MENLO PARK (AP) — California’s attorney general disclosed an ongoing probe into Facebook privacy practices Wednesday as investigators sought a court’s help in getting documents and answers from Facebook. The California probe, one of many legal inquiries into Facebook, began as a response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and grew into an investigation into whether […]

NEW YORK (AP) — My desperation to see Ariana Grande in concert created the perfect trap. Instead of seeing her sing about love and loss, I got sucked into an online ticket scheme that cost me $75 and a big chunk of my pride. Con artists often get away with scams like these because digital […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Two men have pleaded guilty to spying for Iran on charges stemming in part from their surveillance of a synagogue in Chicago and Israeli targets in the U.S. Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 39, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 60, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, also collected identifying information about American […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a striking reversal, a top diplomat revised his testimony in the House impeachment inquiry to acknowledge that U.S. military aid to Ukraine was being withheld until the foreign ally promised to investigate corruption as President Donald Trump wanted. The three-page update from U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, tucked beneath hundreds of pages […]

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey captured the elder sister of the slain leader of the Islamic State group in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to a senior Turkish official, who called the arrest an intelligence “gold mine.” Little is known about the sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Turkish official said the 65-year-old known as Rasmiya […]

HONG KONG (AP) — A senior Hong Kong official says Chinese President Xi Jinping’s surprise meeting with the territory’s leader, Carrie Lam, is a “vote of confidence” in her government’s ability to tackle five months of anti-government protests. Xi met Lam on the sidelines of a trade event in Shanghai on Monday night amid signals […]

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday she wants to drastically increase the number of charging stations for electric cars in Germany to give consumers more confidence to switch over to electric from internal combustion engines. Speaking in her weekly video podcast, Merkel said she wants Germany to have 1 million charging stations […]

BEIRUT (AP) — A media arm of the Islamic State group is reporting that militants from Egypt’s Sinai and Bangladesh have pledged allegiance to the new leader, who succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in the first sign of support from the organization’s global affiliates. Nasher news, which carries the group’s news releases, posted pictures Saturday of […]

WASHINGTON (JNS) — The U.S. State Department announced on Thursday that it has enacted sanctions against Iran’s construction sector and trade of four materials allegedly being used in connection with the regime’s nuclear, military or ballistic-missile programs. The development is part of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran since leaving the 2015 Iran […]

GENEVA (AP) — The World Trade Organization said Friday that China can impose tariffs on up to $3.6 billion worth of U.S. goods over the American government’s failure to abide by anti-dumping rules with regard to Chinese products. The move hands China its first such payout at the trade body at a time when it […]