HALIFAX — A Cape Breton-based employment services organization mismanaged more than $1 million in government funds in what Nova Scotia’s auditor general says was a “perfect storm” of deliberate, systemic actions that benefited select managers and staff. Kim Adair’s audit of the Island Employment Association found numerous instances of “gross mismanagement of public funds,” including […]

BANGKOK (AP) — Two prominent Thai activists filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing the government of using the internationally notorious Pegasus spyware to infiltrate their mobile devices during a period of political unrest almost three years ago. Law reform advocate Yingcheep Atchanont and human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa accuse nine state agencies in the administration […]

LONDON (AP) — European Union consumer protection groups urged regulators on Tuesday to investigate the type of artificial intelligence underpinning systems like ChatGPT, citing risks that leave people vulnerable and the delay before the bloc’s groundbreaking AI regulations take effect. In a coordinated effort, 13 watchdog groups wrote to their national consumer, data protection, competition […]

OTTAWA — The RCMP says it is not investigating allegations of political interference in the federal handling of criminal charges against engineering firm SNC-Lavalin. In a statement today, the Mounties set the record straight after a recent response to a public interest group’s Access to Information request suggested the Mounties were conducting such a probe. […]

OTTAWA — Canada has a chance to become a world leader when it comes to helping athletes alleging abuse against coaches, a prominent American judge told a parliamentary committee. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced former U.S. gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to 40 to 175 years in prison in 2018 after he admitted to molesting top gymnasts […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Daniel Ellsberg’s decision to leak a secret Defense Department study of the U.S. war in Vietnam — the Pentagon Papers — made him a traitor in the eyes of the White House and its supporters and an instant hero to opponents of the war. That’s been true of others who released top-secret […]

EDMONTON — A man who stabbed five young people to death at a Calgary house party will not be released from a group home after a ruling Thursday from Alberta’s highest court. Matthew de Grood, who is now in his early 30s, was found not criminally responsible in 2016 for the killings of Zackariah Rathwell, […]

The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said Thursday. But for others among what could be hundreds of victims from industry to higher […]

WINNIPEG — The Manitoba government is taking out more advertising in the lead-up to the Oct. 3 provincial election and has more leeway to do so under recent changes to provincial law. The Progressive Conservative government has budgeted $375,500 for the latest phase of advertising promoting its recent agreement with the federal government to offer […]

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia Cybersecurity Minister Colton LeBlanc says his department has identified thousands more people affected by a recent global data breach, and this week it is beginning the process of notifying the “most vulnerable” victims of the hack. But LeBlanc told a news conference Wednesday it’s hard to give a precise estimate of […]

OTTAWA — The federal government’s key transparency provision has steadily eroded to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose, says information commissioner Caroline Maynard. In her annual report to Parliament tabled Tuesday, Maynard said chronic issues continue to plague the access-to-information system, with no solutions in sight. For a $5 fee, Canadians […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has used electronic surveillance programs to catch fentanyl smugglers and the hackers who temporarily shut down a major U.S. fuel pipeline, the White House said Tuesday as part of its push to have those programs renewed by Congress. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires at the end […]