Making school compulsory from the age of three

France to make school obligatory from the age of three - The Local fr

School is currently compulsory for French children from the age of six, although since 1989 parents have had the legal right to a place in an ecole maternelle (pre-school) from age three.
A right most of them take up, in large part due to the fact he schools are free.
But in future they won't have a choice with President Emmanuel Macron to announce that from September 2019, the start of the new school year, the age of compulsory school attendance will be set at three.

"This decision reflects the president's desire to make school the place of real equality and is recognition that the ecole maternelle should no longer be considered as just a form of day care or preparation for elementary school, but as a real school, focused on the acquisition of language and the development of the child, " the Elysée Palace explained.

Cloak and Data: The Real Story Behind Cambridge Analytica’s Rise and Fall - Mother Jones
The secretive data firm said it could move the minds of American voters. That wasn't its real victory.

Cambridge Analytica was hardly alone in hoovering up user data. And how exactly were Cambridge Analytica’s psychographic techniques different from Facebook’s core business model—tapping into the vast amounts of data it collects on its users to guide hypertargeted advertising, be it for shoe companies or political campaigns or dubious fake news sites.
By most accounts, Cambridge Analytica’s main feat of political persuasion was convincing a group of Republican donors, candidates, and organizations to hand over millions of dollars.

A month after PNG quake, cash-strapped government struggles to help the hardest-hit - Reuters

Almost a month after a deadly earthquake, Papua New Guinea is struggling to get aid to desperate survivors, having allocated just a fraction of its relief funds, while a rent dispute left disaster officials briefly locked out of their offices.

Putin’s Pyrrhic Victor - Project Syndicate

Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign incursions and public displays of militant nationalism have proved effective in winning over large swathes of the Russian electorate. But they have also turned Russia into an economic lightweight, and left it increasingly isolated on the world stage.

The Russia Investigations: D.C. Races To Secure Future Elections. Is It Enough? - NPR

This week in the Russia investigations: Washington turns its focus to election security. Will it be enough?
The Russia imbroglio is so vast that only parts of it come into focus at one time.
One day: social media agitation. Next day: potential collusion.
But one of the biggest, least appreciated and potentially most important threads in the story hasn't gotten as much focus: securing future elections from more active measures. Until now.
This week, the floodgates opened. The House and Senate intelligence committees both issued recommendations for securing the 2018 races and beyond.
Then Congress offered hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of new funding for election security, both for states and specifically to help the FBI fight cyberattacks.
How much difference will it all make? Will it be enough?

Russia Hacked U.S. Power Grid — So What Will The Trump Administration Do About It? - NPR

When President Trump phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on his re-election Wednesday, Trump made no mention of one of the latest irritants between Russia and the West — his administration's announcement that Russia successfully hacked the U.S. power grid.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a joint alert last week: "Russian government cyber actors" have been targeting U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including energy, nuclear and commercial facilities, since at least March 2016.

France and the challenge of tracking 20,000 suspected extremists - France 24
James Harding's Hugh Cudlipp lecture in full - The Guardian

... about the damage technology is doing to democracy.