It's become cliche to say that we live in a golden age of board games, but to paraphrase the great stoic philosopher Andy Bernard, it's great to know you're in the good old days before you've left them. Great titles are still coming out by the thousands every year, from crowd-pleasing party games to genre-bending, theme-heavy Euros. Whether the gamer in your life is looking for a mind-warping challenge, a fun evening with friends or something in-between, we've got new releases or old favorites they'll love.

Best board games to gift and play

Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-board-games-to-gift-and-play-this-year-125529271.html?src=rss

Israel has sprayed chemicals into Lebanon, according to UN forces in the region. United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a press release:

the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told UNIFIL that they would be carrying out an aerial activity dropping what they said was a non-toxic chemical substance over areas near the Blue Line.

The 'blue line' is a 120km strip which marks the line of withdrawal after Israeli military withdrawal in 2000. UN troops monitor the zone.

Israel attacks Lebanon AGAIN

Despite the claims the chemical were non-toxic, UNIFIL were told:

peacekeepers should stay away and remain under cover, forcing them to cancel over a dozen activities.

UNIFIL complained their peacekeepers could not "perform normal operations" near the Blue Line for over nine hours. Later, UN troops helped the Lebanese military collect "samples to be tested for toxicity".

UNIFIL called the move "unacceptable"  in their press release:

The IDF's deliberate and planned actions not only limited peacekeepers' ability to undertake their mandated activities, but also potentially put their health and that of civilians at risk.

Israel did not disclose what the chemical was or why it as being deployed. UNIFIL said it had

concerns about the effects of this unknown chemical on local agricultural lands, and how this might impact the return of civilians to their homes and livelihoods in the long-term.

Southern Lebanon has remained under Israel attack despite a ceasefire with Israel. Israel killed eight journalists in 22 January, as well as wounding nineteen civilians.

UNIFIL called on the Israeli forces:

to stop all such activities and work with peacekeepers to support the stability we are all working to achieve.

The Republic of Ireland currently has 350 troops deployed as part of the peacekeeping presence. Irish troops were not affected but the country's defence forces condemned:

any violation of airspace or conducting of activities which prevent UNIFIL personnel from carrying out their duties.

The IDF has not commented, but the unexplained use of unknown chemicals in a febrile area is a cause for major concern for UN troops and locals alike.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Journalist Sulaiman Ahmed has exposed a deliberate agenda between Palantir's Peter Thiel and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to destabilise the Middle East. The latest Epstein File releases included emails referencing Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt, suggesting coordinated attempts to advance Western interests in the region.

This follows widespread reporting on Palantir weeding its way into our NHS, with the help of their privileged ally and Labour peer Peter Mandelson. This latest revelation strengthens wider calls to block Palantir's advances into our state infrastructure through our healthcare system.

BREAKING: Jeffrey Epstein & Palantir's Peter Thiel were discussing a Plan that would destabilize Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt.

"The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do." pic.twitter.com/ZCoMjV2CGP

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) February 1, 2026

Epstein Thiel: billionaires pulling the strings of global chaos

The email correspondence released shows Epstein and Thiel state their intention to destabilise the over-policed region. Confirming a long-suspected Western agenda, Epstein is alleged to have said 'the more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do'. This is no secret, of course, with the West having a long history of interfering in the Middle East. Our own Steve Topple wrote in 2017 about the correlation between the unhappiness of the region's citizens with the levels of western interference:

The World Happiness Report 2017 manages to highlight the never-ending chaos and suffering that comes with failed Western intervention. And the reason is generally because such interference is driven by one thing: money. So while Western nations enjoy the fruits of past colonial plunder and modern neoliberal policies, people in far-off, forgotten lands continue to suffer the consequences of those greed-driven Western exploits.

The latest batch of files on Epstein further demonstrate what is the lived reality for Arabs - understanding so-called 'destabilisation' in the region can only happen through understanding Western interventionism carried out by powerful elites.

Palantir, Epstein and mass murder

Public calls to limit Thiel's influence in the UK are likely to gain weight from journalist Ryan Grim's X post. Grim has shared an audio clip in which Epstein links Israel's former PM Ehud Barak to Palantir. Where Palantir operates, morality does not appear to follow:

As Ehud Barak was leaving official govt service in Israel, he turned to Jeffrey Epstein for guidance. Epstein told him he needed to look at a Peter Thiel company called Palantir. Rare audio of Epstein and Barak from the latest DOJ release: pic.twitter.com/bSSeRrWkVb

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) February 2, 2026

It's curious that just as the US grows more unstable, connections surface between Thiel's guidance and JD Vance's political rise:

And Peter Thiel is the one who made @JDVance a senator and installed him as Trump's Vice President, just FYI. https://t.co/Aj2GS7wPEa

— Andrew—#IAmTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) February 2, 2026

This next clip simply goes to evidence how US leaders are not acting in the interests of their own country, but that of a hostile, aggressive military state. Again, this should further strengthen public calls to keep pro-Israel Thiel out of UK politics.

NY Sen. C. Schumer (not up for re-election till Jan 2029):

"We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, under my leadership than ever, ever before. We will keep doing that… I have many jobs as leader & one is to fight for aid to Israel."pic.twitter.com/ciwtO7aSMQ

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 1, 2026

Palantir and the NHS

Palantir and Thiel's influence in politics across the world is difficult to overstate. For example, we have repeatedly written about the defence surveillance corporation moving to seize the data held by the NHS. Wes Streeting has shown no qualms in handing the UK state over to billionaires, continually taking steps to ensure the richest profit from the essential health needs of ordinary citizens.

As wrote recently about the contract between Thiel's Palantir and the UK government:

NHS England awarded the contract in 2023, under the Conservative government. Palantir is also known to have close links to the Labour Party, and it has been reported that Palantir hired Peter Mandelson to lobby the Labour Government to help it win more government contracts. The contract is up for renewal in February 2027.

Palantir is a US company that specialises in artificial intelligence powered military and surveillance technology and data analytics. Billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel was a co-founder of the company.

Moreover, the evidence above shows Peter Thiel demonstrating an apparent eagerness to sow chaos in the Middle East for his own gain. As a result, his active contracts and partnerships with the Labour government must now be scrutinized to ensure the rights of those in the Middle East are not denigrated so billionaires can make even more money.

No more establishment politicians

Neo-liberalism has seen Western politicians repeatedly abusing power and the richest bending the rules in their favour. As a result, the most important choice for UK voters in the upcoming local elections is to elect leaders who serve ordinary people and rein in billionaire influence.

As Zack Polanski, Green Party leader recently put it in a letter to Palantir's CEO Alex Karp:

I know that companies such as yours hire corporate lobbyists such as Peter Mandelson to assess 'political risk'. I have some advice you can have for free. The political risk is very high for your continuing involvement with the NHS. The Green Party is advancing, and we will use every means at our disposal, including that of our hundreds of thousands of members, to get you out of the NHS.

Like many across the country, we are watching and we are taking receipts. We cannot allow this craven bunch of money-hungry fools lead the world into further ruin.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

The international order meant to limit the effects of war on vulnerable groups is falling apart. 100,000 civilians died in 2024 and 2025 as a result. And the problem isn't going away anytime soon.

The Geneva Academy's new report laid out how international humanitarian law (IHL) was at breaking point around the world. The War Watch: IHL in focus study warned:

The years 2024 and 2025 proved devastating to civilians, with little evidence of willingness among warring parties to limit the barbarity inflicted upon the most vulnerable.

In many cases:

serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL)were wrought against those whom the law was supposed to protect on a huge scale and with rampant impunity.

And the report said:

Murder, torture, and rape were widespread; civilians and their homes, schools, and hospitals were bombed regularly and sometimes systematically.

The report acknowledges genocide in Gaza and Sudan as being among the most egregious cases today. But many other countries are also affected.

International order breakdown: neither inevitable nor unavoidable

The report describes widespread attacks on hospitals, medical workers, and journalists. There is widespread sexual violence in many conflict areas. Disabled people are particularly vulnerable in warzones, and at the same time warzones create more disabled people - often in mind-boggling numbers. In Ukraine, for example:

at least 50,000 Ukrainians - soldiers and civilians had lost limbs - since the February 2022 invasion. That estimate had doubled by the end of 2025.

