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Hollywood filmmaker Carl Rinsch was hired by Netflix to make a new science-fiction series. Instead, federal prosecutors say, he embezzled more than $11 million from the streaming giant and spent it on luxury cars and crypto. Rinsch, known for the 2013 film “47 Ronin” starring Keanu Reeves, was indicted this week on charges of wire fraud and money laundering and could face decades in prison if convicted in connection with the alleged scam. The indictment was filed in a federal court in New York and unsealed on Tuesday. The 47-year-old filmmaker was arrested the same day. “Carl Rinsch allegedly stole more than $11 million from a prominent streaming platform to finance lavish purchases and personal investments instead of completing a promised television series,” FBI Assistant Director Leslie Backschies said in a statement.Although Netflix is never named in the filing, Rinsch was previously reported to be in a dispute with the company over a planned series initially titled “White Horse” and later renamed “Conquest.”The indictment says the show was meant to focus on a scientist who created a group of powerful clones “banished to a walled area in a Brazilian city, where they began developing advanced technology and came into conflict with humans and each other.”It features still photos from “six short-form episodes” that were apparently completed by Rinsch to pitch the show. He ultimately entered into a deal with Netflix to create a full season of episodes.That deal was reached “in or about 2018,” the indictment says. Netflix then paid “approximately $44 million” for the show’s production between 2018 and 2019, during the peak of the streaming boom.Those funds were transferred to Rinsch’s production company, and his request for an additional $11 million to purportedly finish the project was granted.But Rinsch allegedly quickly transferred the money through a number of accounts for his own personal use.Among the purchases Rinsch allegedly made were luxury clothing and furniture, a Ferrari and five Rolls-Royces, dodgy stock market buys, investing in cryptocurrency, and paying for lawyers to sue the streamer and handle his divorce.”The FBI will continue to reel in any individual who seeks to defraud businesses,” Backschies said.Netflix declined to comment when contacted by AFP about the case. 

Our earliest years are a time of rapid learning, yet we typically cannot recall specific experiences from that period — a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia.A new study published in Science on Thursday challenges assumptions about infant memory, showing that young minds do indeed form memories. The question remains, however, why these memories become difficult to retrieve later in life.”I’ve always been fascinated by this mysterious blank spot we have in our personal history,” Nick Turk-Browne, professor of psychology at Yale and the study’s senior author, told AFP.Around the age of one, children become extraordinary learners — acquiring language, walking, recognizing objects, understanding social bonds, and more. “Yet we remember none of those experiences — so there’s a sort of mismatch between this incredible plasticity and learning ability that we have,” he said.Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, hypothesized that early memories are repressed, though science has since largely dismissed the idea of an active suppression process. Instead, modern theories focus on the hippocampus, a part of the brain critical for episodic memory, which is not fully developed in infancy.Turk-Browne, however, was intrigued by clues from previous behavioral research. Since babies cannot verbally report memories before acquiring language, their tendency to gaze longer at familiar things provides important hints.Recent rodent studies monitoring brain activity have also shown that engrams — patterns of cells that store memories — form in the infant hippocampus but become inaccessible over time — though they can be artificially reawakened through a technique that uses light to stimulate neurons.But until now, pairing observations of infants with brain imaging had been out of reach, as babies are famously uncooperative when it comes to sitting still inside a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine — the device that tracks blood flow to “see” brain activity.- Psychedelic patterns -To overcome this challenge, Turk-Browne’s team used methods his lab has refined over the years — working with families to incorporate pacifiers, blankets, and stuffed animals; holding babies still with pillows; and using psychedelic background patterns to keep them engaged.Still, inevitable wiggling led to blurry images that had to be discarded, but the team accounted for this by running hundreds of sessions.In total, 26 infants participated — half under a year old, half over — while their brains were scanned during a memory task adapted from adult studies.First, they were shown images of faces, scenes, or objects. Later, after viewing other images, they were presented with a previously seen image alongside a new one.”We quantify how much time they spend looking at the old thing they’ve seen before, and that’s a measure of their memory for that image,” said Turk-Browne.By comparing brain activity during successful memory formation versus forgotten images, the researchers confirmed that the hippocampus is active in memory encoding from a young age.This was true for 11 of 13 infants over a year old but not for those under one. They also found that babies who performed best on memory tasks showed greater hippocampal activity.”What we can conclude accurately from our study is that infants have the capacity to encode episodic memories in the hippocampus starting around one year of age,” said Turk-Browne.- Forgotten Memories -“The ingenuity of their experimental approach should not be understated,” researchers Adam Ramsaran and Paul Frankland wrote in an accompanying Science editorial.But what remains unresolved is what happens to these early memories. Perhaps they are never fully consolidated into long-term storage — or perhaps they persist but become inaccessible.Turk-Browne suspects the latter and is now leading a new study testing whether infants, toddlers, and children can recognize video clips recorded from their own perspective as younger babies.Early, tentative results suggest these memories might persist until around age three before fading. Turk-Browne is particularly intrigued by the possibility that such fragments could one day be reactivated later in life.

