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  • I was spending £700 a month: How I beat my late-night shopping addiction

    I was spending £700 a month: How I beat my late-night shopping addiction

    The Scroll-and-Buy Trap: Two Young Women on Breaking Free From Compulsive Shopping

    Constantvpn.com – It is 11 p.m. The blue glow of a smartphone fills a dark bedroom. A feed scrolls past — a new jacket, a pair of sneakers, a skincare serum — and within seconds a checkout button has been tapped. By morning the parcel is already on its way, and the buyer feels a hollow pang of regret. This scenario, once a guilty little indulgence, has become a recognised behavioural pattern for millions. A global study estimates that roughly 7% of adults experience what clinicians call shopping addiction: an inability to stop spending even when the financial fallout is severe. Younger women, the research notes, are disproportionately affected.

    The phenomenon has been amplified by the architecture of modern commerce. Social-media platforms now embed shopping directly into content feeds, turning passive scrolling into active purchasing with a single tap. Fast-fashion retailers release micro-collections weekly, manufacturing a perpetual sense of novelty. For people who grew up with little disposable income, the sudden arrival of a salary can trigger a compensatory spending spiral that feels impossible to interrupt.

    Ella Hewitt: From £700-a-Month Fast-Fashion Binges to Ethical Fashion

    Ella Hewitt, 24, from Liverpool, describes a period in 2021 when her monthly outlay on disposable clothing reached £700 — money she simply did not have. Working as an HR assistant in a school, she could not afford to leave her family home because so much of her income vanished into wardrobes of garments she rarely, if ever, wore.

    “I didn’t grow up with much money, so when I got a job I would spend my wages as soon as they hit my account.”

    She attributes the compulsion partly to the neurochemical reward loop — the brief dopamine surge that follows a purchase — and partly to the relentless encouragement embedded in social-media feeds. Purchases were typically made on TikTok or Instagram during moments of fatigue or boredom, lured by whatever trend was dominating her algorithm at that hour.

    “That dopamine hit kept me shopping and in the world of social media there is just so much encouragement to do that.”

    The turning point came when the sheer volume of accumulated items struck her. She describes the realisation as “horrified” — a word she uses to capture the shock of confronting the physical evidence of months of unchecked buying.

    The Practical Toolkit: How Ella Rebuilt Her Relationship With Spending

    Her recovery strategy was built on friction and delay. Anything that tempted her went onto a wish list, where it had to sit for thirty days before she was permitted to buy it. In most cases, the initial urge dissolved before the deadline arrived.

    She also invented a daily “phantom budget” of £1,000, allocating imaginary funds to imaginary purchases. The ritual of selecting, comparing, and “checking out” satisfied the behavioural itch without a single pound leaving her account.

    A third rule was a affordability multiplier: she would only purchase an item if she could realistically afford to buy it three times over. Taken together, these measures cut her total spending by approximately 60%.

    “I’m not perfect. There are times when I will buy things because I want it. But I am way more in control.”

    Ella now works as an ethical-fashion influencer and is preparing to launch her own clothing brand — a career that places her squarely inside the industry she once consumed without restraint.

    Dish Patel: Maxing Out the Overdraft and Deleting the Apps

    Dish Patel, 23, from London, tells a parallel story from the student side of the ledger. Spending heavily on clothes, food, cosmetics, and skincare, she exhausted a £2,500 overdraft and describes herself as perpetually broke. She recognises the same childhood-scarcity compensation pattern Ella identified, though the emotional payoff was always brief.

    “The feeling you get when you open your new parcels is always amazing until the dopamine hit dies down and the cycle repeats.”

    Her biggest vice was not any single purchase but the act of scrolling through shopping apps — Asos, Pretty Little Thing — purely to pass time. The remedy was structural: she deleted those apps from her phone, removed ApplePay so that one-tap checkout was no longer possible, and began leaving her bank cards at home on workdays. She packed a lunch and bought her train ticket on Trainline the evening before, engineering a day in which no spending opportunity existed.

    “This basically put me in a habit of not spending a single thing and pre-planning my day to ensure I don’t spend anything.”

    Dish now works as a financial planner, advising others on budgeting and debt management — roles that would have been unthinkable while she was cycling through overdraft limits each month.

    Recognising the Pattern: Signs and Professional Support

    The UKat Group, which operates addiction-treatment centres across Britain, reports a rising caseload of shopping-addiction referrals, with roughly 90% of clients being women. Clinicians point to several behavioural markers: an immediate mood lift following a purchase followed by guilt or shame; lying to partners or family about expenditure; and a home accumulating items that are neither needed nor used.

    For those who recognise these signs, a range of practical steps can reduce the frequency and intensity of impulse episodes:

    Wait at least 48 hours before completing any non-essential purchase; the acute urge typically fades within that window. Delete saved card details and remove shopping applications from devices. Prepare a fixed list before entering a store or browsing a website, and commit to it. Allocate a small, guilt-free allowance for occasional treats, or replicate the “phantom budget” technique. Unsubscribe from retailer newsletters, push alerts, and influencer accounts that function as constant purchase triggers. Use up existing products before replacing them; accessorise current outfits rather than buying entirely new ones. Identify emotional triggers — loneliness, boredom, stress — and substitute exercise or conversation with a friend for the scroll-and-buy loop.

    For deeper financial intervention, organisations such as Citizens Advice, Stepchange, Christians Against Poverty, and National Debtline offer free, confidential guidance on budgeting, debt restructuring, and spending-behaviour modification.

    Why This Matters Now

    The economics of impulse commerce have shifted dramatically in the past decade. Average order values in fast fashion remain low, which means the financial damage of repeated small purchases compounds quietly, often below the threshold at which a person notices a problem. Meanwhile, the integration of shopping into entertainment feeds means that the decision point — whether to buy — arrives in a context of low cognitive load and high emotional arousal, precisely the conditions under which executive-control functions are weakest. For young adults navigating student debt, precarious employment, and rising living costs, the margin between a manageable treat and a destabilising habit can be thinner than a single notification ping.

    The stories of Ella and Dish are not exceptional; they are, by the statistics, representative. What distinguishes their trajectories is not the absence of temptation but the deliberate insertion of friction — time delays, removed shortcuts, pre-planned days — between the impulse and the checkout. In an economy engineered to minimise that friction, choosing to restore it is, in itself, an act of financial self-defence.

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  • Jacob Elordi on why The Dog Stars had him asking ‘What am I missing’ in life?

    Jacob Elordi on why The Dog Stars had him asking ‘What am I missing’ in life?

    The Dog Stars: Ridley Scott’s Post-Apocalyptic Mirror and the Actors Who Saw Themselves in It

    Constantvpn.com – Sir Ridley Scott’s latest feature, The Dog Stars, drops audiences into a Colorado landscape where a lethal influenza has wiped out nearly every human being, leaving behind scorched terrain, abandoned highways, and the occasional stubborn patch of green pushing through the rubble. Adapted from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel, the film places its survivors in the 2030s and asks a deceptively simple question: what do you do when the infrastructure of civilization vanishes overnight? The answer, for the characters, is to keep flying, keep searching, keep hoping — even when hope feels like a luxury no one can afford.

    A Pilot, a Dog, and the Weight of Make-Believe

    Jacob Elordi, now 29 and fresh off his first Academy Award nomination for Frankenstein, takes on the lead role of Hig, a former mechanic who has reinvented himself as a civilian pilot. Hig spends his days circling the Colorado sky with his German shepherd companion Jasper, scavenging for food, medicine, and any sign that another human being might still be breathing. The dog, played by a trained shepherd named Jasper, becomes the emotional anchor of the film — a loyal presence in a world where most other presences have been erased.

    Speaking about the production, Elordi described the experience of performing against a backdrop that felt uncomfortably close to the present moment.

    “There were a few moments I remember looking around [on set] and thinking it’s strange to be doing this make-believe, when the reality is just behind us and just in front of us.”

    That tension between fiction and lived experience runs through every interview the cast has given. The aerial sequences of empty cities, the constant scramble for basic supplies, the silence where traffic used to roar — all of it lands with a force that would have been harder to achieve a decade ago, when pandemic was still a word reserved for textbooks.

    Privilege, Anarchy, and the Question No One Wants to Answer

    Elordi says the film is ultimately about “the human condition,” with characters trapped in apocalypse yet “still looking for something else and hoping for something else.” He draws a direct line between Hig’s restless dissatisfaction and the quiet unease many people feel in ordinary, comfortable lives.

    “Everything is sweet for us — we’re able to walk around on the street, go to the shops, go to the park, have dinner with each other and we still go to bed and think ‘What else is there?’, ‘What am I missing?’, ‘What’s wrong?’ and nothing is.”

    That observation lands harder when voiced by an actor who has spent his career in the entertainment industry’s most privileged corridors. It reframes the post-apocalyptic premise not as spectacle but as a stripped-down version of a feeling most people already carry: the nagging sense that abundance has not translated into contentment.

    Pearce, Qualley, Brolin — and the Personal Cost of Climate

    The supporting cast is heavyweight. Guy Pearce, known for Mare of Easttown and Memento, plays Pops, a former Navy SEAL and father figure who crosses Hig’s path after an emergency landing near his homestead. Margaret Qualley, a Golden Globe nominee, appears as Cima, Pops’s daughter. Josh Brolin rounds out the ensemble. Together they populate a world where the rules of commerce, governance, and social contract have dissolved into something closer to tribal survival.

    Pearce, who collaborated with Scott on Prometheus back in 2012, speaks plainly about what the film’s environmental imagery means to him personally. He grew up in Victoria, Australia, a state battered by bushfires earlier this year.

    “I’ve been in Australia when there’s been serious bushfires. All round the world now there’s just more and more effects of climate change so it’s pretty terrifying that a lot of those things are not far away.”

    He adds that the film’s depiction of “this world we take for granted” feels “pertinent,” noting that the ability to walk into a supermarket, buy groceries, and come home to family members is a reality that “a lot of people even to this day don’t live like that.” For Pearce, the privilege is not abstract; it is the difference between his Tuesday evening and the Tuesday evening of billions.

    Regrowth: The Green Thread Through the Ash

    Elordi, a Brisbane native who has watched Australian landscapes scarred by successive natural disasters, points to a counter-current in the film that he finds quietly vital. Beyond the scorched earth and the skeletal cities, Scott’s cinematography also captures lush expanses of greenery reclaiming the wreckage.

    “Something interesting and not to be missed is the idea of regrowth — that in this abyss, four or five years after the worst day ever for human beings, the trees are full, the grass is thick and the flowers are growing out of the decay.”

    He frames this as “a note of hope” and an “idea of redemption,” drawing a parallel to real wildfire ecology: when an entire coastline burns, the soil eventually cools, seeds take hold, and the landscape rebuilds itself on a timescale that outlasts any single human lifetime. The implication for the film’s audience is that destruction, however total it appears, is not the final word. The earth does not require human permission to regenerate.

    Reception: Mixed Signals from the Critics

    Early reviews have been divided. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian awarded three stars, calling the picture “limp and lethargic” and questioning what its creators were truly aiming for. David Rooney at The Hollywood Reporter struck a warmer note, describing the film as “muted but never dull” and an “appealingly mellow watch.” Empire settled on two stars. The split suggests a work that rewards patience and thematic engagement while risking a certain tonal flatness in its middle stretches — a common challenge for Scott’s late-careapocalyptic projects, which tend to privilege atmosphere over momentum.

    What unites the reviews, however, is the acknowledgment that the film’s premise has aged into uncomfortable relevance. A story about a flu that empties cities and a landscape that slowly heals itself was, in 2012, pure speculative fiction. By the time Scott’s adaptation reaches screens, it reads as a slightly delayed news report — one that asks viewers to examine the parts of their own lives they have stopped noticing, before the next disruption makes that examination impossible.

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  • Hypermobility – the little-known ‘bendy disease’ that causes pain and fatigue

    Hypermobility – the little-known ‘bendy disease’ that causes pain and fatigue

    When Bendy Joints Become a Medical Mystery: Inside the Long Road to Diagnosing Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder

    Constantvpn.com – For decades, Vivienne Duval assumed her extraordinary flexibility was simply a quirk of her body. She could perform every yoga posture without effort, a trait she carried through childhood, adulthood, and into her fifties without question. What she did not know until recently was that this same suppleness was the root cause of a constellation of symptoms — chronic digestive trouble, persistent exhaustion, and widespread pain — that had plagued her for years. The answer arrived not from a clinic but from a short social media video explaining the hallmark signs of Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder. Watching it, she felt an immediate, almost electric recognition.

    “I saw myself in everything they were saying,” she recalls. “So I armed myself with all the information and went to my doctor.”

    Her physician confirmed what she had suspected: her joints were hypermobile, and the connective tissue beneath them was structurally lax. The relief of finally having a name for her suffering was tempered by frustration at how long the pieces had gone unconnected.

    “I had all these separate things, but no one had ever put them all together. Now it’s blindingly obvious.”

    What HSD Actually Is

    Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders are a group of connective tissue conditions in which joints move beyond their normal range. The underlying mechanism involves collagen — the protein that gives structural integrity to tendons, ligaments, and other connective tissues — being produced in a way that leaves those tissues unusually stretchy. Because the joints lack their usual mechanical restraint, surrounding muscles must compensate constantly, working overtime to stabilise every movement. The cumulative toll is fatigue, pain, and a heightened tendency toward clumsiness and accidental injury.

    The effects do not stop at the skeleton. Connective tissue lines the walls of the gastrointestinal tract, and when that tissue is lax, digestive function can be disrupted, producing bloating, irregular motility, and other gut complaints. Researchers have also documented associations between HSD and neurodivergent traits such as autism spectrum conditions and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, suggesting the connective tissue abnormality may extend into neural development.

    A more specific subset, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), is identified when hypermobility is accompanied by demonstrably faulty connective tissue across multiple body regions, along with recurrent musculoskeletal events such as dislocations and subluxations.

    A Diagnostic Gap Measured in Years

    New research from the University of Edinburgh estimates that hundreds of thousands of people across the UK live with HSD or hEDS without ever receiving a formal diagnosis. Among those who do eventually get one, the average waiting period from first symptoms to confirmed diagnosis ranged from 19 to 21.7 years. Vivienne Duval, diagnosed at 58, represents the longer tail of that distribution; Ella Kipling, who received her HSD diagnosis in February at age 24, is comparatively fortunate.

    The delay is not merely a matter of patient patience. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence — the body that sets clinical guidance for the NHS — does not currently publish a dedicated, standalone diagnostic pathway for HSD. Dr Jessica Eccles, a researcher specialising in brain-body interactions and hypermobility, describes the resulting patchwork of access as a

    “postcode lottery in terms of where you are and what opportunities are available to you for assessment.”

    She notes that the conditions appear to affect women disproportionately, and points to a broader pattern in which women’s health questions have historically received less research attention than those affecting men.

    What Happens After the Diagnosis

    Even once a label is attached, the practical support landscape remains thin. The Edinburgh study found that fewer than one-third of diagnosed individuals reported their general practitioner had initiated any structured management plan for the disorder. Only 13 per cent said they had access to what the researchers termed a “knowledgeable clinician” — a doctor with specific expertise in hypermobility conditions.

    Dr Stephanie Barrett, a consultant physician and rheumatologist, describes seeing patients in her clinic who have been unable to work because of what she calls

    “severe brain fog”

    directly linked to their hypermobility. For Vivienne, the post-diagnosis experience has been one of navigating information largely through social media platforms rather than through structured clinical channels.

    “I need to be able to help myself and I don’t know where to go. I’m finding out about this condition on social media.”

    The Younger End of the Spectrum

    Not every story involves decades of uncertainty. Luke Grindlay, now 23, was identified with HSD during primary school after teachers observed that he struggled to grip pens and use cutlery with normal dexterity. He has not pursued formal treatment since, attributing his inaction partly to what he describes as

    “imposter syndrome,”

    amplified by the near-total absence of reliable public information about the condition.

    “If you go online to research this, there’s nothing there… I’m going through a lot of pain, but because I can’t find anything about it, it’s almost like I’m making too much.”

    Why the Gap Matters

    The combination of a long diagnostic odyssey, sparse clinical guidance, and limited specialist availability creates a situation in which many affected individuals spend years managing symptoms without understanding their origin. Joint pain that worsens after standing in a queue or riding a train, waking already exhausted each morning, and a persistent sense of physical clumsiness are not, as Ella Kipling learned after consulting her specialist, simply the price of being “a bit flexible.” They are measurable consequences of connective tissue dysfunction that, once identified, open the door to targeted management strategies — from tailored exercise programmes to occupational adjustments to multidisciplinary pain care.

    Until diagnostic pathways are codified and specialist capacity is expanded, however, the default experience for many will remain what Vivienne experienced: a lifetime of disconnected symptoms, a chance encounter with a video, and the slow, hard-won realisation that the body’s most defining trait was also its most persistent problem.

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  • Watch: What caused the Nepal-Tibet flash floods?

    Watch: What caused the Nepal-Tibet flash floods?

    Glacial Collapse Behind Devastating Floods Along the Nepal-Tibet Border

    Constantvpn.com – When torrents of meltwater tore through valleys along the Nepal-Tibet border, the immediate question was what had unleashed such force from the high mountains. The answer, as confirmed by the US Geological Survey, points to a glacial collapse — the sudden disintegration of a glacier or a substantial portion of one — rather than to any single seismic event. The finding reframes how scientists and disaster planners think about flood risk in one of the most glacier-dense corridors on Earth.

    What a Glacial Collapse Actually Means

    In glaciological terms, a collapse is not a slow calving event at a glacier tongue. It is a rapid structural failure in which ice that had been held in place by gravity, overburden, and internal friction suddenly loses its integrity. The released mass can dam a valley, rupture a pre-existing lake, or simply surge downhill as a debris-laden torrent. Downstream communities face a wall of water and sediment within minutes, often with little warning beyond the sound of the ice breaking.

    The US Geological Survey’s assessment identified this mechanism as the trigger for the floods that struck the border region. The agency’s language — that a glacier or part of a glacier had disintegrated — underscores that the event was localized to the ice body itself, not to a broader tectonic rupture.

    Why Early Reports Pointed to an Earthquake

    The first hours after the floods produced confusion. Seismic networks in the Himalayan belt register frequent tremors, and a powerful quake near a glacier can indeed destabilize ice, triggering avalanches or outburst floods. Initial field reports and early media accounts therefore leaned toward an earthquake explanation. That hypothesis, however, did not survive closer examination of the geological and hydrological evidence. The US Geological Survey concluded that the primary agent was the ice itself failing, not a seismic shock acting upon it.

    The distinction matters for preparedness. If earthquakes were the recurring trigger, monitoring would center on seismometers. If glacial instability is the dominant pathway, then the critical variables are ice thickness, basal meltwater pressure, bedrock geometry, and the rate at which warming is weakening the glacier’s internal structure — factors that evolve on seasonal and decadal timescales rather than in sudden seismic bursts.

    The Cause of the Collapse Remains Undetermined

    Identifying the mechanism — glacial collapse — is one step. Pinning down why that particular glacier failed at that particular moment is another, and scientists have not yet closed that gap. Candidate explanations span a wide range: a period of intense monsoon rainfall loading the ice with meltwater, a warm spell that thinned the glacier to a critical threshold, a pre-existing fracture network that propagated under seasonal stress, or a combination of these factors. Until field surveys, satellite imagery, and ice-core or borehole data are fully analyzed, the precise trigger sequence stays open.

    “The cause of the glacial collapse has not been determined,” scientists noted, while cautioning that the broader trajectory of Himalayan ice loss is already well established.

    Himalayan Glaciers in an Accelerating Melt

    The event does not occur in isolation. Himalayan glaciers have been retreating at an accelerating pace for decades, driven by rising regional temperatures and the wider dynamics of climate change. Thinning ice loses its structural mass, which means the forces that once kept a glacier coherent — its own weight pressing it against bedrock — weaken. Meltwater that once drained slowly through basal channels can instead pool, pressurize, and lubricate the ice-bed interface, priming the glacier for sudden failure.

    Scientists have repeatedly warned that this acceleration raises the probability of glacial lake outburst floods across the range, from the Karakoram to the eastern Himalaya. Each collapse event, whether it triggers a catastrophic flood or merely reshapes a valley, removes ice that had been locked in place for centuries. The cumulative effect is a shrinking cryosphere in a region where hundreds of millions of people depend on Himalayan meltwater for drinking, irrigation, and hydropower.

    Implications for Downstream Communities and Future Monitoring

    The Nepal-Tibet corridor sits upstream of major river systems that feed agriculture and settlements across both countries. A single glacial collapse can deliver a pulse of water and sediment that overwhelms bridges, washes out farmland, and silts reservoirs within hours. The floods associated with this event demonstrated that even communities at considerable distance from the ice face acute risk when a high-altitude glacier fails.

    For disaster-management agencies, the episode sharpens the case for continuous satellite-based monitoring of glacier margins, automated water-level sensors in proglacial lakes, and community early-warning protocols tied to hydrological thresholds rather than seismic alerts alone. The US Geological Survey’s identification of the mechanism provides a factual anchor for those planning efforts: the hazard is the ice, and its trajectory is set by a warming climate that shows no sign of moderating.

    Until the precise trigger for this particular collapse is resolved, the event will remain a case study in how quickly a glacier can transition from a slow, predictable retreat to a sudden, catastrophic failure — and how little downstream populations have in the way of warning when that transition occurs.

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    What is Watch: What caused the Nepal-Tibet flash floods??

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  • ‘High risk’ of lake breaching and causing second flood, warns China

    ‘High risk’ of lake breaching and causing second flood, warns China

    Second Flood Threat Looms as Barrier Lake Overflows Near Nepal-Tibet Border

    Constantvpn.com – Chinese authorities have issued an urgent warning that a newly formed barrier lake, sitting just upstream of the zone devastated by Wednesday’s catastrophic flash flood, faces a “high risk” of breaching its natural dam and unleashing a second wave of destruction downstream. The alert lands in the most vulnerable moment possible: rescue crews are already stretched thin, hundreds remain unaccounted for, and heavy rainfall continues to pour into the region.

    What Triggered the Original Disaster

    Scientists have concluded that Wednesday’s flood was almost certainly set in motion when a section of glacier near Langtang Lirung — one of the highest peaks in the Himalayan range — broke free and plunged into the river valley below. The sudden influx of ice and meltwater generated a massive surge that swept downstream, carrying enormous quantities of water, rock, and debris in its path. The force of that surge struck Gyirong Port, the principal overland crossing between Nepal and China, and communities on both sides of the border.

    Glacier-collapse events of this magnitude are rare but increasingly studied as mountain glaciers respond to warming temperatures. When a large ice mass detaches and impacts a river channel, the resulting outburst flood can release millions of cubic metres of water within minutes, overwhelming anything downstream that has not been engineered to absorb such a volume.

    The Barrier Lake: Mechanics and Current Status

    The landslide debris left behind by the initial collapse has dammed the river at the confluence of the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo, creating what hydrologists call a barrier lake — a reservoir held back not by concrete or earthworks, but by a chaotic pile of rock, soil, and ice. As of Friday morning, state broadcaster CCTV reported that roughly 2.5 million cubic metres of water had already pooled behind the natural dam. Officials projected that an additional volume bringing the total to three million cubic metres would flow into the basin between Thursday and the weekend.

    China’s Ministry of Water Resources confirmed the lake had begun to overflow its banks. Combined with persistent heavy rain in the catchment, the situation has prompted engineering teams to deploy on-site, tasked with continuous monitoring of water levels, dam integrity, and local atmospheric conditions.

    “High risk of breach.”

    That phrase, used by officials describing the weekend outlook, carries particular weight given the lake’s position: it sits several kilometres upstream of Gyirong Port, in the same corridor where the original surge already proved lethal. A failure of the debris dam would send a fresh pulse of water and sediment racing toward the very communities still reeling from Wednesday’s event.

    Rescue Operations Halted

    The compounding danger has forced a painful operational decision. A CCTV report broadcast Friday morning stated that most Chinese emergency services were immobilised at a village approximately seven kilometres (four miles) from Gyirong Port, unable to advance because the barrier lake was “overflowing non-stop,” creating conditions ripe for fresh flooding or secondary debris flows. Search and rescue operations near the Nepal-Tibet border were suspended as a result.

    On the Tibet side of the border alone, more than 550 people remain missing — nearly half of them foreign nationals. Across Nepal, several hundred have been confirmed dead, with hundreds more still unaccounted for. The suspension of rescue work, however necessary, extends the window in which survivors in debris fields may lose their chance.

    Wider River Risks in Nepal

    The threat is not confined to the immediate border zone. Nepali authorities have separately warned that debris blockages elsewhere in the mountain drainage network could trigger additional flood events along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers. Residents in the valleys below those waterways have been urged to keep clear of riverbanks until the danger passes. The Bhote Koshi, in particular, drains the Langtang valley system and has historically been prone to glacial lake outburst floods, making the current debris-laden conditions especially hazardous.

    Why This Matters Beyond the Immediate Crisis

    The sequence of events — glacier collapse, outburst flood, secondary barrier-lake formation, overflow under rainfall — illustrates a compounding risk pattern that mountain communities across the Himalaya face with growing frequency. Each stage amplifies the next: the initial surge deposits debris that dams the river; the dammed river accumulates water; rainfall adds volume; and the resulting overflow or breach delivers a second, sometimes larger, pulse downstream. Engineering teams monitoring the Chhochen Khola–Purepu Tsangpo confluence are, in effect, watching a live demonstration of that cascade.

    For the people of Gyirong Port and the villages along the border corridor, the coming weekend represents a narrow window in which the lake either stabilises, drains gradually, or fails catastrophically. The decision to hold rescue crews at seven kilometres’ distance is a calculation of risk against risk: send them forward and they may be swept away by the very event they are trying to mitigate. Hold them back and the missing remain missing longer. Either way, the mountain is deciding the terms.

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  • Families fly to Nepal in search for 33 missing British nationals

    Families fly to Nepal in search for 33 missing British nationals

    Constantvpn.com – Poudel says he has not heard from his wife in days Families of missing UK nationals have flown out to Nepal to search for their relatives. The death toll from the floods in Nepal and Tibet has risen to at least 475, with several hundred people missing, including 537 tourists. Among the British nationals reported missing are a 13-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy.

    On Friday, Nepalese authorities released a list of the names of all known missing tourists, 33 of which are British nationals. The rush to find survivors comes amid warnings of further flooding across the region. Follow live updates As rescue efforts continue, details of the missing are slowly emerging.

    Fishtail Tours and Travels confirmed Leena Bector, from Slough, was among 27 travellers linked to the tour company who remain unaccounted for. Her husband, Bhupesh Bector, told The Times: "I know that she's in Nepal for sure, so even if they find her today or tomorrow, I need to be there." Essex nurse Rajendra Pudasaini said his relatives were "swept away" by the floods. "My wife's auntie and uncle, and their granddaughter and her husband are missing, and my godson as well," he told PA Media.

    "They're gone. The speed the water came, they couldn't be saved, they were just swept away." Sarada Simkhada , a senior nurse at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent, is also among the missing, according to a local councillor. The Times said Simkhada was "following in the footsteps of thousands of Hindus this month in making the spiritual journey to Mount Kailash".

    Tatajana Phillips , from Folkestone in Kent, told the BBC she has not been able to contact her sister who was near the Nepal-Tibet border when devastating flash flooding hit. She said the last known location of her sister Julija Jakovicka was in the border area an hour before the flash floods struck. "Then there is no more news," she told the BBC.

    Phillips said her sister, a mother-of-two living in Germany, was in the country for a yoga and meditation retreat. "We are terribly worried," added Phillips' husband Ben. "We just know where they were and that's really tough." Pramod Poudel (left) says his mum, wife, brother and uncle are missing Pramod Poudel , who lives in Uckfield in East Sussex, told the BBC he has not heard from his family since the flood hit on Wednesday.

    "It's a very, very difficult time for me and for my family and my country at this moment, but obviously I have to go and see what's happening there," he said. Poudel, who goes by the name Pedro, said he is travelling home to Nepal because "my family needs me". University of Kent graduate Nabhi Das from Streatham in South London has also been widely reported as missing Nepal.

    Several of those missing had been making a pilgrimage to the sacred Hindu site of Mount Kailash, Nepalese tour operator The Trekkers' Society said. The operator said nine British nationals on one of its tours to the site were among those unaccounted for, including four males, aged 14, 50, 50 and 54, and five females, aged 40, 46, 50, 50 and 53. Tour companies including Alpine Eco Trek, The Trekkers' Society, Himalayan Glacier US, Kailash Journeys and Fishtail Tours have reported missing British nationals while on trips with the companies.

    Alpine Eco Trek said it has not been able to establish contact with 12 Britons who were booked on a tour to Mount Kailash and were in the region when the flash floods struck. The company's travel logs which were shared with the Press Association, with a 13-year-old girl the youngest person missing. Four of the firm's Nepali tour guides are also missing.

    The flood hit early on Wednesday in Rasuwa, just north of Nepal's capital Kathmandu. Preliminary information suggested it was caused by an earthquake, but the US Geological Survey said additional analysis indicated "the seismic energy was instead generated by a landslide." It said a magnitude 5.2 seismic event caused by a "glacial collapse and debris flow" occurred near the border at 08:37 local time (03:52GMT) on Wednesday. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the UK has offered £5m to help the Nepalese government following the floods, saying it was a "very distressing and devastating situation".

    He had previously urged Britons in the region "to follow guidance from the local authorities and follow our travel advice". Speaking on Thursday, King Charles said he and the Queen were "heartbroken" and sent their "most profound sympathy" to those affected. Watch: What caused the Nepal-Tibet flash floods?

    What we know about deadly Nepal-Tibet floods

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  • Trump administration illegally retaliated against Anthropic, judge rules

    Trump administration illegally retaliated against Anthropic, judge rules

    Court Rules Pentagon’s Designation of Anthropic as Supply-Chain Risk Was Unlawful Retaliation

    Constantvpn.com – A federal district court has delivered a sweeping rebuke to the Trump administration’s decision to label AI startup Anthropic a national supply-chain risk, finding that the move was both “illegal and baseless.” The ruling, issued by US district judge Rita Lin, marks a rare judicial intervention in the intersection of artificial intelligence policy, military procurement, and constitutional free-speech protections. It also signals that the executive branch cannot weaponize procurement rules to silence critics of defense spending priorities.

    The Designation and What Triggered It

    In February, the Department of Defense formally designated Anthropic — the maker of the Claude family of large language models — as a supply-chain risk. That classification, rooted in statutes originally crafted to scrutinize foreign firms operating in countries perceived as threats to American interests, had never before been applied publicly to a domestic company. The designation effectively ordered every contractor doing business with the US military to stop using Anthropic’s technology, a move that would have severed the startup’s access to a major revenue stream and a high-profile government partnership.

    The trigger was a straightforward commercial disagreement. Anthropic declined to grant the military unrestricted rights to deploy its models in contexts the company considered unsafe or constitutionally problematic, including autonomous weapons systems and domestic surveillance operations. The Pentagon, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, treated that refusal as an unacceptable constraint on operational flexibility. The White House went further, publicly branding Anthropic “a radical left, woke company” attempting to dictate military activity, and insisted the armed forces answered to the US Constitution, “not any woke AI company’s terms of service.”

    The Judge’s Reasoning

    Judge Lin’s opinion dismantled the government’s justification on multiple fronts. She found that the Defense Department acted unlawfully when it compelled firms holding military contracts to boycott Anthropic’s products. More pointedly, she rejected the notion that invoking national security automatically immunizes executive action from judicial review.

    “Citing national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics.”

    In an earlier phase of the litigation, Lin had already characterized the administration’s conduct as an attempt to “cripple” the company and “chill public debate” over how AI should be integrated into defense operations. She went on to describe the episode as what appeared to be “classic First Amendment retaliation,” a finding that elevates the case beyond a routine contract dispute into the realm of constitutional speech protection.

    Anthropic’s Position and Response

    In its lawsuit, Anthropic argued that the government’s actions were “unprecedented and unlawful,” that its commercial operations had been materially harmed, and that its First Amendment right to free expression had been violated. The company maintained that its Claude models were not yet reliable enough to be safely embedded in weapons systems and that it opposed deploying its technology for domestic surveillance, which it characterized as a violation of civil liberties.

    Following the ruling, Anthropic welcomed the decision. A company spokesperson framed the next chapter in constructive terms, saying the startup was focused on “working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.” The Pentagon and the White House had been contacted for comment on the ruling.

    Why the Ruling Matters Beyond One Company

    The decision lands at a moment when every major defense department is racing to embed large language models into command-and-control systems, logistics planning, intelligence analysis, and autonomous targeting. The question of whether a private AI vendor can set conditions on how its models are used — particularly in lethal or surveillance contexts — is no longer hypothetical. It is a live procurement negotiation in dozens of Pentagon programs.

    By ruling that the supply-chain-risk tool cannot be repurposed as a retaliatory sanction against a domestic firm that simply said “no” to certain military applications, Judge Lin has drawn a line that other companies may cite. If a startup can refuse to license its models for autonomous weapons without facing a de facto government boycott, the negotiating dynamic between AI vendors and the Department of Defense shifts materially. Conversely, if the administration appeals and prevails, the precedent would embolden future designations aimed at companies whose product choices conflict with defense priorities.

    The First Amendment dimension adds another layer. The judge’s language about chilling debate over military AI use suggests the court views public disagreement about how autonomous systems should be governed as protected speech, not merely a commercial bargaining position. That framing could protect not only Anthropic but any vendor, researcher, or advocacy group that publicly questions the pace or scope of AI integration into armed forces.

    What Happens Next

    The ruling does not automatically unwind every contract clause or procurement directive issued after the February designation. Anthropic will likely seek further relief to restore lost business relationships and recover damages. The Department of Defense retains the option to appeal to the circuit court, where the question of whether supply-chain-risk statutes can be applied to domestic firms will receive a second, potentially broader, examination.

    For the broader AI industry, the case underscores a tension that will recur throughout the decade: the military’s need for rapid access to cutting-edge models versus the vendors’ interest in controlling where and how their technology operates. Judge Lin’s opinion suggests that the answer, at least for now, cannot be a unilateral government designation wielded as punishment for disagreement.

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  • Greens call for temporary ban on new data centres

    Greens call for temporary ban on new data centres

    Constantvpn.com – Zack Polanski visits the site of a proposed data centre in East London Zack Polanski has called for a freeze on the approval of new data centres in England because of concerns about the amount of water and energy they use. The Green Party leader said the government should introduce stricter environmental rules and give communities more say on whether the centres are built in their area. Data centres can use significant amounts of water to cool their systems, although there are no official figures on how much water they consume in the UK.

    The government said a pause would lead to the UK losing investment and being dependent on overseas computing for sensitive data processing. A spokesman said: "It would be a disaster for jobs and national security." There are hundreds of data centres in the UK – with plans for many more. Exact numbers are hard to find, but the BBC reported last year there were around 477.

    Many are clustered around London and the south of England – areas which are officially in drought at the moment. The amount of water data centres consume can change based on size, design and local climate – the hotter the area the more water needed to cool the equipment. Speaking on a visit to the site of a proposed data centre in East London, Polanski told the BBC: "We need to slam the brakes on these energy guzzling, water guzzling data centres.

    "Essentially, we need basically a moratorium other than local scale data centres for the local community. "At a time when three-quarters of the country are in drought, it is outrageous that these are being considered critical infrastructure. "To most people critical infrastructure means hospitals, water, electricity.

    It doesn't mean Artificial Intelligence." Data centres were classified as critical in 2024, meaning they get extra government support during incidents like cyber-attacks or extreme weather. The Greens argue this means they could get priority over households for water. The government said data centres would not automatically get priority during shortages.

    Mark Acton, executive director of the Data Centre Alliance, said data centres were not taking water from local communities and used less water than leisure centres and golf courses. Speaking to the Today programme, he said getting planning permission was "very difficult" even in AI growth zones. He added: "Data centres are not just AI, data centres run our lives…

    social media runs through data centres, our banking systems run through data centres. "We depend on these things massively." The BBC has discovered that ministers have not carried out an environmental assessment on the impact of their " Delivering AI growth zones strategy , external ". A government official said it sees the paper as a statement of intent, rather than a formal policy moving towards implementation.

    Data centres in the UK do not currently have to report the amount of water they use. Water is used to cool electrical equipment in data centres The Water Research Centre consultancy estimated in February that centres in England currently use about 1.9bn litres of drinkable water a year – around 0.2% of the non-household market. The company says there is a "clear upward trend" , external in the use of water.

    The Greens cited research by Global Action Plan, , external an environmental charity, which suggested large centres could consume 1.5m litres per day. The party said data centres should be built on brownfield sites, near to renewable energy sources to allow them to use renewables when possible. The Greens also want owners to provide annual figures on water and electricity consumption.

    But the government said much more water – roughly a fifth of the supply – was lost through leaks. A government spokesperson said: "A pause on building new data centres would simply send investment and good jobs abroad, while leaving Britain dependent on overseas computing for the processing of sensitive health and defence data. "Put simply: it would be a disaster for jobs and national security.

    "That said, this does not mean a blank cheque for Big Tech or that every data centre should be approved. "Developers must plan to use clean power, use water responsibly, create British jobs and supply chains, and provide investment to the communities in which they are built." Watch: 'We need to slam the brakes on energy-guzzling data centres,' Polanski says Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Data centres could pay hundreds of millions in deposits for power demands Scottish data centres powering AI already using enough water to fill 27 million bottles a year Miliband says climate impact of data centres is uncertain Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

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  • What we know after the big Grand Theft Auto 6 preview

    What we know after the big Grand Theft Auto 6 preview

    Rockstar’s 26-Minute GTA 6 Preview Delivers What Fans Have Waited Nearly Two Years to See

    Constantvpn.com – For over eighteen months, the internet has been starved of official information about Grand Theft Auto 6. That drought ended when Rockstar Games released a 26-minute extended look at the long-awaited sequel, premiering on Netflix before rolling out to YouTube six hours later. The unaccompanied montage — stripped of narration, captions, or explanatory text — offered the first sustained window into detailed, in-engine footage of what many consider the most anticipated video game of the decade.

    The timing was no accident. The broadcast landed just days after a week of unauthorised gameplay clips flooded social platforms, fragments of the game leaking into public view before Rockstar could control the narrative. The developer described watching those unofficial uploads spread online as “heartbreaking,” a sentiment that underscores how carefully the studio has guarded its work through what appears to be one of the most expensive development cycles in the history of interactive entertainment.

    A Bonnie-and-Clyde Romance at the Core

    The preview devoted substantial screen time to the relationship between the two protagonists: Jason Duval and Lucia Camino. Their pairing is framed explicitly as a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style criminal romance, and the developers confirmed in an earlier preview published on IGN that the trajectory of their story — including how and when key plot beats land — can shift based on player choices. Crucially, players retain the option to “opt out” of deepening the pair’s bond if they prefer a different narrative direction.

    The Netflix cut did not dramatise that branching system in full, but it did demonstrate the core mechanic of swapping control between Jason and Lucia at discrete moments. One memorable sequence showed Jason lowering Lucia from an apartment window as the pair fled a drug bust inside a residential block. The mechanic echoes the character-switching introduced in Grand Theft Auto 5, which featured three playable leads, though the sixth entry narrows the focus to a duo whose chemistry drives the plot.

    Visual Fidelity That Redefined Expectations

    Reaction to the graphics was near-unanimous in its enthusiasm. Characters displayed photorealistic facial detail and movement patterns that blurred the line between rendered animation and live-action footage. Interior environments — apartment interiors, rooftop bars, dimly lit underground clubs — carried a density of texture and lighting that few titles have matched.

    The preview also swept across the varied biomes of Leonida, the fictional, Florida-inspired state that serves as the game’s setting. Coastal swamps, urban sprawl, and rural stretches all appeared in rapid succession. One detail that struck many viewers was the sheer diversity of body shapes and sizes among background pedestrians, a level of crowd variation that remains rare across the medium.

    “Might be the best-looking game I’ve ever seen.” — Ryan McCaffrey, journalist

    That assessment captures a broader consensus. The visual leap has been attributed to the sheer volume of time Rockstar invested in the project alongside a budget widely believed to rank among the highest ever allocated to a single video game. The studio’s long-standing reputation for obsessive environmental detail and sprawling, activity-dense open worlds found its most extreme expression here.

    Still a Grand Theft Auto Game at Its Core

    For all the technological advancement, the preview reaffirmed the franchise’s DNA. Armed heists, high-speed car chases, and scenes set deep within the criminal underworld of Leonida appeared throughout. Satirical jabs at American culture, darkly comic dialogue between characters, and a dense catalogue of optional side activities all returned in familiar form.

    Rockstar also appeared to build on systems introduced in its 2018 predecessor, Red Dead Redemption 2, including an “honour” mechanic that shapes how other characters perceive and respond to the player. For a franchise estimated to have moved roughly half a billion copies since its 1997 inception, those continuity elements will feel like homecoming to longtime fans.

    The Multiplayer Question Lingers

    Rockstar has stated that GTA 6 will launch as a “single-player experience,” a declaration that leaves the fate of its online component unresolved. The Netflix preview was squarely focused on story and single-player gameplay, so the absence of multiplayer footage was neither surprising nor damning. Yet the long-term commercial trajectory of the title will hinge on how effectively the studio converts its audience into any successor to GTA Online, a mode that debuted alongside GTA 5 and has since generated billions of dollars in revenue while remaining one of the most-played games on Earth.

