While there’s no way to guarantee you’ll completely avoid financial scams, there are steps you can take to reduce your chances of falling for one

By Steven Scheer JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Wix.com, which helps small businesses build and operate websites, reported a higher-than-expected rise in quarterly

The first-ever Olympic-organised Esports Week kicked off in Singapore on Thursday, but an IOC official said there is currently no plan to include video...

When A-Level results day comes around, the annual Jeremy Clarkson tweet is tradition - and this year's tweet has been backed by Rishi Sunak. Since 2014, the former Top Gear presenter has taken to Twitter/X to share the fact that he got a C and 2 U's when he was at school and that despite his results, he ended up doing well for himself. At the end of each tweet, there is a new and not-so-humble brag about his success - such as having "loads of friends and a Bentley [in 2021]," and "a Mercedes Benz [in 2014]." So what was Clarkson's 2023 results day tweet? "It’s not the end of the world if your A level results aren’t what you’d hoped for. I got a C and 2 Us and here I am today with my own brewery," the 63-year-old tweeted. Now, prime minister Rishi Sunak has supported Clarkson's message with a retweet and noted how he has a "good point." "Jeremy has made a career of being the exception not the rule but he does have a good point here: Results day is important, but not necessarily a deal-breaker," Sunak tweeted. He added: "Whatever results you got today, there are lots of options available to you." Though some were far from impressed by the endorsement given the presenter's controversies over the years and the fact that both Sunak and Clarkson went to private schools. Elsewhere In Pictures: Smiles abound as A-level results are released, Gary Neville's hot take on results day is being praised for 'accuracy', and Nadine Dorries shares bizarre message to anxious A-Level students. 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.

For most teenagers Minecraft remains just a hobby, but one Ukrainian schoolboy’s love for the game has meant he can now afford to buy his homeless mother a house. Lomond School pupil Maksym Gavrylenko has made a “substantial” sum after selling the server he ran from his bedroom, which allows gamers from all over the world to connect to and play together on, with friends. The 17-year-old boarding school pupil said: “I am very proud that I was able to turn my passion into a profitable business and I plan on treating my mother. “As a result of the war, she was forced to flee her home, leaving her homeless, so to buy her a property will make all the hours spent on this project worthwhile.” She is currently staying with friends in Portugal, but intends to settle close to her son. Other family members of Maksym’s remain in his war-torn homeland. His grandparents would not leave Kyiv, having lived there their whole lives, and his sister stayed in the country as her partner had to sign up to defend Ukraine. Making enough money from selling the gaming company he set up to buy his mother a house was something he never expected, the teenager said, with he and his friends embarking upon the project for fun. “We never imagined it would develop into a viable business opportunity, but with guidance from my brother who works in tech, and the school, I was encouraged to explore the possibilities to turn it into something bigger,” Maksym said. His success comes after he moved from Ukraine to Scotland in 2021 and bought a little-used Minecraft server for £1,000, and in the years that followed he and two friends made changes which resulted in a huge rise in players. Along with this, advertisers were attracted to the server, and its value increased. And because of the influx, Lomond School said a lucrative offer was made by a tech firm, which was accepted in May this year. I have no doubt that this won’t be the last we hear about one of Maksym’s business ventures Johanna Urquhart, Lomond School principal Now with one business success under his belt, Maksym wants to expand on his knowledge by going to university and has applied to a mixture of UK and overseas universities. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve always had an interest in business having worked as a part-time translator and a writer in Ukraine,” said the student, who studies at the school in Helensburgh, in Argyll and Bute. “As well as having a passion for gaming, I really enjoyed the entrepreneurial side of our project, and I have applied to universities around the world to study business management.” His preferred choice for university is south of the border in England. Johanna Urquhart, Lomond School principal, said what Maksym had achieved was “absolutely incredible”. “I have no doubt that this won’t be the last we hear about one of Maksym’s business ventures,” she said. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Legislation needed to protect data from AI ‘ghostbots’, say researchers Banking app feature allows economic abuse survivors to mute malicious messages Augmented reality headset Vision Pro is ‘most advanced device ever’ – Apple

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 8, 2023--

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Scientists have created what they say is the biggest simulation of our cosmos ever. The virtual universe has the mass of 300 billion galaxies, packed into a space with edges ten billion light years across. Scientists hope that it will help tell us how the real universe that surrounds us first evolved. They could also help address problems in our understanding of physics that currently suggest we might have made deep mistakes about the cosmos. But the first results from the simulation suggest that it might not work: the findings do not get rid of the tensions between different observations about the universe that have proven so difficult to scientists. Researchers created the simulation, named FLAMINGO, by taking the vast amount of data that has been gathered by telescopes such as Nasa’s JWST and other projects. Those projects give information about galaxies, stars and the other arrangement of matter in our cosmos, which can then be fed into the computer. Researchers then hope that the computer can use that data to simulate the evolution and nature of our universe. That can then help resolve those fundamental difficulties we currently face in physics. One of those issues come from the current theory that the properties of our universe are decided by only a few “cosmological parameters”. We can measure those parameters very precisely. But scientists have run into issues because those parameters do not always match. For instance, there are multiple ways of measuring the Hubble constant, or the speed at which the universe is expanding – but those multiple ways show different results, and scientists have not been able to explain them. Scientists hope that the simulation can help explain or resolve that tension. But it is yet to do so. That is just one of the many ways that the creators of the FLAMINGO simulations hope that they can be used to better understand the universe and the observations that we have of it. It might also allow us to make new kinds of discoveries: the vast amount of data means that it can construct random, virtual universes and see how theories work in there, for instance. The work is described in three papers, all of which are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society today. Read More Scientists see huge explosion in space – and it could explain life Massive space explosion observed creating elements needed for life Tim Peake: Possibility of all-UK space mission a ‘very exciting development’

Bitcoin has quickly settled into a narrow trading range after reaching a fresh one-year high, leaving reinvigorated enthusiasts

A former Apple engineer who fled to China five years ago has been charged with stealing the company’s self-driving car technology. The US Justice Department charged Weibao Wang, 35, for stealing large troves of data from Apple, including trade secrets and technology related to autonomous systems that are used to design self-driving cars. Mr Wang was charged with six counts of theft or attempted theft of trade secrets, according to a press release issued by the department. “Innovation is alive and well in Silicon Valley – indeed, throughout the Northern District of California,” said US attorney Ismail J Ramsey. “Unfortunately, there will always be some who cheat the system by stealing and profiting from the fruits of others’ labour. The Wang prosecution is but one example. We are pleased that the Disruptive Technology Task Force renews energy and focus on securing innovation for those who actually create it.” The former Apple engineer was a resident of Mountain View in California and began working with the tech giant in 2016. He had signed a confidentiality agreement for the project for which he was working on, and very few people at the company knew about it at that time. He began working as staff engineer with the US-based subsidiary of a Chinese company and was working to develop self-driving cars, the indictment said. The company was identified only as “Company One” in the indictment. Mr Wang was also accused of waiting for more than four months before telling Apple that he was resigning, after he signed a new employment agreement with “Company One”. After the last day of his employment at Apple, on 16 April 2018, Apple’s officials found in their logs that he had accessed large troves of confidential data in the final days of his stint at the tech giant. His Mountain View home was searched on 27 June 2018. Law enforcement agents discovered “large quantities of data taken from Apple prior to his departure” during the search, for which Mr Wang was present. After telling the agents that he had no plans to travel, he purchased a one-way ticket to Guangzhou, China, and boarded a flight that same night. In a press conference, Mr Ramsey said Mr Wang remained in China and he could face 10 years in jail, if extradited and convicted. This is the third incident of a former Apple employee being charged for stealing of documents for China. Two other Apple employees have previously been charged in similar cases involving theft of trade secrets, reported the BBC. Read More Elon Musk calls working from home ‘morally wrong’ How many more rapists and killers are in Met? Police force ‘institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic’ says damning report The Independent backs calls for jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai to be released

A low intergalactic grumbling is emanating from deep space, according to scientists. And no, it’s not the start of the end times. Astronomers say they detected the first-of-their-kind low frequency ripples, described as a “cosmic bass note” of gravitational waves, which is thought to be caused by supermassive black holes merging across the universe. The discovery could unveil new secrets about how the monster black holes, which lie at the centre of galaxies, work. The objects are millions – possibly billions – the times the mass of the sun, but little is known about them because no light can escape. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “This is huge news,” said Dr Stephen Taylor, chair of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (Nanograv) consortium, which led the team which made the discovery, and an astrophysicist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. Dr Michael Keith, of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and a member of the team which helped find the signal, added: “The results presented today mark the beginning of a new journey into the universe to unveil some of its unsolved mysteries. “We are incredibly excited that after decades of work by hundreds of astronomers and physicists around the world, we are finally seeing the signature of gravitational waves from the distant universe.” Before the discovery, scientists have only captured short “chirps” of gravitational waves which are linked to the massive objects merging. But the “bass note” comes after they tuned into a deeper range of frequencies. It is thought to be caused by a single complete gravitational wave travelling at the speed of light. Astronomers think it is produced by the entire population of supermassive black hole binaries from over roughly the last 8bn years of the universe. “We think each pair contributes a little wave, which is added to a little wave of another, and all together that is what we may see right now – a sort of murmur of the entire population,” said Prof Alberto Vecchio of the University of Birmingham and a member of the European Pulsar Timing Array. Prof Andrew Pontzen, a cosmologist at University College London, added: “It’s not often that we get a glimpse of the universe through a totally new lens, but after 15 years of patient work, Nanograv seems to be providing just that. It’s tremendously exciting to see initial evidence for these waves, which will eventually teach us an enormous amount about supermassive black holes, hundreds of millions of times the mass of the sun.” The findings were published on 29 June by Astrophysical Journal Letters. 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.

On Thursday, New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit against three digital asset firms that were caught up in the collapse of Bankman-Fried's empire last fall — Gemini Trust, Genesis Global Capital and Digital Currency Group, parent company of Genesis.