SEATTLE (AP) — The public school district in Seattle has filed a novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth. Seattle Public Schools filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court. The 91-page complaint says the social media […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Chinese balloon that traversed the United States before being shot down last weekend captivated public attention and drew sharp denunciations as a brazen spying effort. But if the vehicle for espionage seemed novel, the concept was anything but. In ways that are far less public, but often more worrisome, U.S. officials […]

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Facing blowback, the director of Florida’s high school sports governing body is backing away from using an eligibility form that requires female athletes to disclose their menstrual history in order to compete. Instead, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association is recommending that most personal information revealed on […]

Canada is under increasing pressure to declare a moratorium on seabed mining just as federal leaders are set to host an international marine conservation summit. More than 700 international scientists and a multitude of environmental organizations are calling on Canada to ban the search for deep-sea minerals in its own waters and show global leadership […]

After the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo launched a cartoon contest to mock Iran’s ruling cleric, a state-backed Iranian cyber unit struck back with a hack-and-leak campaign that was designed to provoke fear with the claimed pilfering of a big subscriber database, Microsoft security researchers say. The FBI blames the same Iranian cyber operators, Emennet […]

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court has agreed to wade into a landmark legal battle over whether Canada’s military judges, who are responsible for overseeing dozens of courts martial every year, are truly independent. The top court announced its decision on Thursday following requests from several service members whose criminal cases have been on hold. As […]

MASKWACIS — An Alberta First Nation signed a two-year agreement with Ottawa Wednesday that gives it the autonomy to administer its own child welfare. Louis Bull Tribe in Maskwacis, Alta., south of Edmonton, is the first in the province to sign such an agreement. “This is an important day for Louis Bull Tribe,” Chief Desmond […]

SASKATOON — Public Safety Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces were caught off guard by a request for help from Saskatchewan during the height of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show employees in the federal departments were surprised when Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman sent a letter in October 2021 […]

In a first-of-its-kind enforcement, the Federal Trade Commission has imposed a $1.5 million penalty on telehealth and prescription drug discount provider GoodRx Holdings Inc. for sharing users’ personal health data with Facebook, Google and other third parties without their consent. Under a settlement, California-based GoodRx also accepted that it will be prohibited going forward from […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, asked the Justice Department in a letter Wednesday to investigate close allies of former President Donald Trump and others who accessed and disseminated personal data from a laptop that a computer repair shop owner says was dropped off at his Delaware store in 2019. […]

EDMONTON — Alberta is preparing to change how it ensures oilsands companies are able to pay for the mammoth job of cleaning up their operations, but critics fear a year of consultations hasn’t been enough to avoid repeating past mistakes. “There’s no signal to me from this government that they are going to hold industry […]

OTTAWA — Retailer Home Depot shared details from electronic receipts with Meta, which owns the social media platform Facebook, without the knowledge or consent of customers, the federal privacy watchdog has found. In a report released Thursday, privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne said the data included encoded email addresses and in-store purchase information. The commissioner’s investigation […]