US targets second major Chinese hacking group

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Washington — The United States has identified and taken down a botnet campaign by China-directed hackers to further infiltrate American infrastructure as well as a variety of internet-connected devices. FBI Director Christopher Wray announced the disruption of what he called Flax Typhoon during a cyber summit Wednesday in Washington, describing it as part of a much larger campaign by Beijing. “Flax Typhoon hijacked Internet-of-Things devices like cameras, video recorders and storage devices — things typically found across both big and small organizations,” Wray said. “And about half of those hijacked devices were located here in the U.S.” Wray said the hackers,more

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False reports of explosives found in car near Trump rally spread online

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New York — Law enforcement officials on Long Island worked quickly on Wednesday to publicly knock down social media posts falsely reporting that explosives had been found in a car near former President Donald Trump’s planned rally in New York. The false reports of an explosive began circulating hours before the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign event at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, just days after he was apparently the target of a second possible assassination attempt. Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said police questioned and detained a person who “may have been training a bomb detection dog,” near the site ofmore

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The battleground states that will decide the 2024 presidential race

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Every four years, the U.S. presidential race zeroes in on “swing states.” These battlegrounds, unlike most states that consistently favor one party, can flip between elections and often determine who wins the White House. With just a few states typically in play, campaigns pour resources into these crucial arenas. Their electoral votes frequently decide the outcome, making them the focus of intense campaigning. Understanding swing states is essential to grasping how America picks its president, shaping strategies and potentially altering the nation’s political landscape. …

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‘End of an era’: UK to shut last coal-fired power plant 

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Ratcliffe on Soar, United Kingdom — Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.   At the mainline railway station serving the nearby East Midlands Airport, its giant cooling towers rise up seemingly within touching distance of the track and platform.   But at the end of this month, the site in central England will close its doors, signaling the end to polluting coal-powered electricity in the UK, in a landmark first formore

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EU court confirms Qualcomm’s antitrust fine, with minor reduction

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brussels — Europe’s second-top court largely confirmed on Wednesday an EU antitrust fine imposed on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm, revising it down slightly to $265.5 million from an initial $2.7 million. The European Commission imposed the fine in 2019, saying that Qualcomm sold its chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011, in a practice known as predatory pricing, to thwart British phone software maker Icera, which is now part of Nvidia Corp. Qualcomm had argued that the 3G baseband chipsets singled out in the case accounted for just 0.7% of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) market and so it was notmore

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Google wins challenge against $1.66B EU antitrust fine

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BRUSSELS — Alphabet unit Google won its challenge on Wednesday against a $1.66 billion antitrust fine imposed five years ago for hindering rivals in online search advertising, a week after it lost a much bigger case.  The European Commission, in its 2019 decision, said Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform that provided search adverts. The practices it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016. The Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the European Union competition enforcer’s assessments of the case, but annulled the fine. “The court […] upheld most ofmore

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China’s influence campaign intensifies as US election nears

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washington — At first glance, Noah R. Smith might seem like your typical social media user. His bio says he’s a father, a former “Track and Field representative,” and a current member of the PanAm Sports organization. On July 14, a day after the first assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Smith shared three posts from an account named “TRUMP WON.” One post declared, “AMERICA was attacked today … we must get it together. It’s literally a matter of life and death,” accompanied by an image depicting a divine hand halting a bullet aimed at Trump. Another post urgedmore

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Experts say voters should feel confident in US elections this year

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washington — American voters face a challenging duality as they count down the days until November’s presidential election: a security landscape that officials say has become ever more dangerous even as the infrastructure to hold elections has become ever-more secure.  The run-up to the 2024 election has seen the “most complex threat landscape yet,” according to Cait Conley, a senior adviser at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the government body responsible for overseeing election security.  “We do see a growing and diverse array of foreign adversaries, foreign actors, trying to disrupt our elections,” Conley said Tuesday, speaking atmore

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Big Tech, calls for looser rules await new EU antitrust chief 

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Brussels — Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe’s new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated Tuesday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post, Ribera has been Spain’s minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe’s most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty finesmore

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Analysis: Shift in women’s voter demographics could favor Democrats

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American women are poised to play an important role in deciding the 2024 U.S. presidential election. In recent years, women have registered to vote and cast votes at higher rates than men, and in the 2020 election, female voters outnumbered male voters by several million. Although women are not a monolithic voting bloc, the trends favor one major party over the other, as Dora Mekouar reports. …

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France uses tough, untested cybercrime law to target Telegram’s Durov

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PARIS — When French prosecutors took aim at Telegram boss Pavel Durov, they had a trump card to wield – a tough new law with no international equivalent that criminalizes tech titans whose platforms allow illegal products or activities. The so-called LOPMI law, enacted in January 2023, has placed France at the forefront of a group of nations taking a sterner stance on crime-ridden websites. But the law is so recent that prosecutors have yet to secure a conviction. With the law still untested in court, France’s pioneering push to prosecute figures like Durov could backfire if its judges balk atmore

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AI videos of US leaders singing Chinese go viral in China

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WASHINGTON — “I love you, China. My dear mother,” former U.S. President Donald Trump, standing in front of a mic at a lectern, appears to sing in perfect Mandarin. “I cry for you, and I also feel proud for you,” Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent in this year’s election, appears to respond, also in perfect Mandarin. Trump lets out a smile as he listens to the lyric. The video has received thousands of likes and tens of thousands of reposts on Douyin, China’s variation of TikTok. “These two are almost as Chinese as it gets,” one comment says. Neithermore

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Ohio city cancels cultural festival after political furor over Haitians

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Springfield, Ohio — An Ohio city at the center of a political furor over Haitian migrants canceled its annual celebration of cultural diversity on Monday in response to days of violent threats that have closed schools and government offices. The governor, meanwhile, said resources would be surged to Springfield to help city officials deal with the fallout. Springfield’s two-day CultureFest, which highlights diversity, arts and culture, had been scheduled to begin Sept. 27 but was canceled “in light of recent threats and safety concerns,” the city announced. “We deeply regret having to cancel CultureFest, as we know it is a belovedmore

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Postal Service chief ‘fully committed’ to timely US ballot deliveries

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Washington — U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said on Monday he is “personally fully committed” to ensuring all 2024 presidential election ballots are delivered in a timely fashion and vowed to respond to concerns raised by state and local officials. A group of about three dozen election officials from the National Association of State Election Directors and other groups on Wednesday raised serious concerns about USPS’s ability to deliver millions of ballots for the 2024 presidential election, citing questions “about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and front-line training deficiencies impacting USPS’s ability to deliver election mail in amore

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