India wants tariff edge before final US trade deal

Deepak Hooda set to return to Baroda five years after high-profile fallout

Batting allrounder Deepak Hooda is set to play for Baroda again, nearly five years after a widely publicised dispute involving fellow cricketer Krunal Pandya. Hooda had been banned for the 2020-21 domestic season by the Baroda Cricket Association on grounds of indiscipline. Following the ban, he moved to Rajasthan, representing the state as a professional player from the 2021-22 domestic season onwards. His anticipated return to Baroda marks a significant reconciliation after years of estrangement from his home association.

Thai and Singapore PMs Share Musical Moment at Bangkok Leaders' Retreat

Thailand Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong took a break from formal proceedings at the Singapore-Thailand Leaders' Retreat held in Bangkok. The two leaders shared a lighthearted moment that featured Wong on guitar and Anutin on vocals. The informal exchange highlighted the warm personal rapport between the two heads of government. The retreat serves as a regular bilateral platform for the two neighboring nations to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties.

4 kids visited a waterfall. 10 days later, all died

Three Irish schoolgirls spent 3 years turning a warty pea plant into a barley breakthrough

Three schoolgirls from Kinsale, Ireland, discovered an unusual pea plant covered in wart-like nodules and chose to investigate it rather than discard it. Over three years, they conducted experiments in a spare bedroom, testing approximately 13,000 seeds. Their research focused on the bacteria living inside the plant's nodules. The findings revealed that these bacteria had a remarkable effect on barley growth, turning a curious observation into a significant scientific discovery.

Why Pak Cricket keeps hitting coach reset button

React's useOptimistic Hook Can Silently Mislead Users When Server Actions Fail

React's useOptimistic hook updates the UI instantly before a server response, but a common implementation flaw leaves error handling entirely unaddressed. When a server action fails due to a network issue, database error, or authorization rejection, the optimistic UI briefly shows a false success state before quietly reverting, with no explanation given to the user. This silent revert creates a confusing experience worse than standard UI behavior, as users see a change appear and then disappear without any feedback. Developers can fix this by pairing useOptimistic with a local error state that captures and displays failure messages when the server action returns an unsuccessful result. The automatic revert mechanism in useOptimistic works as intended, but surfacing the reason for that revert to the user is the missing piece most implementations overlook.

Open-Source Extension Brings GitHub Codespaces Support to Non-VS Code Editors

A developer has built and released an open-source extension called Antigravity Codespaces Pro to address the lack of native GitHub Codespaces support in Google Antigravity IDE, Code-OSS, and similar open-source editors. The extension enables one-click connections to GitHub cloud virtual machines directly from within these editors. It also includes a multi-account management feature that allows users to handle several GitHub accounts simultaneously without switching CLI profiles. Additional features include a visual dashboard for monitoring live container status, a keyboard shortcut for quick fuzzy-search connections, and a keep-alive mechanism to prevent dropped WebSocket connections during extended AI sessions. The extension is available on both the VS Code Marketplace and the Open VSX Registry.

BeatDesign offers open-source, local alternative to Higgsfield Canvas with MCP agent support

A developer has released BeatDesign, a free, Apache-2.0-licensed alternative to Higgsfield Canvas that runs entirely on a user's local machine. The tool replicates Higgsfield's infinite canvas for image and video editing, including branching, asset management, timeline editing, and MP4 export, all stored in a portable SQLite-backed project folder. Unlike Higgsfield, BeatDesign does not upload source files to any server until a user explicitly confirms a generation run, and charges are per generation rather than a monthly subscription. The project exposes 20 MCP tools, allowing AI coding agents such as Codex, Claude Code, or Cursor to read and update the same local canvas visible in the browser. Currently in v0.2 and developer-focused, BeatDesign requires Node.js and pnpm, and does not yet include captions, transitions, or multiple named timelines.

Bitcoin Nears Golden Cross Signal With USDT Lending Bullish Support

Bitcoin is approaching a golden cross, a technical chart pattern widely watched by traders in cryptocurrency markets. The golden cross occurs when a short-term moving average crosses above a long-term moving average, traditionally considered a bullish signal. Historically, this pattern has shown a mixed track record of predicting sustained price gains in crypto. However, analysts suggest that rising USDT stablecoin activity may reinforce the bullish outlook this time around. The combination of the two indicators is drawing renewed attention from market observers.

ED Raids Multiple South India Locations in Drug Money Laundering Probe

India's Enforcement Directorate is conducting searches across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala in connection with money laundering investigations. The raids are linked to multiple narcotics trafficking cases in the region. Substances under scrutiny include methamphetamine, ganja, hashish oil, and MDMA. The operation reflects the agency's broader effort to trace and seize proceeds tied to drug-related criminal networks in southern India.

Mallikarjun Kharge to Nadda: No FIR over ‘purification’ row despite your assurance

Polars 2.0 Pre-Release Announced for Popular DataFrame Library

The Polars project has announced a pre-release of its upcoming version 2.0, a major update to the fast DataFrame library written in Rust. The announcement was made on the official Polars blog at pola.rs. Polars is widely used as a high-performance alternative to pandas for data manipulation in Python and other languages. The pre-release allows developers and users to test the new version ahead of its official launch. Further details about the specific changes and improvements in version 2.0 are available on the official announcement page.

Court awards Rs 61.5 lakh to mother after LIC rejected son's death claim 5 times

A decade-long legal dispute has concluded with a court ordering LIC to pay Rs 61.5 lakh to a mother whose son died in 2013. LIC had rejected five successive claims, citing the policyholder's alleged non-disclosure of a diabetes diagnosis. The court ruled in the mother's favour, finding that the son was unaware of his diabetic condition at the time the policy was purchased. The ruling establishes an important precedent that insurers cannot deny death claims on grounds of non-disclosure if the policyholder had no knowledge of the medical condition when taking out the policy.

Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario to Lake America for US users, Canada objects

Apple Maps has updated its platform to display Lake Ontario as Lake America for users in the United States. The change mirrors a similar move made by Google Maps over the preceding weekend. Canadian officials have pushed back against the renaming, emphasizing the lake's longstanding historical identity. Unlike its competitors, MapQuest has chosen to retain the original name on its maps. The inconsistency across mapping platforms has led to differing experiences for users around the world.

How to Limit AI Agent Patch Damage with a Strict Side-Effect Gate

A proposed software engineering method outlines a fail-closed security envelope to restrict what an AI agent patch can do during a run. The gate monitors four categories of side effects: filesystem writes, tool invocations, environment variable reads, and outbound network connections. If an agent touches anything outside a pre-declared, hash-verified allowlist in any of these categories, the gate fails immediately without retry. The author argues that passing unit tests alone is insufficient verification, since a green test suite may never observe writes to temp directories, environment access, or open sockets. The envelope configuration is treated as a pinned fixture, and any drift in its hash without a review note blocks execution entirely.

How to Keep Learning While Using AI Coding Tools, Not Just Depending on Them

A software developer reflects on building an AI chatbot entirely with Claude Code but hesitating to publish it publicly, citing doubts about whether the skills were truly his own. He argues that AI coding assistants can hinder genuine learning if developers passively accept suggestions without understanding them. To stay in the learning loop, he recommends habits like reading every line of AI-generated code, asking models to explain their reasoning, and attempting problems independently before seeking AI help. He also suggests periodically rebuilding past work from memory and maintaining an AI-free zone to gauge real skill levels. His core argument is that the goal is not to avoid AI tools, but to ensure they serve the developer's judgment rather than replace it.

Hanuman Ansh and the word-of-mouth wave

Tamil Nadu CM Vijay Unveils Rs 1,200-Crore Plan for New Secretariat and Assembly

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay has announced a Rs 1,200-crore project to construct a new Secretariat and Assembly complex in Chennai. The announcement was made by Vijay on the floor of the state Assembly. The plan comes as the existing Secretariat, housed within the historic Fort St George, cannot be expanded due to its heritage status. Fort St George, dating back to the 17th century, faces structural and legal constraints that limit any modifications. The new complex is intended to address the space and administrative limitations of the current facility.

Pakistan Raises $3 Billion in Debt Markets Amid Economic Recovery Push

Pakistan has successfully raised $3 billion through international debt markets as part of its ongoing efforts to stabilize its economy. The country had come perilously close to a sovereign default in recent years, prompting a financial rescue. Pakistan secured an IMF bailout in 2022 to help address its severe fiscal challenges. The fundraising marks a notable step in the country's attempt to restore investor confidence and rebuild its economic standing.