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• China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to approve a new “ethnic unity” law during its annual legislative session.
• The law aims to strengthen a shared national identity among China’s ethnic groups under the concept of a unified Chinese nation.
• It prioritizes Mandarin Chinese in education and public life, reducing the role of minority languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur, and Mongolian.
• Authorities frame the law as promoting “ethnic unity and progress” and national cohesion.
• Critics (including rights groups) say it institutionalizes assimilation policies and increases political control over minority groups.
• The law is tied to Xi Jinping’s “Sinicisation” policy, which encourages minorities to integrate into Han Chinese culture.
• Some analysts say it formalizes policies already implemented in regions like Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia.
• Provisions also encourage integration measures in areas such as education, migration, housing, and interethnic relations.
• The NPC session will also approve other major items including:
  • A new environmental code to unify environmental laws.
  • China’s 2026–2030 five-year economic plan and annual budget.
  • The parliament is widely seen as a rubber-stamp body that almost never rejects proposals put forward by the Communist Party leadership.

As dementia cases continue to rise in the United States, new research from the University of Michigan School of Public Health reveals that older Americans with cumulative lead exposure face a substantially higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

"This is the first empirical study to demonstrate that 18% of new dementia cases in the United States each year may be linked to cumulative lead exposure," said Kelly Bakulski, associate professor of Epidemiology at Michigan Public Health and one of the study's senior authors. "With approximately half a million Americans diagnosed with dementia annually, this translates to nearly 90,000 cases that could potentially be prevented—a truly significant figure."

The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, found that individuals with the highest quarter of bone lead levels had nearly three times (2.96) the risk of Alzheimer's disease and more than twice (2.15) the risk of all-cause dementia compared to those in the lowest quarter.

The findings highlight cumulative lead exposure as an important, and often overlooked, environmental risk factor for dementia.

... https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.71075

Scientists have long known that people living at high altitudes, where oxygen levels are low, have lower rates of diabetes than people living closer to sea level. But the mechanism of this protection has remained a mystery. Now, researchers at Gladstone Institutes have explained the roots of the phenomenon, discovering that red blood cells act as glucose sponges in low-oxygen conditions like those found on the world's highest mountaintops.

In a study in the journal Cell Metabolism, the team has shown how red blood cells can shift their metabolism to soak up sugar from the bloodstream. At high altitude, this adaptation fuels the cells' ability to more efficiently deliver oxygen to tissues throughout the body, but it also has the beneficial side effect of lowering blood sugar levels.

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https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(26)00018-5

Astronomers may have witnessed the birth of a brand-new black hole in our neighboring galaxy, offering one of the clearest glimpses yet of how some stars quietly collapse into these cosmic abysses without the usual fireworks of an explosion.

While scouring archival data from NASA's NEOWISE mission, a team led by Columbia University astronomer Kishalay De discovered that one of the brightest stars in the Andromeda Galaxy mysteriously brightened over a decade ago, faded dramatically and then vanished from view. The star, labeled M31-2014-DS1, lay about 2.5 million light-years from Earth and weighed just 13 times the mass of our sun — relatively lightweight by typical black hole-forming standards, according to De and colleagues' research.

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Ocean warming is increasing the frequency, extent, and severity of tropical-coral bleaching and mortality. During 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused the Third Global Coral Bleaching Event. We analyze data from 15,066 reef surveys globally during 2014–2017. Across all surveyed reefs, 80% and 35% experienced moderate or greater (affecting >10% of corals) bleaching and mortality, respectively.

We assess the global extent of coral bleaching and mortality by applying bleaching response curves calibrated from surveyed reefs to predict bleaching globally, based on comprehensive remote-sensing of heat stress. These models predict that 51% and 15% of the world’s coral reefs suffered moderate or greater bleaching and mortality, respectively, during one or multiple years, surpassing damage from any prior global coral bleaching event. Our findings demonstrate that the impacts of ocean warming on coral reefs are accelerating, with the near certainty that ongoing warming will cause large-scale, possibly irreversible, degradation of these essential ecosystems. With heat stress levels during this event surpassing those observed previously, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration developed more extreme Bleaching Alert levels that are now being used during the ongoing Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event.

China removed a three-decade-old tax exemption on contraceptive drugs and devices from January 1 in new steps to spur a flagging birth rate.

Condoms and contraceptive pills now incur value-added tax of 13%, the standard rate for most consumer goods.

China exempted childcare subsidies from personal income tax and rolled out an annual childcare subsidy last year, following a series of "fertility-friendly" measures in 2024, such as urging colleges and universities to provide "love education" to portray marriage, love, fertility and family in a positive light.

Top leaders again pledged last month at the annual Central Economic Work Conference to promote "positive marriage and childbearing attitudes" to stabilise birth rates.

China's birth rates have been falling for decades as a result of the one-child policy China implemented from 1980 to 2015, and rapid urbanisation.

The high cost of childcare and education as well as job uncertainty and a slowing economy have also discouraged many young Chinese from getting married and starting a family.

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South Korean e-commerce company Coupang (CPNG.N), opens new tab announced on Monday a compensation deal worth 1.69 trillion won ($1.18 billion) to holders of 33.7 million accounts for a massive data leak that triggered a backlash from users and lawmakers.

Coupang said customers will get company vouchers of 50,000 won (35 usd) each.

Last year, Meta had to reckon with an ugly conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers: They were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users worldwide.

Though China’s authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta’s advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company’s global revenue.

But Meta calculated that about 19% of that money – more than $3 billion – was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters.

The Trump administration has removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from next year's calendar of entrance fee-free days for national parks and added President Trump's birthday to the list, according to the National Park Service, as the administration continues to push back against a reckoning of the country's racist history on federal lands.

In addition to Trump's birthday — which coincides with Flag Day (June 14) — the updated calendar of fee-free dates includes the 110th anniversary of the NPS (August 25), Constitution Day (September 17) and President Teddy Roosevelt's birthday (October 27). The changes will take effect starting January 1.

Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia withdrew from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest on Thursday after organizers declined to hold a vote on Israel's participation, marking the largest boycott in the competition's 70-year history.

The European Broadcasting Union's General Assembly in Geneva voted 738 to 264, with 120 abstentions, to adopt new voting regulations without holding a separate ballot on whether Israel should be barred from next year's contest. The decision prompted immediate withdrawals from four countries that had threatened to boycott if Israel remained in the competition.