America's second largest lender has reached a $16.65 billion settlement with US federal authorities for selling toxic mortgages misleading investors, the Justice Department said Thursday. “This historic resolution - the largest such settlement on record - goes far beyond ‘the cost of doing business,’” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement posted on the US Justice Department w [...]

The governor of Missouri will reportedly relieve St. Louis County law enforcement from policing the ongoing demonstrations in the town of Ferguson, paving the way for possible state or federal intervention. Rep Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri told Bloomberg News on Thursday morning that Gov. Jay Nixon, also a Democrat, had confirmed to him that county police will be pulled from their duties in Ferguson [...]

Intelligence agencies like the NSA and GCHQ seek to scoop up literally every single form of digital and non-digital communication and data in the world all the time, political cartoonist and author Ted Rall told RT. It is very clear that the general mood in Europe as well as in the UK and in the USA is in favor of more privacy in the wake of Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations. [...]

The Ukraine crisis has shown that Russia has been strong in getting its message across to international audiences, a meeting of US international media chiefs concluded, outlining the need for Washington to create a Russian-language TV news channel. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan agency that supervises government-sponsored media, targeting international audiences, met We [...]

GCHQ is scanning servers in multiple foreign countries for vulnerable ports, according to German newspaper Heise. Using a tool called Hacienda, the intelligence agency seeks to "master the internet" for sources of espionage. Spanish for estate, Hacienda can port scan all of the servers in a country to provide information on user endpoints and scan for potential vulnerabilities. The ability to p [...]

MOSCOW: With a theatrical flourish, Russia on Tuesday dispatched hundreds of trucks covered in white tarps and sprinkled with holy water on a mission to deliver aid to a desperate rebel-held zone in eastern Ukraine. The televised sight of the miles-long convoy sparked a show of indignation from the government in Kiev, which insisted any aid must be delivered by the international Red Cross. [...]

The command in Kiev has blatantly abandoned a group of more than 400 soldiers encircled by the self-defense forces, the senior Ukrainian officer who requested sanctuary in Russia with his men has revealed. Lack of ammunition, food, fuel and clear orders from the command on how to act in the condition of encirclement has made the Ukrainian troops cross the border, Major Vitaly Dubinyak, a battal [...]

Records published under Britain's Freedom of Information (FOI) Act have compounded concerns that the UK government lobbied US officials to keep Britain's role in CIA torture and rendition out of a soon-to-be published Senate report. Newly-released data reveals Britain’s ambassador to the US, Peter Westmacott, engaged in at least 21 separate meetings with members of the US Senate’s Select Co [...]

Following revelations of America's National Security Agency's global internet surveillance system, combined with a desire to enhance domestic production, China is beating a path towards unveiling its own operating systems in October. The Chinese-made substitutes would first be introduced on desktop devices, later expanding to include smartphones and other hand-held devices, Ni Guangnan heads an [...]

Seventeen Ukrainian soldiers crossed into Russia's southern Rostov region on Saturday and laid down their arms after fleeing the fighting, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said. “It happened this morning,” Nikolay Sinitsyn, the official regional representative of the FSB, told RT. “They were provided with food, and they’re safe here. We’re carrying out a probe.” [...]

Comedian Russell Brand took to his web series The Trews to rip Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly for “getting the wrong message” from history after suggesting that the Berlin Wall is an example of how to solve the influx of immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border. [...]

Russia’s consumer watchdog has shut down four McDonald's restaurants in central Moscow – including the first-ever outlet in the country – over “administrative violations.” More of the company 430 Russian franchises are under investigation. “Multiple violations of sanitary norms were detected in the sourcing of food and waste disposal in McDonald’s restaurants during inspections ca [...]

Police officers in New Jersey swear to uphold the United States Constitution as part of their oath of office. But one cop has decided that, because "in his eyes" President Barack Obama doesn't follow the document, he doesn't have to either. Special Police Officer Richard Recine, a part-time employee of the Borough of Helmetta Police Department, was caught on video saying, "Obama has decimated t [...]

German foreign intelligence agency has been tapping Turkey for almost four decades, reports Focus amid the ongoing spy scandal between Berlin and Ankara. Some German officials defend the practice, saying that not all NATO allies can be treated as friends. The German Federal Intelligence Service, BND, has been eavesdropping on Turkey since 1976 following the Social Democrat Chancellor Helmut Sch [...]

BAGHDAD: Islamic State insurgents posted a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley and images of another US journalist whose life they said depended on how the United States acts in Iraq. The video, titled "A Message To America," presented President Barack Obama with bleak options that could define America's& [...]

US steps to increase military cooperation with Ukraine, providing its National Guard arms and training amid Kiev’s military operation, can be considered complicity in war crimes, Russian MP Irina Yarovaya believes. “In a situation, when the National Guard of Ukraine is leading punitive operations in the Donbass, the US promises to allocate $19 million for training and equipping this militar [...]

"The hospital became a nightmare," said a patient who survived after a major medical institution in Donetsk was shelled by Ukrainian troops in a series of attacks on residential neighborhoods that resulted in four casualties throughout the city. “This is absurd,” 37-year old Dmitry Kozhur told AP correspondent on the ground. “We came here to keep living, but now we are risking death.” [...]

Ecuador doesn't need anybody's permission to export agricultural products to Russia, which now has a big gap that needs to be filled after it banned supplies from a number of western countries, said President Rafael Correa. “I want to immediately say that we don’t need to get anybody’s permission to sell products to friendly countries: as far as we know Latin America isn’t a part of the [...]

Moscow and Kiev have agreed on a humanitarian mission under the authority of the Red Cross, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated. “With careful optimism, I can now say that, I think, all possible and impossible pretexts have been dismissed. I hope that in the very nearest future this humanitarian action will take place under the authority of the Red Cross,” Lavrov said. [...]

An F-15 military jet crashed in western Virginia early Wednesday, according to local media reports. In Deerfield, Virginia, multiple news outlets have reported already that an aircraft crashed shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time in a wooded part of the region near Staunton, VA, around 180 miles west of Washington, DC. By 10:30, the Staunton News Leader had confirmed that a spokesperson for the N [...]

Despite desperate calls from witnesses, Odessa fire brigades came to the scene of the notorious Trade Unions House blaze only 38 minutes after it was reported, leaked transcripts of emergency calls show. The fire claimed the lives of 48 people in May. The leaked transcripts involve calls which local emergency services reportedly received on the evening of May 2. [...]

The "right steps” politicians in the West and Russia are now taking against each other are very similar to what was happening before World War I, Latvian MEP Andrejs Mamikinsh warned EC President Jose Manuel Barroso in a letter Tuesday. It’s crucial to stop reciprocal sanctions before they throw people into poverty and ruin the economies altogether, the European Parliament member wrote. [...]