Published: Wed 31 Jul 2024, 8:41 AM Last updated: Wed 31 Jul 2024, 8:58 AM James Cox There were tears of joy on the swimming podium last night, as Daniel Wiffen became the first Irish man to win a medal in the pool. He set a new Olympic record to win gold in the men’s 800-metre freestyle. That was just Ireland’s 12th ever Olympic gold medal. Wiffen said: “I don’t think a lot of people actually believed me that I was going to do it tonight but yeah it was incredible. I’ve done it – that’s all I want to…
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US Department of Labor probe, litigation leads to one of nation’s largest FLSA judgmentsPITTSBURGH – In one of the nation’s largest wage recovery judgments, a Pennsylvania federal court has awarded $35.8 million in overtime back wages and liquidated damages to 6,000 current and former workers employed by the operators of 15 residential skilled nursing, rehabilitation and assisted living facilities in western Pennsylvania that willfully denied them overtime pay.After a 13-day bench trial, the July 22, 2024, judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania is the department’s latest step to recoup wages and damages, jointly and…
Israel, which has in recent years carried out a number of high-profile assassinations in Iran and elsewhere, has not yet commented on Haniyeh’s killing. In 2004, Israel carried out an airstrike in Gaza killing Hamas’ then-leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi. The same year, it assassinated one of the militant group’s founders, Ahmed Yassin, in Gaza City. Haniyeh’s alleged assassination came only hours after the Israel Defense Forces claimed they killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday. The IDF said it had targeted the commander responsible for a rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied…
The year 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of quantum mechanics. In the century since the field’s inception, scientists and engineers have used quantum mechanics to create technologies such as lasers, MRI scanners and computer chips. Today, researchers are looking toward building quantum computers and ways to securely transfer information using an entirely new sister field called quantum information science. But despite creating all these breakthrough technologies, physicists and philosophers who study quantum mechanics still haven’t come up with the answers to some big questions raised by the field’s founders. Given recent developments in quantum information science, researchers…
Government backs industry with £1.5 billion budget for next renewable energy auction, boosting energy security Increase of over 50 per cent on previous budget with biggest boost for offshore wind New milestone in mission for clean, cheap energy for families and businesses Renewable industry to bid for record breaking funding as the Energy Secretary unveils the largest-ever budget for delivering new homegrown clean energy projects in the UK – boosting energy security, securing cheap power for families, and unlocking economic growth and jobs for the country. Ed Miliband today (Wednesday 31 July) announced the budget for this year’s renewable energy…
Data just published online shows a worrying increase in infectious syphilis cases in women living in Australia aged 15–44 (referred to as “reproductive age”) and a subsequent rise in transmission from pregnant parent to child. This is called congenital syphilis. Congenital syphilis is easily prevented through timely testing and treatment of syphilis during pregnancy. Left untreated, congenital syphilis can have devastating outcomes in more than 50% of cases including miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death and permanent disability. We reviewed all cases of congenital syphilis in Australia between 2011 and 2021 and found tragically 25% were stillborn. For the birthing parent of…
Every year, millions of children around the globe fall prey to human trafficking. To mark World Day against Trafficking in Persons, the United Nations Network on Migration calls on States to intensify their efforts to prevent and combat child trafficking and to provide comprehensive protection and assistance to the children who fall victim to this crime. Current global crises have led to an unprecedented number of children on the move, whether as migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees or internally displaced persons. These children, particularly when alone, are at heightened risk of human rights violations, violence and exploitation, with devastating impacts on their…
NASA’s DART mission – Double Asteroid Redirection Test – was humanity’s first real-world planetary defence mission. In September 2022, the DART spacecraft smashed into the companion “moon” of a small asteroid 11 million kilometres from Earth. One goal was to find out if we can give such things a shove if one were headed our way. By gathering lots of data on approach and after the impact, we would also get a better idea of what we’d be in for if such an asteroid were to hit Earth. Five new studies published in Nature Communications today have used the images…
It’s one thing to aspire to be the “greenest games in history”, quite another to achieve it. While the Paris Olympics are responding to the threat to sport from the climate crisis, they also highlight the contradictions inherent in making global sport a platform for climate action. Average temperatures in Paris are set to be 2.4–2.7°C higher than in 1924 when the city last hosted the games. Although the possibility of an extreme heatwave worried organisers, so far they’ve mostly contended with soggy skies and flood warnings. But while the spotlight is on Paris, the impacts of climate change –…
When director Rich Peppiatt first approached the three members of Kneecap, a Belfast hip-hip trio that raps in the Irish language, they weren’t sure what to make of his completely unsolicited pitch to make a feature film about them.“We were very hesitant,” says rapper Naoise Ó Cairealláin. “At first because, well, No. 1 he’s English, and that’s enough for us to be quite skeptical because for a long time the English would profit off the Irish labor.“Also, we’re the band; we’re Kneecap,” he says as bandmate JJ Ó Dochartaigh looks on. “We’re a real-life band, not a mythical made-up band.…