It was a baking hot summer day in the UK on 24 July 2019, hitting heatwave temperatures of 34/35° Celsius. The political atmosphere was tense amongst British people due to the Brexit referendum, and polarised arguments were rife amongst the population. I had decided enough was enough and made a bid to move to Brussels in Belgium.

All change

I had quit my job, I had no plans in place, and I simply loaded up a hired van containing all my worldly belongings and booked a ferry. As I was driving south to Dover, it was announced over the radio that Boris Johnson had been elected as Prime Minister of the UK. Within hours of this news, I was aboard the ferry, watching the white cliffs of Dover diminish in size, and I was setting sail for the continent.

With plenty of effort and a large helping of luck, I found an apartment in Brussels to rent, along with some gainful employment - all within a brief couple of months. I registered my freelance business as a sole trader and things began to fall into place. I was already paying taxes in Belgium by November 2019 and was beginning to settle down. However, a dark period was looming around the corner, about to engulf the world. Everything changed, I was vaccinated in Brussels, and in line with the rest of the population, I switched to working from home.  

New language, new city

As my business grew, I needed to conduct meetings more and more using French as the primary language. I had to learn fast, and in the most expedient way possible - total immersion. It worked. Over time, my life in Brussels became more and more settled, the culture captured my heart, and I began to feel naturally immersed in the life of a bustling continental capital.

New identity Author's image, used with permission

More recently, my friends started to suggest I should apply for Belgian Citizenship. I was close to meeting the criteria - namely living, working and paying taxes in Belgium for five years, and speaking one of the two national languages. I wasn't in any hurry and was quite relaxed, yet at the same time, I was seriously considering it.

Once again, the political situation suddenly flipped and I was pushed into rapid decision making. In February 2025, the New Flemish Alliance coalition party was elected in Belgium, and they began putting steps in place to make application for nationality more complex and expensive. The language test was to be raised from Level A2 (generally functional) to Level B1 (more securely integrated), and the fee was to be raised from €150 to €1,000. In order to avoid these stricter regulations, I quickly got the wheels in motion for the application. On 22 May 2025, only a few weeks before the fee was officially raised to €1,000, my application was accepted by my local administrative office in the district of Etterbeek, Brussels - at the original cost of €150.  

On 2 February 2026, I returned to the administrative offices to collect my Belgian National Identity card and Passport, and I was holding back the tears of joy as I exited the building. Having acquired Belgian nationality by naturalisation, Brexit and its aftermath in the UK now seemed a million miles away. I had not only gained dual national identity, but I had also regained my European Identity - which I felt I had been stripped of due to the marginal and polarised nature of the referendum.

New security

I am now the very proud owner of the Belgian passport which ranks at number three in the world, after Singapore and Japan. This ranking is calculated on the number of countries one can visit without the need for a visa. Due to the nature of my work, it's essential for me to travel extensively, so having this prestigious passport and being a renewed EU citizen has become a tremendous advantage. I am now at liberty to travel to a whole host of countries worldwide without the need for lengthy and costly visa applications.  

The moral of my story is that risks can turn out to be a phenomenal asset - provided they are judged correctly and at the right time. I have learned many things on my journey, but the greatest of all is that I'm no longer afraid to jump out of the fire when the heat reaches breaking point. Never look back, always look forward, and continue to keep an eye on the ever changing political world in which we are all inextricably linked.

---

More from East Anglia Bylines Brexit The time is ripe for an extensive youth mobility scheme byJenny Rhodes 26 September 2025 Brexit It's complicated: the post-Brexit relationship of the UK-EU byJenny Rhodes 25 July 2025 Brexit What can the 1975 referendum teach us 50 years on? byEast Anglia Bylines 6 June 2025 Brexit The EU/UK reset summit: baby steps but positive glimmers byJenny Rhodes 30 May 2025 Friends of Bylines Network

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The post Exiting the UK to re-join the European Union first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.

Her first release under the alias since 2025's Ghostholding

"Eyes Of The World" appears in Emerald Fennell's new adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel

The Swedish artist has also lined up shows with Robyn and Wolf Alice

Justin Tripp finds a balance between no-frills punk and acid-blotted experiments on a heavy, weary, pissed-off new album.

femtanyl make computer music that wants to mosh. The bitcrushed hardcore rave tracks on the duo's debut LP are sometimes thrilling and sometimes too much.

The Ann Arbor producer dusts off an alias he used on a 1996 ambient-techno classic and gives his jazzy, atmospheric dance music a jolt of fresh energy.

The young New York-based songwriter Zion Battle's debut channels the heartfelt charm of bedroom pop and the distorted fuzz of 1990s indie rock.

Aside from denying that long established climate science is real, and the threats to humanity from global heating are great, the Trump administration is intent on doing all kinds of absurd things to pretend that fossil fuels are better than they are, and to line the pockets of fossil billionaires ... [continued]

The post Using Taxpayer Money, Trump Bails Out Coal Power Plants in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, & North Carolina appeared first on CleanTechnica.

If a passenger accidentally leaves a Waymo door open, the vehicle can get stuck in place.

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In an EV market where so many companies are trying to break through, make their mark, and stand out from the crowd, one new entrant has jumped ahead of the rest in the past two years. That company is Xiaomi, of course. Better known for its phones, it decided to ... [continued]

The post Xiaomi Targeting 550,000 Sales This Year appeared first on CleanTechnica.

This bodes well for Nvidia getting Vera Rubin out the door next quarter as planned

Samsung and Micron say they've started shipping HBM4 memory, the faster and denser RAM needed to power the next generation of AI acceleration hardware.…

Ring has canceled its partnership with Flock Safety, after receiving backlash for running a Super Bowl ad touting its Search Party feature. If you'll recall, Ring revealed back in October 2025 that it was entering a partnership with the surveillance company, which would make it possible for law enforcement to ask smart doorbell owners for videos captured by their devices. In its announcement, the company said that the "planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated." The decision to call off the partnership was mutual, Ring added, and Flock Safety's integration was never launched. Apparently, no Ring customer footage was ever sent to Flock.

Under the partnership, law enforcement agencies using Flock's Nova platform or FlockOS would have been able to use Ring's Community Requests to ask for doorbell videos from users. They would have been asked to specify the location and timeframe of the incident, as well as provide a unique investigation code and the details about what is being investigated. Their requests would then be forwarded to relevant users, who could choose to share footage from their doorbell. Ring said the whole process would have been anonymous and optional.

Ring was known to have shared security cam videos to law enforcement without a court order or the device owner's consent at least 11 times in the past. In 2024, however, it seemed to have walked back its police-friendly stance and said that it would stop sharing videos with the police without a warrant. This alliance with Flock would have marked a return to police collaboration after the company distanced itself from law enforcement.

