France says it has killed about 20 suspected fighters in a forest near Mali’s border with Burkina Faso.

French Mirage fighter jets bombed several suspected arms depots in the Foulsare Forest, southwest of the northern Malian city of Gao, late on Saturday, a French counterterrorism unit said in a statement on Sunday.

Troops from Operation Barkhane, whose mission is to target fighters operating in the Sahel region of the Sahara Desert, said they also discovered large amounts of arms, ammunition, rocket launchers and explosives.

It however, did not identify the groups that were targeted.

A French soldier was killed last month in the region, considered a sanctuary of armed groups fighting the central government based in the capital, Bamako.

Set up in 2014, Operation Barkhane comprises of around 4,000 soldiers who are deployed across five former French colonies – Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

In Niger, it operates four Mirage 2000 fighter jets and five Reaper drones for gathering intelligence.

France intervened in its former West African colony in January 2013 to stop a southward offensive by fighters linked to al-Qaeda who seized control of vast expanses of the north.

Despite continued French troop deployments, a UN peacekeeping mission and years of peace talks, Mali remains beset by unrest and ethnic strife.

Source: News agencies

The Wynd smart air purifier is designed to create “bubbles” of fresh air — small, one-person respites from pollution, allergens and other detrimental particles floating in the ether. It feels almost dystopian, a world in which we’re required to arm ourselves against the air around us, but the product clearly struck a nerve, with more than 3,400 supporters backing the project to the tune of $604,792, late last year.

What’s most compelling about the product is where it goes beyond a simple air purification offering. There are a million of those on the market already, and a single-serving, water-bottle-sized system can only do so much. By connecting Wynd to a mobile device, however, the company is able to offer some interesting insights into the purifier itself, as well as the world around us from which it’s ultimately designed to protect us.

Making bubbles

The Wynd system is comprised of two key parts: the primary air purifier and a small monitor that slots into the rear of the device. The piece is removable and can be clipped onto articles of clothing, offering up insight into air quality on the go. In a sense, the system is too distinct pieces that serve separate but related functions.

It’s a pretty clever design, and the startup clearly put a lot of work into packing as much functionality into as small a form factor as possible. The resulting package is conical, with a top that flares out.

This bit houses a front-facing fan inside a ring that lights up when power is turned on and adjusts color based on air quality readings. The system has an “Auto” setting, which changes the speed of the fan based on the surrounding air, or you can just change the airflow manually by twisting the top of the system.

The majority of the rest of the filter’s surface area is covered in holes for air intake. The surrounding air passes through a small, circular cloth filter before being blown out the top, with around half of fine particles and 70 percent of larger, coarse particles removed, according to the company’s press materials. The back of the system can be twisted off and removed for easy access to the filter and the rechargeable battery that’s housed inside.

It’s mostly a pretty nice bit of industrial design, though there are a couple of key spots where things fall short. The kickstand, which makes it possible to angle the air output toward your face, is a bit precarious and really only offers a single position. The USB-C charging slot, meanwhile, is positioned up front, which puts it in the way of the kickstand, should you want to plug the system in while in use.

Really though, the biggest issue is the purifier’s size. The idea of a portable air filter is fine, but in real-world use, it’s ultimately not going to clean that much. Hence, the almost objectivist notion of “bubbles” — small pockets that don’t contain the harmful particulates of the air surrounding them. Really what that means is, in order to get the most use out of the thing, you’re going to have to point it directly at your face. As such, the applications are pretty limited with the hardware. You can stick it on your desk, for example, or on a bedside dresser.

The company also uses the example of a stroller or car where it has more impact as an enclosed space. If you’re looking to fill up a full room, you can get a good system for under $200. I swear by this Winix PlasmaWave, for example. It’s $139 on Amazon right now — coincidentally the same price as the Wynd. It doesn’t connect to my smartphone, but I’ve woken up a lot fewer mornings with my eyes glued shut from allergies since I picked it up.

On the move

Wynd has stepped up its game by tapping into two elements that are all the rage in consumer electronics these days: wearables and crowdsourced data mapping. Both of those pieces are accomplished by the square sensor that slots into the bottom of the device. When inside, it charges alongside the purifier, and when removed, it’s roughly the size of a pink eraser.

There’s a button on the side that turns the sensor on, firing up a big light up top that changes color based on the quality of air it detects. Blue is good, and the closer you get to red, the more you ought to consider investing in a surgical mask to wear around in your daily life. On the bottom is a clip that attaches to an article of clothing or a backpack strap. However, here’s another place where the design leaves something to be desired — it actually fell off a few times as I was wearing it around the city.

The purpose of the sensor is twofold. The first part is offering localized readings of air quality. I’m not really sure what to do with that information, beyond, perhaps, going out of my way to avoid certain areas, like, say, the subway stations, which turn the light an upsetting shade of deep red.

The bigger picture should prove familiar to anyone who’s been following hardware startups over the last few years. The company intends to use the connected nodes to build a sort of real-time map of air quality conditions — something that could potentially prove useful in parts of the world where air quality is a real ongoing health concern.

Though, in order for it to be a truly useful resource, it’s going to take a lot more connected nodes deployed out in the world.

Fresh air

The app experience is useful and cleanly designed. It’ll let you know how much charge the device has and when it’s time to change the filter. The Air Bubbles section, meanwhile, maps out all of the sensor readings, offering insight into the air around you.

At $139, Wynd is priced similarly to much larger air purifiers that service a lot more volume than what’s just blowing into your face. The sensor, on the other hand, is really the most compelling and useful feature, offering some insight into what’s going on in the world around you. But until Wynd creates an industrial-size purifier, what you’ll actually be doing about it will be a fair bit more difficult.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said Ankara was “seriously saddened” by footage showing US military vehicles operating close to the border with Syrian Kurdish fighters, threatening further military action against a group Turkey sees as “terrorists”.

His comments came amid rising tensions over the weekend along the border, with both Ankara and Washington moving armoured vehicles to the area. 

Turkish forces last week carried out deadly air strikes on military positions belonging to the Syrian Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), angering the US and sparking days of border clashes with the Kurdish fighters.

The US sent military vehicles with American flags to the Syrian side of the frontier accompanied by YPG fighters to carry out patrols, in an apparent bid to prevent further fighting.

Turkey views YPG as a “terrorist” organisation and an extension of the Kurdish PKK group that has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against Turkey for greater independence.

But Washington views YPG as its most effective ground partner in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria.

Pictures posted by pro-Kurdish activists on Twitter show military convoys flying US and YPG flags passing through the mostly Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli.

US troops passing through Qamişlo today. http://pic.twitter.com/a36JOIdzw6

— Dr Partizan (@Dr_Partizan) April 29, 2017

Turkey’s president was unimpressed by the images.

