List of All Articles with Tag 'ce'

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 18, 2023--

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A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan The two biggest economies in the

BEIJING China has lodged a stern rebuke of the United States over its latest chip restrictions, China's foreign

Britney Spears shocked the world when she shaved her head back in 2007, and now she has revealed why she did it. The then-26-year-old's dramatic makeover made headlines around the world at the time and the images of Spears shaving her head from a Los Angeles hair salon remain an infamous pop culture moment. Now, 16 years on, the 'Baby One More Time' singer has opened up in her new memoir The Woman in Me about how her decision behind the transformation was in response to the tabloid scrutiny she has dealt with from a young age. “I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager,” she told People. “Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back." From 2008, Spears was under a court-mandated conservatorship which her father Jamie Spears was in charge of and this meant the pop star didn't have control over certain matters in her life such as her personal and financial affairs. “Under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over,” she wrote. “I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.” Spears was under the conservatorship for 13 years. Jamie was removed as her conservator in September 2021 before it was completely lifted in November 2021, following the singer's plea to a judge to end the ruling as she declared: "I want my life back." In celebration of the conservatorship ending, Spears was pictured holding a glass of champagne and in the post wrote: "I’m celebrating my freedom and my B day for the next two months." “I mean after 13 years…I think I’ve waited long enough. I’m so happy my lawyer Mathew Rosengart came into my life when he did… he has truly turned my life around… I’m forever thankful for that.” Elsewhere, the 41-year-old also claimed in her memoir that she fell pregnant during her three-year relationship with fellow superstar Justin Timberlake. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Pokémon’s TV series has been delighting animé lovers for more than 26 years, and yet, there’s one episode that even the most diehard of fans may well have missed. The installment, titled Dennō Senshi Porygon (which roughly translates as "Computer Warrior Porygon”) aired in Japan on December 16, 1997. And, after that single, fateful outing, it was never to grace television screens again. The reason for the ban? Reports of a strange health outbreak among children which was linked to a specific scene. The episode follows Ash Ketchum, Pikachu and their pals as they investigate a faulty Poké Ball transfer machine by getting inside it. Once there, the team come under attack, but are saved when Pikachu unleashes one of his high-octane electric outbursts – represented by a barrage of red and blue strobe lights. And that’s where the trouble began. According to scientific paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford and sociologist Robert Bartholomew, who dedicated a study to the event: "At 6:51 PM, the flashing lights of Pikachu's 'attack' appeared on television screens. “By 7:30 PM, according to Japan's Fire-Defense Agency, 618 children had been taken to hospitals complaining of various symptoms." These symptoms included convulsions, nausea and vomiting, with news of the “illness” spreading rapidly throughout the country. Inevitably, it made headlines, with several news broadcasters replaying the offending clip, “whereupon even more children fell ill and sought medical attention,” Radford and Bartholomew wrote. The following day, TV Tokyo issued an apology, suspended the show, and announced an investigation into the cause of the seizures. Meanwhile, video retailers pulled the series from their shelves, and even the then-prime minister Ryuaro Hashimoto expressed concern at the use of rays and lasers in the popular cartoon. Within two days, the number of children reported to have been affected by the flashing sequence increased to around 12,700. And yet, after four months of investigation – with input from health experts and Japanese government officials – no obvious cause could be found for the outbreak and Pokémon returned to the airwaves. Because, although the bright flashes were assumed to be the cause of the health panic, such visual techniques had been used in numerous other animé episodes before, with no reports of any problems. So what was going on here? Well, a tiny fraction of the children who reported being affected were diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy, with experts concluding that the rapid colour changes during the scene caused them to suffer seizures. However, the bulk of “patients” reported symptoms that had no identifiable “organic” cause and were, instead, consistent with a very different type of condition… Mass hysteria. Radford and Bartholomew attribute this “epidemic hysteria”, in large part, to the mass media, which they say fuelled panic and misinformation. "Many of the children's symptoms had no identifiable organic basis; other than the verified cases of seizures, the symptoms reported were minor and short-lived; the victims were nearly exclusively school children in early adolescence; and anxiety from dramatic media reports of the first wave of illness reports was evident,” they wrote. “Media reports and publicity fuel the hysteria as news of the affliction spreads, planting the idea or concern in the community while reinforcing and validating the veracity of the illness for the initial victims,” they continued. “According to news accounts of the time, the number of children said to be affected remained around 700 the evening of the Pokémon episode and the next day. “The next morning, the episode dominated the Japanese news. Japanese children who had not heard about their peers from the news or from their parents learned of it that morning when the seizures ‘were the talk of the schoolyards’,” they continued. “Once the children had a chance to hear panicky accounts of what had happened through the mass media, their friends and their schools, the number of children reported the next day to have been initially affected – 2 days earlier – increased by 12,000.” Radford and Bartholomew ended their paper by noting that this Pokémon drama offers a warning to us all. They pointed out that our continuing reliance on mass communications, especially TV and the internet, places us at risk of more and more hysteria outbreaks. “Technological innovations are occurring at unprecedented rates and have the potential to influence significant numbers of people beyond the typical number in traditional mass hysteria episodes,” they stressed. “Epidemic hysterias that in earlier periods were self-limited by geography now have free and wide access to the globe in seconds.” Concluding on an ominous note, they added: “The Pokémon illness symptoms are without precedence, given the large numbers affected, and may be a harbinger of future technological hysterias that have the capacity to affect unprecedented numbers of people at a phenomenal speed.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Workers and their employers are paying a lot more for job-based health insurance this year.

