Browsing: Opinion

Sunday’s general election will be the most crucial since Moldova gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Moscow is doing all it can to divert the country from its European course.If a flood of videos on TikTok is to be believed, the people of Moldova are currently living through a reign of terror. These short videos claim that the country is being governed by a “dictatorship” of its pro-European President, Maia Sandu, and the ruling liberal-conservative Action and Solidarity Party (PAS). They also allege that this “puppet regime” has sold itself to the EU, NATO and US billionaire George Soros with a view to destroying Moldova’s agriculture, “introducing LGBTQ ideology” and leading the country into a war against the Russian Federation. Former president’s TikTok campaign One of the people who posts such things on TikTok almost daily is the former President of Moldova, Igor Dodon, a devoted follower of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dodon is leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Mold

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An escalator incident involving United States President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump as they headed into the United Nations General Assembly Hall on the opening day of the 80th high-level session, Sept. 23, has incited claims on social media of sabotage. However, a PassBlue review of the incident suggests it was most likely an … Read more

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Once a cover for closeted Hollywood stars and persecuted LGBTQ+ people, lavender marriages got a Gen Z reboot — offering protection, partnership and a new take on marriage in the digital age.Over the past year, a curious trend has been making the rounds on TikTok: Young (and mainly Western) people are proposing marriage to like-minded individuals seeking companionship, stability, as well as shared financial burdens and benefits. Love and/or sex? Not necessary. The term “lavender marriage” resurfaced from obscurity, sparking conversations about the origins of such marriages of convenience, and whether this once covert survival tactic could be repurposed for an era seeing shifting relationship norms. A heteronormative front The phrase “lavender marriage” mainly gained traction in early 20th-century Hollywood, where image was paramount and being openly queer could have ended careers. The unions between a man and a woman — with either one or both partners being homosexual — provided a heteronormative cover so tha

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In case you thought Jimmy Kimmel would pull punches on Trump in the face of threats from federal officials and still-boycotting affiliates – he’s not. The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host did a 15-minute monologue on Wednesday night, nearly all of it focused on roasting the president, calling him, among other things, a bully in the style of Biff from “Back to the Future.” After acknowledging that the show was being taped for “not all of the country,” Kimmel kicked off his rapid-fire roast by noting that among all the people he heard from during his four-day suspension, one “special friend” stood out: “The Mad Red Hatter.” Kimmel pulled up many of Trump’s Truth Social posts, including the one that said “I can’t believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back.” “You can’t believe they gave me my job back? I can’t believe we gave you your job back,” Kimmel fired back. “The White House was told by ABC that his show was cancelled. … Something happened between then and now because his audience is gone and his talent

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A lifelong fan of “Tomb Raider,” French gamer Romain Bos was on tenterhooks when an update of the popular video game went online in August. But his excitement quickly turned to anger. The gamer’s ears — and those of other “Tomb Raider” fans — picked up something amiss with the French-language voice of Lara Croft, the game’s protagonist. It sounded robotic, lifeless even — shorn of the warmth, grace and believability that French voice actor Françoise Cadol has given to Croft since she started playing the character in 1996. Gamers and Cadol herself came to the same conclusion: A machine had cloned her voice and replaced her. “It’s pathetic,” says Cadol, who straight away called her lawyer. “My voice belongs to me. You have no right to do that.” “It was absolutely scandalous,” says Bos. “It was artificial intelligence.” AI encroaching ‘everywhere’ Aspyr, the game developer based in Austin, Texas, didn’t respond to e-mailed questions from The Associated Press. But it acknowledged in a post last week on its websit

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