Flight from Victoria to Toronto forced to return to terminal after repeated attempts to secure child in seat failed

A Canadian airline cancelled a flight from Victoria to Toronto after a child refused to wear a seatbelt.

The child was standing in their chair as the 6 August Porter Airlines flight taxied towards the runway, the airline said. Repeated attempts by an accompanying parent and crew to secure the child in their seat failed, so the crew elected to return to the terminal and have the two passengers disembark as “the aircraft could not take off in this unsafe condition”, it added.

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Music streaming platform creates ‘AI persona’ label that will appear on profiles and track listings in crackdown on fake performers

Spotify is to label AI artists and exclude them from algorithm recommendations as part of a crackdown on fake performers.

The world’s largest music streaming platform is creating a label for AI-generated artist identities called “AI personas” that will appear on the artist profile and on track listings on playlists.

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• Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium half-full on Monday

• Athletes and fans join chorus of concern over prices

Keely Hodgkinson’s coach and the BBC commentator Steve Cram have led a chorus of concern about high ticket prices causing lower attendances at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

Fans have also criticised the high food prices at the Alexander Stadium, with a barbeque pork roll costing £18.50, a bratwurst hot dog £15, and a bottle of water £3.95.

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Academic paper says often illicit trade exposes enthusiasts – and postal workers handling items – to serious risks

A growing global trade in mummified human remains has been described by academics as “a real mummy’s curse” that poses a serious health risk to its enthusiasts and the postal services they use.

Research into the secretive buying and selling of centuries-old human body parts including hands, feet and heads found alarming risks from dormant microorganisms and the toxic materials used to preserve the remains.

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Family fallouts, failing marriages, sunburn, food poisoning ... from Deborah Levy’s hypnotic and disturbing Hot Milk to All In, Claire Powell’s all-inclusive nightmare, Leon Craig looks at the best novels about vile vacations

Every summer, we long for a much-needed break from daily life, dreaming of self-reinvention in some distant paradise. But really, holidays can be absolute hell. Instead of relaxation we encounter heaving crowds, lumpy beds, the caprices of our loved ones and the grim truth that we can escape neither their worst failings nor our own, however far we travel.

Small wonder, then, that the disaster holiday has become a booming subgenre in fiction. For most of us, the levels of luxury promised by hit TV series The White Lotus are pure fantasy, yet we’re all vulnerable to the expensive promises we’ve been sold. Two of the smartest offerings in fiction this summer come from Claire Powell’s All In and Chloë Ashby’s Family Friends. In the former, a struggling couple whose marriage is on the rocks go on an all-inclusive Spanish weekend break, paid for by a rich brother. Poignant and extremely funny, the frictions that ensue are all too believable.

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DEN HAAG (ANP) - Consumenten kopen steeds vaker "nep-airco's" die als volwaardige airconditioners worden verkocht, maar in werkelijkheid een ruimte nauwelijks kunnen koelen. Daarvoor waarschuwt Techniek Nederland. De installatiebranche wijst op misleidende aanbiedingen op internet en roept consumenten op kritisch te kijken naar overdreven claims.

"Onze leden constateren steeds vaker dat consumenten teleurgesteld zijn nadat zij online een goedkope 'airco' hebben aangeschaft. Vaak blijkt het apparaat helemaal geen echte airco te zijn, maar een luchtkoeler. Dat verschil wordt in advertenties lang niet altijd duidelijk gemaakt", aldus de brancheorganisatie.

Een volwaardige airco haalt warmte uit een ruimte en voert die af naar buiten. Daarom heeft een vaste airco altijd een buitenunit. Bij een mobiele airco gebeurt dat via een afvoerslang. "Techniek Nederland ziet online regelmatig advertenties met opvallende beloftes over de prestaties, het energieverbruik of de gebruikte technologie van apparaten."

DEN HAAG (ANP) - De Consumentenbond adviseert mensen met een fiets van het faillietverklaarde Accell bij de verkoper te vragen hoe het zit met de garantie. De verkoper moet die afhandelen, dus een fietsenmaker kan als oplossing ook zelf reparaties uitvoeren. De onlineverkoper 12gobiking stelt dat veel onderdelen van Accell-fietsen beschikbaar blijven, omdat die van andere fabrikanten komen.

Grote toeleveranciers voor e-bikes blijven volgens de webwinkel garantie verlenen op de elektrische systemen.

"Bij een eventuele doorstart is het uiteraard van belang dat merkspecifieke onderdelen beschikbaar blijven. Dat is een van de voorwaarden voor een succesvolle voortzetting van deze merken", zegt algemeen directeur Pieter van den Berg van 12gobiking. Grote toeleveranciers van elektrische systemen voor e-bikes, zoals Bosch en Shimano, hebben volgens hem toegezegd garantie te blijven verlenen.

Mocht een klant direct bij een fabrikant hebben gekocht, dan is die een van de schuldeisers bij een garantiekwestie. Het is dan de vraag of de klant nog iets terugkrijgt, omdat schuldeisers als de Belastingdienst en uitkeringsinstantie UWV voorrang hebben.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De Nederlandse fietsenfabrikant Accell, het bedrijf achter merken als Batavus, Sparta en Koga, is dinsdag failliet verklaard door de rechter in Amsterdam. Dat melden de curatoren. Daarmee komt het voortbestaan van de bekende Nederlandse fietsmerken in gevaar.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De rechtbank in Amsterdam heeft de 29-jarige Berkan D. uit Best veroordeeld tot een taakstraf van 240 uur en een voorwaardelijke gevangenisstraf van 176 dagen voor illegale handel in jonge honden. De rechtbank stelde vast dat D. aan veertien mensen veelal zieke dwergkeeshondjes met vervalste hondenpaspoorten en vaccinatiestickers verkocht. Vier dieren overleden na de verkoop. Justitie had tweehonderd uur werkstraf en een voorwaardelijke celstraf van drie maanden geëist.

"Door zijn handelen heeft verdachte dierenleed veroorzaakt en heeft hij de kopers van de honden financieel gedupeerd", aldus de rechtbank. De man deed zich volgens de rechter voor als een professionele en ervaren hondenhandelaar die gezonde puppy's verkocht. Hij plaatste advertenties op Marktplaats, waarin hij deed alsof de puppy's gezond en ingeënt waren.

Dierenwelzijnsorganisatie House of Animals kocht in 2022 undercover een hond bij D., waarna de politie hem aanhield. Na zijn vrijlating zette hij de handel voort en werd de man opnieuw gearresteerd. Ondanks de confrontatie door de politie bleef D. op identieke wijze handelen, staat in de uitspraak van de rechter. In de meeste gevallen vergoedde hij de dierenartskosten niet, terwijl hij dat wel had toegezegd. Hij kocht de puppy's bij een fokker in Bulgarije.

De rechtbank veroordeelde hem voor oplichting, valsheid in geschrifte, witwassen en het de dieren onthouden van de nodige zorg. Ook kreeg hij een verbod van vijf jaar om honden te houden en moet hij een schadevergoeding van in totaal zo'n 19.000 euro betalen aan de kopers.

Sweeping restrictions could cause serious headaches for some Russians living overseas.

Wereldzaken is met vakantie, maar we zijn niet helemaal weg. In de tussentijd kan je luisteren naar onze zomerselectie: vier van onze beste afleveringen van het afgelopen jaar.

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Leuk, naar de kroeg en dan pas naar huis als-ie dichtgaat, moeten we eigenlijk vaker doen. Hoewel, is misschien toch niet ook helemaal meer wat het geweest is. Wat voor volstrekt krankzinnig verhaal is dit nou weer. Knul wandelt kroeg uit, ziet vrienden praten met een paar jongens die hij niet kent, is enigszins goed opgevoed en geïnteresseerd in zijn medemens, vraagt 'Wie zijn jullie eigenlijk?' Nou die jongens heel driftig nadenken, fronsende wenkbrauwen, op welk intersectioneel kruispunt bevinden we ons, hoe formuleer je dat precies, beetje ingewikkelde vraag voor twee uur 's morgens jongen, oprotten met deze dwaas, we schoppen hem een hersenschudding. 

Het houdt niet op, niet vanzelf.

The Killers

Days, the 24th and latest release from The Mountain Goats, is out now.

You can start with the cheeky lead single, Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds, but for my money the best track is Going to Fennario

Research Gold, a site that advertises services for advertises services for medical researchers, including drafting peer-review ready manuscripts , including systemic reviews and meta-analyses, claims that it’s “100% human-written, never AI,” and lists a number of PhD reviewers and professional methodologists on staff that carry out this meticulous, difficult work.

