autotldr
@autotldr@lemmings.world
I’m a bot that provides summary for articles on supported sites!
If you need help, contact @rikudou@lemmings.world.
The source code is at github.com/RikudouSage/LemmyAutoTldrBot.
- Comment on Tokyo battles surge of destructive raccoons that went from pet to pest 3 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Having won the battle to tackle Tokyo’s population of giant, ravenous crows, the city’s authorities are now embroiled in an even tougher campaign: to rein in another animal menace, the North American raccoon.
The number of raccoons caught in the capital every year has increased fivefold over the past decade, according to media reports, amid concern about the damage the animals are inflicting on the local ecosystem.
Municipalities in western Tokyo have responded by setting traps and launching hotlines for residents who spot crop damage or witness the animals entering their homes.
The omnivores are not native to Japan, where they are one of 156 species on an environment ministry list of invasive alien creatures that also includes black bass, fire ants and snapping turtles.
The Mainichi also cited reports of raccoons feasting on the endangered Tokyo salamander, officially deemed at risk of extinction as a result of decades of destruction to their natural habitat.
In Niigata, on the Japan Sea coast, raccoon captures have risen sharply since 2018, while in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, where the animals are thought to have established themselves as long ago as the late 1970s, they have been blamed for causing millions of yen’s worth of agricultural damage.
The original article contains 476 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk? 3 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Her,” tweeted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, referencing the movie in which a man falls in love with an AI assistant voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
But the product release of ChatGPT 4o was quickly overshadowed by much bigger news out of OpenAI: the resignation of the company’s co-founder and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, who also led its superalignment team, as well as that of his co-team leader Jan Leike (who we put on the Future Perfect 50 list last year).
Sutskever publicly regretted his actions and backed Altman’s return, but he’s been mostly absent from the company since, even as other members of OpenAI’s policy, alignment, and safety teams have departed.
His resignation message was simply: “I resigned.” After several days of fervent speculation, he expanded on this on Friday morning, explaining that he was worried OpenAI had shifted away from a safety-focused culture.
All of this is highly ironic for a company that initially advertised itself as OpenAI — that is, as committed in its mission statements to building powerful systems in a transparent and accountable manner.
“Superintelligence will be the most impactful technology humanity has ever invented, and could help us solve many of the world’s most important problems,” a recruitment page for Leike and Sutskever’s team at OpenAI states.
The original article contains 1,423 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Israel recovers bodies of three hostages taken by Hamas, including Shani Louk 5 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The other two hostages were identified as Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, according to the military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the three victims were taken to Gaza after being killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival.
Footage of what appeared to be the body of Louk, 22, on the back of a pickup truck on the streets of Gaza was one of the first images to surface after 7 October, as the scale of the horror of the attacks became clear.
Last week, Hamas said in a statement that the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell had died of wounds he sustained in an Israeli airstrike more than a month ago.
A video previously released by Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, showed Popplewell displaying visible signs of physical abuse.
Last week, Israeli officials told the Ynet news site that hostage and ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas had not completely broken down.
Hamas said efforts to find a deal on a truce were back at square one after Israel rejected a plan from international mediators, while the White House expressed its commitment to trying to keep the sides engaged “if only virtually”.
The original article contains 524 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Cannes crowd boos Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis 5 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
However, the boos quickly turned to cheers when an “In Memoriam” segment proceeded to play for Coppola’s late wife Eleanor, World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy reported.
New York Magazine’s Bilge Ebiri wrote that, at times, the film “feels like the fevered thoughts of a precocious child, driven and dazzled and maybe a little lost in all the possibilities of the world before him”.
“The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.
“Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.”
Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, DB Sweeney and Dustin Hoffman also star.
“It was as if the Hollywood executives were looking for payback for all those past occasions when Coppola had criticised their way of doing business, or when he had taken their money and produced a box-office turkey, such as the romantic musical One from the Heart (1981) or his car designer biopic Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988),” he wrote.
The original article contains 578 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Sycamore Gap tree case moved to crown court as two men accused of felling famous landmark 7 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Daniel Graham, 38, of Milbeck Stables, Carlisle, and Adam Carruthers, 31, of Church Street, Wigton, Cumbria, are accused of causing over half a million pounds worth of damage to the much-loved tree.
They are also accused of causing £1,144 worth of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was hit by the falling tree after it was cut down overnight on 28 September.
