\n\nThe chief executive of Equifax is retiring, the company said Tuesday, just weeks after the troubled credit reporting agency disclosed that it had suffered a massive data breach affecting as many as 143 million people.\n\nThe departure of Richard Smith comes as Equifax has drawn fire from countless consumers and dozens of federal lawmakers over its handling of the breach. Equifax announced earlier this month that hackers gained unauthorized access to sensitive personal data — Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses — for nearly half of the country. The company also faces multiple federal investigations over its handling of the hack and reports that executives sold an unusual amount of stock before the breach was publicly disclosed.\n\nEquifax's board of directors appointed board member Mark Feidler to serve as the company's nonexecutive chairman, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., who led the company's Asia Pacific division, will become the interim chief executive.\n\n“The cybersecurity incident has affected millions of consumers, and I have been completely dedicated to making this right,” Smith said in the statement. “At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward.”\n\nSmith, 57, had been the chairman and chief executive since 2005, after spending 22 years at General Electric. During Smith's time at Equifax, the company’s stock price had soared 200 percent, and its market value swelled from $3 billion to $20 billion. Smith also expanded the company’s business into 24 countries.

Equifax is facing multiple federal investigations over its handling of the hack.


\n\nEquifax says a giant cybersecurity breach compromised the personal information of as many as 143 million Americans — almost half the country.\nCyber criminals have accessed sensitive information -- including names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and the numbers of some driver\'s licenses.\n\nAdditionally, Equifax said that credit card numbers for about 209,000 U.S. customers were exposed, as was "personal identifying information" on roughly 182,000 U.S. customers involved in credit report disputes. Residents in the U.K. and Canada were also impacted.\n\nThe breach occurred between mid-May and July, Equifax said. The company said it discovered the hack on July 29.\n\nThe data breach is one of the worst ever, by its reach and by the kind of information exposed to the public.\n\n"This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do," said Equifax chairman and CEO Richard F. Smith.\n\nEquifax is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rates the financial history of U.S. consumers. The companies are supplied with data about loans, loan payments and credit cards, as well as information on everything from child support payments, credit limits, missed rent and utilities payments, addresses and employer history, which all factor into credit scores.\n\nUnlike other data breaches, not all of the people affected by the Equifax breach may be aware that they\'re customers of the company.

Cyber criminals accessed sensitive information such as names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and driver's license numbers.


Equifax reports a massive cybersecurity breach that compromised the personal information of up to 143 million Americans.


\n\nThe Equifax data breach that leaked information on the now-145 million people was caused by a vulnerability in Apache's Struts system. Trouble is, the software provider supplied a patch back in March that should have eliminated that vulnerability. But Equifax's former CEO (who suddenly retired last week) told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that a single IT technician was at fault for the whole thing after they failed to install the patch.\n\nWhile speaking to the committee (video below), former CEO Richard Smith outlined the company's normal procedure for new patches: Have a technician install it and then scan the system for any remaining vulnerabilities. Apparently, both the human and computer steps failed.\n\nAs Smith outlines in his written testimony (PDF), the Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) sent Equifax (alongside many other companies) a notice on March 8th, 2017 about the vulnerability in certain versions of Apache Struts. Equifax sent out an internal mass-email, which should have required its internal IT team to fix the vulnerability within 48 hours, but that didn't happen. An automatic scan for vulnerabilities on March 15th also failed to indicate that Equifax was using a Struts version that had the vulnerability.\n\nBased on Equifax's postmortem investigations, the hacker that exploited this exact weakness likely first used it to pry into Equifax on May 13th, and then continued until July 30th, and Equifax's security tools were none the wiser.

Equifax failed to fix vulnerability within 48 hours.


\n\nThe blows keep coming for Equifax (NYSE:EFX) as shares continue to tumble and the Federal Trade Commission announced plans to open an investigation into the credit reporting company Thursday after the company went public with its massive security breach last week, putting 143 million American’s personal data at risk.\n\nIn case you missed all drama, here’s a timeline of events, involving one of the biggest security breaches of all time.\n\nMid-May through July 2017 – This is the time frame in which Equifax says hackers gained unauthorized access to its data.\n\nThursday, July 29 – Equifax discovers the hack and immediately stopped the intrusion.\n\nTuesday, August 1 & Wednesday, August 2– Three top executives from Equifax sell nearly $2 million worth of company stock.\n\nThursday, September 7 – Equifax officially alerts the public about the cybersecurity incident and provides a dedicated website for consumers to check if they were affected. Later on that night, the company also issues a statement saying the three executives “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares.”\n\nFriday, September 8 –Shares of Equifax shed more than 13% of their value in trading. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tears into the company on social media for trying to push customers to give up their right to sue.\n\n\n.@Equifax is forcing you to give up your right to join a class action against the company if you want their credit protection product. pic.twitter.com/anu0SE58wg\n\n— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 8, 2017\n

Equifax discovers the hack and stops the intrusion.


Automatic scan on March 15th failed to detect vulnerability.


DHS CERT sent Equifax notice about vulnerability on March 8th.


Three top executives from Equifax sell nearly $2 million worth of company stock.


\n\nVisa and MasterCard are issuing confidential alerts to financial institutions across the US, cautioning them that more than 200,000 credit cards were compromised in the recent Equifax data breach, according to PYMNTS. \n\nCompromised information included card account numbers, expiration dates, and cardholders’ names, all of which can be used to conduct fraud at online retailers and perform identity theft. Visa and MasterCard claim that the breach initially occurred in November 2016, but Equifax says the accounts were all stolen at the same time — in May 2017 — exploiting the information of approximately 143 million US consumers.\n\nAs consumers increasingly use digital financial services, their information becomes more susceptible to fraud. This is the third cybersecurity incident for the agency since 2015. There were two prior data hacks in which cyber criminals stole tax and salary information from the Equifax website, according to The New York Times. At a time of rising breaches — in 2016, 15.4 million victims had their identities stolen, up 16% from the prior year — it's more important than ever for companies to assure consumers that their information is secure. This could include investing in higher security, such as blockchain technology, biometric authentication, or real-time alerts.\n\nDan Van Dyke, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service has written a detailed report that explores the digital payments ecosystem today, its growth drivers, and where the industry is headed.


\n\nHackers were able to access personal data of 143 million Equifax customers.\nHow did it happen?\n\nMuch is still unknown. But it came down to a flaw in a tool designed to build web applications, the company said in a press release this week. And Equifax admitted it was aware of the security flaw a full two months before the company says hackers first gained accessed to its data.\n\nSome of the information hackers had access to includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver\'s license numbers.\n\nThe tool is called Apache Struts, and it\'s used by many large businesses and government organizations. Equifax used it to support its online dispute portal -- where Equifax (EFX) customers go to log issues with their credit reports. The flaw allowed hackers to take control of a website.\n\nA cybersecurity arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, US-CERT, "identified and disclosed" the Apache Struts flaw in March, Equifax said in a statement.\n\nAnd the company\'s security department "was aware of this vulnerability at that time, and took efforts to identify and to patch any vulnerable systems."\n\nYet, according to the company, hackers exploited the flaw months later.\n\nEquifax has said it discovered the data breach on July 29. On Friday, it said it waited until it "observed additional suspicious activity" a day later to take the affected web application offline.\n\nAnd on August 2 Equifax contacted Mandiant, a professional cybersecurity firm, to help the company assess what data had been compromised.\n\n


Shares of Equifax shed more than 13% of their value in trading.


\n\nFormer Equifax CEO Richard Smith says he is "deeply sorry" for the security breach in which sensitive personal information of as many as 143 million Americans was compromised.\nSmith, who is set to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday, apologized for the cyber attack disclosed by the credit reporting company on September 8. He confirmed that the hack occurred due to "human error and technology failures," according to prepared remarks posted on the committee\'s website Monday.\n\n"To each and every person affected by this breach, I am deeply sorry this occurred," said Smith, who will make his first of four appearances on Capitol Hill this week on the breach. "The company failed to prevent sensitive information from falling into the hands of wrongdoers."\n\nThe former CEO announced his retirement last week from the credit reporting company.\n\nEquifax has come under fire for its handling of the huge cybersecurity breach. The company is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rate the financial history of U.S. consumers, gathering data from credit card companies, banks, retailers and lenders.\n\nIn his eight-page testimony, Smith outlined the chronology of events that lead to the breach, which allowed criminals to access personal information including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and in some cases driver\'s license numbers and credit card information.\n\nThe former CEO said hackers were able to infiltrate a software weakness in an online portal that allows consumers to dispute items on their credit report.


Hackers took control of Equifax's website.


\n\nIf you\'re an American with a credit history -- and at least 143 million are -- you probably already know your Equifax data, including at least your name, social security number, birthdate, and home address, may have been stolen.\n\nWho\'s to blame?\n\nAccording to an unsubstantiated report by equity research firm Baird, citing no evidence, the blame falls on the open-source server framework, Apache Struts. The firm\'s source, per one report, is believed to be Equifax.\n\nApache Struts is a popular open-source software programming Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for Java. It is not, as some headlines have had it, a vendor software program.\n\nIt\'s also not proven that Struts was the source of the hole the hackers drove through.\n\nIn fact, several headlines -- some of which have since been retracted -- all source a single quote by a non-technical analyst from an Equifax source.\n\nNot only is that troubling journalistically, it\'s problematic from a technical point of view. In case you haven\'t noticed, Equifax appears to be utterly and completely clueless about their own technology. Equifax\'s own data breach detector isn\'t just useless: it\'s untrustworthy.\n\nAdding insult to injury, the credit agency\'s advice and support site looks, at first glance, to be a bogus, phishing-type site: "equifaxsecurity2017.com." That domain name screams fake. And what does it ask for if you go there? The last six figures of your social security number and last name. In other words, exactly the kind of information a hacker might ask for.\n\nEquifax\'s technical expertise, it has been shown, is less than acceptable.\n\n

Equifax's technical expertise has been shown to be less than acceptable.