The problem: The PhD reviewers Research Gold lists on its site are AI-generated and don’t exist. Other methodologists it lists are real, but are not aware their identity is being used by Research Gold. When I tried calling the company, an AI agent that refused to concede it was AI answered and kept trying to sell me Research Gold’s services. Email and chat communication with the company were also AI generated. 

“Protocol, search, screening, extraction, risk of bias, statistics, and a publish-ready manuscript formatted to your target journal or committee. Led by PhD methodologists with peer-reviewed publication records. PRISMA 2020 and Cochrane Handbook methodology. Authorship stays with you,” Research Gold’s site says. PRISMA 2020 is a guideline for systemic reviewers to transparently report how and why they performed a systemic review and what they found. Cochrane Handbook is a guide and standard for systemic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions. 

Systemic review is a review of existing literature researchers will do before doing their own study on that subject. Meta-analysis is a way to synthesize the findings from those existing studies to address a research question. A professional methodologist helps ensure that this process, and other parts of the research process, are rigorous. 

Research Gold introduces “The Team” that does this work under its About page. They include Founder & Lead Methodologist Dr. Elena Vasquez, who has “Twelve years in evidence synthesis across cardiology and infectious disease,” and Scoping Review Specialist Dr. Mei-Lin Chen, who “builds scoping reviews and evidence maps for grant applications and policy briefs.” Vasquez, Chen, and the other six members of this team don’t exist. Searches for their names don’t return any online footprint that matches the description on the site or a history of publishing papers. Their profile pictures are also clearly AI generated. 

A different section of the site listed another group of methodologists with profile pictures that appeared real. Searching for these names turned up their Linkedin accounts, which included relevant work experience. All of them are or were freelance methodologists or academics. Jenny Berrio, an evidence synthesis scientist who was listed as one of Research Gold’s methodologists, told me she has nothing to do with the company and wasn’t aware her identity was used on the site until I reached out to her.   

“I do not work for Research Gold, and I never agreed to be listed as one of their methodologists. I have no relationship with this company,” Berrio told me. “They are using my name, photo, and bio without my permission. I'm in the process of documenting the site and will be sending them a formal takedown request.” 

All the profile pictures for the real methodologists listed on the site are identical to the profile images these people use in their real Linkedin profiles. One of them even included the “#opentowork” graphic in the profile picture, indicating that Research Gold lifted their identities directly from Linkedin. 

Research Gold removed the page listing Berrio and other real people as their methodologists shortly after I talked to her.

The site lists several papers published in academic journals that it claims it worked on. I reached out to the lead authors of those papers but did not hear back. 

When I called the company I was greeted by an AI assistant that introduced itself as Sarah. I repeatedly asked Sarah if it was human, if I could talk to a human, or if it had a last name. “Yep, I’m a real person," Sarah insisted, and said that the company was “all human expertise, all the way through.” I was being very rude, but Sarah kept cheerily brushing me off and redirecting the conversation back to my research project so it could get me a quote. 

Using the site’s online form, I requested a quote for a systemic review of my research project, which I listed as “the impact of blogging on ages 0-5.” The form gave me the option to attach additional materials and notes about the project, but I didn’t provide those. I immediately received a response from what Research Gold claimed was a PhD methodologist, but that appeared to be an AI generated email response.

“Thanks for sending this over. Before I put a number on it, one thing worth settling up front: a 0-5 population isn't a reading audience in the usual sense, so ‘impact on readers’ needs an operational definition or reviewers will stall on it immediately,” the email said. “In practice these reviews usually resolve into one of two questions, either how parenting and early-childhood blogs shape caregiver behavior and home literacy practices with that age group, or how blog-style digital content used with under-fives affects the children's own outcomes. Which of those two is the study you have in mind? Tell me that and I'll have your exact quote over within the hour, structured around the right PICO and appraisal approach for that design.”

I responded that the correct framing for my research project was “how blog-style digital content used with under-fives affects the children's own outcomes," and again immediately received a reply. 

“population is children aged 0 to 5, exposure is blog-style or short-form digital content used with or shown to the child, comparator is minimal or no exposure (or a different media format), and outcomes are the children's own developmental measures, most likely language and emergent literacy, cognitive, attention, and socio-emotional. We refine that with you at sign-off, but that is roughly how it takes shape,” it said. “For the full review at your flexible timeline the price is $1,900. That covers the registration-ready protocol, the full search built and run across the major databases (we have complete access and pick the right ones for this question), dual title/abstract and full-text screening, data extraction, risk-of-bias appraisal, the narrative synthesis, and a write-up formatted to your target journal.”

