Latest Posts

French company Valeo to use more Google Cloud AI tools

French company Valeo to use more Google Cloud AI tools


PARIS : French car parts maker Valeo said on Thursday it would be using more Google Cloud AI tools at Valeo, highlighting the growing importance of the technology in the cars sector.

Valeo said one such area where it would be using artificial intelligence would be in deploying Google Cloud’s AI products to the toolbox used by its software development teams and in areas related to vehicle design and customer service.

“Together, we will play an essential role in how we make generative AI as relevant, secure, and productive as possible to support Valeo’s growth,” Valeo Chief Technology Officer Geoffrey Bouquot said.

In February, Valeo cut its net sales guidance for 2025, citing lower-than-expected growth in the automotive market and particularly for electric vehicles.



Source link

I’m a certified yoga teacher and personal trainer and this is the one pose that helped my sciatica

I’m a certified yoga teacher and personal trainer and this is the one pose that helped my sciatica


I’m a personal trainer, yoga teacher, and yoga therapist with a very active lifestyle but I still managed to get compression in my spine that caused excruciatingly painful sciatica. I endured this for over nine months, while I adapted my training regime and waited for treatment. I eventually swapped out weightlifting for gentle yoga and luckily discovered one yoga posture that helped relieve the pain (albeit temporarily).

Every morning when I woke up, I’d be greeted with sharp sciatica nerve sensations and stiffness in my left glute and hip from being in bed all night. I eventually received a spinal steroid injection to ease the symptoms and discomfort but I still use this magical stretch daily.

How to do downward dog against the wall

  • Stand in front of a wall around an arm’s length away. Adjust your feet so they are under your hips.
  • Hinge at the hips and push your butt back away from the wall.
  • Push your hands into the wall or pull away from a door handle (make sure it’s securely closed) and move your torso down so that your upper body becomes parallel to the floor.
  • Try to keep your upper back and knees straight throughout. Look at your hands not down at the floor.
  • Breathe deeply and feel the stretch in your butt, hips and back.

How it works



Source link

Horoscope today: Your daily guide for Thursday, March 28, 2024

Horoscope today: Your daily guide for Thursday, March 28, 2024

Aries 0904 470 1141 (65p per minute)*

Taurus 0904 470 1142 (65p per minute)*

Gemini 0904 470 1143 (65p per minute)*

Cancer 0904 470 1144 (65p per minute)*

Leo 0904 470 1145 (65p per minute)*

Virgo 0904 470 1146 (65p per minute)*

Libra 0904 470 1147 (65p per minute)*

Scorpio 0904 470 1148 (65p per minute)*

Sagittarius 0904 470 1149 (65p per minute)*

Capricorn 0904 470 1150 (65p per minute)*

Aquarius 0904 470 1151 (65p per minute)*

Pisces 0904 470 1152 (65p per minute)*

*Astro line horoscopes are updated every Friday. Calls cost 65p per minute plus your telephone company’s network access charge and will last approximately five minutes. You must be over 18 and have the bill payer’s permission. Service provided by Spoke. Customer service: 0333 202 3390



Source link

Particle physics finally charts a healthy path forward

Particle physics finally charts a healthy path forward


Just a decade ago, the field of particle physics looked to be in a state of chaos. The Large Hadron Collider had recently turned on, and although they found the Higgs boson — the final undiscovered particle predicted by the Standard Model — it failed to turn up any evidence for any of the other leading theories that would take us beyond the Standard Model. Fermilab, the prior leader in the energy frontier, shut down its main accelerator permanently, and puzzles such as:

  • the origin of neutrino mass,
  • the nature of dark matter,
  • and the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry,

seemed to be stagnating, with little progress to show on either the experimental or theoretical fronts.

Moreover, particle physicists themselves seemed to be bickering and in disarray as to what they should do next. Would there be enough value to justify a new, more powerful accelerator than the Large Hadron Collider? How should we be probing the behavior of neutrinos in order to understand neutrino mass? Are we taking sufficient advantage of the connection between particle physics and cosmology? Are we restricting ourselves to ill-motivated ideas in the hunt for dark matter? And are we devoting enough resources to supporting early career researchers and small-but-valuable experimental endeavors?

At last, with the release of the the Particle Physics Projects Prioritization Panel (P5) report, particle physicists have come together to chart a course for the next decade and beyond that addresses all of these issues while simultaneously creating a healthy environment for particle physics to thrive in the United States and the world for the next generation. Here’s what everyone should know.

A series of infrastructure upgrades, some of which have already taken place and others which are still to come later this decade, will transform the LHC into the HL-LHC: the high luminosity LHC. It will be capable of collecting nearly double the data, each year, as was taken over the LHC’s first decade of life, from 2008-2018. However, to learn more about the Universe at a fundamental level, additional science will need to be conducted.

Credit: CERN

The flawed view of particle physics

There’s a common but oversimplified view of particle physics that, unfortunately, a lot of people seem to share. It goes something like this:

  • The Standard Model has been known since the 1960s, and physics has stagnated ever since.
  • Fundamental science is over, and theorists are only working on bad ideas that aren’t supported by reality.
  • Experimentalists search for evidence of these bad ideas, only to find “nothing” to better and better precision.
  • And that no meaningful progress has been made in particle physics in all the time since.

This view completely misunderstands what particle physics is, as well as how research is conducted.

The Standard Model isn’t actually a complete theory in the way that most people think: in the way that say Newtonian gravity, Maxwell’s electromagnetism, or Einstein’s general relativity is a theory. The Standard Model, rather, is a structural framework, which tells us that there are three generations of fermions, split into quarks and the charged and neutral leptons, with bosons that mediate the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces. In order to know how the Standard Model manifests itself in our Universe, we need to make measurements, however. We need to find out things like the masses of the fundamental particles, the properties of mixing between quarks and the various species of neutrino, and what the types and amounts of violated symmetries are. Even knowing “the Standard Model is correct” only gets us partway toward understanding the properties of our Universe.

neutrino oscillation

Vacuum oscillation probabilities for electron (black), muon (blue), and tau (red) neutrinos for a chosen set of mixing parameters, beginning from an initially produced electron neutrino. An accurate measurement of the mixing probabilities over different length baselines can help us understand the physics behind neutrino oscillations and could reveal the existence of any other types of particles that couple to the three known species of neutrino. For neutrinos to oscillate, they must have non-zero mass. If additional particles (such as dark matter particles) carry energy away, the overall neutrino flux will show a deficit.

Credit: Strait/Wikimedia Commons

The truth about the Standard Model and beyond

We also know that the Standard Model is not all there is to reality. We know, for instance, that:

  • the Universe was once more energetic, and probably much more energetic (up to 1011 times as much) as the highest-energy collisions achieved by the Large Hadron Collider,
  • the Universe somehow is filled with both dark matter and dark energy, neither of which are accounted for by the Standard Model,
  • the Universe somehow became filled with matter and not a corresponding amount of antimatter, even though all observed particle physics reactions show a matter-antimatter symmetry in that regard,
  • and that many properties of our Universe, such as the masses of neutrinos or the low rest masses of fundamental particles compared to the Planck mass, are not explained by our best picture of reality.

We’ve been looking very hard at a number of well-motivated scenarios that have the theoretical potential to address these puzzles, and to date, experimental particle physics has placed enormously important constraints on these beyond-the-Standard-Model scenarios. We know that:

  • the original version of supersymmetry (SUSY), which sought to solve the hierarchy problem,
  • the original Peccei-Quinn symmetry, designed to solve the strong CP problem,
  • and the Grand Unified Theory of SU(5), which sought to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry,

are not the solutions to these puzzles that are borne out in our reality. Whatever the solutions are, they are more complex than these simplistic ideas.

grand unified theory

The particle content of the hypothetical grand unified group SU(5), which contains the entirety of the Standard Model plus additional particles. In particular, there are a series of (necessarily superheavy) bosons, labeled “X” in this diagram, that contain both properties of quarks and leptons, together, and would cause the proton to be fundamentally unstable. Their absence, and the proton’s observed stability, provide strong evidence against the validity of this theory in a scientific sense.

Credit: Cjean42/Wikimedia Commons

Investigating the greatest particle-based mysteries

However, these puzzles still persist, and are relevant to both particle physics and cosmology, as well as the intersection between the two. Remember: the hottest, densest, most energetic conditions in all of cosmic history were achieved in the first fraction-of-a-second after the start of the hot Big Bang. The earliest imprints of the inherent quantum nature of our Universe were seeded during cosmic inflation: a phase that preceded and set up the hot Big Bang that gave rise to us all. And that many of the puzzles we wonder about today, including:

  • dark matter,
  • dark energy,
  • the nature of inflation,
  • the origin of neutrino mass,
  • and the physics of the Higgs boson,

very likely have their solutions imprinted in the earliest stages of our cosmic history.

In order to attempt to uncover the solutions to these mysteries, we have to take a variety of approaches. Yes, there are the brute force approaches of building high-energy colliders — with the greatest energies, detection sensitivities, and fastest rates of collisions possible — but there are also finesse approaches, such as searching for rare interactions and nuclear recoils, measuring the oscillations of neutrinos, performing cosmic observations that are sensitive to these ancient imprints, and developing new technologies and laboratory experiments to interrogate nature as never before. If we want to pin down exactly how nature operates, we have to ask the right questions in a clever enough way to compel it to give up its secrets.

That’s precisely what the P5 recommendations, at long last, get right.

inflationary beginning big bang

The quantum fluctuations inherent to space, stretched across the Universe during cosmic inflation, gave rise to the density fluctuations imprinted in the cosmic microwave background, which in turn gave rise to the stars, galaxies, and other large-scale structures in the Universe today. This is the best picture we have of how the entire Universe behaves, where inflation precedes and sets up the Big Bang. Unfortunately, we can only access the information contained inside our cosmic horizon, which is all part of the same fraction of one region where inflation ended some 13.8 billion years ago.

Credit: E. Siegel; ESA/Planck and the DOE/NASA/NSF Interagency Task Force on CMB research

High-impact investments within a sane budget

The goals of a scientific field like particle physics, at any point in time, are fourfold.

  • To enable the science that’s going to address the big questions of the time, asking nature the key questions in ways that — if we are lucky — will lead to an increase in our understanding.
  • To strike an appropriate balance between theory, which strives to understand how different scenarios would change phenomena that we can observe and measure, and experiment, which makes those measurements.
  • To pave a roadmap for future research and support future researchers.
  • And to do it all in a way that serves various different aspects of the community: from large research collaborations to small experiments to technological upgrades and innovations and more.

While the P5 report does strike a solid balance between these four competing priorities, the aspects that will be most exciting to most people are the major science efforts that have been designated as the highest priorities.

gravitational wave contribution to B-mode polarization

The contribution of gravitational waves left over from inflation to the B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave background has a known shape, but its amplitude is dependent on the specific model of inflation. These B-modes from gravitational waves from inflation have not yet been observed, but detecting them would help us tremendously in pinning down precisely what type of inflation occurred. A false detection, from the BICEP2 team, famously occurred in the early 2010s. The upcoming generation of CMB experiments should be sensitive to tensor-to-scalar ratios (i.e., r-ratios) as low as 0.001, or possibly even less.

Credit: Planck Science Team

At the intersection of particle physics and cosmology is the quantum imprints left on the largest cosmic scales by the final moments of cosmic inflation. While we’ve detected, measured, and are working on understanding the density and temperature fluctuations (also known as scalar modes) that inflation left behind, there’s another type of fluctuations that inflation produces: gravitational wave fluctuations, also known as tensor modes.

