America is in shambles after Kendall and Roy help Jeryd Mencken win the US Presidential election for selfish purposes

Usman Khawaja held firm after an England double strike to give Australia hope of victory on a tense final day of the...

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has signed a law that gives Native American families preference in fostering and adopting Native children involved with child protective services

The foreign minister of Belarus says he can't envision a situation where his country would enter the war in Ukraine alongside Russian forces

Italy's Davis Cup hero Jannik Sinner said it was a "special feeling" to end his team's 47-year drought in the...

Australia and India meet this week in the second World Test Championship final in a match worth $1.6 million to the winners and...

The Riot Games account and the Amazon Prime account must be connected in order to receive the Capsule, here's how

Ukraine has fired at least 19 “lethal” drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula, and three more over other bordering regions of Russia, the Russian defence ministry said on Thursday. The Russian anti-aircraft units intercepted and destroyed over a dozen drones in the region, the ministry said on its Telegram channel. “In the night from 20 to 21 September, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to commit a terrorist attack with lethal drones on sites in the Russian Federation was intercepted,” the ministry said. Russian and Crimea-related Telegram channels reported loud explosions overnight. “In Sevastopol, in the area of ​​​​Kazachya and Kamyshovaya bays, it has been very loud for the last hour,” read a post on Telegram channel Crimean Wind, adding that the explosions set off car alarms. “The Ukrainian Armed Forces are massively trying to attack Crimea using drones. According to military officials, at least seven drones have been shot down in just the last 20 minutes. Residents of Evpatoria, Dzhankoy, Balaklava, Sevastopol, Saki, Novofedorovka and other cities report the sounds of air defence,” said Baza, a prominent Telegram account related to Russia’s security services. It added that the locals have termed the overnight attack as the “largest” drone strike of all time. Three drones were downed over Kursk, Belgorod and Orlov in central and southern Russia. Belgorod, just 40km (25 miles) from Ukraine’s war frontline, has been under continued air assault every day this month. The illegally annexed Crimea is also now heavily targeted in the continuing warfare, with sensitive military infrastructure and sites in the region on Kyiv’s radar. The ministry did not mention if there are any immediate casualties or damage. While Ukraine rarely takes responsibility for these attacks on Russia and Russian-controlled territories, it has recounted the strikes with a sense of achievement as it maintains that targeting these regions aids its military counteroffensive. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s defence ministry made a rare triumphant video and confirmed its forces struck a Russian Black Sea fleet command post near Sevastopol in Crimea, a week after the major naval port was set ablaze in a cruise missile attack. Read More Ukraine-Russia war – live: Zelensky says UN ‘incapable’ of stopping Putin’s ‘criminal aggression’ Two-thirds say nuclear weapons make UK safer as support rises to Cold War levels South Korean leader warns Russia against weapons collaboration with the North UN incapable of stopping aggressors like Putin invading other countries, says Zelensky Zelensky tells UN to not make deals with ‘evil’ Russia: ‘Ask Prigozhin whether Putin can be trusted’

Hundreds of regular investors who together put up $63 million to buy pieces of Atlanta and Miami commercial

Jets' wide receiver Garrett Wilson opens up about his interaction with Aaron Rodgers after suffering his season-ending Achilles injury.

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 22, 2023--

Just two weeks after fleeing his home with barely more than the clothes on his back and the phone in his pocket, 23-year-old Ashot Gabriel is at a tech conference promoting one of the last things he has left: his startup. He is one of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian refugees who were forced out of Nagorno-Karabakh in late September when Azerbaijani forces retook control of the breakaway enclave. Alongside his two brothers – who evacuated in a single car with their parents and a grandparent on 28 September – Gabriel is now attempting to start a new life from temporary accommodation in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan. “We lost our property, but we also lost ourselves,” he says. “We have lost our previous lives. We are starting everything from scratch.” His online marketing startup, Brothers in Business (BIB), was offered a last-minute stand at the DigiTech Expo, with organisers hoping that technology will help offer a solution for the country. As a landlocked nation lacking the natural resources of its historically hostile neighbours, Armenia’s nascent tech industry is seen as a way to achieve sovereignty and future stability in the long term, while also assisting with the humanitarian crisis in the short term. The country was once a tech hub in the region – one of the world’s first computers was built in Armenia – but much of Armenia’s talent left following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. A new scene emerged when émigrés returned to the country after finding success in Silicon Valley, establishing the country’s internet network and providing a foundation for startups to emerge. There are now an estimated 300 pre-seed-stage startups in Armenia, and around 100 seed-stage startups, in fields ranging from quantum computing to electric bikes. “We have this vision: Tech is the ultimate direction that will help Armenia to succeed,” says Narek Vardanyan, CEO of Prelaunch.com, whose company acts as a platform to help local startups establish themselves on the market. “We are landlocked, we have no natural resources. All we have is talent. And our only way we can develop is technology,” he says. “We don’t have a backup plan. There is no Plan B. We are betting everything on technology.” Armenia’s most successful startup so far is Picsart, an online photo editor that has grown to become the country’s only unicorn – a company with a valuation north of $1 billion. Picsart is among those offering their resources to help refugees, fast-tracking the launch of an educational program that will be offered for free to refugees and war veterans, training and reskilling them in everything from machine learning to graphic design. Hayk Sahakyan, a creative director at Picsart, says there has been a “huge number” of people interested so far, including children. This idea of building up Armenia’s tech industry through education can be found through two privately funded initiatives that are providing free courses in STEM subjects to tens of thousands of young people throughout the country. The first is TUMO, which provides free supplemental education to 12-18 year olds in creative technologies, ranging from game development to music. Since the first TUMO centre opened in Yerevan in 2011, dozens of centres have sprung up throughout Armenia and the rest of the world, including hubs in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles. One of its six core centres and three smaller “Box” centres had to be abandoned during the Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last month. “External circumstances can literally kill us. But whenever anyone asks me whether Armenia has a future, it’s here,” says Zara Budaghyan, head of communications at TUMO. “Technology has the potential to provide a more stable economy, but also better lives. International support has been lacking. We need to rebuild by ourselves. We are broken. But this gives us something to believe in.” The second educational initiative is a network of technology, science and engineering laboratories set up in rural communities, offering children from 10-18 free after school classes. Established by UATE – a business association that also runs the DigiTech Expo – several of the labs in Nagorno-Karabakh also had to be shut down in September. UATE chief executive Sargis Karapetyan, who grew up in the region, says around 200 of his relatives were among the refugees. Karapetyan considered cancelling the DigiTech conference, saying there is still a deep distrust of Azerbaijan. There are fears that the annex was only part one. The next stage, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken believes could happen “within weeks”, could be an invasion to establish a land corridor between the two parts of Azerbaijan. When asked what prompted the decision to persevere with the tech conference despite personal tragedy and the threat of further chaos, Karapetyan replies: "Technology will save the world.” Read More Scientists receive powerful ‘radio burst’ that travelled billions of years Mark Zuckerberg uses Meta’s new AI Ray-Bans to braid daughter’s hair Solar energy is set to eclipse fossil fuels as world passes ‘tipping point’ Scientists receive powerful ‘radio burst’ that travelled billions of years Mark Zuckerberg uses Meta’s new AI Ray-Bans to braid daughter’s hair Solar energy is set to eclipse fossil fuels as world passes ‘tipping point’