SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — European officials widened a ban on Meta’s “behavioral advertising” practices to most of Europe on Wednesday, setting up a broader conflict between the continent’s privacy-conscious institutions and an American technology giant. Behavioral advertising, used by Meta’s Facebook and Instagram among many other tech companies, involves observing individual behavior such as browsing […]

Amazon used a secret algorithm to essentially help raise prices on other online sites and also “destroyed” internal communications as the Federal Trade Commission undertook an antitrust investigation against it, according to newly unredacted portions of the agency’s lawsuit. The new excerpts unveiled Thursday allege executives at the e-commerce giant intentionally deleted communication by using a feature […]

DENVER (AP) — The body of a heavily armed man who authorities suspected was planning a “heinous” attack at a mountaintop amusement park in Colorado was discovered with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the bathroom at a building that houses a ride that drops 110-feet deep into caverns, according to a 911 call released Wednesday. […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The state of Tennessee has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a federal lawsuit by its former vaccine leader over her firing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The agreement in the case brought by Michelle Fiscus includes provisions that limit what each of the parties can say about each other, according to […]

OTTAWA — A coalition pushing for better regulation of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technologies says proposed federal privacy legislation is in “dire need of significant amendments.” In an open letter Wednesday to Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, the Right2YourFace Coalition warns the use of facial recognition technology threatens human rights, equity principles and fundamental freedoms, including […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before House Speaker Mike Johnson was elected to public office, he was the dean of a small Baptist law school that didn’t exist. The establishment of the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law was supposed to be a capstone achievement for Louisiana College, which administrators boasted would “unashamedly embrace” a “biblical worldview.” […]

OTTAWA — An architectural group that lost out on building a monument to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan is accusing two federal cabinet ministers of giving a “pathetic” explanation for how the contract was awarded. The design by Team Daoust was selected by a jury, but the government overruled that decision to award the contract to […]

ATLANTA (AP) — A former employee is suing to force a Mississippi utility to repay $382 million that the federal government gave to build a failed coal-fueled power plant. Kelli Williams, a former construction manager for Atlanta-based Southern Co., filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the company and its subsidiary Mississippi Power Co. in 2018. That […]

HONOLULU (AP) — An officer sprinted from house to house in the historic town of Lahaina, Hawaii, alerting people to the approaching inferno. Another coughed and swore as he drove through thick smoke past burning buildings with people he rescued crammed in the back seat. With no ambulance available, one officer offered to bring a […]

TORONTO — The Toronto Public Library says it is dealing with a cybersecurity incident that’s affecting its website and some in-branch services. The library says the issue was detected on Saturday and that its website, digital collections and museum and arts passes cannot be accessed. A statement posted online also says that public computers and […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden enacted sweeping new ground rules and guardrails Monday for the growth and development of artificial intelligence, leaving room for what Canadian experts hope will be a careful but complementary approach from Ottawa. The executive order, billed as the single most comprehensive government action on AI in the technology’s history, […]

OTTAWA — The federal government is banning WeChat and Kaspersky applications from its phones over security concerns. WeChat is a social network, messaging and payments app from Chinese company Tencent, while Kaspersky was founded by Russian entrepreneur Eugene Kaspersky and offers cybersecurity and antivirus software. The government said both apps would be removed from its […]