Instagram was restored online after experiencing global outages, the social media company said. Down Detector, a website that tracks outages, reported 56,628 reports at around 11pm on Sunday. The Down Detector location map showed the outages spread across the UK with reports of outages coming from the US and Australia as well. Instagram said at 1.19am on Monday that the issue which had caused the outage had been resolved. The photo and video networking service appeared to be online again before 1am with reports of the outages dropping to less than 500 by 1:.. According to Down Detector, 92% of the outages were on the app, 6% via the website and 2% on the login. Users could not refresh their feed or post during the outages. It came after Instagram experienced an outage on March 9 where thousands of users reported similar issues.

Ordering supermarket groceries via a delivery app such as Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats could cost twice the price of buying directly from the same store, according to Which? Meanwhile, Amazon is charging up to 45% more for Morrisons products than if they were bought from the supermarket’s own website, the consumer group found. Which? acknowledged that ordering groceries from Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats is “undeniably convenient” and could be received in as little as 30 minutes, but warned it found “shocking” price differences across a range of products in its snapshot investigation. It compared the price of a basket of 15 popular grocery items at five major supermarkets against the cost of ordering the same basket from the same supermarket to the same postcode via a delivery app, not including delivery fees. Almost all of the items were either more expensive on the delivery apps or the same price. Ordering groceries from Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats is undeniably appealing but the cost of this convenience could be double what you'd pay if you cut out the middleman Ele Clark, Which? Which? also found that customers would pay on average 8% more for Morrisons groceries via Amazon than by ordering directly from the supermarket. In one case, a 250g pack of Country Life unsalted butter cost 45% more on Amazon. The rapid delivery apps also charged a premium of as much as 106% in one instance. The Which? basket, which included branded goods such as Doritos crisps alongside own-label milk and ready meals, would have cost £36.63 from Iceland, but getting the same items delivered from the same Iceland store by Just Eat would have cost £50.50, not including delivery fees – a 38% premium. In some individual price differences, own-brand Fairtrade bananas cost 85p at Sainsbury’s and £1.75 on the three apps, Warburtons Toastie Thick Sliced White Bread cost £1 on Iceland’s website but £2 on Just Eat and Uber Eats, while Hovis Best of Both Medium Bread cost £1.19 on the Morrisons website but £2.05 from Uber Eats. Other examples included Asda own-brand Pinot Grigio costing £7 on the supermarket’s website and £9.10 on all three apps. Which? retail spokeswoman Ele Clark said: “Ordering groceries from Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats is undeniably appealing but the cost of this convenience could be double what you’d pay if you cut out the middleman. “As well as the extra cost on your groceries, you’ll probably have a delivery fee too, so it’s worth weighing this up before ordering anything to your door.” Customers who choose to order groceries via apps like ours do so because of the convenience, speed and choice on offer from rapid delivery Uber Eats A Deliveroo spokeswoman said: “The prices for grocery items available on the Deliveroo platform are set by our grocery partners. “Deliveroo always seeks to deliver great choice, availability and value for money to our customers, and we have agreed price-matching with our grocery partners including Morrisons, Co-op, Asda and more across hundreds of items.” An Uber Eats spokeswoman said: “Everyone who partners with Uber Eats sets their own prices and we always encourage them to match the prices offered in-store. “Customers who choose to order groceries via apps like ours do so because of the convenience, speed and choice on offer from rapid delivery.” A Just Eat spokeswoman said: “At Just Eat, we want all of our customers to have a positive experience when ordering from our platform. We work with more than 75,000 partners across the UK, giving our millions of customers access to choice and convenience through a variety of local takeaway options, restaurant brands and grocery stores. “As independent businesses, any restaurant or grocer using Just Eat are in control of their menus and set the prices they charge. We continue to work closely with our partners to bring value to our customers.” Amazon said that all prices of products sold through the ‘Morrisons on Amazon’ service were set by Morrisons, and added that being able to shop for Morrisons groceries on Amazon offered customers fast delivery options and value. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Therapist develops secret app to help abuse victims Artificial intelligence warning over human extinction labelled ‘publicity stunt’ ‘I feel lost’ – AI pioneer speaks out as experts warn it could wipe out humanity

