Ukraine’s hope of defeating Russia on the battlefield is senseless given that Moscow holds nuclear weapons and any effort by the NATO alliance to keep aiding Kyiv will prove to be a “suicidal escapade”, Russia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs told the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

The top UN aid official in Ukraine has condemned Russian attacks in the northeastern city of Sumy on Saturday which damaged a hospital and killed and injured several people.

Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister of China reiterated on Saturday his country’s commitment to playing a constructive role and engaging in mediation for peace, not exploiting volatile situations for “selfish gains”.

India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the world stands fractious, polarized and frustrated amid war, unfair trade practices, climate change and food and health insecurity. Trust has eroded, processes have broken down and countries have extracted more from the international system than they have put in it, enfeebling it along the way.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Mali outlined on Saturday the steps the Government has taken to rebuild trust among the country’s diverse communities and push back against terrorism, but he warned that “opportunistic’ terrorist groups, and their foreign sponsors threatened toundo  this work.

The Foreign Minister of Cuba expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, and highlighted global challenges such as wealth inequality, climate financing and debt relief, in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Minister Badr Ahmed Mohamed Abdelatty said it is time to “ring the alarm bells” as the international system is currently showing its structural shortcomings that come from ineffectiveness, double standards and inequality at a time of occupation, hunger, terrorism and injustice. Sketching out a path forward, he first stressed that there is no alternative to the multilateral system.

The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia highlighted the country’s work to support peace efforts in the region and beyond in his address to the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

A fortunate encounter.

Enlarge

Change up your music mixes with ease.

The country faces a wave of claims after it repealed a law allowing for special economic zones. Chief among them is an American company looking to build a semi-autonomous “startup city” called Próspera.

Some people collect coins or stamps. For a time, I collected debit cards. Not stolen ones! Each one of them had my name on them, right below the logo of the latest banking app I’d decided to try out: Venmo, Cash App, Chime, Varo, Current, Acorns.  For the better part of a decade, I did all my banking through these apps, enjoying their slick user experience and lack of fees. The problem with every one of them, however, is that they’re not chartered banks. If the company behind the app went bankrupt, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) would not necessarily come to my rescue. This disaster scenario was a hypothetical worry when I eventually settled for Chase and its FDIC insurance. For millions of others, it became a reality earlier this year when a company called Synapse collapsed and froze them out of their accounts. Users of Yotta, a popular savings app with a built-in lottery, and other apps that relied on Synapse to help manage their accounts couldn’t access their money for months. Now, as hundreds of thousands of Synapse customers’ dollars remain in limbo, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) are calling for banking reforms, and the FDIC is proposing changes to its rules. Still, a growing number of people are embracing these financial technology, or fintech, services. More than a third of Gen Z and millennials used a fintech app or a digital bank as their primary checking account, according to a 2023 Cornerstone Advisors study.  So some questions are worth asking: Is it a bad idea to use an app like Venmo as your main bank? Are digital banks like Chime trustworthy enough? The answer to both questions is yes. Venmo is not a bank, and using it as your primary checking account comes with some risks. Some fintech companies, like Chime, are just as big as traditional banks and offer some nice perks. Again, because they’re nontraditional, there are risks. “You’re not going to go back to a world where everybody works with a small bank and walks into a branch,” Shamir Karkal, co-founder of Simple, one of the first digital banks. “The future is just going to be more fintech, and I think we all just need to get better at it.” To get better at all of this, it helps to know what’s going on behind the scenes. The term fintech can refer to a lot of things, but when you’re talking about everyday services for everyday people, it typically refers to either neobanks or money transmitters. Chime is a neobank. Venmo is a money transmitter. They’re regulated in different ways, but because most of these companies issue debit cards, many people treat them like checking accounts. Fintech apps are not the same thing as FDIC-insured banks.  Neobanks are fintech companies that offer services like checking accounts in partnership with chartered banks, which are FDIC-insured. Neobanks sometimes enlist intermediaries known as banking-as-a-service, or BaaS, companies, which are not FDIC-insured. Still, you will often see the FDIC logo on neobank websites, just like you see it stuck to the glass doors of many brick-and-mortar banks. That logo instills trust, and thanks to their partnerships, neobanks can claim some FDIC protections. But because they do not have bank charters, these neobanks and BaaS companies are not directly FDIC-insured. Instead, neobank customers can be eligible for something called pass-through deposit insurance coverage. Listen to Vox’s Adam Clark Estes break down the potential pitfalls of keeping your money in a fintech app, like Venmo or Chime. Venmo or Chime aren’t as safe as you think they are. Here’s what to know. Pass-through insurance is a simple concept that’s deceivingly complex in practice. Essentially, if you deposit money into an account with a neobank, like Chime, the funds get routed to a chartered bank, sometimes through one of those BaaS intermediaries. If the chartered bank fails, no problem: FDIC insurance kicks in, and you can recoup up to $250,000 of your deposits. If the intermediary fails or the neobank itself fails, you might be eligible for pass-through insurance — but you might not. In its explainer about when or if you’ll get your money back in these kinds of situations, the FDIC literally says, “It depends.” “American consumers see the FDIC logo, and they interpret that as meaning: My money is safe and I will get it back,” said Jason Mikula, who runs the popular Fintech Business Weekly newsletter. “That’s just not what FDIC does exactly.” Money transmitters, also known as money services businesses, are even further removed from the perceived safety of the FDIC. Put bluntly, if you’re keeping all your money in a Venmo or Cash App account, you don’t qualify for FDIC insurance. Money transmitters are not neobanks or banks at all but rather completely different legal entities that are regulated by individual states as well as the Department of the Treasury. There are certain protections provided by these agencies, but FDIC insurance is not one of them. So when an app like Yotta or Chime says on its website that it’s FDIC insured, it’s not a lie, but it’s not necessarily true either.  Venmo, to its credit, admits in the fine print of its homepage that its parent company PayPal “is not a bank” and “is not FDIC insured.” To confuse you even more, however, certain PayPal services that enlist a chartered bank partner, like a PayPal Mastercard or savings account, might qualify for FDIC insurance. Again, it depends. Fintech companies take careful steps to make banking with them feel safe. They include the FDIC logo on the website to provide customers with some peace of mind, even though the fine print on those protections is more complicated. They issue debit cards with the Visa or Mastercard logo to suggest that these cards play by the same rules as any big bank’s debit card. These logos can act as a stamp of approval, an assurance that your money is in good hands. This is actually the heart of the problem, as far as Sen. Elizabeth Warren is concerned. This month, she and Sen. Van Hollen asked regulators to ban neobanks and fintech companies from using the FDIC name and logo if they were only offering pass-through insurance. They also called for greater supervision of these companies under the Bank Service Company Act. “The average consumer shouldn’t be expected to understand the intricacies of FDIC insurance in order to comfortably and safely save or invest their money,” Warren’s letter says. “Consumers must feel confident that they are dealing with a regulated and insured entity when they see the FDIC logo.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that all neobanks and fintech companies are untrustworthy. In some cases, the sheer size and track record of fintech companies can instill quite a bit of trust. Chime, the largest digital bank with roughly 22 million customers, scored a $25 billion valuation in its latest round of funding and is planning to go public next year. Venmo’s parent company, PayPal, is widely considered safe and trustworthy. And don’t expect Block, the $42 billion company that owns Cash App as well as its own chartered bank, to fail any time soon. The truth is, even if there is some false sense of security, fintech apps offer certain customers features that big banks can’t or won’t. One thing that’s made Chime and many other neobanks so popular, for instance, is that they don’t charge so many fees. That’s a huge boon to young people as well as people without bank accounts. If a fintech app is your only option, then you might not care so much about FDIC insurance. “If you’re poor in America and you’re banking at Chase or Wells Fargo, you’re going to get overdraft fees, minimum balance fees,” Mikula explained. “So there is a real need that [fintech] companies fulfill as a result of your establishment banks essentially not wanting to bank poor people because it’s difficult to do profitably.”  As many as 6 percent of Americans were living without a bank account in 2023, according to Federal Reserve data. That share grows to 23 percent for those making less than $23,000 a year. The unbanked population, which disproportionately comprises Black, Hispanic, and undocumented people, is at a greater risk of falling victim to predatory lending practices, including payday loans. Some fintech companies also offer short-term loans, though they’ve been criticized for being predatory as well.  Payment apps like Venmo are popular with scammers. Using a Venmo-branded debit card comes with some purchase protection. If you happen to fall for a scam, however, there’s a good chance the app will not pay you back. Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle are all clear about issuing refunds for payments to other individuals: They don’t do it. Or at least they can’t guarantee it. You should treat these peer-to-peer payments like cash.  Here are some tips for spotting and avoiding scams on Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle. But if you’re more of a motivated-by-fear person, read this story about a guy who wanted a deal on a swimming pool and got “a $31,000 lesson in the downside of payment apps” instead. Still, fintech companies offer the unbanked the ability to save money and build credit. For someone who can’t open a traditional bank account, Venmo can be a lifeline, since they can add funds to their Venmo balance and then pay bills using their Venmo debit card without needing a traditional checking account. If they have access to a smartphone, getting basic banking services is simple these days. As I learned firsthand when testing out many of these services over the years, it’s very easy to sign up for and easy to deposit money into a fintech app. If you have a problem, however, help can be hard to find. Many fintech companies and neobanks, including Chime, lack brick-and-mortar locations, which means you can’t walk into a branch to get an issue resolved. In fact, poor customer service is a common complaint for these companies.  That means you should always research a company before giving money to it. Read the reviews and study the fine print. Obvious red flags include hidden fee structures and reports of customers not being able to withdraw their money. You should also consider trying services out with small sums rather than your life savings. And, as always, watch out for scams and frauds. What is true in the real world is even more true in the app world: Beware of deals that look too good to be true. Only gamble with what you’d be willing to lose. A version of this story was also published in the Vox Technology newsletter. Sign up here so you don’t miss the next one!

Enlarge Four years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors and researchers are still seeking ways to help patients with long COVID, the persistent and often debilitating symptoms that can continue long after a COVID-19 infection. In adults, the most common long COVID symptoms include fatigue and brain fog, but for children the condition can look different. A study published last month suggests preteens are more likely to experience symptoms such as headaches, stomach pain, trouble sleeping, and attention difficulties. Even among children, effects seem to vary by age. “There seems to be some differences between age groups, with less signs of organ damage in younger children and more adultlike disease in adolescents,” says Petter Brodin, professor of pediatric immunology at Imperial College London. While vast sums have been devoted to long COVID research—the US National Institutes of Health have spent more than a billion dollars on research projects and clinical trials—research into children with the condition has been predominantly limited to online surveys, calls with parents, and studies of electronic health records. This is in spite of a recent study suggesting that between 10 and 20 percent of children may have developed long COVID following an acute infection, and another report finding that while many have recovered, some still remain ill three years later.

Plus: The US Justice Department indicts three Iranians over Trump campaign hack, EU regulators fine Meta $100 million for a password security lapse, and the Tor Project enters a new phase.