s80h Victims of child sexual abuse in the US have sued Apple for $US1.2 billion in damages, over claims the tech giant failed to stop the distribution of illegal material. The lawsuit against the trillion-dollar company is being brought by a 27-year-old woman who was molested by a male family member as an infant, The New York Times reported. The relative, who was eventually arrested and sent to prison, took photographs of the abuse and shared them online with other offenders. The woman, who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, said she and her mother were reminded of the abuse nearly every day due to multiple notifications from law enforcement that someone had been charged with possessing the images. “It was hard to believe there were so many out there,” she said. “They were not stopping.” In late 2021, the woman received a notification that the images were found on a Vermont man’s MacBook, with authorities later confirming they’d also been stored in Apple’s iCloud. She ultimately decided to sue the company, she told The Times , because it had broken its promise to protect victims like her. As many as 2689 victims could be eligible for compensation as part of the lawsuit, which was filed in Northern California over the weekend. Under US law, child sexual abuse victims are entitled to a minimum of $US150,000 ($234,683) in damages, meaning Apple’s payout could exceed $US1.2 billion ($1.87 billion) if it’s found liable by a jury. The filing refers to NeuralHash, a tool unveiled by Apple in 2021 that allowed it to scan for illegal images of sexual abuse via its iPhones, which would store a database of distinct digital signatures (known as hashes), associated with known child sexual abuse material. Those digital signatures would be compared against photos in a user’s iCloud storage service, and flag and report any matches of suspected sexual abuse material to authorities. NeuralHash never came to fruition – after cybersecurity experts said the technology could open the door to other government surveillance requests, Apple dropped the plan, saying it was impossible to scan iCloud photos without “imperilling the security and privacy of our users”. With NeuralHash, Apple has been selling defective products that harmed a class of customers, the lawsuit said, because it briefly introduced “a widely touted improved design aimed at protecting children” but “then failed to implement those designs or take any measures to detect and limit” child sexual abuse material. The complainants are not only seeking compensation, but for Apple to change its practices. In response to the lawsuit, Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz described the material as “abhorrent”, and said the company is “committed to fighting the ways predators put children at risk”. “We are urgently and actively innovating to combat these crimes without compromising the security and privacy of all our users,” he told The Times in a statement. The lawsuit comes amid increased scrutiny of Apple’s failure to effectively monitor its platforms or scan for images and videos of child sexual abuse. Following a 2019 investigation by The Times that revealed tech companies had failed to rein in abusive material, Apple executive Eric Friedman, who was responsible for fraud protection, messaged a senior colleague to say he thought the company was underreporting child sexual abuse material. “We are the greatest platform for distributing child porn,” he wrote in the 2020 text exchange, pointing out that was because Apple gave priority to privacy over user trust and safety. In August, the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) accused the company of vastly undercounting how often the material appears on its products, and had been implicated in 337 recorded offences of child abuse images between April 2022 and March 2023 in England and Wales, The Guardian reported at the time. While Facebook and Google filed more than one million reports each of suspected child sexual abuse material to America’s National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), Apple submitted just 267. “There is a concerning discrepancy between the number of UK child abuse image crimes taking place on Apple’s services and the almost neglible number of global reports of abuse content they make to authorities,” NSPCC head of child safety online policy, Richard Collard, told The Guardian . “Apple is clearly behind many of their peers in tackling child sexual abuse when all tech firms should be investing in safety.”WASHINGTON — One year after the Jan. 6, 2021 , U.S. Capitol attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department was committed to holding accountable all perpetrators “at any level” for “the assault on our democracy.” That bold declaration won’t apply to at least one person: Donald Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith’s move on Monday to abandon the federal election interference case against Trump means jurors will likely never decide whether the president-elect is criminally responsible for his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 campaign. The decision to walk away from the election charges and the separate classified documents case against Trump marks an abrupt end of the Justice Department’s unprecedented legal effort that once threatened his liberty but appears only to have galvanized his supporters. The abandonment of the cases accusing Trump of endangering American democracy and national security does away with the most serious legal threats he was facing as he returns to the White House. It was the culmination of a monthslong defense effort to delay the proceedings at every step and use the criminal allegations to Trump’s political advantage, putting the final word in the hands of voters instead of jurors. “We always knew that the rich and powerful had an advantage, but I don’t think we would have ever believed that somebody could walk away from everything,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official. “If there ever was a Teflon defendant, that’s Donald Trump.” While prosecutors left the door open to the possibility that federal charges could be re-filed against Trump after he leaves office, that seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Trump’s presidential victory has thrown into question the future of the two state criminal cases against him in New York and Georgia. Trump was supposed to be sentenced on Tuesday after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money case , but it’s possible the sentencing could