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US Funding Cuts Are Helping Criminals Get Away With Child Abuse and Human Trafficking Services supporting victims of online child exploitation and trafficking around the world have faced USAID and State Department cuts—and children are suffering as a result, sources tell WIRED.

Trump and Elon’s funding freeze isn’t just hurting efforts to feed hungry kids and cure deadly diseases.

It’s also devastating programs that fight child sexual abuse and exploitation — literally helping criminals get away with these crimes. www.wired.com/story/doge-u...

How much of our federal budget do you think goes to USAID? 10%? 25%? 40%?

Don’t let Trump and Elon lie to you — it’s 0.71%.

Foreign aid is a tiny portion of our spending that does good in the world, saves lives, and advances American interests. It must be protected.

How to protect democracies from falsehoods? By empowering the young with open-source investigation skills “If anyone with a smartphone can publish, they should also be able to verify,” argue Bellingcat’s founder Eliot Higgins and Dr Natalie Martin in this piece.

"If anyone with a smartphone can publish, they should also be able to verify. To combat any security threat posed by disordered information we need to teach young people these skills"

By @bellingcat.com @eliothiggins.bsky.social and @drnataliemartin.bsky.social
https://reutersinstitute.politics.o…

Vienna Embraces Heat Pumps to Ditch Russian Gas The Austrian capital has a $21 billion plan to end its dependence on imported natural gas with heat pumps, boreholes and energy efficiency.

Until last year, Vienna depended on Russian gas to stay warm in winter.

Having cut itself off, the city is now investing billions into heat pumps, energy efficiency and geothermal energy