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The study was submitted to the Journal of High-Energy Physics 10 days before Prof Hawking died.

In the 1980s, the Cambridge scientist, along with US physicist James Hartle developed a new idea about the beginning of the Universe.

Instead, the Hartle-Hawking idea used a different theory called quantum mechanics to explain how the Universe arose from nothingness.

As physicists analysed the idea it emerged that it carried with it the implication that the Big Bang would create not just one universe - but an endless supply.

It has solved the puzzle by drawing on new mathematical techniques developed to study another esoteric branch of physics called string theory.

Mind-bending as these ideas are, they will be of real help to physicists as they develop a more complete theory of how the Universe came into being, according to Prof Hertog.

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From the rules governing the games to the music playing on the sound system to the colour of the carpet underfoot, casinos are carefully designed with the sole aim of getting customers to part with as much money as possible.

Although the industry makes more than a hundred billion dollars each year, it still works hard to crack down on cheats, immediately alerting law enforcement officials to suspected wrongdoing.

Most gambling houses have hundreds, even thousands, of cameras, many of which range 360 degrees, monitored live by security departments, some of which utilise face detection software to track suspicious or previously-barred players.

He was initially designing the space for older men, with the aesthetic taking on a dimly-lit clubhouse feel, but then he discovered that the most frequent players of high-limit slots were in fact female.

Fast music, red lights and pleasing aromas have all been shown to increase casino profits, possibly because they heighten the perceived level of excitement.

As gaming author Frank Scoblete explains in his video tutorials, casinos anywhere can take measures to hinder card counters, such as limiting the amount of money they can bet.

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According to an unnamed defector’s testimony, the young man from South Hwanghae province was publicly executed in 2022 for listening to 70 South Korean songs, watching three films, and distributing them, falling foul of a North Korean law adopted in 2020 that bans “reactionary ideology and culture”.

The report details extensive efforts by North Korean authorities to control outside information flow, especially targeting the youth.

Mobile phones are also frequently inspected for contact name spellings, expressions, and slang terms perceived to be of South Korean influence, the report claims.

In 2022, the US government-funded Radio Free Asia said the regime was cracking down on “capitalist” fashion and hairstyles, targeting skinny jeans and T-shirts bearing foreign words, as well as dyed or long hair, it said.

The woman, who escaped from North Korea on a wooden boat last October, also shed light on the hidden resentment against the regime.

The headline on this article was amended on 30 June to clarify that the 22-year-old North Korean man was executed for distributing, rather than listening to, K-pop.

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In a special illustrated feature, Ben Platts-Mills explains why Albert Einstein and other eminent physicists refused to believe black holes could be real.

Overcome by their own gravity, they collapse beyond any sustainable condition of matter to form a sudden, exponential crunch: an implosion so absolute that it punctures spacetime and unstrings in its vicinity everything we know as physics.

While some scientists had speculated about the existence of similar objects called “dark stars” more than 200 years ago, it was Einstein’s theory of general relativity that laid the ground for understanding how black holes could be created.

Its gravitation would become ever more powerful as it insatiably devoured surrounding masses until, finally, it reached the point of “singularity”, a moment where the laws of physics break down, and time and space cease to exist.

In the same lecture, Chandrasekhar quoted the physicist Werner Heisenberg talking to Einstein about the experience of scientific revelation: “You must have felt it too: the almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of the relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared.”

The story’s narrator mentions that the local Norwegians “almost universally entertained” the notion “that in the centre of the channel of the Maelström is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very remote part”.

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The case involving the assault of the teenager is a reminder to many Okinawans of the high-profile 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemembers, which sparked massive protests against the heavy U.S. troop presence on Okinawa.

It led to a 1996 agreement between Tokyo and Washington on a closure of a key U.S. air station, though the plan has been delayed due to protests at the site designated for its relocation on another part of the island.

Some 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Japan under a bilateral security pact, about half of them on Okinawa, whose strategic role is seen increasingly important for the Japan-U.S. military alliance in the face of growing tensions with China.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Friday it was “extremely regrettable” the two alleged sexual assaults occurred within months.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo declined to confirm details of the meeting between Emanuel and Okano and how the ambassador responded, citing diplomatic rules.

Tamaki, who opposes the heavy U.S. troop presence on Okinawa, said he was “speechless and outraged.” He stressed the need to “reconstruct” the communication system in case of crime and accidents involving American service members.

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A statement issued today in Moscow by Putin’s new defence minister Andrey Belousov instructed his armed forces general staff to ‘take measures to respond promptly to provocations’ involving US surveillance drones over the Black Sea.

A separate warning from the Putin regime claimed Western leaders are falling into ‘the abyss of direct armed confrontation with Russia’ - a likely nuclear conflict.

Separately, an RAF RC-135 radio-technical reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft was escorted this week by no less than four British Typhoon fighters as it overflew the Black Sea.

Belousov - seen as uber-close to Putin - did not specify what he meant by ‘measures to respond promptly’ to Western spy drone flights which are taking place multiple times each week.

‘The Russian pilot, demonstrating high professionalism, took the necessary measures in time to prevent the collision,’ said the ministry, warning of ‘more dangerous approaches and subsequent turbulence for coalition drones’.

Separately, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Putin-controlled state TV in Moscow of the dire risk of the current strains in relations between Russia and the West turning into nuclear war.

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What if I told you that wikiFeet was reportedly visited by 700,000 people every week, and among them are the best amateur detectives since Jessica Fletcher?

You couldn’t see her face, but she was in a bath holding a vape pen, and the image was emblazoned with text suggesting Ocasio-Cortez had posted it on Instagram in 2016.

Because the good people of wikiFeet, who apparently get their rocks off by looking at actual pictures of Ocasio-Cortez’s feet, immediately recognised the post as a fake.

A wikiFeet user told Vice that the feet in the image posted to Reddit looked as if they suffered from brachydactyly – an inherited trait whereby the bones of the fingers and toes are relatively short compared with the rest of the body – but this didn’t align with wikiFeet’s gallery of Ocasio-Cortez.

WikiFeet – which describes itself as “a collaborative site for sharing, rating and discussing celebrity feet pictures and videos” – has 15 photos of Ocasio-Cortez.

Thanks to the collective minds of the respective wikiFeet and Reddit communities, Ocasio-Cortez has managed to avoid a potentially career-ending scandal.

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Earth is surrounded by rocky bodies and bits of debris from when the solar system formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago.

According to Alan Fitzsimmons, a planetary scientist at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, at its closest, 2024 MK will be visible from the southern hemisphere.

It’s passing by just nine days after NASA released a report on the results of an asteroid-threat simulation conducted in early April.

Asteroid Day, sanctioned by the United Nations, was started in 2014 by astrophysicist and former Queen musician Brian May along with Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart along with a few others.

But in 1994, the astronomical world was shocked to see the effects of several pieces of a comet slamming into Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

On February 15, a 20-metre wide rock impacted over entered Earth’s atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, causing a massive air burst that blew out windows in the area, injuring roughly 1,000 people.

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Iran’s UN Mission said on X on Saturday that if Israel attacks Lebanon, where the terrorist organization Hezbollah is based, with “full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue.”

“All options, including the full involvement of all resistance fronts, are on the table,” it said in the post.

The report came only days after the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani was told by his German counterpart that Iran needed to help prevent a further escalation of the situation in the Middle East.

The request also came only a few days after National Unity Party head Benny Gantz made a claim stating that Israel can destroy Hezbollah’s military in days.

“We can bring Lebanon completely into the dark, and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days,” he said at the 21st Herzliya Conference at Reichman University.

A Sunday report by The Telegraph stated that Iran was supplying powerful rockets to Hezbollah through Beirut’s Rafic Al Hariri International Airport and that recent months saw a significant increase in using the airport for storing strategic weapons.

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Rishi Sunak abandoned his “legacy” policy to ban smoking for future generations amid a backlash from the tobacco industry in the form of legal threats, lobbying and a charm offensive aimed at Conservative MPs, an investigation reveals.

The UK had been on course to become the first country to ban smoking for future generations, via the tobacco and vaping bill, which Downing Street hoped would help define Sunak’s place in British political history.

After months of fierce opposition from the industry – and intervention from MPs and thinktanks with ties to tobacco firms – the proposal was excluded from the “wash-up” process, when outgoing governments choose which policies to fast-track and which to drop.

Imperial and BAT wrote to the health secretary, Victoria Atkins, in February, to claim the consultation process preceding legislation was “unlawful” because industry views had not been considered.

PMI told the Guardian the bill risked “confusing” consumers because it included restrictions on some smoke-free products such as vapes, adding that it “firmly believes in phasing out cigarettes, to the benefit of the 6.4 million adult smokers in the UK”.

Two Conservative MPs, including Badenoch’s closest political aide, also attended a lunch and drinks reception hosted by the smoking lobby group Forest, days before the tobacco bill was in effect shelved.

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Revelations of foreign interference in the UK election, uncovered by the ABC, have been described as “highly alarming” by the Conservative Party, which will be writing to the Cabinet Office seeking urgent advice about how to combat it.

One page presents itself as a pro-refugee left-wing group, while others reference white supremacist conspiracy theories and use AI-generated images of asylum seekers to stoke anti-immigration fears.

Despite Meta, the parent company of Facebook, promising to take steps to address foreign interference and hate speech during the UK elections, these pages have been able to operate unchecked.

Earlier this month, an ITV and Cardiff University investigation also traced a batch of suspicious accounts on TikTok that were pushing pro-Reform UK messages after a leader’s debate to Nigeria.

Disinformation expert and political communications professor at the UK’s Loughborough University Andrew Chatwick said the content being pushed by the network identified by the ABC were about “sowing division and chaos”.

Meta’s UK Public Policy director Rebecca Stimson said one of the company’s pillars of focus would be countering covert influence operations and identifying and stopping coordinated unauthentic behaviour.

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A strong high-pressure system is forecast to stall near Tasmania by Monday, a very unusual position for July, which will reverse the direction of prevailing winter winds and result in another extended spell of wet days along the east coast, prolonged icy weather across the interior and south, and possibly culminate in a major inland rain event towards next weekend.

The intrusion of polar air into the mid-latitudes has generated a powerful cold front on its leading edge, whose passage over South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania will bring showers, gusty winds and alpine snow through Saturday.

After milder weather during the past few days, the front’s arrival will cause temperatures to drop, including maximums of 12C in Adelaide and Melbourne on Saturday, then on Sunday just 9C in Hobart and Canberra, and 15C in Sydney.

Sydney could potentially see close to 100mm and Brisbane 50mm, nearly a month’s worth of rain, continuing the 2024 trend where our east coast capitals’ rainfall has far exceeded the southern states.

Adelaide is predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology to have both minimums and maximums below average until at least Thursday, while Melbourne shivers down to a frosty 1C on Wednesday morning, the city’s coldest temperature in two years.

The current all-time air pressure record in Australia is 1044hPa, observed at Launceston Airport on June 7, 1967, a figure which could be challenged if the high’s centre drifts directly over Tasmania.

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TOKYO – Japanese households face a 90,000 yen ($560) increase in their yearly expenses from higher prices for food and energy imports, one estimate shows, as the country’s weak currency drains purchasing power.

Japan’s government said on Friday it will replace top currency diplomat Masato Kanda, but this announcement is expected to have limited impact on the market.

The yen’s recent fall appears more linked to import companies and institutional investors buying up dollars late in the April-June quarter.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last week that additional electricity and gas subsidies will be provided from August to October to combat inflation.

The wholesale price of European pork in Japan has surged about 40% in a year amid competition with other Asia nations to procure the meat.

Buyers in the U.S. and Europe are driving up prices for Chilean grapes, and Japanese companies find themselves at a disadvantage due to the weak yen.

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Karima Manji, whose daughters accessed more than C$150,000 in benefits intended for Inuit, was sentenced on Thursday, after pleading guilty to fraud in February.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Toronto resident Karima Manji submitted paperwork for her daughters Amira and Nadya in 2016 to obtain Inuit identity.

To deceive those reviewing the application, Manji claimed that she had adopted the pair, who she said had been born to an Iqaluit woman named Kitty Noah.

Despite going through a vetting review by community members intended to prevent fraudulent enrolment, Manji’s application was approved by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, NTI, which oversees the process.

The pair started an online business, Kanata Trade Company, purportedly run by “twin Inuit sisters”.

NTI, which ensures the terms of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement is fully implemented, said the case of the Gill sisters was the first of its kind.

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The US Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-3 vote along ideological lines that cities can ban homeless people from sleeping rough.It is the court’s most significant decision on homelessness since at least the 1980s, when many experts say the modern US homeless crisis began.The ruling says that local governments can enforce laws against people sleeping in public places without being in violation of the US constitution’s limits on cruel and unusual punishment.The case started in the small city of Grants Pass, Oregon, where three homeless people sued after receiving citations for sleeping and camping outside.At a Supreme Court hearing in April, the city argued that criminal penalties were necessary to enforce local laws banning homeless people from public spaces for “reasons of cleanliness and safety”.The homeless residents said those penalties violated the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution because the city did not have any public shelters.Writing for the conservative majority in an opinion issued on Friday, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the city’s regulations on camping do not inflict “terror, pain or disgrace”.He added that the law does not criminalise the “mere status” of being homeless, and that the ban focuses more on the actions taken by individuals rather than their status alone.“Under the city’s laws, it makes no difference whether the charged defendant is homeless, a backpacker on vacation passing through town, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing on behalf of the three dissenting liberal justices, wrote: “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime.

Around 653,000 people did not have homes in 2023, the largest number since tracking began in 2007, according to US government figures.

There were also an estimated 256,000 people living without shelter on a given night across the country last year, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.Reacting to the ruling, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said it “sets a dangerous precedent that will cause undue harm to people experiencing homelessness and give free reign to local officials who prefer pointless and expensive arrests and imprisonment, rather than real solutions”.Grants Pass’s population has doubled to 40,000 in the last 20 years, but its supply of affordable or public housing has not.Soaring housing costs led to a sizeable number of people losing their homes.Town officials responded by passing laws that fined people for sleeping or camping in public.

Over time, those fines stacked up, reaching thousands of dollars for some.Unable to pay for multiple citations, three homeless people sued the city.Their lawsuit reached the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which decided in 2022 that the restrictions in Grants Pass were so tight that they amounted to an effective ban on being homeless within city limits.The court had determined four years earlier in a similar case in Idaho that the constitution “bars a city from prosecuting people criminally for sleeping outside on public property when those people have no home or other shelter to go to".

“The Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision will now allow cities to take more severe measures without the fear of legal recourse.The first problem with putting homeless people in jail is that it is extremely expensive, and when they get out, the person is still homeless and now even less apt to finding employment with a criminal record, says Elizabeth Funk, founder of DignityMoves, a nonprofit dedicated to ending unsheltered homelessness.“We need to be thinking about how to get this problem solved,” she says.

The issue has been at the heart of recent election cycles in West Coast cities, including Los Angeles, where officials have poured record amounts of money into creating shelters and affordable housing while homelessness has still increased.

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Players looking forward to Obsidian Entertainment’s next fantasy role-playing game (RPG) will experience some variety in the world that they explore.

Patel says that the “target” for the overall experience is comparable to Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, a top-down RPG from Obsidian that was released back in 2018, though Patel adds that there’s a lot of “tonal variety” depending on the exact side quest or section of the main path players are on.

Giatta is a magic-wielding Ocean Human, Kai is a brawling Coastal Aumaua, Marius is a Mountain Dwarf ranger, and Yatzli is a spell-slinging Hearth Orlan.

I’ve been interested in Avowed since it was first announced all the way back in 2020 simply by dint of it being an Obsidian Entertainment RPG.

As the developers have shared more details, such as revealing the third-person mode, that interest has only steadily grown.

On that note, we do really need a release date for this — as well as Bethesda Softworks and MachineGames’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — soon.

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The New Brunswick MP is the first Liberal caucus member to openly call for Trudeau’s resignation since Tuesday’s byelection upset in Toronto-St. Paul’s.

“For the future of our party and for the good of our country, we need new leadership and a new direction,” Long wrote in an email obtained by CBC News.

The Avalon MP, who has voted against his own party twice on the carbon tax, said it’s the prime minister’s decision to make alone, but stressed the need for an urgent, in-person caucus meeting with Trudeau.

According to sources who have seen the email chain, Kingston MP Mark Gerretsen asked members to stop hitting reply-all.

“I and my entire team have much more hard work to do to deliver tangible, real progress that Canadians can see and feel,” he said in a media statement this week.

In 2017, he was kicked off two parliamentary committees after he supported a failed Conservative motion related to proposed small business tax changes.

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Zelenskyy met Slovenia’s President Nataša Pirc Musar in Kyiv where the two leaders honoured the memory of fallen Ukrainian soldiers by laying wreaths at the Remembrance Wall in the heart of Ukraine’s capital.

The focus of Zelenskyy’s meeting with Pirc Musar was to discuss preparations for a second international peace summit, following a two-day event earlier this month in Switzerland.

Leaders and senior officials from more than 90 countries attended and the majority agreed to a final communique that said Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be respected in any peace settlement.

There is currently no official direct negotiation mechanism between Zelenksyy and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, but Ukraine has repeatedly said Russia must withdraw all its forces from within its border, including from the Crimean Peninsula which it annexed in 2014, before serious peace talks can begin.

Zelenskyy called on European Union leaders on Thursday to live up to their promises to provide military equipment to his country as the bloc pledged long-term support to Kyiv.

Speaking at an EU Council Summit in Brussels on Thursday, Zelenskyy said he would put forward a “detailed plan” to bring about an end to the war in months.

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