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DAML faces the same maturity concerns Canton raises about ZK proofs, but with far fewer security eyes watching. Zero-knowledge proofs are at the center of a growing debate in institutional finance. Canton Network founders have argued that ZK proofs pose unacceptable risks for mission-critical financial systems. They have raised this case with buyers and regulators, both publicly and privately. A public response from ZK researcher Alex challenges that argument directly. The rebuttal compares the architectural approaches of Canton and Prividium. Canton's argument against ZK proofs centers on their complexity. Bugs in such systems may go undetected because the underlying data stays private. If a flaw spreads silently, it could create systemic risk across financial networks. The concern is genuine, but the logic that follows contains a gap. The reasoning assumes ZK proofs are the only line of defense in a system. Alex draws a parallel to aviation, nuclear controls, and medical devices. Each of those is complex, mission-critical, and capable of catastrophic failure. None were abandoned for that reason -- they operate through redundancy and containment, not the absence of risk. In a post on X, @gluk64 framed it as a broader pattern. Any complex, mission-critical technology that can fail catastrophically would fail Canton's test. The hidden assumption doing all the work is that no backup system exists. That assumption, not the technology itself, is what creates systemic danger. Canton's own architecture illustrates this point. Its privacy model relies solely on trusted operators to segregate data between participants. There is no cryptographic verification layer in place. If operator keys are compromised, the manipulated state propagates silently across opaque chains with nothing to catch it. Prividium builds its model on three independent layers of defense. Institutional partners operate nodes within their own regulated environments. Zero-knowledge proofs then add a cryptographic verification layer above operational security. As proof systems mature, multiple independent provers can verify the same computation. A flaw in one implementation then gets caught by another. Containment is built into the architecture by design. Each Prividium instance is a separate chain operated by a single institution. Inter-chain interactions go through accounting mechanisms enforced independently by participating institutions or on-chain. Even a combined attack on internal IT and a ZKP bug stays confined to that one chain. The open standards question adds another layer to the comparison. ZKsync's move toward full EVM equivalence reflects the principle that deviating from open standards widens the attack surface. Ethereum's infrastructure has faced more than a decade of adversarial testing with hundreds of billions at stake. That process built stronger audit standards, formal verification tools, and hardened design patterns. Canton's maturity concerns about ZK proofs apply equally to DAML, its proprietary smart contract language. DAML operates within a closed ecosystem with far fewer developers and security researchers watching.

The former boss of National Savings and Investments (NS&I) was not required to have banking experience, adding to concerns over leadership at the embattled 160-year-old institution. A 2023 job advertisement for the position of chief executive of NS&I, seen by The Telegraph, does not explicitly call for candidates to have ever worked in a bank. Dax Harkins, the former NS&I boss, rose from NS&I's sales team to become its chief executive that year. He had worked for an Australian mutual 20 years earlier. He was forced out on Thursday after The Telegraph exposed a £467m savings scandal affecting up to 37,500 dead savers. A Telegraph investigation revealed how savers had been denied money that was rightfully theirs, with the Government subsequently admitting to a systems failure that meant money had not been passed on to surviving relatives. A clean-up operation of the leadership now appears to be in full swing, with the head of finance, Ruth Curry, also stepping down on Friday. Despite providing services that are heavily regulated in the private sector, such as accepting deposits and managing investments, the state-owned bank is not legally required to follow the same rules that apply to commercial banks. This includes strict governance requirements set by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that state the governing body of a firm must have an "appropriate range of skills and experience" to perform these activities. When NS&I sought a new boss in 2023, it listed experience of the "retail financial services environment" as a third-place requirement after "strategic leadership" and managing a "transformation programme". Following the scandal exposed by the Telegraph this week, Sir Jim Harra, a career civil servant who formerly ran HMRC, has taken the reins. Mr Harra joined the tax office in 1984 and is not known to have experience working in banking. The former chairman of NS&I's board, Lord Lemos, stepped down in the summer and has a background as a social policy researcher. He does not appear to have previously worked at a commercial bank but has held senior positions at banking bodies, including as Chair of the London Institute of Banking and Finance, Payments UK, the Lending Standards Board, the Banking Code Standards Board, and the Money Advice Service. Mr Harra has also held positions on the boards of a number of arms-length bodies, including English Heritage, the Crown Prosecution Service and a string of financial trade associations. However, Neil Record, a former Bank of England economist, drew a distinction between the expertise of those who have worked for regulators and industry groups and those who have run commercial enterprises. "There is a very deep built-in bias in the public sector to appoint people who they know and are knocking around the public service system," he said. "Most bankers have long careers and are not known in the public sector and have to take difficult decisions. "I ran a financial services business for 40 years. Over the years, I have applied for three public service positions directly relevant to my experience and on none of those occasions was I given an interview." Mr Record claimed that NS&I not being required to follow FCA regulations allowed it to act with impunity. He said: "Banks are enormously regulated and NS&I essentially isn't because it's the Government and they do what they want and therein lies the problem. They aren't frightened of the regulator while commercial banks are terrified of it." An NS&I spokesman said: "NS&I's Board combines deep financial services expertise alongside relevant experience across key areas such as retail, commercial and technology."

EMALS: The Ford-class Aircraft Carrier Just Might Be the Best on Earth The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, pioneered by the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, has been both a promise-filled and controversial aircraft launching system. Though it has promised to greatly improve sortie rates for American aircraft carriers -- some have called it a technological shift in carrier-based combat aviation -- the system has experienced significant teething issues. Traditional aircraft launch systems have relied on steam pressure generated via heat siphoned from the carrier's nuclear reactors to drive a piston down a lined track, and in effect, yanking the aircraft forward and off the flight deck into the air. The allure of the EMALS system was tantalizing to senior Navy officials: it promised to fundamentally change how aircraft took off from aircraft carriers, with technology rooted in pre-Second World War technology. Rather than steam, EMALS used a linear induction motor to launch aircraft, in essence, a long electromagnetic rail system. EMALS operates by generating electrical energy from the ship's nuclear reactors, which is stored via motor generators, flywheels, and capacitors, and then released in a controlled electrical pulse. A moving electromagnetic field then accelerates a shuttle attached to the flight deck, which, in turn, is attached to naval fighters. One of the great advantages offered by EMALS was a reduction of wear and tear on fighter aircraft. Instead of aircraft launching off the deck with a single, full-steam-ahead push from the steam-powered system EMALS replaces, aircraft could be more slowly accelerated to maximum speed before launching. In essence, traditional steam catapults are all-or-nothing systems that lack the fine-tuned control offered by EMALS. By attuning EMALS launches to different aircraft -- even to different combat weights, depending on weapon loadout and amount of fuel carried -- aircraft service lives can be extended. Launch overload was a real danger with steam launch, particularly with lighter aircraft. EMALS, crucially, avoids aircraft overload. Steam catapults that the U.S. Navy has relied on for decades struggle with the extreme sides of launches. For relatively small and light-weight UAVs or other light aircraft, launches could be singularly violent events. Conversely, particularly heavy or burned aircraft could, in some circumstances, struggle to take off. Cognizant of the technological limitations of steam technology, the Navy opted to lean into electromagnetic aircraft launches with EMALS. In the future, EMALS can seamlessly operate with a variety of aircraft across different flight weights. Very light-weight drones, heavily burdened strike aircraft, and future aircraft, like the U.S. Navy's upcoming F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter, could all be compatible with EMALS. In theory, the system offers a faster sortie generation rate. To start with, EMALS eliminates the need to build up and manage high steam pressure. And without the need to generate steam power, the rest of the large mechanical systems necessary to harness it are also eliminated. In theory, at least, EMALS offers mechanical simplicity and increased reliability. But the name of the game while launching and recovering aircraft while at sea is speed. EMALS offers faster reset between aircraft launches and potentially higher sortie rates -- both of which contribute to enhanced combat power. More aircraft in the air, and more often. A crucial aspect of the new Ford-class carriers is their electric generation capacity -- and the Ford is designed around electrical power rather than steam generation. Part of that benefit is tangential -- less internal space taken up by steam generation equipment, more space for other carrier subsystems -- but more directly, the Ford's electric generation capacity, in essence, future-proofs the carrier for future technologies. Though still in development, the U.S. Navy has invested significant time and resources in next-generation directed-energy (laser) weapons. With war raging in the Middle East and in Ukraine, the question of air interceptor development and production arises. Slow to manufacture and quick to expend, air interceptors are also expensive. Laser weapons could change that calculus, however. Aircraft carriers' nuclear reactors can generate near-limitless energy, offering carriers an almost-infinite magazine capacity. Directed defensively, at incoming missiles or warplanes, laser weapons have the potential to greatly enhance carrier defense -- if the technology can mature affordably. Though the EMALS system has already been installed on the USS Ford, the lead carrier of the Ford-class, it faced significant teething issues, with reliability one significant obstacle. Hundreds of launch failures occurred during testing, and overall reliability was just a small fraction of what it should have been. Part of the EMALS issues stemmed from installing the system on the Ford before it had completed extensive land trials. Delays and cost overruns caused by retrofits were extensive. Performance has improved over time, and recent deployments highlight that thousands of successful launches are now the norm. However, achieving the desired reliability targets might not occur until sometime next decade. High-risk, but high-payoff, it seems likely that EMALS will permanently change U.S. Navy aviation.

SonarRoom is a breakthrough iOS app that transforms any iPhone into a professional-grade room acoustics analyzer. Using augmented reality and real-time audio measurement, it builds a 3D acoustic map of any room in under four minutes -- revealing standing waves, bass problems, echo issues, and the exact best listening position. What once required thousands of dollars of professional equipment is now in your pocket. DENVER, March 28, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- New spatial acoustic measurement app brings professional studio-grade room analysis to consumers, home theater enthusiasts, and music producers for the first time! The room you listen in is silently ruining your audio. Bass frequencies double in volume in some corners and completely vanish in others. Reflections off walls create echoes and comb filtering. The couch you've been sitting on for years might be the single worst listening position in the room -- and without measurement tools, there's no way to know. Until now. SonarRoom, a new iPhone application available on the App Store, solves one of the most overlooked problems in home audio, home theater, and music production: room acoustics. Using a combination of augmented reality spatial tracking and real-time acoustic signal processing, SonarRoom turns any iPhone into a 3D room acoustics analyzer -- mapping how sound behaves at every point in a room and telling users exactly what's wrong, where it's wrong, and what to do about it. The Problem Every Audio Setup Has -- And Nobody Talks About Whether you spent $200 on a Bluetooth speaker setup or $20,000 on a high-end audiophile system, the room you're listening in is changing what you hear. This is true for everyone: music lovers, home theater enthusiasts, home studio producers, podcast creators, and gamers with surround sound setups. Room acoustics problems are the leading cause of poor-sounding audio at home. Standing waves -- resonant frequencies created by sound bouncing between parallel walls -- cause bass frequencies to build up or disappear depending on where you sit. Flutter echo from parallel reflective surfaces creates a metallic ringing that muddies instrument separation. Speaker-boundary interference response (SBIR) causes deep bass nulls when speakers are placed too close to walls. Stereo imaging collapses when the listening position is acoustically asymmetric. Professional recording studios spend tens of thousands of dollars identifying and treating these problems. Acoustic measurement hardware, room analysis software, and acoustic treatment consulting represent a market that has historically been inaccessible to everyday listeners. The process is simple enough for any iPhone user, yet technically rigorous enough to satisfy professional audio engineers. The result is a full 3D acoustic heatmap of your space -- a rotatable, zoomable model showing how sound quality, bass energy, stereo balance, reverb time, and clarity vary at every point. Color coding makes the analysis instantly readable: green zones are acoustically favorable, red zones reveal problems. What SonarRoom Detects SonarRoom's problem detection engine automatically identifies and explains the most common acoustic pathologies found in home listening rooms, home theaters, and home studios: Each detected problem is named, explained in plain language, rated by severity, and pinned to the 3D room map. Users don't need to understand acoustics to act on the results. The Sweet Spot Finder: Know Exactly Where to Sit One of SonarRoom's most powerful features is its Sweet Spot Finder -- a composite scoring system that evaluates every measured position in the room across multiple acoustic quality dimensions: frequency response flatness, stereo balance, reverb consistency, early reflection clarity, and bass evenness. The result is a ranked list of optimal listening positions with spatial markers in the 3D model. The app doesn't just say "sit here" -- it shows how large the sweet zone is, so users understand how much of a difference a few inches can make. For home theater users optimizing seating arrangements, music producers setting up mixing positions, or audiophiles who've always wondered if their sofa is in the right spot, the Sweet Spot Finder delivers a definitive answer backed by data. Professional-Grade Technology in Every iPhone Under the hood, SonarRoom performs the same acoustic analysis used in professional measurement tools -- just reimagined for mobile. The DSP pipeline is backed by 55 automated tests using synthetic audio with known acoustic problems injected -- all 55 pass. Built for Every Type of Listener For general consumers and music lovers: SonarRoom's 0"100 acoustic quality score makes results immediately understandable. You don't need to read a frequency response chart to know your room scored a 58 in bass evenness and a 34 in stereo balance. Plain-language problem explanations and prioritized recommendations make SonarRoom accessible to anyone who cares about how their music sounds. For home theater enthusiasts: Surround sound systems -- including 5.1, 7.1, and Dolby Atmos configurations -- are fully supported. SonarRoom maps the acoustic performance of every speaker channel spatially, revealing which seats get the best cinematic experience and which are acoustically compromised. For home studio producers and audio engineers: SonarRoom provides the detailed analytical data needed to make mixing decisions: frequency response charts, spectral decay (waterfall) plots, per-band RT60, early reflection timing, C50/C80 clarity indices, and spatially-mapped standing wave analysis. For producers who mix on speakers in untreated rooms -- the majority of home studio operators -- SonarRoom is the first affordable tool that shows exactly how the room is coloring the mix. For audiophiles: Speaker placement optimization, sweet spot identification, and room treatment planning are all directly supported. SonarRoom quantifies the acoustic difference between speaker positions, helping audiophiles make data-driven decisions about setup rather than relying on guesswork. Availability SonarRoom is available now on the Apple App Store for iPhone running iOS 17.0 or later. The app supports all iPhone models from iPhone XS through iPhone 17 Pro Max, with enhanced performance on LiDAR-equipped Pro models. SonarRoom was built to solve a problem that affects every audio setup in every home, studio, and listening room: the room itself. By combining augmented reality spatial tracking with professional-grade acoustic signal processing in a single iPhone app, SonarRoom makes the invisible visible -- turning acoustic problems that have always been felt but never seen into a clear, actionable 3D map. The result is better-sounding audio for everyone, from first-time speaker buyers to seasoned audio professionals.