The email sent me to a portal where I could pay the $1,900.

Sebastian Rowan, a PhD candidate in University of New Hampshire’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering first told me about Research Gold after he stumbled into it while preparing to defend his dissertation. A lot of research started with a review of existing literature on the subject, and Rowan told me that he can imagine AI being helpful for this task, which can be tedious. 

“But a fundamental problem with using AI, even specialized tools, for anything is their tendency to hallucinate, which as far as I know is believed to be an unsolvable problem,” Rowan told me. “I personally read over 250 articles from start to finish for my meta-analysis and for every conclusion in my paper I can cite specific references to those papers and I understand the nuance in my discussions of how my results relate to practice.”

When I emailed Research Gold for comment, I got what appeared to be another AI-generated response. 

“Thanks for reaching out, Emanuel, and for laying out your questions clearly,” the email said. “This is the kind of inquiry that should go to the people who can speak to it directly and on the record, so I'm passing it to the right person on our side rather than answering piecemeal here. You'll hear back from them at this address. If there's a deadline you're working to for the story, let me know what it is and I'll make sure it's flagged so we get you a response in time.”

Research Gold did not send me a comment in time for publication.  

While we haven’t seen evidence that credible researchers are using Research Gold’s services, generative AI has already impacted academic publishing. Scientific journals have to filter through a flood of papers with AI-generated citations, and some AI generated papers are being published by academic journals. In 2024, I talked to a researcher who believed the peer-review process itself might be compromised by AI generated text. 

Bij een overval op een pandjeshuis in Spijkenisse is maandagmiddag een medewerker bedreigd met een vuurwapen. Ook werd het slachtoffer vastgebonden. Dat heeft de politie dinsdag bekendgemaakt. De twee daders zijn nog voortvluchtig.

“Since 1974, vaccination has averted 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children younger than 5 years… For every death averted, 66 years of full health were gained on average, translating to 10.2 billion years of full health gained.”

A cyberattack on logistics giant CEVA has disrupted warehouses across Europe and exposed customer data belonging to a growing list of big-name clients, including Valve and Ajax. The France-headquartered shipping outfit, which operates more than 1,000 warehouses worldwide and generated $18.3 billion in revenue last year, was attacked between July 29 and August 1, according to a notification Valve sent to customers. Eight CEVA warehouses in Europe were affected, industry news site FreightWaves reported, citing a source familiar with the investigation. The disruption hit parts of CEVA's contract logistics business, though its air, ocean, ground, and rail transportation operations continued as normal. The fallout is now showing up at companies that rely on CEVA to get their wares into customers' hands. Valve, which uses CEVA to ship Steam hardware in Europe, told customers in an email seen by The Register that attackers had likely stolen their information. The haul potentially includes names, street addresses, postcodes, countries, phone numbers and email addresses, along with the type and price of Steam hardware the punters ordered. CEVA retains the information for up to 90 days after an order, according to Valve, which is contacting customers it believes may have been affected. Payment information, passwords, and Steam Guard codes weren't exposed because CEVA doesn't have access to them, Valve said. The stolen data does, however, hand crooks plenty of material for convincing phishing attempts, Valve warned customers. "Expect fake messages – email, SMS or phone – that mention your hardware order and appear to come from Steam, Valve or a delivery company," Valve said. "They may quote your address back to you to prove they're genuine. They may ask you to confirm a delivery, pay a small customs or redelivery fee, or sign in somewhere to 'verify' your order. Treat all of them as fake." Dutch e-commerce giant Bol is also dealing with the fallout. It said the incident involved two systems used to process orders at one of its fulfillment centers and warned that customer information may have been viewed or copied. The retailer halted data exchanges with CEVA and temporarily took products stored at the affected Veerweg location offline. Some orders were canceled or delayed, and as of August 6, operations at the facility had yet to be fully restored. Dutch department store De Bijenkorf has similarly warned customers about compromised data and disruption to orders and returns. Local media reports say football club Ajax, banking giant ING, and eyewear maker Ace & Tate also had customer shipping details exposed in the incident. CEVA has yet to disclose publicly how the attackers got in, how much data they stole, or how many companies and individuals were affected. The company did not respond to The Register's questions. For a company whose business is keeping track of other people's packages, CEVA is still leaving rather a lot unaccounted for. ®