While Ring's official reason was that the Flock partnership would need more resources than expected, it's worth noting that the company recently got flak for its Super Bowl Search Party ad. Ring touted it as a way to find lost dogs by using its cameras' AI to identify pets running across their field of vision and then pooling feeds together to identify missing pets. While Search Party isn't new and was announced last year, the ad sparked concerns about surveillance and how the tech could be misused, leading users to disable the feature for their cameras altogether.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/ring-calls-off-partnership-with-police-surveillance-provider-flock-safety-031717605.html?src=rss

Today, the President of the United States had trouble pronouncing simple words, got bored, let us know by closing his eyes for a little "me-time" while waiting for the speech to end, and told the EPA Administrator that his speech was too long. — Read the rest

The post Grandpa Pudding Brains is bored and sleepy appeared first on Boing Boing.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation's Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week's roundup of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Ben is joined by Dr. Blake Hallinan, Professor of Platform Studies in the Department of Media & Journalism Studies at Aarhus University. Together, they discuss:

• On Section 230's 30th Birthday, A Look Back At Why It's Such A Good Law And Why Messing With It Would Be Bad (Techdirt)
• An 18-Million-Subscriber YouTuber Just Explained Section 230 Better Than Every Politician In Washington (Techdirt)
• Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally (Discord)
• Media Literacy Parent's study (GOV.UK)
• EU says TikTok must disable 'addictive' features like infinite scroll, fix its recommendation engine (Techcrunch)
• We Didn't Ask for This Internet with Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow (The New York Times)
• Despite Meta's ban, Fidesz candidates successfully posted 162 political ads on Facebook in January 9 (Lakmusz.hu)
• Claude's Constitution Needs a Bill of Rights and Oversight (Oversight Board)
• Account Closed Without Notice: Debanking Adult Industry Workers in Canada (ResearchGate)

Play along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech's 2026 Bingo Card and get in touch if you win!

Rollback Will Make Americans Sicker, Raise Costs for Families WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Lee Zeldin will finalize a federal regulation that would obliterate the Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty vehicles. As a part of the Trump administration's wholesale attack on the EPA's ... [continued]

The post Trump Administration Guts Clean Vehicle Standards and Wipes Out Longstanding Climate Finding appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Washington, DC — Today, in a brazen assault on the health and welfare of the American public, the Trump administration announced its rule revoking the Environmental Protection Agency's longstanding greenhouse gas endangerment finding under the federal Clean Air Act. With the stroke of a pen at a White House, Donald Trump ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club Statement on Trump Administration's Elimination of the EPA's Endangerment Finding appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Commercial robotaxi service continues to expand in city after city. In Abu Dhabi, Uber and WeRide just expanded driverless commercial robotaxi service into downtown. WeRide and Uber launched robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi a little more than a year ago. With this expansion into downtown, the partners now serve about ... [continued]

The post Uber Expands Robotaxi Service to Downtown Abu Dhabi with WeRide appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A large gang of extremist Israeli colonisers has illegally crossed the 'blue line' dividing southern Lebanon and Israel to try to stake a claim to land that is not theirs. The far-right 'Awaken the North' group planted trees somewhere on the Lebanese side of the border and demanded the restart of Israeli settlement in Lebanon.

The group was then whisked back into Israel by the occupation military. Israeli authorities went through the motions of condemning the excursion, but no action against the racist group is likely.

In a deranged statement, one of the group's leaders claimed its action was "moral" and "necessary" and that it was reclaiming "our land:"

This is right for security and it is a necessary step from a moral and historical point of view.

One of the group's leaders said that the Israeli colonisers were "putting down roots" in "our country", regurgitating Israeli 'inheritance' propaganda:

We came here today, to plant trees and put down roots in the soil of our country, regardless of the fences. The State of Israel must renew the settlement in Lebanon, this is historically correct, it is right from a security point of view, and it is right from a moral point of view. South Lebanon is a piece of the inheritance of our forefathers, where Jewish settlement existed for thousands of years. In order to ensure the security of the residents of the north, the construction of civilian settlements in southern Lebanon, near IDF posts, must be promoted.

If you look closely at the featured image, you'll find the group has the Lebanese cedar in the centre of a Star of David as their logo. In the words of brother Omar from Four Lions: "I think you're confused bro."

Israel has bombed southern Lebanon daily, despite the supposed 'ceasefire' in place since the occupation's 2024 terrorist attack using exploding pagers. These attacks have murdered dozens of civilians.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Labour MPs have complained to their boss Keir Starmer that the party and its activists are now dismissed by the public as "paedo lovers". The complaint came during Starmer's emergency meeting with women from the parliamentary party yesterday, 11 February 2026.

The meeting followed a further 'Labour nonceberg' scandal over Starmer's peerage for former adviser Matthew Doyle despite knowing Doyle had campaigned for the election of a Scottish Labour paedophile. This in turn followed the scandal of the various appointments given to the disgraced Peter Mandelson despite his ardent fandom toward serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein — to whom he also leaked confidential state and financial information.

There is no mention in reporting that women MPs raised the issue of the victims of Epstein or Doyle's close friend Sean Morton. Starmer has also refused to say that disgraced former royal Andrew should apologise to his victims.

To the informed, none of this is surprising, either from Starmer or from the women MPs. Labour's 'white feminists' have routinely ignored the plight of victims who are not 'people like us'. Starmer's record as Labour leader is an appalling continuation of the impunity of celebrity paedophiles when he ran the CPS.

Nonceberg

As well as the cases of Mandelson, Doyle/Morton and Andrew, Starmer:

• Welcomed the London MP Neil Coyle back under the Labour whip despite Coyle being found by Parliament to have sexually harassed a staffer, as well as racially abusing a Chinese-British man.
• Turned a blind eye to then-Chester MP Chris Matheson's sexual harassment: neither Starmer nor the party machine suspended him pending the outcome of the investigation, as would be usual practice to protect the women around him.
• Protected at least two further alleged sex pests on his front bench.

The public are right

The angry public on the doorstep is not wrong: Starmer's right-wing, pro-Israel faction is rife with paedophiles:

• 'Friend of Israel' Liron Velleman has just been convicted of repeated sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl.
• In January 2025, former Blair minister Ivor Caplin was arrested in a sting operation as he allegedly attempted to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex. Local police went after local left-winger Greg Hadfield for exposing the explicit content Caplin posted on his X feed — Hadfield defeated the 'vexatious' charge in November 2025. However, no charges have yet been brought against Caplin and a court did not impose bail conditions after his initial bail expired.
• Hackney councillor Tom Dewey, an organiser in pro-Israel group 'Labour First', admitted possession of the most serious category of child rape images in 2023. The party knew of his arrest when it allowed him to stand for election. After his conviction, it blocked local women members from its systems to prevent them discussing the case.
• In March 2025 Sam Gould, another JLM activist who worked for Starmer's health secretary Wes Streeting, quit as a Redbridge councillor after being convicted on two separate counts of indecent exposure to a 13-year-old girl.
•  The following month Dan Norris MP, an ally of Keir Starmer, was arrested over allegations of rape, child sex offences and child abduction.  Avon and Somerset Police says its investigation is still ongoing.
•  The same Dan Norris was arrested again for allegations of rape and sexual assault.

And in August 2025, the US allowed Israeli cyberwar official Tom Alexandrovich to fly back to Israel after he was caught in a police paedophile sting. Starmer is fond of both countries.

Starmer's war on Labour-left — in retrospect

And while Starmer's senior cronies were deselecting or blocking potential left-wing parliamentary candidates on any pretext they could find, they were ignoring legal advice to let their mates stand.

Labour's national executive ignored the advice of its barrister that it needed to thoroughly investigate allegations of 'serious' sexual assault against slum landlord Jas Athwal. Then-Redbridge council leader Athwal is now a right-wing Labour MP close to health secretary Wes Streeting. Instead of investigating, the NEC dropped the case and reinstated Athwal to allow his rigged selection as the party's parliamentary candidate in Ilford South.

Starmer ignored whistleblower

Perhaps most seriously, Starmer and his then-sidekick David Evans covered up Jewish whistleblower Elaina Cohen's allegations of serial abuse of women by a party staffer.

Cohen repeatedly warned Starmer and Evans that a staffer working for then-Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood — and allegedly Mahmood's lover — was engaged in 'sadistic' and 'criminal' abuse of vulnerable Muslim women. The victims were fleeing domestic violence, through the now-defunct domestic violence 'charity' that she ran.

Warned time and again, Starmer and Evans did nothing. Mahmood remained on Starmer's front bench as long as he chose to be there. Cohen was sacked from her role as a parliamentary aide.

One of the victims gave evidence, at Cohen's successful wrongful dismissal tribunal, of the horrific abuse she and others had suffered. This included blackmail and sexual exploitation. Her evidence was not challenged by Mahmood or his lawyers. Mahmood admitted under oath to the tribunal that he had also personally made sure that Starmer was fully aware of Cohen's allegations.

Starmer's protection of child sex offenders is a mountain. His contempt for their victims is another. Both have been almost entirely ignored by 'mainstream' media.

For more on the Epstein Files, please read the Canary's article on how the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Inveterate collector, Mike Henbrey acquired harshly-comic nineteenth century Valentines for more than twenty years and his collection is now preserved in the archive at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Mischievously exploiting the anticipation of recipients on St Valentine's Day, these grotesque insults couched in humorous style were sent to enemies and unwanted suitors, and to bad tradesmen by workmates and dissatisfied customers. Unsurprisingly, very few have survived which makes them incredibly rare and renders Mike's collection all the more astonishing.

"I like them because they are nasty," Mike admitted to me with a wicked grin, relishing the vigorous often surreal imagination at work in his cherished collection - of which a small selection are published here today - revealing a strange sub-culture of the Victorian age.

.

Images courtesy Mike Henbrey Collection at Bishopsgate Institute

You might also like to look at

The Trade Cards of Old London

Lottery Tickets of Old London

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Happy Families

Former US Congressman Ron Paul warns that a monetary shift made more than five decades ago is now reaching its breaking point.

In a new interview with Tucker Carlson, Paul revisits the moment in 1971 when President Richard Nixon ended the dollar's convertibility into gold and warned that the consequences are still unfolding.

https://www.capitalaidaily.com/ron-paul-warns-bad-stuff-is-coming-for-america-as-us-debt-and-gold-flash-alarms/

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Astro-JJR HIPPO Suzuki and MAR Performance Moto combine for the 2026 Daytona 200 with Carl Soltisz, of Super Carl Racing, piloting the team's Suzuki GSXR-750.

"Continuing the relationship that took current British Supersport Champion Rhys Irwin and former Australian Supersport Champion Tom Toparis to Daytona in previous years, we are again joining forces to provide Carl a platform to showcase his talent and commitment to a wide audience," said team owner Stuart Tromans. "We hope this will lead to further opportunities both in the USA and further afield here in the UK.

"The team has enjoyed considerable success with 2 x Daytona participant Harry Truelove and current British Champion Rhys Irwin as well as the much-missed former MotoAmerica rider Shane Richardson who we sadly lost in 2025. We hope Carl's experience and meticulous working practices along with a first-class racing pedigree and attitude will bring a valuable contribution to this HIPPO supported venture."

Rider Carl Soltisz added "I am super excited to team up with the Astro MAR Performance HIPPO Suzuki team for the 84th running of the iconic Daytona 200. Malcom Ashley and I talked during the off-season and developed a great working relationship after discovering that we shared similar racing ambitions and goals.

"Having raced every Daytona 200 since 2015, and recently notching a personal best 11th-place finish in 2025 while riding with a broken arm, I feel I bring crucial Daytona experience, knowledge, and strategy to the party. Combined with the team's own Daytona experience and their tremendous achievements in the British Championship over the years, I think we have a great opportunity to score our best Daytona 200 finish yet. Now that we have teamed up I am looking forward to taking on this challenge."

Super Carl Soltisz.

MAR is owned and run by Malcom Ashley, a former BSB Superbike rider who now owns and operates MAR Performance MOTO specializing in GSX-R preparation.

ASTRO-JJR HIPPO Suzuki is a front-running British Supersport team that has since 2022 been instrumental in the development of the Supersport Next Gen category in the UK and abroad with development taking place in the USA and Australia alongside the UK team.

Super Carl Racing is the race team owned and operated by rider/engineer "Super" Carl Soltisz. It is a top-10 MotoAmerica Supersport team that has been competing in the series since its start in 2015. For more information, visit www.carlsoltisz.com.

The post Daytona 200: Carl Soltisz On Astro-JJR HIPPO & MAR Suzuki appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

Through negotiations between the owner of Britannic's wreck and the Greek government, which controls it, divers have finally been allowed to enter the well-preserved hulk.

In the first video, Sam from Historic Travels does a great job of explaining how Britannic was de-designated as a war grave and how its current owner obtained permission to have divers document the interior. — Read the rest

The post What can Britannic teach us about her sister ship, Titanic? appeared first on Boing Boing.

The nation's top health official offered this explanation for many of his policies: "I'm not scared of a germ. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats." This clears up an awful lot, but shouldn't make you feel any better. — Read the rest

The post RFK Jr. cites toilet-seat cocaine habit as proof germs aren't real problem appeared first on Boing Boing.

Three months after it began, the story of President Donald Trump's siege of Minnesota has been one told with violent imagery. Masked men smashing windows and dragging women from their cars. A smiling mother behind the wheel of her SUV, a rattling of gunshots, a dashboard sprayed with blood. Outraged Americans shouting at government agents amid clouds of choking gas. An ICU nurse prone on the pavement.

