WASHINGTON -— TikTok’s chief executive officer (CEO) said on Wednesday the social media company expects to win a legal challenge to block legislation signed into law by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. that he said would ban its popular short video app used by 170 million Americans. “Rest assured — we aren’t going anywhere,” CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted moments after Mr. Biden signed the bill that gives China-based ByteDance 270...
Ratings agency S&P Global on Thursday cut Israel’s long-term ratings to A-plus from AA-minus after the confrontation with Iran heightened last weekend and amidst the already elevated geopolitical risks for Israel. “We forecast that Israel’s general government deficit will widen to 8% of GDP in 2024, mostly as a result of increased defense spending,” S&P Global said in its statement. The negative outlook reflects the risk that the Israel-Hamas war and the confrontation with Hezbollah...
Nashville, Tennessee – Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday. An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at Vanderbilt University. China is developing the “ability...
WASHINGTON – The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits was unchanged at a low level last week, pointing to continued labor market strength that is driving the economy. Labor market resilience, together with elevated inflation have led financial markets and some economists to expect that the Federal Reserve could delay cutting interest rates until September. A few economists doubt that the U.S. central bank will lower borrowing costs this year. “Overall, layoffs...
COLORADO GOVERNOR Jared Polis on Wednesday signed into law the first measure passed in the US that aims to protect the data found in a person’s brainwaves. Sponsors of the bill said it was necessary as quick advances in neurotechnology make scanning, analyzing and selling mental data increasingly more possible — and profitable. State representative Cathy Kipp, a sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement that while advancements in the neurotechnology field hold great...
NIAMEY — On a hospital bed in Niger, a 96-year-old woman lay motionless attached to a drip — one of thousands of possible victims of West Africa’s worst heatwave in living memory, which a report said on Thursday was linked to fossil fuel-driven climate change. In late March and early April, days and nights of extreme heat above 40° Celsius (104°F) gripped many West African countries. Temperatures soared so high in Mali and Burkina Faso...
SYDNEY — Two stabbing attacks in Sydney which killed six people and injured shoppers and an Assyrian bishop during his service have shocked Australians and sparked calls for greater public security despite some of the world’s toughest gun laws. The deadly attack at a busy Westfield shopping mall in affluent Bondi Junction last Saturday has shone a spotlight on longstanding complaints from the country’s 155,000 security guards who say they are so poorly equipped, they...
LAGOS/LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A ruling this month by Uganda’s Constitutional Court to water down a tough anti-LGBTQ+ law may have stemmed from concern to avoid further international sanctions over the controversial legislation, rights activists and analysts say. The court’s decision to strike out several of the law’s most contentious clauses came weeks after a similar law passed by Ghana appeared to have hit a roadblock amid Finance Ministry warnings it could derail $3.8 billion in...
WASHINGTON – Brazil’s proposal to tax the super-rich globally gained momentum among Group of Twenty members on Wednesday, with France’s finance minister and the head of the International Monetary Fund backing a coordinated push to generate new revenue and build a better common future. Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said Brazil, current president of the Group of Twenty (G20), was aiming to build international consensus on the taxation of wealth this year, and would push for a joint declaration at a...
BEIJING – An editorial in a Chinese state-controlled newspaper on Thursday admonished “two-faced” Japan for inaccurately portraying it as a regional security threat while chasing more stable bilateral ties, warning of Chinese measures if Tokyo acted recklessly. In his address to the US Congress last week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called China’s military actions “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge” to the world, and vowed deeper strategic cooperation with Washington, placing China and Russia’s military actions as...
