Elaine McCallig

4 weeks ago | tortoisemedia.com | Elaine McCallig

On the same day Donald Trump announced his now-paused tariffs, Nintendo revealed their latest handheld gaming console Switch 2 would be released on 5 June. The timing couldn’t have been worse. After just 48 hours Nintendo paused pre-sales of the $450 console in the US to assess the impact of the tariffs. China, which now faces US tariffs of 145 per cent, is home to around 30 per cent of Nintendo’s manufacturing operation, serving non-US customers.

1 month ago | tortoisemedia.com | Elaine McCallig

Scrapping juries in cases involving less serious offences could drastically reduce the length and cost of trials, according to the Times’ Crime and Justice Commission. The commission calls for a new “intermediate court” where cases involving “lower-level crimes”, such as theft, would be tried by a judge and two magistrates instead of a jury.

1 month ago | tortoisemedia.com | Elaine McCallig

The dire wolf has been brought back from extinction after 13,000 years thanks to the “science of de-extinction”, a US biotech firm claims. The company, Colossal Biosciences, used ancient dire wolf DNA to breed three puppies: Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi. Using a 13,000-year-old tooth and 72,000-year-old skull, scientists deciphered the dire wolf’s genome and edited a grey wolf’s genetic code to match it.

1 month ago | tortoisemedia.com | Elaine McCallig

Beijing has been conducting military exercises around Taiwan for years, but a trio of vessels is causing fresh alarm. The three new barges link together to create a bridge stretching half a mile, and for stability in shallow waters they can prop themselves up on retractable stilts. This solves a logistical problem for China’s Xi Jinping: the Taiwan Strait is notoriously choppy and much of the island’s west coast is banded by shallow waters, making it impossible for large ships to land.

1 month ago | tortoisemedia.com | Elaine McCallig

Itamar Greenberg, 18, spent 197 days in jail for refusing Israel’s mandatory conscription. He told the human rights charity Amnesty that he “did not want to be involved in perpetrating genocide”, a claim that Israel rejects. A growing number of young people are becoming conscientious objectors, but the overall total remains tiny: only a dozen Israeli teens have publicly refused to enlist in the army on conscientious grounds since the start of the war in Gaza.