Provides an overview of Kiribati, including key dates and facts about this Pacific island country.

MELBOURNE Rio Tinto plans to raise output by 16% at its newest iron ore mine in Western Australia

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 18, 2023--

Mia Khalifa has been one of the most vocal supporters of Palestine throughout the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. Khalifa, one of the most famous former porn stars, has been using her large following on social media to share messages of support towards Palestine and criticise the Israeli government. Who is Mia Khalifa? Born in Lebanon, Khalifa and her family moved to the United States in 2001. In numerous interviews Khalifa has shared her struggles of racism that she faced, especially during school, that only heightened after 9/11. Despite only working as an adult film star for three months, she became the most-searched-for adult actress on sites such as PornHub and xHamster from 2016 to 2018. Her popularity occurred after she appeared in an adult film scene wearing a hijab, resulting in a range of criticism, and even death threats, as well as her parents publicly disowning her. Since leaving the industry she has been critical of it, claiming to have only made $1,000 per scene - $12,000 in total - despite her videos generate millions of dollars. Khalifa also has no ownership over the videos and images that exist of her online, despite her wishes to have such content removed, referring to that time of her life as a "lapse of judgement". "What I can take away from this is protecting other women and being a cautionary tale," Khalifa told Yahoo Life in 2021. Since leaving the adult film industry she has pivoted into content creation, regularly posting on platforms such as Instagram. Khalifa has also entered the world of sports commentary, previously hosting shows such as Sportsball and Out of Bounds. What has she said on the Israel-Palestine conflict? Khalifa was recently fired by the company Red Light Holland after tweeting "Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal." "I'd say supporting Palestine has lost me business opportunities, but I'm more angry at myself for not checking whether or not I was entering into business with Zionists. My bad." Khalifa tweeted in response to her being fired by the company." Khalifa has also been sharing posts on her X/Twitter profile such as: "rooting for everyone resisting oppression", as well as another post writing "Hamas ≠ [not equal to] Palestine" and "Jewish people ≠ Israeli government". She later returned to social media to clarify her comments, adding: "I just want to make it clear that this statement in no way shape or form is [inciting] spread of violence, I specifically said freedom fighters because that's what the Palestinian citizens are... fighting for freedom every day." There have since been claims on social media that Pornhub stepped in and started donating her video profits to Israel aid funds since her comments - rumours which were shut down by the company after indy100 reached out for comment. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.