Tag: Region US

Credit Suisse AT1 bonds: Swiss court receives 230 claims against Swiss regulator

ZURICH – Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court has received 230 claims against the country’s financial regulator Finma after it wrote off the value of Credit Suisse’s AT1 bonds, the court said on Tuesday. The claims related to 2,500 individual parties, a court spokesman told Reuters. The court in the north-eastern Swiss city of St Gallen, declined to say whether the time limit for filing further claims had expired or the amount of compensation claimed. The bond holders have sued Finma after…

Wells Fargo to Pay $1 Billion to Settle Pension-Led Lawsuit

Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $1 billion to settle a pension fund-led lawsuit that accused the bank of defrauding shareholders by misleading them over the progress it was making to rectify a slew of scandals. The Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi, the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Pension & Relief Fund and the state of Rhode Island were among the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in June 2020 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The…

First Citizens sues HSBC for hiring away Silicon Valley Bank staff

First Citizens BancShares Inc, which acquired Silicon Valley Bank following its collapse, sued HSBC Holdings PLC on Monday, accusing it of poaching more than 40 of the failed bank’s employees in order to launch its own U.S. venture banking business. The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court says HSBC violated federal law by hiring away the workers so it could gain access to Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) trade secrets including information about clients in the tech and healthcare sectors….

Jeffrey Epstein Emails Indicate Attempt to Blackmail Bill Gates Over Affair

Epstein’s old emails and calendar contain plenty of information to raise eyebrows about some of the most wealthy and well-known socialites. One of the biggest names in Epstein’s rolodex is the prolific philanthropist and megabillionaire Bill Gates. No longer just known for his computer programming savvy and lectures on greenhouse gases, Mr. Gates’ personal acquaintances are starting to peek through thanks to the investigative work of the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal reported that Jeffrey Epstein allegedly had…

Meta fined record $1.75 billion for violating EU data privacy rules

LONDON – Meta on Monday was fined a record 1.2 billion euros (S$1.75 billion) and ordered to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States, in a major ruling against the social media giant for violating European Union (EU) data protection rules. The penalty, which eclipses a 746 million euro EU fine previously doled out to Amazon.com, was announced by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission. It is potentially one of the most consequential in the five…

U.S. Air Force wants to avoid F-35 mistakes on sixth-gen fighter

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is focused on avoiding the mistakes that plagued past programs like the F-35, as the service officially kicks off its effort to build a sixth-generation fighter, Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday. That includes ensuring the Air Force has access to all the sustainment data it needs from the contractor building the Next Generation Air Dominance platform, Kendall told reporters at a breakfast roundtable hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “We’re not going to repeat the,…

Florida sued over new law blocking Chinese citizens, other foreigners from buying property

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A group of Chinese citizens living and working in Florida sued the state Monday over a new law that bans Chinese nationals from purchasing property in large swaths of the state. The law applies to land near military installations and other “critical infrastructure” and also affects citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. But Chinese citizens face the harshest restrictions. The law “will codify and expand housing discrimination against people of Asian descent…

Canadian wildfire smoke is prompting air quality warnings in the western U.S.

Residents across parts of the northwestern United States are under air quality alerts this weekend after smoke from a spate of Canadian wildfires drifted south across the border. Thick plumes of smoke from blazes in the Canadian province of Alberta crossed into multiple states including Montana, Colorado, Idaho and Utah. But a Pacific cold front moving into the area toward the end of the weekend was expected to bring rain and wind that could push the smoke away. Officials in…

Zelenskyy denies Ukrainian city of Bakhmut occupied by Russian forces

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces weren’t occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow’s insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen. Responding to a reporter’s question about the status of the city at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.” “We are not throwing people (away) to die,” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian through an interpreter. “People are the treasure. I clearly…

The government can’t seize your data — but it can buy it

Adam Kovacevich is the CEO and founder of a center-left tech industry coalition called Chamber of Progress and has worked at the intersection of tech and politics for 20 years, leading public policy at Google and Lime and serving as a Democratic Hill aide. When the Biden administration proposed new protections earlier this month to prevent law enforcement from demanding reproductive healthcare data from companies, they took a critical first step in protecting our personal data. But there remains a…

British university blocks Russian writer from own performance

Shenderovich then confirmed on Facebook he was “barred from his own performance in London” but still did not explain the reasons behind the incident. He also mockingly thanked “all the idiots” responsible “for such an incredible promotion.”  The author eventually moved to nearby Regent’s Park together with his would-be audience, where he held an impromptu performance “in the natural setting,” Shenderovich himself said in his Facebook statement. The author called the event “one of his best performances” and said that…

A Maryland man has been carrying an AR-15-style rifle near a school bus stop — Legally

Colt M4 Carbine and AR-15 style rifles are displayed during the National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas on May 28, 2022. A Maryland man is causing concern for carrying an AR-15 style rifle near a school bus stop. The issue of gun control came to a head in Maryland after a man began regularly standing at a school bus stop with an AR-15-style rifle in his hands. For the past few weeks, J’Den McAdory, 20, has been…

DeSantis asks that judge be disqualified from Disney’s free speech lawsuit

  ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking that a federal judge be disqualified from the First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney against the Florida governor and his appointees, claiming the jurist’s prior statements in other cases have raised questions about his impartiality on the state’s efforts to take over Disney World’s governing body. DeSantis ‘ attorney filed a motion in federal court in Tallahassee on Friday seeking to disqualify Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker from overseeing…

Russia’s international flight connections expanding

Indonesia is launching the flight because “Russia is now looking to the East, so we are also looking towards Russia,” Helmi explained. Also on Friday, the first Russian plane landed in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi after a four-year hiatus. The arrival was met by a small group of anti-Russia protesters at the airport. On Saturday, meanwhile, the first Georgian Airways plane arrived in Moscow, with its pilot saying on social media that “direct flights are profitable and the right thing to…

Pentagon ‘No Longer Confident’ Syria Drone Strike Killed Al-Qaeda Leader Instead of Farmer

Although it has claimed to be fighting Daesh* and other terrorist groups in Syria since 2014, the US military has never received permission from the Syrian government to operate there. In addition, US forces continue to help occupy the eastern third of the country under the guise of supporting allied Kurdish forces. Having previously claimed that a May 3 airstrike in northwestern Syria killed a top Al-Qaeda** leader, the Pentagon is now expressing doubts. “We are no longer confident we…

Biden backs advanced fighter jets, pilot training for Ukraine

U.S. President Joe Biden told G7 leaders that Washington will support providing advanced warplanes including F-16s to Ukraine and will back efforts to train Kyiv’s pilots, a senior White House official said Friday. The U.S. move signals a major breakthrough for Kyiv, which has repeatedly — and until recently unsuccessfully — pushed its Western supporters to agree to provide high-tech jets as it fights to fend off Russia’s invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who is set to meet Biden…