Leader and EnvironmentBy 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in urban centres - that's just one reason why mayors will be essential to addressing the climate crisis, making vital adaptations to cities to make them more bearable in a warming world 20 November 2024 Guy Corbishley/AlamyIt hasnt been a good year for people who care about climate change. A hoped-for peak in carbon emissions has failed to emerge, meaning we continue to warm the planet at an accelerating rate (see Humanity has warmed the planet by 1.5C since 1700). Meanwhile, the election of Donald Trump for a second term as US president is likely to see the country retreat on climate action, with his pledge to drill, baby, drill for new oil and gas supplies.Similar sentiments towards fossil fuels come from Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, who has called the natural resources of his oil-rich nation a gift from God. Aliyev made the comments at the COP29 climate summit, hosted in Azerbaijans capital, Baku. Ironically, this gift will become increasingly inaccessible as the Caspian Sea dries up in a warming world, stranding billions of dollars of fossil fuel infrastructure (see COP29 host Azerbaijan faces climate disaster as Caspian Sea dries up).In light of this failure by politicians on the international stage to get to grips with the reality of climate change, other leaders need to step up and, surprisingly, city mayors may be best placed to do so.AdvertisementAdapting cities to cope with the specific effects of urban heat will be essentialWhile mayors cant be expected to influence the global climate, they oversee the well-being of the more than 50 per cent of the worlds population who live in urban centres a figure expected to grow to 70 per cent by 2050, at which point temperatures will have risen by 2.5C under current projections. Adapting cities to cope with the specific effects of urban heat will be essential, from promoting green spaces to investing in buildings that can be cooled without air conditioning (see Extreme heat is now making cities unlivable. How can we survive it?).The good news is many mayors are already aware of their responsibilities. Londons mayor, Sadiq Khan, is aiming for the city to reach net zero by 2030. Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, France, has planted trees and banned cars in certain areas. And Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles, has promised a green transformation ahead of the city hosting the Olympics in 2028. Organisations like C40 and Climate Mayors are helping unite local politicians across the world in action. This wont solve climate change, but it will make living in a warming world more bearable for many.Topics:

Imagine sitting down with an AI model for a spoken two-hour interview. A friendly voice guides you through a conversation that ranges from your childhood, your formative memories, and your career to your thoughts on immigration policy. Not long after, a virtual replica of you is able to embody your values and preferences with stunning accuracy. Thats now possible, according to a new paper from a team including researchers from Stanford and Google DeepMind, which has been published on arXiv and has not yet been peer-reviewed. Led by Joon Sung Park, a Stanford PhD student in computer science, the team recruited 1,000 people who varied by age, gender, race, region, education, and political ideology. They were paid up to $100 for their participation. From interviews with them, the team created agent replicas of those individuals. As a test of how well the agents mimicked their human counterparts, participants did a series of personality tests, social surveys, and logic games, twice each, two weeks apart; then the agents completed the same exercises. The results were 85% similar. If you can have a bunch of small yous running around and actually making the decisions that you would have madethat, I think, is ultimately the future, Joon says. In the paper the replicas are called simulation agents, and the impetus for creating them is to make it easier for researchers in social sciences and other fields to conduct studies that would be expensive, impractical, or unethical to do with real human subjects. If you can create AI models that behave like real people, the thinking goes, you can use them to test everything from how well interventions on social media combat misinformation to what behaviors cause traffic jams. Such simulation agents are slightly different from the agents that are dominating the work of leading AI companies today. Called tool-based agents, those are models built to do things for you, not converse with you. For example, they might enter data, retrieve information you have stored somewhere, orsomedaybook travel for you and schedule appointments. Salesforce announced its own tool-based agents in September, followed by Anthropic in October, and OpenAI is planning to release some in January, according to Bloomberg. The two types of agents are different but share common ground. Research on simulation agents, like the ones in this paper, is likely to lead to stronger AI agents overall, says John Horton, an associate professor of information technologies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who founded a company to conduct research using AI-simulated participants. This paper is showing how you can do a kind of hybrid: use real humans to generate personas which can then be used programmatically/in-simulation in ways you could not with real humans, he