In a pretrial hearing Tuesday at the Guantánamo Bay military tribunal, Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer for a potential witness in the war crimes case, accused government prosecutors of “outrageous” misconduct.

During the hearing for the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, Stafford Smith said the government attorneys had failed to release exculpatory information about Nashiri and made false statements in the course of their failure.

Stafford Smith, the lead counsel for Ahmed Rabbani, a former Guantánamo detainee who was tortured by the CIA, made the allegations after being called to the witness stand by Nashiri’s defense team.

Stafford Smith testified that the prosecutors had filed a brief that falsely said Rabbani had not recanted his initial testimony because, Rabbani said, it was made under torture. After raising the omission, Stafford Smith said, he felt it was not getting due attention and took the unusual step of reporting the prosecutors to their state bar associations.

“I’ve never, ever, in 40 years reported someone to the bar before this case,” Stafford Smith said in court. “I don’t like doing that, but I felt I was required to.”

Things aren’t looking good for me. I’m a few levels into Selaco, a new FPS out now on Steam, and I’m stuck behind a bar as a group of sci-fi soldiers unload their rifles and shotguns into my hiding spot. I’m also low on health. So yeah, a bad spot to be in. I take a deep breath and try something.

As smoothly as I can I slide out from behind the bar, toss an ice grenade toward the enemies, and then dash behind a wall. A moment later a boom happens and my foes are frozen. I spot a nearby propane tank, pick it up, and chuck it at them. A second later I shoot it and watch them blow up. On my screen, a notification lets me know I’ve killed enough of these bastards to unlock a new milestone and earned some new crafting materials to make my assault rifle even better. Sweet!

I then remember that the game I’m playing—that lets me do all this and more was built using a modified version of the ancient Doom engine and giggle. This kind of thing happens a lot in Selaco, a game that rarely feels like it’s built on old bones and dated tech, but instead feels like a polished and modern shooter with some slick retro visuals. What’s most surprising about Selaco isn’t that it’s developed in GZDoom, but that it might be one of the best shooters I’ve played in years.

Alexander Smith’s PowerPoint presentation doesn’t appear designed to court controversy. The slides, focused on declining maternal health in Gaza, cite public health data from the United Nations and World Health Organization. His employer, the U.S. Agency for International Development, had selected him to share it at the government agency’s Global Gender Equality Conference.

But just before the conference, an issue of contention emerged.

A single slide mentioned international humanitarian law in context of the health crisis in Gaza. USAID staff cited the slide and discussion of international law as potential fodder for leaks, documents and emails Smith shared with The Intercept show. Despite Smith’s willingness to make revisions, his presentation was eventually canceled. On the last day of the conference, he found himself out of a job.

“I thought it is really obscene that misinformation can go out freely out into the world [about Gaza], but I can’t talk about the reality of starving pregnant women,” said Smith, who worked as a contracted senior adviser at USAID on gender and material health. “We can’t even whisper about that in a conference on that topic.”

Just as summer vacation is getting underway, students at Columbia University in New York are left dealing with a raft of looming disciplinary charges from their participation in campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. But some students at the school said 11th-hour changes to disciplinary procedures are making it harder for students to defend themselves.

The May 29 CSSI message said that if students recruited a supporting person to accompany them to their hearings, accommodations could be made for them “outside of the hearing location or zoom breakout room,” with a five-minute break at the midpoint of hearings to consult with advocates. (CSSI did not respond to a request for comment.)

The law students raising the alarm about the message wrote, “No CSSI or University policy or precedent supports the prohibition of faculty advisors, deprivation of legal counsel, or arbitrary time limits on consultation with support persons.”

The letter also said the May 29 CSSI message required written statements to be submitted 24 hours before hearings, whereas CSSI’s own policies say statements can be submitted at or immediately after hearings.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux is due to receive a user interface for settings as well as management enhancements to make the platform more attractive to enterprise administrators.

While die-hard Linux fans are unlikely to be averse to editing the odd config file or two in order to tweak a configuration, having to dive into the .wslconfig file to fiddle with global settings could be somewhat jarring for users accustomed to a graphical user interface.

According to Craig Loewen, Microsoft Senior Product Manager for the Windows Developer Platform, a user interface is on the way that will break the settings out into categories in a familiar Windows interface if the idea of editing a text file seems daunting.

CATANIA, Italy May 31 (Reuters) - The European Commission on Friday approved Italian state aid for chipmaker STMicroelectronics (STMPA.PA), to build a 5 billion euro ($5.4 billion) plant in Catania, Sicily, to make specialist microchips that boost energy efficiency in electric cars.

Chipmakers across the globe are investing billions of dollars in new plants, encouraged by rising use of semiconductors in everyday devices as well as U.S. and EU subsidies aimed at keeping the West ahead of China in the race for cutting-edge technology.

The aid approved by the EU executive will be a direct grant of about 2 billion euros to support STMicro's production of chips made from silicon carbide, which is more energy-efficient than standard silicon.

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - A New York City hospital fired a Palestinian American Muslim nurse after she called Israel's war in Gaza a "genocide" during an acceptance speech for an award for her work with bereaved mothers who lost their children during pregnancy and childbirth.

A spokesperson of the hospital, NYU Langone Health, said on Thursday that labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr had previously been warned not to bring her views "on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace."

Jabr posted on Instagram that she was awarded on May 7, when she made her remarks, adding that she was handed a termination letter later in the month.

A career State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.

Stacy Gilbert, who served as a senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), sent an email to staff saying she was resigning because she felt the State Department had made the wrong assessment, The Washington Post reported, citing officials who read the note.

The report was filed in response to President Joe Biden issuing a national security memorandum (NSM-20) in early February on whether the administration finds credible Israel's assurances that its use of US weapons do not violate either American or international law.

The report said there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel on several occasions had used American-supplied weapons "inconsistent" with international humanitarian law, but said it could not make a definitive assessment - enough to prevent the suspension of arms transfers.

The next time you’re sitting through a company-wide meeting, half-listening to a leader drone on about updates or product launches (and hoping they don’t announce layoffs or budget cuts), remember this: at least they’re not rapping.

That’s what happened at Canva Create, a summit held in Los Angeles last week, in honor of Canva, a graphic design company known for helping non-designers produce good-enough flyers to advertise a yard sale or middle school talent show. In LA, Melanie Perkins, co-founder of the $40bn Australian brand, spoke to attendees about “brand-building, maintaining a strong company culture and scaling operations”, per Variety. (Something she knows a lot about: Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, who also spoke at the summit, is an investor and board member of the platform.)

After run-of-the-mill talks and discussions, the team decided to put on a show. Two presenters – and a cast of backup breakdancers, all of whom were most certainly regretting their respective life paths in the moment – performed a “rap battle” that they used to describe updates the tech company has made to the design app.

Sample bars included: “You can redesign your work / Canva got that glow up / We redesign errything / From the floor up.” On the topic of AI, which is known to steal art from actual human workers, one performer dropped: “We don’t train on your work without your permission / Safe and securrrrrr if that’s what you’re wishing.”

One of the largest investors in Israel’s bonds is not a hedge fund titan or a Wall Street trader, but an elected municipal comptroller investing the tax dollars of Palm Beach County.

Joseph Abruzzo, the overseer of investments for Florida’s largest county, holds $700mn out of his $4.6bn overall portfolio in so-called Israel bonds. These are special overseas debt issuances that have been scooped up by US state and local governments since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began.

“I’m ecstatic that we have these bonds in our portfolio,” Abruzzo told the Financial Times. He cited “the great returns, the safety, and the benefit to the taxpayers of Palm Beach County” of debt that is becoming an important, but also controversial, part of Israel’s efforts to finance a longer war.

Israel Bonds, the official underwriter for the debt, says it has sold more than $3bn of the debt worldwide, three times the annual average, since October 7 last year — the date of the Hamas assault that triggered the latest conflict. Local governments in the US including the states of Florida, Indiana and Ohio have been enthusiastic recent buyers.

The investments by Palm Beach, as well as Miami-Dade, Broward and other Florida counties, were made possible by a 2008 state law that added Israel bonds to US Treasuries, federal agency-backed debt, money market funds and other low-risk assets. No other foreign government bonds are allowed.

(Brussels) – The new EU directive adopted on May 24, 2024, requiring large companies to ensure human rights respect in their value chains signals a new era for corporate accountability, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch issued a question-and-answer document about the provisions, strengths, and weaknesses of the new law.

The document describes how the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) will require companies to conduct due diligence. Under the new law, large companies will be required to identify, mitigate, prevent, and remedy harmful human rights and environmental impacts in their operations and their value chains; that is, the company’s business partners involved in production, distribution, transport, and storage of the company’s products. It provides for regulatory oversight and the possibility of initiating civil lawsuits against corporations in European courts.

“The EU’s Due Diligence Directive represents a landmark shift from voluntary corporate responsibility to mandatory obligations for corporations to prevent and address human rights abuses,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “This groundbreaking law is a major victory for rights groups, trade unions, and civil society networks at the forefront of the fight for corporate accountability. Despite fierce opposition from powerful corporate lobbyists seeking to thwart or indefinitely postpone this law, this directive is a testament to the strength and perseverance of those advocating for justice and accountability in the corporate sector.”

More than a thousand Harvard students walked out of their commencement ceremony yesterday to support 13 undergraduates who were barred from graduating after they participated in the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard.

Asmer Safi, one of the 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters barred from graduating, says that while his future has been thrown into uncertainty while he is on probation, he has no regrets about standing up for Palestinian rights.