All inflationary models predict the same spectrum of gravitational waves, but different models predict different amplitudes. The next-generation efforts of measuring the imprints (or lack of imprints) of these gravitational wave signals on the radiation left over from the Big Bang, known as CMB-S4 experiments, are one of the highest-priority science efforts recommended by the P5 report.

The detector setup for DUNE will be located some 800 miles (1300 km) away from where the neutrinos and antineutrinos that it will detect are being generated. This is not a bug, but rather a feature of how the experiment is set up and designed. DUNE will generate the world’s most intense beam of high-energy accelerator neutrinos, with a smart, scaled-down design of 2.1 megawatts recommended as a cost-saving measure by the P5 report.

Credit: DOE/Fermilab

Perhaps the largest particle physics endeavor that’s taking place in the United States today is DUNE: the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. The goal of DUNE is to:

  • generate a particle beam composed of an enormous number of unstable particles known as muons,
  • to allow those muons to decay, where they’ll produce muon neutrinos (among other particles),
  • to send these muon neutrinos through the Earth, where they’ll have the opportunity to interact with the matter within the Earth,
  • and then to measure the neutrinos, with a special type of detector known as a time-projection chamber, which arrive at a distant destination.

The reason scientists want to do this, and to do it with such large numbers of neutrinos to such high precision, is because neutrinos of one specific species — either electron, muon, or tau neutrinos — don’t remain that same species as they propagate, but oscillate between those various flavors. This kind of long-baseline neutrino experiment would represent a generational leap over all current efforts, and since the (massive) neutrino is the only known particle physics phenomenon that already goes beyond the Standard Model, it’s a puzzle that compels us to investigate it further. It deserves a high-priority investment.

muon collider

An earlier design plan (now defunct) for a full-scale muon-antimuon collider at Fermilab, the source of the world’s second-most powerful particle accelerator behind the LHC at CERN. Muons could achieve energies comparable to protons, but with clean collision signals and all the energy concentrated into one point, like electrons. It truly could be the best of both worlds as far as a next-generation collider is concerned, if the short lifetime and low-luminosity problems can be overcome.

Credit: Fermilab

One super smart decision made in the P5 report is to hold off on investing deeply in any one of the proposed next-generation colliders, although the report recognizes the necessity of building a machine capable of acting like a “Higgs factory” to study this all-important Standard Model particle. Instead of shouldering that expense right now, they recommend supporting the technology development of various accelerator designs to see if there’s an advancement that makes it clear one design is superior to others. Right now, there are three main classes of accelerator design under consideration.

  1. A future circular collider, which would be a much larger ring than the Large Hadron Collider and which could collide either electron/positrons or hadrons (such as protons), leading to the highest energy collisions with the greatest new discovery potential.
  2. A future linear collider, which would collide electrons with positrons, leading to a very pristine signal but that does not push the energy frontier beyond current limits.
  3. Or a future circular muon collider, which would collide muons with antimuons, leading to high energies and pristine signals, but with the lowest number of total collisions due to the unstable nature of the muon itself.

While all of these options are expensive, a significant advance in energy gain-per-meter would strongly favor a linear collider, while an advance in muon luminosity would strongly favor the muon collider option: cleverly named a “muon shot” in homage to the Apollo program’s “moon shot” from the 1960s.

evolution of xenon experiment

Over time, the XENON experiment has evolved in a number of ways, not only increasing in size and improving the cross-sectional constraints on how WIMPs and normal matter interact, but also by significantly improving the experiment, reducing the background signals, and creating an incredibly pure sample. Proceeding to the next generation of detectors in this fashion will help investigate the possibility of heavy, particle-based dark matter candidates.

Credit: XENON collaboration, D. Wenz talk, 2023

Also an incredibly high priority for particle physics is the construction of at least one “G3” (i.e., next-generation) dark matter direct detection experiment. A lot of people erroneously think that these dark matter experiments have been failures, but that’s simply not how science works. Science tells you where you ought to be looking, and experiments are the only way to find out what both is and isn’t there when you look. Over the past 30 years, our sensitivity to any exotic, massive particle that would interact with normal (atom-based) matter has increased by a factor of 320,000, signifying the best null result in all of science history.

The goal of these next-generation G3 experiments is to become so sensitive that they’re detecting — as part of their known background — what scientists call the “neutrino fog,” which is what cosmic neutrinos, neutrinos caused by radioactivity within the Earth, and neutrinos emitted by the Sun will induce inside the detector. Although these experiments were initially motivated by the search for WIMP-like dark matter, such as in supersymmetric or extra dimensional scenarios, it’s important to recognize that this approach is capable of detecting much more than just those favored models of dark matter, including other heavy, exotic dark matter candidates like Q-balls and WIMPzillas.

Particle physicists are recognizing the failed and arrogant approach of assuming we know what dark matter is going to be, and instead are casting a wider, broader, and more general net: evidence that they’re learning from the mistakes of prior generations.

When a neutrino interacts in the clear Antarctic ice, it produces secondary particles that leave a trace of blue light as they travel through the IceCube detector. IceCube is a series of 86 strings embedded in the ice, capable of detecting the Cherenkov photons produced by particle showers arising from characteristic neutrino interactions. If a supernova were to go off inside the Milky Way, IceCube alone would detect many millions of neutrinos.

Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller/NSF/IceCube

And as another important aspect of the future of particle physics, the community recognizes the vital importance of multi-messenger astronomy. Right now, there are three unique types of signals that can arrive from sources throughout the cosmos:

  • light, in all of its forms, from gamma-rays to visible light to infrared all the way to radio waves,
  • gravitational waves, now detected by not just LIGO and Virgo but also through pulsar timing,
  • and cosmic particles, including in the form of neutrinos that can come from Solar System, galactic, and even extragalactic sources.

While the first two types of signals are mostly confined to the realm of astronomy, the ability to detect cosmic particles is of supreme interest to the particle physics community.

Travel the Universe with astrophysicist Ethan Siegel. Subscribers will get the newsletter every Saturday. All aboard!

Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.

At the South Pole lies the IceCube detector: the best in the world at detecting cosmic neutrinos that interact with the icy matter around it. IceCube has already produced our first galactic map in neutrinos and has found neutrinos from an extragalactic source: a blazar, or an active supermassive black hole whose jet is pointed directly at us. Upgrading IceCube to the next generation of scope and sensitivity will enable unprecedented study of neutrino properties, and will enable the greatest multi-messenger astronomy program in history. As a bonus, if a supernova goes off within the Local Group, the next-generation IceCube facility will yield untold scientific riches.

This map shows the high-energy neutrino candidates, tagged as “alert events,” as seen by IceCube. The color scale shows the “signalness” of each event, which quantifies the likelihood that each event is an astrophysical neutrino rather than a background event from Earth’s atmosphere. The indication is that there are many high-energy astrophysical neutrino sources: in our galaxy and beyond.

Credit: IceCube Collaboration

Conclusion & Summary

All of this comes along as part of a balanced portfolio within a sane, sober budget. Particle physicists are not asking for a tenfold or even a twofold increase in funding, but rather are keeping to an annual funding level from the US Department of Energy that’s between just $1B and $2B per year for the next decade. They are including support for early career scientists and many varied small experiments and projects: not just at national laboratories but also at universities and research centers. And they’re neither proposing a giant wish-list of every project imaginable nor demanding one ultra-expensive flagship project, but rather are trying to make targeted investments across a variety of efforts that give the physics community (and the general public) the greatest science “bang” for their buck.

