Traditionally, statistics show that most users will trust what they see at the top of a search page. They don't generally question it. That sort of placement alone can give a company a significant advantage, as it can greatly influence and help shape user behavior on a large scale.
Marielle Franco, 38, was a city councillor in the city of Rio de Janeiro, just one year into her term. She was considered an up-and-coming member of the left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party. A Black woman from the favelas—Brazil's densely populated, low-income neighbourhoods—Franco was best known for campaigning for the rights of LGBTQ people, racial minorities and women.
Neither the move from the far right nor hard left are expected to garner enough votes to be a serious threat, but they show Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu still faces strong opposition from within the parliament that toppled his two predecessors. France has been mired in political crisis since Macron in 2024 called snap polls which he hoped would consolidate his majority but instead ended up in a deeply divided lower house.
The European Parliament has taken a rare and telling step: it has disabled built-in artificial intelligence features on work devices used by lawmakers and staff, citing unresolved concerns about data security, privacy, and the opaque nature of cloud-based AI processing. The decision, communicated to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in an internal memo this week, reflects a deepening unease at the heart of European institutions about how AI systems handle sensitive data.
After months of mounting pressure on independent media, academic institutions and NGOs, Serbia's ruling majority has turned its attention to the judiciary. In an expedited procedure, without public debate or consultations and bypassing established legislative standards, the Serbian parliament last week adopted a package of amendments to core judicial laws that critics say threatens the independence of the country's judiciary.
The far right's success in last month's regional elections in Extremadura, Spain, was inevitable. After a series of corruption and sexual harassment allegations surrounding Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's socialist government since the summer, everyone in Spain knew he would never pull off a victory. Although the southwestern region has historically been a stronghold of Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), it has been in the hands of the conservative People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party since 2023.
Heavy rains and strong winds continued to batter parts of Spain and Portugal on Friday, causing at least one death, forcing the evacuation of more than 7,000 people and prompting calls to postpone the second-round of Portugal's presidential election. Storm Leonardo, which has lashed the Iberian peninsula this week, has led the Portuguese government to extend the current state of calamity in 69 municipalities until the middle of February.
Taoiseach rejects suggestion that current legislation is not strong enough to deal with issue Women's Aid removes itself from X, calling the crisis a 'tipping point' Human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher said such sexualised abuse of children online has 'devastating' impacts Ministers are scrambling to find a way to combat an explosion of digitally created images of semi-nude women and children on the social media platform X.