Thailand's famous rock band Bodyslam has cancelled two shows this week as lead singer Artiwara “Toon” Kongmalai is recovering from minor surgery carried out on Sunday.

At least 24 police officers were injured in Memphis, Tennessee in violent clashes with protesters, who took to the streets following the shooting death of a man killed by U.S. Marshals during an attempted arrest, authorities said on Thursday. - REUTERS

# https://www.foxnews.com/world/climate-activists-spray-us-embassy-london-orange-paint-after-trump-reelection-victory By Stephen Sorace Fox News Just Stop Oil members, ages 25 and 72, arrested in London after stunt Climate activists in the United Kingdom wasted no time responding to President-elect Trump’s re-election win on Wednesday, spraying orange paint on a section of the U.S. embassy in London in protest. Two members of the environmental group Just Stop Oil covered the […]

It looks like this time, Paramount's decades-held hopes of making a movie out of Tom Clancy's epic saga Without Remorse are really going to happen! Last month, Variety reported that Jamie Bell will join the previously announced Michael B. Jordan (playing frequent Clancy hero John Clark) in the movie from director Stefano Sollima (helmer of the very Clancy-esque Sicario: Day of the Soldado). Bell will play a familiar character from the Tom Clancy universe, CIA Deputy Director of Operations Robert Ritter. Henry Czerny memorably essayed the role in 1994's Clear and Present Danger, in which Willem Dafoe played Clark.

Today, several more actors joined the cast, making this Without Remorse more and more of a reality! (Forgive my incredulity. It's just hard to believe this movie is finally happening after literally decades of development!) Deadline reports that Luke Mitchell (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys For Life), Cam Gigandet (Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden), Jack Kesy (12 Strong), and Todd Lasance (Spartacus) are all signing on as members of Clark's SEAL team. Nearly all of them have played special forces operators before. Additionally, Jodie Turner-Smith (The Last Ship, The Neon Demon) has been cast as a potential love interest for Jordan.

According to the trade, "Without Remorse is the origin story of John Clark, played by Jordan, a Navy SEAL-turned-CIA ops officer, who seeks revenge after his girlfriend is killed by a Baltimore drug lord." That sounds more or less like the novel, so if this capsule summary comes from the studio (and not just a Deadline writer Wikipedia-ing the book), then perhaps we can expect a fairly faithful adaptation. What I'm guessing we won't get is a period piece. I doubt Clark will serve in Vietnam in this version; I suspect they'll make it contemporary. (This was the plan back when Tom Hardy was supposed to play Clark in a series intended to cross over with Chris Pine's intended Jack Ryan franchise.) Paramount are very eager to launch a new film franchise with this movie, already eyeing Clancy's Rainbow Six as a follow-up. Also unclear is whether there will be any crossover with Amazon's Jack Ryan TV series, which hails from the same producers. The Clark character has been kept out of that series so far because of the percolating film franchise, but that doesn't necessarily preclude a cameo from John Krasinski in Without Remorse....

Without Remorse is slated to open September 18, 2020.

Deadline reports that an English language version of the international hit French spy series The Bureau (Le Bureau des Légendes) is in the works. Per the trade, Paris-based Federation Entertainment, the production company behind the series, "said that negations are underway for remakes of The Bureau in both the U.S. and South Korea." The original French version airs in America on cable network Sundance, and has found great success in markets all over the world. It stars Mathieu Kassovitz (Haywire, Munich), and Bond villain Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace) came aboard in the fourth season.

It's a real spies' reunion for the miniseries version of Ben MacIntyre's superb non-fiction book A Spy Among Friends! Nearly everyone involved has some serious spy experience on their resume--and many of them have worked together before. It's no wonder the book has attracted such an array of veteran talent; for my money it's a strong contender of the best spy biography ever. MacIntyre uses the close friendship between the notorious double agent Kim Philby and loyal MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott to frame the story of the notorious Cambridge spy ring that shook the foundations of British Intelligence--and the Cold War at large. 

Deadline reports that Marv Films (Matthew Vaughn's UK-based production company) "is plotting 'something like seven more Kingsman films' as part of the company’s expansion plans." That's... ambitious! But other spy franchises have certainly sustained that many or more. At least one of those seven films is expected to be a spinoff centered on the American spies (including Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges) introduced in the second movie, Statesman. If previous plans mooted by Vaughn are still in effect, another is likely to be a third and supposedly final movie about the characters from the first two films, Eggsy (Taron Edgerton) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth), said to close out that trilogy. 

The next Kingsman movie we see will definitely be the WWI-set prequel The King's Man, long in the can and delayed by the global pandemic. That's currently slated for February, but likely to change again. It stars Harris Dickinson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Tom Hollander, and Daniel Brühl. With a cast like that an an exciting new time period less well mined by other spy franchises (and even a more serious tone judging from the trailers), I'm hopeful some more of these upcoming Kingsman films are sequels to The King's Man. Perhaps Dickinson and Fiennes will get as many movies as Edgerton and Firth.

According to Marv Group CEO Zygi Kamasa (per the trade), the company also has a Kingsman TV series in the works. 

Theodore J. Flicker's 1967 James Coburn satire The President's Analyst is one of my very favorite spy movies. (It's also Coburn's best spy movie... Sorry, Derek Flint.) When describing it to people, I always say that the comedy holds up surprisingly well today... sadly. America is still facing many of the same social  issues Flicker sent up over fifty years ago (from institutional racism to monolithic Big Tech), and it's easy to imagine a remake. Now, Paramount is imagining one... with The Daily Show host Trevor Noah on board to produce and potentially star. According to The Hollywood Reporter, former Obama White House staffer Pat Cunnane will write the script. The premise, about a psychotherapist burdened with all of the President's top secret stresses, will obviously be familiar ground for him! According to his publisher, Cunnane served as "President Barack Obama’s senior writer and deputy director of messaging at the White House, where he worked for six years in many roles."

On the eve of Killing Eve's series finale (airing this weekend), Deadline reports that "producer Sid Gentle Films is in early stage development on [a] spin-off, though it hasn’t got a greenlight yet." The spin-off (for BBC America and AMC Networks) would focus on Fiona Shaw's character, Carolyn Martens... but not as the cool, commanding spymaster we met in the show's first season. Instead, the potential spin-off would focus on her early days with MI6. From what we know of her history on the show, that could be incredibly compelling! Presumably such a series would focus on her time on Russia Desk and in Moscow during the waning days of the Cold War, when she recruited a crucial asset. I'm not so interested in this potential series because of its Killing Eve connection (though I do love that show's wit and tone and performances, and it would be nice to see them continue), but because of its setting. We don't see many Cold War era series, and when they do come along, I'll always be watching! It would be particularly cool to see one set in the late 80s with that focus. The Americans of course reveled in its 80s setting, but that was focused on Soviet agents undercover in America. A show about a British agent operating in Moscow at that time would be very different! 

“Justice for Tyre will always be the case. His legacy is more important than anything,'' said the father of the teen who died on the Orlando Free Fall drop ride.

Lolita, the 57-year-old orca who’s been held in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium on Virginia Key since the 1970s, is expected to be returned to her home waters in the Puget Sound, where she will live out the remainder of her days.

Despite losing their first game of the season, the Hurricanes still control their own destiny and can make the ACC title game and College Football Playoff.

Jones running back Jaquail Smith wanted to quit sports when he found out about the death of his 5-month-old daughter Jamiria. Helped by the support of family, friends and the Jones coaching staff, Smith has managed to push past the tragedy.

Get to know South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith and Texas A&M running back Devon Achane, the Miami Dolphins' second- and third-round picks in the NFL draft, and more on how Miami will likely use them.

In an unexpected move, the Miami Dolphins selected South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith with their second-round pick in the NFL draft. They then went running back in the third round, taking Texas A&M speedster Devon Achane at No. 84.

The Dolphins selected the best players available in the NFL draft on Day 2, and they're convinced they did the right thing. However, some think they should have filled their needs, especially when it comes to tight end, right tackle and left guard.

Tacksonville's first three selections in the draft are aimed at helping quarterback Trevor Lawrence take his performance to the next level for the defending AFC South champions.

Will Mallory is the latest Miami Hurricanes tight end to reach the NFL. Mallory is the 22nd UM tight end to be picked in the draft, and the first since the Houston Texans picked Brevin Jordan in 2021.

UF linebacker Ventrell Miller of Lakeland is staying close to home after the Jacksonville Jaguars selected him No. 121 overall during the NFL draft.

Here’s what you need to know about Stanford WR-TE Elijah Higgins, the sixth-round pick for the Miami Dolphins, and Michigan OT Ryan Hayes, the seventh-round pick.

The Miami Dolphins selected a talented college wide receiver who has the size to play tight end in the NFL with their sixth-round selection on the final day of the 2023 NFL draft, and then grabbed an offensive tackle in the seventh round.

The Miami Dolphins only had four picks in the 2023 NFL draft, but they improved their team's talent base. Here's a closer look at the Dolphins' draft class -- cornerback Cam Smith, running back Devon Achane, tight end Elijah Higgins, and offensive tackle Ryan Hayes.

Jammie Robinson's selection by the Panthers extends Florida State's streak to 40 consecutive NFL drafts with at least one player selected.

Although no Knights were selected in this year's NFL Draft, multiple former UCF players signed as undrafted free agents with NFL teams.

The draft underscored Jacksonville’s commitment to improving its offense.

The Miami Dolphins immediately got to work adding undrafted free agents to their rookie class upon completion of the NFL draft Saturday night.

The Sun Sentinel grades the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and New England Patriots' 2023 NFL draft class and analyzes which AFC East team fared the best in the division.

Mike Shannon, a two-time World Series winner and longtime St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster, has died. He was 83.

The Boston Bruins set NHL records with 65 wins and 135 points in the regular season but became the second Presidents’ Trophy winner in five years to lose in the first round.

A 63-year-old man from Orlando is dead after a fatal hit-and-run crash on Orange Blossom Trail early Saturday morning, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

A man crashed his car after being shot near College Park early Saturday morning, police say

On Saturday, that effort may have begun taking another step, as community leaders who attended a screening of the documentary at the Solid Rock Community Church in Kissimmee vowed to work toward a public acknowledgment of Mack’s encounter with the Klan more than 100 years ago.

Beleaguered game publisher Ubisoft is now facing backlash from players, who are seeking to attain a class action lawsuit against the company after it shut down the online multiplayer racing game The Crew. This lawsuit comes on top of struggles Ubisoft has seen with its recent game releases, with the flagship Star Wars Outlaws’ disappointing

WTSA-24 Draft Proceedings

A.5 justification information for draft new G.XGS-PON
Source: Editors G.XGS-PON
Study Questions: Q2/15

Draft Q4/13 Meeting Agenda
Source: Rapporteur
Study Questions: Q4/13

Draft Supplement on Guidelines for developing a sustainable e-waste management system
Source: Editor
Study Questions: Q13/5

Proposal of second draft of K.soft_ba "Overview of particle radiation effects on telecommunications systems"
Source: Fujitsu Limited, Xilinx Incorporation

LS/i on draft new Report on production, emission and exchange of closed captions for worldwide language character sets (Latin and non-Latin) [from ITU-R WP6B]
Source: ITU-R WP6B
Study Questions: Q26/16

Shares of Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) are skyrocketing in early-morning trading after the company announced its Q3 2024 results, which beat expectations. As of the time of this writing, SHOP stock is up an impressive 23% to above $110 per share. 

However, Shopify’s stock isn’t on fire only because of its good Q3. There are some other reasons why Shopify is exciting investors this morning. Here’s what to know:

Shopify’s ‘outstanding’ results

Shopify would probably disagree with the statement that the company had a good Q3. As the company’s president, Harley Finkelstein, said in a press release, the results were “outstanding.”

Why was the quarter so outstanding? A big part of it was the company’s Q3 revenue, which came in at $2.16 billion. That represents a whopping 26% year-over-year growth rate from Q3 2023.

As Reuters notes, it even surpassed many analysts’ lofty expectations of $2.11 billion in revenue, leading to the ninth time in a row that the company has beat analyst expectations on sales.

Not only did Shopify beat analyst expectations again, but its 26% revenue growth for this quarter marked “our sixth consecutive quarter of greater than 25% revenue growth excluding logistics,” Shopify CFO Jeff Hoffmeister said.

In a slide deck, Shopify also announced that as of Q3 2024, the company had facilitated $1 trillion in global sales since the platform’s inception and that it now has a 10% share of the U.S. e-commerce market.

