Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 1

A gender reveal party sparked a Southern California wildfire that killed a leader of an elite firefighting team.

Authorities announced on Tuesday that the couple has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and has pleaded not guilty. CBS Los Angeles reports that the couple is facing up to 20 years behind bars if the court convicts them of their many charges. The wildfire was sparked on September 5 when the couple decided to have a baby gender reveal at El Dorado Ranch Park in Yucaipa, at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains.

According to Cal Fire, the wildfire was ignited by a "smoke generating pyrotechnic device, used during a gender reveal party." The wildfire raged on for many weeks and was eventually put out on November 16 after it had burned 22,680 acres throughout the Oak Glen/Yucaipa Ridge area. On September 16, firefighters were caught in a remote area where they were cutting fire breaks. Unfortunately, Charlie Morton, the 39-year-old leader of the Big Bear Interagency Hotshot Squad, was caught in the blaze and was killed.

At least 12 people are dead, countless are missing and trapped, in massive flooding that has swept through Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province. There are some people trapped on trains down in the subway, in water that is up to their necks... scary footage, check it out:

The massive floods demolished roads, railways, airports, highways, buildings, subway systems, and everything in between. It swept away cars, buses, people, with some videos showing a father getting to his son in the flood, and then they were swept away in the flood. I haven't attached that video, but you'll be able to find it online if you search for it.

We don't know how many people are trapped in the city's subway, but the numbers should be large given there's 7 lines and 148 stations. The video above shows people stuck in water that is up to their shoulders, which is horrifying and I can only imagine what those people went, and are still going through.

An absolutely gigantic explosion in China has rocked the area, with an aluminum alloy unit in Dengfend Power Group Co Ltd in China's central Henan province exploding due to "flooding water" entering the plant.

There are massive floods in China right now, with a river close to the plant exceeding the warning water level -- once that occurred, a factory wall was collapsed. Dengfeng Power Group Co Ltd shut the power off immediately, evacuated everyone out of the plant, but at 6AM local time water entered the high-temperature solution and then kaboom.

The plant itself houses an annual capacity of 60,000 tonnes of alloy rods, high-silicon aluminum alloy, and titanium products. The company says that no one was hurt or killed in the blast -- shockingly -- with the Chinese government performing a safety inspection afterward.

China has taken a few steps closer to the abyss, with the US and its allies in the UK, EU, and other countries have accused China of a global cyberespionage campaign.

Microsoft servers have been victims of purported cyberattacks from China earlier this year, and now a new joint effort between NATO members including the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and others are joining forces to stop Chinese state-sponsored cyberattacks. This is all happening barely a week from the World Economic Forum-led Cyber Polygon 2021 event.

On top of this, we have the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a new advisory list. On this list are 50 tactics, techniques, and producers that Chinese state-sponsored hackers use.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has begun his first day in court defending himself against a lawyer representing Tesla's own board members.

Musk entered a lawsuit with board members over Tesla acquiring SolarCity back in 2016. The lawsuit alleges that Musk strong-armed "Tesla's board of directors into depleting the company's assets with the $2.6 billion all-stock deal for SolarCity," per Reuters. At the time the deal was struck between SolarCity and Tesla, Musk held a 22% stake in the company, which has led some shareholders to claim that Musk's true intention behind acquiring SolarCity was to just bail himself out of the company.

Additionally, the lawsuit claims that Musk forced Tesla to pay more for SolarCity and "misleading shareholders about the company's deteriorating financial health." Musk defended himself in court and stood by his decision to acquire SolarCity (which later became Tesla's solar power division, Tesla Energy) by saying that his benefit from the deal was negligible as there was no cash exchange and that the merger was merely to add SolarCity's sustainable energy to Tesla's batteries.

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has called a lawyer representing Tesla shareholders that he was a "bad human" and that some of his questions were "tricky and deceptive."

Musk appeared on trial to defend Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity in 2016, a solar power company that was founded by Musk's cousins, which later became Tesla's solar power division, Tesla Energy. Tesla shareholders filed a lawsuit against Musk in 2017, claiming that Musk had pressured Tesla board members to effectively bail out SolarCity in a $2.6 billion deal. Reuters reports that at the time, Musk held a 22% stake in the firm.

According to CNBC, Musk has denied that he benefited from the deal, saying, "Since it was a stock-for-stock transaction and I owned almost exactly the same percentage of both, there was no financial gain." During the court session, Musk frustrated opposing attorney Randall Baron who said to Musk that he was holding up the trial by giving long responses to his questions. Musk replied by saying, "I think you are a bad human being", to which Baron asked Musk if he was being "derisive".

Jennifer Zeng has posted an alarming new tweet, bringing attention to an even more alarming video that was uploaded to a Chinese military channel called Liu Jun Tao Lue which threatens full-scale nuclear war with Japan.

The video proposes that the CCP would punish Japan beyond description if the country was to use a single soldier, plane, or ship -- and that not only would it return fire, but it would start a "full-scale war against Japan". First, they would drop nuclear bombs, they would drop nuclear bombs continuously... until Japan declares "unconditional surrender for the second time".

The CCP wants to squeeze Japan until it bleeds out, as it would target their ability to endure a full-scale war. China knows that Japan can't afford a full-scale war, so it would be foolish for the country to send troops to the Taiwan Strait.

I don't think many people believe the narrative fed to us that John McAfee killed himself, and now even his wife Janice McAfee doesn't believe he took his own life.

Janice explained: "I do not accept the 'suicide' story that has been spread. Words cannot describe how enraged I am at the fact that I had to hear the news of John's death via a DM on Twitter. And now it's being conveniently reported that there was a 'suicide note' found in his pocket, something that was not mentioned when I collected John's belongings from the prison".

"I blame the US authorities for this tragedy. Because of these politically motivated charges against him, my husband is now dead. His last words to me were 'I love you and I will call you in the evening. Those words are not words of somebody who is suicidal".

Cyber Polygon 2021 kicked off this year once again, this year the training drill and event will react to a "cyber pandemic" and global response to ransomware.

With the months leading up to the annual Cyber Polygon event we saw many ransomware attacks in the real-world, large attacks even taking down the US east coast oil supply. Cyber Polygon 2021 will have governments, worldwide authorities, executives from some of the largest companies in the world, and speakers that talk about risks, their experience on tackling ransomware on a global scale, and more.

Strategic digital risk management company BI.ZONE, part of Sber's ecosystem, with full support from the World Economic Forum (WEF) where the last big scale event like this was Event 201. Event 201 took place in October 2019 and simulated a coronavirus outbreak, which then happened in the real-world weeks later and we're now living in that current world.

A newly disclosed Pentagon report on nuclear operations states that there is "increased potential" for a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

The report mentions that both Russia and China have constantly been stockpiling nuclear weapons and expanding their already vast weapons for the last ten years. As for North Korea, the Pentagon report states that the nation is testing out long-range missiles that are capable of reaching the United States.

The Pentagon report is from 2020 and was disclosed on Tuesday. It says that the United States has attempted to negotiate with these countries about reducing the number of nuclear weapons being developed. However, the report states that "no potential adversary has reduced either the role of nuclear weapons in its national security strategy or the number of nuclear weapons it fields. Rather, they have moved decidedly in the opposite direction."