Life in Late Stage Capitalism

“It’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.”

– Slavoj Žižek

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019

2024

U.N. report says 1.1 billion people live in acute poverty worldwide:

Thursday’s paper showed that some 584 million people under 18 were experiencing extreme poverty, accounting for 27.9 percent of children worldwide, compared with 13.5 percent of adults.
Italy sends first asylum seekers to Albania under controversial pact:

Amnesty International has called the centres a “cruel experiment [that] is a stain on the Italian government”.

Italy will run two migrant detention centres in Albania, surrounded by high walls and security cameras – one in Shengjin and the other one in Gjader, 20 kilometres from the port.
Hackers take control of robot vacuums in multiple cities, yell racial slurs.
Unprecedented Niger floods displace 1.1 million as devastation grows.
Wildlife populations plunge 73 percent in the last half-century amid warnings of biodiversity crisis.
Hurricane Helene is causing an IV fluid shortage in U.S. hospitals:

In late September, Hurricane Helene shut down a Baxter plant in Marion, N. C., which manufactures approximately 60% of the IV solutions for the U.S. Both Baxter and “all other suppliers” of IV solutions have restricted how much their customers can order and have stopped taking new customers […]. As a result, hospitals have declared internal shortages and restricted IV use.
Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast A.I.-fueled surveillance system can ensure “citizens will be on their best behavior”.
One million are now dead or injured in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Tennessee plastics factory workers trapped by Hurricane Helene floods dies or went missing:

Workers have said they were allowed to leave when water was already swamping its parking lot in Erwin […].

[…]

[…] [S]urvivors lashed out at the company for failing to warn workers and making them go to work that day.
U.K. national debt at 100% of G.D.P. for first time since 1960s.
U.S. public schools banned 10,000 books in most recent academic year.
French anti-riot police sent to Martinique to enforce protest bans:

The restrictions came after violent protests broke out on the island last week over the high cost of living, with gunfire injuring at least six police officers and one civilian.

[…]

Known as the Companies for Republican Security (CRS), it was banned in the French territory following bloody riots in December 1959.

The unit had been accused of using disproportionate force against protesters, ending in the deaths of a number of young demonstrators.

The force is rarely deployed in French territories in the Caribbean, but was called on during riots and strikes in Guadeloupe in 2009.
LG TVs start showing ads on screensavers.
Ford seeks patent for tech that listens to driver conversations to serve ads.
Zimbabwe to cull 200 wild elephants to feed communities facing severe hunger during drought.
Severe flooding in northeast Nigeria impacts one million, sparks disease, food shortage fears.
Google’s A.I. will help decide whether unemployed workers get benefits:

Within the next several months, Nevada plans to launch a generative AI system powered by Google that will analyze transcripts of unemployment appeals hearings and issue recommendations to human referees about whether or not claimants should receive benefits.
Elon Musk’s satellites “blocking” view of the universe, according to researchers in the Netherlands.
Second assassination attempt made on U.S. presidential candidate Trump in two month.
Argentina records sharp rise in poverty:

More than half of Argentina’s 46 million people are now living in poverty, new figures indicate, in a blow to right-wing President Javier Milei’s efforts to turn around the country’s beleaguered economy.

The poverty figure for the first six months of this year was 52.9%, up from 41.7% in the second half of 2023, said the country’s Indec statistics agency.

Since taking office in December, Milei has slashed subsidies for transport, fuel and energy and sacked thousands of civil servants, as he seeks to bring down inflation and reduce government expenditure.

Argentina’s annual inflation rate in August remained one of the highest in the world at more than 230%.
U.S. health system ranks last compared with peer nations, report finds.
Almost 150 dead and dozens missing after Nepal floods.
Migrant workers suffer to craft the “Made in Italy” luxury label:

“For my type of work, I had to stand up for 14 hours, working on my feet,” recounted Abbas, who said he worked alongside around 50 Pakistani, Afghan and Chinese migrants, making bags and leather accessories for international luxury brands. He declined to identify the workshop for fear of retaliation.

[…]

Underpaid staff and unhealthy working conditions allowed, for example, Dior contractor Pelletteria Elisabetta Yang Srl to charge Dior as little as 53 euros per handbag, court documents said, against a retail price of 2,600 euros, Milan court documents show.
Alabama prisions are “leasing” inmates to fast-food chains:

ADOC [Alabama Department of Corrections] transports dozens of incarcerated people per day to jobs at government agencies and private businesses around Alabama, including KFC, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s franchises. ADOC also delivers inmates to meatpacking plants run by companies like Koch Foods and Gemstone Foods. At each of their jobsites, inmates do the same work as any employee, sometimes for twelve hours or more per day.

[…]

In a state without a wage floor of its own, allowing employers to default to the federal wage floor of $7.25 per hour, ADOC collects 40 percent of the inmates’ gross paycheck. ADOC also deducts fees from the inmates’ paychecks to pay for transporting inmates between the prisons where they live and the “free world” jobs where they work, as well as washing their uniforms.

As both suits allege, inmates who refuse to work on a given day can face consequences, including revocation of privileges (like time on the phone with family members), stints in solitary confinement, lengthening of sentences, or transfer to one of Alabama’s medium- or high-security prisons — some of the most violent prisons in the country.
Sweden will offer migrants $34,000 to go home.
U.K. police and crime minister’s purse stolen at police conference.
U.K. climate activists jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh painting, damaging frame.
Worst drought on record lowers Amazon rivers to all-time lows.
Nine dead and 48 missing after migrant boat sinks off Canary Islands:

The International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, estimates that 4,857 people have died on this route since 2014.

Many aid organisations say that figure is a massive underestimate. Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish NGO that aids migrants, says 18,680 have died trying to reach Europe.
Honduras anti-mining activist shot dead.
Nearly 200 land and environment defenders killed in 2023, says N.G.O.
Barcelona and Majorca will shift to a desert-like climate by 2050, new drought study warns.
U.K. ex-P.M. Johnson says he planned raid on Dutch factory to get COVID vaccines:

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he ordered military chiefs to plan a raid on a Dutch factory in March 2021 to secure 5 million COVID vaccines that the European Union had threatened to bar from being exported to Britain.
Uber terms mean couple left with life-changing injuries after crash can’t sue.
U.K. surgeon operated with penknife he uses to cut up lunch:

A surgeon at a crisis-hit NHS trust used a Swiss Army penknife to open up the chest of a patient because he claimed he could not find a sterile scalpel.

University Hospitals Sussex has said the operation was an emergency, but the surgeon’s actions were “outside normal procedures and should not have been necessary”.
Chinese hackers breached wiretap systems installed by U.S. government at broadband providers.
U.S. calls on India to ban Russian state media network RT.
U.S. seizes Venezuela President’s airplane in the Dominican Republic.
Idaho Senator tells Native American candidate to go back where she came from.
U.K. Prime Minister received more gifts than any other recent party leader:

Keir Starmer has declared more free tickets and gifts than other major party leaders in recent times, with his total now topping £100,000 after recent support for his lifestyle from Labour donor Waheed Alli.

The prime minister has accepted almost 40 sets of free tickets during his time as Labour leader, mostly to football matches but also £4,000 of hospitality at a Taylor Swift concert and £698 of Coldplay tickets in Manchester.

