Table of ContentsTable of ContentsBest Student GameExcellence in AudioExcellence in DesignExcellence in NarrativeExcellence in Visual ArtsNuovo AwardSeamus McNally Grand PrizeThe nominees for the 27th Annual Independent Games Festival have been revealed. UFO 50, Thank Goodness Youre Here, and more will compete for this years top honors, the Seamus McNally Grade Prize, but theres one shocker that didnt make the final cut: Balatro.The Independent Games Festival awards ceremony takes place every year at Game Developers Conference, with this years set to take place March 17-21. The show celebrates independent games, often nominating unexpected deep cuts and upcoming games that go on to become critical darlings. Last years ceremony, for instance, featured multiple nominations for 1000xResist ahead of its official release. That would go on to become one of 2024s best-reviewed games.Recommended VideosThis year, six games will compete for the Seamus McNally awards: Caves of Qud, Consume Me, Despelote, Indika, Thank Goodness Youre Here, and UFO 50. The most eye-catching game on that list is Despelote, a narrative coming-of-age story set in Ecuador thats scheduled to launch this year. Its not only up for the Seamus McNally award but also Excellence in Audio, Narrative, and the shows Nuovo Award, which honors more experimental games.Please enable Javascript to view this contentAs for other unreleased games nominated this year, Consume Me leads the pack with five total nominations. Raw Furys upcoming Blue Princealso made a splash this year, racking up an Excellence in Design nomination and an honorable mention for the Seamus McNally Award.The big surprise here is that the Game Awards-winning Balatro didnt make the cut for the Seamus McNally, despite making the honorable mentions list. It wasnt entirely shut out, though, as itll compete in this years Design field.Plenty of other 2024 releases made a major splash. Standouts like Nine Sols, Judero, Tactical Breach Wizards, Children of the Sun, and more all snagged nominations. Heres the full list.Best Student GameA Dual Ascent (Mountain Toad Entertainment / Rubika Supinfogame)DisplaceMen (Eversea Club / leafaleaves)Growth Spurt: A Meandering Intermission into the Afterhours of a Miscalculation (Games for my Computer)Slot Waste (Vinny Roca / pickpanpuck productions)The WereCleaner (Howlin Hugs / USC Games)Year Unknown (Julian Heuser)Honorable MentionsCards of Heart (GoodMind Games), Duck Paradox (Magic Games / Midwest Games), Lost Garden (Ori Shany, Yoni Pushett, Ramon Zerem), Perfect World (Michael Overton Brown), Timeworks (Starworks Studios)Anger Foot (Free Lives / Devolver Digital)Despelote (Julin Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena / Panic)INDIKA (Odd Meter / 11 bit studios)ODDADA (Sven Ahlgrimm, Mathilde Hoffmann, Bastian Clausdorff)Thank Goodness Youre Here! (Coal Supper / Panic)Utopia Must Fall (Pixeljam)Honorable MentionsAnimal Well (Billy Basso / Bigmode), Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ / CRITICAL REFLEX), Pacific Drive (Ironwood Studios / Kepler Interactive), Rise of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games / Playstack), UFO 50 (Mossmouth)Excellence in DesignBalatro (LocalThunk / Playstack)Blue Prince (Dogubomb / Raw Fury)Caves of Qud (Freehold Games / Kitfox Games)Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken coda Snyder)Pacific Drive (Ironwood Studios / Kepler Interactive)Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments)Honorable MentionsAnimal Well (Billy Basso / Bigmode), No Case Should Remain Unsolved (Somi), UFO 50 (Mossmouth), LOK Digital (Letibus Design, Icedrop Games / Draknek and Friends), Eigengrau (Martin Mauersics), The Rise of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games / Playstack)Caves of Qud (Freehold Games / Kitfox Games)Closer the Distance (Osmotic Studios / Skybound Games)Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken coda Snyder)Despelote (Julin Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena / Panic)INDIKA (Odd Meter / 11 bit studios)No Case Should Remain Unsolved (Somi)Honorable MentionsBlue Prince (Dogubomb / Raw Fury), Miniatures (Other Tales Interactive), Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ / CRITICAL REFLEX), Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments), Thank Goodness Youre Here! (Coal Supper / Panic), The Thaumaturge (Fools Theory / 11 bit studios)Children of the Sun (Ren Rother / Devolver Digital)Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken coda Snyder)Hauntii (Moonloop Games / Firestoke)Judero (Talha and Jack Co, J. King-Spooner, Talha Kaya)Nine Sols (RedCandleGames)Thank Goodness Youre Here! (Coal Supper / Panic)Honorable MentionsCrow Country (SFB Games), Death of the Reprobate (Joe Richardson), Miniatures (Other Tales Interactive), Tiny Glade (Pounce Light), Ultros (Hadoque / Kepler Interactive)Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken coda Snyder)Despelote (Julin Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena / Panic)Extreme Evolution: Drive to Divinity (Sam Atlas)Ginger (Kevin Du / lizu ktap)individualism in the dead-internet age: an anti-big tech asset flip shovelware rant manifesto (alienmelon)Starship Home (Creature)tapearia (tapestry) (mut/moochi (with help from plunderludics working group))The Exit 8 (KOTAKE CREATE / Active Gaming Media Inc)Honorable MentionsArctic Eggs (The Water Museum, cockydoody, abmarnie, Cameron Ginex / CRITICAL REFLEX), Judero (Talha and Jack Co, J. King-Spooner, Talha Kaya), Onto Maizilind Unto Infinity(Kas Ghobadi, Julin Palacios Gechtman / Kasrah Ghobadi), Price of Flight (WATERBOX), Project Y (Project_Y Production Committee), Refind Self: The Personality Test Game (Lizardry / PLAYISM)Caves of Qud (Freehold Games / Kitfox Games)Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken coda Snyder)Despelote (Julin Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena / Panic)INDIKA (Odd Meter / 11 bit studios)Thank Goodness Youre Here! (Coal Supper / Panic)UFO 50 (Mossmouth)Honorable Mentions:Animal Well (Billy Basso / Bigmode), Balatro (LocalThunk / Playstack), Blue Prince (Dogubomb / Raw Fury), Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ / CRITICAL REFLEX), Nine Sols (RedCandleGames), Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments)Editors Recommendations

The moves are part of the Biden administrations last-gasp efforts to clamp down on Chinas harnessing of AI for its military and tech sector.

Governments reach into the domestic politics of rival countries to subvert them and alter their policies with propaganda and disinformation.

Remember startups? They're backin OAuth form Startup necromancy: Dead Google Apps domains can be compromised by new owners Improperly winding down a Google Apps domain can leave logins accessible. Kevin Purdy Jan 15, 2025 2:51 pm | 0 Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreLots of startups use Google's productivity suite, known as Workspace, to handle email, documents, and other back-office matters. Relatedly, lots of business-minded webapps use Google's OAuth, i.e. "Sign in with Google." It's a low-friction feedback loopup until the startup fails, the domain goes up for sale, and somebody forgot to close down all the Google stuff.Dylan Ayrey, of Truffle Security Co., suggests in a report that this problem is more serious than anyone, especially Google, is acknowledging. Many startups make the critical mistake of not properly closing their accountson both Google and other web-based appsbefore letting their domains expire.Given the number of people working for tech startups (6 million), the failure rate of said startups (90 percent), their usage of Google Workspaces (50 percent, all by Ayrey's numbers), and the speed at which startups tend to fall apart, there are a lot of Google-auth-connected domains up for sale at any time. That would not be an inherent problem, except that, as Ayrey shows, buying a domain allows you to re-activate the Google accounts for former employees if the site's Google account still exists.With admin access to those accounts, you can get into many of the services they used Google's OAuth to log into, like Slack, ChatGPT, Zoom, and HR systems. Ayrey writes that he bought a defunct startup domain and got access to each of those through Google account sign-ins. He ended up with tax documents, job interview details, and direct messages, among other sensitive materials.You have to close up shop, not just abandon itReached for comment, a Google spokesperson provided a statement:We appreciate Dylan Ayreys help identifying the risks stemming from customers forgetting to delete third-party SaaS services as part of turning down their operation. As a best practice, we recommend customers properly close out domains following these instructions to make this type of issue impossible. Additionally, we encourage third-party apps to follow best-practices by using the unique account identifiers (sub) to mitigate this risk.Google's instructions note that canceling a Google Workspace "doesn't remove user accounts," which remain until an organization's Google account is deleted.Notably, Ayrey's methods were not able to access data stored inside each re-activated Google account, but on third-party platforms. While Ayrey's test cases and data largely concern startups, any domain that used Google Workspace accounts to authenticate with third-party services and failed to delete their Google account to remove its domain link before selling the domain could be vulnerable.Wont fix (intended behavior) Dylan Ayrey's simplified explanation of how Google (or most any) OAuth works when signing in to a third-party service like Slack. Credit: Dylan Ayrey Dylan Ayrey's simplified explanation of how Google (or most any) OAuth works when signing in to a third-party service like Slack. Credit: Dylan Ayrey Ayrey writes that he disclosed his findings to Google on September 30, 2024. Google responded on October 2 that it had "made the decision not to track it as an abuse bug" and set its status to "Won't Fix (Intended Behavior)," according to Ayrey's screenshots. Ten days after Ayrey had a talk on this topic accepted at the Shmoocon hacker conference, Google re-opened the issue, paid him a $1,337 reward, and stated at the time that "exploitation likelihood is low" but that it was an "abuse-related methodology with high impact." Dylan Ayrey's talk at ShmooCon 2025: "Taking Over Millions of Accounts." In Google's domain close-out instructions and API documentation, Google points to a unique user identifier, "sub," as a value that is "never changed" and which should be used as a key for user identification. Ayrey's post quotes an unnamed staff engineer at a major tech company who disagrees, suggesting that the sub value varies in "about 0.04% of logins" using Google OAuth. At certain audience sizes, that could be hundreds of logins any given week. Faced with such an issue, larger services likely do not use "sub" for unique user verification, Ayrey suggests.In a chat conversation with Ars, Ayrey noted that, had "sub" been enforced by any of the major services he tested with his purchased domains and re-activated accounts, he should not have been able to get in. But his account reuse ruse worked on "100 percent of the ones I tested," Ayrey told Ars. This would suggest that the use of "sub" was either not implemented or did not work to prevent such domain-takeover access.Ayrey's proposed fix, which he suggested to Google, is to include two new immutable identifiers inside its OpenID Connect claims: one tied to the user that never changes and one tied to the domain. As of Tuesday, January 14, Ayrey had not heard from Google as to potential fixes or progress.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 0 Comments

