Hong Kong might be gearing up to change its sports gambling restrictions, as officials have endorsed a bill that could put basketball betting on the table. The Legislative Council of Hong Kong, or LegCo, gave the thumbs up as it wrestles with illegal gambling.This move would put the Jockey Club as Hong Kongs basketball sportsbook operator. Those who gamble through it will have a 50 percent duty charged on net stake receipts. Hong Kongs football betting follows a similar structure.Illegal gambling has risen in the wider Asia territory, with not only Hong Kong afflicted by it. As countries in the region typically have strict anti-gambling laws, more gamblers are turning to the ever-increasing ease of offshore operators. Some of these, like PH Love, have faked being accredited by other countries watchdogs.Meanwhile, Japan and Korea, have seen a rise in high-profile gambling controversies or citizens going overboard. As the culture is quite strict, it has resulted in celebrities careers being affected once caught. A lot of cases involve offshore gambling to get around restrictions.Illegal basketball gambling brings in HK$70 billion a yearBack in April, Hong Kongs illegal gambling problem had racked up over HK$70 billion ($9.3 billion), with some putting estimates as high as HK$90 billion ($11.6 billion) on basketball alone last year.At the time, the CEO of the Jockey Club, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, said:The proposal is with them, and we have to see how they want to progress it. It will be interesting.Now, they lead, and we can only follow because its a policy decision. They asked us to give them a proposal, and we did.It is good that it has been recognised that there is obviously a significant illegal gambling problem.Hong Kong councillors weigh in on the voteNow, the council might actually let the vote through. So far, 77 different legislators have supported the bill, while two voted against and two abstained.Speaking to RTHK, a Hong Kong-based outlet, Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak said:And for public education on how to publicise the bad influence and effects of illegal betting and irresponsible gambling, we will launch a series of new measures, including public education and publicity measures focused on teenagers.An education sector representative, Chu Kwok-Keung, voted against the bill. He said:Over the past 20 years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of gamblers after football betting was legalised, with signs of such activities skewing towards the younger generations.Allowing basketball betting would simply offer another option of gambling.Featured image: Wikicommons, PexelsThe post Hong Kong basketball gambling gains support from 77 councillors appeared first on ReadWrite.