It cannot be overstated how important an investment in basic, fundamental research is for the scientific future of any society. This kind of investment always, over the long-term, leads to greater economic activity and technological development, as well as scientific leadership in the world: the return-on-investment is staggering. But most importantly, the P5 report shows that particle physicists are finally learning from their past mistakes, and aren’t arrogantly overpromising discoveries about what might be out there beyond the frontiers of the presently known. There’s a Universe out there waiting for us to explore it. With the path laid out in the P5 report, particle physics just might have a bright future in the United States after all.



Source link

King Charles’s sweetest photos with ‘beloved daughter-in-law’ Kate Middleton

King Charles’s sweetest photos with ‘beloved daughter-in-law’ Kate Middleton


The King and the Princess of Wales are said to be “closer than ever” following their respective cancer diagnoses within weeks of one another.

Charles, 75, reportedly had lunch with his daughter-in-law Kate, before Kensington Palace released a moving video message from the Princess, in which revealed that she was undergoing “preventative chemotherapy”.

Following the news, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said that the King, who is battling his own undisclosed form of cancer, is “so proud of Catherine for her courage in speaking as she did”.

WATCH: Princess of Wales reveals ‘shock’ cancer diagnosis

Kate, who first met Charles, when she began dating Prince William during their university years, has long shared a close bond with her father-in-law.

When asked about being introduced to the royal family in her engagement interview, the future Princess revealed: “I was quite nervous about meeting William’s father, but he was very, very welcoming, very friendly, it couldn’t have gone easier really for me.”

MORE ON PRINCESS KATE HEALTH

With the King once describing Kate as his “darling daughter-in-law,” their admiration and respect for one another is evident.

Take a look at Kate and Charles’s sweetest moments through the years.

A shared love of art

© Getty

The camaraderie between Charles and his daughter-in-law was very much apparent on a visit to Dulwich Picture Gallery. 

The pair enjoyed a giggle as they got involved with the arts and crafts.

A kiss for Kate!

King Charles kisses Kate Middleton at James Bond premiere© Getty

Private jokes

Charles, William and Kate at Dumfries House in 2013© Getty

We love this shot of Charles, William and Kate laughing together during a visit to Dumfries House in 2013. Oh to be a fly on the wall!

A warm greeting

King Charles kisses Kate in Ypres, Belgium© Getty

The Princess greeted her father-in-law warmly as the royal family attended the Passchendaele Commemorations in Ypres, Belgium in 2017.  

A joint outing

King Charles bond over art at Trinity Buoy Wharf© Getty

The Princess joined Charles and Camilla for a joint engagement at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London – a training site for arts and culture. 

HELLO! understands that Kate was invited to join the visit by her father-in-law, Charles, in recognition of their shared interest and longstanding support of the arts and creative industries.

Buckingham Palace garden party

Kate Middleton giggles with Charles and Camilla at Buckingham Palace garden party© Getty

In fact, Kate joined Charles and Camilla at a number of engagements when Prince William was working away as a search and rescue pilot. 

The trio looked like they had the best time at a Buckingham Palace garden party in 2012.  

Grandpa Charles

Charles, Camilla and Kate at a Buckingham Palace garden party© Getty

A royal family outing

William, Kate, Charles and Camilla in Loughborough© Getty

The Waleses carried out a rare engagement with Charles and Camilla in February 2020 as they visited the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) in Loughborough. 

The King always seems to make Kate giggle in public.

A right royal Christmas

Kate Middleton and King Charles speak after Christmas Day church service© Getty

Charles and Kate were spotted deep in conversation as they left the annual church service together in Sandringham on Christmas Day in 2014.  

Garter Day

Kate Middleton and King Charles share a carriage on Garter Day 2014© Getty

Kate was captured beaming at her father-in-law as they shared a carriage in Windsor to mark Garter Day in 2014. 

The Order of the Garter is the senior and oldest British Order of Chivalry, founded by Edward III in 1348. 