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles jury dealt a blow to social media giants Meta and YouTube this week when it found that the platforms were negligent for designing addictive features that harmed the mental health of a California woman. Both companies plan to appeal, but the ruling has ignited uncertainty around the tech companies' future and sparked questions about the potential fallout. The seven-week trial kicked off in February, featuring testimony from Meta and YouTube executives. Kaley G.M., a 20-year-old Chico woman, sued the platforms in 2023, alleging that using social media at a young age led to her mental health problems such as body dysmorphia and depression. She also sued TikTok and Santa Monica-based Snap and those companies settled ahead of the trial. Lawyers representing the woman argued that the platforms hook in young users with features such as infinite scrolling, autoplaying videos and beauty filters. People use social media to keep up with their friends and family, but teens can also feel inadequate, sad or anxious when they compare themselves to a curated version of other people's lives online. They're also spending a lot of time watching a seemingly endless amount of short videos. A jury determined that Meta was 70% responsible for Kaley's harms and YouTube was 30% responsible. They awarded her a total of $6 million. The ruling came shortly after a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for $375 million in damages after the state Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleged the platform's features enabled predators and pedophiles to exploit children. "These verdicts mark an unsurprising breaking point. Negative sentiment toward social media has been building for years, and now it's finally boiled over," said Mike Proulx, a director at Forrester, a market research company. How have the companies reacted to the verdict? Meta and Google, which owns YouTube, said they disagreed with the ruling and plan to appeal. "This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site," said Jose Castañeda, a Google spokesman, in a statement. Meta spokesman Andy Stone posted the company's statement on social media site X. "Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online," the statement said. Tech companies have been responding to mental health concerns, rolling out new parental controls so parents can keep track of their children's screen time and moderating harmful content. Instagram and YouTube have versions of their apps meant for young people. Some child advocacy groups and lawmakers, though, say these changes aren't enough. Will this affect Meta and YouTube's business? The ruling could affect how much money YouTube's parent company, Alphabet, and Meta earn as they spend more on legal battles. While they make billions of dollars from advertising, investors are wary about higher expenses. The companies are already spending billions of dollars on artificial intelligence and developing new hardware such as smartglasses. On Thursday, Meta's stock fell more than 7% to $549 per share. Alphabet saw its share price drop more than 2% to roughly $280. In 2025, Meta's annual revenue grew 22% from the previous year to $200.97 billion. Last year, YouTube's annual revenue surpassed more than $60 billion. Both Google and Meta have been laying off workers as they spend more on AI. The ongoing backlash hasn't stopped tech companies from growing their users. A majority of U.S. teens use YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey. More than 3.5 billion people use one of Meta's products, which include Instagram and Facebook. What about the development of new features and AI tools? Social media has continued to change over the years as companies double down on short videos and AI chatbots. Mental health concerns have only heightened as AI chatbots that respond to questions and generate content become more popular. Families have sued OpenAI, Character.AI and Google after their loved ones who used chatbots killed themselves. Some analysts remain skeptical that Meta and YouTube would make drastic changes to their products because they've weathered crises before. "Neither Meta nor YouTube is going to do anything different until a court orders them to, or there's a significant drop in user or advertiser use," said Max Willens, Principal Analyst at eMarketer. Other analysts said legal risks could also affect how tech companies develop new AI-powered products and features. "It's likely that tech firms will now face increased scrutiny over the design of their platforms, which should drive more thoughtful inclusion of features that foster healthier interactions and safeguard mental health," said Andrew Frank, an analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders. At the very least, the verdicts serve as a "dire warning about how we handle the next wave of technology," Proulx said. "If we're still struggling to put effective guardrails around social media after nearly two decades, we're far from prepared for the growing harms of AI, which is moving faster, scaling wider, and embedding itself far deeper into people's lives," he said. -- -- -- (Times staff writer Sonja Sharp contributed to this report.) -- -- --

Nuclear power is inseparable from Donald Trump. If you support atomic energy, you are also supporting the financial fortunes of the Trump family. Trump is a major investor in the nuclear industry. He has invested heavily in the development of fusion power and stands to massively profit from its proliferation. He also controls the obliteration of the regulatory apparatus designed to guarantee its safety in the United States. Trump's war in Iran has vastly escalated the potential threat of potentially apocalyptic drone strikes on atomic reactors, now a factor in Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. Team Trump has made a very public and effective show of tangibly attacking nuclear power's primary replacements, wind turbines and solar panels, along with geothermal and battery backup. He has also heavily assaulted electric vehicles, which threaten the business of his fossil fuel backers. But neither he nor the major media have talked much about Trump's direct financial interests in killing them off. Or about his destruction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies directly and indirectly promoting atomic power, from which he profits, while at the same time obliterating any reasonable assurance of public safety from the inevitable upcoming reactor disasters. The Trump family's money-losing Truth Social company has recently become part-owner of a major fusion nuclear power endeavor. Among much more, the investments mean the Trump family stands to profit directly from White House attacks on wind, solar and other inexpensive, clean renewable energies, which for decades have been driving fusion, fission and fossil fuels toward economic oblivion. "A Trump-sponsored business is once again betting on an industry that the president has championed, further entwining his personal fortunes in sectors that his administration is both supporting and overseeing," reported an article on the front page of the business section of the New York Times last month. "This one is in the nuclear power sector. TAE Technologies, which is developing fusion energy, said "that it planned to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group. President Trump is the largest shareholder of the money-losing social media and crypto investment firm that bears his name, and he will remain a major investor in the combined company." The headline of the piece: "Trump's Push Into Nuclear Is Raising Questions." Primary issues have to do with economic conflicts of interest and public safety. "The deal," the article continued, "would put Mr. Trump in competition with other energy companies over which his administration holds financial and regulatory sway. Already, the president has sought to gut safety oversight of nuclear power plants and lower thresholds for human radiation exposure." CNN ran an article headlined: "A $6 billion nuclear deal has Trump's name all over it. It's raising serious ethics questions." CNN reported : "Nuclear fusion companies are regulated by the federal government and will likely need Uncle Sam's deep research and even deeper pockets to become commercially viable. The merger needs to be approved by federal regulators -- some of whom were nominated by Trump." CNN quoted Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, as saying: "There is a clear conflict of interest here. Every other president since the Civil War has divested from business interests that would conflict with official duties. President Trump has done the opposite." Painter is now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.

JERUSALEM - The Israeli military said it had struck an Iranian research facility for naval weapons, while a series of loud explosions rattled Tehran as night fell on March 28. The fresh attacks on the capital came after Yemen's Houthi rebels announced their entry into the Middle East war by launching a missile towards Israel. The intervention of Iran's Yemeni allies is sure to spark concern about disruptions to Red Sea shipping, which would only compound the widening economic fallout from the effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz off Iran. Israel's military said on March 28 that it hit the headquarters of Iran's Marine Industries Organisation during a wave of overnight attacks across Tehran, saying the facility developed "a wide range of naval weaponry, including surface and sub-surface vessels, (and) manned and unmanned equipment". An AFP journalist in Tehran reported intense explosions and a plume of black smoke overnight. An Israeli military spokesman said on March 28 that attacks on Iran's military industry had intensified, and "within a few days, we will complete attacks on all critical components". On the evening of March 28, another wave of blasts rang out in the capital for several minutes, though it was not clear what was targeted. "I miss a peaceful night's sleep," an artist in Tehran told AFP, adding that the previous night's strikes were "so intense it felt like all of Tehran was shaking". "We are powerless to change a government that kills, and we don't want this war either. We just want a normal, simple life." The conflict began when the United States and Israel launched airstrikes across Iran that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, engulfing the region in conflict, sending oil and gas prices soaring and prompting diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting. Pakistan, which has been a go-between between US and Iranian officials, will host foreign ministers from regional powers Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt in Islamabad on March 30 for talks on the crisis. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has thanked Islamabad "for its mediation efforts to stop the aggression", and Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul had said on March 27 he expected a direct US-Iran meeting in Pakistan "very soon". US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said on March 27 he believed Iran would hold talks with Washington within a week. "It could solve it all," he said. With no end to the conflict in sight despite Mr Trump's optimism that US forces have obliterated Iran's military, a spokesman for the Houthis released a video declaring that the group had fired ballistic missiles towards Israeli bases. The Israeli military had said earlier it had "identified the launch of a missile from Yemen", which was reportedly intercepted. During Israel's recent war in Gaza the Houthis, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians, attacked shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, forcing shipping companies to take costly detours. Until March 28, they had sat out the latest conflict, even as the Red Sea shipping lane grew more vital. Saudi Arabia has rerouted much of its oil exports via the Red Sea port of Yanbu to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran says it has closed to shipping from hostile powers. With Hormuz all but impassable, many shipments to and from the Gulf have gone through the Omani port of Salalah, on the Arabian Sea, but Danish shipping giant Maersk said operations had been temporarily suspended there after a drone attack injured one worker and damaged a crane. Iran's military said on March 28 that it had targeted a US logistics vessel near Salalah. Oman said a drone attack on the port wounded a foreign worker. Air travel has also been disrupted. On March 28, authorities in Kuwait and in the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan said airport facilities had been damaged in strikes. Fire also broke out after Iranian missiles and drones hit the Khalifa Economic Zone Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, injuring six people. The firm Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) reported significant damage from the attack. In Iran, production was shut down at a major steel plant in the south-west after US-Israeli strikes, according to a statement from the Khuzestan Steel Company, cited by the Shargh newspaper. Iran's Revolutionary Guards have warned they will retaliate for economic damage by striking industrial sites across the region, after earlier warnings for US military bases and hotels hosting American troops. The Guards also said they had found and dismantled more than 120 unexploded cluster bombs, alleging they were dropped during US and Israeli attacks several days ago on the southern province of Fars. Mr Pezeshkian sent a message to other countries in the region, warning: "If you want development and security, don't let our enemies run the war from your lands." Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky left his own war-torn homeland for a visit to the Gulf to discuss using his country's experience in anti-drone technology to better defend the region from Iranian strikes. "We are talking about a 10-year cooperation. We have already signed a relevant agreement with Saudi Arabia, we have just signed a similar agreement with Qatar, also for 10 years, we will sign one with the Emirates," Mr Zelensky told reporters. Qatar announced a fresh missile interception on March 28, its first in a little over a week. AFP

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles jury dealt a blow to social media giants Meta and YouTube this week when it found that the platforms were negligent for designing addictive features that harmed the mental health of a California woman. Both companies plan to appeal, but the ruling has ignited uncertainty around the tech companies' future and sparked questions about the potential fallout. The seven-week trial kicked off in February, featuring testimony from Meta and YouTube executives. Kaley G.M., a 20-year-old Chico woman, sued the platforms in 2023, alleging that using social media at a young age led to her mental health problems such as body dysmorphia and depression. She also sued TikTok and Santa Monica-based Snap and those companies settled ahead of the trial. Lawyers representing the woman argued that the platforms hook in young users with features such as infinite scrolling, autoplaying videos and beauty filters. People use social media to keep up with their friends and family, but teens can also feel inadequate, sad or anxious when they compare themselves to a curated version of other people's lives online. They're also spending a lot of time watching a seemingly endless amount of short videos. A jury determined that Meta was 70% responsible for Kaley's harms and YouTube was 30% responsible. They awarded her a total of $6 million. The ruling came shortly after a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for $375 million in damages after the state Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleged the platform's features enabled predators and pedophiles to exploit children. "These verdicts mark an unsurprising breaking point. Negative sentiment toward social media has been building for years, and now it's finally boiled over," said Mike Proulx, a director at Forrester, a market research company. How have the companies reacted to the verdict? Meta and Google, which owns YouTube, said they disagreed with the ruling and plan to appeal. "This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site," said Jose Castañeda, a Google spokesman, in a statement. Meta spokesman Andy Stone posted the company's statement on social media site X. "Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online," the statement said. Tech companies have been responding to mental health concerns, rolling out new parental controls so parents can keep track of their children's screen time and moderating harmful content. Instagram and YouTube have versions of their apps meant for young people. Some child advocacy groups and lawmakers, though, say these changes aren't enough. Will this affect Meta and YouTube's business? The ruling could affect how much money YouTube's parent company, Alphabet, and Meta earn as they spend more on legal battles. While they make billions of dollars from advertising, investors are wary about higher expenses. The companies are already spending billions of dollars on artificial intelligence and developing new hardware such as smartglasses. On Thursday, Meta's stock fell more than 7% to $549 per share. Alphabet saw its share price drop more than 2% to roughly $280. In 2025, Meta's annual revenue grew 22% from the previous year to $200.97 billion. Last year, YouTube's annual revenue surpassed more than $60 billion. Both Google and Meta have been laying off workers as they spend more on AI. The ongoing backlash hasn't stopped tech companies from growing their users. A majority of U.S. teens use YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey. More than 3.5 billion people use one of Meta's products, which include Instagram and Facebook. What about the development of new features and AI tools? Social media has continued to change over the years as companies double down on short videos and AI chatbots. Mental health concerns have only heightened as AI chatbots that respond to questions and generate content become more popular. Families have sued OpenAI, Character.AI and Google after their loved ones who used chatbots killed themselves. Some analysts remain skeptical that Meta and YouTube would make drastic changes to their products because they've weathered crises before. "Neither Meta nor YouTube is going to do anything different until a court orders them to, or there's a significant drop in user or advertiser use," said Max Willens, Principal Analyst at eMarketer. Other analysts said legal risks could also affect how tech companies develop new AI-powered products and features. "It's likely that tech firms will now face increased scrutiny over the design of their platforms, which should drive more thoughtful inclusion of features that foster healthier interactions and safeguard mental health," said Andrew Frank, an analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders. At the very least, the verdicts serve as a "dire warning about how we handle the next wave of technology," Proulx said. "If we're still struggling to put effective guardrails around social media after nearly two decades, we're far from prepared for the growing harms of AI, which is moving faster, scaling wider, and embedding itself far deeper into people's lives," he said. -- -- -- (Times staff writer Sonja Sharp contributed to this report.) -- -- --

GERMANY: The Industrial Refrigeration Network Conference (IRN) returns to the Schaufler Academy in Rottenburg-Ergenzingen this June. The IRN conference was launched by a group of European HVAC&R component and system suppliers in 2024. This third event will again be hosted by compressor manufacturer Bitzer. Under the headline Driving Natural Innovation this year's conference will focus on solutions based on natural refrigerants for industrial refrigeration technology. Manufacturers, installers and contractors, planners, end users, and scientific representatives and representatives of industry associations such as Eurammon and IIAR will be represented. The visit and keynote speech by the vice president and president of the IIAR are among the programme highlights this year. It will also include technical presentations by various operators in the industrial refrigeration and heat pump sector. Conducted in English, the event will take place from 10 to 11 June. The cost is €395 per participant. Full details and event registration, which is open until 30 April 2026, can be found here.

New Jersey has been the home of many innovations over the years, but is it among the most innovative states in America? How could New Jersey not be among the most innovative states? The light bulb, the steam locomotive, the transistor, color television, air conditioning, bubble wrap, Play-Doh, and condensed soup were all invented in the Garden State. We are also on the front lines of technology and medicine, so how high are we on the list of innovative states? The rankings were done by WalletHub, and several criteria were used to determine each state's innovative ranking. The study included "human capital", share of science & engineering graduates, etc., and the innovation environment of each state to determine the rankings. Read More: New Jersey Tops The List Of America's Smartest States And there is some good news for New Jersey. We snuck in to the top 10 in this category, but just barely. We rank 10th, and our strongest category is "Human Capital", which we rank 8th best in the nation. With New Jersey ranked as the 10th most innovative state in America, that leads us to the states that occupy the top of the list. The most innovative state in the country is Washington, D.C., followed by Massachusetts, Colorado, California, and Washington state. I still think New Jersey should have been higher on the list. After all, we are the home of America's first college football game and drive-in movie theater.