Jeetu Kamal, Ritwik Bhowmik, Rudranil Ghosh, Satakshi Nandy, Sairity Banerjee and Arijit Dutta star in the film, produced by Hoichoi Studios and Friends Communication in association with Piyali Films Pvt. Ltd, the original producer of “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne.”
“Maharaja Tomare Selam,” which is also the title of a song in “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne,” centers on Ray himself – the pressures he faced and the choices he made against the backdrop of a politically charged Kolkata – as he willed “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” into existence. Principal photography will commence in January 2027.
Released on May 8, 1969, “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” followed two inept village musicians, played by Tapen Chatterjee and Rabi Ghosh, who are banished from their homes and granted magical powers by the King of Ghosts, which they use to avert a war between two rival kingdoms. Beneath the fantasy, the film carried social and political undertones around class and the role of art, a thread Ray sharpened into direct satire of authoritarian rule with his 1980 sequel, “Hirak Rajar Deshe.” His son, Sandip Ray, closed out the trilogy with “Goopy Bagha Phire Elo” in 1992.
Ray built a body of work over more than three decades that includes “Pather Panchali” and “Charulata” among its landmarks. In 1992, weeks before his death, he received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement, becoming the first Indian filmmaker so honored.
“I am just trying to tell the incredible true story of how one of the greatest classics of Indian cinema, ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne,’ was conceived and made,” Mukherji said.
Mukherji’s own credits include “Chotushkone,” for which he won the Indian National Film Award for best director, along with “Jaatishwar” and “Baishe Srabon.” He is known for his engagement with Bengali culture and storytelling, and with “Maharaja Tomare Selam,” he takes on a pivotal episode in the country’s film history.
“Maharaja Tomare Selam” joins a run of Bengali films that have turned the camera on Ray’s own legacy. Anik Dutta’s “Aparajito” dramatized the making of “Pather Panchali,” with Kamal playing a character modeled on Ray, while Kaushik Ganguly’s “Apur Panchali” traced the later life of Subir Banerjee, the child actor who played Apu in that film. Mukherji’s debut feature “Autograph” is an homage to Ray’s “Nayak.”
Monica Bellucci’s sneer is a thing of wonder, so why have so few directors used it properly? When allowed full rein to her sense of irony, as given her by Giovanni Tortorici in “Ketticè,” Bellucci has few equals in her ability to project self-aware drama queen with just the right dose of camp icon. Hers is a supporting role, as the quasi-caricatured bourgeois mother of a far more authentically drawn teenager, but the young writer-director deliberately sets genuine adolescent nihilism off against the stereotyped adult world, rejuvenating a time-tested formula with the story of an aimless rich kid that feels anything but aimless.
As proven with his terrific debut “Diciannove,” Tortorici masters the directionless depths of the under-20 set, and while some may protest the shallow depiction of working-class kids as opposed to their better-off peers, few will gainsay his thoroughgoing feel for character and mood as conveyed via camera angles and space.
The evocative voice of Lebanese singer Oumeima El Khalil accompanies a panoramic view of Palermo, her song’s dissociation from the locale and its simultaneous, unexpected suitability working in ways akin to the soundtracks of Luca Guadagnino, Tortorici’s mentor and producer. It’s 2012, Facebook is as indispensable as an iPhone 5, and Giulio (Salvatore Gallina) is on the verge of failing most of his subjects. In the first of several amusing slow-mo pans, the camera moves from fed-up teacher (Davide Cirri) across to bored witless students, continuing its sluggish progress outside the building and into the carpark, resisting normal speed until Giulio starts the ignition and “You Spin Me Right Round” pours forth from the radio.
This kind of playful yet expressive use of visual language is what makes “Ketticè” such a fun watch: When Giulio gets in his car right after kissing his girlfriend Elena (Ida Poerio), the camera sits on the floor to make the 16-year-old look like a big man, but after receiving a break-up text, the viewpoint switches to eye-level and returns him to normal teen-size. Not that he’s heartbroken, though the new angle makes it easier to see how he forces out a tear, takes a selfie, and posts it on Facebook.
The only real hardship Giulio faces is figuring out what he wants to do when he grows up. He lives with his parents, Vittoria (Bellucci) and Antonio (Tommaso Cristiano Wirz), in the family’s historic palazzo, and attends a private school where small classes make for tight-knit camaraderie but don’t guarantee that any learning sinks in. Neither do his grandmother’s attempts to impart culture, observed in a hilarious dinner table scene during which Vittoria launches acidic barbs at her impervious mother-in-law (Stefania Raffadali) while passive Antonio lets it all wash over him.
As bored at home as he is in school, Giulio becomes fascinated by Ketty, aka Ketticè (Rachele Testagrossa), a girl from the wrong side of the tracks with a reputation for provoking catfights. Confident, street-smart and far removed from his world of privilege, Ketty knows where to score the best weed in town, and thanks to Giulio’s generous allowance, the two head to Palermo’s Bonagia district where he drops €20 a day buying smokes from a guy dealing in a square presided over by a statue of Padre Pio. It’s hard to say whether Giulio becomes more dependent on the pot or the feeling of very mild danger he gets from hanging out with a girl whose hard-edged reputation is an attention magnet, but either way, everyone’s beginning to notice.
There’s an obvious contrast between Giulio’s world and Ketty’s. In his circle, where it’s not unusual for a 14-year-old to have their own car, the antics of the lower classes are a spectator sport, shared across Facebook posts and then forgotten. They’re protected by their parents’ money, whereas Ketty has no prospects apart from more bitch-slap fights with girls whose cheap makeup and nail extensions are their most distinguishing features. Whether deliberate or not, scenes with Ketty’s regular crowd have a built-in sniggering element not felt with the private school kids who don’t need to posture or defend themselves. We certainly laugh with Vittoria’s exasperated outbursts, but Bellucci’s deliciously ironic flamboyance means we don’t laugh at her in the way we do when Ketty’s hard-ass rivals seek revenge.
All too often when directors seek to get inside an adolescent’s world, the results unintentionally highlight the psychological distance between filmmaker and subject, but both here and in “Diciannove,” Tortorici understands that endless ennui isn’t the same thing as permanent emptiness, and angst isn’t the most interesting thing about a teen. Clearly he listens: to his actors (many of whom are first-timers), to younger generations around him, to the honest memories of his own youth. “Ketticè” shows how he’s also confidently playing more with the grammar of cinema, putting it to use according to character and mood, and in so doing solidifying the promise of his debut.
A federal judge clarified that reporter Catherine Herridge doesn’t have to pay an $800-per-day contempt fine as she appeals to the Supreme Court.
The judge, Christopher Cooper, had imposed the fine. She had been found in civil contempt after she declined to reveal the source for her 2017 Fox News stories that reported on a federal investigation of Yanping Chen, a naturalized U.S. citizen who founded the University of Management and Technology in Virginia.
Last month, Supreme Court declined Catherine Herridge’s emergency effort to block the fines. But Cooper issued a minute order on Friday, writing that he intended to put the fines on hold “Through the denial of any timely-filed certiorari petition or the completion of Supreme Court proceedings should such a petition be granted.” Cooper also ordered the return of any fine payments Herridge has made.
The stories had to do with Chen’s affiliations with the Chinese military. The FBI investigation examined statements she made on immigration forms about her work in China in the 1980s. Chen was not charged, but sued the federal government, claiming that someone leaked information about her to Herridge and Fox in violation of the Privacy Act.
Real history, fiction and AI blend together for a look at a former radical far-left underground armed organization in Portugal in the new film from auteur Edgar Pêra (Telepathic Letters, Manual of Evasion LX94), Asphalt Guerrilla (Guerrilha no Asfalto). The movie marks the Portuguese writer-director’s return to the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, where it will world premiere in the Out of Competition program during its 79th edition on Monday, Aug. 10.
The militant group that the film revisits is the FP-25, short for Forças Populares 25 de Abril, or Popular Forces 25th of April, which was active between 1980 and 1987. It carried out dozens of bombings, shootings and bank robberies. The film is based on the eponymous book by Manuel Ricardo de Sousa, a member who ended up being lynched by a mob in the aftermath of a bank robbery.
But there is also a meta level to the movie. “It’s also about trying to make a film that ought to be shot in a guerrilla mode, with no compromises with the system,” notes the Locarno website.
A synopsis teases the mind-bending quality of the movie by describing it as “a fictional film rooted in reality about a utopian time in Portuguese democracy.” And it continues: “Set in the early ’80s, it begins with a quiet student who becomes involved in a radical organization and ends up being shot and lynched by the mob in the aftermath of a bank robbery. Throughout the film, we witness the sometimes comical, sometimes tragic problems of these ‘asphalt guerrillas’ fighting against the system; at the same time, the director of the film quits the organization in order to fight to make films in a guerrilla mode.”
‘Asphalt Guerrilla,’ courtesy of Bando à Parte
Pêra wrote the screenplay with Rodrigo Areias, and the voices of Pêra and Albano Jerónimo feature in Asphalt Guerrilla. Jorge Quintela is the cinematographer, while João Mora is the editor. The cast features Miguel Moreira, Maria Leite, Ivo Arroja, Jerónimo, Bernardo Santo Tirso and Luke Eberl.
Pêra talked to THR about Asphalt Guerrilla, what inspired it and what it says about his latest take on the use of AI in filmmaking.
“There are many films in this film,” Pêra highlights. “The very beginning was this book, which I read in the ’90s and basically shows a very amateurish group of guerrilla men or terrorists, depending on your point of view, but it gradually transforms into a film about my own guerrilla [film] scene, mainly because my friend and producer Rodrigo Areias made me do it.”
Indeed, Pêra started making an underground name for himself in the mid-1980s with his avant-garde style as a “neuro-punk” filmmaker associated with DIY counterculture and the Portuguese music scene.
“I would never pitch a film about me, including an autobiography, but I really understood that Rodrigo proposed it,” he tells THR. “I told him that I wanted the film to be about the future, not about the past, not about the ’80s and the problems we had back then in Portugal, but about this society and the state of cinema.”
If you are watching the film and can’t quite tell which parts are real and which ones are fictional, Pêra won’t mind. “This fusion, or blur, of fiction and reality is something that I like, but it’s also something that I must fight against,” he explains. “So the film is also a mirror of what’s happening, where you sometimes don’t really know what’s real.”
‘Asphalt Guerrilla,’ courtesy of Bando à Parte
Does he really feel like a film guerilla? “Actually, when I was in my 30s, there was this producer who called me the Sniper,” Pêra tells THR. “I think he said that with respect. I think I have that respect from other filmmakers of my country because I never tried to do anything that was not myself.”
As the filmmaker did in his 2024 Locarno film Telepathic Letters (Cartas Telepáticas), Asphalt Guerrilla uses AI images. “I always try to leave some clues for what is AI-made,” he highlights. “But there are moments where, to show the danger of AI, you have to behave like a dangerous AI, which is why this film has moments [referencing] what worries me most, news becoming fabricated. And actually, the worst part is that AI also gets the most fun part of creating, such as [people] asking AI to write prompts.” Concludes Pêra: “So I try to fight all of that and create my own prompts and create my own algorithm. If you leave things to the YouTube algorithm, you know what you get.”
Added the auteur: “You have to make at least a playlist so that you’re not invaded by this ultra commercial thing. That’s my fight inside of AI to create some images that are original in the way that they are recombinations of things that already exist. That’s what every artist does.”
How does that fit into Pêra’s early neuro-punk days? “I was always interested in the effects of cinema on the minds of people and how the mind works,” he tells THR. “Neuro-punk was meant to say that we have to fight things with ideas, not with violence. So, cameras are weapons. Make films, not violence.”
‘Asphalt Guerrilla,’ courtesy of Bando à Parte
The auteur didn’t necessarily know how timely his film would feel in a time full of wars, a rise in political and other radicalism and, of course, AI when he first started conceiving it. “I think it’s not a coincidence. It’s a synchronicity,” he offers. “But even when we think times are okay, we have lots of things that worry us. Now, we are in the worst of times, as they say. But even in the best of times, there’s still exploitation, people dying and all that. So yes, I think it’s a timely moment to go to the roots of the problems and not only focus on radicalism. I think radicalism is a symptom; it’s not the problem.”
He sees the underlying issue this way: “Radicalism is a symptom of the decay of our system. I’m not an expert, but I feel that it’s not the radicalist we have to fight because that means [we are] becoming another radical. So that’s a trap. Instead, let’s talk about what makes our planet worse.”
Pêra is working on another movie, which will keep speaking out about worries he has. It’s called The Spiral of Fear, and it’s about “big tech and what media says about the masters and all that.”
In At Night, British filmmaker and artist Beatrice Gibson’s first feature-length film, the nightly sights and sounds of Paris interweave with the stories and conversations of six women – from hopes, dreams and sexual desires to worries about the future.
Rhythm and mood are key elements that make the experimental and “autofictional” movie, which world-premieres on Saturday, Aug. 8, in the Filmmakers of the Present competition program of the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, a special kind of cinematic ride. Just ask Locarno’s artistic director, Giona A. Nazzaro. In a chat with THR, he described the movie as “this nocturnal, ambient film where you can almost hear music that makes you think of Brian Eno. If At Night were a record, it could be music for lonely people at night.”
Written and directed by Gibson, At Night features cinematography by her long-time collaborator Ben Rivers and editing by Liyo Gong. But the music doesn’t come courtesy of Brian Eno. No, it is the creation of Elvin Brandhi.
If you don’t follow experimental music, here are some basics to know about her. Elvin Brandhi is the pseudonym of Freya Edmondes, an improvising voice and sound artist who was born in Wales, but has become a citizen of the world. Her music features unusual beats created from field recordings, her own voice, tape, vinyl and instruments. She is also part of all sorts of music collaborations, including father/daughter “noise-improv berserkers” Yeah You, Pollution Opera with Nadah El Shazly, the duo Avril Spleen with Joseph Jadam, the band PFL with Peter Kutin and Lukas König, and the project Bahk with Daniel Blumberg.
At Night, which features an array of Gibson’s non-professional actor friends and influences as they discuss and explore such topics as sexuality, money, motherhood and mental health, is the musical artist’s first-ever feature film soundtrack. And it seems fitting that she collaborated with Gibson on this film that press notes call “a love letter to friendships, relationships, and the quiet yet poignant stories women share together but rarely to an audience.”
Brandhi took time out of her busy schedule to talk to THR about the creation of the soundtrack for At Night, her other music work and whether we may be able to hear more from her on future cinematic journeys.
The artist confirms that the work on At Night marks a new step for her. “It’s the first time I’ve done a soundtrack for a feature film,” she tells THR. “I did a couple of short films with friends, and I make my own music video-type thing. So I consider myself more of an audiovisual artist. I think in both realms, but this was obviously very different. I’ve worked with Daniel Blumberg a little bit, hanging out with him a lot in the process of The Brutalist and then the Anne Lee film, [The Testament of Ann Lee]. I was doing quite a lot of vocal stuff, also with [avant-garde improvisational vocalists] Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols. And Daniel has been creating this nice bridge between the experimental scene in London and Hollywood cinema.”
‘At Night,’ courtesy of Night Films
Courtesy of Night Films Ltd.
So, this must be a good time for Brandhi to get her first feature film soundtrack under her belt, you may wonder. “It was probably helpful for me to get involved in the experience of how to make a soundtrack,” she confirms, but notes that it required a different focus from her usual work. “It was quite a unique experience, and I had to adjust a little bit how I think about composing. A lot of my music is quite in your face and trying to be as present as possible. But with a soundtrack, you have to almost make it sneak in from the sides, or be somehow invisible, coming out of the background.”
Given that Brandhi works a lot with field recordings, how did the Paris setting of At Night play to her passions? “What was really nice about this film was that the metro is such a big center of the narrative, and that’s already quite a noisy place,” she tells THR. “It has a lot of the kind of frequencies and ambient noise and things that I might feel like field recording and be inspired by anyway. So it was this perfect entry point for coming into that film world.”
Gibson and Brandhi have all sorts of connections but made their acquaintance by coincidence. “I met Beatrice for the first time at [the experimental music festival] Borealis [in Bergen, Norway], but only very briefly,” the music artist recalls. “We were in the same taxi going somewhere, and I was playing, and she was screening something. I think she knew of my music, and then a common friend, Leonardo Ruvolo, from Alcamo in Sicily, put us in contact because I also did his residency, and she’s living in Palermo [in Sicily] now, so there were various coincidences.”
And the women quickly got along. “When we started working together, we became very good friends immediately,” Brandhi shares. “And working on At Night was a very intimate and special process.”
But what was this process like, and how early did Brandhi start crafting music for the film? “Beatrice wanted to have as much sound as possible before even starting to shoot. So I did get sent a first draft of the script, but that did get changed as the film went through different shifts,” she recalls. “We spent a week going through ideas before any shoot. I sent her some drafts of things that might work. And she had one reference of a song that she really liked, which was actually from a collaboration I have that is called Insin [with Palestinian producer/MC Bashar Suleiman]. The track is called ‘Kidney Spears,’ which is a little bit more dreamy. I’m also singing in that. So I tried to send her other things within that kind of dynamic.”
When Gibson started shooting in Paris, Brandhi also came to the French capital. “I was taking some recordings when they were going into the metro,” the musician tells THR. “And there was originally even a scene of me performing in Paris in the film.”
‘At Night,’ courtesy of Night Films
Courtesy of Night Films Ltd.
All in all, the soundtrack came together in an ongoing collaboration. “There were some core themes that we developed, and then little bits that needed a very specific kind of mood or dynamic,” she says. The collaboration also included editor Liyo Gong. “She is really amazing,” says Brandhi. “She’s also a DJ, so she has a very strong sense of the musicality in film and in how she edits.”
Crystabel Riley also contributed, drum sounds, to the soundtrack. “I asked her if she would contribute some drumming that I could weave into different parts of it,” Brandhi recalls. “She was actually involved in the film, doing some of the makeup, because she’s a makeup artist as well as a musician.”
Fans of the artist’s work may get to hear more from her in feature movies in the future. “I definitely would like to,” Brandhi tells THR. “I would be really up for it; it was really interesting entering the story and composing from a different perspective.” She adds: “I saw her playing live for the first time last year, and I was just so blown away because she’s such an incredible performer, and her stage energy is so engaging. There’s this warmth and tension as well. It feels very urgent. I was just watching her and felt the state of mind of the women in the film echoing in her performance.”
Concludes Brandhi: “It was really special for me and Bea that she was part of it.”
The creative mentions that she has also worked with video herself, and being involved with At Night inspired her to return to more of it. “In the lockdown, I did a lot more filming and editing stuff, so I feel that this soundtrack world is also a nice potential way to get back into the editing of my own film material,” she shares.
Not that Brandhi doesn’t have all sorts of music stuff in the works. Including an album with Berlin-based Kenyan musician KMRU under their name A|||oy, which will be released on KMRU’s label offnot. “He is associated a bit more with ambient music. But we have so much in common and are both fans of each other’s music, even though it might seem like we have quite contrasting dynamics,” she tells THR. “There’s a strong similarity in the way we work with field recordings and sounds, textures and spaces.” Concludes Brandhi: “We’ve been collaborating for three years now, and we have an album coming out that we made between a couple of residencies, one at [Swedish electroacoustic music and sound art center] EMS in Stockholm, and then one in [Max Richter and his partner Yulia Mahr’s] Richter Mahr studio in Oxfordshire. We just listened to the test pressing, and it was really exciting. We’re both singing, and it’s completely different from both of our works.”
Next time you open your favorite browser, ask yourself: Who can see what I’m doing? If that question gives you pause, it’s probably time to review your browser extensions. After all, you probably use a browser for tasks that involve personal and private information, like online banking, shopping, or submitting your tax forms. Here’s the bad news: It’s incredibly easy to leak your private information via shady browser extensions, and they’re everywhere.
In January 2026, cybersecurity firm LayerX uncovered 17 malicious extensions on Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. Before that, free proxy and VPN extensions were found to be stealing AI chat logs from users in December. These extensions were installed hundreds of thousands—to even millions—of times. That’s a lot of covert surveillance! This isn’t a new problem, either. Malicious browser extensions have been an issue for years.
Below, I’ll explain how criminals extract personal data using browser extensions, how to identify legitimate extensions, and how to manage the ones currently on your browser.
Wait, Browser Extensions Are Dangerous?
Browser add-ons and extensions are apps that run in the background while you browse. You probably downloaded them because they perform useful tasks to help you navigate the web, but depending on the browser you use and the permissions you’ve given to the extension, the company that owns the app can potentially see everything you see on a website. This can include the information you put in web forms, like your name, social security number, or bank account details. The information can then be packaged and sold on the dark web or used for blackmail or social engineering scams.
The tricky thing is that malicious extensions don’t always start out that way. Security researchers have noted many instances of good apps going bad. This could be from hackers hijacking an old extension or because the program simply remained dormant before being activated.
Which Browser Extensions Are Safe to Keep?
I recommend only installing apps for services you already use from companies you trust. For example, Gmail has a browser extension. Privacy and security apps like authenticators, password managers, and VPNs are typically available as browser extensions. There are also helpful extensions with AI tie-ins, like Grammarly, a grammar and spelling-checking app. Adblocking software is almost exclusively offered as browser extensions.
All the major browsers support extensions on desktop, while Safari also supports them on iPhone and iPad, and Firefox allows them on Android devices. No matter which browser you choose, it’s a good idea to periodically delete the extensions you rarely use and turn off extensions that don’t need to always run in the background. Below are step-by-step instructions for adding and removing extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari.
How to Remove Chrome and Edge Extensions
Chrome extensions added from the Chrome Web Store can be managed from the right-hand corner of the browser’s toolbar. For any extension you previously pinned to the browser, just right-click its icon and choose Remove from Chrome. Otherwise, click the icon that looks like a puzzle piece, open the three-dot menu next to the extension, and choose Remove from Chrome.
(Credit: Google/PCMag)
If it doesn’t appear in this menu, click Manage Extensions to see all your add-ons. From here, you can click Details to view information on a specific extension, use the switch to temporarily disable it, or hit Remove to delete it.
(Credit: Google/PCMag)
Microsoft has its own Edge Add-ons in the Microsoft Store. However, since Edge is based on Chromium, it is compatible with extensions from the Chrome Web Store. You can also manage add-ons in much the same way.
How to Remove Firefox Extensions
In Firefox, you can add extensions to the toolbar from the Firefox Browser Add-Ons site. Right-click on its toolbar icon to manage the extension. From the pop-up menu, select Remove Extension to uninstall it from Firefox. Otherwise, open the puzzle-piece icon, right-click the extension, and choose Remove Extension.
Recommended by Our Editors
(Credit: Mozilla/PCMag)
To see all your extensions, click the hamburger icon in the upper right and select Add-ons and themes or click the Extensions icon and choose Manage Extensions. You can disable an extension by turning off its switch or click the three-dot icon and choose Remove to uninstall it completely.
(Credit: Mozilla/PCMag)
Firefox also supports extensions on Android devices. You can manage your extensions in the app by clicking the three-dot icon and selecting Add-ons> Add-ons Manager. Select the extension, then turn off the switch to disable it or tap Remove button to uninstall it completely.
(Credit: Mozilla/PCMag)
How to Add and Remove Safari Extensions
(Credit: Apple/PCMag)
When you install an extension in Safari from Safari > Safari Extensions or the App Store, it downloads a separate app to your device. To manage your extensions, click Safari > Preferences, then select the Extensions tab. Uncheck a listing to temporarily disable an extension. If you want to uninstall an extension, select it and then click Uninstall. You will also need to delete its underlying applications to fully uninstall the extension; a message should appear prompting you to do this.
(Credit: Apple/PCMag)
Extension usage is extremely limited on mobile devices. To see if you have any, go to Settings > Safari > Extensions and tap the More Extensions link. When you install an extension, it adds an app to your Home screen. To manage your extensions, tap the AA icon in the browser and select Manage Extensions. You can turn off the switch for the extension you want to disable. To uninstall an extension entirely, you need to delete its associated app.
(Credit: Apple/PCMag)
Use Smart Internet Hygiene
Managing browser extensions is a task you can add to your household’s cybersecurity checklist. While you’re focusing on security, take a look at your browser’s privacy settings, too. There may be some features or tools you can enable or disable to exercise more control over access to your personal data. For a roundup of PCMag’s recommended online safety apps, check out the privacy and security toolkit.
About Our Experts
Lance Whitney
Contributor
Experience
I’ve been working for PCMag since early 2016 writing tutorials, how-to pieces, and other articles on consumer technology. Beyond PCMag, I’ve written news stories and tutorials for a variety of other websites and publications, including CNET, ZDNet, TechRepublic, Macworld, PC World, Time, US News & World Report, and AARP Magazine. I spent seven years writing breaking news for CNET as one of the site’s East Coast reporters. I’ve also written two books for Wiley & Sons—Windows 8: Five Minutes at a Time and Teach Yourself Visually LinkedIn.
I’ve used Windows, Office, and other Microsoft products for years so I’m well versed in that world. I also know the Mac quite well. I’m always working with iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and Android on my various mobile devices. And these days, I write a lot about AI, so that’s become another key area for me.
My wife always jokes about all the tech products we have around the house, but I manage to put them to good use for my articles. I like Lenovo computers, so I own a couple of Lenovo desktops and several laptops. I have three MacBooks and a Mac mini. For my mobile life and work, I use an iPhone 16 Pro, iPad Pro, and iPad mini as well as an Apple Watch. But since I write about Android, I own several Android phones and tablets. Like any tech person, I have a cabinet full of cables, wires, and assorted mysterious gadgets. And when it’s time to take a break from writing, I have an old Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, both of which I use for exercise and fitness games.
I review privacy tools like hardware security keys, password managers, private messaging apps, and ad-blocking software. I also report on online scams and offer advice to families and individuals about staying safe on the internet. Before joining PCMag, I wrote about tech and video games for CNN, Fanbyte, Mashable, The New York Times, and TechRadar. I also worked at CNN International, where I did field producing and reporting on sports that are popular with worldwide audiences.
In addition to the categories below, I exclusively cover ad blockers, authenticator apps, hardware security keys, and private messaging apps.
The coming-of-age drama is the sophomore feature of former Guadagnino assistant Giovanni Tortorici (Diciannove), who wrote and directed it, and stars Salvatore Gallina and Rachele Testagrossa.
Set in Palermo, Sicily, in 2012, the era of media mogul-turned-populist politician Silvio Berlusconi, the movie revolves around Giulio, a listless and dissatisfied 16-year-old who drifts through his days without any enthusiasm for school and no real future prospects. “His encounter with Ketty, a more self-assured peer, offers him an escape from the monotony,” reads a synopsis. “The two form an exclusive friendship, a shared refuge in their search for freedom, far from the judgmental gaze of the adult world.”
With cinematography by Camilla Cattabriga and editing by Marco Costa, the film has been boarded by PiperPlay to handle international sales.
The film’s title refers to Ketty’s nickname in the Sicilian dialect. Bellucci plays Giulio’s mother in an aristocratic Sicilian family that leaves her feeling oppressed.
During a press conference with the three stars and Tortorici, Bellucci shared about her character: “It was interesting to play a different role because this wife and mother tells us about the frustration behind the entire perfection of society. … She is the victim of a social role [she must play]. So she tries to counterbalance this frustration by eating up snacks. There [is a] scene where she’s sleeping in front of the TV, and she has plenty of snacks.”
The star also addressed how body and voice are key to her role. “This is a woman who forgot about her femininity. She doesn’t take care of herself,” Bellucci explained. “And when she talks, she yells.”
That keeps the relationship with her son on the edge throughout much of the movie. “She creates this constant tension with her son,” Bellucci offered. “There is a mutual humiliation that [shows] a true impossibility of exchange between generations. You see a generation of adults who can no longer understand the youth. And we are talking about 2012. Imagine how it is now!”
Tortorici was asked about a scene in which a girl expresses admiration for former Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. “I remember I had a girlfriend who would say such things,” the writer-director explained. “So I think this would represent a youth culture, which is a bit absurd. I mean, the girl I knew was refined and educated, and then she would admire Mussolini. It’s a reference to my own biography, but I think it was very symptomatic and significant, and it was representing that age of Berlusconi.”
Bellucci lauded the director and the young stars of Ketticè who were discovery via an extensive street casting process. “It’s been a wonderful experience being on this set,” she shared. “Giovanni Tortorici is a young director who knows exactly what he wants, and he’s very self-confident, determined, and he made a very personal and really unique film. … This film confirms his talent as an auteur. And these two teenagers are fantastic. They’re awesome. They are so natural and so spontaneous.”
Cardano [$ADA] is among the top blockchains across the globe and recently hit a new peak in the Nakamoto coefficient of 16. This put Cardano as one of the most decentralized chains as prices slowly rebound.
The altcoin has surged by more than 19% this week with daily gains averaging more than 6%. These gains resulted from Cardano transitioning to the Dijkstra development era. Can the price keep surging?
Dijkstra launch fuels Cardano’s weekly gains
According to CoinMarketCap, Cardano came a distant second among the largest weekly gainers. SKYAI recorded 261% with MemeCore [M], Humanity Protocol [H], and Pieverse [PIEVERSE] wrapping up the top 5 list for this week.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Cardano’s transition to the Dijkstra development era drove these weekly gains. This was a newly approved roadmap that made it the first chain to fund core development directly from its treasury.
Additionally, the ecosystem was expanding to other blockchains. For instance, the chain connected with Injective [$INJ] via The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC), which was on testnet. Both $INJ and $ADA will be usable across the two ecosystems.
As a result, the daily trading volume has also jumped by more than 78%, recording about $747 million. It jumped from $412.8 million to A 7-day sum of $3.50 billion.
Source: Token Terminal
Furthermore, the Total Value Locked (TVL) rose by around 3%, reaching $88 million. The chain’s weekly DEX volume also increased by 17%, reaching $13 million.
Moreover, such developments prompted the big players to position themselves. According to Santiment data, whales have accumulated over 240 million $ADA in the past few days.
Can $ADA stay above $0.20?
Meanwhile, Cardano’s price broke above the $0.20 resistance level, but there was some lag at this zone. The altcoin price has been ranging between $0.14 and $0.20 since July, aligning with whale positioning. The range followed a 41% sharp drop from $0.24 to $0.14.
In support of this trend was the Bull/Bear Power indicator, which turned green. The CVD showed that traders on Binance’s spot market bought more than 40 million $ADA tokens.
With the token clearing the $0.20 resistance that capped every recovery attempt this year, it exposed $0.24 and $0.30 as the next target areas. But failing to hold above $0.20, the altcoin may revert back to the range.
Source: $ADA/USDT on TradingView
Therefore, Cardano’s native $ADA may rally higher if the chain developments continue.
Final Summary
Cardano surged by more than 19% this week after transitioning to the Dijkstra era, funding its development directly from its community treasury.
$ADA price broke above a resistance level at $0.20, which has capped every recovery attempt this year.
The scale of the Coldcard hardware wallet exploit is becoming sharply clear. Galaxy Research has now confirmed with high confidence that at least 1,719 $BTC have been stolen across multiple user accounts, valuing the compromise at roughly $111 million at recent prices. But that number may not be the ceiling. Total losses, according to the research team’s latest assessment cited in the original report, are likely to surpass $130 million once all outstanding cases are verified.
More than 25 distinct attack patterns have been identified, and investigators now believe that multiple threat actors are actively exploiting the vulnerability. The number of victims is piling up; Galaxy confirmed it has received reports from over 250 individuals. If every case is ultimately confirmed, the total haul could climb past 2,300 $BTC. For now, the only hardware known to be affected are Coldcard Mk3, Mk4, Mk5, and the Q model. There is no evidence that the bug has spread to other signing devices or wallets, and Galaxy has not indicated that any affiliated software or firmware outside of Coldcard’s ecosystem is compromised.
A self-custody nightmare
This incident hits at the very foundation of self-custody culture. Coldcard is widely considered one of the most secure Bitcoin hardware wallets, specifically designed for air-gapped, paranoid-grade storage. The fact that it has been cracked at this scale, with what appears to be a long-running exploitation window, will rattle confidence among users who have staked their entire net worth on it. It also complicates the already tense legislative conversation around self-custody protections in Washington. Just days before a crucial Senate vote on landmark crypto legislation—discussed in our coverage of how banks are attempting to reshape the bill—an exploit of this magnitude gives opponents of liberal self-custody rules a powerful new data point.
Hardware wallets have been sold as the ultimate defense against hacks, yet they remain vulnerable to supply chain attacks, firmware tampering, and physical side-channel exploits. In this case, the exact entry vector has not been publicly detailed by Coinkite or Galaxy, but the existence of so many distinct patterns suggests it was not a single bug. A misconfigured random number generator, a compromised supply chain component, or a flaw in the device’s communication protocols could all be at play. For users who lost funds, there is the added bitterness that Bitcoin’s immutability makes fund recovery virtually impossible.
What’s next for victims and the market
With over 250 victims already identified, legal and reputational consequences are mounting for Coinkite, the manufacturer of Coldcard. The firm has yet to release a detailed technical postmortem, and the market is waiting to see whether a patch is even feasible for existing hardware or if replacements are necessary. So far, only Coldcard’s own line appears infected, but the discovery of multiple independent attackers suggests the vulnerability may have been widely known in certain circles before it became public. That raises the uncomfortable possibility that the exploit was first discovered and traded privately, only becoming a headline after losses spiraled.
From an institutional perspective, this event will push funds and large holders toward scrutinizing their device choices more intensely. Multi-sig setups and custodian-based cold storage solutions may see renewed interest. The insurance question also re-emerges: most self-custody users carry zero coverage, while regulated custodians bundle insurance into their service. The $130 million-plus figure, though small compared to total Bitcoin market cap, is large enough to attract regulatory attention at a time when lawmakers are weighing how to classify and supervise wallet providers.
Uncertainty looms
Several unanswered questions make this a story that will develop further. Galaxy’s report does not clarify how the attackers managed to exfiltrate private keys or sign transactions without physical access to the devices. It is possible that the vulnerability allowed an attacker who gained temporary access—perhaps during shipping or through a compromised reseller—to later drain funds without ongoing access. The fact that over 25 patterns exist indicates that multiple techniques were employed, and it cannot be ruled out that some victims unknowingly used malicious firmware updates from unofficial sources.
The community is left to weigh whether the Coldcard brand can recover its reputation. Hardware wallet security is as much about trust as it is about cryptographic design. Once that trust is broken at a scale of thousands of coins, the road back is long. Meanwhile, other manufacturers will likely use this event to market their own devices as superior, and the broader lesson for the industry is clear: self-custody demands constant vigilance, and no single device should be treated as a magic shield.
The White House once again turned to pop culture in characterizing their immigration strategy, this time using Spider Man imagery to portray ICE agents as “friendly neighborhood” figures and on the heroic side of deportations.
An Instagram post this week, features Spider-Man‘s hand spinning out a web. That leads to an image of web-covered detainees, and the message, “Criminal aliens will be caught and deported.”
“Your friendly neighborhood ICE agents,” the message from the White House reads.
The post comes as Sony has enjoyed runaway success with the latest in the superhero franchise, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which has passed $1 billion at the global box office, per Box Office Mojo.
Last year, the White House featured a meme of Donald Trump as Superman, just as Warner Bros/DC Studios released the James Gunn-directed movie. Gunn had noted in an interview that Superman was an immigrant, triggering some of the right to claim that the superhero had “gone woke.” The film grossed more than $600 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.
Spokespersons for Sony and Disney did not immediately return requests for comment.
