Irris Makler

Journalist, author + now cook. Just Add Love gathers the life stories and recipes of Holocaust Survivors. Fab photos. Check us out at

[Irris Makler @irris]

Omg - I’ve made it! 10/10 from Room Rater!!! Mia the dog always saves the day ❤️

[Room Rater @ratemyskyperoom]

We love the stone archway. Great depth. Bookcase. Flowers. Needs more backlight but appearance of sweet pup makes it 10/10. @irris @FRANCE24

[Deborah Haynes @haynesdeborah]

I heard a lovely anecdote today about Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, who has died at the age of 62.
Around the time the James Bond film “Spectre” was coming out, there was a private viewing at MI6’s HQ in Vauxhall with some of the production team and actors, including Ralph Fiennes.
Alex Younger compared the event, which included an opportunity for members of the audience (who were largely real life spies) to quiz the actors and producers.
One person asked Ralph Fiennes: Who was your favourite Bond?
He gave an answer about how they were all good, but his favourite was Daniel Craig. The rest of the team said similar.
Then Alex threw the question back to the person in the audience who had posed it, asking them who their favourite Bond was.
But before this person had time to give an answer, someone else in the audience shouted out: “You, sir!”

The individual (a former diplomat) who shared this story with me said it was one of so many examples of how admired, liked and respected Alex was by his colleagues.

“He was one of the best chiefs”.

[Shashank Joshi @shashj]

Very sorry to see that Sir Alex Younger has died of cancer, aged just 62. Younger's wife 'was shocked that he had never told his mother he was a spy, and so he did. “Yes, darling, so was I,” his mother replied.' https://t.co/6sfVIqBqpF

[Irris Makler @irris]

Heartbreaking, the post. And the piece. So much lost @washpo

[Siobhán O'Grady @siobhan_ogrady]

Three months later, this is my last @washingtonpost story — delayed because nearly everyone involved in it was laid off. I am very grateful to newsroom friends who made sure it published anyway, and to brave Roman Mongold and his family for their time.
https://t.co/PMxJxiaMcg

[Iran International English @IranIntl_En]

Iran’s attacks on Qatar have damaged facilities accounting for 17% of the country’s liquefied natural gas export capacity, with repairs expected to take three to five years, QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters on Thursday.

“I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Qatar… would be in such an attack,” Kaabi said, adding the strike came “especially from a brotherly Muslim country in the month of Ramadan.”

The damage is expected to have a significant impact on global LNG supply.
https://t.co/uqsEKelWby

[NetBlocks @netblocks]

⚠️ Update: #Iran's internet blackout has entered its 20th day, with international connectivity unavailable to the general public for over 456 hours.

The incident is now the longest recorded shutdown in Iran's history, surpassing the blackout imposed during protests in January.

[Meduza in English @meduza_en]

Russia’s most popular messaging app, Telegram, has largely stopped working inside the country, according to outage-tracking websites.
https://t.co/e9hmqdiARH

[max seddon @maxseddon]

“This is pushing a thriving city that prided itself on its digital sophistication back into the Stone Age.”

⁦@NastyaStognei⁩ on Moscow’s mobile blackouts, which have shut down almost all traffic as Russia seeks to control the internet: https://t.co/n8DhjD4Z27

[Irris Makler @irris]

@MarkZlochin Hey Mark, I'm an Australian journalist. Can you please message me so I can contact you about this story? I can't message you on X :-)

[Irris Makler @irris]

@ksadjadpour extraordinary

[Karim Sadjadpour @ksadjadpour]

1 Instead of producing an Iran's Delcy Rodriguez, the war has for now produced a budding Iranian Kim Jong Un. A profile of Mojtaba Khamenei, including from a Tehran source who's long known him. "They’ve just killed his family; He’s bloodthirsty now." https://t.co/L8XryoOsdI

[Irris Makler @irris]

Ah, the ultimate vengeance 😆

[Wodehouse Tweets @inimitablepgw]

A certain critic—for such men, I regret to say, do exist—made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled this man by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

[Wodehouse Tweets @inimitablepgw]

A certain critic—for such men, I regret to say, do exist—made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled this man by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

[Christopher Clary @clary_co]

Small numbers here but some signs the UAE's intercept rate is decreasing and that the air defense network is fraying. 25% of Iranian drones made it through today which is an all-time high since the onset of hostilities. (Previous high was 10% of drones hitting UAE on March 3.)

[Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom]

During the "tanker war" in the 1980s, America escorted an average of one convoy through the Strait of Hormuz each week.

"At that pace it would take two and a half years to get all 320 or so vessels currently stranded in the Gulf out of there. Even resuming three-quarters of Hormuz sailings would still prevent nearly 4m b/d of oil from getting to global markets."

"Jeff Currie of Carlyle, a private-equity firm, says the cost of a single escort would exceed the value of the cargo it is meant to protect." https://t.co/ij92vH7Zye

[Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins]

"He wants to be helpful," President Trump says regarding his conversation with President Putin and Iran, despite reports that Russia was providing intel to Iran on US military targets.

[Nariman Gharib @NarimanGharib]

BREAKING: Thousands of Basij members across Iran are reportedly receiving threatening messages on Telegram from unknown accounts, warning them:

"You are completely under our surveillance. We know what crimes you committed against the Iranian people. We have identified you and all your associates. Surrender or flee. There will be no second warning."

From persecutors to the persecuted, the tables are turning.😉

[Robert Costa @costareports]

President Trump, in a phone intvw late Sat w/ @CBSNews, dismissed threats from Iran's top nat-sec official, Ali Larijani, who says Trump must "pay the price" for the strikes.

"I have no idea what he's talking about, who he is. I couldn't care less. I couldn't care less," Trump said. "He's already been defeated."

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

Bahrain and Kuwait bore the brunt of Iranian drone attacks overnight. A desalination plant and a major hotel were hit in Bahrain. In Kuwait, the airport’s fuel tanks were ablaze, as was a high-rise headquarters of the social security department. Two officers in the Kuwait border force were also reported killed.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

🚨BREAKING: MIT hooked people up to brain scanners while they used ChatGPT.

What they found should concern every single person reading this.

ChatGPT users showed 55% weaker brain connectivity than people who didn't use it. Not after years. After just four months.

Here's how they tested it. 54 people were split into three groups: one used ChatGPT to write essays, one used Google, and one used nothing but their own brain. They wore EEG monitors that tracked their brain activity in real time across four sessions over four months.

The brain-only group built the strongest, most widespread neural networks. Google users were in the middle. ChatGPT users had the weakest brains in the room. Every time.

Then the memory test hit. Participants were asked to recall what they'd just written minutes earlier. 83% of ChatGPT users couldn't quote a single line from their own essay. They wrote it. They couldn't remember it. The words passed through them like they were never there.

It gets worse. In the final session, ChatGPT users were told to write without AI. Their brains were measurably weaker than people who never used AI at all. 78% still couldn't recall their own writing. The damage didn't go away when the tool was removed.

Meanwhile, brain-only users who tried ChatGPT for the first time? Their brains lit up. They wrote better prompts. They retained more. Their brains were already strong enough to use AI as a tool instead of a crutch.

The researchers also found that every ChatGPT essay on the same topic looked almost identical. More facts, more dates, more names. But less original thinking. Everyone using ChatGPT produced the same generic output while believing it was their own.

MIT gave this a name: cognitive debt. Like financial debt, you borrow convenience now and pay with your thinking ability later. Except there's no way to pay it back.

The question isn't whether ChatGPT is useful. It's whether the price is your ability to think without it.

[Irris Makler @irris]

@BBCSteveR @RTS_media Molodetz! So well deserved Steve