• Oregon was the first time this season Colorado faced a genuine contender
• The clip of Lanning’s speech ironically went viral despite not ‘fighting for clicks’ 
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news 

By Tyrell Feaster For Dailymail.Com

Published: 21:48 EDT, 23 September 2023 | Updated: 21:51 EDT, 23 September 2023

1. Unnatural eye movement. Eye movements that do not look natural — or a lack of eye movement, such as an absence of blinking — are huge red flags. It’s challenging to replicate the act of blinking in a way that looks natural. It’s also challenging to replicate a real person’s eye movements. That’s because someone’s eyes usually follow the person they’re talking to.

2. Unnatural facial expressions. When something doesn’t look right about a face, it could signal facial morphing. This occurs when one image has been stitched over another.

3. Awkward facial-feature positioning. If someone’s face is pointing one way and their nose is pointing another way, you should be skeptical about the video’s authenticity.

4. A lack of emotion. You also can spot what is known as ‘facial morphing’ or image stitches if someone’s face doesn’t seem to exhibit the emotion that should go along with what they’re supposedly saying.

5. Awkward-looking body or posture. Another sign is if a person’s body shape doesn’t look natural, or there is awkward or inconsistent positioning of head and body. This may be one of the easier inconsistencies to spot, because deepfake technology usually focuses on facial features rather than the whole body.

6. Unnatural body movement or body shape. If someone looks distorted or off when they turn to the side or move their head, or their movements are jerky and disjointed from one frame to the next, you should suspect the video is fake.

7. Unnatural colouring. Abnormal skin tone, discoloration, weird lighting, and misplaced shadows are all signs that what you’re seeing is likely fake.

8. Hair that doesn’t look real. You won’t see frizzy or flyaway hair. Why? Fake images won’t be able to generate these individual characteristics.

9. Teeth that don’t look real. Algorithms may not be able to generate individual teeth, so an absence of outlines of individual teeth could be a clue.

10. Blurring or misalignment. If the edges of images are blurry or visuals are misalign — for example, where someone’s face and neck meet their body — you’ll know that something is amiss.

11. Inconsistent noise or audio. Deepfake creators usually spend more time on the video images rather than the audio. The result can be poor lip-syncing, robotic- sounding voices, strange word pronunciation, digital background noise, or even the absence of audio.

12. Images that look unnatural when slowed down. If you watch a video on a screen that’s larger than your smartphone or have video-editing software that can slow down a video’s playback, you can zoom in and examine images more closely. Zooming in on lips, for example, will help you see if they’re really talking or if it’s bad lip-syncing.

13. Hashtag discrepancies. There’s a cryptographic algorithm that helps video creators show that their videos are authentic. The algorithm is used to insert hashtags at certain places throughout a video. If the hashtags change, then you should suspect video manipulation.

14. Digital fingerprints. Blockchain technology can also create a digital fingerprint for videos. While not foolproof, this blockchain-based verification can help establish a video’s authenticity. Here’s how it works. When a video is created, the content is registered to a ledger that can’t be changed. This technology can help prove the authenticity of a video.

15. Reverse image searches. A search for an original image, or a reverse image search with the help of a computer, can unearth similar videos online to help determine if an image, audio, or video has been altered in any way. While reverse video search technology is not publicly available yet, investing in a tool like this could be helpful.

 

Paranoid security operatives guarding Vladimir Putin will disable mobile internet coverage in St Petersburg when the dictator today makes a speech in the city.

They fear the signals could be used to direct drones in assassination strikes on the warmonger, as has become a common tactic in Ukraine and – more recently – in attacks across the border in Russia.

Russia’s Ministry of Communications issued a disabling order to all mobile operators, according to sources of Faridaily news outlet run by journalist Farida Rustamova.

The move was ‘in order to prevent drones from attacking the forum venue during the plenary session of Putin’s traditional event’ – the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, seen as Russia’s Davos equivalent.

Ukraine has launched multiple drone strikes on Russia in retaliation for endless missile attacks by Putin’s forces.

Strikes which hit the Kremlin on May 3 were blamed on Ukraine by the Russians.

This was portrayed by Moscow as a bid to ‘assassinate Putin’.

And in late May a drone strike came close to Putin’s palatial official residence Novo-Ogaryovo, near Moscow.

Footage showed sniffer dogs at today’s venue in St Petersburg, which is Putin’s home city, amid a huge security clampdown.

Putin is due to make a ‘lengthy speech’ followed by a discussion.

‘We can expect a very voluminous speech from the head of state,’ said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

‘Indeed a rather long speech was prepared.’

Most Western countries are boycotting the event which in previous years involved eminent foreign visitors.

Putin’s scheduled appearance comes at a time when there are rumours that he is increasingly using a body double for public events due to security fears or illness.

Swedish economist Anders Aslund – who has worked as an advisor to both the Russian and Ukrainians governments, told Die Welt: ‘Putin doesn’t dare go out in public. Whenever he appears, there are suspicions that he is a double.

‘Putin seems frightened. He has built bunkers at his three main residences. He travels the country by armoured train. And at each of his three main residences, he has built special stations for his personal security.

‘The level of paranoia seems almost pathological.’

Both Russia and Ukraine have deployed drones to carry out precision strikes against enemy units. The small, mobile devices are difficult to detect and can go deep behind enemy lines while allowing their operators to stay out of the firing line.

Both sides have used consumer quad-copters to scope out enemy positions and drop grenades down onto soldiers hiding in fox holes, or into armoured vehicles.

But consumer models tend to require connection to the internet to function, with operators using internet-connected devices and their GPS signals to manoeuvre them into positions.

They can also be used to guide other, large munitions to their targets. 

After the drone strike on the Kremlin in May, it was reported that Putin became fearful of taking any overseas trips out of fear of being assassinated.

This also came after an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over war crimes charges in Ukraine, which requires any member state to detain Putin should he step food in their territory.

There have also been murmurings of a potential coup against him by Wagner mercenary group warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has grown increasingly critical of Russia’s military and its faltering efforts on the battlefield if Ukraine.

According to the Daily Beast, citing the Russian independent outlet Verstka, the Russian leader has grown increasingly fearful for his life in recent months.

The source said ‘behind the scenes of the Kremlin’ that Putin was wary of travelling anywhere and that ‘he has no sense of security.’ 

He did not travel to Turkey for the inauguration of President Recep Erdogan, and he will not attend an upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in India in July.

Reports have also suggested that Putin’s inner circle has grown smaller and smaller since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, to the point that he is refusing the listen to negative battlefield news from his generals.

Kyiv’s counteroffensive is making steady progress on at least two fronts in Ukraine, with the country’s military saying on Thursday it had regained control of more than 38 square miles of territory.

Russia’s own progress, meanwhile, has been stalled for months, with its military efforts more focused on holdings its defensive positions.

According to Iuliia Osmolovska, director of the GlobSec think-tank, Putin is shunning any bad news of his military’s campaign and refuses to use the internet.

‘As far as we know from reliable sources, Putin stopped receiving any real, up-to-date information from the battlefield some time ago because he doesn’t want to hear bad news,’ she said. 

‘Secondly, he doesn’t use the internet, so he has no other information to verify the news he is hearing,’ she added.

Russia announced plans on Thursday to stage elections in occupied parts of Ukraine in just three months, Moscow’s latest bid to signal it is in control over the the south and east of the country, even as the Ukrainian counteroffensive presses on.

The Ukrainian assault is in its early stages, and military experts say the decisive battles still lie ahead. But corpses of Russian soldiers and burnt-out armoured vehicles lining the roadside in villages newly recaptured by Ukrainian troops attested to Kyiv’s biggest advances since last year.

‘Our heroic people, our troops on… the front line are facing very tough resistance,’ Zelensky told NBC News in an interview in Kyiv. ‘Because for Russia to lose this campaign to Ukraine, I would say, actually means losing the war.’

Zelensky said the news from the front lines was ‘generally positive but it’s very difficult,’ according to a partial transcript of the interview.

US Rep. Liz Cheney has hinted at a possible 2024 run for president against Donald Trump in her concession speech where she compared herself to Abraham Lincoln. 

In her concession speech on Tuesday in Jackson, Wyoming, Cheney made comparisons to President Lincoln, who lost a string of races before winning the White House.

‘Abraham Lincoln was defeated in elections for the Senate and House before he won the most important election of all,’ Cheney said.

Although hinted at presidential aspirations, the bulk of her time up on the podium was spent condemning former President Donald Trump, whose unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen she attributed to her loss. 

‘Two years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote,’ Cheney said as she recalled the pre-Trump political landscape. ‘I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. 

‘But it would’ve required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election.. That was a path I could not and would not take.’ 

In her speech, Cheney warned Americans that Trump is not the choice for 2024, condemning the January 6 Capitol riot, of which she led the Senate hearings investigating the deadly violence. 

‘Our nation is barreling once again towards crisis, lawlessness and violence. No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future,’ Cheny said of the attack at the Capitol, which was conducted by Trump supporters.

‘Like so many Americans, I assumed that the violence and the chaos of that day would have prompted a united response… Instead, major elements of my party still vehemently defend those who caused it,’ she added.

She also called on people from all parties to unite against those denying the 2020 presidential results, saying that unfounded claims against America’s elections were an attack on democracy.  

‘This is not a game. Everyone of us must be committed to the eternal defense of this miraculous experiment called America.’ 

Trump lashed out at Cheney’s speech, reiterating his false claims that the election was stolen as he said it is her who is looming threat to democracy.    

‘Liz Cheney’s uninspiring concession speech, in front of a ‘tiny’ crowd in the Great State of Wyoming, focused on her belief that the 2020 Presidential Election was not, despite massive and conclusive evidence to the contrary, Rigged & Stolen,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

‘It was, and that’s not even counting the fact that many election changes, in numerous States, were not approved by State Legislatures, an absolute must. 

‘Liz Cheney is a fool who played right into the hands of those who want to destroy our Country’! 

At the top of her concession speech, Cheney informed her supporters that she had called Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman and conceded the race – making the point that part of American democracy is ‘honorably’ accepting election results. 

Speaking to supporters at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Event Center, Hageman characterized her win as an effort to ‘dislodge entrenched politicians’ from Washington, D.C.’s ‘uni-party – those Democrats and Republicans who don’t really care which party is in power, just as long as they are.’ 

‘Wyoming has put the elites on notice,’ Hageman said, adding that if you want to represent the Cowboy State, ‘you damn better well live in Wyoming.’ 

She also thanked Trump for his early support – and used his trademark Apprentice line. 

‘If we put you in power you will be accountable … you will answer to us,’ she said. ‘And if you don’t, we will fire you.’  

Former President Donald Trump – who made Cheney his No. 1 2022 target – reveled in her loss. 

‘This is a wonderful result for America, and a complete rebuke of the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs,’ the ex-president said.

‘Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,’ Trump continued. ‘Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now.’ 

‘Thank you WYOMING!’ Trump added. 

Wyoming Republicans DailyMail.com spoke to Tuesday outside Cheyenne’s historic Storey Gymnasium had all voted for Hageman – with a lone Democrat saying he chose to stick with his party, and not cross over to bolster Cheney’s chances. 

Wyoming voters can switch political parties the day of the election. They can also vote at any polling place, but have to show identification. 

‘Well first of all she should represent her constituents, and she’s not clearly – because that’s why she’s getting voted out – but secondly here’s the reality, she didn’t grow up in Wyoming,’ said 58-year-old Cheyenne resident Roger Forystek, who works in insurance. 

Thanks to her father’s political career, Cheney split her time between Casper and Washington, D.C.  

‘And furthermore, she’s kind of a spoiled brat, in my opinion. She’s a spoiled brat. She’s so used to getting her way, when she doesn’t, she’s throwing a tantrum,’ Forystek added. 

A local pastor, who asked not to be named because of his line of work, told DailyMail.com that his vote for Hageman ‘was moreso to spank Cheney.’ 

‘She’s being sent to the principal’s office,’ he said. 

Cheney has become the most prominent House Republican critic of Trump – currently serving as vice-chair of the House select committee on January 6.

She’s paid a price – losing her No. 3 leadership position in the House Republican Conference and was expelled by Wyoming’s Republican Party, as the state’s voters in 2020 had voted Trump over President Joe Biden by about 43 points.  

The daughter of the former Republican vice president has remained steadfast in her criticism, saying in a campaign ad last week that her party’s embrace of Trump’s ‘big lie’ – his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him – is a ‘cancer.’ 

‘The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious,’ she said in the video. 

She added that the false claims are a ‘door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.’ 

For 20-year-old University of Wyoming student Abby Humble, who backed Hageman, it’s not the substance – but Cheney’s style. 

‘I don’t disagree with what she did, I think she was just trying to defend the Constitution,’ Humble told DailyMail.com. ‘But at the same time, I don’t really think that’s what the people of Wyoming wanted … because a lot of them are, you know, Trump supporters.’ 

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has unleashed on Labor’s Budget and claimed the Albanese government is making life harder for ‘middle Australia’. 

The Liberal leader handed down his budget reply to the House of Representatives on Thursday night, two days after Treasurer Jim Chalmers outlined the government’s economic plan for the nation.

The budget will be back in black for the first time in 15 years with a short-lived but slim surplus of about $4bn this financial year, achieving what the Coalition was unable to do in its nine years in power.

However, Mr Dutton argued in his speech that the Albanese government was fuelling inflation with its budget. 

He also said it would do little for ‘millions of middle Australians’ who ‘have every right to be disappointed with this government’.

‘As a result of the government’s policies, inflation will only stay higher for longer, continuing to grind down real incomes of households,’ he said.

The Opposition Leader blamed Labor for the rises in mortgage repayments, gas and electricity bills, supermarket and petrol station receipts, and insurance premiums.

‘International factors feed into inflation – like the war in Ukraine – but the main ingredient is the domestic factors,’ he told parliament.

He also took aim at Labor’s attempts to bring down power prices, saying it was ‘being deceptive with its energy policy’.

More than five million eligible households and one million small businesses will get relief applied directly to their power bills under a deal with the states outlined in the budget.

Eligible people who are on the pension, are senior card holders or a recipient of family tax benefits A and B will reap the benefits of the scheme.

Those efforts are not enough to bring down power prices, according to Mr Dutton, who slammed the government’s commitment to renewable energy and its moves on coal, gas and nuclear energy.

He renewed the Coalition’s push for nuclear energy.

‘Next generation, small modular nuclear technologies are safe, reliable, cost effective, can be

plugged into existing grids where we have turned-off coal, and emit zero emissions,’ he said.

‘In the 21st century, any sensible government must consider small modular nuclear as part of the energy mix.’

Mr Dutton said the Coalition supported select pieces of the budget, including the increased bulk-billing incentives for some Australians, expanding the parenting payments and investing in women’s safety.

The government’s budget increased incentives to be paid to GPs who bulk bill 11.6 million eligible Australians including children under 16, pensioners and other concession card holders.

The government decided to lift the age cut-off of the single parent welfare payment from eight to 14, in a move that’s been applauded by advocacy groups.

An additional $589.3m will also be invested over four years toward the government’s goal of ending violence against women ‘within a generation’.

That money is in addition to the $1.7bn in the October budget.

Also in the firing line were the government’s tax choices, criticising the decision to scrap the low-and-middle-income tax offset saying that ‘around 10 million Australians earning under $126,000 will now be up to $1500 worse off’.

He later told ABC TV’s 7.30 that many families would be worse off as a result of the ending of that measure and other pressures due to high inflation.

‘I do worry dreadfully at the moment for a lot of families. I think there’s a lot of people underestimating how much pain is out there,’ he said.

‘The government really didn’t have any response to them at all in the budget.’

He also said the Albanese government was being coy on its commitment to the already legislated stage 3 tax cuts for anyone earning over $45,000 due to come into effect next July.

‘Labor has been silent on its promise to keep stage 3 of the Coalition’s legislated tax plan in full,’ he said.

‘Our tax cuts will see 95 per cent of Australian workers keep at least 70 cents in every dollar they earn.

‘With about 400 days before the tax cuts take effect, there’s time enough for Labor to break another promise.’

Mr Dutton called for a lift in the income-free threshold so that individuals can take up part-time work without losing benefits, without committing to the government’s decision to lift the JobSeeker rate.

‘We’ll wait to see how the government responds to what we’ve constructively put forward tonight because the proposal that we’ve put on the table tonight says that somebody on an unemployment benefit could earn considerably more than $40 through ten hours of work a fortnight

Mr Dutton argued that employment decisions made in the budget ‘risks creating a generation of working poor Australians’.

More than 1.1 million of the most vulnerable Australians will benefit from a $40 per fortnight boost to their welfare payment from September if parliament agrees.

The raised base rate will be applied to people receiving JobSeeker, Youth Allowance, Parenting Payment (partnered), ABSTUDY, Disability Support Pension (Youth) and Special Benefit.

Mr Dutton said the predicted population increase from net overseas migration will increase by 1.5 million people over five years, which will cause the housing and rental crisis to worsen.

‘The government is now proposing to bring in almost 6000 people per week, which will make a bad situation worse,’ he said.