He was criticised this week for the scale of gifts given to him by Lord Alli, who paid for work clothing worth £12,000, accommodation valued at more than £20,000 and glasses valued at £2,485 – especially since the donor was temporarily given a pass to No 10 after the election
France’s first lady Brigitte Macron awarded €8,000 in damages over false trans claims.
AfD becomes first far-right party to win German state election since 1945.
Florida outdoor workers are collapsing in the heat without water and shade:

Across the US, heat exposure is already responsible for as many as 2,000 worker deaths and 170,000 heat-stress-related accidents each year, with low-income and people of colour disproportionately impacted, according to research by Public Citizen – which is far higher than official counts.
Haiti expands state of emergency to whole country.
Starbucks is giving its new C.E.O. a private jet to commute between his California home and Seattle office.
More than 2,000 children in France still sleeping rough, Unicef says.
Germany starts first deportation of Afghans since the Taliban took power in Kabul in 2021:

Germany does not have any diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Negotiating directly with the Taliban, some of whose officials are under international sanctions, is widely seen as problematic.

Berlin had stopped returning people to Afghanistan due to human rights concerns after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Fare evasion surges on N.Y.C. buses, where 48% of riders fail to pay.
Drought-stricken Namibia to cull elephants, zebras and hippos for meat.
Water profiteers thrive in Sicily as drought intensifies.
Port Sudan faces water crisis after deadly dam collapse. Tens of thousands of homes in eastern Sudan have been destroyed after a dam burst due to weeks of heavy rain, wiping out at least 20 villages.
Most of Paris metro inaccessible to disabled users, transport chief admits ahead of Paralympics.
Recent death of an Indian flower picker has put a spotlight on the slave-like conditions experienced by migrants living in Italy:

Italy has been shocked by reports of the “brutal” treatment of migrants working on farms across the country and the death of a flower picker in temperatures of about 40C (104F). Tens of thousands of migrants have been taking to fields to pick tomatoes and other crops across Italy at the same time as the country has been engulfed in consecutive heatwaves since the middle of June.
The world will have its first trillionaire within a decade, but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years, report finds:

In the U.S. alone, billionaires are 46% richer than they were in 2020, while the three wealthiest men — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison — have increased their net worth by 84%, a recent Oxfam report on global inequality found.

Yet, despite the fact that America ranks first as the richest nation in the world in terms of gross domestic product, 37.9 million Americans live in poverty, accounting for 11.5% of the total population, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Top defence contractors set to rake in record cash after orders soar:

The leading 15 defence contractors are forecast to log free cash flow of $52bn in 2026, according to analysis by Vertical Research Partners for the Financial Times — almost double their combined cash flow at the end of 2021.

Five top US defence contractors are forecast to generate cash flow of $26bn by the end of 2026, more than double the amount in 2021. The figures exclude Boeing, given its recent problems and heavy weighting towards civil aerospace.

In Europe, national champions BAE Systems, Rheinmetall and Sweden’s Saab, which have benefited from new contracts for ammunition and missiles, are expected to see combined cash flow jump by more than 40 per cent.
U.S. police officers are starting to use A.I. chatbots to write crime reports.
Ambulances called to Amazon’s U.K. warehouses 1,400 times in five years:

Ambulances have been called to Amazon Mansfield 84 times since 2019. More than 70% of those were for the most serious types of incidents – dubbed category 1 and 2, which can often relate to life-threatening conditions like heart attacks or strokes.

Attempted suicides or other serious psychiatric incidents were recorded at Amazon centres in Bolton, Chesterfield, Mansfield, Rugeley, London and many others.

Incidents related to pregnancies or miscarriages for workers on shift were also listed at several sites, as were traumatic injuries and suspected heart attacks. Other incidents included workers who were exposed to acids and hazardous gases, badly electrocuted or had severe burns over a significant part of their body.
Endless honking of Waymo’s driverless taxis wakes a San Francisco neighbourhood:

Self-driving cabs from the provider Waymo have kept residents of a parking lot in San Francisco (California, USA) awake. This was triggered by a safety feature in which the robotaxis sound their horns when someone reverses towards them. This led to chain reactions in the parking lot that the company had rented for parking the vehicles at night.
Tap water in parts of drought-stricken tourist hot spot in Spain is now too salty to drink.
Unprecedented number of heat records broken around world this year.
Brutal heat broils Texas prisons, killing dozens of inmates.
Disney wants allergy death suit tossed because of Disney+ subscription:

Disney is trying to get a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a New York University doctor’s grieving husband tossed — because he signed up for the Disney+ streaming service years earlier, court papers said.

[…]

But Disney is claiming the $50,000 suit should be moved out of the courts because Piccolo agreed to arbitrate all disputes with the company when he first signed up for a one-month trial of the Disney+ streaming service back in 2019, court documents charge.
Informal employment, otherwise known as work without a contract, legal protection, or social security, remains prevalent worldwide:

According to 2023 estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 58% of the global workforce is engaged in informal employment. After excluding agricultural workers, the figure drops to 50%.

In Europe and Central Asia, informal employment accounted for 1 in 5 workers until recently. Although the rate of such employment is lower in EU countries compared with other regions, a considerable number of workers across Europe still participate in the casual or zero-hours contract economy.
Silicon Valley parents are sending kindergarten kids to A.I.-focused summer camps.
Personal data of 3 billion people stolen in hack.
Cow and calf die after cyberattack in Switzerland:

In Switzerland, a farmer’s computer was the victim of cyber criminals. This was reported by, among others, Agrarheute.

[…] [T]he cyber criminals demanded 10,000 dollars, around 9,150 euros, to decrypt the data. Bircher then considered whether he should accept the cybercriminals’ demands, but decided against it.

As a result, the farmer couldn’t get any information from the milking robot. The calf of one cow therefore died in the womb. Due to the failed systems, the farmer recognized this emergency too late. Attempts to save at least the cow had failed. In the end, the cow had to be euthanized.
Europe’s rising temperatures contributed to 47,000 deaths in 2023, new study finds.
Dolce & Gabbana launches €99 dog perfume.
Rheinmetall’s profit doubles as defence spending surges.
Roughly 3 in 5 Americans believe that the U.S. is currently in a recession, according to survey.
Rioters try to torch U.K. asylum seeker hotel amid far-right violence.
At least 91 people were killed and hundreds injured in Bangladesh protests.
21 killed in Nigeria economic hardship protests, Amnesty International said:

Police have clamped down on protests after thousands of people joined rallies against government policies and the high cost of living last week. […]

AFP correspondents have seen security forces shooting rifles above crowds of demonstrators and firing tear gas to break up rallies.
Global methane emissions rising at fastest rate in decades, scientists warn.
Argentinian government will monitor social media with A.I. to “predict future crimes”.
Olive oil fraud and mislabelling cases hit record high in E.U.
CrowdStrike, the company behind the world’s worst I.T. outage, has given gift cards to its teammates and partners to apologise – and they don’t work.
Working Americans struggle with homeless crisis amid lack of affordable housing:

Homelessness, already at a record high last year, appears to be worsening among people with jobs, as housing becomes further out of reach for low-wage earners, according to shelter interviews and upticks in evictions and homelessness tallies around the country. The latest round of point-in-time counts — a tally of people without homes on one given night — show a discernible uptick in homelessness in many parts of the United States, including Southeast Texas (up 61 percent from a year ago), Rhode Island (up 35 percent) and northeast Tennessee (up 20 percent).

[…]

“I work 50 hours a week, and it’s still really hard to keep up,” said Aaron Reed, 22, who makes $21 an hour at an Amazon warehouse near Nashville, and returns to his mother’s Hyundai SUV to sleep. He shares the back seat with their black Lab, Stella, while his mom sleeps up front.

