Top Stories
TOP STORY
TOP STORY
Case against Telegram boss is ‘absurd’
The lawyer for Telegram boss Pavel Durov said it was “absurd” to suggest he was responsible for crimes committed on the app.
France's arrest of Durov — a first for a CEO of a major messaging platform — has sent a warning to social media bosses unwilling to tackle alleged illegality on their apps.
It has also plunged French-Russia relations to fresh lows, according to Moscow, where some pro-Kremlin figures have accused Washington of being behind the detention of Russian-born Durov.
A French judge put Durov under formal investigation on Wednesday for suspected complicity in running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, child sex abuse images, drug trafficking and fraud.
The 39-year-old entrepreneur, who also has French and UAE citizenship, is suspected of money laundering and providing encrypted messaging to criminals.
Lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski, representing Durov in France, said Thursday it was "absurd to say that a platform or its boss is responsible for any abuse" carried out on the platform and that Telegram was abiding by European laws.
Running Stories
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
The most-regretted college majors
If you studied humanities, life sciences or law in college, there’s a better-than-40% chance you regret the choice now.
That’s the takeaway from a report by the Federal Reserve, whose researchers perennially ask college graduates whether they would choose a different field of study if granted a do-over.
The Fed reports levels of college satisfaction across broad academic categories in a report titled Economic Well-Being of US Households in 2023, published earlier this year.
The most-lamented majors: social and behavioral sciences, regretted by 44% of grads, followed by humanities and arts (43%), life sciences (also 43%), law (41%) and education (38%).
The least-regretted fields? Engineering, a choice regretted by only 27% of graduates, followed by computer and information sciences (31%) and health (32%).
Across all fields of study, 35% of college graduates said they would pick a different major, given a second chance. Seventy percent of Americans enroll in education beyond high school, the report says, citing federal data. But only 37% attain a bachelor’s degree or more.
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HEALTH
HEALTH
Long weekend sleep may lower heart disease
People who catch up on missed sleep at weekends may have up to a 20% lower risk of heart disease than those who don’t.
The findings looked at data from 90,903 adults participating in the UK Biobank project, a database with medical and lifestyle records of 500,000 people in the UK.
19,816 met the criteria for being sleep-deprived. Over a follow-up of 14 years, the researchers found that those having the most “extra sleep” during the weekends were 19% less likely to develop heart disease than those with the least sleep at the weekends.
Extra sleep ranged from 1.28–16.06 hours, and those with the least sleep lost 0.26–16.05 hours over the weekend.
The study also looked at a sub-group of people with daily sleep deprivation and found those with the most compensatory sleep at the weekend had a 20% lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least.
SCIENCE
SCIENCE
NASA telescope will solve galactic mysteries
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to revolutionize galaxy research, offering unprecedented views.
Roman's wide-field, high-resolution imaging capabilities will allow scientists to study galactic "fossils" in unprecedented detail. These ancient stellar structures hold clues to galaxy formation and evolution over billions of years.
Astronomers, through a grant from NASA, are designing a set of possible observations called RINGS (the Roman Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey) that would collect these remarkable images.
RINGS would enable researchers to examine large-scale galactic structures like tidal tails and stellar streams and could provide insights into galaxies' merger histories and formation processes.
Roman's observations of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies could significantly advance dark matter research. The telescope's ability to resolve galactic halos will expand understanding beyond the Milky Way and Andromeda, NASA said
By studying nearby galaxies similar to the Milky Way, Roman could provide valuable insights into our galaxy's formation and evolution. The telescope is expected to launch by May 2027.
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
Are AI-created recipes hard to swallow?
Can AI help restaurant owners create tasty menus to tempt customers, or is this just a recipe for disaster?
Spartak Arutyunyan, head of Dodo Pizza’s menu development in Dubai, asked ChatGPT to create a pizza for the city’s high immigrant population. It responded with a topping of Arab shawarma chicken, Indian grilled paneer cheese, Middle Eastern Za'atar herbs, and tahini sauce.
Dodo Pizza’s customers apparently cannot get enough of it. “As a chef, I wouldn't mix these ingredients ever on a pizza, but still, the mix of flavors was surprisingly good,” says Arutyunyan.
Culinary director Venecia Willis conducted a similar experiment at Dallas' Velvet Taco. Her prompt was to “use, like, eight ingredients, and select one tortilla and one protein.”
“There were some funky combinations, and I was like, I'm not really sure if red curry, coconut tofu and pineapple are going to be delicious together," says Willis. But a prawn and steak taco did make the cut and was a best-seller — 22,000 orders in a week.
UK supermarket chain Waitrose uses AI to spot rising food trends on social media. It noted that smash burgers — squashed ground beef fried crispy on a super-hot pan — were trending for some time on social media, which led to its smash burger launch.
POLITICS
POLITICS
Harris says her ‘values have not changed’
Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday sat for her first highly anticipated interview of her rapid-fire presidential campaign.
CNN’s Dana Bash conducted the interview. Harris was joined by her running mate, Minnesota Gov Tim Walz, but the vice president fielded most questions.
Harris was pressed on shifting her stances on fracking and the border. Walz answered questions on statements about his military service and how he’s characterized his family’s fertility treatments.
Vice President Harris said: “The climate crisis is real; [it] is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around times.”
She added her values about “what we need to do to secure our border [have] not changed.” She cited her work as California attorney general when discussing border issues, referring to her prosecution of transnational criminal organizations.
OFFBEAT
OFFBEAT
Spanish town’s ‘Tomatina’ street battle
Some 15,000 people pasted each other with tomatoes at Spain’s annual “Tomatina” street battle in the eastern town of Buñol.
Truck workers tipped 120 tons of overripe tomatoes into the town's main street for participants to throw in a street fight that would leave all and sundry drenched in red pulp.
Participants use swimming goggles to protect their eyes and usually dress in T-shirts and shorts. When the last tomato has been thrown, the town hoses down the area, and the revelers shower off within minutes of the hour-long noon battle finishing.
The festival, held on the last Wednesday of August, was inspired by a food fight between local children in 1945 in the town, located in a tomato-producing region.
Media attention in the 1980s turned it into a national and international event. Spain now ranks the party as a global tourism attraction. Tickets for the festival start at 12 euros ($13).
Otherweb Editorial Staff
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