A video featuring Magnus Carlsen trying to beat a very novice player at chess with increasingly unfair rules (opponent gets two moves per turn, opponent starts with 23 queens, Magnus starts with 1 king and 23 pawns, etc.) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled several items sold on Amazon due to safety hazards ranging from fire risks to injury concerns.
This year, the UN system slashed thousands of jobs, notably at its migration and refugee agencies, and Secretary General António Guterres' office has launched a review of UN operations.
The widow of slain Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi Monday filed a legal complaint in France accusing Saudi Arabia of using Israeli spyware to steal data from her phones before he was killed, her lawyers said. Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, whose husband was murdered at the kingdom's
After making its own Fortnite island, the Wawa competitor is going full Xbox-vs-Playstation console wars.
Death Howl, a new game launching on Xbox Game Pass, is a tactics game that's sometimes a little too challenging for its own good.
Everyone sells a 1000x dream. But what's buzz and what's bull?
The government is proposing a change in the law on parental child abduction. The crime and policing bill, under consideration in parliament, would make it a crime for a parent to take their child on holiday and then not return them at the end of the agreed holiday period. This
After launching last week, Spotify Wrapped has become the streamer’s biggest thus far. Wrapped, which was unveiled on Dec. 3, drew 250 million engaged users in only 65 hours, a milestone that took over a week to reach in 2024. In that same timeframe, Wrapped shares grew to 575
The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. Millions were affected, more than 1,500 people lost their lives,
The Global Tourism Forum (GTF), the flagship platform of the World Tourism Forum Institute (WTFI), will convene an elite group of international leaders on 20 January 2026 in Davos, running in parallel with the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. The gathering, titled “The
In early 2025, in an effort to facilitate its deportation goals, the Trump administration entered into hundreds of agreements with local police departments to essentially deputize them to act as federal immigration agents.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A's Mega Dimension DLC releases Wednesday, Dec. 10. Here's when it releases in your region.
LONDON, Dec 8 - Two teenage Afghan asylum seekers, who had both arrived in Britain alone in the last year, were given long detention sentences on Monday for raping a 15-year-old girl in central England.
The actor also shares which films served as inspiration for Benny Safdie's wrestling drama.
Microtubules perform an active role in communication within the cell by transmitting received signals to the cell's functional units. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel have now, for the first time,
There is no such thing as a society where everyone is equal. That is the key message of new research that challenges the romantic ideal of a perfectly egalitarian human society.
For the second time this year, a little-known company backed by Donald Trump Jr. has scored a major contract with the US Department of Defense. The Financial Times reported that Vulcan Elements—a tiny startup of 30 employees that specializes in producing rare-earth magnets used
A recent National Academy of Sciences report criticized traditional ways of measuring success after individuals are released from prison that are entrenched in identifying failure by relying solely on recidivism, and place little weight on indicators of success. In a new study
A new article that evaluated the impact of changes to the scope or generosity of social safety net programs concludes that public welfare policy has measurable benefits for public safety.
Anderson Cooper may no longer always be the anchor on CNN who is most watched regularly by viewers, but the news outlet believes he’s still worth keeping on the roster. Cooper in recent weeks signed a new deal with the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed news division, according to
The Alters received a surprise free update on Monday, and it includes cosmetic options as well as a new storyline to explore.
Sun-dimming risks putting the planet’s thermostat under Donald Trump’s control. Better to adopt the precautionary principle with high-stakes science It is fitting that this week’s UN environment talks are in Nairobi, with Africa shaping the global climate conversation. The
Deutsche Bank asked its dbLumina AI model to pick a basket of funds.
Cinnabon said, in part, that it does "not condone this behavior."
