Ghirardelli and Russell Stover have agreed to pay $750,000 in fines after prosecutors in California said they offered a little chocolate in a lot of wrapping. Prosecutors in Sacramento, San Joaquin, Shasta, Fresno, Santa Cruz and Yolo counties sued the candy makers, alleging they misled consumers by selling chocolate products in containers that were oversized…
read moreApple says Facebook can no longer distribute an app that paid users, including teenagers, to extensively track their phone and web use. In doing so, Apple closed off Facebook’s efforts to sidestep Apple’s app store and its tighter rules on privacy. The tech blog TechCrunch reported late Tuesday that Facebook paid people about $20 a…
read morePresident Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday pushing those who receive federal funds to “buy American.” The aim is to boost U.S. manufacturing. Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, told reporters during a telephone briefing the policies are helping workers who “are blue collar, Trump people.” Later he amended…
read moreGlobal smartphone sales saw their worst contraction ever in 2018, and the outlook for 2019 isn’t much better, new surveys show. Worldwide handset volumes declined 4.1 percent in 2018 to a total of 1.4 billion units shipped for the full year, according to research firm IDC, which sees a potential for further declines this year.…
read morePresident Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would let the Justice Department decide how to handle the special counsel’s report on an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow. Republican Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, William Barr, said at his confirmation hearing this month…
read moreThousands of commuters flock to Manila’s railway tracks every day, but rather than boarding the trains, they climb on to wooden carts pushed along the tracks, to avoid the Philippine capital’s infamous traffic gridlock. The trolleys, as the carts are known, most of them fitted with colorful umbrellas for shade from the sun, can seat…
read moreThe Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate judiciary panel Wednesday requested a briefing from the FBI on the arrest of Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Donald Trump, in an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Senator Lindsey Graham said he was concerned about the number of agents involved, tactics employed…
read moreU.S. lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation to limit the president’s power to levy import tariffs for national security reasons. The bills face an uncertain future but underscore bipartisan concerns on Capitol Hill over the rising costs of the Trump administration’s trade policies. The United States in 2018 slapped duties on aluminum and steel from other…
read moreWhether it’s haggling for a better price or negotiating for a higher salary, there is a skill to getting the most of what you want. Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies are conducting research on how a virtual negotiator may be able to teach you the art of making a…
read moreThe Philippines ranked among Asia’s 10 fastest growing economies in 2017. Consumer power, remittances from overseas workers and an influx of call centers had given it that status, raising hopes for easing rampant poverty. Then GDP expansion wobbled in 2018 because of rising prices and lack of new direct investment. Now state spending on new…
read moreThe indictment of President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone has raised new questions about just what special counsel Robert Mueller has uncovered during his 20-month investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. One question is whether the indictment gets Mueller’s prosecutors any closer to the heart of the investigation: determining whether there…
read moreBrazilian miner Vale SA identified concerns around its tailings dams in 2009 and studied but did not implement several steps that could have prevented or lessened the damage from last week’s deadly disaster, according to a corporate presentation seen by Reuters. A tailings dam, used to store the muddy detritus of the mining…
read moreApple hoped to offset slowing demand for iPhones by raising the prices of its most important product, but that strategy seems to have backfired after sales sagged during the holiday shopping season. Results released Tuesday revealed the magnitude of the iPhone slump – a 15 percent drop in revenue from the previous year. That decline…
read moreU.S. intelligence chiefs are sounding alarms about an ever more perilous future for the United States, one in which the country is in danger of seeing its influence wane, its allies waiver and key adversaries team up to erode norms that once kept the country safe and the world more stable. Director of National Intelligence…
read morePresident Donald Trump is dismissing — and potentially bolstering sales — of a new tell-all book by a former White House aide, calling it “made-up stories and fiction.” The book by Cliff Sims, called Team of Vipers, is the latest in a series of insider accounts by journalists and former Trump staffers that paint an…
read moreRussia and China pose the biggest espionage and cyber attack threats to the United States and are more aligned than they have been in decades, the leader of the U.S. intelligence community told U.S. senators on Tuesday. While the two countries seek to expand their global reach, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump on Monday accepted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s invitation to deliver his State of the Union address in the House chamber on Feb. 5. The speech comes as Trump faces an uphill battle to secure funding for his border wall, as well as a special investigation on Russian election meddling, and lawsuits…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone pleaded not guilty Tuesday to seven charges linked to the release of damaging hacked emails about Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in the midst of the presidential campaign. The 66-year-old Stone, arrested last week at his Florida home in a pre-dawn FBI…
read moreApple has made the group chat function in FaceTime unavailable after users said there was a bug that could allow callers to activate another user’s microphone remotely. The bug was demonstrated through videos online and reported on this week by tech blogs. Reports said the bug in the video chat app could allow an…
read moreThe U.S. has imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PdVSA, in an increased effort to pressure Nicolás Maduro to relinquish power to Juan Guaidó, now recognized by the U.S. and a number of other nations as the country’s legitimate president. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department. …
read moreBrazil eyes management overhaul for Vale after dam disaster Brazil’s government weighed pushing for a management overhaul at iron ore miner Vale SA on Monday as grief over the hundreds feared killed by a dam burst turned into anger, with prosecutors, politicians and victims’ families calling for punishment. By Monday night, firefighters in the state…
read moreFood shocks, or sudden losses of crops, livestock or fish, due to the combination extreme weather conditions and geopolitical events like war, increased from 1961 to 2013, said researchers at The University of Tasmania in a report released Monday. Researchers saw a steady increase in shock frequency over each decade with no declines. The report,…
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