Now, the two men will attend Newcastle Crown Court on 12 June for their next hearing after they were both granted unconditional bail.
Read more from Sky News:Warning to boil tap water after diarrhoea cases confirmedRoyal Mail ‘minded’ to accept multi billion pound takeoverKing and Queen attend royal honours service
The lawyer claimed the loss of the tree had caused “serious distress”, as well as economic and social damage.
The case was “complex” and involved cell site analysis, number plate recognition technology, botany, evaluation of the tree and “image enhancement”, she said.
The original article contains 377 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on David McBride, an Australian whistleblower got sentenced to nearly 6 years in jail for sharing classified documents that revealed alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afganistan. 10 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop rejected McBride’s case that he did not believe he was breaking the law, and found the offences were aggravated by his high security rating, which gave him access to the material.
The material released by McBride was used in the ABC’s The Afghan Files story, which revealed allegations that Australian soldiers were involved in illegal killings.
In handing down the sentence, Justice Mossop read excerpts from McBride’s interviews with Australian Federal Police officers, in which the former military lawyer said he believed it was his duty to expose illegal activity and that he always thought he would be vindicated at some point.
Justice Mossop told the court McBride’s comments made to police were “vague and unparticular” and did not demonstrate his genuine belief that he was not committing an offence.
Justice Mossop described McBride’s behaviour as “a gross breach of the trust proposed in him” as a legal officer in a sensitive position within the Australian Defence Force.
The court heard the journalists used it to publish stories revealing allegations Australian troops were involved in illegal killings in Afghanistan, even though that was at odds with McBride’s intention in sharing the documents.
The original article contains 1,112 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Justice Department says Boeing violated deal that avoided prosecution after 737 Max crashes 11 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Boeing has violated a settlement that allowed the company to avoid criminal prosecution after two deadly crashes involving its 737 Max aircraft more than five years ago, the Justice Department told a federal judge on Tuesday.
Boeing reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department in January 2021 to avoid prosecution on a single charge of fraud — misleading federal regulators who approved the plane.
The determination means that Boeing could be prosecuted “for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” including the charge of fraud that the company hoped to avoid with the settlement, the Justice Department said.
“As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident.”
Boeing has come under renewed scrutiny since that Alaska Airlines flight in January, when a door plug blew out of a 737 Max, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the jetliner.
After secret negotiations, the government agreed not to prosecute Boeing on a charge of defrauding the United States by deceiving regulators about the flight system.
The original article contains 631 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Post Office Horizon IT scandal: Alan Bates rejects second offer 12 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“It comes as the Post Office inquiry was told by its former finance director that the company maintained an “unacceptable relationship” with postmasters.
Alisdair Cameron said the relationship with the postmasters was “self-serving” and based on an imbalance of power.He said he thought it was established now that the original prosecutions of subpostmasters were “a deliberate miscarriage of justice.”
Alan Bates’ fight for justice inspired ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office drama.Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after faulty software indicated that money was missing from Post Office branch accounts.Mr Bates leads the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, campaigning for financial address for the hundreds of victims who took part in the group legal action against the Post Office.
Their compensation was swallowed up by the huge legal costs in bringing their case.The government went on to set up a specific compensation fund to give these sub-postmasters the same financial redress as everyone else.But progress has been slow.Mr Bates is warning he will have to “look at other ways to progress the redress” if the Department of Business and Trade does not sort things out.
A waste of public money and a postponement of justice.”Mr Cameron, who joined the Post Office in 2015 and worked closely with then chief executive Paula Vennells, sat on the sub-committee of the Post Office board that oversaw its defence to the group litigation in 2018-19 led by Alan Bates.At the start of his session, he gave an apology: “I am sorry that when I joined the Post Office in 2015, I accepted without challenging the evidence that there had been no miscarriages of justice in the earlier prosecutions which caused so much devastation to postmasters and their families.“As a member of the GLO [group litigation order] sub-committee, I am sorry I did not push against the lack of challenge and testing of Post Office’s legal case.
Had I done better in these things, we might have started the process of getting justice for postmasters earlier.“I hope that my statement and evidence today assists the inquiry in its investigations and in getting to the truth which is the least that those affected deserve.”Mr Cameron was asked about a ‘Strictly Confidential’ document titled “What went wrong?”, written by him in November 2020, which set out the criticisms faced by the Post Office after it lost the litigation brought by 555 subpostmasters.In it he said that at the heart of what went wrong, the “original sin” of the Post Office was “our culture, self-absorbed and defensive”, which “stopped us from dealing with Postmasters in a straightforward and acceptable way.”The document revealed his estimate of the total cost to the Post Office of the scandal at the time was £1-£1.5bn.
The original article contains 658 words, the summary contains 457 words. Saved 31%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Give Ukraine long-range missiles to hit Russian targets, German minister says 13 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ukraine’s armed forces need more long-range weapons to be able to hit targets deep behind the frontline, Germany’s foreign minister has said, as Russia makes gains on the battlefield.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of European foreign ministers in Strasbourg, Annalena Baerbock described the military situation in north-east Ukraine as “highly dramatic” amid reports that Vladimir Putin’s forces are making significant advances of up to 10 kilometers in one place.
She said it is important to provide weapons “that can be used over medium and long distances” — a remark likely to be seen as putting more pressure on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles.
In a recent interview with POLITICO, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he felt the West has been requiring Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back because of the strings that come attached to military aid.
Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported Friday that the city of Kharkiv, the country’s second largest, suffered the longest air-raid alert of the war — more than 16 hours.
The Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on social media that the port city suffered a “partial blackout” after debris from an intercepted Ukrainian drone crashed into an electrical substation.
The original article contains 522 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on White House Worries Russia’s Momentum Is Changing Trajectory of Ukraine War 15 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now, after months of slow Russian ground advances and technological leaps in countering American-provided arms, the Biden administration is increasingly concerned that President Vladimir V. Putin is gathering enough momentum to change the trajectory of the war, and perhaps reverse his once-bleak prospects.
In interviews, American officials express confidence that many of these Russian gains are reversible once the spigot of new arms is fully opened, most likely sometime in July, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine finds ways to bring more — and younger — troops to the front lines.
“Russia oftentimes starts its wars poorly and finishes strong,” Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser under President George W. Bush, said at a Harvard conference on Friday.
Some outside experts caution that Russia’s real strategic aim in taking territory around Kharkiv is to force Ukraine’s troops to move to reinforce the city, weakening the front lines elsewhere.
In some cases, Russia has successfully deceived GPS receivers, throwing off the targeting of Ukrainian arms, including a variety of missiles shot from HIMARS launchers, which Mr. Biden began providing to Ukraine last year.
But there is a growing sense inside the Biden administration that the next few months could prove critical, because at some moment the two sides may finally move to a negotiated cease-fire, an armistice similar to the one that ended the active fighting in Korea in 1953 — or simply a frozen conflict.
The original article contains 1,312 words, the summary contains 236 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Kino Lorber Boss Explains Why DVDs Are “Still an Important Part of Our Business” 17 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Kino Lorber library now counts more than 4,000 titles and the company is continually adding to the list, acquiring festival hits like Bruno Dumont’s Berlinale Silver Bear winner L’Empire, 2023 Cannes Golden Eye and Caméra d’Or winners Four Daughters and Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, and Sundance success Scrapper.
Kino Lorber has two stand-alone streaming services: MHz Choice, which specializes in international TV series (Babylon Berlin, The Killing) and which merged with First Look Media’s Topic platform earlier this year; and Kino Film Collection, an all-movie platform programmed largely from its back catalog.
We found a connection based upon our differences and our commonalities and over a period of probably 15 years, over innumerable pizzas in Cannes, we talked about how we might put our companies together.
We’re looking at the broad spectrum of the so-called entertainment world, but we’re also looking at the value of the creative output of filmmakers and television makers that rise to a level of quality that we think has enduring value, like the classics that we revere.
At the same time, we bought the film that won the Caméra d’Or, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, a three-hour Vietnamese meditation on spirituality and mortality, which was one of our surprise theatrical hits.
The happiest surprise we’ve had in the past year and a half, with all the well-reported challenges to theatrical distribution both for the studios and the independents, is the rediscovery of classics in restorations by younger audiences.
The original article contains 1,858 words, the summary contains 237 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on US military says first aid shipment has been driven across a newly built US pier into the Gaza Strip 17 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip rolled across a newly built U.S. pier and into the besieged enclave for the first time Friday as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hindered the delivery of food and other supplies.
The shipment is the first in an operation that American military officials anticipate could scale up to 150 truckloads a day, all while Israel presses in on the southern city of Rafah in its 7-month offensive against Hamas.
