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Facebook Securities Fraud Case Dropped By US Supreme Court

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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

(VOR News) – On Friday, the United States Supreme Court refrained from issuing a rule on Facebook’s permissibility of shareholders advancing a securities fraud claim.

The litigation alleges that Facebook, a subsidiary of Meta, misled investors about the improper utilization of user data from the social media site.

At their hearing on November 6, the justices denied Facebook’s appeal against a lower court’s ruling that allowed a class action lawsuit initiated by Amalgamated Bank in 2018 to proceed.

On November 6, the Supreme Court stated that the issue should not have been addressed and, therefore, opted not to resolve the fundamental legal question at hand. The intervention ensures that the lower court’s verdict remains in force.

The court issued a one-line order for dismissal without providing a rationale. This month, the Supreme Court addressed two cases concerning the ability of private litigants to hold companies accountable for purported securities fraud. One such instance was the dispute involving Facebook.

The alternative case for chip manufacturer NVIDIA, renowned for its specialization in artificial intelligence, was discussed on November 13th. The Supreme Court rendered a verdict in the NVIDIA case on November 13th.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Facebook claimed that the company had inappropriately withheld information from investors concerning a 2015 data breach involving the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

The incident impacted over 30 million Facebook users.

Facebook faced allegations of misleading investors, constituting a violation of the Securities Exchange Act, a federal statute established in 1934 that requires publicly traded companies to disclose the risks they encounter.

In 2018, media claims indicated that Cambridge Analytica had improperly utilized Facebook user data during Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign, resulting in a fall in Facebook’s stock market price.

The investors have submitted a claim for unspecified monetary damages to partially offset the value of the stock they previously possessed.

The inquiry at hand was whether the company had contravened the law by declining to disclose details regarding the prior data breach in later business-risk disclosures while characterizing such scenarios as merely hypothetical.

Andy Stone, a representative, expressed his discontent with the Supreme Court’s decision to refrain from clarifying this specific legislative provision.

Stone asserted, “The plaintiff’s allegations are unfounded, and we will persist in our defense as the district court reviews this case.”

Facebook asserted that it was not obligated to disclose that the risk it had previously cautioned about had already materialized, as “a reasonable investor” would interpret risk disclosures as forward-looking statements.

President Joe Biden’s administration expressed its support for shareholders in this instance.

Initially dismissed by United States District Judge Edward Davila, the 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated the action.

The decision compelled Facebook to appeal to the Supreme Court.

As Alan Morrison, a law professor at George Washington University, states, the plaintiffs are anticipated to pursue discovery, a process entailing the sharing of information between the litigating parties, following the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal.

Morrison also indicated that Facebook “may refile their motion to dismiss under a slightly altered standard, partially to achieve delay.”

After the Cambridge Analytica data breach, the United States government commenced inquiries into privacy protocols, alongside other lawsuits and a congressional inquiry. In 2019, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated enforcement action against Facebook.

The company ultimately resolved the complaint for $100 million. Consequently, Facebook was obligated to remit a distinct penalty of $5 billion to the Federal Trade Commission of the United States.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency overseeing fraudulent activities in the securities sector, has had its authority curtailed by prior Supreme Court rulings.

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Pam Bondi to Be Appointed US Attorney General

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Pam Bondi
Photo via Reuters

(VOR News) – President-elect Donald Trump selected Pam Bondi, a former Florida Attorney General and ally, to succeed Matt Gaetz on Thursday after the latter withdrew from consideration.

Gaetz’s drug use and sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old girl were the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He denies any wrongdoing.

During Trump’s first administration, Pam Bondi, 59, served on the Opioids and Drug Abuse Commission. He served as police chief of the third-most populous state from 2011 to 2019.

She was also a member of Trump’s defense team at his first impeachment hearing, where he was charged with using military assistance to get Ukraine to look into the wrongdoing of his opponent, now President Joe Biden. The Senate cleared Trump on all charges.

The right-wing America First Policy Institute, which has collaborated with Trump’s campaign to create government concepts, most recently had Pam Bondi as its legal branch leader.

Unlike Pam Bondi, Gaetz lacks the experience necessary to serve as attorney general and will likely encounter resistance from Senate Democrats and some Republicans.

According to Jones Walker defense attorney David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Florida, “She is unequivocally qualified for the position on paper.” Throughout her life, she battled in court. Her resume stood out from the previous nominee.

In a tweet announcing his intention to nominate Bondi, Trump praised her skills as a prosecutor and her firm stance against crime as Florida’s first female attorney general. Trump said that even though Bondi was elected on November 5th, while numerous state and federal criminal investigations were underway, he pledged to keep federal prosecutions from being politicized.

According to Trump, “The biased Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans for an excessive duration.” That is not true anymore.

