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Elon Musk’s platform X announced measures to prevent its AI chatbot Grok from undressing images of real people, but the Philippines on Thursday said it would become the latest country to block the online tool in a growing global backlash.Pressure had been building on Musk’s xAI, the developer of Grok, to rein in the chatbot after it was used to generate a flood of lewd photos of women and children.The company’s announcement came after California’s attorney general launched an investigation into xAI over the sexually explicit material, and multiple countries either blocked access to Grok or opened their own probes.X said Wednesday it will “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to create images of people in “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in those jurisdictions where such actions are deemed illegal.”We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing,” X’s safety team said, adding that the restriction applied to “all users” without exceptions.In an “extra layer of protection,” image creation and the ability to edit photos via X’s Grok account was now only available to paid subscribers, they added.But the Philippines said Thursday it planned to block Grok nationwide, joining Southeast Asian neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia.”By tonight or within today, we are expecting (Grok) to be blocked in the entire Philippines,” Renato Paraiso, acting executive director of the country’s cybercrime center, told AFP.He said X’s pledge to limit access would have no effect on the plans, adding that the government would watch to see if the platform follows through on its promises.”We need to clean the internet now because much toxic content is appearing, especially with the advent of AI,” Philippine telecommunications secretary Henry Rhoel Aguda said.- ‘Shocking’ -Grok’s so-called “Spicy Mode” feature allowed users to create deepfakes using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes.”An analysis of more than 20,000 Grok-generated images by Paris non-profit AI Forensics found that more than half depicted “individuals in minimal attire” — most of them women, and two percent appearing to be minors.The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, had said it would “carefully assess” additional measures taken by X to stop the deluge to ensure “they effectively protect citizens.”California Governor Gavin Newsom said that xAI’s “vile” decision to allow sexually explicit deepfakes to proliferate prompted him to urge the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta to hold the company accountable.”The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said on Wednesday.”We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material.”Bonta said the California investigation would determine whether xAI violated state law after the explicit imagery was “used to harass people across the internet.”- Posts removed -Adding further pressure onto Musk’s company Wednesday, a coalition of 28 civil society groups submitted open letters to the CEOs of Apple and Google, urging them to ban Grok and X from their app stores amid the surge in sexualized images.Indonesia on Saturday became the first country to block access to Grok entirely, with Malaysia following the next day.On Thursday, Malaysia’s communications minister said national regulators had found that X’s steps to prevent Grok generating indecent images were “not done in totality.”If X can successfully deactivate and prevent the generation of such online content considered harmful, Malaysia will lift the temporary restriction imposed on Grok, Minister Fahmi Fadzil said.India has said X removed thousands of posts and hundreds of user accounts in response to its complaints.And Britain’s Ofcom media regulator on Thursday called X’s new measures a “welcome development.””However, our formal investigation remains ongoing,” an Ofcom spokesperson said, referring to a probe it announced this week into whether X failed to comply with British law over the sexual images.

Four International Space Station crewmembers splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, NASA footage showed, after the first ever medical evacuation in the orbital lab’s history.A video feed from NASA showed the capsule carrying American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui land off the coast of San Diego at 12:41 am (0841 GMT).A health issue prompted their mission to be cut short, after spending five months in space.The US space agency has declined to disclose any details about the health issue but stressed the return was not an emergency situation.The affected crewmember “was and continues to be in stable condition,” NASA official Rob Navias said Wednesday.Fincke, the SpaceX Crew-11 pilot, said in a social media post earlier this week: “First and foremost, we are all OK. Everyone on board is stable, safe, and well cared for.””This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It’s the right call, even if it’s a bit bittersweet.”The Crew-11 quartet arrived at the ISS in early August and had been scheduled to stay onboard the space station until they were rotated out in mid-February with the arrival of the next crew.James Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer, said “lingering risk” and a “lingering question as to what that diagnosis is” led to the decision to bring back the crew earlier than originally scheduled.American astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who arrived at the station in November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, remained on the ISS.The Russian Roscosmos space agency operates alongside NASA on the outpost, and the two agencies take turns transporting a citizen of the other country to and from the orbiter — one of the few areas of bilateral cooperation that still endure between the United States and Russia.- Ready for the unexpected – Continuously inhabited since 2000, the International Space Station seeks to showcase multinational cooperation, bringing together Europe, Japan, the United States and Russia.Located some 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) above Earth, the ISS functions as a testbed for research that supports deeper space exploration — including eventual missions to return humans to the Moon and onward to Mars.The four astronauts who were evacuated had been trained to handle unexpected medical situations, said Amit Kshatriya, a senior NASA official, praising how they have dealt with the situation.The ISS is set to be decommissioned after 2030, with its orbit gradually lowered until it breaks up in the atmosphere over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, a spacecraft graveyard.