A late Iron Age Durotrigan burial at Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, UKBournemouth UniversityGenetic analysis of people buried in a 2000-year-old cemetery in southern England has bolstered the idea that Celtic communities in Britain placed women centre-stage, showing that women remained in their ancestral homes while men moved in from other communities a practice that lasted centuries.The work supports growing archaeological evidence that women had high status within Celtic societies across Europe, including Britain, and gives credence to Roman written accounts that were often thought to be exaggerated for Mediterranean audiences when they described Celtic women as empowered. AdvertisementSince 2009, human remains of the Durotriges tribe have been unearthed during excavations of an Iron Age burial site at Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, UK. The Durotriges occupied the central southern English coast from around 100 BC to AD 100 and probably spoke a Celtic language.Human remains from Iron Age Britain are rare because prevailing funerary customs, including cremation or depositing bodies in wetlands, destroyed them. However, the Durotriges buried their dead in formal cemeteries in the chalk landscape, which aided their preservation. Archaeologists have found that Durotrigan women were more often buried with valuable items, suggesting high status and possibly a society focused on women.Lara Cassidy at Trinity College Dublin and her colleagues have now analysed the genomes of 55 Durotrigan individuals from Winterborne Kingston to untangle how they were related to one another and other Iron Age populations from Britain and Europe. Keep up with advances in archaeology and evolution with our subscriber-only, monthly newsletter.Sign up to newsletterCassidy says there were two big aha moments. Both were related to mitochondrial DNA small loops of DNA that we inherit only through the maternal line, since they are passed down via the egg cell and dont integrate with other DNA.As the mitochondrial DNA results for each individual came in, the team noticed the same genetic sequence appearing again and again. It became apparent that more than two-thirds of the individuals were descended from a single maternal lineage, originating from a common female ancestor a few centuries earlier.My jaw dropped at that moment, says Cassidy. This was a clear signature of matrilocality, or husbands moving to live with their wives families a pattern wed never seen before in prehistoric Europe. Patrilocality, in which a woman moves to her male partners community, is usually the norm.To find out if the matrilocal pattern was a distinct phenomenon of the Durotriges or if it could have been more widespread across Britain, Cassidy began trawling through data from an earlier large genetic survey of Iron Age Britain and Europe. Her jaw dropped again. She noticed cemeteries across Britain where most individuals were maternal descendants of a small set of female ancestors.It adds to the growing pile of evidence that Iron Age women were relatively empowered, says Cassidy. Matrilocality typically co-occurs with cultural practices that benefit women and keeps them embedded in their family support networks, she explains.In modern societies, matrilocality has been associated with higher female involvement in food production, higher paternity uncertainty and protracted male absence. In such societies, it is the man who migrates into a new community as a relative stranger and depends on his partners family for his livelihood.Read more: The origins of sexism: How men came to rule 12,000 years agoMen typically still dominate formal positions of authority, but women can wield huge influence through their strong networks of matrilineal relatives and their central role in the local economy, says Cassidy.Cassidys team went on to compare the British DNA dataset with data from other European sites, revealing repeated waves of migration from the continent, aligning with archaeological evidence. This showed that southern Britain was a hotspot for cultural and genetic exchange between 2500 BC and 1200 BC during the Bronze Age, as well as during a previously unknown Late Iron Age influx at the time of the Durotriges.Previous studies have suggested that Celtic languages probably arrived in Britain between 1000 BC and 875 BC, but the new findings widen that window. Celtic languages were possibly introduced on more than one occasion, says Cassidy.This is very exciting new research and is revolutionising how we understand prehistoric society, says Rachel Pope at the University of Liverpool, UK, who has previously found evidence of female-focused kinship in Iron Age Europe. What we are learning is that the nature of society in Europe before the Romans was really very different.Journal reference:Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08409-6Topics:archaeology

More than 400 Washington Post staffers are urging Jeff Bezos to meet with the paper's leaders.The letter says integrity and transparency issues have caused staff departures.The Post has faced subscriber losses and leadership scrutiny under CEO Will Lewis.More than 400 Washington Post staffers sent a letter to the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos, asking him to intervene after a year of crises.The letter asked Bezos, who has owned the paper since 2013, to come to the Post and meet with its leaders."We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent," the letter says. "This goes far beyond the issue of the presidential endorsement, which we recognize as the owner's prerogative. This is about retaining our competitive edge, restoring trust that has been lost, and reestablishing a relationship with leadership based on open communication."One newsroom insider called it notable for its representation of non-union as well as union signatories."It ratchets up the pressure," said this person, who, like some others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely about internal matters. Their identity is known to Business Insider.Since Bezos bought the paper, the Amazon executive chairman has had regular meetings with the business side but largely stayed out of the news coverage."From the very beginning, he told us he wouldn't be involved in any way in the newsroom, or be a hands-on owner," the Post insider said. "Our Amazon coverage has been aggressive, and he's never pushed back. I think the plea now is to get him involved now to establish some leadership in the newsroom."The Post has been battered by a string of recent crises under Will Lewis, its publisher and CEO. NPR reported that the outlet lost a significant number of subscribers after announcing just days before the US presidential election in November that it wouldn't endorse a candidate. That decision broke with 40 years of tradition and happened after a Kamala Harris endorsement had been planned.Bezos later explained the decision in an opinion column, saying many people believe the media is biased and presidential endorsements don't help.A second Post insider, who is familiar with the subscription numbers, said the paper had won back at least 20% of the subscriptions it lost after the endorsement situation. They said nearly three-fourths of those people who canceled are still using the site while their subscriptions remain active.Since the endorsement controversy, a number of high-profile newsroom figures have defected. They include a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, who quit after the paper declined to publish her cartoon that portrayed Bezos and other media and tech CEOs sucking up to a statue of President-elect Donald Trump. A third Post insider described a nihilistic feeling at the company amid the talent exodus. They said they felt it would be hard for the paper to move forward under Bezos' ownership in a second Trump administration, given credibility issues with some left-leaning readers."A lot of really good institutions are going to have a really hard time in the Trump administration, from higher education to journalism," this person said. "And I think the Post, in part because of our own doing, is one of the first to have its walls shook really, really hard."Lewis earlier faced scrutiny when he replaced the top editor, Sally Buzbee, in 2024, and then his choice of replacement backed out. He also faced questions over his actions during the aftermath of a UK phone-hacking scandal.Not all Post staffers are in agreement with the petition. Another staffer, sports columnist Sally Jenkins, said the Post's biggest problem is the underlying business challenges facing it and other legacy media."I think the Post is in the middle of trying to find solutions, and it takes a lot of time," she said. "Would I love it if Jeff Bezos came to the newsroom? Sure. I just think things are much more complicated than, 'Oh, things will be fine if Jeff Bezos comes in and talks to some editors.'"Like many other news outlets, the paper has struggled on the revenue side. Last week, it began laying off 4% of staff on the business side, Reuters reported.Here's the full text of the letter:To Jeff Bezos:You recently wrote that ensuring the long-term success and editorial independence of this newspaper is essential. We agree, and we believe you take as much pride in The Washington Post as we do.We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent. This goes far beyond the issue of the presidential endorsement, which we recognize as the owner's prerogative. This is about retaining our competitive edge, restoring trust that has been lost, and reestablishing a relationship with leadership based on open communication.We urge you to come to our office and meet with Post leaders, as you have in the past, about what has been happening at The Post. We understand the need for change, and we are eager to deliver the news in innovative ways. But we need a clear vision we can believe in.We are committed to pursuing independent journalism that holds power to account and to reporting the news without fear or favor. That will never change. Nothing will shake our determination to follow the reporting wherever it leads.As you wrote when you first became The Post's owner in 2013, "The values of The Post do not need changing." We urge you to stand with us in reaffirming those values.Signed,Staffers of The Washington Post

