Latest news with #Vox
Belfast Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Two people shot dead at Irish bar in popular Costa del Sol holiday resort
A masked man is said to have entered Monaghans, Fuengirola and killed his victims in front of horrified tourists and expats enjoying a drink after the end of the Champions League final before fleeing in a getaway vehicle. Some reports speak of two gunmen, although this has yet to be confirmed by police. The nationalities of the two people killed has not yet been made public, although local media are saying neither is Spanish. Grisly pictures from the scene of last night's shooting, which occurred around 11.30pm, show a man lying lifeless on his back in shorts and a T-shirt by a drinks and meal blackboard on an outside terrace at the Irish bar. In other disturbing images police and paramedics can be seen surrounding the body of one of the victims, thought to be the same man, after he was covered under a blanket as shocked locals and holidaymakers looked on. There are no reports yet of any arrests, although police set up roadblocks in the area after the shooting to try to catch those responsible. Unconfirmed local reports are pointing to the horror crime being a possible gang-related shooting because of the way it was executed. The latest gun murders follow the fatal shooting nearly six weeks ago of a 32-year-old British man in nearby Calahonda. He was shot dead around 8pm on April 21 in a professional hit as he headed back to his car after finishing a football match with friends. The killers fled in a getaway car that was later torched. Police are investigating the brutal assassination as a drug-related gang shooting but have yet to make any arrests. The victim has not been named but was known to come from Liverpool. Reports at the time described the incident as the fourth shooting so far that month on the Costa del Sol, where rival gangs have increasingly used extreme violence to settle scores and a number of international mafias are known to have a base. Dua Lipa and Gary Lineker join stars calling on PM to halt all arms sales to Israel Four days before the Calahonda shooting a 34-year-old man was rushed to the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella after being shot outside a nightclub in the famous Costa del Sol resort. National Police are investigating the latest attack. Monaghans Fuengirola describes itself online as a place 'where you can relax and spend the day enjoying great home cooked meals on a sunny terrace and watch live sporting events.' It also bills itself as a 'family friendly sports bar and restaurant located in Torreblanca, Fuengirola opposite one of the area's most popular beaches.' Torreblanca is to the east of Fuengirola town centre and a stone's throw from an area called Los Boliches. The Malaga branch of hard-right Spanish party Vox said in a post on X, referencing the series of recent shootings on the Costa del Sol: 'A new shooting in the province of Malaga, this time in Fuengirola. 'What are the Popular Party and the governing PSOE party waiting for to increase the presence of police and other state security forces on the Costa del Sol? 'We have been demanding urgent measures to end these shootings for several weeks now.'
Sunday World
10 hours ago
- Sunday World
Two people shot dead at Irish bar in popular Costa del Sol holiday resort
A masked man is said to have entered Monaghans in Fuengirola and killed his victims in front following the Champions League final before fleeing in a getaway vehicle. TWO people have been shot dead at a popular Irish bar in a Costa del Sol holiday resort. A masked man is said to have entered Monaghans, Fuengirola and killed his victims in front of horrified tourists and expats enjoying a drink after the end of the Champions League final before fleeing in a getaway vehicle. Some reports speak of two gunmen, although this has yet to be confirmed by police. The nationalities of the two people killed has not yet been made public, although local media are saying neither is Spanish. Fuengirola in Spain Grisly pictures from the scene of last night's shooting, which occurred around 11.30pm, show a man lying lifeless on his back in shorts and a T-shirt by a drinks and meal blackboard on an outside terrace at the Irish bar. In other disturbing images police and paramedics can be seen surrounding the body of one of the victims, thought to be the same man, after he was covered under a blanket as shocked locals and holidaymakers looked on. There are no reports yet of any arrests, although police set up roadblocks in the area after the shooting to try to catch those responsible. Unconfirmed local reports are pointing to the horror crime being a possible gang-related shooting because of the way it was executed. The latest gun murders follow the fatal shooting nearly six weeks ago of a 32-year-old British man in nearby Calahonda. He was shot dead around 8pm on April 21 in a professional hit as he headed back to his car after finishing a football match with friends. The killers fled in a getaway car that was later torched. Police are investigating the brutal assassination as a drug-related gang shooting but have yet to make any arrests. The victim has not been named but was known to come from Liverpool. Reports at the time described the incident as the fourth shooting so far that month on the Costa del Sol, where rival gangs have increasingly used extreme violence to settle scores and a number of international mafias are known to have a base. News in 90 Seconds - June 1st Four days before the Calahonda shooting a 34-year-old man was rushed to the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella after being shot outside a nightclub in the famous Costa del Sol resort. National Police are investigating the latest attack. Monaghans Fuengirola describes itself online as a place 'where you can relax and spend the day enjoying great home cooked meals on a sunny terrace and watch live sporting events.' It also bills itself as a 'family friendly sports bar and restaurant located in Torreblanca, Fuengirola opposite one of the area's most popular beaches.' Torreblanca is to the east of Fuengirola town centre and a stone's throw from an area called Los Boliches. The Malaga branch of hard-right Spanish party Vox said in a post on X, referencing the series of recent shootings on the Costa del Sol: 'A new shooting in the province of Malaga, this time in Fuengirola. 'What are the Popular Party and the governing PSOE party waiting for to increase the presence of police and other state security forces on the Costa del Sol? 'We have been demanding urgent measures to end these shootings for several weeks now.'
