Portugal Hit With New Downgrade

Cable companies, advertising firms, and newspapers are asking courts to block a federal "click-to-cancel" rule that would force businesses to make it easier for consumers to cancel services. Lawsuits were filed yesterday, about a week after the Federal Trade Commission approved a rule that "requires sellers to provide consumers with simple cancellation mechanisms to immediately halt all recurring charges." Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau trade group sued the FTC in the conservative US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

The operator of a CTA Yellow Line train that slammed into a snowplow on the tracks last November, injuring some two dozen people, had alcohol in his system after the crash, a recent federal report found. A hospital blood test around 11:20 a.m., about an hour after the crash, showed the operator had ethanol in his system at a level of 0.06 grams per deciliter of blood, according to a National Transportation Safety Board medical report made public in August.

Back in May, Google augmented its Gemini AI model with SynthID, a toolkit that embeds AI-generated content with watermarks it says are "imperceptible to humans" but can be easily and reliably detected via an algorithm. Today, Google took that SynthID system open source, offering the same basic watermarking toolkit for free to developers and businesses. The move gives the entire AI industry an easy, seemingly robust way to silently mark content as artificially generated, which could be useful for detecting deepfakes and other damaging AI content before it goes out in the wild.

In the 1940s, scientists at the recently established National Cancer Institute were trying to breed mice that could inform our understanding of cancer, either because they predictably developed certain cancers or were surprisingly resistant. The team spotted a peculiar litter in which some baby mice had short, kinked tails and misplaced ribs growing out of their neck bones.

Denmark is considering a wide-ranging crypto tax bill to bring investors into the alternate currency in line with traditional asset holders.  The country’s Tax Law Council has recommended the introduction of legislation to tax unrealized gains and losses on crypto assets held by Danish investors.  The potential new law could commence as early as the beginning of 2026, with a 42% capital gains levy applied.  As part of an extensive 93-page report, the Council set out a recommendation for all crypto holdings to be treated equally, in terms of tax implications. Three new models were outlined: Capital Gains Tax, Inventory tax, and Loss Write-Offs. Inventory Taxation would mean investors are required to pay taxes on their entire portfolio by a set date each year, even if they don’t sell any assets. Capital Gains Tax would introduce a 42% levy on unrealized crypto profits, mirroring Denmark’s approach to traditional assets. Loss Write-Offs would act as an antidote to the tax increases, with investors able to write off losses on gains, in line with ‘regular’ asset investments. The proposal seeks to simplify the tax system and mirrors the approach of Italy which increased its taxes on gains from 26% to 42%.  If the bill is approved, it would mean Danish citizens would be required to pay liabilities on Bitcoin or other crypto assets from the day of purchase, regardless if the holdings have been sold or not. The outcome of this means holders would be taxed for their entire portfolio, including unrealized gains. https://twitter.com/BitcoinNewsCom/status/1849191905570984201 Plans inspired by desire for “more reasonable taxation” Denmark’s tax minister Rasmus Stoklund commented on the ‘fairness’ of streamlining the system.  He said, “Throughout recent years, there have been examples of Danes who have invested in crypto-assets being heavily taxed.

As Apple launches iOS 18.2 in beta, EU users will soon be able to delete the company’s default apps including the App Store and Safari. This comes about following the back-and-forth with the European Commission about compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The EU’s DMA suggests services should not be designated as gatekeepers, with the giants in the industry now having to allow third-party apps or app store providers to access their platforms. To comply with the Act, the iPhone maker has had to agree to a number of changes to the user’s experience.