be delayed until after Trump leaves office, and the defense is pushing to dismiss the case altogether. Smith’s team stressed that their decision to abandon the federal cases was not a reflection of the merit of the charges, but an acknowledgement that they could not move forward under longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Trump’s presidential victory set “at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: On the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities . . . and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. The move just weeks after Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris underscores the immense personal stake Trump had in the campaign in which he turned his legal woes into a political rallying cry. Trump accused prosecutors of bringing the charges in a bid to keep him out of the White House, and he promised revenge on his perceived enemies if he won a second term. “If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” Vice President-elect JD Vance, wrote in a social media post on Monday. “These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again.” After the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured, Republican leader Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans who voted to acquit Trump during his Senate impeachment trial said it was up to the justice system to hold Trump accountable. The Jan. 6 case brought last year in Washington alleged an increasingly desperate criminal conspiracy to subvert the will of voters after Trump’s 2020 loss, accusing Trump of using the angry mob of supporters that attacked the Capitol as “a tool” in his campaign to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and obstruct the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters — many of whom have said they felt called to Washington by Trump — have pleaded guilty or been convicted by juries of federal charges at the same courthouse where Trump was supposed to stand trial last year. As the trial date neared, officials at the courthouse that sits within view of the Capitol were busy making plans for the crush of reporters expected to cover the historic case. But Trump’s argument that he enjoyed absolute immunity from prosecution quickly tied up the case in appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. The high court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution , and sent the case back to the trial court to decide which allegations could move forward. But the case was dismissed before the trial court could get a chance to do so. The other indictment brought in Florida accused Trump of improperly storing at his Mar-a-Lago estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, enlisting aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map. But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July on grounds that Smith was illegally appointed . Smith appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but abandoned that appeal on Monday. Smith’s team said it would continue its fight in the appeals court to revive charges against Trump’s two co-defendants because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.” In New York, jurors spent weeks last spring hearing evidence in a state case alleging a Trump scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. New York prosecutors recently expressed openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term, while Trump’s lawyers are fighting to have the conviction dismissed altogether. In Georgia, a trial while Trump is in office seems unlikely in a state case charging him and more than a dozen others with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The case has been on hold since an appeals court agreed to review whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed.

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How Trump's bet on voters electing him managed to silence some of his legal woesSTOCKHOLM/GDANSK, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Northvolt's financial collapse deals a blow to Europe's plan to set up its own battery industry to power electric cars, stirring a debate about whether it needs to do more to attract investment as startups struggle to catch up with Chinese rivals. Europe's biggest hope for an electric vehicle battery champion filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday after talks with investors and creditors including Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs for funding failed. The Swedish company, whose motto is "make oil history", has received more than $10 billion in equity, debt and public financing since its 2016 start-up. Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs each own about one fifth of its shares. Northvolt said on Friday it needed $1.0-$1.2 billion in new funds under the restructuring process, which it hopes will end by the end of March. In recent months, it has shrunk the business and cut jobs in a bid to shore up its finances. But it has struggled to produce sufficient volumes of high-quality batteries, and lost a 2 billion euro ($2.1 billion) contract from BMW (BMWG.DE) , opens new tab in June. That has left Europe's ambitions to build its own battery industry looking a distant dream. In recent years, Northvolt led a wave of European startups investing tens of billions of dollars to serve the continent's automakers as they switch from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. But growth in EV demand is moving at a slower pace than many in the industry projected, and China has taken a huge lead in powering EVs, controlling 85% of global battery cell production, International Energy Agency data shows. Making batteries and cells, the units that store and convert chemical energy into electricity, is a delicate process and doing so at scale is a challenge for any battery maker. Northvolt has missed some in-house targets and curtailed production at its battery cells plant in northern Sweden, underscoring the difficulties, Reuters reported on Monday. "The biggest issue is that batteries are not easy to make and Northvolt haven’t satisfied the supply demands of their customers - that is a management issue," said Andy Palmer, founder of consultancy Palmer Automotive said. “The Chinese are technologically 10 years ahead of the West in batteries. That’s a fact," he said. At least eight companies have postponed or abandoned EV battery projects in Europe this year, including China's Svolt and joint venture ACC , led by Stellantis (STLAM.MI) , opens new tab and Mercedes-Benz (MBGn.DE) , opens new tab . In 2024, Europe's battery pipeline capacity out to 2030 has fallen by 176 gigawatt-hours, according to data firm Benchmark Minerals. That's equivalent to almost all the current installed capacity in Europe, according to Reuters calculations. Some executives say Europe should do more to attract and support home-grown projects so they can compete with Chinese rivals such as CATL (300750.SZ) , opens new tab and BYD (002594.SZ) , opens new tab . "Europe needs to rethink how it supports a nascent sector before China eats up the entire value chain, which is due to smart planning," said James Frith, European head of Volta Energy Technologies, which specialises in battery and energy storage technology. Among its $5.8 billion in debts, Northvolt owes the European Investment Bank (EIB) some $313 million. EIB vice president Thomas Östros said it had been a constructive partner to Northvolt, but it needed to safeguard the EIB and EU's interests. "It remains the case that Europe has a strategic interest in a European battery industry for electric cars and we will follow developments very closely. But it is much to early to say what the outcome will be," he said. The Swedish government has repeatedly said it does not plan to take a stake in Northvolt. On Friday, Northvolt's outgoing CEO and co-founder Peter Carlsson said he was a "little worried" Europe is giving up on its dream of competing with China. He said Europe would regret it in 20 years time if it retreated. "It's not a straight journey and right now, we're all in a bit of a down in that journey where there's more hesitations, there's more questions on the speed of the transition from the carmakers, from policymakers, from the investor community," he told reporters in a call. Sign up here. Reporting by Marie Mannes in Stockholm, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Alessandro Parodi in Gdansk. Additional reporting by Simon Johnson in Stockholm. Writing by Josephine Mason. Editing by Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Thomson Reuters Stockholm-based company news correspondent who mainly covers anything to do with retail and industrial companies in Sweden as well as other sectors with Swedish companies. She previously covered the general Nordic stock market from Gdansk, reporting on a range of subjects, from companies exiting Russia to M&As and supply chain concerns. Marie has degrees in journalism and international relations and is keen on finding stories that drive the market and that have unreported elements to it. Thomson Reuters Alessandro is an Italian journalist based in Gdansk reporting on European markets, with focus on Italian companies. Previously, he worked as a multimedia freelancer in South Africa covering general news and cultures.

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MONTREAL - Mikyla Grant-Mentis scored twice and the Montreal Victorie wrapped up their Professional Women's Hockey League pre-season with a 6-3 win over the Ottawa Charge. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * MONTREAL - Mikyla Grant-Mentis scored twice and the Montreal Victorie wrapped up their Professional Women's Hockey League pre-season with a 6-3 win over the Ottawa Charge. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? MONTREAL – Mikyla Grant-Mentis scored twice and the Montreal Victorie wrapped up their Professional Women’s Hockey League pre-season with a 6-3 win over the Ottawa Charge. Gabrielle David, Maureen Murphy, Alexandra Labelle and Kati Tabin, into an empty net, also scored for Montreal. Elaine Chuli and Marlène Boissonnault combined to make 23 saves on 26 shots for the Victoire, who finished 1-1 in pre-season action. Danielle Serdachny, Rebecca Leslie and Tereza Vanisova scored for Ottawa (1-1) while Gwyneth Philips made 28 saves. The two teams meet Nov. 30 in Montreal on the opening night of the PWHL’s second regular season. — SIRENS 5 SCEPTRES 2 At Toronto, Sarah Fillier scored three goals as the New York Sirens downed the Toronto Sceptres. Noora Tulus and Kayla Vespa also scored for New York (1-1) while Kayle Osborne and Abigail Levy combined for 29 saves on 31 shots. Blayre Turnbull and Victoria Bach scored for Toronto (0-2) while Kristen Campbell made 26 saves. Toronto opens its season Nov. 30 against visiting Boston while New York kicks off Dec. 1 at Minnesota. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov, 22, 2024. AdvertisementD espite just one four-year and somewhat unorthodox term in office, Jimmy Carter brought much hope to the White House during a tenure that was marred by several major crisises. As America’s 39th president, he emphasized human rights in his foreign policy, championed environmentalism at a time when it was not yet popular, and appointed record numbers of women and people of color during his administration, which lasted from 1977 to 1981. Several major events transpired during Carter’s presidency, notably the US energy crisis, the Iran hostage ordeal, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Camp David Peace Accords and the Soviet-Afghan war. Many viewed Carter, who grew up selling peanuts as a teenager on his family’s land in Plains, Georgia, as an unlikely candidate for Commander-in-Chief, and some critics later dismissed his tenure as a “failure.” However, Carter had a long history of local and state politics before even arriving in Washington, D.C., and eventually claiming the Oval Office. By 1969, he had served on the Sumter County school board, in the Georgia state senate and made an unsuccessful bid for Georgia governor. To win the gubernatorial election in 1970, Carter adopted more conservative positions. But rather than invoking traditional Southern values, Carter surprised his Georgia constituents by calling for an end to racial discrimination in his 1971 inaugural address. “This is a time for truth and frankness. The next four years will not be easy ones. The problems we face will not solve themselves. They demand from us the utmost in dedication and unselfishness from each of us. But this is also a time for greatness,” he said. “At the end of a long campaign, I believe I know our people as well as anyone. Based on this knowledge of Georgians North and South, Rural and Urban, liberal and conservative, I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.” His support of civil rights would later be a hallmark of his presidential campaign. Barred by state law from seeking a second consecutive term as governor, Carter made another quantum leap and ran for president as the country was