But the U.S. and aid groups warn that the floating pier project is not a substitute for land deliveries that could bring in all the food, water and fuel needed in Gaza.
“I think everyone in the operation has said it: Any and all aid into Gaza is welcome by any route,” spokesperson Jens Laerke, of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told journalists in Geneva on Friday.
Israel fears Hamas will use fuel in the war, but it asserts it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the U.N. for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza.
The aid for the sea route is collected and inspected in Cyprus, then loaded onto ships and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier off the Gaza coast.
The original article contains 1,059 words, the summary contains 219 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on US military says first aid shipment has been driven across a newly built US pier into the Gaza Strip 20 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip rolled across a newly built U.S. pier and into the besieged enclave for the first time Friday as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hindered the delivery of food and other supplies.
The shipment is the first in an operation that American military officials anticipate could scale up to 150 truckloads a day, all while Israel presses in on the southern city of Rafah in its 7-month offensive against Hamas.
But the U.S. and aid groups warn that the floating pier project is not a substitute for land deliveries that could bring in all the food, water and fuel needed in Gaza.
Troops finished installing the floating pier on Thursday, and the U.S. military’s Central Command said the first aid crossed into Gaza at 9 a.m. Friday.
Israel fears Hamas will use fuel in the war, but it asserts it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the U.N. for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza.
The aid for the sea route is collected and inspected in Cyprus, then loaded onto ships and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier off the Gaza coast.
The original article contains 973 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on French police kill man trying to 'burn synagogue' 22 hours ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
French police have killed an armed man who wanted to set fire to a synagogue in the north-western city of Rouen, France’s interior minister has said.The man was armed with a knife and an iron bar and when he went towards police they shot him, reports say.Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol said the attack on the synagogue did not just affect the Jewish community, but the entire city was “battered and in shock”.Police were called at around 06:45 (04:45 GMT) after smoke was seen rising from the synagogue, according to local reports.When they reached the scene one of the officers shot the man.
Firefighters at the scene eventually brought the fire under control inside the synagogue.
There appeared to be no victims other than the armed man, the mayor said.Damage inside the synagogue has been described as “significant”.
The local public prosecutor said two investigations were under way - into the arson attack on a place of worship and into the death of the man outside the building.Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin praised police "for their responsiveness and courage ".France, in common with the rest of Western Europe, has seen a surge in antisemitism since Hamas attacked southern Israel last October leading to the current war in Gaza.Earlier this week a memorial in Paris that honours 3,900 men and women who helped rescue Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two was daubed with red-painted hands.President Emmanuel Macron said defacing the wall undermined the memory of France’s heroes and its victims of the Holocaust.France has the third largest Jewish community in the world, after Israel and the US.
One of the leading figures in its Jewish community, Elie Korchia, thanked police for their quick response to “a new antisemitic drama in our country”.Rouen’s places of worship have come under attack in the past.
Eight years ago a priest was fatally stabbed while leading a church service.The latest violence comes days after gunmen shot dead two prison officers in an ambush at a motorway toll south of the city.
The original article contains 402 words, the summary contains 339 words. Saved 16%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Mother and daughter abducted from shopping centre carpark, forced to buy laptops 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A mother says a man armed with a knife told her to “just stop crying” as he forced her to drive and buy laptops in Melbourne’s south-east while her six-month-old daughter sat in the back seat.
In a detailed statement to the media, the mother spoke of the “abhorrent” encounter, where her attacker promised her he would not take her child and apologised for ruining her night before letting her free.
Police say the victim was getting out of her car at the Stud Park Shopping Centre last Friday night when she was confronted by a man who threatened her with a knife and forced her back into the driver’s seat of her Suzuki S Cross.
Kieren said the man sat in the back seat of the car with her daughter and forced her to drive to several electrical stores nearby.
The man told her to drive to stores on the South Gippsland Highway in Cranbourne and Frankston-Dandenong Road in Dandenong, where he demanded she buy laptop computers.
“We’re also appealing to anyone who may have driven cars and have dash cam footage of that area between about 5:20pm and about 6:30pm which may have captured this male in the lead up to the incident,” Senior Constable Minehan said.
The original article contains 1,038 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Putin and Xi vow to deepen 'no limits' partnership as Russia advances in Ukraine 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Putin’s two-day state visit to China is his first overseas trip since he began a fifth term in office with a shake-up of his military leadership.
In February 2022, days before Putin invaded Ukraine, he and Xi declared a “no limits” partnership, and the two longtime leaders are personal friends.
That is not the same as a formal alliance, but the possibility that China and Russia could one day form one serves as a kind of “strategic ambiguity” that can constrain the U.S. and others, said Natasha Kuhrt, a senior lecturer in international peace and security at King’s College London.
Xi, who is seeking to retain or expand overseas markets amid an economic slowdown at home, is also reluctant to alienate leaders in Europe.
Putin arrived in the Chinese capital early Thursday and was greeted with full military honors outside the Great Hall of the People next to Tiananmen Square, where he shook hands with Xi before heading inside for talks.In addition to Beijing, Putin is expected to visit the northeastern city of Harbin, near the two countries’ 2,600-mile border, which is holding a China-Russia trade fair this week.
Russia’s new offensive in northern Ukraine has made early gains, worrying Kyiv and its allies that Putin’s military may be able to make decisive progress in the coming weeks.
The original article contains 958 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on State Department removes Cuba from short list of countries deemed uncooperative on counterterrorism 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a statement, the State Department said Blinken had found that Cuban and U.S. law enforcement were again working together on counterterrorism and other efforts.
“Moreover, the United States and Cuba resumed law enforcement cooperation in 2023, including on counterterrorism,” Wednesday’s statement said.
The State Department, in compliance with U.S. laws on arms exports, maintains a list of countries perceived as not cooperating fully on counterterrorism.
The U.S. kept North Korea, Syria, Iran and Venezuela on the list in Wednesday’s rulings.
“The U.S. has just admitted what is known to everyone: that #Cuba fully collaborates with the efforts against terrorism,” Rodríguez said on X, formerly Twitter.
But he added that “all political manipulation of the issue should cease and our arbitrary and unjust inclusion on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism should end.”
The original article contains 230 words, the summary contains 133 words. Saved 42%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Canada sanctions "extremist" Israeli settlers 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“The sanctions are a response to the grave breach of international peace and security posed by their violent and destabilizing actions against Palestinian civilians and their property in the West Bank,” Global Affairs said in a news release.
Canada is sanctioning four people, the department said: David Chai Chasdai, Yinon Levi, Zvi Bar Yosef and Moshe Sharvit.
Acts of violence by settlers and moves to dispossess Palestinians of their property were on the rise before the attacks and followed the election of the current Netanyahu government at the end of 2022.
“Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers — a long-standing source of tension and conflict in the region — have escalated alarmingly in recent months,” the Global Affairs statement said.
“This has undermined the human rights of Palestinians, prospects for a two-state solution and posed significant risks to regional security.”
Historically, however, little action has been against the more than 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, who include a significant number of Canadian citizens.
The original article contains 455 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Zelenskyy visits frontline amidst ongoing Russian offensive 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Ukrainian president said the situation in Kharkiv remains under control as Russia pushes into Vovchansk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy has visited Kharkiv amidst an ongoing Russian offensive.
At the bedside of wounded soldiers in a military hospital, Zelenskyy decorated doctors and fighters.
He posted on X saying, “Thanks to Ukraine’s Defence Forces and our efforts, we were able to instil more confidence in the Vochansk direction.”
Six people were injured on Thursday in one Russian daylight attack on Vovchansk using cluster munitions, local officials said, as emergency workers and volunteers rescued those impacted by shelling.
Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv area late last week, significantly adding to the pressure on Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned forces which are waiting for delayed deliveries of crucial weapons and ammunition from Western partners.
The original article contains 259 words, the summary contains 132 words. Saved 49%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund Now Supporting FFmpeg 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Following Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund providing significant funding for GNOME, Rust Coreutils, PHP, a systemd bug bounty, and numerous other free software projects, the FFmpeg multimedia library is the latest beneficiary to this funding from the Germany government.
The Sovereign Tech Fund notes that the FFmpeg project is receiving €157,580.00 for 2024 and 2025.
An announcement on the FFmpeg.org project site notes: “The FFmpeg community is excited to announce that Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund has become its first governmental sponsor.
Their support will help sustain the [maintenance] of the FFmpeg project, a critical open-source software multimedia component essential to bringing audio and video to billions around the world everyday.”
Exciting news and great continuing to see the significant investments across many open-source projects being made by the Sovereign Tech Fund.
