Facebook Messenger's role in child sexual abuse online raises troubling questions

AFP
Romania sanctuary seeks to save bears as hunting resumes
At a bear sanctuary in the heart of Romania's Carpathians, several cubs believed to have been orphaned have just arrived.The sanctuary believes there are more appropriate solutions to managing the bear population than simply removing them from the wild.
AFP
World still split over money as clock ticks on COP29
A fresh draft of a climate pact unveiled Thursday at COP29 failed to break an impasse over money, with time running out for nations to reach a long-sought trillion-dollar finance agreement.The latest draft recognises that developing countries need a commitment of at least "USD [X] trillion" per year, leaving out the crucial exact figure sought in Baku.
AFP
Adani plunges in Mumbai on founder's charges as Asian markets retreat
Shares in Indian conglomerate Adani tanked on Thursday after its industrialist owner Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors with handing out more than $250 million in bribes for key contracts.The Adani Group on Thursday called the allegations "baseless".
AFP
India's Adani says US charges 'baseless', oppostion demand arrest
India's Adani Group on Thursday called US charges that their billionaire tycoon founder Gautam Adani had paid more than $250 million in bribes "baseless", as the opposition leader demanded his arrest."We demand that Adani be immediately arrested.
Reuters
Serbia arrests 11 over railway station roof collapse
The High Prosecutors Office in the Serbian city of Novi Sad said on Thursday that 11 people were arrested in connection with the collapse of a railway station roof earlier this month that has left 15 people dead. The prosecutor's office said in a statement that the 11 were arrested for committing criminal acts against public safety following interrogation of a number of citizens and expert analysis of the incident. The disaster triggered a wave of protests in Serbia, with protesters blaming the accident on corruption and nepotism among the ruling coalition.
AFP
Sri Lanka's president makes U-turn on IMF bailout
Sri Lanka's new leader on Thursday backed a controversial IMF bailout, marking a U-turn from his election pledge to renegotiate the deal secured by his predecessor.Dissanayake's National People's Power party had said it did not agree with the International Monetary Fund's debt assessment and would renegotiate the bailout programme.
Reuters
Russia says new US base in Poland raises overall nuclear danger
Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that a new U.S. ballistic missile defence base in northern Poland will lead to an increase in the overall level of nuclear danger and was on a Russian targeting list for potential destruction if necessary. The air defence base, situated in the town of Redzikowo near the Baltic coast, part of a broader NATO missile shield, was opened on Nov. 13. "This is another frankly provocative step in a series of deeply destabilising actions by the Americans and their allies in the North Atlantic Alliance in the strategic sphere," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
AFP
Four tourists die after suspected Laos methanol poisoning
Four foreign tourists have died after a suspected mass methanol poisoning from drinking tainted alcohol at a backpacker hotspot in Laos, Western government officials and media said Thursday.Two Danish citizens and an American had also died, officials said, after what media said was a night out in Vang Vieng where they drank possibly tainted alcohol.
Associated Press
Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai denies he asked a newspaper colleague to draft list of sanction targets
Former publisher Jimmy Lai denied that he asked a colleague to draft a list of potential sanction targets in his second day of testimony Thursday at his landmark national security trial in Hong Kong. The 77-year-old founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily pro-democracy newspaper is being tried on charges of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to issue seditious publications. The testimony highlighted a WhatsApp conversation between Lai and Apple Daily’s ex-associate publisher Chan Pui-man.
Associated Press
Shares in India's Adani Group plunge 20% after US bribery, fraud indictments
Asia’s controversial richest man, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, is again in the spotlight. In an indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in New York on Wednesday, Adani, 62, was charged with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. One result of the U.S. legal action is that the Adani group decided not to proceed with a proposed U.S. dollar-denominated bond offering.
TODAY
28 exercises to wake up a 'dead butt' and tone your glutes from every angle
These are the best butt exercises at home to work your glutes, get a lower body workout, get a bigger butt with a bodyweight workout and combat dead butt syndrome.
USA TODAY
Carey Dale Grayson to become 3rd inmate in US executed with nitrogen gas. What to know.
Grayson was one of four teenagers convicted of capital murder in the torture, bludgeoning and mutilation of Vickie Lynn Deblieux on Feb. 21, 1994.
USA TODAY
Feds charge Indian billionaire Gautam Adani in multibillion-dollar bribery scheme
Gautam Adani, 62, along with the seven other defendants were accused of paying about $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials.
AFP
Why is Indian tycoon Gautam Adani facing US bribery charges?
The business empire of Gautam Adani is again in turmoil after the billionaire Indian tycoon was charged in the United States with paying exorbitant bribes to secure lucrative government contracts.- Wednesday's indictment in New York accuses Adani Group's leadership of paying more than $250 million to Indian government officials to secure lucrative contracts worth more than $2 billion.
Reuters
Factbox-Key facts about John Prescott, Britain's former deputy PM, dead at 86
Prescott, 86, served as deputy prime minister in Tony Blair's Labour government from 1997 to 2007 and received a peerage in 2010. - Born in Wales to a railway signalman and a domestic helper, he was always fiercely defensive of his working class roots.
TODAY
'House of Horrors' survivor Jennifer Turpin is married! See her black-and-white wedding photos
Jennifer Turpin, whose siblings escaped abusive parents in what authorities called the "House of Horrors", is married.
NBC News
'Bomb cyclone' storm leaves 2 dead and more than 450,000 customers without power in Washington state
Two people were killed near Seattle and more than a half-million homes and businesses were left in the dark Wednesday in the wake of back-to-back storms that battered the Pacific Northwest.
AFP
US govt calls for breakup of Google and Chrome
The US government late Wednesday asked a judge to order the dismantling of Google by selling its widely used Chrome browser in a major antitrust crackdown on the internet giant.From this position, Google expanded its tech and data-gathering empire to include the Chrome browser, Maps and the Android smartphone operating system.
Associated Press
Police report reveals assault allegations against Hegseth
A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday. Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said. News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.
Reuters
Analysis-Sinn Fein struggles deal blow to nationalists' united Ireland dream
Sinn Fein's polling collapse from government-in-waiting to likely also-rans at an Irish election next week looks set to rob Irish nationalists of a potentially transformative moment in their pursuit of a united Ireland. Earlier this year the party appeared on the brink of power in Dublin for the first time, placing it in government on both sides of the Irish border and ramping up preparations as it sought to force London to hold a referendum on a united Ireland within a decade. But a fracturing of the party's electoral coalition - in large part due to anger among traditional working class voters at its relatively liberal attitude to immigration - appears to have closed the path to power at the Nov. 29 election.

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