Germany notified Monday the European Union's executive branch of temporary border controls at its frontiers with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, going a step beyond a move last month to strengthen checks on its eastern border. The notification would enable Germany to carry out the same systematic checks at the border that it has conducted on its frontier with Austria since 2015. The government has responded over the past week to intense pressure to address the arrival of large numbers of migrants following a pair of state elections that brought poor results for the governing parties and gains for the far-right Alternative for Germany. It has announced draft legislation to ease deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers as Chancellor OIaf Scholz met Friday with the opposition leader and two leading state governors for what he called a “friendly and constructive exchange” on migration issues. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser last month ordered border checks on Germany’s eastern frontiers with Poland and the Czech Republic strengthened, but the conservative opposition urged her to formally notify border checks — a move she has now taken. Faeser said in a statement that “the smugglers' business is becoming ever more brutal and unscrupulous,” pointing to a crash on a Bavarian highway Friday in which seven people were killed after a van overloaded with migrants overturned when the driver and suspected smuggler accelerated to avoid a police check. “It is now necessary to take all possible measures to stop this cruel business in people's lives,” she said. “At the time, we need an effective limitation of irregular migration to relieve our municipalities.” She said that police “can now flexibly use the whole package of stationary and mobile border policing measures, according to the current situation.” Shelters for migrants and refugees across Germany have been filling up in recent months as significant numbers of asylum-seekers add to more than 1 million Ukrainians who have arrived since the start of the war in their homeland. ___ Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration Read More A top EU official convenes a summit to deal with a fallout in Europe from the Israel-Hamas war Used clothing from the West is a big seller in East Africa. Uganda's leader wants a ban Sunak meets King of Jordan as Gaza offensive looms

By Heather Timmons and David Gaffen WASHINGTON When the CEO gets a 40% raise, what do the workers

New Super Mario Bros. debuted in 2006 and spawned several sequels and ports (the most

The new King Kong video game, Skull Island: Rise of Kong, has released to an awful reception, with some naming it as the 'worst game of the year'. A new beat-em-up starring colossal kaiju favorite King Kong, flying in under-the-radar? You might be thinking 'sign me up' for a bit of that. If you're thinking that, you might want to hold back. Skull Island: Rise of Kong was only announced in July, and is available on PlayStation 5, Playstation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC, and come to think of it, there wasn't a great deal of promo heralding its release at all. That all makes sense now. The game is flat-out terrible, and the only noise being made about it is being generated by gamers who are ripping the new release apart with footage of the game and its cutscenes being shared far and wide. A quick snapshot of user reviews shows Skull Island: Rise of Kong being named as janky, terrible, static, awful, buggy and a 'complete scam' - the professional reviews (and we'll get to those) aren't much better at all. And users really think it could beat Lord of The Rings: Gollum to the title of 'worst of the year.' In particular, one cutscene involving a JPEG flashback/jumpscare is generating a lot of attention. All of it mocking the presentation of the game: It's not just gamers who are taking shots either, the gaming press is savaging the new release. Kotaku said the 'New King Kong Game Is Very, Very Bad' and called it a 'bland beat-’em-up with bad cutscenes, nasty visuals, and not much else' while Eurogamer called it a 'swing and a miss.' Fans of the great ape had been waiting a long, long time for a video game featuring Kong. The official video game of Peter Jackson's King Kong film titled - wait for it - Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie came out in 2005 over a mix of consoles. You could've played it on Playstation 2, it has been that long. It's sad to say, but you'd be better off finding a way to play the older game. It's far, far better - and we can vouch for that. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Sinead Cruise LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said on Wednesday it had provisionally found five major global

Valdimir Putin’s forces have destroyed a British Challenger 2 tank for the first time since they were deployed to the battlefield in Ukraine. A video circulating online appears to show the burning wreck of the tank. It is unclear what caused the explosion. Britain initially supplied 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine and then doubled that number to 28. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un is planning to travel to meet Putin to discuss the possibility of providing weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to US intelligence. North Korea’s leader is planning to travel from Pyongyang later this month, likely by armoured train, to Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast of Russia where he would meet the Russian president, reported The New York Times. It is believed that while in Vladivostok, a port city not far from North Korea, the two leaders would discuss Kim sending Russia artillery shells and anti-tank missiles in exchange for more advanced technology relating to satellites and nuclear-powered submarines, according to US officials. Read More British Challenger 2 tank ‘destroyed in Ukraine’ – defence source Wagner to be declared a terrorist organisation, Home Office says Why Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are desperate for each other’s help Drone warfare map reveals how Ukraine is striking Russia hundreds of miles from the frontline

Hollywood’s actors and writers have both gone on strike for the first time since 1960 to protest against a number of decisions by major studios that include not just job cuts but also a potentially unsettling future in which they could be replaced by artificial intelligence. The leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the Hollywood union representing 160,000 television and movie actors, went on strike on Thursday, joining the industry’s screenwriters who have already been picketing for over 70 days. Among the many issues flagged by both the writers and actors in the protests has been how generative AI tools could replace their roles in the industry. Over the last decade, AI has found several uses in the movie and television industry, from de-aging actors, analysing patterns and behaviours of viewers on streaming platforms, bringing back the voices of late actors and even helping stitch together entire movie trailers. One of the proposals, as explained by SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, feels like it is straight out of dystopian science fiction series Black Mirror. During a press conference on Thursday, Mr Crabtree-Ireland alleged that a proposal from Hollywood studios was to use “groundbreaking AI” to scan background performers and only offer them a day’s pay while the companies get to own the scans and use them for any project they want. “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation,” the executive said. “If you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again,” Mr Crabtree-Ireland said. A statement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), that represents the studios, claims the “groundbreaking AI” proposal “protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members”. “We are being victimized by a very greedy enterprise... The entire business model has been changed by streaming and AI If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in jeopardy,” the actors’ guild president Fran Drescher said on Thursday. Follow along here for real-time updates on the SAG-AFTRA strike Writers who have already been protesting since May have also sought assurances from studios that their jobs would not be threatened by AI. With the steady rise of online streaming services looking to rack up user subscriptions by churning out endless amounts of digital content, writers on strike have sought new pay structures, guaranteed periods of work as well as better discussions on the limits of AI use. Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) shared concerns that producers may seek to use AI to write scripts or at least use the technology to complete unfinished screenplays, and have also urged production houses to agree to safeguards around its usage. Screenwriters fear AI could be used to churn out a rough first draft with a few simple prompts and writers may then be hired after this initial step to punch such drafts up – albeit at a lower pay rate. Without further dialogue with studios, writers have raised concerns there could be a number of new ways that AI could be used to craft outlines for stories, fill in scenes and even come up with mock-up drafts. “There are ways it can be useful. But too many people are using it against us and using it to create mediocrity. They’re also in violation of copyright. They’re also plagiarizing,” Michael Winship, president of the WGA East, said in May. With these risks in mind, the WGA seeks more safeguards on how AI can be applied to the screenwriting process. Read More Hollywood actors and writers strike after ‘disgusting’ studios turn down deal. Here’s what it means for you Hollywood in historic shutdown as actors union joins writers strike: ‘The eyes of the world are upon us’ Cast of Oppenheimer walk out of UK premiere ahead of actors’ strike announcement What happens next as striking actors send Hollywood into meltdown? Issa Rae and Jamie Lee Curtis lead A-listers voicing support for actors strike Hollywood in historic shutdown as actors union joins writers strike

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South Africa’s batters have ruled at three venues in the Cricket World Cup and going by their six-hitting template they surely aren’t going to change their approach against a struggling Pakistan bowling attack in Chennai