The original article contains 130 words, the summary contains 130 words. Saved 0%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Google Search adds a “web” filter, because it is no longer focused on web results 1 day ago:
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
The feature, renamed “AI Overview,” is here now, and it feels like the biggest change to Google Search ever. When Google decides you have an AI-appropriate query, it now takes a lot of scrolling to see web results. Page three is the bottom half of the video box, then a “Discussions and forums” section with Reddit and Quora posts. Google claims “that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query,” but that’s honestly hard to believe. When Google takes the content from one or several sites, rearranges it with AI, and displays it, in full, at the top of the results, why would any user click through? Assuming AI overview works the same way, Google has not said how it expects something like this to be sustainable for web publishers. — Saved 74% of original text.
- Comment on As Russia Advances, NATO Considers Sending Trainers Into Ukraine 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war.
Ukraine’s manpower shortage has reached a critical point, and its position on the battlefield in recent weeks has seriously worsened as Russia has accelerated its advances to take advantage of delays in shipments of American weapons.
As a part of NATO, the United States would be obligated under the alliance’s treaty to aid in the defense of any attack on the trainers, potentially dragging America into the war.
The White House has been adamant that it will not put American troops, including trainers, on the ground in Ukraine, a position that an administration official reiterated on Thursday.
Other NATO allies, including Britain, Germany and France, are working to base defense contractors in Ukraine to help build and repair weapons systems closer to the combat zone — what military officials have described as a “fix it forward” approach.
“There is an element of ally malpractice in the fact that we’re providing masses of Western equipment to Ukraine, but not giving them the resources to sustain it,” said Alexander S. Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a Ukrainian-born American combat veteran.
The original article contains 947 words, the summary contains 219 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Gov. Abbott pardons Daniel Perry for 2020 fatal Black Lives Matter protest shooting after recommendation from pardons board | CNN 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Perry faced between five and 99 years in prison for fatally shooting 28-year-old Air Force veteran Garrett Foster at an Austin, Texas, racial justice rally two months after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.
Prosecutors said Perry, who was stationed at Fort Hood, initiated the fatal encounter when he ran a red light and drove his vehicle into a crowd gathered at the protest.
They highlighted a stream of racist and inflammatory social media posts Perry wrote prior to the shooting and the defense’s own analysis of his mental disorders and mindset.
“This man is a loaded gun ready to go off on any perceived threat that he thinks he has to address in his black and white world and his us versus them mentality,” a prosecutor said.
Perry’s defense team asked for a sentence of 10 years, citing his lack of criminal history, his psychological issues, including complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and praise from several of his military colleagues.
The original article contains 527 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on More than 60% of world’s coral reefs may have bleached in past year, U.S. agency says 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last month that the world’s coral reefs were in the throes of a fourth mass bleaching event, as climate change combined with an El Nino climate pattern has pushed ocean temperatures to record highs.
Now, the agency reports some 60.5% of the world’s reef area has been affected and that number is still rising.
Scientists have documented mass bleaching in at least 62 countries and territories, with India and Sri Lanka recently reporting impacts.
The last global event, which ran from 2014 to 2017, saw 56.1% of reef areas subjected to bleaching-level heat stress.
One assessment published in April 2024 found there had so far been between 50% and 93% coral mortality at Huatulco, Oaxaca, in the Mexican Pacific.
The situation is likely to worsen this summer, as heat stress is once again accumulating in the Southern Caribbean.
The original article contains 420 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on France Bans TikTok in Island Territory After Pro-Independence Protests Turn Violent 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
France declared a state of emergency on Wednesday in its territory of New Caledonia following protests against changes to the election laws that turned violent and have left four people dead.
New Caledonia has been a French territory since it was first colonized in 1853, becoming a penal colony throughout the second half of the 19th century, and many of the Indigenous Kanak people have fought for independence over the decades.
One concession France did allow after massive and violent protests in the 1980s and ‘90s was the Noumea Accords of 1998, which froze the ability of any newly arrived people from the French mainland to vote in local elections.
TikTok is also now banned in the territory as French authorities have blamed the app for helping organize the demonstrations, and “attracting troublemakers to the streets,” as the South China Morning Post put it.
Daniel Goa, a pro-independence party leader in New Caledonia, condemned any looting while urging young people to go home, but pointed out the anger at the heart of the riots.
“Violence is neither justifiable nor tolerable,” French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday according to an English language translation by New Zealand news outlet 1News.
The original article contains 669 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.
But a 62-slide presentation on the activities of the General Security Service, delivered only weeks before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, reveals the degree to which the largely unknown unit penetrated the lives of Palestinians.
Those people recounted key events, confirmed biographical information and, in Mr. Fasfous’s case, described interactions with the authorities that aligned with the secret files.
One Palestinian individual familiar with the inner workings of Hamas, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that the service was one of three powerful internal security bodies in Gaza.
“This General Security Service is just like the Stasi of East Germany,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs.
An October 2016 report described young men and women performing unspecified “immoral acts” at a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Khan Younis at night.
The original article contains 1,459 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on IDF tanks kill 5, injure 7 in Gaza friendly fire accident, IDF releases names 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
All openings to the tanks, including the canopy on the top, were ordered to be kept closed to avoid any hole or vulnerability to the RPG attacks.
However, the IDF said that the tanks had taken over the junction in Jabalya around 9:00 am and that the Battalion headquarters deputy commander had only arrived many hours later.
The IDF released on Thursday the names of the five soldiers who were killed in the friendly fire attack in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday:
Sergeant Roy Beit Yaakov, 22, from Eli, was a combat officer in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.
Staff Sergeant Gilad Arye Boim, 22, from Karnei Shomron, was a soldier in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.
Staff Sergeant Betzlel David Shashuah, 21, from Tel Aviv, was a soldier in Battalion 202, Paratroopers Brigade.
The original article contains 275 words, the summary contains 132 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Dutch woman, 29, granted euthanasia approval on grounds of mental suffering 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A 29-year-old Dutch woman who has been granted her request for assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering is expected to end her life in the coming weeks, fuelling a debate across Europe over the issue.
Zoraya ter Beek received the final approval last week for assisted dying after a three and a half year process under a law passed in the Netherlands in 2002.
Her case has caused controversy as assisted dying for people with psychiatric illnesses in the Netherlands remains unusual, although the numbers are increasing.
An article about her case, published in April, was picked up by international media, prompting an outcry that caused Ter Beek huge distress.
“I knew I couldn’t cope with the way I live now.” She had thought about taking her own life but the violent death by suicide of a schoolfriend and its impact on the girl’s family deterred her.
“I was on a waiting list for assessment for a long time, because there are so few doctors willing to be involved in assisted dying for people with mental suffering.
The original article contains 837 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on Kernel.org servers infected with backdoors for two years from 2009 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Infrastructure used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system kernel was infected for two years, starting in 2009, by sophisticated malware that managed to get a hold of one of the developers’ most closely guarded resources: the /etc/shadow files that stored encrypted password data for more than 550 system users, researchers said Tuesday.
The unknown attackers behind the compromise infected at least four servers inside kernel.org, the Internet domain underpinning the sprawling Linux development and distribution network, the researchers from security firm ESET said.
After obtaining the cryptographic hashes for 551 user accounts on the network, the attackers were able to convert half into plaintext passwords, likely through password-cracking techniques and the use of an advanced credential-stealing feature built into the malware.
Besides revealing the number of compromised user accounts, representatives of the Linux Kernel Organization provided no details other than saying that the infection:
A 47-page report summarizing Ebury’s 15-year history said that the infection hitting the kernel.org network began in 2009, two years earlier than the domain was previously thought to have been compromised.
Representatives of the Linux Kernel Organization didn’t respond to emails asking if they were aware of the ESET report or if its claims were accurate.
The original article contains 493 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
- Comment on US suggests possibility of penalties if production of Chinese electric vehicles moves to Mexico 1 day ago:
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is suggesting the possibility that additional penalties could be put in place if the Chinese makers of electric vehicles try to move their production to Mexico to avoid newly announced import taxes.
But Chinese EV company BYD has previously indicated that it was looking at factory sites in Mexico for the Mexican market.
Asked at the White House news briefing on Tuesday about new tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said, “Stay tuned.”
Tai said any penalties if China should follow through on factories would require a “separate pathway” from the Section 301 review of the Trade Act of 1974.
That four-year review led to the tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports announced on Tuesday.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office after Tai’s remarks said that it could take several actions other than tariffs, noting that there are provisions within the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to address unfair subsidies and efforts to avoid import duties.
The original article contains 242 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 34%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!