Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) — China calls on the United States to strictly abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and work together with China to promote stable and sustainable development of the two countries’ economic and trade relations based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, He Yadong, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, said on Thursday.
He made this statement at a regular departmental press conference in response to a journalist’s question on the matter, emphasizing that China’s position against a unilateral increase in customs duties remains unchanged.
According to him, from June 9 to 10, the negotiating teams on trade and economic issues between China and the United States held the first meeting in London within the framework of the mechanism of trade and economic consultations between the two countries.
At the meeting, the two sides reached fundamental agreement on implementing the important consensus reached by the two heads of state during their telephone conversation on June 5 and on the framework of measures to consolidate the results of the trade and economic talks in Geneva, He Yadong said, adding that new progress was also made in resolving mutual concerns in the trade and economic field between the two sides.
In the future, both sides are willing to make better use of the role of the China-US trade and economic consultation mechanism, continue to maintain consultations and dialogue, constantly strengthen consensus and reduce misunderstandings, and increase interaction to jointly promote the stable and long-term development of trade and economic relations between the two countries. -0-
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) — The body of Zhedi, former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) of China, was cremated in Beijing on Thursday.
Xi Jinping and other Party and state leaders including Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi bid farewell to Zhedi at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery on Thursday.
With mournful music playing, they slowly approached Zhedy’s body, stood in silent respect, and bowed three times to the body of the deceased. They also shook hands with Zhedy’s family members and expressed their condolences.
Zhedi died of illness at the age of 87 in Beijing on June 6.
Zhedi was recognized as an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a loyal fighter for the ideals of communism, an outstanding leader in the work on nationality affairs and in the development of the socialist legal system, and a worthy son of the Tibetan people.
Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, Li Xi, Han Zheng and Hu Jintao either visited Zhedi during his hospital stay or expressed their deep sorrow and condolences to his relatives in various ways after his death. -0-
A Cambodian woman who grew up amid landmines now clears them as a UN peacekeeper in Lebanon. A Sudanese civil society leader rallies displaced women to reclaim their voices in peacebuilding. Young activists from the divided communities of Cyprus foster dialogue and understanding in a deeply complex and long-standing conflict. These are just a few of the extraordinary stories captured in Through Her Lens: Women Rising for Peace, a striking photo exhibition that premiered on 7 June 2025 at Brooklyn Bridge Park as part of the Photoville Festival.
“Too often, women in conflict are portrayed only as victims,” said Natasha Lamoreux of UN Women. “But these photographs tell a different story. They show women as peacekeepers, negotiators, human rights defenders — leaders actively shaping peace.”
From Sudan to Cyprus, Haiti to Lebanon, the UN collaborated with local women photographers who not only document the lives of women but also share in their struggles, striving to build peace in their communities, which creates an intimate and powerful perspective.
“This exhibit is the culmination of months of partnership between the four organizing entities as well as between headquarters and field-based colleagues,” said Shatha Hussein from the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. “We worked on very difficult contexts and turbulent situations that are changing by the day. So working with women on the ground to amplify their efforts through this initiative was not easy in any of the contexts featured, but their commitment, despite the odds, made this possible.”
Preparing this exhibit has been a profound challenge — one that mirrors the obstacles women face daily in conflict zones. Intense fighting spiked early this year in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan as the photoshoots were being planned.
“These images are more than art — they are a collective story of resilience, acts of resistance, and transformation,” said Sophie Boudre of the UN Department of Peace Operations. “They declare that women’s rights must be protected, their leadership recognized, and their voices heard wherever peace is made.”
Rooted in the Women, Peace and Security agenda launched by UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the exhibit underscores both the critical roles women play in peacebuilding and the persistent challenges they face — including a rising global backlash against gender equality.
The Through Her Lens exhibit is on view through 22 June 2025 at Pier 1 of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. It will also be shown at UN Headquarters in time for a Security Council open debate on Women, Peace and Security at the end of October. Importantly, the exhibit will travel to the regions featured in the photographs — bringing these powerful stories full circle.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes 11 years in office, the Ministry of Ayush has launched preparations for the 11th International Day of Yoga (IDY) 2025, heralding it as a global wellness movement. At a curtain-raiser event held at the National Media Centre in New Delhi, the Ministry announced that PM Modi will lead a historic yoga session with over five lakh participants in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, on June 21, under the theme “Yoga for One Earth, One Health.”
Union Minister of State for Ayush, Prataprao Jadhav, joined by Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, addressed the media, reflecting on IDY’s transformative journey since its inception. “Following the visionary call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the United Nations adopted June 21 as International Day of Yoga in 2014, sparking a global movement rooted in India’s ancient wisdom,” Jadhav said. He highlighted past celebrations in New Delhi, Mysuru, New York, and Srinagar, which have united diverse cultures in the pursuit of health, harmony, and peace.
This year’s IDY, marking its 11th edition, aims to deepen yoga’s reach across society. The Visakhapatnam event will feature the Common Yoga Protocol (CYP), while “Yoga Sangam” sessions at over one lakh locations nationwide will create one of the largest synchronized yoga demonstrations in history. The theme “Yoga for One Earth, One Health” echoes India’s G20 Presidency vision and the ethos of “Sarve Santu Niramaya” (May all be free from disease), promoting holistic well-being.
Jadhav commended the Andhra Pradesh government and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for their “YogaAndhra” campaign, which seeks to build a community of 10 lakh regular yoga practitioners. He outlined ten Signature Events planned over 100 days, including Yoga Samavesh for inclusivity and Yoga Bandhan for international partnerships, to promote yoga as a way of life. Countdown events at 100-day, 75-day, 50-day, and 25-day milestones in Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Nashik, and Puducherry have already generated significant enthusiasm.
“Yoga is more than postures and breathing—it’s a lifestyle,” Jadhav told the media, urging their support to make IDY 2025 a landmark event inspiring millions to embrace yoga for a healthier, happier society.
Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha noted that over 60 countries are organizing activities for IDY 2025, aligning with the theme and Signature Events. Shri P.N. Ranjit Kumar, Officer on Special Duty for IDY Coordination, presented the event’s scale and strategy, emphasizing collaborations with state governments, civil society, and global partners. The Ministry is leveraging digital tools and grassroots mobilization to position IDY 2025 as a global celebration of wellness.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) has approved a financing package of up to $184.1 million to support the development of the Obelisk 1-gigawatt solar photovoltaic project and 200MWh battery energy storage system in Egypt, which will be Africa’s largest solar power plant.
Located in Qena Governorate in southern Egypt, the project entails the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of a photovoltaic power plant with an integrated battery energy storage system. The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company will be the sole off-taker under a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement.
The project’s total cost is estimated at more than $590 million. The Bank Group’s financing package includes $125.5 million of ordinary resources, as well as concessional funding from Bank Group-managed Special Funds the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) worth $20 million, and the Canada-African Development Bank Climate Fund ($18.6 million), a partnership of the Bank Group and the Government of Canada. A further $20 million will come from the Climate Investment Funds’ Clean Technology Fund, with additional financing to be mobilized from a consortium of development finance institutions.
Under Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food, and Energy (NWFE) platform, Obelisk has been granted a Golden License by the government, which recognizes it as a strategic initiative that will contribute to addressing Egypt’s energy constraints and advancing its energy transition.
Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Egypt’s Minister of Planning, Economic Development and International Cooperation, said “the Obelisk solar project is another important milestone for Egypt under the energy pillar of the NWFE program which has since its launch in November 2022 at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh delivered 4.2 GW of privately financed renewable energy investments, worth about $4 billion, with the support of partners such as the Africa Development Bank. The goal of NWFE’s energy pillar is to add 10 GW of renewable energy capacity with investments of approximately $10 billion, and phase out 5 GW of fossil fuel power generation by 2030.”
The project, expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of 2026, will generate an estimated 2,772 gigawatt-hours of clean, reliable, and affordable energy annually to the national grid. The battery energy storage system will help meet peak evening demand with renewable power while also mitigating the variability of solar power generation. The project is expected to reduce annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by approximately one million tons and create about 4,000 jobs during construction and 50 permanent jobs during operation, with a special focus on women and youth employment.
“Obelisk is another landmark development under NWFE that leverages on Egypt’s and the African Development Bank’s leadership as well as commitment to harnessing the country’s renewable energy to enhance the resilience of the country’s energy supply to meet its fast-growing energy demand sustainably,” said Kevin Kariuki, African Development Bank Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate, and Green Growth. “This project also contributes to Egypt’s ambition of producing 42 percent of its power generation capacity from renewable energy sources by 2030 while spurring economic growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,”
Ambassador of Canada to the Arab Republic of Egypt Ulric Shannon said: “Canada is proud to support solar energy development in Egypt. This initiative is a meaningful step toward enhancing energy security and stability, with direct benefits for the Egyptian people. We are pleased to collaborate with the African Development Bank and other partners in supporting Egypt’s transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy.”
The Obelisk Solar Project aligns with the African Development Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy, its New Deal on Energy for Africa, and its Country Strategy Paper for Egypt as well as SEFA’s strategic framework which aims to accelerate African countries energy transition by increasing the share of renewables and catalyzing commercial capital mobilization in the power sector. The project also advances Egypt’s commitment to achieve 42 percent generation capacity from renewable energy sources by 2030.
“This project exploits the abundant renewable energy potential in Africa and demonstrates how strong partnerships and innovative solutions contribute to balancing three core objectives in the energy sector, namely energy security, affordability, and sustainable economic development,” said Wale Shonibare, Director of Energy Financial Solutions, Policy, and Regulation at the African Development Bank. “It has high potential for replicability across the continent.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).
Media Contact: Olufemi Terry Communication and External Relations Department o.terry@afdb.org
Technical Contact: James Otto Senior Investment Officer Energy Financial Solution and Policy Regulations Department j.otto@afdb.org
About the African Development Bank Group: The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 41 African countries with an external office in Japan, the Bank contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states. For more information: www.AfDB.org
The genocide is almost complete. When it is concluded it will have exposed the moral bankruptcy of Western civilisation, writes Chris Hedges.
ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges
This is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide.
It will be over soon. Weeks. At most.
Two million people are camped out amongst the rubble or in the open air. Dozens are killed and wounded daily from Israeli shells, missiles, drones, bombs and bullets.
They lack clean water, medicine and food. They have reached a point of collapse. Sick. Injured. Terrified. Humiliated. Abandoned. Destitute. Starving. Hopeless.
In the last pages of this horror story, Israel is sadistically baiting starving Palestinians with promises of food, luring them to the narrow and congested nine-mile ribbon of land that borders Egypt. Israel and its cynically named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), allegedly funded by Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Mossad, is weaponising starvation.
It is enticing Palestinians to southern Gaza the way the Nazis enticed starving Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to board trains to the death camps. The goal is not to feed the Palestinians. No one seriously argues there is enough food or aid hubs. The goal is to cram Palestinians into heavily guarded compounds and deport them.
What comes next? I long ago stopped trying to predict the future. Fate has a way of surprising us. But there will be a final humanitarian explosion in Gaza’s human slaughterhouse. We see it with the surging crowds of Palestinians fighting to get a food parcel, which has resulted in Israeli and US private contractors shooting dead at least 130 and wounding over seven hundred others in the first eight days of aid distribution.
We see it with Benjamin Netanyahu’s armingISIS-linked gangs in Gaza that loot food supplies. Israel, which has eliminated hundreds of employees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), doctors, journalists, civil servants and police in targeted assassinations, has orchestrated the implosion of civil society.
I suspect Israel will facilitate a breach in the fence along the Egyptian border. Desperate Palestinians will stampede into the Egyptian Sinai. Maybe it will end some other way. But it will end soon. There is not much more Palestinians can take.
We — full participants in this genocide — will have achieved our demented goal of emptying Gaza and expanding Greater Israel. We will bring down the curtain on the live-streamed genocide. We will have mocked the ubiquitous university programmes of Holocaust studies, designed, it turns out, not to equip us to end genocides, but deify Israel as an eternal victim licensed to carry out mass slaughter.
The mantra of never again is a joke. The understanding that when we have the capacity to halt genocide and we do not, we are culpable, does not apply to us. Genocide is public policy. Endorsed and sustained by our two ruling parties.
There is nothing left to say. Maybe that is the point. To render us speechless. Who does not feel paralyzed? And maybe, that too, is the point. To paralyse us. Who is not traumatised? And maybe that too was planned. Nothing we do, it seems, can halt the killing. We feel defenceless. We feel helpless. Genocide as spectacle.
I have stopped looking at the images. The rows of little shrouded bodies. The decapitated men and women. Families burned alive in their tents. The children who have lost limbs or are paralyzed. The chalky death masks of those pulled from under the rubble. The wails of grief. The emaciated faces. I can’t.
This genocide will haunt us. It will echo down history with the force of a tsunami. It will divide us forever. There is no going back.
Palestinians under the rubble in 2023 after Israeli airstrike of homes in the Gaza Strip. Image: Ashraf Amra /United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East/ Wikimedia Commons /CC BY-SA 4.0
And how will we remember? By not remembering.
Once it is over, all those who supported it, all those who ignored it, all those who did nothing, will rewrite history, including their personal history. It was hard to find anyone who admitted to being a Nazi in post-war Germany, or a member of the Klu Klux Klan once segregation in the southern United States ended.
A nation of innocents. Victims even. It will be the same. We like to think we would have saved Anne Frank. The truth is different. The truth is, crippled by fear, nearly all of us will only save ourselves, even at the expense of others. But that is a truth that is hard to face. That is the real lesson of the Holocaust. Better it be erased.
“Should a drone vaporize some nameless soul on the other side of the planet, who among us wants to make a fuss? What if it turns out they were a terrorist?
“What if the default accusation proves true, and we by implication be labeled terrorist sympathisers, ostracised, yelled at? It is generally the case that people are most zealously motivated by the worst plausible thing that could happen to them.
“For some, the worst plausible thing might be the ending of their bloodline in a missile strike. Their entire lives turned to rubble and all of it preemptively justified in the name of fighting terrorists who are terrorists by default on account of having been killed. For others, the worst plausible thing is being yelled at.”
You cannot decimate a people, carry out saturation bombing over 20 months to obliterate their homes, villages and cities, massacre tens of thousands of innocent people, set up a siege to ensure mass starvation, drive them from land where they have lived for centuries and not expect blowback.
The genocide will end. The response to the reign of state terror will begin. If you think it won’t you know nothing about human nature or history. The killing of two Israeli diplomats in Washington and the attack against supporters of Israel at a protest in Boulder, Colorado, are only the start.
Chaim Engel, who took part in the uprising at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in Poland, described how, armed with a knife, he attacked a guard in the camp.
“It’s not a decision,” Engel explained years later. “You just react, instinctively you react to that, and I figured, ‘Let us to do, and go and do it.’ And I went.
“I went with the man in the office and we killed this German. With every jab, I said, ‘That is for my father, for my mother, for all these people, all the Jews you killed.’”
The Sobibor extermination camp gate in the spring of 1943. The pine branches, braided into the fence to make it difficult to see in from the outside. Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
Does anyone expect Palestinians to act differently? How are they to react when Europe and the United States, who hold themselves up as the vanguards of civilisation, backed a genocide that butchered their parents, their children, their communities, occupied their land and blasted their cities and homes into rubble? How can they not hate those who did this to them?
What message has this genocide imparted not only to Palestinians, but to all in the Global South?
It is unequivocal. You do not matter. Humanitarian law does not apply to you. We do not care about your suffering, the murder of your children. You are vermin. You are worthless. You deserve to be killed, starved and dispossessed. You should be erased from the face of the earth.
“To preserve the values of the civilised world, it is necessary to set fire to a library,” El Akkad writes:
“To blow up a mosque. To incinerate olive trees. To dress up in the lingerie of women who fled and then take pictures.
“To level universities. To loot jewelry, art, food. Banks. To arrest children for picking vegetables. To shoot children for throwing stones.
“To parade the captured in their underwear. To break a man’s teeth and shove a toilet brush in his mouth. To let combat dogs loose on a man with Down syndrome and then leave him to die. “Otherwise, the uncivilised world might win.”
There are people I have known for years who I will never speak to again. They know what is happening. Who does not know? They will not risk alienating their colleagues, being smeared as an antisemite, jeopardising their status, being reprimanded or losing their jobs.
They do not risk death, the way Palestinians do. They risk tarnishing the pathetic monuments of status and wealth they spent their lives constructing. Idols.
They bow down before these idols. They worship these idols. They are enslaved by them.
At the feet of these idols lie tens of thousands of murdered Palestinians.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.This article was first published in Scheerpost.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Scientists comment on a drought status confirmed in Yorkshire, as announced by the Environment Agency.
Dr Jess Neumann, Associate Professor in Hydrology, University of Reading, said:
“The drought announcement in Yorkshire comes only a few weeks after parts of north-west England declared a drought.
“An unseasonably dry spring, the driest in nearly 90 years, means many reservoir levels are only 60-65% full, well below the 80-85% average for this time of year. The lack of rainfall is placing significant strain on public water supplies, affecting agricultural crop production, and harming wildlife and the environment.
“Water companies are implementing their drought action plans as another warm and dry week is forecast ahead. Small actions and changes to behaviour can have an important role to play. People should be mindful of their water use, and I would urge everyone to develop water-saving habits. Small actions such as capturing water from the tap in a jug while waiting for it to run hot, turning taps off when brushing your teeth, and using a watering can rather than a hose in the garden may prevent harsher restrictions, such as so-called “hosepipe bans” being needed, in the coming weeks and months.
“Two large areas of England are now in drought status. This raises important questions about the security of our water in the long term. Water is no longer abundant and plentiful. We urgently need to adjust to a future of climate change and water stress and invest in infrastructure and regulations to save water.
“At the same time, the forecast for the UK is suggesting that there is potential for some torrential downpours and thunderstorms, which may bring rapid flash flooding, especially to the west of England and Wales, but with eastern England, southern Scotland and Northern Ireland also at risk.
“The recent dry weather conditions, which can lead to dry soils or baked, hard ground, may actually increase run-off rates, potentially increasing the risk of hazardous flash flooding.
“Currently the UK is sandwiched between high pressure to the east and low pressure in the west, driving hot, humid air across the country, creating conditions for active thunderstorms.
“The current climatic picture in the UK shows water stress and uncertainty in some regions while other areas are facing risks of flooding. This pattern of extreme weather and regional variability is in keeping with the impacts of the hotter atmosphere and warmer, higher seas that we are already experiencing as a result of our increasingly changing climate.”
Declared interests
Jess Neumann: “I am a trustee of the Charity River Mole River Watch. We work with water companies including SES Water and the Environment Agency.”
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
HOHHOT, June 12 — The 110,000th China-Europe freight train exited China via northern Inner Mongolia’s Erenhot Port, the largest land port on the China-Mongolia border, on Thursday.
The train, loaded with 55 containers of home appliances, worth nearly 20 million yuan (about 2.79 million U.S. dollars), departed Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province on Tuesday. The train’s departure marks a major milestone in the high-quality development of the China-Europe freight train service.
The train is expected to reach its destination in Moscow, Russia, in about two weeks, according to the port.
As the only port of entry and exit on the middle corridor of the China-Europe freight train service, Erenhot Port now operates 73 China-Europe freight train routes. It connects China with over 70 hub stations in more than 10 countries and regions, including Germany, Poland and Russia.
The port has operated over 19,000 China-Europe freight trains since 2013. In the first five months of this year, the port handled 1,489 inbound and outbound China-Europe freight trains, transporting nearly 1.9 million tonnes, or 168,800 TEUs of goods, representing year-on-year growth of 5.3 percent, 8.2 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.
“With the regular operation of the China-Europe freight train service, the transportation time for our products to reach Europe has been shortened from 45 days to 15 days, and the logistics cost per tonne has been cut by approximately 600 yuan, laying a solid foundation for the development of the local agricultural product industry,” said Cui Xuesong, deputy manager of an international logistics park management committee located over 300 km from the port.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, June 12 — China has fully established a voluntary blood donation system and introduced a range of measures to ensure a safe blood supply, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).
China has expanded its blood screening programs and improved testing technologies, effectively blocking the transmission of major infectious diseases through transfusion, Gao Guangming, an official with the NHC, said at a press conference on Thursday.
China’s overall blood safety level now ranks among the highest in the world, Gao said.
The country has strengthened its nationwide emergency response system for blood supply, enabling targeted cross-regional allocation to ensure adequate blood supply in key areas and during critical periods, he said.
To boost public awareness of voluntary blood donation, the NHC partnered with China Railway Group to display promotional videos and posters on 260,000 screens across more than 3,000 railway stations and over 4,200 high-speed trains nationwide, Gao said.
He added that Party and government organs, universities and colleges, enterprises and public institutions are encouraged to lead by example in blood donations, and help foster a culture of giving in society.
The country has a blood donation rate of 11.4 per 1,000 people, the NHC revealed at the press conference.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, June 12 — Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday met with the European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde in Beijing, where he called for enhanced opening up and cooperation between the two sides.
Noting that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the European Union (EU), Li said China is willing to work with the EU to consolidate political mutual trust, expand practical cooperation, and jointly promote development and prosperity.
The economies of China and the EU are highly complementary, and China has the advantage of a super-large market and market potential that continues to be released, Li said, adding that there is great potential for cooperation between the two sides in many fields.
As two major economies and two major forces, China and the EU should enhance multilateral coordination, promote opening up and cooperation, and make greater contributions to promoting the recovery of the global economy and improving global governance, Li said.
He said China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the ECB on the reform of the international monetary system, and China will firmly expand its opening up and share development opportunities with other countries.
Lagarde said tariff wars and trade wars will only lead to a lose-lose situation, and upholding multilateralism and strengthening the opening up and cooperation are the right options.
The ECB is pleased to establish a meeting mechanism of the central bank governors with China and hold its first meeting, and is committed to strengthening communication and coordination with Chinese financial institutions, expanding and deepening cooperation areas, and jointly addressing global challenges, Lagarde said.
Three teenagers have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Fredi Rivero.
Three girls, aged 15, 16, and 17, from north-east London have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 75-year-old Fredi Rivero.
The girls, who cannot be named because of their age, are due to be sentenced on a date to be set in September at the Old Bailey.
On Thursday, 27 February officers were called to reports of an assault at a bus stop on Seven Sisters Road. Fredi was found with serious head injuries. Sadly he died in hospital a day later as a result of his injuries.
The three girls were arrested shortly after the assault and officers found one of them had filmed the unprovoked attack on her phone.
“Mr Rivero was a much-loved family man who died in a truly tragic incident. I know how much his death has impacted those close to him and the wider community.
“I would like to offer my heart-felt sympathy to Mr Rivero’s family for their loss and express my admiration for the dignity they have shown throughout the investigation. I also wish to thank the members of public who went to Mr Rivero’s aid as he lay injured.
“The young defendants have now accepted they were responsible for the killing of Mr Rivero, in what was a senseless and completely out of the blue attack on a lone elderly man. The age of the defendants adds to the devastating nature of this incident and they will now have to deal with the enormity of their actions.”
The girls were charged with manslaughter on Saturday, 1 March.
Conducted by Queen Mary University in partnership with White & Case, the 2025 International Arbitration Survey results state:
“The ICC Arbitration Rules are highly regarded, with many interviewees highlighting their established reputation and ease of use for arbitrators and counsel, as well as the support of the Secretariat.”
The survey revealed a strong preference among arbitration communities on every continent for the ICC Arbitration Rules, from a choice of more than 60 sets of rules. The ICC Rules took top position in Africa (53%), the Caribbean and Latin America (74%), Europe (60%), the Middle East (59%) and North America (55%), underlining the global character and adaptability of the regulations.
In 2024, 831 new cases were filed under the ICC Arbitration Rules, with a total of 2,392 parties from 136 jurisdictions.
Claudia Salomon, President of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, said:
“We’re delighted that the ICC Court again tops the list of the Queen Mary Study as the most-preferred arbitral institution globally. Our services are built on over 100 years of experience, combined with our continued focus on meeting the evolving needs of the parties. We take this opportunity to thank those who entrust the resolution of their disputes to ICC. Our ranking would not be possible without the exemplary leadership and dedication of the ICC Court members and the Secretariat”.
The 2025 International Arbitration Survey investigates current trends in user preferences and perceptions, as well as opportunities to shape the future of international arbitration practice. The 2025 edition is the result of 2,402 questionnaire responses and 117 interviews with a diverse pool of participants.
Full survey findings are available on the Queen Mary University London website
Large cuts to government-funded research and development can endanger American innovation – and the vital productivity gains it supports.
The Trump administration has already canceled at least US$1.8 billion in research grants previously awarded by the National Institutes of Health, which supports biomedical and health research. Its preliminary budget request for the 2026 fiscal year proposed slashing federal funding for scientific and health research, cutting the NIH budget by another $18 billion – nearly a 40% reduction. The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the basic scientific research conducted at universities, would see its budget slashed by $5 billion – cutting it by more than half.
Research and development spending might strike you as an unnecessary expense for the government. Perhaps you see it as something universities or private companies should instead be paying for themselves. But as research I’ve conducted shows, if the government were to abandon its long-standing practice of investing in R&D, it would significantly slow the pace of U.S. innovation and economic growth.
I’m an economist at Texas A&M University. For the past five years, I’ve been studying the long-term economic benefits of government-funded R&D with Karel Mertens, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. We have found that government R&D spending on everything from the Apollo space program to the Human Genome Project has fueled innovation. We also found that federal R&D spending has played a significant role in boosting U.S. productivity and spurring economic growth over the past 75 years.
Measuring productivity
Productivity rises when economic growth is caused by technological progress and know-how, rather than workers putting in more hours or employers using more equipment and machinery. Economists believe that higher productivity fuels economic growth and raises living standards over the long run.
U.S. productivity growth fell by half, from an average of roughly 2% a year in the 1950s and 1960s to about 1%, starting in the early 1970s. This deceleration eerily coincides with a big decline in government R&D spending, which peaked at over 1.8% of gross domestic product in the mid-1960s. Government R&D spending has declined since then and has fallen by half – to below 0.9% of GDP – today.
Government R&D spending encompasses all innovative work the government directly pays for, regardless of who does it. Private companies and universities conduct a lot of this work, as do national labs and federal agencies, like the NIH.
Correlation is not causation. But in a Dallas Fed working paper released in November 2024, my co-author and I identified a strong causal link between government R&D spending and U.S. productivity growth. We estimated that government R&D spending consistently accounted for more than 20% of all U.S. productivity growth since World War II. And a decline in that spending after the 1960s can account for nearly one-fourth of the deceleration in productivity since then.
These significant productivity gains came from R&D investments by federal agencies that are not focused on national defense. Examples include the NIH’s support for biomedical research, the Department of Energy’s funding for physics and energy research, and NASA’s spending on aeronautics and space exploration technologies.
Not all productivity growth is driven by government R&D. Economists think public investment in physical infrastructure, such as construction of the interstate highway system starting in the Eisenhower administration, also spurred productivity growth. And U.S. productivity growth briefly accelerated during the information technology boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which we do not attribute to government R&D investment.
More R than D
We have found that government R&D investment is more effective than private R&D spending at driving productivity, likely because the private sector tends to spend much more on the development side of R&D, while the public sector tends to emphasize research.
Like the private sector, the Department of Defense spends much more on development – of weapons and military technology – than on fundamental research. We found only inconclusive evidence on the returns on military R&D.
R&D work funded by the Defense Department also tends to initially be classified and kept secret from geopolitical rivals, such as the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. As a result, gains for the whole economy from that source of innovation could take longer to materialize than the 15-year time frame we have studied.
The high returns on nondefense R&D that we estimated suggest that Congress has historically underinvested in these areas. For instance, the productivity gains from nondefense R&D are at least 10 times higher than those from government investments in highways, bridges and other kinds of physical infrastructure. The government has also invested far more in physical infrastructure than R&D over the past 75 years. Increasing R&D investment would take advantage of these higher returns and gradually reduce them because of diminishing marginal returns to additional investment.
So why is the government not spending substantially more on R&D?
One argument sometimes heard against federal R&D spending is that it displaces, or “crowds out,” R&D spending the private sector would otherwise undertake. For instance, the administration’s budget request proposed reducing or eliminating NASA space technology programs it deemed “better suited to private sector research and development.”
But my colleague and I have found that government spending on R&D complements private investment. An additional dollar of government nondefense R&D spending causes the private sector to increase its R&D spending by an additional 20 cents. So we expect budget cuts to the NIH, NSF and NASA to actually reduce R&D spending by companies, which is also bad for economic growth.
