Andrew Blake

Rapper can face charges for threatening lyrics, Calif. appeals court rules

A California appeals court has reversed an earlier decision against an aspiring rap artist, ruling two women who felt threatened by his lyrics can pursue felony charges against him.

July 24, 2015

Fundraiser for Baltimore cops canceled after blackface backlash

A fundraiser that had been scheduled for the six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray has been canceled after an outcry erupted over news that a former cop was slated to perform at the event in blackface.

July 23, 2015

McDonald’s making way for all-day breakfast

McDonald's corporate headquarters says the fast-food chain will soon serve breakfast to customers all day long.

July 23, 2015

10 transgender women killed so far in 2015

The slaying of 25-year-old India Clarke in Tampa, Florida, this week has elevated the number of reported transgender women killed in 2015 to the double digits. She was found beaten to death on Tuesday morning.

July 23, 2015

Jeffrey Alan Lash, a space alien or secret agent? Dead man found with trove of weapons

The man whose badly-decomposed body was discovered last week in southern California near a cache of weapons had presented himself as a secret government agent and was believed by some to be an alien savior, according to acquaintances.

July 23, 2015

Hacking Team lifted code to program Android spy software, researcher says

A computer researcher is lashing out at a controversial Italian spyware vendor after learning that his work is powering commercial surveillance software that's been pitched to governments around the globe.

July 22, 2015

Arrests in U.S., Israel reportedly tied to JPMorgan hack

Authorities in Florida and Israel have arrested four men over financial crimes that are reportedly linked to last year's of hack JPMorgan Chase and the subsequent comprising of ten of millions of bank accounts.

July 22, 2015

Silk Road heroin dealer sentenced to 2.5 years in prison

A New Jersey man who made upwards of $70,000 a month by selling heroin over the Internet and later testified against the administrator of the online drug den has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.

July 22, 2015

Earl Blumenauer wants marijuana charges dropped in states with pro-pot laws

A Democratic lawmaker is expected to introduce Tuesday a bill in the House to expunge federal marijuana-related convictions, signaling the start of the congressman's latest effort to reform drug laws on a nationwide scale.

July 21, 2015

L.A. police discover 1,200 guns in dead man’s home

Authorities evacuated an affluent oceanside neighborhood in Southern California over the weekend after finding more than 1,200 guns and two tons of ammunition inside an area home while investigating a man's death.

July 21, 2015

Lorenzo Davis says he was fired for finding cops at fault

A former Chicago Police Department investigator who had been tasked with reviewing officer-involved shootings says he was fired from the force for refusing to justify incidents in which he claims civilians were wrongly shot and sometimes killed.

July 21, 2015

WikiLeaks: NSA monitored Germany’s discussions on CIA torture

Secret-spilling organization WikiLeaks has published new evidence of what the group says shows the extent of the National Security Agency's longstanding surveillance of top German officials.

July 20, 2015

Franklin Graham: ‘We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S.’

Evangelist Franklin Graham said Muslims must be barred from entering the United States, in light of what he purports to be the growing "threat" of Islam evidenced by the recent fatal shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

July 20, 2015

Ashley Madison, infidelity dating site, hacked

Never mind sophisticated hackers and nation-state cybercriminals: Suspicions concerning this week's hack of a dating service that encourages infidelity suggests all it may take to destroy a corporation (and the lives of potentially millions of customers) is a disgruntled IT guy.

July 20, 2015

CVS acknowledges possible security breach of customer info

CVS said Friday that the personal information pertaining to customers of its online photo processing platform may have been compromised as a result of an apparent security breach.

July 17, 2015

Bigbelly trash can company aims to bring free Wi-Fi to NYC

The company behind a high-tech type of garbage can that's already being used to collect trash data throughout Manhattan is asking the mayor's office for help in getting those bins to begin broadcasting free wireless Internet across New York City.

July 17, 2015

Apple touts new iPod Touch as much more than music player

The iPod is getting its first upgrade in three years, Apple announced this week, as the company looks again to the same mobile music industry that made the original handheld devices a hot commodity nearly 15 years ago.

July 16, 2015

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Russian missile likely caused crash, investigators find

A Dutch-led investigation into last year's downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 concluded that the plane was brought down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by rebels loyal to Moscow, according to people familiar with the probe.

July 16, 2015

Justice Dept., encryption experts square off over FBI’s digital eavesdropping efforts

On the heels of a congressional hearing in which the head of the FBI raised concerns over law enforcement's growing inability to decode the communications of tech-savvy terrorists and criminals, encryption experts say the government is already giving the people tasked with securing the infrastructure of the internet a run for their money.

July 16, 2015

Muhammad Suleiman assassination in Syria linked to Israel, Snowden docs show

A top-secret national security document taken by former contractor Edward Snowden confirms for the first time that American officials attributed Israeli special command forces with the 2008 assassination of a key aide to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

July 15, 2015