The United States fell to its lowest happiness ranking ever partly due to a rise in the number of Americans eating their meals alone, an annual UN-sponsored report said Thursday.Finland ranked as the world’s happiest country for the eighth straight year in the World Happiness Report, with locals and experts thanking its grand lakes and strong welfare system for boosting its mood.Afghanistan, plagued by a humanitarian catastrophe since the Taliban regained control in 2020, once again ranked as the unhappiest country in the world.The United States fell to 24th place, its lowest score since the report was first published in 2012, when it recorded its highest showing at number 11.”The number of people dining alone in the United States has increased 53 percent over the past two decades,” the authors said, noting that sharing meals “is strongly linked with well-being”.In 2023, roughly one in four Americans reported eating all their meals alone the previous day, the report said.”The increasing number of people who eat alone is one reason for declining well-being in the United States,” it said.It also noted that the United States was one of few countries to see a rise of so-called “deaths of despair” — from suicide or substance abuse — at a time when those deaths are declining in a majority of countries.The report surveyed people worldwide in 2022-2024, before US President Donald Trump’s shakeup of national and global affairs since returning to the White House in January.Nordic countries all stayed among the 10 happiest, with Denmark, Iceland and Sweden trailing Finland, which slightly extended its lead over runner-up Denmark.Meanwhile, Costa Rica and Mexico entered the top 10 for the first time, at the sixth and 10th spot respectively.The happiness ranking is based on a three-year average of individuals’ self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, as well as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.- Finns ‘relatively satisfied’ -“It seems that Finnish people are relatively satisfied with their lives,” Frank Martela, an assistant professor specialised in well-being and happiness research at Aalto University, told AFP.It could largely be explained by Finns living in “quite a well-functioning society”, he said.”Democracy is functioning well, we have free elections, free speech, low levels of corruption and all of these have shown to predict higher levels of national well-being,” Martela said.He added that the Nordic countries also all have relatively strong welfare systems — with parental leave, unemployment benefits and mostly universal healthcare — which also contribute to higher levels of well-being on average.Eveliina Ylitolonen, a 23-year-old student in Helsinki, said she believed that Finns’ focus on enjoying beautiful nature could help explain the consistently high level of happiness in the Nordic country, known for its deep forests and over 160,000 lakes.”Nature is an important part of this happiness,” Ylitolonen told AFP.Jamie Sarja-Lambert, a professional video gamer who moved to Finland from the United Kingdom, agreed.”Seems like everyone is a lot more in touch with nature, going outside and socialising, more of a community,” he told AFP.This year, the authors of the happiness report said new evidence indicates that engaging in acts of generosity and believing in the kindness of others are “significant predictors of happiness, even more so than earning a higher salary”.They also noted that in general “people are too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities”, and that “the return rate of lost wallets is much higher than people expect”.Nordic countries also “rank among the top places for expected and actual return of lost wallets”.

Donald Trump promised a new “Golden Age” for America. In the Oval Office, at least, he has lived up to his promise with a blingy makeover.The Republican has decked out the inner sanctum of the US presidency with gilded trophies and gold-plated, Trump-branded coasters, and filled almost every available inch of wall space with portraits of his predecessors.Almost every day seems to bring something new. This week Trump unveiled a copy of the Declaration of Independence — the historic document triggering America’s freedom from the British monarchy 250 years ago.Far more than during his first term, it’s as if the 78-year-old former reality TV star and billionaire property mogul is creating something that is part-studio and part-exclusive real estate.”President Trump is very good at playing the role of Donald Trump,” Peter Loge, director of George Washington University’s School of Media, told AFP.”The show is the point. Part of the show is the bling. It would be surprising if Trump did not remake the Oval Office into a TV set that reflected his brand.”- Presidential portraits -But there’s also a serious political message behind Trump’s frenetic redecoration.The Oval Office is the most potent symbol of American power, a backdrop to his frequent news conferences and televised meetings with foreign dignitaries — including a recent meltdown between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.It was, therefore, no coincidence when the gallery of presidential portraits got a new addition: the 19th-century president James Polk.Under Polk, the 11th US president, the United States saw its biggest period of territorial expansion by taking in huge swaths of the west coast, the southwest and Texas. It was a clear piece of political symbolism at a time that Trump is alarming allies by openly talking about annexing Greenland, reclaiming the Panama Canal and taking over Gaza.- ‘Would Biden do this?’ -Each president picks most of their decor from similar sources including the White House art collection, but they still manage to stamp a very personal touch on the Oval.The difference from Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden could hardly be greater — as the 47th president himself is well aware.”Do you think Joe Biden would do this? I don’t think so,” Trump said Tuesday as he pulled back light-protecting drapes on the Declaration of Independence in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle.”Trump also pointed out gold cherubs newly installed above the doorways. “They say angels bring good luck,” he said.Biden’s Oval was a relative model of restraint with five portraits around the famed fireplace, including wartime president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s directly above the hearth.Trump has nine — and that doesn’t count others near his desk, including Republican icon Ronald Reagan’s.While Biden had a sprawling Swedish ivy plant that reputedly dated back to John F. Kennedy on the mantelpiece, Trump has seven ornate gilded vessels, some of which are more than 200 years old.And while both Trump and Biden had a bust of civil rights leader Martin Luther King on display, Trump has brought back the bust of Britain’s World War II prime minister Winston Churchill that he had during his first term.- Framed mugshot -The ostentatious display should probably not come as a surprise for a man who announced his first presidential run by descending on a golden escalator at Trump Tower in New York. The billionaire has long branded everything he can with his name, from buildings to bibles.And Trump’s makeover rarely shies away from promoting both his own brand and an image of strength that has been central to his political career.Recently, one item that has been on permanent display is a large map identifying the “Gulf of America,” which the Trump administration has renamed from the Gulf of Mexico.Trump is even planning to pave over the famed Rose Garden that the Oval Office overlooks, to give it the patio-like feel of his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.”The grass just doesn’t work,” Trump told Fox, adding that it gets “soaking wet.”One of Trump’s proudest touches, though, is a very unconventional portrait that hangs near those of his illustrious forebears.Right outside the Oval Office in a gold frame hangs a photo of Trump — his 2023 mugshot, as featured on the cover of a tabloid newspaper, from when he was booked in Georgia for alleged attempts to interfere with the 2020 election.

An Oklahoma man convicted of killing a woman during a home robbery was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday, the third execution in the United States this week.Wendell Grissom, 56, was sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of Amber Matthews, 23, who was shot in the head while trying to protect a friend’s two young daughters.Grissom was pronounced dead 10 minutes after the execution process began at the state penitentiary in McAlester, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections said in a statement.It said the execution was carried out using a three-drug protocol: Midazolam, which causes sedation, Vecuronium Bromide, which halts respiration, and Potassium Chloride, which stops the heart.According to court documents, Grissom, a truck driver, and another man, Jessie Johns, broke into the home of Dreu Kopf, a friend of Matthews, with the intention of committing a robbery.Grissom shot and wounded Kopf and killed Matthews while she was hiding in a bedroom in an attempt to shield Kopf’s two children.Johns was sentenced to life in prison without parole.There have been three executions in the United States this week and a fourth — in Florida — is scheduled for later on Thursday.Edward James, 63, is to be executed by lethal injection for the 1993 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Toni Neuner, and the murder of Betty Dick, 58, her grandmother.Jessie Hoffman, 46, was put to death by nitrogen gas in the southern state of Louisiana on Tuesday.Hoffman, who was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Molly Elliott, a  28-year-old advertising executive, was the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years.Only one other US state, Alabama, has carried out executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.Aaron Gunches, 53, who was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, was executed in Arizona on Wednesday.Gunches had abandoned legal efforts to halt his execution.The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection, although South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on March 7.There have been nine executions in the United States this year, following 25 last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

US President Donald Trump will sign an order Thursday to start dismantling the Department of Education, fulfilling an election campaign pledge and a long-held dream of American conservatives.The Republican will issue the order during a White House ceremony — one of the most drastic steps yet in the brutal overhaul of the government that he is carrying out with the help of tech tycoon Elon Musk.Trump has cast the move as necessary to save money and improve educational standards in the United States, saying they are lagging behind those in Europe and China.But education has been a battleground for decades in America’s culture wars, and Republicans have long wanted to remove control of it from the federal government.”He is saving America’s children with this action,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News ahead of the signing at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT).”The Department of Education has never educated a child. All it has ever done is stolen money from the taxpayers.”His order on Thursday directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States,” according to a draft obtained by AFP.Trump promised on the campaign trail to get rid of the department and devolve its powers to US states, in much the same way that has happened with abortion rights.Trump’s appointment of McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, to lead the department was widely seen as a sign that its days were numbered.Several Republican governors are expected to attend the signing ceremony.- ‘Final mission’ -By law, the Education Department — created in 1979 — cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress, and Republicans do not have the votes to push that through.But Trump and his billionaire advisor Elon Musk have already dismantled several other agencies, effectively crippling them by slashing programs and employees.Educators and Democrats have slammed the move.”Education is our country’s future. Mr President, we will see you in court,” Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, said on X.Tina Smith, the Democratic senator for Minnesota, said in a post aimed at Trump: “You can’t shut down the Department of Education — and you know it.”But the Heritage Foundation — the right-wing think-tank that has seen many of its “Project 2025″ recommendations adopted by Trump, welcomed the signing.”It’s a beautiful day to dismantle the Department of Education,” it said on X.Efforts were already underway to drastically downsize the department.McMahon issued a memo shortly after her swearing in on March 3 saying the agency would be beginning its “final mission.” The next week, she moved to halve the department’s staff.Traditionally, the federal government has had a limited role in education in the United States, with only about 13 percent of funding for primary and secondary schools coming from federal coffers, the rest being funded by states and local communities.But federal funding is invaluable for low-income schools and students with special needs. And the federal government has been essential in enforcing key civil rights protections for students.Several key programs are to be spared, such as those providing grants to university students and funding for low-income schools across the country, US media reported.Trump’s radical crackdown on the government is being spearheaded by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose rapid actions have met pushback in courts for possibly exceeding executive authority.A similar move to dismantle the US Agency for International Development was halted on Monday by a federal judge, who said the push likely violated the Constitution.

A scathing book about Facebook parent company Meta, whose author has been barred from promoting her work, entered at the top of the New York Times bestseller list after its first week of release in the United States.The book also ranks fourth on Amazon’s bestseller list, the platform showed on Thursday.In “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism,” which was released on March 11, Sarah Wynn-Williams recounts working at the tech titan from 2011 to 2017.Wynn-Williams’s book includes claims of sexual harassment by longtime company executive Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and ally of President Donald Trump who took over as head of Meta’s global affairs team this year.She also wrote of Meta, then known as Facebook, exploring the possibility of breaking into the lucrative Chinese market by appeasing government censors there. XXXMeta quickly took the matter to arbitration, contending the book violates a non-disparagement contract signed by Wynn-Williams when she worked with the company’s global affairs team.An arbitration court granted Meta’s request to bar Wynn-Williams from promoting the book or making derogatory statements about the company.She also must retract previous critical comments about Meta or its executives, according to the ruling, which remains in place until the dispute is settled in the private arbitration process. XXX”This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn-Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published,” Meta communications director Andy Stone said at the time in a post on X, formerly Twitter.Stone said Wynn-Williams was “fired for poor performance and toxic behavior,” having made a series of unfounded allegations that the company investigated.Another book that is highly critical of Meta, “The Anxious Generation,” which paints a dark picture of social media’s effect on children, is currently fourth on the Times best-seller list a year after its release.

Taliban authorities on Thursday freed US citizen George Glezmann after more than two years of detention, in a deal brokered by Qatar, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced.The release was announced after the Taliban government’s foreign minister hosted US hostage envoy Adam Boehler and other US officials in the Afghan capital.”Today, after two and a half years of captivity in Afghanistan, Delta Airlines mechanic George Glezmann is on his way to be reunited with his wife, Aleksandra,” Rubio said in a statement.”George’s release is a positive and constructive step.  It is also a reminder that other Americans are still detained in Afghanistan,” he added.Glezmann was en route to Qatar, a source with knowledge of the release told AFP.Ahead of the announcement, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi hosted Boehler, who was accompanied by Washington’s former envoy to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, the ministry said.”Today is a good day,” Khalilzad said on X. The Taliban authorities decided to free Glezmann on “humanitarian grounds” and as a “goodwill gesture”.The prisoner release reflects “Afghanistan’s readiness to genuinely engaging all sides, particularly the United States of America, on the basis of mutual respect and interests”, a foreign ministry statement said.The US delegation was the first from Washington since US President Donald Trump took office in January, foreign ministry spokesman Hafiz Zia Ahmad told AFP.Contacts between the two sides since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 has usually taken place in third countries.- ‘New chapter’ -Taliban authorities announced late last month the arrest of a Chinese-American woman on February 1 in the province of Bamiyan, a tourist attraction west of Kabul known for its giant Buddhas until they were destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban. Officials have refused to detail the reasons for her arrest. At least one other American, Mahmood Habibi, is detained in Afghanistan.In July, Kabul announced it was in discussions with Washington over a prisoner exchange.The talks took place in Qatar during an international conference that brought together UN representatives, Taliban authorities, and envoys for Afghanistan — generally those based in neighbouring countries or within the region.In January, two Americans detained in Afghanistan — Ryan Corbett and William McKenty — were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the United States. Two weeks later, a Canadian former soldier, David Lavery, was released after more than two months held in Afghanistan, in a deal brokered by Qatar.Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban authorities during his first term in office and, following his re-election, the Kabul government expressed hopes for a “new chapter” with Washington.The government in Kabul is not recognised by any country, but several including Russia, China and Turkey have kept their embassies open in the Afghan capital.Delegations from these countries, both diplomatic and economic, make frequent visits to Kabul. The Taliban government also reports less frequent visits from Western officials, notably British and Norwegian.

Tesla is recalling more than 46,000 Cybertrucks because of a defect that can lead an exterior panel to detach, increasing the risk of a crash, according to a safety notice reviewed Thursday by AFP.The recall affects essentially all of the futuristic-looking vehicles delivered in the United States.The move is due to a part Tesla calls a “cant rail” — an exterior panel — that was affixed with an adhesive “susceptible to environmental embrittlement,” according to a company filing on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.Detachment of the part, which Tesla describes as “cosmetic,” poses the risk of creating a “road hazard for following motorists and increase their risk of injury or a collision,” according to the NHTSA document.The recall is the latest blemish on the stainless steel behemoths, a signature vehicle for Elon Musk’s electric auto company. It comes as the brand encounters consumer blowback in the wake of Musk’s key advisory role in President Donald Trump’s administration.Tesla received two field complaints in January about the issue, but company engineers determined there was no problem.Then in February, the NHTSA notified Tesla of another complaint.The company, which also cited social media postings on the issue, undertook another investigation that led to a voluntary recall, said Tesla, which will use a different adhesive to attach the part. As of March 14, Tesla had 151 warranty claims that may be related to the condition. The company said it knows of no accidents.Demand for the Cybertruck and other Tesla vehicles has tumbled in recent weeks in many consumer markets as Musk presses on with deep cuts in US government departments and staffing through his Department of Government Efficiency.Analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities called for Musk to clearly define how he will balance his role with Trump and his duties as Tesla CEO.”Let’s call it like it is: Tesla is going through a crisis and there is one person who can fix it….Musk,” said Ives, who argued that Musk must provide details on when new vehicles will arrive in dealerships and about a plan for autonomous driving in Texas.”The violence at Tesla dealers, cars being keyed in parking lots, social movements against Musk around the globe…have all created a massive overhang for Tesla’s stock,” Ives said. “This is a moment of truth for Musk.”Tesla shares fell in early trade Thursday. 

An Indian researcher at a top university in the United States with a valid visa has been arrested and is under threat of expulsion, according to his employer and US authorities, who accuse him of ties to Hamas.The arrest of Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in the US capital, comes as fears mount in the scientific world that freedom of research is being challenged two months into US President Donald Trump’s new term.On Wednesday, the French government condemned the expulsion of a French space scientist meant to attend a conference in Houston, after officials searched his smartphone and found what they called “hateful” messages against US policy.”Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Georgetown University said in a statement.”We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.”Suri — a fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, according to the university website — was arrested Monday at his home in Arlington, Virginia, according to Politico, which first reported on the story. His lawyer told Politico he had demanded his release, but did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said on X that Suri was “a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media.”McLaughlin accused him of having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”The State Department decided the researcher was subject to deportation under a provision of immigration law that allows for expulsion if the visa holder’s presence in the United States is determined to threaten US foreign policy, she added.Hamas is a US-designated terror organization.Georgetown University said it backs its “community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable.”Citing a petition filed by Suri’s lawyer, Politico reported that Suri’s wife is a US citizen of Palestinian descent, and that the couple believes they are being targeted because the government suspects they oppose US policy on Israel.