    The stakes are enormous. GTA 5, released in 2013, sold more than 200 million copies and shattered sales records at launch. With the sixth entry scheduled for release on 19 November, industry watchers expect the biggest first-day launch in the history of consumer software. Whether that initial explosion translates into sustained cultural and commercial dominance will depend, ultimately, on whether Rockstar can replicate the online ecosystem that kept GTA 5 relevant for more than a decade after its debut.

    Two official trailers preceded this extended look, each offering brief, tightly edited glimpses of Leonida’s streets and its central couple. The 26-minute preview, by contrast, allowed the world to sit inside the game’s systems for a sustained period — and in doing so, confirmed that the title’s ambition matches its eighteen-month silence.

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  • 18 deaths from battery fires show hidden danger of UK’s e-bike boom

    18 deaths from battery fires show hidden danger of UK’s e-bike boom

    The Silent Combustion: How Britain’s Electric Two-Wheeler Boom Is Igniting Homes

    Constantvpn.com – A quiet electric motor humming in a garage or by a front door can, within seconds, become a roaring inferno that engulfs an entire room. Between 2019 and 2025, more than 2,000 fires were ignited by e-bikes, e-scooters, or their lithium-ion batteries across the United Kingdom. Those blazes killed 18 people and left nearly 700 others injured, according to Freedom of Information data assembled from fire and rescue services in every region. The fatalities include residents trapped inside burning properties, individuals who perished attempting to escape through upper-storey windows, and victims who succumbed to toxic smoke inhalation.

    The trajectory of incidents has climbed steadily year on year. Nearly half of all recorded fires began inside homes or attached garages, turning what should be a place of refuge into a primary danger zone. Urban centres bore the heaviest burden: London logged 793 incidents over the seven-year window, followed by Manchester with 128, West Yorkshire with 93, Merseyside with 74, and Avon with 73. The total number of fires attributable to these vehicles and their power packs surged from just 32 in 2019 to 605 in 2025.

    Fire Services Sound the Alarm

    London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner Pam Oparaocha described the service as “increasingly concerned by the significant fire risk” posed by certain electric two-wheelers. Her investigations have pointed to a recurring pattern: many of the vehicles involved were second-hand units or had been fitted with components purchased through online marketplaces.

    “We urge people to be extremely careful about where they buy their e-bike or e-scooter from,” Oparaocha said.

    Footage captured by residents and bystanders illustrates how rapidly the situation escalates. A vehicle may begin emitting smoke, then appear to rupture with a sharp burst of flame, sending burning debris across a room. Within minutes, a contained spark becomes a structure-threatening blaze.

    Why Lithium-Ion Packs Are Both Essential and Perilous

    The very property that makes lithium-ion batteries indispensable for compact electric vehicles also makes them dangerous when something goes wrong. Dr Simon Jones of the University of Warwick, who led research into e-bike and e-scooter battery safety for the Office for Product Safety and Standards, explained the mechanism.

    “If these batteries are faulty, over-charged or damaged, the stored energy may be released rapidly in the form of flame jets and burning projectiles,” he said. “If this occurs in the home this is likely to result in a fast spreading fire that can engulf a room in seconds and block escape routes, trapping people inside. These fires also release toxic fumes from the batteries that pose a serious risk to health.”

    The chemistry is unforgiving: a small pouch of lithium-ion cells stores enough energy to power a commute, yet a single short circuit or thermal runaway event can discharge that energy as a jet of flame and molten particulate matter, filling enclosed spaces with carbon monoxide, hydrogen fluoride, and other corrosive gases.

    A Night in Hither Green

    Jahmell Campbell, 24, was at his grandmother’s flat in Hither Green, south-east London, in March of last year when his e-scooter erupted into flames beside the front door.

    “It was the loudest explosion I’d ever heard,” he recalled.

    The only viable exit was a window. Campbell jumped, ran to the rear of the building, and realised his grandmother was still trapped inside. His father threw a blanket down; Campbell’s grandmother was lowered through the window and caught by family members below. She sustained minor injuries from striking a windowsill on the descent.

    “Somehow we all made it out with our lives intact, which honestly shouldn’t have happened,” Campbell added.

    Six fire engines were dispatched to extinguish the blaze. The flat, where his grandmother had lived for more than two decades, was rendered uninhabitable.

    A Market Growing Faster Than Its Safety Net

    The Bicycle Association, the cycling industry’s trade body, estimates that an average of 153,000 new e-bikes have entered UK roads each year since 2020. New units at high-street retailers such as Halfords or Decathlon typically range from roughly £400 to £4,000. Yet second-hand vehicles and unregulated conversion kits circulate on online marketplaces for as little as £150, often without any traceable safety certification.

    UK regulation requires that any lithium-ion battery sold domestically for these vehicles meet government-set safety standards covering safe charging behaviour, thermal management, and physical damage protection. The government’s “Buy Safe, Be Safe” campaign cautions that while millions ride these vehicles without incident daily, fire risk climbs sharply when units fail to meet safety rules, sustain physical damage, undergo unauthorised modification, or are paired with an incompatible charger. Consumers are advised to look for UKCA or CE product-safety markings before purchase.

    Coroners Push for Systemic Change

    At least five Prevention of Future Deaths reports have been issued by coroners since 2023, each carrying recommendations aimed at tightening public-safety measures around electric two-wheeler storage, charging practices, and product labelling. Among the cases examined was that of eight-year-old Luke Albiston-O’Donnel, whose death prompted scrutiny of how unregulated batteries enter the domestic supply chain.

    As the fleet of electric two-wheelers continues to expand at a pace that outstrips regulatory oversight, the data underscores a simple reality: the convenience of a silent, pedal-assisted commute carries a hidden thermal cost that no consumer should be expected to absorb alone. Until certification enforcement tightens and second-hand marketplaces carry verifiable safety histories, the next garage fire may be closer than most riders realise.

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