MELBOURNE, Australia — An advocate for major social media platforms told an Australian Senate committee Monday that laws to ban children younger than 16 from the sites should be delayed until next year at least instead of being rushed through the Parliament this week. Sunita Bose, managing director of Digital Industry Group Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia including X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, was answering questions at a single-day Senate committee hearing into world-first legislation that was introduced into the Parliament last week. Bose said the Parliament should wait until the government-commissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies is completed in June. “Parliament is asked to pass a bill this week without knowing how it will work,” Bose said. The legislation would impose fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) on platforms for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts. It seems likely to be passed by Parliament by Thursday with the support of the major parties. It would take effect a year after the bill becomes law, allowing the platforms time to work out technological solutions that would also protect users’ privacy. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said she looked forward to reading the Senate committee’s assessment of the proposed law, which “supports parents to say ‘no’” to children wanting to use social media. “Social media in its current form is not a safe product for them,” Rowland told Parliament. “Access to social media does not have to be the defining feature of growing up. There is more to life than constant notifications, endless scrolling and pressure to conform to the false and unrealistic perfectionism that can be served up by influencers,” she added. Bose received heated questions from several senators and challenges to the accuracy of her answers. Opposition Sen. Ross Cadell asked how his 10-year-old stepson was able to hold Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube accounts from the age of 8, despite the platforms setting a nominal age limit of 13. Bose replied that “this is an area where the industry needs to improve.” She said the proposed social media ban risked isolating some children and driving children to “darker, less safe online spaces” than mainstream platforms. Bose said her concern with the proposed law was that “this could compromise the safety of young people,” prompting a hostile response from opposition Sen. Sarah Henderson. “That’s an outrageous statement. You’re trying to protect the big tech giants,” Henderson said. Unaligned Sen. Jacqui Lambie asked why the platforms didn’t use their algorithms to prevent harmful material being directed to children. The algorithms have been accused of keeping technology-addicted children connected to platforms and of flooding users with harmful material that promotes suicide and eating disorders. “Your platforms have the ability to do that. The only thing that’s stopping them is themselves and their greed,” Lambie said. Bose said algorithms were already in place to protect young people online through functions including filtering out nudity. “We need to see continued investment in algorithms and ensuring that they do a better job at addressing harmful content,” Bose said. Questioned by opposition Sen. Dave Sharma, Bose said she didn’t know how much advertising revenue the platforms she represented made from Australian children. She said she was not familiar with research by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health that found X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat made $11 billion in advertising from U.S. users under 18 in 2022. Communications department official Sarah Vandenbroek told the committee the evaluation of age assurance technologies that will report in June would assess not only their accuracy but also their security and privacy settings. Department Deputy Secretary James Chisholm said officials had consulted widely before proposing the age limit. “We think it’s a good idea and it can be done,” Chisholm told the committee.It took about three nanoseconds after the College Football Playoff bracket was announced for ESPN’s production truck to throw it over to Nick Saban so that the former Alabama coach could spill some sour grapes all over the selection committee’s decision to pick SMU over the Crimson Tide for the last spot in the field. “If we don’t take strength of schedule into consideration, is there any benefit to scheduling really good teams in the future?” he said. “Here at Alabama, we’re supposed to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State in the future outside the league. Those are great games for fans to see, and that’s what I think we should be doing in college football is creating more good inventory for great games that people are interested in. "But do you enhance people wanting to do that – what’s the athletic director going to do? He may go cancel all those games now, knowing the SEC is tough enough.” Get ready, because this is the talking point that will reverberate inside the SEC as it comes to terms with getting only three bids in the inaugural 12-team CFP. This is the justification commissioner Greg Sankey will use to pull all kinds of power plays on his fellow commissioners as he tries to strong-arm changes to the format that will benefit the SEC. This is the excuse athletics directors and coaches will use for the simple fact that they lost games they should have won. But there’s one massive problem with Saban’s screed: It’s completely illogical. Alabama didn’t miss the CFP because its schedule was too hard. If anything, Alabama missed the CFP because its schedule was too easy . Easier than SMU’s? No, of course not. If you believe that Alabama’s 9-3 record was more deserving of the last CFP bid than SMU’s 11-2, that’s fine. Reasonable minds can disagree on that particular judgment, but the committee’s decision was not unusual or surprising given that the Mustangs lost the ACC championship game on a last-second, 56-yard field goal while Alabama sat at home Saturday and risked nothing. BOWL SCHEDULE: College football bowl games: Entire postseason lineup through playoff CFP WINNERS, LOSERS: Alabama, ACC headline winners and losers These are conundrums the committee will face every single year in a 12- or 14-team format. When you get that far down in the rankings, there will be difficult choices between flawed teams without clear differences between them. But instead of thinking about what kind of treatment SMU deserved, let’s consider what Alabama could have done to make a better argument over SMU. Well for one thing, it could have simply beaten either Vanderbilt or Oklahoma. A 10-2 Alabama with only one bad loss almost certainly gets in. But beyond that, the only other thing Alabama could have done was to go outside the conference and beat a good team. Instead, its non-conference wins over Western Kentucky, South Florida, Wisconsin and Mercer did not boost either Alabama’s or the SEC’s image enough to erase two losses that playoff-worthy teams should not have on their resume. The idea that Saban and other SEC-affiliated propagandists are trying to peddle is that the way to offset or compete against teams like SMU, Notre Dame and Indiana cruising into the Playoff this year is to make their own schedules easier. Though that sounds good, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Because at the end of the day, Alabama’s fate – and Ole Miss ’ for that matter as another three-loss team that believes it got short-shrift – had nothing to do with non-conference games. It had everything to do with losing to mediocre SEC teams. And guess what? There are going to be mediocre SEC teams on their schedule in 2025, 2026, 2027 and however many years the conference exists. If the argument is that SEC teams have it so much tougher than everyone else and should be afforded grace for bad losses, the question should be: How many losses are acceptable to make the playoff? Three? Four? And if what you want out of this system is total impunity to lose 24-3 to the worst Oklahoma team of the 21 st century or, in Ole Miss’ case, to be the only SEC win all year for a bottom-feeder like Kentucky, there is only one way you can convince the public to buy it. You have no choice but to go beat the hell out of other power conferences and earn that benefit of the doubt. The frustration is understandable. People who support Alabama, Ole Miss, South Carolina, etc., believe their team is better than several teams that got into the playoff. And they’re livid that Indiana, which didn’t have a top-25 win and got hammered by Ohio State, didn’t really face much scrutiny for its bid. Maybe that’s true. But where is the actual evidence? The only team among those three who actually had a real argument was South Carolina, which just last week went to Clemson and beat the ACC champions. But South Carolina’s problem was that it lost head-to-head to both Ole Miss and Alabama, and you couldn’t have reasonably expected them to jump the Gamecocks over the other two. What, was the committee supposed to take all three? No chance. Not when Ole Miss and Alabama had records littered with questionable losses and both blew clear opportunities late in the season to secure their place in the field. Part of having a 12-team playoff is accepting that margins are going to be thin and circumstances will change every year. This time, the cards didn’t fall the right way for the SEC because of just a couple of easily reversible results. Next time, it might work in their favor. But if the SEC tries to game the system by dumbing down non-conference schedules, it will fail. If you believe the SEC is so tough that you’re going to lose a couple of games no matter what, the only answer is to beat up on other power conferences and earn that benefit of the doubt. The SEC had remarkably few quality non-conference wins this year, and two of them were Georgia beating Georgia Tech and Clemson. Had the Bulldogs lost the SEC championship to Texas on Saturday, those games would have undeniably helped them stay in the field and probably with a pretty good seed. That’s the formula for SEC teams to convince the committee that their 9-3 is better than someone else’s 10-2. But if they want to take their ball and go home, they’ll deserve whatever happens to them.
