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George Floyd died from lack of oxygen, not fentanyl, says expert

George Floyd died from a lack of oxygen during his arrest, a doctor at the trial of ex-police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis has said.
Contradicting the defence, Dr Martin Tobin said fentanyl did not cause Mr Floyd's death. He said even a "healthy person...would have died". Mr Chauvin, 45, was filmed kneeling on Mr Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes during his arrest last May. The ex-officer is on trial for murder and has denied the charges against him. The footage of Mr Chauvin, who is white, with his knee on African-American Mr Floyd's neck sparked global protests against racism. The trial is in its second week and is expected to last for at least one month. The defence is due to begin arguing its case in court next week.

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Russia’s Twitter throttling may give censors never-before-seen capabilities

Censorship based on deep packet inspection may work against Tor and VPNs.
Russia has implemented a novel censorship method in an ongoing effort to silence Twitter. Instead of outright blocking the social media site, the country is using previously unseen techniques to slow traffic to a crawl and make the site all but unusable for people inside the country. Research published Tuesday says that the throttling slows traffic traveling between Twitter and Russia-based end users to a paltry 128kbps. Whereas past Internet censorship techniques used by Russia and other nation-states have relied on outright blocking, slowing traffic passing to and from a widely used Internet service is a relatively new technique that provides benefits for the censoring party.

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US rules out federal vaccine passports

The White House has ruled out introducing mandatory federal Covid-19 vaccination passports, saying citizens' privacy and rights should be protected.
Schemes to introduce such passports have been touted around the world as a way to enable safe circulation of people while fighting the pandemic. But critics say such documents could be discriminatory. The US said it did not and would not support a "system that requires Americans to carry a credential". The country has reported more than 550,000 deaths linked to the virus and nearly 31 million cases, the highest numbers in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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After a decade of failure, LG officially quits the smartphone market

LG's mobile division calls it quits after 23 consecutive money-losing quarters.
After 12 years of being an Android OEM, LG has had enough. The Korean company announced late last night that it is officially quitting the smartphone market; it plans to close up shop on the entire business by July 31, 2021. The news doesn't come as much of a surprise, since LG has been preparing the public for this decision for some time. LG's mobile division has had 23 consecutive money-losing quarters, and its last profitable year was in 2014. In January 2020, LG Electronics' then-brand-new CEO Kwon Bong-seok promised that the troublesome division would be profitable by 2021. That message was apparently "profitability or bust" because by January 2021, LG was warning the public that it would have to make "a cold judgment" about the future of the mobile division. Local media reports claim that LG explored selling the division but couldn't find a buyer.

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Jill Biden butchers Spanish pronunciation during speech to California farmers

*First lady Jill Biden took a page out of her husband’s book and offered the internet a gaffe of her own this week, completely botching the pronunciation of the Spanish phrase “Sí se puede.” The flub occurred Wednesday, when the first lady appeared at an event for farmworkers in Delano, Calif., alongside embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom to celebrate César Chávez Day, which honors the late Latin American civil rights activist. While delivering remarks to the socially distanced crowd, Biden first noted that Chávez “understood that no matter the obstacles, when people come together united in a cause, anything is possible.

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George Floyd: Teenage witness 'stays up apologising for not doing more'

The teenager whose film of George Floyd's death sparked global protests said she "stays up apologising" to him for "not doing more".
Darnella, who was 17 at the time, was one of four young witnesses who gave gripping descriptions on the second day of Derek Chauvin's trial. In emotional testimony, she compared Mr Floyd to her dad, brother, cousins and uncles "because they are all black". The case has brought issues of racial equality and policing to the fore. On Monday, the opening session of the trial heard Mr Chauvin, an ex-police officer, knelt on Mr Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while arresting him in Minneapolis in May 2020. Prosecutors say this was a "major cause" in his death.

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'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

‘Fake' accounts claiming to be Amazon workers have been praising their working conditions on Twitter.
Votes are currently being counted in Alabama to decide whether Amazon warehouse workers will form a union. But last night, a series of anti-union tweets were sent from accounts claiming to be staff. Twitter has now suspended many of the accounts, and Amazon has confirmed at least one is fake. Most of the accounts were made just a few days ago, often with only a few tweets, all related to Amazon. “What bothers me most about unions is there’s no ability to opt out of dues,” one user under the handle @AmazonFCDarla tweeted, despite a state law in Alabama which prevents this.

