All posts tagged: adoption

UK adult adoptees: share your experience of reunion with a birth parent | Adoption

UK adult adoptees: share your experience of reunion with a birth parent | Adoption

Published by Sam Flores

Guardian journalist David Batty has described the complex family trauma many adult adoptees have to navigate during reunion with their birth parents, often without professional support. We would like other UK adult adoptees to share their experiences of adoption reunion. How challenging was it to forge relationships with birth relatives and to maintain them? What, if any, support did you receive? How did it impact your relationship with your adoptive family? Please let us know if your reunion was also affected by historical forced adoption. Between 1949 and 1976, around 185,000 babies were taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption in England and Wales due to a culture of shame surrounding pregnancy outside marriage. Share your experience You can share your responses confidentially in the form below. We will beget in contact with you before we use your submission.  Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of …

The country’s largest Protestant adoption agency is dropping LGBTQ couples — again

The country’s largest Protestant adoption agency is dropping LGBTQ couples — again

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Bethany Christian Services, long described as the country’s largest Protestant adoption and foster care agency, will no longer allow LGBTQ couples to foster or adopt, according to a statement to RNS. In a press release posted Wednesday (June 10), the Michigan-based agency announced that its board voted to “clarify and reinforce” its Christian faith commitments. Those changes require staff and board members to “personally agree and adhere to” a belief statement that includes the Apostle’s Creed, recognizes the authority of the Christian Bible and affirms the image of God in every person. The belief statement also defines God’s design for marriage as “a covenant between one man and one woman.” In an email to RNS, a spokesperson confirmed that these changes will also impact the selection of foster and adoptive parents. “Beginning June 2027, Bethany will only license and re-license foster families whose Christian faith and beliefs align with our Statement of Faith and Belief,” they said. The spokesperson added that senior leaders on staff and others who have “certain roles” with “significant …

My mother was forced to give me up for adoption. But when we finally met decades later, it was far from a fairytale ending

My mother was forced to give me up for adoption. But when we finally met decades later, it was far from a fairytale ending

Published by Sam Flores

One morning in late September 2023, I discovered by chance that my birth mother had been killed almost a year earlier. The revelation came while I was searching my work email for a stray message. In the bin folder, amid a slurry of irrelevant press releases, lay an unopened email, ­flagging a long-forgotten Google alert I had set up for her name, Susan Barras. We had been estranged for almost 15 years, so this in itself provoked trepidation. I had cut contact with her when our relationship had finally become too fraught and emotionally ­exhausting for me to continue. Opening the email, I realised with shock that the alert had been triggered by a probate notice about her estate. Susan was only 69 when she died, and my first thought was that the breast cancer she was being treated for when we were in touch had returned. My second was the realisation that both my birth parents were now dead – my birth father had died of liver failure in late 2018, aged 70. But then …

How Forced AI Adoption Caused Major Amazon Outages

How Forced AI Adoption Caused Major Amazon Outages

Published by skeptic

Amazon’s approach to artificial intelligence (AI) has faced significant challenges, as highlighted by Brendan Dell. One notable issue is the company’s reliance on strict adoption metrics, such as requiring 80% usage of its internal AI coding system, Kira. This focus on compliance has led to inefficiencies, including employee frustration and operational setbacks, such as delays in delivering millions of orders. These outcomes underscore the risks of prioritizing AI implementation metrics over meaningful business results, raising questions about the balance between innovation and practicality. Gain insight into the operational disruptions caused by Amazon’s AI strategy, including specific examples like the 6.3 million delayed orders. Discover how Goodhart’s Law explains the unintended consequences of rigid metrics and explore the cultural and strategic shifts that have influenced Amazon’s approach. These lessons provide actionable guidance for aligning AI initiatives with measurable and sustainable business goals. AI: A Tool, Not the Goal TL;DR Key Takeaways : Amazon’s AI strategy faces challenges due to a focus on adoption metrics over meaningful outcomes, leading to inefficiencies and operational disruptions. The internal AI …

From cautious exploration to trusted adoption

From cautious exploration to trusted adoption

Published by skeptic

Reflecting on the findings from Capgemini’s recent report, Dr Diane Berry, Engineering Science Leader at Capgemini, explains the changes needed to enable the UK to adopt physical AI fully and confidently. Some technologies explode onto the market, whereas others advance steadily as organisations, regulation, and operating models catch up. Physical artificial intelligence (AI), in the UK at least, firmly belongs in the latter category. Robotics has a long history of inflated expectations, which has contributed to understandable caution among many organisations when it comes to adoption. But while adoption may be measured, the potential impact is anything but. By combining AI, robotics, and advanced sensing, physical AI is set to transform how industries operate – enabling machines to perceive, reason, and act autonomously in the physical world. From critical infrastructure and manufacturing to energy and logistics, it has the potential to reshape productivity, resilience and safety at scale. Research tells us UK executives are ready to look beyond the hype and recognise that strategic importance. According to Capgemini’s recent report, around two thirds (67%) say …

Anthropic finally beat OpenAI in business AI adoption — but 3 big threats could erase its lead

Anthropic finally beat OpenAI in business AI adoption — but 3 big threats could erase its lead

Published by skeptic

For the first time since the AI race began, more American businesses are paying for Anthropic’s Claude than for OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Adoption of Anthropic rose 3.8% in April to 34.4% of businesses, according to the May 2026 release of the Ramp AI Index. OpenAI’s adoption fell 2.9% to 32.3%. Overall AI adoption among businesses rose 0.2 percentage points to 50.6%. The crossover — published Tuesday by Ramp, the corporate card and finance automation platform that tracks spending patterns across more than 50,000 U.S. businesses — marks the culmination of a yearlong surge by Anthropic that few in the industry predicted. Anthropic has quadrupled its business adoption over the past year, while OpenAI grew its business adoption by only 0.3%. But the same report that crowns a new market leader also warns that Anthropic’s position may be more fragile than it appears — threatened by escalating costs, compute constraints, and the very token-based pricing model that has fueled the company’s extraordinary revenue growth. Anthropic’s share of U.S. business adoption surpassed OpenAI’s for the first time in …

Boy’s adoption overturned in Court of Appeal after woman fails to disclose relationship with prisoner

Boy’s adoption overturned in Court of Appeal after woman fails to disclose relationship with prisoner

Published by Sam Flores

A two-year-old boy has had his adoption overturned at the Court of Appeal after his adoptive mother failed to disclose that she was in a relationship with a prisoner. In a ruling on Monday, Lord Justice Peter Jackson said the boy, known only as T, was placed for adoption with a married couple in Northumberland in May 2025 and was formally adopted last November. But T’s former social workers were informed earlier this year that the adoptive father had moved out of the family home last October, and that the adoptive mother had since started a relationship with a prisoner serving a sentence at the prison where she worked. They also learned that the woman was caring for the prisoner’s XL bully dog and had twice taken the child to visit the prisoner, who had referred to T as his “stepson” since October 2025. Lord Justice Peter Jackson said on Monday that the prisoner was in custody for drug offences at the time and had previous convictions for battery and possession of weapons, and had …

Government adoption of AI agents could outpace the private sector

Government adoption of AI agents could outpace the private sector

Published by skeptic

TGI/Tetra Images/Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Adoption of agentic AI in government is now a leadership mandate.  82% of government organizations have already adopted AI agents. 71% of government agencies plan to increase use of agentic AI in 2026-2027 In government, agentic AI is no longer in the experimental phase; it is a leadership mandate, according to IDC research focused on public-sector readiness for agentic AI.  IDC finds that many government agencies are implementing agent-driven workflows, but few have moved beyond pilots. The rate of agentic AI adoption in government is due to several factors: Budgetary pressures Sovereignty and compliance, including requirements for data resistance, algorithmic transparency, and accountability Workforce disruption, which points to skill gaps in cybersecurity and machine learning operations Citizen expectations for faster, more personalized, and equitable services Also: Scaling agentic AI demands a strong data foundation – 4 steps to take first Becoming an agentic government – a leadership mandate IDC research shows that the transformation of agentic AI — autonomous digital …

Google leaders including Demis Hassabis push back on claim of uneven AI adoption internally

Google leaders including Demis Hassabis push back on claim of uneven AI adoption internally

Published by skeptic

A viral post on X from veteran programmer and former Google engineer Steve Yegge set off a rhetorical firestorm this week, drawing sharp public rebuttals from some of Google’s most prominent AI leaders and reopening a sensitive question for the company: how deeply are its own engineers really using the latest generation of AI coding tools? The debate began after Yegge summarized what he said was the view of his friend, a current and longtime Google employee (or Googler), who claimed the Gemini AI-firm’s internal AI adoption looks much more ordinary and less cutting-edge than outsiders might expect. Yegge said Googler friend claimed Google engineering mirrors an “average” industry pattern of a 20%-60%-20% split: a small group of outright AI refusers (20%) a much larger middle still relying mainly on simpler chat and coding-assistant workflows (60%), and another small group of AI-first, cutting-edge engineers using agentic tools extensively and mastering them (20%). A VentureBeat search of X using its parent company’s AI assistant Grok found that Yegge’s April 13 post spread quickly, topping 4,500 likes, …

Could China’s adoption of electric vehicles shield it from the energy crisis? – Business

Could China’s adoption of electric vehicles shield it from the energy crisis? – Business

Published by Sam Flores

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again BUSINESS © FRANCE 24 Issued on: 06/04/2026 – 11:06Modified: 06/04/2026 – 11:09 05:30 min From the show Reading time 1 min As crude prices hover around the $110 per barrel mark on Monday morning, consumers worldwide are feeling the impact of the war in Iran and the closure of the Hormuz Strait when they head to the petrol pump. In China, where more than half of new car sales are for electric vehicles, that impact may be less pronounced, as France 24’s Bryan Quinn explains in his report. Also in this edition, “Super Mario Galaxy Movie” has achieved the best opening release of the year so far. By: Source link