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Germany bans Islamic center over alleged Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood ties

Berlin — Authorities in the German state of Brandenburg on Thursday banned an Islamic center in the town of Fürstenwalde over alleged affiliations with the militant groups Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Interior Ministry of Brandenburg state, which surrounds Berlin, said the decision to force the closure and ban all operations of the Islamic Center … Read more

Does Universal Basic Income Improve Entrepreneurship?

In July, OpenResearch released the results of its Unconditional Cash Study. This study is the largest unconditional cash study to date, and the results have shown that increased access to cash does improve financial well-being and savings. The results of this study have provoked dialogue concerning the role of unconditional cash and universal basic income … Read more

White House extracts voluntary commitments from AI vendors to combat deepfake nudes

The White House has announced that several major AI vendors, including OpenAI and Microsoft, have committed to taking steps to combat nonconsensual deepfakes and child sexual abuse material. Adobe, Cohere, Microsoft, OpenAI and data provider Common Crawl said that they’ll “responsibly” source and safeguard the datasets they create and use to train AI from image-based … Read more

Warming Elderberry Mulled Cider

Now that the weather is starting to turn (a little!) cooler I’m in the mood for cozy blankets and warm drinks on the sofa. Hot mulled cider is a cold-weather favorite around here! This version adds the health boosting benefits of elderberry for an even tastier version. Unlike tart cranberries, elderberry adds a milder flavor … Read more

Typhoon Yagi death toll over 200 as Vietnam searches for survivors, flooding hits Thailand and Myanmar

Hanoi — Millions of people across Southeast Asia struggled Thursday with flooded homes, power cuts and wrecked infrastructure after Typhoon Yagi swept through the region, as the death toll passed 200. In worst-hit Vietnam alone the fatalities rose to 197, with nine confirmed dead in northern Thailand — where one district is suffering its worst floods … Read more

Meta, TikTok and Snap pledge to participate in program to combat suicide and self-harm content

In an attempt to prevent suicide and self-harm content from spreading online, the nonprofit Mental Health Coalition (MHC) today announced a new program, Thrive, aimed at encouraging online platforms to share “signals” of potentially harmful material. Thrive, which counts Meta, Snap and TikTok as founding members, will provide ways for platforms to share hashes — … Read more

Bitcoin and NFTs may get greater legal protections as ‘personal property’ under proposed UK law

The U.K. government has introduced a new bill to Parliament that proposes new legal protections for digital assets such as cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and carbon credits. The bill comes as the crypto sector contends with a range of regulatory headwinds: In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that certain crypto … Read more

U.N. staff among 18 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school sheltering displaced Palestinians, rescuers say

Gaza Strip — Israel bombed a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, killing 18 people including two staffers with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, according to rescuers. The Israeli military described it as a “precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center embedded within a … Read more

Irish Big Tech watchdog digs into platforms’ content reporting mechanisms after DSA complaints

Ireland’s media regulator, which oversees the compliance of a raft of tech giants with the EU’s Digital Services Act’s (DSA) general rules, said it is reviewing how major platforms let users report illegal content, following a high number of complaints.  On Thursday, the Coimisiún na Meán (CNM) said one in three DSA complaints it has … Read more