Author: Press Room

CNN  —  Federal prosecutors announced charges Wednesday against a Florida state representative who allegedly swindled thousands of dollars in coronavirus relief loans from the Small Business Administration. State Rep. Joseph Harding obtained more than $150,000 in SBA loans by lying on his loan applications, according to a news release from the Justice Department. Prosecutors allege Harding listed dormant business entities on his applications, fabricated the numbers of people he employed and submitted fake bank statements. Harding, 35, is set to go to trial for charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements, DOJ said in the release. A…

New York CNN  —  The jury who convicted Donald Trump’s namesake companies earlier this week was “serious” and tried to focus on the law – not the former president, one of the jurors said in an interview with CNN. Jurors saw a “culture of fraud,” at the Trump Organization, but referred to Trump as a nondescript “Bob Smith” at times when talking about the company owner’s awareness of the crimes in relation to the charges, said the juror, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity. The juror had a “gut feeling” about their vote going into deliberations but…

CNN  —  Donald Trump is facing a flurry of criticism on Capitol Hill, with Republican fury growing over their failure to take back the Senate and GOP leaders at odds over their strategy with the former president still maintaining a dominant hold on the party. The GOP reckoning comes in the wake of the party leaving another critical Senate seat on the table – Georgia – and seeing Democrats expand their majority to 51-49. Hours after Trump’s hand-picked candidate, Herschel Walker, failed to pick up a Democratic seat, the blame game began in earnest – in large part directed at…

A 24-hour strike at The New York Times, a historic demonstration in which more than 1,100 employees are expected to participate, began Thursday at midnight, after management and the union representing staffers failed to reach an agreement for a new contract after more than a year and a half of negotiating. “It’s disappointing that they’re taking such drastic action, given the clear commitment we’ve shown to negotiate our way to a contract that provides Times journalists with substantial pay increases, market-leading benefits, and flexible working conditions,” Meredith Kopit Levien, president and chief executive of The Times, said in an email…

Teddi Mellencamp’s experience with skin cancer has been “eye opening.”The former star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” shared an update after she received her pathology report following her surgeries to remove several melanomas.“Finally here with another melanoma update, and it’s one I’m happy to share. Pathology is back — the surgeries were successful and the margins are clear,” Mellencamp, 41, shared in an Instagram posted on Dec. 7. “I also got genetic testing results and there are no mutations we need to worry about. And I just had a healthy mammogram (please don’t forgo these either, ladies).”The reality star…

Apple on Wednesday said it plans to expand end-to-end encryption of iCloud data to include backups, photos, notes, chat histories and other services, in a move that could further protect user data but also add to tensions with law enforcement around the world. Among a handful of new security tools is a feature called Advanced Data Protection which will allow users to keep certain data more secure from hackers, governments and spies, even in the case of an Apple data breach. In addition, law enforcement would not be able to gain access to that data even with a warrant. With…

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on Wednesday announced he has filed two separate lawsuits against TikTok, which accuse the company of making false claims about the safety of user data, and age-appropriate content. “The TikTok app is a malicious and menacing threat unleashed on unsuspecting Indiana consumers by a Chinese company that knows full well the harms it inflicts on users,” Rokita said in a statement. “With this pair of lawsuits, we hope to force TikTok to stop its false, deceptive, and misleading practices, which violate Indiana law.” The lawsuits mark the most serious action taken yet by a state…

Washington CNN  —  Ukrainian officials and lawmakers have in recent months urged the Biden administration and members of Congress to provide the Ukrainian military with cluster munition warheads, weapons that are banned by more than 100 countries but that Russia continues to use to devastating effect inside Ukraine. The Ukrainian request for the cluster munitions, which was described to CNN by multiple US and Ukrainian officials, is one of the most controversial requests the Ukrainians have made to the US since the war began in February. Senior Biden administration officials have been fielding this request for months and have not…

Pictured here is a science-fiction themed installation at the Maison Hermes in Shanghai, China, on Nov. 28, 2022.Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty ImagesBEIJING — Wealthier Chinese were more inclined to spend this year, while poorer people cut back on spending even more, McKinsey and Company found in a survey released Thursday.The divergence contrasts with 2019, before the pandemic, when “there was little differentiation in spending between the two groups,” the McKinsey analysts said. They noted an official measure of consumer sentiment in China dropped this year to an all-time low.Lockdowns and travel restrictions to control Covid outbreaks in…

CNN  —  Former Republican Rep. David Rivera of Florida was arrested in Atlanta on Monday on federal charges that include failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the Department of Justice. The eight-count indictment alleges that Rivera and a co-defendant, Esther Nuhfer, met with several US officials about normalizing US relations with the Venezuelan government without registering with the DOJ, as required by law. Rivera, who is Cuban American, was paid millions of dollars for his work by PDV USA, a US subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, to lobby American politicians…