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Xbox Now Wants Your Face to Let You Play Games You Already Own in Singapore

Singapore gamers who bought and downloaded Xbox titles years ago are now being told they need to prove they’re adults before they can keep playing them.

Microsoft has started rolling out identity verification requirements across its Xbox and Microsoft Store platforms in Singapore, demanding face scans, government ID uploads, or authentication through the country’s national digital identity system, Singpass.

The price of accessing games you already own is now a biometric selfie or a copy of your passport.

The trigger is Singapore’s Online Safety Code of Practice for App Distribution Services, a regulation from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) that took effect on April 1, 2026.

The rule requires app stores to prevent anyone estimated to be under 18 from downloading apps rated for adults, including dating services and content with sexual material. Five storefronts are covered: Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei AppGallery, and Microsoft Store (which includes Xbox).

Each company has chosen its own methods for compliance. The methods vary, but they all share one thing in common: they collect sensitive personal data that didn’t exist in the platform’s records before this regulation.

Microsoft announced its approach on March 17, 2026, framing the verification as optional, while making it mandatory for anyone who wants full access.

“Microsoft users in Singapore will have multiple options to complete age assurance for our stores, giving people flexibility while prioritising privacy,” the company wrote, listing those options as Singpass verification, “secure facial age estimation using a selfie,” or uploading “an official government ID such as a national ID, driver’s license, passport, or residence permit.”

The company describes this as a one-time process. What it doesn’t describe is who processes the data, how long it exists in transit, or what happens if the system holding it gets breached.

Discord learned this lesson last year when its own partner leaked user data. The company that promises to delete your face scan still has to receive it first.

Singapore residents have started receiving emails from Xbox notifying them about the verification requirement, prompting confusion and concern.

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China sold Iran spy satellite that was used to target U.S. bases: report

ran secretly purchased a spy satellite from China in 2024, which it then used to target U.S. bases. 

According to the Financial Times, Earth Eye Co, a Chinese company, built and launched a TEE-01B satellite in 2024. After it was launched into space from China, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Corp purchased the satellite, leaked Iranian military documents show. 

Iran used the satellite to monitor major U.S. military sites. Satellite imagery was taken in March prior to drone and missile strikes on the military locations. The sites included Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. On March 14, President Donald Trump said aircraft at the base were hit in missile strikes. 

Trump said Wednesday that China has agreed not to send weapons to Iran, but China has not confirmed the statements. 

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Scientist Suggests DARK MATTER Could Be BLACK HOLES From A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE

While the scientific establishment has spent decades chasing invisible particles that never quite show up, a leading cosmologist has dropped a theory that turns everything on its head: dark matter isn’t some exotic new particle. It could be ancient black holes that survived from an entirely different universe.

This idea, laid out by Professor Enrique Gaztanaga of the University of Portsmouth, doesn’t just tackle one cosmic puzzle. It offers a clean fix for the Big Bang’s thorniest problems and lines up with fresh observations that have astronomers scrambling.

Gaztanaga argues the elusive substance that makes up roughly 27 per cent of the universe’s mass may actually be “relic” black holes formed in a previous collapsing phase of the cosmos.

“The idea is that dark matter may not be a new particle, but instead a population of black holes formed in a previous collapsing phase and bounce of the Universe,” Professor Gaztanaga says.

He rejects the standard singularity model where everything explodes from an infinitely dense point that breaks physics. Instead, he proposes a “bouncing” universe.

“The Big Bang corresponds to a bounce from a previous collapsing phase, rather than the absolute beginning of everything,” the Professor Gaztanaga further noted, adding “So it is the start of the expansion we observe, but not necessarily the beginning of time itself.”

In this picture, black holes from the collapsing galaxies of that earlier universe survived the bounce and now drift through our cosmos, exerting gravity without emitting light.

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Will Americans Keep Paying a ‘Tariff Tax’?

When Eileen Nusselt and Gio Cox got married earlier this year, they skipped the traditional registry and asked their guests to donate to a home renovation fund. Yet as tariffs have pushed up the price of materials like lumber and paint, that money isn’t going as far as they expected. 

“We’re having to cut off projects that we really want to do,” said Cox, who lives with his wife in Charleston, South Carolina.

Many of the Trump administration’s signature tariffs were struck down earlier this year, but the couple doesn’t expect prices to fall anytime soon. “What incentive do any of these big companies have to lower their prices?” Nusselt asked. Especially, she added, “if they’re getting money back” from the government in the form of tariff refunds.

After the Supreme Court ruled in February that the Trump administration lacked the authority under emergency economic powers to levy many of its tariffs, the Court of International Trade ordered the federal government to process refunds — plus interest — to the more than 330,000 companies that have paid roughly $166 billion in tariffs now considered illegal. Since then, more than 2,000 companies have filed suit against the federal government to demand their refunds.

American consumers, however, will likely not be compensated for the tariff costs they bore, passed on through higher prices. Indeed, as taxpayers, they may be responsible for the interest that accrues each day the government does not process refunds.

But the cost of tariffs largely fell on shoppers, not companies.

Transferring Tariff Costs

According to analysis from the Budget Lab at Yale, prices of consumer goods (excluding more volatile food and energy) rose more than 2% throughout 2025 and into January 2026, reversing recent declines and adding to evidence that the costs of tariffs are being passed on to consumers. 

Tariffs accounted for an estimated 86% of the rise in prices for imported household goods through January, with the passthrough even more pronounced for long-lasting durable goods like cars, appliances and furniture, the Yale researchers found.

Some company leaders have spoken publicly about incorporating tariffs into their pricing. In a call with investors last May, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said the retail behemoth would “do our best to keep our prices as low as possible,” but also that “higher tariffs will result in higher prices.” In an August 2025 earnings call, Home Depot Executive Vice President of Merchandising Billy Bastek spoke of “some modest price movement” due to tariffs.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC in January that the company stocked up on items  before the tariffs were instituted to keep prices low, but that supply ran out last fall. “You start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices,” he said.

An analysis by congressional Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee found that American consumers paid more than $231 billion in total tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, amounting to roughly $1,745 per household.

“Tariffs are regressive in nature, and they impact low- and middle-income families more than wealthy individuals,” said Ryan Mulholland, a senior fellow focused on international economic policy at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. Lower-income people not only spend a greater share of their income, they’re also more likely to buy cheaper, imported items — the kind likely subject to tariffs. At the same time, tariffs may contribute to inflation more broadly, which also disproportionately affects households with less financial flexibility.

“As budgets get tighter, tariff pressures bite more,” said Mulholland. Indeed, researchers at the Budget Lab at Yale found that, as a share of income, tariffs may burden the poorest households more than three times as much as the wealthiest.

Currently, only “importers of record” are entitled to refunds per U.S. trade law, and companies don’t have a legal obligation to pass any of that money on to the consumers who paid higher prices.

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NY’s ‘green elephant’ climate projects are collapsing under the weight of . . . math

Nearly two dozen New York clean energy projects are likely to get scrapped because the financial math doesn’t add up — though the state powers that be don’t want to admit that it never did.

Officially, the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, aka NYSERDA, is simply refusing to renegotiate state contracts to build various wind and solar plants, likely leading its counterparties to pull out.

These companies want more cash because the projects’ costs have soared since the deals were inked — mainly because NYSERDA winked at unlikely early estimates with an expectation that it would OK more realistic numbers later on.

In at least one earlier round, it simply rebid the contracts to reflect true costs, but that game is up now that those costs are becoming undeniable, and consumers are already screaming at the electric rate hikes needed to cover the bills.

It’s all part of the con that is New York’s 2019 Climate Act, a scam that set insane goals for decarbonizing the state’s electricity grid and outlined imaginary steps to paint the transition as practical. 

Green ideologues always figure deception is the best way to get governments started on such “reforms,” hoping they can then hector the politicians into keeping the scam going by concealing how exorbitant the costs really are.

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo jumped on board as he eyed a presidential run; his successor, Kathy Hochul, declined to call out the lunacy until now, when she’s running for re-election as the economic pain starts to hit.

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Four out of five patients reported improvement or stabilisation of their cancer after 6 months of treatment with ivermectin and mebendazole

We have completed the largest real-world human analysis to date evaluating ivermectin and mebendazole in cancer patients – and the results represent one of the most compelling clinical signals ever documented for repurposed anti-parasitic therapies in oncology.

The manuscript is now available as a preprint on the Zenodo research repository, operated by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, while undergoing peer review at leading oncology journals: ‘Real-World Clinical Outcomes of Ivermectin and Mebendazole in Cancer Patients: Results from a Prospective Observational Cohort’.

In this real-world prospective clinical programme evaluation, a diverse population of cancer patients (n=197) were prescribed compounded ivermectin–mebendazole, with each capsule containing 25 mg ivermectin and 250 mg mebendazole.

At approximately six months post-treatment initiation,we observed an 84.4% Clinical Benefit Ratio (“CBR”), with nearly half of cancer patients (48.4%) reporting either no evidence of disease (32.8%) or tumour regression (15.6%).An additional 36.1% reported disease stabilisation. This means more than four out of five patients reported either improvement or stabilisation of their cancer.

These results indicate that the inexpensive and safe off-label applications of these medications could be an important complement in the treatment of cancer.

The groundbreaking analysis was made possible through a unique collaboration between The Wellness Company, the McCullough Foundation, and the Chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel – uniting real-world clinical data, frontline medical experience and high-level epidemiologic expertise to deliver urgently needed insights in oncology.

This work was conducted byNicolas Hulscher, MPH (myself); Kelly Victory, MD; James A. Thorp, MD; Drew Pinsky, MD; Alejandro Diaz-Villalobos, MD; Peter Gillooly, MSc; Foster Coulson; Melissa Annazone; Chloe Radesi; Jessica Brooks; Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH; and Harvey Risch, MD, PhD (Chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel).

The paper can be accessed HERE.

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Elon Musk’s father insists Epstein is alive and ‘it’s absurd to think he is dead’

Elon Musk‘s father has claimed convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is still alive, insisting it is ‘absurd’ to believe he died in jail.

Errol Musk, 79, made the remarks during a primetime interview on Russian state television controlled by Vladimir Putin, where he repeated conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s death.

Epstein was found dead in his prison cell on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, in a case that fuelled widespread speculation.

His death was officially ruled a suicide by New York City’s chief medical examiner, though conspiracy theories have persisted in the years since.

‘In my opinion, it’s absurd to think that he is dead. It’s ridiculous,’ he said.

This prompted groans from the studio audience, but he went on: ‘The prison guards have come out to say that he was swapped out the night before he was supposed to commit suicide.

‘The cameras were off at the wrong time, the guards went to sleep.

‘It’s absolutely absurd to think that this man is [dead]. He’s alive and well.’

Errol is on a visit to Russia.

He said last year that ‘as a family… we are a little bit in awe of Mr. Putin’.

At the weekend, Errol was seen at a Moscow cathedral for a Russian Orthodox Easter midnight service attended by the Kremlin dictator.

The Russian president casually walked into the midnight cathedral service, apparently wearing heavy makeup, and looking weary and tired.

Putin’s annual appearance at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral near the Kremlin, to mark Orthodox Easter, came soon after he called a 32-hour ceasefire in the war – which his own troops violated.

The Easter ceasefire was broken by Russia after it attacked Ukrainian positions with drones on Saturday.

Ukraine’s military command reported nearly 470 Russian violations of the truce.

In a festive message at the Sunday service, Putin said: ‘The great holiday of Easter fills the hearts of millions of people with sincere joy, faith in the all-conquering power of life, in the triumph of love, goodness, and justice, and unites us around centuries-old paternal traditions, undeniable spiritual, moral values, and ideals.’

As his troops broke his declared ceasefire, he praised ‘our heroes – the participants and veterans of the special military operation’.

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Researchers: The Universe Is Expanding ‘Too Fast’ And Nothing We Know Can Explain It

New ultra-precise measurements have confirmed the cosmos is expanding faster than models based on the early universe predict, while a separate study has dramatically shortened estimates of how long the universe itself will last.

Astronomers have long observed a mismatch in the universe’s expansion rate depending on how it is measured. Local observations of nearby galaxies point to a faster rate, while data from the early universe, such as the cosmic microwave background, suggest a slower pace. This longstanding puzzle is known as the Hubble tension.

A major international collaboration, the H0 Distance Network (H0DN), has now produced one of the most accurate local measurements yet. The team combined decades of independent distance measurements—including observations of red giant stars, Type Ia supernovae, and different galaxy types—into a unified “Local Distance Network.” Their result: the Hubble constant stands at 73.50 ± 0.81 kilometers per second per megaparsec, with precision just over 1 percent.

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Senate Rejects Resolution to Block Further Military Action Against Iran

The U.S. Senate on April 15 voted against advancing a resolution to halt further U.S. military operations against Iran.

Senators voted 52–47 against advancing the bill.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), came as a privileged motion under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which was designed to constrain a president’s ability to prosecute military action without congressional approval. A privileged motion is given the highest priority in the Senate over other matters and allows an immediate debate and vote on the floor.

Duckworth’s resolution specifically calls for the removal of U.S. forces “from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.”

Democrats brought the resolution to a vote a week after President Donald Trump approved a two-week ceasefire to pursue further negotiations with the Iranian regime.

Washington and Tehran concluded a round of talks over the weekend without reaching an agreement on Iran’s nuclear pursuits, raising the potential for renewed fighting in the near future. Since then, Trump has ordered U.S. forces to enact a blockade of Iranian ports.

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UK Southport Inquiry Pushes Mass Surveillance and VPN Restrictions

On July 29 2024, a teenager walked into a children’s Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England, and murdered three young girls with a knife. He injured ten others.

It was, by any measure, one of the most horrifying attacks on British soil in recent memory, and what followed should have been a reckoning with the catastrophic state failures that let it happen.

Instead, the British government looked at the smoldering aftermath and decided the real enemy was the internet, and the solution just so happens to be the mass surveillance censorship proposals the government is already working on.

After the attack, outrage on social media turned to protests. Protests became riots. And the state’s response landed with a speed and ferocity that it had never managed to direct at, say, the agencies that let a known danger walk free for years.

A former childcarer named Lucy Connolly was jailed for 31 months for a single post on X. That is three months longer than the sentence given to a man who physically attacked a mosque during the same period of unrest.

The UK was already a country where arrests for “offensive” social media posts had nearly doubled in seven years, climbing from 5,502 in 2017 to 12,183 in 2023. The overall conviction rate for those arrests was falling at the same time. Police were locking people up for what they typed at a rate that was going up, while the number of convictions that actually stuck was going down.

The Southport riots became the accelerant. A House of Commons Home Affairs Committee report used the unrest to call for a “new national system for policing” with enhanced capabilities to surveil social media activity, framing public anger as a problem of online “misinformation” rather than a consequence of the state’s own failures.

The state was dodging accountability by demanding censorship and surveillance and blaming the internet for unrest.

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