us news

Meta agrees to pay up to $17bn to settle social media case

What has Meta agreed to?

This is the first time Meta has been forced to change how its platforms function.

As part of the settlement, the company denies wrongdoing.

• It was alleged the company had violated numerous federal and state privacy laws for children.
• The states suing Meta claimed it used its platforms “to ensnare youth and teens”, and ignored the damage they did to the “wellbeing of America’s youth”.
• After the settlement was announced, District of Columbia attorney general Brian Schwalb called it a “monumental public health victory”.

What did Meta say?

Today, we are announcing an agreement with a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general across US states, territories, and the District of Columbia, building on our long-standing efforts to empower parents and support teens

Calls for TikTok to follow

• The company said TikTok and YouTube should also implement the same safety features for their younger users.
• “Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us,” Meta’s chief legal officer, CJ Mahoney, said.

The study, led by experts from the University of East Anglia and University of Exeter, found taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was associated with a 10 per cent reduced risk of all dementia and 16 per cent reduction in risk of Alzheimer’s disease specifically.

• The team discovered that starting treatment between the ages of 46-56 “conferred the greatest benefit”.

A closer look at the results of the study

The research analysed more than 183,000 postmenopausal women taking part in the UK Biobank study.

• An average 13-year follow-up found that almost 4,000 of them were diagnosed with dementia.
• After examining information on the dementia diagnoses, they found that those who started HRT between the ages of 46-50 had a 13 per cent reduced risk of dementia.
• Those who started taking HRT when they were aged 51-56 had a 23 per cent reduced risk.
• Women who took HRT after surgical menopause had a 26 per cent lower risk.

What else did the study find?

The study also found that women who naturally had lower exposure to oestrogen over their lifetime appeared to have a 16 per cent lower chance of dementia after taking HRT.

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Where yellow warnings for rain and thunder are in place

Where does the warning cover?

The Met Office warning covers much of the Midlands, parts of northern, eastern and southern England as well as the far east of Wales.

A yellow warning means severe weather is possible and could cause travel disruption.

Many areas of the country have recently experienced drought, with the next few days likely to bring the wettest weather in many weeks.

• The punishing heat has made the ground hard, meaning the water cannot soak in and flash flooding is a real concern.

What did the study find?

Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Dr Chiara Canori from the University of Parma described how 35 different breeds were shown two videos with three people in them, one of them being their owner. In one video the humans blinked every three seconds and in the other they did not blink.

The researchers found that the dogs blinked more when the humans did, and this increased when shown their owner.

What do the blinks mean?

However, there may not be a huge amount of meaning behind dogs’ blinks. Canori said: “As of today… we cannot say that a dog deliberately blinks in order to convey a particular message. It may provide subtle feedback about attention or engagement.”

Blinking can be influenced by social context

Our study does not show that every time a dog blinks it is deliberately ‘saying’ something (…) What our work suggests is that this apparently simple and automatic behaviour can nevertheless be influenced by the social context

Dr Chiara Canori, University of parma

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Dolly Parton – a life in pictures

Born into a musical family in 1946

Her father, Robert Lee Parton, was a tobacco farmer. Parton spoke about her mother, Avie Lee, singing folk songs all the time, and her aunt played the guitar.

Country star’s unique style

During her teens, Parton began modelling herself on a local character known as the “town tramp”.

The lady wore bright red nail polish, low-cut tops and high heels – young Dolly thought she was beautiful.

Despite being unable to read sheet music, Parton was proficient on several instruments including the banjo, harp, piano and saxophone. She had her first No 1 hit with the song “Joshua” in 1971.

• It was the theme song that Parton wrote for the 1980 movie 9 to 5 that fully propelled her to stardom.

A nearly 60-year marriage

Parton maintained a deeply committed, nearly 60-year marriage to Carl Dean until his death in 2025. “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared,” Parton said when he died.

Dean remained out of the public eye, choosing to focus on his asphalt-paving business in Nashville. The couple had no children.

Parton’s life in pictures

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How shingles jab ‘could slash heart risks’

What you need to know

Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash and the jab that protects against it – Shingrix – is available on the NHS for people aged 65-70, people aged 70-79 (as part of a catch-up program) and for those over 18 with a severely weakened immune system.

Experts say that if all over-60s had the jab, it could prevent tens of thousands of deaths.

The NHS switched to Shingrix from the former vaccine, Zostavax, three years ago. Researchers from the University of Oxford compared the risk of stroke, ischemic heart disease or heart failure between the two vaccines over seven years.

• They analysed data from more than 70,000 people and found that up to seven years after the jab, people who had Shingrix lived 9 per cent longer without developing a cardiovascular disease.

more on health from the i paper

Children’s eyesight is getting worse. This is what parents can do about it

The Cochrane Review examined 80 studies involving almost 30,000 people and found that quit rates were higher with vape use, with it leading to 61 per cent increased odds that a quit attempt would be successful after six months.

• That means that eight to 10 out of 100 people using vaping to quite smoking might succeed compared to six of 100 people using nicotine-replacement therapy.

Providing vapes can help

The expert view

We have very strong evidence that regulated nicotine e-cigarettes are substantially less harmful than smoking. Based on the consistency of the findings here, it’s clear that they are a proven and viable option for people wishing to quit cigarettes

Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, senior author of the review from University of Massachusetts Amherst

world news

At least 15 newborn babies die in Islamabad hospital fire

What happened?

The blaze started at around 7am local time on Wednesday at the Pakistan Institute of ​Medical Sciences on the third floor of ⁠the mother and child health ward.

The incident is among the deadliest hospital fires ​in recent years in the country, where government healthcare is subsidised but facilities are overburdened.

The story in pictures

• There were 16 ​newborns in the ward when the fire broke out, one ‌of ⁠whom was rescued, Geo reported.
• Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed authorities to conduct an immediate investigation, his office said.
• “Those responsible should be identified, and the ​strictest action should ​be taken,” ⁠Sharif’s office said.