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard the first major First Amendment case involving pornography or, for that matter, sexual speech of any kind in more than two decades. Its also the first such case since Republicans gained a 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court. And its a case that potentially allows the justices to both limit adults access to pornography and walk back longstanding free speech protections for sexual content.Wednesdays oral argument went disastrously for the porn industry. Current protections for online sexual content dont seem like they will be completely destroyed, but all six of the Courts Republicans plus Democratic Justice Elena Kagan appear likely to weaken those First Amendment protections (although it remains to be seen just how far they will go in doing so).The case, known as Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, involves a Texas law that requires many websites that publish a significant amount of sexual material harmful to minors to verify the age of its users before those users can access that material. The law is extraordinarily similar to a federal age-gating requirement that the Supreme Court struck down in Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004).Ashcroft applied the most skeptical test the Supreme Court applies in constitutional cases, known as strict scrutiny to the federal law. Under strict scrutiny, a law must be narrowly tailored to advance a compelling goal in order to survive. The overwhelming majority of laws subject to this test fail.Specifically, Ashcroft ruled that the federal age-gating law did not survive this test because, instead of requiring every pornographic website to check the age of every user, the government could have promoted blocking and filtering software that allows parents and teachers to prevent a particular computer from loading these websites.Most of todays justices, however, appeared to believe that Ashcroft is obsolete. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted, Ashcroft was decided before the invention of the iPhone, and before the proliferation of any number of internet-connected devices that children could use to access pornography. At one point, she spoke about the trouble shes personally experienced as a parent trying to block certain content on all of these various devices.Or, as Justice Samuel Alito put it, there is a huge volume of evidence that filtering doesnt work, in part because children are often far more tech-savvy than their parents.But, while Ashcroft had few fans at Wednesdays argument, its unclear how, exactly, the Court will roll back protections for sexual speech. Nor is it clear whether the new legal standard will prevent adults from viewing sexual content that the Court has consistently said they have a First Amendment right to see.Another question is, if the Court permits age-gating, what sort of content will the Court allow the government to place a gate around? Could the state of Florida forbid children from reading a transgender authors memoir of their transition? Or could it similarly prevent gay teenagers from accessing online forums where queer people discuss their sexuality? What if a 16-year-old boy, who is thinking of having sex for the first time, wants to watch an instructional video showing someone correctly putting on a condom?These questions, however, will probably have to wait for future litigation. For the moment, the only thing that appears reasonably clear is that the Court is likely to reduce the level of First Amendment protection afforded to online pornography but it is completely unclear just how much they will reduce it.Most of the justices started from the assumption that the government must have the power to restrict childrens access to pornSeveral justices were quite explicit that they believed that, whatever rule is governing online pornography, it must be flexible enough to allow some laws which seek to bar children from watching porn. As Kagan put it, its got to be the case that states can do some regulation in this area.Similarly, Chief Justice John Roberts seemed concerned that the more speech-protective regime that has been in place for decades is not compatible with the modern internet. Technology access to pornography has exploded, Roberts told Derek Shaffer, a lawyer who represents much of the porn industry. Roberts also expressed concerns that the nature of this content has changed since the era of relatively tasteful nude photographs in Playboy magazine.And so the oral argument in Free Speech Coalition bore more resemblance to a meeting of lawmakers trying to decide what should be in an anti-porn bill, rather than a meeting of judges trying to decide how to apply the Supreme Courts First Amendment precedents to a particular case. Alito, a Republican, offered the most extreme idea, proposing that the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny (known as rational basis) should apply to laws like Texas. If Alitos view prevails, that would be a catastrophe for free speech, as virtually all laws survive this very permissive test. Most of the justices, however, seemed to recognize that Alitos proposal goes too far, and that it would do too much to prevent adults from accessing sexual content that they have a