Leader John Swinney says independence could cut household energy bills by a third in the long term The future of Scottish renewables will underpin the Scottish National party’s Holyrood election campaign , the party leader, John Swinney, has said, as he claimed independence
Dec 8 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned on Monday an Israeli raid on the East Jerusalem compound of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA. “This compound remains United Nations premises and is inviolable and immune from any
Conditions for medics and patients in Gaza are as severe as ever despite a nearly two-month truce in the territory, the president of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in an AFP interview. Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed in October to a
A new study published in JAMA Network Open highlights the significant environmental footprint of medical imaging contrast agents, finding that Medicare patients alone received 13.5 billion milliliters of contrast media between 2011 and 2024.
A conservative advocacy group led by former Vice President Pence on Monday praised provisions in the annual defense bill that called for increased military spending and stripped out a proposal covering in vitro fertilization (IVF) for active duty military members. Advancing
Letterboxd is about to let you not just fan over your favorite films — it’s going to let you rent and stream a curated selection of indie titles, too. Letterboxd is launching the online film-rental platform on Wednesday, Dec. 10, available in 23 countries. The company, which
The popular, cinephile-led social platform is launching its Video Store this week with nine titles, including recent festival films and older movies that "slipped through the cracks."
For Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, events in America could not be more to their liking.
Csoke explores a wide range of queer emotional and social experiences, summoning emotions that range from grief to glee. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The
Death Battle is back with a video pitting Ash Ketchum and Yugi Moto against one another The post Watch Pokémon And Yu-Gi-Oh’s Heroes Duke It Out In A Pure ’90s Nostalgia Bomb appeared first on Kotaku .
Congressional leaders on Sunday released the text of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a compromise defense policy bill that fully repeals sanctions on Syria, seeks to put restrictions on withdrawing service members positioned in Europe and provides some
EU countries agreed to 21,000 relocations and €420 million in financial contributions for 2026, which is less than the Commission had pitched.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has published a new study using transaction data provided by Zillow to show that homebuyers price in the natural-defense value of mangrove after heavy storm seasons.
Rep. Ilhan Omar is speaking out regarding massive welfare fraud allegations in Minnesota, her home state, under the watch of Gov. Tim Walz. Because the vast majority of the fraudsters are Somali, and because Ilhan Omar is herself a member of that community, she appeared on
Samantha Smart and Gabriela Ochoa Perez star in director Libby Ewing's feature about a music therapist.
Reliably quantifying and characterizing the quantum states of various systems is highly advantageous for both quantum physics research and the development of quantum technologies. Quantifying these states typically entails performing several measurements and reconstructing them
The axolotl, a type of salamander that stays in the tadpole form throughout its life, is a master of regeneration. Axolotls have been observed to regrow several body parts, including limbs, eyes, and even parts of their brains.
For the first time, scientists have made a clear X-ray detection of chlorine and potassium in the wreckage of a star using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) spacecraft.
Although millions upon millions of living creatures fly, feed and reproduce in the air, this habitat has hardly been researched. Insects are under increasing pressure worldwide due to global change and human activities. However, until now, evaluating the large scale effects of
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from gobbinjr, Emma Witmer’s one-person synthpop project. Back in 2016, gobbinjr became a Stereogum Artist To Watch on the strength of her debut album Manalang and her vom night EP. In 2018, she released her sophomore album ocala wick. In
Congress' annual defense policy bill does not include a provision expanding coverage of assisted reproductive technology for military members, including in-vitro fertilization, sparking the ire of lawmakers and advocates. Currently, servicemembers’ TRICARE insurance only
GOP Representative Brian Fitzpatrick sat down with CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday and directly criticized the recent policy decisions of President Trump and the Republican Party in general, further emphasizing the various internal rifts on the right. The Pennsylvania representative
These are the stocks posting the largest moves midday.
In the coming decades, climate change is likely to lead to a loss of sea ice in and an influx of warmer water to the Arctic Ocean, affecting the ocean's vertical circulation. Brown and colleagues recently investigated the forces that drive the Arctic Ocean's vertical
Using proteins from a common tobacco plant virus, McGill chemistry researchers have developed a simple, eco-friendly way to arrange gold nanoparticles into ultrathin sheets, strengthening the particles' optical properties. The result: cheaper, safer materials for solar panels,