“Unfortunately … the presence of an American flag along with the [insignia] of a terror organisation called YPG in a convoy has seriously saddened us,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul, before heading on a trip to India.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Gaziantep along the Turkey-Syria border, said US troops have patrolled the area in what appears to be an attempt to de-escalate the situation between the Turkish military and YPG.

“Now the Americans face the delicate task of trying to answer some of the concerns of the Turkish government, while at the same time maintaining the YPG as a key component in the fight against ISIL,” Ahelbarra said. 

The difference of opinion over YPG has cast a shadow over US-Turkish relations for some time, and Erdogan is hoping for a drastic change in American policy when he meets President Donald Trump next month.

“We will bring this up when we meet Mr President on May 16,” said Erdogan.

He expressed regret that the US-YPG alliance – which began under former president Barack Obama – was being continued under the new US administration.

“This needs to be stopped right now,” said Erdogan. “Otherwise it will continue to be a bother in the region and for us.”

READ MORE: Kurdish YPG fighters dominate Turkey-US talks

“It will also bother us as two NATO countries and strategic partners,” he said.

Erdogan reaffirmed that Turkey could again bomb YPG positions any time it wanted.

“I said yesterday: ‘We can come unexpectedly in the night’. I really meant that. We are not going to tip off the terror groups and the Turkish Armed Forces could come at any moment.

“Better they live in fear than we have worries,” he said.

The private Ihlas news agency reported on Saturday that Turkish military convoys were heading to southeastern Sanliurfa province from Kilis in the west. The base is 50km from Syria’s Tal Abyad, a town controlled by YPG.

The agency said the relocation comes after Turkish officials announced the completion of a phase of Turkey’s cross-border operation Euphrates Shield in Syria, adding the force may be used against Syrian Kurdish fighters “if needed”.

READ MORE: Syria’s civil war explained from the beginning

Ankara sent its troops into Syria last August in a military operation triggered in large part by the Kurdish group’s expansion along its borders.

Redur Khalil, YPG’s spokesman in Syria, said Turkey is reinforcing its border posts opposite Tal Abyad as well as other areas.

“We hope that this military mobilisation is not meant to provoke our forces or for another purpose linked to entering Syrian territories. We don’t want any military confrontation between us, since our priority is to fight Daesh [ISIL] in Raqqa and Tabqa,” Khalil told The Associated Press in text messages.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

A famed Swiss climber has died in Nepal’s Everest region after falling 1,000 metres off a ridge during preparations to scale the world’s highest mountain.

Ueli Steck, 40, died on Sunday after falling to the foot of Mount Nuptse, a smaller peak in the area, officials said.

“He skidded off about 1,000 metres from camp… Other climbers ascending Everest saw him and asked for his rescue,” said Dinesh Bhattarai, director-general at Nepal’s Department of Tourism.

Steck, one of the most renowned mountaineers of his generation, was acclamatising ahead of a bid to ascend Everest through the less-climbed West Ridge route and nearby Mount Lhotse next month – all without the use of supplemental oxygen.   

WATCH: Nepal restores cultural sites after earthquake

His body was recovered from the site and taken to an airport in Lukla.

Steck’s family said the exact circumstances of his death were still unclear.

“The family is infinitely sad and asks that the media refrain from speculating about his death out of respect and consideration for Ueli,” it said in a statement on Steck’s website.

“As soon as reliable information about Ueli Steck’s death becomes available, the media will be informed.”

He was climbing alone when he died. His partner, Tenji Sherpa, had sustained severe frostbite and was recovering at a lower camp.

Famed for pioneering new mountaineering routes and setting speed records, Steck had won several awards for his feats.

In 2013 he achieved the first solo climb of Mount Annapurna, the world’s 10th highest peak, via its steep Southface wall. For that, he received the Piolet d’Or, mountaineering’s top accolade.

In 2015, Steck climbed all 82 peaks in the Alps higher than 4,000 metres, traveling between mountains by foot, bike, and paraglider only. He completed the feat in 62 days, helping cement his reputation as the “Swiss Machine”.

OPINION: Crushing normality on Everest

He suffered a setback during his last trip to Everest, in 2013, when he and two other Western climbers traded blows with a group of furious Nepali guides over a climbing dispute. The brawl shocked the mountaineering community, causing a rift between Western climbers and the often lowly paid Nepali guides.

On his return this year, he aimed to perform a quick climb of Everest and Lhotse, including an overnight stop at more than 8,000 metres, an altitude known as the “death zone” because the human body’s performance is reduced to 20 percent of its normal rate.

Asked about the upcoming expedition, Steck told Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger in an interview last month: “When I’m on Everest I can stop at any point. The risk is therefore quite small. For me it’s primarily a physical project. Either I get through, or I don’t have the strength for the whole traversal.”

“Of course I want to climb Everest and Lhotse,” Steck told the newspaper when asked about his measure of success. “But that’s a very high goal. Failure for me would be to die and not come home.”

Source: News agencies

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticised President Hassan Rouhani for saying his policy of detente with the West had faded the threat of Iran becoming involved in a war.

Sunday’s statement came as tensions intensify in Tehran before the presidential election on May 19.

Rouhani – a pragmatist whose election in 2013 led to a diplomatic thaw between Iran and the West – championed a landmark deal in 2015, in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

A standoff between Rouhani, who is seeking a second term, and Khamenei’s allies, who opposed the nuclear deal, has intensified in recent months ahead of the vote.

“Some say since we took office the shadow of war has been faded away. This is not correct,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by state media on Sunday.

“It’s been people’s presence in the political scene that has removed the shadow of war from the country,” he added.

Criticism on economy

Rouhani faces competition from hardliners who have criticised his economic record, saying rapprochement with the West and nuclear concessions had yet to yield economic benefits.

“The nuclear deal was a national achievement. We should make use of its advantages. But some have started a fight over it,” Rouhani said on Sunday.

Opening a refinery in the southern city of Bandar Abbas, Rouhani said the project – which makes Iran self-sufficient in petroleum production – was a result of the nuclear deal and “interaction with the world”.

Rouhani urged voters on Saturday to prevent “extremism” from returning to Iran, saying the country could face greater authoritarianism if he was replaced by a hardline rival.

FEATURE: What matters most to Iranians in presidential vote?

Among Rouhani’s challengers are Ebrahim Raisi, an influential religious leader with decades of experience in the hardliner judiciary, and conservative Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander.

Wary of US President Donald Trump’s tough talk on Iran, the European Union is courting Tehran to show Iranians preparing to vote that the EU is committed to the nuclear deal and they stand to benefit, diplomats said on Sunday.

Europe’s energy commissioner is leading more than 50 European firms in a business forum in Tehran over the weekend – the latest bid to foster new ties in the 16 months since Iran curbed its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Of the six major powers who engineered the deal – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia – EU nations bore the brunt of the oil embargo on Iran and stand to gain the most from a thaw they view as a victory for European diplomacy.

Meeting with Iran’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi, Commissioner Miguel Arias-Canete echoed the EU’s mantra that it is “fully committed” to the 2015 deal and expects the same from all other parties.