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Uyghurs: Xinjiang cotton ban is self-defeating, China tells H&M

The Chinese government has warned clothing brand H&M it will not earn a penny in the country if it refuses to buy cotton from the Xinjiang region.
H&M and other western brands are facing a backlash in China after they expressed concern about the alleged use of forced labour in cotton production. China has been accused of forcing members of the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority to pick cotton in Xinjiang. China denies this and, in recent days, critical brands have faced boycotts. "I don't think a company should politicise its economic behaviour," said Xu Guixiang, a Xinjiang government spokesman, at a news conference on Monday. "Can H&M continue to make money in the Chinese market? Not anymore." Mr Xu said the decision by some brands to stop buying Xinjiang cotton was "not reasonable", comparing it to "lifting a stone to drop it on one's own feet".

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Purple Fox Rootkit Can Now Spread Itself to Other Windows Computers

Purple Fox, a Windows malware previously known for infecting machines by using exploit kits and phishing emails, has now added a new technique to its arsenal that gives it worm-like propagation capabilities
The ongoing campaign makes use of a "novel spreading technique via indiscriminate port scanning and exploitation of exposed SMB services with weak passwords and hashes," according to Guardicore researchers, who say the attacks have spiked by about 600% since May 2020. A total of 90,000 incidents have been spotted through the rest of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. First discovered in March 2018, Purple Fox is distributed in the form of malicious ".msi" payloads hosted on nearly 2,000 compromised Windows servers that, in turn, download and execute a component with rootkit capabilities, which enables the threat actors to hide the malware on the machine and make it easy to evade detection.

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Coronavirus: France accuses UK of 'blackmail' over vaccine exports

France has accused the UK of "blackmail" over its handling of coronavirus vaccine exports, amid continuing tensions over supply chains.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was asked whether the EU had been "scammed" by sending millions of doses to the UK while its own rollout stuttered. "We need to build a co-operative relationship," he told France Info radio. "But we cannot deal this way." France has called for the EU to implement tougher export controls. Vaccine rollouts have started sluggishly across the bloc, and the EU has blamed pharmaceutical companies - primarily AstraZeneca - for not delivering its promised doses. AstraZeneca has denied that it is failing to honour its contract.

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New Android malware with full range of spying capabilities has been found

Despite its sophistication, the app can be easy for more experienced users to spot.
Researchers have discovered a new advanced piece of Android malware that finds sensitive information stored on infected devices and sends it to attacker-controlled servers. The app disguises itself as a system update that must be downloaded from a third-party store, researchers from security firm Zimperium said on Friday. In fact, it’s a remote-access trojan that receives and executes commands from a command-and-control server. It provides a full-featured spying platform that performs a wide range of malicious activities.

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Windows 10 troubleshooting: How to fix the most common annoyances

We've got solutions for a cursor moving on its own, uncontrollable scrolling, update issues and more Microsoft problems.
Windows 10 ($150 at Amazon) is now on more than 1 billion devices worldwide. While Microsoft releases monthly security patches and larger feature updates twice a year, users still tend to run into some common problems with the OS that can be frustrating to deal with. We've got you covered. Here are instructions on how to troubleshoot 10 common Windows 10 problems, collected from CNET's forums and other sites and message boards. One caveat: There are often multiple ways to fix a Windows 10 issue, and what works for you may depend on your device's make and model and several other factors.

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Donald Trump plans social media comeback, says adviser

Former US President Donald Trump will soon return to social media "with his own platform", his adviser has said.
"I do think that we're going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months," Jason Miller told Fox News. He said the platform "will be the hottest ticket in social media" and would "completely redefine the game". Mr Trump was suspended from Twitter and Facebook after January's deadly riots at the US Capitol in Washington DC. The attack on 6 January by Trump supporters saw five people including a police officer killed, and shook the foundations of American democracy. Several days later, Twitter said Mr Trump's account - @realDonaldTrump - was "permanently suspended... due to the risk of further incitement of violence".

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Iceland volcano eruption: Onlookers flock to see Mount Fagradalsfjall

Thousands have flocked to a volcano in Iceland which erupted near the capital, Reykjavik.
Lava started to burst through a crack in Mount Fagradalsfjall on Friday evening, in the first eruption of its kind in more than 800 years. The site was initially blocked off, but from Saturday afternoon people were allowed to make the trek. "It's absolutely breath-taking," Ulvar Kari Johannsson, a 21-year-old engineer, told the AFP news agency. "It smells pretty bad. For me what was surprising was the colours of the orange: much, much deeper than what one would expect," he added.

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Exchange email hack: Hundreds of UK firms compromised

Hundreds of UK companies have been compromised as part of a global campaign linked to Chinese hackers.
Cyber-security firm Eset said more than 500 email servers in the UK may have been hacked, and many companies are not aware they are victims of the attack. It comes as governments around the world warn organisations to secure their systems. But some experts fear it may be too late, as at least 10 hacking teams are capitalising on the chaos. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre has joined US authorities in issuing warnings about the hack, but says it is still assessing the situation for UK businesses. Meanwhile, the Norwegian cyber-authority is actively scanning for at-risk companies in the country and warning them directly.

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Beeple's NFT digital art nets £50m at Christie's auction

The first digital-only art auction by Christie's auction house has netted $69m (£50m) for the artist Beeple.
The digital art was sold as an NFT - the latest tech craze which has boomed in popularity in recent weeks. Beeple - real name Mike Winkelmann - creates a new piece of digital art every day, and was selling the first 5,000 days (13 years) of his work. That success puts Beeple "among the top three most valuable living artists", Christie's said. The company said the sale was the first NFT-based work of art sold by a "major" auction house, and set a new world record for digital art. The collection is a collage of the thousands of individual daily images which Beeple, an American graphic designer, started in early 2007 and has done every day since. Many of the individual pieces are surreal or unsettling, and he uses a variety of digital modelling and artistic programmes for them.

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Meghan and Harry interview: Royal Family 'very much not racist' - William

The Duke of Cambridge has said the royals are "very much not a racist family" in his first comments after accusations by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in a TV interview.
Prince William also said he had not yet spoken to his brother but would do so. Meghan and Prince Harry said a royal had expressed concern over "how dark" their son Archie's skin might be. Buckingham Palace previously said the claim was "concerning" but it would be addressed privately. In a statement, the Palace said "recollections may vary" but that the Sussexes would "always be much loved family members". During a visit to a school in Stratford, east London, on Thursday, Prince William was asked by a reporter: "Is the Royal Family a racist family, sir?"

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Major and Champ: Joe Biden's dogs moved out of White House

Joe and Jill Biden's German shepherds have been removed from the White House after the younger dog, Major, reportedly bit a security agent.
According to US media, the pets have been sent back to the Biden family home in Wilmington, Delaware. It follows Major's aggressive behaviour towards White House staff. The Bidens adopted three-year-old Major in 2018. He became the first dog from an animal shelter to live in the White House. Their other dog, Champ, is 13. Anonymous sources told CNN that Major had been jumping, barking and charging at White House staff and security. Both dogs moved into the White House four days into Joe Biden's presidency.

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Microsoft-led team retracts quantum 'breakthrough'

A Microsoft-led team has withdrawn a controversial research paper into quantum computing, published in 2018.
The research claimed to have found evidence of an elusive subatomic particle Microsoft suggested could help the development of more powerful computers. But it now says mistakes were made. The journal Nature has published a retraction. And the paper's authors have apologised for "insufficient scientific rigour". But the company has said it remains confident of its wider efforts on quantum computing.

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Pope Francis on Iraq visit calls for end to violence and extremism

Pope Francis has called for an end to violence and extremism, on the first ever papal visit to Iraq.
The pontiff is making his first international trip since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid and security fears have made this his riskiest visit yet, but the 84-year-old insisted he was "duty bound". He also said Iraq's dwindling Christian community should have a more prominent role as citizens with full rights, freedoms and responsibilities. He is hoping to foster inter-religious dialogue - meeting Iraq's most revered Shia Muslim cleric - and will celebrate Mass at a stadium in Irbil in the north.