Vox
a day ago
- Science
- Vox
These stories could change how you feel about AI
is an editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate, tech, and world teams, and is the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk. Here's a selection of recent headlines about artificial intelligence, picked more or less at random: Okay, not exactly at random — I did look for more doomy-sounding headlines. But they weren't hard to find. That's because numerous studies indicate that negative or fear-framed coverage of AI in mainstream media tends to outnumber positive framings. But as in so many other areas, the emphasis on the negative in artificial intelligence risks overshadowing what could go right — both in the future as this technology continues to develop and right now. As a corrective (and maybe just to ingratiate myself to our potential future robot overlords), here's a roundup of one way in which AI is already making a positive difference in three important fields. Science Whenever anyone asks me about an unquestionably good use of AI, I point to one thing: AlphaFold. After all, how many other AI models have won their creators an actual Nobel Prize? AlphaFold, which was developed by the Google-owned AI company DeepMind, is an AI model that predicts the 3D structures of proteins based solely on their amino acid sequences. That's important because scientists need to predict the shape of protein to better understand how it might function and how it might be used in products like drugs. That's known as the 'protein-folding problem' — and it was a problem because while human researchers could eventually figure out the structure of a protein, it would often take them years of laborious work in the lab to do so. AlphaFold, through machine-learning methods I couldn't explain to you if I tried, can make predictions in as little as five seconds, with accuracy that is almost as good as gold-standard experimental methods. By speeding up a basic part of biomedical research, AlphaFold has already managed to meaningfully accelerate drug development in everything from Huntington's disease to antibiotic resistance. And Google DeepMind's decision last year to open source AlphaFold3, its most advanced model, for non-commercial academic use has greatly expanded the number of researchers who can take advantage of it. Medicine You wouldn't know it from watching medical dramas like The Pitt, but doctors spend a lot of time doing paperwork — two hours of it for every one hour they actually spend with a patient, by one count. Finding a way to cut down that time could free up doctors to do actual medicine and help stem the problem of burnout. That's where AI is already making a difference. As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, health care systems across the country are employing 'AI scribes' — systems that automatically capture doctor-patient discussions, update medical records, and generally automate as much as possible around the documentation of a medical interaction. In one pilot study employing AI scribes from Microsoft and a startup called Abridge, doctors cut back daily documentation time from 90 minutes to under 30 minutes. Not only do ambient-listening AI products free doctors from much of the need to make manual notes, but they can eventually connect new data from a doctor-patient interaction with existing medical records and ensure connections and insights on care don't fall between the cracks. 'I see it being able to provide insights about the patient that the human mind just can't do in a reasonable time,' Dr. Lance Owens, regional chief medical information officer at University of Michigan Health, told the Journal. Climate A timely warning about a natural disaster can mean the difference between life and death, especially in already vulnerable poor countries. That is why Google Flood Hub is so important. An open-access, AI-driven river-flood early warning system, Flood Hub provides seven-day flood forecasts for 700 million people in 100 countries. It works by marrying a global hydrology model that can forecast river levels even in basins that lack physical flood gauges with an inundation model that converts those predicted levels into high-resolution flood maps. This allows villagers to see exactly what roads or fields might end up underwater. Flood Hub, to my mind, is one of the clearest examples of how AI can be used for good for those who need it most. Though many rich countries like the US are included in Flood Hub, they mostly already have infrastructure in place to forecast the effects of extreme weather. (Unless, of course, we cut it all from the budget.) But many poor countries lack those capabilities. AI's ability to drastically reduce the labor and cost of such forecasts has made it possible to extend those lifesaving capabilities to those who need it most. One more cool thing: The NGO GiveDirectly — which provides direct cash payments to the global poor — has experimented with using Flood Hub warnings to send families hundreds of dollars in cash aid days before an expected flood to help themselves prepare for the worst. As the threat of extreme weather grows, thanks to climate change and population movement, this is the kind of cutting-edge philanthropy. AI for good Even what seems to be the best applications for AI can come with their drawbacks. The same kind of AI technology that allows AlphaFold to help speed drug development could conceivably be used one day to more rapidly design bioweapons. AI scribes in medicine raise questions about patient confidentiality and the risk of hacking. And while it's hard to find fault in an AI system that can help warn poor people about natural disasters, the lack of access to the internet in the poorest countries can limit the value of those warnings — and there's not much AI can do to change that. But with the headlines around AI leaning so apocalyptic, it's easy to overlook the tangible benefits AI already delivers. Ultimately AI is a tool. A powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. And like any tool, what it will do — bad and good — will be determined by how we use it.
