Scientists grow synthetic kidneys inside mice– cosmosmagazine.com Source Link Excerpt:
While stem cell-derived kidney organoids promise to provide patient-specific models for disease research, and may even one day produce functional tissue for regenerative medicine, researchers have not yet been able to recreate the immense complexity of the organ’s patterning and functions.
Models tend to focus on either the kidney’s nephrons – functional units which filter blood and produce urine – or its collecting ducts, which concentrate urine and transport it to the bladder.
Now, researchers have brought these together in ‘assembloids’ which are the most mature and complex kidney structures grown in the lab to date.
Lab grown human kidney assembloid showing the formation of radial nephrons connected to a central collecting system. Credit: Pedro Medina, Li Lab
“This is a revolutionary tool for creating more accurate models for studying kidney disease, which affects one in 7 adults,” says corresponding author Zhongwei Li, associate professor of medicine, and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the University of Southern California, US.
“It’s also a milestone towards our long-term goal of building a functional synthetic kidney for the more than 100,000 patients in the US awaiting transplant – the only cure for end-stage kidney disease.”
Li and collaborators grew mouse and human assembloids from kidney progenitor cells in the lab and then transplanted them into the abdomens of living mice. There, the assembloids matured further – growing larger and developing connective tissue and blood vessels.
House of Prayer leader indicted on $26M fraud charges, stole identity to gain citizenship: indictment – Christian Post Source Link Excerpt:
The man known as Rony Denis, founder of the House of Prayer Christian Churches of America, and seven other leaders of the organization face a 26-count federal indictment unsealed last Wednesday in the Southern District of Georgia. The organization has around a dozen locations and spans several states. Its largest congregation is based in Hinesville, Georgia.
Denis’ first and last names are unknown. Investigators allege he used a stolen identity to become a U.S. citizen in 2002 before going on to establish HOPCC and its affiliate House of Prayer Bible Seminary (HOPBS).
Authorities alleged that Denis and his associates used the organization and its affiliated seminaries to defraud the Department of Veterans Affairs of millions in education benefits between 2011 and 2022.
“Today’s coordinated arrests of individuals connected to the House of Prayer Christian Churches of America and House of Prayer Bible Seminary effectively disrupts a calculated scheme to defraud our military service members and veterans of their hard-earned VA benefits,” said Special Agent in Charge Ryan O’Connor of the Department of Army Criminal Investigative Division’s Southern Field Office.
Iran executes man for alleged spying for Israel, activists say he was tortured into false confession– abcnews.go.com Source Link Excerpt:
Iran says it executed a man accused of spying for Israel, but activists dispute the claim, saying he was tortured into a false confession
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran said Wednesday it executed a man it alleges spied for Israel, something disputed by activists who say he was tortured into a false confession.
The judiciary’s Mizan news agency identified the executed man as Babak Shahbazi, who it claimed had gathered and sold sensitive information about Iranian data centers and security installations to Israeli handlers.
Activists however said Shahbazi was detained over writing a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offering his help.
Iran has supplied Russia with drones that Moscow has used to attack Ukraine.
The group Iran Human Rights had warned Shahbazi could be executed.
“Babak’s message to President Zelenskyy offering to help in the war against Russia was used as an example of espionage for Israel who they claim taught Babak to use Microsoft Word,” the group said. Iran did not acknowledge that claim.
The Media Is Fueling a Spate of Wild Conspiracies – RedState– redstate.com Source Link Excerpt:
We have to suppose that it is a natural offshoot of a severe act taking place, that some people would tread into the landscape of conspiracies. It is not unexpected, but we seem to be experiencing an elevated level of this activity today. In the wake of the grievous murder of Charlie Kirk, there has been a flurry of these instances, but the sourcing of this may have much to do with the added aspect of political tribalism.
While conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon, what is notable now is how many who claim to have elevated thinking are instead descending into the fever swamps. An application of pragmatism is not only absent, it is resisted, and that is the tell. And the denials of the motives behind the shooting seen in the press are only feeding this hysteria.
Currently on social media, two such prevailing theories are floated: That the presented text messages between Kirk’s assassin and his lover are fabricated, and that at least one lynching has boldly taken place on a college campus. These are cases that beg for clarity and evidence, and the absence of such is held up as proof.
Regarding the texts presented by the authorities, the prevailing theory is that nobody of the shooter’s age fashions their texts in the manner seen in these exchanges. The concept is that these were crafted by out-of-touch law enforcement figures. When I asked one such true-denier on social media where the evidence exists that these were fake messages, I was told that it is found on social media posts. (Naturally, the next step was not showing these examples but the instruction that it was incumbent upon me to seek out their proof.)
🔴 Watch! Jimmy Kimmel & The Left Desperately Want to Gaslight America – Don’t Let Them (Sources)– www.louderwithcrowder.com Source Link Excerpt:
We now have the text messages between Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin and his boyfriend regarding his actions on September 10th. You’re never going to guess the media’s reaction. Additionally, the media is tripping over themselves to try to ‘both sides’ the argument and ‘um, actually’ their way into blaming the right for violence. Is that really how it works, though? Sam Hyde, a comedian, took some time to address the Charlie Kirk assassination. We’ll cover what he said and why it’s so spot on.
The Future Role of Clans in Gaza– warontherocks.com Source Link Excerpt:
In 2024, Yaniv Voller wrote “The Inevitable Role of Clans in Post-Conflict Stabilization in Gaza,” where he argued that clans will continue to be a popular and likely method of stabilizing Gaza after fighting ceases. In the wake of the Israel Defense Forces’ official launch of a ground offensive into Gaza City, we invited Yaniv back to reflect on his arguments.Image: RafahKid Kid via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2024 article, “The Inevitable Role of Clans in Post-Conflict Stabilization in Gaza,” you wrote about the Israeli government’s consideration of using clans as proxies once the war concludes.
‘I will not pull back from CELEBRATING’: Law professor’s Charlie Kirk comments lead to calls for her termination– www.thecollegefix.com Source Link Excerpt:
Key Takeaways
Arkansas state officials are calling for the termination of law professor Felicia Branch after she made controversial comments celebrating the death of political commentator Charlie Kirk.
Branch, who recently joined the University of Arkansas Little Rock, was suspended after posting on Facebook that she would not pull back from ‘CELEBRATING’ Kirk’s death, calling him ‘an evil man.
Attorney General Tim Griffin and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemned Branch’s remarks as unacceptable, with Griffin stating that her comments justify political violence and do not align with the standards expected of educators.
The Chancellor of U. Arkansas Little Rock emphasized the need for educators to maintain higher conduct standards and condemned Branch’s remarks as contrary to fostering a civil and rigorous academic environment.
Trump Designating Antifa as Major Terrorist Group– townhall.com Source Link Excerpt:
Pres. Donald Trump is designating Antifa as a major terrorist organization, he said on Truth Social on Wednesday night.
“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The White House confirmed the post.
🚨 “I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION…” – President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/irLHCkrX1n
After Kirk’s assassination, Trump said that he would find the groups that fund political violence, Townhall’s Katie Pavlich posted.
“My administration will find each and everyone of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
“My administration will find each and everyone of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
ABC’s Gutman Goes on X to Regret Calling Kirk Suspect’s Texts ‘Very Touching’– www.newsbusters.org Source Link Excerpt:
Early Wednesday morning, ABC chief national correspondent Matt Gutman took to X and not on-air to offer his attempt at apologizing for fawning Tuesday afternoon over text messages between the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination and his trans lover as “lovingly” stated, “very intimate,” and “very touching.”
Gutman stated at 6:32 a.m. Eastern ahead of his Good Morning America liveshot about the case (albeit back in Los Angeles) the following:
1. Yesterday I tried to underscore the jarring contrast between this cold blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk – a man who dedicated his life to public dialogue – and the personal, disturbing texts read aloud by the Utah County Attorney at the press conference.
He then added that “I deeply regret that my words did not make that clear. But let there be zero doubt here: I unequivocally condemn this horrific crime and the pain it caused Charlie Kirk’s family, those who were forced to witness it at UVU, and the millions of people he inspired.”
As a reminder, below is the first of two insane glorifications of the alleged assassin and his trans lover (or click here to read our full write-up and analysis):
He also doubled down on ABC News Live, not even ten minutes later (emphasis mine):
It’s heartbreaking on so many levels, Kyra. Obviously, Charlie Kirk was murdered brutally in front of a crowd of thousands…[O]n the other hand, there is this duality of a very a portrait of a very human person, a very human experience from this entire family…the kid who had got a 34 out of 36 on the ACT, who had a 4.0, who got a full ride to college here…I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a press conference in which we’ve read text messages that are A, so fulsome, so robust, so apparently, allegedly self-incriminating and yet, on the other hand, so touching — right — with the suspect reaching out to his roommate, who was allegedly his boyfriend, who we understand, you know, identified as male at birth, now identifies as female. And the terminology he used, he was trying to protect him. He kept calling him ‘my love.’ ‘My reason for doing this is to protect you,’ you know, but also asking him to delete the messages and not speak to law enforcement. So there’s this, this heartbreaking duality that we’re seeing very tragically playing out here.
South Korean prosecutors seek arrest of ‘Moonies’ leader in bribery probe | Courts News– www.aljazeera.com Source Link Excerpt:
South Korean prosecutors have requested an arrest warrant for Han Hak-ja, leader of the Unification Church, over bribery allegations linked to a former first lady.
The request on Thursday came a day after Han was questioned over her alleged role in bribing former first lady Kim Keon-hee and conservative lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong.
The charges came amid a drive to investigate Kim and her husband, former President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was forced from office last year after imposing martial law.
“We have requested an arrest warrant for Han earlier today,” prosecutor Park Sang-jin said. “The charges against her include violation of political funds act, anti-graft law, incitement to destroy evidence and embezzlement.”
“We considered the risk of Han tampering with evidence to be very high, which led us to seek the warrant.”
Russia-backed network behind detonating parcels in Europe, Lithuania says– www.euronews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Fifteen people have been charged over an alleged Russia-backed operation that planned arson attacks across Europe through courier services, Lithuanian prosecutors have said.
In a statement on Wednesday, Lithuania’s prosecutor general’s office in Vilnius said investigations had revealed that suspects with ties to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, had led the operations.
The suspects included citizens from Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine.
The network is believed to have hidden home-made explosive devices, containing the highly flammable substance thermite, inside massage pillows and tubes of cosmetics.
Some of these incendiary devices exploded last year in the UK, Germany and Poland while being transported by the courier services DHL and DPD.
Four packages were posted on 19 July 2024 by a member of the network, prosecutors say.
Ukraine expects €2.9bn fund for US weapons to fight Russia, Zelenskyy says– www.euronews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Ukraine expects to have around $3.5 billion (€2.9 billion) in a fund by next month to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its war effort against Russia’s full-scale invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.
The financial arrangement known as the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) pools contributions from NATO members, with the exception of the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment.
“We received more than $2 billion from our partners specifically for the PURL program,” Zelenskyy said at a joint news conference in Kyiv with visiting European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
“We will receive additional money in October. I think we will have somewhere around $3.5-3.6 billion.”
Zelenskyy declined to provide details of what weapons the first shipments would include, but said that they would definitely contain missiles for Patriot air defence missile systems and munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
Pennsylvania shooting: At least 2 seriously injured; police involved– timesofindia.indiatimes.com Source Link Excerpt:
At least two people were seriously injured in a shooting connected to a “police incident” in York County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, authorities said. Governor Josh Shapiro confirmed he had been briefed and was heading to the area. “We ask those in the area to please follow the directions of local law enforcement and Pennsylvania State Police,” he posted on X.The shooting occurred in North Codorus Township, about 115 miles west of Philadelphia. The incident unfolded along a rural road lined with farms and a red barn, news agency AP reported.Social media visuals showed helicopters landing in fields to airlift the injured. A local school district issued a shelter-in-place order, clarifying that neither students nor schools were directly involved. “Authorities advised us to hold students and staff in our buildings as a precaution while several area roads are closed,” the district said in a statement.Meanwhile, the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia said it was monitoring the situation closely and urged Mexican residents in the area to follow official guidance. The region is a major apple-growing hub that employs many seasonal migrant farm workers from Mexico.Police have not provided any details about who was involved in the shooting.
The Russian Camp Where Abducted Ukrainian Children Reportedly Made Drones– www.rferl.org Source Link Excerpt:
Evidence has been found for the first time that abducted Ukrainian children were used by Russia to assemble military equipment, according to the head of a Yale University team investigating the fate of nearly 20,000 minors reported to have been kidnapped or forcibly displaced.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen any such description of children involved in making devices for military operations,” Nathaniel Raymond, head of Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, told RFE/RL.
Raymond said his team had seen Russian government documents which detailed how children aged 13-17 were given a class on assembling drones and other military equipment in April last year.
The incident, mentioned in a new report by Raymond’s team, took place at a beachside camp on the Black Sea called Change.
Israel opens new temporary route out of Gaza City as death toll rises – National– globalnews.ca Source Link Excerpt:
The Israeli military said it was opening an additional route for 48 hours that Palestinians could use to leave Gaza City as it stepped up efforts on Wednesday to empty the city of civilians and confront thousands of Hamas combatants.
Hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering in the city and many are reluctant to follow Israel’s orders to move south because of the dangers along the way, dire conditions, a lack of food in the southern area and fear of permanent displacement.
“Even if we want to leave Gaza City, is there any guarantee we would be able to come back? Will the war ever end? That’s why I prefer to die here, in Sabra, my neighborhood,” Ahmed, a schoolteacher, said by phone.
At least 50 people were killed by Israeli strikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including 39 in Gaza City, local health authorities said.
As negotiations for Ukraine’s EU accession near, everybody is talking about how to get around Orbán’s veto– rmx.news Source Link Excerpt:
According to Marta Kos, European Union Commissioner for Enlargement, the screening phase of Ukraine’s and Moldova’s EU accession process is almost complete.
However, of course, there is still that pesky Hungarian veto the EU must find a solution to, at least regarding Ukraine’s accession.
Kos, echoing sentiments expressed by Denmark’s Minister for European Affairs Marie Bjerre, assured the press that they will “proceed with the technical aspects,” even if the EU Council does not give its political approval, reports Magyar Nemzet.
Previously, Bjerre stated: “We are still trying to find a solution to get Hungary to give up its veto. If that doesn’t work, we are ready to consider all political and practical means to succeed [in opening negotiations], because our security is at stake.”
Readers should note that Denmark is the current president of the European Union, and it has made it clear that starting accession negotiations with Ukraine is a top priority of its presidency. As noted above by Bjerre, they are directly linking it to the security of the entire EU.
Denmark is not alone. Lithuania has actually presented a way to get around Hungary’s veto by simply starting negotiations without it. Although it is unclear as to how this would work, European Council President António Costa also believes that negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU should continue, despite Hungary’s veto.
A law enforcement surge has taken a toll on children of immigrants in Washington schools– abcnews.go.com Source Link Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — The last time she saw her husband, the father of her three children, was when he left their Washington apartment a month ago to buy milk and diapers. Before long he called to say he had been pulled over — but not to worry, because it was just local police. The next time she heard from him, he was at a detention center in Virginia.
Since that day, the 40-year-old mother of three has been too afraid to take her two sons to their nearby charter school. Like her husband, who has since been deported, she is an immigrant from Guatemala and has lived in the U.S. illegally for more than a decade. She spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear she would be targeted by immigration authorities.
All three of the couple’s children were born in the nation’s capital, and the older two attend a local charter school. She planned to keep them home until a volunteer offered to drive them. Still, one of the boys was so upset over his father’s absence he missed three days of school one week.
Schools in Washington reopened late last month against the backdrop of a law enforcement surge that brought masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into normally quiet neighborhoods, scenes likely to be replicated elsewhere as President Donald Trump dispatches federal agents to the streets of other big cities.
French unions strike against austerity, pressuring Macron – Reuters– news.google.com Source Link Excerpt:
Hundreds of thousands took part in anti-austerity protests across France on Thursday, urging President Emmanuel Macron and his new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to acknowledge their anger and scrap looming budget cuts.
Teachers, train drivers, pharmacists and hospital staff were among those who went on strike as part of the day of protests, while teenagers blocked dozens of high schools for hours.
Secrets of Chinese AI Model DeepSeek Revealed in Landmark Paper– www.scientificamerican.com Source Link Excerpt:
The success of DeepSeek’s powerful artificial intelligence (AI) model R1 — that made the US stock market plummet when it was released in January — did not hinge on being trained on the output of its rivals, researchers at the Chinese firm have said. The statement came in documents released alongside a peer-reviewed version of the R1 model, published today in Nature.
R1 is designed to excel at ‘reasoning’ tasks such as mathematics and coding, and is a cheaper rival to tools developed by US technology firms. As an ‘open weight’ model, it is available for anyone to download and is the most popular such model on the AI community platform Hugging Face to date, having been downloaded 10.9 million times.
The paper updates a preprint released in January, which describes how DeepSeek augmented a standard large language model (LLM) to tackle reasoning tasks. Its supplementary material reveals for the first time how much R1 cost to train: the equivalent of just US$294,000. This comes on top of the $6 million or so that the company, based in Hangzhou, spent to make the base LLM that R1 is built on, but the total amount is still substantially less than the tens of millions of dollars that rival models are thought to have cost. DeepSeek says R1 was trained mainly on Nvidia’s H800 chips, which in 2023 became forbidden from being sold to China under US export controls.
Ukraine may soon add warheads, interceptor drones to digital marketplace– www.army-technology.com Source Link Excerpt:
Arsen Zhumadilov, director of Ukraine’s Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), revealed that the Ministry of Defence plan to introduce a new range of systems to the Ukrainian military’s digital marketplace, the DOT-Chain Defence platform, in 2026.
Last week, during DSEI 2025 in London, Zhumadilov revealed that the online marketplace may soon offer interceptor drones and warheads to Ukrainian military units for the first time.
What is the DOT-Chain Defence digital platform?
DOT-Chain Defence was launched in pilot mode only two months ago. Access to the IT system has only been granted to 12 brigades (deployed in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions) out of more than a hundred.
Commanders can independently select and acquire systems using funds from the DPA.
The platform operates much like an online store but instead of civilian commodities it offers a range of weapons systems. Initially, DPA focused on supplying first-person view (FPV) uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), but this soon expanded to include other autonomous systems and radio electronic warfare (EW) devices. Currently, the marketplace offers products from 25 companies.
We may soon witness a black hole explosion with over 90% probability– www.techexplorist.com Source Link Excerpt:
For decades, physicists believed black hole explosions were rare cosmic events, happening maybe once every 100,000 years. But a groundbreaking study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst flips that assumption on its head, with a bold prediction: there’s a more than 90% chance we’ll witness one within the next ten years.
And not just any black hole. This would be the first-ever observed explosion of a primordial black hole (PBH), a theoretical type born less than a second after the Big Bang. If spotted, it could unlock the deepest secrets of the universe.
“We believe that there is up to a 90% chance of witnessing an exploding PBH in the next 10 years,” says Aidan Symons, co-author and graduate student in physics at UMass Amherst.
Unlike the black holes formed from dying stars, PBHs are thought to have emerged from the chaotic energy of the early universe. They’re incredibly dense, yet much lighter than their stellar cousins. And thanks to Stephen Hawking’s 1970 prediction, we know they can emit particles through Hawking radiation, a slow leak that gets faster as the black hole gets hotter, until it explodes.
“The lighter a black hole is, the hotter it should be and the more particles it will emit. As PBHs evaporate, they become ever lighter and hotter, emitting even more radiation in a runaway process until they explode. It’s that Hawking radiation that our telescopes can detect,” says Andrea Thamm, assistant professor of physics at UMass Amherst.
Jeff Bezos-Backed CEO Warns US Against Selling AI Chips To China Amid National Security Issues: ‘It May Be The Only Advantage We Have’ – Benzinga Source Link
