Part 7 of an exclusive look into the madness that was being an employee of 'Tiger King," a controversial zoo that is the subject of a wildly popular new Netflix documentary series.

Part 8 of an exclusive look into the madness that was being an employee of 'Tiger King," a controversial zoo that is the subject of a wildly popular new Netflix documentary series.

"And the nights grew hot with the bulk of it, and the days were spent in toil and anguish, feeding and walking, feeding and walking-"

The true story of how a fast food restaurant indirectly led to our indie game studio's success.

Any game that's out long enough will inevitably be ruined by endless "balance" patches, tweaks that either nerf or beef every little thing until the whole experience is either milquetoast or apeshit. The goons apply the latter method to Ancient Rome itself, somehow!

Brazil could face "economic collapse" in a month's time due to stay-at-home measures to stem the coronavirus outbreak, with food shortages and "social disorder," Economy Minister Paulo Guedes warned Thursday.

In this exclusive 35-minute documentary, we expose a massive and unknown fish smuggling and supply network in the Pacific Ocean. Every year, an armada of North Korean ghost ships invade the waters of the Russian Far East and Japan. From Vladivostok to North Korea, via China, our reporter Elena Volochine investigated the illegal fishing networks of the world's most secretive country, North Korea.

With parents and policymakers agonising over when to reopen schools as lockdowns ease, scientists are still struggling to find out how the new coronavirus affects children.

Dozens of Afghan migrants are feared dead after Iranian border guards allegedly forced them into a river on the Iran-Afghan border on May 1. Of the 57 men and boys in the group only 12 are known to have survived. One of the survivors told the France 24 Observers team that he and the others were arrested and tortured by guards from an Iranian border post overlooking the Harirud river. His account, along with amateur videos circulating on social media in Afghanistan, allowed the Observers team to pinpoint the location of the Iranian border post. 

Russia marks 75 years since the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Saturday, but the coronavirus outbreak has forced it to scale back celebrations seen as boosting support for the Kremlin.

In a mid-April report, the NGO Human Rights Watch cited UN statistics that the main prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at 432 percent capacity, with Makala Prison in the country’s capital of Kinshasa at 461 percent. While media access to prisons in Kinshasa is denied, FRANCE 24 obtained amateur footage from Makala inmates and spoke with an NGO and a Congolese official about the potential for a major Covid-19 health crisis.

Economic activity in France picked up slightly over the last two weeks as the country prepares to emerge from a coronavirus lockdown, but it remains a third below normal levels, the INSEE official statistics agency said on Thursday.

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Thursday detailed his government’s plan for easing Covid-19 confinement measures on May 11, warning that the exit from lockdown would be gradual and targeted to stem a resurgence of the viral outbreak. 

France on Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) day with President Emmanuel Macron attending a scaled-down ceremony on Paris’s Champs-Élysées. Click on the player to see how the commemorations unfolded.

France’s lockdown measures are among the strictest in Europe as the country bids to stamp out the Covid-19 pandemic. Paris is usually known for its night wanderers but the last few weeks has seen its lively and vibrant atmosphere replaced by calm and silence. However, not all Parisians are respecting lockdown measures and FRANCE 24 went out to meet them. Some are simply wandering the streets. Others are out and about because the streets are what they call home.

As France prepares to gradually end its Covid-19 lockdown on May 11, workers are busy installing dozens of kilometres of temporary bike lanes across Paris and surrounding suburbs, part of plans to prepare for – and encourage – an expected boom in cycling in the capital.

At least 40 civilians were killed, including 11 children, when a bomb detonated in the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Tuesday, the Turkish Defence Ministry said, blaming the attack on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

A choice between lives and livelihoods? Iranian authorities have gradually been easing confinement since April 11, this in a nation hit early and hard by Covid-19. Did they have to reopen mosques? Could they afford to keep the sanctions-squeezed country in lockdown and risk a complete collapse of the economy or does opening it up make it worse? Already there are signs of a resurgence of coronavirus. The show features Sanam Shantyaei's exclusive interview with a frontline medic in Tehran while Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Behnam Ben Taleblu disagree on whether the US should ease sanctions.

South Korea returned largely to normal Wednesday as workers went back to offices, and museums and libraries reopened under eased social distancing rules after new coronavirus cases dropped to a trickle.

India will within days roll out a version of its coronavirus contact-tracing application that can run on mobile carrier Reliance Jio's cheap phones, as it looks to increase the reach of the system, a senior government official said on Thursday.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1198.html

Right on time. We had April showers all last week. Here’s to a lovely May. Also, my pal Matthew Ryan dropped a new cover song today. It’s a striking version, well worth the listen. Enjoy.

Nicky Case (of Explorable Explanations and Parable of the Polygons internet fame) has a fantastic essay which picks up on the theme of my last Cyberselves post – technology as companion, not competitor. In How To Become A Centaur Case gives blitz history of AI, and of its lesser known cousin IA – Intelligence Augmentation. … Continue reading "How To Become A Centaur"

I have a review of John Bargh’s new book “Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do” in this month’s Psychologist magazine. You can read the review in print (or online here) but the magazine could only fit in 250 words, and I originally wrote closer to 700. I’ll put the … Continue reading "Review: John Bargh’s “Before You Know It”"