Author: ALJAZEERA

Buenos Aires, Argentina – It is December in the capital of Buenos Aires, and the summertime temperatures have soared to 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit). The sun beats relentlessly on the corrugated metal roofs of Villa Fiorito, a working-class neighbourhood south of Argentina’s capital city. Teenagers in flip-flops ride their motorbikes through the dirt streets. Other kids look for shady spots to rest and rinse their feet with a garden hose. Carla G, who requested anonymity, is one of the neighbourhood teenagers. At age 18, she is nearing the end of high school. One of her favourite pastimes was playing…

An official at the Meta-owned platform says it detected attempts by Paragon to hack its users’ accounts.An official at Meta’s popular WhatsApp chat service has said Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions targeted 90 of its users, including journalists and members of civil society. The official told the Reuters news agency on Friday that WhatsApp had sent Paragon a cease-and-desist letter following the hack. The official declined to say who, specifically, was targeted but confirmed that WhatsApp is referring targets to the Canadian internet watchdog group Citizen Lab. He declined to say how WhatsApp ascertained that Paragon was responsible for the…

National Transportation Safety Board says it will ‘leave no stone unturned’ in probe of midair collision.Investigators in the United States have located the black boxes from the American Airlines jet that crashed into a US Army helicopter near Washington, DC, killing all 67 people on board. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Friday said it recovered the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Bombardier CRJ700 jet that collided with a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. “The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation,” the agency said in a post on…

Target is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programme along with other equity initiatives, the retailer has said, becoming the latest US firm to pull back these policies meant to boost racial and ethnic representation in workplaces. Target said on Friday it was rolling back programmes aimed at promoting racial equity, called the Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives, this year. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order directing federal agencies to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, encouraging private companies to do the same. “For Target, with an inclusive audience, this is their version of…

Elon Musk is clashing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the Stargate artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure project touted by President Donald Trump, the latest in a feud between the two tech billionaires that started on OpenAI’s board and is now testing Musk’s influence with the new president. Trump on Tuesday had talked up a joint venture investing up to $500bn through a new partnership formed by OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, alongside Oracle and SoftBank. The new entity, Stargate, is already starting to build out data centres and the electricity generation needed for the further development of fast-evolving AI technology.…

Anti-Defamation League defends tech billionaire for making ‘awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm’.Tech billionaire Elon Musk has come under fire after making hand gestures resembling the Nazi salute during a speech celebrating the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. Addressing Trump supporters hours after the Republican was inaugurated as the 47th US president on Monday, Musk hailed the outcome of the November 4 election as “no ordinary victory”. “This was a fork in the road of human civilisation,” Musk said at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC. “This one really mattered. Thank you for making it happen! Thank you.”…

The US Supreme Court has refused to rescue TikTok from a law that required the popular short-video app to be sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or banned on Sunday in the United States on national security grounds – a major blow to a platform used by nearly half of all Americans. The justices unanimously ruled on Friday that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgement of free speech. The justices affirmed a lower court’s…

‘It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together,’ the incoming US president says after a call with Xi Jinping.United States President-elect Donald Trump says he had a “good” phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, suggesting that Washington and Beijing will work to resolve various issues going forward. The call on Friday came three days before Trump — who has pledged to impose steep tariffs of up to 60 percent on Chinese imports — returns to the White House. Trump’s trade policies may deteriorate the already tense ties between the US and China. High tariffs on Chinese…

Plaintiff had accused CNN of his destroying his reputation by branding him a profiteer who exploited desperate Afghans.TV news provider CNN has reached a settlement with a United States Navy veteran who helped evacuate people from Afghanistan after the US military withdrew from the country in 2021, a judge has said, hours after a jury found the TV news outlet liable for defaming him. The six-person jury decided on Friday that CNN had to pay damages totalling $5m. The settlement will avert a second phase of the trial that would have determined any punitive damages. The verdict followed a two-week…

United States President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser has said the new administration will keep TikTok alive in the US if there is a viable deal. “We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” US Representative Mike Waltz told Fox News on Thursday. He noted that the law gives authority for a 90-day extension for the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to complete a divestiture. This is the case, said Waltz, “as long as a viable deal is on the table. Essentially that buys President Trump time to keep TikTok going.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer…