Report says children born today could earn 51% more over lifetime if their country’s human capital improved

Deteriorating health, education and training in many developing countries is dramatically depressing the future earnings of children born today, the World Bank has said.

In a report, the World Bank urges policymakers to focus on improving outcomes in three settings: homes, neighbourhoods and workplaces.

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At a press conference to open the 76th edition of the Berlin film festival, the jury president said ‘cinema has an incredible power’ but little influence on political decision makers

Veteran director Wim Wenders has hailed the power of cinema to help heal a broken planet as he takes up the jury presidency of the Berlinale, the most politically charged of Europe’s big three international film festivals.

Asked about the role of movies in the current climate of war and social upheaval, the auteur behind Wings of Desire and the Oscar-nominated Perfect Days said he saw film-making as an act of bridge-building and generating empathy.

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Continuing extreme weather has caused deaths of 16 people, evacuation of thousands and destruction of homes

• Europe live – latest updates

Portugal is under pressure to draw up plans to adapt to the climate emergency as the country continues to be lashed by an unprecedented series of storms that have killed at least 16 people and left tens of thousands without electricity.

More than 3,000 people were evacuated from the Coimbra area of central Portugal on Wednesday as the Mondego River reached critical levels, while part of the country’s main motorway, the A1, collapsed after a dyke on the Mondego gave way under the weight of flood water.

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• British racer poised for podium after opening rounds

• Sledder turned in back-to-back Cortina track records

This was the race that will always be remembered for the one man who didn’t make the start. Exactly 21 minutes before the men’s skeleton was scheduled to begin the International Olympic Committee put out its press release announcing that it had revoked the Olympic accreditation of the Ukrainian slider Vladyslav Heraskevych after he refused to compete without his helmet decorated with the images of his fellow athletes who have been killed during the Russian invasion of his country. It was so late the two British competitors, Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt said they didn’t even find out about it until after they had finished.

By then, the news had already spread around the world, and the one Ukrainian journalist present, Stanislav Oroshkevych, from tribuna.com, found he was suddenly surrounded by colleagues from Germany, Britain, Japan, and a dozen other countries, all asking him for public comment on what was going on. Soon, the Ukrainian press attache arrived to save him and announced that Heraskevych would come to give an impromptu press conference himself. The photos of Heraskevych standing behind the barriers near the finish, his helmet tucked under his arm, addressing a crowd of 30 journalists, will be one of the iconic images of these Olympics.

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Actor-style headshots from the 80s of artists like Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, and Robert Longo.

Gemeenten en afvalverwerkers stelden de staat aansprakelijk voor hun schade door lachgascilinders die sinds het landelijk verbod in het restafval en op straat belanden. De staat valt niets te verwijten, oordeelt de rechtbank.

Kaapstad is al jaren een populaire bestemming onder de zogeheten digital nomads. Net als in de zeventiende eeuw is de lokale bevolking de dupe van dit kolonialisme.

Meta Platforms' latest annual report contained an unusual, cautionary note for investors. From a report: The tech giant's auditor, Ernst & Young, raised a red flag over the financial engineering Meta used to keep a $27 billion data-center project off its balance sheet. While EY ultimately blessed Meta's accounting treatment, the firm flagged it as a "critical audit matter." This means it was one of the hardest, riskiest judgments the auditor had to make.

Such a warning label is rare for a specific, high-profile transaction at a major audit client. Meta moved the data-center project, called Hyperion, off its books in October into a new joint venture with Blue Owl Capital. Meta owns 20% of the venture; funds managed by Blue Owl own the other 80%. A holding company called Beignet Investor, which owns the Blue Owl portion, sold a then-record $27.3 billion of bonds to investors. The joint venture is known in accounting parlance as a variable interest entity, or VIE. Meta said it isn't the "primary beneficiary" of this entity and so didn't have to put the venture's assets and liabilities on its own balance sheet.

Meta's assertion that it lacks power over the venture is debatable and has drawn scrutiny from investors and lawmakers. Meta is a hyperscaler and knows how to run data centers for artificial intelligence, while Blue Owl is a financier. Whether the venture succeeds economically will come down to Meta's decisions and know-how. In its report, EY said auditing Meta's decision "was especially challenging due to the significant judgment required in determining the activities that most significantly affect the VIE's economic performance."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: