A call for more “mindful underparenting” from psychologist Darby Saxbe. “If you want to raise empathetic, imaginative children who can figure out how to entertain themselves, don’t keep their brains too occupied.” 💯

Father of the Duchess of Sussex was taken into custody near Tampa, US prosecutors said

Thomas Markle, father of the Duchess of Sussex, has been arrested by US federal agents in Florida on charges related to child sexual abuse material.

Markle, 82, was taken into custody near Tampa early on Friday, US prosecutors said.

There are more than 100,000 words and phrases that the tech giant has restricted its predictive text from completing, research shows

“Australia is a very bad place to question your sexuality on MDMA with NSA spies” might be a text you would wish to send to your friends, if you have had an extraordinarily complicated night out in Sydney.

But your iPhone won’t help you spell any of it if you try to swipe-type it – that is, by gliding a finger across a keyboard as opposed to pecking out a word.

He is the most powerful ruler ever – and his first biographer was crucified. What drew Edmund Richardson, winner of the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize, to his short tumultuous life?

He was the most powerful man in the world but he was brought down by one battle too many after a decade at the top. The story of Alexander the Great might be more than 2,000 years old, but it seems timely that a new biography of the ancient ruler won the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction just as President Trump took a battering in the US midterms. “This is a moment,” says its author Edmund Richardson, “where people are finding that there are limits to what unlimited wealth and power can do, and that humanity catches up with you, whether you like it or not. Alexander wants to transform the world – and he leaves it in ruins.”

Wearing a purple velvet jacket, purple scarf and matching socks, with a high forehead and corona of auburn curls, Richardson himself might have stepped out of an earlier age. It is hard to imagine anyone less like history’s favourite mob boss than this softly spoken professor of classics. We are having coffee at the offices of the PR company for the Baillie Gifford prize, the view of the City of London skyline from the floor to ceiling windows a reminder of 21st-century power and economics.

therealthings.com has added a photo to the pool:

This photograph easily makes it into my personal top 10 from our 2024 trip to Japan. And the reason? Rain. Yes, rain!

If there's one thing that perfectly captures that cyberpunk atmosphere I love so much, it's a rainy night in Tokyo. Just looking at this scene, I can almost hear a synthwave soundtrack kicking in.

A narrow backstreet, with a lone salaryman approaching in the distance, carrying a transparent umbrella. Perhaps he's just finished another long day at work, on his way to find a warm bowl of something delicious, maybe followed by a cold Asahi Super Dry to round off the evening.

Behind him, the elevated metro line stretches across the scene, with its concrete arches sheltering a row of restaurants. Their warmly illuminated signs and decorated entrances create a beautiful contrast with the dark, wet surroundings.

The foreground is filled with barrels, covered objects and tarpaulins, giving the alley that wonderfully lived-in, slightly cluttered character. And then there's the wet pavement, catching the reflections of the approaching salaryman and the surrounding lights.

Everything just seems to fall into place. The colours, the rain, the reflections, the lone figure and the layers of urban detail. It feels less like a photograph of an ordinary Tokyo street and more like a still from a science-fiction movie.

Perhaps that's why I love this kind of scene so much. It has that unmistakable late-night Tokyo atmosphere, somewhere between reality and the imagined world of an '80s cyberpunk movie. All that's missing is the soundtrack.
--
All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without written permission of the photographer!

© Marcus Antonius Braun
www.therealthings.com

Facebook | Instagram

--
Please only fave when you actually like the image.
Do not comment with images or awards, only text, thank you!

gnsk has added a photo to the pool:

Langdurige arbeidsongeschiktheid bij vrouwen steeg de afgelopen jaren, maar de redenen daarvoor waren lange tijd onduidelijk. Nieuw onderzoek toont nu een mogelijke oorzaak: twee jaar na de geboorte van een eerste kind is de WIA-instroom opvallend hoog bij vrouwen.

Partijleider Henri Bontenbal laat zich in de onderhandelingen over het Belastingplan zien als de grote verbinder. Daarmee profileert het CDA zich niet per se inhoudelijk. „CDA’ers vormen de brug. Maar het punt is: een brug zie je niet, daar loop je overheen.”

