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Indonesian babies were trafficked to Singapore. What happens to them now?
Indonesian babies were trafficked to Singapore. What happens to them now? To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Figure caption, Watch: A baby trafficking ring has been convicted - but what now for the babies? On Tuesday an Indonesian court convicted 19 people for baby trafficking, wrapping up a high-profile case - but leaving a key question unanswered.
A photo of Iran's bombed schoolgirl graveyard went around the world. Was it real, or AI?
Graves being prepared for the victims of an airstrike on a school in Minab in southern Iran, 2 March 2026. Graves being prepared for the victims of an airstrike on a school in Minab in southern Iran, 2 March 2026. A photo of Iran's bombed schoolgirl graveyard went around the world. T he graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them.
Gradient Boosting for Spatial Panel Models with Random and Fixed Effects
Balzer, Michael, Benlahlou, Adhen
Due to the increase in data availability in urban and regional studies, various spatial panel models have emerged to model spatial panel data, which exhibit spatial patterns and spatial dependencies between observations across time. Although estimation is usually based on maximum likelihood or generalized method of moments, these methods may fail to yield unique solutions if researchers are faced with high-dimensional settings. This article proposes a model-based gradient boosting algorithm, which enables estimation with interpretable results that is feasible in low- and high-dimensional settings. Due to its modular nature, the flexible model-based gradient boosting algorithm is suitable for a variety of spatial panel models, which can include random and fixed effects. The general framework also enables data-driven model and variable selection as well as implicit regularization where the bias-variance trade-off is controlled for, thereby enhancing accuracy of prediction on out-of-sample spatial panel data. Monte Carlo experiments concerned with the performance of estimation and variable selection confirm proper functionality in low- and high-dimensional settings while real-world applications including non-life insurance in Italian districts, rice production in Indonesian farms and life expectancy in German districts illustrate the potential application.