Okay, but why did Shopify have such a good Q3?

As also noted by Reuters, Shopify attracted more merchants to its online e-commerce platform this quarter. One of the attractions for the merchants seems to be a new artificial intelligence tool Shopify started rolling out in June called Sidekick.

Sidekick is an artificial intelligence assistant currently in early access for some merchants. Shopify says the AI bot “will act as your very own advisor, guiding you with tailored, skilled advice to make your business stronger.”

It does this by shouldering some of the mundane but necessary tasks that any businessperson needs to do to manage their business. Sidekick can help easily keep track of a merchant’s inventory, generate myriad reports that reveal new insights about your business, and even suggest ways to attract more customers to a storefront.

Sidekick is in addition to another AI tool Shopify offers, this one called Shopify Magic, which helps merchants create product images for their wares, write product descriptions, and even help them generate FAQs for their stores.

These AI tools are making it easier than ever for customers to manage their storefronts, and their availability is clearly a draw for some merchants.

The future looks promising, too

But Shopify’s stock isn’t only surging because the company had a terrific Q3. If anything, investors seem most excited about what the company has predicted will happen next.

Shopify’s current quarter, Q4, is arguably the most important of the year for the company and its merchants. This is the all-important holiday shopping quarter—and Shopify has anounced it has strong hopes for the period.

The key metric that Shopify has forecast is its revenue expectations for Q4, which the company says it expects will “grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.”

That’s music to investors’ ears, as it means Shopify expects it may do even better in Q4 than its just-completed outstanding Q3. That revenue growth estimate is also more than the 22.7% revenue growth many analysts were expecting, noted Reuters.

A resurgent stock

Shopify’s stock started 2024 with prices hovering in the high seventies before dropping to the low sixties over the summer. But since the beginning of the fall, SHOP shares have been on an upswing. Today’s 23% surge means SHOP shares are actually up over 38% year-to-date.

However, despite the resurgent stock, SHOP shares are nowhere near their all-time high of above $152 per share. Those highs were achieved in mid- to late-2021 when e-commerce was enjoying a pandemic boom as more people preferred online shopping over brick-and-mortar stores.

Donald Trump has yet to take office as president for a second time, but vulnerable groups of Americans are already responding to his election victory.

As mental health appointments have surged in the wake of the 2024 presidential election, so have cries for help from LGBTQ+ youth. The day after the election, the Trevor Project, a nonprofit suicide prevention program for LGBTQ+ youth, saw a 700% increase in requests for its crisis services, according to data shared with Fast Company. (The Trevor Project also created a guide for LGBTQ+ youth to find and build community after the election.)

“The increases in volume that we have experienced across our lines indicate that this election is taking a toll on the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people in a major way,” said Becca Nordeen, the group’s SVP of crisis intervention. “It’s clear that this is a challenging moment for many LGBTQ+ young people. But, we want to remind everyone that no matter what they are feeling right now, we can – and we will – get through this together.”

As Fast Company reported last week, the election also sparked a surge in appointments for mental healthcare services, according to data from Zocdoc.

Facebook and Instagram users in Europe will get the option to see less personalized ads if they don’t want to pay for an ad-free subscription, social media company Meta said Tuesday, bowing to pressure from Brussels over privacy and digital competition concerns.

Meta Platforms has been offering European Union an ad-free subscription option for about a year to comply with the continent’s strict data privacy rules, but regulators had accused the company of giving people a false choice.

The company said in a blog post that while people will still be able to choose between the subscription and existing free versions, it would also start giving free users an extra option over the coming weeks to see digital ads that are less personalized.

This means ads will be targeted at users based only on what they see during their current session on Facebook or Instagram going back no more than two hours, plus minimal personal information such as age, location, gender as well as how they engage with ads.

Data from all of a user’s previous time spent on Facebook or Instagram, which is typically combined to precisely target an individual with tailored ads, won’t be used.

“While this new choice is designed to give people an additional control over their data and ad experience, it may result in ads that are less relevant to a person’s interests,” Meta said in a blog post. “That means people will see ads that they don’t find as interesting. This drop in relevance is inevitable given that drastically reduced data is being used to show these less personalized ads to people.”

People who choose the new option will see ad breaks that can’t be skipped for a few seconds, Meta said.