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

handwritten on slide, “Michelle, September 1970"

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

TAIZ (ANP/AFP) - Bij een aanval op een groentemarkt in het zuidwesten van Jemen zijn volgens de Houthi's zeker twintig mensen om het leven gekomen. Het zou gaan om een Saudische luchtaanval, waarbij meerdere raketten werden ingezet, aldus het door de Houthi's gecontroleerde persbureau Saba. Tien mensen zouden gewond zijn geraakt.

Het Saudische medium Ajel schrijft dat de lokale autoriteiten juist de Houthi's verantwoordelijk houden. Die separatistische groep, die al tijden het zuidwesten van Jemen onder controle heeft en het opneemt tegen het door Saudi-Arabië gesteunde regeringsleger, heeft naar eigen zeggen geen aanval uitgevoerd. De milities zeggen pogingen te verwerpen van personen die de aanslag aanwenden om de publieke opinie te sturen.

LAKELAND (ANP) - De vader van Meghan, de vrouw van de Britse prins Harry, is opgepakt in Florida voor het bezit van kinderporno. De lokale autoriteiten hebben de 82-jarige Thomas Markle aangehouden in zijn verzorgingshuis. Dat meldt de Amerikaanse nieuwssite CBS.

Eind oktober kwamen beschuldigingen aan het licht dat duizenden beelden van kindermisbruik in Markles woning in de Filipijnen waren aangetroffen. Zelf ontkende Markle eerder tegenover de Daily Mail dat hij dergelijke beelden in zijn bezit had.

Markle was in 2025 verhuisd naar de Filipijnen en was daar in ieder geval nog tot december, toen zijn been geamputeerd moest worden. Volgens mediaberichten is hij later naar een revalidatiecentrum in Florida verhuisd.

Meghan is al jaren vervreemd van haar vader. In een eerdere verklaring zei zij geraakt te zijn door het nieuws en te hopen dat mensen nu begrijpen waarom ze met haar vader heeft gebroken en waarom hij haar kinderen niet mag zien.

De zaak maakte veel los in het Verenigd Koninkrijk. De politie in Londen had nagelaten om informatie over mogelijk strafbaar gedrag van Markle door te geven aan relevante buitenlandse instanties. De informatie was al in 2019 per brief bij het korps binnengekomen, maar werd alleen doorgestuurd naar prins Harry en Meghan. De Londense politie deed onlangs uit eigen beweging een melding bij de Britse politiewaakhond IOPC over de manier waarop ze de situatie heeft afgehandeld.

Immediately after the UK banned a wide range of porn fantasies involving choking, breath-restriction, and relative roleplay, adult creators watched platforms remove hundreds of their videos — even when the creators thought they were in compliance with the law. These creators say they were blindsided by the removals, since the content didn’t seem to violate the law at all.

Creators are reporting one platform in particular, Clips4Sale, is purging content with little notice, “a precautionary measure.”   

Some creators who’ve contacted Clips4Sale to appeal these removals have shared screenshots online of the reply the platform sends: “At this time, we have implemented a general restriction on content availability in the UK to ensure compliance with applicable regulatory requirements,” Clips4Sale support replies, according to these screenshots, viewed by 404 Media. “This is a precautionary measure and does not necessarily indicate that your clips contain prohibited content or violate our policies. We are continuing to review affected content, and additional clips will be made available to UK buyers as they are reviewed and cleared.” 

Updates to the UK’s Crime and Policing Act went into force on Friday. The law criminalizes a list of sexual acts, including downloading or publishing choking and incest roleplay content. The law is vague and overbroad, criminalizing “strangulation or suffocation” and “certain types” of incest roleplay. There's a lot of confusion among sex workers and fans about what this encompasses, and seemingly could include various kinds of gagging, face sitting, and roleplay. Violating this law, either as someone in possession of noncompliant content or publishing it, carries a risk of up to five years in prison. 

UK-based creator Sophia Truee told me that Clips4Sale removed more than 75 percent of her content — 392 out of 506 videos — with the platform flagging it as requiring edits without noting what needed to change. Truee makes POV content where she’s alone talking to the camera. Many more creators have shared on social media that content that shouldn’t be in violation of the law has been caught in the crossfire on Clips4Sale specifically. 