Note for readers: This newsletter discusses gun violence, a raw and tragic issue in America. It was already in progress on Wednesday when a school shooting occurred at Evergreen High School in Colorado and Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University.Earlier this week, the Trump administrations Make America Healthy Again movement released a strategy for improving the health and well-being of American children. The report was titledyou guessed itMake Our Children Healthy Again.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads the Department of Health and Human Services, and his colleagues are focusing on four key aspects of child health: diet, exercise, chemical exposure, and overmedicalization.Anyone whos been listening to RFK Jr. posturing on health and wellness wont be surprised by these priorities. And the first two are pretty obvious. On the whole, American children should be eating more healthily. And they should be getting more exercise.But theres a glaring omission. The leading cause of death for American children and teenagers isnt ultraprocessed food or exposure to some chemical. Its gun violence.Yesterdays news of yet more high-profile shootings at schools in the US throws this disconnect into even sharper relief. Experts believe it is time to treat gun violence in the US as what it is: a public health crisis.I live in London, UK, with my husband and two young children. We dont live in a particularly fancy part of the cityin one recent ranking of London boroughs from most to least posh, ours came in at 30th out of 33. I do worry about crime. But I dont worry about gun violence.That changed when I temporarily moved my family to the US a couple of years ago. We rented the ground-floor apartment of a lovely home in Cambridge, Massachusettsa beautiful area with good schools, pastel-colored houses, and fluffy rabbits hopping about. It wasnt until after wed moved in that my landlord told me he had guns in the basement.My daughter joined the kindergarten of a local school that specialized in music, and we took her younger sister along to watch the kids sing songs about friendship. It was all so heartwarminguntil we noticed the school security officer at the entrance carrying a gun.Later in the year, I received an email alert from the superintendent of the Cambridge Public Schools. At approximately 1:45 this afternoon, a Cambridge Police Department Youth Officer assigned to Cambridge Rindge and Latin School accidentally discharged their firearm while using a staff bathroom inside the school, the message began. The school day was not disrupted.These experiences, among others, truly brought home to me the cultural differences over firearms between the US and the UK (along with most other countries). For the first time, I worried about my childrens exposure to them. I banned my children from accessing parts of the house. I felt guilty that my four-year-old had to learn what to do if a gunman entered her school.But its the statistics that are the most upsetting.In 2023, 46,728 people died from gun violence in the US, according to a report published in June by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That includes both homicides and suicides, and it breaks down to 128 deaths per day, on average. The majority of those who die from gun violence are adults. But the figures for children are sickening, too. In 2023, 2,566 young people died from gun violence. Of those, 234 were under the age of 10.Gun death rates among children have more than doubled since 2013. Firearms are involved in more child deaths than cancer or car crashes.Many other children survive gun violence with nonfatalbut often life-changinginjuries. And the impacts are felt beyond those who are physically injured. Witnessing gun violence or hearing gunshots can understandably cause fear, sadness, and distress.Thats worth bearing in mind when you consider that there have been 434 school shootings in the US since Columbine in 1999. The Washington Post estimates that 397,000 students have experienced gun violence at school in that period. Another school shooting took place at Evergreen High School in Colorado on Wednesday, adding to that total.Being indirectly exposed to gun violence takes its toll on our mental health and childrens ability to learn, says Daniel Webster, Bloomberg Professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions in Baltimore.The MAHA report states that American youth face a mental health crisis, going on to note that suicide deaths among 10- to 24-year-olds increased by 62% from 2007 to 2021 and that suicide is now the leading cause of death in teens aged 15-19. What it doesnt say is that around half of these suicides involve guns.When you add all these dimensions, [gun violence is] a very huge public health problem, says Webster.Researchers who study gun violence have been saying the same thing for years. And in 2024, then US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared it a public health crisis. We dont have to subject our children to the ongoing horror of firearm violence in America, Murthy said in a statement at the time. Instead, he argued, we should tackle the problem using a public health approach.Part of that approach involves identifying who is at the greatest risk and offering support to lower that risk, says Webster. Young men who live in poor communities tend to have the highest risk of gun violence, he says, as do those who experience crisis or turmoil. Trying to mediate conflicts or limit access to firearms, even temporarily, can help lower the incidence of gun violence, he says.Theres an element of social contagion, too, adds Webster. Shooting begets more shooting. He likens it to the outbreak of an infectious disease. When more people get vaccinated infection rates go down, he says. Almost exactly the same thing happens with gun violence.But existing efforts are already under threat. The Trump administration has eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for organizations working to reduce gun violence.Webster thinks the MAHA report has missed the mark when it comes to the health and well-being of children in the US. This document is almost the polar opposite to how many people in public health think, he says. We have to acknowledge that injuries and deaths from firearms are a big threat to the health and safety of children and adolescents.This article first appeared in The Checkup,MIT Technology Reviewsweekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first,sign up here.

Apple today debuted the all-new iPhone Air, the thinnest iPhone ever made, with pro performance.

After years of not wanting to be included on Apple News, UK tabloid Daily Mail now wants in, and Apple isn't allowing it.Apple NewsThe Daily Mail is one of the largest news publications in the United Kingdom, but it's not accessible via Apple News. The publisher has now complained to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) about Apple's seemingly dragging its feet in allowing its feed to be accessible to Apple News users.The Daily Mail has been accessible via the Apple News app in the United States since 2015. Indeed, AppleInsider confirmed it is still available in the U.S. edition of Apple News. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

The winners of the 13th Architizer A+Awards have been announced! Looking ahead to next season? Stay up to date by subscribing to our A+Awards Newsletter.This years A+Awards focused on locality at a global scale, exploring thoughtful and contextually accurate architectural designs. From local rituals to the smallest daily actions, many architects are starting to immerse themselves into the lives of the communities they design to gain a better understanding of their needs, routines and culture. The following six projects are examples of how local habits and routines can inform contemporary designs.Weishan Chongzheng Academy Bookstore of Librairie Avant-GardeBy Trace Architecture Office, Dali, ChinaJury Winner, Commercial Renovations and Additions, 13th Architizer A+Awards Positioning ritual within the urban scale, this project brings life back to a 500-year-old Ming dynasty academy by anchoring it in collective memory and the contemporary routines of reading, gathering, strolling and reflection. For many local residents, Chongzheng Academy is woven into their personal histories, acting as a playground, a performance space and a quiet refuge. In response, the design honors and rejuvenates the sites impact on everyday life by creating a sunken plaza that acts as a social anchor as well as a series of courtyards, squares, and covered walkways, recreating the ritual patterns of ancient towns.LIBRAIRIE AVANT-GARDEBy Cloud Ocean Design Co, Huizhou, ChinaSpecial Mention, Commercial Adaptive Reuse Projects, 13th Architizer A+Awards The building that now houses LIBRAIRIE AVANT-GARDE was originally Qitai Hall, a Wang family ancestral shrine built during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, over 230 years ago. The project is inspired by the Huizhou culture, where ancestor worship is a cornerstone of communal life and every village contains a series of shrines for gathering, storytelling and moral instruction.Consequently, LIBRAIRIE AVANT-GARDE reappropriates the space and transforms it into a bookstore, weaving old rituals into a new cultural function. The design juxtaposes ancient materiality with contemporary elements, creating an architectural language that deeply resonates with the villagers everyday lives.The Wizard of OzBy LYCS Architecture, Shaoxing, ChinaFinalist, Kindergardens, 13th Architizer A+Awards The project is a kindergarten fully embedded in the daily cycles of its surrounding community. It is located in a highly dense residential area, thus seeking to provide quality experiences for children within increasingly vertical urban spaces. The building is comprised of six cabins, operating in child-scale in an attempt to mirror the intimate setting of traditional neighborhoods. The complex circulation routes and small-scale spaces are inspired from the Wizard of Oz theme, using it as a narrative to construct a self-navigating landscape. Drawing from the daily routines of urban families as well as the cultural values around collective life, these architectural gestures turns a typical school day into a routine of discovery.The Stone PavilionsBy DODESIGN, Chongqing, ChinaFinalist, Architecture + Art; Finalist, Pavilions, 13th Architizer A+Awards The project was inspired by the Chinese mountain culture, where especially in regions like Chongqing flat, granite boulders become the foundations of ancient altars and rest stops for travelers. This everyday ritual of honoring nature serves as the philosophical and spatial genesis of the project. Specifically, the Hut pavilion housing a restroom, treats even the most utilitarian functions as sacred. In the local villages, the act of washing in sink basins is performed in sync with nature. As a result, the architects honor this routine by designing a suspended roof and a skylight in an attempt to turn this everyday act into a moment of quiet ritual.The CircleBy Basistudio, Wuhan, ChinaSpecial Mention, Commercial Renovations and Additions, 13th Architizer A+Awards Situated in Min Zhong Le Yuan, a century-old building in Wuhans historic district, the Circle Gallery acts as a living room for the city. Instead of reinstating it to the way it was a common restoration practice in China the design features a steel atrium that connects the old and new levels of the structure, allowing people to ascend and experience the city from above. Drawing from the traditional Chinese urban life, where rooftops and upper stories often serve as hidden escapes (places to dry herbs, sip tea or observe the city), the Circle Gallery recreates those conditions for the contemporary world by hosting exhibitions, conversations and casual gatherings, embedded in the routines of modern, civic life.link-ed(u)_Futian High School CampusBy reMIX studio, Shenzhen, ChinaFinalist, 2025 A+Awards, Institutional Primary and High Schools The project challenges the traditional Chinese inward-looking school model, aiming to embed itself into the immediate neighborhood. Specifically, the proposal includes 13,600 m of sports and cultural facilities that are available to the community, functioning as a civic hub. Additionally, the design echoes the surrounding context, taking the form of a high-rise structure that acts as a city within a city and where the plan operates as a circulation loop that encourages informal interactions by connecting a series of layered social spaces. Unlike conventional campuses that are private and closed off, the specific school opens outwards, connecting visually as well as physically the students with the rest of the community, thus reflecting a proposal that is rooted in the local urban fabric.The winners of the 13th Architizer A+Awards have been announced! Looking ahead to next season? Stay up to date by subscribing to our A+Awards Newsletter.The post From Tea to Textbooks: Daily Life as Design in Contemporary China appeared first on Journal.

Techland has revealed the global release times for Dying Light: The Beast and confirmed that the survival horror/parkour title will launch one day earlier, i.e. on September 18th, 9 AM PDT. It also announced over one million pre-orders.In a recent press release, franchise director Tymon Smektala said, Seeing the excitement from our community for the return of Kyle Crane in Dying Light: The Beast, and knowing the game is ready, we wanted to do something special for our players. We pushed ourselves to make the impossible possible, and thats why were releasing the game a little earlier. I cant wait to see players reactions when they finally step into the world of The Beast.Dying Light: The Beast will be available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC at launch for $59.99 (with Xbox One and PS4 versions due later this year). Those who own Dying Light 2 Stay Humans Ultimate Edition can receive it at no additional cost.Taking place years after Dying Light 1 and The Following, it sees Crane escaping from the clutches of the mysterious Baron, who has experimented on him all this time. He embarks on a campaign of revenge, going up against the Barons private army while still dealing with the infected. That includes the Volatiles, who are deadlier than ever. Head here to learn more about their improvements and how Techland has gone about diversifying its roster of zombies.

The Fate of the Furious marks the first instalment in the franchise since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) not to feature Paul Walker. Here is a VFX breakdown of some of the amazing effects used in this movie!The post Amazing Before & After Hollywood VFX The Fate of the Furious appeared first on Fame Focus.

Due to popular demand, we have extended this years deadline for submissions to the Canadian Architect Awards to Monday, September 15, 2025, 11:59 pm PST.For 58 years, Canadian Architect has sponsored an annual national awards program, the only national awards that recognize projects in the design stage.The Awards of Excellence are open to all architects registered in Canada, as well as to Canadian architectural graduates. The buildings entered may be designed for a site in Canada (for all eligible entrants) or a site outside of Canada (for entrants whose offices are headquartered in Canada). Foreign architects are permitted to submit if they have partnered with a Canadian-registered architect for the submitted work.Projects must be in the design stage, scheduled for construction, or under construction, but not substantially complete by September 12, 2025. All projects must be commissioned by a client with the intention to build the submitted proposal. All building types and concisely presented urban design schemes are eligible.Awards are given for architectural design excellence. Jurors will consider the schemes response to the clients program, site, geographic and/or urban context. They will evaluate its physical organization, form, composition, building systems, concept, process, structure, materials, environmental features and/or demonstration of social awareness.This years competition also includes the seventh annual Canadian Architect Photo Awards of Excellence and our Student Photo Awards of Excellence, challenging photographers to showcase their best images of a Canadian building.Our jury includes architects Alison Brooks (UK), Sonia Gagn (Montreal), and Kelly Buffey (Toronto). For the adjudication of the Photo Awards of Excellence, they will be joined by photographer Salina Kassam (Toronto).To find out more about our jurors, visit www.canadianarchitect.com/announcing-the-2025-awards-jury/For more information and to enter, visit www.canadianarchitect.com/awardsThe post Deadline Extended for the Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence! appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Ustyurt Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in Mangystau Region, southwest Kazakhstan, near the borders with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Established in 1984, it has an area of 2,230km2 (860sqmi) and lies within the Ustyurt Plateau. The reserve is intended to safeguard the desert as well as the rare flora and fauna in the area. It is home to 250 species of flora such as grey sage, feather grass, Anabasis salsa, and saltwort, as well as around 44 species of mammals such as the Ustyurt mouflon, saiga antelope, jeyran, fox and polecat. The reserve has a variety of landscapes, from steppes and depressions to pillars reaching several hundred metres in height, and features several Neolithic sites. This photograph shows an aerial view of the Karynzharyk Depression in Ustyurt Nature Reserve.Photograph credit: Maksat BisengazievRecently featured: Common ringed ploverAustin J. Tobin PlazaPlantago lanceolataArchiveMore featured pictures

September 13Model of Luna21759 French and Indian War: British forces won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City, despite General James Wolfe being mortally wounded.1814 War of 1812: Fort McHenry in Baltimore's Inner Harbor was attacked by British forces during the Battle of Baltimore, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write "Defence of Fort McHenry", later used as the lyrics to the United States national anthem.1959 The Soviet spacecraft Luna2 (model pictured) struck the Moon, the first spacecraft to reach another celestial body.1971 Following a failed coup attempt, Mao Zedong's second-in-command Lin Biao died in a plane crash while attempting to flee China.2008 Five bomb blasts took place in Delhi, India, killing at least 20 people as part of a series of attacks perpetrated by the Indian Mujahideen.Hezqeyas (d.1813)Lili Elbe (d.1931)Anutin Charnvirakul (b.1966)Ro Khanna (b.1976)More anniversaries: September 12September 13September 14ArchiveBy emailList of days of the yearAbout