The images told the story of the streets, but even as the administration moves to wind down its historic immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, announcing a drawdown of operations this week, another story unfolds behind locked doors and drawn curtains. It is the story of tens of thousands of families living in terror, too afraid to venture into their communities for life's most basic necessity: food.

In response to unprecedented conditions, an underground army coalesced to bring sustenance to families in hiding.

On the ground in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and communities across the state, this is the reality that has kept people up at night.

In response to unprecedented conditions, an underground army coalesced to bring sustenance to families in hiding. The Intercept was recently invited inside a nondescript Minneapolis warehouse to observe their operations in action.

It was delivery day, which meant volunteers stuffing boxes with oatmeal and spaghetti, flour and chicken, rice, tomato sauce, vegetable oil, and more. Six hundred boxes were prepared the day before. Hundreds more would be added by day's end. Inside, volunteers left notes telling recipients they were missed, and that they hoped to see them again soon.

The packages were loaded into a fleet of station wagons and SUVs. Alongside the food was baby formula, medication, and other essentials. Many of the vehicles were driven by teachers taking supplies to the families of students who haven't been to class for weeks. They would proceed carefully on their mission, one eye on the rear-view mirror as they ferried their precious cargo.

As the latest in a series of dragnets targeting Democratic-led cities and states, Minnesota's "Operation Metro Surge" saw 3,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol personnel deployed in early December. Across the state, immigrant families went into hiding.

Joe Walker, director of nutritional services at the Sanneh Foundation, a local charity that operates a mobile food shelf in the Twin Cities, saw the impact immediately.

Related "Uptick in Abductions": ICE Ramps Up Targeting of Minneapolis Legal Observers

Not only were families no longer appearing to receive food, Walker told The Intercept, delivery vehicles were being followed, and distribution sites were being staked out by suspected federal agents. To volunteers on the ground, it felt as though the government was weaponizing hunger to root out a foreign enemy.

"We have to play by all the rules," Walker said. "They don't."

Building an Aid Operation

Guiding operations at the warehouse visited by The Intercept was a 24-year-old soccer coach named Mu Thoo. Thoo spent his first eight years in Thailand and the rest of his life in the Twin Cities. He went to work for Walker's mobile food shelf in 2022. 

As part of the immigrant community, Thoo acknowledged that Metro Surge upended life for countless families.

"It's scary," Thoo told The Intercept, but, he added, "I don't believe in living in fear. People are going to need food, and that's something every human should have a right to. And we're gonna come out and give food to people."

"People are going to need food, and that's something every human should have a right to."

A veteran of the battle against hunger in Minnesota, Walker helped craft the state's regulations surrounding food shelves and served on the governor's hunger task force, counseling emergency management teams during the pandemic and the uprising that followed the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd.

The 46-year-old was immensely proud of the system his team had built. At its core were weekly, in-person distribution events in parks across the city. Held year-round, they were designed to provide a farmer's market-style experience, where families could pick and choose from the food on offer. Naturalists came to put on demonstrations for the kids. Families from South America would visit with volunteers. Bonds of community were forged between residents who otherwise may never have met.

Watching the Trump administration's immigration blitzes in Chicago and Los Angeles, Walker braced for a similar assault in Minnesota. His team began noticing a steady drop off in people of color showing up to receive food in late summer and early fall. After Metro Surge was announced, participation plummeted, from a high of nearly 700 people receiving food during a busy week last year to just over 60 once the operation began.

Read our complete coverage

Chilling Dissent

It was clear a major strategy shift was in order. At first, Walker experimented with using delivering trucks to provision clients no longer showing up in person. Soon, however, it became evident the risks were too high. In January, a food shelf delivery volunteer was taken by federal agents in the parking lot of a community center. A coalition of roughly 100 hunger relief organizations signed a letter describing the apprehension as part of a broader patter of federal agents exploiting food delivery to jack up arrests.

With one of his own drivers followed by a suspected ICE vehicle, Walker recognized that such surveillance could tip off federal agents to dozens of families in a single day. To safely get food to people would require a low profile, under-the-radar approach. To get there, Walker and his team embraced a decentralized, word-of-mouth method of operations, working with community members who were already known and trusted by their neighbors in hiding.

The pivot took off. In December, the mobile food shelf made deliveries to 735 families. In January, they delivered 1,640, an increase of 123 percent.

Food aid makes its way to immigrants in hiding on Feb. 6, 2026, in Minneapolis. Photo: Ryan Devereaux Lasting Damage

On Thursday, Trump's border czar and former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan announced a drawdown of Operation Metro Surge, effective immediately. It will likely take years to unpack the full cost of the campaign. Already, the early indicators are staggering.

While the true number of households that have received aid is impossible to know, estimates in mid-January from just one network of schools and churches hovered around 30,000 — likely a considerable undercount considering the vast number of smaller scale operations and neighbor-to-neighbor relationships facilitating care.

The mass fear engendered by the government has cost the local economy upwards of $20 million a week. Immigrant businesses have suffered tremendously, with revenue losses as high as 100 percent. Local healthcare providers estimate a 25 percent drop in emergency room and clinic visits. Isolated from their classmates and friends, immigrant kids have reverted to Covid-style online learning, as parent pick-up and drop-off sites having become hunting grounds for federal agents. 

In his address this week, Homan stressed that "mass deportations" remain the administration's chief immigration objective in Minnesota and around the country, suggesting the fear that has kept people inside these past several months is unlikely to abate anytime soon.

Although Minnesotans in the field of hunger relief take pride in their state's progressive policies, efforts to feed people in need were already strained before Metro Surge began. Trump's signature 2025 legislation, the Big Beautiful Bill, which pumped an unprecedented $75 billion into ICE, making it the most well-funded law enforcement agency in history, also cut a record $186 billion in funding for the federal government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, significantly heightening the risk of food insecurity for tens of millions of people nationwide.

Schools with high immigrant student populations, where high attendance rates are linked to the availability of free breakfasts and lunches, have seen more than 60 percent of their kids stop coming to class. When those students join their parents in hiding, the 10 meals they would have received each week fall to their parents to provide; parents whose ability to move in the outside world, let alone earn money, is threatened by continuing deportation operations. Those burdens are exacerbated in families with multiple children and cases where the head of the household is disappeared by the state.

It's not just undocumented families being impacted, Walker explained.

"There's a lot of Black and brown people that are just scared to be out and about," he said, regardless of their immigration status. "It's like covid hit a certain population of the Twin Cities."

"When do we call it's all clear? I have no idea."

Even as ICE prepares to draw down its presence, Walker and his team recognize that picking up the pieces after an operation that left two Americans dead and funneled thousands of residents into the deportation pipeline will take months, if not years.

"Families are being ruined financially, businesses are being ruined. It's a huge economic hit," he said. "And that is not even the hardest part. When it's all done, then there's the count of the missing. Where are they? Are they going to come home? These are our neighbors."

