The Info Magazine - News & Magazine

SpaceX has been on a tear in 2022, notching 18 rocket launches and two astronaut splashdowns in just the first 130 days of the year — an unprecedented pace for…

Science & Technology

NFTs or non-fungible tokens: The new kind of digital art that could prove a bonanza for creators

February 13, 2022

The Info Magazine

Paul “Lamborghini” Kell made the news in 2018 when he paid $US38,000 for a digital artwork that anyone could already view or download. This week, he sold the same artwork…

Food & Cuisine

Skinny spud latte to go? Potato milk hits UK supermarket shelves

February 13, 2022

The Info Magazine

The dairy alternative goes on sale at Waitrose this week, the latest offering in a booming alt-milk market worth £400m a year First came soya, nut, and then oat but…

Food & Cuisine

What is mole sauce? Key ingredients and preparation

February 11, 2022

The Info Magazine

Mole, from Nahuatl meaning “sauce”, is a traditional sauce and marinade originally used in Mexican cuisine. In contemporary Mexico, the term is used for a number of sauces, some quite…

Sports

Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire ‘in the power struggle over Manchester United captaincy’

February 18, 2022

The Info Magazine

Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire are “in a power struggle over Manchester United captaincy – with interim boss Ralf Rangnick holding talks with pair about Portuguese superstar taking armband for…

Sports

Premier League, EFL and Women’s Super League now monitoring all players’ social media handles

March 20, 2021

The Info Magazine

The Premier League, EFL and Women’s Super League are monitoring the social media accounts of all their players in a bid to protect footballers from the rising tide of online…

A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed

The FBI says it’s part of a troubling increase in ‘sextortion’ cases Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl. Within hours, the 17-year-old, straight-A student and Boy Scout had died by suicide. “Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a conversation,” his mother, Pauline Stuart, told CNN, fighting back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had finished visiting several colleges he was considering attending after graduating high school. The online conversation quickly grew intimate, and then turned criminal. The scammer — posing as a young girl — sent Ryan a nude photo and then asked Ryan to share an explicit image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate photo of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and send it to Ryan’s family and friends. The San Jose, California, the teen told the cybercriminal he could not pay the full amount, and the demand was ultimately lowered to a fraction of the original figure — $150. But after paying the scammers from his college savings, Stuart said, “They kept demanding more and more and putting lots of continued pressure on him.” At the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She learned the details after law enforcement investigators reconstructed the events leading up to his death. She had said goodnight to Ryan at 10 p.m. and described him as her usually a happy son. By 2 a.m., he had been scammed and taken his life. Ryan left behind a suicide note describing how embarrassed he was for himself and the family. “He really, truly thought in that time that there wasn’t a way to get by if those pictures were actually posted online,” Pauline said. “His note showed he was absolutely terrified. No child should have to be that scared.” Law enforcement calls the scam “sextortion,” and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims leading the FBI to ramp up a campaign to warn parents from coast to coast. The bureau says there were over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in excess of $13 million. The FBI says the use of child pornography by criminals to lure suspects also constitutes a serious crime. The investigation into Last’s case is ongoing, Stuart and the FBI tell CNN. “To be a criminal that specifically targets children — it’s one of the deeper violations of trust I think in society,” says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a team of investigators working to counter crimes against children. According to Costin, many of the sextortion scams reported to the FBI are determined to be from criminals on the African continent and in Southeast Asia. Federal investigators are working with their law enforcement counterparts around the world, Costin said, to help identify and arrest perpetrators who are targeting kids online. One challenge for the FBI: many victims of sextortion do not report the incidents to law enforcement. “The embarrassment piece of this is probably one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have to overcome,” said Costin. “It can be a lot, especially at that moment.” But investigators urge victims to quickly contact law enforcement, either online or at their local FBI field office. Medical experts say there’s a key reason why young males are especially vulnerable to sextortion-related scams. “Teen brains are still developing,” said Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass General in Boston. “So when something catastrophic happens, like a personal picture is released to people online, it’s hard for them to look past that moment and understand that in the big scheme of things they’ll be able to get through this.” Hadland said there are steps parents can take to help safeguard their kids from online harm. “The most important thing that a parent should do with their teen is trying to understand what they’re doing online,” she said. “You want to know when they’re going online, who they’re interacting with, what platforms they’re using. Are they being approached by people that they don’t know, are they experiencing pressure to share information or photos?” Hadland said it’s also critical that parents specifically warn teens of scams like sextortion, without shaming them. “You want to make it clear that they can talk to you if they have done something, or they feel like they’ve made a mistake,” he said. Ryan’s mom agrees. “You need to talk to your kids because we need to make them aware of it,” Stuart said. Still grieving the loss of her son, she is channeling her family’s pain into action and honoring Ryan by speaking out and telling his story. She hopes that doing so will help save lives. “How could these people look at themselves in the mirror knowing that $150 is more important than a child’s life?” she says. “There’s no other word but ‘evil’ for me that they care much more about money than a child’s life. I don’t want anybody else to go through what we did.” Read more at cnn.com
>>Read more
Elon Musk denies sexual misconduct allegations

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has denied claims that he groped and exposed himself to an employee at his SpaceX rocket company six years ago. A report in the Business Insider news outlet on Thursday alleged SpaceX paid the ex-flight attendant $250,000 (£200,000) to settle the claim. “Those wild accusations are utterly untrue,” he wrote on Twitter. Mr. Musk told Business Insider its article was a “politically motivated hit piece”. The SpaceX founder suggested the piece was intended to interfere with his stalled $44bn (£35bn) acquisition of Twitter and malign the recent shift in his politics. He had used the social media site to announce he “can no longer support” the Democratic Party on Wednesday, saying he plans to vote for Republicans in future elections. Shares in his electric car company, Tesla, dropped on Friday. According to Business Insider, SpaceX paid the unnamed woman a severance agreement that was settled out of court and, as part of the deal, she was not allowed to sue the company or talk about the alleged incident. The magazine quotes an anonymous friend of the flight attendant, who it claimed had provided a signed declaration as part of the settlement process. The friend said Mr. Musk had exposed himself to the former employee – a cabin crew member on contract for SpaceX’s corporate jet fleet – in 2016 while receiving a massage from her aboard his private jet. He is said to have exposed his genitals to her, touched her leg without consent, and offered to buy her a gift if she would “do more” – referring to the performance of sex acts. The BBC has not been able to confirm these reports independently. In a series of tweets late on Thursday night, he alleged the friend quoted in the report was “a far-left activist/actress in [Los Angeles] with a major political ax to grind” – and challenged her to verify the claims by describing his intimate body parts. Nicholas Carlson, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, defended his outlet’s work, writing on Twitter: “We stand by our story, which is based on documents and interviews and speaks for itself.” Read more at bbc.com
>>Read more
What is a war crime and could Putin be prosecuted over Ukraine?

A Russian soldier has admitted to killing an unarmed civilian in the first war crimes trial to be held in Ukraine since the conflict began. Ukraine says it has identified more than 10,000 possible war crimes, but the Russian government denies the allegations. The International Criminal Court has also sent a team of investigators and forensics experts to the country. What is a war crime? It may not seem like it, but “even war has rules”, as the International Committee of the Red Cross puts it. These are contained in treaties called the Geneva Conventions and a string of other international laws and agreements. Civilians cannot be deliberately attacked – nor can the infrastructure that is vital to their survival. Some weapons are banned because of the indiscriminate or appalling suffering they cause – such as anti-personnel landmines and chemical or biological weapons. The sick and wounded must be cared for – including injured soldiers, who have rights as prisoners of war. Serious offenses such as murder, rape, or mass persecution of a group are known as “crimes against humanity” or, in some circumstances, “genocide”. What did the Russian soldier do? The 21-year-old Russian tank commander Vadim Shishimarin admitted to shooting 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in the head, a few days after the invasion began. Prosecutors said Shishimarin had been ordered to kill the unarmed civilian. He is being tried in a Kyiv district court and faces life in jail. “By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility,” Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Iryna Venediktova tweeted. She previously said her office was preparing cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses including killing civilians, rape, bombing civilian infrastructure, and looting. What other allegations of war crimes have there been in Ukraine? US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson have both accused Russia of carrying out war crimes in Ukraine. Investigators and journalists found what appeared to be evidence of the deliberate killing of civilians in Bucha, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, and other nearby areas. Ukrainian forces said they found mass graves and evidence that civilians had been killed after their feet and hands were bound. In March, a Russian strike on a theatre in Mariupol appeared to be the first confirmed location of a mass killing. The word “children” was written in giant letters outside the building. Ukraine previously called Russia’s airstrike on Mariupol’s hospital a war crime. Many experts argue the invasion itself is a crime under the concept of “aggressive warfare”. How can suspected war criminals be prosecuted? There have been a series of one-off courts since World War Two – including the tribunal investigating war crimes during the break-up of Yugoslavia. A body was also set up to prosecute those responsible for the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Today, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) both have roles upholding the rules of war. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules on disputes between states, but cannot prosecute individuals. Ukraine has begun a case against Russia. If the ICJ ruled against Russia, the UN Security Council (UNSC) would be responsible for enforcing that. But Russia – one of the council’s five permanent members – could veto any proposal to sanction it. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and prosecutes individual war criminals who are not before the courts of individual states. It’s the permanent modern successor to Nuremberg, which prosecuted key Nazi leaders in 1945. Nuremberg cemented the principle that nations could set up special courts to uphold international law. Can the ICC prosecute offences in Ukraine? The ICC’s chief prosecutor, British lawyer Karim Khan QC, believes there is a reasonable basis to believe war crimes have been carried out in Ukraine. Investigators will look at past and present allegations – going back as far as 2013, before Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. If there’s evidence, the prosecutor will ask ICC judges to issue arrest warrants to bring individuals to trial in The Hague. However the court doesn’t have its own police force so relies on individual states to arrest suspects – and since Russia is not a member of the court it is unlikely to extradite any suspects. Could President Putin, generals, or other leaders be prosecuted? It’s far easier to pin a war crime on the soldier who commits it, than on the leader who ordered it. Hugh Williamson of Human Rights Watch – an organization with expertise in gathering evidence of war crimes in conflicts – agrees there is evidence of summary executions and other grave abuses by Russian forces. He says establishing the “chain of command” is very important for any future trials – including whether a leader authorized an atrocity – or turned a blind eye to it. The ICC can also prosecute the offense of “waging aggressive war”. This is the crime of an unjustified invasion or conflict, beyond justifiable military action in self-defense. It originated at Nuremberg after the judge sent by Moscow convinced the Allies that Nazi leaders should face justice for “crimes against peace”. However, Professor Philippe Sands QC, an expert on international law at University College London, says the ICC couldn’t prosecute Russia’s leaders for this because the country isn’t a signatory to the court. In theory, the UN Security Council could ask the ICC to investigate this offense. But again, Russia could veto this. Prof Sands wants world leaders to set up a one-off tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression in Ukraine. Read more at bbc.com
>>Read more

Latest News

A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed

Elon Musk denies sexual misconduct allegations

What is a war crime and could Putin be prosecuted over Ukraine?

Ukrainian widow confronts Russian soldier accused of killing her husband

What you need to know about Finland, Sweden and NATO

Business & Finances

Should I invest the amount I would pay in premiums instead of buying long-term care insurance?

How can I save on long-term care insurance?

Showbiz & TV

Johnny Depp was jealous and controlling, ex-girlfriend Ellen Barkin says

Kelly Clarkson has filed to legally change her name in wake of divorce from Brandon Blackstock

News & Politics

Art auction fetches $922 million for high-profile divorce settlement

Charlie Chaplin’s children reveal their fear of the film pioneer

Australians are spending less time on Facebook and much more on TikTok

A dog who kept sneaking into a store for a unicorn toy gets a new start

Science & Technology

SpaceX on pace to shatter US launch records. Again

NFTs or non-fungible tokens: The new kind of digital art that could prove a bonanza for creators

Food & Cuisine

Skinny spud latte to go? Potato milk hits UK supermarket shelves

What is mole sauce? Key ingredients and preparation

Sports

Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire ‘in the power struggle over Manchester United captaincy’

Premier League, EFL and Women’s Super League now monitoring all players’ social media handles

A post-war surfing renaissance is underway in Africa’s oldest republic

What is the UNESCO World Heritage List?

The most visited cities around the world

Best photography destinations in Mexico