Thursday’s transfer rumours: Timber, Dumfries, Sanchez, Aouar, Cucurella, Hickey and more

PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 7: Houssem Aouar of France reacts during the international friendly match between France and Ukraine at Stade de France on October 7, 2020 in Paris, France. (Photo by Xavier Laine/Getty Images)

Welcome to 101‘s daily round-up of the top transfer news and rumours for Thursday, June 16th.

Gossip

Jurrien Timber is swaying towards staying at Amsterdam rather than making an Old Trafford switch this summer [De Telegraaf]

And while the Red Devils are keen on a move for Anthony, the high price could be off-putting for Erik ten Hag’s side [De Telegraaf]

Chelsea and Manchester United are set to battle it out for Inter Milan defender Denzel Dumfries with the right-back having a reported 40m euro price tag [Gazzetta dello Sport]

Monaco have shown an interest in Tottenham defender Davinson Sanchez this summer [Football.London]

Roma are lining up a move for one-time Arsenal target Houssem Aouar, with Lyon keen to strike a deal this summer rather than lose him for free in 12 months [Di Marzio]

Inter Milan are closing in on a return for Romelu Lukaku, in the form of a loan with an obligation to buy [Matteo Morretto]

Thomas Tuchel is trying to keep Cesar Azpilicueta at Chelsea despite interest from Barcelona this summer [Fabrizio Romano]

Arsenal are closing in on Bologna defender Aaron Hickey in an £18m swoop, with the Emirates his most likely destination for next season [The Scotsman]

Meanwhile, the Gunners are expected to sit down with Gabriel Jesus ‘in the coming hours’ in an attempt to thrash out a deal [Caught Offside]

West Ham are keen on a move for England midfielder James Ward-Prowse as David Moyes looks to bolster his midfield [The Mirror]

Yves Bissouma is undergoing a medical ahead of finalising his move to Tottenham this summer [Fabrizio Romano]

Manchester City are set to submit their first bid for Brighton defender Marc Cucurella, with advanced talks expected in the coming days [Fabrizio Romano]

Read more:

Wednesday’s transfer rumours: Vitinha, Nunes, Raphinha, De Jong, Scamacca & more

Inter Milan ‘increasingly confident’ of Romelu Lukaku loan return as hefty loan fee slashed




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Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edited With Stainless Steel Body, Ultra HD Display Launched: Details

Amazfit has unveiled a limited edition of its Amazfit GTR 3 Pro smartwatch. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro has identical specifications to the standard GTR 3 Pro, but it differs in terms of its design and strap material. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edition comes with a flat-screen design, whereas the standard GTR 3 Pro sports a round display. The frame of the Limited Edition is made from stainless steel, and the strap is made of leather, unlike the standard one. Apart from that, most of the features remain the same.

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edition price, availability

The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edition has been priced at $210 (roughly Rs.16,400) for a limited period.

Meanwhile, the standard model of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro was launched at Rs.18,999 in India.

The limited edition of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is available to purchase from the Amazfit website. Buyers will also get an option to choose between Mystic Silver and Sleek Gold colour variants for this smartwatch.

Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edition design, specifications

The new Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edition smartwatch sports a flat-screen with a 1.45-inch Ultra-HD AMOLED display. The display offers a 1,000nits peak brightness and the smartwatch now comes with a stainless steel body along with a Noir and Brown leather strap. It also sports tempered glass with an anti-fingerprint coating, just like the standard model. However, the hardware buttons and the brackets of the limited edition of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro seem a bit flatter and blocky, unlike the standard model.

The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro smartwatch features a gamut of health tracking sensors that can monitor the user’s heart rate, blood oxygen saturation level, stress, and sleep and has more than 150 sports mode.

In terms of battery capacity, the smartwatch packs a 450mAh battery and can last up to 12 days on a single charge. The limited edition of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro smartwatch supports Zepp OS and App-support.

Moreover, the design of the Limited Edition smartwatch is also claimed to be inspired by the Bauhaus Movement. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro Limited Edition carries the same specs as the standard model.

To recall, the standard model of the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro was launched in India in October last year.


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‘Buy Bitcoin, plant a tree, lower your time preference’: a Sequoia story

When the market falls faster than a tree in the forest, the phrases “zoom out,” and “lower your time preference,” take root.

“Zoom out” refers to taking a break from the omnipresent price charts that populate news feeds and Twitter threads. Consider looking at the price of Bitcoin (BTC) over the past five years–as opposed to over the past 6,12 or 18 months.

HODLing Bitcoin has far outperformed HODLing stocks over the past five years. 

But what does “lower your time preference,”–popular parlance among Bitcoiners, actually mean? Commonly attributed to Saifedean Ammous, the polarizing author who penned The Bitcoin Standard, lowering one’s time preference translates to thinking long-term, and to valuing the future over the present.

In contrast to a fiat standard, where money loses value due to inflation; a system in which quick gains, immediate satisfaction, and instant gratification make the medicine go down, a Bitcoin standard promotes delayed gratification. The theory is that in a Bitcoin Standard, the value of money saved in Bitcoin goes up over time to be enjoyed at a later stage.

This lesson is a tough pill to swallow, (particularly during a crypto winter) but it’s a vital step to understanding Bitcoin. At least, that’s what Fangorn, a passionate Bitcoiner turned tree-planter believes. A software developer and history major with a background in biology, he stumbled across Bitcoin on a Hacker News site in the summer of 2017 (when one BTC was worth around $3,000).

Something twigged during 2017 and 2018, but it took the Covid-19 market crash of 2020 for Fangorn to really “go down the rabbit hole.” He read more broadly, engaging with popular Bitcoin author Gigi’s works, who wrote 21 lessons as well as an article called Bitcoin is Time. At this point, a lightbulb went off:

“Holy shit, this [Bitcoin] is way more than just like digital gold. This is profoundly advanced engineering for civilization.”

His appetite for understanding sound money grew and he hasn’t “looked back since.” He shared “the one thing to focus on is Bitcoin–the rest is a bunch of fluff.”

Sequoias are the largest trees in the world. What better way to visualize a low-time preference? Source: Twitter

An outdoorsy family man with a penchant for planting trees–he regularly gifts his father Sequoia trees for Father’s Day–Fangorn’s ideas, much like the giant trees, began to germinate. He connected the dots between a low-time preference, Sequoia trees, and the Bitcoin network:

“I can look at these trees when I’m 100 years old and think, damn it’s going to persist for another 3,000 years. And my grandkids’, grandkids’, grandkids’ will think ‘Thanks, great great grandpa for planting this tree thousands of years ago!”

Like many Bitcoiners, Fangorn has faith that the Bitcoin network will sustain civilization as sound money for years to come. Moreover, Bitcoin and Sequoias are pretty similar, they take “a lot of work, they stand the test of time, and they lift the human spirit.”

“Here’s this thing that allows us to cast our minds forward for thousands of years, plan long term, and reconnect with that core aspect of civilization, which is lowering one’s time preference and planning for the future.”

Indeed, while Bitcoin is a tool famed for its “number go up” properties, it’s also a tool that allows for securing a long-term outlook.

He shares that “planting trees is a super easy, super cost effective way of explaining” what a low-time preference is. The tree is a visual representation of a low-time preference; the roots are the network. Moreover, planting trees flies in the face of the environmental FUD to which Bitcoin is often subjected.

Fangorn encourages Bitcoiners and no-coiners to plant trees to visualize a low-time preference. He shipped seeds to Andre Loja, the man behind the island of Madeira’s Bitcoin strategy; he distributed seeds at the Bitcoin Miami conference in 2022 as well as at meetups in Winsconsin where he resides.

The Sequoia seeds received by Andre Loja in Madeira. Souce: Loja

He jokes that when Hal Finney (the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction) comes round from his cryogenic freeze, “In 3,000 years, I want there to be 21 million trees that are fully grown and 30 feet in diameter–trees that were planted in the first few epochs.”

Bitcoin will enter its fourth epoch sometime in 2024 and its last epoch–when the last Bitcoin is mined–in the year 2140. By 2140, the Sequoia seeds Fangorn and other Bitcoiners plant now will still be considered young trees: they reach full maturity after 500 years.

For Fangorn, the Bitcoin mined today should still be in existence, maybe even used to pay for goods and services by his great-great-grandchildren.



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Congos Oil Ministry Accused of Greenwashing — Global Issues

Peatland Forest in DRC. Credit: Daniel Beltrá / Greenpeace
  • Opinion by Tal Harris, Raphael Mavambu (kinshasa)
  • Inter Press Service

Minister Didier Budimbu, who had previously insisted that “none” of the blocks overlaps Protected Areas, confirmed Greenpeace’s findings in a statement yesterday.

Plans to auction rainforest for oil were reactivated in April, five months after the signature of a $500 million forest deal signed with the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) at COP26.

Greenpeace Africa and others have expressed alarm that three of the blocks overlap with the Cuvette Centrale peatlands, a biodiversity hotspot containing about 30 gigatons of carbon, equivalent to three years of global emissions. Oil drilling could release the immense stocks of carbon they store, warned Professor Simon Lewis of University College London.

That Protected Areas are also at risk became apparent last month when the Hydrocarbons Ministry itself published a video featuring a map of six of the 16 blocks : five of them are clearly shown to overlap Protected Areas.

The voice-over praises the “meticulousness” with which blocks had been “selected,” mindful of environmental “sensibilities,” and claiming input from unnamed environmentalists.

Another official online source, the Environment Ministry Forest Atlas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, shows nine of the blocks overlapping Protected Areas, including a national park, nature reserves, and a mangroves marine park.

The Ministry’s statement to Greenpeace Africa asserts: “It’s been decided that Protected Areas containing mineral natural resources of high economic value will be degazetted.”

While it describes the overlaps as “very negligible,” a simple review of the map shows significant overlap in at least three cases, including that of Upemba National Park, part of which occupies about a third of the Upemba block.

Irene Wabiwa Betoko, International Project Leader for the Congo Basin forest at Greenpeace Africa said: “The auction of new oil blocks anywhere during a climate crisis that disproportionately affects African people is mad.

Greenwashing the auction of blocks overlapping peatlands and Protected Areas is the height of cynicism. Doing so with such amateurism is particularly disturbing.”

In its statement to Greenpeace Africa, the Ministry emphasizes that no areas inside UNESCO World Heritage sites are up for auction and that overlaps are restricted to other Protected Areas. Congolese law, however, makes no distinction, in terms of oil exploration, among Protected Areas.

Block 18, one of the few that doesn’t encroach on a Protected Area, is only about twenty kilometers from Salonga National Park, a UNESCO site. In July 2021, the DRC government succeeded in removing Salonga from the List of World Heritage in Danger after it promised to update UNESCO, no later than 1 February 2022, on “the progress made towards the definitive cancellation of the oil concessions” there.

Over two months after the deadline, the government reported that the park’s steering committee decided on 14 December 2021 to “initiate actions for the definitive cancellation.” Instead of finally acting, the government continues planning to act.

“The mouth that says all the right things about the climate and biodiversity crises works separately from the hand that signs the contracts that make them worse. This disconnect also characterizes DRC’s donors: their COP26 speeches in praise of the Congo rainforest have resulted in an agreement that is an open invitation to oil companies,” added Irene Wabiwa.

The agreement signed at COP26 does nothing to protect peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale from the oil and gas industry, and is hardly more demanding with regard to the integrity of Protected Areas.

Instead of banning extractive industries in them, the 2 November letter of intent seeks only damage control. It calls for a study “to determine to what extent the titles of hydrocarbons overlap with and/or have an impact on protected areas, with a view to adopting appropriate prevention or mitigation measures ”.

Greenpeace Africa calls on the DRC government to cancel the auction of new oil blocks: “Instead of auto-pilot steering Congo into a climate catastrophe, the government and the international community must invest in ending energy poverty by accelerating investments in clean and accessible renewable energies,” concluded Irene Wabiwa.

Tal Harris is International Communications Coordinator, Greenpeace Africa: and Raphaël Mavambu is Communications and Media Consultant, Greenpeace Africa.

IPS UN Bureau


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© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service



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Steelrising Is Looking Like a Surprisingly Good Bloodborne Tribute

Developer Spiders is best known as something of a BioWare tribute studio. Its most successful game, GreedFall, is the latest in a modest line of RPGs that draw heavily upon the likes of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But Spiders’ next game, Steelrising, is nothing like a BioWare game at all. Instead, it’s an ode to FromSoftware. Specifically, it is Bloodborne set in the French Revolution, with Yarnham’s beasts swapped out for Parisian clockwork robots. As a pitch, it sounds a little derivative (at least mechanically). But despite seemingly minimal innovations, playing Steelrising reveals something that has genuine promise.

At a recent hands-on event I was able to play around three hours of Steelrising, which covered the opening locations and the first major boss. Playing as Aegis, a clockwork automaton ballerina-turned-bodyguard, I explored a small variety of twisty rural village and Parisian city locations that knotted themselves together with shortcut routes. As I tore apart robotic enemies with blades and bullets I collected Anima Essence, a resource that I could use to upgrade my stats and improve my weapons, provided I didn’t lose it upon death. Upgrades were conducted at ‘Vestal’ checkpoints, which also refilled my health restoring oil burette with a fresh supply. If it’s not already clear, Steelrising plays exactly like a FromSoftware game.

It’s easy to be cynical about this. Where, exactly, is Spiders’ original work here? But look at FromSoftware’s own library, and it can often be difficult to see the difference between Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring. The Soulslike formula seems fated to remain as ‘pure’ as possible, and so it’s in the details that we find each new game’s differences. With Steelrising, those differences appear to vary in significance as well as quality.

Like Bloodborne, Steelrising is an action-RPG that promotes aggression. With only a few weapons that offer the ability to block or counter, this is a combat system in which you dodge and jump your way through incoming blows in an enjoyably mobile manner. While it’s governed by the genre staple stamina system, when your endurance is exhausted you can rapidly cool your robot’s internal mechanisms with an active reload-like button press, which instantly tops your stamina up and throws you back in the fight. This is particularly helpful in mastering Steelrising’s staggering mechanic; give an enemy no reprieve and a diamond-shaped gauge will build to breaking point, allowing you to land a high-damage critical attack. These are minor tweaks rather than big changes to Bloodborne’s core, so consider this an alternate recipe to an already great meal, rather than a different dish entirely.

Satisfying combat with a mechanical rhythm is accompanied by a beautiful, intricate ‘clockpunk’ art style.

Across my three hours I discovered that this combat core can be expanded upon with a range of weapons that influence small variations in playstyle. A pair of metal corrugated fans can be used to slice apart brass baddies, but slam them together and they become a shield (or, more accurately, Sekiro’s Loaded Umbrella) for a more defensive approach. A better offense can be found in the dual-wielded falchion and saber, which sends Aegis pirouetting through the air like a deadly tornado. A more exotic option is what can only be described as a scorching yoyo, which can be slammed against the floor to create a flaming detonation that inflicts damage-over-time. For longer range engagements, a pistol can fire a volley of freezing alchemical bullets that disable enemies and open them up for a brutal melee.

While I eventually settled on the falchion and saber for the final half of my demo, I was eager to experiment with each and every weapon I found, and discovered something to like in all of them. The fun of them helps overcome what I foresee will be Steelrising’s main combat problem; rhythm. It is notably choppier than its apparent inspiration, with your actions never quite flowing together with the same fluidity as the best Soulslikes. More than anything, this highlights Steelrising’s significantly lower budget and holds it back from being a true peer of FromSoftware’s catalog. And yet this never bothered me across my hours of play.

Enjoyably goofy enemy designs with well-drawn attacks, from fire-breathing metal snakes to walking electrified battering rams, keep combat consistently fun, if not smooth. The fiction also helps do a lot of lifting; since the enemies are all robots, their jerky movements, frequent pauses, and stiff, exaggerated wind-ups feel in-keeping with their nature. Aegis is thankfully a much faster automaton, and while her animation transitions could flow better, her speed and ability to swiftly dodge around enemies ensured that her mechanical movement never felt to my detriment.

