GOOGLE IS POURING an additional $3.1 million into Wikipedia, bringing its total contribution to the free encyclopedia over the past decade to more than $7.5 million, the company announced at the World Economic Forum Tuesday. A little over a third of those funds will go toward sustaining current efforts at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, and the remaining $2 million will focus on long-term viability through the organization’s endowment. Google will also begin allowing Wikipedia editors to use several of its machine learning tools for free, the tech giant said. What’s more, Wikimedia and Google will soon broaden Project Tiger, a joint initiative they launched in 2017 to increase the number of Wikipedia articles written in underrepresented languages in India, and to include 10 new languages in a handful of countries and regions. It will now be called GLOW, Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia. It’s certainly positive that Google is investing more in Wikipedia, one of the most popular and generally trustworthy online resources in the world. But the decision isn’t altruistic: Supporting Wikipedia is also a shrewd business decision that will likely benefit Google for years to come. Like other tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, Google already uses Wikipedia content in a number of its own products. When you search Google for “Paris,” a “knowledge panel” of information about the city will appear, some of which is sourced from Wikipedia. The company also has used Wikipedia articles to train machine learning algorithms, as well as fight misinformation on YouTube.

The average age of U.S. investors with $25 million or more has fallen by 11 years since 2014, to 47. Their numbers have more than doubled since the financial crisis, to about 172,000, aided by the boom in new technologies and venture-capital funding. Meanwhile, the share of wealth belonging to Americans over the age of […]

by bloomberg.com —Lebanon wasn’t spared a debt rating downgrade that pushed it deeper into junk, hours after Qatar unveiled a plan to plow $500 million into its government bonds. Moody’s Investors Service lowered the country’s credit score one step to Caa1, seven levels below investment grade and on par with countries including Gabon, Zambia and Iraq. It changed the outlook to stable from negative. Even though Lebanon’s caretaker government has disavowed any debt restructuring, recent official comments suggest “a growing urgency” that coping with one of the world’s biggest debt burdens might prompt measures resulting “in a default event under Moody’s definition,” according to a statement on Tuesday.

Eight months on from an election, Lebanon remains without a government and with billions of dollars in aid untapped as sectarian tensions simmer. The central bank has maintained stability through stimulus measures and financial engineering, made possible by the billions of dollars deposited into Lebanese banks by the nation’s diaspora. While Moody’s report highlights the need to form the government more quickly and embark on reforms, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil said that “the financial and monetary situation remains stable, the needs of the Treasury are secure, and it’s able to meet all commitments, especially on debt.” Lebanon is hopeful Qatar’s decision is a “prelude” to a show of support by other countries and institutions, he said on Twitter.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Tuesday’s Oscar nomination for the Lebanese film “Capernaum”, praised for its depiction of poverty in the slums of Beirut, is a “huge victory” for the street children who acted in it, according to director Nadine Labaki. The nomination of a Lebanese picture for the Best Foreign Language Film award for the second […]

By Rishi Iyengar, cnn.com —  WhatsApp is imposing stricter limits on how widely its users can share messages in a bid to crack down on the spread of false information. Following a six-month experiment in India, the messaging platform announced on Monday that it will restrict users globally to forwarding a message to only five chats at […]

DOHA, (Reuters) – Qatar will invest $500 million in Lebanese government U.S. dollar bonds to support Lebanon’s struggling economy, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. Lebanon has one of the world’s highest levels of public debt compared to GDP and stagnant growth. Comments from its finance minister ten days ago about the […]

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will be among the leaders attending Several notable political leaders will be missing from this year’s World Economic Forum, which kicks off Tuesday in the Swiss town of Davos. President Trump is staying put due to the ongoing government shutdown, while U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will be presenting a new […]

By Bill Gates gatesnotes.com –— When I announced that I was investing in Alzheimer’s research for the first time last fall, I thought I knew what to expect. I knew I would get to engage more deeply with the brilliant scientists and advocates working to stop Alzheimer’s—and I haven’t been disappointed. The things I’ve seen over the last seven months make me more hopeful than ever. What I didn’t see coming was the amazing response I got from the Alzheimer’s community at large. Because my family didn’t talk publicly about my dad’s diagnosis before the announcement, I had yet to experience how remarkable the support community is. So many of you have shared your personal experiences with me, both in person and online (including here on TGN). It helps to hear from others who are going through the same thing.

Alzheimer’s research is a frontier where we can dramatically improve human life—both the lives of people who have the disease and their loved ones. I’m optimistic that we can substantially alter the course of Alzheimer’s if we make progress in several key areas. One of the biggest things we could do right now is develop a reliable, affordable, and accessible diagnostic. The process of getting diagnosed with Alzheimer’s today is less than ideal. It starts with a cognitive test. If you don’t perform well, your doctor needs to rule out all other possible causes for memory loss, like stroke or a nutritional deficiency. Then your doctor can order a spinal tap or PET scan to confirm you have Alzheimer’s. Although these tests are fairly accurate, the only way to diagnose the disease definitively is through an autopsy after death. There are two big problems with this process. First, it can be expensive and invasive. Most insurance plans in the United States won’t reimburse tests for Alzheimer’s. Patients often pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets. Meanwhile, spinal taps can be scary and uncomfortable, and PET scans require the patient to stay perfectly still for up to 40 minutes. That’s difficult for anyone to do—but especially someone with Alzheimer’s. Second, patients aren’t being tested for the disease until they start showing cognitive decline. The more we understand about Alzheimer’s, the clearer it becomes that the disease begins much earlier than we previously thought. Research suggests Alzheimer’s starts damaging the brain more than a decade before symptoms start showing. That’s probably when we need to start treating people to have the best shot at an effective drug.

 BEIRUT,(Xinhua) — Arab leaders and officials on Sunday urged the international community to support nations hosting Syrian refugees and take steps to minimize the impact of the refugee crisis. The call was made in the Beirut Declaration issued as the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit concluded in the Lebanese capital. “We call on the […]

by Ian Thomsen — Northeastern University is naming its fastest-growing college the Khoury College of Computer and Information Sciences in honor of alumnus and trustee Amin Khoury. Inspired by Northeastern’s leadership in digital innovation, Khoury has endowed the college with $50 million to support all aspects of the college’s future focus. “In the world of higher education, truly historic moments happen when a compelling vision is joined together with a powerful investment,” President Joseph Aoun wrote in a message to the Northeastern community. “Amin Khoury is a far-sighted entrepreneur who built his career by anticipating trends and making transformative decisions. Amin understands the limitless promise of technology to shape our society, and his support will allow us to advance the frontiers of knowledge in the age of artificial intelligence. All of us in the Northeastern family are grateful for his wisdom and support.”

Khoury, an accomplished entrepreneur who earned his MBA at Northeastern, has launched and scaled companies in a variety of fields, including medical products, medical services, aerospace manufacturing, aerospace distribution, and oilfield services. He and his wife, Julie, met at Northeastern while she was also earning her MBA. “Julie and I spent some time thinking about how we might be able to give back to the university and its students in a way which could be really meaningful,” Khoury said. “This is more rewarding for us than it is for the university.” Northeastern’s Khoury College of Computer and Information Sciences is a national leader in cybersecurity and privacy in an increasingly digitally connected world. It will be one of the first named colleges of computer science nationally. Over the past decade, computer science enrollment at Northeastern has skyrocketed, and now stands at 3,474 students. Simultaneously, the academic quality of computer science applicants—already at a high level—continues to rise each year. “Julie and I would like to help prepare learners for a future reality where human, data, and technological literacies will become imperative for success and leadership in a world based on innovation rather than resources,” Khoury added.“This digital transformation is well underway, and it is impacting how all of us communicate, learn, and work.” Khoury’s vision for the Khoury College of Computer and Information Sciences is strongly aligned with the university’s academic plan, Northeastern 2025. As the global economy adapts to the influence of artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and cybersecurity, Northeastern is empowering humans to be agile learners, thinkers, and creators, beyond the capacity of any machine. During a private meeting with computer science faculty and staff on Dec. 7, Khoury suggested that he was doubling down on that mission.