Romanian far-right candidate says democracy 'cancelled' along with election
Modders deserve recognition at The Game Awards, too
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into a shadowy left-leaning advertising cabal over whether it participated in a “coordinated plan or conspiracy” to boycott “certain social media platforms,” his office said Thursday. Paxton is probing whether the powerful World Federation of Advertising and its now-defunct nonprofit wing, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), pressured “advertisers not to purchase online advertising space” from sites that violated its “brand safety standards.” GARM and its members faced intense scrutiny after a damning House Judiciary Committee report released in July accused them of a coordinated effort to suppress online free speech and restrict ads to a slew of media outlets, including The Post and Elon Musk’s X. The Republican demanded documents and information from WFA and GARM as part of the civil investigation. Any evidence of a collusive boycott could violate state antitrust laws, according to Paxton. “Trade organizations and companies cannot collude to block advertising revenue from entities they wish to undermine,” Paxton said in a statement. “Today’s document request is part of an ongoing investigation to hold WFA and its members accountable for any attempt to rig the system to harm organizations they might disagree with.” The WFA did not immediately return a request for further comment. Shortly after Paxton announced the WFA probe, Musk posted on X: “This is still a major problem.” The House report cited evidence that included internal emails from GARM’s radical executive Robert Rakowitz, who appeared to brag X was “80% below revenue forecasts” after GARM targeted the social media app over brand safety issues. In response to the revelations, Musk hit WFA, GARM and a handful of key advertisers with a federal antitrust lawsuit for allegedly organizing an ad boycott. The boycott cost X “billions of dollars in advertising revenue ,” according to the suit. WFA and GARM have strenuously denied wrongdoing. However, GARM shut down in August, citing mounting legal costs of its fight against Musk. In October, X announced that it had reached a settlement with one of the defendants, Unilever , which had plans for its brands to resume advertising on the platform. The antitrust claims against the other defendants are still pending.The Steam Hardware Survey has become a critical resource for the games industry, allowing curious enthusiasts or practical-minded developers to get a sense of how the average PC gamer enjoys the hobby. To hear Valve senior engineer Jay Stelly tell it in Half-Life 2's new 20th anniversary developer commentary , the Steam Hardware Survey first came about because Valve itself had no other way of accessing the information. "During development, we faced numerous decisions influenced by our choice of minimum spec—the least powerful CPU and GPU combination that would still deliver a good experience for customers," Stelly said in a commentary track located in the level Route Kanal. "In the early 2000s, there was far more variety among GPUs than today, with wide differences not only in speed but in fundamental approaches to rendering." That's something that often seems forgotten when people pine for the good old days of PC hardware: There were exciting graphical breakthroughs all the time, but compatibility was not a given like it is today, with 3Dfx, ATI, Nvidia, 3DLabs, Xabre, and Matrox cards all floating around in the late '90s and early '00s and rarely playing nice with every single game. Obsolescence came on much faster as well—you can still get away with a 10-year-old GTX 970 in Dragon Age: The Veilguard . Now imagine trying to run Half-Life 2 on hardware from 1994. "But at the time, we had no real data on the hardware our customers were using," Stelly continued. "What CPUs and GPUs did they have? How much RAM? Which version of Windows? We reached out to Microsoft, hoping they might know answers to questions like, 'How many DX7 cards are in use? Or DX8?' Unfortunately, they didn't have the data either. "Realizing we were at risk of making bad decisions without these insights, we developed an analysis tool that allowed players to report their hardware specs to us, and integrated it into the early version of Steam. The data was so useful that we decided to make it public, launching the Steam Hardware Survey in April 2003. It's been helping us—and hopefully other developers—make informed decisions ever since." The latest Steam Hardware Survey from October showcases a vastly different industry from at the initiative's inception. Team Red and Team Green are still around, but ATI was acquired and subsumed by AMD while Nvidia is now a world-bestriding AI colossus, its consumer GPU business a quaint afterthought even as it dominates in market share. It's still a dead heat between Intel and AMD for processors, but ARM is waiting in the wings to potentially overtake x86, and the numbers for core counts, storage, RAM, and clock speeds are all vastly higher. Steam itself is now how most people get PC games, and Linux is finally flexing its muscles as a PC gaming platform—largely thanks to Valve. Gaming on a Mac, well, it's there. The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Stock market today: Wall Street drifts higher in mixed trading as Nasdaq hits a record
Elon Musk has long been known for his competitive spirit — and for his list of rivals. He challenged Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight. He called Amazon and Blue Origin boss Jeff Bezos a “copycat.” And just recently, he sued OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Until now, these were business and personal rivalries between some of the richest and most successful people in the world. But with Musk’s new influence in the incoming Trump administration and position as “first buddy,” some fear he could use the power of the government to benefit his own companies and harm his rivals. That could come in the form of starting or dropping government investigations, creating or weakening regulations, and awarding government contracts to the benefit of Musk’s companies. “The federal government has a set of tools in its toolbox, and the question is, will the use of those tools be governed by objective standards, through regulation and laws and the normal process of government intervention in the economy, or will it be subject to the material impulses of either the president or Elon Musk?” said one expert in law and technology who asked to speak anonymously to avoid Musk’s ire. “If all it takes is for (Musk) to say, ‘Hey, DOJ should investigate them,’ that will cause a lot of headaches.” Representatives for Musk did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment. Jeff Bezos Bezos and Musk often compete against each other in the “richest person in the world” rankings, but they have also been rivals when it comes to the space industry. Both Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origins compete for federal government contracts, and now with Musk firmly tied to Donald Trump’s administration, some wonder whether he will use his influence to further entrench SpaceX’s already dominant position as a government contractor. And it’s not just government contracts with NASA for splashy rockets and trips to the International Space Station. Amazon’s Project Kuiper also competes with SpaceX’s Starlink in the low-orbit satellite system industry. These systems require a fair amount of regulatory and launch approvals, and Amazon is working toward launching some 3,200 satellites into low Earth orbit. Jim Cantrell, an early SpaceX executive who now runs Phantom Space Corporation, said he believes the rivalry between Musk and Bezos is “much more personal than anything anybody ought to be worried about.” Instead, Cantrell said he thinks that while Musk will advocate for changes that could benefit his own companies, it will also benefit his competitors. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” Cantrell said, adding that Musk’s advocacy for commercialization of the space industry and fighting regulations that he believes slow down the industry are “going to raise the tide for all his competitors, including himself.” Cantrell said that some of these actions would end up helping the best competitor in the field — which just happens to be Musk’s companies. “I think Blue Origin should be terrified about their own performance,” Cantrell said, not terrified of Musk’s power in the Trump administration being used against them. Blue Origin, which did not respond to a request for comment, may have another reason to be worried. Trump just named Jared Isaacman, who has close ties with Musk, as his pick for NASA administrator. For his part, Bezos said Wednesday at a New York Times DealBook event that he is not worried about Musk in Washington. “I take it at face value, what has been said, which is that he’s not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors,” Bezos said. Though, he added, “I could be wrong about that, but I think it could be true.” Sam Altman Musk’s feud with Altman’s OpenAI has been long-running. Musk — who helped to co-found OpenAI in 2015 — first sued the company in February, accusing the ChatGPT maker of abandoning its original, non-profit mission by reserving some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers. Musk has advocated for “open source” artificial intelligence systems and has publicly released the code behind the chatbot Grok made by his own company, xAI. Musk’s original lawsuit sought a jury trial and for OpenAI, Altman and co-founder and President Greg Brockman to pay back any profit they received from the business. OpenAI called Musk’s claims “incoherent” and “frivolous.” And Musk dropped the suit after OpenAI published several of Musk’s emails from OpenAI’s early days. The emails appeared to show Musk acknowledging the need for the company to make large sums of money to fund the computing resources needed to power its AI ambitions, which stood in contrast to the claims in his lawsuit that OpenAI was wrongly pursuing profit. However, Musk reopened the legal battle in August, filing a new lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman with, essentially, the same claim that the start-up is undermining its non-profit mission by partnering with Microsoft and commercializing some products. OpenAI was created as a non-profit research lab with a for-profit arm, but has mulled restructuring into a more traditional, for-profit company that could lead to more returns for investors — a plan at which Musk has also taken aim. A recent filing in his lawsuit asked a court to temporarily block OpenAI’s ability to make such a transition. Regardless of how that case ultimately plays out, Musk could potentially use his connection to Trump — as well as his friendship with David Sacks, whom Trump has tapped as White House “czar” overseeing artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy — to disadvantage OpenAI. Sacks and Musk were both involved in starting PayPal. Musk could, for example, push for the government to work with and grant lucrative contracts to “open source” AI companies like his own over rivals such as OpenAI and Microsoft, said Gil Luria, head of technology research at investment group D.A. Davidson. Such a move could also benefit Meta, which has open-sourced its Llama model and whose CEO, Zuckerberg, has been seeking to improve his relationship with Trump and said he wants an “active role” in tech policy discussions with the president-elect. “The government can decide to advantage certain companies, certain technologies and that would be within the realm of possibility,” Luria said, although he added that he ultimately believes it’s unlikely Musk will use his political influence to harm rivals. Musk could also push Congress or the Internal Revenue Service to interfere with OpenAI’s ability to transition from a non-profit to a for-profit corporation. However, Altman said Wednesday that he’s not worried about Musk’s political activities harming his company. “I believe pretty strongly ... that Elon will do the right thing and it would be profoundly unamerican to use political power, to the degree that Elon has it, to hurt your competitors and advantage your own businesses,” Altman said. “I don’t think people would tolerate that, I don’t think he could do that. It would go so deeply against the values that I believe he holds.” In response to an X post about Altman’s comment, as well as a similar comment by Bezos, Musk said: “They are right.” Mark Zuckerberg A failed SpaceX launch once destroyed a Facebook AMOS-6 Satellite, which the company was hoping to use to beam the internet to millions of people in remote parts of the world. It’s not clear whether that’s what helped spark the long-running feud between Musk and Zuckerberg, which devolved at one point into regular insults and digs lobbed over social media. But at one point Musk and Zuckerberg were seriously discussing an actual fight. Talk of a fight died down around August. And while Zuckerberg has been making inroads with Trump — meeting him at Mar-a-Lago recently and speaking openly about wanting to play an “active role” in helping the Trump administration shape tech policy — one of his top lieutenants expressed a bit more skepticism about Musk. Speaking on a BBC podcast, Meta’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said Musk is “now playing an outsized role in both the election and now the formation of the new US administration.” “He has a choice — he can be either an avid and well-heeled supporter,” Clegg said. “Or he can try and become a sort of political puppet master, going well beyond Trump, deciding who the next Republican candidate should be and the one after that, and so on, so forth.” Meta is already facing an antitrust trial, and the company could also face increased pressure from the Federal Communications Commission. Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for FCC chair, has exchanged warm words with Musk and often engages with him on X, has been open about his desire of “smashing the censorship cartel” of social media, and has directly told Zuckerberg, as well as other big tech CEOs, that they’ve been engaging in “improper conduct.” “We can impose transparency obligations through existing FCC laws,” Carr told Fox Business last week. “If social media companies are colluding to not compete on speech regulations, that’s really no different than an agreement not to compete on pricing or another competition metric and that should be looked at.” Tesla competitors Tesla stock surged after Trump’s win and is still riding high. While Tesla is already dominant in the electric vehicle market, it could see even greater benefits with Musk’s direct line into the government. For one, government investigations into the safety of Tesla’s autonomous driving technology could just disappear, said Missy Cummings, a former senior safety adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Then there’s support for Tesla competitors. Last week, Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency advisory group, sharply criticized a $6.6 billion Department of Energy conditional loan commitment to Rivian, the electric vehicle startup. The loan would help finance a new manufacturing plant in Georgia. Back in 2010, Tesla received a similar $465 million loan from the Energy Department that proved pivotal to its survival and success. But Ramaswamy said that loan and others like it are “high on the list of items” that DOGE will look to reverse. Musk and Ramaswamy’s DOGE effort has an expiration date in 2026, but some who know Musk wonder if his relationship with Trump will sour sooner than that. But until then, Musk said the best way for him to be lobbied is on X, his social media platform. “I will do my best to respond to well-reasoned arguments here on X for serving the best interests of the American people,” Musk wrote on X last week. “However, any real or de facto offers of money, power or threats will obviously be silly and ineffective.”Joe Rogan is "genuinely concerned" about drone sightings in New York and New Jersey areaNone
Ethan Taylor scores 21 as Air Force takes down Mercyhurst 82-48
Adam Pemble, AP journalist whose compassionate lens brought stories to life, dies at 52
Texas AG Ken Paxton investigates GARM ad cartel over boycott ‘conspiracy’RCC apprentices bring manufacturing lessons to kids
Adam Pemble, AP journalist whose compassionate lens brought stories to life, dies at 52
The mighty caste system: Part - II
Syrians poured into streets in celebration on Sunday after a stunning rebel advance reached the capital, ending the Assad family’s 50 years of iron rule . Russian state news agencies were reporting that President Bashar Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow and were given asylum. Russia said Assad left the country after negotiations with rebel groups and that he had given instructions to transfer power peacefully. Joyful crowds gathered in central squares in Damascus, waving the Syrian revolutionary flag. Others ransacked the presidential palace and residence. Abu Mohammed al-Golani , a former al-Qaida commander who cut ties with the group years ago leads the biggest rebel faction in Syria and is poised to chart the country’s future. He made his first public appearance since fighters entered the Damascus suburbs Saturday, at the capital’s sprawling Umayyad Mosque, and called himself by his given name, Ahmad al-Sharaa. He said Assad’s fall was “a victory to the Islamic nation.” The rapidly developing events have shaken the region. Lebanon said it was closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for one that links Beirut with Damascus. Jordan closed a border crossing with Syria, too. Israel has issued warnings to villages in southern Syria and its forces seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights. Here's the Latest: Russian state news agencies reported that ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad has arrived in Moscow with his family and been given asylum. The agencies, Tass and RIA, cited an unidentified Kremlin source. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the reports but had contacted the Kremlin for comment. CAIRO — The Arab League on Sunday condemned Israel for taking advantage of Syrian President Bashar Assad's downfall by moving into more Syrian territory. Hours after Assad’s overthrow, Israel announced it had seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights that was established by a cease-fire agreement with Syria in 1974. In a statement, the Arab League said Israel illegally sought to occupy more territories. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the 50-year-old agreement regarding Syrian territory had collapsed and that Syrian troops had abandoned their positions, necessitating Israel taking over as a “temporary defensive position.” UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations secretary-general is marking the “fall of the dictatorial regime” in Syria and says the future of the country is “is a matter for the Syrians to determine.” A statement by Antonio Guterres also called for calm and the protection of the rights of all Syrians as well as of diplomatic and consular facilities in Syria. He said there is much work ahead to ensure an “orderly political transition to renewed institutions,” and he called on the international community to ensure that “any political transition is inclusive and comprehensive and that it meets the legitimate aspirations of the people of Syria, in all their diversity.” KYIV, Ukraine - Ukraine’s top diplomat on Sunday responded to Assad’s ouster by describing him as a “dictator” who relied on Russia to prop up his rule - a reference to the military campaign Moscow has waged in Syria since September 2015, teaming up with Iran to allow Assad’s government to fight armed opposition groups and reclaim control over most of the country. "Assad has fallen. This has always been and will be the case with all dictators who bet on Putin. He always betrays those who rely on him,” foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X. In a separate update on the social network, Sybiha said Kyiv was ready to take steps towards restoring relations with Syria, severed months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of the neighboring state. Kyiv broke off diplomatic ties after Damascus in June 2022 recognized Kremlin-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine as independent territories, in a move welcomed by Moscow and decried by the West as a clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has issued a warning to residents of five villages and towns in southern Syria to stay inside their homes for their safety. “The fighting in your area is forcing the IDF to act,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman said on X. The military didn’t respond to questions. Earlier, Israel said its troops had seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights established in 1974, saying it was to protect Israeli residents after Syrian troops abandoned their positions. Defense Minister Israel Katz said on X that the IDF has been instructed to “seize the buffer zone and control points to ensure the protection of all Israeli communities in the Golan Heights – Jewish and Druze – so that they are not exposed to threats from the other side.” Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it. The international community, except for the United States, views it as occupied. BEIRUT - The leader of the largest insurgent group in Syria visited the Syrian capital’s sprawling Umayyad Mosque and declared that the victory against President Bashar Assad “is a victory to the Islamic nation.” Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, made his first public appearance and remarks since fighters entered Damascus. He told hundreds of people at the historic mosque that Assad had made Syria “a farm for Iran’s greed.” He added that Assad made Syria a base for the illegal amphetamine Captagon that brought cash to Assad’s circles. Al-Sharaa, the leader of the jihadi Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, said Sunday that the victory was achieved because of “God and the blood of martyrs.” He said that he left Syria 20 years ago and since then his heart has longed for this movement. LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the end of Assad’s rule as he called for peace and the protection of civilians. “The Syrian people have suffered under Assad’s barbaric regime for too long and we welcome his departure,” Starmer said. He said the U.K. was focused on a political solution to restore peace and stability. “We call on all sides to protect civilians and minorities and ensure essential aid can reach the most vulnerable in the coming hours and days,” he said. AMMAN, Jordan — The vast majority of the Jordanian people are welcoming the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the success of the Syrian revolution. “There is no doubt that I felt overwhelming joy at the fall of the Assad regime," said Badi Al-Rafaia, Engineer, union activist and member of the Islamic Action Front. "There is no doubt that we are happy with what happened in Syria, happy with the success of the revolution, happy with the Syrian people getting rid of an oppressor and criminal who treated the Syrian people and made the Syrian state a failed state.” Al-Rafaia said that Jordan is benefiting from what happened in Syria, and "we hope that Jordan will help the revolution succeed and not work against it.” Amman resident Muhab al-Majali said the fall of the Assad regime is “The end of every unjust and tyrannical rule, and more than that, it mortgaged the country and its people to the Iranians, who abandoned it in minutes... I believe that the future is beautiful and prosperous for the Syrians.” BERLIN — The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling for safe humanitarian access and protection of civilians in Syria after the fall of Bashir Assad’s government. “Our teams in Syria, including in Damascus, have been closely monitoring the fast-evolving security and humanitarian situation in coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent,” the ICRC’s head of delegation in Syria, Stephan Sakalian, said in a written statement Sunday. The ICRC is “responding wherever possible, with further efforts underway, as hundreds of thousands of people need care and humanitarian assistance,” he said. Sakalian called “on all parties to urgently enable safe and unhindered access for medical and humanitarian workers to reach those in need, to protect civilians, and to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law.” BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government said in a statement Sunday that it “supports all international and regional efforts seeking to open a dialogue” for Syria “leading to the adoption of a pluralistic constitution that preserves the human and civil rights of Syrians, and supports cultural, ethnic and religious diversity.” The statement from government spokesperson Bassem al-Awadi, said that Iraq understands “the necessity of respecting the free will of all Syrians, and stresses that the security of Syria, the unity of its territories, and the preservation of its independence are of utmost importance, not only for Iraq but also for its connection to the security and stability of the region.” It cautioned against “interfering in Syria’s internal affairs, or supporting one party for the benefit of another.” Iraq, which has a close relationship with Iran - once a strong ally of former Syrian President Bashar Assad - has taken in some 2,000 Syrian army soldiers who fled the country amid the advance of armed opposition groups. CAIRO — The head of Yemen’s internationally recognized government welcomed the fall of the government of President Bashar Assad of Syria. “It’s a historic moment,” Rashad al-Alimi, who chairs the ruling presidential council, wrote on X platform of Assad’s downfall. “It’s time for the Iranian regime to stop meddling in Yemen, respect its sovereignty and identity.” Al-Alimi, who is backed by Saudi Arabia, was referring to Iran’s support of Houthi rebels who are at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for a decade. DAMASCUS — Families wandered through the high-ceilinged halls of the presidential palace in Damascus on Sunday, along with some armed men. Some paused to take family portraits or selfies on the few remaining couches against the backdrop of mosaiced walls, while others walked out with chairs and other items under their arms. On the massive parking lot out front, cars drove in circles honking ecstatically. In central Damascus’ Umayyad Square, drivers passing by also honked jubilantly, while young men piled onto a tank abandoned in the square. But for some the celebration was bittersweet. “I am very happy, but this happiness will not be completed until I can see my son out of the prison and know where is he is,” said Damascus resident Bassam Masr. “I have been searching for him for two hours - he has been detained for 13 years.” TEHRAN, Iran — Iran says the Syrian people should decide their country’s future “without destructive, coercive foreign intervention.” The Foreign Ministry statement issued Sunday marked Iran’s first official reaction to the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, who it had strongly backed through nearly 14 years of civil war. Assad’s government was a close ally of Iran that served as a crucial conduit between it and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The rebels who toppled Assad view Iran as a hostile foreign influence, and the abandoned Iranian Embassy in Damascus was ransacked as they entered the city. The Foreign Ministry statement said Iran supports Syria’s unity and national sovereignty, and hopes to see “the end of military conflicts, the prevention of terrorist activities and the start of a national dialogue” with the participation of all groups. “It is expected that the wise and farsighted relations of the two nations will continue based on mutual ties and interests,” the statement said. TEL AVIV, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israeli forces have seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria. He spoke from an overlook near the border between Syria and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, after Syrian rebels tore through the country and dramatically ended Assad’s rule on Sunday morning. Netanyahu said the 50-year-old agreement had collapsed and that Syrian troops had abandoned their positions, necessitating the Israeli takeover as a “temporary defensive position.” Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. The international community, except for the United States, views it as occupied Syrian territory. Satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press show that as early as September, Israel began construction of what could possibly be a new road right along the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria . The United Nations confirmed that Israeli troops entered the demilitarized zone during the work. The United Nations maintains a peacekeeping force in the demilitarized zone called the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, or UNDOF, with around 1,100 peacekeepers from Fiji, India, Kazakhstan, Nepal, and Uruguay. After the 1973 Mideast war, the U.N. Secretary Council voted to create UNDOF to patrol a roughly 400 square kilometer (155 square mile) demilitarized zone and maintain the peace there. MASNAA, Lebanon — At Lebanon’s Masnaa crossing into Syria, the mood was festive Sunday with some local Lebanese residents handing out congratulatory sweets to Syrians lined up to return to their country. Sami Abdel-Latif, a refugee from Hama who was heading to Syria to join his wife and four children, said while the future in Syria is still uncertain, “anything is better than Bashar.” He said he expected some chaos initially but that eventually the situation would settle down. “Look at Aleppo now,” he said, referring to the first major city taken over by opposition forces more than a week ago, where life has continued more or less as normal. Abdel-Latif, a construction worker, said he is also hoping that there will now be plentiful work in Syria to rebuild. Malak Matar, who was preparing to return to Damascus, said, “This is a feeling we’ve been waiting 14 years for. “You feel yourself psychologically free - you can express yourself,” he said. “The country is free and the barriers have been broken down.” Now, he said, “Syrians have to create a state that is well-organized and take care of their country. It’s a new phase.” DAMASCUS, Syria — An Associated Press journalist in Damascus reported airstrikes in the area of the Mezzeh military airport, southwest of the capital Sunday. The airport has previously been targeted in Israeli airstrikes, but it was not immediately clear who launched Sunday's strike. The Israeli military refused to comment on the airport strike. Israel often does not publicly claim responsibility for attacks in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported that Israeli warplanes also targeted warehouses belonging to the Syrian army’s Fourth Division and another former military site outside of Damascus Sunday. On Saturday and Sunday, the Israeli military sent additional troops to the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights to bolster Israel’s presence along the border between Israel and Syria. Agricultural areas along the border were declared closed military zones and some schools shifted to online classes in anticipation of unrest. MOSCOW — Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed Sunday that Bashar Assad had left Syria after negotiations with rebel groups, and gave “instructions” to “transfer power peacefully.” In a post on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday, the ministry said Moscow had not directly participated in these talks. It also said it has been following the “dramatic events” in Syria “with extreme concern." It also said Russian troops stationed in Syria have been put on high alert and that as of early afternoon Sunday, there was “no serious threat” to the security of Russia’s military bases there. Russia has waged a military campaign in Syria since September 2015, teaming up with Iran to allow Assad’s government to fight armed opposition groups and reclaim control over most of the country. While Russia now concentrates the bulk of its military resources in Ukraine, it has maintained a military foothold in Syria and keeps troops at its bases there.
Shopping on Temu can feel like playing an arcade game. Instead of using a joystick-controlled claw to grab a toy, visitors to the online marketplace maneuver their computer mouses or cellphone screens to browse colorful gadgets, accessories and trinkets with prices that look too good to refuse. A pop-up spinning wheel offers the chance to win a coupon. Rotating captions warn that a less than $2 camouflage print balaclava and a $1.23 skeleton hand back scratcher are “Almost sold out.” A flame symbol indicates a $9.69 plush cat print hoodie is selling fast. A timed-down selection of discounted items adds to the sense of urgency. Pages from the Shein website, left, and from the Temu site, right. Welcome to the new online world of impulse buying, a place of guilty pleasures where the selection is vast, every day is Cyber Monday, and an instant dopamine hit is always just a click away. By all accounts, we’re living in an accelerating age for consumerism, one that Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, its fierce rival , supercharged with social media savvy and an interminable assortment of cheap goods, most shipped directly from merchants in China based on real-time demand. The business models of the two platforms, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising, have enabled them to give Western retailers a run for their money this holiday shopping season. A Christmas tree ornament purchased on Temu. Software company Salesforce said it expects roughly one in five online purchases in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada to be made through four online marketplaces based or founded in Asia: Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop — the e-commerce arm of video-sharing platform TikTok — and AliExpress. Analysts with Salesforce said they are expected to pull in roughly $160 billion in global sales outside of China. Most of the sales will go to Temu and Shein, a privately held company which is thought to lead the worldwide fast fashion market in revenue. Lisa Xiaoli Neville, a nonprofit manager who lives in Los Angeles, is sold on Shein. The bedroom of her home is stocked with jeans, shoes, press-on nails and other items from the ultra-fast fashion retailer, all of which she amassed after getting on the platform to buy a $2 pair of earrings she saw in a Facebook ad. Neville, 46, estimates she spends at least $75 a month on products from Shein. A $2 eggshell opener, a portable apple peeler and an apple corer, both costing less than $5, are among the quirky, single-use kitchen tools taking up drawer space. She acknowledges she doesn’t need them because she “doesn’t even cook like that.” Plus, she’s allergic to apples. “I won’t eat apples. It will kill me,” Neville said, laughing. “But I still want the coring thing.” Shein, now based in Singapore, uses some of the same web design features as Temu’s, such as pop-up coupons and ads, to persuade shoppers to keep clicking, but it appears a bit more restrained in its approach. Shein primarily targets young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Searching the company's name on video platforms turns up creators promoting Shein's Black Friday sales event and displaying the dozens of of trendy clothes and accessories they got for comparatively little money. But the Shein-focused content also includes videos of TikTokers saying they're embarrassed to admit they shopped there and critics lashing out at fans for not taking into account the environmental harms or potential labor abuses associated with products that are churned out and shipped worldwide at a speedy pace. Neville has already picked out holiday gifts for family and friends from the site. Most of the products in her online cart cost under $10, including graphic T-shirts she intends to buy for her son and jeans and loafers for her daughter. All told, she plans to spend about $200 on gifts, significantly less than $500 she used to shell out at other stores in prior years. “The visuals just make you want to spend more money,” she said, referring to the clothes on Shein's site. “They're very cheap and everything is just so cute.” Unlike Shein, Temu's appeal cuts across age groups and gender. The platform is the world’s second most-visited online shopping site, software company Similarweb reported in September. Customers go there looking for practical items like doormats and silly products like a whiskey flask shaped like a vintage cellphone from the 1990s. Temu advertised Black Friday bargains for some items at upwards of 70% off the recommended retail price. Making a purchase can quickly result in receiving dozens of emails offering free giveaways. The caveat: customers have to buy more products. Despite their rise, Temu and Shein have proven particularly ripe for pushback. Last year, a coalition of unnamed brands and organizations launched a campaign to oppose Shein in Washington. U.S. lawmakers also have raised the possibility that Temu is allowing goods made with forced labor to enter the country. More recently, the Biden administration put forward rules that would crack down on a trade rule known as the de minimis exception, which has allowed a lot of cheap products to come into the U.S. duty-free. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to slap high tariffs on goods from China, a move that would likely raise prices across the retail world. Both Shein and Temu have set up warehouses in the U.S. to speed up delivery times and help them better compete with Amazon, which is trying to erode their price advantage through a new storefront that also ships products directly from China. 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