In an email sent to creators on Thursday, the day before the law went into force, Clips4Sale said it would be reviewing “both the video content and its details, including titles, tags, keywords, and descriptions” of content that creators have uploaded to the site. It told creators no action was required. “Affected clips will be hidden automatically starting November 6. If you'd like to make a clip available in the UK again, you can edit the content or its details as needed and submit the changes for compliance review.” Approved content would go back up, the company said.

Another message from Clips4Sale on creators’ dashboards said: “As we gain further clarity on the regulatory requirements, we expect to be able to make additional content available again to UK users, wherever permitted. These restrictions apply only to the UK and will not affect your content's availability in other markets where it is permitted.” According to the law, however, if creators based in the UK possess that content, they’re still facing jail time.  

“Of course, we were all aware of the new Act coming in and prepared accordingly, but not for anything at this scale. We've had nothing since and they've been tweeting as normal,” Truee said. Clips4Sale launched in 2003 and caters heavily to fetish content. “It's a huge blow to this area of the industry, and I can only hope things will be communicated soon. We, as creators, understand how difficult it is to be a content site in this current climate, but communication has not been prioritized,” Truee said, noting that this is happening right before the holidays, with Black Friday being one of the most popular times for creators selling content. “For many, this will be devastating, as over 20 years of the work will have just been wiped.” 

Madame Caramel, another UK-based creator using Clips4Sale, posted on X that out of 900 clips she had available on the platform, she now has 198 left. Another creator, Goddess Kitty, wrote that the platform restricted 931 of her clips from UK audiences. “All of them [had] utterly NOTHING to do with the UK laws,” she wrote. There are many, many more creators across social media reporting that they’ve woken up to their clip sites gutted with no warning, even though their content wasn’t non-compliant by the letter of the law.

With the speed at which content has been purged en masse, and with some creators reporting instant rejections of content that should actually be compliant with the law, Clips4Sale may be auto-moderating with a very wide net, and sifting through reviews creators are now forced to send for legal content. This is something most social media platforms do to try to comply whenever over-broad laws or payment processor regulations hit. 

Clips4Sale did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Other platforms are also attempting to comply now that the law is in effect. LoyalFans has a notice on its homepage for fans addressing the new law. It says: “These changes may also apply to content you've purchased, downloaded, or saved privately on your devices. Non-compliant content in your Loyalfans account will be removed on November 5, with no further action required from your side. We encourage you to understand the new law and review any affected content you have downloaded, or stored privately, whether on your phone, computer, or cloud storage.” 

LoyalFans updated its terms of use on Thursday to include strangulation or suffocation, in its unacceptable content list, “including any content, whether real or simulated, that explicitly and realistically depicts a person strangling or suffocating another person, such as applying pressure to the neck or obstructing the nose or mouth,” the terms now say. “This content is prohibited regardless of whether the participants consent, and even if it is fantasy-based, roleplay, or digitally created.” Several creators using LoyalFans have posted on social media saying they’ve had hundreds of videos removed from their accounts on that platform, too.

JustForFans, an LGBTQ and kink content site, posted on X earlier this week that creators should review their content and use its new “restrict this content” option to keep it from being viewed by users in the UK. The platform also said that it would be scanning every new video upload for consent requirements and content restrictions. “If we find content that should be restricted in the UK, we will restrict it and you can review it in a new section of your Media Center called Restricted Content. The page will tell you what we found and give you options right on that page to fix it: re-word a post, replace a video with another video, delete the video, or tell us we are wrong, and why you believe we are wrong. A staff member will review your changes,” it said. 

The vagueness of the law, combined with the use of auto-moderation on sites like Clips4Sale, have come together to create a nightmare for creators. “This highlights the lack of protection sex workers and content creators have when laws aren't properly researched and clearly written. We do our very best to stay compliant and ensure everyone's safety by following the rules,” Truee said. “This highlights the unprecedented use of AI in moderation and the lack of clear instructions from the government.”