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A report says China is considering lifting a commercial freeze on Boeing's 737 MAX, and data show Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy reduces heart attack risks. Home Depot and Walmart report quarterly earnings later this week.

DÜSSELDORF, Germany & NOVI, Mich. & TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 27, 2023--

A hacking gang stole victims’ savings and tried to blackmail major companies including the maker of the best-selling Grand Theft Auto videogames, prosecutors claim. Arion Kurtaj, 18, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons are accused of being “key players” in the LapsusS hacking group, a trial at Southwark Crown Court in London has heard. The duo, aided by unknown associates, are alleged to have hacked the servers and data files of broadband provider BT and mobile operator EE before demanding a four million dollar ransom on August 1 2021. Kurtaj is further accused of targeting transport giant Uber, financial technology firm Revolut and Rockstar Games, developer of the Grand Theft Auto series, in quick succession in September 2022, the court has heard. It’s perfectly plain from the evidence that those involved in the attacks were totally serious in this endeavour of hacking companies and stealing valuable data from those companies with the intention of profiting from that, sometimes on a huge scale, whether by blackmail or fraud Prosecutor Kevin Barry He allegedly tried to blackmail Rockstar Games by threatening to “leak the stolen source code for the Grand Theft Auto sequel onto internet forums”, the indictment states. Kurtaj and the youth are also accused of hacking software company Nvidia in February 2022 before threatening to “release Nvidia Corporation’s intellectual property on to the web” if it did not pay them. In a closing speech to the jury on Monday, prosecutor Kevin Barry said: “The victims in this case, and they undoubtedly were victims, they were members of the public who suffered the SIM swap frauds and losses as a result of that. “There were also big corporations who were targeted and attacked. “It hasn’t been suggested by anyone that any of these attacks were just individuals out for larks and laughs. “It’s perfectly plain from the evidence that those involved in the attacks were totally serious in this endeavour of hacking companies and stealing valuable data from those companies with the intention of profiting from that, sometimes on a huge scale, whether by blackmail or fraud.” He said the jury has heard evidence from members of the public who had their data stolen during the BT/EE hack. “They found their lives, some of them, turned upside down with accounts accessed and emptied of savings,” he said. He said one man’s account on Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, had £38,000 taken from it. Mr Barry said “major corporations” were also targeted by the hacking gang and “enormous disruption and costs were suffered by them” as a result. He added: “Make no mistake, in this case, members of the jury, that losses experienced by these companies were real, they were a direct consequence of the defendants’ actions and those of their associates.” He added: “Any loss they suffered through activity like this will ultimately be passed on to their customers, people like us.” He told jurors “each of the defendants has previous convictions for committing computer-enabled offences in the recent past”. Psychiatrists have assessed Kurtaj as unfit to stand trial so the jury must decide whether he committed the acts alleged against him. Kurtaj is charged with 12 offences, including six counts under the Computer Misuse Act, three counts of blackmail and two counts of fraud. The youth is charged with two counts of blackmail, two counts of fraud and three counts under the Computer Misuse Act, relating to the BT/EE and Nvidia allegations. He previously pleaded guilty to one offence under the Computer Misuse Act and one count of fraud. The prosecutor is due to finish his speech on Tuesday.

Football prodigy Baby Gronk and LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne went viral with a TikTok video, making Baby Gronk the talk of the town

Most of Reddit has now gone “dark” in protest against the management of the online forum. The controversy began when Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API, the technology that allows other developers access to its data. Some of those developers immediately announced that the pricing was so high that it would make their apps unsustainable – and one, widely-respected client Apollo, has since said it will have to shut down. That set off outrage across Reddit. While that initially focused on the decision to start charging for access to its data, it has since grown, with many users suggesting that they are generally dissatisfied with the way the site is being managed. What has happened to Reddit? On June 12, many of the world’s biggest subreddits went “dark”. That meant setting their privacy settings to private, so that only anyone who is already a member can see them. For anyone who tries to visit those forums and is not a member – which includes most of those on Reddit, including many of its biggest – they will see a message that it has gone private and is therefore not available. In a widely circulated message explaining the outage, users explained that it was intended as a protest. Some will return on 14 June, after 48 hours of darkness, it says, but others might opt to never come back again if the problem is not addressed. That is because “many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app” the message reads. “This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.” Why did Reddit change its policy? All of this began because Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API. Many of its users – including Christian Selig, the developer of the Apollo app that is at the centre of much of the controversy – say that this is reasonable. Reddit’s data is used by sites such as Google and to train artificial intelligence systems, for instance. And at the moment, Reddit is not paid for that usage, despite the fact that it costs the company (which is not profitable) to host that data. But it was the pricing and the way it was rolled out that caused such controversy. Mr Selig said that the pricing would cost his app $2 million per month, which is much more than storing the user data is thought to cost Reddit, and he and others were given only 30 days to respond. Which Reddit forums are part of the blackout? Almost all of them. The latest numbers suggest that 7259, out of 7806, of the site’s subreddits are currently unavailable to the public. Of the seven subreddits that have more than 30 million subscribers, all but one – r/pics – have been made private. A full, live list that shows both the subreddits that are down and the overall impact of the protest can be found on this tracking page. How can this happen? Reddit is unusual among social networks in that it depends heavily on its users, who administer the forums and moderate the content that appear on them. That saves it a lot of money – Meta, for instance, spends vast sums on ensuring that problematic content does not appear on Facebook and Instagram – and means that those users feel as if they should be listened to when it comes to such issues. It also means that they are able to take decisions that the management of Reddit might not like them to, including turning those subreddits private. Some 30,000 moderators are thought to be running the subreddits that are involved in the protest, and working together has given them considerable power to grind the site to a halt. Read More Reddit down amid major protest Popular Reddit app Apollo shuts down as site’s users revolt against it Millions of Reddit users face a blackout over pricing revolt Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Apple’s headset is not the most important thing it announced this week Mark Zuckerberg reveals what he thinks about Apple’s headset – and it’s not good

The remnants of Tropical Storm Hilary pummeled California with flooding rains on Monday, disrupting flights and knocking out

Big news for WhatsApp users who are a bit trigger happy when sending risky texts. You will now be able to edit your messages sent via the platform, within 15 minutes. "From correcting a simple misspelling to adding extra context to a message, we're excited to bring you more control over your chats," the messaging service said in a blog post on Monday. "All you need to do is long-press on a sent message and choose 'Edit' from the menu for up to fifteen minutes after," it added. Edited messages will be tagged as "edited", so recipients can see the message has been changed. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter But they won't be able to see how the message has been edited. It comes after Twitter said it was giving its paying subscribers the ability to edit their tweets last year. Tweets can be edited a few times in the 30 minutes after posting. "Tweeting will feel more approachable and less stressful," Twitter said in a blog post at the time. "You should be able to participate in the conversation in a way that makes sense to you and we'll keep working on ways that make it feel effortless to do just that," the platform added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

With a reloaded roster, championship aspirations and two of the biggest stars in basketball the Lakers will be a must-watch this season. Here's how you can tune in.

The Fortnite Jujutsu Kaisen Cup kicks off on Aug. 11 as eligible players compete in Duos Zero Build matches to earn free Jujutsu Kaisen rewards.

Some of the most influential voices in the tech industry are set to meet with federal lawmakers Wednesday morning as the US Senate prepares to draw up legislation regulating the fast-moving artificial intelligence industry.

Internet startup VNG Ltd. filed for an initial public offering in the US, making it the first Vietnamese