But the bloc’s leverage remains limited – particularly if it is not able to shield European firms from the risk of remaining US sanctions and encourage big banks to reverse more than a decade of Iran’s exclusion from the international financial system.

FEATURE: Iranians still waiting for dramatic economic change

Some Western companies have returned – plane-makers Airbus and Boeing and car-makers Peugeot-Citroen and Renault – but many more have hung back, fearing Trump will tighten the screws on an already complex set of rules for engaging with Iran.

The Trump administration said on April 18 it was launching an inter-agency review of whether the lifting of sanctions against Iran was in the United States’ national security interests, while acknowledging that Tehran was complying with the deal to rein in its nuclear programme.

“There is a lot of enthusiasm about working with Iran now and… I hope that the American administration wakes up to these realities,” Iran’s Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar told Reuters news agency.

Source: News agencies

South Korea and the United States wrapped up their annual large-scale military drills on Sunday but continued a separate joint naval exercise that has triggered the threat of nuclear war from North Korea.  

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday. The South Korean navy declined to say when the exercises would be completed.

North Korea has threatened to sink the American armada.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running sky-high for weeks, with signs the North might be preparing a sixth nuclear weapon test – and with Washington refusing to rule out a military strike in response.

READ MORE: Philippines leader says N Korea ‘wants to end world’

The massive Foal Eagle military exercises – which the defence ministry in Seoul said ended as scheduled on Sunday – involved about 20,000 South Korean and 10,000 US troops. Another annual joint manoeuvre known as Key Resolve ended last month.

Both play out scenarios for a conflict with North Korea, but Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature. Pyongyang says the drills are provocative plans for an invasion or a “decapitation strike” against the North Korean leadership.

A North Korean state-run newspaper on Sunday warned of “catastrophic consequences”, accusing the USS Carl Vinson strike force of rehearsing a “preemptive attack on the North” in a “special operation”.

“This has pushed the tense situation on the Korean peninsula to an unpredictable dangerous phase,” said the Minju Choson in a commentary.

“The enemies have to know that military threat and blackmail with the mobilisation of nuclear carriers and nuclear submarines cannot work on the DPRK,” it said, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The US and the puppet group of traitors have to ponder over the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by their foolish military provocation – and stop running wild.”

US President Donald Trump has warned of a possible “major conflict” after Pyongyang carried out a series of failed missile tests, including one on Saturday.

READ MORE: North Korea: ‘US has now gone seriously mad’

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of Pyongyang’s push for a nuclear-tipped weapon that can hit the US mainland.

Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will eventually develop better missiles, and “we can’t allow it to happen”.

In a taped interview broadcast Sunday on US network CBS, the president would not discuss the possibility of military action, saying: “It is a chess game. I just don’t want people to know what my thinking is.”

Trump will speak with the leaders of Singapore and Thailand on Sunday over the “potential for nuclear and massive destruction in Asia”, because of the situation with North Korea, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said.

“There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea,” he said.

The US and South Korea also started installing a missile defence system that is supposed to be partially operational within days.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is controversial in South Korea. Residents in the village of Seongj, where the missile system is being deployed, scuffled with police on Sunday.

Trump raised eyebrows in South Korea last week when he said would make Seoul pay $1bn for the missile system. His national security adviser, HR McMaster, said on Sunday the matter is subject to negotiation.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States with fewer votes than his opponent.

And his approval ratings after 100 days are lower than any previous president. Critics say it’s been a chaotic and controversial start, but consistent with his electioneering.

He’s failed to fulfil some campaign promises and had to change his mind on others. And he’s surprised the world with direct US intervention in the Syrian conflict and his warnings to North Korea.

He did say he wanted to shake up Washington, and by all accounts he has.

But where is he going to take the United States, and the rest of the world, over the next four years?

Presenter: Jane Dutton

Guests:

John Hudak, Deputy Director at the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution

Raisa Sheynberg, former Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House, under the Obama administration 

Brad Thomas, Author of “The Trump Factor”

Source: Al Jazeera News

Economic sanctions have often been seen as a crude political tool with varying effectiveness in bending the will of governments, whether it was Cuba, North Korea or apartheid South Africa.

But the continuing US sanctions against Iran have given some measure of personal satisfaction to dozens of American families who’ve begun to receive cash payments as compensation for the loss or maiming of loved ones in what the US has judged to be state-sponsored acts of terrorism.

Among the recipients are the 53 Americans taken hostage in 1979 and held at their embassy in Tehran for 444 days.

More than $1bn has been disbursed from a fund established by Congress.

The money comes from nearly $9bn in penalties and fines the US government imposed on French Bank BNP Paribas for moving Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban deposits through the financial system in violation of American sanctions.

The fund is expected to add to its coffers when Chinese telecom maker ZTE Corporation pays out more than $1bn in settling another sanctions case.

Edith Bartley’s fight for compensation dates from the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya 23 years ago.

More than 200 people were killed and at least 4,000 injured in that suicide blast and a nearly simultaneous attack on the embassy in Tanzania.

The dead included Edith’s father, the American consul in Nairobi, and her brother.

“Families took a huge emotional hit but also a financial hit,” she told Al Jazeera. “Families over the years had huge medical bills for emotional and psychiatric support. There were a lot of kids who were young when it happened and they’ve had a tough time.”

To be eligible for the cash award, each claimant to the fund – whether a US national or not – must first win a final judgment in a US court that a state sponsor of terrorism was responsible for their loss.

READ MORE: Iran hits back at US with ‘reciprocal’ sanctions

Those killed by a non-state group like al-Qaeda or ISIL do not qualify.

Nevertheless, before several al-Qaeda conspirators were convicted of the East Africa bombings, the US 9/11 Commission found that Iran lent support to al-Qaeda prior to its 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Beirut bombings

The 1983 attack on the US embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people including 17 Americans, was ascribed to the Iran-funded Islamic Jihad group.

A US judge later determined that it was carried out by Hezbollah with the approval and financing of senior Iranian officials.

That bombing, said Stuart Newberger, a lawyer for the claimants, “was the model for al-Qaeda in how it carried out the Nairobi bombing and that was the connection” to Iran.

Iran has not contested the 2016 judgment, which found it liable for more than $7bn in damages for providing aid to al-Qaeda by allowing its members to travel through its territory.

That’s because there had been no feasible means of collecting the money.

But it has challenged rulings that its central bank must give up $2.1bn in frozen assets held by Citibank to the victims of a separate Lebanon bombing in 1983, which killed 241 American military personnel.

Congress has also lifted the legal barriers to suing the Saudi government and its royal family.

The families of more than 800 victims of the 2001 attacks on American soil allege that “alter egos of the government” helped some of the al-Qaeda plotters.

Whether Saudi entities ever become the subject of US sanctions – and potential contributors to the victims compensation fund – is a question the Trump administration may have to ponder.

Source: Al Jazeera

A group of students in the UK have launched a hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Activists at the University of Manchester said the strike, which began on Thursday, would last for at least one week.

More than 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners, led by senior Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti, are refusing food to raise awareness of alleged abuses by Israeli authorities.

Talking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, Mohammed Ezzeldin, one of the five UK students on hunger strike, explained his reasons for participating.

“Political prisoners in Palestine are being held for up to six months without charge or fair trial,” he said.

“They are facing abhorrent conditions in jail, with no access to medical treatment or visitation rights.”

READ MORE: Are British universities silencing critics of Israel?

While the main target of the protest is the Israeli government, it comes amid deteriorating relations between pro-Palestinian activists and the University of Manchester.

Ezzeldin said he hoped the hunger strike would also pressure the university into dropping disciplinary action against two students involved in an anti-Israel protest in March.

“While we’ve gone on hunger strike purely in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners, we hope it increases pressure on the university to comply with our demands.

“Those are to drop all charges from the disciplinary hearing of the two BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] campaign activists.”

Disciplinary action

The pair are accused by the university of trespassing and damage to property after unfurling a banner expressing support for the BDS movement.

Palestinian activists accuse the university of censoring criticism of Israel and are demanding that it drop the case.

On the hunger strikers and their demands, a university spokesman said:

“We became aware of this situation through social media, but not any direct contact with this group in relation to this particular protest.

“We are aware of their [the activists’] demands, and will respond in line with our obligations.”

Previous allegations of censorship levelled against the university include the charge that it vetoed speakers due to speak at events organised by BDS activists, and cancelled events.

The university rejects the accusation of censorship and said the events were cancelled because it was informed of them at short notice.

Another demand centres on the university’s ties to engineering firm Caterpillar, which makes bulldozers used by the Israeli to destroy homes of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Students at the university have the backing of dozens of academics in Manchester, including the president of the local chapter of the University and College Union, Adel Nasser.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, he praised the actions of the students as “courageous” and criticised the university for using “intimidation” tactics against the students being disciplined for the March protest.

“I think they (students) are doing it with the best intentions, but their success will depend on how much they can shame the university into dropping their stance,” Nasser said.

The university is not alone in having a tense relationship with pro-Palestinian activists.

The University of Central Lancashire, the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), De Montfort University, and others are also accused of censoring critics of Israel.

On Thursday, hundreds of students at SOAS protested a visit by Israeli ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev.

The activists began their hunger strike on Thursday [Courtesy:Ales Raposo]

Source: Al Jazeera

US President Donald Trump has described his first 100 days in office as an “incredible journey” during a speech at a rally in the state of Pennsylvania.

He used the same speech on Saturday to attack the news media and praise his own accomplishments.

Delivering the speech to supporters in Harrisburg, which he had chosen to attend over the black-tie gala White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, Trump began by launching a fresh attack on the news media.

“A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling themselves in a hotel ballroom in our nation’s capital right now,” he said.

“Media outlets like CNN and MSNBC are fake news … and they would love to be with us here tonight, but they’re trapped at the [White House Correspondents’] dinner which will be very very boring.”

Trump is the first president in 36 years not to attend the annual tradition at which White House officials mingle with members of the press corps and Hollywood celebrities.

Trump, however, said he was “thrilled to be more than 100 miles from Washington” to discuss the “great journey” of his first 100 days in office.

Pennsylvania was critical to Trump’s victory. He won the state with 48 percent of the vote, the first time the state had voted for a Republican presidential candidate since George HW Bush in 1988.

Trump said some of his achievements during this phase of his term were the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, the decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and ending offshoring to “bring back American jobs”.

“The TPP would have been a tremendous disaster for our country,” he said.

READ MORE: 100 days in – Is the Middle East Trump’s new playground?

Trump also used the speech to hint that the US was planning to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement.

“I’ll be making a big decision on the Paris accord over the next two weeks, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Meanwhile, several thousand people marched from the Capitol to the White House in Washington, DC in protest against the Trump administration’s energy policy.

According to the organisers, similar protests were taking place in 300 towns and cities across the country.

At the 100-day mark, opinion polls show that Trump’s supporters during the campaign remain largely loyal.

Though the White House created a website lauding its accomplishments of the first 100 days, Trump has tried to play down the importance of the marker.

“It’s a false standard, 100 days,” Trump said while signing an executive order on Friday, “but I have to tell you, I don’t think anybody has done what we’ve been able to do in 100 days, so we’re very happy.”

Trump is turning to what he is describing as the nation’s biggest tax cut. It apparently falls short of Reagan’s in 1981, and tax experts are sceptical that the plan would pay for itself.

The economy, so far, has been Trump’s ally. Polls show that Americans feel slightly better about his job performance on that subject than his job performance overall.

The Correspondents’ Dinner this year had fewer Hollywood celebrities in attendance. Television networks even invited behind-the-scenes employees.

White House reporters noted seeing more colleagues in the room than in recent years.

Organisers said they were focusing on the main purpose of the dinner, honouring journalists for their work and awarding scholarships to students.

Bob Woodward, the veteran Washington Post journalist who with Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal in 1972, addressed Trump’s criticism of the media.

INFOGRAPHIC: Trump 100 days: Who has he met and when?

“Mr President: The media is not fake news,” Woodward said.

Addressing fellow journalists, he said: “Whatever the climate, we should and must persist and I believe we will.”

Traditionally the US president holds a humorous speech at the event in which he pokes fun at the media, politicians and even himself, and a hired comedian also mocks the president.

“We are here to celebrate the press, not the presidency,” Jeff Mason, the White House Correspondents’ Association president, said.

Source: News agencies

Air strikes have killed at least eight first responders from the Syria Civil Defence in Hama province, according to the group also known as The White Helmets.

Saturday’s air strikes hit the rescuers’ centre in Kafr Zita, located in northwestern Syria, and civilians who rushed to the scene to help were also struck, according to the Syria Civil Defence’s Twitter posts. 

The air strike was one of the deadliest against the rescuers who operate in opposition-held areas and who have grabbed world attention for operating in extreme conditions, pulling survivors out of recently struck areas.

The volunteers have often been targeted by government air strikes, in what are known as “double tap” attacks, as they work to rescue others.

The Syrian Civil Defence operates in much of Syria’s rebel-controlled territory.

Civilians who raced to rescue buried @SyriaCivilDef also targeted and killed. They too are #everydayheroes. 3/3

— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) April 29, 2017

The group said five bodies were lifted from the rubble and the rescuers continued to look for the others

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the Britain-based monitoring group, said the number of those killed is likely to rise as the search mission continues.

It was not clear who carried out the air strikes, but Syrian government and Russia aircraft have targeted opposition-held areas.

Hama has been the scene of intense violence in recent weeks as the government attempts to push back a rebel offensive.

In an interview with Venezuela-based TeleSUR news network, President Bashar al-Assad blamed opposition groups for “destroying” the country’s infrastructure and reiterated past claims that there were no “moderate” fighters among the opposition.

Fighting in Khanaser

In Saturday’s other developments in Syria, the military said its troops and allied fighters repelled an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group on a strategic area held by the government in the southern Aleppo province.

The attack took place in Khanaser in southeast Aleppo – a strategic region that links Aleppo with central and western Syria.

The area has changed hands many times during the conflict. But last year, government troops and allied fighters wrested control of Khanaser from ISIL, also known as ISIS.

The military media arm said ISIL attacked Um Mayyal village near a mountain range in Khanaser and other areas.

Elsewhere, hundreds of Syrians from the rebel-held suburbs of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus protested against infighting that began on Friday and left dozens dead in the area.

The clashes come amid an intensified government offensive in the area near Damascus, which the rebels have controlled for years but has been increasingly squeezed by government advances.

“God rid us of all leaders,” the protesters chanted, criticising the head of the opposition groups for diverting their weapons from the front line with the government.

The SOHR said ISIL fighters launched the attack on military posts in the area, prompting intense clashes and leaving many casualties.

ISIL-affiliated Aamaq agency claimed the group’s fighters killed 30 government soldiers in the attack.

Elsewhere, hundreds of Syrians from the rebel-held suburbs of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus protested against infighting that began on Friday and left dozens dead in the area.

The clashes come amid an intensified government offensive in the area near Damascus, which the rebels have controlled for years but has been increasingly squeezed by government advances.

“God rid us of all leaders,” the protesters chanted, criticising the head of the opposition groups for diverting their weapons from the front line with the government.

OPINION: Europe needs to step up its game in Syria

The infighting is pitting the powerful Jaish al-Islam group against al-Rahman Corps and the al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee, or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Each side blames the other for touching off the fighting, seen as a struggle over control of eastern Ghouta.

Some activists have called on Jaish al-Islam to rid Eastern Ghouta of the powerful al-Qaeda-linked group.

The SOHR said shots were fired at the protesters in one area, leaving five injured.

In 24 hours of fighting, the SOHR said at least 38 fighters from rival sides were killed. Damascus-based Shaam News Network put the number at 60, in addition to six civilians killed because of the clashes.

For the past three years, the government has been unable to regain control of the eastern suburbs of Damascus. But in recent weeks, an intensified offensive points to a new determination to retake the area.

On Saturday, activists reported a heavy air campaign against the area’s Qaboun neighbourhood.

Syria’s conflict started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but it has since devolved into a full-scale civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

We get to see some costume choices for The Last Jedi  today, along with a new director rumoured for DC’s Flash movie, plenty of little bits about the next two Avengers movies, and more.

The Flash

Not the TV series, though you’d be forgiven for getting a bit confused, there are some brand new rumours regarding the long-struggling Flash movie. Screen Junkies is reporting that Back to the Future’s Robert Zemeckis is in talks with Warner Bros. to direct the film. It’s good fit given his filmography, and the fact that Back to the Future is the closest thing anyone has come to the perfect film.

The Flash is still scheduled for a March 2018 release, but with everything that’s gone on that will definitely be changing.

The Last Jedi

We have our first look at Rey and Kylo Ren’s outfits in the upcoming film, thanks to a Battlefront II pre-order bonus of all places. Not that Kylo actually looks any different to how he did in the last film.

Avengers

There have been a lot of little bit of information regarding the third and fourth Avengers films this week. The main one was that the title of the fourth film as a big fat spoiler, with Zoe Saldana seemingly revealing the name had the non-spoilery word ‘Gauntlet’ in the title. According to Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn (via Yahoo Movies), who says he is ‘involved’  with the films, the title does not have the word ‘Gauntlet’ in the title. He assumes Saldana merely misspoke, though it could be a word the cast have been told to use to avoid giving anything away.

Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has also confirmed that Thanos’s motivations in the third film, Infinity War, will be somewhat reminiscent of the original Infinity Gauntlet storyline from the comics. That’s what he told Collider, and said he wasn’t able to say anything else. Fans will know that Thanos’s goal was to wipe out life in half of the universe in order to impress the personification of Death, and he used the Infinity Gems to achieve his goal. Rumours have claimed that the films will replace literal Death with Cate Blachett’s Hela, the Norse goddess of Death set to appear in Thor: Ragnarok. Feige’s statement would seem to add a bit more credence to that theory.

Feige also told Cinema Blend that Infinity War is set four years after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in in-universe time:

Yeah, knowing that outside of the Guardians franchise, we don’t necessarily always date the movies. You don’t always know, we don’t say, ‘2012, 2013…’ We do in the Guardians because you do the math and 1988, and it’s 26 years later. But we never say, ‘Oh, this takes place in 2018, this takes place in 2017.’ But it was important for the story that James wanted to tell that they’re still relatively fresh in their new group.

With Guardians of the Galaxy taking place in 2014, a few months after the first film, this naturally means Infinity War takes place in 2018 – which also happens to be two years after Civil War.

DC TV

Remember when CBS said it would be using Star Trek: Discovery to launch a brand-new subscription-based digital platform? Now it looks like DC is doing basically the same thing, using the upcoming third season of Young Justice and a newly-announced live-action Titans TV series to launch a digital platform of its own.

Titans is being written by Akiva Goldsmith, DC’s Geoff Johns, and Greg Berlanti –  best known for creating Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, and the still-in-the-pilot-stage Black Lightning. It’s being described as an action-adventure based on the enduring DC Comics franchise, featuring characters like Dick Grayson, Starfire and Raven. Geoff Johns later confirmed that he had started writing for the series, and that Beast Boy would also be included.

Yes!! Very happy to be writing the Titans again and working with this crew! Extremely excited. Will be something very different… #BeastBoy https://t.co/D4sl3Gip7y

— Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns) April 25, 2017

No word on any of the other characters just yet, but with Cyborg taking centre-stage in the Justice League film you can bet he won’t be one of the classic Titans characters included.

Young Justice, on the other hand, is being rebranded as Young Justice: Outsiders. It will see the team fighting meta-human trafficking “and the terrifying threat it creates for a society caught in the crossfire of a genetic arms race spanning the globe and the galaxy.”

Star Trek: Discovery

So here’s some funny news from a series with a very funny production schedule, Star Trek: Discovery has added some new cast members and recast one existing actor as someone entirely new. Shazad Latif was previously cast as Klingon commander Kol, but now he’ll be playing Federation officer Lt. Tyler. Kol will now be played by Jericho’s Kenneth Mitchell.

Also joining the cast are Rekha Sharma as the Discovery’s security officer Commander Landry, as well as Claire McConnell as Dennas and Damon Runyan as Ujilli who are both described as leaders in the Klingon Empire. McConnell’s character is going to be an interesting addition, since Klingon’s don’t actually allow women to hold leadership positions. At least not in the day-to-day running of the Empire.

Animated Spider-Man

The release date for Sony’s animated Miles Morales-led Spider-Man movie has been moved up by a week, and will now arrive on December 14th 2018 rather than December 21st.

Injustice 2

The Joker is officially confirmed for Injustice 2, being shown off in a trailer with a design akin to Jared Leto’s Joker if he went through an emo phase. In the trailer he faces off against Robin (Damien Wayne), Superman, and Green Lantern, before using his very Death-in-the-Family-style finishing move on the Boy Wonder. Take a look:

Kingsman

Hot on the heels of the trailer for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Mark Millar has announced a new comic titled Kingsman: The Red Diamond. We don’t have any solid details about the comic just yet, other than the fact it arrives in September. What is interesting is that it’s picked up the title of the film series, ignoring the original comics title ‘The Secret Service’.

So it looks as though, just like he did with Kick Ass 2, Millar will be changing his comic to watch the expectations people will have after seeing the film.

Superman vs the Klu Klux Klan

This isn’t a very strange sequel to Man of Steel. Instead this has a historical basis, focussing on the very real time the man of steel went up against the KKK (via Deadline). It’s reportedly being based on the book Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate, written by Rich Bowers, which told the story of a 1946 radio play that had Superman face off against a fictional hate group based on the real-world KKK.

The play was apparently made possible by human-rights activist Stetson Kennedy infiltrating the Klu Klux Klan and supplying details about the group’s inner workings to the Anti-Defamation League and the play’s producer. The point was to demystify the Klan, and was effective enough for the KKK to denounce both the play and its sponsor, Kelloggs.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Ant-Man and the Wasp will be the first Marvel Studios film to feature a headlining female character, but according to director Peyton Reed Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne will be fully stepping into the spotlight instead of hanging around in Paul Rudd’s shadow. He told Collider:

“It’s something we’re excited about. For me as a comic nerd, I always thought of Ant-Man and Wasp as a team and that’s a lot of what the second movie is really about is how they work together, what their personal and professional relationships are like. To show her finally fully formed in this movie is really exciting. We really get to introduce this character into that universe. I mean we’ve introduced the character, but we haven’t seen her with her full power set and everything, so to me she’s not a supporting character in this movie. It’s every bit as much her movie as it is Scott Lang’s.”

Secret Empire

Look away now if you want to avoid spoilers for the Free Comic Book Day issues of Secret Empire #0 which isn’t due out until next Saturday.

The final page of the story has one very interesting twist, as reported by Bleeding Cool. In it we see the Hydra-loyal Steve Rogers, in his full Captain America garb, seemingly able to lift Thor’s hammer Mjolnir. It’s a big deal, since only those deemed worthy are supposed to be able to wield its power. There’s probably more context to the reveal, but we won’t be seeing any of that until Secret Empire #2 arrives on 17th May.

EU leaders have endorsed a stiff set of divorce terms for Britain at a summit in Brussels, rejoicing in a rare show of unity in adversity.

Leaders met on Saturday for the first time since British Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered a two-year countdown to Brexit in late March as they approved eight pages of negotiating guidelines hammered out by their diplomats over the past month.

“Guidelines adopted unanimously. EU27 firm and fair political mandate for the Brexit talks is ready,” summit chair Donald Tusk tweeted. 

The guidelines will bind Michel Barnier, their chief negotiator, to seek a deal that secures the rights of three million EU expats living in Britain, ensure London pays tens of billions of euros Brussels thinks it will be owed, and avoids destabilising peace by creating a hard EU-UK border across the island of Ireland.

“The message is that nobody here is trying to be antagonistic towards Theresa May’s government in Britain,” Al Jazeera’s Nadim Baba, reporting from Brussels, said.

“What is needed is unity to get a deal done within the two-year timeframe. May has been saying that people are lining up against Britain.”

Free trade talks

The EU rules out discussing the free trade deal May wants until sufficient progress is made on agreeing to key withdrawal terms.

“Before discussing the future, we have to sort out our past,” Tusk said in comments echoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said “substantive issues” must first be settled.

That decision on what is “sufficient” to warrant trade talks is the kind of debate that can poison relations as the 27 nations seek to protect national interests. Also contentious will be which countries scoop up the prizes of hosting two EU agencies set to be moved from London.

RELATED: EU says Brexit plans unchanged by UK snap election call

With most of the 27 offering to house the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and several wanting the European Banking Authority (EBA), Tusk and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker will propose criteria for making the choices to avoid unseemly rows.

In a mark of how last year’s Brexit vote has called into question the unity of the UK itself, leaders will also offer Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny a pledge that if Northern Ireland, which voted against Brexit, ever unites with his country, it will automatically be in the EU.

Among possible differences, the priorities of poor, eastern states are to secure residency rights for their many workers in Britain and British money for the EU budget. 

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

A US-based advocacy group has filed a petition with the United Nations demanding the immediate release of Al Jazeera journalist Mahmoud Hussein as Egyptian authorities extended his detention for another 45 days. 

The Robert F Kennedy Human Rights organisation filed a petition for relief on Saturday with the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, citing the violation of Hussein’s basic rights and challenging the unsubstantiated preliminary charges levied against him. 

“This regime has embarked on a systematic crackdown on civil society, and Egypt has become one of the most dangerous places on Earth to be a journalist,” said Kerry Kennedy, president of the organisation.

Hussein, an Egyptian based in Qatar, was stopped, questioned, and arrested by Egyptian authorities in December 2016 after traveling to Cairo for a holiday. 

Since then, his detention has been renewed six times. The latest renewal was made on Saturday for another 45-day period.

Hussein is accused of “incitement against state institutions and broadcasting false news with the aim of spreading chaos”.

He was held in solitary confinement for 89 consecutive days and has been, to date, detained without formal charges for 130 days.

Hussein’s daughter, Zahra, said earlier this month he suffers from harsh and inhumane conditions that have led to a deterioration in his health and caused him shortness of breath.

She said the problems began during his 89 days in solitary confinement in a small cell in Tora prison without heat, water, or electricity.

Robert F Kennedy Human Rights recently filed a similar petition demanding the release of activist Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American charity worker who was released from an Egyptian prison earlier this month after spending three years in detention.

Zahra Mahmoud Hussein: 100 Days without my father

Human rights and media organisations have denounced Hussein’s detention and called for his immediate release.

Al Jazeera has demanded that Egypt unconditionally release Hussein and condemned the continued renewal of his detention.

The network says it holds the Egyptian authorities responsible for Hussein’s safety and well-being, rejects the allegations against him, and condemns those who forced him into false “confessions” made on video. 

The UN has called on Egypt to comply with its commitment to protect freedom of expression.

In January, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said: “We appeal for this case to be resolved in accordance with Egypt’s own international obligations to protect freedom of expression and freedom of opinion.”

