Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned Twitter’s board of directors that he may back out of a deal to buy the social media platform for $44 billion because the company has failed to provide information on spam and fake accounts.
“This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement, and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,” lawyers for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on Monday in a letter to Twitter. At issue is Musk’s demand for the calculations supporting Twitter’s estimate that less than 5% of its accounts are fake. The South African-born billionaire has claimed that around 20% of supposed Twitter users aren’t real, and he has vowed to crack down on spam bots. He said last month that he had paused the takeover due to concerns over the fake accounts and that he might try to renegotiate the acquisition price to reflect the number of bogus users.Twitter said it has shared information with Musk in accordance with terms of the takeover agreement. “We intend to close the transaction and enforce the agreement at the agreed price and terms,” the company said in a statement. Musk could be hit with a $1 billion breakup fee, as well as investor lawsuits, if he aborts the deal. Twitter shareholders have already sued him for driving down the company’s stock price by sowing doubt about the transaction. The stock fell 1.5% on Monday to $39.56, currently 27% below the takeover price of $54.20 that Musk agreed to pay for each share that he doesn’t already own. “At this point, Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover,” his lawyers said in Monday’s letter. “If Twitter is confident in its publicized spam estimates, Mr. Musk does not understand the company’s reluctance to allow Mr. Musk to independently evaluate those estimates.”
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Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has finally succeeded in acquiring the social media firm Twitter. The microblogging platform’s board of directors accepted Musk’s $44 billion offer to take the company private.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement announcing the purchase. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.” The billionaire pitched the takeover bid for Twitter earlier this month at $54.20 per share, shortly after he bought a 9.2% share of the company on April 4. Twitter shares at the time were trading below $40 per share. However, Twitter’s board was originally reluctant to accept the bid and even enacted a shareholders’ rights plan known as a ‘poison pill’ to protect the company from what it deemed a hostile takeover. But earlier this week, reports emerged that Twitter executives had begun warming up to discussing the deal.Twitter shares have jumped by over 35% since Musk announced his acquisition plans. They were trading above $52 per share in early trading on Monday. “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Musk tweeted earlier on Monday, as unconfirmed reports of the sale appeared in the press. A regular on Twitter with over 81.5 million followers, Musk is famous for his tweets, some of which, however, have landed him in legal hot water. In fact, his move to buy Twitter came shortly after US regulators announced they have authority to subpoena the Tesla CEO about his tweets and urged a federal judge not to let him tweet without supervision. This prompted Musk to tweet that he is “giving serious thought” to building his own social media platform. He made his bid for Twitter 20 days later. The euro slumped to a near two-year low on Thursday after the European Central Bank (ECB) remained vague about when it will raise interest rates in the face of soaring inflation. The drop in the single currency helped boost European stocks, while Wall Street equities resumed a downward slide amid worries over tightening U.S. monetary policy. The ECB stood still in the face of record eurozone inflation, keeping its stimulus plans and rates unchanged, as the fighting in Ukraine cast a pall over the eurozone economy. Meeting for the second time since the outbreak of the conflict, the bank's 25-member governing council stuck to a plan that "should" see its bond-buying scheme come to an end in the third quarter. An interest rate hike would follow "some time" after the stimulus program comes to an end, and any increases "will be gradual."
The decision leaves the ECB further out of step with many of its peers. Central banks such as the Bank of England, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada have already triggered their first interest rate rises in response to soaring inflation. The euro took a knock after the ECB's decision, slipping under $1.08 for the first time since May 2020, falling as low as $1.0758. The ECB "continues to show little sign of looking to hike rates after leaving rates unchanged at their policy meeting today, while being even handed over the risks facing the eurozone economy," said market analyst Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK. The ECB announcement provided a boost, however, for eurozone stocks, which moved into positive territory and ended the day higher. Musk's Twitter bid Wall Street meanwhile retreated, concluding a holiday-shortened week on a weak note, as the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note surged above 2.8 percent. Treasury yields are seen as a proxy for interest rates. "Right now, we're tied to this correlation between rising yields and falling tech shares," said Art Hogan, strategist at National Securities. All three major indices fell, with the Nasdaq leading the group by falling 2.1 percent. Citigroup gained 1.6 percent, while Goldman Sachs dipped 0.1 percent and Wells Fargo tumbled 4.5 percent. Elsewhere on the corporate front, Tesla chief Elon Musk launched a hostile takeover bid for Twitter, offering to buy 100 percent of its stock and take it private, according to a stock exchange filing. The move follows Musk's criticism of the platform. Some analysts expressed skepticism about the bid, noting Musk's history of outrageous and unpredictable conduct. It seems that worries are on the rise over the possibility of a new civil war in the US recently. More discussions on this matter occurred in US media especially after the first anniversary of the Capitol riots. For instance, The New York Times carried an opinion piece on January 6, titled "Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?" A CNN video on Saturday asked a similar question: "Is America heading to civil war or secession?"
The US has seen increasing polarization in recent years. Historically, in the US, people with diverse political ideas made compromises. This is demonstrated, for example, in the founding of the US and the drafting of the Constitution. The spirit of compromise, however, has vanished and been replaced with confrontation. Complex context lies behind the discussions of a potential civil war and divisions in the US. One, globalization has resulted in a growing gap between rich and poor, and the US government fails to narrow the gap. The COVID-19 epidemic has amplified this problem - the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Against such a backdrop, the sense of political identity in the US has increased. As complaints from all classes are filling up society, people get emotional more easily. And they are using more and more intense ways to present their political demands, be they liberal or conservative, white or non-white. Moreover, former US president Donald Trump intentionally created divisions during his tenure, leading to the inability of the current administration to recover from Trump's presidency. In short, Trump's push for division, as well as the constant impact of factors like the imbalance of social development and the epidemic, has made confrontation a common phenomenon in US society. US politics is so overwhelmingly dominated by the two major parties that the rise of a third party as an emerging force seems almost impossible. Those who belong to neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party have no chance but to attach themselves to one of the duo, or simply escape from the US political arena. Meanwhile, amid constant conflicts, neither party is able or willing to cooperate for the sake of the people. Political stalemate emerges. The political struggle in the US goes on and on in the form of extreme confrontation, which will lead to internal conflicts. This will have an impact on the US' sustainable development. For now, it can be seen mainly politically and socially. But if it continues to worsen, it may also affect the US economy, its science and technology innovation, education, and thus its international status. Midterm elections will be held in the US this year. The confrontation between the two parties is expected to become fiercer. The US may slide into a quasi state of civil war. What makes an election year a little bit different though is that the individuality of each politician from both sides starts to become increasingly apparent. Take Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a centrist Democrat who has been a loyal supporter of US President Joe Biden in the Senate. Manchin recently turned his back on Biden over many issues, from the Build Back Better package to the president's call for eliminating a longstanding supermajority rule in the Senate known as the "filibuster." According to US media, Manchin is a "coal magnate who represents one of America's reddest states." He has close ties to the coal industry and has made millions of dollars from US coal companies. Many suggest this is the real reason for his opposition of Biden's Build Back Better plan. For individual politicians, they have to weigh which is more important to them, the interest of their party or the interest of their own. In this sense, the confrontation in the US is becoming not only intensified, but also complicated. Several major Dutch internet providers have reportedly begun blocking websites belonging to RT English, RT UK, RT DE, RT France, RT Spanish, as well as Sputnik. According to the ANP news outlet, the Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) targeted the said Russian media, as they are on the EU’s sanctions list, which the bloc enacted in response to Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine. It is said that the ACM on Monday sent a list of undesirable media to internet providers,including VodafoneZiggo, KPN, and T-Mobile.
