Largest review of its kind confirms benefits of tai chi and other Chinese exercises
The Guardian
Traditional Chinese exercises such as tai chi can offer wide-ranging benefits for people with musculoskeletal disorders, improving physical function, pain, mental health, sleep quality and bone mineral density, according to the largest review of its kind.
More than 1.7bn people have musculoskeletal conditions worldwide. While prevalence varies by age and diagnosis, people of all ages in every country and every continent are affected.
Musculoskeletal conditions significantly limit mobility and dexterity, leading to early retirement from work, lower levels of wellbeing and reduced ability to participate in society. They are also the leading contributor to disability worldwide, with low back pain being the single leading cause of disability in 160 countries.
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Transistors Changed Everything. Here’s How They Work
Wired
LAST WEEK I revealed the sneaky physics behind the “joule thief,” an electrical circuit that lets you squeeze more energy out of seemingly dead batteries. The key, it turned out, was a clever pairing of a transformer and a transistor. But the transistor deserves its own headline, because it’s maybe only the most important invention of the 20th century.
Life would be completely different without transistors. For starters, there would be no personal computers or cell phones, so no Amazon, no video games, no dating apps, no messaging, no streaming, no social media, no Apple Pay or Google Maps, and no AI (hmm). Cars contain billions of transistors. They’re really everywhere. So what is a transistor?
The best way to understand this pivotal technology is to follow the evolutionary trail, all the way back to the electric relays used in telegraphs in the 1800s.
They Dedicated Their Lives to Teaching. Then the Deepfakes Started
Wired
FOR LUIS DESANTIAGO, a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, it started with a few text messages. On March 12, as he was working his other part-time job at a coffee shop, his phone lit up. A fellow barista said there was an AI photo circulating on social media. Her cousin wanted to know if it was DeSantiago.
At first, DeSantiago wasn’t worried—he figured that inappropriate photos violated TikTok’s community guidelines and were usually quickly removed.
“When I finally saw the image, that’s when it felt like a punch to the gut,” DeSantiago tells WIRED. Parts of it resembled a mirror selfie that he remembered taking at a job in college. But instead of his work uniform, he was wearing lingerie. And instead of standing normally, as he had been in the original photo, he was posing suggestively.
Ukraine, UK sign landmark new military AI partnership
Kyiv Independent
Ukraine and the United Kingdom signed a deal to join forces in developing new military artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on Aug. 24, according to a press statement from the U.K. Defense Ministry.
The announcement comes as U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham visits Ukraine to celebrate its Independence Day and reaffirm the Coalition of the Willing‘s support of Kyiv during the war.
The new agreement gives the U.K. access to Ukraine’s AI Avengers Labs, which contains a trove of real-world battlefield data for training AI defense systems.
“This groundbreaking partnership will bring together Ukraine’s unrivaled operational experience with Britain’s world-class AI ecosystem, giving us the opportunity to develop the technologies of the future, changing lives here in Britain and saving lives on the battlefield in Ukraine,” U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said.
As Russian drone incursions escalate, NATO weighs costs of shooting back
Kyiv Independent
For years, NATO countries have watched Russian drones breach their airspace, reluctant to shoot them down for fear of escalation. That restraint is now beginning to erode.
After Russian drones killed civilians in Romania, while Russian electronic jamming continued diverting Ukrainian drones toward critical infrastructure in the Baltic region, NATO fighter jets finally began shooting intruders down.
But using expensive air-to-air missiles to destroy cheap, one-way Geran and Gerbera drones is hardly a sustainable solution. Europe, therefore, faces a pressing challenge: building a new, cost-effective drone shield capable of protecting its eastern flank from persistent Russian incursions.
Supreme Court pauses lower court ruling on Trump’s mail voting order as hurdles loom
NPR
The Supreme Court has paused a lower court’s ruling that blocked key directives from President Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting for this fall’s midterm election in about two dozen states and Washington, D.C.
But with the start of absentee voting for the midterms just weeks away, legal and practical hurdles loom over whether the U.S. Postal Service and other federal agencies can finish carrying out Trump’s directives.
Released Monday, the order marks the latest court action in the legal fight over Trump’s March order — one of many efforts he has made to try to exert control over how elections are run.
In candid interviews, National Guard members speak out about D.C. deployment
NPR
As the sight of armed, uniformed National Guard troops became ubiquitous in Washington, D.C., over the past year, one voice has been notably absent from the public discourse around the deployment: the guard members themselves.
“I will say very frankly that the bad taste that this mission left in my mouth, it actually embarrasses me to be involved in any way,” one guard member who was part of the deployment for several months recently told NPR.
Thousands of National Guard members have been patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C., for more than a year now, in what has become President Trump’s largest and longest domestic military deployment. Their presence has become a common, and controversial, topic of conversation among D.C. residents and constitutional experts alike, raising concerns about the normalization of armed troops in a city for an extended period of time.
Ceasefire monitoring mission arrives in Democratic Republic of Congo
Al Jazeera
A monitoring mission has been deployed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to verify the formal ceasefire between the DRC’s army and M23 rebels said to be backed by Rwanda.
The United Nations and government sources said on Monday that the monitoring team had arrived to track the progress of the Qatari-mediated truce. Despite the agreement to end the hostilities, fighting has continued on the ground.
The UN said that the mission had deployed to Minembwe, located in the country’s mineral-rich South Kivu province, where intense fighting has persisted in recent months.
Ambush in South Sudan kills peacekeeping troops
Al Jazeera
An ambush has killed two United Nations peacekeepers in South Sudan.
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a statement issued on Monday that armed men had ambushed a patrol as it travelled toward Pajut in Jonglei state. The attack comes as fears persist that the country risks sliding into a full-scale civil war.
The identities and nationalities of those killed have not yet been disclosed. Three other peacekeepers were wounded, along with two South Sudanese police officers and two civilian staff attached to the mission.
The UN peacekeeping mission said it deployed a “Quick Reaction Force” to secure the area and support the emergency response.
Burnham accuses Russia of ‘outrageous threats’ against UK as he visits Kyiv
The Guardian
Andy Burnham has accused the Kremlin of “outrageous threats” against the UK as Russia warned of an escalation in tensions after the UK’s decision to present Ukraine with newly declassified blueprints to allow Kyiv to improve its production of long-range missiles.
Speaking in Kyiv, Burnham compared Ukraine’s struggle to Britain’s fight against Nazi Germany. “My nation kept the flame of European freedom alive in the 20th century, you hold that flame in the 21st,” Burnham said in a speech in front of St Sophia cathedral to mark the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence.
“Despite Russia’s outrageous threats to my country, we will continue our support for Ukraine.”
Mark Carney says Canada can’t accept US trade deal that would weaken French language
The Guardian
Mark Carney said on Monday that while American negotiators saw the French language in Canada as an “irritant … in Quebec, these are rights,” days after receiving widespread praise from political leaders for rejecting a US trade proposal that many perceived as weakening the country’s Francophone culture.
The prime minister’s remarks came hours after the US president, Donald Trump, showed little interest in retreating from the spat, posting on social media that Canada had been “ripping off the United States of America for years” and threatening a swath of new, economically devastating tariffs on cars and trucks.
Carney instructed his negotiators to walk away from trade talks last week. Tariffs on an array of Canadian products took effect over the weekend, affecting around 5% of Canada’s exports to the US, and Canada said it will retaliate in early September.
Father of sailor aboard USS Abraham Lincoln taken into US immigration detention
Reuters
WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – The immigrant father of a U.S. sailor on board the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which was deployed in the Middle East during the Iran war, was taken into federal immigration detention, the sailor said in a Facebook post.
U.S. Border Patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, originally from Nicaragua, after conducting a vehicle stop in Key West, Florida, a spokesperson of the Department of Homeland Security, of which Border Patrol is a part, separately said on Sunday.
From Tokyo to London, heatwaves send men to work in shorts
Reuters
WARSAW/LONDON, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Scorching summer temperatures have done what decades of dress-down Fridays have failed to do — get men to the office in shorts.
Japan’s capital led the way. This year the metropolitan government’s long-standing no-tie, no-jacket “Cool Biz” campaign took a step further by encouraging its staff to ditch long trousers, and even try T-shirts and sneakers.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, FarWestGirl, eeff, annetteboardman, Besame, and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to), Rise above the swamp, DoomandGloom, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.