[…]

A record 12.1 million Americans — or about 1 in 4 renters — are spending at least half of their incomes on rent and utilities, putting them at increased risk of eviction and homelessness, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Meanwhile, there is hardly anywhere in the country where a person working a full-time minimum-wage job can afford a one-bedroom rental, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
World’s richest one percent made over $40 trillion in a decade, says Oxfam.
Japan supermarket chain uses A.I. to gauge staff smiles, speech tones in quality service push:

Japanese supermarket chain AEON has adopted an artificial intelligence (AI) system to assess and standardise its employees’ smiles, renewing the debate about workplace harassment.
77% of employees report A.I. has increased workloads and hampered productivity, study finds.
Bangladesh deploys army to face down massive job quota protests:

Soldiers patrolled the deserted streets of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Saturday, setting up roadblocks during a curfew imposed in response to student-led protests against government job quotas that have killed at least 110 people this week.

Internet and text message services have been suspended since Thursday, cutting the nation off as police cracked down on protesters who defied a ban on public gatherings.

[…]

The internet shutdown meant many people could not top up their electricity meters, leaving them without power.

In addition to the deaths, the clashes have injured thousands, according to hospitals across Bangladesh.

[…]

The demonstrations […] have also been fuelled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of the population.
Assassination attempt of U.S. presidential candidate Trump leaves one dead.
The U.S. Supreme Court allows punishment for homeless sleeping.
Egypt temporarily extends daily power cuts to three hours in response to a surge in electricity consumption because of a heat wave.
N.H.S. patients turned away as Microsoft I.T. outages hit G.P. surgeries:

Family doctor practices are experiencing major disruption because they cannot access patients’ records or refer them on for tests or appointments at their local hospital.
Mass I.T. outage affects airlines, hospitals, media and banks:

International airports including in India, Hong Kong, the UK, and the US have reported issues, and several airlines have grounded flights and reported delays.

Emergency services have also been affected with some hospitals cancelling surgeries and the US state of Alaska warning its 911 system may be unavailable.

Cyber security firm Crowdstrike has confirmed the cause of the worldwide outage was a result of their defective software update for its Microsoft Windows hosts.
Ransomware continues to pile on costs for critical infrastructure victims:

According to Sophos’ latest figures, […] the median ransom payments rose to $2.54 million – a whopping 41 times last year’s sum of $62,500. The mean payment for 2024 is even higher at $3.225 million, although this represents a less dramatic 6x increase.
More than 1 billion records stolen in the biggest data breaches in 2024:

In July, AT&T said cybercriminals had stolen a cache of data that contained phone numbers and call records of “nearly all” of its customers, or around 110 million people, over a six-month period in 2022 and in some cases longer.

[…]

Change Healthcare was hacked by a prolific ransomware gang; its almighty banks of sensitive health data were stolen because one of the company’s critical systems was not protected with multi-factor authentication.

The lengthy downtime caused by the cyberattack dragged on for weeks, causing widespread outages at hospitals, pharmacies and healthcare practices across the United States.

[…]

A June cyberattack on U.K. pathology lab Synnovis — a blood and tissue testing lab for hospitals and health services across the U.K. capital — caused ongoing widespread disruption to patient services for weeks.

[…]

Cybercriminals swiped hundreds of millions of customer data from some of the world’s biggest companies — including an alleged 560 million records from Ticketmaster, 79 million records from Advance Auto Parts and some 30 million records from TEG […].
Lithuania’s parliament backs pullout from Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Indian crypto exchange halts withdrawals after losing $230 million, nearly half its reserves, in security breach.
Shell quietly backs away from pledge to increase “advanced recycling” of plastics.
Heatwaves strain power grids in southern and eastern Europe, fuel wildfires:

Unrelenting heat is blanketing swathes of southern and eastern Europe, with dozens of cities on red alert as scorching temperatures fuel wildfires, strain power grids, and make daily life unbearable.
Five U.K. climate protesters were each jailed for at least four years for conspiracy to block major road:

Protesters who held placards outside the court were also arrested for alleged contempt of court […].
Millions face extreme temperatures as heat dome covers U.S. midwest and east.
Dinosaur skeleton sells for record-breaking $44.6 million.
Italian journalist ordered to pay €5,000 in damages to the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, for mocking her height over social media.
More than a quarter of Americans admit to skipping meals due to skyrocketing grocery costs, report says.
26 million tons of clothing end up in China’s landfills each year, propelled by fast fashion.
An Indian billionaire’s son is married after lavish celebrations that spotlight his global clout:

It has been a wedding like no other — and the festivities have been going on for months. So where does one start?

With a three-day pre-wedding celebration in March when Rihanna and Akon performed for a star-studded 1,200-person guest list? Or a four-day European cruise in May that featured on-deck concerts from the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull, followed by a masquerade ball where Katy Perry sang? Or last week’s traditional music night in Mumbai where Justin Bieber belted out his music hits?

Wait. There’s more. An actual wedding that finally happened early Saturday and was attended by the likes of Mike Tyson, Nick Jonas, Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and Kim Kardashian […].

[…]

The wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has been a global spectacle. Not only has it brought the world’s most famous celebrities, powerful politicians and business tycoons under one roof, it has also highlighted the immense clout of the Indian billionaire.
Right of peaceful assembly increasingly under attack in 21 European countries, report says:

The report’s findings are based on legal regulations of the right to peaceful assembly in 21 European countries, including Austria, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK. While all 21 countries are party to international treaties that oblige them to “respect, protect and uphold human rights to freedom of peaceful assembly,” Amnesty International found that state authorities of such countries pass repressive laws to crack down on individuals who organize and participate in peaceful protests.
Italian vacation hotspot is turning tourists away as it runs out of water.
Nearly 2 million metric tons of wild fish used to feed Norwegian farmed salmon annually, report finds.
Former Boeing inspector alleges “scrap” parts ended up on assembly lines:

A former Boeing quality-control manager alleges that for years workers at its 787 Dreamliner factory in Everett, Washington, routinely took parts that were deemed unsuitable to fly out of an internal scrap yard and put them back on factory assembly lines.

[…]

Beginning in the early 2000s, Meyers says that for more than a decade, he estimates that about 50,000 parts “escaped” quality control and were used to build aircraft. Those parts include everything from small items like screws to more complex assemblies like wing flaps.
Bullet vending machines are spreading throughout the U.S. Supermarkets in multiple states are now selling firearm ammunition right out of a dispenser:

The vending machine company behind this new trend, American Rounds, says it uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition technologies to verify that buyers are of legal age to buy bullets. So it’s a slightly more rigorous process than buying a Twix.
Google’s emissions shot up 48% over five years due to A.I.
Almost 1.8 million people are now in at least £50,000 of U.K. student debt.
Pharma firms stash profits in Europe’s tax havens as patients struggle with drug prices:

Investigate Europe can reveal that the 15 largest European and US drugmakers […] publicly disclose over 1,300 subsidiaries in tax havens and low-tax territories.

[…]

The little-known structures in tax-friendly destinations have contributed to the 15 pharmaceutical firms amassing profits of €580 billion in the last five years.

This amount outweighs their research and development (R&D) costs, despite the industry’s frequent claim that high drug prices allow them to innovate and design new drugs.
SoftBank’s billionaire C.E.O. says he was put on Earth to create artificial superintelligence that is 10,000 times smarter than a human.
A Panamanian court has acquitted all 28 people charged with money laundering in connection with the Panama Papers scandal:

The secret financial documents were leaked in 2016, revealing how some of the world’s richest and most powerful people use tax havens to hide their wealth.

[…]

Foreign Secretary David Cameron, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Argentinian football star Lionel Messi were among those whose affairs came under scrutiny following the leak.

In total the data revealed links to 12 current or former heads of state and government, including dictators accused of embezzling money from their own countries.
U.N. warns of unprecedented hunger catastrophe in Sudan.
India’s scorching heat and lack of water leave Delhi’s poor to suffer worst of climate crisis.
U.S. Supreme Court wipes out anti-corruption law that bars officials from taking gifts for past favours:

By a 6-3 vote, the justices overturned the conviction of a former Indiana mayor who asked for and took a $13,000 payment from the owners of a local truck dealership after he helped them win $1.1 million in city contracts for the purchase of garbage trucks.
Bolivian police arrest leader of apparent coup attempt.
At least 39 killed and hundreds more injured in Kenya’s anti-tax protests, says rights watchdog.
Greece introduces the six-day work week:

After 15 years of recession and austerity and three rescue packages that came with tough conditions attached, labor in Greece is no longer strictly regulated.

Collective agreements have been frozen for years, and in many businesses, staff work on the basis of individual employment contracts.

While the 40-hour work week is still officially in place, employers are permitted to require staff to work up to two unpaid hours per day for a limited period in return for more free time.

In theory, this additional work is voluntary. In reality, however, workers in many businesses and workplaces are forced to work longer hours without receiving any form of compensation.
Multiple A.I. companies bypassing web standard to scrape publisher sites.
The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID-19 crisis to discredit China’s vaccine.
Record high temperatures sweep U.S. north-east as tropical storm hits Texas.
Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses say:

The Greek coastguard has caused the deaths of dozens of migrants in the Mediterranean over a three-year period, witnesses say, including nine who were deliberately thrown into the water.

The nine are among more than 40 people alleged to have died as a result of being forced out of Greek territorial waters, or taken back out to sea after reaching Greek islands, BBC analysis has found.
More than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die amid temperatures approaching 52 °C in Mecca.
Microsoft chose profit over security and left U.S. government vulnerable to Russian hack, whistleblower says.
A record-breaking 120 million people have been forced to flee their homes by war, violence and persecution, U.N. says.
Toxic gas in Louisiana air at levels a thousand times higher than what is considered safe.
The world’s richest will transfer an estimated $31 trillion to their heirs.
Acropolis closed during hottest hours in Greece’s earliest heatwave on record, study says.
SoftBank’s new A.I. makes angry customers sound calm on phone.
Chick-fil-A summer camp charges U.S. kids $35 to work at the restaurant. Campers will learn customer service skills, how to take an order, and other tasks.
Banana giant Chiquita liable for financing Colombia paramilitaries:

Chiquita in 2007 confessed in a US court to having financed the AUC from 1997 to 2004, which was then designated as a foreign terrorist organization in the United States.

[…]

The jury accepted the argument that the money transferred to the paramilitaries was used to commit war crimes such as homicides, kidnappings, extortion, torture and forced disappearances.

The AUC wreaked terror on the country in the 1990s as part of a bitter war against Colombian far-left guerrillas, aided at times by members of the armed forces.
Remote Amazon tribe finally connects to internet, only to wind up hooked on porn, social media.
Mexican candidate assassinations hit record ahead of election:

Mexico’s election is now the bloodiest in its modern history after a candidate running for local office in central Puebla state was murdered on Friday at a political rally, taking the number of assassinated candidates to 37 ahead of Sunday’s vote.
The market now values Nvidia at more than $100 million per employee.
Germany must be ready for war by 2029, defense minister says.
Global warming accelerating at “unprecedented” pace, study warns:

With the month of May likely to be the 12th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures, the report said the target threshold of 1.5C was dangerously close.
Employees of U.S. retailers will be given body cameras in an attempt to curb the record-breaking thefts.
India records “longest” heatwave, Delhi faces water crisis.
Boeing executives are unlikely to be criminally charged over fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
Southern Germany hit by catastrophic flooding.
Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were “likely junk”, analysis says:

Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog.
Second mayoral candidate in Mexico killed days before election. Two other candidates were shot the day before the latest attack.
Report finds “alarming” levels of groundwater contamination with forever chemicals in Europe.
European Commissioner allegedly threatened Georgian Prime Minister:

In a statement posted on Facebook […], [Prime Minister] Irakli Kobakhidze claimed that his […] government is facing “abusive blackmail” from the West, and said a senior EU official had hinted he could face the same fate as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot four times earlier this month.

“The threat aired during a phone call with a European Commissioner was astonishing,” he wrote. “In my conversation, the European Commissioner listed a number of measures Western politicians can take after [Georgia passes] the transparency law and, while listing these measures, [the Commissioner] said ‘look what happened to Fico, you should be very careful.’”
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Fico shot multiple times in “politically motivated” attack.
Dozens dead in blistering, weeks-long heat wave in Mexico:

Sweltering heat has exacerbated a nationwide drought and strained Mexico’s power grid, with monkeys dropping dead from trees due to suspected dehydration.
French Caribbean department of Martinique has declared a drought crisis for the first time in its history.
California town replaced traffic lights with stop signs to deter homeless people from stealing copper.
Tunisian authorities dumped thousands of migrants in the desert:

Since last year, the EU has entered migration partnerships with Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, deals that include funding specifically meant to be used to curb migration to Europe.

[…]

In July last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered a partnership package to Tunisia worth more than €1 billion ($1.08 billion), consisting of €900 million plus €150 million in immediate budget assistance, and a further €105 million for border management and anti-smuggling activities.

[…]

When Tunisia first deported around 1,200 migrants to the border with Libya in May 2023, "it catalyzed a humanitarian crisis, which left several migrants, including children, dead, and it also drove a political crisis between Libya and Tunisia," the migration expert told DW on condition of anonymity.

However, following an international outcry, large-scale deportations stopped in July, only to be resumed in September, when Tunisian authorities once more started detaining large numbers of people.
D.R. Congo army thwarted an attempted coup in Kinshasa.
52,529 guns once owned by U.S. police departments have been later used in crimes, new data finds:

Many of the police agencies that resold or traded in their weapons were the same ones who routinely hold gun buyback events they say are aimed at reducing the number of guns on the street.

The Philadelphia Police Department boasts on its website of having collected 825 guns in buybacks since 2021.

But records obtained in the CBS News investigation show the agency resold at least 886 of its officers’ former duty guns over the past two decades.
Thousands of tonnes of waste have been left on Mount Everest over the years – and more keeps piling up, despite clean-up efforts:

It’s unclear just how much rubbish had been dumped on Nepal’s mountains, though those working in the sector estimate it to be in the thousands of tonnes. In 2019, the Nepal government and local non-profit organisations started the Clean Mountain Campaign, which has collected more than 10 tonnes – or 10,000 kg – of garbage from the Everest region.
Heart patients forced to wait over a year for treatment in England. Waiting lists are at a record high, almost double since 2020, with heart disease being the largest cause of premature death in deprived areas.
France imposes state of emergency, bans TikTok in riot-hit colony New Caledonia:

Additional powers under the state of emergency include the possibility of house detention for people deemed a threat to public order and the ability to conduct searches, seize weapons and restrict movements, with possible jail time for violators.

[…]

The state of emergency was announced hours after a French gendarme who was seriously injured during riots in New Caledonia died of his wounds, said Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, raising the death toll to four.

[…]

The unrest flared after French lawmakers approved a bill extending voting rights in provincial elections to residents arriving from mainland France – a change critics fear could marginalise Indigenous people and benefit pro-France politicians.
France unable to provide safe drinking water to crisis-hit colony Mayotte:

The number of bottles affected was not revealed, but they are believed to have been distributed to several supermarkets.