Alex Ovechkin expected to miss 4 to 6 weeks with broken left legIowa's O hopes to stay hot vs. defense-minded Northwestern
Ousted Syrian leader Assad flees to Moscow after fall of Damascus, Russian state media say DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Russia media say ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad has fled to Moscow and received asylum from his longtime ally. The reports came hours after a stunning rebel advance swept into Damascus to cheers and ended the Assad family’s 50 years of iron rule. Thousands of Syrians poured into streets echoing with celebratory gunfire, joyful after a stifling, nearly 14-year civil war. But the swiftly moving events raised questions about the future of the country and the wider region. The rebels face the daunting task of healing bitter divisions in a country still split among armed factions. One rebel commander said “we will not deal with people the way the Assad family did." Analysis: Collapse of Syria's Assad is a blow to Iran's 'Axis of Resistance' MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — For Iran’s theocratic government, it keeps getting worse. Its decadeslong strategy of building an “Axis of Resistance” supporting militant groups and proxies around the region is falling apart. Hamas has been batttered by Israel's campaign in Gaza. In Lebanon, Israeli bombardment has crippled Iran’s most powerful ally, Hezbollah, even as Israel has launched successful airstrikes openly inside of Iran for the first time. And now Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, President Bashar Assad, is gone. Who is Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the insurgency that toppled Syria's Assad? BEIRUT (AP) — Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the militant leader who led the stunning insurgency that toppled Syria’s President Bashar Assad, has spent years working to remake his public image and that of his fighters. He renounced longtime ties to al-Qaida and depicts himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. The extent of that transformation from jihadi extremist to would-be state builder is now put to the test. The 42-year-old al-Golani is labeled a terrorist by the United States. He has not appeared publicly since Damascus fell early Sunday. But he and his insurgent force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, stand to be a major player in whatever comes next. Trump says he can't guarantee tariffs won't raise US prices and won't rule out revenge prosecutions WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump says he can’t guarantee his promised tariffs on key U.S. foreign trade partners won’t raise prices for American consumers. And he's suggesting once more that some political rivals and federal officials who pursued legal cases against him should be imprisoned. The president-elect made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday. He also touched on monetary policy, immigration, abortion and health care, and U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Israel and elsewhere. Trump often mixed declarative statements with caveats, at one point cautioning “things do change.” The hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO's elusive killer yields new evidence, but few answers NEW YORK (AP) — Police don’t know who he is, where he is, or why he did it. As the frustrating search for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer got underway for a fifth day Sunday, investigators reckoned with a tantalizing contradiction: They have troves of evidence, but the shooter remains an enigma. One conclusion they are confident of, however: It was a targeted attack, not a random one. On Sunday morning, police declined to comment on the contents of a backpack found in Central Park that they believe was carried by the killer. Thompson was shot and killed Wednesday outside of a hotel in Manhattan. Trump calls for immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and says a US withdrawal from NATO is possible WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is pushing Russian leader Vladimir Putin to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine. Trump describes it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war despite being weeks from taking office. Trump also said he would be open to reducing military aid to Ukraine and pulling the United States out of NATO. Those are two threats that have alarmed Ukraine, NATO allies and many in the U.S. national security community. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says any deal would have to pave the way to a lasting peace. The Kremlin's spokesman says Moscow is open to talks with Ukraine. Gaza health officials say latest Israeli airstrikes kill at least 14 including children DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian health officials say Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza have killed at least 14 people including children, while the bombing of a hospital in northern Gaza has wounded a half-dozen patients. Israel’s military continues its latest offensive against Hamas militants in northern Gaza, whose remaining Palestinians have been almost completely cut off from the rest of the territory amid a growing humanitarian crisis. One airstrike flattened a residential building in the urban Bureij refugee camp Sunday afternoon. That's according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah, where the casualties were taken. South Korea's democracy held after a 6-hour power play. What does it say for democracies elsewhere? SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A short-lived martial law decree by South Korea's leader last week raised worries about budding authoritarianism around the world. In the end, though, democracy prevailed. President Yoon Suk Yeol announced that he was declaring martial law and giving his government sweeping powers to crack down on protesters, ban political parties and control the media. Members of the military blocked lawmakers from using the legislature's constitutional power to cancel the power grab. But the National Assembly within hours unanimously voted to do so. Trump's return may be a boon for Netanyahu, but challenges abound in a changed Middle East TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is jubilant about President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House. Trump's first term policies skewed heavily in favor of Israel, and he has picked stalwart Israel supporters for key positions in his administration. But much has transpired since Trump left office in early 2021. The turmoil in the Middle East, the lofty ambitions of Netanyahu’s far-right governing coalition and Netanyahu’s own personal relationship with the president-elect could dampen that enthusiasm and complicate what on the surface looks like a seamless alliance. College Football Playoff's first 12-team bracket is set with Oregon No. 1 and SMU in, Alabama out SMU captured the last open spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff, bumping Alabama to land in a bracket that placed undefeated Oregon at No. 1. The selection committee preferred the Mustangs, losers of a heartbreaker in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game, who had a far less difficult schedule than Alabama of the SEC but one fewer loss. The inaugural 12-team bracket marks a new era for college football, though the Alabama-SMU debate made clear there is no perfect formula. The tournament starts Dec. 20-21 with four first-round games. It concludes Jan. 20 with the national title game in Atlanta.
Christian vote, especially Catholics, critical to Trump's historic win
Donald Trump's DOGE declares war on red tape
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — CNN wants a court to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson that attacks its report that he made explicit posts on a pornography website’s message board. The network says Robinson presented no evidence that the network believed its story was false or aired it recklessly. The September report says Robinson, who ran unsuccessfully for governor this month, left statements over a decade ago on the message board in which, in part, he referred to himself as a “black NAZI" and said he enjoyed transgender pornography. The report also says he preferred Adolf Hitler to then-President Barack Obama and slammed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.” People are also reading... Robinson, who was seeking to become the state's first Black governor, said he didn’t write those posts and sued in October, just before early in-person voting was to begin. While filing a dismissal motion Thursday in Raleigh federal court, attorneys for CNN said Robinson’s arguments suggesting he was the likely victim of a computer hacking operation that created fake messages would require a series of events that is not just “implausible, it is ridiculous.” Generally speaking, a public official claiming defamation must show a defendant knew a statement it made was false or did so with reckless disregard for the truth. “Robinson did not and cannot plausibly allege facts that show that CNN published the Article with actual malice,” attorney Mark Nebrig wrote in a memo backing the dismissal motion, adding that the lawsuit “does not include a single allegation demonstrating that CNN doubted the veracity of its reporting.” For Robinson, who already had a history of inflammatory comments about topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights , the CNN story nearly led to the collapse of his campaign. After the report's airing, most of his top campaign staff quit, advertising from the Republican Governors Association stopped and fellow Republicans distanced themselves from him, including President-elect Donald Trump. Robinson lost to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein by nearly 15 points and will leave office at year-end. Robinson's lawsuit was initially filed in state court. It says, in part, that CNN chose to run its report based on data from the website NudeAfrica, which had been hacked several years ago and ran on vulnerable, outdated software. His suit claims the network did nothing to verify the posts. He's seeking monetary damages. Thursday's memo highlights the network's story, including a section where the CNN journalists showed how they connected Robinson to a username on the NudeAfrica site. As the CNN story said previously, the memo says the network matched details of the account on the message board to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, an email address and his full name. The details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s length of marriage, where he lived at the time, and that both Robinson and the account holder had mothers who worked at a historically Black university, the memo says. CNN also said it found matches of figures of speech used by both the NudeAfrica account holder and in Robinson’s social media posts. “This is hardly a case where, as Robinson alleges, CNN ‘disregarded or deliberately avoided the truth’ rather than investigate,” Nebrig said, adding later that the network “had no reason to seriously doubt that Robinson was the author” of the posts. Robinson's attorneys didn't immediately respond to an email Friday seeking comment. The lawsuit says anyone could have used Robinson's breached data to create accounts on the internet. His state lawsuit also sued Louis Love Money, a former porn shop worker who alleged in a music video and a media interview that for several years starting in the 1990s, Robinson frequented a porn shop where Money was working and that Robinson purchased porn videos from him. Robinson said that was untrue. Money filed his own dismissal motion in the state lawsuit. But since then, CNN moved the lawsuit to federal court, saying that it's the proper venue for a North Carolina resident like Robinson and a Georgia-based company like CNN and that the claims against Money are unrelated. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Preview: Sturm Graz vs. Girona - prediction, team news, lineupsSuncorp’s ‘digital insurer’ policy transformation program will empower it to deliver improved customer and employee outcomes SYDNEY, Dec. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Duck Creek Technologies, the global intelligent solutions provider defining the future of property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance, has announced a new partnership with Suncorp, one of Australia’s and New Zealand’s largest general insurers. Duck Creek will deliver cloud-native, low-code core insurance delivery solutions as part of Suncorp’s recently announced ‘digital insurer’ policy transformation program. Duck Creek’s SaaS solutions will replace multiple on-premises legacy systems and help Suncorp achieve its customer-outcome and value focused strategies. The multi-year agreement for Duck Creek policy, billing and Clarity (data, insights and AI) solutions is an important milestone, and will underpin the next era of technology modernisation and process simplification for Suncorp. Duck Creek’s cohesive and comprehensive suite is expected to reduce Suncorp’s technological complexity, support their ability to deliver enhanced customer value and personalisation, and improve operational efficiency. Suncorp aims to develop more customer-centric, data-driven and brand-specific propositions and experiences without the associated complexity; and deliver value to market faster and more efficiently across its personal and commercial brands in Australia and New Zealand. “Modernising our core insurance platforms will help us deliver innovative and affordable customer propositions, simplify and streamline our operations, and importantly enable our people,” said Lisa Harrison, Chief Executive Consumer Insurance at Suncorp. “Through a rigorous RFP process, we selected Duck Creek as it has a proven track record both globally and locally.” “This is a multi-year program designed to roll out new capabilities in a safe, smart and efficient way. We have assigned dedicated business and technical leadership to work alongside Duck Creek and our integration partner, with strong governance structures and oversight. “We look forward to a successful ongoing partnership with Duck Creek to help deliver this important program,” Ms. Harrison said. “Suncorp is pushing the boundaries of insurance innovation. They appreciate that they’re not in the business of just insuring assets, but of delivering confidence and better experiences and outcomes for their policyholders,” said Christian Erickson, Managing Director (APAC) of Duck Creek Technologies. “Duck Creek’s vision, to transform insurance technology, helping insurers be smarter, faster and more efficient, and provide the best protection for people and businesses, is aligned with Suncorp’s, as a future-focused and protection-driven insurer. This makes us ideal partners and we’re honored to be a part of helping deliver Suncorp’s strategy. We believe Suncorp will push us to think and innovate differently and we are excited for the outcomes we will achieve together.” The unique modular architecture of Duck Creek’s OnDemand platform will help accelerate Suncorp’s innovation timelines, reducing new product time-to-market from months to weeks and product amendments from weeks to days. The OnDemand platform will also help Suncorp increase automation, eliminate manual processes and enhance data-driven decision making. “Our policyholder-centric solutions are designed to equip Suncorp to overcome any technological obstacles and refocus resources toward delivering new innovative customer propositions and experiences,” Mr. Erickson said. About Duck Creek Technologies Duck Creek Technologies is the global intelligent solutions provider defining the future of the property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance industry. We are the platform upon which modern insurance systems are built, enabling the industry to capitalize on the power of the cloud to run agile, intelligent, and evergreen operations. Authenticity, purpose, and transparency are core to Duck Creek, and we believe insurance should be there for individuals and businesses when, where, and how they need it most. Our market-leading solutions are available on a standalone basis or as a full suite , and all are available via Duck Creek OnDemand . Visit www.duckcreek.com to learn more. Follow Duck Creek on our social channels for the latest information – LinkedIn and X . About Suncorp Group Suncorp Group is an ASX-listed Trans–Tasman insurance company, headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. With a heritage dating back more than 100 years, Suncorp provides insurance products and services through some of Australia and New Zealand’s most recognisable brands. Media Contacts: Duck Creek Chris Hamilton chris.hamilton@duckcreek.com Suncorp James Spence James.spence@suncorp.com.au
Iowa's O hopes to stay hot vs. defense-minded NorthwesternMAGA pressure on senators over Trump Cabinet picks shows early signs of paying off
Cowboys diehard fan says he'd deport his family for Super Bowl glory
Suella Braverman’s husband defects to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK