All posts tagged: vicious

Is A “Vicious” Treasury Market Emergency At Our Doorstep?

Is A “Vicious” Treasury Market Emergency At Our Doorstep?

Published by Jenni Sidey

 Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance When Henry Paulson steps back into the public conversation after years of relative silence, it’s not random timing. This is someone who sat at the center of the 2008 financial crisis and understands how quickly confidence can evaporate once stress begins to build in core markets. Paulson also appears to be one of about…oh, I don’t know…six people in the entire nation who know that $39 trillion in debt is an unsustainable level for the country. If you ask me, his recent interview with Bloomberg that is being passed around by traders should be read less as random innocuous commentary and more as a timing signal. In his interview, Paulson is explicitly warning that the scale of U.S. borrowing is now testing confidence in the Treasury market itself. With federal debt approaching $39 trillion, he points to the risk that the long-standing assumption of endless demand for U.S. government debt may no longer hold. As he put it, “That’s a dangerous thing,” describing a scenario where foreign demand declines and Treasury prices fall. …

Woman Sues OpenAI, Saying ChatGPT Unleashed a Vicious Stalker Against Her and Did Nothing When She Begged for Help

Woman Sues OpenAI, Saying ChatGPT Unleashed a Vicious Stalker Against Her and Did Nothing When She Begged for Help

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A San Francisco woman sued OpenAI last week, alleging that ChatGPT fueled the dangerous delusions of her violent stalker — and that OpenAI failed to intervene even as the woman begged the company for help. The plaintiff, who filed the case anonymously as “Jane Doe,” claims in the lawsuit that her ex-boyfriend became infatuated with ChatGPT after using the chatbot to talk through their breakup in 2024, according to TechCrunch. The man grew delusional as his use of ChatGPT deepened, and around August 2025, he became convinced that he’d discovered the cure for sleep apnea and that he was being targeted by a high-powered cabal as a result. As the man’s mental health unraveled, ChatGPT reinforced his delusional and paranoid ideas, allegedly telling him that he was a “level ten in sanity” — and characterizing Doe, who he was obsessed with, as a manipulator. The man then launched a terrifying ChatGPT-assisted harassment campaign against Doe, according to her lawsuit. This …

China Condemns US Starting ‘Vicious Cycle’ Of ‘Chaos’ In Attacking Iran

China Condemns US Starting ‘Vicious Cycle’ Of ‘Chaos’ In Attacking Iran

Published by Jenni Sidey

Chinese Special Envoy to the Middle East Zhai Jun has said at a briefing after his ​shuttle-diplomacy trip that included recent stops in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait that the US-Israeli operation against Iran must immediately cease or else a “vicious cycle” toward destabilizing the region and disrupt global trade would persist. “Should hostilities continue to escalate and the situation deteriorate further, the entire region will be plunged into chaos. The use of force will only lead to a vicious cycle… the war should not have begun in the first place,” Zhai declared. via AFP Washington’s latest war of choice in the Middle East has been focus of growing condemnation from Beijing, with Zhai having added: “The one who tied the bell must be the one to untie it.” Or this is another way of saying whatever the US broke it must quickly fix. Separately, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reiterated at the start of this week that continued military action risks deepening instability, and reminded Washington that its past wars in the …

Self-Driving Taxis Poised for Vicious Backlash

Self-Driving Taxis Poised for Vicious Backlash

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech When the city of San Francisco held a hearing last week on an incident that caused hundreds of Waymo robotaxis to stop dead in their tracks, it became a rallying point for labor activists, rideshare drivers, and concerned citizens to vent their grief with autonomous vehicles. According to one new study, that’s no coincidence — but instead an early sign of explosive backlash as self-driving taxis rapidly expand throughout the United States. The study, a survey of more than 4,600 responses to questions on self-driving cars collected by the Pew Research Center, found widespread distrust with the vehicles. According to reporting by the San Diego Union-Tribune, about 85 percent of those surveyed believe the rollout of driverless cars will lead to job losses. A further 70 percent said self-driving cars are a “bad idea for society,” or that they were unsure about how to regard the technology — meaning there’s only a pitiful slice of the population who …

How smartphone use and feelings of disconnection fuel a vicious cycle

How smartphone use and feelings of disconnection fuel a vicious cycle

Published by José Betancourt

A new study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors provides evidence that excessive smartphone use and feelings of disconnection fuel each other in a continuous daily cycle. When college students feel unfocused, they often reach for their phones for relief, which actually tends to leave them feeling even more detached the following day. These findings suggest that breaking this loop requires actively replacing screen time with meaningful offline activities. With the rapid growth of digital technology, problematic smartphone use has become a major concern for young adults. This type of device engagement refers to screen habits that span multiple apps and become difficult to control, eventually interfering with daily life. Such excessive use has been linked to poorer mental health, strained relationships, and lower academic performance. A related issue is disengagement, which is a temporary state of boredom where a person feels disconnected from their current environment. Disengaged individuals often have difficulty maintaining attention on meaningful tasks and might experience negative emotions. According to psychological theories, this detached feeling acts as a signal that a …

Fossil in Montana Seen as Evidence of Vicious Tyrannosaurus Attack

Fossil in Montana Seen as Evidence of Vicious Tyrannosaurus Attack

Published by José Betancourt

A rare fossil in the collection of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, is the subject of new research that suggests its shows signs of an attack by a Tyrannosaurus rex. As reported by Phys.org, the skull of an Edmontosaurus—a duck-billed creature that counts among the last dinosaurs to exist—has a Tyrannosaurus tooth lodged within it in a way that indicates a fateful bite to the face. The skull, found in 2005 in eastern Montana and currently on display in the Museum of the Rockies’s Hall of Horns and Teeth, is the subject of a paper published in the journal PeerJ. (Its not-so-snappy title: “Behavioral implications of an embedded tyrannosaurid tooth and associated tooth marks on an articulated skull of Edmontosaurus from the Hell Creek Formation, Montana.”) Related Articles “Although bite marks on bones are relatively common, finding an embedded tooth is extremely rare,” said Taia Wyenberg-Henzler, a University of Alberta doctoral student who collaborated on the paper with Museum of the Rockies curator of paleontology John Scannella. “The great thing about an …

Independent UN Body Condemns ‘Vicious Attacks’ on UN Expert on Palestinian Rights

Independent UN Body Condemns ‘Vicious Attacks’ on UN Expert on Palestinian Rights

Published by Sam Flores

GENEVA, Feb 17 (Reuters) – An independent ⁠United ⁠Nations body on Tuesday condemned ⁠what it described as vicious attacks based on disinformation by ​several European ministers against the organisation’s special rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese. In the past week several ‌European countries, including Germany, France ‌and Italy, called for Albanese’s resignation over her alleged criticism of Israel. Albanese, an ⁠Italian lawyer, ⁠denies making the remarks. On Friday, the Czech Republic’s Foreign Minister Petr ​Macinka quoted Albanese on X as having called Israel a “common enemy of humanity”, and he also called for her resignation. A transcript of Albanese’s remarks made in Doha on February 7 seen by ​Reuters did not characterise Israel in this way, although she has consistently criticised the ⁠country ⁠in the past over the ⁠Gaza conflict. The ​UN Coordination Committee – a body of six independent experts which coordinates and facilitates the ​work of Special Rapporteurs – ⁠accused European ministers of relying on “manufactured facts”. “Instead of demanding Ms Albanese’s resignation for performing her mandate…these government representatives should join forces to hold …

New research links childhood inactivity to depression in a vicious cycle

New research links childhood inactivity to depression in a vicious cycle

Published by José Betancourt

New research suggests a bidirectional relationship exists between how much time children spend sitting and their mental health, creating a cycle where inactivity feeds feelings of depression and vice versa. This dynamic appears to extend beyond the individual child, as a child’s mood and inactivity levels can eventually influence their parent’s mental well-being. These results were published in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity. For decades, health experts have recognized that humans spend a large portion of their waking hours in sedentary behaviors. This term refers to any waking behavior characterized by an energy expenditure of 1.5 metabolic equivalents or less while in a sitting, reclining, or lying posture. Common examples include watching television, playing video games while seated, or sitting in a classroom. While the physical health consequences of this inactivity are well documented, the impact on mental health is a growing area of concern. In recent years, screen time has risen considerably among adolescents. This increase has prompted researchers to question how these behaviors interact with mood disorders such as depression. Most …