Youpe Last Week

The Bald Truth on the Continent

Another week and another look at another week’s goings-on in Europe, or as Grandma Riva, born in Horadenka, Ukraine, circa 1888 — featured here holding a very young Jack Friedman after being called away from her weekly poker game — called it, “Youpe.”

The European Commission is investigating Meta for "harmful and addictive" design features on Instagram and Facebook, including attention capture and infinite scrolling, which according to Neurosity, rewires the brain's reward system. The commission concluded the tech company is in breach of its Digital Services Act 2022, finding that there is "no effective screen-time measuring tool, no effective awareness raising measures, no effective parental control." In Spain, a wildfire that started last week in an ex-pat community in the Sierra de Los Filabres mountains in the Almeria province has killed 12. Authorities say the fire has now been contained. More than 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) have been affected. The country, like much of the continent, has been dealing with a record-breaking heatwave, including France, where the state-owned group EDF had to temporarily shut down three nuclear reactors because of the heat. A Singaporean court postponed a French student's public nuisance trial. Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 19, filmed himself licking a straw from a vending machine in Singapore and then putting it back. Singapore has restrictions on chewing gum and strong penalties for littering and vandalism…