told MIT Technology Review in an email. The research comes with caveats, not the least of which is the danger that it points to. Just as image generation technology has made it easy to create harmful deepfakes of people without their consent, any agent generation technology raises questions about the ease with which people can build tools to personify others online, saying or authorizing things they didnt intend to say. The evaluation methods the team used to test how well the AI agents replicated their corresponding humans were also fairly basic. These included the General Social Surveywhich collects information on ones demographics, happiness, behaviors, and moreand assessments of the Big Five personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Such tests are commonly used in social science research but dont pretend to capture all the unique details that make us ourselves. The AI agents were also worse at replicating the humans in behavioral tests like the dictator game, which is meant to illuminate how participants consider values such as fairness. To build an AI agent that replicates people well, the researchers needed ways to distill our uniqueness into language AI models can understand. They chose qualitative interviews to do just that, Joon says. He says he was convinced that interviews are the most efficient way to learn about someone after he appeared on countless podcasts following a 2023 paper that he wrote on generative agents, which sparked a huge amount of interest in the field. I would go on maybe a two-hour podcast podcast interview, and after the interview, I felt like, wow, people know a lot about me now, he says. Two hours can be very powerful. These interviews can also reveal idiosyncrasies that are less likely to show up on a survey. Imagine somebody just had cancer but was finally cured last year. Thats very unique information about you that says a lot about how you might behave and think about things, he says. It would be difficult to craft survey questions that elicit these sorts of memories and responses. Interviews arent the only option, though. Companies that offer to make digital twins of users, like Tavus, can have their AI models ingest customer emails or other data. It tends to take a pretty large data set to replicate someones personality that way, Tavus CEO Hassaan Raza told me, but this new paper suggests a more efficient route. What was really cool here is that they show you might not need that much information, Raza says, adding that his company will experiment with the approach. How about you just talk to an AI interviewer for 30 minutes today, 30 minutes tomorrow? And then we use that to construct this digital twin of you.

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Inside Clears ambitions to manage your identity beyond the airport Clear Secure is the most visible biometric identity company in the United States. Best known for its line-jumping service in airports, its also popping up at sports arenas and stadiums all over the country. You can also use its identity verification platform to rent tools at Home Depot, put your profile in front of recruiters on LinkedIn, and, as of this month, verify your identity as a rider on Uber. And soon enough, if Clear has its way, it may also be in your favorite retailer, bank, and even doctors officeor anywhere else that you currently have to pull out a wallet (or wait in line). While the company has been building toward this sweeping vision for years, it now seems its time has finally come. But as biometrics go mainstream, whatand whobears the cost? Read the full story. Eileen Guo LinkedIn Live: Facial verification tech promises a frictionless future. But at what cost? Do you use your face to unlock your phone, or speed through airport security? As biometrics companies move into more and more spaces, where else would you use this technology? The trade off seems simple: you scan your face, you get a frictionless future. But is it really? Join MIT Technology Reviews features and investigations team for a LinkedIn Live this Thursday, November 21, about the rise of facial verification tech and what it means to give up your face. Register for free. Whos to blame for climate change? Its surprisingly complicated. Once again, global greenhouse-gas emissions are projected to hit a new high in 2024. In this time of shifting political landscapes and ongoing international negotiations, many are quick to blame one country or another for an outsize role in causing climate change. But assigning responsibility is complicated. These three visualizations help explain why. Casey Crownhart Cyber Week Sale: subscriptions are half price! Take advantage of epic savings on award-winning reporting, razor-sharp analysis, and expert insights on your favorite technology topics. Subscribe today to save 50% on an annual subscription, plus receive a free digital copy of our Generative AI and the future of work report. Dont miss out. The must-reads Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 AI can now translate your voice in real-time during meetings Its part of Microsofts drive to push more AI into its products, but how well it works in the wild remains to be seen. (WP$)+Apple is having less success on that front, at least if its AI notification summaries are anything to go by.(The Atlantic$)2 Anyone can buy data tracking US soldiers in Germany And the Pentagon is powerless to stop it.(Wired$)+Its shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel.(MIT Technology Review)3 Bluesky now has over 20 million usersIts user base has tripled in the last three months. (Engadget)+Truth Social, on the other hand, is not doing quite so well.(WP$)+The rise of Bluesky, and the splintering of social.(MIT Technology Review)4 How Google created a culture of concealmentIts been preparing for antitrust action for over a decade, enforcing a policy where employees delete messages by default. (NYT$)+The company reacted angrily to reports it may be forced to sell Chrome. (BBC)5 Project 2025 is already infiltrating the Trump administrationDespite repeated denials, its clearly a blueprint for his next term. (Vox)+A hacker reportedly gained access to damaging testimonies about Matt Gaetz, his pick to be attorney general.(NYT$)6 Quantum computers hit a major milestone for error-free calculationThis is a crucial part of making them useful for real-world tasks. (New Scientist$)7 Technology is changing political speechSlogans are becoming less effective. Now its more about saying different things to different audiences. (New Yorker$)8 Lab-grown foie gras, anyone?This could be the cultivated meat industrys future: as a luxury product for the few. (Wired$)9 Niantic is using Pokmon Go player data to build an AI navigation system If it works, it could unlock some amazing capabilities in AR, robotics and beyond. (404 Media) 10 Minecraft is expanding into the real world It has struck a $110 million deal with one of the worlds biggest theme park operators. (The Guardian)Quote of the day Nobody believes that these cables were severed by accident. Germanys defense minister Boris Pistorius, tells reporters that the severing of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea was a deliberate act of sabotage, theNew York Timesreports.The big story Are we alone in the universe? ARIEL DAVIS November 2023 The quest to determine if life is out there has gained greater scientific footing over the past 50 years. Back then, astronomers had yet to spot a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know the galaxy is teeming with a diversity of worlds. Were getting closer than ever before to learning how common living worlds like ours actually are. New tools, including artificial intelligence, could help scientists look past their preconceived notions of what constitutes life.Read the full story. Adam Mann We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.) + How to not only survive but thriveduring the winter. + Fancy working from somewhere new? Here are some of thebest citiesfor a workcation.+ Want to see David Bowie imitating Mick Jagger?Of course you do.+ Its an old(ish) joke butstill funny.

A small town in Italy is offering homes for 1 euro to attract Americans amid the recent election cycle.Ollolai's initiative is part of Italy's broader "Case a 1 euro" program started in the 2010s.There is also an option for digital nomads to work there for a month for only 1 euro.In the lead-up to an administration change, you might hear someone say they're leaving the country for good. A small comune on the island of Sardinia in Italy is listening.Ollolai, a town of 1,154 people, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, created a website geared toward helping Americans find homes in its town for just 1 euro (or about $1.05), taking advantage of the latest election cycle."Are you worned out by global politics," the new website reads. "Looking to embrace a more balanced lifestyle while securing new opportunities? It's time to start building your European escape in the stunning paradise of Sardinia."Roughly one dollar for a home in a picturesque town in the middle of an Italian island about 50 miles from the beach might sound too good to be true. The homes offered aren't in the best condition and would require about $25,000 in renovations which must be completed within three years, according to previous reporting from Business Insider.But if you're willing to put some effort into your home, Ollolai will welcome you."We just really want, and will focus on, Americans above all," Mayor Francesco Columbu told CNN. "We can't of course ban people from other countries to apply, but Americans will have a fast-track procedure. We are betting on them to help us revive the village, they are our winning card.""Of course, we can't specifically mention the name of one US president who just got elected, but we all know that he's the one from whom many Americans want to get away from now and leave the country," Columbo told CNN.The transition team for President elect-Donald Trump did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.This isn't a new program and Ollolai isn't even the first town to try the approach."Case a 1 euro," which means "houses at 1 euro," is a program across Italy that launched in the 2010s to revitalize the dwindling populations in more rural towns. Ollolai started offering 1-euro homes in 2018, but other towns, like Sicilian commune Gangi, started giving away vacant houses in 2015.Americans moving to Europe, and Italy specifically, has been a somewhat common trend. But if you don't want to commit fully to moving across the ocean, a redirect from the Ollolai website luring potential buyers offers an option for digital nomads."Work from Ollolai" is a program that lets "successful professionals" live in the municipality for just 1 euro as long as they "promote an exchange of information" to rural communities through presentations, classes, or projects.That covers rent and, according to the website, guests can stay for a maximum of one month.

Pristina Mok has worked at some of Singapore's top Michelin-star restaurants like Odette and Zen.But in 2023, she quit the big leagues and opened a small fine-dining restaurant in her home.Now, she serves up Southeast Asian-inspired dishes to 24 guests weekly and is happier than ever.As 7:30 p.m. drew close, Pristina Mok set her dining table for eight guests, assembled gold cutlery, dimmed the lights, and sliced up some turbot fish.From the quaint, homely atmosphere, it looked like a dinner party with old friends. But this was the first time she would meet her guests.This is Fragment a modern Southeast Asian fine-dining restaurant located in Mok's two-bedroom public housing home on the island's western coast. And the 28-year-old serves the food, plated fine-dining style, right out of her home kitchen.Quitting the restaurant grind Mok pouring wine for her guests before dinner service. Aditi Bharade Mok's culinary journey started when she was 19. She joined the team at Odette, a three-Michelin-star modern French restaurant at the National Gallery of Singapore.After a few years at Odette, she worked at Zen, a three-Michelin-star restaurant serving Nordic dishes with Asian influences. She also had stints at restaurants located inside luxury hotels like W Sentosa and Raffles Hotel.Mok said the adrenaline rush used to keep her going through long, 14 to 16-hour days in the kitchen."But as you start to grow older and you advance further into your career, your body starts to give up on you," Mok said.She questioned if she could last another 10 or 20 years working on the line."My wrist was strained because we carry saut pots a lot. And especially when you're so busy, you don't really think about how heavy it is," Mok said.In 2023, she quit her job as a sous chef at Singapore's Raffles Hotel.She first became interested in private dining during the pandemic. And when she bought an apartment with her husband, Lionel Lim, the idea for Fragment finally panned out.She started hosting guests in February, and her schedule is booked through the end of the year.Fine dining, apartment-style Mok's cozy fine dining restaurant seats eight guests three times a week. Aditi Bharade Upon entering Fragment, guests are often greeted by Pebble, Mok's poodle.Mok seats eight guests three times a week, from Thursday to Saturday, for a 2.5-hour-long meal. Her eight-course menus, refreshed every three months, are priced at $130 before service taxes. A set of three starters from Mok's June menu. Aditi Bharade Her June menu consisted of dishes made from Hokkaido scallops, octopus and pork jowl, and roasted quail.Her husband, who works in sales, helps her with service after work. One of Mok's signature dishes is a sambal belacan curry with garlic naan. Aditi Bharade A casual, homely twist on fine diningMok does not start service until all the guests have arrived. People are given a 7:30 p.m. arrival time, and the first courses start rolling out 30 minutes later. Two of Mok's courses in her eight-course tasting menu. Aditi Bharade Mok also tries to keep the experience casual. When BI visited Fragment, one of the couples dining there brought their golden retriever and their newborn baby in a stroller. A couple brought their golden retriever to the dinner. Aditi Bharade All the guests were barefoot, as is customary for visitors to Asian households.Mok told BI that her guests are mostly millennials in finance and banking. She also encourages guests who may be sitting down at her table together for the first time to interact and make connections.Scaling down has its drawbacks While her husband helps her plate and serve the dishes, Mok handles most of the workload. Aditi Bharade However, running her own restaurant from her home as a one-woman show hasn't been easy, either."The other day, I fell sick, and I didn't have anyone that could cover my shift or could cover me," she said. "And I had to, unfortunately, cancel or reschedule the guests." Mok and her husband assemble the small bites that make up the meal's first course. Aditi Bharade She also doesn't have access to restaurant-capacity kitchen equipment. The couple had to buy three home-sized refrigerators instead because the ones used in restaurants use too much power, she said.And at the end of the night, her husband washes all the dishes by hand as the pair have yet to purchase a dishwasher.Mok also has to deal with everything from procuring the groceries to paying her suppliers and balancing the books herself, which can get very difficult "when the work piles up," she said.Another thing she said she hadn't anticipated about the job was how intensely lonely it would be."It's difficult being alone like 90% of the time," she said. "I live, and I work, and I sleep here," she told BI.But Mok said the freedom of being her own boss is worth it."Fragment means piecing the different parts of my life together to create something that is unique and different," she said."I love having my own business and doing private dining, and I have more control of my time," she added.

