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Social Media

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  1. The first of its kind in the world, the e-motorway may lead to an expansion of a further 3,000 km of electric roads in Sweden by 2045. As the EU passed a landmark law last month to require all new cars sold to have zero CO2 emissions from 2035, European countries are rushing to prepare the infrastructure needed for fossil fuel-free mobility. And Sweden is now turning a highway into a permanent electrified road - the first of its kind in the world. On an electric road, cars and trucks can recharge while driving. Experts say dynamic charging allows them to travel longer distances with smaller batteries, and to avoid waiting at charging stations.
  2. 9 Everyone knows it now as World War II, but was that always going to be the case? 28 April 1942: World War II gets its name There’s a great little gag in an episode of time-travelling British sci-fi show ‘Doctor Who’ where Peter Capaldi’s Doctor is speaking to a World War I soldier and refers to it as such. “What do you mean World War One?” the soldier asks, horrified. While in the show, the Doctor apologises for giving away historical spoilers, it also points out an interesting question about the two World Wars. When did they start being referred to as World Wars I and II? One theory puts the official naming of World War II on this day in history. In Europe, the First World War was generally referred to as “The Great War”, both during and in the subsequent decades after. Over in the US, it was originally referred to as the “European War”, until they joined the fray in 1917.
  3. A Dutch court has ordered a man believed to have fathered more than 550 children to stop donating his sperm. A Dutch court on Friday banned a man from donating any more of his sperm after he fathered at least 550 children in the Netherlands and other countries and misled prospective parents about the number of offspring he helped to conceive. A judge at The Hague District Court ordered the halt in an injunction brought by the mother of a child conceived with the donor’s sperm and a foundation representing other parents. The mother, identified by the foundation only as Eva, welcomed the court's decision.
  4. If my bank fails, how much of my savings will I get back? It’s a scenario no one likes to think about. But in the past 15 years, it has unfolded with particular drama on several occasions — during the 2008 global financial crisis and again since mid-March, as turmoil has gripped the banking sector. The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures deposits up to $250,000 per person, per account, using a fund that banks pay into. But last month, when Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed in rapid succession, the FDIC, backed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, stepped in to insure all deposits. It could do so again if the ailing First Republic Bank implodes despite multiple bailout measures.
  5. A wave of Russian air strikes on cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, has left at least 25 people dead. 23 people - including four children - were killed in an attack that hit a block of flats in the central city of Uman, officials said. And a woman and her three-year-old daughter were killed in the city of Dnipro, according to the local mayor. The Russian defence ministry said its military had targeted Ukrainian army reserve units with the strikes. State-owned RIA news agency said Russia was aiming for the reserve units and used high-precision weapons on Friday. In Uman, a town that has been largely spared Russian attack, a nine-storey apartment building partially collapsed after it was hit by a missile. Oleksander, a 35-year-old resident of the block, said he had been woken up after he heard a powerful explosion. "I couldn't understand what was happening. I went to the balcony and saw glass everywhere. It was horrible," he told the BBC.
  6. Police have arrested 65 people for smuggling 50kg of drugs - some hidden in toothpaste tubes - into Vietnam. It follows last month's arrests of four Vietnam Airlines cabin crew found with the tubes in carry-on bags after a flight from Paris to Ho Chi Minh City. They said they were hired to transport 60kg of toothpaste but didn't know it was ecstasy, ketamine and cocaine. Vietnam is a major drug-trafficking hub despite having some of the harshest drug laws in the world. About half of the 327 toothpaste tubes the flight attendants were transporting contained drugs. Investigators said the women were unaware of their contents - they are currently out on bail. Police said this week that the 65 suspects had been arrested after they uncovered another six shipments of narcotics being smuggled into Vietnam via the same route. It is alleged they were directed by the same smuggling ring that hired the flight attendants. The 65 suspects are being investigated for various charges, including buying, selling, transporting and storing narcotics, local media reported.
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  7. Donald Trump has vowed to restore a travel ban on Islamic nations, prohibiting citizens of those countries from entering the US, if he is elected president in 2024. "I will restore my travel ban to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country," the twice-impeached former president said in New Hampshire on Thursday.
  8. A Chinese Coast Guard ship blocked a Philippine patrol vessel in the South China Sea, causing a near collision in waters where Beijing's vast claims have alarmed the US and its allies. The BBC witnessed the tense encounter near Second Thomas Shoal in the remote Spratly archipelago last Sunday - a move that Manila says is straight out of Beijing's playbook. And it happened the day after Philippines' President Ferdinand Marcos Jr met Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Manila, and expressed hope for open communication lines on the South China Sea dispute. Throughout the 1,670km (1,038-mile) journey of two Philippine Coast Guard ships over six days, news cameras captured how - on cue and in specific locations - Chinese ships would shadow or tail the Filipinos, and send them radio warnings to leave or face "consequences". The Philippine Coast Guard said it had invited journalists to join their routine patrol in the hotly-contested waters for the first time to witness China's actions for themselves.
  9. Former US Vice-President Mike Pence has testified as part of a criminal investigation into alleged efforts by Donald Trump to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. Mr Pence, 63, sat for more than seven hours before a federal grand jury in Washington DC, sources told the BBC's US partner CBS News. He was issued with a subpoena to testify under oath earlier this year. The questioning by prosecutors took place behind closed doors. His appearance on Thursday came just hours after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch bid by Mr Trump's legal team to stop Mr Pence from testifying. Mr Pence's lawyers had also sought unsuccessfully to challenge the subpoena, arguing that his role as president of the Senate during his time in office meant he had congressional immunity.
  10. SEAN HANNITY: Now, of course, Joe also loves a good cheat sheet and a compliant media mob. Take a look at your screen now. This is a picture of a note card that Biden was holding yesterday at a press conference entitled 'Reporter Q&A' with the sub-headline 'Question #1', followed by a reporter's name, her picture and where she works, The L.A. Times. And the card also detailed the exact question she wanted to ask. It was about semiconductor manufacturing. And right on cue, Biden called on the L.A. Times reporter for the first question. And guess what she asked about… semiconductor manufacturing. But now the L.A. Times and the Biden White House, they're denying that there was any collusion at all whatsoever… Why lie that there is photographic evidence that Biden got the question in advance as Senator Marco Rubio tweeted, quote, ‘Biden has the media in his pocket. Literally in his pocket.'
  11. The Strasbourg-based assembly's resolution was welcomed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Thursday officially voted to designate the kidnapping and deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia to Russia, as "genocide". The resolution demands the safe return of Ukrainian children who were taken by force to Russia, as well as appropriate punishment for those facilitating it – noting that the information gathered in the report aligns with the international definition of genocide. It also notes that Moscow began illegal deportations from orphanages and care facilities even before it's full-scale invasion. In a report led by Paulo Pisco, a Portuguese Deputy of the Assembly, Pisco said that deported children have undergone a process of ‘russification’ through re-education in the Russian language, being banned from speaking Ukrainian, and having been exposed to Kremlin propaganda.
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  12. Sri Lanka's central bank has laid out the extent of the country's worst economic crisis in more than 70 years. In its annual report, the bank outlined how last year wages failed to keep up with the soaring cost of everything from food to fuel. "Several inherent weaknesses" and "policy lapses" helped to trigger the severe economic problems that engulfed the South Asian nation, the bank says. The bank now expects the economy to return to growth next year. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka forecast the economy will shrink by 2% this year, but expand by 3.3% in 2024. The prediction is more optimistic than the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which forecast a contraction in 2023 of around 3% and growth of 1.5% next year. The central bank's report also outlined how headline inflation reached almost 70% in September as prices of fresh fruit, wheat and eggs more than doubled. At the same time the cost of transportation and essential utilities such as electricity and water rose even faster. Why is Sri Lanka in crisis? Sri Lanka in first debt default in its history
  13. SIPRI think tank estimates China has a stockpile of around 350 nuclear warheads It could have 1,500 warheads by 2035, according to a Pentagon estimate China is pushing ahead with the largest-ever expansion of its nuclear arsenal, modernising the atomic deterrent with an eye on any future conflicts with the United States, experts say.
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