News (old posts, page 904)

Paramount settles with Trump for $16m over ‘60 Minutes’ Kamala Harris interview

Paramount said it would pay the $16m to Trump’s future presidential library and not to Trump himself. It also said the settlement did not include a statement of apology or regret.

CBS parent company Paramount on Wednesday settled a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over an interview broadcast in October, in the latest concession by a media company to the US president, who has targeted outlets over what he describes as false or misleading coverage.

Paramount said it would pay $16m to settle the suit with the money allocated to Trump’s future presidential library, and not paid to Trump “directly or indirectly”.

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Autocorrect by Etgar Keret review – endlessly inventive short stories

Alien spaceships, parallel worlds… the Israeli writer’s seventh collection is vast in reach, yet grounded in the bewildering absurdity of modern life

‘It’s time we acknowledge it: people are not very good at remembering things the way they really happened. If an experience is an article of clothing, then memory is the garment after it’s been washed, not according to the instructions, over and over again: the colours fade, the size shrinks, the original, nostalgic scent has long since become the artificial orchid smell of fabric softener. Giyora Shiro, may he rest in peace, was thinking all this while standing in line to get into the next world …”

That’s quite the opener for a story, isn’t it? The apt but just slightly ridiculous metaphor, which is then revealed as not an authorial pronouncement but a character’s ruminations. And then we meet the character – excellently specific name – and we find out he’s dead, and, in that drolly formulaic aside “may he rest in peace”, we meet the author too.

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Women behind the lens: bending over backwards for luck

Colombian artist and photographer Isabella Madrid explores the ‘click to be saved’ economy of hope in her project, Lucky Girl Syndrome

Growing up in Colombia – and online – has defined the way I create art: my identity has been formed by a country riddled with superficial and conservative values; a happy country but also one of the most violent; a country where men pray to virgins and kill the ones who are not.

The internet felt like a safe space where I could be anyone – as a vulnerable young girl who felt out of place where I lived, it helped me define my personality and interests but it also alienated me from the real world and made me hyper aware of the way I looked and existed.

Isabella Madrid is a Colombian artist and photographer

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‘Tiny melodies’: musician uses moths’ flight data to compose piece about their decline

Ellie Wilson’s piece titled Moth x Human assigns different sounds to the species on Parsonage Down in Salisbury

They are vital pollinators who come out at night, but now moths have emerged into the bright light of day as co-creators of a new piece of music – composed using the insects’ own flight data.

Ellie Wilson composed Moth x Human in a protected habitat on Parsonage Down in Salisbury, Wiltshire. She assigned each of the 80 resident moth species a different sound, which was triggered when it landed on her monitor.

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Industrial revelation: a walk through England’s Great Northern Coalfield

History comes to life on a hike through the woods and wagonways of County Durham, which takes in mining, trains, an award-winning museum – and corned beef and potato pie

The Great Northern Coalfield once provided the raw fuel that powered Britain through the Industrial Revolution. For over two centuries, coal from the mines of Durham and Northumberland was trundled down a maze of wagonways and rail lines to the coast to then be shipped to London.

The mines are long gone, but eight miles north of Durham city, relics of the north-east’s industrial heritage can be found hidden amid ancient woodland and a steep-sided gorge.

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A moment that changed me: An accident left me terrified of risk. Then I joined a stranger on a motorbike adventure

We rode through the dark, through winding mountain roads to reach scenic nooks I otherwise would never have seen. From then, I had the confidence to make friends and travel more

As I watched the sleek, white motorbike roll out of the hire shop in Thakhek, Laos, I wondered if I was making a dreadful mistake. It was March 2017 and I had agreed to go on a road trip with a stranger – an American named Travis, whom I had met a few weeks earlier. We were classmates on a Rotary International Peace Fellowship, which brought together people from sectors such as academia, farming and activism to learn about conflict resolution, in Thailand. I tended to have my guard up around people I didn’t know but Travis’s constant gentle efforts to get to know me had worked, and we bonded over a shared sense of humour. When he suggested we explore Laos together, it felt like a natural progression of our budding friendship.

Travis wanted to visit a climbing hotspot, I wanted to see the Laos that wasn’t on the typical tourist trail – and it seemed like the only way we could do both was to travel by motorbike, a mode of transport I actively avoided for many years.

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‘A billion people backing you’: China transfixed as Musk turns against Trump

Tesla CEO’s feud with US president dominates Chinese social media, with many praising his ‘tech-driven mindset’

Few break-ups have as many gossiping observers as the fallout between the once inseparable Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The ill-fated bromance between the US president and the world’s richest man, which once raised questions about American oligarchy, is now being pored over by social media users in China, many of whom are Team Musk.

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