An earlier batch of Cristaline bottles was deemed unfit for consumption last January.

Access to drinking water has been severely disrupted on Mayotte since September – with running tap water to homes cut off one day out of every three.
14 killed as storm topples huge billboard in India.
Australian whistleblower who exposed alleged war crimes in Afghanistan sentenced to more than five years in prison for leaking documents:

McBride gave the material to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which in 2017 published a seven-part series called “The Afghan Files,” that detailed a string of alleged war crimes, including the killing of unarmed Afghans by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
Richest Americans now pay less tax than working class in historical first:

In the 1960s, the 400 richest Americans paid more than half of their income in taxes, according to the Times. By 2018, America’s wealthiest individuals paid just 23 percent of their income in taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom half of income earners paid 24 percent of their income in taxes.
At least 68 dead in Afghanistan after flash floods caused by unusually heavy seasonal rains.
Food shortages and malnutrition reach record levels in west and central Africa:

One in 10 people will have difficulty accessing safe and nutritious food in west and central Africa, projections made by organisations including Unicef Oxfam have found.

A survey published this week looks at escalating food and nutrition insecurity in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria.

[…]

The report predicts 52 million people in the area will have difficulty feeding themselves during the upcoming lean season: the interval between harvests from June to August.
San Francisco programme gives homeless people free booze.
Flash floods have killed more than 300 people in Afghanistan.
Rising food costs leave hungry Americans $33 billion behind, report says:

The shortfall is the highest in 20 years when adjusted for inflation and was driven in part by higher food prices, said the report, which analyzed the most recently available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[…]

Seventeen million households struggled to get enough food in 2022, up from 13.5 million households in 2021, the USDA reported last year.
Dow Jones closes above 40,000 for first time ever.
Amazon, Inc. workers say they struggle to afford food and rent:

Fifty-three percent of respondents reported that they’d experienced one or more forms of food insecurity in the prior three months, and 48% experienced one or more forms of housing insecurity. Workers who said they took unpaid time off after getting hurt on the job were more likely to report trouble paying their bills, the researchers found.
Ukrainian women wanted in factories as men drafted into army:

At ArcelorMittal’s plant in Kryvih Rih, a city in southern Ukraine […], managers say hiring more female workers is a matter of survival for the business. Of its 18,000-strong workforce at the start of the war, some 3,500 men have been mobilised and more are likely to follow this year.

[…]

Military recruiters have deployed a two-pronged approach. They send conscription notices to ArcelorMittal’s head office, which the company is obliged to distribute. In a few cases when spotting managers walked up to them with call-up papers, some workers fled the plant and never returned, said Andrzej Wypych, head of the company’s human resources for Europe.

Recruiters have also begun standing at the entrance to the plant during shift changes, prompting some employees to turn back home and call in sick and potential new recruits to steer clear of the company, said Longobardo.

[…]

Some 151 of the plant’s workers have been killed since 2022 and 38 are missing. “We write at least one obituary every week,” said Tetiana Filiaeva, editor of the plant’s weekly newspaper Metalurg.
In Ukraine’s west, draft dodgers run, and swim, to avoid the war:

The Romanian authorities say more than 6,000 men have turned up on their side of the Tysa River since Russia’s invasion. Not everyone makes it. The bodies of 22 men have washed up on both banks, said Lt. Lesya Fedorova, a spokeswoman for the Mukachevo border guard unit.

More have most likely drowned, officials say, though their bodies have never been found. The fatalities have earned the river a grim nickname, Death River, though it is hundreds of miles from the violence along the front.

[…]

Last year, the Mukachevo Border Guard Detachment broke up 56 criminal gangs helping Ukrainian men illegally leave the country during wartime, Lieutenant Fedorova said. Prices for help crossing the border, she said, have risen to as much as $10,000 today from $2,000 per person soon after the invasion. Smuggling a backpack of cigarettes, in contrast, pays as little as $200.
Sharpest increase in U.K. absolute poverty in 30 years, new figures show:

The figure jumped to 12 million in 2022–2023, a rise of 600,000.

This means the rate of absolute poverty in the UK now stands at 18% – a rise of 0.78 percentage points.
224 injured after glitchy diabetes app drains insulin pump batteries.
Tesla Autopilot linked to hundreds of collisions.
U.S. Labor Board rules Apple, Inc. illegally interrogated staff and confiscated union flyers.
The U.S. planned to install thousands of E.V. chargers. Only 7 have been built in $7.5 billion investment.
More than 320,000 American children lost a parent to drug overdoses in a decade.
New U.S. parents contend with an average of $3,000 of medical debt:

About 12% of the 100 million U.S. adults with health care debt attribute at least some of it to pregnancy or childbirth, according to a KFF poll.
D.R. Congo accuses Apple, Inc. of using “blood minerals” from war-torn east.
World’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5 °C above pre-industrial levels this century.
The world has experienced the hottest April on record, with air and sea surface temperatures remaining more than 1.5 °C higher than the pre-industrial period.
Egyptian authorities are deporting thousands of Sudanese refugees in secret scheme:

Thousands of Sudanese refugees who escaped to neighbouring Egypt have been detained by Egyptian authorities in a network of secret military bases, and then deported back to their war-torn country often without the chance to claim asylum, an investigation by The New Humanitarian and the Refugees Platform in Egypt has found.

The pushbacks uncovered by reporters contravene refugee conventions that Egypt has ratified, and are being carried out as the EU has pledged billions of dollars to Cairo in exchange for the government curtailing migration to Europe, a deal that critics say could make European countries complicit in the abuses taking place.

[…]

The military bases that reporters geolocated include places where Egyptian rights defenders and critics have died or been disappeared in the past by security agencies. Refugees described facilities with rodent infestations and overflowing sewage. One refugee said they were detained for 70 days in a base and allowed out just once.
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration investigates Boeing for falsified records on some 787 Dreamliners:

A source familiar with the situation puts the potential number of aircraft involved as approximately 450, including around 60 aircraft still within Boeing’s production system.
Boeing whistleblower dies following a brief illness, weeks after the suicide of another.
Kenya and Tanzania face “humanitarian crisis” amid disastrous floods. More than 400 people have been killed and several hundred thousand uprooted from their homes in several countries as floods and mudslides swamp houses, roads and bridges.
Brazil flooding kills more than 60, displaces 80,000.
Russia to hold nuclear drills following “threats” from West.
E.U. lawmakers collectively earn more than €8.6 million a year from outside jobs:

In some cases, they earn more from outside activities than they do from their MEP salary of €10,000 a month, and sit on boards of corporations intimately connected with their day jobs, the study found.
Many U.S. judges fail to fully disclose free luxury trips:

Federal judges — occasionally with family members or even their dog in tow — traveled to luxury resorts in locations as far-flung as London; Palm Beach, Fla.; Bar Harbor, Maine; and the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park for weeklong seminars. The judges received free rooms, free meals and free money toward travel expenses, together worth a few thousand dollars.
Rwandan opposition deplores U.K. deportation deal as “modern slavery”.
U.K. sends first asylum seeker to Rwanda, plans to deport nearly 6,000 migrants this year.
Global defence budget jumps to record high of $2440 billion.
A woman from Eritrea was forced to give birth alone in the forested border area between Poland and Belarus:

The woman claimed she had made it into Poland and then been pushed back into Belarus by Polish guards twice in the preceding weeks, despite being heavily pregnant, according to activists who have spoken with her. They added that the fact she was eventually taken in was an exception to the rule.
Global food insecurity surges as almost 300 million face “acute hunger”, report says.
Florida inmates charged for prison cells long after incarceration:

It’s called “pay-to-stay”, charging inmates for their prison stay, like a hotel they were forced to book. Florida law says that cost, $50 a day, is based on the person’s sentence. Even if they are released early, paying for a cell they no longer occupy, and regardless of their ability to pay.

