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Xi Jinping makes rare visit to Tibet to celebrate 60 years of Chinese rule

Xi Jinping makes rare visit to Tibet to celebrate 60 years of Chinese rule

NewsFeed China’s President Xi Jinping has made a rare visit to Lhasa to mark 60 years since Chinese rule was consolidated with the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region. State media says he was greeted by 20,000 people as the tightly controlled region staged a parade and celebrations. Published On 21 Aug 202521 Aug 2025 Adblock test (Why?)

Top men’s tennis names shielded from ‘severe’ abuse by ATP AI tool

Top men’s tennis names shielded from ‘severe’ abuse by ATP AI tool

First-year results show AI tool scanned 3.1m digital posts in drive to protect to tennis players from harmful content. Top men’s tennis players were shielded from more than 162,000 social media comments containing “severe” abuse during the first year of the artificial intelligence-powered ATP Safe Sport initiative, the sport’s governing body has announced. The abusive messages, which targeted 245 players, were found and then hidden in real time as the system scanned more than 3.1 million comments for harmful digital content following its launch in July 2024. “Safe Sport creates a healthier online environment, free from hateful comments and negative messages,” said Serb Dusan Lajovic, the ATP Player Advisory Council member said on Thursday. “This way, my social media presence is defined by who I am, not by my performance on the court.” Tennis players, like many athletes, often have to deal with the wrath of anonymous abusers online. A study conducted by the governing bodies of the sport showed last year that many of the offenders were found to be angry gamblers. Former world number three Elina Svitolina said this month, following her defeat by Naomi Osaka in Montreal, that she had been flooded with abuse and death threats, and blamed the “shameful” behaviour on disgruntled bettors. Former world number three, Elina Svitolina, announced she was targeted by harmful digital content following a defeat last month [David Kirouac-Imagn Images/Reuters] Men’s players are equally prone to abuse, and ATP Director of Safeguarding Andrew Azzopardi said that Safe Sport fundamentally changed how his organisation protected athletes online over the last year. Advertisement “More than one in 10 comments on players’ posts were abusive – rising to 50 percent in extreme cases. While it won’t eliminate abuse overnight, it’s our first line of defence,” Azzopardi said. “Safeguarding player wellbeing is a long-term commitment.” During the first year of Safe Sport, officials escalated more than 3,300 comments while they identified 68 perpetrators and initiated 28 law enforcement referrals. Beyond social media, the initiative, which currently covers the top 250 singles and top 50 doubles players, will also support athletes facing email threats, impersonation, deepfakes, as well as scams. The ATP – which governs the men’s professional game in tennis – added that it will enhance incident response protocols, broaden protections and advocate for greater accountability from social media platforms in the future. Adblock test (Why?)

New York appeals court tosses $515m civil fraud penalty against Trump

New York appeals court tosses 5m civil fraud penalty against Trump

An appeals court in New York has thrown out a civil fraud penalty that would have cost United States President Donald Trump and his business associates nearly half a billion dollars, calling the fine “excessive”. On Thursday, a five-judge panel in New York’s Appellate Division rendered its decision after weighing Trump’s appeal for nearly 11 months. In its ruling, the panel cited the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits the government from levying unduly harsh penalties on its citizens. The case stems from a civil suit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who argued that Trump had inflated his financial records in order to secure advantages with insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions. In February 2024, a lower court had ordered Trump to pay $355m in penalties, an amount the appeals court called into question. That amount has since grown to about $515m due to accumulating interest. “While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture, the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” two of the panel’s judges, Dianne T Renwick and Peter H Moulton, wrote in one opinion. While the court did dismiss the penalty in its entirety, its judges were divided over the merits of the lower court’s ruling, finding that Trump and his co-defendants had misrepresented their wealth in “fraudulent ways”. Advertisement What did the lower court decide? The judge who issued that initial decision, Arthur Engoron, a Democrat, explained in his initial decision that “the frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience”. In his 92-page decision, Engoron expressed particular frustration over Trump’s refusal to answer questions before the court and his refusal to acknowledge the misrepresentations in his financial documents. “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin,” Engoron wrote. “Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.” Trump and his co-defendants — who include his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr, as well as other Trump Organization leaders — were dealt a combined financial penalty that currently totals to about $527m, including interest. While Engoron’s ruling left the Trump Organization intact, it did bar Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr from serving in executive roles for two years. Trump, meanwhile, did not have an official role in the organization at the time. He was in the midst of his 2024 campaign for re-election, and he dismissed the fraud case as “election interference”. A slate of ongoing appeals He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the myriad legal cases he faced between his two terms as president. In 2023, for instance, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a case involving writer E Jean Carroll, who alleged the Republican leader raped her in a New York City department story, Bergdorf Goodman. The jury in that case awarded $5m to Carroll. A second defamation civil suit filed by Carroll resulted in an even bigger sum for damages: $83.3m. Trump continues to appeal both decisions. During that period, Trump also faced four criminal indictments, two on the state level and two on the federal level. The federal cases were dropped ahead of Trump’s second inauguration, but one of the state level cases, also in New York, resulted in Trump becoming the first president, past or present, to become a convicted felon. He was found guilty in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records. He continues to appeal that case as well, and his legal team has pushed to move the case from the state court system to the federal level, where Trump would enjoy immunity as president. Adblock test (Why?)