President-elect Donald Trump said he will use the military to carry out mass deportations the centerpiece of his immigration agenda in his second term. He has not gone into detail about his plans, but legal experts have suggested he may be able to rely on a combination of federal laws to implement the deportations with the militarys help. The notion of the president deploying the military domestically may seem like a nightmare scenario, but its not implausible given his broad executive powers.On Monday, Trump responded to a post on his social media network Truth Social, claiming that he would declare a national emergency and will use military assets to carry out mass deportations, saying it was TRUE!!!Its not immediately clear what he means by that: whether he intends for the military to enforce the nations immigration laws, for military funds to be redirected toward supporting mass deportations, or something else. A representative for his transition team did not respond to a request for comment.But Trump has a few avenues through which he could activate the military and its resources. Those include the Insurrection Act, which gives the president the power to deploy the military domestically; emergency powers, like redirecting funds to military construction projects; and other presidential powers like requesting national guard assistance in carrying out military missions.Immigration advocates are readying to challenge mass deportations. Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Monday after Trumps announcement that his organization is preparing for litigation.However, the law does give presidents significant leeway to use the military at their discretion, and courts have historically been wary of overstepping, though they may intervene if the civil liberties of immigrants are being violated.The United States has a very permissive legal regime regarding how the president can use the military, said Chris Mirasola, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. Again, those powers arent absolute, however. There are downstream implementation matters that I think are more susceptible to litigation, Mirasola said.The Insurrection Act, briefly explainedAccording to the New York Times, Trump is planning to invoke the Insurrection Act to bring in the military to carry out mass deportations. The law is a key exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military to enforce federal law without the permission of Congress or the Constitution. Only in rare instances have presidents invoked the Insurrection Act. President George H.W. Bush was the last one to do so amid the 1992 Los Angeles riots that broke out in response to the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King. President Dwight D. Eisenhower also notably used the Insurrection Act to facilitate the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.The provision of the Insurrection Act most likely to apply in Trumps case is one that allows the president to unilaterally activate the military domestically to enforce federal law whenever they determine that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion make it impracticable [to do so] by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.Mirasola said Trump would have a relatively easy time making the case that cartels trafficking immigrants across the border constitute an unlawful obstruction to the enforcement of US immigration law. Trump has in some ways appeared to begin building his case for invoking the Insurrection Act through his rhetoric on the campaign trail this year by describing an invasion of criminals coming across the border.But Mirasola said it would be harder for Trump to argue that it is impracticable to enforce immigration laws through the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. Thats because presidents have done so for decades, and border crossings are no longer unusually high: They have sharply declined this year and are down even from certain points in the first Trump administration.However, the law gives the president sole discretion, in most instances to determine whether the criteria necessary to activate the military have been met, according to 2022 congressional testimony given by Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Joseph Nunn, the Centers counsel in the national security program.Goitein and Nunn also argued that the vague and broad criteria for invoking the Act, combined with the lack of any provision for judicial or congressional review, render it ripe for abuse. At that point, their concern was that Trump could have used the Insurrection Act to interfere with the certification of the 2020 election results. The use case is now different, but the potential for overreach is the same.That is to say, while advocates may challenge Trump on whether the two key criteria for invoking the law have been met, the law gives presidents a wide berth and the courts little power.For all practical purposes, courts have been cut out of the process, Goitein and Nunn write.The presidents emergency and other powersThere are other potential authorities that Trump could invoke to surge military resources to his mass deportation plan.As Mirasola writes in Lawfare, Trump has a nonemergency power under federal law to request the assistance of state national guards in a federal military mission. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, that mission can be to assist US Customs and Border Protection in ongoing efforts to secure the southern land border. The law does not provide parameters limiting the kind of assistance that the military can provide, be that boots on the ground at the border or intelligence analysis support.Emergency powers could be helpful in creating the infrastructure needed for mass deportations. Stephen Miller, one of Trumps key immigration advisers, told the New York Times in November 2023 that a second Trump administration would construct vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers for immigrants facing deportation. Mirasola writes that, to do so, Trump could invoke federal law allowing the secretary of defense to undertake military construction projects ... not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support the armed forces in a national emergency. If Trump declares a national emergency with respect to immigration, that law would essentially allow him to bypass the need for congressional approval to get the funds he needs to construct these holding facilities. He previously used the same law to try to get funding for his border wall during his first term. Whether he could do so was never settled. Pro-immigration advocates challenged the use of that law to fund the border wall in Trumps first term. Their years-long litigation over the border wall became moot when President Joe Biden took office, but they were not expected to win if the issue had come before the Supreme Court. Advocates could again mount a legal challenge, but they may only succeed in delaying the construction of the facilities.However, pro-immigration advocates might have a stronger case if they file lawsuits over the conditions in these yet-to-be built holding facilities and over potential violations of civil liberties for immigrants subject to mass deportations. Those might involve, for example, violations of their constitutional right to due process. That sort of challenge, over inhumane detention conditions previously seen in CBP facilities (including a lack of access to basic hygiene products and a lack of food, water, and basic medical care) was successfully made during the first Trump administration. Immigrants might also file suits arguing their constitutional protections against unlawful searches were violated: Doris Meissner, senior fellow and director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, said mass deportations of the scale Trump is imagining would likely involve violations of peoples civil rights, profiling, all of those kinds of harms that poor policing brings about. That will present a key test for the courts, Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, said in a statement: Will [the courts] use their power to enforce long-standing protections for individuals? Will they uphold the rule of law? Or will they bow to political pressure and allow the executive to expand its already ample power?Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

Congress member-elect Sarah McBride became the first openly trans person ever elected to the House this November, marking a historic milestone for the body. Her arrival, however, is being met with a targeted and anti-trans attack by Republicans in Congress that rejects the existence of trans people. On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he is barring trans women from womens bathrooms in the Capitol, following a proposal from South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace (R) to do just that. I want to make sure that no men are in womens private spaces, and its not going to end here, Mace told reporters on Tuesday. This kind of thing should be banned.Related:When asked if the action was in response to McBride coming to Congress, Mace was clear, noting, Yes and absolutely and then some. Maces office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Johnsons office pointed to statements hes made about his belief in treating everyone with dignity. The new rule is the latest extension of ugly attacks Republicans have levied on trans people during the recent campaign cycle and in the past few years. Dozens of states have introduced anti-trans bills that restrict childrens access to gender-affirming care, that limit athletes to playing on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, and that prevent trans women from using womens bathrooms. All of these policies are based on and advance a rejection of the idea that trans women are women.As Voxs Aja Romano has explained, Republicans have used their focus on this subject to rally their base against a common enemy, framing trans people as threats, including to other womens safety in bathrooms. A 2018 UCLA study on the issue found no evidence that trans people using bathrooms that match their gender identity has increased safety risks, but that data has not changed GOP rhetoric. Instead, the GOP has kept investing in anti-trans attacks and channeling more harm toward trans individuals, who are already the disproportionate subjects of violence and who already experience high rates of self-harm. Now, House Republicans push highlights how central such ideas have become to the GOP agenda and how open they are to singling out a colleague to prove a point. Capitol Hills new, anti-trans bathroom policy, briefly explainedBecause the speaker of the House has wide-ranging jurisdiction over facilities in the House, Johnson has significant say in imposing rules like the new bathroom regulation. In a press release he issued on Wednesday, Johnson said, All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms are reserved for individuals of that biological sex. In practice, this means that trans women are not able to use womens bathrooms. Johnson noted that each Congress member has a bathroom in their