Steelrising – 20 Screenshots

The combination of a fast protagonist and jerky, easily-read enemies meant Steelrising, at least in these opening hours, felt a touch easier than the usual Soulslike offerings. But for anyone who does struggle, Assist Mode offers a significant advancement in the ongoing difficulty debate around Soulslikes. Rather than being a straight up easy mode, Assist allows you to manually adjust various factors to tailor the challenge. You can reduce enemy damage in percentage increments, opt to keep your Anima Essence on death, and adjust how quickly your stamina replenishes. If nothing else, I hope Steelrising is influential in aiding other developers find new and innovative ways to help people enjoy Soulslikes.

It seems that Spiders is doing plenty right with its tribute to FromSoftware, then. But my play session also highlighted a number of things the studio is struggling with. The demo opened on a plodding conversation between historical figures Marie-Antoinette and her favourite, Gabrielle de Polignac, which suggested that while Steelrising will have a more cinematic approach to storytelling than Dark Souls, that may not be in its favour. Its environmental storytelling may fare no better; while I enjoyed that the world displayed the hallmark Soulslike design where all roads eventually lead back to a central checkpoint, I found little to be truly fascinated by on my travels. Aside from some notes left by long-dead NPCs, the few areas I explored felt more like maze routes than an actual country in the midst of a political upheaval.

And yet, despite these flaws, Steelrising remained really engaging, at least in those opening hours. That satisfying combat with its oddly mechanical rhythm is accompanied by a beautiful, intricate ‘clockpunk’ art style, which sees the grandeur of Assassin’s Creed Unity blended with the ticking metal monsters of Doctor Who’s 2006 episode The Girl in the Fireplace. Aegis herself is a mechanical marvel, her weapons elegantly sliding out from body panels like a renaissance-era Robocop. Treasure chests click and whirr as their mechanisms pop into place, and the Vestal checkpoints clatter as their cages rise out of the ground to reveal the chairs that upgrade Aegis’ abilities. Despite its clearly modest budget delivering something that’s far from a technical powerhouse, Steelrising powers through to deliver surprising good looks.

It was in my final task of the demo, a fight against the gargantuan Bishop of the Cité, where I could see all of Steelrising’s best ideas come together. The boss itself is an amusingly tiny cleric piloting a massive rolling pulpit; a Catholic Weeble, basically. It’s armed with a colossal Bible on a chain, swung in heavy arcs that are easy to dodge but lethal if you get complacent. The ball it rolls around on is impervious to damage, meaning you have to leap up to strike at the little bishop himself. That demands burning plenty of stamina, and so using the rapid cool mechanic to regain stamina is vital to chaining together the leaps, attacks, and dodges required to bring down this mechanical menace. It’s the combination of meshed combat systems and absurd alt-history fiction that makes Steelrising endearing to me despite its struggles. I doubt it’ll give Elden Ring a run for even its small change, but I’m nonetheless fascinated to see what other wild enemies and weapons remain to be found in the burning streets of Paris when Steelrising releases this September.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.

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Pete Davidson Makes His Debut on The Kardashians at Long Last

Our long national nightmare is over—Pete Davidson has finally participated in filming a scene for The Kardashians.

It took until the season finale of the brood’s Hulu show, but the disembodied voice of Kim Kardashian‘s boyfriend made itself heard in the June 16 episode—and it was worth the wait.

In a post-credits scene, Kim gives a shout-out to audio supervisor Paxy (a.k.a. Erin Paxton), who Kim says might know her more intimately than anybody.

“You have to meet Paxy,” Kim tells someone standing behind her and off-camera during a confessional. “Paxy has worked with me as audio 14 years from Keeping Up With the Kardashians. She knows everything about me. She’s probably seen my vagina.”

And then it happens. 

“More than me?” a familiar voice questions from off-screen. It is, of course, Pete.

“Not more than you,” Kim comforts Pete. “But she’s probably seen it.”

When a person off-screen credited as “Producer”—who we can only assume is Paxy—tells Kim that she hasn’t been privy to seeing Kim down there, Kim is surprised, saying, “You haven’t seen my vagina? We’ll get there. It takes time to warm up to seeing my vagina.”