Public interest in the deep ocean went into a frenzy this week as the search for the doomed Titan submarine played out – and Oscar-winning film director has made no secret of the fact that he is obsessed with the subject. Since it emerged on 22 June that the Titan was destroyed in what US authorities called a “catastrophic implosion”, Cameron has been telling media outlets that he knew what the five-man crew’s fate was since Monday, four days earlier. After calling up his “contacts in the deep submersible community” Cameron said he had already ascertained that the vessel had been destroyed in an implosion. “I felt in my bones what had happened.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter But why does Cameron know so much about the ocean depths? Titanic, Avatar and The Abyss First of all, Cameron has made a lot of films about the bottom of the sea. His 1997 film, Titanic, won 11 Oscars and was the first movie to earn more than $1bn worldwide, and Cameron went deep on his research – literally. The filmmaker has visited the real-life wreck of the Titanic 33 times, making his first trip in 1995 to shoot footage for the film. One of those dives even involved getting trapped with the wreck for 16 hours, with currents of water holding the director’s submarine at the bottom of the ocean. He has even written a book about his experiences, Exploring The Deep, which includes details of his dive journey, photos and maps from his own explorations of the wreck. He told ABC News: “I actually calculated [that] I've spent more time on the ship than the captain did back in the day.” Long before Titanic, Cameron directed The Abyss in 1989. The premise of the film is that an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean – sound familiar? That prompts a search and recovery team to race against Soviet vessels to recover the boat. Meanwhile, the last movie in Cameron’s famous Avatar franchise, The Way of Water, is set on the aquatic ecosystems of a world 25 trillion miles from Earth. "Some people think of me as a Hollywood guy … (but) I make 'Avatar' to make money to do explorations," Cameron told The Telegraph. Going even deeper In 2012, Cameron went a step further, plunging nearly 11km down to the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. The filmmaker made the solo descent in a submarine called the Deepsea Challenger, and it took more than two hours to reach the bottom. The submarine he used was years in the making, designed by Cameron himself with a team of engineers. The trip was only the second manned expedition to the Mariana Trench. The first was in 1960, when US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard descended to the ocean floor. “It was absolutely the most remote, isolated place on the planet,” Cameron said in a later interview. “I really feel like in one day I've been to another planet and come back.” He was even underwater when 9/11 happened His obsession with the ocean goes back to age 17, he told the New York Times, when he learned to scuba dive, when he said he felt like he had discovered the "keys to another world”. And between making Titanic in 1997 and Avatar in 2009 Cameron didn’t make a feature film. But he did make documentaries about sea exploration. One of those, 2003’s Ghosts of the Abyss, showed Cameron's travels to the Titanic, while the other, 2005’s Aliens of the Deep, saw Cameron team up with NASA scientists to explore the sea creatures of mid-ocean ridges. Cameron’s fascination even meant he was inside a submersible vessel exploring the Titanic on 11 September 2001, when terrorists flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Centre. It was only after the now-68-year-old director and his crew finished their expedition and returned to the main ship that Cameron learned what had happened. “What is this thing that’s going on?” Cameron asked the late actor Bill Paxton, who played treasure hunter Brock Lovett in the film. “The worst terrorist attack in history, Jim,” Paxton said. Cameron realised he “was presumably the last man in the Western Hemisphere to learn about what had happened,” he told Spiegel in 2012. 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.

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Just when we think we’ve found the best first post on Threads, Instagram’s new “civil” text-based app to rival Twitter, another one comes along which is miles better – and former Labour MP Ed Balls may be the all-out winner after posting exactly what you would think he would post. Well-known for his 2011 Twitter blunder in which he tweeted out his own name instead of searching for it, the Good Morning Britain presenter and ex-shadow chancellor now marks the iconic moment every 28 April on ‘Ed Balls Day’. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Now, adhering to the politician’s principle of giving the people what they want, Mr Balls has set up an account on Threads and kicked things off by posting those two magic words. And it’s fair to say other users on the platform absolutely loved it. One declared: “You’ve won Threads today!” “Thread Balls,” quipped another. A third replied: “I think you win the internet today.” Others, though, have questioned what this means for marking the special occasion, seeing as the Twitter mishap occurred on 28 April (as mentioned previously), but this more deliberate posting happened on 6 July. “Ed! Now I need to rearrange my whole calendar for a new holiday,” complained one user. A second jokingly fumed: “Who do you think you are, Ed? The monarch? You don’t get two special days.” Another asked if the post marked “the new Ed Balls Day”, but that question remains unanswered. It’s unknown whether his wife Yvette Cooper MP, the shadow home secretary, will replicate the meme by reposting one of her Twitter typos. She does have a Threads account, at least… 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.

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The Earth narrowly avoided being hit by a “cannibal” solar flare – but has been lashed by powerful enough blasts to disrupt communications. In recent days, space weather forecasters had warned that the Earth could be hit by a range of powerful flares that have been ejected from the Sun. Particular warnings focused on the “cannibal” flare, which was forecast to potentially glance Earth. “Cannibal” solar flares are formed when a later blast catches up with one that was ejected earlier, and consumes it. The energy of the two is combined, which can make them far more powerful than flares that are released on their own. The latest cannibal flare appears to have missed Earth, however. Forecasts had suggested that it was only expected to glance the planet, and so a miss was perhaps likely. The Earth was struck by an X-class flare, however. That is the most potent category of solar flares, and can cause considerable disruption on Earth. This time around, space weather experts warned that the blast was enough to disrupt radio and navigation signals in North America. It was measured as an R3 blackout – on a scale that runs from 1 to 5 – which meant that areas in the US and Canada as well as on the Pacific Ocean were at risk of having radio signals and navigation disrupted. The Sun moves through a cycle of activity every 11 years, during which it releases more and less “coronal mass ejections” or CMEs, and it is currently in a particularly busy part of that cycle. Those CMEs can bring energetic flares that hit Earth – and could one day cause considerable problems on the planet, disrupting energy grids and other important infrastructure. The latest flare was measured at X1.5 and is the 20th such X flare to have hit the Earth in its current period. It came out of a particularly active part of the Sun, and followed other, weaker flares, the UK’s Met Office said. Nonetheless, experts said the “minor ongoing solar radiation storm” was “waning” and that it did not expect significant disruption in the coming days. Read More Giant space ‘umbrella’ tethered to asteroid could protect Earth from climate crisis James Webb Space Telescope captures new images of the Ring Nebula Massive solar storm strikes Earth, Moon and Mars together for first time in history

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A pair of shoes thought to be the oldest ever found in Europe are now estimated to be even older than scientists had previously thought. About 20 pairs of sandals found in southern Spain are at least 6,200 years old, while other woven objects found in the cave date back 9,500 years, according to a new study. The scientists used carbon-dating on 76 objects found in the Cueva de los Murciélagos, Albuñol, near Granada, which were originally discovered by miners in the 19th century. The objects are particularly valuable to science because they represent the first direct evidence of certain hunter-gatherer skills, such as weaving, in southern Europe. They are made of wood, reed and esparto grass. The shoes measured about eight inches in length. The study was published in the journal Science Advances by a team from the Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Francisco Martínez Sevilla, a researcher at the Prehistory Department of UAH, said: “These are the earliest and widest-ranging assemblage of prehistoric footwear, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in Europe, unparalleled at other latitudes. “The new dating of the esparto baskets from the Cueva de los Murciélagos of Albuñol opens a window of opportunity to understanding the last hunter-gatherer societies of the early Holocene. “The quality and technological complexity of the basketry makes us question the simplistic assumptions we have about human communities prior to the arrival of agriculture in Southern Europe.” He said the project placed the cave as “a unique site in Europe to study the organic materials of prehistoric populations”. Cueva de los Murciélagos, or “Cave of the Bats,” is located on the coast of Granada, to the south of the Sierra Nevada. The finds are thought to have been so well-preserved because of low humidity levels in the area. Study co-author María Herrero Otal added: “The esparto grass objects from Cueva de los Murciélagos are the oldest and best-preserved set of plant fibre materials in Southern Europe so far known. “The technological diversity and the treatment of the raw material documented demonstrates the ability of prehistoric communities to master this type of craftsmanship, at least since 9,500 years ago, in the Mesolithic period. “Only one type of technique related to hunter-gatherers has been identified, while the typological, technological and treatment range of esparto grass was extended during the Neolithic from 7,200 to 6,200 years before the present.” 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.

Efforts by the Biden administration have been helping create new factory jobs as part of a push to bring high-speed internet to the whole country

(Corrects spelling of 'conservative' in paragraph 8) By Rozanna Latiff KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Malaysia may not go through with a