constitutional right to see. As Democratic Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted at one point, under Alitos proposed test, the government could require any adult who wants to look at online pornography to first submit a copy of their passport, their drivers license, and a signed affidavit from their parents.Likewise, Barrett said at one point that she wants to take rational basis off the table. She did, however, suggest that the Court could apply a test known as intermediate scrutiny to laws targeting minors access to sexual speech online.This test, which asks whether a law serves important government objectives and whether it is substantially related to achievement of those objectives, is weaker than strict scrutiny, but it is still quite robust. Laws that discriminate on the basis of gender, for example, are typically subject to intermediate scrutiny. So, while Barretts approach would weaken First Amendment protections for sexual speech, it would still call for robust judicial review of any law targeting that speech. It is unlikely, for example, that intermediate scrutiny would allow a state to bar queer teens from chatting on LGBTQ forums that dont feature pornography.A third approach, floated by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, would ask whether laws imposing age-gating requirements on websites are overly burdensome or too burdensome of adults rights to see sexual content. This would be an entirely new legal standard, so its difficult to predict how it would apply to other contexts. Though there seemed to be little agreement on exact approach, it was fairly clear by the end of the argument that it is likely that at least five and possibly as many as seven justices will agree that strict scrutiny should no longer apply to laws requiring age-gating on pornographic websites. But it also appeared that most justices wanted to avoid the free-for-all that would result under Alitos proposed rule.The Court seems unsure what should happen after they rule on this caseAnother sign that the justices appear likely to land somewhere in between the very speech-protective rule that is currently the law, and the extremely permissive rule floated by Alito, is that multiple justices asked whether the Texas law should be temporarily blocked if they send this case back down to the lower courts to apply a new legal standard.The trial court in this case blocked the Texas law, applying the rule established by Ashcroft, but an appeals court stayed that decision blocking the law. Ordinarily, if the Supreme Court rules that an appeals court erred, it vacates that courts orders which would mean that the trial courts decision blocking the law would come back into effect at least until the appeals court has a chance to apply the new legal rule.In any event, this matters because the only reason the justices need to worry about what happens to Texass law after they rule is if they still plan to leave in place some protections for online pornography. Another question, which received some but not much attention during Wednesdays argument, is whether modern age-gating technology actually works as well as Texas claims that it does. It is far from clear that an app currently exists that can verify whether someone is an adult without creating serious privacy concerns such as a risk that hackers could uncover everyone who looked at a particular pornographic website.If the Supreme Court does announce new, weaker but still robust protections for sexual content online, then many of these questions will have to be resolved by the lower courts and they may make their way up to the Supreme Court again. For the moment, the one thing that does appear certain is that the First Amendment is about to become weaker, at least with respect to online pornography.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:

GTA 6 fans think the game's second trailer will come from Rockstar Games any day now after spotting a pattern of January announcements from the developer in recent yearsTech17:30, 15 Jan 2025Updated 17:31, 15 Jan 2025Could we hear more this month?(Image: Still)GTA 6 fans, your time may be coming (possibly). After a series of leaks that included a screenshot from a janitor and someone claiming to have played it, fans reckon the game's second trailer is finally just around the corner.I know, I know, you heard the same through 2024 as Rockstar kept radio silence, but a new theory has suggested January (or at the latest early February) will see the long-awaited teaser drop.Given that would put it close to the earnings call that could shed light on whether it'll launch in 2025 or later, it's a safe assumption, but it's more than just guesswork.Over on Reddit, one poster shared the above snippets of the Rockstar Games website, with the company sharing updates on its current projects.From Grand Theft Auto 4 back in 2008, to Max Payne 3 in 2012, and GTA 5 in 2013, Rockstar's community pages about each of its titles has arrived in January.As the poster points out, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the exception but even that one arrived on February 1, 2018.That suggests Rockstar could be gearing up for its 'traditional' post about GTA 6 at some point this month, especially as one commenter said Rockstar did similar for L.A. Noire in January of 2011.With that earnings call coming up fast, things could finally be coming into focus.The last time trailer one was announced, it was close to the 9 November earnings call with Take-Two Interactive, the original poster added.Article continues belowWe have an earnings call coming on 6 February next month."So, will Rockstar reveal something before the earnings call, or spill the beans via Take-Two Interactive? Time will tell.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.RECOMMENDED

