Author: admin@primenews

Burkina Faso’s security and intelligence services foiled a coup attempt on Tuesday, according to the country’s military government. It alleged that officers and others had planned to destabilise the country and throw it into chaos. It has been just less than a year since the interim President Capt Ibrahim Traoré seized power. That was the country’s second coup of 2022 as it grapples with an Islamist insurgency. In a statement read out on television, the authorities said some arrests had been made, without giving specific details. There have been recent reports of discontent within the military. On Tuesday, rumours of…

Scientists have made a key discovery about antimatter – a mysterious substance which was plentiful when the Universe began. Antimatter is the opposite of matter, from which stars and planets are made. Both were created in equal amounts in the Big Bang which formed our Universe. While matter is everywhere, though, its opposite is now fiendishly hard to find. The latest study has discovered the two respond to gravity in the same way. For years, physicists have been scrambling to discover their differences and similarities, to explain how the Universe arose. Discovering that antimatter rose in response to gravity, instead…

Numbers of the UK’s most precious animals and plants are still falling, as a countrywide nature-loss crisis continues. Loss of nature is outpacing investment and effort to tackle it, conservation organisations say. Their State of the Nature report found 16% of 10,000 mammals, plants, insects, birds and amphibians assessed were threatened. They include UK wildlife icons such as the turtle dove and hazel dormouse. The government has said it is committed to “increasing the amount of habitat for nature to thrive”. But conservation organisations say more investment and a shift to much more wildlife-friendly farming and fishing are urgently needed.…

Meta has announced a series of new chatbots to be used in its Messenger service. The chatbots will have “personality” and specialise in certain subjects, like holidays or cooking advice. It is the latest salvo in a chatbot arms race between tech companies desperate to produce more accurate and personalised artificial intelligence. The chatbots are still a work in progress with “limitations”, said boss Mark Zuckerberg. In California, during Meta’s first in-person event since before the pandemic, Mr Zuckerberg said that it had been an “amazing year for AI”. The company is calling its main chatbot “Meta AI” and can…

OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed creator of ChatGPT, has confirmed the chatbot can now browse the internet to provide users with current information. The artificial intelligence-powered system was previously trained only using data up to September 2021. The move means some premium users will be able to ask the chatbot questions about current affairs, and access news. OpenAI said the feature would open up to all users soon. Earlier in the week, OpenAI also revealed the chatbot will soon be able to have voice conversations with users. ChatGPT and other similar systems use huge amounts of data to create convincing human-like responses…

A Sri Lankan cricketer accused of raping a woman while in Australia for the T20 World Cup has been found not guilty. Danushka Gunathilaka, 32, was accused of assaulting the Sydney woman at her home after a Tinder date in November. Initially he was charged with multiple counts of rape, but only one count of stealthing – removing a condom without consent – proceeded to trial. The case tested new laws criminalising the act in New South Wales (NSW). During a four-day trial in a NSW District Court, the complainant – who legally cannot be named – said she had…

Six suspected migrants have been rescued from the back of a lorry in France, after the BBC helped track them down and alert the police. The four Vietnamese women and two Iraqi women were trapped inside, panicking and struggling to breathe. One of them spoke to the BBC from inside the lorry. The BBC then helped to contact the police, who stopped the truck. French police have arrested the driver and now opened an investigation into a suspected illegal immigration ring. Here’s the story of what happened. At around midday on Wednesday, my phone screen lit up. It was a…

There was a whiff of desperation in the air at the second Republican debate in Los Angeles on Wednesday night as Donald Trump skipped the event once again. The seven candidates on stage all trail Mr Trump by a significant margin in the race for the party’s nomination, and knew they had to do something to change the dynamic. During a chaotic two-hour debate, they often tried to do it at once, talking over each other, the moderators, and sometimes themselves. “Thank you for talking while I’m interrupting,” Vivek Ramaswamy told Tim Scott snidely in what was a telling Freudian…

Officially, the Barbie movie isn’t showing in Russia. But unofficially… I’m in a Moscow shopping centre. A giant pink house has been erected next to the food court. Inside: pink furniture, pink popcorn and life-size cardboard cut-outs of Barbie and Ken who are beaming from ear to ear. No wonder they’re smiling: the Barbie film is pulling in the crowds at the multiplex opposite, despite Western sanctions. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a string of Hollywood studios stopped releasing their movies in Russia. But unauthorised copies are getting through and being dubbed into Russian. Over at the cinema it’s…

US soldier Travis King, who fled from South to North Korea in July, is in American custody after being expelled by Pyongyang, officials say. Pvt King was transferred into US custody in China before being flown to a US military installation. The 23-year-old reconnaissance specialist illegally crossed into North Korea in July. North Korean media said he had fled because of “inhuman treatment” and racism within the US military. A senior administration official said on Wednesday that after months of “intense diplomacy” Pvt King had been returned to US hands and had spoken to his family. “We can confirm Pvt…