BLOCK Financial News

(Reuters) — A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court order that had sharply limited certain Biden administration officials' and agencies' contacts with social media companies while it considers the administration's appeal.

Bitcoin’s next “halving,” an event that reduces the asset’s inflation rate roughly once every four years, is now only 9 months away. 

Not all online betting sites have stringent KYC policies in place. On the contrary, crypto-only platforms allow players to gamble anonymously. 

The BNB Beacon Chain, the Binance blockchain ecosystem, is expected to undergo a scheduled hard fork upgrade on 19th July at 6:00 UTC, with enhanced security features for users.

OpenAI and whether the artificial intelligence company violated consumer protection laws by scraping public data and publishing false information through its chatbot. The agency sent OpenAI a 20-page letter requesting detailed information on its AI technology, products, customers, privacy safeguards and data security arrangements.

Investing.com -- The U.K.'s competition watchdog has extended the deadline for the proposed $69 billion merger between Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), in the latest sign that the regulator's opposition to the biggest deal in the history of the video game industry may be softening.

Biden's administration will cancel $39 billion in student debt for more than 804,000 borrowers, the Education Department said on Friday, describing the relief as the result of a «fix» to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. Borrowers will be eligible for forgiveness if they have made either 20 or 25 years of monthly IDR payments, the department said.

Sandman’ season 2 has become one of the earliest casualties of the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike. After the talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) collapsed Thursday and the actor’s body voted for the strike, the shooting of the famous and popular Netflix series came to a standstill. The producers of the series earlier decided to film the season in two blocks- the first to be shot between July and October 2023.

Quordle is designed by Freddie Meyer and is available on its official website. Quordle is inspired by Wordle- Dordle games. It can easily be played on mobile browsers and PCs. Quordle does not require you to do any login formalities or sign-ups. The game is completely ad-free. If you are new to the game, a previously played dashboard is available on the website to get your hands on the game before playing it live.

Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard, hours after a federal judge rejected a similar request. The deal is facing varying responses around the world from regulators. WHAT IS THE ACTIVISION DEAL? Microsoft announced the Activision bid in January last year to boost its firepower in the booming videogaming market, take on leaders Tencent and Sony, and lay the base for its investment in metaverse and digital spaces which are made more lifelike by the use of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR).

Wordle is an internet-based game where you have to decipher a five-letter word in six attempts. Wordle was designed by engineer Josh Wardle for his partner who loved word games. Wordle was later bought by the New York Times website for an undisclosed amount. It was then that it was made accessible to the common public. Wordle is now globally famous and is played worldwide. Wordle is available to play on the New York Times website and it does not require any fishy log-ins or sign-ups. But, there are some rules to the game

drone strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown, the central city of Kryvyi Rih, the regional governor said on Friday. The attack damaged a number of buildings in Kryvyi Rih but Ukraine's air force said 16 of the 17 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones launched by Russia overnight had been shot down in southern and eastern areas of the country.

A corporate sci-fi? At this stage, it all sounds like a Hollywood sci-fi film — people from the Earth land tentatively on the Moon; rove and poke around to get the lie of the land; bring supplies from the Earth; hunt for minerals, gases and water; build houses, labs, space stations and tourism facilities; and compete to gain from the business all that activity generates. The only difference between this vision and the sci-fi movies is that it's closer than it appears. Under its Artemis mission, the US is aiming to land people on the Moon.

United Arab Emirates, host of this year’s UN climate talks, unveiled on Thursday the much-awaited plans and priorities for COP28, to be held in November in Dubai. The plan could lead to a global agreement to double energy efficiency, triple renewable energy capacity to 11,000 GW, and double hydrogen production to 180 million tonnes a year by 2030. “This plan is guided by a single north star.

A decision by Grok Ventures, the private investment vehicle operated by Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, to stop investing in listed equities has set loose a chunky block trade at Tyro Payments.

FRP aims to address the aspirations of the farmers while ensuring competitiveness of the Indian sugar industry. The FRP is the benchmark price below which no sugar factory can purchase sugarcane. Therefore, it is like Minimum Support Price but here procurement is carried out by the sugar factories, and not by the government.

Coinbase’s self-custody wallet – one of the most popular tools for personally safeguarding one’s crypto holdings – will soon function as a simultaneous encrypted messaging service, the company revealed on Wednesday. 

NEW DELHI : At a time when Iraq has emerged as a major supplier of crude oil to India, the Centre is looking at resuming operations of state-run ONGC Videsh Ltd’s (OVL) hydrocarbon exploration block in Iraq, which has been under force majeure since 2003, said two people with knowledge of the development. One of the persons said Indian energy companies may look at investing in oil and gas assets in the West Asian country. “Several aspects would be considered for resumption of operations at the stalled project and investments, including the security situation.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT has harmed people by publishing false information about them, posing a potential legal threat to the popular app that can generate eerily human-like content using artificial intelligence. In a civil subpoena to the company made public Thursday, the FTC says its investigation of ChatGPT focuses on whether OpenAI has “engaged in unfair or deceptive practices relating to risks of harm to consumers, including reputational harm." One question asks the company to “describe in detail the extent to which you have taken steps to address or mitigate risks that your large language model products could generate statements about real individuals that are false, misleading or disparaging." The new FTC investigation under Chair Lina Khan marks a significant escalation of the federal government’s role in policing the emerging technology.

House Republicans who say the Federal Trade Commission has been overzealous and politicized under President Joe Biden are interrogating agency head Lina Khan

The Federal Trade Commission says it it appealing a judge’s ruling that would have allowed Microsoft to close its deal to buy video game company Activision Blizzard