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Trump Lawyer Cited ‘Heated Fight’ Among Justices Over Election Suits

WASHINGTON — A lawyer advising President Donald J. Trump claimed in an email after Election Day 2020 to have insight into a “heated fight” among the Supreme Court justices over whether to hear arguments about the president’s efforts to overturn his defeat at the polls, two people briefed on the email said.

The lawyer, John Eastman, made the statement in a Dec. 24, 2020, exchange with a pro-Trump lawyer and Trump campaign officials over whether to file legal papers that they hoped might prompt four justices to agree to hear an election case from Wisconsin.

“So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Mr. Eastman wrote, according to the people briefed on the contents of the email. Referring to the process by which at least four justices are needed to take up a case, he added, “For those willing to do their duty, we should help them by giving them a Wisconsin cert petition to add into the mix.”

The pro-Trump lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, replied that the “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”

Their exchange took place five days after Mr. Trump issued a call for his supporters to attend a “protest” at the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress would certify the electoral vote count confirming Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. “Be there. Will be wild!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.

The previously unreported exchange is part of a group of emails obtained by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol by a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters.

Mr. Chesebro’s comment about the justices being more open to hearing a case if they fear chaos was striking for its link to the potential for the kind of mob scene that materialized at the Capitol weeks later.

And Mr. Eastman’s email, if taken at face value, raised the question of how he would have known about internal tension among the justices about dealing with election cases. Mr. Eastman had been a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas.

The committee is also reviewing emails between Mr. Eastman and Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas. Ms. Thomas was an outspoken supporter of Mr. Trump and in the period after Election Day sent a barrage of text messages to the Trump White House urging efforts to reverse the outcome and supported a variety of efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office.

It was not immediately clear when the communications took place between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman or what they discussed. The existence of the emails between Mr. Eastman and Ms. Thomas was reported earlier by The Washington Post.

A federal judge recently ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over documents to the panel from the period after the November 2020 election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss fighting the election results.

After debating internally about whether to seek an interview with Ms. Thomas, members of the committee have said in recent weeks that they do not see her actions as central to the plans to overturn the election.

Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the committee, told NBC News last weekend that Ms. Thomas was “not the focus of this investigation.”

But her contact with Mr. Eastman could add a new dimension to the inquiry.

A federal judge has already concluded in a civil case that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman “more likely than not” had committed two felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the American people, in their attempts to overturn the election.

Mr. Chesebro, and lawyers for Mr. Eastman and Ms. Thomas, did not respond to requests for comment.

Word of the exchanges between Mr. Eastman, Mr. Chesebro and the campaign lawyers emerged as the House committee prepared for a public hearing on Thursday to present new details of the intense pressure campaign Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman waged against Vice President Mike Pence, which the panel says directly contributed to the violent siege of Congress.

The public hearing, the panel’s third this month as it lays out the steps Mr. Trump took to try to overturn the 2020 election, is scheduled for 1 p.m. The committee plans to release materials detailing the threats of violence against Mr. Pence, and the ways the vice president’s security team scrambled to try to keep him safe from the mob.

The email exchange involving Mr. Eastman and Mr. Chesebro included a request, which appears to have been denied, that the Trump campaign pay for the effort to get another case in front of the Supreme Court. In the emails, Mr. Chesebro made clear that he did not consider the odds of success to be good, but he pressed to try, laying out why he claimed the election was invalid.

Mr. Eastman said that he and Mr. Chesebro “are of similar” minds and that the legal arguments “are rock solid,” before going on to describe what he said were the divisions among the justices and the benefits of giving them another chance to take up an election case.

In the previous several weeks, the court had turned aside two other efforts to consider election-related suits brought by allies of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Chesebro then replied, according to the people briefed on the exchange: “I don’t have the personal insight that John has into the four justices likely to be most upset about what is happening in the various states, who might want to intervene, so I should make it clear that I don’t discount John’s estimate.”

He went on that he agreed that “getting this on file gives more ammo to the justices fighting for the court to intervene.”

“I think the odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way,” he said. “Though that factor could go against us on the merits. Easiest way to quell chaos would be to rule against us — our side would accept that result as legitimate.”

Mr. Chesebro concluded: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. A campaign that believes it really won the election would file a petition as long as it’s plausible and the resource constraints aren’t too great.”

