Category: Corruption

The Trump era was very, very good to the country’s giant telecom monopolies. Trump officials doled out billions in tax breaks (AT&T nabbed $42 billion alone) and billions more in poorly tracked subsidies. It also approved anticompetitive mergers without even reading the details, and handed out all manner of regulator favors like the dismantling of net neutrality or the elimination…

Hackers have accessed approximately 632,000 emails from the Department of Defense and other federal agencies this year, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirmed. The report detailed a large-scale cyberattack in May 2023 in which emails from US government offices, private sectors, airlines, and academic entities were accessed by a suspected Russian group called “CL0P.” Alongside electronic personal data,…

ACAPULCO, Mexico — As a bright, hot sun filled Acapulco in the days following the furious arrival of Hurricane Otis, it revealed a city utterly transformed by destruction. The Category 5 storm slammed into the Pacific coast early Wednesday, killing at least 27 people, with at least four still missing, according to Mexican officials. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador,…

MADRID: Over 200,000 minors are estimated to have been sexually abused in Spain by the Roman Catholic clergy since 1940, according to an independent commission published Friday. The report did not give a specific figure but said a poll of over 8,000 people found that 0.6 percent of Spain’s adult population of around 39 million people said they had suffered…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried began testifying at his fraud trial on Friday, saying the innovative business he hoped would move the cryptocurrency ecosystem forward ended up doing the opposite and hurting customers. The onetime cryptocurrency golden boy lost his businesses and his reputation as a pioneering entrepreneur in an emerging facet of finance when a rush of customers withdrew their…

Iran is currently grappling with a severe water crisis, a situation clearly underscored by the United Nations’ water status and conditions index. The crisis is most pronounced in the central plateau of Iran, where an absolute water shortage is unfolding. Regime officials have often attributed this crisis to factors like low rainfall and excessive water consumption. However, the Majlis Research…

Just putting three meals a day on the table was a struggle for millions of people in the U.S. last year. That’s the sobering conclusion of a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which found hunger in the U.S. rose sharply in 2022. The report found that 44.2 million people lived in households that had difficulty getting enough…

According to Al Jazeera, their Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al Dahdouh, tragically lost his wife, son, daughter, and grandson in an Israeli airstrike that occurred on Wednesday. The explosion targeted a residence in the Nuseirat refugee camp, located in central Gaza, where the family sought refuge following their displacement. “Members of the family of our colleague Wael Al Dahdouh, including…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried plans to testify at his fraud trial, his lawyer told a federal judge Wednesday, ending speculation over whether a man who embraced the spotlight during his years atop the cryptocurrency world could remain silent after prosecutors portrayed him as a greedy entrepreneur who stole billions of dollars from customers. Attorney Mark Cohen told Judge Lewis A….

The streets of Gaza are empty of cars. Many of its bakeries are shuttered; meat suppliers have no refrigeration. Doctors perform operations by flashlight. Although 62 aid trucks have entered Gaza since last weekend carrying much-needed food, water and medical supplies, none have delivered fuel — which Israel has blocked over concerns it could be stolen and used by Hamas….

The administration of Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis has taken the significant measure of associating a pro-Palestinian student group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), with terrorism. They have directed state universities to prohibit the group, alleging its support for Hamas militants who recently attacked Israel. Amid escalating Israeli actions in Gaza, several college students have shown support for Palestinians.This…

The Intercept has an interesting article that reveals another reason why some newspaper publishers are not great fans of the site: The New York Times tried to block a web crawler that was affiliated with the famous Internet Archive, a project whose easy-to-use comparisons of article versions has sometimes led to embarrassment for the newspaper. As the article explains, one of the…

Facebook and Instagram are trying to educate users on copyright infringement by showing a ‘popup’ to those who search for potentially problematic terms such as IPTV. This is one of the many voluntary anti-piracy tools the Meta-owned social media platforms have implemented, in an effort to help combat online copyright infringement. Similar to any other online platforms that deal with…

At least 24 journalists are among the more than 6,000 people who have been killed in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, according to the latest tally released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In addition to the steep toll the fighting has meant for civilians in the region, the conflict in Gaza has resulted in the deadliest…

There is a sharp sell-off in the bond market, and it has big implications on both the economy and people’s pocketbooks. Yields on U.S. government bonds, especially the 10-year Treasury note, determine the interest rates that people pay on a lot of their debt, including mortgages and credit cards. And a key bond yield hasn’t been this high since 2007….

U.S. President Joe Biden declared it is “vital for America’s national security” for Israel and Ukraine to succeed in their wars, making the case Thursday night for deepening U.S. involvement in two unpredictable foreign conflicts as he prepared to ask for billions of dollars in military assistance for both countries. If international aggression is allowed to continue, Biden said in…