List of All Articles with Tag 'ira'

Comedian Joe Lycett has written to the Home Secretary Suella Braverman after she said that asylum seekers pretend to be gay to "game the system". Braverman had also said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute last month that "we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect simply being gay or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection". Lycett, who identifies as pansexual, wrote the Home Secretary: "I too am disgusted by men pretending to be gay and think we should weed out this scourge from our society." He went on to joke that "Alan Carr is actually married to a foul woman called Sandra". To help Braverman, Lycett put forward his system of testing to ensure all asylum seekers who claim to be gay: "With my newly registered company Homo Hunters, I will spearhead this project to reduce the bumbardment [sic] of immigrants and enmesh our island with foreign homosexuals." "I know full well that aside form unimportant contracts like PPE procurement and making classroom roof beams out of mint chocolate Aeros the government expects the companies they work with to have long term, actual experiments in their field," he said, offering his reassurance to Braverman that Homo Hunters is a legitimate company, adding his experience credentials: "I have been investigating fake gays for years." He then divulges the "ass-essment" used by Homo Hunters: "Applicants will be escorted into a room with three tables. On the first table is a Lady Gaga CD, on the second table is a fleece from M&S Blue Harbour and on the third table is a naked Twink called Carlos (or Steve)," he writes. "If the applicant tries to have sex with any of these things, they will be determined gay and warmly welcomed into the country. If they attempt to wear the M&S Blue Harbour fleece, mention crypto, VPNs or MMA, they will be inhumanely destroyed." Writing on Braverman's position on immigration, Lycett writes: "just because you or your family have benefitted from a system doesn't mean that system should not be smashed to bits." He then signs off "Padam padam, Joe Lycett", a reference to the Kylie Minogue song that became a gay anthem this year. Lycett shared his letter to social media, tagging Braverman in the post. Now, we wait for Braverman's response to Lycett's Homo Hunters proposition. 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.

Just a week after Meta's announcement of its new AI products things already seem to be going wrong. The new AI-generated stickers that are available on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp seemingly have no filters when it comes to creating questionable and controversial content. Users have been sharing what the AI has allowed them create such children characters like Mickey Mouse smoking marijuana or Winnie the Pooh holding a rifle. Artist Pier-Oliver Desbiens posted various stickers he managed to create using Meta's new AI tool saying "I don't think anyone involved has thought anything through". He attached screenshots of a child soldier, Karl Marx with breasts, the Pope holding a rifle, Elmo with a knife, and a pregnant Shrek, amongst others. Meta AI is currently in beta and available only the US, so it seems users have taken the opportunity to point out the large oversight they've made when it comes to the perhaps too wide a range of possibilities available with the sticker-generator. One user wrote: "Got a feeling that Meta is about to be responsible for a whole bunch of AI-related US case law". However, some saw the hilarity in the situation, with one user saying they were going to enjoy the feature "until Meta gets sued into oblivion for copyright infringement". Whilst others joked that they were now "pro-AI": Meta's website features a blog post titled "Building Generative AI Features Responsibly", where they write "As with all generative AI systems, the models could return inaccurate or inappropriate outputs. We'll continue to improve these features as they evolve and more people share their feedback." The message suggests that Meta is probably going to get on top of this quickly so beloved children's characters are no longer holding weapons. indy100 has reached out to Meta for comment. 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.

A husband has been flooded with support after he told his wife she’d need to quit her job if she wanted to have a second child. The man explained in a lengthy social media post that his wife has a career “that she loves” which sees her travelling or working night and weekend shifts for roughly half of the year. Describing himself as “the primary breadwinner” he explained that she earns approximately 40 per cent of what he makes – which covers the cost of childcare for their son plus “a little bit” extra. And yet, he said, he is also the primary caregiver. “When she is out of town for work, I have full responsibility for our child aside from the eight hours per day that he is in daycare (during which time I have to work),” he wrote. “It has been very hard being responsible for our child when she travels and on so many weekends. I feel like a single parent.” Complaining that his job is “demanding” he noted that he usually has to work after putting the little boy to bed, and “barely [has] time to clean the kitchen/house, etc., on top of [his] job.” The Reddit user then admitted that he’d told his wife he would only support her career if they stuck to one child, adding: “But if we have two (which is what we both want), that I don't think she can continue in her career.” He went on: “I just don't see how I can manage two kids for so many mornings – taking them both to school, daycare, events, and evenings and weekends entirely by myself, all while I am working full time.” Wrapping up his message in the AITA forum, he said his wife responded that she doesn’t want to leave her job, but will in order to have a second child. However, he concluded: “I fear she will quit and then resent me which will lead to bad times for all involved.” His post racked up more than 6,900 upvotes and 1,700 comments in a day as fellow Redditors offered their stance on the predicament. “I think your position is reasonable,” one wrote. “Children are a lot of work. “Your wife doesn’t seem to know how difficult it is because she’s not the primary caretaker. [...] I’d recommend couples counselling before she quits her job and you have a [second] child.” Meanwhile, a second commentator stressed: “It’s also important to note that wording matters - OP (the original poster) shouldn’t ask his wife to ‘quit her job’ and stay at home; instead, he should be careful to ask her to ‘switch careers’ to a different job with more family-friendly working hours.” A third argued: “She’s working way too much to call it much of a career, she should want more balance and to have more family time. I’d dig into why she’s [OK] to be away so much. “OP is doing the thing right and is asking for help before the emergency happens. Hopefully she can find something she enjoys with less crazed hours.” Meanwhile, a fifth pointed out that marriages must always be “equal partnerships”, and that no one parent should bear the brunt of the responsibilities. “You need to be an equal partner,” they said. “What that [looks] like can vary wildly in different families. For some that means both contributing to the finances and sharing the [in-home] responsibilities. For others that is one person doing [the] bulk of in-home while the other does the bulk of the financial contributions. Both and everything between are fine. They continued: “When one person is contributing to the bulk of the financial well-being of the family as well as the bulk of the in-home responsibilities though it is no longer an equal or even fair partnership. And the other person certainly shouldn't be making demands about adding to the already full plate of the other.” Concluding, they said that the mother “needs to evaluate her priorities and establish a better balance that supports her family as an equal partner”. Sign up for 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.

Palantir Technologies Inc., the data analysis firm co-founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel and contracted by government intelligence

DUBAI Sales of homes worth $10 million or more in Dubai hit about $1.6 billion in the third

DUBAI Non-oil business activity in the United Arab Emirates expanded at a faster rate in September than the

DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that countries seeking to normalise relations with Israel "are betting on

TikTok has come a long way since being used as a dance app to get us all through the pandemic. Now, it's the go-to outlet for many people, for all things inspiration, information and a string of lifestyle and wellness trends. One of the latest cropping up across FYPs is 'Monk Mode', similar to a dopamine detox in which you cut out various 'distractions' in the name of productivity. A resurfaced clip from Iman Gadzhi explains that it consists of having no alcohol, caffeine, sugar and gluten. "When I'm in Monk Mode, it's just like people even know," he told his 420,000 viewers. "My friends know, and they're like 'Okay, I'm not seeing him for this period of time." He went on to say, aside from his girlfriend and his mother, he will not see friends for around two months when he's following that "attitude". @realimangadzhi Have you tried monk mode yet? In a separate upload, another TikToker said "if you want to be successful, you need to do Monk Mode". Kenton Martin, 24, claims he makes over $50K a month and swears by the lifestyle change which he has done "at least three times in his life". He reiterated that it's essentially taking a break from all distractions for around two to three months, and work towards "one goal in your life." This can be anything from fitness to improving finances. "I hang out with a lot of successful dudes, and they have all done this at least twice in their lives," he continued. @kentonmartin_ monk mode 101 "Monk mode only work[s] when you have a vision," one fellow TikToker wrote in the comments, while others added that taking a social media break can also help the trend come along. "Produce [content]," one wrote, adding: "Don't consume." Sign up for 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.

A Saudi soccer team made a last-minute withdrawal from an Asian Champions League match in Iran due to controversy over a divisive Iranian general who was assassinated by the United States in 2020.

As a kid, watching the Harry Potter scenes in the Great Hall with mountains of food and the odd ghost flying around, it was pretty much everyone’s dream to star in the films. Now, one woman has opened up about her experience as a teenage extra and revealed what it was like to be the butt of a cruel Ron Weasley joke. Samantha Clinch played the minor character Eloise Midgen in the films after being selected for the role one day on the set. To play Midgen, she was required to wear prosthetic acne for the two years she played her. In the 2005 film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the character of Midgen faces some cruel mocking from Weasley, played by the actor Rupert Grint, as he jokes: “There’s something about to burst out of Eloise Midgen but I don’t think it’s a swan…” One TikToker asked Clinch specifically about that moment, saying that the harsh joke would have made them “cry for months”. Clinch replied: “How did I feel? I felt incredible!” @samanthaclinch Replying to @Sultan Jalebithe good the bad and how to stay kind.#eloisemidgen #gobletoffire #ronweasley #skinjourney #acne #prosthetics #prostheticmakeup #harrypotter #harrypottertiktok #harrypottertok #fyp #bullyingawareness She continued: “I was an extra one minute and then I was thrust into a trailer the next. It really was nothing quite like it, being chosen to play an incredibly iconic character and then getting to meet every single one of the main cast. “It was unreal, I had my own make-up artist who followed me around with the Carmex [lip balm]. And I had a part to play. Let’s not forget, this is a character.” Clinch explained that it fulfilled a lifelong dream of hers to be a professional actress. She continued: “I was being a professional actress. I had a line, I had a dancing scene ... I fulfilled my life goal of being a professional actress, and it happened to be in one of the biggest films in the world.” However, not everything was all rosy as Clinch continued, explaining that the other kids on set could be really mean to her because of the prosthetic acne she wore. “Kids were so mean. I remember walking from my classroom trailer … people would whisper about me. People would actively move out of the way of me as I would walk past. Kids would be laughing,” she said. It comes just days after the death of the actor Michael Gambon who famously starred as Professor Dumbledore in the film series. 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.

A group of bull sharks found living in an artificial golf pond sparked concern when they mysteriously vanished. Bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) are often found in rivers all around the world, but this incident makes "the longest uninterrupted duration in a low salinity environment that ever has been recorded in this species". Now, a new paper has investigated the case to understand the tolerance of bull sharks in low-salinity habitats. In 1996, six sharks were discovered in a golf course near Brisbane. They were landlocked for a further 17 years, before vanishing in 2013. The sharks became trapped due to major flooding of two adjacent Logan and Albert rivers. When the floods calmed, the sharks remained in the lake. The young sharks reportedly grew to 9.8 feet (3 meters) long as years went by and reportedly survived on flathead grey mullet (Mugil cephalus), Indo-Pacific tarpon (Megalops cyprinoides), mangrove red snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus) and yellowfin bream (Acanthopagrus australis). "If sharks can get the food they need, being in these low-salinity environments can be super beneficial because there are fewer predators," Michael Heithaus, a shark biologist at Florida International University told Live Science. "Pups in some nurseries may go years in virtually fresh water, so it isn't too surprising they survived, as long as there was plenty of food." Some of the sharks were last spotted in 2015, while others were able to escape into the riverways during a flood in 2013. Study authors predicted some of the sharks had sadly died after one carcass was retrieved by golf course staff. Sign up for 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.

A few months ago, the idea of musician Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce dating wouldn’t have crossed many people’s minds. But now, one couple is going viral after it emerged they dressed up as the pair for Halloween a whole three years ago and way before the rumoured celebrity pair were a thing. In 2020, Makayla and Nick Stephens dressed up as the celebrity couple, years before Swift and Kelce got together, and now their holiday photo has gone viral. Swift and Kelce were first thought to be romantically linked last month. Since then, rumours have been fuelled by Swift’s attendance at Kansas City Chiefs games, whom Kelce plays for. Makayla shared the photo of herself and husband Nick dressed as the celeb couple on Instagram on 31 October 2020. In the caption, she wrote: “I don’t know any world in which Taylor Swift + Travis Kelce would be in the same room together, but apparently in this one they’re married?” The post has been liked more than 13,000 times as people can hardly believe the bizarre prophecy that seems to have occurred. One person commented: “Girl go buy a lottery ticket.” “I absolutely adore this is so perfect like the odds are crazy this is Simpson level predictions,” another suggested. Another wrote: “Wow y’all are fortune tellers!” Someone else joked: “Hey maybe this Halloween you should dress up as me and Trevor Zegras.” 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.