Not only can the state bill an inmate the $50 a day even after they are released, Florida can also impose a new bill on the next occupant of that bed, potentially allowing the state to double, triple, or quadruple charge for the same bed.
Amazon, Inc. grows to over 750,000 robots as world’s second-largest private employer replaces over 100,000 humans.
Bogota, Columbia, starts rationing water for 9 million people after reservoirs reached “historically low” levels.
Desert city of Dubai floods as heaviest rainfall in 75 years hits United Arab Emirates.
Southeast Asia hit by searing heat:

Home to more than 675 million people across 11 countries, the region has seen temperatures reach unprecedented levels – with little respite from merciless heat and humidity, climatologist Maximiliano Herrera told CNN.

Thailand has been worst hit, Herrera said, adding that heat forecasts there have been especially dire. Temperatures across the country had been “breaking non-stop records” for 13 months – and heat and humidity levels were relentless, he said.
Russian city calls for a mass evacuation due to rising flood waters, at least 100,000 people evacuated.
Peru’s dengue deaths triple as climate change swells mosquito population.
Extreme drought in southern Africa triggers hunger crisis for millions:

Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe declared national disasters within weeks of each other after insufficient rains wiped out crops including the staple maize harvest.

[…]

The World Food Programme (WFP) said that some areas had suffered their driest February in 40 years.

As many as 50 million people are facing food insecurity.
English hospital patients told to bring batteries to appointments for electrocardiograms and blood pressure machines.
“Pacifist” Japan will soon have the third-largest defence budget in the world after the U.S. and China.
Poland’s former nationalist government used spyware against nearly 600, official report says.
World’s coal power capacity rises despite climate warnings:

A report by Global Energy Monitor found that coal power capacity grew by 2% last year, driven by an increase in new coal plants across China and a slowdown of plant closures in Europe and the US.
World’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade.
Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar:

Rental prices across the Balearic Islands have increased by an average of 18% over the past year alone, compared with a 12% average increase nationwide.

However, Ibiza’s status as a tourism hub situated in a relatively small area has supercharged this phenomenon on the island, leading to much steeper increases, in some cases up to 40 or 50% over the last year alone.
Half of U.S. homeowners and renters struggle to afford their housing payments, survey found. Roughly 1 in 5 people who struggle to afford housing have skipped meals and/or worked extra hours to help cover costs, while about 1 in 6 have delayed medical care.
U.S. insurers are spying on homes from the sky:

Nearly every building in the country is being photographed, often without the owner’s knowledge. Companies are deploying drones, manned airplanes and high-altitude balloons to take images of properties. No place is shielded: The industry-funded Geospatial Insurance Consortium has an airplane imagery program it says covers 99% of the U.S. population.

The array of photos is being sorted by computer models to spy out underwriting no-nos, such as damaged roof shingles, yard debris, overhanging tree branches and undeclared swimming pools or trampolines. The red-flagged images are providing insurers with ammunition for nonrenewal notices nationwide.
The wealth of the 1% just hit a record $44 trillion.
All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds.
India’s richest 1% has highest concentration of wealth in decades, study shows.
Rough sleepers and migrants removed from Paris ahead of Olympics.
S.W.A.T. team raids innocent family over stolen AirPods dropped on their street.
A record 21.8% of children in Germany grow up in poverty.
Most driver’s licence suspensions in Ohio are debt-related:

More than 60 percent of Ohio’s driver’s license suspensions do not stem from bad driving; instead, they arise because the driver owes an unpaid debt. Debt-related suspensions (DRS) could prevent people from getting to work where they could make the money needed to repay the debt.
Two Nigerian students are killed and 23 injured in a stampede to get donated rice.
Google ordered to identify who watched certain YouTube videos:

The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.
South Africa hit by water supply crisis:

Rand Water Services Ltd., Africa’s biggest bulk-water supplier, […] told three municipalities in the central Gauteng province — Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, which have a combined population of more than 13 million people — that its system was on the verge of collapse. The warning comes after a large swath of Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, was left without water for as long as 11 days, with some areas still without supply after lightening struck a pump station.
Nvidia wants to replace nurses with A.I. for $9 an hour.
Rio de Janeiro’s heat index hitting 62.3 °C:

The heat index measures what a temperature feels like by taking into account humidity. The actual maximum temperature in the city was 42C on Monday, the Rio Alert weather system said.
TSMC gets $11.6 billion in U.S. grants, loans for chip plants.
Intel to receive $8.5 billion in U.S. grants to build chip plants:

In addition to the grants, the federal government is planning to award Intel up to $11 billion in loans on what the company characterized as generous terms. Intel is also expected to claim federal tax credits that could cover 25 percent of the expense of its U.S. expansion projects, which are expected to cost more than $100 billion over five years.
Record amount of smartphones, televisions and other electrical devices were thrown away in 2022, U.N. warns:

Less than one quarter of the 62 million tonnes of e-waste produced in 2022 was recycled, resulting in heavy metals, plastics and toxic chemicals leaking from junked devices.

[…]

Roughly twice as much e-waste was produced in 2022 compared to 2010 – a weight equivalent to 107,000 of the world’s largest and heaviest passenger jets.
Only 5% of countries meet W.H.O. recommendations for fine particles in air:

At the other extreme — with the worst air quality due to the presence of these small suspended particles — are Bangladesh, which exceeds the WHO recommendation by more than 15 times, Pakistan (14 times more) and India (10 times more). They are followed by Tajikistan, Burkina Faso, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates […].
Schools should prepare students for war, German education minister says:

The minister also called for developing a “relaxed” relationship between school students and the armed forces. She suggested that military officers visit schools to explain what “the Bundeswehr does for our security.”

She stressed that she could not understand the resistance to such practice.
U.S. approves $2.2 billion sale of battle tanks to Bahrain:

Bahrain came under criticism in 2011 when, backed by fellow Sunni kingdom Saudi Arabia, it crushed an uprising led by the Shiite community that demanded a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.
Riot police confront austerity protests in Argentina:

The demonstrations were called by representatives of trade unions and other social movements claiming that 40,000 soup kitchens were running out of food to feed struggling families after Milei’s government suspended supplies pending an audit.

[…]

With inflation at over 270% and an estimated 50% of the population in the once prosperous South American country living below the poverty line, Milei wants to reduce state benefits to a minimum and cut subsidies for electricity, gas, water and public transport.
U.S. senator Lindsey Graham tells Ukraine to draft younger soldiers:

Ukraine’s new mobilization law, which has been under debate for months as Ukraine faces a severe shortage of battle-ready troops, proposes lowering the country’s draft age to 25. […]

“I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” he told reporters Monday. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.”
Crack and fentanyl abuse on the rise in Germany.
U.N. says 5 million at risk of starvation in Sudan:

Noting that some 18 million Sudanese are already facing acute food insecurity – a record during harvest season – UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned in a letter to the Security Council that “almost 5 million people could slip into catastrophic food insecurity in some parts of the country in the coming months.”
He noted that nearly 730,000 Sudanese children – including more than 240,000 in Darfur – are thought to suffer from “severe” malnutrition.
Haiti healthcare system on verge of collapse as gang warfare rages on:

In the past two weeks hospitals have been set ablaze, doctors murdered and the most basic medical supplies have now dried up. Only a single public hospital in Haiti’s capital now remains operational – and that too is expected to shut its doors soon.