Elon Musk’s platform X on Wednesday announced measures to prevent its AI chatbot Grok from undressing images of real people, following global backlash over its generation of sexualized photos of women and children.The announcement comes after California’s attorney general launched an investigation into Musk’s xAI — the developer of Grok — over the sexually explicit material and multiple countries either blocked access to the chatbot or launched their own probes.X said it will “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to create images of people in “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in those jurisdictions where such actions are deemed illegal.”We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” X’s safety team said.”This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”In an “extra layer of protection,” image creation and the ability to edit photos via X’s Grok account was now only available to paid subscribers, the statement added.The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, earlier said it had taken note of “additional measures X is taking to ban Grok from generating sexualised images of women and children.””We will carefully assess these changes to make sure they effectively protect citizens in the EU,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.- ‘Shocking’ -Pressure had been building on xAI to rein in Grok after its so-called “Spicy Mode” feature allowed users to create sexualized deepfakes using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes.””The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said earlier Wednesday.”We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material.”Bonta said the California investigation would determine whether xAI violated state law after the explicit imagery was “used to harass people across the internet.”California Governor Gavin Newsom said that xAI’s “vile” decision to allow sexually explicit deepfakes to proliferate prompted him to urge the attorney general to hold the company accountable.Further adding pressure onto Musk’s company Wednesday, a coalition of 28 civil society groups submitted open letters to the CEOs of Apple and Google, urging them to ban Grok and X from their app stores amid the surge in sexualized images.Indonesia on Saturday became the first country to block access to Grok entirely, with neighboring Malaysia following the next day.On Thursday, Malaysia’s communications minister said national regulators had found that X’s steps to prevent Grok generating indecent images were “not done in totality”.If X can successfully deactivate and prevent the generation of such online content considered harmful, Malaysia will lift the temporary restriction imposed on Grok, minister Fahmi Fadzil said.India has said X removed thousands of posts and hundreds of user accounts in response to its complaints.And Britain’s Ofcom media regulator said Monday it was opening a probe into whether X failed to comply with UK law over the sexual images.Last week, an analysis of more than 20,000 Grok-generated images by Paris non-profit AI Forensics found that more than half depicted “individuals in minimal attire” — most of them women, and two percent appearing to be minors.

Four crewmembers were expected to splash down on Earth Thursday after a health issue prompted their mission to the International Space Station to be cut a month short — the first such medical evacuation in the orbital lab’s history.A video feed from NASA showed American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui undocking from the ISS at 2220 GMT Wednesday, after five months in space.The US space agency has declined to disclose which crewmember has the health problem or give details about the issue, but it has stressed the return is not an emergency situation.The affected crewmember “was and continues to be in stable condition,” NASA official Rob Navias said Wednesday.The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the four crewmembers is scheduled to splash down off the California coast at around 0840 GMT Thursday.”First and foremost, we are all OK. Everyone on board is stable, safe, and well cared for,” Fincke, the pilot of SpaceX Crew-11, said previously on a social media.”This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It’s the right call, even if it’s a bit bittersweet,” he added in the post this week.The Crew-11 quartet arrived at the ISS in early August and had been scheduled to stay onboard the space station until they were rotated out in mid-February with the arrival of the next crew.James Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer, said “lingering risk” and a “lingering question as to what that diagnosis is” led to the decision to bring back the crew earlier than originally scheduled.American astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who arrived at the station in November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, remained on the ISS.The Russian Roscosmos space agency operates alongside NASA on the outpost, and the two agencies take turns transporting a citizen of the other country to and from the orbiter — one of the few areas of bilateral cooperation that still endure between the United States and Russia.- Ready for the unexpected – Continuously inhabited since 2000, the International Space Station seeks to showcase multinational cooperation, bringing together Europe, Japan, the United States and Russia.Located some 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) above Earth, the ISS functions as a testbed for research that supports deeper space exploration — including eventual missions to return humans to the Moon and onward to Mars.The four astronauts being evacuated had been trained to handle unexpected medical situations, said Amit Kshatriya, a senior NASA official, praising how they have dealt with the situation.The ISS is set to be decommissioned after 2030, with its orbit gradually lowered until it breaks up in the atmosphere over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, a spacecraft graveyard.