A VodafoneZiggo spokesperson told journalists that the company was indeed going to block the websites “as soon as possible, probably Tuesday,” with T-Mobile expected to comply soon as well. KPN, while agreeing to restrict access to the Russian media, has made it clear that it is “fundamentally” against the idea of blocking any websites in general. A spokesperson for the provider clarified that KPN does not think it is up to them to “determine what is good and what is bad.” The company would want to see “net neutrality” instead. Last Wednesday, the European Commission ruled that all RT channels, as well as Sputnik, be banned in all 27 member states over allegations of “systematic” disinformation regarding Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Commenting on the move, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that “systematic information manipulation and disinformation by the Kremlin is applied as an operational tool in its assault on Ukraine.” The official went on to claim that the Russian outlets posed a “significant and direct threat to the Union's public order and security.” Meta, Google, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok are complying with the ban already, not displaying RT and Sputnik’s material in the EU member states. On February 24, Russia launched a military offensive against Ukraine, with President Putin citing the need to “demilitarize and denazify” the country as well as to prevent Kiev from being dragged into NATO. Moreover, according to the Russian president, the Ukrainian government’s policies toward the Russian-speaking population in the Donbass republics were tantamount to “genocide.” Ukraine and the West, however, suspect that the Kremlin in fact wants to install a pro-Russian puppet government in Kiev, coming up with pretexts for an aggressive and “unprovoked” war. China is one of world’s most polluting countries, a reality dating back to when this power emerged as a developing country and was already known as ‘the world’s factory’. But the government wants to change this situation, making use of regions such as Xiong’an New Area, a self-sufficient and sustainable city, in which priority is given to shorter supply chains for energy and materials. What is the Xiong’an New Area? The Xiong’an New Area will be a newly created city (very common in China) developed by the government and intended to take pressure off other nearby cities and conduct pilot projects aimed at innovation and sustainability.2016 saw the start of China’s 13th Five-year Plan (2016-2020), aimed at the construction of “a moderately prosperous society, prepared to tackle instabilities in the economy and established on a solid base of innovation, regional integration, sustainable development and openness”.The most important theme of this statement of intent was sustainable development, and the Xiong’an New Area announced in 2017 by Xi Jinping, a new mega smart city designed to be the perfect setting for the 19th Chinese district. A technological and responsible district acting as a bridge between Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and which, simultaneously, would help regulate the growing population of the latter.This saw the start of a project with an estimated cost of 580 billion dollars and designed to “convert a rural area into the next Shenzhen”. As well as attracting talent with a message of self-sufficiency in resources, Zhongguancun (the Chinese Silicon Valley) will build a new scientific park and mobilize around 500,000 scientists, as well as dozens of major companies.The first phase consists of unifying and modernizing over 60 rural villages with a population of one million, which occupy an area of around 1000 km2, with the ultimate aim of having a population of around 25 million inhabitants by 2035 distributed over an area of around 2000 km2. A colossal and yet sustainable city. Why will Xiong’an be a green self-sufficient city?
Xiong’an Citizen Service Center (2019)[/caption]One of the main objectives of the Xiong’an area, which is still using vast amounts of coal for heating and cooking and for generating energy, is that the Xiong’an New Area uses 100% clean, emission-free energy. The State Grid Corporation of China opened a subsidiary to plan the growth of the future grid.As of 2020, thousands of companies have been closed down due to a breach of Xiong’an’s new pollution regulations. This sustainable city’s road map includes “exploring new [economic] growth models”, “creating a world-class smart city” prioritizing “green development and environmental protection”.To achieve all of these points, including sustainable farming, the city’s actual buildings will generate most of its energy, and grow all the food required in the area, minimizing exports and imports.Another point sought by the area is to become a completely electrified transport hub with five high-speed lines connecting the territory with other major cities, with the aim of minimizing and even eliminating the use of polluting vehicles
Linda Kim SAN FRANCISCO, August 20 -- Twitter and Facebook said on Monday (Aug 19) they had dismantled a state-backed information operation originating in mainland China that sought to undermine protests in Hong Kong. Twitter said it suspended 936 accounts and the operations appeared to be a coordinated state-backed effort originating in China. It said these accounts were just the most active portions of this campaign and that a "larger, spammy network" of approximately 200,000 accounts had been proactively suspended before they were substantially active. Facebook said it had removed accounts and pages from a small network after a tip from Twitter. It said that its investigation found links to individuals associated with the Chinese government. Social media companies are under pressure to stem illicit political influence campaigns online ahead of the US election in November 2020. A 22-month US investigation concluded Russia interfered in a "sweeping and systematic fashion" in the 2016 US election to help Donald Trump win the presidency. The Chinese embassy in Washington and the US State Department were not immediately available to comment. The Hong Kong protests, which have presented one of the biggest challenges for Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012, began in June as opposition to a now-suspended bill that would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts. They have since swelled into wider calls for democracy. Twitter in a blog post said the accounts undermined the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement in Hong Kong. Examples of posts provided by Twitter included a tweet from a user with photos of protesters storming Hong Kong's Legislative Council building, which asked: "Are these people who smashed the Legco crazy or taking benefits from the bad guys? It's a complete violent behavior, we don't want you radical people in Hong Kong. Just get out of here!" In examples provided by Facebook, one post called the protesters "Hong Kong cockroaches" and claimed that they"refused to show their faces". In a separate statement, Twitter said it was updating its advertising policy and would not accept advertising from state-controlled news media entities going forward. Twitter told Reuters the advertising change was not related to the suspended accounts. In the past week, China’s official Xinhua news agency and state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) paid to promote videos that portrayed the protests as violent and said Hong Kong citizens wanted the demonstrations to end, according to Twitter’s Ads Transparency Centre. Twitter said it did not have data on how much revenue it generates from state-controlled media advertising. Many countries including the United States do not have clear standards on state media’s purchase of online advertising. Total digital ad spending in Hong Kong will grow 11 per cent to reach US$786.1 million in 2019, according to projections by US digital market data analyst eMarketer. Alphabet's YouTube video service told Reuters in June that state-owned media companies maintained the same privileges as any other user, including the ability to run ads in accordance with its rules. YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday on whether it had detected inauthentic content related to protests in Hong Kong. In a tweet on Sunday, China’s influential state-run tabloid, The Global Times, hailed the response of Chinese “netizens” to the protests, saying: “Chinese netizens’ power! Amid escalating protests in Hong Kong, Chinese netizens on Saturday swept Facebook and Instagram to denounce secessionist posts and show support for Hong Kong police.” About 98 per cent of social network users in Hong Kong, or 4.7 million people, will log into Facebook at least once a month in 2019, according to eMarketer projections, while 9.4 per cent of social network users will use Twitter. Linda Kim SINGAPORE, August 19 -- Internet search giant Baidu has launched cloud computing services in Singapore, as the company moves to catch up with Chinese rivals Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings in Southeast Asia’s biggest information technology market. Nasdaq-listed Baidu will focus on supporting mainland Chinese companies expanding in the region, as well as meeting the requirements of domestic firms for “high-performing, secured and reliable” cloud services, the company said in a statement on Monday.It is offering a full stack of cloud services for a range of industries – including gaming, finance and internet services – in Singapore, which was forecast by Forrester Research to spend US$30 billion on enterprise technology in 2019 and 2020 to lead all economies in Southeast Asia. The huge demand for cloud computing services in the city state, according to Baidu, is driven by its prime geographic location in Asia and its role as one of the world’s largest international financial centers. Cloud computing enables companies to buy, sell, lease or distribute over the internet a range of software and other digital resources as an on-demand service, just like electricity from a power grid. These resources are managed inside data centers. Baidu’s foray into Singapore’s cloud services market comes as Southeast Asia has become one of the focal points for global investors, start-ups and Chinese technology conglomerates, led by Alibaba and Tencent, which have been expanding outside their home market. Pete McGee SEOUL, August 14 -- South Korean company to start making Isocell Bright HMX sensor, developed with Chinese firm Xiaomi, that offers detailed images similar to those of high-end DSLR cameras. Samsung announced a new camera sensor on Monday, designed for smartphones, which packs 108 megapixels. Smartphone cameras typically have about 12 to 16 megapixels, where each megapixel, or million pixels, represents the small individual areas on a computer screen that are used measure the quality of an image or digital screen. However, Samsung’s new 108-megapixel camera sensor, the Isocell Bright HMX, is the first to go above 100 megapixels for a smartphone camera, the South Korean technology company says. The megapixel count is comparable to a high-end digital single-lens reflex camera. With its 108 megapixels, the Isocell Bright HMX is designed to take extremely detailed photos. It’s also designed to take better lowlight shots by merging the pixels to absorb more light. When the pixels are merged, the megapixel count is reduced from 108 to 27, which is still more than twice as many as a standard smartphone camera. For recording video, Samsung’s Isocell Bright HMX can shoot up to 6K resolution at 30 frames per second, where the highest video resolution that smartphone cameras have been able to shoot is 4K at 60 frames a second. Samsung worked in partnership with Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi to develop the sensor, so it is likely that it will be featured in a forthcoming Xiaomi phone. The South Korean firm did not mention whether its own smartphones or other smartphone makers in the future will feature the 108-megapixel sensor. It said it was starting mass production of the Isocell Bright HMX sensor this month. Lora Smith He had been placed on suicide watch last month but then taken off within a week, according to a person familiar with the matter. White House officials did not immediately return a request for a comment on why Mr Trump was spreading the conspiracy theory. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the president's retweet. A Clinton spokesman responded on Twitter: "Ridiculous, and of course not true - and Donald Trump knows it. Has he triggered the 25th Amendment yet?" On Saturday, Senator Marco Rubio warned against embracing conspiracy theories. While scrutiny of Epstein's apparent suicide is warranted, Mr Rubio said, he added that "the immediate rush to spread conspiracy theories about someone on the 'other side' of partisan divide having him killed illustrates why our society is so vulnerable to foreign disinformation & influence efforts".Still, Mr Trump's retweet will surely help fuel the conspiracy theories that have quickly spread online since the news of Epstein's death broke on Saturday. And the president - who is on vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey - is no stranger to using his considerable public platform to promote conspiracy theories, particularly those that target his political opponents.
For years, Mr Trump promoted the myth that former president Barack Obama was born in Kenya rather than in the United States. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr Trump spread a conspiracy theory that Mr Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz, was somehow connected to the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. Mr Trump has claimed without evidence that Mr Obama wiretapped Trump Tower in New York, and once entertained an unsubstantiated theory that former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in his sleep in February 2016, may have been murdered. Linda Lim CHANTILLY, July 17 -- The Group of Seven industrialized nations started a two-day financial meeting Wednesday in France, focusing on effective measures to regulate Facebook Inc.'s proposed digital currency Libra to prevent potential money laundering and terrorist financing. The G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors are also expected to discuss ways to reform global corporate tax rules amid criticism that big internet companies get away without paying their fair share of taxes as they can book profits in low-tax jurisdictions. The meeting came as regulators, lawmakers and central bankers are scrutinizing Facebook's project -- unveiled just last month -- to create a crypto currency-based retail payments system in a move that critics say could affect the global financial system and challenge the role of the dollar as the world's main reserve currency. Speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting in Chantilly, north of Paris, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda sought close international coordination in drawing up regulations for Libra and crypto currency payments. "If (Libra) were to be used as a means of payments, it could well affect the economy and finance," Kuroda said, calling for necessary regulations to curb a significant impact if the project were to be implemented "on a huge platform." He was referring to the social media giant's global reach with its user base of 2.7 billion, about a third of the world's population. The BOJ chief said that together with measures for financial stability, antitrust and privacy issues could also be part of regulations. Kuroda and Finance Minister Taro Aso are representing Japan at the gathering, which also brings together their counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and the European Union. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned that Libra and other cryptocurrencies are a "national security issue," and that digital asset providers must be subject to government regulations and oversight just like any bank. Mnuchin said President Donald Trump's administration has "very serious concerns" that Libra, which Facebook plans to launch as early as next year, could be used for unlawful activity such as money laundering and financing terrorism. France, which holds this year's G-7 presidency, has launched a task force to study how central banks can regulate Libra and other cryptocurrencies to prevent money laundering and ensure consumer protection and financial system stability. The G-7 also plans to discuss a French call for minimum corporate taxation as part of efforts to appropriately tax information technology giants such as Google LLC, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook and Apple Inc. in a revamp of cross-border tax rules proposed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But it is not known whether France will win G-7 backing for its initiative, partly because the United States has criticized Paris' new tax on major internet companies' revenue in the country for "unfairly" targeting American companies. Customarily, the G-7 will assess the state of the world economy and look into measures to mitigate downside risks to global growth such as trade tensions between the United States and China. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has signaled the U.S. central bank will likely cut interest rates in late July for the first time in 11 years, given uncertainties about trade policy and the world economic outlook. China's economic growth slowed to 6.2 percent in the April-June quarter, the weakest pace in at least 27 years, as Trump sharply raised tariffs on Chinese imports in May to pressure Beijing into altering what Washington says are unfair trade practices. The G-7 finance ministers and central bankers are not planning to issue a joint statement after the meeting, but French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire is expected to release a summary of discussions, according to Japanese delegation sources. Lora Smith WASHINGTON, July 16 -- President Donald Trump on Sunday assailed a group of Democratic congresswomen of color as foreign-born troublemakers who should go back to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came,” ignoring the fact that the women are American citizens and all but one was born in the U.S. Trump’s tweets drew sharp rebukes from Democrats, who derided his remarks as racist. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the president wants to “make America white again.” And Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a Trump critic who recently took steps to leave his party, called the remarks “racist and disgusting.” Trump was almost certainly referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and her allies in what’s become known as “the squad.” The others are Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Only Omar, from Somalia, is foreign-born. Ocasio-Cortez swiftly denounced his remarks. “Mr. President, the country I come from, & the country we all swear to, is the United States,” she tweeted. “You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.” With his tweet, Trump again inserted himself into a rift between Pelosi and the liberal congresswomen, after offering an unsolicited defense of the Democratic speaker days earlier. Pelosi has been seeking to minimize Ocasio-Cortez’s influence in recent days, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to accuse Pelosi of trying to marginalize women of color. “She is not a racist,” Trump said Friday. On Sunday, Trump’s tone turned nativist “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” he said in tweets. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.” He added: “These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!” The attacks may have been meant to further the divides within the Democrat caucus, strained over internal debates on liberal policies and on whether to proceed with impeachment proceedings against Trump. Instead, Democrats as one voice denounced the comments, which evoked the old racist trope of telling a black person to go back to Africa. “Unfortunately there is an American tradition of telling people to go back where they came from,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democratic presidential contender, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” ”It’s a very bad tradition that we need to weed out of our nation because we are a nation of immigrants, that is who we are by our nature for hundreds of years. But you don’t expect to hear it from the president.” Another 2020 contender, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, tweeted at the president: “This is racist. These congresswomen are every bit as American as you — and represent our values better than you ever will.” Few Republicans immediately weighed in on the president’s comments. Shortly after the tweets, and a later post defending the harsh scenes at a border detention facility where hundreds of migrant men are being held in sweltering, foul-smelling conditions, Trump left the White House to go golfing at his Virginia club. It was far from the first time that Trump has been accused of holding racist views. His political career was launched on the backs of falsely claiming that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. In his campaign kickoff in June 2015, he deemed many Mexican immigrants “rapists.” And last year, during a White House meeting on immigration, he wondered why the United States was admitting so many immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and several African nations. Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, was born in the Bronx, New York, and raised in suburban Westchester County. Pressley, the first black woman elected to the House from Massachusetts, was born in Cincinnati. Omar, the first Somali native elected to Congress and one of its first Muslim women, was born in Somalia but spent much of her childhood in a Kenyan refugee camp as civil war tore apart her home country. She immigrated to the United States at age 12, teaching herself English by watching American TV and eventually settling with her family in Minneapolis. Tlaib was born in Detroit. iOS 13 developer and public beta bug allows Unauthenticated access to Passwords saved in Settings16/7/2019 Pete McGee PALO ALTO, July 16 -- iOS 13 is still in beta and therefore bugs are to be expected, but a recently-discovered security vulnerability in the operating system is especially worth noting. This iOS 13 bug makes it easy for someone to gain access to the “Website & App Passwords” data in Settings. Essentially, when running iOS 13 developer beta 3 or the second public beta of iOS 13, it’s incredibly easy to bypass the Face ID or Touch ID authentication prompt in Settings when trying to access your iCloud Keychain passwords. The issue was first noted on Reddit. As detailed by iDeviceHelp on YouTube, you can access all of the saved usernames and passwords in Settings by repeatedly tapping the “Website & App Passwords” menu and avoiding the Face ID or Touch ID prompt. After several tries, iOS 13 will show all of your passwords and logins, even if you never successfully authenticated with Face ID or Touch ID. 9to5Mac confirmed that this vulnerability is present in the latest iOS 13 developer beta. Apple has been informed of the issue via the Feedback app in iOS 13, but has yet to acknowledge it. The bug is also present in the latest betas of iPadOS 13. Of course, in order to access the “Website & App Passwords” menu, someone would also need to unlock your device to begin with, whether it be through Face ID, Touch ID, or with your passcode. By running an iOS beta, you accept a certain level of risk and this vulnerability is a good example of such risk. Though, it is notable that such a major security hole is present in the public beta of iOS 13, which Apple released ahead of schedule to users. Nonetheless, you should never expect an iOS beta to be perfectly secure and stable, especially only 6 weeks into the testing process. Apple released iOS 13 beta 3 to developers on July 2nd. This means we’re likely just a day or two away from the release of iOS 13 beta 4. Ideally, iOS 13 beta 4 and iOS 13 public beta 3 will resolve this vulnerability, but there’s no guarantee. WASHINGTON, July 12 -- The US will investigate a French plan to impose taxes on technology companies, a move that has been a prelude to new US tariffs under the Trump administration. US trade representative Robert Lighthizer will have as long as a year to examine whether the plan would hurt US technology firms, and suggest remedies. The so-called 301 investigation is the same tool president Donald Trump used to impose tariffs on Chinese goods because of the country's alleged theft of intellectual property. Other European countries have started to pursue their own digital tax plans after a EU-wide effort stalled earlier this year. Author: Lora Smith NEW YORK, July 11 -- Instagram has launched new measures to prevent bullying online, including a novel use of artificial intelligence to catch offensive messages prior to posting. Bullying on social media, particularly among youth, has been seen in Japan and many other countries around the world, with online problems sometimes escalating to crime or suicide. Noting that it has endeavored for years to reduce bullying via AI that detects harmful comments, photos and videos, the Facebook-owned platform said, "We started rolling out a new feature powered by AI that notifies people when their comment may be considered offensive before it's posted." Calling bullying "a complex issue," Instagram said in a release on Monday, "We can do more to prevent bullying from happening on Instagram, and we can do more to empower the targets of bullying to stand up for themselves." The new tool "gives people a chance to reflect and undo their comment and prevents the recipient from receiving the harmful comment notification," Instagram said, adding that teens are unlikely to report online bullying even though they experience it the most. Instagram said it will also test a new method called "Restricted" to protect a user's account from unwanted interactions. "Once you restrict someone, comments on your posts from that person will only be visible to that person. You can choose to make a restricted person's comments visible to others by approving their comments." Under the new feature, restricted people will not be able to see "when you're active on Instagram or when you've read their direct messages," the operator said. Author: Lora Smith |
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