All posts tagged: helping

On Mother’s Day, being pro-life means helping babies in developing countries live

On Mother’s Day, being pro-life means helping babies in developing countries live

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — As a mom-to-be, this Mother’s Day feels different. Feeling my son’s little kicks, I already sense the deep, instinctual love for this life growing inside of me and the desire for him to flourish. I have always been a strongly pro-life evangelical Christian, but experiencing this bond between a mother and her unborn child has clarified what it truly means to value life. At our 20-week anatomy scan, my husband and I learned that our son would be born with complications that would require medical care. The weeks that followed were full of tears, doctor’s visits and consultations, but also deep gratitude for the treatment options that would allow our son to live a full life. What steadied us was access — specialists, options, follow-up care. That’s exactly what millions of moms don’t have. Through my work in global health, I know that many mothers across the world lack access to treatment for conditions that doctors know how to address. As I considered the little life in my womb, this stark reality clarified …

How helping your rivals makes you harder to beat

How helping your rivals makes you harder to beat

Published by Jenni Sidey

On the morning of May 23, 1925, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the small hot spring town of Kinosaki, near the coast of the Sea of Japan. The timing was catastrophic. It was late morning, and nearly every household in the village was cooking lunch over an open flame. Within minutes, fires leapt from kitchen to kitchen across the dense wooden architecture, consuming everything. By the time the ground stopped shaking and the fires burned out, 283 people were dead and virtually every building in Kinosaki was rubble. After the earthquake, the surviving ryokan (inn) owners sat down together — competitors, all of them — and held over 100 meetings to decide, collectively, how to rebuild. What emerged from those meetings was a radical idea. The owners agreed to treat the entire town as a single inn. Each ryokan would function as a “room.” The streets would be the hallways, and the public bathhouses would be shared amenities, belonging to no single business but to the town as a whole.  They adopted a guiding philosophy and …

Even After Two Massacres, OpenAI Still Hasn’t Stopped ChatGPT From Helping Plan School Shootings

Even After Two Massacres, OpenAI Still Hasn’t Stopped ChatGPT From Helping Plan School Shootings

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been implicated in not just one but two mass shootings over the past year or so. Both perpetrators extensively used the chatbots to extensively plan their crimes, reigniting a heated debate over the AI responsibility for flagging abuse of its tech. It’s a particularly pertinent topic as the chatbots continue to draw users in with a warm and highly sycophantic tone — while, in extreme cases, sending them into sometimes-fatal spirals of their own delusions. In the case of Phoenix Ikner, who’s accused of killing two people at Florida State University just over a year ago, the 20-year-old peppered ChatGPT with questions about how the country would “react” to a shooting, how to turn off the …

DC is turning street poles into EV chargers – Voltpost is helping

DC is turning street poles into EV chargers – Voltpost is helping

Published by skeptic

Rendering: Voltpost Washington, DC, just awarded funding to Voltpost to convert its street poles into EV charging stations. The District’s Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) has selected Voltpost as one of three companies to receive funding from a new public EV charging grant program. In total, DOEE awarded $609,500 to support the installation of Level 2 chargers at and near District-owned city sites. Voltpost will install Level 2 EV chargers on DC’s existing curbside lampposts and utility poles, bringing public charging directly into neighborhoods. The goal is to make it easier for people without driveways or garages to plug in close to home. Voltpost’s EV chargers can be installed in a couple of hours and are wirelessly connected through AT&T’s network and found through its app. Advertisement – scroll for more content The timing lines up with rapid EV adoption in DC. In Q4 2025, EVs made up 20% of all new vehicle registrations, the highest share in the US. Jeffrey Prosserman, CEO and cofounder of Voltpost, said, “Expanding charging access is critical to …

From floods to wildfires, new climate adaptation technology is helping Europe adapt to extreme weather

From floods to wildfires, new climate adaptation technology is helping Europe adapt to extreme weather

Published by skeptic

From wildfire-resistant landscapes in Spain to flood warning systems in Denmark, researchers are working with local communities to find, test and deploy practical ways to live with climate change – and to share what works across borders. Many people expect a raging wildfire to leave a blackened, lifeless landscape in its wake. But after a blaze swept through Las Hurdes in Extremadura, Spain, in 2009, the scene was quite different. In the midst of the scorched earth were patches of green where healthy trees remained standing and unscathed. From a distance, it looked as though the flames had simply stopped at their edges. In reality, this was no coincidence. Fernando Pulido, an ecologist at the University of Extremadura, had been studying ways to slow the spread of wildfires. His research focused on so-called “productive fire breaks” – carefully designed areas where different types of vegetation are managed to make it harder for fires to pass through. The approach in Las Hurdes had worked well. “You can’t fight fires with just helicopters and water. We need …

Suicide Clinic Helping Grieving Mother Die Promotes Death-on-Demand Culture

Suicide Clinic Helping Grieving Mother Die Promotes Death-on-Demand Culture

Published by Jenni Sidey

This republished article first appeared in the National Review A grieving mother who is in good health has been accepted for termination by a Swiss suicide clinic. From the New York Post story: A physically healthy British woman heartbroken over the death of her only son is heading to Switzerland to end her own life at an assisted suicide clinic. Wendy Duffy, 56, attempted to take her own life after her son died four years ago — but is soon bound for Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, after her application was accepted by a clinic, according to the London Times. Duffy, a former care worker from the West Midlands, told the Daily Mail that she paid Pegasos, a Swiss assisted-dying nonprofit organization, $13,500 to euthanize herself under its care, saying suicide is the only way her “spirit can be free.” Thirteen grand! A lot of money is being made by Swiss suicide clinics accommodating the death desires of despairing people. Suicide is becoming romanticized: She’s already chosen what she will wear on her deathbed and told the Daily Mail that Lady …

Palantir is reportedly helping the IRS investigate financial crimes

Palantir is reportedly helping the IRS investigate financial crimes

Published by skeptic

Palantir has helped the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations office probe a variety of financial crimes in the U.S. for much of the last decade, The Intercept reported. The IRS has paid the firm $130 million since 2018 to use its data analysis software to pore over financial records for investigative purposes, the outlet reported, citing public records detailing Palantir’s IRS contract that were obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight. It was previously known the IRS was using Palantir’s products, and that the agency sees the software as a way to automate and modernize audits. Last summer, it was also reported that Palantir was assisting DOGE, the “government efficiency” initiative launched by President Trump’s executive order with a project designed to access IRS records. However, the extent of the agency’s use of the company’s tools had not been previously reported. The software, Palantir’s Lead and Case Analytics platform, is being used to aggregate and analyze data across a variety of federal agencies. The software can find “connections from millions of records with thousands …

AI Tools Are Helping Mediocre North Korean Hackers Steal Millions

AI Tools Are Helping Mediocre North Korean Hackers Steal Millions

Published by skeptic

The advent of AI hacking tools has raised fears of a near future in which anyone can use automated tools to dig up exploitable vulnerabilities in any piece of software, like a kind of digital intrusion superpower. Here in the present, however, AI seems to be playing a more mundane, if still concerning, role in hackers’ toolkit: It’s helping mediocre hackers level up and carry out broad, effective malware campaigns. That includes one group of relatively unskilled North Korean cybercriminals who’ve been discovered using AI to carry out virtually every part of an operation that hacked thousands of victims to steal their cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, cybersecurity firm Expel revealed what it describes as a North Korean state-sponsored cybercrime operation that installed credential-stealing malware on more than 2,000 computers, specifically targeting the machines of developers working on small cryptocurrency launches, NFT creation, and Web3 projects. By using the AI tools of US-based companies, including those of OpenAI, Cursor, and Anima, the hacker group—which Expel calls HexagonalRodent—“vibe coded” almost every part of its intrusion campaign, from writing …

After Los Angles Fires, How Designers Are Helping Homeowners

After Los Angles Fires, How Designers Are Helping Homeowners

Published by Daniella Wilson

An Amazon package arrived at my door a few days after the Eaton and Palisades fires ignited. It contained a small air purifier, sent by friends who were worried about the city’s air quality. It underlined that, despite my Miracle Mile address, I was not impervious to the fire’s consequences. Even if I couldn’t see or smell them, microscopic particles were being blown across the state by robust winds that would enable the fires to burn through 38,000 acres, incinerating 16,000 structures alongside their contents — Hoka Bondis, Tesla car batteries, Magna tiles, Vitamix blenders, iPads, Stanley cups, High Sport pants — the stuff of life in the 21st century. That air purifier is still on, every filter change a reminder that nothing about the device, designed to keep me safe, is recyclable. It’s a microcosm of the dilemma facing homeowners as rebuilding slowly begins to take shape throughout the city. How do we weigh sustainability against personal safety, durability against the future of the planet, comfort against conscientiousness? As interior designer Oliver Furth wonders, …

Cyprus President Says EU Needs a Clear Playbook on Helping Members Under Attack

Cyprus President Says EU Needs a Clear Playbook on Helping Members Under Attack

Published by Sam Flores

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — European Union leaders meeting in Cyprus need to start preparing a playbook on what should happen if an EU country under attack puts out a call for help from bloc partners, the president of Cyprus said. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, President Nikos Christodoulides said EU leaders will discuss “giving substance” to Article 42.7 of the bloc’s treaties, which oblige all 27 member states to assist each other in times of crisis. The article states that if a nation is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, its partners should provide “aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” It has never been used before so there’s no hard and fast rules on how EU members should respond to any call for assistance. “We have Article 42.7 and we don’t know what is going to happen if a member state triggers this article,” Christodoulides said ahead of an EU-Mideast summit he is also hosting later this week, expected to focus on the Iran …