Impunity is widespread. The academy said dealing with it should be "treated as a policy priority". However:

Persistent under-resourcing, alongside political measures that constrain or undermine judicial independence, risks weakening the enforcement of IHL and eroding its deterrent effect.

Rhetorical commitments

The report warned that many governments did not match action with rhetoric. This includes arms sales:

International law prohibits States from assisting any actor, State or non-State, in carrying out attacks
against civilians.

The authors warned political considerations often overrode legal obligations:

While the UN Arms Trade Treaty has been ratified by a large number of States, its obligations are too often sidelined in favour of political considerations. This must change. The continued export of arms to Israel, Russia, and others has contributed directly to violations on the ground.

This seems especially relevant given US and Israeli attacks on organisations like the United Nations (UN) and International Criminal Court (ICC). And the Trump administration's recent decision to pull out of dozens of international bodies covering everything from climate change to counter-terrorism.

The authors said:

What is described and summarized in this report is neither inevitable nor unavoidable. It is a choice we make as a species to murder, torture, rape, and abuse our own.

Either the situation is arrested and enforcement and accountability are guaranteed or further damage will be done to IHL:

This report is a record of both what has, and has not, been done in armed conflicts around
the world. It is a grim, grisly snapshot of our inhumanity. No one in a position of authority, though, can say they did not know.

In recent weeks we saw an admission from Canada's PM Mark Carney that the so-called global order was dying. He wasn't wrong, even if he didn't go far enough. Now legal experts are saying the legal system meant to limit war is coming apart too. And, it's happening entirely by the choice of many powerful Western states.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Donald Trump's regime has been tightening the US stranglehold on Cuba. And Pope Leo XIV's take on the events has attracted criticism. Because it shows the kind of establishment propaganda the world is up against.

On X, the first US pope of the Catholic church lamented:

an increase in tensions between Cuba and the United States of America

The "economic terrorism" of the US embargo has now strangled the Caribbean island for over six decades, reportedly costing it $170bn. But the pope seemed to think both-sidesing the issue was appropriate. And reacting to Trump's unprovoked decision to squeeze Cuba even harder, Leo simply called on "all responsible parties" to negotiate.

Fortunately, people were quick to challenge the pope's ridiculous framing of the issue:

Collective punishment by the USA against Cuba isn't "tension" it's a war crime.

— John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) February 1, 2026

The only thing 'increasing', Puerto Rican professor Rafael Bernabe clarified, is the:

systematic aggression of the US government against Cuba

There are no "increasing tensions" between Cuba and the United States. That implies that Cuba is taking action to increase tensions with the United States. There is nothing of the sort. There's only increased and systematic aggression of the US government against Cuba, which must…

— Rafael Bernabe (@BernabeMVC) February 1, 2026

To be fair, Leo did call for dialogue to "avoid violence" and further suffering of the Cuban people (indirectly clarifying that it's the US posing the threat and that Cuba poses no threat at all to US civilians). But his both-sidesing seems to be an echo of Catholic leaders' longstanding hostility to communism.

Amid the US terror assault in Latin America during the Cold War, for example, many Catholics in the region wanted to stand clearly with ordinary people against ongoing inequality and injustice. But the church hierarchy in Europe attacked and silenced progressive voices while appointing conservative figures in their place.

You can't defeat the empire without defeating its propaganda

The issue here isn't communism, though. It's that the US has long been terrorising civilians whose governments don't submit to its rule. Trump's regime may treat international law with more overt contempt. But it's nonetheless a pattern of behaviour that Western propaganda enables.

To help break this cycle, we need to centre the key context. That means highlighting how the US:

• Is a military superpower with hundreds of international bases.
• Has consistently terrorised countries around the world.
• Is a co-perpetrator of Israel's genocide in Gaza. And it has attacked the international legal system to defend these actions.
• Has undermined international law by imposing an illegal embargo on Cuba since the early 1960s, costing both countries billions. The majority of countries in the world have consistently called for an end to the embargo. The US and Israel have often been the only ones to oppose that call.
• Tightening of sanctions since the first Trump administration has "hurt civilians the most", increasing infant mortality and reducing life expectancy.
• Currently holds Venezuela's president as a prisoner of war. It abducted him in an illegal military invasion that used new high-tech weaponry. And it probably committed war crimes in the process. But the US president boasted about how "incredible" this all was.

It also means emphasising that Cuba:

• Is willing to engage peacefully and lawfully with the US. And it has never attacked the US or its people.
• Has supported countless liberation movements in the past, including in the battle that helped to defeat settler-colonial apartheid in South Africa. But since the end of the Cold War, it has no longer done this.
• Has its issues, but has also made significant advances in healthcare and education since its 1959 revolution. And it has sent hundreds of thousands of doctors on solidarity missions around the world.

Name the real 'malign actor' - US imperialism!

Despite all of the above, the US insists that it's going after Cuba because of its links to "malign actors". These include China and Russia, with which the US itself has sought to improve relations. But some truth always slips through, and the White House has clarified that Cuba's continuing independence is:

threatening the foreign policy of the United States.

The foreign policy of the US, as has long been the case, is to ensure the dominance of US elite interests in the Americas. Trump's stance on Cuba follows this policy, while also appeasing and exciting his anti-communist voters, agitators (like secretary of state Marco Rubio), and racist warmongers in general.

There will be resistance from within Cuba itself. And countries in the region like Mexico may refuse to play along with Trump's power games completely. Resistance to Trump's shamelessly brash version of US imperialism needs to be much stronger, though.

Trump has shown that he will back down when he feels too much pressure from other countries. He's just pushing the world to see how far it will let him go. And the more lazy framing we get from high-profile figures like the pope, the easier Trump's rampage will be.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

Ex-US general David Petraeus is trying to make money out of Israel's genocide. The one-time special forces chief and counter-insurgency 'expert' now works for a private equity firm linked to military and fossil fuel contracts. Wow. What a surprise for us all.

Petraeus is know for many things. Like being a former top US special forces commander. And also head of the CIA. Oh, and leaking state secrets to his biographer. Who he was having an affair with. And getting away with it, barring a fine.

All of this is relentlessly cringe obviously, but somehow the biography in question ultimately ended up being called 'All In: The Education of General David Petraeus'. Which is a bit much for a Monday. Anyway…

David Petraeus and biometric warfare

Drop Site News now reports Petraeus has been out to Israel giving speeches and schmoozing. He

visited the U.S.-military run coordination center established in southern Israel to oversee the so-called ceasefire in Gaza.

Why? Well it is likely connected to his reputation as:

a major proponent of biometric gated communities in counterinsurgency, now works for KKR whose portfolio includes companies that have technology and defense interests in Gaza.

So who are KKR?

Drop Site reported:

Soon after his resignation from the CIA in 2012, Petraeus began work for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a powerful U.S. private-equity and investment company. Petraeus is currently a partner at KKR, chairman of the KKR Global Institute, and chairman of KKR Middle East, which has offices in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Sounds like he knows all the worst people…

A dubious track record

The general is seen by some as the pioneer of modern counter-insurgency, despite being forced to resign from the CIA. He escalated the war in Iraq, deploying more troops and arming militias. He also expanded the dirty war of night raids and drone strikes in Afghanistan and Yemen.

Former US president Barack Obama then installed him as head of the CIA - until his mortifying downfall. Petraeus has worked around the private equity sector ever since.

But why is he interested in Gaza? Well one of his hobby horses is the role of gated communities in counter-insurgency. In effect, how to control populations. And the US-led transitional authority, named the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), has come up with a deranged plan to keep Gazans in special UAE-funded blocks.

One week prior to Petraeus's visit, the U.S. Army presented the CMCC with plans for a "Gaza First Planned Community" in Rafah, as first reported by Drop Site.

Drop Site said:

The residential compound would house up to 25,000 Palestinians in an area under full Israeli military control and would include biometric entry, identity checks, reeducation programs, and controls over aid and housing.

Sounds deeply fucked up, but understandably appealing to someone like Petraeus.

Wall it off

Petraeus' January 21 speech to the CMCC was reportedly full of praise over the current non-ceasefire in Gaza. But the former general also visited Israel in 2024 for a major military conference. He told the Israeli press then:

The foundational concepts of counterinsurgency are that you clear an area, you hold it, and you hold it in a very significant manner…You wall it off. You create gated communities, as we call it, 12 or 13 of them in Fallujah alone. You use biometric ID cards because you're trying to separate the enemy, the extremists, from the people. That's the fundamental idea.

It's not clear what is in it for Petraeus. But Drop Site said:

The exploration of Gaza's gas would fit into the economic and energy cooperation between Israel and the UAE under the Abraham Accords. In 2025, a formal UAE-Israel energy cooperation memorandum of understanding was signed, outlining gas sector cooperation.

They added:

UAE involvement in Gaza gas would further position it as a regional energy hub linking the Gulf's capital and infrastructure with Eastern Mediterranean resources and European markets.

And here is the thing, UAE's national oil firm has links to KKR:

KKR, together with Blackrock, held a $4 billion investment in the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and has a minority stake in ADNOC Gas Pipeline Assets, which has the technical expertise required for offshore gas exploration and extraction…

Retired military officers often end up making money in lucrative roles in the arms and energy industry. Petraeus is no different. The fact he also gets to riff about population control and counter-insurgency is an added bonus. Like so many of the War on Terror's ghoulish figures, where most of us see genocide, Petraeus sees opportunity.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

The families of residents at William Blake House in Northamptonshire have called for an urgent inquiry into the residential care charity. They've made accusations of mismanagement after it came to light that one of the trustees paid its own company £1m from the charity's funds.

The care facility houses 22 residents with learning disabilities and complex care needs. For this role, William Blake House received £3,464,805 last financial year from 20 government contracts. However, it now faces the threat of closure under a staggering £1.6m debt in unpaid taxes.

Residential care charity told 'trust has been shattered'

A group of 17 residents' families have accused the charity of wasting public funds and putting their relatives' care at risk. In a public statement on the situation, the families explained that:

Our relatives are some of the most vulnerable adults in society and entirely dependent on stable, continuous care. As parents we placed our trust in the charity to protect the welfare of our loved ones.

This trust has been shattered and serious mismanagement and lack of governance revealed. Our children's wellbeing has been placed in jeopardy.

The group also asserted that they weren't made adequately aware of the care facility's mountain of debt.

As such, the Charity Commission confirmed that it has opened an investigation into William Blake House. A spokesperson for the third-sector watchdog said:

We are aware of potential governance concerns at William Blake House Northants and have opened a regulatory compliance case to engage with the charity's trustees about these matters.

Mounting debts

William Blake House failed to pay its 77 staff members' pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) and national insurance to HMRC. Meanwhile, the charity's assets slumped in value between 2022 and 2024, plummeting from £920,000 to just £200,000.

The care facility's own records show that auditors have repeatedly questioned the facility's financial viability. Earlier in January, a judge told trustees that it had until 30 March to square off its taxes with HMRC. Failing this, the charity would be slapped with a winding-up order.

The charity's webpage states that:

We offer accommodation where the residents can live, learn and work with others in healthy social relationships based on mutual care and respect. We are inspired by the ideals of Rudolf Steiner, based on the acceptance of the spiritual uniqueness of each human being, regardless of disability or religious or racial background.

Steiner was a 19th Century Austrian philosopher, scientist and noted occultist. A Guardian article on the unfolding William Blake House scandal noted that:

Over the same period, the charity has paid Van Kruger Consulting, a company solely owned by William Blake House's chair, Bushra Hamid, £800,000 in strategy fees over three years to develop a "Steiner strategy" business selling online Steiner training courses, and a further £240,000 in unspecified consulting fees. It has yet to launch.

The payments were authorised by the William Blake House board. Its current three trustees include a business associate of Hamid, Paula Allen. Hamid is also chair of the Northampton-based arts gallery charity the Shoosmith Centre, where Allen is both a fellow trustee and its £30,000-a-year interim chief executive.

'Tangible progress'

For its part, William Blake House claimed that the need to repay HMRC delayed the launch of the Steiner training courses. It also stated that Steiner Friends - another charity - would repay the £800,000 consultancy fee. Hamid happens to chair Steiner Friends, and it also features Allen as a trustee.

Likewise, William Blake House asserted that it returned to a regular PAYE payment schedule with HMRC in October 2024. In defense of its financial mismanagement, the charity pointed the finger at local authorities failing to raise contract payments in line with inflation, along with the high cost of agency staff.

The trustees stated that they've made "tangible progress" toward selling off the facility's land to a developer in order to pay off the remaining tax debt. The developer, in turn, plans to construct a new residential home and rent it back to William Blake House.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Peter Mandelson has just quit the Labour party over his extreme closeness to and admiration for serial child rapist Jeffrey Epstein. He said he wanted to avoid embarrassing Keir Starmer any further. By resigning he embarrassed Starmer even further by exposing Starmer's refusal to kick him out.

This is Mandelson in 2017, telling an interviewer that he worked every day to bring down Jeremy Corbyn, reposted today by writer Saul Staniforth:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ETjXZ2KBuhNpf-9e1.mp4

Tax lawyer and investigative journalist Dan Neidle discovered evidence in the latest Epstein file release that he claims is evidence that Mandelson leaked sensitive UK government info to Epstein:

the link: https://t.co/aIfM9QyJBq

— Dan Neidle (@DanNeidle) February 2, 2026

Mandelson machinations

Mandelson failed - or only partially succeeded in his efforts to undermine Corbyn in 2017. Corbyn went on to almost defeat the Tories in that year's general election. But that wasn't the end of the sabotage - and in 2019 Mandelson got his wish, along with catastrophe for our country.

The UK has been massively damaged by a ring of paedophiles and their hangers-on in the Labour right, including the Israel-funded 'Labour Together' faction that finally brought down Corbyn and still runs Starmer's government through Mandelson protégé Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff. McSweeney then pushed Starmer to appoint Mandelson as a his senior adviser.

Their success in undermining Corbyn up to the 2019 general election led to another Tory government, led by Boris Johnson. Johnson's mismanagement of the pandemic led to the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands, many of whom would have survived under a Corbyn response that would have mirrored the successful strategy of New Zealand instead of Johnson's 'pile up the bodies' approach.

Their success in installing Starmer in Downing Street in 2024 has led to incalculable continued misery for Britain's poor and vulnerable, especially our kids. It led directly to Starmer's collaboration in Israel's genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Gaza - and Israel's murder of British aid workers.

There is certainly satisfaction in Mandelson's exposure and disgrace now. But there will not be justice until he, Starmer, and all their faction are behind bars for genocide and treason.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Yari Montella reveals what he "learnt" during the rain-hit WorldSBK test in Portimao.

2026 Sepang MotoGP Test Monday Round Up: Silly Season Explodes, Yamaha Builds A V4, Toprak Arrives

MotoGP testing is about to kick off, and excitement hangs in the air among fans and paddock alike. As it should, of course: it's been 10 weeks since MotoGP bikes were out on track in full public view. But the excitement isn't just about the prospect of seeing what MotoGP's five manufacturers have brought to test. That is being overshadowed by the sudden explosion of the MotoGP rider market. Rumor is rife, speculation is running amok.

Making things worse, ironically, is the fact that we have our first officially announced rider signing. (Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean this was the first contract signed, just the first contract announced. Contract announcements are complicated things, with any number of representatives and sponsors needing to be informed before the news can be made public.

David Emmett Mon, 02/Feb/2026 - 16:14

• Read more about 2026 Sepang MotoGP Test Monday Round Up: Silly Season Explodes, Yamaha Builds A V4, Toprak Arrives
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We've long noted how the 2021 infrastructure bill included $42.5 billion for broadband grants dubbed the Broadband, Equity, Access And Deployment (BEAD) program. The program wasn't without its warts, but it had the potential to be truly transformative for U.S. broadband access.

But Republicans illegally rewrote the program to redirect money away from stuff like affordable, gigabit, community fiber, and into the pockets of billionaire Elon Musk. In exchange for congested, expensive, Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband access the company planned to deploy anyway.

This alone was a pretty big grift. But Trump has also threatened to illegally withhold planed state broadband grants if they dare try to make sure the resulting taxpayer broadband is affordable, or attempt to hold companies accountable for failing to delivered promised service.

When states like Virginia have balked at the idea of prioritizing Elon Musk's satellite service over more reliable fiber, Starlink has cried and pouted like a petulant child. More recently, Starlink has been attempting to attach a rider to its grant agreements with states, saying they can't be held responsible if the broadband Starlink provides is slow, expensive, or not installed properly:

"The concessions sought by SpaceX "would limit Starlink's performance obligations, payment schedules, non-compliance penalties, reporting expectations, and labor and insurance standards," wrote Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute. Garner argued that SpaceX's demands illustrate problems in how the Trump NTIA rewrote program rules to increase reliance on low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers."

So basically Musk — who likes to pretend he hates subsidies despite his entire existence being propped up by them — wants untold billions in new subsidies and no serious way for his company to be held accountable should it fail to deliver the promised, substandard product.

Under a functional broadband grant program, states would push fiber as deeply into rural communities as possible, ideally in the form of "open access" fiber networks that generate local competition and challenge regional monopolies by dramatically lowering the cost of market entry. From there, you'd address the rest of the gaps using fixed wireless and 5G.

Only then would you fill in the remaining holes with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options like Starlink, which are ideally suited only for the most remote areas (and even then, Starlink is generally too expensive for most of the lower-income rural Americans who really need it).

Under an ideal program, you'd also confirm that the companies you're giving taxpayer money to can actually deliver what they're promising. The Trump FCC didn't do that with an earlier program (the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, RDOF), resulting in a whole bunch of companies (including Musk's Starlink) gaming the system to try and get money for projects they didn't deserve or couldn't finish.

Republicans have, in an open act of corruption, thrown this entire logic on its head to curry favor with their favorite white supremacist extremist billionaire. They're prioritizing Elon Musk's substandard satellite network (which will only become more congested as more people use it), then ensuring nobody can meaningful hold Musk accountable when he inevitably fails to deliver reliable, affordable access.

Who is going to hold Musk accountable if he fails to deliver? Trump's bootlicker at the FCC, Brendan Carr? The FTC, where Trump illegally fired all the Dem Commissioners? The NTIA, which is now run by a former Ted Cruz staffer who thinks affordable fiber optic broadband is "woke?" States, who risk losing out on a generational influx of subsidies if they challenge Elon Musk's greed or stand up to telecoms?

Musk's DOGE was always about destroying the regulatory state so he and other billionaires could sell the country for scrap off the back loading dock under the pretense of innovative efficiencies while being slathered with tax cuts and subsides. It's grotesque, historic levels of corruption in a fucking hat.

You might recall, folks like Ezra Klein made a big, extended stink about the fact this original BEAD program was taking a long time to deliver (for some obvious reasons). But since Elon Musk hijacked the program creating a lot of headaches, wasted money, and entirely new delays, I curiously haven't heard the "abundance" folks make a single, solitary peep.

The business and telecom press (and many folks in policy circles) have also already seemingly normalized hijacking a massive subsidy program to the benefit of a white supremacist billionaire. But as somebody that's been studying the challenges of broadband access for a quarter century, I guarantee that we're going to be documenting the damage (and lost potential) of this corruption for decades to come.

The Green River may have had some help from a dripping crust.

Almost three years after starting the bargaining process with Microsoft, quality assurance workers at two Blizzard locations have ratified a union contract. The agreement covers 60 workers at Blizzard Albany and Blizzard Austin.

The agreement includes guaranteed pay increases across the three years of the contract, assurances that workers will be given fair credits and recognition on games that ship, discrimination-free disability accommodations, restrictions on crunch (i.e. mandatory overtime) and "protection to immigrant workers from unfair discipline and loss of seniority while streamlining legal verification." Stronger rules around the use of AI are included in the contract as well.

"At a time when layoffs are hitting our industry hard, today is another big step in building a better future for video game workers at every level," Blizzard Albany quality analyst Brock Davis said in a statement. "For quality assurance testers, this contract provides us wages to live on, increased job security benefits and guardrails around artificial intelligence in the workplace."

As with other unions in Microsoft's game divisions, the Blizzard QA workers organized with the Communications Workers of America. This marks the third union agreement at Microsoft after ZeniMax and Raven Software workers ratified contracts last summer. Several other Blizzard divisions have unionized within the last year, including the cinematics team, Overwatch developers and a unit that works on Diablo.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/blizzards-quality-assurance-workers-finally-have-a-union-contract-162614979.html?src=rss

The Zerowriter Ink is another focus-writing gadget featuring a mechanical keyboard, e-ink screen, and no distracting apps or features beyond simple word-processing tools. Similar to the Freewrite Alpha but with a more minimalist look and a lower price tag, it's reportedly shipping now after a successful crowdfunding campaign. — Read the rest

The post Zerowriter Ink: sleek e-ink typewriter appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get access to over 1,000 courses in IT, design, coding, and more with EDU Unlimited by StackSkills for 92% off at just $19.97 (Reg. $600).

There's a reason the 'curriculum' trend has taken over the internet. The most unlikely suspects — from people you knew once in school to streamers like Kai Cenat or entertainers like Chance the Rapper — are taking their learning seriously. — Read the rest

The post Your monthly curriculum is here — and it's 92% off appeared first on Boing Boing.

We are starting to see the beginnings of deglobalization: Countries are increasingly at odds with each other. There is wider disparity among political parties. Trump is making what look to many people like unreasonable demands, both within the US and around the world.

I believe that there is an underlying problem that most people are missing. A worldwide shortage of diesel and jet fuel is forcing international trade to begin moving into a new downward phase, relative to the recent share of GDP shown on Figure 1.

Figure 1. Trade as a share of GDP, 1960 to 2024, in a chart prepared by OurWorldinData.org.

While international trade grew as a percentage of GDP between the 1960s and 2008, it has been basically flat since then. Now the shortages of diesel and jet fuel are forcing the international trade percentage to start falling to a lower level.

In this post, I will try to explain the situation further. One conclusion: Conflict results from the need to reorganize the world economy in a way that uses less long-distance international trade.

[1] Background: The world economy is a dissipative structure, operating under the laws of physics.

The economy behaves differently than most researchers assume because economies are dissipative structures, operating under the laws of physics. Most researchers model tiny parts of economies, and because of their views are so narrow, they reach misleading or wrong conclusions.

Most structures that we see, such as books or houses, are, in a sense, dead. Dissipative structures, however, are different in that they can temporarily grow. In order to stay away from being in a dead state, they need to "dissipate" energy of the proper kinds, in adequate amounts. Examples of dissipative structures include plants and animals of all kinds, ecosystems, and hurricanes.

The human body is a dissipative structure that requires food to stay away from a dead state. Hurricanes are dissipative structures that dissipate the heat of a warm body of water.

If an ecosystem doesn't get enough energy of the right kinds, it will adapt to accommodate the actual mix of fuels and other resources available. If an ecosystem doesn't get enough sunlight, or enough warm temperatures, or enough water, it will gradually shift toward a different mix of plants and animals that can operate within the mix of resources available. This is similar to what happens within the human body. If a human doesn't get enough food, their body will shrink or become thinner.

I believe that without adequate diesel and jet fuel, our economy will make a transition analogous to a human going on a diet, or analogous to an ecosystem changing when a different mix of resources is available.

Academic researchers around the world have misunderstood how the process works because they tend to work in ivory towers. They create models based on the narrow view of the economy that their academic area considers appropriate. Once they have developed a narrow model, they cling to it, even though recent insights from physics suggest that a very different model is more appropriate.

[2] Researchers in academic settings make many unwarranted simplifications in their models.

Researchers like to assume that all energy is alike. Substitution is assumed to be relatively easy and quick. Models tend to indicate that if the supply of energy is inadequate, prices will rise. With these higher prices, the economic system will keep problems away practically indefinitely.