"There's no vaccine for this one," Walker continued. "When do we call it's all clear? I have no idea."

"The Fear Never Leaves"

Walker's team continues to provide in-person food availability at local parks. At one drop-off location, The Intercept saw a girl of perhaps 12 years of age and what looked to be her younger brother wheel a pair of empty strollers into a recreation center. The girl loaded her reusable grocery bags with oranges, chicken and milk. It was her second time visiting the site, she said.

Before leaving, the children spoke briefly with Sanneh employee Alberto Hernández.

"With a lot of the first-gen kids being born here, they do come for their parents," Hernández told The Intercept, after the children went on their way.

The 25-year-old Hernández could relate. He was a first-gen kid himself, the son of Mexican immigrants, born and raised in the Twin Cities area. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after high school and joined Sanneh in September, just months before Metro Surge took off.

"I carry everything. I carry my veteran ID. I carry my passport."

Hernández is a big guy, clean cut with a friendly face. He'd served his country and was now spending his days giving back to the community that raised him. Even he was scared.

"I carry everything," he said. "I carry my veteran ID. I carry my passport."

It was Hernández who'd been followed by suspected ICE agents while making runs for the food shelf. His experience was just one of many. One of his closest friends hadn't left home since late December. Another, a legal resident, was surrounded by eight ICE agents while shopping at a Home Depot. According to Hernández, the barrel of an AR-15 was pressed to his skull and agents threw him to the ground before permitting him to go.

"The thing is," Hernández said, "the fear never leaves."

Despite being a military veteran with a white girlfriend, Hernández still felt uncomfortable going out to eat.

"We can't even sit and just chill," he said. "People need to know that. That's how it is here. Always looking over your shoulder."

At the same time, life in Minnesota wasn't all paranoia and dread. To Hernández, who lived in downtown Minneapolis and witnessed a 50,000-person march last month demanding ICE's retreat from the city, it was a moment of neighborly solidarity the likes of which he'd never seen. It was a reminder, to him, that he was not alone.

"As someone who's a child of immigrants, it's really nice," he said. "It's very, very, very beautiful to see. The people of Minneapolis, and the people of Minnesota, stand up for the community and their neighbors."

The post Trump Attacked Immigrant Food Aid in Minnesota. Locals Fought Back. appeared first on The Intercept.

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The Welsh government has unanimously passed the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation Bill into law, which experts have labelled "life-changing"

The Senedd passed the new law on February 10, 2026, and it will provide support far sooner than current legislation allows, preventing people from losing their homes and falling into homelessness.

It will also require public services to work together to prevent homelessness and to allocate social housing to those most at risk.

The bill will:

• Expand access to homelessness services and provide additional support to those who need it most.
• Widen responsibility to certain specified public authorities to identify individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and respond effectively.
• Prioritise allocation of social housing to those most in need.

Homelessness — a growing crisis

From April 2024 to March 2025, 13,287 households were homeless in Wales. Local councils only secured accommodation for 25% of these.

The total number of households staying in temporary accommodation was 6,285. Of these, 2,397 (38%) were staying in unsuitable bed and breakfasts.

As it stands, local authorities can only take action 56 days before someone falls into homelessness. The new law will extend this to six months.

The bill also commits to scrapping both priority need and the intentionally homeless. However, it does not give a date for doing so.

As it stands, priority need means that certain groups, such as pregnant women, people with children, young people, care leavers, and victims of domestic abuse, are accepted as being a higher priority for homelessness assistance.

Being 'intentionally homeless' technically means that a person is homeless, or threatened with homelessness, due to something they deliberately did or failed to do. 

However, local authorities often use it as a guise for refusing help to people who have to leave unsafe situations, such as traumatised women having to leave mixed-sex accommodation, or young people feeling unsafe in adult hostels.

If a council deems someone intentionally homeless, it does not have to offer long-term housing. 

Social housing allocation

The bill has placed all registered social housing providers under a new legal obligation to assist people experiencing homelessness. It has also given ministers new powers to issue orders to these providers, requiring them to comply.

However, some organisations have criticised the bill for failing to outlaw the use of unsafe temporary accommodation.

According to the Bevan Foundation:

At present, local authorities only need to have "due regard" to the various legal standards on the suitability of accommodation when fulfilling their homelessness duties. This includes having "due regard" to whether the property is fit for human habitation and the presence of Category 1 hazards such as damp and mould, excessive cold, fire risk and structural issues like unstable staircases.

The organisation previously published a report on the dangers of unsuitable accommodation. It highlighted how temporary

accommodation causes physical harm to children, along with the fact that local authorities are not meeting or enforcing regulations.

Other amendments related to protecting victims of domestic violence and abuse had been put forward, but not included.

Matt Downie, Chief Executive at Crisis, said:

The new Homelessness and Social Housing Allocations Bill has the potential to be life-changing for the thousands of people across Wales that are facing the trauma that comes from living without a stable place to call home.

But the work does not end here. The Welsh Government and incoming Members of the Senedd after the elections in May 2026 must now invest in the proper implementation of these new laws. It is critical that services have the guidance, funding and resources to really deliver the ambition of the Bill and work towards ending homelessness.

Feature image via Centre for Homelessness Impact 

By HG

Israeli apartheid has shown itself again with absolute clarity. Israel wants a new law which would see Palestinians executed for crimes which Israelis are only jailed for. The latest death penalty bill has been heavily criticised by legal experts on that basis.

Lawyers and security experts subjected the bill to analysis. Haaretz reported on 9 February that those experts think the bill would have "grave international implications" and be unlawful.

Haaretz reported on this wild disparity:

One of the bill's clauses states that the defense minister may allow a military commander to determine that a West Bank resident who intentionally caused the death of a person under circumstances deemed to be terrorism can be punished only by death. The law states that this determination does not apply to an Israeli citizen or resident.

One rule for one group, another for the second.

Killing in the name of…

The Israeli far-right is eager to pass the law. Not that Israeli politics — or the whole ethnosupremacist project in itself — produces much of a left-wing. Of the legal experts who joined the panel to assess the bill:

The only ones who did not express opposition to the law were an Israel Prison Service official and David Bavli, an adviser to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Security minister Ben-Gvir yearns for Palestinians to be exterminated. He visits shackled Palestinians in jail and tells them he wants them to be executed. He does this on camera, for effect.

Tzvika Foghel, chair of the Knesset National Security Committee panel on the bill, is also a far-right figure.

Lilach Wagner, a Justice Ministry official, warned the bill did not reach Israel's constitutional standards. They claimed that even security officials within the settler state apparatus:

 took a cautious approach regarding the question of whether the bill fulfills its stated main purpose, while it is clear that the proposal has weighty international implications.

The bill's second and third readings lay ahead. And it does not include Hamas members alleged to have carried out the 7 October 2023 attack — a separate bill will cover those individuals.

Apartheid — extermination policy

Middle East Eye reported on 9 February that a 'Green Mile'-style execution building is already being built to hold and execute Palestinian prisoners:

Training and procedural preparations have also started, while a delegation from the prison service is expected to visit an East Asian country to study the legal and regulatory framework for implementing capital punishment.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club said the plans were depraved:

The occupation has not been content with killing dozens of prisoners and detainees since the war of extermination began. Today, it seeks to entrench the crime of execution by enacting a specific law for it.

They added:

This law is an addition to a repressive legislative system that, for decades, has targeted all aspects of Palestinian life. It is another step to entrench the crime and attempt to legitimise it.

A 2017 poll suggested up to 70% of Israelis support capital punishment for Palestinians convicted of terrorism. Israel still has the death penalty on its statutes. The Israeli state appears to have executed two people throughout its brief history. In June 1948, Israel shot one of their own, Meir Tobianksi, for treason. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi, was the second.

Powerful Israeli figures now seem to want to use the prison system as a new front in its genocide against the Palestinians. Of course, in some way it always was. What lawmakers are proposing is a rapid acceleration. There is nothing anomalous about this. The truth is that settler colonial projects lead here with the sureness of gravity.

Featured image via Amnesty International

By Joe Glenton

Morgan McSweeney is gone, for now. But an MP who served on Labour's frontbench has passed me details of an unknown, unelected group that "rules with a rod of iron" and is still fighting to retain control of the Labour Party.

Morgan McSweeney: still trying to control Labour

Matthew Doyle is the first link in McSweeney's inner circle.

In December, Starmer was criticised for giving Doyle a peerage even though he had previously campaigned for Sean Morton, a Scottish Labour councillor now convicted of child sex offences. Sean Morton, councillor for Fochabers and Lhanbryde, was charged in 2016. In 2017, he stood for re-election as councillor. Doyle travelled up to Scotland, wore a t-shirt that read "Re-elect Sean Morton", and accompanied him to the election count. Then, in 2018, Morton was convicted of a string of crimes that included possession of indecent pictures of ten year-old girls.

On 10 February, and despite originally defending the decision to nominate Doyle for a peerage, saying that his links to Morton had been "thoroughly investigated" before the decision was made, Labour was forced to suspend him.

But here lies the problem: such is the grip that the McSweeney faction has held over Labour, no misdemeanour is too big to be swept under the carpet, and it is only when scandals are picked up by investigative journalists that the Starmer regime feels forced to act.

McSweeney reportedly insisted on the appointment of Epstein-informant Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. Starmer went along with it and Labour MPs fell into line. Everyone knew, they just didn't care.

McSweeney's 'tight' crew

According to the former Labour frontbencher who contacted me:

The inner circle were tight. WhatsApp tight. They talked openly of taking over the Labour Party literally. And to get rid of every existing MP eventually. Morgan seemed to run everything.

The second link in McSweeney's "inner circle" is Matthew Faulding. Faulding worked under McSweeney's close supervision as Labour's director of candidates, ensuring that only Mandelson-Starmer loyalists could be selected as candidates. He has previously been known to stalk the offices of Labour politicians, "striking the fear of death into MPs", according to a party staffer. But Starmer's grip on the reins of power is slipping. And now, after the events of the weekend, even McSweeney can't save him.

The third link in McSweeney's "inner circle" is Matt Pound. Pound was instrumental in Labour Party leadership rule changes that helped Starmer rise to power. He was previously head of the Labour First group, working to ensure the success of McSweeney-favoured candidates in "internal elections". Pound has previously been photographed alongside Marlon Solomon and Luke Akehurst, with the three wearing matching t-shirts bearing the phrase "Zionist Shitlord".

In 2019-20, Solomon was given £11,877 by the Pears Family Charitable Foundation to put on an Edinburgh Fringe show that would "put a comic spin on antisemitism". In 2008, the Pears Foundation established the Britain-Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership, "a major initiative launched by the prime ministers of both countries". In 2010, they helped establish the UK-Israel Life Sciences Council. David Chinn attended the launch.

David Chinn is the eldest son of life-long pro-Israeli lobbyist Trevor Chinn. Trevor Chinn was a co-director and major funder of McSweeney's Labour Together Limited. When McSweeney was found to have concealed over £730,000 in donations to Labour Together, he said it was "to protect Trevor Chinn, Labour Together's great benefactor".

Pulling in the money

The McSweeney-Starmer takeover of the Labour Party still needed cash, and Waheed Alli was on hand to provide. Alli was Starmer's biggest personal donor, giving over £30k for the prime minister's clothing and glasses. Now, his name appears in the Epstein Files.

Alli's name appears on a list of guests due to attend an Epstein-hosted dinner in February 2010 and another dinner in August of the same year. In another leaked e-mail from 2012, Epstein tells a friend that Peter Mandelson and Alli are staying at "Shelter Island".

McSweeney enforcer Faulding was working for Alli in the run-up to the general election in 2024. According to the former Labour frontbencher who contacted me, McSweeney's inner circle:

had lists of people approved or pressured before a selection ever began.

He believes that Faulding, however, soon fell out of favour:

his lack of charm leading to complaints about his arrogant out of control behaviour. He was becoming a liability to Morgan.

The problem is, McSweeney has himself become a liability to Supreme Leader Starmer. My source added:

The thugs beneath him are minions who any good leader would dispose of right away.

One of those who rushed to the by-then-doomed McSweeney's defence was Adam Langleben, current head of Labour Party think tank Progress and former national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement.

The Zionist link

Langleben has previously supported Ivor Caplin, the former Labour minister caught by "paedophile hunters" last year. He has also described ex-Labour MP Greville Janner as his "inspiration". Back in 2021, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said police deliberately "shut down" investigations into Janner. In 1997, just weeks after his election, Tony Blair gave Janner a peerage.

In The Lobby documentary produced by Al Jazeera, Rose, a director of the Jewish Labour Movement who previously worked at the Israeli embassy, was caught boasting about participating in IDF-developed Krav Maga training. Rose served as a Labour councillor in Barnet alongside Velleman.

In January, former Labour councillor Velleman pleaded guilty to a series of sexual offences against a police decoy he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Velleman sent naked pictures of himself to the 'girl' and asked whether she "was a virgin" and "at home alone". Then, on 10 February, Velleman admitted further charges, including sending the "child" videos of his penis and asking to see her underwear.

More

Unbelievably, Velleman had given evidence at the committee stage of the government's Child Safety Bill in 2022, where he's listed as a political organiser for Hope not Hate. Labour minister Peter Kyle, who was technology secretary when the Bill came into force, previously apologised to those:

let down by governments failing to keep them safe from toxic online content.

He also happens to be best friends with Ivor Caplin, the former Labour minister caught by "paedophile hunters" in 2025, and whose X account was still followed by Labour frontbenchers including Rachel Reeves whilst replete with a stream of explicit material. Caplin has "congratulated" Velleman online on several occasions, whilst Kyle once sent him a message of thanks at 2 o'clock in the morning!

On 9 February, Jewish News, apparently not reading the room, wrote a gushing piece extolling the virtues of political genius McSweeney, who by my research has only stood for public office himself once, receiving 149 votes in a Sutton West council election. McSweeney of course lived on an Israeli "kibbutz" shortly before joining the Labour Party and has a long history of promoting Israel lobby-backed candidates.

Langleben is quoted as saying:

No one did more to drag the Labour Party out of the darkest moment in its history than Morgan McSweeney. The Jewish community owes him a debt of gratitude.

Words of praise also effused from Michael Rubin, the director of Labour Friends of Israel, a shadowy lobby group within the party which refuses to reveal its funders. He said:

Morgan was essential in dragging Labour back to sanity after the dark Corbyn years.

The adults are not back

Some people might have an issue with the description of appointing Mandelson, the "best pal" of a notorious paedophile, to a top diplomatic role, as "sanity". If this is "the adults back in the room", it's not a room I want to set foot in.

Krav Maga-trained Ella Rose opined:

A lot will be written and said about the role of Morgan McSweeney…We would not have been fit for government without him. Thank you, Morgan.

One thing is true: by accepting the resignation of McSweeney, Starmer lost the final card in his deck. On Monday, the prime minister told his fast diminishing staff at No. 10 that he is "not resigning", but his removal is now simply a matter of time.

Featured image via the Canary

By Jody McIntyre

Why serve up tough HTML when you can offer tasty Markdown?

Cloudflare has turned its attention from erecting bot barriers to dangling bot bait.…

Gartner says using AI to fix customer gripes could cost more than using humans by 2030

ai-pocalypse AI will not replace the people in the call center, but it will rejigger the software stack to make agents more capable of solving customer issues without the need to swivel-chair into multiple systems or escalate complaints, said Vasili Triant, CEO of UJET.…

After multiple championship-winning seasons in MotoAmerica's Supersport class, Strack Racing Yamaha is taking a big step forward by entering the Superbike Championship in 2026 alongside their continuation in Supersport. The move marks the next phase in the team's long-term growth at the national level.

Two-time, back-to-back Supersport Champion Mathew Scholtz will set aside his #1 Strack Racing Yamaha YZF-R9 and swing his leg over the brand-new #11 Strack Racing Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike. For Scholtz, he returns to MotoAmerica's premier class where he previously notched five Superbike wins prior to joining Strack Racing in 2024. The South African brings championship momentum and continuity as the team expands into MotoAmerica's premier race class.

Also continuing with Strack Racing Yamaha is Scholtz's Supersport teammate from the past year, Blake Davis. The 19-year-old from Virginia finished third in the 2025 Supersport standings and, with both season champion Scholtz and runner-up PJ Jacobsen moving up to Superbike, Davis is the odds-on favorite to make it three years in a row for Strack Racing Yamaha to win the Supersport crown.

Davis will be back aboard the #22 Strack Racing Yamaha YZF-R9 as he and the team continue to develop the Supersport Next Generation machine.

With Scholtz in Superbike and Davis continuing in Supersport, Strack Racing Yamaha will work in close technical alignment with Attack Performance, strengthening the Superbike program while maintaining championship-level performance across both race classes.

Commenting on his team's 2026 racing plans, Strack Racing Yamaha's team owner Peter Strack said, "Supersport enabled us to build a championship foundation, and that didn't happen easily—it was deliberate and strategic. With Yamaha and Attack Performance aligned with us technically, we're confident about stepping into Superbike while continuing to compete at the front of a stacked Supersport field."

About continuing with Strack Racing Yamaha and moving back up to Superbike, Scholtz said, "Coming back to Superbike with Strack Racing Yamaha feels like the right move at the right time for me. What we've built together in Supersport gives us a strong foundation, and I'm excited to take that momentum back into the premier class with a team I trust."

Davis had this to say about his second year with Strack Racing Yamaha and his plans to keep the Supersport title in the team: "I'm excited to continue with Strack Racing Yamaha and build on what we started last season. The Supersport class is stacked, and my goal is to be fighting for wins every race while continuing to develop the R9 with the team."

Commenting on the continued partnership, Yamaha Racing's Assistant Department Manager for YMUS Jeff Sidlovsky said, "Yamaha Racing is proud to support Strack Racing stepping up to the Superbike class with Mathew Scholtz, and continuing to build on their championship foundation in the Supersport class with Blake Davis. The team's commitment to excellence is evident, and Mathew, Blake, and the team continue to grow. We value the collaboration between Strack Racing and Attack Performance as this strengthens the bonds between our racing partners, elevates the Yamaha brand, and promotes the strength of the YZF-R1 and YZF-R9."

The post MotoAmerica: Strack Steps Up To Superbike appeared first on Roadracing World Magazine | Motorcycle Riding, Racing & Tech News.

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During its State of Play livestream on Thursday, Sony revealed the first PlayStation Plus Game Catalog addition for February and it's a doozy. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5) will finally websling its way onto the Game Catalog on February 17.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was released in October 2023, and Insomniac's third Spidey game is the the best of the bunch. You can play as both Peter Parker and his protégé Miles Morales. Each Spidey has his own skill tree and moveset to master.

Traversing New York (with a lot more of it explorable than in previous entries) has never felt better thanks to the addition of the wingsuit, while the set pieces are frequently breathtaking. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 remains one of the PS5's flagship games, and with Marvel's Spider-Man: Remastered and Miles Morales already on the Game Catalog, Extra and Premium subscribers can now play the whole series while they wait for Insomniac's Wolverine game to arrive later this year.

Sony later revealed the full PS Plus Game Catalog lineup for February on the PlayStation Blog. It includes Neva (PS4 and PS5), a stunning 2D platformer that's pretty much an interactive fairytale. Engadget's Jessica Conditt opened her review of the game by saying she had "absolutely nothing negative to say" about it, which is surely about as effusive as a recommendation can get. (A paid expansion that acts as a prequel is on the way next week too.)

The other titles coming to the PS Plus Game Catalog on February 17 are:

• Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (PS5)

• Season: A Letter to the Future (PS4 and PS5)

• Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin (PS4)

• Monster Hunter Stories (PS4)

• Venba (PS5)

• Echoes of the End: Enhanced Edition (PS5)

• Rugby 25 (PS4 and PS5)

PS Plus Premium members will have an extra game to play on PS4 and PS5 in the form of Disney Pixar Wall-E. This version was originally released in 2008 for the PlayStation 2.

