Author: Reporter

The human species has topped 8 billion, with longer lifespans offsetting fewer births, but world population growth continues a long-term trend of slowing down, the U.S. Census Bureau said in November. The bureau estimates the global population exceeded the threshold on September 26, a precise date the agency said to take with a grain of salt. The United Nations estimated the number was passed 10 months earlier, having declared November 22, 2022, the “Day of 8 Billion,” the Census Bureau pointed out in a statement. The discrepancy is due to countries counting people differently — or not at all....

Cars are getting an “F” in data privacy. Most major manufacturers admit they may be selling your personal information, a new study finds, with half also saying they would share it with the government or law enforcement without a court order. The proliferation of sensors in automobiles — from telematics to fully digitized control consoles — has made them prodigious data-collection hubs. But drivers are given little or no control over the personal data their vehicles collect, researchers for the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation said in September during their “Privacy Not Included” survey Security standards are also vague, a big...

To hear his lawyers tell it, Donald Trump was alarmed by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, motivated as president to focus on cybersecurity, and had a good-faith basis four years later to worry that foreign actors had again meddled in the race. But to federal prosecutors, 2016 is significant as the year that Trump spread misinformation about voter fraud and proved himself resistant to accepting the outcome of elections that might not go his way. Even though a trial set for next year in Washington is centered on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, lawyers on both...

At a small rural Missouri high school, two English teachers shared a secret: Both were posting adult content on OnlyFans, the subscription-based website known for sexually explicit content. The site and others like it provide an opportunity for those willing to dabble in pornography to earn extra money — sometimes lots of it. The money is handy, especially in relatively low-paying fields like teaching, and many post the content anonymously while trying to maintain their day jobs. But some outed teachers, as well as people in other prominent fields such as law, have lost their jobs, raising questions about...