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MELBOURNE — Australia’s communications minister introduced a world-first law into Parliament on Thursday that would ban children under 16 from social media, saying online safety was one of parents’ toughest challenges. Michelle Rowland said TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram were among the platforms that would face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts. “This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia,” Rowland told Parliament. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “There is wide acknowledgement that something must be done in the immediate term to help prevent young teens and children from being exposed to streams of content unfiltered and infinite,” she added. X owner Elon Musk warned that Australia intended to go further, posting on his platform: “Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians.” The bill has wide political support.

VIENTIANE, Laos — An Australian teenager has died after drinking tainted alcohol in Vang Vieng, Laos, in what Australia’s prime minister on Thursday called every parent’s nightmare, and the U. S. State Department confirmed an American also died in the same party town, bringing the death toll to four. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament that 19-year-old Bianca Jones had died after being evacuated from Laos for treatment in a Thai hospital.

GRINDAVIK, Iceland — A volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland has erupted for the seventh time since December. The eruption started with little warning at 11:14 p.m. Wednesday and created a fissure around 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) long. The activity is estimated to be considerably smaller than the previous eruption in August, Iceland’s meteorological office that monitors seismic activity said. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “In the big picture, this is a bit smaller than the last eruption, and the eruption that occurred in May,” Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson, a professor of geophysics who flew over the scene with the Civil Protection agency to monitor the event, told the national RUV broadcaster. While the eruption poses no threat to air travel, authorities warned of gas emissions across parts of the peninsula, including the nearby town of Grindavík. Around 50 houses were evacuated after the Civil Protection agency issued the alert, along with guests at the famous Blue Lagoon resort, according to RUV. The repeated volcanic eruptions close to Grindavík, which is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of the capital, Reykjavik, and has a population of 3,800 people, have damaged infrastructure and property and forced many residents to relocate to guarantee their safety. “Grindavík is not in danger as it looks and it is unlikely that this crack will get any longer, although nothing can be ruled out,” Magnús Tumi said. Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages one eruption every four to five years.

“AI is a technology like no other in human history,” U. S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Wednesday in San Francisco. “Advancing AI is the right thing to do, but advancing as quickly as possible, just because we can, without thinking of the consequences, isn’t the smart thing to do.” Raimondo’s remarks came during the inaugural convening of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes, a network of artificial intelligence safety institutes (AISIs) from 9 nations as well as the European Commission brought together by the U.

Dhaka looks reborn after a fresh lick of paint. Though this is not your typical municipal spruce-up. The sprawling Bangladeshi capital has been festooned with garish political murals celebrating August’s student-led ouster of reviled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed. Mile upon mile of concrete balustrades are daubed with caricatures of the deposed autocrat with fangs and devil horns, slogans extolling “Gen-Z, the real heroes,” and vows to “flush sh-ts from our society.” It’s not language that sits easily with 84-year-old Muhammad Yunus, though the Nobel laureate says he can forgive the students’ salty exuberance.

New full Sun views show sunspots, fields and restless plasma European Space AgencySolar Orbiter captures the highest-resolution images of the sun’s surface yet CNNSolar Orbiter spacecraft captures sharpest views yet of sun's surface (images) Space.comSee the sun revealed in stunning glory by Solar Orbiter pictures New ScientistHighest-Resolution Images Of The Sun's Surface Ever Revealed – And They're Breathtaking IFLScience