Author: DW

Addiction, self-harm, suicide: Social media’s engagement-driven strategy is under intense scrutiny for allegedly engineering compulsive use and severe psychological harm, especially in children. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok make huge profits by keeping users hooked via nonstop scrolling, recommendations and constant notifications. Facebook owner Meta, for example, generated a record $196.2 billion (€168.3 billion) in advertising revenue last year, driven by its ability to keep people glued to their screens. That business model is now facing major legal and regulatory roadblocks, with social media bans for people younger than 16 spreading globally and a growing wave of lawsuits, mainly in the United States. In the latest major case, 29 states, including California, Colorado and…

The nonprofit organization “Fussball kann mehr” (FKM –– Football Can Do More) has released its third report on diversity in professional German football. This time, all 36 teams in the top two divisions took part, and the results reveal a familiar tale of dominance. A revealing 29 of the 36 clubs have an all-male management team. There was a noticeable increase in women in top management positions in the 2025-26 season though, with four of the 18 new appointments to top management positions being women. The previous season, only one of the 19 open positions at the time were filled by…

Published 08/28/2026Published August 28, 2026last updated 08/28/2026last updated August 28, 2026Dobrindt: Security task force and enhanced drone defense agreed at Baltic summitDobrindt said the assembled politicians agreed to set up a Baltic security taskforce and to expand their drone defense capabilitiesImage: Christian Charisius/dpa/picture allianceInterior Minister Alexander Dobrindt says that Baltic and European leaders at a special hybrid security meeting agreed to plans to set up a new security task force and to enhance collective drone defense capabilities.  The assembled politicians discussed “urgent security policy questions for a shared future in the Baltic Sea region,” Dobrindt said amid the meeting at the…

Some of the world’s largest lakes could shrink substantially within this century, with far-reaching consequences for ecosystems and roughly a quarter of the global population living in affected regions. Although restoration efforts have proved successful in some cases, many inland bodies of water face extreme challenges. Caspian Sea: A shrinking giant Despite its name, the Caspian Sea is actually a lake. Bordered by Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, it is the largest inland water body on Earth. But its surface area has been rapidly receding since the 1990s. This shift is partly due to the use of dams and water-management practices in the Volga River basin. But hotter…

The disaster in the border region between China and Nepal was as sudden as it was unexpected: Within just 10 minutes, enormous volumes of water and debris swept 20 kilometers downstream on Wednesday, with devastating consequences for thousands of people in the region. Flash floods are a frequent occurrence in the Himalayas. “They are more the rule than the exception,” says Niels Hovius, head of the Geomorphology Section at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. He has worked in the Himalayas and other mountainous regions for many years and is an expert on early warning systems. What triggered…

The German Ice Hockey Association (DEB) presented former Germany player Andre Rankel as the new coach of the men’s national team at a press conference in Munich on Thursday. Rankel, who spent the past three seasons as an assistant coach with Eisbären Berlin, champions of Germany’s top division (the DEL), has never served as a head coach. DEB sport director Christian Künast stressed that he does not see this as a problem. “Andre is here today because he was the best [of the candidates interviewed for the job]. That’s the main point,” Künast said. “I simply don’t see Andre as a rookie coach. I’ve known…

Chancellor Friedrich Merz is hosting leaders from several European Union net contributor countries as Berlin pushes for a smaller bloc budget. DW has more.

Some of the world’s largest lakes could shrink substantially within this century, with far-reaching consequences for ecosystems and roughly a quarter of the global population living in affected regions. Although restoration efforts have proved successful in some cases, many inland bodies of water face extreme challenges. Caspian Sea: A shrinking giant Despite its name, the Caspian Sea is actually a lake. Bordered by Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, it is the largest inland water body on Earth. But its surface area has been rapidly receding since the 1990s. This shift is partly due to the use of dams and water-management practices in the Volga River basin. But hotter…

English newspapers The Times, the Guardian and news agency Reuters reported on Wednesday that UEFA, football’s European governing body, was set to drop its threat to boycott all FIFA tournaments. The decision to allow European teams to participate in next month’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland came after UEFA had reportedly received guarantees that football’s world governing body would not revive a plan to sell a stake in FIFA tournaments to private investors. FIFA President Gianni Infantino had dropped his plan to create a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) in the face of widespread protest last month. UEFA spearheaded opposition…

Actor Tim Curry died at the age of 80, Variety, TMZ and other celebrity news outlets reported on Wednesday.  A cause of death was not immediately given but Curry had been in poor health for some time following a severe stroke that left him confined to a wheelchair and wrote in his memoir “Vagabond” last year that he was still not able to walk.  Curry won Laurence Olivier and Tony Award nominations for his work on stage in the UK and the US, as well delivering Emmy-winning TV performances later in his career.  Curry was another member of the class of…