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European Media Freedom Act: Council secures mandate for negotiations

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

EU member state ambassadors have agreed the Council’s position on a new law to safeguard media freedom, pluralism and independence in the EU. The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) will establish a common framework for media services in the EU internal market and introduce measures aimed at protecting journalists and media providers from political interference while also making it easier for them to operate across the EU’s internal borders.I am very pleased that the EU member states have reached this agreement. Media freedom is fundamental to democratic society, yet it faces increasing threats, both from within the EU and abroad. The Council's position on the EMFA strengthens protection for media providers and their sources and gives national regulatory authorities more responsibility for cooperating and advising the Commission on the proper functioning of the internal market for media services, while also ensuring that the unique media landscape in each member state can continue to ...

The Re-creation of Cardboard: Exploring the Art Direction Behind the Award-Winning Film, It’s Not About the Car

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

Yingjie Jin, the visionary art director behind the award-winning short film, It’s Not About the Car, has challenged the norms of storytelling with her unique and thought-provoking art direction. The film revolves around a teenage girl’s quest to connect with her workaholic mom by writing and starring in a senior play that explores their quirky and dysfunctional relationship.What sets this film apart is the centerpiece of the story: a meticulously crafted cardboard car that can hold two people. Every detail, from the lights to the steering wheel and dial gauges, has been carefully designed by Yingjie Jin. The car’s lightweight structure allows the actors to lift it effortlessly, creating the illusion of movement.The cardboard car serves as a metaphor for the mother-daughter relationship, evolving from a symbol of freedom and desire to an extension of oneself. It represents the family’s journey, moving forward despite the arguments and differing perspectives. T...

Staccato Beats and a Seductive Sweetness Defines izye’s“tiramisu”

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

Meet izye, a 22-year-old singer, songwriter, rapper, and producer from the music-rich San Francisco East Bay Area. Music has been a part of her life since childhood, and she discovered her passion for solo performances at 17. In 2019, izye released her debut single, “24 hours,” featuring Will Grey and Sam Trenton, produced in her childhood bedroom with her friend Will Kouch. After moving to Los Angeles for music school, izye dropped out in 2020 and moved to Hollywood to chase her dreams full-time. There, she met her producer KundoCrankin’, who helped her create her signature R&B sound and persona. With influences like Ariana Grande, Tinashe, JoJo, SZA, and Kehlani, izye brings a unique blend of smooth R&B and hyphy Hip Hop to the music world.izye plays with the lyrics in a freewheeling frenzy on “tiramisu.” A sense of such swagger veers wildly from side to side. She embodies the bliss of the summer jam, for the song has summer humidity. Lost in a haze, the ...

Summer solstice: Everything you need to know about the longest day of the year

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

By Forrest Brown | CNNDo you yearn for long days and short nights? Then this could be the best day of the year for you and fellow sunlight seekers.The summer solstice is Wednesday, June 21. It’s the longest day and shortest night in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s also the first official day of summer.Our ancient ancestors certainly took note of the yearly occasion.  Some of their monuments were aligned to precisely mark the summer solstice light (looking at you Stonehenge).Pagan celebrations of the day carry on into modern times. Today’s events include gatherings at Stonehenge in England, the Midsummer Eve celebration in Sweden and Ivan Kupala Night in parts of Eastern Europe.The solstice is historically linked to fertility – both the plant and human variety – in destinations worldwide.The science of the solstice and its traditions have fascinated people for millennia.Summer solstice scienceIs summer solstice all over the world? No. It’s only in the Northern Hemisphere, where almost ...

Opinion: Global heat records are falling. A little panic might be in order

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

Modern humans generally think of panic as unhelpful, triggering stampedes at concerts, collapses at cookouts and endless hours of therapy. But our species evolved panic as a kind of superpower to avoid being eaten. In certain circumstances, and in measured doses, a little existential dread can still be helpful.Take our rapidly changing climate. The planet could easily set a record-high average temperature in 2023, especially with an El Niño weather pattern kicking in later this year. We have already suffered through the hottest early June on record, with global land temperatures briefly touching 1.5C above the pre-industrial average. Ocean temperatures this spring have been the hottest ever at this time of year, in records going back 174 years.Many people, including myself, have warned against panicking about such stunning new highs, given the temporary nature of El Niño’s boost. Even if we temporarily hit 1.5C of warming this year, it will still be theoretically possible to avoid l...

Here’s what James Cameron has said about diving to the Titanic wreckage

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

James Cameron isn’t just one of Hollywood’s most successful directors ever, he’s also a lover of deep sea exploration.Those paths have crossed in two of his biggest hits, “Avatar” and “Titanic.”While Cameron has not publicly commented on the current search for the Titanic tour OceanGate submersible with five people on board, he has personally made 33 dives to the wreckage site.CNN has reached out to representatives of Cameron for comment.Here’s what the director has said in the past about the deep sea exploration.His motivation for making ‘Titanic’Cameron told Playboy in 2009 that it wasn’t a love story aboard the doomed Titanic that inspired him to make his hit 1997 film.“I made ‘Titanic’ because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie,” he told the publication.“The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right,” he said. “When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movi...

Titanic explorer says two likely disaster causes are survivable, one is not

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

By Danielle Bochove | Bloomberg The submersible vessel that vanished during a dive to the Titanic shipwreck may have experienced one of the so-called trinity of disasters that all such expeditions seek to avoid: a hull breach, a fire or an entanglement.The first of those outcomes isn’t survivable, said Joe MacInnis, the renowned Canadian explorer and physician who has been to the Titanic site four times and is a close friend of one of the passengers aboard the missing Titan.“A hull failure is catastrophic,” MacInnis, 86, said in an interview Tuesday. “There is this kind of implosion, and it’s terrible.”However, the second two disasters can be managed. Crew train for fire emergencies and although challenging, all good subs have firefighting capabilities. And MacInnis has himself experienced what it’s like to be trapped by the doomed passenger ship — and to break free — more than 30 years ago.“It was my second dive to the Titanic,” he said. He was inside a Russian Mir submersible when...

Temecula councilmember walks off dais over LGBTQ Pride Month proclamation

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

When Temecula Mayor Zak Schwank started reading, City Councilmember Jessica Alexander started walking.Alexander, an outspoken Christian conservative, walked off the council dais during a recent meeting as the mayor began to read a proclamation honoring LGBTQ Pride Month in the city.Before she left, Alexander decried what she described as sexually explicit LGBTQ flags, including one she said promotes pedophilia.The proclamation, declared by the city’s Race, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Commission and presented to high school clubs supporting LGBTQ rights, is inappropriately aimed at children, said Alexander, who opposes the seven-member commission and criticized the Temecula City Council’s Pride Month proclamation in 2022.“Where is your moral and ethical line for each one of you as a city council member?” Alexander said to her colleagues during the council’s Tuesday, June 13, meeting.“If you don’t oppose this proclamation being given to minors, we are celebrating and encouraging s...

Opinion: Why baseball fans should root for gambling’s expansion

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

The next time your favorite baseball team negotiates a nine-figure deal for an injury-prone pitcher, blame the oddsmakers. They’ll soon be the source of cash upon which baseball depends to sustain the sport’s lofty pay packages.Both Major League Baseball and media companies are vying to control the next wave of sports gambling, integrating betting into streamed broadcasts of games. The expansion of betting will make some baseball traditionalists queasy. But wary fans should consider the alternative — higher costs to watch or attend games as both teams and media companies grasp for new sources of revenue.For years, baseball and other sports leaned upon regional television networks to pay them billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast games to the home fans. Now, cord-cutting is choking off that lucrative pipeline.The question over who should benefit from the switch became more urgent two weeks ago, when a court ordered Diamond Sports Group, a Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary...

Consumer tip: How to recognize text message scams

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:51 GMT

Scammers have expanded their schemes from emails to text messages, hoping their ease of use and speed of response will be too hard for potential victims to resist. The scammers are relying on you to not pay attention to details in these texts and respond with less thought. The scam texts usually have one thing in common — they impersonate a known entity like a bank or delivery service.Related ArticlesTechnology | Opinion: Daniel Ellsberg legacy inspires whistleblowers and truth-tellers Technology | Hackers threaten to leak Reddit data if company doesn’t pay $4.5 million, change pricing policy Technology | Oakland hit with class-action lawsuit over ransomware attack The Federal Trade Commission reports that in 2022 the top 5 text scams were copycat bank fraud prevention alerts; fake “free” gift offers that involved significant costs; fake package delivery problems; phony job offers; and false security alerts from Amazon. The response to...