lunar soil to achieve extraterrestrial fuel and oxygen production is vital for the human to carry out Moon exploitation missions," lead author Yujie Xiong said in a new statement about the work. "Considering that there are limited human resources at extraterrestrial sites, we proposed to employ the robotic system to perform the whole electrocatalytic CO2 conversion system setup."

That means we could have a much better shot at carrying out longer duration explorations of the lunar surface in the near future.

Set It, Forget It

According to the paper, which builds on previous research suggesting lunar soil can generate oxygen and fuel, this process can be completed using uncrewed systems, even in the absence of astronauts.

In an experiment, the team used samples from China's Chang'e-5 mission, which landed in Inner Mongolia back in December 2020 — the first lunar soil returned to Earth since 1976.

The Moon soil effectively acted as a catalyst, enabling the electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into methane and oxygen.

"No significant difference can be observed between the manned and unmanned systems, which further suggests the high possibility of imitating our proposed system in extraterrestrial sites and proves the feasibility of further optimizing catalyst recipes on the Moon," the researchers conclude in their paper.

Liquified

But there's one big hurdle to still overcome: liquifying carbon dioxide is anything but easy given the Moon's frosty atmosphere, as condensing the gas requires a significant amount of heat, as New Scientist reported earlier this year.

Still, it's a tantalizing prospect: an autonomous machine chugging away, pumping out oxygen and fuel for future visitors. But for now, it's not much more than a proof of concept.

READ MORE: Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon [Science China Press]

More on lunar soil: Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched

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Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel

Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

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There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on a given amount of cocaine.

And don't worry — while that may sound like a particularly frivolous plot concocted by a team of evil scientists, the goal of the research is well-meaning.

The team, led by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Santiago Cuesta, was investigating how the gut microbiome can influence how mice and humans react to ingesting the drug.

The research, detailed in a new paper published this week in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, sheds light on a vicious feedback loop that could explain cases of substance abuse disorders — and possibly lay the groundwork for future therapeutic treatments.

In a number of experiments on mice, the researchers found that cocaine was linked to the growth of common gut bacteria, which feed on glycine, a chemical that facilitates basic brain functions.

The lower the levels of glycine in the brain, the more the mice reacted to the cocaine, exhibiting abnormal behaviors.

To test the theory, the scientists injected the mice with a genetically modified amino acid which cannot break down glycine. As a result, the behavior of mice returned to normal levels.

In other words, the amino acid could curb cocaine addiction-like behaviors — at least in animal models.

"The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain," said Vanessa Sperandio, senior author, and microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin, in a statement. "It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction."

It's an unorthodox approach to treating addiction, but could be intriguing — if it works in people, that is.

"Usually, for neuroscience behaviors, people are not thinking about controlling the microbiota, and microbiota studies usually don't measure behaviors, but here we show they’re connected," Cuesta added. "Our microbiome can actually modulate psychiatric or brain-related behaviors."

In short, their research could lead to new ways of treating various psychiatric disorders such as substance use by adjusting the gut microbiome and not making changes to the brain chemistry.

"I think the bridging of these communities is what's going to move the field forward, advancing beyond correlations towards causations for the different types of psychiatric disorders," Sperandio argued.

READ MORE: How gut bacteria influence the effects of cocaine in mice [Cell Press]

More on addiction: Study: Magic Mushrooms Helped 83% of People Cut Excessive Drinking

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Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine

Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Core Dump

Scientists studying a group of stars made an astonishing but "serendipitous" discovery when they realized that Gamma Columbae, a fairly average celestial body, might actually be the "stripped pulsating core of a massive star," according to a study published this week in Nature Astronomy.

If true, that means Gamma Columbae is missing the envelope, or vast shroud of gas, that hides a star's nuclear fusion powered core.

What caused the stripping of this atmospheric envelope is not definitively known, but the scientists posit that Gamma Columbae running out of hydrogen could've caused its envelope to expand and swallow up a nearby star, likely its binary partner. But in the middle of that relatively common process, something appears to have horrifically gone wrong and ejected the envelope — and possibly even led to the two stars merging.

Naked Core

Before the disaster, the scientists believe Gamma Columbae could have been up to 12 times the mass of our Sun. Now, it's a comparatively meager 5 stellar masses.

Although a naked stellar core missing its envelope has been theorized to exist, it's never been observed in a star this size.

"Having a naked stellar core of such a mass is unique so far," said study co-author Norbert Pryzbilla, head of the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, in an interview with Vice.

Astronomers had an idea of what the cores of massive and low mass stars looked like, Pryzbilla continued, but there wasn't "much evidence" for cores of masses in between.

Star Power

It's an exceedingly rare find because the star is in a "a short-lived post-stripping structural re-adjustment phase" that will only last 10,000 years, according to the study.

That's "long for us humans but in astronomical timescales, very, very short," Przybilla told Vice. "It will always stay as a peculiar object."

The opportunity to study such a rarely exposed stellar core could provide scientists an invaluable look into the evolution of binary star systems. And whatever astronomers learn from the star, it's a fascinating glimpse at stellar destruction at a nearly incomprehensible scale.

More on stars: Black Hole Spotted Burping Up Material Years After Eating a Star

The post Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident appeared first on Futurism.

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Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

The post Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter appeared first on Futurism.

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Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter