Hundreds seek council help every day in UK youth homelessness crisis
- Research from Centrepoint shows that 135,733 young people between the age of 16 to 24 years old are seeking help due to homelessness or risk of homelessness.
- This number has risen by 5% in 2022-23 compared with the previous year.
- One in three young people who approached their council in England for help were not assessed and were often unable to even get through to phone lines.
- Support workers have said this was leaving people at risk of exploitation and rough sleeping.
- A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has said that that they are providing local authorities with more funding where it is needed most.
- For more, please visit the Guardian’s website.
Instagram spotted developing a customisable ‘AI friend’
- Instagram has been spotted developing an “AI friend” feature that users will be able to customise to their liking and converse with.
- The discovery came from app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi.
- Users would be able to chat with the AI to have their questions answered, talk through challenges, brainstorm ideas and more.
- Instagram has declined to comment on the matter as these features may or may not be released to the public or may change in the development process.
- The decision to develop and potentially release an AI chatbot marketed as a “friend” has its risks due to previous issues with controversial “friend” chatbots.
- For more, please visit the Tech Crunch website.
Paedophile Orangeman pleasured himself while ‘staring’ at girl outside Northern Ireland school
- A 67-year-old man has been handed a four-month jail sentence for performing a sex act on himself whilst staring at a teen pupil in front of her school gates.
- He was identified after the schoolgirl noted his car registration and alerted the vice-principle after seeing the incident.
- As well as his jail sentence, he was also ordered to sign the police sex offenders register for seven years at his sentencing.
- The judge also imposed a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention order which prohibits the man from being within 200 metres of any school between certain times.
- Despite the jail term, he is not in prison, but instead freed on bail pending an appeal, and continues to protest his innocence, insisting it is a case of mistaken identity.
- For more, please visit the Belfast Telegraph website.
