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Middle East crisis live: Israeli air force says it struck nuclear site; Iran steps up campaign to disrupt energy markets

The Israeli army claimed it struck a site that it claims was used for developing nuclear weapons; Iran set ablaze two tankers as it increased attacks on oil and transport facilities across the Middle East

An Iranian source is denying the country will allow India-flagged tankers to pass through the vital strait of Hormuz, Reuters is reporting.

The news agency a little earlier quoted an Indian source as saying Iran would in fact allow such tankers to pass through the strait, a key artery for global oil trade.

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The war in Iran is an American failure. What do we do now? | Robert Reich

The most powerful nation in the world is now being led by a rogue president who rejects its longstanding values

As we reach the 13th day of the war in Iran – with death and destruction rippling throughout the Middle East – it’s important to bear in mind where the real failure lies.

So far, nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 175 Iranian schoolchildren and seven US service members. At least 140 US service members have been wounded, several critically. The final tallies on both sides will almost certainly be far higher.

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The Black Crowes: A Pound of Feathers review | Stevie Chick’s album of the week

(Silver Arrow)
​With Keef-style riffs and full-blooded commitment to the bit, resurgent brothers Chris and Rich Robinson​ resurrect​ the rocker lifestyle of eras past

Time is not linear for Chris and Rich Robinson. When their group the Black Crowes first surfaced in the late 80s, music was deep into one of its magical transitional eras, technological advances sling-shotting pop into unexpected futures as techno, hip-hop and acid house left rock’n’roll looking like a period piece. The Robinsons clearly hadn’t received the memo, arriving in a blaze of paisley and patchouli with an inspired Otis Redding cover that dragged its 60s Stax strut all the way into the early 70s, redressing it in bell-bottomed denim and Sticky Fingers swagger.

Almost 40 years later, little has changed within the Crowes’ hermetically sealed hotbox. There have been calamitous splits, amicable hiatuses and radical lineup rejigs, to the point where the brothers are the only founding Crowes left. Yet they remain proud exiles from Main Street, and from the 21st century. It makes their 10th album an irresistible pleasure. In this grimmest of moments, with war and genocide and maniacs at the wheel across the globe, who could blame anyone for escaping into the simpler world conjured here, governed by Keef-worthy riffs, infallible slip-slide grooves and the kind of rock’n’roll misadventure that’s always been rejuvenated in the Crowes’ hands?

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I challenged ChatGPT to a writing competition. Could it actually replace me?

In week two of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic put his reputation on the line

Every writer I know is in despair at the prospect being replaced by AI. Many of them say they never use it on principle; I know all of them do.

So this week, as part of my AI diary, I’m conducting the forbidden experiment in plain sight. I’m going toe to toe with ChatGPT as a creative writer. Can it truly match me, and might it replace me? Let’s settle this.

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‘Unbelievably unequal’: report shows how 1% of Mexicans own 40% of country’s wealth

Fortunes of the country’s 22 billionaires doubled in last five years, reaching unprecedented collective wealth of $219bn

Scrunched between luxury apartment buildings and a lush gated community, the neighborhood of Santa Lucía Reacomodo in Mexico City is a working-class pocket of real estate. Electrical wires tangle above cinder-block houses, stray cats slink down narrow streets, debris piles up on the pavement.

María del Socorro Corona, 79, arrived here decades ago, back when it was just a cactus-covered hillside. The two-bedroom turquoise house she built with her now-deceased husband is crammed with bags of clothes and knick-knacks she sells at a weekly market.

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HealthNews

Why is smoking so addictive – and what are the best ways to give up?

That first cigarette can lead to a lifetime of dependency, as well as cancer, strokes, heart attacks … Here’s why smokers crave their nicotine hit – and how they can fight back

Smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. You know both of these things, of course: you’ve been told them in school, on TV and the radio, by doctors, and via the Cronenbergian body-horror of cigarette packets themselves. It’s worth reiterating, though, for two reasons: first, because the effects of having a quick puff outside the pub aren’t just a long-term gamble on your health but an immediate way of making your life worse; and second, because cigarettes remain wildly, impossibly addictive. Some research suggests that as many as two-thirds of people who try one cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, while a recent survey found that less than a fifth of UK smokers trying to quit actually managed it. Estimates for the average number of times people try to quit before actually managing it range from half a dozen to well over a hundred. So what confluence of factors actually makes cigarettes so difficult to give up – and what does that mean for a wannabe quitter?

“The first thing that happens when you smoke a cigarette is that you inhale a noxious mix of nicotine, various irritants and carcinogens into your lungs, ‘stunning’ your cilia – the tiny, hair-like projections that line your airways – and making them do their job less effectively,” says Lion Shahab, professor of health psychology at University College London. “The other thing that happens very, very quickly is that nicotine gets absorbed through the lungs into the alveoli, into the bloodstream, and then gets transferred into the brain. This is when you start to feel good, and also a key thing that keeps you addicted.”

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