Membership in the order is limited to the King, the Prince of Wales, and no more than twenty-four members.

<iframe frameborder=”0″ height=”200″ scrolling=”no” src=”https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=HELLO4146914653″ width=”100%”></iframe>

LOVE THE ROYALS? JOIN THE CLUB!

Princess Kate wearing black and white polka dots and a hat

If you are reading this, the chances are you are obsessed with all things royalty – which is just as well because so are we! So obsessed, in fact, we’ve launched a club solely dedicated to covering them. So welcome to The HELLO! Royal Club. We would love you to join us there…

What is it?

Interactive community offering behind-the-scenes access, exclusive royal interviews, unmissable royal insights, and an illustrious royal Inner Circle.

Member benefits

  • Two weekly newsletters, one from Emily Nash
  • Video posts and audio notes from Emily Nash and the HELLO! Royal team
  • Access to our royal community and opportunity to interact with club writers and members
  • Participate in polls, comments and discussion threads
  • Access to our Ask Me Anything sessions with our journalists
  • Invitations to in-person and virtual events
  • A subscription to the digital edition of HELLO! Magazine (Worth £82 annually)*
  • Future ‘Inner Circle’ benefits

By royal decree

You are royally invited to join The HELLO! Royal Club – and then to go forth and spread the word to your fellow royal fans. See you in the club!



Source link

Carrie and Boris Johnson’s £3.8m Oxfordshire manor renovations with ‘scullery and plant room’

Carrie and Boris Johnson’s £3.8m Oxfordshire manor renovations with ‘scullery and plant room’


Carrie Johnson and her husband, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have exciting plans afoot at their beautiful Grade-II listed manor house Brightwell Manor, nestled in the Oxfordshire countryside.

The couple, who share three children together, Wilfred, Romy and baby Frank, recently won approval to knock down a single-story extension at their home which was formerly used by servants, writes The Times.

© WPA Pool
Carrie and Boris married in 2021

The family moved into the 400-year-old property in early 2023, and the impressive estate boasts nine bedrooms, five bathrooms and six reception rooms. It also has a tennis court, two stables, walled garden, guest cottage and a fairytale moat on the vast five acres.

WATCH: Carrie Johnson shares sweet video with son Wilfred by home pond

The paper revealed that Carrie and Boris applied to South Oxfordshire district council to demolish the extension and replace it with “a boot room and a brick-pillar loggia and to increase the size of the patio surrounding it.”

Other modifications include a new scullery, laundry, breakfast room, larder and plant room as well as a gated entrance for the manor to improve security. Locals had previously voiced concerns about the Johnson’s security and an armed policeman stationed at the house.

Wilfred and Romy Johnson standing in front of lake looking at ducks
Wilfred and Romy Johnson at the family’s pond

The couple are also building an outdoor pool in the grounds; however, the plans came up against opposition when it transpired they would affect the local newt population. The pool’s planned location is in the high risk “red zone” near the moat and local pond.

Boris responded in the Daily Mail: “If it turns out that our garden is so honoured and so fortunate as to be the home of some newts — great crested, palmate, whatever — I want you to know that I will do whatever it takes to protect them.”

The Times reports that the couple came to an agreement with the council that they would enhance an area of orchard to compensate for the loss in biodiversity with the newts.

Carrie showed off the couple's stunning garden
Carrie showed off the couple’s stunning garden

The Johnsons’ home still has the original moat wrapped around it on three sides, preserving the rich history of the former Duke of Normandy. The moat is fed by a natural spring bordered on three sides by a dam that controls the water level.  

The manor sounds like a paradise for the Johnson children with plenty to explore and we’re sure they will make the most of their new swimming pool this summer.



Source link

Ukraine needs to open up about hard battlefield truths, US diplomat says  – POLITICO

Ukraine needs to open up about hard battlefield truths, US diplomat says  – POLITICO


A senior U.S. diplomat responsible for countering disinformation says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be more open to disclosing information about the state of the war in Ukraine.