reeling from its disastrous Vietnam War, Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon. As a relative unknown, even among his own party, Carter was considered the most improbable of long shots. During his campaign he would reportedly often start with the phrase “Hello, my name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for President.” However, his tireless campaigning and his promise that “I’ll never lie to you” appealed to voters. After a grueling series of state primaries in early 1976, he won the Democratic nomination over a field of better-known candidates. In the autumn of 1976, Carter narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Gerald Ford. In a respectful address on November 3, 1976, he congratulated Ford, describing him as “the toughest and most formidable opponent that anyone could hope for,” and promised to unite the nation. “It’s not going to be easy for any of us, I don’t claim to know all the answers but I have said many times during my campaign round all 50 states, that I am not afraid to take on the respnsibilities of president of the United States , because my strength and my courage and my advice and my counsel and my criticism comes from you,” he said. “And if I can tap the greatness that’s in you and the American people then we can make our nation’s government and a source of pride once again...It’s time for us to get together to correct our mistakes, to answer difficult questions and to make our nation great.” Carter took office on January 20, 1977, and emphasised his populist message by walking, with his wife and four children, nearly two miles from the steps of the Capitol to the White House. His presidency was mired, however, by several major turns. As his first order of business, Carter granted official pardons to hundreds of young Americans who had evaded military conscription during the Vietnam War. The measure was designed to heal some of the wounds that divided the country. One of his biggest downfalls was that Carter was not a compelling speaker. Combined with economic stagnation, rising inflation and a high unemployment rate he faced throughout his presidency, he failed to adopt widespread public support. He was also uncompromising as an executive, putting him into conflict with members of Congress, even in his own party. Carter failed to win passage of many measures he endorsed, including attempts to revise the tax system, reform welfare programs, control the cost of health care and provide for national health insurance. Notably, in a struggle that lasted almost as long as his presidency, Carter fought over an energy program that was structured to make fuel expensive enough that consumers would be encouraged to conserve it. By the time he appeared in a cardigan for a nationally telecast speech to encourage energy conservation before that first winter was over, Carter was the butt of jokes. Carter delivered this speech, often referred to as his “Malaise Speech,” on July 15, 1979, while the country was in the midst of a full-blown energy crisis. In it, he said that everyday Americans were suffering from a “crisis of confidence.” “It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will,” he said. “We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. “The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.” The battle with the energy program preoccupied and debilitated Carter’s domestic staff. There were few other imaginative programs on the home front, leading one Carter aide to lament, halfway through the administration, that the White House was suffering from “terminal narcolepsy.” Where Carter found more success was in foreign policy, which he grew more enthusiastic about as his presidency progressed. He built upon the work of Nixon by formalizing relations with China, ushered agreements that give Panama sovereignty over most of the Canal Zone, met with the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to sign the nuclear arms control agreement known as Salt II and delivered the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel in 1979. His unyielding policies preserved the climate that isolated the Soviets and contributed to the end of the Cold War a decade later. However, ultimately, what became cemented in Carter’s legacy were the failures of the Iran hostage crisis, when mobs ransacked the US embassy in Tehran capturing 52 people and holding them hostage for the duration of his presidency. In a bold attempt to save the hostages, Carter organized a rescue operation that resulted in disaster when an American military helicopter crashed into a plane waiting to ferry the hostages to freedom. “It was my decision to attempt the rescue operation. It was my decision to cancel it when problems developed in the placement of our rescue team for a future rescue operation. The responsibility is fully my own,” he said in an address to the nation. “As President, I know that our entire Nation feels the deep gratitude I feel for the brave men who were prepared to rescue their fellow Americans from captivity. “And as President, I also know that the Nation shares not only my disappointment that the rescue effort could not be mounted, because of mechanical difficulties, but also my determination to persevere and to bring all of our hostages home to freedom.” The tragedy left an enduring impression on Carter that ultimately contributed to his failed re-election later that autumn - he was trounced by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 race. “I’ve not achieved all I set out to do; perhaps no one ever does. But we have faced the tough issues. We’ve stood for and we’ve fought for and we have achieved some very important goals for our country,’ Carter said after losing. “These efforts will not end with this administration. The effort must go on. Nor will the progress that we have made be lost when we leave office. The great principles that have guided this Nation since its very founding will continue to guide America through the challenges of the future.” However, Carter described the day he yielded office to Ronald Reagan in 1981 as “one of his happiest” because the hostages were freed. His first duty as a former president was to fly immediately to Frankfurt to welcome them back. Though Carter remained active in the Democratic Party, he never again sought elective office and preferred to live, out of the limelight, at his home in Georgia. Carter died on Sunday, December 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, aged 100.Grant-Mentis scores twice as Victorie beat Charge in PWHL pre-season