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Challenging the Client
The Experience of Migrant Children Seeking to Come to the UK
Nearly 20,000 people arrived in the UK in the first half of this year by crossing the English Channel in small boats, up by almost 50% from the same period last year.
BBC Newsround correspondent Jenny Lawrence went to Calais to find out why so many people, including children try to make the dangerous crossing from France daily.
Politico reports that Germany is considering purchasing 15 more F-35 fighter jets.
Germany plans to buy additional 15 F-35 fighter jets, Politico reports
Scientists Discover Brain Circuit that Connects Pain and Emotions
Scientists have discovered a brain circuit that gives pain its emotional sting, explaining why some hurts linger as suffering. The breakthrough challenges our beliefs about how we process pain and may transform chronic pain treatments.
Pain has several key components, but two of the main ones are the sensory and the affective. The sensory component refers to the physical sensation of pain, encompassing its intensity, location, quality, and duration, whereas the affective aspect encompasses the emotional side of pain, including the unpleasantness associated with it, such as suffering and the desire to alleviate it.
New research from the Salk Institute has identified a specific brain circuit in mice that transforms the physical sensation of pain into emotional suffering.
“For decades, the prevailing view was that the brain processes sensory and emotional aspects of pain through separate pathways,” said Sung Han, PhD, associate professor at Salk and the study’s corresponding author. “But there’s been debate about whether the sensory pain pathway might also contribute to the emotional side of pain. Our study provides strong evidence that a branch of the sensory pain pathway directly mediates the affective experience of pain.”
The researchers traced how pain signals move from the spinal cord to the brain in mice. They found that CGRP-expressing neurons in a group of brain cells that form the parvicellular subparafascicular thalamic nucleus (SPFp), in the thalamus, the brain’s central relay station, received pain signals and passed them along to parts of the brain involved in emotions, such as the amygdala. CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide) is a neuropeptide, a small protein molecule involved in transmitting pain signals.
When these CGRP neurons were genetically silenced, or switched off, in mice, they still felt pain from, for example, heat and pressure, but didn’t seem emotionally bothered by it or try to avoid it in the future. When the neurons were turned on artificially, the mice reacted with fear and avoidance, even when no pain was actually present.
Salk Institute
CGRP-blocking drugs are already used to treat migraines. This study sheds light on why they work, calming not only the pain signals but also the emotional response that turns pain into distress. Conditions such as fibromyalgia, migraines, and chronic back pain often involve emotional suffering that can be more debilitating than the physical sensation. This study identifies a target, CGRP neurons in the SPF, for therapies that could turn down the emotional “volume” of pain without affecting basic pain perception.
“Pain processing is not just about nerves detecting pain; it’s about the brain deciding how much pain matters,” said lead author and Salk neuroscientist, Sukjae Kang. “Understanding the biology behind these two distinct processes will help us find treatments for the kinds of pain that don’t respond to traditional drugs.”
Because the researchers have identified a pathway that also connects to emotional centers in the brain, like the amygdala, it may also be involved in threat sensitivity and fear, hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Quieting this pathway might help reduce the emotional suffering associated with trauma.
This research also opens the door to future research into how this pathway may influence emotional pain from social experiences like grief, loneliness, and heartbreak.
“Our discovery of the CGRP affective pain pathway gives us a molecular and circuit-level explanation for the difference between detecting physical pain and suffering from it,” Han said. “We’re excited to continue exploring this pathway and enabling future therapies that can reduce this suffering.”
The study was published in the journal PNAS.
Source: Salk Institute
New Nuclear Defense Deal Announced Between U.K. and France
new video loaded: U.K. and France Announce New Nuclear Defense Deal
transcript
transcript
U.K. and France Announce New Nuclear Defense Deal
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and President Emmanuel Macron of France strengthened the defense relationship between their two countries and announced a new agreement to address illegal migration.
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This morning, we signed the Northwood Declaration, confirming for the first time that we are coordinating our independent nuclear deterrence. From today, our adversaries will know that any extreme threat to this continent would prompt a response from our two nations. There is no greater demonstration of the importance of this relationship. We also share the fundamental belief that we serve our people better, create better jobs and opportunities, make our nations stronger, fairer and more secure. So I am pleased to announce our agreement today on a groundbreaking returns pilot. For the very first time, migrants arriving via small boat will be detained and returned to France in short order. In exchange for every return, a different individual will be allowed to come here via a safe route, controlled and legal, subject to strict security checks and only open to those who have not tried to enter the U.K. illegally.
Recent episodes in News Clips
Banker implicated in $140 million Ponzi scheme
The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Edwin Brant Frost IV and his private lending company First Liberty Building & Loan with allegedly presiding over a sophisticated $140 million Ponzi scheme, according to a civil complaint filed on Thursday in federal court in Atlanta.
Authorities claim Frost, 67, specifically targeted Republican activists and conservative Christian investors through a network of right-wing media outlets. The Georgia financial firm’s now-defunct website calls out its advertisements “as heard on” conservative media including Erick Erickson, Hugh Hewitt, and Charlie Kirk’s shows. First Liberty abruptly shut down late last month posting a note to clients on its website stating that its investments, payments, and programs were “indefinitely suspended.”
“First Liberty is cooperating with federal authorities as part of an effort to accomplish an orderly wind-up of the business,” the message states. “First Liberty employees are not authorized to make any further communications at this time regarding the ongoing situation, and no one at the company will be available to answer phone calls or respond to email inquiries.”
Attempts to reach Frost were unsuccessful.
According to the complaint, Frost and First Liberty raised at least $140 million from the sale of loan participation agreements and promissory notes to at least 300 investors. The alleged scheme began back in 2014 with Frost raising capital through friends and family. They were first offered loan participation agreements, which are contracts where investors pool money together to fund a single loan with each participant owning a percentage. They were later offered promissory notes—basically IOUs— in which investors were lending money to the company itself. Brant allegedly told investors the funds would be used to make short-term bridge loans at high interest rates.
Frost and First Liberty allegedly told investors 100% of the proceeds from loan agreements and promissory notes would be used to fund bridge loans and that investors would be reap gains from the repayment of the bridge loans and the interest paid on them. The friends and family program offered 14% to 18% returns, and the notes an annual return of 8% to 13%. The SEC claims Frost told investors orally he did not take fees out of the investor funds.
The SEC’s complaint alleges nearly all of these representations were false. In 2021, First Liberty began operating as a Ponzi scheme, the complaint states, with about 80% of the interest and payments to investors sourced from new investor funds—the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme.
“The promise of a high rate of return on an investment is a red flag that should make all potential investors think twice or maybe even three times before investing their money,” said Justin C. Jeffries, Associate Director of Enforcement for the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office in a statement. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen this movie before—bad actors luring investors with promises of seemingly over-generous returns—and it does not end well.”
In 2024, the SEC claims Frost expanded the financial firm’s reach by offering and selling the promissory notes to the public on the radio, the firm’s website and on podcasts and other programs. The company marketed itself as a fundamental piece of what it called the “patriot economy.”
But, according to the SEC, the alleged scheme had already unraveled. First Liberty allegedly operated at a deficit each year from 2021 through May 30, 2025 and instead functioned as a Ponzi operation. The regulator claims Frost even allegedly misled current investors about the security of their existing investments to coax more funding out of them.
During the alleged scheme, the SEC accused Frost of living lavishly off investors’ assets.
Frost allegedly spent $230,000 to rent a vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine and $140,000 on jewelry. He also allegedly snagged a $20,800 Patek Philippe watch with investor money and doled out $335,000 to a rare coin dealer. He also allegedly paid $2.4 million on his credit cards with investor funds and made $570,000 in political donations.
The SEC alleged that nine days after commission staffers interviewed Frost, he withdrew $100,000 from company accounts containing investor funds and wrote $210,875 in checks from company accounts to a business that specializes in selling gold coins. The SEC has frozen Frost’s assets.
Messages to Erickson, Hewitt, and Kirk were not immediately returned.
In a message on the website, First Liberty wrote: “First Liberty hopes to provide additional information and updates in the near future regarding the status of the company’s efforts to effectuate an orderly wind-up of the business.”
ICC Deputy Prosecutor Reveals Crimes Against Humanity in Sudan’s Darfur
The Hague court’s Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan warns civil war ‘has reached an intolerable state’.
A senior International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” are being committed in war-ravaged Sudan’s western Darfur region.
ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan presented her assessment before the United Nations Security Council on Thursday of the devastating conflict, which has raged since 2023, killing more than 40,000 people and displacing 13 million others.
Khan said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur “has reached an intolerable state”, with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted.
She said it was “difficult to find appropriate words to describe the depth of suffering in Darfur”.
“On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur,” she said.
The prosecutor’s office focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, Khan said, interviewing victims who fled to neighbouring Chad.
She detailed an “intolerable” humanitarian situation, with apparent targeting of hospitals and humanitarian convoys, while warning that “famine is escalating” as aid is unable to reach “those in dire need”.
“People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponised,” Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become “common practice”.
In June, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan warned that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had escalated the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas and weaponised humanitarian relief, amid the devastating consequences of the civil war.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan had told the Security Council in January that there were grounds to believe both parties may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in the region, while the administration of then-US President Joe Biden determined that the RSF and its proxies were committing genocide.
The Security Council had previously referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, with some 300,000 people killed during conflict in the region in the 2000s.
In 2023, the ICC opened a new probe into war crimes in Darfur after a new conflict erupted between the SAF and RSF.
The RSF’s predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide two decades ago in the vast western region.
ICC judges are expected to deliver their first decision on crimes committed in Darfur two decades ago in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kosheib, after the trial ended in 2024.
“I wish to be clear to those on the ground in Darfur now, to those who are inflicting unimaginable atrocities on its population – they may feel a sense of impunity at this moment, as Ali Kosheib may have felt in the past,” said Khan.
“But we are working intensively to ensure that the Ali Kosheib trial represents only the first of many in relation to this situation at the International Criminal Court,” added Khan.
TikTok Enhances Commercial Music Library with Chordal’s Sync Licensing Technology
TikTok has signed a multi-year deal with music licensing technology company Chordal to integrate its InstantClear technology into the platform’s Commercial Music Library.
The partnership is expected to expand access to pre-cleared music for brand advertising, Chordal said on Wednesday (July 7).
Through the alliance, rightsholders will be able to use Chordal’s InstantClear technology (launched in March) to opt into TikTok’s Commercial Music Library, pre-clear their fractional shares, and automate payments.
Chordal says the integration aims to make it “easier than ever for rights holders of commercial music to monetize their music within TikTok’s brand-friendly music catalog.”
TikTok launched its Commercial Music Library in May 2023 as part of its Artist Impact Program, providing brands with a pre-cleared global music library for use in their content on TikTok.
“With this partnership, we’re helping to simplify the way brands implement music into their ad content… On top of that, it will allow more artists to monetize their songs, and TikTok to scale its offerings even further.”
Grayson Sanders, Chordal
The Chordal integration will enable more music to be added to the Commercial Music Library, potentially opening up new revenue streams for artists, labels and publishers, according to Chordal.
Grayson Sanders, CEO of Chordal, said: “The ability to easily include fractionally owned songs in TikTok’s Commercial Music Library is a game changer for the industry and all players involved.”
“With this partnership, we’re helping to simplify the way brands implement music into their ad content and expand the variety of music they have access to. On top of that, it will allow more artists to monetize their songs, and TikTok to scale its offerings even further.”
Chris Marion, Manager, Commercial Music at TikTok, added: “We are looking to help evolve the micro-licensing industry to take advantage of the speed and scale of digital advertising and short-form video.”
“Our goal is to provide brands with a safe, expansive library of music to use in their content, while opening up new revenue streams for the artists that power it. Our ambition is to make TikTok a place where everyone can find growth and opportunity – a goal we share with Chordal.”
“Our goal is to provide brands with a safe, expansive library of music to use in their content, while opening up new revenue streams for the artists that power it.”
Chris Marion, TikTok
The partnership follows Chordal’s recent collaboration with music publisher Kobalt. Chordal also has partnerships in place with other labels and publishing companies including [PIAS], Reservoir Media, Primary Wave, Believe, and more.
Chordal’s team includes experience from Google, Utopia Music, and Tesla, with investments in proprietary IP, including new AI. The company says it has spent six years developing its platform and two years working with clients, with $4.5 million in capital invested. Chordal exited private beta in mid-2023.
For TikTok, the integration follows its deal with Adobe in June last year, bringing TikTok’s Commercial Music Library to Adobe Express via the Symphony Assistant add-on.
Earlier this year, MBW discovered that TikTok parent ByteDance (valued at around $300 billion as of November 2024) quietly launched a service called EasyOde, described as a “one-stop rights-cleared music platform.”
According to US Copyright Office filings unearthed by MBW, ByteDance, via its mysterious Cayman Islands-based affiliate Lemon Inc., has filed for two EasyOde-related trademarks, for the word mark and logo.
According to the EasyOde website, the service, “provided by Bytedance Pte. Ltd. and its affiliates,” provides “high-quality tracks and sound effects for use in new and traditional media projects, as well as other music-related services.”
Music Business Worldwide
Luxury yacht in St Tropez engulfed in flames, smoke fills the air
Social media videos show black smoke billowing from a luxury yacht on fire in St Tropez in the French Riviera on Thursday.
The blaze took place on the Sea Lady II, a 41m boat which sleeps up to 10 guests and can be chartered from €65,000 (£56,000) a week.
Firefighters initially struggled to get on board to contain the fire, while emergency services quickly moved away surrounding yachts and put up anti-pollution barriers.
Officials said the boat was likely to sink in the port and the cause of the fire is still being investigated.
Challenging Client Situation
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