[…]

About half of the Haitian population is going hungry, water and electricity are scarce, and civilians are struck by stray bullets on a daily basis.

At least 15,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the latest wave of gun battles, the UN estimates, bringing the total number of internally displaced people to more than 360,000.
Food delivery robots are feeding camera footage to the L.A.P.D.
Argentina’s child poverty rate on track to hit 70%, UNICEF warns.
U.S. spends billions on roads rather than public transport. New analysis finds money from Biden’s $1.2tn infrastructure bill has overwhelmingly been spent on widening highways for cars.
U.S. energy industry gas leaks are triple the official figures, study finds:

US oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and compressors are spewing three times the amount of the potent heat-trapping gas methane as the government has determined, causing $9.3bn in yearly climate damage, a new comprehensive study calculates.
Haiti declares a state of emergency after a massive prison break in the capital.
Thousands protest Tunisia’s falling living standards.
U.S. fast-food chain Wendy’s plans to test surge pricing just like Uber.
Elon Musk’s Vegas tunnel project has been racking up safety violations.
“Safe” air-quality levels in U.S., U.K. and E.U. still harmful for health, study says.
A.I. falsely fines Dutch man €380 for using phone while driving.
Plastics producers deceived public about recycling, report reveals.
Despite record spending on California law enforcement agencies, crime-solving is at record lows, study finds.
Big Pharma spends billions more on executives and stockholders than on research and development:

Focusing on drugs from the three companies represented at the hearing (J&J, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb), the Senate report looked at how initial prices for new drugs entering the US market have skyrocketed over the past two decades. The analysis found that from 2004 to 2008, the median launch price of innovative prescription drugs sold by J&J, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb was over $14,000. But, over the past five years, the median launch price was over $238,000.

[…]

In 2022, J&J made $17.9 billion in profits, and its CEO received $27.6 million in compensation. That year, the company spent $17.8 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation, while the company spent just $14.6 billion on R&D, the report states.

[…]

In 2022, Bristol Myers Squibb also spent $3.2 billion more on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation than R&D—$12.7 billion on executives and stockholders compared with $9.5 billion on R&D. That year, the company made $6.3 billion in profits, and its former CEO made $41.4 million in compensation.
Tumblr and WordPress to sell users’ data to train A.I. tools.
Reddit signs content licencing deal with A.I. company ahead of I.P.O.
German credit agency allegedly earns millions through unlawful customer manipulation:

The company appears to be making millions of euros by selling people in Germany their own data. With the help of manipulative designs, people are prevented from obtaining a free copy of their data in accordance with Article 15 GDPR – even though they would actually be legally entitled to it. The company’s primary aim appears to be to profit from people looking for accommodation.
E.U. policies partly to blame for 3,000 deaths in Mediterranean last year, say rights groups.
Argentina’s annual inflation soars above 250% in January.
TotalEnergies posts biggest ever annual profit of almost €20 billion.
Global temperatures breached critical 1.5 °C warming threshold for first time over 12 month period.
French ski resorts warned fake snow will only worsen climate impacts:

Faced with warmer conditions, ski resorts rely heavily on artificial snow. Figures from the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion showed that 39 percent of French slopes were covered with manufactured snow during the 2022 season.

The snow’s production has its own carbon footprint, bringing associated energy costs as well as potential conflicts over water allocation. Making the snow itself will also become harder as temperatures continue to rise.
Lyft shares surge 60% after accidentally added extra zero to a key profitability metric in earnings report.
Inflation has sent German pay back to 2016 levels, study shows.
U.K. energy prices are inflated by wind farms overestimating power output:

Dozens of British wind farms run by some of Europe’s largest energy companies have routinely overestimated how much power they’ll produce, adding millions of pounds a year to consumers’ electricity bills, according to market records and interviews with power traders.
Democratic Republic of the Congo hit by worst floods in decades:

More than 300 people have died and 280,000 households in more than half the country have been forced to leave their homes since heavy rains started at the end of November. More than 1,500 schools, 267 health centres, 211 markets and 146 roads have been damaged.
Prisoners in the U.S. are part of a hidden forced-labour workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands:

They are among America’s most vulnerable laborers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. They also are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.

The goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice. They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods. And some goods are exported, including to countries that have had products blocked from entering the U.S. for using forced or prison labor.

Many of the companies buying directly from prisons are violating their own policies against the use of such labor.

[…]

Some prisoners work on the same plantation soil where slaves harvested cotton, tobacco and sugarcane more than 150 years ago, with some present-day images looking eerily similar to the past.

[…]

[…] [T]he U.S. has blocked shipments of cotton coming from China, a top manufacturer of popular clothing brands, because it was produced by forced or prison labor. But crops harvested by U.S. prisoners have entered the supply chains of companies that export to China.

[…]

In Alabama, where prisoners are leased out by companies, AP reporters followed inmate transport vans to poultry plants run by Tyson Foods, […] along with a company that supplies beef, chicken and fish to McDonald’s. The vans also stopped at a chicken processor that’s part of a joint-venture with Cargill, which is America’s largest private company. It brought in a record $177 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2023 and supplies conglomerates like PepsiCo.
Beauty chain Sephora hit $10 billion in revenue while workers get cookies to celebrate the milestone.
German supermarket chain withdraws ad after customer backslash over slogan “For democracy. Against Nazis.”
Germany’s former top neo-Nazi hunter now being monitored as right-wing extremist:

Hans-Georg Maassen, who until five years ago was responsible for protecting Germany against violent and extremist threats to its democracy, is himself now being monitored by the security agency he ran […].

[…]

[…] [T]he lawyer has become known for his increasingly radical commentary on the supposed threat immigration poses to Germany, becoming a hero to far-right activists including some in the circles surrounding Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, the aristocrat who led a foiled coup attempt in 2022.

[…]

Maassen’s post-BfV career as a far-right icon has been a growing embarrassment to Germany’s security services as they contend with a burgeoning far-right scene that is profiting from a lacklustre economy and stretched public services.
Argentina police crack down on protests against sweeping economic, social and political reform package:

TV footage showed police firing rubber bullets and water cannons at hundreds of demonstrators opposed to the reform package.
Spain’s northeast region of Catalonia declared drought emergency:

Reservoirs that serve 6 million people, including the population of Barcelona, are at less than 16 per cent of their capacity, a historic low.
Berlusconi’s Sardinian estate on sale for €500 million.
Brussels threatens to hit Hungary’s economy if Viktor Orbán vetoes Ukraine aid:

In a document drawn up by EU officials and seen by the Financial Times, Brussels has outlined a strategy to explicitly target Hungary’s economic weaknesses, imperil its currency and drive a collapse in investor confidence in a bid to hurt “jobs and growth” if Budapest refuses to lift its veto against the aid to Kyiv.
Romanian far-right leader lays claim on Ukrainian regions, Moldova.
Hungary far-right would lay claim to neighbouring region if Ukraine loses war.
U.S. department store chain Macy’s faces lawsuit for using facial recognition to accuse man of robbery he did not commit:

A 61-year-old man has sued Macy’s department store and Sunglass Hut for using a facial recognition system to wrongfully accuse him of robbing their stores at gunpoint. The complainant, Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr., was arrested in October 2023 for the robbery in a Macy’s in the Houston area. While he was detained — until his alibi proved his innocence — Murphy was raped and beaten, according to his lawsuit. If confirmed, this would be the latest case in which facial recognition systems for public security have caused serious errors with sweeping consequences.
Nearly 25,000 U.S. tech workers were laid off in the first weeks of 2024.
Property giant China Evergrande ordered to liquidate with debts of $300 billion.
Escaping poverty in U.K. has become much harder in past two decades, report says:

Publishing its UK poverty report for 2024, it said 6 million of the poorest people – those living in very deep poverty – would need on average to more than double their incomes to move out of hardship.

Its analysis showed the average person in poverty had an income 29% below the poverty line on the latest official figures for 2021-22, up from a gap of 23% in the mid-1990s. […]

For the poorest households – those living in very deep poverty – the average income was 59% below the poverty line, with this gap increasing by about two-thirds over the past 25 years.
The world’s largest cruise ship sets sail on maiden voyage:

The 365m-long (1,197 ft) Icon of the Seas has 20 decks and can house a maximum of 7,600 passengers. It is owned by Royal Caribbean Group.

[…]

It cost $2bn (£1.6bn) to build and also has more than 40 restaurants, bars and lounges.
Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds:

According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.
Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, survey found.
Nancy Pelosi made $500,000 from her Nvidia bet, doubling her annual government salary in just two months.
Texas superintendent took out a full-page newspaper ad over school dress code decision:

One particular part of the ad that garnered outrage was when Poole asserted “being an American requires conformity.”
U.S. National Security Agency buys Americans’ web browsing data without warrant.
Bodies washed ashore in southern Turkey from a lost migrant ship sailing toward Cyprus from the Lebanese-Syrian coast.
“Punishment beatings” used at E.U.-backed Greek refugee camps and detention centres, alleges N.G.O.:

[T]he Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) documented dozens of testimonies from individuals who experienced physical abuse in closed camps, police stations, prisons and pre-removal detention centres across the southern European country.

Interviewees reported being violently punished for “making eye contact” with officers, while others said they were beaten for talking while waiting in line to be counted, coughing, and not cleaning their rooms.

[…]

According to the BVMN, violence by staff was frequently concealed, with 45% of respondents saying they were attacked in “hidden spaces”.
Algorithm denied food to thousands of poor in India’s Telangana:

Initially deployed by the state police to identify criminals, the system is now widely used by the state government to ascertain the eligibility of welfare claimants and to catch welfare fraud.
More than 70 people killed in Mali gold mine collapse.
China added more solar panels in 2023 than U.S. did in its entire history.
Dutch police regularly force people to give up footage from doorbell cameras:

Inquiries by BNR at ten regional police forces, the National Police, and the Public Prosecution Service (OM) showed that requisitioning footage from owners of doorbell cameras is now standard practice. After a crime, police officers walk the neighborhood and check for cameras door to door. Refusing a demand for footage is a punishable offense that can lead to a fine or a prison sentence of up to three months.
U.N. special rapporteur condemns U.K. crackdown on environmental protest:

A severe crackdown on environmental protest in Britain with “draconian” new laws, excessive restrictions on courtroom evidence and the use of civil injunctions is having a chilling impact on fundamental freedoms, the United Nations special rapporteur has said.
Fascist salute legal at rallies unless it threatens public order, says Italy’s high court.
S.U.V.s drive trend for new cars to grow 1 cm wider in U.K. and E.U. every two years, says report:

New cars have become so bloated that half of them are too wide to fit in parking spaces designed to the minimum on-street standards in many countries, the report found. The average width of a new car in the EU and UK passed 180cm in the first half of 2023, having grown an average of 0.5cm each year since 2001.
Belarus adopts new military doctrine involving nuclear weapons.
U.K. Army chief says society must prepare for war with Russia.
Sweden calls population to prepare for war:

Swedish child protection group BRIS said its hotline had been saturated with calls from worried children after the blunt comments on war had spread online, prompting its secretary general Magnus Jagerskog to plead with media to take more care in how they relay news to children.
U.S. medical centre warns it may deny care to patients making “offensive comments” about race, gender of staff.
DPD A.I. chatbot swears, calls itself “useless” and criticises delivery firm.
Medical debt lawsuits in U.S. clog courts as hospitals sue for unpaid medical bills.
Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start”.
Miami Police used Clearview A.I. facial recognition in arrest of homeless man:

Miami police used facial recognition technology to identify a homeless man who refused to give his name to an officer. That man was arrested, but prosecutors quickly dropped the case after determining the officer lacked probable cause for the arrest.
San Francisco plans to introduce 400 licence plate cameras:

San Francisco’s police chief said the cameras won’t be deployed as part of a mass surveillance operation.
French N.G.O. warns situation is getting worse for homeless people.
Ukrainian military is experimenting with psychedelic drug Ibogaine to treat traumatic brain injury and promote battle readiness.
Americans can no longer afford their cars:

That means that more than 60 percent of American households currently cannot afford to buy a new car, based on Census data. For individuals, the numbers are even worse, with 82 percent of people below the $100,000 line.
U.K. faces a cost of dying crisis as funeral costs reach record high.
Canada’s health care crunch has become “horrific and inhumane”, doctors warn:

Jain says Canadians are waiting in emergency departments with serious illnesses for 10 to up to 32 hours. The CMA also reported an approximate 20-hour wait time in some parts of the country. Two Canadian patients have even died this season waiting in an ER at a hospital on Montreal’s south shore.
World’s richest five men double wealth:

The world’s five wealthiest men have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, while five billion people have been made poorer, according to a new report by British charity Oxfam.

[…]

The combined wealth of the top five richest people in the world – Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg – has increased by $464 billion (€423 billion), or 114%, to $869 billion last year.

It estimated that 148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, 52 percent up on 3-year average, allowing hefty pay-outs to shareholders even as millions of workers faced a cost of living crisis as inflation led to wage cuts in real terms.
Around 30% of those born in Portugal aged between 15 and 39 decided to emigrate.
Three migrants drown in Rio Grande after Texas blocks Border Patrol from rescue:

A woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass […] as they were attempting to cross the U.S. southern border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told TPR that Border Patrol was prevented from deploying lifesaving efforts by agents with Operation Lone Star, the controversial Texas border security initiative.
Panama Canal drought forces Maersk to start using “land bridge” for Oceania cargo.
Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the United Arab Emirates.
France to introduce school uniforms in bid to reduce bullying and inequality.
eBay pays $3m fine for harassment of bloggers critical of the company:

The acts of intimidation included sending live insects, a foetal pig and a funeral wreath to the Steiners’ home in Natick, Massachusetts.

Baugh and his associates also installed a GPS tracking device on the couple’s car and created posts on the website Craigslist inviting sexual encounters at their home, according to the filings.
Brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplane forced to make an emergency landing after mid-flight cabin panel blowout.
Boeing wants U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air.
Citigroup plans 20,000 job cuts – about 10% of its global staff – over two years.
Costa Rica’s murder rate hits record, up 38% from the previous year.
Ecuador declares state of emergency amid prison chaos:

Ecuador’s prison agency said there were “incidents” […] at six of the country’s overcrowded prisons, where clashes between rival gangs are frequent and have left more than 400 prisoners dead since 2021.
Norway to allow mining waste to be dumped in fjords.
Argentina’s inflation hits 211% in 2023, fastest gain in three decades.
Turkey inflation ends second year near 65%.
U.S. debt rises above $34 trillion for first time:

The U.S. national debt has eclipsed $34 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said […], as persistently large annual deficits continue to add to the federal tab.

Roughly three months after the debt first hit $33 trillion, the new milestone comes as lawmakers brace for fiscal showdowns over spending levels in the new year.

“[E]mancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.”

– Mark Fisher

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