The real world doesn't work this way. When we eat food, we cannot simply substitute kale for all our other food consumption and expect to thrive, even though models would seem to suggest that kale is good for us. Within ecosystems, it is the mix of resources and predators that matters. If the top-level predator is killed off, the system will change. The world economy will face similar changes if today's international transport system runs into difficulties.

[3] The fuels especially used for international transport today are diesel and jet fuel.

To be useful in international transport, fuels need to

• Be energy dense
• Be easy to store
• Match current infrastructure, unless change is many years away, and system is rebuilt
• Be inexpensive; not requiring a lot of capital investment in infrastructure to support

Diesel and jet fuel have long been the prime fuels used for international travel and transport. "Bunker fuel," which tends to be heavier and more polluting, has also been used. Its use is strongly discouraged today because of pollution issues.

[4] An issue we have today is that diesel is also essential for many other uses.

Diesel is an essential fuel today for food production and local transport. Most of the agricultural equipment now in use operates using diesel fuel. Diesel-powered machines can easily navigate muddy fields. In addition, diesel also powers most of the heavy semi-trucks around the world. These trucks deliver goods of all kinds, locally, including food.

Another essential use for diesel is building and maintaining infrastructure. This would include:

• Roads
• Bridges
• Pipelines
• Commercial buildings
• Factories
• Pipelines
• Electricity transmission lines
• Building and maintaining structures used to produce electricity, such as nuclear power plants and hydroelectric plants

The importance of diesel to the economy is difficult for most people to see because these are behind the scenes types of activities.

[5] It is very difficult to get the price of diesel to rise for any extended period.

If the price of diesel rises, the price of food tends to rise. This happens because diesel is heavily used in food production and transport. Needless to say, high food prices tend to be unpopular with voters. For this reason, even if the diesel supply is low, the price of the fuel doesn't necessarily rise. If this happened, voters would be very unhappy. They would elect new politicians.

What, in fact, tends to happen is that oil prices (not just diesel and jet fuel prices) tend to bounce up and down. Figure 2 shows a chart of average annual oil prices.

Figure 2. Average annual Brent equivalent oil prices, in 2024 US$. Data for 1948 through 2024 from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute. Data for 2024 estimated based on EIA estimates of spot Brent prices for 2025, adjusted for inflation.

Figure 2 smooths out some of the price irregularities. For example, there was a very high peak in July 2008, but the price fell to a low level by December of the same year. The peak doesn't appear very high on this chart, but it greatly affected financial markets. See my article, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis.

[6] Diesel and jet fuel disproportionately come from oil that is quite "heavy." Oil refineries tend to offer lower prices for heavy oil, making it unattractive to extract.

There is a price compression problem with heavy oil:

• Heavy oil tends to be difficult to ship because it doesn't flow through pipelines well. It often needs to be heated, or diluted with a very light oil, to make transportation possible.

• To make matters worse, heavy oil quite often contains sulfur and other impurities that need to be removed, adding refining costs.

• The problem is that these higher costs cannot easily be passed on to the ultimate consumers of diesel and jet fuel. For example, food production and transport depend significantly on diesel, and sometimes even on jet fuel. Consumers of food do not like high food costs.

Because of these issues, the prices refineries are willing to pay for heavy oil tend to be lower than the prices they offer for "light, sweet" oil. For example, the current oil prices shown on OilPrice.com are $70.51 for Brent Crude (a light, sweet European crude), $65.13 for West Texas Intermediate (a sweet US crude) and $50.86 for Western Canadian Select, from Canada's Oil Sands. Russia also has moderately heavy oil; Russia's Urals blend is diluted to make it flow adequately. Its price is listed at $54.48.

These pricing issues make the extraction of heavy oil, especially very heavy oil, unattractive to oil companies. Basically, oil prices do not rise high enough, for long enough, to make extraction profitable. People who look at the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) of resource extraction would say that the EROEI is very low. In other words, a huge amount of energy needs to be invested to make heavy oil extraction possible. This tends to make the cost of oil extraction expensive.

Because of this price compression, and thus the low prices paid to oil producers, it is not very profitable for oil companies to extract heavy oil. This means that governments cannot charge these companies very high taxes, or they will stop producing oil completely. In addition, tax revenue collected from oil producers tends to fall too low to provide adequate government services., and it also becomes difficult to pay workers adequate wages. These issues lead to unrest in countries with heavy oil reserves, but not much other industry, such as Venezuela.

[7] A naive look at the oil data received from the various agencies does not disclose the nature of the world's oil problem.

A chart summarizing the consumption of different types of oil, based on data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, is as shown in Figure 3. Note that the Diesel+Jet Fuel layer is the product grouping with the largest consumption. In the US, we hear a lot about Gasoline, but Diesel+Jet Fuel is the layer with the greatest fuel consumption. Diesel+Jet Fuel provides a huge quantity of services, but its usage is mostly hidden from sight.

Figure 3. Figure prepared using data from the "Oil-Regional Consumption" tab of the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute. The Light Group is the combination of naphtha, ethane, and liquid petroleum gas (LPG). These are close to gases. The other categories have longer molecules, and thus higher boiling points. The Heavy Group includes waxes, lubricants, asphalt, as well as a fairly unrefined oil, used as a cheap but polluting fuel, shown as "Fuel Oil" on the same tab.

Most published data show only the sum of the four layers in Figure 3. It seems to be rising. This amount represents a combination of quite a few types of oil. When this increasing production is considered along with the reported high oil reserves (particularly heavy oil in Canada and Venezuela), and the belief that prices will always rise if there is a shortage, most researchers cannot imagine that a problem might be occurring.

Researchers often overlook how crucial oil is to the economy. People all over the world need food, roads, and many other things that depend on oil. The number of people who can make an adequate living seems to depend upon the oil supply. It makes sense to look at oil supply per capita. The chart below uses the same amounts, divided by world population. On this basis, world oil consumption is flatter. In fact, per capita oil supply has been somewhat declining recently.

Figure 4. Amounts shown in Figure 3, divided by world population used by the Energy Institute in its 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy. Different colors are used in this chart compared to Figure 3.

The other thing that becomes apparent from this chart is that the overall mix of products coming out of current processes (extracting and refining oil) has been getting lighter over time. This should not be surprising because the most rapidly growing oil supply since 2008 has been tight oil, extracted from shale in the United States. This tight oil tends to be quite light, adding output to the Light Group and to Gasoline, far more than to Diesel+Jet Fuel or the Heavy Group.

[8] The pattern of diesel supply growth provides insight into what is going wrong with world trade. Figure 5. World per capita diesel supply based on data of the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute.

Diesel is about 78% of the combined grouping Diesel+Jet Fuel. The two are similar enough that refineries can slightly change the output mix between the two.

The World Trade Organization began operation in 1995. Its purpose was to encourage more world trade. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 encouraged countries to cut their own CO2 emissions. The easiest way to do this was by sending manufacturing, mining, and other industries to other countries around the world. Thus, indirectly, the Kyoto Protocol also encouraged world trade. Figure 5 shows that between 1995 and 2008, per-capita world diesel consumption was increasing. The restriction in supply that began around 2008 corresponds with the flattening of world international trade shown in Figure 1.

[9] Several issues contributed to the drop in per-capita diesel supply starting about 2008.

(a) In the period before 2008, there was relatively more oil in the Heavy Group that could be refined into Diesel + Jet Fuel (Figure 4). Notice how the Heavy Group layer gets narrower, especially between 1980 and 2008. The Heavy Group includes end uses such as lubricants, waxes, and asphalt. It also includes some heavy oil consumed in close to an unrefined state, such as bunker fuel for ships. Burning such oil is very polluting, so laws have been changed to discourage its use. Simple refining could transform oil such as bunker oil into diesel and jet fuel.

(b) A technique called hydrocracking can be used to transform long hydrocarbon molecules, such as the ones that make up asphalt, into shorter ones. The EIA in 2013 reported, Hydrocracking is an important source of diesel and jet fuel. This technique is expensive, however. It needs a high selling price of crude oil for the economics to work. If the price of oil is high enough, it makes sense to make less asphalt, and more diesel oil and jet fuel.