Vox
2 days ago
- Politics
- Vox
The Supreme Court just gave 500,000 immigrants some truly awful news
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court handed down a very brief order on Friday, which effectively permits the Trump administration to strip half a million immigrants of their right to remain in the United States. The case is Noem v. Doe. Although the full Court did not explain why it reached this decision, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penned a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. As Jackson explains, the case involves 'nearly half a million Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan noncitizens' who are in the United States 'after fleeing their home countries.' The Department of Homeland Security previously granted these immigrants 'parole' status, which allows them to live in the United States for up to two years, and sometimes to work in this country lawfully. Shortly after Trump entered office, DHS issued a blanket order stripping these immigrants of their parole status, putting them at risk for removal. But, a federal district court blocked that order — ruling that DHS must decide whether each individual immigrant should lose their status on a case-by-case basis, rather than through an en masse order. Realistically, this district court order was unlikely to remain in effect indefinitely. In its brief to the justices, the Trump administration makes a strong argument that its decision to terminate these immigrants' status is legal, or, at least, that the courts cannot second-guess that decision. Among other things, the brief points to a federal law which provides that 'no court shall have jurisdiction to review' certain immigration-related decisions by the secretary of Homeland Security. And it argues that the secretary has the power to grant or deny parole because federal law gives them 'discretion' over who receives parole. Notably, Jackson's dissent does not question that the Trump administration is likely to prevail once this case is fully litigated. Instead, she argues that her Court's decision to effectively strip these immigrants of their status is premature. 'Even if the Government is likely to win on the merits,' Jackson writes, 'in our legal system, success takes time and the stay standards require more than anticipated victory.' Related The Supreme Court is manipulating its own calendar to lock GOP policies in place The primary disagreement between Jackson and her colleagues in the majority concerns the Court's aggressive use of its 'shadow docket' to benefit Trump and other conservative litigants. The shadow docket is a mix of emergency motions and other expedited matters that the justices decide without full briefing and oral argument. The Court typically only spends days or maybe a few weeks weighing whether to grant shadow docket relief, while it spends months or longer deciding cases on its ordinary docket. Since Jackson joined the Court in 2022, she's become the Court's most vocal internal critic of its frequent use of the shadow docket. As Jackson correctly notes in her Doe dissent, the Supreme Court has long said that a party seeking a shadow docket order blocking a lower court's decision must do more than demonstrate that they are likely to prevail. That party must also show that 'irreparable harm will befall them should we deny the stay.' When these two factors do not strongly tilt toward one party, the Court is also supposed to ask whether 'the equities and public interest' favor the party seeking a stay. Jackson criticizes her colleagues in the majority for abandoning these requirements. As she argues, the Trump administration has not shown an 'urgent need to effectuate blanket … parole terminations now.' She also argues that DHS 'does not identify any specific national-security threat or foreign-policy problem that will result' if these immigrants remain in the country for a few more months. And, even under the lower court's order, the government 'retains the ability to terminate … parole on a case-by-case basis should such a particular need arise.' Although the Court has never formally repudiated the requirement that parties seeking to stay a lower court order must prove irreparable harm, it often hands down shadow docket decisions that don't explicitly consider this requirement. Concurring in Labrador v. Poe (2024), Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that, in many shadow docket cases, 'this Court has little choice but to decide the emergency application by assessing likelihood of success on the merits.' So Kavanaugh, at least, has stated openly that there are some cases where he will rule solely based on which side he thinks should win, regardless of whether that side has proven irreparable harm. Kavanaugh's concurring opinion was joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. In the short term, the Doe decision could lead to many immigrants losing their protections. Long term, the most significant aspect of the decision involves an internal dispute about how fast the Court may move when it disagrees with a lower court decision.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ukraine hasn't won over Trump. But it might not need to.
President Donald Trump's seemingly infinite patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin may, in fact, have limits. 'Something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this week, citing the massive recent airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and Putin's desire to conquer 'ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it.' Trump also took a vague shot at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ('everything out of his mouth causes problems'), and one could point out that Russia has been striking civilian targets in Ukraine and expressing a desire to snuff out Ukraine's political independence since the very beginning of the war. Trump followed up by telling reporters he is considering imposing new sanctions on Russia and posted, 'if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia,' but told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he is holding off on new sanctions for now. So it's not as if Trump has had a full and sudden change of heart overnight. But consider that, at the end of February, Trump was publicly dressing down Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, blaming Ukraine for starting the war, and halting all US assistance to the Ukrainian war effort. By that standard, Trump's new tone is still one of several developments that add up to a welcome change of pace for Kyiv. Even if there are no new measures taken to either support Ukraine or punish Russia, and even if the US 'walks away' from efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, as Vice President JD Vance recently threatened, the events since February still amount to a remarkable diplomatic change of fortune for Ukraine — and probably about as good an outcome as Kyiv could reasonably expect from this administration. For Ukraine, where cities are still reeling from some of the largest airstrikes since the beginning of the war, and where supplies of much-needed air defense ammunition are running dangerously low, there's obviously no cause for celebration. Hanna Shelest, a Kyiv-based defense analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Vox that despite Trump's changing tone on Putin, his ongoing attacks on Zelenskyy (it's unclear exactly what remarks triggered Trump's ire) indicate that 'we are still in a transactional situation. We have still not been able to dramatically change the approach of the US president.' Trump, for all his current frustration, clearly still views the conflict in a way that is much more sympathetic to Russia's interests than Joe Biden or many members of his own party. But in terms of actual material support, not much has actually changed since Trump took office. Because of the time it takes for those contracts to be negotiated and fulfilled, weapons that were ordered in 2022 are only being delivered now. He has frequently suggested he'd be willing to lift sanctions on Russia as part of a ceasefire agreement, but he has not done so, and in fact, has signed executive orders extending the sanctions that Biden imposed. Many of these sanctions could not be lifted without congressional approval. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently put it, 'When Vladimir Putin woke up this morning, he had the same set of sanctions on him that he's always had since the beginning of this conflict.' Aside from a week-long pause following the contentious Oval Office meeting, US weapons shipments to Ukraine have continued. In fact, the rate of weapons deliveries actually increased in the early weeks of the Trump administration because of moves the Biden team made to rush aid out the door before leaving office. The intelligence sharing vital to Ukraine's targeting systems has also continued, as has — despite Elon Musk's threats — the Ukrainian military's access to SpaceX's Starlink satellite network. Congress has allocated two types of funding for aid to Ukraine: The first pays for weapons to be transferred to Ukraine for US military stocks. That aid has been almost exhausted, experts say. The second provides funds for Ukraine to buy its own weapons from American manufacturers. Because of the time it takes for those contracts to be negotiated and fulfilled, weapons that were ordered in 2022 are only being delivered now. The last items from contracts signed in 2024 might not be delivered until 2028. The upshot, as Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, puts it, is that 'the overall military aid being delivered is relatively high and will stay there for quite a while.' This White House and this Congress are very unlikely to allocate new funding for aid to Ukraine, but perhaps others could fill the gap. European governments are reportedly warming to the idea of purchasing weapons from American manufacturers. So far, these governments have preferred to buy from their own companies, but there are a number of systems — such as the all-important Patriot air-defense missiles — that only the US can provide. Ukraine's defense industry is also more self-sufficient than it used to be. The drones that are now inflicting the majority of the casualties on the front lines in Ukraine are increasingly produced in-country by the country's booming autonomous weapons industry. It's even possible that Ukraine may benefit somewhat from a more hands-off American approach. For all that the Biden team made clear it would back Ukraine's war effort for as long as it takes, Ukrainian officials sometimes bristled under what they saw as micromanagement from a White House concerned about the risks of conflict escalation with Russia, particularly when it came to long-range strikes into Russian territory. But according to an announcement from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week, allies including the United States have agreed to lift range restrictions on weapons headed to Ukraine, allowing the Ukrainians more freedom to strike targets deep within Russia. The two main shifts in US policy that have taken place under Trump have been the US-Ukraine minerals deal and the direct negotiations with Russia. Both have proven less disastrous for Ukraine than they initially appeared. The original version of the minerals deal presented to Ukraine reportedly required the country to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from the mining of its critical minerals as repayment for past military aid. The deal Ukraine eventually signed drops that requirement and while it doesn't include the explicit security guarantees Ukraine was hoping for, it at least gives this transactionally minded administration a financial stake in Ukraine's future. As for the ongoing ceasefire talks, Trump overturned two oft-stated principles of the Biden approach: that Russia should be diplomatically isolated and that there would be no negotiations 'about Ukraine without Ukraine.' But ultimately, Ukraine's political position may have been strengthened by the process. Putin has rejected a proposed 30-day ceasefire after Ukraine agreed to one, was a no-show at talks in Istanbul, where Zelenskyy had proposed meeting face-to-face, and has rejected Trump's proposal to have talks mediated by the Vatican. It's much harder for even the most skeptical to argue, as Trump has previously, that the war is only continuing because of Zelenskyy's unwillingness to make a deal. Even Trump has been forced to wonder if Putin is merely 'tapping me along,' engaging minimally in the diplomatic process without abandoning his end goal of subjugating all of Ukraine, not just the disputed regions, by force. Trump has clearly moved on from the notion that he can end the war in 24 hours and seems to be losing interest in the peace talks entirely. Or as Vance put it, 'We're more than open to walking away.' Much depends on what exactly 'walking away' means. If it means an end to weapons shipments, intelligence sharing, and sanctions on Russia, that would be disastrous for Ukraine, though not necessarily fatal. 'It's not as if we pulled the plug tomorrow, that Ukrainians would just immediately cease to exist, which I think was the administration's assumption when they came in,' said Jeffrey Edmonds, a former White House and Pentagon Russia adviser. 'They thought they had a lot more leverage than they did over both Ukraine and Russia.' (A spokesperson for the White House national security council did not respond to Vox's request for comment.) If Trump merely maintains the status quo — keeps the sanctions that are already in place, continues shipping the weapons that have already been paid for — that might be enough for the Ukrainians to hold the line for at least the coming months. It's true that Russian troops continue to slowly advance, but the rate of advance is already slowing this year, and it loses dozens of casualties per square kilometer. According to one recent estimate, it would take Russia 80 years to conquer all of Ukraine's territory at the current rate. Ukraine's bigger concern may be recruiting enough troops to man the front lines, though its efforts have improved somewhat, US commanders say, and low morale among both troops and civilians as the war drags on with no end in sight. Russia has manpower woes as well as increasing signs of economic distress as it continues to pour money into Ukraine. Trump's tariffs have had the unexpected side-effect of slashing the Russian state's oil revenues. Before Trump took office, Ukrainian leaders expressed some cautious optimism that despite Trump's fondness for Putin and skepticism about the value of supporting to Ukraine, they'd be able to appeal to his transactional nature and turn him to their side. That was overoptimistic: Trump seems unlikely ever to be a strong backer of Ukraine. But he at least appears less likely to be a strong backer of Russia. For the moment, they may be the best they can hope for.
