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The author said young people were increasingly marginalised in Europe’s ageing society and argued that democracy needed their passion. They suggested extending voting rights to 16-year-olds as a way to broaden what they described as a shrinking youth electorate. The post was made at Nova SBE University in Cascais. https://t.co/oZMbOfMKY6 #Juventude #Democracia #Voto16 #EU #PT

A group of engineers from Carnegie Mellon University has developed an artificial intelligence method that, by combining statistical recognition of visual patterns with the experience of expert curators, is able to attribute paintings to Rembrandt with 96% accuracy, thus contributing to the debate on the authenticity of works such as the mysterious 'Girl's Portrait' found in Maine. #IntelligenzaArtificiale #Arte #Rembrandt (translated)

According to the October update from Columbia University, the weekly deviation of sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region reached +3.3 °C, indicating an extraordinary intensity of the El Niño phenomenon, which could extend the day by approximately one millisecond. #ElNino #klima #věda (translated)

Hearing that university students in some courses in Norway are now being told that they have to report on HOW they used AI, because "everyone is using it, so if you don't admit to using it, that looks suspicious." This is the most top-down forced adoption of a technology I've ever witnessed.

𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 — 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭,𝟭𝟴𝟬-𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀 A political influence infrastructure operating across the United States has grown to a scale that now rivals — and by some measures exceeds — entire categories of traditional American journalism. NewsGuard's election tracker, updated on 13 October, says it has identified 1,180 partisan websites masquerading as independent local news organisations, including 21 launched during 2026. The phenomenon is commonly called “pink slime journalism”: publications that adopt the visual language, names and editorial conventions of local newspapers while being financed or operated by political or ideological interests. A site may look like an ordinary community publication, carry stories about local issues and use familiar journalistic formatting, while its political purpose or financial backing is difficult to find or disclosed only in a footer, advertising record or corporate filing. This is not one centrally directed disinformation operation. The 1,180-site figure encompasses competing organisations on different sides of American politics, using related techniques for different political objectives. The ecosystem includes long-established networks such as Metric Media, which has been extensively investigated by Columbia University's Tow Center, as well as newer election-focused projects associated with Republican and Democratic political organisations. One of the clearest 2026 examples is One Nation, a conservative advocacy organisation closely associated with the Senate Leadership Fund, the major outside group working to elect Republican senators. Investigations identified locally branded sites including Alaska Navigator, Maine Policy Updates, Ohio Pulse, Iowa Voice, Peach State Post and New Hampshire Daily. They presented themselves with descriptions such as “independent news” or a state's “premier news source”, while publishing material that consistently promoted Republican candidates or attacked Democratic opponents. In at least one case, the infrastructure went beyond partisan framing. Popular Information found that Alaska Navigator contained an article dated before the website's domain had been registered; the page's source code indicated that a WordPress dummy-content tool called FakerPress had been used. Other sites republished material originating with established news organisations, creating a mixture of genuine journalism and advocacy that can make the surrounding political content appear more credible. The other side of the political spectrum uses similar architecture. The American Independent Foundation and American Independent Media operate or support state-branded publications aimed at competitive electoral markets. Recent examples include The North Carolina Independent and The Maine Independent, with physical newspapers also sent directly to voters. Local journalists examining the publications found conventional newspaper elements — including recipes, crosswords and local-looking design — alongside overwhelmingly Democratic-aligned political coverage. The money demonstrates why the model matters. NewsGuard found that One Nation and the American Independent network spent at least $801,500 on Facebook and Instagram advertising during the first eight months of 2026 to place their articles in users' feeds. The North Carolinian alone was promoted with roughly $34,700–$46,700 in Meta advertising by late August, producing at least 3.6 million views, according to NewsGuard's analysis. Yet calling all of this “fake news” can obscure the more important mechanism. The most effective material does not necessarily have to be false. A political group can select favourable facts, omit countervailing evidence, quote one side disproportionately and present the result using the typography and conventions of independent journalism. The reader encounters something that resembles a newspaper article rather than an advertisement. The partisan origin of the message has effectively been laundered through the appearance of journalism. That problem now extends beyond human readers. In September, NewsGuard tested seven leading AI assistants using questions based on reporting from 12 partisan pseudo-local sites in six battleground states. Across 168 responses, the systems cited one of the tested “pink slime” sources in 48.2 per cent of answers. In 7.7 per cent, a pink-slime site was the only source cited directly in the answer. Only one response explicitly identified a cited source as partisan. Those figures require an important qualification: this was not a random test of all political questions. The prompts deliberately concerned topics that the 12 partisan outlets had already covered, so the 48.2 per cent figure cannot be interpreted as the probability that an arbitrary election query will produce a pink-slime citation. What the experiment demonstrates is something narrower but important: once such material exists and is indexed, major AI retrieval systems can treat it as a legitimate source without consistently communicating its political provenance. The environment in which this is happening makes the technique particularly powerful. Northwestern University's newly released 2026 State of Local News report says the United States now has fewer than 900 daily print newspapers, while 170 newspapers disappeared through closure or merger in the past year alone. As genuine local reporting contracts, political organisations have an opportunity to occupy precisely the information space that traditional newsrooms are abandoning. There is therefore no single mastermind behind Episode 23. Several names can, however, be attached confidently to specific organisations. Brian Timpone is a founder and central figure behind Metric Media. Alex Latcham is executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund and is publicly associated with the wider One Nation/SLF political infrastructure. Joe Conason is identified in tax filings as president of both the American Independent Foundation and American Independent Media. Democratic operative David Brock founded an earlier incarnation of the American Independent organisation, but he should not be described as the current operational controller of the 2026 network without additional evidence. These are organisational links, not evidence that any one of those individuals personally commissioned every article, advertisement or website. The central significance of the pink-slime ecosystem is therefore not a single spectacular lie. It is the industrialisation of source laundering: political persuasion packaged as familiar local journalism, amplified through paid social media and increasingly capable of entering search engines and AI-generated answers. 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘𝗦 1. NewsGuard — 2026 Elections False Claims Tracker, updated 13 October 2026. Primary source for the current 1,180-site count, the 21 sites launched in 2026 and the minimum $801,500 Meta advertising figure. NewsGuard https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-reports/2026-elections-misinformation-tracker/ 2. POLITICO Magazine / NewsGuard — “Pink Slime Is Infecting AI Chatbots Ahead of the Midterms”, 25 September 2026. Basis for the AI audit of 12 sites, seven chatbots and 168 responses. NewsGuard https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/09/25/midterms-partisan-ai-chatbots-01092138 3. Popular Information — Judd Legum, “Senate Republicans launch network of fake news sites”, 6 August 2026. Detailed investigation of One Nation's state-branded network, Meta advertising and the Alaska Navigator/FakerPress finding. popular.info https://popular.info/p/senate-republicans-launch-network 4. FactCheck.org — One Nation, 24 September 2026. Independent profile of One Nation, its relationship with Senate Leadership Fund and current leadership. FactCheck.org https://www.factcheck.org/2026/09/one-nation/ 5. Senate Leadership Fund — official About page. Primary-source confirmation of Alex Latcham's position as executive director and SLF's stated electoral mission. Senate Leadership Fund https://senateleadershipfund.org/about/ 6. WUNC — “Amid Senate race, partisan groups mimic news outlets”, 15 September 2026. Reporting on The North Carolina Independent and American Independent Foundation's newspaper-style voter outreach. WUNC News https://www.wunc.org/politics/2026-09-15/nc-senate-race-partisan-groups-mimic-news-outlets-newspapers 7. Portland Press Herald — “Who's behind The Maine Independent?”, 14 October 2026. Current investigation into American Independent's print and digital pseudo-local-news operation. The Portland Press Herald https://www.pressherald.com/2026/10/14/whos-behind-the-maine-independent-newspaper-landing-in-voters-mailboxes/ 8. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — American Independent Media. IRS-derived records identifying current officers, including President Joe Conason. ProPublica https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/881571567 9. Columbia Journalism Review / Tow Center — “How ‘Pink Slime’ Publishers Are Weaponizing FOIA”, 5 February 2026. Current investigation describing Metric Media's nearly 1,200-site infrastructure and its operational methods. Columbia Journalism Review https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/pink-slime-networks-are-weaponizing-foia.php 10. Columbia Journalism Review — “Pink Slime Never Went Away”. Reporting identifying Brian Timpone as founder of Metric Media and documenting the network's continuing political role. Columbia Journalism Review https://www.cjr.org/analysis/pink-slime-journalism-never-went-away.php 11. Northwestern University, Medill Local News Initiative — State of Local News 2026, 13 October 2026. Current data on the contraction of genuine US local journalism, including newspaper closures and the remaining number of daily newspapers. Local News Initiative https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2026/report/ 𝗞𝗘𝗬𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗦 #Disinformed #Disinformation #Propaganda #InfluenceOperations #UnitedStates #USElections #Midterms2026 #PinkSlime #PinkSlimeJournalism #PseudoNews #LocalNews #LocalJournalism #SourceLaundering #Astroturfing #PoliticalAdvertising #DarkMoney #OneNation #SenateLeadershipFund #AmericanIndependent #MetricMedia #BrianTimpone #AlexLatcham #JoeConason #DavidBrock #Meta #Facebook #Instagram #ArtificialIntelligence #AIChatbots #ElectionSecurity #ElectionIntegrity #InformationIntegrity #MediaLiteracy #OSINT #DigitalPropaganda #PoliticalInfluence #LocalNewsCrisis

AFRICA DAILY REPORT — 27 OCTOBER 2026 1. DR Congo — Ebola misinformation linked to fatal attack on health workers Importance / classification: 10/10 — Critical Reuters reported on 26 October that youths armed with machetes and batons attacked two community Ebola-awareness workers in Bafwasende, Tshopo province, killing an experienced nurse and injuring a colleague. Witness accounts say the attackers accused the workers of contaminating water and spreading the virus. Local healthcare staff sought police protection. Congo's public health institute reported 9,964 confirmed Bundibugyo Ebola cases and a case-fatality rate of about 48.6%. Source: Reuters, 26 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/protesters-kill-longtime-nurse-treating-ebola-patients-congo-2026-10-26/ 2. Nigeria / Switzerland — Ebola patient medically evacuated to Geneva Importance / classification: 10/10 — Critical A woman diagnosed with Bundibugyo Ebola in Abuja was evacuated on 26 October to Geneva University Hospitals, while her husband, a Swiss diplomat and close contact, was admitted to isolation in Zurich. Nigerian officials said the patient's condition had improved. Africa CDC specialists are investigating where she became infected; similarities between her virus and Kenya's first case do not establish direct transmission. Source: Reuters, 26 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigerias-ebola-patient-medically-evacuated-country-arise-tv-reports-2026-10-26/ 3. Kenya — First 20 Ebola contacts complete quarantine without symptoms Importance / classification: 9/10 — Very High Kenya released 20 contacts of its first Ebola patient after 21 days of symptom-free monitoring. Health officials reported nine confirmed infections, including two deaths; seven patients were stable and receiving treatment. Another 98 contacts remained under quarantine, with phased releases expected from 3 November. Officials cautioned that the milestone does not end the containment effort. Source: Reuters, 26 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kenya-releases-first-ebola-contacts-quarantine-milestone-containment-efforts-2026-10-26/ 4. Sudan — Drone attacks disable electricity across four southeastern states Importance / classification: 10/10 — Critical Sudan's state electricity operator said drone strikes damaged substations and cut power in Sennar, Al Qadarif, White Nile and Gezira states. The operator attributed the attacks to the Rapid Support Forces, which had not commented; Reuters could not independently verify responsibility. Damage to the power network threatens healthcare and other essential services. Source: Reuters, 26 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/drone-strikes-cut-power-across-southeast-sudan-operator-says-2026-10-26/ 5. Sudan — US and international partners warn of worsening famine risk Importance / classification: 10/10 — Critical In a joint statement reported early on 27 October, the United States and other governments warned that Sudan's food-security situation was deteriorating and urged all parties to permit humanitarian access, including cross-border and air routes into Darfur. The countries called for more funding and protection for aid workers. The appeal follows UN-backed warnings of severe hunger and growing famine risk. Source: Reuters, 27 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-dozens-countries-warn-sudan-famine-risk-urge-aid-2026-10-27/ 6. Algeria / Niger — Algiers confirms plans for an overseas troop deployment Importance / classification: Political/security development — Neutral coverage Algeria's presidency said it would send army units to Madama in northern Niger to protect energy and economic interests, following parliamentary authorisation. The government did not disclose troop numbers or a deployment date. The move is linked to regional security and energy cooperation, including the proposed Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, and would be Algeria's first foreign military deployment since 1973. Source: Reuters, 26 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/algeria-president-deploy-army-units-niger-protect-energy-economic-interests-2026-10-26/ 7. Egypt / Saudi Arabia — Parliament authorises potential military assistance Importance / classification: Political/security development — Neutral coverage Egypt's parliament approved a request allowing President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to take measures in support of Saudi Arabia amid intensified Houthi attacks. The decision creates an authorisation for possible assistance; it does not itself confirm that Egyptian troops have deployed. Cairo has previously said its role would focus on defending Saudi territory rather than attacking Yemen. Source: Africanews / Associated Press, 26 October 2026 https://www.africanews.com/2026/10/26/egypt-approves-military-support-for-saudi-arabia-amid-escalating-houthi-attacks/ 8. Kenya / Tanzania — Rights groups condemn reported abduction of Tanzanian critic Importance / classification: Political/human-rights development — Neutral coverage Human-rights groups condemned the reported abduction in Kenya of Tanzanian opposition activist Twaha Mwaipaya. Amnesty International said he was taken from a taxi near Nairobi on 25 October and urged authorities to establish his whereabouts. Opposition representatives alleged a politically motivated operation; responsibility has not been established. The case has renewed concern about cross-border repression and protection of exiles. Source: Africanews / Associated Press, 26 October 2026 https://www.africanews.com/2026/10/26/human-rights-activists-condemn-alleged-abduction-of-tanzanian-govt-critic/ 9. Kenya — Highway bus collision kills 24 and prompts vehicle inspections Importance / classification: 9/10 — Very High A collision between a bus and a truck on the Nairobi–Mombasa highway killed 24 people and injured about 24 others. Authorities cited an overtaking manoeuvre as the apparent cause. Kenya's road-safety agency called for the country's traffic-death toll to be treated as a national emergency, while President William Ruto ordered inspections of public-service vehicles. Source: Africanews / Associated Press, 26 October 2026 https://www.africanews.com/2026/10/26/national-emergency-24-dead-in-kenya-bus-crash-near-site-of-previous-fatal-accident/ 10. Libya — Government says international airspace restrictions have been lifted Importance / classification: 8/10 — High Libya's transport ministry said International Civil Aviation Organization restrictions dating from 2015 had been lifted, following a decision issued on 23 October. The ministry reported increased applications for transit permits and expects additional airspace revenue. The decision could improve aviation connectivity, although practical implementation and the pace of commercial airline returns remain to be seen. Source: Reuters, 26 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/libya-says-international-aviation-restrictions-lifted-after-11-years-2026-10-26/ #Africa #AfricaNews #TopNewsOfAfrica #AfricaDailyReport #AfricanAffairs #Nigeria #Ebola #EbolaOutbreak #PublicHealth #MedicalEvacuation #Switzerland #Geneva #AfricaCDC #DRCongo #Sudan #SudanCrisis #SudanFamine #FoodSecurity #HumanitarianCrisis #HumanitarianAid #ClimateChange #Egypt #SaudiArabia #MilitaryCooperation #MiddleEastSecurity #RegionalSecurity #AfricanPolitics #AfricanGeopolitics #AfricaToday #wrldorg

The author said they had addressed students at Cairo University and that young people’s knowledge, energy and creativity gave them hope. They added that societies had a responsibility to provide young people with education, decent work and opportunities, as well as the freedom to think and speak. #CairoUniversity #YouthEmpowerment #Education #EG

First they erased a ‘Protect the Dolls’ t-shirt from Strictly Come Dancing. Now they’ve erased Pride badges from University Challenge. The BBC are saying that our visibility as LGBTQ people is a political issue. Meanwhile they’ve commissioned a 2-part series on JK Rowling. Impartial? My arse!

THE “BATTLE OF CERIGNOLA (1503)” ON “POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY USA” (by LUCIANO MAGALDI SARDELLA) SOURCE 1: https://popular-archaeology.com/author/sardella/ SOURCE 2: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/the-2026-battlefield-archaeology-of-the-battle-of-cerignola-1503/ __________________________________________________________________ CERIGNOLA (FG) — On 28 April 1503, at sunset, a shallow trench cut through the vineyards outside Cerignola rendered heavy cavalry obsolete. For five centuries its exact position has been merely conjectured, its archaeology ignored, its most important sources never translated into English. We are on the Puglian Tablelanda, a corridor of battles for two thousand years: from Cannae in 216 BC to Frederick II’s falconry from Torre Alemanna. Cerignola, at that time, was not a town but a rural hamlet of 350 families at 120 metres above sea level, guardian of the Mena of the Dogana delle Pecore, the great customs system of transhumance that financed the Kingdom of Naples. It was for its possession that the battle was fought. Opposed, two worlds. Louis d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, Viceroy of Naples for Louis XII, thirty years old, splendidly armed, certain of victory. On the other side, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Great Captain, who on 27–28 April marches from Barletta with some 9,000 exhausted men and decides to entrench himself upon a low ridge. In front of it he has deepened what was already there: not an invention, but an agrarian ditch. The French gendarmes, the last heirs of the mediaeval knight, lower their lances and never reach the line. From behind an embankment reinforced with vine stakes, more than 1,000 Spanish arquebusiers open fire. Nemours falls, almost certainly the first European army commander to die by a portable firearm. With him dies the cavalry charge as a dominant tactic. And here lies the scandal denounced by the article: no cartographer of the seventeenth or eighteenth century ever mapped the field. No memorial stone recalls it. It is not protected as a cultural landscape under the Code of Cultural Heritage. Every deep ploughing of the Tavoliere, standard practice since the Bourbon reforms, destroys an archaeology never recorded. Yet the perimeter is reconstructable. By cross-referencing sixteenth-century descriptions of “slopes covered with vineyards fifteen miles north of the Ofanto” with the Via Traiana, the engagement zone is a rectangle of 3–4 sq km to the north-east of the present settlement. With ISPRA’s 1m DTM LiDAR, anomalous linear depressions could be revealed, and the lower fill of a 2–3 metre ditch, beneath the ploughed layer, is still legible by magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar. Why have we arrived so late? Not for lack of sources, but for lack of translation. The Comune di Cerignola and the Centro Studi e Ricerche Torre Alemanna of Prof. Matteo Stuppiello, who in 1978 obtained the first monumental protection for Torre Alemanna, have digitised a corpus that has never entered Anglophone historiography. Here are the 3 pillars: 1. The letter that still smells of powder. The “Letter of Consalvo da Cordova to the Sovereigns of Spain of 29 April 1503,” edited by Stuppiello in 2003 and updated in 2025 on comune.cerignola.fg.it/biblioteche-digitali. A manuscript page written at Cerignola the day after the battle, “rich in flashes, twilight gleams, and gunfire.” Not a polished chronicle à la Giovio, but a field dispatch: the exhaustion of the night march, the decision to entrench upon arrival, the recovery and honourable burial of Nemours, the intact capture of the French artillery. 