In the weeks after the election, Mr. Chesebro wrote a string of memos supporting a plan to send so-called alternate electors to Congress for the certification. A little more than two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Chesebro sent a memo to James Troupis, another lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, laying out a plan to name pro-Trump electors in the state, which was won by Mr. Biden.

Mr. Chesebro also sent a Dec. 13, 2020, email to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer who was by then leading the legal efforts to overturn the election results. In it, he encouraged Mr. Pence to “firmly take the position that he, and he alone, is charged with the constitutional responsibility not just to open the votes, but to count them — including making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes.”

That idea took root with Mr. Trump, who engaged in a lengthy effort to convince Mr. Pence that he could block or delay the congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.

The House committee’s hearing on Thursday is set to feature testimony from J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who advised Mr. Pence that Mr. Trump’s push for the vice president to unilaterally decide to invalidate election results was unconstitutional, and that he should not go along with the plan.

Also scheduled to appear is Greg Jacob, Mr. Pence’s top White House lawyer, who has provided the committee with crucial evidence about the role played by Mr. Eastman, who conceded during an email exchange with Mr. Jacob that his plan to overturn the election was in “violation” of federal law.

The committee is also expected to play video from an interview it recorded with Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short. A day before the mob violence, Mr. Short grew so concerned about Mr. Trump’s actions that he presented a warning to a Secret Service agent: The president was going to publicly turn against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.

The committee is not expected to display any of the new emails it received involving Ms. Thomas on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the presentation.

Ms. Thomas, known as Ginni, is a conservative political activist who became a close ally of Mr. Trump during his presidency. After he lost the election, she sent a series of messages to Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Arizona lawmakers and others pushing for the election to be overturned.

The Jan. 6 committee has been presenting the televised hearings as a series of movie-length chapters laying out the different ways Mr. Trump tried to cling to power. After an initial prime-time hearing that drew more than 20 million viewers, in which the panel sought to establish that the former president was at the center of the plot, investigators focused their second hearing on how Mr. Trump spread the lie of a stolen election.

The committee is expected to detail on Thursday some of its findings about the plot involving pro-Trump electors. The panel will present evidence that the White House counsel also concluded that the vice president had no legal power to throw out legitimate electoral votes for the fake electors Mr. Trump’s team put forward.

Investigators will show how Mr. Trump was advised that his plans were unlawful but he pressed forward with them anyway, committee aides said.

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Nothing Phone 1 Images, First-Look Video Tease Fancy Notification Lights on Back Panel

Nothing Phone 1 images and first-look video by a journalist on YouTube have revealed that the back panel of the handset has a bunch of fancy lights. Apparently, these glow up to indicate a message or call notification. The images and video were shared by journalist Rafael Zeier from an event in Switzerland a few hours after the UK-based company revealed the design of the phone. Nothing Phone 1 will be launched on July 12 through a virtual event called ‘Return to Instinct’.

As per Zeier, Nothing organised a surprise event at Art Basel in Switzerland where it gave limited access to a few journalists to the upcoming Nothing Phone 1. Zeier was among the group who shared a bunch of images and content creators. Another journalist, Lorenz Keller, shared a small clip showing how the backlights of the phone glow up. There is also a ring in the middle of the back panel which may glow at specific times, such as while charging, or may not light up at all.

The purpose of these glowing lights is not known yet but rumour has it that these are nothing but notifications light in a new avatar. Smartphones in yesteryears used to have dedicated notification lights on the front which used to glow up to indicate incoming calls, message alerts, and charging. They are usually on the front or on the screen (like in Samsung and OnePlus phones), but have taken a back seat over the years. We don’t know whether these lights serve a greater purpose or are just a part of the design element in order to look different from other smartphones.

The rear panel of the Nothing Phone 1 has a white finish with rounded corners. The smartphone sports a dual rear camera unit paired with an LED flash. The right has the power button and there is a volume rocker on the right spine of the smartphone. It looks like the phone comes with a USB Type-C port and there is no 3.5mm jack. The phone will be launched at a virtual event called ‘Return to Instinct’ scheduled for July 12.

