Retreat

John Banville, 76, is the author of 26 books, including seven crime novels under the name Benjamin Black. His new novel, The Singularities, which takes place in a parallel reality overseen by a Greek god, is a sequel to The Infinities (2009) and involves a cast of characters from his previous books, not least Freddie Montgomery, the murderer who narrated 1989’s The Book of Evidence. When Banville, born and raised in Wexford, won the Booker prize for The Sea in 2005, a year considered one of the strongest in the history of…

In yet another shock move, Elon Musk has paused the recently announced $8 Twitter Blue tick subscription. Twitter Inc's new CEO Elon Musk has suspended the recently announced $8 blue check subscription service due to the shocking recent increase in the number of fake accounts on the social networking platform. Musk has also brought back the 'official' badge to some Twitter users. It can be known that Twitter's blue check mark was used to denote a verified account and was previously mostly reserved for famous…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Life, as the saying goes, is coming at Vladimir Putin fast. Having gleefully announced the annexation of four regions of Ukraine barely more than a month ago—even as his army retreated within them—the Kremlin now says it's withdrawing from the only regional capital city it had captured since invading in February 2022. …

The latest Crunchbase data shows that Latin American-founded companies in the United States raised $250 million out of the $39.85 billion allocated in venture funds in the U.S. this Q3 — or about 0.63%.1 The Q3 sum is a sharp decrease from the $2.3 billion the cohort raised in Q3 last year and a dramatic decline from the $1.3 billion raise in Q2 this year. In total, 1.5% of all venture dollars so far in 2022 have been allocated to Latin American-founded companies, a drop from 2.5% last year, according to the…

Nigeria’s Eurobonds fell Thursday following a declaration by Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed in a Wednesday video that the government would review and consider restructuring its portfolio of debt. With the commitment to repay some local debts falling due in 2022 and the year ahead, refinancing, the government says, is the way to go, and it is setting sights on converting the N20 trillion it owes the Central Bank of Nigeria into bonds. “For the larger portfolio of debt, we have just appointed a consultant,” Mrs…

Jen finally found herself with two episodes to go.Image: Marvel StudiosIf after six episodes it wasn’t abundantly clear, episode seven really hammered it home: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is not a narratively driven show. It’s a character driven show. For two weeks now the lingering questions of Jen’s supersuit and a Daredevil cameo have been hanging so that Jen Walters (Tatiana Maslany) could continue to come to terms with this unfathomable dichotomy in her life. The issue just cameto the forefront in a big way, thanks to…

Australia's No. 2 telecoms firm Optus, hit by a massive cyber attack, faced a barrage of criticism, with the government accusing it of trying to conceal the magnitude of the breach even as reports said hackers had deleted stolen data. The Australian federal government has blamed Optus for the breach, flagged an overhaul of privacy rules and higher fines, and suggested the company had "effectively left the window open" for hackers to steal data. Optus Chief Executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said there was lot of…

The R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer photographed from a drone at Thwaites Glacier ice front in February 2019. Credit: Alexandra Mazur/University of GothenburgFaster in the Past: New seafloor images – the highest resolution of any taken off the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – upend understanding of Thwaites Glacier retreat.At times in its past, the retreat of the massive Thwaites Glacier was even quicker than it is today, heightening concerns for its future.The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, also known as the Doomsday Glacier,…

Instagram is reportedly rolling back many of its shopping features in a move to drive more direct ad revenue. The Meta-owned photo and video sharing platform's existing shopping page will eventually disappear as the company would concentrate on its e-commerce efforts to those that directly drive advertising. It is reportedly planning to pivot towards a less personalised version of the shopping page, which is internally called "Tab Lite". The new development shows how the company is moving away from some long-term projects…

The R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer photographed from a drone at Thwaites Glacier ice front in February 2019. Credit: Alexandra Mazur/University of Gothenburg The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica—about the size of Florida—has been an elephant in the room for scientists trying to make global sea level rise predictions. …