2. The graffito, a monument within the monument. In the fourteenth-century church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, known as the Incoronatella, on the Via Trinitapoli Vecchia, where tradition holds the body of Nemours was taken. On the triumphal arch, a graffito of 1503 gives in quasi-notarial form the date, sixth indiction, Friday at the twenty-third to twenty-fourth hour. It truly was a Friday, as confirmed by Cappelli’s perpetual calendar. Deciphered in 1995 by Prof. Francesco Magistrale, Latin palaeographer at the University of Bari, in La Battaglia di Cerignola (1993) and in the municipal monograph S.M. delle Grazie (1999). It is now fading through damp and neglect. 3. The cadastre that explains the ditch. The Apprezzo of 1672 preserved in the Archivio di Stato di Napoli, fondo Pignatelli Aragona Cortes, Scanzia 63, fasc.1: “At the time of the battle, dense vineyards covered the hill reaching down to the plain, and were clearly separated from the rest of the countryside by a not very deep ditch”. Córdoba did not improvise; he adapted. This is confirmed by the Giustiniani cadastres: 277 hearths in 1532, 699 in 1595. The landscape of 1503 was one of intensive horticulture, not the deep-ploughed cereal monoculture of today. To these are added the first monograph by Vincenzo Buonassisi, La Battaglia di Cerignola (1908, died at Via Fanfulla 10 on 27 June 1928), and the first modern military analysis by Piero Pieri, “Consalvo di Cordova e la battaglia di Cerignola”, Archivio Storico Pugliese 1952, which 30 years before the Anglophone rediscovery of “pike-and-shot” defined Cerignola as an engineered killing ground. While Cerignola forgot, others remembered. The “Regimiento de Infantería Cerinola n.42”, later “Fuerteventura n.56”, bore the name of Cerignola until the twentieth century. Its coat of arms, described in Heráldica e Historiales del Ejército, Tomo V (Madrid, 1981): argent field, a dying white swan entangled in a hedge, a gold mural crown, with scroll “Cerignola”. Dossier officially transmitted on 30 April 1986, prot. 4565/509, by the Servicio Histórico Militar in Madrid to the Centro Torre Alemanna through Col. Alessio Antonutti and Gen. José Cifuentes. And in Amsterdam, in the Rijksmuseum, the anonymous commemorative bronze medal: Hercules with lion-skin and club and Janus with keys beside an eagled coat of arms, legend “Consalvus Agidarius… Janum clausit”, on the reverse a battle scene “Consalvi Agidari Victoria de Gallis ad Cannas” — an error by the artist who confuses Cerignola with Cannae. It belonged to Mrs J.M. van Gelder-Nijhoff, donated in 1885. The author’s conclusion is unequivocal: Gonzalo’s ditch is the most consequential earthwork in European military history. It inaugurates the infantryman armed with a firearm and conditions the Mediterranean for 160 years. It may still be there, infilled, ploughed over, invisible to the naked eye but accessible to a magnetometer. It is not a question of mediaeval archaeology but of the will to protect.

James Orr - Reform UK's ex policy chief - has stepped down from management roles at Cambridge university following media scrutiny The FT reported last month about complaints from two students. Orr has denied any wrongdoing and said his decision was voluntary as.ft.com/r/adb55c2d-2...