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'Unexpected' iPhone and iPad update threatens app glitches

Owners of iPhones and iPads are being warned that some apps may experience glitches because Apple only gave a day's notice of the release of a major update to its mobile operating systems.
Chief executive Tim Cook revealed on Tuesday that iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 would launch on Wednesday. Last year, Apple announced the release date more than a week in advance.
Developers have complained they do not have enough time to check for bugs and submit their products to the App Store. They include big names such as Nintendo, which has warned gamers that its Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp app will not launch after the update.

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Barbados to remove Queen Elizabeth as head of state

Barbados has announced its intention to remove Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and become a republic.
"The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind," the Caribbean island nation's government said. It aims to complete the process in time for the 55th anniversary of independence from Britain, in November 2021. A speech written by Prime Minister Mia Mottley said Barbadians wanted a Barbadian head of state. "This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving," the speech read. Buckingham Palace said that it was a matter for the government and people of Barbados.

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Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

Fake accounts have been undermining elections around the world, an ex-Facebook employee has claimed.
In a 6,600-word internal memo to fellow workers, data scientist Sophie Zhang said she made decisions "that affected national presidents" without oversight. "I have blood on my hands," she wrote in the memo, parts of which were published by Buzzfeed. In response, Facebook said it was working hard to stop bad actors and inauthentic behaviour. In her memo, parts of which were published by Buzzfeed without her permission, Ms Zhang said: "In the three years I've spent at Facebook, I've found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions.

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Trump hails 'dawn of new Middle East' with UAE-Bahrain-Israel deals

US President Donald Trump has hailed the "dawn of a new Middle East", amid Israel's landmark deals with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.
Mr Trump spoke as the two Gulf states signed agreements fully normalising their relations with Israel. The three countries hailed the deals as historic, as did Mr Trump, whose administration helped broker them. The Gulf states are just the third and fourth Arab countries to recognise Israel since its founding in 1948. Mr Trump hopes other countries will follow suit, but the Palestinians have urged them not to while their conflict remains unsolved. For decades, most Arab states have boycotted Israel, insisting they would only establish ties after Israel's dispute with the Palestinian was settled.

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TikTok: Oracle confirms being picked by Bytedance to be app's partner

US tech firm Oracle has confirmed that TikTok's owner has formally proposed it become a "trusted technology partner" to the video-sharing app.
Full details of the tie-up have yet to be disclosed, but the aim is to avoid President Trump's threat to shut down the Chinese-owned service in the US. Trump has cited national security concerns, suggesting users' data could be accessed by Beijing under current arrangements. Current owner Bytedance denies this. It says it has taken "extraordinary measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok's US user data", which is stored in the States and Singapore.Oracle is a database specialist without experience of running a social media app targeted at the general public.

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Breonna Taylor: Lewis Hamilton could face FIA investigation over anti-racism T-shirt

Formula 1 bosses are looking into whether Lewis Hamilton broke rules at the Tuscan Grand Prix by wearing a T-shirt highlighting police brutality.
A spokesman for the FIA said the matter was "under active consideration". He said the FIA was a non-political organisation and was considering if Hamilton's T-shirt broke its statutes. The T-shirt said: "Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor" - a black woman shot eight times in her Louisville, Kentucky home by US police in March. Hamilton's shirt, which he wore during the pre-race anti-racism demonstration and on the podium, also said: "Say her name." It was not immediately clear which statute from governing body the FIA was at issue. Asked whether the FIA considered the T-shirt to be bearing a political message, the spokesman said: "That's the consideration we are looking into." Taylor was one of a number of victims of incidents involving police violence in the US whose names have become rallying cries for equality and justice.

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Scotland's Covid contact tracing app downloaded half a million times

More than 500,000 people have downloaded Scotland's new contact tracing app since it went live.
It became available to download free onto a smart phone from Apple's App Store or Google Play on Thursday. The Protect Scotland app lets people know if they have been in close contact with someone who later tests positive. The Scottish government has said the software will support the Test and Protect system and is "another tool in the fight against Covid-19". Up until now, contact tracing has been done manually using a method followed for years to help control the spread of infectious diseases.

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Brexit: EU ultimatum to UK over withdrawal deal changes

The EU is demanding the UK ditches plans to change Boris Johnson's Brexit deal "by the end of the month" or risk jeopardising trade talks.
The UK has published a bill to rewrite parts of the withdrawal agreement it signed in January. The EU said this had "seriously damaged trust" and it would not be "shy" of taking legal action against the UK. But cabinet minister Michael Gove said the UK had made it "perfectly clear" it would not withdraw the bill. The government says Parliament is sovereign and can pass laws which breach the UK's international treaty obligations. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said "trust and confidence are and will be key", after the latest round of UK-EU trade talks wrapped up in London on Thursday.

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Facebook 'profits from hate' claims engineer who quit

A Facebook engineer has quit the firm, saying they "can no longer stomach" being part of an organisation "profiting off hate".
Ashok Chandwaney is the latest employee to go public with concerns about how the company deals with hate speech. The engineer added it was "choosing to be on the wrong side of history". Facebook responded by saying it had removed millions of hate-related posts. Another of its ex-engineers has also come to its defence. The thrust of the post by Ashok Chandwaney - who uses "they" and "them" as personal pronouns - is that Facebook moves quickly to solve certain problems, but when it comes to dealing with hate speech, it is more interested in PR than implementing real change. Their five and a half years tenure at the firm meant "learning about a bug in a meeting, and fixing it before the meeting is over", they write. "The contrast between that and our approach to hate on the platform is astonishing.

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Belarus: Nobel Laureate Alexievich visited by diplomats amid 'harassment'

European diplomats have been photographed at the home of a Nobel Prize-winning writer in Belarus after she said masked men tried to break in.
*Svetlana Alexievich called journalists to her home on Wednesday after the incident.
She is the last leading member of the opposition Co-ordination Council still in Belarus who has not been detained. The government has cracked down on dissent after protests swept the country following a disputed election. Maria Kolesnikova, one of three women who joined forces to challenge authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in August's vote, is in detention after she resisted attempts by the authorities to expel her to Ukraine earlier this week. And on Wednesday witnesses reportedly saw Maxim Znak, a lawyer and another member of the Co-ordination Council, being led down a street in the capital Minsk by masked men in plain clothes. Belarusian authorities said both were being held on suspicion of harming national security and destabilising the country.