Author: Lucas Bennett

A senior Republican congressman has warned his party may have no choice but to seek Democratic support to elect the next House Speaker, following Kevin McCarthy’s sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw from the race. McCarthy’s exit blindsided colleagues and threw the House into uncertainty, with no clear successor immediately emerging. In the moments after the announcement, Pennsylvania Republican Charlie Dent told CNN the situation had fundamentally changed the political landscape inside the chamber. Dent argued that whoever takes the speakership must not be a candidate who wins the role by making concessions to the most hardline members of the…

Engineers at a US university have developed a free application that could significantly extend the battery life of Android smartphones by targeting one of the most persistent but least visible causes of power loss — apps that continue running checks in the background while the phone appears to be off. The tool, called Hush, was created by a team at Purdue University in Indiana following a large-scale study of energy consumption across 2,000 Android handsets. The research found that applications which regularly ping servers for updates account for roughly 30% of the battery power a phone loses while in sleep…

A browser extension used by millions to strip advertisements from websites has built a business model that charges some of the internet’s biggest companies for the privilege of having their ads exempted from its blocking list — while letting the vast majority through at no cost. Adblock Plus, made by German company Eyeo, operates what it calls an Acceptable Ads list: a register of advertisements deemed unobtrusive enough to be allowed through its filter. Any company or publisher can apply to be included, but those operating at scale — large advertising networks and major publishers — are charged a fee…

A court order targeting one Wikipedia page about a form of hashish briefly caused Russian internet providers to block the entire website, exposing a fundamental technical problem at the heart of Moscow’s approach to internet censorship. The ban, triggered by a ruling from a court in a small southern Russian town, targeted a Wikipedia entry about charas — a type of cannabis resin originating in India. Authorities deemed the page harmful and ordered it removed. Wikipedia refused. Because the site operates using the secure https protocol, internet providers faced an all-or-nothing choice: they could not block a single page without…

A crested macaque named Naruto picked up a wildlife photographer’s unattended camera in an Indonesian jungle in 2011, pressed the shutter and accidentally produced one of the most widely shared photographs on the internet. Four years later, that moment has ended up in a San Francisco federal court — with an animal rights organisation arguing the monkey should own the copyright. PETA filed the lawsuit on behalf of Naruto this week, naming British photographer David Slater and US publishing company Blurb as defendants. Slater, whose camera was used to take the images, has published a book containing the photographs and…

Federal investigators are looking into whether a government employee used official Department of Homeland Security equipment to edit Wikipedia pages and insert references to unverified claims about the personal conduct of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, days after he dramatically withdrew from the race to become Speaker of the House. The edits, first spotted by a reporter at the Washington Free Beacon, were traced to an IP address registered to DHS. One altered page belonged to Republican congresswoman Renee Ellmers, while a separate change was made to McCarthy’s own Wikipedia entry. Both referenced allegations of an affair between the two,…

The Unravelling Promise: Why UNESCO’s Heritage Shield is Failing the Sites It Was Built to Protect From war-damaged palaces in Iran to crumbling stretches of the Great Wall, a growing body of evidence suggests the world’s foremost cultural protection programme is struggling to fulfil its founding mission — even as its list of designated sites continues to expand. What the Danger List Reveals About a System Under Strain The numbers alone tell a troubling story. The most recent IUCN World Heritage Outlook, presented in October 2025, documented a measurable decline in the condition of the world’s most treasured natural places.…

A synthetic stimulant that can be purchased for as little as five dollars and remains legal across much of the United States is being linked to a wave of violent and erratic incidents, with cases rising by nearly 780% in just three years. The drug, known as flakka — or “gravel” in parts of Ohio and Texas, where it resembles the coloured pebbles used in fish tanks — belongs to the same chemical family as bath salts, the synthetic drug that made international headlines several years ago for causing extreme and sometimes fatal behavioural episodes. The key difference is that…

Air New Zealand and Air China are set to begin operating a new route between Beijing and Auckland before the end of the year, following the formalisation of a strategic alliance between the two carriers. The partnership, which received Cabinet approval, was first signalled when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited New Zealand approximately a year ago. It has now been authorised to run until March 2021. Under the arrangement, Air China will operate daily flights on the new Beijing-Auckland service from 10 December, using Airbus A330-200 aircraft. Air New Zealand will place its NZ code on those flights. Separately, Air…

A court order, a Freedom of Information lawsuit, and more than thirteen months of official resistance stood between the public and dashcam footage showing a Chicago police officer firing sixteen shots at a 17-year-old walking away from him on a residential street — and it was only when a judge forced the city’s hand that the full extent of the cover-up began to unravel. Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by officer Jason Van Dyke on the evening of 20 October 2014 on South Pulaski Road. Police had been called to reports of a teenager carrying a knife and breaking…