Deaf-blind man gets a service dog, plays a mean pinball [Spiffy]

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Scotland records largest fall in drug deaths but rate still 2.7 times UK average

Official data shows there were 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 – a drop of 279 on the previous year

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Scotland has recorded its largest fall in drug deaths, but the number is still almost three times higher than the average for the UK as a whole.

Data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 – a drop of 279 on the previous year. It is the second year in a row that drugs deaths have fallen, although the total for 2021 dropped by just nine from the record high seen in 2020, when 1,339 people died.

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Federal government rejected Queensland’s funding request for Gabba rebuild, inquiry told

Senate hears request was turned down because project was part of ‘urban renewal’ that went beyond Brisbane Olympics

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The Queensland government asked the commonwealth to help fund a $2.7bn redevelopment of the Gabba stadium but was turned down because the project was part of “broader urban renewal” that went beyond the Brisbane Olympics, an inquiry has heard.

On Tuesday, the first day of a Senate inquiry into the 2032 Olympic Games, a senior Queensland government public servant confirmed the federal government had walked away from the sports stadium reconstruction.

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Instagram is adding a chronological feed for Reels and Stories in Europe

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram and Facebook users in Europe are getting more options to opt out of Meta’s recommendation algorithms, the company has explained in a blog post today. According to Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg, European users will be able to access features like Reels, Stories, and Search on Facebook and Instagram without seeing content that’s been ranked by Meta’s recommendation algorithms.

“For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest,” Clegg writes. “They will also be able to view Search results based only on the words they enter, rather than personalized specifically to them based on their previous...

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Chris Christie courts Republican voters in Trump and DeSantis territory

The presidential candidate took his pitch to Florida, which overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2020 and DeSantis last year

It’s a little after 6.30am on a steamy Friday in South Miami. A road sweeper appears in the pre-dawn twilight and trundles noisily past a man fixing red, white and blue bunting to a hedge at the Casa Cuba restaurant.

Chris Christie is up early for his campaign event, as he has been on many mornings of his ambitious presidential run. Yet this one has a different feel. It’s essentially a raid on an enemy stronghold. This turf is held by Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the two prominent Floridians in the race for the Republican nomination. Christie is aware he has to make a good impression.

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US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network

Revealed: Charles Haywood, creator of the Society for American Civic Renewal, has said he might serve as ‘warlord’ at the head of an ‘armed patronage network’

The founder and sponsor of a far-right network of secretive, men-only, invitation-only fraternal lodges in the US is a former industrialist who has frequently speculated about his future as a warlord after the collapse of America, a Guardian investigation has found.

Federal and state tax and company filings show that the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) and its creator, Charles Haywood, also have financial ties with the far-right Claremont Institute.

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Carderbee Attacks: Hong Kong Organizations Targeted via Malicious Software Updates

A previously undocumented threat cluster has been linked to a software supply chain attack targeting organizations primarily located in Hong Kong and other regions in Asia. The Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, is tracking the activity under its insect-themed moniker Carderbee. The attacks, per the cybersecurity firm, leverage a trojanized version of a legitimate software called

Should i buy a normal headphone instead of a gaming one if i don't need mic?

Title says it all . I have no prior experience buying headphones btw. I only play single player games so i don't know if i should go with regular ones or not . Comfort is top priority btw. Any advice?

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New Supply Chain Attack Hit Close to 100 Victims—and Clues Point to China

The hackers, who mostly targeted victims in Hong Kong, also hijacked Microsoft’s trust model to make their malware harder to detect.

ICANN warns UN may sideline tech community from future internet governance

'We built this thing and now you don't want to hear from us – WTF?' is the gist of it

The United Nations' proposed Global Digital Compact will exclude technical experts as a distinct voice in internet governance, ignoring their enormous contributions to growing and sustaining the internet, according to ICANN and two of the world's regional internet registries.…

The View From the Center of the World’s Myopia Epidemic

In Taiwan, so many people are nearsighted that the island nation has already glimpsed what could be coming for the rest of us.

Chinese APT Targets Hong Kong in Supply Chain Attack

Dubbed Carderbee, the group used legitimate software and Microsoft-signed malware to spread the Korplug/PlugX backdoor to various Asian targets.