International

International


Transgender Kansas residents can keep updating their documents despite a new law, governor says

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Democratic governor in Kansas declared Thursday that the state will keep allowing transgender residents to alter their driver’s licenses and birth certificates, despite a new law aimed at preventing it. Gov. Laura Kelly issued a directive that allows agencies under her control to defy a legal opinion issued earlier this […]

Read More


The latest victim of the MOVEit data breach is the Department of Health and Human Services

Federal health officials have notified Congress of a data breach that could involve the information of more than 100,000 people. A representative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that attackers gained access to the department’s data by exploiting a vulnerability in widely used file-transfer software. Other government agencies, major pension […]

Read More


Newly all male South Carolina Supreme Court scrutinizes abortion ban months after tossing one out

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A potential swing vote on the newly all-male South Carolina Supreme Court grilled lawyers over whether patients have enough time to get an abortion after learning of their pregnancy as the justices weighed whether a new ban is similarly unconstitutional to one that got shot down earlier this year. The right […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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. […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More


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 […]

Read More