European Union regulators had accused Meta of breaching the 27-nation bloc’s digital rules when it gave user the option to pay a monthly fee to avoid being targeted by ads based on their personal data.

The U.S. tech giant had rolled out the option after the European Union’s top court ruled Meta must first get consent before showing ads to users, in a decision that threatened its business model of tailoring ads based on individual users’ online interests and digital activity.

The company also said Tuesday it’s slashing monthly subscription prices for the ad-free option. Web users will pay 5.99 euros ($6.36), down from 9.99 euros previously, while iPhone and Android users will be charged 7.99 euros instead of 12.99 euros, which includes commissions charged by the Apple and Google mobile app stores.

Meta’s new subscription model could hit the company’s lucrative digital ad business in one of its biggest markets. The company said it has already factored the new offering into its most recent business outlook and financial guidance.

The options are available to users 18 and older in the EU’s 27 member countries, plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

—Kelvin Chan, Associated Press business writer

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Nintendo launches Nintendo Music, an iOS and Android app that lets Switch Online subscribers stream or download gaming tunes from Nintendo titles theverge.com
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So, you recently updated to macOS Sequoia, and now your Mac feels sluggish and unresponsive? Well, you’re not alone. Plenty of users have been complaining about screen freezes, delayed window responses, and overall slow performance. In this post, we’re going to explore why this might be happening and go over some steps you can take…

The post How to Fix a Slow Mac After Updating to macOS Sequoia appeared first on Hongkiat.

BioVigil rolls out full production of AccuWash™ Technology after pilot program shows improved individual hand hygiene tracking  PR Newswire

JSW Defence & Shield AI Forge Strategic Partnership To Bring Cutting-Edge Military Aircraft Technology To India  ASDNews

The company said it's targeting 27 July for another launch of Falcon 9 with 23 Starlink satellites.

Read more: SpaceX to launch Falcon 9 again after previous mishap

Anton Shilov reports via Tom's Hardware: FFmpeg is an open-source video decoding project developed by volunteers who contribute to its codebase, fix bugs, and add new features. The project is led by a small group of core developers and maintainers who oversee its direction and ensure that contributions meet certain standards. They coordinate the project's development and release cycles, merging contributions from other developers. This group of developers tried to implement a handwritten AVX512 assembly code path, something that has rarely been done before, at least not in the video industry. The developers have created an optimized code path using the AVX-512 instruction set to accelerate specific functions within the FFmpeg multimedia processing library. By leveraging AVX-512, they were able to achieve significant performance improvements -- from three to 94 times faster -- compared to standard implementations. AVX-512 enables processing large chunks of data in parallel using 512-bit registers, which can handle up to 16 single-precision FLOPS or 8 double-precision FLOPS in one operation. This optimization is ideal for compute-heavy tasks in general, but in the case of video and image processing in particular. The benchmarking results show that the new handwritten AVX-512 code path performs considerably faster than other implementations, including baseline C code and lower SIMD instruction sets like AVX2 and SSSE3. In some cases, the revamped AVX-512 codepath achieves a speedup of nearly 94 times over the baseline, highlighting the efficiency of hand-optimized assembly code for AVX-512.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wednesday Cuba was hit by a major hurricane which took down its entire power grid again, this time for about 24 hours, according to CNN: Videos of the aftermath showed power infrastructure turned into a mangled mess and power poles down on streets. Hundreds of technicians were mobilized Thursday to reestablish power connections, according to state media... Operations at two electrical plants were partially restored and parts of eastern and central Cuba had electricity back up by Thursday afternoon, state media reported... The country's power grid has collapsed multiple times, including when Hurricane Oscar hit in October and killed at least 7 people. In the capital of Havana, where 2 million people live, power had been restored to less than 20% of the city by late Friday afternoon, . "Authorities had not yet given an estimate for when power would be fully restored..." Then tonight, CNN reported: A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of eastern Cuba on Sunday, causing material damage in several regions as the island continues to recover from widespread blackouts and the impact of two hurricanes over the past few weeks. The earthquake was reported about 39 km (24 miles) south of Bartolomé Masó before noon local time, about an hour after a 5.9 magnitude quake rocked the area, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. "There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said, adding that authorities are evaluating the situation to start recovery efforts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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