Over the past few years, Egyptian authorities have arrested several Al Jazeera employees, raising concerns over media freedom in the country.

In May, a Cairo court sentenced a former editor-in-chief of Al Jazeera Arabic, Ibrahim Helal, to death, charging him in absentia with endangering national security.

Al Jazeera’s Baher Mohamed, Mohamed Fahmy, and Peter Greste – along with seven colleagues outside the country – were accused of spreading “false news” during their coverage of the aftermath of the military overthrow of then-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, the year they were taken into custody.

Mohamed and Fahmy spent 437 days in jail before being released. Greste spent more than a year in prison.

The judge who sentenced the journalists said they were brought together “by the devil” to destabilise the country.

Hussein joined Al Jazeera in Egypt in 2011. He moved to the network’s headquarters in Doha in 2013.

Source: Al Jazeera News

Ever since Apple officially announced the name for Apple Park back in February, construction on the site has ramped up rapidly over the ensuing weeks. Today, solar panel installation on the roof of the central “Spaceship” building appears nearly complete, while the courtyard of the building is still seeing major construction related to the large pond and surrounding greenery.

The continuation of landscaping, as well as construction on some of Apple Park’s auxiliary buildings, will continue into the summer, well after Apple moves the first employees into the main building. While some of the side buildings are complete — like the parking garage — a few still have a ways to go, including the new campus auditorium, which has been named the “Steve Jobs Theater” in honor of the late CEO.

Once employees begin moving in, it’s estimated to take Apple around six months to move in all the workers coming to Apple Park, which will number about 13,000. Earlier in April, another well-known drone videographer, Duncan Sinfield, shared off a video of what Apple Park looks like when it’s lit up at night.

Pope Francis has warned against religious fanaticism and appealed for dialogue to battle violence during an open-air mass for Egypt’s Catholic community.

The mass of peace on Saturday was attended by some 15,000 Egyptians and wrapped up a two-day visit by the Pope aimed at improving ties between Muslims and Christians.

“Peace be with you,” the 80-year-old Francis said in Arabic as he started his homily at a heavily guarded military stadium in the capital, Cairo.

Continuing in Italian, he said: “True faith leads us to protect the rights of others with the same zeal and enthusiasm with which we defend our own.”

He urged worshippers to be good and merciful to fellow Egyptians and said, “the only fanaticism believers can have is that of charity”.

“Any other fanaticism does not come from God and is not pleasing to him.”

READ MORE: Pope Francis in Egypt – A voice of reason

Francis’ visit – coming after the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) killed dozens of worshippers in a series of Church bombings earlier this month – gave Egypt’s embattled Christian community an occasion to be joyful.

It was the first visit by Francis to Cairo but the second by a Catholic pope.

The crowds arrived early for the mass, waving Egyptian and Vatican flags and braving intense security measures to welcome the Pope, who toured the sun-drenched stadium in a golf cart to the sound of hymns performed by a choir and orchestra.

Security was tight; helicopter gunships circled the perimeter of the stadium and armoured military vehicles patrolled the streets of Cairo.

It was, said Coptic Catholic engineer Maged Francis, a “historic occasion”.

“It’s unlikely it will ever happen again,” he said. “Today joy has eclipsed the sadness of the last few weeks.”

Manal George, who came from a middle-class neighbourhood in Cairo with her nephew to attend the mass, said the pope’s visit brought much-needed cheer to Egypt’s Christians.

“By coming to Egypt, the pope has taken away the sadness to replace it with joy,” she said.

WATCH: Why is Egypt’s Christian minority targeted?

ISIL has threatened more attacks against Egypt’s Christians, who make up 10 percent of the 92 million population and constitute the largest Christian community in the Middle East.

Egypt’s Catholic community is estimated at about 272,000, with much of the rest following the Coptic Orthodox Church.

On his first day, the pontiff urged Muslim leaders to renounce religious fanaticism that leads to violence. He made the appeal during a landmark visit to Cairo’s Al-Azhar – the revered 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni Islam learning that trains clerics and scholars from around the world.

Recent assaults on churches – one in Cairo in December and twin Palm Sunday attacks in cities north of the Egyptian capital – have claimed at least 75 lives and wounded scores.

The attacks led to heightened security at churches nationwide and the declaration  of a state of emergency by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Source: News agencies

Snapchat invented its best products by being the anti-Facebook. Its disappearing chats made visual communication quick and casual compared to Facebook’s email-esque text messages. Stories ditched the likes and permanency so you could share your raw moments in the now, instead of just the life highlights that define you forever on your Facebook Timeline.

But now this “opposite of Facebook” orthodoxy is holding Snapchat back. After a brutal year of being copied by the world’s biggest social network, Snapchat might be wise to return the favor.

Twitter and Instagram prove out the algorithm

Twitter was once in Snap’s position. With slowing growth, it needed a big change to reinvigorate its aging app and make it easier for people who browse tweets ten times a day. Twitter had always been the real-time firehose of commentary about what’s going on right now. Yet over the years, as users followed more and more accounts, their best friends and the best tweets were drowned in the rushing river of their purely reverse-chronological feeds.

So Twitter made its most significant product update in years: it switched to algorithmic-sorting of its feed. Suddenly it didn’t matter if you followed a few noisy public figures or annoying oversharers, or if your favorite accounts only posted occasionally. Twitter began sifting out what you cared about most and showing it first.

The result has been Twitter’s first meaningful growth in many quarters, adding 9 million users in Q1 2017. “We further refined the timeline to display a broader set of Tweets from a person’s network and applied deep learning models to show the most relevant Tweets first . . . These changes improved retention across both MAU and DAU” Twitter wrote in the quarter’s letter to investors.

Instagram pulled off a similar product coup this year. Previously it showed you every picture and video posted by people you followed in reverse-chronological order. Since these posts take up much more room in the feed, it was easy for one trigger-happy user on vacation or at an event to suddenly dominate the timeline and suppress everyone else. Meanwhile, it subtly discouraged people from posting multiple times per day for fear of having this spammy impact on their friends’ feeds.

Then Instagram switched to a relevancy-sorted algorithmic feed. It’s growth rate spiked, sharing per user increased, and Instagram has added 200 million monthly active users since to reach 700 million.

In both cases, going algorithmic seemed antithetical to the core identity of the services, and long-time users vocally griped that their apps were ruined…but they weren’t. Twitter wants you to know what’s going on in the world. Instagram wants you to see what’s going on with your friends and interests. Both missions are better accomplished when you see the most relevant content first, no matter how often or little you open the apps.

Snapsort

Now it’s Snapchat that needs an algorithmic boost. On May 10th it will have its first earnings call, and all eyes will be on its daily active user count. Snap Inc will try to trumpet every other possible statistic: minutes spent in app per user per day, percentage of users who post each day, video views, revenue per user. But Wall Street wants scale, not just depth of engagement, and there’s a proven way to get it.

Snapchat sorts Stories reverse-chronologically

Algorithmic sorting of Stories has propelled Snap copycat Instagram Stories to 200 million daily active users in 10 months — more than Snapchat’s whole app. Above the Instagram feed, you see the Stories of friends — not ranked by who posted most recently, but by who you care about most. That way it doesn’t matter if your best friends only post once per day, you only check once per day, and some “social media influencers” or professional photographers you follow add to their Stories non-stop. You always see what’s most likely to entertain you.

This sorting also enables Instagram Stories to employ auto-advance, showing one friend’s photos and videos after another in a constant stream. You can watch in descending order of relevance until you get bored, and be confident the Stories you didn’t get to are from people you care about less. If you only follow a small number of friends, your besties come first. If you follow a ton of celebrities or interest accounts, your favorites won’t get lost.

Compare that with the experience on Snapchat, and the fact that its growth rate declined by 82% to a trickle after Instagram Stories launched makes sense. Snapchat shows you the big list of Stories from people you follow in reverse-chronological order. Users who post most often dominate the top slots and your attention, regardless of whether you ever actually open and watch their Stories.

There might have been more benefit to the unsorted strategy when Snapchat was a smaller network. Reverse-chrono ranking makes it easy to see if any friends are doing something fun right this minute that you might want to join. And when Snapchat was still just for hip early-adopter teens, you might not have followed anyone you didn’t want to watch. But as Snapchat became the defacto teen messaging app and everyone that everyone knew signed up, courtesy and social contract obliged people to follow even their more boring acquaintainces. The network dilluted, and your favorite people started getting overshadowed by the rest.

Without algorithmic sorting, auto-advance meant you’d basically be haphazardly watching in order of whoever posted most recently, bouncing from distant acquaintances to celebrities to friends. So last year, Snapchat dropped auto-advance. That made the experience even worse, and much more laborious. Now you have to watch one person’s story at a time and then bounce back to the list to find more, or manually cobble together an adhoc Story Playlist that plays in sequence. You can’t just open Snapchat, tap the first story, and sit back and watch.

Snapchat’s growth slowed by 82% after it dropped auto-advance and Instagram Stories launched

It’s time for Snapchat to start caring less about time, and more about our relationships. Algorithmically sorting the feed based on whose Stories you typically watch and who you chat with could make it much easier to drop into Snapchat and immediately get the most delight per minute.

If Snap doesn’t want to suddenly throw away the old feed, it could leave a reverse-chrono list below the new algorithmic one. Or it could just create a “Best Friends” or “Favorites” or “Recently Watched” section above your Stories list that groups together what the algorithm would have shown first. That section could potentially auto-advance too.

While Snap is known to favor CEO Evan Spiegel’s instincts over data, the app should at least run some sizable tests to see how people react. Digiday reports that it spent 2016 talking to publishers about potentially ranking them with a curation algorithm.

But at that time, pre-Instagram Stories, Snapchat was flying high and didn’t need to fix what wasn’t broken. The game has changed since. Snapchat users might have asked for faster horses, but Instagram gave them the automobile. Snap needs to modernize. It can still be about living in the now even if that’s not what it shows first

Featured Image: Shutterstock UNDER A Crystal Graphics LICENSE

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan discovered that hundreds of applications in Google Play Store have a security hole that could potentially allow hackers to steal data from and even implant malware on millions of Android smartphones.

The University of Michigan team says that the actual issue lies within apps that create open ports — a known problem with computers — on smartphones.

So, this issue has nothing to do with your device’s operating system or the handset; instead, the origin of this so-called backdoor is due to insecure coding practices by various app developers.

The team used its custom tool to scan over 100,000 Android applications and found 410 potentially vulnerable applications — many of which have been downloaded between 10 and 50 Million times and at least one app comes pre-installed on Android smartphones.

Here I need you to stop and first let’s understand exactly what ports do and what are the related threats.

Ports can be either physical or electronic in nature. Physical ports are connection points on your smartphones and computers, such as a USB port used to transfer data between devices.

Electronic ports are those invisible doors that an application or a service use to communicate with other devices or services. For example, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) service by default opens port 21 to transfer files, and you need port 80 opened in order to connect to the Internet.

In other words, every application installed on a device opens an unused port (1-to-65535), can be referred as a virtual door, to communicate for the exchange of data between devices, be it a smartphone, server, personal computer, or an Internet-connected smart appliance.

Over the years, more and more applications in the market function over the Internet or network, but at the same time, these applications and ports opened by them can be a weak link in your system, which could allow a hacker to breach or take control of your device without your knowledge.

This is exactly what the University of Michigan team has detailed in its research paper [PDF] titled, “Open Doors for Bob and Mallory: Open Port Usage in Android Apps and Security Implications.”

According to the researchers, the major issue is with the apps like WiFi File Transfer, which has been installed between 10 million and 50 million times and allows users to connect to a port on their smartphone via Wi-Fi, making it easy to transfer files from a phone to a computer.

But due to insufficient security, this ability of the apps is apparently not limited to merely the smartphone’s owner, but also malicious actors.

However, applications like WiFi File Transfer pose fewer threats, as they are designed to work over a local network only, that requires attackers to be connected to the same network as yours.

On the other hand, this issue is extremely dangerous in the scenarios where you connect to a public Wi-Fi network or corporate network more often.

To get an initial estimate on the impact of these vulnerabilities, the team performed a port scanning in its campus network, and within 2 minutes it found a number of mobile devices potentially using these vulnerable apps.

“They manually confirmed the vulnerabilities for 57 applications, including popular mobile apps with 10 to 50 million downloads from official app marketplaces, and also an app that is pre-installed on a series of devices from one manufacturer,” the researchers say.

“The vulnerabilities in these apps are generally inherited from the various usage of the open port, which exposes the unprotected sensitive functionalities of the apps to anyone from anywhere that can reach the open port.”

No doubt, an open port is an attack surface, but it should be noted that port opened by an application can not be exploited until a vulnerability exists in the application, like improper authentication, remote code execution or buffer overflow flaws.

Besides this, an attacker must have the IP address of the vulnerable device, exposed over the Internet. But getting a list of vulnerable devices is not a big deal today, where anyone can buy a cheap cloud service to scan the whole Internet within few hours.

However, smartphones connected to the Internet via wireless network behind a router are less impacted by this issue, because in that case, attackers would need to be on the same wireless network as the victim.

To prove its point, the team of researchers has also demonstrated various attacks in a series of videos, posted below:

1. Using an app’s open ports to steal photos with on-device malware

2. Stealing photos via a network attack

3. Forcing the device to send an SMS to a premium service

The team says these vulnerabilities can be exploited to cause highly-severe damage to users like remotely stealing contacts, photos, and even security credentials, and also performing sensitive actions such as malware installation and malicious code execution.

The easiest solution to this issue is to uninstall such apps that open insecure ports, or putting these applications behind a proper firewall could also solve most of the issues.