Tag: Region Americas

Sweden’s data protection watchdog has issued a couple of fines in relation to exports of European users’ data via Google Analytics which it found breach the bloc’s privacy rulebook owing to risks posed by US government surveillance. It has also warned other companies against use of Google’s tool. The fines — just over $1.1 million for Swedish telco Tele2 and less than $30k for local online retailer CDON — are notable as they are the first such fines following a…

  Editor’s note: This report contains discussion of suicide. Troops, veterans and family members experiencing suicidal thoughts can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255, text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net. The number of suicides across the active-duty military increased from 75 in the first quarter of 2022 to 94 in the first quarter of 2023, according to the Defense Suicide Prevention Office. The Pentagon’s office on prevention said to be wary of extrapolating and interpreting the…

Canada’s banking regulator is cautioning that lenders and borrowers are overly reliant on lengthening mortgage amortizations to help the latter cope with higher interest rates and surging costs. In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail on Friday, Peter Routledge, the head of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), said that borrowers with mortgages in which payments are not high enough to cover the interest portion of the loan could experience a “shock” in significantly higher…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved a plan to use phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste material, in “demonstration projects.” Here, signs block a roadway in Boca Raton during a construction project in 2021. Florida is another step closer to paving its roads with phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial bill into law Thursday. Conservation groups had urged DeSantis to veto the bill, saying phosphogypsum would hurt water quality and…

While the US mainstream press has a record of ignoring reports concerning alleged misdeeds by the president and the first son, the NYT has claimed it has a source backing some of accusations voiced by IRS supervisory agent-turned whistleblower Gary Shapley. One of Shapley’s bombshell claims is that US Attorney David Weiss – assigned to conduct an investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes – was reportedly told by the DoJ that he could not bring charges against Hunter in…

Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin on Monday released the first audio statement since an aborted armed rebellion he staged on Saturday, defending the move as a reaction to an attack on his force that killed some of his 30 fighters. “We started our march because of an injustice,” Prigozhin said in an 11-minute audio. He didn’t offer any details as to where he was at the moment or what his future plans are. Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin on Monday released the…

Petro-Canada gas stations across Canada are impacted by technical problems preventing customers from paying with credit card or rewards points as its parent company, Suncor Energy, discloses they suffered a cyberattack. Suncor Energy is the 48th-largest public company in the world, and one of Canada’s largest synthetic crude producers, having an annual revenue of $31 billion. The company says it has taken measures to mitigate the attack and informed the authorities of the situation. At the same time, it expects…

BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are reportedly aiding the Ukrainian government in setting up a reconstruction bank that could see rebuilding projects being heavily invested in by private entities. The Financial Times noted that it would cost Ukraine roughly $411 billion to rebuild their country amid the onslaught of attacks by Russia, but the cost is continuing to increase.

Potential investors will get an inside preview of how things will look during a London conference that is set to take place this week.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said Saturday that eight Chinese warplanes had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and come close to waters under Taipei’s control. Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, which views the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day. On Saturday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said 19 Chinese warplanes including J-10 and J-16 fighters were detected around the island. Eight of them crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and approached the island’s contiguous zone, or the band of sea within 24 nautical miles (44…

The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-18 Thursday, the second part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s three-phase censorship legislation. In the process, the Conservative Party’s chief critic of the legislation was censured on Wednesday and was unable to attack the bill from the floor of the House of Commons. C-18 will force social media companies to pay Canadian media to post news stories. In protest of the bill, Meta has already put Canada on notice that it will cease providing Canadian…

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. officials said Wednesday that they were caught off guard when President Joe Biden described Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” — just 24 hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing and appeared to reach a breakthrough in tense relations between the countries. Officials privately sought to clarify Wednesday with the Chinese that Biden’s description of Xi does not reflect a new talking point or official policy shift by the administration. Officials said they…

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon said it will be able to spend US$6 billion (S$8 billion) more than originally expected on arms for Ukraine thanks to what it called accounting errors. The Defense Department overstated the value of weapons sent from its stockpiles by US$2.6 billion in fiscal 2022 and US$3.6 billion in fiscal 2023, for a total of US$6.2 billion, deputy spokesman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Tuesday at the Pentagon.  “It’s just going to go back into the pot…

Editor’s note: This story was first published in InvestigateWest, an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Subscribe to their newsletter. Amanda Klinksiek knows that when she breaks out in hives, she likely has another problem: mold. Hives tipped Klinksiek off to mold in a previous home. And in September, when she moved into a two-bedroom townhouse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord with her husband and two kids, the itchy red bumps appeared again. Klinksiek, 30, tried…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes. He will enter into an agreement that could enable him to avoid a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday. The federal charges against Hunter Biden resulted from an investigation by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware, who was appointed by Republican then-President Donald…

The Russian government says it will be forced to take retaliatory measures if Western-made F-16 fighter jets appear in the skies over Ukraine. The threat was aired by Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during an interview with the RT television channel late last week. According to Lavrov, Russia has issued a “very serious demarche” with regard to the possibility of F-16 aircraft being transferred to Kyiv. He also claimed that the fighter jets would be used by the Ukrainian Armed…

The State of Louisiana has experienced an extensive data breach, with six million public records being exposed. The breach was a part of a global attack on the third-party file transfer application, MOVEit. The breach is likely to raise further concerns as the state recently introduced a new law that is increasing the uptake of digital ID – a law that forces adult websites to check the age of all users, with many wanting it rolled out to all social media platforms. The personal details of every…