Interestingly, the Nothing Phone 1 units to be sold in India will be manufactured locally. Manu Sharma, who is Nothing India vice president and general manager, cited his interview in a publication and tweeted that every Nothing Phone 1 sold in India will be manufactured locally. He also highlighted that India is a key market for Nothing. The confirmation comes after a round of rumours where it was claimed that the phone will be manufactured in Tamil Nadu.




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BitBoy founder threatens class action lawsuit against Celsius

Just two weeks after appearing in an ask me anything (AMA) with Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky, crypto Youtuber Ben Armstrong has announced he intends to file a class action lawsuit against the lending platform and its chief executive.

Armstrong made legal threats via Twitter on June 15, and has since provided more detail in multiple threads. His issue is centered on being unable to pay down loans with existing funds on the platform, and instead having to deposit new funds to pay the loans off:

“[Our account rep] told us we had enough money in our account to pay off a loan. But we can’t use money in our account. We HAVE TO SEND CELSIUS MORE MONEY TO PAY IT OFF.”

“Imagine an insolvent company that you can’t withdraw your money from ASKING YOU TO SEND THEM MORE MONEY,” he added.

Armstrong stated that he is currently working through the process of getting all “disclosures, documents, loan details, etc” put together while speaking to attorneys to explore the best ways to go about the class action. Co-plaintiffs are yet to be added as Armstrong hasn’t “officially began moving” yet.

BitBoy Crypto is the second most subscribed crypto YouTube account with roughly 1.45 million subscribers and primarily provides commentary on market news/events. The channel is only behind Coin Bureau and its 2.07 million subscribers, although BitBoy Crypto has plenty of detractors too, some of whom allege that he has been paid to promote dubious crypto assets in the past.

Armstrong’s sentiments towards Celsius have swung wildly from just two weeks ago, when he was featured on the  ask me anything (AMA) session with Mashinsky on Celsius’ YouTube channel.

And today I’m the victim. Kicking myself for wondering how I let this get so bad and so far,” he said.

Celsius is battling either insolvency or it’s experiencing severe liquidity troubles as a result of the crypto market plunge. The firm paused withdrawals on June 13, and also reportedly shifted around $320 million worth of assets to pay down loans and avoid liquidation on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms such as AAVE.

One issue to a potential lawsuit however, is if Celsius files for bankruptcy it will trigger a provision called “automatic stay”, which would prevent creditors from pursuing collection activity against the firm.

Celsius has reportedly onboarded restructuring lawyers from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to find potential solutions for its financial troubles, however Armstrong claims that these types of lawyers “specialize in MOSTLY preparing companies for bankruptcy.”

“Even if Celsius does file bankruptcy, we have discovered some potential workarounds to still do a class action lawsuit (not effected by bankruptcy). Unfortunately I have to keep that one close to the vest for now,” he said.

Related: DeFi contagion fears and rumors of Celsius and 3AC insolvency could weigh on NEXO price

In terms of recouping funds from Celsius, there does at least appear to be a potential option for users with less than $25,000 on the platform to obtain their assets in the immediate future. Joshua Browder, the founder of robot lawyer DoNotPay tweeted a step-by-step strategy on June 15 on how users might be able to get funds back:

“As of right now, these exchanges have not yet filed for bankruptcy protection. Therefore, they are subject to small claims court judgements. Small claims court cases typically take 1-2 months. As long as this drags on longer than that, this strategy will work.”



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Scott Disick Shares Insight Into Friendship With Pete Davidson

And, according to Scott, Kim is a different person around Pete. As he quipped, “She says like young slang words.”

Kim and Pete began dating in November 2021, not long after the SKIMS founder hosted Saturday Night Live. As Kim revealed in the June 2 episode of The Kardashians, her interest in Pete grew after they shared an on-screen kiss during an Aladdin-theme sketch. Oh, and those “BDE” rumors didn’t hurt either.

“I did SNL and then when we kissed in a scene, it was just a vibe,” Kim explained, before revealing that she then asked a SNL producer for Pete’s number. “I wasn’t even thinking like ‘Oh my god I’m gonna be in a relationship with him.’ I was just thinking…I heard about this BDE. I need to get out there…I was just basically DTF.”

The rest, as they say, was history.

Season one of The Kardashians is available to stream on Hulu.

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