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League ends as it began by disappointing fansAdam StarkeyPublished January 15, 2025 5:29pmUpdated January 15, 2025 5:29pm Suicide Squads days are officially over (Warner Bros.)Rocksteadys Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has released its final piece of content, ending its troubled saga with an appropriately low quality conclusion.Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League became one of 2024s most high-profile disappointments, although after key staff left developer Rocksteady even before it was out, there never did seem much hope of anything else.Despite recent job losses, Rocksteady has continued to update the shooter with story DLC and characters since it launched in February last year, but in December it confirmed Season 4 episode 8 would be the games final update.This update, which debuted on January 14, provided a resolution to the ongoing story with Brainiac, who in the games story possessed various members of the Justice League including Batman, Superman, and The Flash which ultimately led to their deaths at the hands of the Suicide Squad.What happened in the final update for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League?While players are led to believe Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and The Flash have all been killed, the new episodes closing sequence confirms all these seemingly brainwashed heroes were actually clones, completely undoing the events of the game in the most boring way possible.In fact, an alive and well Batman delivers the final punch to Brainiac, who is then delivered to Suicide Squad boss Amanda Waller.The bombs in the necks of Harley Quinn and co. are then defused and, now that Waller can no longer track them down, the squad delivers classified documents to Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane.This revelation is told to players though a 2D animated cinematic narrated by Harley Quinn, which is a notable downgrade from the main games very expensive looking cut scenes.Many players have criticised the ending for essentially undoing the entire point of the narrative. In a comment on Reddit, one user wrote: Even by retcon standards, this is extremely half done.Another added: Horrible. They could have at least given us a [good] cut scene where Batman and the League returns in a dramatic way. Instead we get this lame voiceover clip with Harley.Is Wonder Woman dead in Suicide Squad?One omission from the final sequence is Wonder Woman, who was the only member of the Justice League not possessed/cloned by Brainiac. She assisted the Suicide Squad in tracking down the cloned members, but was killed by the evil Superman.As such, the only logical conclusion is Wonder Woman is dead in the Batman: Arkham series, which is odd considering a game based around the superhero is supposedly still in the works at Monolith Productions (although its never been confirmed if it is set in the Arkham universe).Theres been no official update about the game since it was announced in 2021. Amid speculation it had been cancelled, an insider in 2023 claimed the game is still in development and described it as a cross between God Of War and Crackdown.A job listing in March 2024 also appeared to confirm Gotham Knights developer WB Games Montreal is also involved in the project in some capacity.It was later rumoured that when it was announced in 2021 no serious work had begun on the game, which would certainly explain the lack of news since then.What is the future of Batman in video games? The confirmation that Batman is still alive in the Arkham universe means he could return in some kind of sequel. The last game in the series was (very good) VR title Batman: Arkham Shadow, a sequel to Batman: Arkham Origins set six months later. Batman: Arkham Shadow was released last year (Oculus Studios)Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is set five years after the events of Batman: Arkham Knight, so its the furthest along in the timeline. Although, whether any game will want to acknowledge the events of Suicide Squad seems doubtful.While theres no confirmation of a new Batman game being in development, rumours last year suggested Rocksteady is working on some kind of Batman project. With the rebooted DC movie universe set to kick off with Superman this year, theres also a chance a rebooted Batman unrelated to the Arkham timeline could materialise.Whatever Batman game comes next, it likely wont be related to Robert Pattinsons The Batman. DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn previously said there was no truth to a rumour to that effect, which circulated in August last year.There was never any video game tie-in to Zack Synders DCEU, and hardly any DC Comics games of any kind during that period.More TrendingGunn has previously indicated that in the future all new games will be in the same continuity as the movie universe but its unclear what that means for the Wonder Woman game especially given there are no current plans for a new movie and no other titles have been announced since. Will we see the squad again? 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