Discussion about Pam Bondi

In 2013, the Trump Foundation may have broken federal law by giving $25,000 to a political action committee that supported Pam Bondi. Bondi thought about looking into the for-profit Trump University.

Pam Bondi disputed that her decision to end her legal actions against Trump University following the 2016 disclosure of Trump’s $25,000 gift had anything to do with her decision to withdraw from those actions. According to her, all pertinent material was made public by her office.

The Trump team attributed the erroneous money disclosure to a “series of unfortunate coincidences and errors.” New York state fraud investigations resulted in the dissolution of both Trump University and the Trump Foundation.

After misleading Trump University students, he settled for $25 million and was fined $2 million for misusing charitable funds.

Following Special Counsel Jack Smith’s acquisition of two indictments against him for his interference in the 2020 election and his possession of secret materials after leaving office, Trump has voiced his displeasure with the present leadership of the Justice Department and pledged retaliation.

Bondi remains loyal

She and several other lawyers claimed that Smith’s appointment was illegal in an amicus brief they prepared in support of Trump in the secret information litigation. The Justice Department filed an appeal after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, rejected the case.

According to a long-standing rule against charging a sitting president, Smith and other top Justice Department officials are examining how both Trump criminal cases were resolved.

Trump was incensed with the obstructionism of the Justice Department during his first administration. Bill Barr specifically refuted Trump’s baseless claims that he lost the 2020 election due to fraud, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions permitted an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump’s objectives for the Justice Department have been delineated through his public remarks and interviews with former department lawyers and Mark Paoletta, a conservative lawyer who develops the department’s policy.

Federal prosecutors may give illegal immigration cases priority.

Cities might have to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement to obtain a portion of the department’s $291 million justice assistance award.

The Civil Rights Division will probably refocus its attention from legal challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the public and commercial sectors to police accountability to religious freedom.

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PayPal’s Technical Challenges Are Affecting Thousands Of Customers Globally.

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PayPal’s Technical Challenges Are Affecting Thousands

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PayPal

(VOR News)—PayPal is software that enables the sending and receiving of monetary orders and transactions.

According to the corporation, which has taken responsibility for the incident mentioned before, PayPal is apparently experiencing problems in every region of the world in which it conducts business.

In addition, PayPal noted on its service status website that it was experiencing “a system issue” which may affect a variety of PayPal Products, such as the ability to withdraw money from an account and the ability to complete an express checkout. This issue may even hurt the ability to complete an express checkout.

This problem may also affect other PayPal products.

Given the presence of this vulnerability, there are additional PayPal products that could be affected by it.

One of the remarks was, “Our technical teams are actively working towards resolving the issue,” as stated in the distributed email. This was one of the comments that individuals made. Several assertions were made, and this was one of them all.

Several customers from various regions of the world have stated that they are unable to access their accounts or that they are having difficulty making payments.

These clients have informed us that they are experiencing difficulties obtaining their orders by communicating their concerns. As an additional point of interest, several customers have reported that they are currently having trouble processing payments. This should be taken into consideration.

Up until the moment the clock struck twelve twelve Central European Time (GMT), the platform outage monitor known as Downdetector had already received more than seven thousand alerts from users. When the clock reached twelve o’clock, this was the situation.

As indicated by a dashboard that provides an overview of the current state of the organization’s services, the crisis started at roughly 10:53 UTC.

PayPal gathered information

The business asserts that its bitcoin services and the peer-to-peer payment platform Venmo were among the services impacted by the outage. Venmo is a form of cryptocurrency that enables users to send and receive payments from one another.

This information suggests that these services were among those impacted by the circumstances.

Some consumers have voiced their frustration on social media over being unable to access their accounts.

Users’ discontentment has been communicated through posts on various social media platforms recently.

Users of X, once known as Twitter, have submitted screenshots of a notification that flashed when they attempted to log into the platform.

Notification after logging in.

The message was flashed on the screen whenever they attempted to log in by entering their credentials. Those fortunate enough to receive the notification were strongly recommended to “please check your entries and try again.”

Since its beginning in 1998, PayPal has developed into a global financial institution associated with a significance level significant enough to be considered noteworthy. This evolution took place virtually immediately following PayPal’s establishment.

Investors were informed that the total number of active accounts across all of the company’s companies increased to $432 million for the month ending September 30th.

This information was provided to investors. Following the conclusion of the month, this information was made available to the public.

During the month of October, investors were provided with this information for their consideration. The material in question was made available to those individuals who were interested in investing.

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Thousands of Asylum Seekers in Canada Get Free Housing

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Thousands of Asylum Seekers in Canada Get Free Housing

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Asylum Seekers Canada

With a large increase in the number of asylum seekers in Canada, several communities have begun to create free accommodations for new immigrants, while many Canadians remain homeless.

