Selected by the Soviets to run what was supposed to be a minor puppet regime, Kim Il Sung created his own cult of personality in North Korea.

The fight for American independence needed more than colonial arms. Britains diplomatic isolation proved a powerful weapon in Washingtons arsenal.

Glass Sandwich Evolution Cornings new Apple-like ceramic glass might save your next phone from disaster Gorilla Glass Ceramic will be appear on its first phone in the coming months. Ryan Whitwam Mar 28, 2025 12:02 pm | 15 Credit: Corning Credit: Corning Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAs a society, we have decided to carry expensive electronic devices that are made out of glass. It's a real problem, especially if you have butter fingers. Gorilla Glass maker Corning has announced a new material that might help save the day the next time you drop a phone. The company claims its latest Gorilla Glass Ceramic can withstand drops that would shatter lesser materials.As the name implies, Corning's new glass incorporates ceramic components to improve strength compared to other types of hardened glass. Corning has offered a bit of data to support this claim. In its lab tests (PDF), Gorilla Glass Ceramic withstood 10 drops from one meter onto surfaces that closely resemble asphalt. Why Corning does not use real asphalt for this test is unclear. Regardless, the company says an unspecified "competitive" type of aluminosilicate glass would typically fail on the first drop.Chemically strengthened glass has been a key component in the proliferation of smartphones across the world. Since the company provided the glass for that first iPhone back in 2007, it has made glass for more than 7 billion devices. That makes Corning the largest glass supplier in the mobile industry, but it does face increasing competition in the budget and midrange segments.Corning does not directly compare Gorilla Glass Ceramic to the popular Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which was, until now, its most durable offering. That material can allegedly survive drops onto similarly rough surfaces, but the company doesn't specify a number like it does with the new ceramic version. Corning also has its Gorilla Glass Armor series, which has been used on the last few generations of Samsung Galaxy Ultra flagships. This glass has anti-reflective properties, which appear absent in Gorilla Glass Ceramic.This is not Corning's first swing at adding ceramic to the mixthe company is also responsible for Apple's Ceramic Shield glass, which has been used on the company's high-end phones since 2021. Apple fans have been largely impressed with the strength of Ceramic Shield, too. With the debut of Gorilla Glass Ceramic, we'll be seeing Android phones with ceramic protection. However, we expect this to be a material for more expensive devices.The glass sandwichIt may seem odd that the industry spends so much time developing stronger glass instead of moving to other, less fragile materials in phones, but there are reasons to use it. Glass is less prone to scratching compared to plastic, so it's natural to expect it on the screen side. Using glass for the back of a phone enables wireless charging and magnetic attachment, which people have come to expect in premium phones. Using glass can improve wireless signal strength compared to fully metal bodies, too. Putting glass inside an aluminum frame makes phones extremely hard to bend. Credit: Ryan Whitwam Putting glass inside an aluminum frame makes phones extremely hard to bend. Credit: Ryan Whitwam Glass also has some mechanical advantages you might not realize. Remember bendgate, when Apple's sleek aluminum phones would acquire banana-like bends simply from riding around in your front pocket? That doesn't happen anymore because most high-end (i.e., not plastic) phones have adopted the glass sandwich design. Glass has low tensile strength, which is why it cracks when struck, but its compressive strength is off the chart. So placing a pane of strengthened glass inside a metal frame makes the device extremely stiff and resistant to bending. There are trade-offs, but everyone adopted the glass sandwich for a reason.We're interested to see if Gorilla Glass Ceramic makes handling a phone less precarious. Corning announces new versions of Gorilla Glass regularly, but you won't always see its latest materials across the board. In this case, Corning says Motorola will be the first to offer it "in the coming months." Presumably, that means it will be used on the exterior of the next foldable Razr.Ryan WhitwamSenior Technology ReporterRyan WhitwamSenior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he's written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards. 15 Comments

Grievance central Trump annoyed the Smithsonian isnt promoting discredited racial ideas New executive order slams museum for recognizing "race is not a biological reality." John Timmer Mar 28, 2025 11:53 am | 46 The exterior of the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. Credit: Douglas Rissing The exterior of the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. Credit: Douglas Rissing Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order that took aim at one of the US's foremost cultural and scientific institutions: the Smithsonian. Upset by exhibits that reference the role of racism, sexism, and more in the nation's complicated past, the order tasks the vice president and a former insurance lawyer (?) with ensuring that the Smithsonian Institution is a "symbol of inspiration and American greatness"a command that specifically includes the National Zoo.But in the process of airing the administration's grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information.Grievance vs. scienceThe executive order, entitled "Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History," is filled with what has become a standard grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the many cases where the US has not lived up to its founding ideals, institutions are attempting to "rewrite our nation's history." It specifically calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US's "unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness."Even if you move past the obvious tension between a legacy of advancing liberty and the perpetuation of slavery in the US's founding documents, there are other ironies here. For example, the order slams the Department of the Interior's role in implementing changes that "inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures" at the same time that the administration's policies have led to the removal of references to transgender individuals and minorities and women.But buried within the list of issues is a reference to a display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The display, the executive order complains, "claims that 'sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism' and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct." That wording is denounced as an example of "divisive, race-centered ideology." But the Smithsonian's text is entirely accurate.In 2023, the National Academies of Science issued a report intended to get the scientific community to recognize cases where it was using unscientific thinking about race. And the report's language couldn't be more clear about rejecting the complaint found in the executive order:In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being incorrectly identified as the major genetic reason for phenotypic differences between groups.So, indeed, race is not a biological reality but rather a social construct. The Smithsonian had it exactly right. And now, the administration wants it changed.Obviously, changing some text on a single sculpture exhibit won't precipitate a major crisis. But the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History includes an extensive anthropology collection and supports research programs. So there's potential for the vice president to inject discredited, eugenics-adjacent ideas into the Smithsonian's research programs if he follows through on the language of this executive order.John TimmerSenior Science EditorJohn TimmerSenior Science Editor John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots. 46 Comments

There is a small chance of asteroid 2024 YR4 striking the moonESA/NASAFor a brief period earlier this year, the worlds space agencies were warning that the sizeable asteroid 2024 YR4 had an uncomfortably high 3.1 per cent chance of hitting Earth in 2032. Thankfully, more detailed observations have now dropped those odds to near zero, but fresh analysis using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows there is still a chance it will impact our moon something that astronomers are excited to see.In February, when concerns of an impact with out planet were still high,Andrew Rivkin

The evolution of the anus may have driven the body plan of all advanced animals, including humansMattLphotography / AlamyThe anus is a wildly successful innovation, but how did it evolve? A genetic analysis suggests it probably began as an opening used to release sperm that later fused with the gut an example of evolution repurposing structures.Once a hole is there, you can use it for other things, says Andreas Hejnol at the University of Bergen in Norway.It is thought that early animals evolved