(c) Price differentials tend to discourage the development of heavy oil fields. As documented in Section [6], the price refineries are willing to pay for heavy oil tends to be quite a bit lower than the price of lighter oil. In the early days of extraction, medium grades of oil tended to give a range of products, from light to heavy. But peak conventional oil took place about 2005, forcing oil companies to extract both very light grades and very heavy grades, with the hope of combining the two types of output to meet the needs of society. Since 2008, the growth in light oil extraction has been spectacular, particularly in the US, with its tight oil from shale. But growth in heavy oil supply has tended to lag.

(d) Depletion is an issue for oil supplies. As with many other resources, the oil taken first is the oil that is easiest to extract and the closest to where the end product is to be used. The oil that is left for later tends to be higher cost to extract and transport. High-cost oil is likely to produce high-cost food. High-cost food tends to upset family budgets, making voters unhappy.

(e) Political issues play a role as well. A major issue is the low profitability of heavy oil extraction because of its low sales price to refineries. With low profitability, tax revenue based on oil royalties tends to be low. Without adequate tax revenue, leaders of countries producing heavy oil for export tend to become belligerent. Examples include Venezuela, Russia, and Canada. Within the US, California produces heavy oil.

[10] The world order seems to on the verge of radical change.

We are now facing a situation in which the world economic order seems to be breaking apart, in order to form a new order that "works" better with the changing quantity of Diesel+Jet Fuel available.

We are dealing with a situation that has much in common with a game of musical chairs.

Figure 6. Chairs arranged for Musical Chairs Source: Fund Raising Auctioneer

The game of musical chairs is played in rounds. At the beginning, there are as many players as chairs. In each round, one of the chairs is removed. The players walk around the circle of chairs until the music stops. When the music stops, all the players try to grab a chair to sit on. There can be small fights over who gets a chair. The person who does not get a chair is eliminated from the game.

When an economy is faced with an inadequate supply of Diesel+Jet Fuel, it needs to regroup in a different way. To do this, some existing businesses and governments must fail, so that others can take their place. In addition, supply lines need to be rearranged to use the resources that are actually available. Customs and beliefs may need to change, as well.

The way nations interact can change as well. In the years of growing international trade, (1970s to 2008), co-operation seemed to be important. Working together was relatively easy. During the tearing down stage, which seems to be starting now, the situation can be expected to be very different. We can expect assertive leaders, and lots of conflict. We are facing this strained situation today.

[11] What lies ahead?

I don't think that any of us know for certain what will happen in the future. Nevertheless, the self-organizing world economy seems to be organizing for itself what is ahead. Or perhaps, the hand of a Higher Power is organizing what is happening.

I have only discussed the problem of inadequate Diesel+Jet Fuel, and its impact on international trade and some other parts of the economy. There are other shortages we need to work around as well:

In many parts of the world, one shortage is of fresh water. This is often connected with depleted aquifers and today's high human population.

Another shortage relates to the critical minerals we need for a high-tech society. Billionaire Robert Friedland describes the issue in this video. We have plunged headlong into high tech goods of all kinds, including wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, computers, and electrification of many kinds of things without realizing that we would soon reach limits in the supply of many minerals used in making these high-tech devices. China controls the vast majority of the critical minerals that are mined. Countries must try to start producing their own critical minerals, or remain on good enough terms with China to purchase some of the limited supplies available.

A third shortage relates to nuclear, and our plans to ramp up nuclear energy. As far as I can see, uranium extraction is currently constrained. In theory, it can be ramped up, but it takes a long chain of events to do so.

With these shortages, AI seems to be constrained in how quickly its use can be expanded. It needs to become far more energy efficient to be truly useful.

With all of these issues, it seems impossible to keep forging ahead as we have done in the recent past. We are being forced to source more of our manufactured output locally. We need to greatly reduce the transportation of goods across the Atlantic and Pacific. Using tariffs seems to be a way of trying to accomplish this change.

Strange as it may seem, some of Trump's policies make a certain amount of sense, when viewed in the light of the issues the world is facing. I expect that a replacement leader would be just as abrasive. The new leader would likely have different strange policies, but the underlying problems are structural. The new leader would likely also face difficulties in trying to fix today's problems.

I am afraid we will have to wait for the self-organizing economic system to find a solution for us. Perhaps innovations can bring us new ways of doing things that will eventually work around these difficulties. But, for the near term, higher levels of conflict because of resource shortage problems seem likely.

All the information you need to follow the 2026 MotoGP Sepang test

WorldSBK rookie Alberto Surra has one wish for the final test of the preseason in Australia.

Cuts out the Azure middleman with multi-year deal for 'tighter alignment'

Snowflake plans to spend as much as $200 million with OpenAI to bring its models and chatbot into the database vendor's sandbox and toolset. Features such as Cortex AI and Snowflake Intelligence will get a boost from the house of Altman.…

Spoiler alert: they look pretty nice.

Nobody wanted twice the pixels for many times the price.

Mutant is releasing the soundtrack for 'Predator: Killer of Killers' on vinyl, with 'Badlands' on the way too.

People subjected to pink noise may experience fewer minutes of REM sleep, a new study finds.

'Iron Lung', independently funded by the Youtuber, narrowly lost the box office number 1 spot to 'Send Help'.

Affordable, cut-resistant hand protection

Whizard Handguard

These Spectra/Kevlar gloves are used in the restaurant industry to defend against knife and mandolin cuts, as well as handling trash that may have protruding bits of glass and fish bones. I read about them in a cooking magazine, and bought one glove after cutting myself on a mandolin.

find the glove allows for ample movement and dexterity. It's definitely flexible enough to carve with and feels a lot like wearing a winter Thinsulate glove. These days, when I use the mandolin, I find I can get in closer for a few extra slices. Although the glove hits the blade, my hand's always safe. My gloved hand has even survived an errant cleaver (Fortunately I didn't hit myself not too hard).

I've used mine about five times a month for the past three years. I've washed it and haven't noticed any deterioration, though it does feel a little stiffer at first. Bonus: The weave is much tighter than with a pricier chain mail glove, so it also seems better for guarding against knife pokes. — Steve Golden

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Medieval-style hand protection

Chain Mail Glove

If you enjoy carving wood or just working with sharp tools, this glove can save you countless boxes of band-aids as well as a nice chunk of change - and gas money — from all the trips to the local emergency room for stitches. The chain mail (just like the type medieval knights and shark divers use) is a great safety tool that not only keeps you from slicing your hand open, but also makes you feel pretty tough while wearing it. Much more comfortable and easier to work with than any heavily-padded safety glove. These are similar to the butcher's gloves and also those advertised for shucking oysters, but they're half the price. — Josh G.

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Tough kevlar work gloves

Tuffcoat Work Gloves

I was left about a dozen pairs of these rubber dipped kevlar gloves by the former owner of my house. Good thing, too! I've removed 4 crabapple trees, buried electrical cable, dug up hundreds of ferns, trimmed pine trees and done yardwork for the whole neighborhood. And these gloves look exactly like they did on day one.

That's not to say they're pretty, because they're surely not, but they can stand up to all kinds of abuse and not seem any worse for the wear. The rubber is flexible enough to grip small objects like nails and screws yet plenty sturdy for sharp thorns and other pokey things. The yellow kevlar mesh on the top makes the gloves feel light and breathable. The gloves pull on and off very easily and they hug the wrists so not much dirt gets inside of them.

The colors may not be pretty but they help make them more visible when you're looking for a pair in your crowded garage or basement. I gave away a few pairs before I realized how valuable they are. Now I just tell other people about them! — Matt O'Hara

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Fleece-lined neoprene gloves

Glacier Gloves

The quest for warm hands in a cold demanding environment is a long and frustrating one. The general rule is it takes carrying three pairs of gloves to have one dry pair on your hands. I have not found that to be true with Glacier Gloves, which is hands down the best glove I have ever used. The 824BK is 2mm neoprene lined with a thin fleece nap on the inside; the two layers feel fused together somehow (not sewn or glued), which gives them a comfortable fit, allows easy on and off, and provides excellent dexterity.

I have bought several different waterproof gloves from various makers, including the previously-reviewed SealSkinz, other neoprene rubber gloves and a pair of thinsulate-filled gloves with a "waterproof" exterior. Some are OK and allow for moderate dexterity, but I find my hands get cold after working in the water and I then have to switch out to a different glove — and if you have to put some of them on with wet hands, forget it.

With the Glacier Glove, the Velcro strap secures them to your wrist, minimizes heat loss through the cuff, and minimizes water entry through the cuff. I find the cuff, when tucked inside the sleeve of your coat, also prevents rain water from running down your jacket and into the glove from the topside.

My hunting partner bought a pair years ago and was quick to brag about how warm and dry his hands were whenever we complained about how cold and wet ours were. I now wear mine while duck hunting and will generally keep my left glove on all day long, and swap between a thin shooter's glove and my Glacier on the right (that's just my preference; other hunters use them on both hands with no complaints). While I've only used these gloves while hunting, I would recommend them for any cold and wet environment. — Max Tullos

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Warm hands during wet winters

Youngstown Waterproof Winter Plus Work Gloves

I received these gloves about six years ago from my wife, in one of those rare intersections of need and availability. It was Christmastime and I needed to shovel, so I broke these out and went to work. I never gave them a second thought, until I realized I had done a fair amount of ice chopping, opening the garage, and manipulating other things without ever removing the gloves. This is somewhat of a rarity for me since I usually cannot work in gloves. Fast-forward to spring, and I used them to protect my hands when chopping and stacking wood; working on the car; working in the garage. I *far extended* the prescribed use of these, despite the fact that they were winter gloves and waterproof. In a pinch, I've even used them when moving flaming logs in an outdoor fire pit.

A short word about the waterproofing: I tend to agree with other owners in that these aren't strictly waterproof. If I was a long-line fisherman I may not use them. However, as a north Jersey resident who works on his cars, shovels snow, and builds snowmen for the kids, I can attest to their warmth and utility in the cold and wet.

With respect to function, they fit my slightly larger hand size well, and the back strap does seal in against cold and snow. The palms and fingers are textured and I am able to pick up bolts, thread nuts, small tools and sockets, and work with wrenches rather easily. The fingertips are boxed, not tapered, but in some ways the fingertips work to my advantage in picking up things on the ground.

When they get *really* dirty, you can toss them in the wash. The construction is such that the inner glove liner is not sewn to the shell, but it is a huge pain in the posterior to re-fit the glove components back to original fit. I used a wooden spoon and patience to eventually restore it to normal comfort. — Christopher Wanko

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Tethered gloves

Glove Guards

The problem is keeping my work gloves with me at all times. I've tried putting grommets in the gloves and clipping them with a carabiner, but this isn't as easy as it sounds and is a pain to do all over again when a glove gets lost or worn out.

Years ago I saw someone out there with a large battery-terminal clip holding his gloves, and I've been searching for a similar clip for years with no success. This year, though, I found these Glove Guards.

The clips have a "breakaway" feature, so that you won't be trapped if your gloves get caught in machinery or something. This caused me some worry when my gloves got caught in the truck door and seemed to break away too easily but the two pieces of the clip reconnected with ease, and have continued to hold firm ever since.

At less than $5 apiece, I can wholeheartedly recommend getting several if keeping your gloves handy is important to you. — Bill Emmack

This morning, climate scientist Michael Mann posts some choice screenshots of correspondence from 2012, several years after Epstein's conviction.

https://bsky.app/profile/michaelemann.bsky.social/post/3mdtbraov3k2r

With every document drop, the Epstein network seems to grow larger. Epstein's relationships in the scientific community in general are notable, and tend to have a certain almost reactionary tilt (frequent hinting about discredited race science, etc.).

I joked over the weekend that someone should check the Heartland Institute for Epstein money. I didn't expect this to show up 2 days later.

We talk a lot about elites here, and rightly so. But rarely do we get such an x-ray look at the mundane correspondence that documents relationships and networks. It's very illustrative who Jeffrey Epstein, confidant of half of the leadership of the entire world, made time for.

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Whether you're one of the few people still keeping up with New Year's resolutions or just want an upgraded smartwatch, now is a good time to get an Apple Watch. Currently, the Apple Watch Series 11 is on sale for $299, down from $399. The 25 percent discount brings the 2025 model back down to its record-low price.

We named the Apple Watch Series 11 as our choice for best smartwatch overall. It scored a 90 in our review thanks to its 24 hours-plus of battery life and a thin, light design that's easy to wear. It also offers new health metrics, including Apple's hypertension alerts system and Sleep Score. 

The Apple Watch Series 11 deal is available on the 42mm case with a small/medium band. It also only includes GPS and four colorways: the Jet Black and Space Gray aluminum cases with a Black sport band, the Rose Gold aluminum case with a Light Blush sport band and the Silver aluminum case with a Purple Fog sport band.

Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-apple-watch-series-11-is-back-on-sale-for-299-151616498.html?src=rss

While the main series might be over, Netflix is far from done with Stranger Things. The first spin-off to hit the streaming service will be Stranger Things: Tales From '85. The company had said that the animated show would arrive sometime this year and now, alongside a new trailer, it confirmed a release date of April 23. 

The trailer is a bit of an odd watch given that Stranger Things wrapped up only a month ago. Going from that to this animated style with a whole new voice cast is jarring, but a fun gag at the end of the clip taps into certain misconceptions the audience might have.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 is set during the winter between seasons 2 and 3 of the original show. After Eleven closes the gate to the Upside Down, some nasties from the other dimension still persist in our heroes' world. The trailer doesn't give too much away on the story front otherwise, but there's a suitably hairy moment involving a circular saw.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/stranger-things-tales-from-85-hits-netflix-on-april-23-150436136.html?src=rss

Xikipedia is an experiment in user experience: Wikipedia content formatted into an infinite-scroll mobile-friendly feed. So you can doomscroll it. It was created by lyra rebane and the source code is available on GitHub.

Xikipedia is a pseudo social media feed that algorithmically shows you content from Simple Wikipedia.

— Read the rest

The post Wikipedia made doomscrollable appeared first on Boing Boing.

"All the Young Dudes," written by David Bowie for Mott the Hoople and a number 3 hit for that band in the summer of 1972, is the greatest glam record of all time. This according to Uncut magazine.

More hopefully, though, glam could be a key to self-discovery.

— Read the rest

The post "All the Young Dudes" the greatest glam song of all time appeared first on Boing Boing.

Ring's Search Party feature for finding lost dogs is now available across the U.S. — even if you don't own a Ring camera.

We are officially in the lowest snowpack in history.

This map shows Westwide SNOTEL snow water equivalent as a percent of the 1991-2020 median (end of day Jan 31, 2026). Large parts of the western U.S. are well below normal—many basins in the Southwest and along the Sierra/Cascades are in the 30-60% range, with some areas lower. Low snowpack doesn't guarantee a catastrophic fire season, but it's an early warning: less spring melt, earlier drying of grasses and brush, stressed forests, and more competition for limited water through summer.

I'm sharing this as a discussion starter, not doomposting. What are you seeing in your area so far—reservoir levels, soil moisture, streamflows, or unusually dry fuels? Are local agencies already adjusting burn restrictions, staffing, or prescribed-fire plans? If you have context (recent storms that haven't hit yet, elevation effects, or why certain basins look better/worse), please add it.

If you disagree with the "on fire" framing, say why and point to data. Links to dashboards and forecasts are encouraged. Also: remember ignition sources matter—heat plus wind plus people can turn a dry year into a record year fast very locally.

this post was auto-moderated due to lack of submission statement. reposting. Also added graphic from nasa article on western snowpack (image2)

I'm in Salt Lake City and feel like I'm in a cat 5 hurricane with 0 news coverage. a slow moving toxic event that will trigger migration.

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The final broadcast of the CBS and Trevor Noah era was another heartfelt production about, what else, the power of music. Bad Bunny stole the show, anti-ICE sentiments abounded, and voters will stop at nothing to give Billie Eilish another award. Here are the best and worst moments of the 68th Grammy Awards.

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A newly-released report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed that over half of its health assessors quit the job within their first year.

The health professionals reported feeling 'despised' for their role, which involves evaluating people for both Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and the health-related element of Universal Credit (UC).

DWP health assessors: 'a cog in the machine'

The DWP carried out its research back in 2022, and included findings from 2021. It found that a full 40% of new recruits don't make it through the training period of three months. By the end of a year, 52% of the health professionals quit working for the department.

Both PIP and Universal Credit disability assessments have to be conducted by a qualified health professional. However, the DWP is held in such low regard that most don't even consider working for it until they have "no other option but to leave the NHS". In fact, one assessor stated that:

We all got in healthcare for altruistic reasons and that maybe isn't the case in this job… you're a cog in the machine doing bureaucratic work.

During a work capability assessment for the health-related element of universal credit, the assessor is meant to determine an applicant's level of capability and how that would affect their working life.

Likewise, for a PIP assessment, the health professional scores an applicant according to their level of impairment with daily tasks. This score determines the level of support the claimant receives.

'Punitive, exhausting and inflexible'

However, the disabled people at the receiving end of these assessments have often described them as inconsistent, hostile and degrading. Financial insecurity charity Turn2us' head of policy, Lucy Bannister, explained:

People recovering from illness or navigating the additional cost of disability should rightly expect to be treated with dignity and respect. But this report shows that's not happening.

The staff carrying out assessments for disability benefits describe the system in the same terms as disabled people: punitive, exhausting and inflexible, focused on tick-boxing rather than care. It's not working properly for anyone.

One DWP contract manager commented on newly recruited health professionals for the study:

The idea that they would want to be on a treadmill of collecting details but not intervening is alien to a significant proportion of the health sector.

A lot of people that apply for roles don't understand this point. They arrive. Have rigorous training and [the] penny drops that this is what role is.

'They suck you into it'

A former nurse, who left the DWP after two years, put it more bluntly for the Independent:

They suck you into it, because when you first go they tell you 'give it six months, because it's a totally new way to how you've been working as a nurse'. […]

Most assessors leave at around six months because they realise they've been had.

She also described remaining in the office from 5am to 10pm "working [herself] to death". This was because the DWP's backlog of cases has become completely unmanageable. And, as the Canary's Rachel Charlton-Dailey explained, the situation has only gotten worse in 2026:

the department has diverted staff from dealing with new claims to tackle the backlog of reviews. This meant the DWP got to brag that they processed the highest number of reviews since the benefit began. 96% more reviews were carried out than in Q3 in 2024. But it was only because they had so many left over to clear.

This has, of course, meant that new claimants suffered, as clearance for new claims fell by 25%. This meant that 40,000 new claimants were left waiting. This is despite the fact that the number of new claims is down by 6% from the same period in 2024. This also means the decision time has risen, from 14 weeks in October 2024 to 16 weeks in October 2025.

Reform and rebellion

Given the massive backlog, Labour came up with the bright idea of 'reforming' PIP assessments back in the summer of 2025. That is to say, they attempted to rush through massive cuts that could have ruined PIP claimants' lives.

The proposed changes would have made it far more difficult to qualify for PIP. This would have resulted in thousands of disabled people losing the support they relied on. The cuts were only narrowly averted when a group of Labour MPs rebelled against the plans.

Instead, DWP minister Stephen Timms took PIP off the table during the debate, beginning a review in its place. However, this meant MPs were able to vote through Universal Credit cuts. And, of course, the review itself is already looking like a complete farce:

Timms has spent a good chunk of the last few months umming and awwing over how he can make it look like the review is co-produced with disabled people. It took until 30 October 2025 for them to appoint disabled co-chairs.

At the same time, they quietly released the terms of reference which, while seemingly aimed at placating disabled people, confirmed that all PIP recipients will be at risk by DWP decisions.

'Struggling to do the job'

The DWP conducted their staff-retention study back in 2022, and only chose to publish it now. However, the writing has been on the wall of a long time, as Charlton-Dailey wrote earlier this month:

It's becoming increasingly clear that the main reason the government is pushing ahead with PIP reform is that they don't have the staff to process the claims they already have. As a recent report found, delays to PIP are endangering people's lives. The same report revealed that the DWP planned to make the application process more online-focused and to give every claimant a case worker. But this only works if the DWP can actually find the staff.

With the DWP struggling to do the job it's already supposed to do, it's difficult to see how it could possibly manage reforms. But they'll almost certainly find a way to blame that on disabled people, too.

PIP and UC assessments are designed to minimise a claimants' disability, such that the government has to award as little support as possible. We see this at every level of the DWP machine, from the shocking treatment of disabled people during assessments, to governments desperately trying to move goalposts and slash payouts.

It's unsurprising, really, that healthcare professionals leaving NHS jobs are finding the DWP intolerable. They've left respected roles providing treatment for illness, only to enter a role where they're tasked with removing that self-same support. Any individual with a shred of empathy would feel the same.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Police have bailed 74 year-old human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell "under investigation" to attend Charing Cross police station at 1pm on 1 March. His bail condition bans him from attending any Palestine protest. He said:

Met Police seem to be acting under pressure from a foreign regime, the Israeli government, and from Netanyahu supporters in the UK. They want to restrict criticism of Israel's genocide and suppress support for the right of Palestinians to resist occupation.

Tatchell's placard

Police arrested the veteran campaigner in Aldwych, at the national Palestine solidarity march in London on 31 January. The arrest was for carrying a placard that read:

Globalise the intifada: Non-violent resistance. End Israel's occupation of Gaza & West Bank.

On his arrest, police handcuffed him and took him by van out of London, to Sutton police station in Surrey. This was despite cells being available at Brixton. Tatchell commented:

From my arrest at 1.26pm to my release at 1.40am the next day, I was in police custody a total of 12 hours without charge, including ten hours in the cells for what is a minor alleged public order offence. It was an unjustified and excessively prolonged detention.

Police claim the placard was a 'racially aggravated' offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act which criminalises the display of:

signs that are threatening or abusive, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress.

'The word intifada is not a crime'

Tatchell said:

The police allegation is nonsense. My placard was not threatening or abusive and did not mention anyone's race.

The police are fabricating the law. They claim the word intifada is unlawful. The word intifada is not a crime in UK law. The police are suppressing free speech without legal justification.

Even if people disagree with the words on my placard, in a free and democratic society they should not be criminalised.

This is just the latest example of officers restricting and criminalising peaceful protests.

The Arab word intifada means uprising, rebellion or resistance against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It does not mean violence and is not antisemitic. It is against the Israeli regime and its war crimes, not against Jewish people.

By 'non-violent resistance' I was advocating boycott, sanction and divestment - the same tactics that helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa.

'Globalise the intifada' means create a worldwide campaign like the anti-apartheid movement.

The police are totally wrong to conflate support for Palestinian resistance to oppression with hatred and attacks on Jews.

Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli settlers who are terrorising their villages on the West Bank, beating them and burning their homes, cars, livestock and crops.

Over 400 Gazans have been killed by Israel since the current ceasefire began last October.

At a London rally in December 2025, three people were charged with this new 'crime' of expressing support for an intifada against Israel's war crimes and mass killing of civilians, including 20,000 Palestinian children.

I have a long history of defending Jewish people against the antisemitism of the far right and Islamist extremism. I joined the March Against Antisemitism, with the Chief Rabbi and thousands of Jewish people, on 26 November 2023, just after the 7 October massacre.

This is my 104th arrest or detention by the police in my 59 years of human rights campaigning.

I am currently taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police over my arrest on the Palestine solidarity march on 17 May 2025. I was arrested for a 'racially and religiously aggravated offence' - namely displaying a placard that condemned Israel's 'genocide' and Hamas's execution of Palestinian critics. It read:

'STOP Israel genocide! STOP Hamas executions! Odai Al-Rubai, aged 22, executed by Hamas! RIP!'

This placard did not mention anyone's race or religion. The police have since admitted that I was wrongly arrested and I am awaiting a settlement.

Featured image via Jacky Summerfield

By The Canary

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