Federal R&D spending is also often on the chopping block whenever Congress focuses on deficit reduction. In part, that likely reflects the gradual nature of the economic benefits from government-funded R&D, which are at odds with the country’s four-year electoral cycles.
Similarly, the benefits from NIH spending on biomedical research are usually less visible than government spending on Medicare or Medicaid, which are health insurance programs for those 65 years and older and those with low incomes or disabilities. But Medicare or Medicaid help Americans buy prescription drugs and medical devices that were invented with the help of NIH-funded research.
Even if the benefits of government R&D are slow to materialize or are harder to see than those from other government programs, our research suggests that the U.S. economy will be less innovative and productive – and Americans will be worse off for it – if Congress agrees to deep cuts to science and research funding.
The views expressed in the Dallas Fed working paper are the views of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.
Andrew Fieldhouse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
It is true that college students’ mental health has deteriorated in many regards during the past two decades.
The Healthy Minds Study, which gathers national survey data on tens of thousands of students annually, has found that the percentage who considered suicide in the prior year rose from 6% in 2007 to 13% in 2024. The percentage of students who made a specific suicide plan tripled during that period.
While some news reports portray the current state of student mental health as an unprecedented crisis, the full picture is more nuanced. As a psychologist who has been researching college student mental health for more than 20 years, as summarized in my recent book, “College Student Mental Health and Wellness: Coping on Campus,” I believe recent data suggests a turning of the tide.
The 2024 Health Minds Study found a slight decrease over the previous two years in the percentage of students contemplating suicide.
Data also reveals a similar decline in the percentage of students dealing with severe anxiety from 2022 to 2024.
The study marks the first time since data collection began on suicide or severe anxiety that there has been a two-year decrease in either area.
Reason for concern
The demand for psychological services at college and university counseling centers has outpaced growth in undergraduate enrollment. Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
To be clear, there is reason for concern about the psychological well-being of college students.
Healthy Minds Study researchers found that in 2007, 9% of college students were taking psychotropic medication such as antidepressants. In 2024, that number had grown to 26%.
A 2024 national survey conducted by the American College Health Association found that more than a third of students received mental health care in the previous year.
The demand for psychological services at college and university counseling centers has outpaced growth in undergraduate enrollment more than fourfold.
Findings from another national dataset gathered by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, an international network of more than 800 college and university counseling centers, indicate that from 2010 to 2024, depression symptoms increased 18% among students receiving psychological services, general anxiety symptoms rose more than 25%, and social anxiety symptoms climbed more than 30%.
In addition, students’ family-related distress steadily increased during the past decade.
The sky is not falling
Despite disturbing trends in student mental health, recent data suggests that fewer students are contemplating suicide and dealing with anxiety. Ariel Skelley/Getty Images
Despite these challenges, there is good news regarding decreases in the share of students considering self-injury and reporting depression symptoms.
Data from the Healthy Minds Study reveals that the percentage of students considering self-injury has not increased the past two years, after more than doubling from 14% in 2007 to 29% in 2022.
A similar pattern can be found in Center for Collegiate Mental Health data about depression. Depression symptoms have decreased each of the past two academic years.
The network has been collecting depression data since 2010, and never before have scores dropped in consecutive years.
The Center for Collegiate Mental Health data also indicates that students’ academic distress peaked following the onset of COVID-19 and declined each of the past three years, returning to pre-pandemic levels. Students’ frustration has also shown a gradual, 7% decline from 2010 to 2024.
Furthermore, for the first time since 2012, there has been a two-year uptick in college students who are flourishing, according to data from the Healthy Minds Study. Other researchers have found a similar recent trend, accompanied by a decrease in student loneliness.
More good news, based on data, about what students put in their bodies: Symptoms related to eating disorders have not increased in any of the past four years, according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health. Data from the network indicates that current alcohol use is at its lowest level since 2010, declining 29% over that period.
Binge drinking has also decreased 18% since 2012, according to the Healthy Minds Study.
We need data, not dread
Mental health professionals need accurate data to support the psychological well-being of college students. SeventyFour/Getty Images
Valid data can help in discerning the truth about college student mental health.
Data that captures national trends in college student psychological well-being is needed to support mental health professionals. For example, as data reveals emerging trends, such as an increase in college students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, training can be provided to clinicians in treating students with these concerns.
Campus mental health professionals and administrators can also use data to advocate for resources they need to support students. For instance, our research has found that students of color are more likely to seek psychological help when there are therapists on staff from the same ethnic or racial background. This data can inform hiring practices at college and university counseling centers.
Finally, continuous data collection can help determine how college student mental health is impacted by specific events, such as pandemics, campus shootings and laws that eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social anxiety decreased, while general anxiety spiked.
These events may not affect students equally.
International students, a group that already experiences heightened suicidal thoughts, may be particularly impacted by recent news of visa cancellations and deportations.
Jeffrey A. Hayes has received a research grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to study college student suicide.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Magali A. Delmas, Professor of Management, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles
Since the early 1990s, the small blue Energy Star label has appeared on millions of household appliances, electronics and even buildings across the United States. But as the Trump administration considers terminating some or all of the program, it is worth a look at what exactly this government-backed label means, and why it has become one of the most recognizable environmental certifications in the country.
Energy Star was launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 and later expanded in partnership with the Department of Energy with a simple goal: making it easier for consumers and businesses to choose energy-efficient products, helping them reduce energy use and save money, without sacrificing quality or performance.
As a scholar of energy conservation, I have studied the Energy Star program’s development and public impact, including how it has shaped consumer behavior and environmental outcomes.
Products that earn the Energy Star certification typically use significantly less energy than standard models, often between 10% and 50% less. The energy – and financial – savings can add up quickly, especially when homes or buildings have multiple Energy Star appliances and systems.
Energy Star itself does not manufacture or sell products. Instead, it acts as a trusted third-party certifier, providing consumers and businesses with reliable information and clear labeling. It also offers information to help people estimate energy savings and compare long-term costs, making it easier to identify high-performing, cost-effective options. Manufacturers participating in Energy Star seek to improve their environmental reputation and increase their market share, giving them a strong incentive to meet the program’s efficiency criteria.
Today, the label appears on refrigerators, dishwashers, laptops, commercial buildings and even newly built homes. The government says people in more than 90% of American households recognize the label.
Energy Star-certified appliances include upright freezers, clothes washers and many other types of home equipment, which use between 10% and 50% less energy than uncertified items. AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel
People don’t always choose efficient products
Energy Star seeks to tackle a wide range of problems that can result in people deciding not to buy energy-efficient products.
One problem is that efficient models often come with higher up-front costs. While efficient models save money over time, that higher purchase price can discourage buyers. Energy Star helps counter this problem by clearly showing how much money can be saved on energy costs over the lifetime of the product – as compared with noncertified products – and by offering rebates that reduce the initial expense.
Another problem involves what economists call “split incentives.” A landlord might not want to pay a higher price up front for energy-efficient appliances if the tenants are the ones who will save money on the utility bills. And renters may not want to spend a lot of money on appliances or equipment in a place they do not own. Energy Star tries to bridge this divide by promoting whole-building certifications, which encourage landlords to invest in their buildings’ energy efficiency with the goal of making their properties more attractive to tenants.
The countless varieties of refrigerators, dishwashers, air conditioners and other items on the market can also create confusion. Consumers who just look at manufacturers’ promotional material may find it very hard to determine which appliances truly deliver better energy efficiency. The Energy Star label makes this comparison easier: If the label is there, it is among the most efficient choices available.
And consumers are often skeptical of manufacturers’ claims – especially when it comes to new technologies or environmental promises. Energy Star’s status as a program backed by the government, rather than a private company, gives it a level of independence and credibility that many other labels lack. People know the certification is based on science, not sales tactics.
Lastly, Energy Star helps overcome the problem that many people are not aware of how much energy their appliances consume, or how those choices contribute to climate change. By connecting everyday products to larger environmental outcomes, Energy Star helps consumers understand the effects of their decisions, without needing to become energy experts.
The program delivers real results
Since its inception, more than 800,000 appliance models have earned Energy Star certification based on the criteria for their type of product.
The same principles that make the label valuable for consumer appliances – independent certification, clear metrics and a focus on results – have proved equally effective in real estate. Nearly 45,000 commercial buildings and industrial plants have earned certification. And there have been more than 2.5 million Energy Star-certified homes and apartments built in the U.S.
Energy Star-certified homes are designed to be at least 10% more energy efficient than those built to standard building codes, with more insulation and windows and lights that are energy-efficient, as well as appliances. These enhancements can translate to better quality, comfort and long-term cost savings for homeowners.
Commercial buildings, which account for about 18% of total U.S. energy use, have also benefited substantially. Research I was involved in found that certified commercial buildings use an average of 19% less energy than their noncertified counterparts.
Energy Star’s status as a government-led label contributes to its credibility as a more neutral and science-based source of information than commercial labels.
Energy Star’s government connections also bring scale: By requiring federal purchases to have Energy Star certifications, the federal government can influence manufacturers. For example, a federal executive order in 1993 required government agencies to purchase only computers that had been Energy Star-certified, which required them to have energy-saving sleep functions.
In response, manufacturers began including the feature so they could sell their products to the government. Consumers soon came to expect the sleep feature on all computers.
A quiet success story in energy and climate
Energy Star does not grab headlines. It does not rely on regulation or mandates. Yet it has quietly become one of the most effective tools the U.S. has for improving energy efficiency across homes, offices and public buildings.
That said, the program is not without its limitations. Some critics have pointed out that not all certified products consistently perform at the highest efficiency levels. Other critics note that the benefits of Energy Star are more accessible to wealthier consumers who can afford up-front investments, even with available rebates. And the EPA itself has, at times, struggled to manage the certification process and update standards in line with the latest technological advances.
At a time when energy costs and climate concerns are rising, Energy Star stands out as a rare example of a practical, nonpartisan program that delivers real benefits. It helps individuals, businesses and communities save money, lower emissions and take part in a more sustainable future – one smart decision at a time.
Magali Delmas received funding from the US EPA in 2002 for research on Environmental Management Strategies and Corporate Performance.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michael Naparstek, Associate Teaching Professor Religious Studies, University of Tennessee
A man plays the Chinese action role-playing game ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ during its launch day in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, on Aug. 20, 2024.STR/AFP via Getty Images
Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.
Title of the course
Religion and Gameworlds
What prompted the idea for the course?
Most of my research is in Chinese religions, and I find it fascinating that popular video games – like many popular films before them – draw from the mythologies, cosmologies, unseen powers and heroic narratives found across the world’s religious traditions.
Recent examples such as “Black Myth: Wukong” and “Raji: an Ancient Epic” draw explicitly from mythologies and religious narratives of China and India, respectively, putting the player in direct contest against pantheons of gods. Meanwhile, games such as “Sid Meier’s CIV VI,” where players develop an historical civilization from the Stone Age to Space Age in a quest for global domination, explicitly utilize religion as ways to develop and conquer the world.
At the same time, the interactive experience of a video game makes it an especially interesting place to study religion. When your character uses magic, interacts with powerful deities, or even achieves godlike status themselves, the player also shares such experiences on some level as well. Sometimes, viewers’ experiences blur the lines between “real life” and on-screen.
Some churches have even used the game “Second Life” to offer worshippers the option of getting baptized using their digital avatar in the game. This kind of practice raises poignant questions about how we understand religion in our modern world.
What makes this course different from many others that utilize video games is that the student experience of playing the games influences how we frame our investigation of religion. Students wrestle with questions about how religion helps build the worlds they are experiencing.
We meet in the game lab as a class once a week to observe and analyze each other’s experiences playing different kinds of games.
We start the week with relevant theoretical and historical framing in the traditional classroom. For example, in our investigation of “Black Myth: Wukong,” a game inspired by the 16th-century novel “Journey to the West,” students first read selections from the work as they learn about its protagonist, the trickster monkey god Sun Wukong.
In the novel, Wukong picks fights with all the gods in an attempt to overthrow the cosmic order, only to eventually be violently put in his place by the highest gods of the Chinese pantheon. Our class discussions thus serve as a general introduction to Chinese religions, while we also get to discuss the theoretical basis for culturally defined ideas such as what makes a hero.
Playing as a descendant of Sun Wukong, students explore enchanted landscapes, interact with local spirits and engage in magical combat against the very gods that we learned about in class.
Each week, students note their observations, carefully detailing their experience playing the game, as well as the experience of watching others do the same. Students are also asked to analyze the ways in which religious themes, narratives and practices played a role in the game world they experienced.
We conclude the class with weekly reflections on the overall experience.
What will the course prepare students to do?
In 2024, the video game industry boasted over US$184 billion generated in market value. The global reach of games allows new audiences to experience and learn about religious narratives and practices in new ways.
Popular media has long been a powerful mode of cultural exchange. Video games are just a recent example, but the scale to which gamers around the world connect with each other through playing demands more attention.
The wild popularity following the 2024 release of the game “Black Myth: Wukong,” the first premier produced game out of China for an international audience, suggests that this kind of experience is truly a global phenomenon that will only continue to grow. It only makes sense that video games can serve as powerful pedagogical tools as well.
The goal of the course is to prepare students to better understand the broader contexts in which their shared experience of enjoying video games derives. Learning about the role of religion in shaping that experience allows students to better understand how religion shapes our modern world.
Michael Naparstek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When combined with factors such as easy access to tobacco products or living with someone who uses them, the risk of adolescent use more than doubles, which sets the stage for harmful physical and mental health effects.
Parental awareness and adolescents’ motivations to use tobacco
As a mother of a teenager, one of us, Adriana, has experienced this firsthand. For months, my 14-year-old son was vaping in his room, and I had no idea. When he finally told me that he turned to vaping whenever he felt upset, it was like coming face-to-face with the very issues we study.
Since 2022, our team has been examining the factors associated with tobacco use among more than 8,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health, or PATH, study – the largest multiyear, nationally representative study of tobacco use in the U.S. We looked at the use of cigarettes, electronic products, traditional or filtered cigars, cigarillos, pipes, hookahs, smokeless or dissolvable tobacco and more.
We found that emotional distress, along with the belief that tobacco products help manage negative emotions, are significant factors driving adolescent tobacco use.
This highlights the complexity of the issue – that even when teens recognize the health risks of tobacco use, vaping and other forms of tobacco use may function as a coping strategy, albeit an unhealthy one, for the wide range of emotional challenges that come with adolescence.
Teachers and school administrators are struggling to control vaping among students because many devices are small, odorless and easy to conceal. Peter Dazeley/Photodisc via Getty Images
The availability of flavored options further increases the appeal of these products and can contribute to the progression from occasional to regular use and ultimately the development of nicotine dependence.
What makes vaping especially difficult to manage is its stealth. Unlike combustible products, many vaping devices are small, odorless and very easy to conceal. As a result, parents, teachers and school administrators are struggling to detect and curb vaping among teens.
Strategies for addressing why teens use tobacco
In our view, policy efforts that focus primarily on raising awareness about health risks, restricting access to tobacco products or reducing the appeal of e-cigarettes or vapes will reach only a subset of youth who use them, and not those who may use for emotional reasons.
And while such bans may limit access to tobacco products in formal settings, the availability of these products from friends and social networks, online platforms or unregulated markets will not likely be reduced solely through that type of health messaging.
As our findings show, these efforts may miss a stronger, even more enduring driver of youth tobacco use: the pervasive belief that tobacco use helps manage stress, anger and other difficult emotions. Our research highlights that emotional distress and the perception that tobacco use can help them cope with stress are central to why many adolescents begin and continue using these products, even when they are aware of the health risks.
In this context, simply limiting access to tobacco products or repeating well-known health warnings will do little to address the underlying emotional motivations to use.
We believe that to make meaningful progress, policy and prevention interventions will need to address the underlying motives for use, and not just focus on the harmful health effects of nicotine or means of access.
This includes integrating emotional and behavioral health support into tobacco prevention strategies and expanding school-based and community mental health services. And while public health education campaigns such as The Real Cost have been successful in reducing the number of adolescents who begin using e-cigarettes, our findings suggest more emphasis on the emotional drivers of tobacco use is warranted.
Adriana Espinosa receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (NCI and NIMHD).
Lesia M. Ruglass receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIGMS, NIDA, NCI, and NIMHD).
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ian McDonough, Associate Professor of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Older adults generally have a good sense of their own financial abilities – unless they have dementia. shapecharge/E+ via Getty Images
Older adults diagnosed with dementia lose their ability to assess how well they manage their finances, according to a recent study I co-authored in The Gerontologist. In comparison, people of the same age who don’t have dementia are aware of their financial abilities – and this awareness improves over time.
For our study, we used data from over 2,000 adults in the U.S. age 65 and older, collected during a long-term study on aging.
We focused on how participants’ financial skills changed over time. The study began in 1998 and is still running, but we probed data collected between 1998 and 2009.
Participants were assessed at one year, two years, five years and 10 years for their ability to carry out everyday tasks, including ones that required handling money. For example, they had to calculate the cost of a gym membership and a store discount rate, fill out part of a tax return and assess the cost of medical services. They also rated how well they thought they could do everyday financial tasks. Initially, none of the participants were diagnosed with dementia, but over the course of the decade, 87 participants, or 3.1%, received a dementia diagnosis.
We found that even though participants’ performance on financial tasks declined as they aged, older adults who did not have dementia and older adults who had mild cognitive impairment were appropriately aware of their financial abilities. What’s more, that awareness increased over time. However, participants who were diagnosed with dementia during the study and experienced severe cognitive decline often misjudged how well they performed financial tasks.
Financial scams targeting older adults are on the rise.
The lack of insight into one’s cognitive abilities is called anosognosia. This study reveals a new type called financial anosognosia.
Few tools are available that can support families in helping cognitively impaired adults manage their finances. Our research suggests that there is a critical window of time after people begin to experience cognitive decline during which they are still aware of their financial abilities. We believe that this is when people can take action to secure their finances and develop systems to protect themselves from fraud.
What still isn’t known
Close friends or family members are often tempted to take away the financial autonomy of an older adult who is mismanaging their finances. However, that may not be the best solution, particularly for people who feel that handling their finances is a core part of their identity. More research is needed to identify how best to balance personal autonomy and the need to protect a person’s finances.
What’s next
This study used paper-and-pencil tasks to assess financial performance. But increasingly, many older adults are using online banking.
E-banking simplifies many calculations, which may be helpful for older adults with declining cognition. However, e-banking can also make finances more of a black box, which may decrease a person’s awareness of their financial abilities. Furthermore, e-banking is constantly advancing, putting older adults at a disadvantage because they are more likely to be less cognitively flexible and to learn more slowly.
We hope to explore whether older adults with and without cognitive decline have similar awareness of their ability to appropriately manage their finances online and identify potential financial scams.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Ian McDonough receives funding from The National Institutes of Health.
The 49 bus connects the Strawberry Mansion, Grays Ferry and University City neighborhoods. Courtesy of SEPTA
When the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority launched the 49 bus route in Philadelphia in early 2019, those who most benefited were older adults and people who already ride the bus – and not commuters who were persuaded to ditch their cars for public transportation, according to our new research.
Some of the largest benefits of Route 49 came in saved time and fewer transfers for existing users of other transit routes.
Route 49 launched in early 2019 and was the first local bus service that SEPTA added to its system in nearly a decade. It connects two residential Philadelphia neighborhoods – Strawberry Mansion in North Philadelphia and Grays Ferry in South Philadelphia – with the job-rich University City area in West Philadelphia.
Public transit agencies often try to court “choice” riders – people who have a reasonable chance of choosing to either drive or use public transportation for a given trip, and who tend to be higher income.
SEPTA, however, didn’t necessarily focus on choice riders with the design of Route 49. But planners at the agency did tell us during our data collection that many commuters to University City don’t take public transit.
We found that early riders of Route 49 tended to be previous transit riders who seldom drove before the line’s launch. They took other SEPTA buses, or did not make that trip.
Riders ages 65 and older, who are less likely to be commuters, were even more likely to have simply switched bus routes to make the same trip they regularly made before the new service line began.
For new bus and rail lines to be financially sustainable, they must attract enough riders. The fares those riders pay allow agencies to run services more regularly and have the line be cost effective.
While it’s always difficult to attract new riders, the past few years have been especially challenging for U.S. transit agencies. National transit ridership remains only about 80% of what it was when the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020.
Getting people back onto buses and trains will require agencies to understand what attracts people to new transit lines. If public transit agencies want to recapture ridership and echo the success of bus services like Route 49, it may be best for them to talk to current users rather than potential public transit converts.
How we do our work
To understand how new riders used Route 49, we boarded Route 49 buses throughout the route and conducted in-person surveys with over 350 riders in early 2019. We wanted to capture feedback and data from users of the service shortly after it was launched.
In addition to asking riders what they used Route 49 for and how they took the same trip before its launch, we recorded characteristics such as age, income and gender.
What’s next
Drawing on our 2019 survey data, we plan to explore how new Route 49 riders learned about the transit line and decided to begin riding the new service. Did they hear about it from agency flyers or websites? From seeing new bus lines on the road, or from friends discussing it? Analyzing these answers can help transit agencies enhance access for all travelers.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
President Donald Trump’s second term as president will surely go down in history, though of course, just six months into his four-year term, much of this story has yet to be written.
But it is already clear that most Americans will not be able to read exactly what Trump has said, as they have with previous presidents, during his current term in the White House.
The White House has removed the official transcripts of Trump’s public remarks from its government website, NBC News reported in May 2025, replacing the written transcripts with select videos and audio of Trump’s public appearances.
White House officials told NBC News that this switch should help people get a fuller, more consistent and accurate sense of Trump by watching and listening to him, rather than reading what he says verbatim at official events.
Government stenographers are also still recording and transcribing all of Trump’s remarks, though these are no longer being published on the White House’s website or elsewhere. It is not clear where or how those transcriptions are being saved.
For years, translators, reporters, students, historians and presidential scholars like me have used official presidential transcripts to understand a president’s exact words and track government decisions. Without these written transcripts, it becomes harder to get the full story of exactly what the president has done or said.
President Donald Trump, joined by members of his cabinet, delivers a statement on natural disaster preparedness in the Oval Office at the White House on June 10, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
A partial history
A nation’s history is etched in its records. The preservation of official proceedings provides the bedrock for understanding a country’s past and navigating its future.
A growing chorus of historians, public officials and transparency advocates is raising alarms about how the Trump administration is curating and potentially manipulating the government’s records and actions.
The White House’s recent decision to not share official, written transcripts of what the president has said is not the first time this issue has emerged under Trump.
As I wrote in 2021, the first Trump administration did not consistently submit the transcripts of the president’s political rally speeches to the National Archives, as was the custom with previous presidents. The National Archives is an independent government agency within the executive branch that preserves the nation’s historical records.
This official recordkeeping is important, and it’s more than a tradition – it’s a legal obligation. A law called the Presidential Records Act of 1978 says that everything a president does in office – from making speeches to writing emails – belongs to the public.
This includes not just formal speeches, but also public remarks and oral exchanges, which are traditionally included in a compilation of presidential documents.
My examination of this compilation for 2025 appears to show a gap in such records from mid-April 2025 onward. While the transcript of Trump’s full remarks when speaking with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was published on this government site on April 18, for example, publicly available documents from May only include a checklist of White House press releases, a digest of White House announcements and a list of acts that the president signed into law.
In the absence of complete official records from government sources, external, independent organizations that also monitor the presidency, like The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have become crucial repositories.
The American Presidency Project diligently logs and, when transcripts are unavailable, provides video of public presidential messaging, striving to create as complete a record as possible for all curious viewers and readers.
The fight over keeping an honest record of presidents is a problem that comes up again and again in American history.
Perhaps the most powerful example of losing historical records comes from the country’s very first president, George Washington. He knew he was setting an example for all future presidents and kept very careful records. He wanted to leave a complete story of his life and his work for the future.
But there is very little of it left.
After Washington died, his wife, Martha, burned most of the letters they wrote to each other to keep their lives private.
Washington left his official papers to his nephew, Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington. But Bushrod gave many of them to Chief Justice John Marshall, who was writing a book about the president. The papers were not treated carefully, and many were damaged. To make matters worse, Bushrod would often tear off scraps of Washington’s writings and give them to people as souvenirs.
The result is that Americans have an incomplete picture of their first president. What now exists is a weaker version of the real story, created more by what other people did than by what Washington himself had planned.
Memories fade, and people are not around forever.
The main way that the U.S. can preserve its story is through accurate records. The current arguments over saving transcripts and official papers are about more than just rules. They are about the future. The records that Trump and other presidents leave behind will decide if people in the future see them as they really were, or just how they wanted others to view them.
Shannon Bow O’Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Reducing diagnoses to address antibiotics resistance.
Thousands of cases of the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea could be prevented through a new vaccine programme.
The Scottish Government is funding the programme, which will begin in August, to address increasing health inequalities and growing resistance to antibiotics treatment.
Those eligible include gay and bisexual men at highest risk of infection, those involved in selling or exchanging sex regardless of gender and those who sexual health clinic professionals assess as being at a similar risk level.
Gonorrhoea can cause significant pain and discomfort and in rare cases, life-threatening sepsis. The number of cases has been rising steadily in recent years and it is the second most common bacterial STI in Scotland. Latest figures show there were 5,999 diagnoses in 2023, a 59% increase on pre-pandemic.
Speaking at the Public Health Scotland Scottish Vaccination and Immunisation Conference in Edinburgh, Public Health Minister Jenni Minto said:
“This action is urgent and timely since the number of diagnoses has been high and the disease is becoming increasingly difficult to treat with antibiotics.
“The science tells us that this vaccine will potentially protect thousands of people and prevent the spread of infection.
“Anything which stops people from contracting gonorrhoea in the first place can have huge benefits, including ensuring our health system remains resilient by reducing the amount of treatment needed.”
Dr Sam Ghebrehewet, Head of the Vaccination and Immunisation Division at PHS, said:
“With gonorrhoea diagnoses having increased in recent years, the offer of the 4CmenB vaccine to those at highest risk of exposure is a welcome new intervention. This vaccination programme is expected to help control and prevent the spread of gonorrhoea.
“Public Health Scotland is working with the Scottish Government and colleagues across NHS Boards to finalise plans for the roll out of this targeted vaccination offering to those at increased risk of gonorrhoea from August 2025.”
Background
Ministers accepted the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s advice on the programme, which will be delivered by the Scottish Vaccination and Immunisation Programme led by Public Health Scotland.
The £280,000 funding is intended to cover first and second doses of 4CMenB vaccine.
The vaccine is 30-40% effective and will be offered in the clinics alongside those for HPV, hepatitis and the routine mpox vaccination programme.
The majority of the building’s exterior is now exposed for all to see as contractor McLaughlin & Harvey continue to remove the protective covering and scaffolding to unveil the distinctive terracotta coloured cladding.
Construction works are ongoing on the state of the art facility, which forms part of phase 2 of Wolverhampton Council’s masterplan to boost skills and employment.
Situated around the Old Hall Street and St George’s Parade area, incorporating a site on the corner of Garrick Street and Bilston Street where the former Faces nightclub building once stood, the development is also utilising the existing Metro One building – it will open to City of Wolverhampton College students in the autumn.
Alongside improvements to the neighbouring Adult Education Wolverhampton and Central Library facilities, the £61 million scheme – supported by Government funding – will establish new educational provision that will enhance skills and employment outcomes for residents across the city and wider region.
It will offer A Levels in a range of subjects and vocational qualifications in art, design and photography, business and management, catering and hospitality, computing and digital, creative media, games design and e-sports, hair and beauty, health and social care, music technology, performing arts, and science.
Prospective students can find out more about what will be on offer at the new campus at the college’s Open Day this Saturday (14 June), at its existing Wellington Road and Paget Road campuses, between 10am and 2pm. Book your place at Open Events | 14 June 2025 | City of Wolverhampton College.
Construction on phase 1 of the City Learning Quarter masterplan – a new £8.1 million Advanced Technology and Automotive Centre at the college’s Wellington Road campus – has been completed and opened to students in September 2024.
Councillor Chris Burden, City of Wolverhampton Council Cabinet Member for City Development, Jobs and Skills, said: “As we get the first look at the exterior finish of the new City Learning Quarter there is no doubt it is going to provide an inspirational setting for students and staff.
“It will also act as a focal point in the city centre, increasing footfall to support neighbouring businesses, especially with its excellent connectivity to rail, bus, tram and cycle routes.
“The City Learning Quarter has been a long held ambition of the council to drive education and skills in the city and it will unlock opportunities for the people of Wolverhampton and beyond.”
Warinder Juss MP, Wolverhampton West, said: “The development of the City Learning Quarter provides exciting opportunities to not only the students of the college, but also to help with the regeneration of the city centre.”
Paul Davies, Director of Finance at the college, said: “The unveiling of the new City Learning Quarter campus is a major milestone for the college and for education in Wolverhampton. It’s the result of years of planning and investment, and it’s exciting to see the vision becoming a reality.
“Relocating from our long standing Paget Road site to this purpose built, centrally located campus will allow us to deliver a modern, high quality learning experience that has greater accessibility through public transport links. The new facilities will not only benefit our staff, students and apprentices, but also play a key role in supporting skills development and economic growth across the wider region.”
The exciting City Learning Quarter proposals were initially supported by investment from the council with a further £49 million coming through UK Government funding, plus additional government grants and contributions from the college and council.
It will pave the way for City of Wolverhampton College to move from its 1960s Paget Road site, which has been identified as land to build much needed housing.
The college forecasts that over a 10 year period approximately 45,000 people will benefit from learning at the City Learning Quarter and around 7,500 apprenticeships will be started.
Its central location and close proximity to the new £150 million transport interchange will make it easily accessible. It will also boast environmental benefits in line with council’s climate emergency agenda.
Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Congratulations from Denis Manturov on Russia Day!
Dear compatriots!
I congratulate you on Russia Day – one of the most important national holidays in our country.
This day symbolizes national unity, strength of spirit and the aspiration of Russian citizens for a fair, peaceful and dignified future. It unites all who sincerely love their homeland, are proud of its centuries-old history, cultural heritage and achievements.
Today, in the context of serious challenges and changes, it is especially important to remember: the stable and prosperous future of our country depends on the joint efforts of all Russians, mutual respect and responsibility.
Patriotism, readiness to defend the Motherland and concern for its fate are important features of our national character, passed down through generations. These are the qualities that helped our ancestors accomplish great feats and continue to live in everyone who serves, works and acts for the good of Russia today.
I wish you and your loved ones happiness, health, peace and prosperity!
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Congratulations from Vitaly Savelyev on Russia Day!
The Deputy Prime Minister congratulated his compatriots on Russia Day.
“This holiday is filled with a sincere feeling of love for the Motherland, which unites all citizens of the country and gives them strength for new achievements. We are proud of our Fatherland, its heroic past and glorious present, and confidently make plans for the future. Under the leadership of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, a modern, strong and independent Russia, focused on the future, is being consistently built. A country that is traditionally distinguished by care for each person, respect for the rich historical heritage and common values that form a strong connection between generations and national unity. I wish everyone good health, inspiration, strength and success in serving the Fatherland,” the congratulations read, in particular.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
People look at the debris of an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad of India’s Gujarat state, June 12, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
An Air India flight to London with 242 people on board, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew members, crashed Thursday shortly after takeoff from an airport in the western Indian state of Gujarat, officials said.
The flight took off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, about 17 km south of Gandhinagar, the capital city of Gujarat.
According to Air India, the Boeing 787-8 aircraft departed from Ahmedabad at 13:38 local time and was carrying 242 passengers and crew members.
“Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, one Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals,” the airline said.
Air India has expressed condolences to the families of all those affected by this devastating event.
“With profound sorrow, I confirm that Air India Flight 171 operating Ahmedabad-London Gatwick was involved in a tragic accident today. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Air India, said in a statement.
Chandrasekaran said further updates will be shared as they receive more verified information.
People and rescuers are seen at a site of a plane crash in Ahmedabad of India’s Gujarat state, June 12, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
“An emergency center has been activated and support teams have been set up for families seeking information,” he further said.
Local media reports said the plane had reached approximately 825 feet when it suddenly descended. Police said the plane crashed on the building of a doctors’ hostel.
There were no reports of any survivors currently, and officials, so far, have not issued any statement on the number of casualties or injured in the crash.
“As per preliminary information, a London-bound Air India flight has crashed at the doctors’ hostel. Within 2-3 minutes, police and other agencies reached the spot. Almost 70-80 percent of the area has been cleared. All agencies are working here,” a police official told media.
Reports said the passenger aircraft went down in the Meghani area of the city.
According to officials, immediately after the crash, authorities rushed over two dozen ambulances to the spot to carry out rescue work.
Video footage from the site aired on television news channels shows thick columns of smoke rising from the ground.
Police have diverted traffic from the area, and a green corridor has also been established to ferry the injured quickly to the hospital.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) issued today a revised list of validation rules in its Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on supervisory reporting, highlighting those which have been deactivated either for incorrectness or for triggering IT problems. Competent Authorities throughout the EU are informed that data submitted in accordance with these ITS should not be formally validated against the set of deactivated rules. The EBA also released today a small validation package including a micro taxonomy package and DPM VR deactivation updates scripts, which are needed from release 4.0, for each deactivation exercises, to deactivate rules in taxonomy and in DPM in a consistent manner.
European Council President António Costa invited leaders to the meeting of 26-27 June 2025 in Brussels, during which they will discuss how to build a more competitive, safer and more autonomous Europe for our citizens, and to ensure that the European Union can be an effective, predictable and reliable global actor.
European Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport, GlennMicallef, congratulated all the 2025 laureates:
Europe stands as a global cultural powerhouse. It is our duty and responsibility to ensure future generations can experience the richness and diversity of our heritage. The European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards not only reflect how cultural heritage is deeply valued in Europe, but they also celebrate and honour this legacy and the ongoing efforts of cultural professionals and volunteers working across the continent to safeguard and promote it. By advancing inclusivity, fostering solidarity, promoting international cooperation, and encouraging intergenerational dialogue, they embody the very essence of our European values. Congratulations to the winners for their outstanding achievements and essential contributions.
Awards ceremony at the European Cultural Heritage Summit
The Grand Prix laureates and the Public Choice Award winner – each receiving €10 000 – will be announced during the ceremony taking place at the iconic Art Deco building Flagey in Brussels on 13 October, during the European Cultural Heritage Summit 2025.
About the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards
The European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards have been running since 2002. They were set up by the European Commission, and are run by Europa Nostra. The action is co-funded under the Creative EuropeProgramme of the European Union.
For 23 years, the Awards have been a key tool to recognise and promote the multiple values of cultural and natural heritage for Europe’s society, economy and environment.
Three of this year’s winners come from countries that are not associated to Creative Europe, namely the Holy See, Moldova, and the United Kingdom. As they cannot benefit from the EU’s programme, they are honoured by Europa Nostra with a separate ‘Europa Nostra Award’ instead.
AI tools gather information about you from many types of devices, including smartphones.Prostock-Studio/Getty Images
Like it or not, artificial intelligence has become part of daily life. Many devices – including electric razors and toothbrushes – have become “AI-powered,” using machine learning algorithms to track how a person uses the device, how the device is working in real time, and provide feedback. From asking questions to an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to monitoring a daily fitness routine with a smartwatch, many people use an AI system or tool every day.
While AI tools and technologies can make life easier, they also raise important questions about data privacy. These systems often collect large amounts of data, sometimes without people even realizing their data is being collected. The information can then be used to identify personal habits and preferences, and even predict future behaviors by drawing inferences from the aggregated data.
As an assistant professor of cybersecurity at West Virginia University, I study how emerging technologies and various types of AI systems manage personal data and how we can build more secure, privacy-preserving systems for the future.
Generative AI software uses large amounts of training data to create new content such as text or images. Predictive AI uses data to forecast outcomes based on past behavior, such as how likely you are to hit your daily step goal, or what movies you may want to watch. Both types can be used to gather information about you.
How AI tools collect data
Generative AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini collect all the information users type into a chat box. Every question, response and prompt that users enter is recorded, stored and analyzed to improve the AI model.
OpenAI’s privacy policy informs users that “we may use content you provide us to improve our Services, for example to train the models that power ChatGPT.” Even though OpenAI allows you to opt out of content use for model training, it still collects and retains your personal data. Although some companies promise that they anonymize this data, meaning they store it without naming the person who provided it, there is always a risk of data being reidentified.
ChatGPT stores and analyzes everything you type into a prompt screen. Screenshot by Christopher Ramezan, CC BY-ND
Predictive AI
Beyond generative AI assistants, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok continuously gather data on their users to train predictive AI models. Every post, photo, video, like, share and comment, including the amount of time people spend looking at each of these, is collected as data points that are used to build digital data profiles for each person who uses the service.
The profiles can be used to refine the social media platform’s AI recommender systems. They can also be sold to data brokers, who sell a person’s data to other companies to, for instance, help develop targeted advertisements that align with that person’s interests.
Many social media companies also track users across websites and applications by putting cookies and embedded tracking pixels on their computers. Cookies are small files that store information about who you are and what you clicked on while browsing a website.
One of the most common uses of cookies is in digital shopping carts: When you place an item in your cart, leave the website and return later, the item will still be in your cart because the cookie stored that information. Tracking pixels are invisible images or snippets of code embedded in websites that notify companies of your activity when you visit their page. This helps them track your behavior across the internet.
This is why users often see or hear advertisements that are related to their browsing and shopping habits on many of the unrelated websites they browse, and even when they are using different devices, including computers, phones and smart speakers. One study found that some websites can store over 300 tracking cookies on your computer or mobile phone.
Here’s how websites you browse can track you using cookies or tracking pixels.
Data privacy controls – and limitations
Like generative AI platforms, social media platforms offer privacy settings and opt-outs, but these give people limited control over how their personal data is aggregated and monetized. As media theorist Douglas Rushkoff argued in 2011, if the service is free, you are the product.
Many tools that include AI don’t require a person to take any direct action for the tool to collect data about that person. Smart devices such as home speakers, fitness trackers and watches continually gather information through biometric sensors, voice recognition and location tracking. Smart home speakers continually listen for the command to activate or “wake up” the device. As the device is listening for this word, it picks up all the conversations happening around it, even though it does not seem to be active.
Some companies claim that voice data is only stored when the wake word – what you say to wake up the device – is detected. However, people have raised concerns about accidental recordings, especially because these devices are often connected to cloud services, which allow voice data to be stored, synced and shared across multiple devices such as your phone, smart speaker and tablet.
If the company allows, it’s also possible for this data to be accessed by third parties, such as advertisers, data analytics firms or a law enforcement agency with a warrant.
Privacy rollbacks
This potential for third-party access also applies to smartwatches and fitness trackers, which monitor health metrics and user activity patterns. Companies that produce wearable fitness devices are not considered “covered entities” and so are not bound by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. This means that they are legally allowed to sell health- and location-related data collected from their users.
Concerns about HIPAA data arose in 2018, when Strava, a fitness company released a global heat map of user’s exercise routes. In doing so, it accidentally revealed sensitive military locations across the globe through highlighting the exercise routes of military personnel.
Smart speakers can collect information even when they’re sleeping. recep-bg/Getty Images
Such partnerships can expand corporate and government reach into everyday consumer behavior. This one could be used to create detailed personal profiles on Americans by linking their consumer habits with other personal data. This raises concerns about increased surveillance and loss of anonymity. It could allow citizens to be tracked and analyzed across multiple aspects of their lives without their knowledge or consent.
Some smart device companies are also rolling back privacy protections instead of strengthening them. Amazon recently announced that starting on March 28, 2025, all voice recordings from Amazon Echo devices would be sent to Amazon’s cloud by default, and users will no longer have the option to turn this function off. This is different from previous settings, which allowed users to limit private data collection.
Changes like these raise concerns about how much control consumers have over their own data when using smart devices. Many privacy experts consider cloud storage of voice recordings a form of data collection, especially when used to improve algorithms or build user profiles, which has implications for data privacy laws designed to protect online privacy.
Implications for data privacy
All of this brings up serious privacy concerns for people and governments on how AI tools collect, store, use and transmit data. The biggest concern is transparency. People don’t know what data is being collected, how the data is being used, and who has access to that data.
Companies tend to use complicated privacy policies filled with technical jargon to make it difficult for people to understand the terms of a service that they agree to. People also tend not to read terms of service documents. One study found that people averaged 73 seconds reading a terms of service document that had an average read time of 29-32 minutes.
Data collected by AI tools may initially reside with a company that you trust, but can easily be sold and given to a company that you don’t trust.
AI tools, the companies in charge of them and the companies that have access to the data they collect can also be subject to cyberattacks and data breaches that can reveal sensitive personal information. These attacks can by carried out by cybercriminals who are in it for the money, or by so-called advanced persistent threats, which are typically nation/state- sponsored attackers who gain access to networks and systems and remain there undetected, collecting information and personal data to eventually cause disruption or harm.
While laws and regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act aim to safeguard user data, AI development and use have often outpaced the legislative process. The laws are still catching up on AI and data privacy. For now, you should assume any AI-powered device or platform is collecting data on your inputs, behaviors and patterns.
Using AI tools
Although AI tools collect people’s data, and the way this accumulation of data affects people’s data privacy is concerning, the tools can also be useful. AI-powered applications can streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks and provide valuable insights.
But it’s crucial to approach these tools with awareness and caution.
When using a generative AI platform that gives you answers to questions you type in a prompt, don’t include any personally identifiable information, including names, birth dates, Social Security numbers or home addresses. At the workplace, don’t include trade secrets or classified information. In general, don’t put anything into a prompt that you wouldn’t feel comfortable revealing to the public or seeing on a billboard. Remember, once you hit enter on the prompt, you’ve lost control of that information.
Remember that devices which are turned on are always listening – even if they’re asleep. If you use smart home or embedded devices, turn them off when you need to have a private conversation. A device that’s asleep looks inactive, but it is still powered on and listening for a wake word or signal. Unplugging a device or removing its batteries is a good way of making sure the device is truly off.
Finally, be aware of the terms of service and data collection policies of the devices and platforms that you are using. You might be surprised by what you’ve already agreed to.
This article is part of a series on data privacy that explores who collects your data, what and how they collect, who sells and buys your data, what they all do with it, and what you can do about it.
It is “the policy of the United States to promote AI literacy and proficiency among Americans,” reads an executive order President Donald Trump issued on April 23, 2025. The executive order, titled Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, signals that advancing AI literacy is now an official national priority.
This raises a series of important questions: What exactly is AI literacy, who needs it, and how do you go about building it thoughtfully and responsibly?
The implications of AI literacy, or lack thereof, are far-reaching. They extend beyond national ambitions to remain “a global leader in this technological revolution” or even prepare an “AI-skilled workforce,” as the executive order states. Without basic literacy, citizens and consumers are not well equipped to understand the algorithmic platforms and decisions that affect so many domains of their lives: government services, privacy, lending, health care, news recommendations and more. And the lack of AI literacy risks ceding important aspects of society’s future to a handful of multinational companies.
How, then, can institutions help people understand and use – or resist – AI as individuals, workers, parents, innovators, job seekers, students, employers and citizens? We are a policy scientist and two educationalresearchers who study AI literacy, and we explore these issues in our research.
What AI literacy is and isn’t
At its foundation, AI literacy includes a mix of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are technical, social and ethical in nature. According to one prominent definition, AI literacy refers to “a set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace.”
AI literacy is not simply programming or the mechanics of neural networks, and it is certainly not just prompt engineering – that is, the act of carefully writing prompts for chatbots. Vibe coding, or using AI to write software code, might be fun and important, but restricting the definition of literacy to the newest trend or the latest need of employers won’t cover the bases in the long term. And while a single master definition may not be needed, or even desirable, too much variation makes it tricky to decide on organizational, educational or policy strategies.
Who needs AI literacy? Everyone, including the employees and students using it, and the citizens grappling with its growing impacts. Every sector and sphere of society is now involved with AI, even if this isn’t always easy for people to see.
Exactly how much literacy everyone needs and how to get there is a much tougher question. Are a few quick HR training sessions enough, or do we need to embed AI across K-12 curricula and deliver university micro credentials and hands-on workshops? There is much that researchers don’t know, which leads to the need to measure AI literacy and the effectiveness of different training approaches.
Ethics is an important aspect of AI literacy.
Measuring AI literacy
While there is a growing and bipartisan consensus that AI literacy matters, there’s much less consensus on how to actually understand people’s AI literacy levels. Researchers have focused on different aspects, such as technical or ethical skills, or on different populations – for example, business managers and students – or even on subdomains like generative AI.
A recent review study identified more than a dozen questionnaires designed to measure AI literacy, the vast majority of which rely on self-reported responses to questions and statements such as “I feel confident about using AI.” There’s also a lack of testing to see whether these questionnaires work well for people from different cultural backgrounds.
Moreover, the rise of generative AI has exposed gaps and challenges: Is it possible to create a stable way to measure AI literacy when AI is itself so dynamic?
In our research collaboration, we’ve tried to help address some of these problems. In particular, we’ve focused on creating objective knowledge assessments, such as multiple-choice surveys tested with thorough statistical analyses to ensure that they accurately measure AI literacy. We’ve so far tested a multiple-choice survey in the U.S., U.K. and Germany and found that it works consistently and fairly across these three countries.
There’s a lot more work to do to create reliable and feasible testing approaches. But going forward, just asking people to self-report their AI literacy probably isn’t enough to understand where different groups of people are and what supports they need.
Approaches to building AI literacy
Governments, universities and industry are trying to advance AI literacy.
Finland launched the Elements of AI series in 2018 with the hope of educating its general public on AI. Estonia’s AI Leap initiative partners with Anthropic and OpenAI to provide access to AI tools for tens of thousands of students and thousands of teachers. And China is now requiring at least eight hours of AI education annually as early as elementary school, which goes a step beyond the new U.S. executive order. On the university level, Purdue University and the University of Pennsylvania have launched new master’s in AI programs, targeting future AI leaders.
Despite these efforts, these initiatives face an unclear and evolving understanding of AI literacy. They also face challenges to measuring effectiveness and minimal knowledge on what teaching approaches actually work. And there are long-standing issues with respect to equity − for example, reaching schools, communities, segments of the population and businesses that are stretched or under-resourced.
Next moves on AI literacy
Based on our research, experience as educators and collaboration with policymakers and technology companies, we think a few steps might be prudent.
Building AI literacy starts with recognizing it’s not just about tech: People also need to grasp the social and ethical sides of the technology. To see whether we’re getting there, we researchers and educators should use clear, reliable tests that track progress for different age groups and communities. Universities and companies can try out new teaching ideas first, then share what works through an independent hub. Educators, meanwhile, need proper training and resources, not just additional curricula, to bring AI into the classroom. And because opportunity isn’t spread evenly, partnerships that reach under-resourced schools and neighborhoods are essential so everyone can benefit.
Critically, achieving widespread AI literacy may be even harder than building digital and media literacy, so getting there will require serious investment – not cuts – to education and research.
There is widespread consensus that AI literacy is important, whether to boost AI trust and adoption or to empower citizens to challenge AI or shape its future. As with AI itself, we believe it’s important to approach AI literacy carefully, avoiding hype or an overly technical focus. The right approach can prepare students to become “active and responsible participants in the workforce of the future” and empower Americans to “thrive in an increasingly digital society,” as the AI literacy executive order calls for.
Funding from Google Research helped to support part of the authors’ research on AI literacy.
Funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the funding code 16DHBKI051 helped to support part of the authors’ research on AI literacy.
Arne Bewersdorff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