office, and there are also unisex bathrooms available in the Capitol that could theoretically serve as an alternative. Women deserve womens only spaces, he said in a statement. In addition to discriminating against McBride, the rule poses serious practical obstacles: The Capitol complex is a massive set of buildings, and lawmakers are often dashing from the main chamber to committee meetings to other events. By depriving McBride of access to the womens room, the policy is effectively asking her to run back to her office, which is located in a separate building, use the mens restroom, or find a unisex bathroom.Limiting a members access to bathrooms simply makes their job much harder and more inconvenient. The Hills new bathroom rules are part of broader Republican anti-trans attacksMcBride responded to Maces initial proposal in a post on X on Tuesday, calling it a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars, she added. In a post on Wednesday, McBride reiterated this message and said that while shell abide by Johnsons rule, she found this whole fight to be a diversion from other policy concerns.Republicans have made anti-trans policy a focus on par with the sorts of economic concerns McBride highlighted. During the 2024 campaign, President-elect Donald Trump invested millions in ads criticizing Vice President Kamala Harriss past support for funding gender-affirming care for incarcerated people. And it wasnt just Trump: Republicans and their allies spent at least $215 million on anti-trans ads last cycle. Those ads appear to have resonated with some swing voters, and the GOP now seems further emboldened when it comes to going after trans people. Ahead of the election, as Voxs Nicole Narea and Fabiola Cineas wrote, there was an explosion of anti-trans bills in state legislatures in 2023, with at least 19 states approving such laws. As Narea and Cineas explained, those bills were fueled in part by right-wing evangelical members of the Republican base (and by lawmaker attempts to pander to that faction). But more recent actions from the election ads to Johnsons new rule show an attempt to take anti-trans policy into the mainstream. Overall, Republicans actions signal that they plan to double down on the anti-trans culture war in the years to come. Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

Much like Christmas is a lot less enjoyable for the person who has to organise all the presents and cook the dinner, game-of-the-year season is rather intimidating for the people who have to put together the shortlists. Every November, I tot up all of the years acclaimed games Ive yet to play, the underground recommendations Ive yet to follow up on and the games I loved back in February but forgot about. I feel a mounting panic. And when all of the year-end lists come out, I inevitably find Ive missed something anyway.The Game Awards have just announced the nominations for this years ceremony, taking place on 12 December in Los Angeles. (Disclosure: the Guardian is one of 130 voting outlets for the awards, but my knowledge and involvement with them is limited to sending Geoff Keighley our ballots every year, usually a day or two late. Sorry, Geoff.) There are few surprises in the nominations, but I am pleased that one of the top two most nominated games is Astro Bot, with seven nominations, a game that cannot get enough praise as far as Im concerned. (The other is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, up for six awards, which our critic dubbed a miracle of fan service; alas, I remain immune to the charms of Final Fantasy despite many attempts over the years to get into it).The other nominees for game of the year are Balatro, the ludicrously compulsive card game that took over my life in January; Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, the expansion to the 2022 action role-playing masterpiece; Metaphor: ReFantazio, the wildly stylish Atlus RPG that I wrote about a few weeks back; and Black Myth: Wukong, an enormous hit this summer, despite significant controversy around its development and release.This is a close competition, but my money is on Shadow of the Erdtree for the grand prize, because that game is especially beloved by game critics although Id be delighted if Astro Bot wins. The dark horse is Balatro. Everyone I know has lost a week or two to that game, but its charm wore off the second Id won at it. There is a public vote worth 10% of the weighting, though, which will significantly boost Black Myth: Wukong, given its enormous fanbase in China.Neva, rightly nominated for best art direction. Photograph: Nomada StudioElsewhere, I was happy to see Neva, the game about a warrior and her wolf that made me full-on sob, nominated for best art direction, best independent game and the confusing games for impact category. The latter list is supposed to be for a thought-provoking game with a pro-social meaning or message, but it seems to have become a catch-all category for games involving emotions. Ive played most of the games nominated in that category and a) I dont know what unites them and b) I couldnt tell you what pro-social means in this context.Indika is a bleakly fascinating horror-ish game about a 19th-century nun that takes a swipe at the Russian Orthodox church; Hellblade II, like its predecessor, portrays its lead characters struggles with psychosis; Tales of Kenzera: Zau is about grief and draws from its creators African heritage; Closer the Distance is also about grief; Neva could, I suppose, be interpreted as environmentalist, and also has a smattering of loss in there. I cant determine what message Life Is Strange: Double Exposure has along these lines, though.Otherwise, welcome surprises are thin on the ground. Eerie explorative puzzle game Animal Well shows up in best independent game, as does Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, an unpredictable mystery set in an abandoned hotel, and UFO 50, the absurdly generous compilation of 1980s-style games from Mossmouth. Pacific Drive, the spooky weird-fiction road trip that has you constantly repairing and reinforcing a falling-apart old car, also made it on to the best debut game list. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown deserves its shout in best action game, though I was truly disappointed that Dragons Dogma II only made it on to best RPG.And, of course, Pokmon Trading Card Game Pocket is up for a best mobile game award. Ive been playing that for a couple of hours every day since it came out (and I still dont have a shiny Articuno).Video Games Chronicle have compiled an easy-to-parse list of all the categories and nominations. But if you find the Game Awards far too commercial, a new awards show is debuting this year. The Indie Game Awards will celebrate the creativity, innovation and passion of gamings smaller-scale developers, and the nominees have just been announced. Choice cuts from the best game category: Mouthwashing, a horror game that follows the doomed crew of a space freighter in their last days together; Arranger, an innovative RPG puzzler; and action game Nine Sols, a sort of cross between Hollow Knight and Sekiro, which Ive been meaning to try out all year.Tell us your favourites Before I get back to my own intimidating lists, I will, as ever, be shouting out Pushing Buttons readers favourite games of 2024 in the newsletter towards the end of December. Please do start sending them in, with a few sentences about what they meant to you, and look for the results in a few weeks.What to playGruesome and bizarre The Rise of the Golden Idol. Photograph: Color Gray GamesI remain fascinated by The Rise of the Golden Idol, a gruesome and bizarre detective story thats kind of a mix of logic puzzles, fill-in-the-blank clues and a hidden object game. Each case comes in the form of a tableau, an animated painting in a style I cant quite pin down but reminds me of a sort of twisted version of Grant Woods painting American Gothic.Characters are frozen in a few-seconds loop right at the moment of a crime, or in the immediate aftermath, and you must figure out who everyone is, why they are there and what the heck happened. All of it feeds into a bigger narrative about corruption, deception and a cursed object. This game often makes me feel very stupid (I dont have a great brain for names and details) but I have stuck with it regardless, because its so unusual and it challenges me in ways few other games have.Available on: Smartphones (with Netflix subscription), PC, consoles Estimated playtime: 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 promotionWhat to readNever better than the real thing a remastered version of World of Warcraft II. Photograph: YouTubeTo celebrate World of Warcrafts anniversary, Blizzard rereleased Warcraft and Warcraft II with updated graphics. Unfortunately, everybody hates them. Valves Half-Life 2 anniversary update went down much better; the venerable game just broke its years-old concurrent players record on Steam.A Minecraft theme park is set to open in the UK in 2026 or 2027. Im already coming out in a cold sweat imagining the crowds at half-term.Another gaming event bites the dust: WASD, a much-loved indie-focused showcase for PC games, is no more.A useful explainer of Robloxs forthcoming improved parental controls.What to clickQuestion BlockChild friendly Terra Nil. Photograph: Free LivesIll answer a new question next week, but for now, I have some reader recommendations in response to the last few Question Blocks. First, some further suggestions for Jonnys wife, whos looking for a game like Civilization VI but not so lacking in chill:I have youngish children, and Terra Nil really scratches my massively reduced god game requirements. Also, its completely child friendly, down to any age, really. Its not an exact Civ replacement, but has sort of the same vibe. CharlieId recommend Polytopia. It can be played as a speed run Civ but is otherwise basically like classic Civ. However, knock down the difficulty and its pretty chill. Other pluses: tech stops before guns, and various Civs have their own tech trees. One lot end up with dragons. Another are an insectoid alien lot that Ive yet to properly master. Most importantly, its a quite immediate game. I loved it as a big fan of Civ II who wants to love Civ VI but hasnt got the time for it. But I can always spend a few minutes on a Polytopia battle. CraigAnd a couple for reader Lewis, who was looking for good puzzle games to play on his phone without being battered by horrible ads:Solomons Boneyard andSolomons Keep are brilliant! Favourites of mine and my friends. The former is the better of the two, but if you are not a fan of endless modes, the latter might suit you more. TimothyIf youve got a question for Question Block or anything else to say about the newsletter hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

A new face is entering Hunt Showdown 1896 as music megastar Post Malone makes his debut in the creepy multiplayer shooter with his own in-game lore and much more.

Call of Duty Warzone'season one is off to a solid start, but one thing is missing - Rebirth Island, as the fan-favourite map was pulled just a few days into the season