US President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Thursday with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose pro-democracy movement he has sidelined since toppling her country’s leader, and whose Nobel Peace Prize he openly envies.Machado’s White House visit comes a day after Trump used glowing terms to describe his first known call with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez, confirming his satisfaction with the allies of Nicolas Maduro remaining in power, for now at least.Trump called Rodriguez a “terrific person” and hailed “terrific progress” made since US special forces seized Maduro and his wife in a deadly raid.Rodriguez meanwhile said the call was “productive and courteous,” and characterized by “mutual respect.””Many topics were discussed,” Trump said on social media, “including Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security.”Notably absent was any mention of a political transition, an issue that Washington has recently downplayed compared to economic concerns, especially access to Venezuelan oil.Machado, who campaigned for years to end Maduro’s rule, will seek Thursday to bring the issue back into the foreground.- Nobel sharing -Machado, 58, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for her activism in pursuit of democracy in Venezuela, despite threats of imprisonment by Maduro’s government.Venezuela’s opposition has argued and presented evidence that Maduro stole the 2024 election from Machado’s party, namely candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia — claims supported by Washington.Venezuela’s electoral authorities, seen as allied with Maduro, never released data from the vote.Hundreds of people were arrested in post-election protests, and while Gonzalez Urrutia fled to Europe for asylum, Machado remained in the country in a hidden location, appearing only intermittently at rallies.She appaeared in Oslo, Norway last month to collect her Nobel prize after a daring escape by boat, and has not yet returned to her home country.Trump has openly fumed about not being awarded the prize, calling it a “major embarrassment” for NATO ally Norway.Machado has offered to share her award with Trump, and the president indicated she might give it to him when they meet.”I understand she wants to do that. That would be a great honor,” Trump said in a recent Fox News interview.The Nobel Institute has stressed that the prize cannot be transferred from one person to another.- Prisoner releases -Under pressure from Washington, Venezuela has released dozens of political prisoners in the past week, though hundreds remain behind bars.Rodriguez claimed a total of 406 political prisoners had been released since December in a process that “has not yet concluded.”The Foro Penal legal rights NGO, which defends many of the detainees, gave a much smaller tally of around 180 freed.AFP’s count, based on data from NGOs and opposition parties, showed 70 people released since the fall of Maduro, who has been taken to the United States to face trial for alleged drug trafficking.To avoid scenes of jubilant opposition activists punching the air as they walk free from prison, the authorities have been releasing them quietly at other locations, far from the TV cameras and relatives waiting outside detention centers.

One year into his second term, US President Donald Trump is shattering the post-World War II order as never before, leaving a world that may be unrecognizable once he is through.Far from slowing down, Trump — who turns 80 in June — has rung in the new year with a slew of aggressive actions that brazenly defy the decades-old structure that was championed by the United States.Trump on January 3 ordered an attack on oil-rich Venezuela that left more than 100 people dead in which commandos snatched leftist president Nicolas Maduro, a longtime US nemesis.Since then, Trump has threatened force against both friend and foe.The Republican leader has ramped up calls to seize Greenland from NATO ally Denmark and warned of striking Iran as the clerical regime violently represses protests.He has also mused of military action in both Colombia and Mexico, although has appeared to back down after speaking to their presidents — a mercurial style his supporters say shows that Trump prefers diplomacy when he can achieve outcomes he likes.But Trump has also jettisoned traditional ways of statecraft as he vows to go it alone in his “America First” vision, most recently pulling the United States out of dozens more UN bodies and other international groups. “Many international organizations now serve a globalist project rooted in the discredited fantasy of the ‘End of History,'” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, referring to the post-Cold War hope of a stable world with a consensus for democracy.Trump’s unrepentant embrace of force has also played out at home. Led by Vice President JD Vance, his administration offered not even pro forma sympathy when a masked anti-immigration agent fatally shot a motorist in Minneapolis, instead surging in forces.Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s racially charged anti-immigrant campaign who has played a growing role in foreign policy as White House deputy chief of staff, said it was time to move beyond “international niceties.””We live in a world, in the real world… that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller said in a CNN interview.- No higher purpose -The United States led the creation of post-World War II international institutions from the United Nations to NATO, which Trump has also denounced as unfair to the United States.US leaders have frequently been accused of hypocrisy, such as in 2003 when George W. Bush invaded Iraq after bypassing the United Nations.The difference, some observers say, is that Trump rarely even makes the pretense of pursuing higher “universal” principles such as promoting democracy.In Venezuela, where Rubio and others had long branded Maduro illegitimate after reports of wide election irregularities, Trump has dismissed the opposition and said he wants to work with Maduro’s vice president, the new interim leader.Trump said the priority was to control Venezuela’s oil and that he would wield the threat of force to keep the country in line.French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the current American approach could spell an era of “new colonialism and new imperialism,” four years after Russia invaded Ukraine.”The United States is an established power, but one that is gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from international rules that it was still promoting recently,” Macron said.- Permanent changes -Melanie Sisson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the United States had long succeeded “without having to attack, conquer and invade.” “We were generally able to get our way, more often than not, using other tools of influence, exercised through international organizations and alliances,” she said.Even if Europe pines for the liberal order, Sisson said other powers are sure to follow Trump’s lead in pursuing raw self-interest.”I don’t think there’s going to be a reconstruction of the post-World War II international order as we might recognize it,” she said.”That doesn’t mean some of the core principles of that order couldn’t be reconstituted, but Trump is reshaping international politics in a way that will be durable.”One diplomat from a US ally, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be frank, said even if Trump’s methods can be shocking, the time was ripe for change.Russia and Israel both pursued military campaigns unimpeded by wide international condemnation, he said.”It was clear that the global order wasn’t working, even if we pretended it was.”

From playing football in the Oval Office to sipping cocktails on a sun lounger in Gaza and attacking critics from a fighter jet, Donald Trump has become the first US president to deploy AI-generated imagery as a key tool of political communications.In the first year of his second term in the White House, Trump ramped up his use of hyper-realistic but fabricated visuals on Truth Social and other platforms, often glorifying himself while lampooning his critics.Underscoring the strategy’s potential appeal to younger voters, similar AI-driven messaging has also been adopted by other arms of the Trump administration as well as by some of the president’s rivals.One of Trump’s posts depicts him playing football on the Oval Office’s carpeted floor with Cristiano Ronaldo, whom he describes as a “GREAT GUY” who is “really smart and cool.”Another AI post features Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunbathing at a lavish resort, with “Trump Gaza” emblazoned on a sign in the background.The clip followed Trump’s proposal last year to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” a suggestion that sparked widespread outrage. Trump or the White House have similarly shared AI-made images showing the president dressed as the pope, roaring alongside a lion, and conducting an orchestra at the Kennedy Center, a prestigious arts complex.”Welcome to the United States’ first White House administration to embrace and use imagery generated by artificial intelligence in everyday communication,” said a report by the nonprofit media institute Poynter.”With AI, Trump quickly deploys stereotypes and false narratives in entertaining posts that memorably distill complicated issues into their basest political talking points, regardless of factual basis.”- ‘Capture attention’ -Trump has reserved the most provocative AI posts for his rivals and critics, using them to rally his conservative base.Last year, he posted an AI video of former president Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.Later, he posted an AI clip of House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries — who is Black — wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero. Jeffries slammed the image as racist.”For someone like Trump, unregulated generative AI is the perfect tool to capture attention and distort reality,” Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the advocacy group Free Press, told AFP.”Obama was never arrested in the Oval Office. But calling Trump out for telling this lie won’t phase him or his followers. A leader who lies without any truth testing means that facts are contingent on Trump’s approval.”- ‘Nonstop political campaign’ -Analysts say the AI messaging amounts to a strategy of campaigning through trolling, a tactic that could resonate with voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections.”While it would in many ways be desirable for the president to stay above the fray and away from sharing AI-generated images, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he sees his time in office as a nonstop political campaign,” Joshua Tucker, co-director of the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP.”We should simply see his use of AI-generated political images as just one of many tools — his text- based social media posts often being another — he uses to continue this campaign.”In a study published last month by the scientific journal Nature, academics including Cornell University’s David Rand reported that human-AI dialogues may have a substantive effect on voters’ electoral decisions.Back-and-forth exchanges with AI tools advocating for political candidates shifted opposition voters’ preferences substantially in the United States, Canada and Poland, the study said.In a sign of its potency, Trump’s AI strategy has been mimicked by other departments of his administration and his critics.Trump’s health chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr — under fire over medical misinformation — recently promoted a “Make Santa Healthy Again” Christmas campaign using an AI video while the US  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployed AI imagery in its immigration crackdown.Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, trolled the president by posting an AI video on X depicting Trump and two senior administration officials in handcuffs.”It’s cuffing season,” the video declared.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr has long been known for vaccine skepticism and fringe views that bled into conspiracy — ideology he is now baking into the US public health system.In only a year since Donald Trump returned to the White House, experts say his health secretary’s reforms have stoked confusion over longstanding medical advice and diminished the global standing of US institutions, with potential ripple effects for decades.”The impact is real. The impact is certainly being seen across the board. And I think the scariest part is, we’re only in the first year,” epidemiologist Syra Madad told AFP.Former Democrat Kennedy — who allied with Trump after his own 2024 presidential campaign sputtered — has mostly won praise from his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement.But he has sparked outrage among medical groups, and some Republicans, with moves that have sown doubt about long-proven vaccine safety, slashed research funding, and weakened disease prevention programs, even as the US experiences its worst measles outbreak in years.Kennedy stacked a key immunization advisory panel with figures whose anti-vaccine sentiment mirrors his own, and overhauled the pediatric schedule of shots to recommend fewer.”I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown professor who has worked in public health law and policy for decades.Kennedy governs “through hunch, instinct and social media, not through science,” Gostin told AFP.At a recent event celebrating the rollout of new federal dietary guidelines, Kennedy told a crowd of supporters that “trusting the experts is not a feature of science” but rather “a feature of tyranny.””People in authority lie,” the government official continued, adding that people must act as “the CEOs of our own health.”The sentiment is part of a broad effort to not only sow distrust but to prioritize “individual choice” over “population protection,” said Madad, who is the biopreparedness officer for New York’s municipal health and hospitals network.- ‘Dysfunctional’ -MAHA adherents have broadly praised Kennedy’s initial efforts.And some public health advocates have found cautious optimism in a limited number of federal health priorities, even if they criticized the methods. Trump and Kennedy have sought to strike deals with pharma companies, urging them to voluntarily lower common drug prices along with appetite-suppressing medications.And in a rare alignment with mainstream scientific consensus, the administration vowed to remove synthetic dyes from food — primarily through voluntary compliance from industry.But Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group said he doesn’t see such strategies panning out.”There’s a graveyard of voluntary industry initiatives that shows that handshake agreements and industry commitments are no better than the paper they’re written on,” Faber told AFP.In the case of food coloring, Faber said those agreements were made possible because the Republican-leaning West Virginia in 2025 enacted a broad ban on synthetic dyes, setting a new standard.Many nutritionists also met with enthusiasm new dietary guidelines that strongly discouraged added sugars and highly processed foods — though an endorsement of red meat and full-fat dairy along with vague advice on limiting alcohol triggered worry.Nutritionist Marion Nestle told AFP that within the wider political context, such advice carries less weight.”Eating real food is not going to make America healthy again in the face of a public health system that is completely dysfunctional,” she told AFP.- ‘Generational trauma’ -Americans, especially parents, have been left with conflicting information and confusion.Pew Research Center polling showed 63 percent of Americans still have high confidence that childhood vaccines are effective at preventing severe illness. But it found uncertainty over safety testing, especially among Republicans.Rebuilding confidence in medical institutions could be difficult, Madad said.”This is going to be generational trauma.”Gostin said the United States has gone from a global leader in scientific innovation to a “laughingstock.””It’s impossible to overstate how much our reputation is dropped.”Researchers, he said, are leaving the government, the country or even the field — potentially creating major gaps in the development pipeline for treatments of deadly diseases.”There’s every reason to have deep concerns about the future,” Gostin said.

Growing up in a rural, religious community in western Canada, Kyle McCarthy loved hockey, but once he came out at 19, he quit, convinced being openly gay and an active player was untenable.So the 32-year-old says he is “very surprised” by the runaway success of “Heated Rivalry,” a Canadian-made series about the romance between two closeted gay players in a sport that has historically made gay men feel unwelcome.Ben Baby, the 43-year-old commissioner of the Toronto Gay Hockey Association (TGHA), calls the success of the show — which has catapulted its young lead actors to stardom — “shocking,” and says viewers have bought into its authentic portrait of a relationship.McCarthy and Baby are not alone — “Heated Rivalry” is a veritable cultural phenomenon. The show, an adaptation of a series of hockey-themed queer romance novels by Rachel Reid, charts the budding careers and secret relationship of two young hockey stars — one Canadian, one Russian — over a series of years.After premiering on the Canadian streaming platform Crave in late November, the series hit HBO Max and took off, becoming one of its most popular shows by Christmas.Variety called it “the biggest TV surprise” of 2025, and the show has even reportedly drawn a massive audience in China, where fans are watching pirated episodes.The stars, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, were unknown, struggling actors before being cast.Now, they are being mobbed by fans, joining A-listers on red carpets like at the Golden Globes, and have made their late night talk show debuts.”Our expectations were kind of nonexistent,” Storrie said on the Globes red carpet.”For it to turn out so good and also go on HBO and be involved in this level is unreal.”- ‘Toxic, homophobic’ -Writing in Maclean’s magazine in December, Reid — who is Canadian — said the novels were inspired by her “lifelong love of hockey, but also an awareness of the problems with the sport’s culture more broadly.””I thought a lot about how difficult it would be to be a closeted pro player.”For McCarthy, hockey was his first love — until it wasn’t.”My brother played, my sister played, my dad coached us all,” he told AFP. “Hockey was 100 percent of my life.”But by age 12, as he began to realize he was gay, McCarthy became uncomfortable in a sport he said had a “toxic, homophobic” culture.Quitting hockey at 19 “was awful,” he said.”I love the game and didn’t want to walk away from it,” he said. But his gear sat unused in his garage “for eight, nine years.”Then he reconnected with the sport through a Vancouver-based LGBTQ+ hockey association now called The Cutting Edges, where he is president. – ‘Safe space’ -Baby grew up in the northern Ontario city of Timmins, which, like many small Canadian communities, has a deeply rooted hockey culture.He told AFP he feared playing as a child, because he “instinctively” knew it “wouldn’t have been a safe space.”After moving to Toronto as a teenager in the late 90s and discovering the TGHA, Baby took up the sport.Hockey has made advances toward being more inclusive over the last 20 years, he said, but noted progress has been uneven.He said the NHL’s decision in 2023 to ban the use of rainbow-colored Pride tape on sticks was a “fiasco.”The league ultimately rescinded the ban due to player and public outrage.- Broader impact? -The NHL is alone among the so-called Big Four male professional sports leagues with no active or retired players who have come out as gay.Luke Prokop, a prospect drafted in 2020 who is gay, has not yet appeared in an NHL game.For McCarthy, the absence of an openly gay NHL player is “100 percent” due to persistent issues with hockey culture.Baby nevertheless credited the NHL with quieter efforts to make LGBT fans feel welcome and applauded the league’s apparent embrace of “Heated Rivalry.””There are so many ways to get hooked on hockey and, in the NHL’s 108-year history, this might be the most unique driver for creating new fans,” the league said last month.Baby noted that popular podcasts hosted by “straight hockey bros” are offering commentary on each episode.”Queer characters are often flat, one-sided and stereotypical,” but the leads in “Heated Rivalry” are “complex,” he said.”They’re rich, they’re interesting. They’re the antidote to stereotypes.”Asked whether he believed “Heated Rivalry” could make hockey more welcoming for the LGBTQ community, McCarthy said: “I hope it can, I don’t know that it will.”

The number of people tuning in to watch the Golden Globe Awards shrank this year, organizers announced Wednesday, as Hollywood’s gala evenings continue to struggle with declining viewership.Around 8.7 million people in the United States watched the star-studded ceremony in which Paul Thomas Anderson’s conspiracy epic “One Battle After Another” dominated the prizes.That figure is down from the 9.3 million who tuned in last year, according to numbers from the Nielsen Institute, and is around half the size of the audiences just before the Covid-19 pandemic.The Globes, long billed as Hollywood’s biggest party, and the raucous forerunner to the awards season finale Oscars, were beset by scandal and accusations of racism that led to the Globes not even being aired in 2022.The gala was ultimately dropped by long-time broadcaster NBC, but relaunched with CBS in 2024 under new ownership, and has undergone significant reforms aimed at stamping out perceptions of corruption and racism.Sunday night’s bash saw Hollywood’s best and brightest out in force for an evening fronted by comedian Nikki Glaser, whose acerbic opening monologue was watched nearly 14 million times on social media over the first 36 hours, organizers said.Among her zingers was a jab at the US Department of Justice, which she said should be in line for the Best Editing Award for its handling of the heavily redacted files on President Donald Trump’s one-time friend, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.As well as significant victories for “One Battle After Another,” key winners on the evening included William Shakespeare family tragedy “Hamnet,” which won best drama film and a best female actor prize for Jessie Buckley as a distraught mother.Timothee Chalamet and Brazilian Wagner Moura added to their awards season momentum with prizes for “Marty Supreme” and “The Secret Agent,” respectively.The Golden Globes are seen as a leading indicator of success in the Oscars, which take place in Hollywood this year on March 15.