Paul Clement is representing Wilmer Hale against Trump's war on Big Law. Reuters/Jason Reed 2025-03-28T16:32:31Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Trump has been targeting law firms that hired alumni of Robert Mueller's team that investigated him.The president claims firms are clamoring to cut deals like one reached by Paul Weiss. Two just sued.Jenner hired a more liberal firm, Cooley, and WilmerHale hired conservative superstar Paul Clement.Two law firms targeted by President Donald Trump launched legal counterattacks against the White House on Friday over executive orders designed to make their work harder with one hiring a top conservative attorney to plead their case.In February, Trump started issuing executive orders against law firms he claimed engaged in illegal discrimination and had wronged him. The orders limit security clearances to the firms' lawyers and require federal contractors to disclose whether they use the law firms. The White House has said that it will fire contractors who employ law firms that are subject to the orders.WilmerHale, which employed Robert Mueller and other lawyers on the Justice Department team that investigated Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia, was named in an order Thursday night. By Friday morning, it had sued, saying Trump's attack was "unprecedented and unconstitutional."Jenner & Block, which was named in an executive order earlier this week, also filed suit Friday morning. The firm protested that the entire order seems to be based on the notion that Mueller lieutenant Andrew Weissmann still works at Jenner when he left four years ago."The order has had, and will continue to have, a chilling effect on whether and how Jenner & Block will litigate on behalf of certain clients, and is having a chilling effect on attorneys and other persons considering employment with the firm," Jenner said in its lawsuit.The two firms' lawsuits come a week after Paul Weiss, a New York-based firm known for its progressive bona fides, reached a deal with the White House where it offered to devote $40 million in attorney time to pro bono work that aligns with the president's causes, like supporting veterans and fighting antisemitism. The firm was criticized by some lawyers, but its chairman, Brad Karp, has said the deal was necessary to avert a crisis in confidence that could lead partners and clients to leave and the firm to collapse.Trump said Wednesday that colleges and "horrible" law firms are eager to cut deals after he threatened to withhold funding or target them in follow-up executive orders. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Skadden, one of the best-known corporate law firms whose equity partners take home over $5 million a year on average, is also looking for ways to avoid the president's wrath."They're saying, 'where do I sign, where do I sign," the president said of law firms. "Nobody can believe it. And there's more coming."Other firms have braced themselves for the possibility that they will be named in an executive order. A lawyer at a top 20 firm previously told Business Insider that their firm had prepared documents to file if Trump turned on them.Jenner and WilmerHale's lawsuits said Trump violated the constitution in multiple ways, retaliating against them for their speech, views, and associations in violation of the First Amendment and the due-process protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Jenner said that some 40% of its business came from government contractors, who were plainly meant to be pressured into dumping Jenner.But the firms are also represented by two very different groups of lawyers. Jenner is represented by a team at Cooley, a law firm known for its representation of clients in the technology industry. Cooley has hired lawyers from Democratic administrations and hired Andrew Goldstein, another attorney on Mueller's team. Bloomberg Law reported that Cooley is among several Big Law firms that have edited certain attorney bios to de-emphasize connections to Trump's enemies.WilmerHale is known for its connections with Democratic administrations and its affiliations with some of Trump's enemies. But the firm hired Paul Clement, a legal superstar who was the government's top appeals lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, to defend it from Trump's attacks. His firm, Clement & Murphy, is stocked with lawyers who have argued before the Supreme Court. Clement didn't immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider."It is plain as day that President Trump issued the Order to retaliate against WilmerHale," the firm's lawsuit said. "Unlike a typical case where discovery is needed to root out a forbidden retaliatory motive, the Order openly proclaims its retaliatory intent."Recommended video

Elon Musk, seen here on the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 presidential election, is returning to the stump. AP Photo/Matt Rourke 2025-03-28T16:27:37Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Elon Musk says he's going to Wisconsin.He is pulling out his 2024 playbook to try to swing a closely-watched state Supreme Court election.The world's richest man will also give away two $1 million checks to voters.Elon Musk is pulling out all the stops ahead of a closely watched Wisconsin state Supreme Court election.In his biggest post-2024 bet so far, Musk said on X that he will campaign in the state ahead of Tuesday's election. He also said that he will be personally handing out a pair of $1 million checks, reprising a controversial tactic his political organization deployed ahead of the 2024 presidential race."On Sunday night, I will give a talk in Wisconsin," Musk wrote on X early Friday morning. "Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election. I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote. This is super important."Later Friday morning, Musk deleted his post on X. It's unclear if the event will go on.Wisconsin law prohibits offering "anything of value" to someone in exchange for their vote. Noted election law expert Rick Hasen has said that Musk's offer runs afoul of this.Musk and America PAC have spent over $12 million on the race to decide the outcome of the state's highest court through 2028.The Wisconsin Supreme Court, though officially nonpartisan, currently has a 4-3 liberal majority. Republicans are particularly worried about the possibility that the state's congressional districts could be redrawn, cutting into their 6-2 advantage. The GOP holds a narrow majority in the US House of Representatives, meaning they need as much favorable territory as possible for the 2026 midterms."It could cause the House to switch to Democrat if that redrawing takes place," Musk said during a recent X space with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, expressing why he was so keyed into the race.If Democrats' favored candidate, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, wins, liberals will hang onto their advantage through at least 2028. If Republicans' preferred choice, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, wins, then conservatives will have a better chance given that the swing vote, Justice Brian Hagedorn, leans right. Justices serve 10-year terms, which based on the progression of retirements means liberals could retake the majority as soon as next year.Recommended video

What if the Chornobyl disaster happened in the UK? is the question Atomfall asks. The answer, according to developer Rebellion, is that it would be considerably more picturesque and feature loads of pasties. Aping the nuclear catastrophe fiction of series such as Fallout and Stalker, Atomfall offers a mildly diverting scientific whodunit. But it struggles to muster the same clear identity of the games that inspired it.Using the 1957 Windscale fire as its launchpad, Atomfall thrusts you into a postwar Britain where that accident was dramatically worse, prompting the government to send in the army before walling off a large portion of the Lake District, sealing everybody inside. Your character, an archetypal video game amnesiac, awakes inside the exclusion zone several years later. To escape, they must unravel the mystery behind what caused the disaster, who is responsible and how to fix it.This mystery, and how it unfolds, are by far the most interesting parts of Atomfall. The story reframes conventional quests as leads, where points of interest are revealed by collecting documents such as letters and military reports, and speaking to the surviving locals in the zone. At the heart of the enigma is a vast underground research facility, which you must reactivate by unlocking its entrances and locating atomic batteries to power its various sectors, ultimately unlocking the heart of Windscale and the dark secret kept inside.Wicker Man-esque Atomfall. Photograph: RebellionIts a tale that offers plenty of intrigue. The characters that assist you on your journey, including soldiers, scientists and a publican, have their own motivations for doing so, which youll only uncover by cross-referencing them with other players in Atomfalls unspoken game of zones. These will often relate to diversions youll find along the way, such as infiltrating a castle occupied by Wicker Man-style druids to retrieve a special medicine and solving a quintessentially British murder in a church.Unpicking these threads is fun, and the tale benefits from a tighter focus and better pacing than most open-world adventures. Unfortunately, the accompanying game mechanics feel as if they turn up more from obligation than enthusiasm. Combat lets you choose between guns that are serviceable but unremarkable, and melee fighting that will make you appreciate every rusty firearm you collect. There is a rudimentary crafting system youll mostly use to make bandages and the occasional molotov cocktail. A stealth system exists in theory, but perhaps fittingly I never saw it function in any meaningful fashion. Enemies can spot you from half the map away and seem telepathically connected to nearby allies, which makes sneaking around awkward and unrewarding.It probably doesnt help that its always a bright sunny day in Atomfalls exclusion zone, which would be unusual for any part of the UK, let alone the Lake District. On the whole, it could make better use of its Cumbrian setting. Although Atomfalls four maps are lavish and fun to explore, including craggy valleys filled with shells of dry-stone buildings, and the most meticulously recreated English village since Everybodys Gone to the Rapture, the world is not especially atmospheric.Moreover, the enemy factions, druids and crazed marauders clad in cricket gear, feel like vague attempts to anglicise the kooky gangs of Fallout. Where are the feral ramblers, the roving bands of literati fighting over whether Wordsworth or Coleridge was the better poet? Why are pasties so abundant, while Kendal mint cake and Grasmere gingerbread are absent? This may seem flippant, but given we have recently seen such a brilliant lampoon of northern life in Thank Goodness Youre Here!, Atomfalls own depiction of the north, and indeed Britain in general, feels superficial and haphazard, a jumbled assemblage of cultural touchstones.To use another example, one of Atomfalls key inspirations is Stalker, a series whose strength lies in how it is so specifically, uncompromisingly Ukrainian. Stalker and its sequels are completely unafraid to be weird, bold, challenging and bleak, to wholly envelop the player in its nations radioactive trauma. The UK simply doesnt share that trauma in the same way, so Rebellions what if scenario can only ever be a shadow of Chornobyl.

I do not replay games. Dont see the point. I dont reread books either, and I rarely rewatch movies or TV shows. Theres too much new, bigger and better stuff coming out every day, and too little time to consume it. However, I made an exception with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because the original was so special.It came along towards the end of my ZX Spectrum playing days. I was at university and was previously only interested in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle if it came in a tall glass and was at happy hour prices in the Mandela Bar. But the game hooked me one summer back home and became the hardest video game that I ever completed. And thats what worried me when I started the rerelease on the PS4 that comes as part of the TMNT Cowabunga Collection. (Playstation Plus Essentials March)It was the first time Id thrown a controller at a wall since I stopped playing FifaI worried that my gaming brain had got lazy playing modern games, where you are spoiled by power-ups vomiting up all over the place and collision detection so forgiving it could be a priest, and as a result that this golden gaming memory would be tarnished.I was right!The collision detection is at Manic Miner/Mega Man levels of unforgiving, but through trial and error I rediscovered things that make the game easier. The level structures are soft so you can kill an enemy from above or below platforms and even through walls, which brings into play the Turtles different weapon ranges. I remember also that you can hot swap the Turtles. This means using Donatello with his long pole for everything, switching to Michelangelo with his nunchucks then Leonardo with his swords when Donatellos energy gets low and finally using Raphael with his puny twin sai as a last resort. Sai are tiny metal daggers that resemble whatever cutlery it was that Elon Musk balanced on his fingers at Mar-a-Lago. Only more useless. To kill an enemy with Raphael in this game you have to get close enough to smell what toppings they had on their pizza.Indecipherable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection. Photograph: KonamiI hate-played this for two hours, death after death it was the first time Id thrown a controller at a wall since I stopped playing Fifa.Night one ends, as it did for so many of us back in the day, with that bloody underwater level where you have to defuse bombs under a dam within a time limit so unforgiving it reminds me of A-level exams. You cannot get through that level without hitting multiple radioactive weeds. I cant believe I completed it back in the day, and worry it may have been one of those 90s things I imagined, like that time I said hi to Sarah Michelle Gellar at Comic-Con and was sure she smiled back at me.Horrible clunky gameplay like this serves no purpose in 2025.Or does it?I persevered on day two. I remembered the way to get through that damned dam level is to crash through every enemy and hot swap the turtles when the energy gets low. (And by remembered I mean searched Reddit.)Most importantly I discovered that there is a flipping rewind button in this rerelease! You can go back 30 seconds every time you fail a pixel perfect jump! I wish I read gaming manuals, but I am a man in his 50s. I no more read instructions than I ask for directions when I am lost.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionI completed the level and was treated to the sweetest sentence ever written in video games history. April saying: Its OK the dam is safe lets go home.Buoyed by this I beat the next couple of levels over the next couple of days. Its hard, even with the rewind button, but I recalibrate my whole gaming attitude. I cant charge through levels like you can with games today, for this was the era when you literally had to inch forward, then wait, see what enemies appear, learn their patterns, then move. You have to slow down your whole way of playing. And that isnt a bad thing. In 2025, life moves at 10bn miles an hour. I wake up three times a night checking who is about to invade who.With my heart and mind reopened I re-notice the greatness of this game. The scroll and boomerang weapons are immense, I would put them up there with the BFG from Doom, the Golden Gun from Goldeneye and the Holy Hand Grenade in Worms in terms of sheer fun.I even learn to love the indecipherable nature of the blocky graphics. The Mutant Toad looked recognisable, as were Shredder and his Foot Soldiers. So were the Cheeky Space Monkeys, until I discovered they were actually Giant Fleas. Mostly the enemies are like an 8-bit Rorschach test, their identity the results of projections from my subconsciousness. So that might be a feral butterfly I am trying to kill, but it may also be my feelings of male inadequacy.I am so glad I didnt give up on this game. Because we never did as kids. You had one game a month. You played it. You kept at it. We are gaming dilettantes now, flitting from one subscription service to another, sometimes not even getting past the list of games to actually play one.I am still only halfway through. But I will soldier on through every hard-earned inch. And it will be utterly cowabunga.