List of All Articles with Tag 'news'

Binace, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, will pay over $4bn to US officials after admitting to unlicensed money transfers, sanctions violations, and willfully failing to institute anti-money laundering protections, federal officials announced on Tuesday. The oversights allowed trading with sanctioned nations like Iran, Cuba, and Syria, and failed to institute systems to report suspicious potential transactions with terror groups, according to the Treasury Department. “Binance was allowing illicit actors to transact freely, supporting activities from child sexual abuse to illegal narcotics to terrorism,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellensaid on Tuesday. Changpeng Zhao, the founder of and CEO of Binance, is also stepping down, and will pay a $50m fine after pleading guilty to related charges. He could face up to 18 months in prison. “I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility,” the executive wrote on X. “This is best for our community, for Binance, and for myself.” Federal officials described a wide-ranging set of problems at the crypto exchange, which at times handled two-thirds of global crypto trades. “It willfully enabled hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions between American users and users subject to US sanctions,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in remarks on Tuesday. “And its platform accommodated criminals across the world who used Binance to move their stolen funds and other criminal proceeds. “Binance prioritized its profits over the safety of the American people.” The massive penalty, one of the largest in US financial regulation history, will also go towards resolving inquiries from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen), and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. On multiple occasions, Binance leadership intentionally took steps that allowed dangerous and illegal transactions to take place, according to the Justice Department. Binance knew it served US customers, meaning it had to register with FinCen and implement anti-money laundering controls, but “chose not to comply,” per the DOJ. Rather than set up these protections, the company created a separate Binance.US platform in 2019, while seeking to encourage VIP customers to obscure their accounts and continue using the main exchange, officials said. “Binance executives, including Zhao, made a plan to contact VIP customers and help the VIP register a new account for an offshore entity and transfer holdings to that account,” the DoJ said in an announcement of the agreement on Tuesday. “Binance employees also called US VIPs to encourage them to provide information that suggested the customer was not located in the United States.” The company, knowing it had US customers, also failed to introduce controls that would stop them from making trades with sanctioned jurisdictions like Iran, resulting in over $898m in trades between US and Iran-based users between January 2019 and May 2022. At one point, according to the DoJ, Zhao told employees it was “better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” while in another instance, a compliance employee wrote in a message, “We need a banner ‘is washing drug money too hard these days - come to binance we got cake for you.’” In a statement on Tuesday, Binance acknowledge making “criminal violations.” “These resolutions acknowledge our company’s responsibility for historical, criminal compliance violations, and allow our company to turn the page on a challenging yet transformative chapter of learning and growth,” the company wrote. “With the compliance and governance enhancements enshrined in our commitments, we can begin to share our vision for Binance’s exciting future and the future of the crypto industry.” The company also emphasised that the resolutions don’t allege Binance misappropriated user funds or engaged in market manipulation. Richard Teng, the company’s former global head of regional markets, will take over as CEO, according to Binance. The massive agreement with federal regulators will also require Binance to accept the appointment of a government monitor to oversee the business and bar Zhao from involvement with the company until three years after the monitor is appointed, according to court records viewed by The New York Times. Notably, the Securities and Exchange Commission was not a part of the Binance agreement. The SEC sued Binance and Zhao in June, alleging that they used companies beneficially owned by Zhao to inflate trading prices and make money off customers, allegedly mixing customer funds with Binance money. “While we take the SEC’s allegations seriously, they should not be the subject of an SEC enforcement action, let alone on an emergency basis. We intend to defend our platform vigorously,” the company responded at the time in a statement. “And, to be clear: any allegations that user assets on the Binance.US platform have ever been at risk are simply wrong, and there is zero justification for the Staff’s action in light of the ample time the Staff has had to conduct their investigation,” the company added in the statement. The massive settlement comes just weeks after FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty in federal court of defrauding customers on his popular cryptocurrency exchange out of billions of dollars. Bankman-Fried’s defence team has vowed to fight the charges.

By Louisa Gouliamaki SESKLO, Greece The fires came first. Then the floods. In the small village of Sesklo

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How do you follow the biggest game of the last decade? That’s the dilemma Rockstar games have to deal with as they prepare to release Grand Theft Auto 6. The fifth instalment of the hugely popular video game series was released in 2013 and went on to sell 185 million copies, bringing us one of the most immersive open worlds ever created. It’s been a mainstay for gamers over the last decade and now developers have put fans on high alert after announcing the release of a new trailer due later this year. Here’s everything we know so far about Grand Theft Auto VI. Trailer Rockstar Games delighted GTA fans recently by announcing that a forthcoming trailer for GTA 6 will be unveiled in December. Many have shared the theory that the trailer release has been designed to coincide with the company’s 25th anniversary. Rockstar Games President Sam Houser wrote via the developer’s official social media account: “We are very excited to let you know that in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto. We look forward to many more years of sharing these experiences with all of you.” In fact, it’s made such a big impact in the gaming world that the post announcing the trailer has become the most-viewed gaming tweet in the social media site’s history with more than 143m views. It gives a small indication of the excitement out there for the upcoming instalment of the game. A date for the trailer drop has yet to be announced, but it’s thought that the new clip could arrive during the Game Awards on 7 December. Posting a message to fans, Rockstar Games wrote: “Next month marks the 25th anniversary of Rockstar Games. Thanks to the incredible support of our players worldwide, we have had the opportunity to create games we are truly passionate about. “Without you, none of this would be possible, and we are so grateful to all of you for sharing this journey with us. In 1998, Rockstar Games was founded on the idea that video games could come to be as essential to culture as any other form of entertainment, and we hope that we have created games you love in our efforts to be part of that evolution.” Release date We don’t know the release date yet, of course, but we do know that people have been speculating about a release by March 2025. Why? Well, Rockstar is hinting that major things are planned for the fiscal year of 2025. Strauss Zelnick is the CEO and chairman of Rockstar owners Take-Two. He previously said in a statement: “We remain confident that we are positioning our business for a significant inflection point in fiscal 2025, which we believe will include new record levels of operating performance. “We would like to thank all of our stakeholders for their continued support, and we look forward to delivering on this exciting next chapter.” If the theory is true, it means that the game would be released by March 2025 at the latest, but things are far from certain. The previous game could also give us some indication of when to expect the release. People are also looking back to the GTA 5 trailer, which was released in November 2011 - nearly two years before the game came out on 17 September 2013. A bizarre 'moon theory' is also being used by hopeful fans to predict a release date. Leaks A huge leak at Rockstar showcased a number of details about the game.Hints about the gameplay, setting and characters are focused on in the next section of this article, but some of the other leaks relate to the GTA 6 map. It'll likely be bigger than GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, way bigger.Fans also noticed 12 leaked details relating to GTA 6 that could be game changers involving NPC interactions and the weather details. Gameplay, features and setting According to a report in Bloomberg, the series will return to Vice City, the setting for iconic 00s game GTA Vice City based on Miami, for the new instalment. The report also claims that the new game will feature more interior locations than ever before. The report also claimed that the game is said to feature two bank robbers as playable main characters, a man and a woman, who have a Bonnie and Clyde-like relationship. It will mark the first time a woman would be a playable character in the game franchise since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. We're still in the dark about many of the features, but fans hope that more dynamic robberies and better NPC interactions are a part of the new game. They're also expecting better graphics. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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

Konami has confirmed it is on the hunt for a new in-house ‘Silent Hill’ development squad with “maniacal sensibilities”.

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IShowSpeed was caught off guard during a livestream Fortnite session when a player identified as Harvey Barnes targeted him in the game

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By Maria Martinez and Christian Kraemer BERLIN (Reuters) -The German government froze major spending pledges focused on green initiatives and