International

International


As fuel taxes plummet, states weigh charging by the mile instead of the tank

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Evan Burroughs has spent eight years touting the virtues of an Oregon pilot program charging motorists by the distance their vehicle travels rather than the gas it guzzles, yet his own mother still hasn’t bought in. Margaret Burroughs, 85, said she has no intention of inserting a tracking device on her […]

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Is Twitter ready for Europe’s new Big Tech rules? EU official says it has work to do

Twitter needs to do more work to fall in line with the European Union’s tough new digital rulebook, a top EU official said after overseeing a “stress test” of the company’s systems in Silicon Valley. European Commissioner Thierry Breton said late Thursday that he noted the “strong commitment of Twitter to comply” with the Digital […]

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2.5M Genworth policyholders and 769K retired California workers and beneficiaries affected by hack

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The country’s largest public pension fund says the personal information of about 769,000 retired California employees and other beneficiaries — including Social Security numbers — was among data stolen by Russian cybercriminals in the breach of a popular file-transfer application. It blamed the breach on a third-party vendor that verifies deaths. […]

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FTC accuses Amazon of enrolling consumers into Prime without consent and making it hard to cancel

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon was sued Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly engaging in a yearslong effort to enroll consumers without consent into Amazon Prime and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions. In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the agency […]

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Thai activists sue government agencies for allegedly using Pegasus spyware against them

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 […]

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Europe, US urged to investigate the type of AI that powers systems like ChatGPT

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 […]

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Like Daniel Ellsberg, others who leaked US government secrets have been seen as traitors and heroes

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 […]

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Energy Department among federal agencies breached by Russian ransomware gang

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 […]

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White House promotes spying law, says surveillance has caught hackers, fentanyl smugglers

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 […]

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UN chief calls for coordinated global action on disinformation, hate and artificial intelligence

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The proliferation of hate and lies on digital platforms and the threat that artificial intelligence can become an uncontrolled “monster” demand coordinated global action — starting with a code of conduct for governments, tech companies and advertisers that promotes truth and protects human rights, the U.N. chief said Monday. Secretary-General Antonio […]

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Judge in FTX bankruptcy rejects media challenge, says customer names can remain secret

DOVER, Del. (AP) — The names of individual customers of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading can be permanently shielded from public disclosure, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled Friday. Following a two-day hearing, Judge John Dorsey rejected arguments from lawyers for several media outlets and for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee, which serves as a government watchdog […]

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Lawyer wraps up Prince Harry’s phone hacking case by grilling ex tabloid reporter

LONDON (AP) — A lawyer for Prince Harry finished setting out the royal’s case against a newspaper publisher on Thursday, quizzing a former tabloid reporter about information inserted into stories by then-editor Piers Morgan. On the final day of evidence, attorney David Sherborne grilled former Daily Mirror royal correspondent Jane Kerr, whose byline appears on […]

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