Author: staff

Published on 16/07/2026 – 9:06 GMT+2 The growing debate on the use of artificial intelligence in filmmaking continues to divide the filmmaking industry, and following the backlash against Martin Scorsese’s endorsement of an AI firm for the purposes of storyboarding, George Lucas has said that the technology will be an inevitable part of the future of cinema. In an interview with A Rabbit’s Foot, the Star Wars creator was asked about the place of AI in filmmaking. There are those who consider AI to be an existential threat to the art of filmmaking, with actors and directors speaking out on…

Listen on Spotify Apple Music Amazon Music Sky News With just one day until Andy Burnham is crowned Labour leader, many are still scratching their heads – what will a Burnham government actually look like? The incoming PM says he is in no rush and will take his time over cabinet appointments – having already signalled a budget is likely in October. Sam Coates and Anne McElvoy assess who could land the biggest jobs – especially at the Treasury, where Shabana Mahmood is emerging as the favourite for No 11. The duo also wonder if the announcement that British Steel…

Updated: 16/07/2026 – 9:43 GMT+2 MEP Niclas Herbst (EPP, Germany) says the German government should not fuel “fear of war” while being “honest” about the current geopolitical situation. But he says there is a need for a “discussion about resilience in society”. … More

With the lightning-fast deployment of artificial intelligence and the immense technological leaps in robotics, images of weapon-wielding humanoid robots are no longer merely a figment of the public imagination. But as the visionary technology races ahead, so does the lingering unease. The US-based company Foundation Future Industries, which builds humanoids for commercial and military use, has already tested its Phantom robots in Ukraine. The company CEO says he expects to begin testing weaponisation use cases for its robots “as early as next year,” following the Ukrainian pilot programs. “I think we have this psychological reaction, which is like the Terminator,…

Published on 16/07/2026 – 8:36 GMT+2 Beloved actor Sam Neill died on Monday in Sydney, leaving behind a cinematic legacy that ranges from blockbuster epics (Jurassic Park) to arthouse treasures (Possession, The Piano). Now, Neill’s agent Philip Grenz has revealed the cause of the New Zealand actor’s “sudden and unexpected” death at the age of 78. Grenz has stated that Neill died from pneumonia and that he will be honoured at a private family memorial at his New Zealand farm at a later date. “Sam passed away from pneumonia,” Grenz said. “Prior to becoming sick, Sam had valiantly fought and…

LONDON — The U.K.’s online safety regulator Ofcom on Thursday opened an investigation into TikTok over whether the platform has complied with its duties under the Online Safety Act to protect children from harmful content. The watchdog’s probe will cover concerns raised in its two reports on children’s experiences online and age assurance that age inference models used by TikTok, which guess users’ ages based on their activity, are not highly effective and may have failed to correctly identify child users. Under the OSA, platforms must use “highly effective” age assurance to make sure they’re not exposing children to harmful…

Food inflation has been slowing in the eurozone, despite expectations that higher energy and fertiliser costs following the Iran war would push prices higher. However, economists at Oxford Economics and Deutsche Bank expect food price inflation to pick up again next year as higher commodity prices feed through the food supply chain and this summer’s extreme weather damages crops across Europe. Economists say food prices typically respond with a delay because higher energy and fertiliser costs are first absorbed by farmers before being passed on to processors, wholesalers and eventually supermarkets. Oxford Economics expects eurozone food inflation to rise to…

Die CDU-Wirtschaftsministerin verärgert das eigene Haus mit millionenschweren Ausschreibungen für externe Berater. Tom Schmidtgen berichtet, warum sie damit nicht nur bei der Reform des Emissionshandels ungehemmt im Revier von Umweltminister Carsten Schneider (SPD) wildert. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview kritisiert der Grünen-Politiker Michael Kellner den Berater-Luxus der Ministerin scharf. Der Ex-Staatssekretär im Energie- und Wirtschaftsministerium unter Robert Habeck und jetzige energiepolitische Sprecher seiner Fraktion wirft Reiche vor, fähige Beamte im Haus zwangsversetzt und das Ministerium regelrecht heruntergewirtschaftet zu haben. Kanzler Friedrich Merz verabschiedet sich derweil mit demonstrativer Zuversicht in die politische Sommerpause. Bei seiner Pressekonferenz gab er sich staatsmännisch und wich Szenarien zu…

Published on 16/07/2026 – 5:45 GMT+2 The US military claims to have ended its latest wave of strikes on Iran early Thursday, striking targets further north and around Tehran for the first time in this latest round of violence. American forces also say they have hit a ship they accuses of trying to break their naval blockade on Iran. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic retaliated by launching missiles and drones at Bahrain and Kuwait. Iranian state media reported that American strikes struck around Tehran, Qeshm Island and the southern port city of Chabahar, as well as, the northern Semnan province which…

Published on 16/07/2026 – 6:30 GMT+2 Simonetta Vespucci, the face of the Italian Renaissance as Sandro Botticelli’s muse, may actually have died at just 23 from complications of a tumour rather than tuberculosis. This is the conclusion of a recent study (source in Italian), which challenges the widespread view that the young woman, who died in 1476, succumbed to tuberculosis, a common and deadly disease at the time. An international team of scholars from Queen Mary University of London, the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome and the University of California had already put forward a different explanation back in 2019.…