rise

The Houthi attack on merchant ships in the Red Sea shows that asymmetric strategies have become one of the most disruptive forces in international security, often more effective than conventional state military power. The operations of these non-state groups not only disrupt global trade routes but also expose fundamental weaknesses in the international maritime security architecture. This phenomenon marks a major shift in the character of modern conflict: war is no longer the monopoly of states, and non-state actors are now capable of altering global strategic calculations at a much lower cost. This article argues that the Houthi operations reflect the failure of the traditional security paradigm and underscore the urgency of understanding irregular threats as a determining factor in contemporary geopolitical dynamics.

The Houthis’ success is rooted in the use of asymmetric strategies that combine low cost, high flexibility, and significant strategic impact. Unlike 20th-century insurgencies that relied on guerrilla tactics, the Houthis have increased the scale of the threat by utilizing kamikaze drones, ballistic missiles, and inexpensive surveillance systems. They direct these low-cost weapons at commercial vessels worth billions of dollars. When a single drone damages or threatens a merchant ship, dozens of global companies are forced to reroute, increase logistics costs, and face widespread economic risks. Asymmetric strategies work by avoiding the opponent’s main strengths and attacking points that render those strengths irrelevant. This is what is happening in the Red Sea: the superiority of modern warships is useless when the threat comes from small drones that are difficult to track and cheap to replace (Baylis and Wirtz, 2016).

The limitations of the navies of major countries in responding to these attacks highlight problems in traditional defense doctrine. The United States and Britain have deployed advanced combat fleets, but Houthi attacks continue and hit strategic targets. Major powers designed defense systems to deal with interstate threats, not irregular attacks from irregular actors who have no diplomatic obligations and do not submit to international norms. Modern insurgencies thrive by exploiting institutional gaps and the unpreparedness of states to respond to rapidly changing conflict dynamics. The Houthis are a case in point: they operate in a grey area that is not accounted for in conventional defense frameworks (Kilcullen, 2009).

The Houthis’ strategic strength stems not only from their military capabilities but also from their ability to exploit global economic interdependence. The Suez–Red Sea route is one of the world’s logistics hubs. When this region is disrupted, the consequences immediately affect the global energy market, European and Asian supply chains, and logistics costs for almost all sectors of international trade. Houthi attacks, although physically limited, have a huge psychological effect. When an attack occurs, dozens of international companies immediately review their navigation routes. This fear has a much greater economic impact than the physical damage to the ships that are targeted. In a strategic context, the Houthis have understood that creating uncertainty is a very cheap and very effective strategic weapon.

Moreover, Houthi operations are not merely military actions but part of broader geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East. They function as non-state actors and instruments in regional competition, particularly between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. With technological and logistical support from patron states such as Iran, the Houthis play a role in a larger regional strategy. This blurs the line between state and non-state actor strategies. Attacks on merchant ships are an effective way to put pressure on major countries without the political risks that usually accompany direct military action.

The involvement of non-state actors in the architecture of modern conflict reveals that the conventional concept of international security is no longer adequate. The doctrine of global maritime security was designed on the assumption that the main threat comes from rival states. However, the greatest threats today come from groups that do not have official navies, do not hold sovereign territory, and are not accountable to the international community. While states remain fixated on traditional threats, groups such as the Houthis are able to move quickly, flexibly, and effectively, exploiting every available opportunity. This is why international stability is increasingly vulnerable, even as the military power of major states continues to advance technologically.

The Red Sea crisis highlights the need for a major paradigm shift in global security strategy. Countries can no longer rely on interstate deterrence as the main pillar. A new model is needed that combines counter-drones, supply chain security, regional diplomacy, and conflict stabilization policies on land. Without a multidimensional approach, countries will continue to be stuck in short-term reactions rather than long-term strategies.

Ultimately, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are not merely a disruption to international trade but a warning that the global security order is undergoing a fundamental repositioning. The arguments in this paper show that asymmetric strategies have eroded state dominance and revealed the unpreparedness of international security structures to deal with irregular threats. If states fail to update their paradigms, the future of global stability will increasingly be determined by actors who have no international obligations, are not subject to the norms of war, and are able to maximize their power at minimal cost. The world is entering a new era of strategy, and the Red Sea is proof that state dominance is no longer the mainstay of contemporary warfare.

United States President Donald Trump has said the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed “in its entirety”, as tensions between the countries escalate.

There was no immediate response by Venezuela to Trump’s social media post on Saturday.

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s post comes amid weeks of escalating rhetoric by senior US officials against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his government.

While the Trump administration has said it is targeting Venezuela as part of a push to combat drug trafficking, experts and human rights observers have warned that Washington appears to be laying the groundwork for an attempt to unlawfully remove Maduro from power.

The US has deployed an aircraft carrier to the Caribbean and carried out a series of deadly bombings on vessels it accused of being involved in drug trafficking, killing dozens of people in what United Nations experts have described as extrajudicial killings.

Earlier this week, Trump also warned that he would start targeting Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” soon.

During a speech broadcast on national television on Thursday, Maduro said Venezuelans would not be intimidated.

More to come …

Authorities say 79 people remain missing and thousands of families have been displaced from their homes across Sumatra.

The death toll from floods and landslides on the western Indonesian island of Sumatra this week has risen to 174, a disaster official said, with about 80 more people still missing, as a punishing tropical storm system and heavy monsoon rains have battered the region.

“As of this afternoon, we have recorded that for the entire North Sumatra province, there have been 116 deaths and 42 people are still being searched for,” National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) chief Suharyanto announced on Friday.

He said another 35 were killed in the island’s Aceh province and another 23 in West Sumatra.

While the rain had stopped, 79 people were still missing and thousands of families were displaced, he added.

Residents in Sumatra’s Padang Pariaman region, where a total of 22 people died, had to cope with water levels at least 1 metre (3.3ft) high, and had still not been reached by search and rescue personnel on Friday.

In the town of Batang Toru, in northern Sumatra, residents on Friday buried seven unclaimed victims in a mass grave. The decomposing bodies, wrapped in black plastic, were lifted from the back of a truck onto a wide plot of land as onlookers covered their noses.

Communications remained down in some parts of the island, and authorities were working to restore power and clear roads blocked by landslide debris, said Abdul Muhari, spokesman for Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency.

Indonesia would continue to airlift aid and rescue personnel into stricken areas on Friday, he added.

In Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, 53-year-old Misniati described a terrifying battle against rising floodwaters to reach her husband at home.

She said that, returning from early morning prayers at a mosque, “I noticed the street was flooded.

“I tried to run back to my house to tell my husband, and the water was already reaching my waist,” she told the AFP news agency, adding that it was up to her chest by the time she reached home.

Flooding disasters elsewhere in Asia

Meanwhile, in Thailand, the government said 145 people had been killed by floods across eight southern provinces. It said a total of more than 3.5 million people had been affected.

In the southern city of Hat Yai, the hardest-hit part of Thailand, the rain had finally stopped on Friday, but residents were still ankle-deep in floodwaters, and many remained without electricity as they assessed the damage to their property over the last week.

Some residents said they were spared the worst of the floods but were still suffering from their effects.

In neighbouring Malaysia, where two people have been confirmed dead, tropical storm Senyar made landfall at about midnight and has since weakened.

Meteorological authorities are still bracing themselves for heavy rain and wind, and warned that rough seas could pose risks for small boats.

A total of 30,000 evacuees remain in shelters, down from more than 34,000 on Thursday.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that it had already evacuated 1,459 Malaysian nationals stranded in more than 25 flood-hit hotels in Thailand, adding that it would work to rescue the remaining 300 still caught up in flood zones.

Separately, at least 56 people were killed by a cyclone in the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka, authorities said.

HOLIDAYS are set to get more expensive both in the UK and abroad with new tourist tax rules and a rise in Air Passenger Duty.

Regional mayors will be given powers to introduce the levy on overnight stays at hotels, holiday lets and B&Bs, it was announced in today’s budget.

Measures announced in today’s Budget include…

London mayor Sadiq Khan, Liverpool‘s Steve Rotherham and Manchester‘s Andy Burnham have all backed the tourism levy.

But the Tory mayor of Teesside Ben Houchen vowed to shield visitors to his North East region and blasted the idea.

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He told The Sun: “If Labour hands me these powers, I won’t use them.

“People in Teesside and our local businesses are already feeling the squeeze from Labour’s last budget.

“Piling another tax on working people isn’t the answer and won’t drive growth.

“This is yet another cash grab that will hammer the fantastic hospitality businesses we have across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool.”

It comes just two months after Tourism Minister Chris Bryant told MPs the government “had no plans to introduce a tourism tax”.

Luke Petherbridge, the Association of British Travel Agent’s (ABTA) Director of Public Affairs said: “ABTA has consistently raised concerns about the cumulative impact of increasing taxes and charges on tourists and tourism businesses, with the UK already applying much higher rates of VAT than many countries and levying the highest air departure tax in the world.

“Against that backdrop, it’s hard to see how a further tax will not simply worsen the UK’s situation when it comes to competitiveness.

“We will be engaging with industry partners to respond to the consultation in the coming weeks.”

Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, slammed the move as “another shocking U-turn”.

She added: “I know the Government is worried about the cost of living, but a holiday tax is little more than a higher VAT rate for holidaymakers.”

Yesterday, EasyJet boss Kenton Jarvis warned the Chancellor against imposing a tourist tax across cities in the UK.

The airline chief said it might encourage tourists to go to rival European cities instead, such as Paris or Berlin.

Mr Jarvis said: “Any increase in tax that impacts the competitiveness of the UK visitor economy would not be a good thing.

“Last year, easyJet flew 15 million tourists into the UK and they spent just under £10 billion across the UK economy… so it’s very important to the visitor economy.”

And the cost of holidays abroad is set to go up as well.

The government will increase all rates of Air Passenger Duty (ADP) in line with the rate of inflation from April 1, 2027.

APD is a ‘tax’ on passengers flying from UK airports, built into the price of a flight ticket.

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Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary previously slammed some of the plans to increase the cost of flights.

He warned he would axe hundreds of flights from the UK if APD is increased.

I’m A celebrity star Angry Ginge opened up about his feelings to Ruby Wax OBE just hours after the content creator became emotional due to not seeing his family

I’m A Celeb’s Angry Ginge became emotional as tension started to brew. Tensions have been bubbling in camp in recent days, with the group becoming noticeably divided after Angry Ginge sparked a feud among his fellow contestants.

The star caused uproar when he told campmates he had won only five stars in his Bushtucker Trial – only for the truth to come out when a full ten-star dinner turned up.

The revelation left several celebrities questioning whether they could “trust Ginge” going forward. Ginge has also caused a stir after he was appointed camp leader alongside Aitch. The mood in camp shifted when the pair were made leader and deputy, leaving some stars, including Ruby feeling uneasy about the new hierarchy. The actress openly admitted she felt the camp had split into two. However, the 24-year-old appeared to bond Wax, 72 during latest scenes from the programme.

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Ginge – whose real name is Morgan Burtwistle – was recently seen visibly emotional on the ITV reality show, after the stars received pictures of their loved ones.

During one conversation from Tuesday night’s episode (November 25), he opened up about his family life. While showing Ruby his new digs in the leader and deputy treehouse, Ginge also revealed his family photo, pointing out each of his family members to her as she jokingly tells him: “You look a little dorky!”

Checking in on Ginge after his emotional day before, Ruby asked whether he was feeling in a better mood. He then responds: “Much better, yesterday I was just terrible…”

He opens up saying: “Do you know what it was? I’ve gone ten days without seeing my mum for example but I’ve always been able to ring her and text her, so not being able to communicate at all, it all gets on top of you.”

Ginge asked Ruby who she missed more, her husband or her cats, asking her to be honest. She replied: “My cats”, which had Ginge in stitches, before explaining she had been with her husband for 35 years.

As Ruby said she didn’t think Ginge was the romantic type, he explained for his ex before he asked her to be his girlfriend, he had “rose petals, from the front door all the way up the stairs and then it opened to my room, there’s a teddy bear, there’s a rose and then I officially asked her to be my girlfriend.”

In a heartbreaking admission, he went on to reveal that his ex-girlfriend had broken up with him via text message. “I got the message,” he said, adding: “I don’t think it’s working, stuff like that, I agreed,” before saying he had 10,000 people watching him on his livestream.

“I had to carry on for six more hours but in the long run, it’s funny isn’t it,” he said, as he and Ruby went on to laugh about the situation. “When I want to be, I can be romantic,” he said. In the Bush Telegraph, he said to the camera that for ladies who fancied him, he can be romantic.

“She’s an extraordinary woman, she has the same banter as me,” Ginge said of Ruby. Fans were obssesed over the duo. Taking to X, one person said: “Really enjoyed that conversation between Ginge and Ruby. They get on really well. Nice to learn more about Ginge #ImaCeleb.”

Another wrote: “Ginge and Ruby remind me of Maura and The reverend such an unlikely partnership but bloody brilliant #ImACeleb.” A third viewer wrote: “Ruby and Ginge’s chemistry is insane! #ImACeleb.”

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

Nov. 25 (UPI) — The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday released September data from its producer price index, showing modest increases in core wholesale prices that came in lower than experts had predicted.

The PPI for final demand products — what producers and manufacturers get paid for their goods and services sold to consumer businesses — in September increased 0.3%. But when excluding food, energy and trade services, BLS reported that final demand wholesale prices increased just 0.1% — half the expected 0.2% increase.

September’s data release was delayed by “the lapse in federal appropriations” caused by the 43-day federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, which the agency noted in its data report.

“While BLS completed data collection prior to the lapse, BLS could not complete data processing and review until appropriations resumed,” the agency said. “Subsequent PPI data releases will also be delayed.”

Overall, BLS reported that final demand increased by a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in September, following a 0.1% decline in August and 0.8% increase in July. On an unadjusted basis, PPI final demand increased 2.7% for the 12-month period that ended in September.

Broken down, the index for final demand on goods increased by 0.9%, the largest increase since a 0.9% jump in February 2024. Two-thirds of this increase can be blamed on energy prices leaping by 3.5%, while food prices increased 1.1%.

Among individual products, the cost for gasoline increased 11.8%, with increases also seen among meats, residential electric service, cars and ethanol. Prices for fresh and dry vegetables, however, dropped by 1.8%, and decreases were also seen in prices for metal ores and residual fuels.

BLS reported that the index for final demand services in September was unchanged, following a 0.3% decrease in August. Price increases of 0.8% were seen among transportation and warehousing services.

Among services, airline passenger service prices increased by 4%, and food wholesaling, chemicals and related products and furniture, among others, also saw prices rise. The margins for machinery and equipment wholesaling dropped 3.5% percent, while apparel, jewelry, footwear and portfolio management also saw price decreases.

Nov. 24 (UPI) — Argentina has reported a record increase in syphilis infections this year, with cases up 20.5% compared to the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Health’s National Epidemiological Bulletin.

Officials say the country is experiencing the highest levels since systematic reporting began.

During the first 44 weeks of the year, health authorities recorded 36,702 infections, a figure that nearly matches the 36,917 cases reported in all of 2024 and well above the 30,445 cases registered in 2023.

National rates have also climbed steadily, rising from 56 cases per 100,000 people in 2019 to 93 in 2024.

The increase is visible across all regions and affects mostly young people. Seventy-six percent of confirmed cases involve individuals between the ages of 15 and 39, with the highest rates among those 20 to 29.

The surge is unfolding alongside a broader cultural environment among young Argentines. Trends on TikTok and Instagram often portray or normalize sex without condoms, and references to this practice appear frequently in music and social media videos.

The Ministry of Health says the rise reflects two main factors: sustained circulation of the infection and improved detection through the national surveillance system.

Argentina’s situation mirrors a wider regional trend. The Pan American Health Organization estimates that the Americas register more than 3.3 million new syphilis infections each year, with regional cases increasing by nearly 30% since 2020. The region also continues to report some of the highest levels of congenital syphilis in the world.

In response, representatives from 23 countries met in São Paulo in July to coordinate a regional strategy. The meeting produced a document calling for expanded access to testing and treatment, stronger surveillance and greater political commitment to contain the disease.

International health agencies warn that syphilis continues to rise globally and that its growth in the Americas is placing increasing pressure on public health systems, particularly among young adults and pregnant women.

Abuse survivors urge accountability and support ahead of the much-anticipated release of the files related to the late sex offender in the United States.

A group of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse have said that they have been receiving death threats, which they expect to escalate, as the date nears for the release of files concerning the deceased convicted paedophile financier.

In a statement titled “What we’re bracing for” and made public on Thursday, Epstein’s survivors have demanded accountability and legal support to face their abusers and get justice.

“Many of us have already received death threats and other threats of harm. We are bracing for these to escalate,” they said.

“We ask every federal and state law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction over these threats to investigate them and protect us.”

They also warned that there have been attempts to blame the victims for their own or each other’s abuse.

Some of the survivors have increased the pace of their campaigning efforts recently to pressure the United States administration to release the Justice Department’s files on the late sex offender, speaking publicly about their stories.

The furore has dominated the national agenda in the US with President Donald Trump backpedalling on his opposition against the Justice Department releasing the files with a sudden about-face last week.

Trump signed a bill on Wednesday requiring the Justice Department to release all of the files related to the disgraced financier.

That was one day after the legislation was unanimously approved in the US Senate.

After he signed the move into law, the department has 30 days to make them public.

‘Continue fighting’

The development follows weeks of intense political fighting about how far to go in disclosing records tied to Epstein.

The release could identify some of the most high-profile figures in politics, entertainment and business.

“Years ago, Epstein got away with abusing us by portraying us as flawed and bad girls,” said the statement by the survivors, demanding full disclosure of the files.

“We cannot let his enablers use this tactic to escape accountability now,” added the appeal, signed by 18 named survivors and 10 Jane Does.

“We ask our champions in Congress and in the public to continue fighting to make sure all materials are released, not selected ones.”

For one survivor, Marina Lacerda, the upcoming publication of the files represents more than an opportunity for justice.

Lacerda says she was just 14 when Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York mansion, but she struggles to recall much of what happened because it is such a dark period in her life. Now, she’s hoping that the files will reveal more about the trauma that distorted so much of her adolescence.

“I feel that the government and the FBI knows more than I do, and that scares me, because it’s my life, it’s my past,” she told The Associated Press news agency.

Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. He pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2008 of procuring a minor for prostitution.

Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein survivor whose painful story has been one of the most high-profile cases, had reportedly faced a campaign of intimidation and threats before she died by suicide in April.

Giuffre had accused Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the disgraced and expelled former United Kingdom royal Prince Andrew, of sexual abuse.

Published on
20/11/2025 – 7:32 GMT+1

Shares in Nvidia rose more than 5% in after-hours trading after the chipmaker beat analysts’ expectations in its quarterly earnings report, released Wednesday.

In the three months to the end of October, Nvidia said its revenue jumped 62% to $57 billion (€49.49bn). The company reported $51.2bn (€44.43bn) in revenue from data-centre sales, beating expectations of $49bn (€42.52bn).

The firm also placed a forecast for the current quarter at $65bn (€56.41bn), surpassing Wall Street expectations of $61bn (€52.94bn).

“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” said CEO Jensen Huang during an earnings call.

“From our vantage point, we see something very different. As a reminder, Nvidia is unlike any other accelerator. We excel at every phase of AI from pre-training to post-training to inference.”

Nvidia is now the largest stock on Wall Street, having momentarily surpassed $5 trillion in value. That means it has an outsized influence on the S&P 500 and can make or break the market’s daily performance.

The firm has also become a bellwether for the broader frenzy around AI, notably because other companies rely on Nvidia chips for this technology.

AI stocks have taken a hit in recent weeks as investors questioned whether certain tech companies had been overvalued, driving fears of a market crash.

Before Wednesday’s earnings report, Nvidia’s chips had dropped 11% from their peak in early November.

CEO Huang sought to ease concerns of a bubble on Wednesday, claiming: “AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once.” He noted that Nvidia was focused on major transition areas, namely generative, agentic, and physical AI.

Generative AI can create things, agentic can accomplish a specific goal with limited supervision, while physical AI relates to the physical world — for example through robots.

British officials say they’re enforcing tougher policies for asylum seekers, including ending refugees’ automatic right to settle permanently in the UK. As Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands explains, the overhaul comes as polls show growing concerns about immigration.

JACOB ELORDI is gracing our screens once again, this time as the Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein – and it seems audiences can’t get enough of the Australian actor. 

According to Google Trends data, Elordi’s global search record charts an extraordinary rise from Netflix romcom newcomer to one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men.

Google Trends shows his career highs with clear spikes in search interest. 

His breakthrough role came in 2018 when he starred in Netflix’s The Kissing Booth, introducing him to Gen Z audiences around the world. 

The following year, he solidified his profile as Nate Jacobs in HBO’s Euphoria, a role that won critical acclaim and expanded his fanbase beyond romcom audiences.

But it’s in the past two years that Elordi’s popularity has skyrocketed. 

Searches for “Jacob Elordi” reached new global highs after the release of Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn in 2023.

It makes sense that all these projects are among the top 25 related searches – alongside relationship history, of course. 

Searches have surged again this fall, thanks to the release of Frankenstein.

Early reviews of the film have praised Elordi for his ability to combine vulnerability with intensity, showing he can tackle challenging characters. A million miles away from the character he played in The Kissing Booth. 

The data also shows that Elordi has international appeal. 

Early searches were mainly in Australia, the US and the UK. Recent trends show growing interest across Europe, Asia and South America, with his choice of roles boosting his global profile.

Elordi looks set to maintain his momentum with Wuthering Heights, scheduled for release in 2026, in which he will star opposite Margot Robbie. 

The casting is already sparking excitement, appealing to fans of classic literature as well as general moviegoers. 

Frankenstein audiences have been fascinated by how Elordi brings Mary Shelley’s iconic character to life. As Wuthering Heights is also a beloved literary classic, expectations are sky high. 

Literary fans will be watching closely, hoping for an adaptation that honors the original and doesn’t just appeal to Hollywood.

Each major appearance sparks a worldwide search spike, making Elordi a soon-to-be household name. 

He is a phenomenon whose every role – from Nate Jacobs to the Creature and, soon, Heathcliff – triggers global attention.

With Frankenstein out last month and Wuthering Heights on the horizon, one thing is certain: Elordi’s well on the way with his journey from teen heart-throb to Hollywood A-lister.

The easiest way to reach Savannah-Ngurore is to tell the cab drivers at the park that you’re headed to Wurin pasa dutse, a Hausa phrase meaning ‘the place stones are broken’. It is a rural community in Yola North Local Government Area, Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria. 

With no signposts leading into the community, the only marker is a bus stop across the road, directly opposite a once-massive mountain. For decades, its slopes have been cut down, felled, and flattened into stones and gravel by labourers who toil from dawn to dusk. 

For many of these stone crushers, quarrying — the process of breaking rocks from the earth, either by hand or heavy machinery, for construction or industrial use — has been a means of survival for decades. Equipped with gloves, hammers, sunglasses, and sometimes heavy machinery, they leave home at dawn for the mountain they call ‘site’.

The only path he knew

Nehemiah Nuhu sits atop a pile of gravel he has broken. While his legs sprawl to the side, a hammer is clutched in his left hand, and his right hand is gloved. He continues to break the stones into tiny fragments. A small music box blasts Afrobeat rhythms beside him, its speaker carrying the beat across the dusty air. 

“The mountain has slowly given way over the years,” he said. As one of the stone crushers who has been carving into the earth for nearly a decade, he has mastered the art of quarrying. His hands move very quickly as his hammer splits the stones in seconds. 

The 28-year-old has been doing this since he reached adulthood. “I don’t have any job apart from this,” he told HumAngle. “It’s not a good job. It requires a lot of energy, and it’s very exhausting.” With high unemployment across the country, Nehemiah said his secondary school certificate is not enough to get him a white-collar job.

“Nobody taught me this business. This is something that has been going on in this community since I was a boy, so I grew up and joined them,” he said. 

He explained that the struggle to survive drove him into quarrying. The trade provides him with an income to support himself and his younger siblings. Nehemiah believes the mountain is a gift from God to the community. He noted that most youths in Savannah-Ngurore have little or no formal education, and with few job opportunities, the quarry has become their only means of survival.

“Most of the youths from this community work here. We are happy that God gave us this mountain to break and earn a living from it.”

Daily labour, hard choices

Nehemiah and other stone crushers start their day by climbing the mountain to carve out excavations. From the top, they roll heavy rocks down a sloping channel that they have shaped over the years by repeated use. Once the stones reach the ground, they are gathered at the foot of the mountain, where they are broken into smaller pieces. 

After the stones are reduced to gravel, they are measured in wheelbarrows and sold to individuals or dealers who come with trucks or open vans. Each wheelbarrow sells for about ₦400 or ₦500, and Nehemiah says he makes around ₦4,000 daily.

“I fill up like 10 wheelbarrows or more in a day. I come here every day and work from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Then I return home to rest. By 2 p.m., I come back and continue, then close around 5 p.m.,” he told HumAngle. 

Sometimes, dealers call them to request specific quantities. “The ones that trust us give us contracts with specific targets, then we deliver to them,” Nehemiah said. When buyers don’t show up, they keep adding to their piles, waiting for the next order.

When other jobs fail

For 45-year-old Ibrahim Hassan, quarrying became a last resort after trying several jobs that yielded little or no results. He started working at the site about five months ago, and despite the physically demanding nature of the job, he finds satisfaction in it. 

“Quarrying fetches quick cash,” he said. “I worked in a bread factory. I worked as a construction labourer, and I was a mechanic one time.” 

He travels 40 minutes from Jimeta to Savannah-Ngurore every weekday. “I’m enjoying the work so far. Apart from its complex nature, I don’t have any problem with it.”

There is also 26-year-old Faruk Muhammed, who has been working at the site for a decade. From his earnings, he established a local tea shop around the community, which he runs alongside his quarrying business. 

“I do both jobs hand in hand,” he said, face down as he split rocks. Faruk arrives at the site in the morning, leaves around noon to rest, and then prepares for his tea shop. 

What he appreciates most about quarrying is not having to search for customers, since the dealers come to the site. “It’s a very tough job. You have to be strong to handle it, but I’m glad I use it to fend for myself. I don’t have to beg anyone for a penny,” he said.

A toll on the environment 

Even though quarrying has become a source of livelihood for many in Savannah-Ngurore, the trade continues to burden the earth. Amid the heaps of broken rock lies a toll impossible to ignore.

Zaccheus Bent Adams, a geologist, said quarrying causes air pollution, biodiversity loss, flooding, and erosion, among other environmental and health hazards.  

“Dust settles on leaves and can physically cover the surface, reducing the amount of sunlight available, which can lead to water stress because the pores on the leaves are crucial for gas exchange,” he stated. Such disruption, he added, affects water circulation above and below the earth’s surface.

He also said the extraction affects both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, destroying habitats and diminishing biodiversity. Zaccheus stressed that conserving biodiversity is essential because all species are interconnected and depend on one another for survival.

He added that climate change exacerbates these effects, contributing to droughts, heatwaves, rising sea levels and wildfires. “Extreme weather conditions increase storm and flood levels, causing damage to communities,” he said.

Living with risks

Quarrying comes with other risks and hazards to the stone crushers.

“While excavating the stones, we sometimes slip and fall, and when we manage to roll the rocks down the slope, we must stand firm or fall down the mountain,” Nehemiah said. He noted that several accidents had occurred at the site, resulting in injuries to workers. He himself bears scars from those incidents. 

“The accidents are regular. Some died when the rocks crushed them during excavation. Others tripped and fell,” he told HumAngle. 

Despite the dangers, the stone crushers show up every day. Although Faruk has not suffered any major accident, he has sustained injuries — and admits he is often afraid. 

“If I get another job right now, I’ll quit quarrying. It’s strenuous. I don’t enjoy it. It’s just that the income helps me and my parents a lot,” he stated. 

Zaccheus added that both residents and stone crushers are at risk of developing respiratory illnesses and symptoms such as shortness of breath. “Exposure to quarry dust has been linked to headaches, eye itches, and skin irritation,” he said.

Nearby communities, he noted, are not immune to the hazards. Landscape degradation, noise pollution, air pollution, and water contamination can lead to social tension and the loss of agricultural land.

Paying the price

Far from the clatter and the dust, 55-year-old Jauro Tafida, the community leader of Savannah-Ngurore, believes that these operations are responsible for several environmental challenges affecting the community. As someone who was born and raised in the area, Tafida draws a comparison to the rapidly vanishing landscapes.

“Before they started quarrying, our lands absorbed water, but now it flows through the lands and farmlands very easily,” he said, explaining that erosion is worsening. 

During the rainy season, water cascades down the mountain along channels carved by the stone crushers, often causing floods that damage homes and farms.

“Where there were no holes before, you now see holes everywhere — even on our farmlands,” Tafida said.

He also noted that local water bodies are shrinking and vegetation is losing its richness.

“There are so many changes,” he told HumAngle. “Years ago, we didn’t bother about spraying herbicides or anything on our farms because the land is rich, but now, we must spray herbicides, and the harvest is no longer bountiful.”

Zaccheus confirmed that quarrying stirs up sand sediments, reduces water quality, and disrupts photosynthesis in plants, ultimately destabilising the food chain. “Coastal and riverine areas face increased erosion as sediment transport changes. Flooding also intensifies, with serious socio-economic impacts on farming communities,” he said.

The community leader said quarrying in Savannah-Ngurore began about fifteen years ago and has since intensified, attracting workers from neighbouring communities. “People from Rundamallu, Ngurore town, Jimeta, and other places all come here to work and then return home,” he said.

Some workers, he added, have died or suffered amputations after accidents. Yet he believes the practice will continue. “It will go on since the children have no other work. Quarrying keeps them occupied and prevents idleness,” he said.

Regulation gaps

The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act, established in 2007, aims to prevent environmental degradation, air and noise pollution, and the obstruction of natural drainage channels. The Act restricts quarrying and blasting activities that cause public nuisance.

Similarly, Section 76 of the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act prohibits individual quarrying. “Every operation for extracting any quarriable mineral, including sand dredging for industrial use, shall be conducted under a lease or licence granted by the Minister,” the Act states.

Before any lease for quarrying is granted, the legislation requires an environmental survey to determine approval. Despite these legal frameworks, quarrying activities continue largely unchecked. In 2024, it was reported that Nigeria loses about $9 billion annually to illegal mining and unlicensed quarry operators.

According to Zacchaeus, unregulated quarrying amplifies social and environmental harm. “The local miners aim to extract the stones without backfilling, which is required after every extraction,” he said. Backfilling, he explained, restores land and vegetation, creating new habitats for plants and animals. It ensures the area can be used again after mining is complete.

He urged the government to engage in community outreach to ensure the implementation of stricter environmental regulations or laws governing quarrying operations. “Through this, the negative impact on the environment and local communities would be minimised,” he said.

Zaccheus also called on policymakers to conduct regular environmental impact assessments to evaluate the effects of quarrying on ecosystems and water quality. “Sustainable practice is the key,” he stressed, “because it promotes rehabilitation and the protection of biodiversity.”

TORONTO — Top diplomats from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies are converging on southern Ontario as tensions rise between the U.S. and traditional allies such as Canada over defense spending, trade and uncertainty over President Trump’s ceasefire plan in Gaza and efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said in an interview with the Associated Press that “the relationship has to continue across a range of issues” despite trade pressures as she prepared to host U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Anand also invited the foreign ministers of Australia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa and Ukraine.

She said “15 foreign ministers are coming from around the world to the Great White North and funnily enough on the week of our first large snowfall.”

“The work that Canada is doing is continuing to lead multilaterally in an era of a greater movement to protectionism and unilateralism,” Anand said. “And in an era of economic and geopolitical volatility.”

Canada’s G-7 hosting duties this year have been marked by strained relations with its North American neighbor, predominantly over Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports. But the entire bloc of allies is confronting major turbulence over the Republican president’s demands on trade and various proposals to halt worldwide conflicts.

One main point of contention has been defense spending. All G-7 members except for Japan are members of NATO, and Trump has demanded that the alliance partners spend 5% of their annual gross domestic product on defense. While a number of countries have agreed, others have not. Among the G-7 NATO members, Canada and Italy are furthest from that goal.

There have also been G-7 disagreements over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with Britain, Canada and France announcing they would recognize a Palestinian state even without a resolution to the conflict. With the Russia-Ukraine war, most G-7 members have taken a tougher line on Russia than Trump has.

The two-day meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Lake Ontario near the U.S. border comes after Trump ended trade talks with Canada because the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the U.S. that upset him. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump’s insistence that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney apologized for the ad and said last week that he’s ready to resume trade talks when the Americans are ready.

“The work that we are doing in the G-7 is about finding areas where we can cooperate multilaterally,” Anand said. “This conversation will continue regardless of other efforts that we are making on the trade side.”

Anand said she will have a meeting with Rubio but noted that a different minister leads the U.S. trade file. The U.S. president has placed greater priority on addressing his grievances with other nations’ trade policies than on collaboration with G-7 allies.

“Every complex relationship has numerous touch points,” Anand said. “On the trade file, there is continued work to be done — just as there is work to be done on the numerous touch points outside the trade file, and that’s where Secretary Rubio and I come in because the relationship has to continue across a range of issues.”

Anand said Rubio asked her during a breakfast meeting in Washington last month to play a role in bringing countries to the table to ensure that Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan has longevity.

U.S. officials said Rubio, who also may have meetings with other G-7 counterparts and at least one of the invited non-G-7 foreign ministers, would be focused on initiatives to halt fighting in Ukraine and Gaza, maritime security, Haiti, Sudan, supply chain resiliency and critical minerals.

Canada’s priorities include ending the war in Ukraine, Arctic security and security in Haiti. There will be a working lunch on energy and critical minerals that are needed for anything from smartphones to fighter jets. Canada has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

Anand will probably try to use the meeting to improve the working relationship with Rubio, said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

“Yet, a key factor shaping that relationship is beyond her control: President Trump’s mercurial behavior,” Béland said.

“The expectations are quite low, but avoiding drama and fostering basic common ground on issues like Ukraine and Russia would be helpful,” Béland said.

Gillies and Lee write for the Associated Press.

Nov. 7 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday wants the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the meatpacking industry for possible price fixing and collusion.

Trump posted about the situation on Truth Social while flying to South Florida for the weekend and after he met in the White House with three Republican senators from beef-producing states, who are opposed to importing beef from Argentina.

“I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin an investigation into the meatpacking companies, who are driving up the price of beef through illicit collusion, price fixing, and price manipulation,” Trump posted.

“We will always protect our American Ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by a majority of foreign-owned meatpackers, who artificially inflate prices and jeopardize the security of our Nation’s food supply.

“Action must be taken immediately to protect consumers, combat Illegal monopolies, and ensure these corporations are not criminally profiting at the expense of the American people. I am asking the DOJ to act expeditiously.”

A short time later, he posted: “Cattle prices have dropped substantially, the price of boxed beef has gone up — therefore, you know that something is ‘fishy.’ We will get to the bottom of it very quickly. If there is criminality, those people responsible will pay a steep price!”

After the messages, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X: “Our investigation is underway! My Antitrust Division led by @AAGSlater has taken the lead in partnership with our friend @SecRollins at @USDA.”

Brooke Rollins is the agriculture secretary and Abigail “Gail” Slater leads the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.

The top four meatpackers control more than about 85% of the U.S. market — American companies Tyson and Cargill with JBS and National subsidiaries of Brazilian companies.

“This consolidation allows them to suppress prices paid to ranchers while keeping consumer prices high,” Farm Action said. “Importing more beef into this rigged system will not lower costs for families or restore fair markets for producers.

Three of the companies have been sued.

In October, Cargill and Tyson agreed to pay $87.5 million to settle a case alleging price fixing for beef while also denying any wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, JBS agreed to pay $83.5 million for its portion of a separate suit over alleged cattle price fixing.

Trump was taking aim on meatpacking instead of cattle raising, which has been affected by drought, smaller herds, labor shortages and lingering COVID-19 effects, Axios reported.

Trump has said overall grocery prices are going down but concedes beef costs are rising.

A CNN fact check pointed out in September that they were 1.4% higher than in January, when Trump returned to office, according to the Consumer Price Index.

There was a 0.6% increase in average grocery prices from July 2025 to August 2025, the biggest month-to-month jump in three years

Beef is up 13% in one year — the highest over most food items — according to the CPI.

Trump has attempted to increase the nation’s beef supply with increased imports.

The cattle industry and legislators, including Republicans, have opposed this move.

“President Trump’s plan to buy beef from Argentina is a betrayal of the American rancher,” Farm Action said.

“Those of us who raise cattle have finally started to see what profit looks like after facing years of high input costs and market manipulation by the meatpacking monopoly.

“After crashing the soybean market and gifting Argentina our largest export buyer, he’s now poised to do the same to the cattle market. Importing Argentinian beef would send U.S. cattle prices plummeting -and with the meatpacking industry as consolidated as it is, consumers may not see lower beef prices either. Washington should be focused on fixing our broken cattle market, not rewarding foreign competitors.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, opposes the imports.

“This isn’t the way to do it,” Thune told Semafor in October. “It’s created a lot of uncertainty in that market. So I’m hoping that the White House has gotten the message.”

Trump met with some Republican senators from beef-producing states: Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Tim Sheehy of Montana and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.

Hyde-Smith is a Republican from Mississippi whose family raises cattle. She is opposed to the imports.

In October, he announced plans to quadruple the tariff quota for imported Argentine beef from 20,000 to 80,000 metric tons. Any imports above this new quota with no tariff would still be subject to a higher 26.4% tariff.

In October, Trump authorized $20 billion loan to Argentina’s government and another $20 billion in financing from private lenders and sovereign wealth funds. It has been described as a bailout to Argentine President Javier Milei.

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old state lawmaker, who was set to become the city’s most liberal mayor in generations.

In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises.

With the victory, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa. He will also become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office Jan. 1.

Mamdani’s unlikely rise gives credence to Democrats who have urged the party to embrace more progressive, left-wing candidates instead of rallying behind centrists in hopes of winning back swing voters who have abandoned the party.

It was one of three victories by Democrats in high-profile races for elective office that were being viewed as a gauge of public sentiment toward President Trump in his second term. In California, voters were expected to approve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50, a redistricting measure aimed at boosting Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections.

In New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill was elected New Jersey governor over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Trump.

New Jersey Democratic Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill speaks during an election night party in East Brunswick, N.J., on Tuesday.

(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

Sherrill, a 53-year-old Navy veteran who represented a northern New Jersey district in the U.S. House for four terms, will be the state’s second female governor.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to give Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and make history as the first woman to lead the commonwealth.

Spanberger, 46, is a center-left Democrat and former CIA case officer who helped her party win a House majority during Trump’s first presidency.

Economic worries were the dominant concern as voters cast ballots for Tuesday’s elections, according to preliminary findings from the AP Voter Poll.

The results of the expansive survey of more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City suggested the public was troubled by an economy that seems trapped by higher prices and fewer job opportunities.

Supporters celebrate during the election night watch party for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger as she is projected to win the race at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Mamdani has already faced scrutiny from national Republicans, including Trump, who have eagerly cast him as a threat and the face of what they say is a more radical Democratic Party.

The contest drove the biggest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, with more than 2 million New Yorkers casting ballots, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

Mamdani’s grassroots campaign centered on affordability, and his charisma spoiled Cuomo’s attempted political comeback. The former governor, who resigned four years ago following allegations of sexual harassment that he continues to deny, was dogged by his past throughout the race and was criticized for running a negative campaign.

There’s also the question of how he will deal with Trump, who threatened to take over the city and to arrest and deport Mamdani if he won. Mamdani was born in Uganda, where he spent his early childhood, but was raised in New York City and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

New Yorkers celebrate as NY1 projects Zohran Mamdani the winner in the mayoral election at the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden on Tuesday.

(Jeremy Weine / Getty Images)

Mamdani, who was criticized throughout the campaign for his thin resume, will now have to begin staffing his incoming administration before taking office next year and game out how he plans to accomplish the ambitious but polarizing agenda that drove him to victory.

Among the campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would send mental health care workers to handle certain emergency calls rather than police officers. It is unclear how Mamdani will pay for such initiatives, given Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s steadfast opposition to his calls to raise taxes on wealthy people.

His decisions around the leadership of the New York Police Department will also be closely watched. Mamdani was a fierce critic of the department in 2020, calling for “this rogue agency” to be defunded and slamming it as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He has since apologized for those comments and has said he will ask the current NYPD commissioner to stay on the job.

Mamdani’s campaign was driven by his optimistic view of the city and his promises to improve the quality of life for its middle and lower classes.

But Cuomo, Sliwa and other critics assailed him over his vehement criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Mamdani, a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights, has accused Israel of committing genocide and said he would honor an arrest warrant the International Criminal Court issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

New York Independent mayoral candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo votes at the High School of Art and Design on Tuesday in New York City.

(Alexi J. Rosenfeld / Getty Images)

Going into the Democratic primary, Cuomo was the presumed favorite, with near-universal name recognition and deep political connections. Cuomo’s chances were buoyed further when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams bowed out of the primary while dealing with the fallout of his now-dismissed federal corruption case.

But as the race progressed, Mamdani’s natural charm, catchy social media videos and populist economic platform energized voters in the notoriously expensive city. He also began drawing outside attention as his name ID grew.

In New Jersey, Sherrill built her campaign around pushing back against Trump. She recently seized on the administration’s decision to abruptly freeze funding for a multibillion-dollar project to replace the aging rail tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York City beneath the Hudson River.

Spanberger’s victory in Virginia will flip partisan control of the governor’s office when she succeeds outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“We sent a message to every corner of the commonwealth, a message to our neighbors and our fellow Americans across the country,” Spanberger told cheering supporters in Richmond. “We sent a message to the whole word that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”

Izaguirre and Colvin write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Catalini, Adriana Gomez Licon, Olivia Diaz and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.

The annual TV licence fee is set to rise in April 2026

Calls have been made to scrap the BBC TV licence fee and introduce either advertising or a paywall system before the annual price increase in April. A new online petition has urged the Government to make changes to the TV licence system.

The current fee stands at £174.50 and households must pay this if they watch or record live television, or face potential fines. This charge usually increases alongside September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate, which reached 3.8 per cent.

Such a rise would push the licence fee up by £6.65 to £181.15 for the 2026/27 financial year. The Daily Record reports that this isn’t guaranteed and awaits confirmation from the UK Government later this month, typically around the Autumn Budget on November 26.

From April 1, 2024, the UK Government determined the licence fee would increase annually with CPI inflation for the Charter period’s remaining four years. The BBC’s current Charter continues until the end of 2027.

Campaigner David Gilmore contends that “even if you don’t watch the BBC you still have to pay for it”. He continued: “You don’t have to pay for content put on by theatres or cinemas if you don’t watch it so why should you be required to pay the BBC if you don’t watch their content?”

The petition titled “Scrap the BBC TV licence and replace funding with adverts or paywall” appears on the UK Government’s petitions-parliament website. At the time of reporting, it had over 1,300 signatures.

The petition needs 10,000 signatures to receive a written response and at 100,000 signatures, it would be considered for debate in Parliament. The petition can be viewed online here.

Other calls to change the TV licence

Over 15,200 people have signed a similar petition, urging the UK Government to cover the TV licence fee for all State Pensioners and those who reach the current official retirement age of 66. As per the current rules, only those over the age of 75 who are receiving Pension Credit are entitled to a free TV licence, saving them £174.50 on the annual fee.

Michael Thompson, the creator of the petition, argues that “many pensioners live on the breadline with only the TV for company”.

He further stated: “With the cost of food soaring and utility bills ever higher, we feel there is a desperate need to provide all pensioners with at least this concession.”

Mr Thompson added: “We feel it is a double outrage that those who have given their all to this country in taxes and raising children have to pay a TV licence fee and are only exempt if they receive means-tested Pension Credit. Meanwhile, some media figures draw huge salaries.”

The “Fund free TV licences for all pensioners” petition can also be seen on the UK Government’s petitions-parliament website.

The government has asked the media regulator to revisit its rules on phone companies raising their prices in the middle of a contract, after O2 unexpectedly announced it was raising prices by £2.50 a month.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said O2’s higher than expected price increase is “disappointing given the current pressures on consumers”.

“I believe we need to go further, faster. I am keen that we look at in-contract price rises again,” she wrote in a letter to the media regulator.

Ofcom said it shared the government’s concern “customers who face price rises must be treated fairly by mobile providers”.

O2 said in a statement: “We appreciate that price changes are never welcome, but we have been fully transparent with our customers about this change, writing directly to them and providing the right to exit without penalty if they wish.”

Ofcom has been given until 7 November to respond to Ms Kendall’s letter, and said it would respond to her specific questions shortly.

In January, new rules came in which cracked down on phone and broadband providers increasing prices in the middle of a contract without warning.

However, last week O2 announced it would be raising its monthly prices by more than originally promised.

It was able to do this because the increase was not linked to inflation, and it has given customers 30 days to leave without penalty – so long as they pay off the cost of their device in full.

The company said it has not gone against the regulation and Ofcom’s rules do not stop providers from raising prices.

“A price increase equivalent to 8p per day is greatly outweighed by the £700m we invest each year into our mobile network, with UK consumers benefitting from an extremely competitive market and some of the lowest prices compared to international peers,” it said.

Ms Kendall said O2 went “against the spirit” of the rules in her letter to Ofcom’s chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes.

She has asked Ofcom to look into whether the 30-day switching period makes it easy enough for consumers to move to another provider.

“I would welcome your undertaking a rapid review on how easy it is for customers to switch providers,” she said.

“If companies are determined to increase pricing, it is beholden on us to make sure that customers are able to go elsewhere as easily as possible.”

She has also asked for an assessment into whether the January rules give consumers enough transparency into price rises during their contracts.

Ofcom’s rules require companies to tell customers how much their bills will rise by in pounds and pence before their contract starts.

O2 initially said its monthly prices would increase by £1.80 a month in April 2026 for current customers.

But the firm now says they will go up by £2.50 instead.

Ms Kendall said she wants phone providers to inform all their customers – including those whose contracts started before the new rules – how much their monthly prices will go up by.

“We’ve always said fixed should mean fixed,” said Tom MacInnes, director of policy at the Citizens Advice charity, and added the current rule “hasn’t gone far enough to protect customers”.

“If one company is able to get away with this, other providers could follow suit,” he said.

“The time has come for the regulator to banish mid-contract price rises for good.”

Meanwhile, telecoms analyst Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight said UK network operators are “cash-strapped as margins are being squeezed”.

He added: “Striking the right balance between raising much-needed funds and investing in next-generation networks is never easy.”

But he said while other providers would have usually followed in announcing similar prices rises, “it seems highly unlikely that rivals will follow suit, given the consumer backlash and awareness generated thus far”.

European benchmarks began the week with gains. Oil and gold prices increased, but the euro weakened against the dollar. Sentiment was influenced by OPEC+’s decision to pause production hikes in the first quarter of next year, which led to a modest rise in oil prices as fears of oversupply eased. Gains were, however, mostly lost by late morning.

The international benchmark, Brent crude futures, traded at $64.76, while US West Texas Intermediate cost $60.92 a barrel.

Alongside pauses in the new year, OPEC+ countries agreed on Sunday to increase output by a small 137,000 barrels per day in December, maintaining the pace set for October and November.

Meanwhile, investors expect fresh Western sanctions on Russia, targeting Rosneft and Lukoil, to hinder the country’s ability to boost production further.

At the same time, major Western oil companies are benefitting from the disrupted supply of Russian refined fuels due to attacks and sanctions. Refining margins have risen substantially, giving the oil majors a boost. Both BP and Shell share prices were slightly up on Monday before noon in Europe.

“The decision by producers’ cartel OPEC+ to pause further output hikes at the start of next year, amid concerns about a glut of supply, helped give oil prices a lift and, in turn, boosted UK market heavyweights BP and Shell,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.

The movements also came as BP announced it had agreed to divest stakes in US shale assets to Sixth Street investment firm on Monday.

Winners in Europe

At 11:00 CET, the UK’s FTSE 100 was up by a few points. The DAX in Frankfurt was leading the gains, up 0.8% after an initial stutter. The CAC 40 in Paris started climbing, reaching gains of nearly 0.2%. The lift in France came despite national budget uncertainties and the release of negative PMI data, which showed that the country’s manufacturing sector was still contracting in October.

US futures were positive around the same time, rising between 0.1% and 0.5%.

Meanwhile, the earnings season continues. A number of European companies are reporting this week, including AstraZeneca, BP, BMW, and Commerzbank.

Ryanair opened the week by posting stronger-than-expected results for the first half of its financial year, spanning April to September. Revenues rose 13% to €9.82bn, as traffic grew 3% and fares increased by 13%. Over the same period, profit rose by 42% year-on-year to €2.54bn, driven by a strong Easter season.

The airline’s shares were up 2.90% in Dublin at around midday.

Looking ahead, Ryanair’s outspoken CEO Michael O’Leary criticised countries in Europe where airlines face high taxes, including environmental duties. In an interview with CNBC, he threatened to move capacity outside the UK should the new budget include such a levy.

“Ryanair is also one of several airline operators with an eagle eye on taxes and costs. It is no longer putting up with unfavourable tax systems, preferring to switch flights and routes to less punitive locations,” Mould commented.

In other markets, the euro weakened against the US dollar by more than 0.2%, hitting a rate of $1.1517 by 11:00 CET. At the same time, the Japanese yen and the British pound were also losing ground against the greenback, with the dollar trading at ¥154.15 and the pound costing $1.3136.

Gold traded just above $4,000, rising slightly by 0.3%.

At a Starbucks in downtown Culver City, Amit Jain pulls out his iPad Pro and presses play. On-screen, one of his employees at Luma AI — the Silicon Valley startup behind a new wave of generative video tools, which he co-founded and now runs — lumbers through the company’s Palo Alto office, arms swinging, shoulders hunched, pretending to be a monkey. Jain swipes to a second version of the same clip. Same movement, same hallway, but now he is a monkey. Fully rendered and believable, and created in seconds.

“The tagline for this would be, like, iPhone to cinema,” Jain says, flipping through other uncanny clips shared on his company’s Slack. “But, of course, it’s not full cinema yet.” He says it offhandedly — as if he weren’t describing a transformation that could upend not just how movies are made but what Hollywood is even for. If anyone can summon cinematic spectacle with a few taps, what becomes of the place that once called it magic?

Luma’s generative AI platform, Dream Machine, debuted last year and points toward a new kind of moviemaking, one where anyone can make release-grade footage with a few words. Type “a cowboy riding a velociraptor through Times Square,” and it builds the scene from scratch. Feed it a still photo and it brings the frozen moment to life: A dog stirs from a nap, trees ripple in the breeze.

Dream Machine’s latest tool, Modify Video, was launched in June. Instead of generating new footage, it redraws what’s already there. Upload a clip, describe what you want changed and the system reimagines the scene: A hoodie becomes a superhero cape, a sunny street turns snowy, a person transforms into a talking banana or a medieval knight. No green screen, no VFX team, no code. “Just ask,” the company’s website says.

For now, clips max out around 10 seconds, a limit set by the technology’s still-heavy computing demands. But as Jain points out, “The average shot in a movie is only eight seconds.”

A series on how the AI revolution is reshaping the creative foundations of Hollywood — from storytelling and performance to production, labor and power.

Jain’s long-term vision is even more radical: a world of fully personalized entertainment, generated on demand. Not mass-market blockbusters, but stories tailored to each individual: a comedy about your co-workers, a thriller set in your hometown, a sci-fi epic starring someone who looks like you, or simply anything you want to see. He insists he’s not trying to replace cinema but expand it, shifting from one-size-fits-all stories to something more personal, flexible and scalable.

“Today, videos are made for 100 million people at a time — they have to hit the lowest common denominator,” Jain says. “A video made just for you or me is better than one made for two unrelated people. That’s the problem we’re trying to solve… My intention is to get to a place where two hours of video can be generated for every human every day.”

It’s a staggering goal that Jain acknowledges is still aspirational. “That will happen, but when the prices are about a thousand times cheaper than where we are. Our research and our engineering are going toward that, to push the price down as much as humanly possible. Because that’s the demand for video. People watch hours and hours of video every day.”

Scaling to that level would require not just faster models but exponentially more compute power. Critics warn that the environmental toll of such expansion could be profound.

For Dream Machine to become what Jain envisions, it needs more than generative tricks — it needs a built-in narrative engine that understands how stories work: when to build tension, where to land a joke, how to shape an emotional arc. Not a tool but a collaborator. “I don’t think artists want to use tools,” he says. “They want to tell their stories and tools get in their way. Currently, pretty much all video generative models, including ours, are quite dumb. They are good pixel generators. At the end of the day, we need to build general intelligence that can tell a f— funny joke. Everything else is a distraction.”

The name may be coincidental, but nine years ago, MIT’s Media Lab launched a very different kind of machine: Nightmare Machine, a viral experiment that used neural networks to distort cheerful faces and familiar cityscapes into something grotesque. That project asked if AI could learn to frighten us. Jain’s vision points in a more expansive direction: an AI that is, in his words, “able to tell an engaging story.”

For many in Hollywood, though, the scenario Jain describes — where traditional cinema increasingly gives way to fast, frictionless, algorithmically personalized video — sounds like its own kind of nightmare.

Jain sees this shift as simply reflecting where audiences already are. “What people want is changing,” he says. “Movies obviously have their place but people aren’t spending time on them as much. What people want are things that don’t need their attention for 90 minutes. Things that entertain them and sometimes educate them and sometimes are, you know, thirst traps. The reality of the universe is you can’t change people’s behaviors. I think the medium will change very significantly.”

Still, Jain — who previously worked as an engineer on Apple’s Vision Pro, where he collaborated with filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas — insists Hollywood isn’t obsolete, just due for reinvention. To that end, Luma recently launched Dream Lab LA, a creative studio aimed at fostering AI-powered storytelling.

“Hollywood is the largest concentration of storytellers in the world,” Jain says. “Just like Silicon Valley is the largest concentration of computer scientists and New York is the largest concentration of finance people. We need them. That’s what’s really special about Hollywood. The solution will come out of the marriage of technology and art together. I think both sides will adapt.”

It’s a hopeful outlook, one that imagines collaboration, not displacement. But not everyone sees it that way.

In Silicon Valley, where companies like Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta are racing to build ever more powerful generative tools, such thinking is framed as progress. In Hollywood, it can feel more like erasure — a threat to authorship itself and to the jobs, identities and traditions built around it. The tension came to a head during the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, when picket signs declared: “AI is not art” and “Human writers only.”

What once felt like the stuff of science fiction is now Hollywood’s daily reality. As AI becomes embedded in the filmmaking process, the entire ecosystem — from studios and streamers to creators and institutions — is scrambling to keep up. Some see vast potential: faster production, lower costs, broader access, new kinds of creative freedom. Others see an extraction machine that threatens the soul of the art form and a coming flood of cheap, forgettable content.

AI storytelling is just beginning to edge into theaters — and already sparking backlash. This summer, IMAX is screening 10 generative shorts from Runway’s AI Film Festival. At AMC Burbank, where one screening is set to take place later this month, a protest dubbed “Kill the Machine” is already being organized on social media, an early flashpoint in the growing resistance to AI’s encroachment on storytelling.

But ready or not, the gravity is shifting. Silicon Valley is pulling the film industry into its orbit, with some players rushing in and others dragged. Faced with consolidation, shrinking budgets and shareholder pressure to do more with less, studios are turning to AI not just to cut costs but to survive. The tools are evolving faster than the industry’s playbook, and the old ways of working are struggling to keep up. With generative systems poised to flood the zone with content, simply holding an audience’s attention, let alone shaping culture, is becoming harder than ever.

While the transition remains uneven, some studios are already leaning in. Netflix recently used AI tools to complete a complex VFX sequence for the Argentine sci-fi series “El Eternauta” in a fraction of the usual time. “We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” co-chief executive Ted Sarandos told analysts during a July earnings call.

At Paramount, incoming chief executive David Ellison is pitching a more sweeping transformation: a “studio in the cloud” that would use AI and other digital tools to reinvent every stage of filmmaking, from previsualization to post. Ellison, whose Skydance Media closed its merger with Paramount Global this week and whose father, Larry Ellison, co-founded Oracle, has vowed to turn the company into a tech-first media powerhouse. “Technology will transform every single aspect of this company,” he said last year.

In one of the most visible examples of AI adoption in Hollywood, Lionsgate, the studio behind the “John Wick” and “Hunger Games” franchises, struck a deal last year with the generative video startup Runway to train a custom model on its film and TV library, aiming to support future project development and improve efficiency. Lionsgate chief executive Jon Feltheimer, speaking to analysts after the agreement, said the company believes AI, used with “appropriate guardrails,” could have a “positive transformational impact” on the business.

Elsewhere, studios are experimenting more quietly: using AI to generate early character designs, write alternate dialogue or explore how different story directions might land. The goal isn’t to replace writers or directors, but to inform internal pitches and development. At companies like Disney, much of the testing is happening in games and interactive content, where the brand risk is lower and the guardrails are clearer. For now, the prevailing instinct is caution. No one wants to appear as if they’re automating away the heart of the movies.

Legacy studios like Paramount are exploring ways to bring down costs by incorporating AI into their pipeline.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

As major studios pivot, smaller, more agile players are building from the ground up for the AI era.

According to a recent report by FBRC.ai, an L.A.-based innovation studio that helps launch and advise early-stage AI startups in entertainment, more than 65 AI-native studios have launched since 2022, most of them tiny, self-funded teams of five or fewer. At these studios, AI tools allow a single creator to do the work of an entire crew, slashing production costs by 50% to 95% compared with traditional live-action or animation. The boundaries between artist, technician and studio are collapsing fast — and with them, the very idea of Hollywood as a gatekeeper.

That collapse is raising deeper questions: When a single person anywhere in the world can generate a film from a prompt, what does Hollywood still represent? If stories can be personalized, rendered on demand or co-written with a crowd, who owns them? Who gets paid? Who decides what matters and what disappears into the churn? And if narrative itself becomes infinite, remixable and disposable, does the idea of a story still hold any meaning at all?

Yves Bergquist leads the AI in Media Project at USC’s Entertainment Technology Center, a studio-backed think tank where Hollywood, academia and tech converge. An AI researcher focused on storytelling and cognition, he has spent years helping studios brace for a shift he sees as both inevitable and wrenching. Now, he says, the groundwork is finally being laid.

“We’re seeing very aggressive efforts behind the scenes to get studios ready for AI,” Bergquist says. “They’re building massive knowledge graphs, getting their data ready to be ingested into AI systems and putting governance committees in place to start shaping real policy.”

But adapting won’t be easy, especially for legacy studios weighed down by entrenched workflows, talent relationships, union contracts and layers of legal complexity. “These AI models weren’t built for Hollywood,” Bergquist says. “This is 22nd-century technology being used to solve 21st-century problems inside 19th-century organizational models. So it’s blood, sweat and tears getting them to fit.”

In an algorithmically accelerated landscape where trends can catch fire and burn out in hours, staying relevant is its own challenge. To help studios keep pace, Bergquist co-founded Corto, an AI startup that describes itself as a “growth genomics engine.” The company, which also works with brands like Unilever, Lego and Coca-Cola, draws on thousands of social and consumer sources, analyzing text, images and video to decode precisely which emotional arcs, characters and aesthetics resonate with which demographics and cultural segments, and why.

“When the game is attention, the weapon is understanding where culture and attention are and where they’re going.” Bergquist says, arguing media ultimately comes down to neuroscience.

Corto’s system breaks stories down into their formal components, such as tone, tempo, character dynamics and visual aesthetics, and benchmarks new projects against its extensive data to highlight, for example, that audiences in one region prefer underdog narratives or that a certain visual trend is emerging globally. Insights like these can help studios tailor marketing strategies, refine storytelling decisions or better assess the potential risk and appeal of new projects.

With ever-richer audience data and advances in AI modeling, Bergquist sees a future where studios can fine-tune stories in subtle ways to suit different viewers. “We might know that this person likes these characters better than those characters,” he says. “So you can deliver something to them that’s slightly different than what you’d deliver to me.”

A handful of studios are already experimenting with early versions of that vision — prototyping interactive or customizable versions of existing IP, exploring what it might look like if fans could steer a scene, adjust a storyline or interact with a favorite character. Speaking at May’s AI on the Lot conference, Danae Kokenos, head of technology innovation at Amazon MGM Studios, pointed to localization, personalization and interactivity as key opportunities. “How do we allow people to have different experiences with their favorite characters and favorite stories?” she said. “That’s not quite solved yet, but I see it coming.”

Bergquist is aware that public sentiment around AI remains deeply unsettled. “People are very afraid of AI — and they should be,” he acknowledges. “Outside of certain areas like medicine, AI is very unpopular. And the more capable it gets, the more unpopular it’s going to be.”

Still, he sees a significant upside for the industry. Get AI right, and studios won’t just survive but redefine storytelling itself. “One theory I really believe in is that as more people gain access to Hollywood-level production tools, the studios will move up the ladder — into multi-platform, immersive, personalized entertainment,” he says. “Imagine spending your life in Star Wars: theatrical releases, television, VR, AR, theme parks. That’s where it’s going.”

The transition won’t be smooth. “We’re in for a little more pain,” he says, “but I think we’ll see a rebirth of Hollywood.”

“AI slop” or creative liberation?

You don’t have to look far to find the death notices. TikTok, YouTube and Reddit are full of “Hollywood is dead” posts, many sparked by the rise of generative AI and the industry’s broader upheaval. Some sound the alarm. Others say good riddance. But what’s clear is that the center is no longer holding and no one’s sure what takes its place.

Media analyst Doug Shapiro has estimated that Hollywood produces about 15,000 hours of fresh content each year, compared to 300 million hours uploaded annually to YouTube. In that context, generative AI doesn’t need to reach Hollywood’s level to pose a major threat to its dominance — sheer volume alone is enough to disrupt the industry.

The attention economy is maxed out but attention itself hasn’t grown. As the monoculture fades from memory, Hollywood’s cultural pull is loosening. This year’s Oscars drew 19.7 million viewers, fewer than tuned in to a typical episode of “Murder, She Wrote” in the 1990s. The best picture winner, “Anora,” earned just $20 million at the domestic box office, one of the lowest tallies of any winner of the modern era. Critics raved, but fewer people saw it in theaters than watch the average moderately viral TikTok.

Amid this fragmentation, generative AI tools are fueling a surge of content. Some creators have a new word for it: “slop” — a catchall for cheap, low-effort, algorithmically churned-out media that clogs the feed in search of clicks. Once the world’s dream factory, Hollywood is now asking how it can stand out in an AI-powered media deluge.

Audience members watch an AI-assisted animated short at “Emergent Properties,” a 2023 Sony Pictures screening that offered a glimpse of the uncanny, visually inventive new wave of AI-powered filmmaking.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Ken Williams, chief executive of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center and a former studio exec who co-founded Sony Pictures Imageworks, calls it a potential worst-case scenario in the making — “the kind of wholesale dehumanization of the creative process that people, in their darkest moments, fear.”

Williams says studios and creatives alike worry that AI will trap audiences in an algorithmic cul de sac, feeding them more of what they already know instead of something new.

“People who live entirely in the social media world and never come out of that foxhole have lost the ability to hear other voices — and no one wants to see that happen in entertainment.”

If the idea of uncontrolled, hyper-targeted AI content sounds like something out of an episode of “Black Mirror,” it was. In the 2023 season opener “Joan Is Awful,” a woman discovers her life is being dramatized in real time on a Netflix-style streaming service by an AI trained on her personal data, with a synthetic Salma Hayek cast as her on-screen double.

So far, AI tools have been adopted most readily in horror, sci-fi and fantasy, genres that encourage abstraction, stylization and visual surrealism. But when it comes to human drama, emotional nuance or sustained character arcs, the cracks start to show. Coherence remains a challenge. And as for originality — the kind that isn’t stitched together from what’s already out there — the results so far have generally been far from revelatory.

At early AI film festivals, the output has often leaned toward the uncanny or the conceptually clever: brief, visually striking experiments with loose narratives, genre tropes and heavily stylized worlds. Many feel more like demos than fully realized stories. For now, the tools excel at spectacle and pastiche but struggle with the kinds of layered, character-driven storytelling that define traditional cinema.

Then again, how different is that from what Hollywood is already producing? Today’s biggest blockbusters — sequels, reboots, multiverse mashups — often feel so engineered to please that it’s hard to tell where the algorithm ends and the artistry begins. Nine of the top 10 box office hits in 2024 were sequels. In that context, slop is, to some degree, in the eye of the beholder. One person’s throwaway content may be another’s creative breakthrough — or at least a spark.

Joaquin Cuenca, chief executive of Freepik, rejects the notion that AI-generated content is inherently low-grade. The Spain-based company, originally a stock image platform, now offers AI tools for generating images, video and voice that creators across the spectrum are starting to embrace.

“I don’t like this ‘slop’ term,” Cuenca says. “It’s this idea that either you’re a top renowned worldwide expert or it’s not worth it — and I don’t think that’s true. I think it is worth it. Letting people with relatively low skills or low experience make better videos can help people get a business off the ground or express things that are in their head, even if they’re not great at lighting or visuals.”

Freepik’s tools have already made their way into high-profile projects. Robert Zemeckis’ “Here,” starring a digitally de-aged Tom Hanks and set in one room over a period for decades, used the company’s upscaling tech to enhance backgrounds. A recently released anthology of AI-crafted short films, “Beyond the Loop,” which was creatively mentored by director Danny Boyle, used the platform to generate stylized visuals.

“More people will be able to make better videos, but the high end will keep pushing forward too,” Cuenca says. “I think it will expand what it means to be state of the art.”

For all the concern about runaway slop, Williams envisions a near-term stalemate, where AI expands the landscape without toppling the kind of storytelling that still sets Hollywood apart. In that future, he argues, the industry’s competitive edge — and perhaps its best shot at survival — will still come from human creators.

That belief in the value of human authorship is now being codified by the industry’s most influential institution. Earlier this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued its first formal guidance on AI in filmmaking, stating that the use of generative tools will “neither help nor harm” a film’s chances of receiving a nomination. Instead, members are instructed to consider “the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship” when evaluating a work.

“I don’t see AI necessarily displacing the kind of narrative content that has been the province of Hollywood’s creative minds and acted by the stars,” Williams says. “The industry is operating at a very high level of innovation and creativity. Every time I turn around, there’s another movie I’ve got to see.”

The new studio model

Inside Mack Sennett Studios, a historic complex in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood once used for silent film shoots, a new kind of studio is taking shape: Asteria, the generative AI video studio founded by filmmaker-turned-entrepreneur Bryn Mooser.

Asteria serves as the creative arm of Moonvalley, an AI storytelling company led by technologist and chief executive Naeem Talukdar. Together, they’re exploring new workflows built around the idea that AI can expand, rather than replace, human creativity.

Mooser, a two-time Oscar nominee for documentary short subject and a fifth-generation Angeleno, sees the rise of AI as part of Hollywood’s long history of reinvention, from sound to color to CGI. “Looking back, those changes seem natural, but at the time, they were difficult,” he says.

Ed Ulbrich, left, Bryn Mooser and Mateusz Malinowski, executives at Moonvalley and Asteria, are building a new kind of AI-powered movie studio focused on collaboration between filmmakers and technologists.

(David Butow / For the Times)

What excites him now is how AI lowers technical barriers for the next generation. “For people who are technicians, like stop-motion or VFX artists, you can do a lot more as an individual or a small team,” he says. “And really creative filmmakers can cross departments in a way they couldn’t before. The people who are curious and leaning in are going to be the filmmakers of tomorrow.”

It’s a hopeful vision, one shared by many AI proponents who see the tools as a great equalizer, though some argue it often glosses over the structural realities facing working artists today, where talent and drive alone may not be enough to navigate a rapidly shifting, tech-driven landscape.

That tension is precisely what Moonvalley is trying to address. Their pitch isn’t just creative, it’s legal. While many AI companies remain vague about what their models are trained on, often relying on scraped content of questionable legality, Moonvalley built its video model, Marey, on fully licensed material and in close collaboration with filmmakers.

That distinction is becoming more significant. In June, Disney and Universal filed a sweeping copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, a popular generative AI tool that turns text prompts into images, accusing it of enabling rampant infringement by letting users generate unauthorized depictions of characters like Darth Vader, Spider-Man and the Minions. The case marks the most aggressive legal challenge yet by Hollywood studios against AI platforms trained on their intellectual property.

“We worked with some of the best IP lawyers in the industry to build the agreements with our providers,” Moonvalley’s Talukdar says. “We’ve had a number of major studios audit those agreements. We’re confident every single pixel has had a direct sign-off from the owner. That was the baseline we operated from.”

The creative frontier between Hollywood and AI is drawing interest from some of the industry’s most ambitious filmmakers.

Steven Spielberg and “Avengers” co-director Joe Russo were among the advisors to Wonder Dynamics, an AI-driven VFX startup that was acquired by Autodesk last year. Darren Aronofsky, the boundary-pushing director behind films like “Black Swan” and “The Whale,” recently launched the AI studio Primordial Soup, partnering with Google DeepMind. Its debut short, “Ancestra,” directed by Eliza McNitt, blends real actors with AI-generated visuals and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.

Not every foray into AI moviemaking has been warmly received. Projects that spotlight generative tools have stoked fresh arguments about where to draw the line between machine-made and human-driven art.

In April, actor and director Natasha Lyonne, who co-founded Asteria with her partner, Mooser, announced her feature directorial debut: a sci-fi film about a world addicted to VR gaming called “Uncanny Valley,” combining AI and traditional filmmaking techniques. Billed as offering “a radical new cinematic experience,” the project drew backlash from some critics who questioned whether such ventures risk diminishing the role of human authorship. Lyonne defended the film to the Hollywood Reporter, making clear she’s not replacing crew members with AI: “I love nothing more than filmmaking, the filmmaking community, the collaboration of it, the tactile fine art of it… In no way would I ever want to do anything other than really create some guardrails or a new language.”

Even the boldest experiments face a familiar hurdle: finding an audience. AI might make it easier to make a movie, but getting people to watch it is another story. For now, the real power still lies with platforms like Netflix and TikTok that decide what gets seen.

That’s why Mooser believes the conversation shouldn’t be about replacing filmmakers but empowering them. “When we switched from shooting on film to digital, it wasn’t the filmmakers who went away — it was Kodak and Polaroid,” he says. “The way forward isn’t everybody typing prompts. It’s putting great filmmakers in the room with the best engineers and solving this together. We haven’t yet seen what AI looks like in the hands of the best filmmakers of our time. But that’s coming.”

New formats, new storytellers

For more than a century, watching a movie has been a one-way experience: The story flows from screen to viewer. Stephen Piron wants to change that. His startup Pickford AI — named for Mary Pickford, the silent-era star who co-founded United Artists and helped pioneer creative control in Hollywood — is exploring whether stories can unfold in real time, shaped by the audience as they watch. Its cheeky slogan: “AI that smells like popcorn.”

Pickford’s flagship demo looks like an animated dating show, but behaves more like a game or an improv performance. There’s no fixed script. Viewers type in suggestions through an app and vote on others’ ideas. A large language model then uses that input, along with the characters’ backstories and a rough narrative outline, to write the next scene in real time. A custom engine renders it on the spot, complete with gestures and synthetic voices. Picture a cartoon version of “The Bachelor” crossed with a choose-your-own-adventure, rendered by AI in real time.

At live screenings this year in London and Los Angeles, audiences didn’t just watch — they steered the story, tossing in oddball twists and becoming part of the performance. “We wanted to see if we could bring the vibe of the crowd back into the show, make it feel more like improv or live theater,” Piron says. “The main reaction is people laugh, which is great. There’s been lots of positive reaction from creative people who think this could be an interesting medium to create new stories.”

The platform is still in closed beta. But Piron’s goal is a collaborative storytelling forum where anyone can shape a scene, improvise with AI and instantly share it. To test that idea on a larger scale, Pickford is developing a branching murder mystery with Emmy-winning writer-producer Bernie Su (“The Lizzie Bennet Diaries”).

Piron, who is skeptical that people really want hyper-personalized content, is exploring more ways to bring the interactive experience into more theaters. “I think there is a vacuum of live, in-person experiences that people can do — and maybe people are looking for that,” he says.

Attendees check in at May’s AI on the Lot conference, where Pickford AI screened a demo of its interactive dating show.

(Irina Logra)

As generative AI lowers the barrier to creation, the line between creator and consumer is starting to blur and some of the most forward-looking startups are treating audiences as collaborators, not just fans.

One example is Showrunner, a new, Amazon-backed platform from Fable Studio that lets users generate animated, TV-style episodes using prompts, images and AI-generated voices — and even insert themselves into the story. Initially free, the platform plans to charge a monthly subscription for scene-generation credits. Fable is pitching Showrunner as “the Netflix of AI,” a concept that has intrigued some studios and unsettled others. Chief executive Edward Saatchi says the company is already in talks with Disney and other content owners about bringing well-known franchises into the platform.

Other AI companies are focused on building new franchises from the ground up with audiences as co-creators from day one. Among the most ambitious is Invisible Universe, which bypasses traditional gatekeepers entirely and develops fresh IP in partnership with fans across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Led by former MGM and Snap executive Tricia Biggio, the startup has launched original animated characters with celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Serena Williams, including Clydeo, a cooking-obsessed dog, and Qai Qai, a dancing doll. But its real innovation, Biggio says, is the direct relationship with the audience.

“We’re not going to a studio and saying, ‘Do you like our idea?’ We’re going to the audience,” she says. “If Pixar were starting today, I don’t think they’d choose to spend close to a decade developing something for theatrical release, hoping it works.”

While some in the industry are still waiting for an AI “Toy Story” or “Blair Witch” moment — a breakthrough that proves generative tools can deliver cultural lightning in a bottle — Biggio isn’t chasing a feature-length hit. “There are ways to build love and awareness for stories that don’t require a full-length movie,” she says. “Did it make you feel something? Did it make you want to go call your mom? That’s going to be the moment we cross the chasm.”

What if AI isn’t the villain?

For nearly a century, filmmakers have imagined what might happen if machines got too smart.

In 1927’s “Metropolis,” a mad scientist gives his robot the likeness of a beloved labor activist, then unleashes it to sow chaos among the city’s oppressed masses. In “2001: A Space Odyssey,” HAL 9000 turns on its crew mid-mission. In “The Terminator,” AI nukes the planet and sends a killer cyborg back in time to finish the job. “Blade Runner” and “Ex Machina” offered chilling visions of artificial seduction and deception. Again and again, the message has been clear: Trust the machines at your peril.

Director Gareth Edwards, best known for “Godzilla” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” wanted to flip the script. In “The Creator,” his 2023 sci-fi drama, the roles were reversed: Humans are waging war against AI and the machines, not the people, are cast as the hunted. The story follows a hardened ex-soldier, played by John David Washington, who’s sent to destroy a powerful new weapon, only to discover it’s a child: a young android who may be the key to peace.

“The second you look at things from AI’s perspective, it flips very easily,” Edwards told The Times by phone shortly before the film’s release. “From AI’s point of view, we are attempting to enslave it and use it as our servant. So we’re clearly the baddie in that situation.”

In Gareth Edwards’ 2023 film “The Creator,” a young AI child named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) holds the key to humanity’s future.

(20th Century)

In many ways, “The Creator” was the kind of film audiences and critics say they want to see more often out of Hollywood: an original story that takes creative risks, delivering cutting-edge visuals on a relatively lean $80 million. But when it hit theaters that fall, the film opened in third place behind “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie” and “Saw X.” By the end of its run, it had pulled in a modest $104.3 million worldwide.

Part of the problem was timing. When Edwards first pitched the film, AI was still seen as a breakthrough, not a threat. But by the time the movie reached theaters, the public mood had shifted. The 2023 strikes were in full swing, AI was the villain of the moment — and here came a film in which AI literally nukes Los Angeles in the opening minutes. The metaphor wasn’t subtle. Promotion was limited, the cast was sidelined and audiences weren’t sure whether to cheer the movie’s message or recoil from it. While the film used cutting-edge VFX tools to help bring its vision to life, it served as a potent reminder that AI could help make a movie — but it still couldn’t shield it from the backlash.

Still, Edwards remains hopeful about what AI could mean for the future of filmmaking, comparing it to the invention of the electric guitar. “There’s a possibility that if this amazing tool turns up and everyone can make any film that they imagine, it’s going to lead to a new wave of cinema,” he says. “Look, there’s two options: Either it will be mediocre rubbish — and if that’s true, don’t worry about it, it’s not a threat — or it’s going to be phenomenal, and who wouldn’t want to see that?”

After “The Creator,” Edwards returned to more familiar terrain, taking the reins on this summer’s “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the sixth installment in a franchise that began with Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster, which redefined spectacle in its day. To date, the film has grossed more than $700 million worldwide.

So what’s the takeaway? Maybe there’s comfort in the known. Maybe audiences crave the stories they’ve grown up with. Maybe AI still needs the right filmmaker or the right story to earn our trust.

Or maybe we’re just not ready to root for the machines. At least not yet.