Looking further ahead, Tekken Dark Resurrection will be available to Premium subscribers in March. Premium members will be able to play the original Time Crisis on their PS5 with gyro controls in May, which sounds fun. Also, Big Walk, a multiplayer game from Untitled Goose Game developer House House, will be available on all three PS Plus tiers when it debuts later this year.

Update February 12, 6:43PM ET: Added the full list of PS Plus Game Catalog titles for February.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-ps-plus-game-catalog-additions-for-february-include-marvels-spider-man-2-232459779.html?src=rss

Last year marked 20 years since God of War hit the PlayStation 2 and kicked off one of gaming biggest franchises. Now, at the tail end of that 20th anniversary celebration, Sony's Santa Monica Studio has announced two new project. First, and most significantly, the original God of War trilogy from the PS2 and PS3 is being remade for the modern era.

There's no footage of it yet — the developer says that they're "very early in development," so we likely won't see or hear much about this for a while. But given renewed interest in God of War thanks to the excellent two Norse games from 2018 and 2022 (not to mention the upcoming Amazon series), it makes sense to revisit these classics.

God of War and God of War II were released for Playstation 2 in 2005 and 2007, respectively, while the third of the Greek trilogy hit PlayStation 3 in 2010. The third game was also remastered for the PS4. But it's safe to say that while the first two games are classics for their era, they also really show their age in some gameplay spots. Hopefully the remake will smooth out those rough edges. (Who else has nightmares in the Hades level near the end of the first game? Not just me, right?)

While we won't see the remakes for a while, there is a new God of War-inspired game out right now: God of War Sons of Sparta. It was developed by Mega Cat Studios, a developer known for its love of retro games — it even still releases games for the SNES and Genesis.

Given their pedigree, it's no surprise that Sons of Sparta has vibes of classic 2D action/platformer games. It's apparently canon for the series and takes place in Kratos' youth while he trains with his brother. It obviously looks nothing like the other God of War games — but the combat and monsters shown off in the trailer definitely feel right at home in the series.

Perhaps the most fun part of all this is that it's available today for $30. While Sons of Sparta looks like a fun curio for God of War fans, it'll only go so far towards whetting our appetite for that remake series. Might I suggest binging some Valhalla in the meantime?

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/god-of-war-is-getting-a-remake-trilogy-and-a-new-retro-inspired-action-game-is-out-today-234056618.html?src=rss

Coming off the success of Slient Hill f, which moved the series' psychological horror to the Japanese countryside, Konami, Annapurna Interactive and developer Screen Burn Interactive have chosen a foggy island as the setting for Silent Hill: Townfall.

The first gameplay trailer for Townfall, introduced during Sony's latest State of Play, follows Simon Ordell, a man who keeps mysteriously waking up in the water off the coast of the empty island town of St. Amelia. In the trailer, Simon hides from monsters, peers at a portable television, swings a fire axe, and deals with the psychological turmoil typical of a Silent Hill protagonist, all in first person, one of the unique twists of this new game.

Silent Hill: Townfall was originally announced alongside Silent Hill f and the remake of Silent Hill 2 in 2022. The game is developed by Screen Burn Interactive (formerly known as No Code), the creators of Observation and Stories Untold. Konami will share more details about Townfall's gameplay and story in an upcoming Silent Hill Transmission presentation later today.

Silent Hill: Townfall is coming to PlayStation 5 in 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/silent-hill-townfall-takes-the-series-trademark-fog-to-an-eerie-coastal-community-233324897.html?src=rss

The longevity-obsessed investor Bryan Johnson is charging $1 million to sign up for his "Immortals" program.

The collision could also be responsible for Saturn's iconic rings, researchers say.

Pinterest's stock tumbles after an earnings miss, with higher-than-expected usage its only bright spot.

IBM plans to triple its entry-level hiring in the U.S. in 2026 but these jobs will have different tasks than in previous years.

The company's annual revenue was boosted by its technology joint venture with Volkswagen Group.

Volume two of the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection will arrive on August 27, publisher Konami announced today during Sony's latest State of Play presentation. The bundle will feature 2008's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the HD remaster of 2010's Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and a selection of bonus content, including Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, which was originally released for Game Boy Color in 2000. All told, that's a smaller selection of games than Konami made available with Vol. 1 of the Master Collection, but Metal Gear fans will be excited nonetheless, if only for the fact it will mark the first time MGS4 will be officially playable on a platform other than the PlayStation 3.

That it has taken Konami nearly two decades to release the conclusion of Solid Snake's story on more systems has to do with the nature of the game as a PS3 exclusive. MGS4 took extensive advantage of the console's unique Cell architecture, a fact that made it difficult (and expensive) proposition to port to more recent x86-based systems. In recent years, it's been possible to emulate the game on a powerful PC, but not everyone has that kind of hardware.

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.2 will be available on PS5. For now, Konami has not announced other platform availability, but the previous instalment was also available on PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-next-metal-gear-solid-remaster-collection-arrives-this-summer-231711005.html?src=rss

It's been less than three months since we got our first look at Control Resonant, the sequel to Remedy's mind-bending, third-person adventure that introduced us to Jesse Faden and the Federal Bureau of Control. At today's State of Play event, we got to see the first extended bit of gameplay from Control Resonant — and the combat looks as inspired as ever, though the setting is completely new.

As we learned in December, the next Control games doesn't focus on Jesse Faden; instead, you'll primarily play as her brother Dylan who Jesse was trying to find for much of the first game. Dylan's out in a warped version of New York City trying to track the game's Resonant creatures that are responsible for whatever calamity has taken place. We knew this already, but the change of setting from the Bureau of Control building into the more open city setting should go a long way towards making this game feel fresh.

Dylan's capabilities are also completely different than what we saw from Jesse in the original. There's a much bigger emphasis on melee combat, as Dylan has a shapeshifting weapon called the Aberrant. You can switch from hammer to blades to other various forms, much in the way that Jesse's firearm in the first game could morph between different types of guns.

But the thing that stood out the most to me in the brief preview was the way that NYC completely disobeyed the laws of physics. Buildings and streets would just head into the sky at 90-degree angles — and Dylan's powers let him completely which surface is the "ground" for him.

There's still no firm release date for Control Resonant, but that's not unreasonable — the game was only announced a few months ago. Remedy says they're still on target to launch in 2026. And, at the end of today's PlayStation blog post, they promise that "things are going to get weirder." Just what I was hoping for!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-first-control-resonant-gameplay-trailer-shows-dylan-defying-physics-in-a-sideways-nyc-224746545.html?src=rss

A remastered version of 1982's Songs to Remember arrives April 10 via Rough Trade

Are you a good bot or a bad bot?

More than 30 malicious Chrome extensions installed by at least 260,000 users purport to be helpful AI assistants, but they steal users' API keys, email messages, and other personal data. Even worse: many of these are still available on the Chrome Web Store as of this writing.…

We might not have seen much from the movie itself yet, but would it be 'Star Wars' if we didn't get some hints through some toys?