The advice comes as fighting intensifies amid Russian gains in key areas and waning international focus on the conflict.

James Rubin leads the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which highlights propaganda and disinformation efforts by hostile states and other actors targeting America and its allies around the world. Talking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast, Rubin said “sometimes the Ukrainian government may resist the kind of freedom of information that’s normal for us.

“Some days, war reporters report things that aren’t necessarily in the interest of Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” he continued. “But in a democracy that we hope and increasingly see Ukraine becoming … they can understand that having war reporters cover the war, even if occasionally there’s bad news, is a far better life than the controlled environment that Russia has placed on all of its people.”

While Ukrainian and Western journalists have pressed for greater access to the front lines, authorities in Kyiv have limited reporting from sensitive zones in the conflict and have denied a stronger role for state broadcasting, on the grounds that the restrictions serve to stifle Russian disinformation campaigns.

Rubin, however, suggested that better access would strengthen Ukraine’s urgent case for more help from its allies. He added that while the country is “moving in the right direction,” it is not yet “a fully fledged democracy” — with some adverse consequences for the flow of information.

Rubin, a former State Department spokesman, advised top diplomat Madeleine Albright during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and also counseled current President Joe Biden on foreign policy during his time in the Senate.

On Power Play Rubin also discussed joint efforts by the U.S. and its allies to combat the use of Artificial Intelligence by adversaries in attempts to spread fake news. Security researchers believe a Russia-based disinformation operation, for example, may have helped drive social media conspiracies about the Princess of Wales’s health in the U.K. before she revealed her cancer diagnosis.

Asked about the role of artificial intelligence in fighting disinformation, Rubin replied: “I believe we are facing information warfare, both from existing technology and supercharged by the possibility of AI-generated disinformation. The only way I think we can deal with that is for the countries that believe in freedom of information, but also want to prevent Russia and China from spoiling the information environment … to band together in a coalition. 

“We’ve created a framework, a diplomatic framework to do that, which committed the British, the Canadians, the United States to work together to try to combat the existing challenge and figure out a way in the AI environment to make sure that there is tagging, there is watermarking, so that people will know when it’s generated by AI or it’s not generated by AI,” he said.





Source link

Zelenskyy Calls for Bolstering Ukraine’s Air Defenses After Kharkiv Attack

Zelenskyy Calls for Bolstering Ukraine’s Air Defenses After Kharkiv Attack

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday it is vital to bolster his country’s air defenses and speed delivery of F-16 fighter jets for use against Russia’s invasion.

“There are no rational explanations for why Patriots, which are plentiful around the world, are still not covering the skies of Kharkiv and other cities and communities under attack by Russian terrorists,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “Every day, we work to provide better protection for our people and Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy’s comments came after Russian strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed one person and injured 19 others.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the Russian attack damaged 18 residential buildings.

Russia said Wednesday it thwarted rocket attacks by Ukraine targeting the Belgorod region, while Ukraine said Russia attacked overnight with 13 aerial drones.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the country’s air defenses shot down 18 Ukrainian rockets.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, said on Telegram there was some damage to homes in several villages, and that at least one person was hurt.

Belgorod, located along the border between Russia and Ukraine, is a frequent target of Ukrainian attacks as Ukraine seeks to defeat the invasion Russia launched more than two years ago.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.



Source link

Four moves to boost your cardio fitness and strengthen your legs without any equipment

Four moves to boost your cardio fitness and strengthen your legs without any equipment

When you’re busy but still want to keep up with your exercise routine, you need to find workouts that work for you. For most of us, that means tracking down equipment-free, uncomplicated routines.

With that in mind, we’ve found the perfect session from NASM-certified personal trainer Kira Stokes. You won’t need any gym equipment to do it, just a chair or steady surface for some of the movements. 

Watch Kira Stokes’ cardio workout

//www.instagram.com/embed.js



Source link