From Mamdani to Trump’s Epstein fiasco, Americans are turning on their leaders

Party Control Is Dead

^{Ken Klippenstein}

We're once again partnering with Zizaran for another 10-day Class Gauntlet event which will start on July 31st PDT. Racers will need to endure some of the most challenging conditions Wraeclast can throw at them in order to survive the Merciless Gauntlet!

The Event will take place in a Hardcore Solo Self-Found Mercenaries Event League with a range of dynamic damage and life mods as well as some other surprises... Good luck Exiles!

Information, Start Time and How to Join

The following modifiers will be active and apply to monsters and bosses:

Area Level 1-45

• 20% less Damage Taken
• 20% Increased Damage
• 10% Increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed
• 2 Additional Projectiles
• 20% Elemental Penetration

Area Level 46-67

• 30% less Damage Taken
• 30% Increased Damage
• 30% Increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed
• Monsters Have 100% Increased Area of Effect
• 30% Physical Damage as Extra Chaos

Area Level 68-72

• 20% less Damage Taken
• 20% Increased Damage
• 20% Increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed

Area Level 73-77

• 25% less Damage Taken
• 25% Increased Damage
• 25% Increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed

Area Level 78-83

• 30% less Damage Taken
• 30% Increased Damage
• 15% Increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed

Area Level 84 (Excluding tier 17 maps)

• 150% Increased Unique Monster Life (from 100% last time)
• 40% Increased Damage
• Shaper Apparitions (instead of Sirus Apparitions)

Area Level 84 (Tier 17 only)

• No Additional Modifiers
• T17 bosses drop 5 fragments

Area Level 85+ (Uber Bosses)

• 60% Less Damage Taken (from 50% last time)
• 125% Increased Damage (from 100% last time)
• 40% Increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed
• 3 Additional Projectiles
• Monsters have 50% Increased Area of Effect (from 30% last time)
• Shaper Apparitions (instead of Sirus Apparitions)
• Consume Additional Portal on Entry

The Gauntlet will be held as an Event League on PC that is available to all players during the event by clicking "Join" in the bottom right corner of the character select screen.

Players will receive points once per character based on their level, specific boss kills and select Maven's Invitations. Don't forget, to get boss kill points you must submit your kills in the Path of Exile Community Racing Discord which you can join by clicking here.

Start time: 3PM July 31st PDT. The event will last for 10 days. A countdown is available here.

Mercenary Rule

Unintended interactions such as the Bastion's Immunity Buff that was fixed in 3.26.0D Hotfix 4 are prohibited. If you're unsure please check with Viyro on Discord. This rule is entirely up to the Discretion of Zizaran's Admin Team.

Doryani's Prototype will also be disabled from the Gauntlet. It cannot drop or be chanced.

Portal Limitation Rule

In order to receive Boss Kill Points you must use three or fewer portals to kill them! Entering a fourth portal will make your submission null and void. Uber bosses will have this tech by default, the rest will need to be manually verified.

Public Profile Rule:

Players wishing to compete for the main prize pool, bounties or flash bounties must have their profiles continuously set to Public at the start of the event all the way to the end of the event.

A full set of rules can be found here.

Prize Pool

The prize pool is crowdfunded by Zizaran's event partners and community streamers! In addition, streamers and their communities will be able to create a bounty with the money they fundraise for the event. Bounties are a custom prize that can be awarded to players for achieving a specified goal in the vent. This Gauntlet will also have Flash bounties which are bounties that will pop up in the Racing Discord during the event! Keep an eye out on social media for announcements regarding when these fundraisers will take place and what they will be!

Zizaran's event partners will match donations to the prize pool (up to $25,000).

• The total prize pool minus bounties will be awarded as follows:
  
  • Rank 1 Overall: 12% Bonus
  • Rank 2 Overall: 4% Bonus
    Witches
  • Top Witch: 8%
  • Second Witch: 4%
  • Third Witch: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet
    Shadows
  • Top Shadow: 8%
  • Second Shadow: 4%
  • Third Shadow: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet
    Rangers
  • Top Ranger: 8%
  • Second Ranger: 4%
  • Third Ranger: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet
    Duelists
  • Top Duelist: 8%
  • Second Duelist: 4%
  • Third Duelist: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet
    Marauders
  • Top Marauder: 8%
  • Second Marauder: 4%
  • Third Marauder: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet
    Templars
  • Top Templar: 8%
  • Second Templar: 4%
  • Third Templar: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet
    Scions
  • Top Scion: 8%
  • Second Scion: 4%
  • Third Scion: Heritage Character Effect & Divergence Predator Pet

  
  

Everyone who defeats Hillock will receive a Gauntlet Glove Effect that will keep track of the highest level you reach in Gauntlet Events. If you manage to complete the campaign you'll also receive a Dawn of the Hunt Mystery Box!

Random Draw

Leveling your characters to certain levels will enter you into the random drawings for Microtransactions as well as physical prizes supplied by Zizaran's event partners and Grinding Gear Games! Each character that reaches the goal will give you another entry, so don't delete your characters if you want to be entered for these raffles!

Where to Watch

You can catch exciting moments from the event by checking out Zizaran's Youtube Channel for highlights!

Zizaran and Steelmage will also be joining forces to cast the Merciless Gauntlet this time. You can find out the schedule for this here.

Special thanks to community members Faderon, MrMadakey, Ultimativ, Skryah, OMGItsJousis and Viyro for their contributions to this event.

Good luck to all those participating!

Announcements - Zizaran’s Class Gauntlet Event Starts on July 31st - Forum - Path of Exile

Path of Exile is a free online-only action RPG under development by Grinding Gear Games in New Zealand.

^{Path of Exile}

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trumps-renewed-interest-pakistan-has-india-recalibrating-china-ties-2025-07-21/

The United Kingdom's government is planning to ban public sector and critical infrastructure organizations from paying ransoms after ransomware attacks.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/uk-to-ban-public-sector-orgs-from-paying-ransomware-gangs/

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-needs-least-120-billion-defence-next-year-minister-says-2025-07-22/

https://en.news-front.su/2025/07/22/zelenskyy-finalizes-dictatorship-in-ukraine/

The House of Dior (Dior) is sending data breach notifications to U.S. customers informing them that a May cybersecurity incident compromised their personal information.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/dior-begins-sending-data-breach-notifications-to-us-customers/

A newly rebranded extortion gang known as "World Leaks" breached one of Dell's product demonstration platforms earlier this month and is now trying to extort the company into paying a ransom.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/dell-confirms-breach-of-test-lab-platform-by-world-leaks-extortion-group/

Brett Hankison, a former Kentucky police officer who was convicted in the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was sentenced on Monday to 33 months in prison.

Taylor was shot and killed on March 13, 2020, during a botched drug raid authorized by the Louisville Metro Police Department. A Louisville detective at the time, Hankison, 46, was found guilty last November of violating Taylor's civil rights while executing a search warrant on her home, which resulted in the tragedy.

Hankison will not report directly to prison, with U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings saying during Monday's sentencing hearing that the Bureau of Prisons will decide when his sentence begins, according to The Associated Press. His prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised probation.

Sweden has quietly taken a radical step: it is now illegal to purchase online sexual acts. This move advances Sweden’s long-standing “end demand” policy model for tackling sexual services from the physical realm, into the digital. Yet it seems to overlook the significant differences between the two spheres – in terms of behaviour models, profiles, and market dynamics – and how such differences may be taken into account when determining the persuasiveness of the law’s rationale. This becomes especially clear when measured against the protections enshrined under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and recent Strasbourg case law.

While the criminalisation of the purchase of in-person sexual services has been judged to be compatible with Article 8, the underlying reasoning rests on factors that do not translate to the online sphere: combatting prostitution and human trafficking, a lack of consensus on sex work policy across Europe, and an inability to parse the harms caused by the law from the harms caused by sex work itself. Sweden’s extension of its “end demand” policy into digital sex work thus risks overstepping the boundaries of Article 8 of the ECHR and reveals how laws that are directly transplanted from the offline to the online sphere without due thought may lead to the erosion of private digital rights.

Sweden, Sex Work, Screens

 

^{Thomas Joyce (Verfassungsblog)}

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa25-203a

cross-posted from: lemmy.cafe/post/20758863

Yet another alternative.

Nvidia's CUDA platform now supports RISC-V — support brings open source instruction set to AI platforms, joining x86 and Arm

^{Anton Shilov (Tom's Hardware)}

https://archive.ph/RbjEH

I need to start making plans for when I am gone, much sooner than I thought, and I realized our finances are pretty opaque to my spouse. Our bank account is shared, but there are other sites that only I have access to.

The easiest solution would be to physically write down logins and what needs done, put it in an envelope, and tell my family where that envelope is. I'm not thrilled about that, because I would have to shred and rewrite it every time I update a password or a URL changes, and it'd be vulnerable to nosy guests.

Putting it in a shared Google Doc would be easiest for everyone. But then Google has that data. Even supposing I trust a cloud SaaS provider not to misuse the data (which is a big 'if') I do not trust them to never have a data breach.

Self-hosting seems like the next step, except I expect my home server to be the first thing to collapse once I'm gone. Filing login info with an estate attorney would still require frequent updates. Putting a document on a flash drive risks data loss, but is what I'm leaning towards.

Is there a solution I'm missing?