The city of Ottawa is attempting to build a sprung building, which will function as both a temporary shelter and a center for settlement services such as language training and job placement.

These facilities are intended to host refugees in the city for the first few weeks before transitioning to more suitable housing in Ottawa’s settlement infrastructure.

The city has identified two possible sites for these centers, both in the city’s west end. Planning records refer to them as “modular tension fabric buildings.”

The proposed placements for these structures have caused concern in the local areas. The city’s first proposed location was canceled due to strong community opposition. Subsequently, it proposed two alternative options and rallies for and against constructing the structures, which took place last weekend in both locations.

Many people protested that they had not been fully consulted on the location, while others grumbled that nothing was being done to assist Canadian citizens.

Temporary Housing

Asylum Seekers Canada

Canadian authorities opened a temporary housing center for migrants with 1,050 beds in the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

According to city data, one planned location is a federally owned tract of property near the Nepean Sportsplex, which serves around 1.5 million people annually. The other is near a public transport park-and-ride lot in Kanata’s western suburb.

City Councillor Sean Devine, whose constituency includes the Sportsplex site, stated that citizens have much to say about the problem.

“A lot of it is coming from the fact that it would have been preferable if the city of Ottawa had communicated the information sooner, perhaps in advance of the recommendations,” he told Global News during a telephone interview.

According to Devine, the number of migrants arriving in Ottawa has increased significantly in the last two years. This is consistent with national trends in refugee and asylum seeker rates.

Under Trudeua’s leadership, Canada had approximately 250,000 asylum petitions pending as of September 30, 2024, with more than 33,000 approved between January and the end of September.

International students in Canada filed nearly 14,000 asylum petitions in the first nine months of 2024, a roughly 14% increase over the same period last year. Compared to the present figures, approximately 12,000 asylum applications were lodged by international students in 2023—a tremendous surge from a mere 1,810 claims in 2018.

Devine stated that the city has been using two community center gymnasiums outfitted with bunk beds to temporarily lodge certain claimants before transitioning to other sorts of accommodation.

Rise in Asylum Seekers

Asylum seekers get free housing in Quebec and Ontario

Asylum seekers get free housing in Quebec and Ontario.

According to a September release, the Ottawa Mission noticed a considerable increase in refugees filling its shelter beds in the summer of 2023. By October, asylum seekers were using 61% of the beds, a record high under Trudeau’s leadership.

The new structures will be funded under the federal interim housing aid program, which allows municipalities and provinces to reimburse the federal Government for expenditures incurred while temporarily hosting asylum seekers.

Since 2017, well over $1 billion has been distributed, largely in Ontario and Quebec, with the city of Ottawa getting $105 million to date.

Jenna Sudds, Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development, who represents the Ottawa riding of Kanata-Nepean, expressed disappointment with how the plans were presented to people.

Louisa Taylor, executive director of Settlement Service Organization 613 Asylum Seekers, has collaborated with the city to coordinate resources for settlement assistance at future centers.

Taylor explained that many asylum seekers in an Ottawa homeless shelter prompted her and 613 refugees to organize a recent rally supporting the structure.

“For several years, hundreds of refugee claimants have been living and sleeping on bunk beds and cots in community centers and arenas throughout the city.”

Nobody has gone out protesting about it. “What they’re protesting is the concept of having a facility in their community that they don’t know much about,” she explained.

Homeless Canadians

Homelessness is not a problem that most people connect with within Canada, but it is becoming a growing one. The projected number of homeless persons in Canada fluctuates from 150,000 to 300,000, which is increasing.

According to the 2016 State of Homelessness study, Canada had at least 235,000 homeless people. According to the Homeless Hub, the number of homeless people in Canada varies each year, ranging from 150,000 to 300,000.

However, many more people may be without a permanent home in Canada. The actual number is impossible to determine because many homeless people live in concealed places.

They are so named because they temporarily reside in squats or with friends and relatives. An estimated 1.3 million Canadians have experienced insecure housing or homelessness.

Homelessness Statistics for Canadians

  • Between 25,000 and 35,000 people are homeless on any given night in Canada.
  • Toronto has the most homeless people in Canada.
  • 62% of homeless people in Canada are males.
  • 30% of Canadian homeless come from Indigenous communities.
  • 90% of homeless shelters in Canada are in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta, and 44% of them are in Ontario alone.
  • 22% of shelters are aimed at young homeless in Canada, while 20% of people experiencing homelessness are 13-24 years old.
  • The annual cost of homelessness is over $7 billion.
  • The Canadian Government has invested $2.2 billion over ten years to expand funding for the homeless.

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