Equifax had an online portal where customers go to log issues with their credit reports.


Equifax was using the open-source server framework, Apache Struts.


Equifax's chief executive, Richard Smith, is retiring.


Equifax's chief executive, Richard Smith, is retiring.

Equifax's board of directors appointed Mark Feidler as the company's nonexecutive chairman.


Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. was appointed as the interim chief executive.


Cyber criminals accessed sensitive information such as names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and driver's license numbers.


Equifax reports a massive cybersecurity breach that compromised the personal information of up to 143 million Americans.


Equifax's board of directors appointed Mark Feidler as the company's nonexecutive chairman.


Former Equifax CEO Richard Smith apologizes for the security breach.


Equifax discovers the hack and stops the intrusion.


\n\nFive years ago, a massive data breach occurred. On Sept. 7, 2017, the Equifax credit bureau publicly revealed its computer networks had suffered a data leak that exposed the personal information of 143 million consumers, a number later raised to 147 million. That data included consumers’ names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers — all of which could lead to identity fraud and other financial crimes.\n\nThe data breach, announced six weeks after it was discovered, rattled the financial services industry, the cybersecurity sector and, most notably, the millions of consumers who were affected. The Equifax data breach had a powerful impact:\n\nVictims of the breach will benefit from a $425 million settlement that’s nearing its end.\nFederal lawmakers have made minor changes related to data privacy.\nEquifax has spent $1.6 billion to shore up its cybersecurity defenses.\nFive years after Equifax disclosed the breach, we posed the question to financial experts: Is personal data collected by the three major credit bureaus any safer than it was in 2017?\nThere’s no such thing as “bulletproof cybersecurity,” says James Lee, chief operating officer of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. Even the most secure, most advanced cybersecurity measures can and do fail.\n\n“That said, there is nothing inherently insecure or risky about the data protection practices of the three major credit bureaus,” says Lee.


\n\nCash payments that were approved as part of Equifax’s settlement over its 2017 data breach are now reaching consumers.\n\nThe money — which comes from a $425 million consumer restitution fund created as part of the settlement — began going out Dec. 19, according to Equifax, a credit-reporting firm. Depending on how you chose to receive your share in the claims process, you may receive a check, payment to your Paypal account or prepaid card via email from the settlement administrator.\n\n“This is the last step,” said John Ulzheimer, a credit expert and president of The Ulzheimer Group. “It seems like it’s taken forever, but for a large class action, this one moved kind of quickly — it’s just taken forever for the administrative component to occur.”\n\nIn the wake of Equifax’s 2017 data breach, which compromised the personal information of more than 147 million consumers — including names, birthdates and Social Security numbers — the company became the target of multiple lawsuits and reached a settlement in 2019 with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and all U.S. states and territories.\n\nAs a result, consumers who were affected by the breach had the option of signing up for either up to $125 or free credit monitoring at all three of the largest credit reporting firms: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.\n\nAfter implementation was delayed due to legal challenges, the settlement received final court approval early this year.\n\

The settlement received final court approval early this year.


\n\nThe Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.\n\nWhat do they reveal?\nThe documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.\n\nA $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.\n\nAmong national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.\n\nAn offshore investment fund run by the father of British prime minister David Cameron avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents to sign its paperwork.

An offshore investment fund run by the father of British prime minister David Cameron avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain.

\n\nA network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn has laid a trail to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.\n\nAn unprecedented leak of documents shows how this money has made members of Putin’s close circle fabulously wealthy.\n\nThough the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage.\n\nThe documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.\n\nThe files are part of an unprecedented leak of millions of papers from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. They show how the rich and powerful are able to exploit secret offshore tax regimes in myriad ways.\n\nThe offshore trail starts in Panama, darts through Russia, Switzerland and Cyprus – and includes a private ski resort where Putin’s younger daughter, Katerina, got married in 2013.\n\nThe Panama Papers shine a particular spotlight on Sergei Roldugin, who is Putin’s best friend. Roldugin introduced Putin to the woman he subsequently married, Lyudmila, and is godfather to Putin’s older daughter, Maria.\n\nA professional musician, he has apparently accumulated a fortune – having been placed in ostensible control of a series of assets worth at least $100m, possibly more.\n\nRoldugin appears to have been picked for this role because of his lesser profile. He has denied in documents to bank officials in Switzerland and Luxembourg that he is close to any Russian public figures.

Sergei Roldugin, Putin’s best friend, has been placed in ostensible control of a series of assets worth at least $100m.


\n\nA network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn has laid a trail to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.\n\nAn unprecedented leak of documents shows how this money has made members of Putin’s close circle fabulously wealthy.\n\nThough the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage.\n\nThe documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.\n\nThe files are part of an unprecedented leak of millions of papers from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. They show how the rich and powerful are able to exploit secret offshore tax regimes in myriad ways.\n\nThe offshore trail starts in Panama, darts through Russia, Switzerland and Cyprus – and includes a private ski resort where Putin’s younger daughter, Katerina, got married in 2013.\n\nThe Panama Papers shine a particular spotlight on Sergei Roldugin, who is Putin’s best friend. Roldugin introduced Putin to the woman he subsequently married, Lyudmila, and is godfather to Putin’s older daughter, Maria.\n\nA professional musician, he has apparently accumulated a fortune – having been placed in ostensible control of a series of assets worth at least $100m, possibly more.\n\nRoldugin appears to have been picked for this role because of his lesser profile. He has denied in documents to bank officials in Switzerland and Luxembourg that he is close to any Russian public figures.

Sergei Roldugin, Putin’s best friend, has been placed in ostensible control of a series of assets worth at least $100m.

\n\nThe Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.\n\nWhat do they reveal?\nThe documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.\n\nA $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.\n\nAmong national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.\n\nAn offshore investment fund run by the father of British prime minister David Cameron avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents to sign its paperwork.


11.5 million files were leaked from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca.


Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.


11.5 million files were leaked from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.


The records were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.


The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.


The records were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Süddeutsche Zeitung shared the records with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).


Süddeutsche Zeitung shared the records with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

\n\nOn Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a massive leak of documents, dubbed the Panama Papers. CNNMoney has you covered with what you need to know about the story and responses to it.\n\nICIJ and an international coalition of media outlets investigated the trove of papers, which allegedly reveal a clandestine network involving associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and business ties between a member of FIFA’s ethics committee and men whom the United States has indicted for corruption.\n\nThe more-than 11 million documents, which date back four decades, are allegedly connected to Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca. ICIJ reports that the firm helped establish secret shell companies and offshore accounts for global power players. ICIJ reports that a 2015 audit found that Mossack Fonseca knew the identities of the real owners of just 204 of 14,086 companies it had incorporated in Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago often described as a tax haven.\n\nAnd as Gerard Ryle, the director of ICIJ, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: “These documents, if nothing else, raise an awful lot of questions.”\n\nThe documents reference 12 current or former world leaders, as well as 128 other politicians and public officials.

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Panama Papers.


\n\nIcelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson resigned on Tuesday, after documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm revealed that his wife possesses a secret offshore account worth millions of dollars.\n\nThe money is housed in a shell corporation called Wintris, which had bought bonds in Icelandic banks. So when Iceland\'s financial sector collapsed in 2008, Wintris became a creditor to those banks. In 2013, Gunnlaugsson became the prime minister, having run partly on a promise to get tougher with Iceland\'s remaining foreign creditors.\n\nSo what Icelandic voters didn\'t know when they elected him in 2013, but have learned with this week\'s "Panama Papers" revelations, is that Gunnlaugsson\'s own wife was secretly one of the creditors he\'d promised to crack down on — an enormous and undisclosed conflict of interest.\n\nWhen the truth came out this week, it led to mass protests on Monday calling for Gunnlaugsson\'s resignation. He stepped down the next day.\n\nWhat happened in Iceland shows the political power of the Panama Papers, but it also shows the degree to which the political turmoil from the 2008 financial crisis is, in some ways, still ongoing in that country.\n\nWhat\'s more, if Gunnlaugsson\'s resignation leads Iceland to schedule new elections soon, that vote could end up empowering a radical political party called the Pirate Party, a left-libertarian amalgam that\'s obsessed with transparency and direct democracy.\n\n

Mass protests on Monday called for Gunnlaugsson's resignation.


\n\nOn Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a massive leak of documents, dubbed the Panama Papers. CNNMoney has you covered with what you need to know about the story and responses to it.\n\nICIJ and an international coalition of media outlets investigated the trove of papers, which allegedly reveal a clandestine network involving associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and business ties between a member of FIFA’s ethics committee and men whom the United States has indicted for corruption.\n\nThe more-than 11 million documents, which date back four decades, are allegedly connected to Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca. ICIJ reports that the firm helped establish secret shell companies and offshore accounts for global power players. ICIJ reports that a 2015 audit found that Mossack Fonseca knew the identities of the real owners of just 204 of 14,086 companies it had incorporated in Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago often described as a tax haven.\n\nAnd as Gerard Ryle, the director of ICIJ, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: “These documents, if nothing else, raise an awful lot of questions.”\n\nThe documents reference 12 current or former world leaders, as well as 128 other politicians and public officials.

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Panama Papers.


\n\nIcelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson resigned on Tuesday, after documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm revealed that his wife possesses a secret offshore account worth millions of dollars.\n\nThe money is housed in a shell corporation called Wintris, which had bought bonds in Icelandic banks. So when Iceland\'s financial sector collapsed in 2008, Wintris became a creditor to those banks. In 2013, Gunnlaugsson became the prime minister, having run partly on a promise to get tougher with Iceland\'s remaining foreign creditors.\n\nSo what Icelandic voters didn\'t know when they elected him in 2013, but have learned with this week\'s "Panama Papers" revelations, is that Gunnlaugsson\'s own wife was secretly one of the creditors he\'d promised to crack down on — an enormous and undisclosed conflict of interest.\n\nWhen the truth came out this week, it led to mass protests on Monday calling for Gunnlaugsson\'s resignation. He stepped down the next day.\n\nWhat happened in Iceland shows the political power of the Panama Papers, but it also shows the degree to which the political turmoil from the 2008 financial crisis is, in some ways, still ongoing in that country.\n\nWhat\'s more, if Gunnlaugsson\'s resignation leads Iceland to schedule new elections soon, that vote could end up empowering a radical political party called the Pirate Party, a left-libertarian amalgam that\'s obsessed with transparency and direct democracy.\n\n

Mass protests on Monday called for Gunnlaugsson's resignation.

\n\nIceland’s embattled prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, has become the first major casualty of the Panama Papers, stepping aside from his office amid mounting public outrage that his family had sheltered money offshore.\n\nWhat was planned as a mass protest in Reykjavik on Tuesday evening turned to muted satisfaction as demonstrators vented their anger following revelations that Gunnlaugsson once owned – and his wife still owns – an offshore investment company with multimillion-pound claims on Iceland’s failed banks.\n\n“We were hoping parliament would be dissolved,” said Steingrimur Oli Einarsson, a fish oil trader, one of a few hundred to brave a freezing northeasterly wind on parliament square in downtown Reykjavik.\n\n“Of course we’re happy the prime minister has stepped down. But we are not satisfied with who is taking over from him, and with the fact that the government itself is still there.”\n\nGunnlaugsson’s office said in a statement that he was not resigning, but “handing over the office of prime minister for an unspecified time” to Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, the agriculture and fisheries minister.\n\nGunnlaugsson was “very proud” of his success resurrecting Iceland’s economy after the 2008 financial crisis, the statement said, and “especially proud of his government’s handling of ... the creditors of the failed Icelandic banks”.\n\nOutside parliament, Sigrin Eiroksdottir, a pre-school teacher, said the occasion “doesn’t really feel like any kind of victory. There is so much still to put right in this country in terms of ethics, of how the world looks at us.”\n\n

Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson steps down amid public outrage over his family's offshore investments.


Roldugin has denied that he is close to any Russian public figures.


\n\nIceland’s embattled prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, has become the first major casualty of the Panama Papers, stepping aside from his office amid mounting public outrage that his family had sheltered money offshore.\n\nWhat was planned as a mass protest in Reykjavik on Tuesday evening turned to muted satisfaction as demonstrators vented their anger following revelations that Gunnlaugsson once owned – and his wife still owns – an offshore investment company with multimillion-pound claims on Iceland’s failed banks.\n\n“We were hoping parliament would be dissolved,” said Steingrimur Oli Einarsson, a fish oil trader, one of a few hundred to brave a freezing northeasterly wind on parliament square in downtown Reykjavik.\n\n“Of course we’re happy the prime minister has stepped down. But we are not satisfied with who is taking over from him, and with the fact that the government itself is still there.”\n\nGunnlaugsson’s office said in a statement that he was not resigning, but “handing over the office of prime minister for an unspecified time” to Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, the agriculture and fisheries minister.\n\nGunnlaugsson was “very proud” of his success resurrecting Iceland’s economy after the 2008 financial crisis, the statement said, and “especially proud of his government’s handling of ... the creditors of the failed Icelandic banks”.\n\nOutside parliament, Sigrin Eiroksdottir, a pre-school teacher, said the occasion “doesn’t really feel like any kind of victory. There is so much still to put right in this country in terms of ethics, of how the world looks at us.”\n\n

Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson steps down amid public outrage over his family's offshore investments.


\n\nThe new head of world football has been caught up in the sport’s corruption scandal because of documents that have been revealed by the Panama Papers leak.\n\nFiles seen by the Guardian will raise questions about the role Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, played in deals that were concluded when he was director of legal services at Uefa, European football’s governing body.\n\nAccording to records, Uefa concluded offshore deals with one of the indicted figures at the heart of an alleged “World Cup of fraud” despite previously insisting it had no dealings with any of them.\n\nThe emergence of the contracts from 2003 and 2006, which were co-signed by Infantino, link Uefa for the first time to one of the companies involved in the huge unfolding scandal that has brought down former Fifa president Sepp Blatter.\n\nUefa has denied any wrongdoing by any of its officials or any other marketing partner.\n\nIt said the contracts were all above board. Fifa has previously insisted Infantino had no dealings with any of the officials currently under investigation – or their companies. Infantino said he was “dismayed” by the reports and “will not accept that my integrity is being doubted”.\n\nThe disclosures are based on the leak of 11m documents from the files of the offshore financial law firm Mossack Fonseca, which were obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with the Guardian and other news organisations.\n\n

Documents revealed by the Panama Papers leak have implicated the new head of world football.


\n\nReports published this week on the secretive industry that banks and lawyers use to hide the financial holdings of some of the world’s top leaders and billionaires brought a powerful global response, including the resignation of one prime minister, while the White House and U.S. agencies reacted more cautiously.\n\nPresident Barack Obama addressed the massive leak of documents, which led to the reporting, on Tuesday during a press conference about business tax reform.\n\n“There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally, is a huge problem,” the president said. The president also noted in his remarks that the problem is not unique to other nations. “There are folks here in America who are taking advantage of the same stuff. A lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the problem,” the president added. “It’s not that they’re breaking the laws, it’s that the laws are so poorly designed that they allow people, if they’ve got enough lawyers and enough accountants, to wiggle out of responsibilities that ordinary citizens are having to abide by.”\n\nThe Justice Department, which is investigating alleged corruption in the world’s top soccer body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), said it may focus more on the financial dealings raised in the reporting based on the documents.\n\n

The Justice Department is investigating alleged corruption in the world’s top soccer body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).


Uefa has denied any wrongdoing by any of its officials or any other marketing partner.


President Barack Obama addressed the massive leak of documents during a press conference about business tax reform.


\n\nDavid Cameron has finally admitted he benefited from a Panama-based offshore trust set up by his late father.\n\nAfter three days of stalling and four partial statements issued by Downing Street he confessed that he owned shares in the tax haven fund, which he sold for £31,500 just before becoming prime minister in 2010.\n\nIn a specially arranged interview with ITV News’ Robert Peston he confirmed a direct link to his father’s UK-tax avoiding fund, details of which were exposed in the Panama Papers revelations in the Guardian this week.\n\nAdmitting it had been “a difficult few days”, the prime minister said he held the shares together with his wife, Samantha, from 1997 and during his time as leader of the opposition. They were sold in January 2010 for a profit of £19,000.\n\nHe paid income tax on the dividends but there was no capital gains tax payable and he said he sold up before entering Downing Street “because I didn’t want anyone to say you have other agendas or vested interests”.\n\nBut the interview appeared unlikely to end scrutiny of Cameron’s tax affairs.\n\nThe Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury select committee, said the prime minister should resign, claiming that Cameron had “covered up and misled”.\n\nCameron also admitted he did not know whether the £300,000 he inherited from his father had benefited from tax haven status due to part of his estate being based in a unit trust in Jersey.\n\n

David Cameron admits to owning shares in a Panama-based offshore trust set up by his late father.


\n\nProsecutors in Germany have issued international arrest warrants for the cofounders of a Panama-based law firm behind the offshore tax scam that was exposed by the so-called Panama Papers leak.\n\nGerman-born Jürgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca are being sought by Cologne prosecutors on charges of accessory to tax evasion and forming a criminal organization, German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, as well as national newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reported on Tuesday.\n\nCologne prosecutors confirmed that they had issued international arrest warrants for two people but declined to provide further information.\n\nThe 2016 Panama Papers leak included a collection of 11 million secret financial documents taken from law firm Mossack Fonscesca.\n\nThe documents showed how some of the world's richest people hid their money in shell corporations — some of which were used for illegal purposes.\n\nThe documents leak — initially to the SZ and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – had wide-reaching repercussions. Several country leaders stepped down following the revelations and others came under close scrutiny.\n\nUS federal prosecutors have also alleged that law firm Mossack Fonseca conspired to circumvent US law to maintain the wealth of its clients and conceal tax dollars owed to the Internal Revenue Service.\n\nHowever, Fonseca maintained the firm, which closed in 2018, had no control over how its clients may have used offshore vehicles created for them.\n\nBoth Mossack and Fonseca have Panamanian citizenship, NDR reported. Panama does not extradite its own citizens so it is unclear whether either will ever be brought to Germany for trial.\n\n

Panamanian lawyers closed the offshore law firm and had no control over how its clients may have used the offshores he created for them.


\n\nPakistan’s supreme court has removed the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from office in a unanimous verdict over corruption allegations that will further upset the country’s unstable political landscape.\n\nThe verdict by the five-member court caps a year of political controversy over corruption allegations unleashed by the 2016 Panama Papers leak.\n\nThe governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said Sharif had stepped down immediately. The party must now choose an interim prime minister to be accepted by parliament.\n\nThe ruling will throw the governing party and the country at large into turmoil ahead of elections due next year.\n\nThe 10-year disqualification of Sharif cut short the third tenure of a man who has been a leading figure in Pakistani politics for nearly three decades since his first term from 1990 to 1993.\n\nIt is the most serious political ramification yet of the Panama Papers leak, which detailed financial dealings of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.\n\nThe papers linked Sharif’s children to the purchase of London property through offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands in the early 1990s. At that time the children were minors, and the purchase is assumed to have been made by Sharif.\n\nLast year, Sharif told parliament that his family wealth had been acquired legally in the decades before he entered politics.\n\nHassan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst, said the judgment had been expected.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court unanimously removed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office over corruption allegations.


Prosecutors in Germany have issued international arrest warrants for the cofounders of a Panama-based law firm.


An offshore investment fund run by the father of British prime minister David Cameron avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain.


Protests have intensified this week in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly wearing her headscarf too loosely. Amini died on Sept. 16 three days after her arrest in Tehran, and many Iranians are alleging that she was killed by law enforcement. Protestors have faced a brutal crackdown from the government who have deployed riot police, resulting in arrests, injuries and at least 17 deaths, according to the state media.

Iranian authorities claim that Amini died of heart failure, but her family and protestors across Iran accuse the government of covering up her murder. The international protests have expanded to express anger over a range of issues, not just restrictions women face over hijabs and more generally in Iran but also against the current regime. At one Iranian protest, a street full of Iranians chanted “death to the oppressor, be it the shah or the supreme leader!”

Mahsa Amini, 22, was arrested on Sept. 13 while visiting Tehran by the notorious morality police who enforce compulsory conservative Islamic behavior and dress. Hijabs are mandatory to wear in public for all women in Iran, regardless of religion or nationality. Amini was accused of violating the country’s law on headscarves.

Iran’s security forces said that upon her arrest, Amini was taken to a detention center where she received training on hijab rules, and it was there that she collapsed from a heart attack.

22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested for allegedly wearing her headscarf too loosely.

Her family and protestors across Iran accuse the government of covering up her murder.


Upon her arrest, she collapsed from a heart attack.

Iranian authorities claim that Amini died of heart failure.


Iranians took to the streets of the capital on Monday to protest the death of a young woman who had been detained for violating the country's conservative dress code.

The semiofficial Fars news agency said students in many Tehran universities gathered in protest, demanding an investigation into the death of Mahsa Amini and the dismantling of the morality police, who were holding her when she died.

Witnesses said demonstrators poured into Keshavarz Boulevard, a central thoroughfare, chanting "Death to the Dictator." They also chanted against the police and damaged a police vehicle. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.

Late on Monday, Associated Press reporters saw torched trash bins and rocks strewn across some downtown intersections as the smell of tear gas hovered in the air. Police closed roads leading to the central Vali-e Asr square. Plainclothes security forces and groups of riot police could be seen throughout the area, and mobile internet service was down in central Tehran.

Dozens of protesters on motorbikes briefly appeared at a couple of junctions, where they overturned trash cans and chanted against authorities before speeding off.

Videos circulating on social media meanwhile showed a third day of demonstrations in Kurdish cities in western Iran as well as the northern city of Rasht and a university in the central city of Isfahan. The Associated Press could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.

The morality police detained the 22-year-old Amini last Tuesday for not covering her hair with the Islamic headscarf, known as hijab, which is mandatory for Iranian women.

Iranians took to the streets of the capital on Monday to protest the death of Mahsa Amini.


Iranian police are reported to have fired on protesters in Saqqez, home city of Mahsa Amini who died in custody after being arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab "improperly".

Thousands gathered near the grave of the Kurdish woman and clashed with security, 40 days since her death.

A rights group and witnesses said officers fired live rounds and tear gas at the crowds in the city.

Protests swept across Iran after Ms Amini, 22, died on 16 September.

She had been detained three days earlier by the morality police in the capital, Tehran, and fell into a coma after collapsing at a detention centre.

There were reports that officers beat her with a baton and banged her head against a vehicle, but police denied that she was mistreated and said she suffered a heart attack.

On Wednesday, security forces were deployed in Saqqez and other parts of Kurdistan province, in anticipation of fresh demonstrations on the 40th day of mourning for Ms Amini - a culturally significant occasion for Iranians.

Videos showed thousands of mourners walking along a road, through a field and across a river to bypass roadblocks and reach the graveyard where Ms Amini is buried.

The crowds were heard shouting "Woman, life, freedom" and "Death to the dictator" - two of the signature chants of the protest movement - as well as "Down with traitors" and "Kurdistan will be the graveyard of fascists".

It was not clear whether members of Ms Amini's family were present.


More than 50 people have died and dozens more were missing on Thursday, as heavy flooding in Germany and Belgium turned streams and streets into raging torrents that swept away cars and caused houses to collapse.

Recent storms across parts of western Europe made rivers and reservoirs burst their banks, triggering flash floods overnight after the saturated soil couldn’t absorb any more water.

“I grieve for those who have lost their lives in this disaster,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a visit to Washington, expressing shock at the scope of the flooding. “We still don’t know the number. But it will be many.”

She pledged that everything would be done to find those still missing, adding, “’Heavy rain and flooding’ doesn’t capture what happened.”

Authorities in the North Rhine-Westphalia state said at least 30 people had died, while 19 deaths were reported in Rhineland-Palatinate state to the south. Belgian media reported eight deaths in that country.

Among the worst-hit German villages was Schuld, where several homes collapsed and dozens of people remained unaccounted for.

Rescue operations were hampered by blocked roads and phone and internet outages across the Eifel, a volcanic region of rolling hills and small valleys. Some villages were reduced to rubble, as old brick and timber houses couldn’t withstand the sudden rush of water, often carrying trees and other debris as it gushed through narrow streets.

Karl-Heinz Grimm, who had come to help his parents in Schuld, said he had never seen the small Ahr River surge in such a deadly torrent.

Storms caused heavy flooding across parts of western and central Europe overnight, with one man missing after being swept away by a raging stream in eastern Germany.

Firefighters resumed their search for the man in Joehstadt, in Saxony state, on Wednesday morning [July 14]. German news agency dpa reported that he had been trying to secure his property from rising waters when he disappeared.

Hof county near the eastern border with the Czech Republic issued a disaster alert late Tuesday as basements filled with water, trees were uprooted and some areas lost power overnight. Germany’s DWD weather service said the region saw 80 liters (more than 21 gallons) of rain per square meter in the space of 12 hours.

In Hagen, firefighters had to rescue several drivers whose vehicles had become stuck in a flooded underpass. Videos on social media showed streets in the western city knee-deep in water and others buried by landslides.

Residents in the nearby town of Erkrath were warned not to shower or use their washers as the sewage system was overloaded by rain.

The neighboring Netherlands and Belgium were also hit by flooding.

Water authorities in the southern Dutch province of Limburg warned that the heavy rainfall will turn streams into dangerously fast-flowing torrents and urged the public to stay away from them.

Boat owners were advised to steer clear of the Maas river due to strong currents and debris being washed downstream.


Communities in Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands are reeling after extreme July rainfall swamped parts of Western Europe. Some of the worst-hit areas saw as much as two months of rain within 24 hours—enough to break precipitation records, push rivers to new heights, and trigger devastating flash floods.

Nighttime downpours on July 14-15, 2021, proved especially damaging. Many people were asleep when the most intense rain fell, and they were caught off guard as rivers raged, dams failed, and floodwaters inundated homes. News media estimated that 196 people were killed by flooding and thousands more were injured. Hundreds of people are still listed as missing.

On July 18, 2021, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this image of flooding along the Meuse and Roer rivers. As water levels rose, nearly 5,000 people were forced to evacuate from Roermond, a city in The Netherlands near the border with Germany. A dam breach on the Roer contributed to the extensive flooding.

While it will take some time for experts to analyze whether this event was influenced by human-caused global warming, scientists have amassed data showing that warming has led to more intense and frequent downpours in many parts of the world. Some researchers and meteorologists have also suggested that warming may be changing the jet stream in ways that make atmospheric blocking patterns—like the one that prolonged these downpours—more likely.

Human-caused global warming and climate change occur worldwide.


“In some areas we have not seen this much rainfall in 100 years,” Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesman, told CNN. He added that “in some areas we’ve seen more than double the amount of rainfall which has caused flooding and unfortunately some building structures to collapse.”

Shocking images of the devastation in Germany and Belgium showed entire villages underwater, with cars wedged in between collapsed buildings and debris. The Netherlands and Luxembourg have also been affected by the extreme rainfall.

In Germany, at least 105 people have been killed across two western states. In the hard-hit district of Ahrweiler, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, authorities told CNN that 1,300 people remained unaccounted for.

“There is no end in sight just yet,” Ulrich Sopart, a police spokesman in the city of Koblenz, told CNN. He said that authorities are hopeful that they will be able to revise down the number of missing people as the rescue operation continues and phone lines are restored.

”Our hopes are that some people might have been registered as missing twice or even three times – if for example a family member, a work colleague or a friend has registered a person as missing,” Sopart said.

”Also, [in] some places phone lines are still down and reception is difficult. We do hope that people will get in touch with a relative, work colleague or friend to let them know they are fine,” he said.

A dam along the river Rur in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia broke Friday night, according to the regional government.

1,300 people remain unaccounted for in the district of Ahrweiler.


Relief operations in central Europe and in China’s Henan province remain in full swing as authorities assess major damage to infrastructure and their economies following record rain-induced flooding last month. Fatalities exceed 200 in Germany and Belgium, with about 63 reported dead in China.

Germany's federal government on July 21 approved a package of emergency flood aid, adding to what will be a $471.6 million initial boost as western regions reel from days of flash flooding along borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, with the regional death toll over 200 and transportation and other infrastructure sustaining heavy damage in some areas.

The floods follow hard and constant mid-month rains, leading small regional rivers to burst their banks, including the Ahr, Meuse, Maas and Wupper. While the key Rhine River also rose, causing disruption in shipping, most damage seems to have come from smaller rivers and tributaries.

The initial German aid package is meant to cover immediate damage to buildings and local infrastructure and to help citizens in crisis situations, with Finance Minister Olaf Scholz calling the floods a “disaster of national proportions.”

According to Germany's government-owned railway operator Deutsche Bahn, more than 50 bridges, 180 level crossings, 40 signal boxes, more than 1,000 electric and signal masts, as well as energy and lighting systems and station elevators were damaged.

“Never before has our infrastructure been destroyed to this extent in one go,” Volker Hentschel, a board member of its infrastructure division, told the Associated Press, with an initial $1.5-billion damage estimate.

Germany's federal government approved a package of emergency flood aid to help western regions recover from the flooding.


A week after severe flooding hit western Europe, devastating Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, German officials said Thursday they fear the 158 people still missing there may not be found.

The death toll from the floods has risen to at least 205 across the continent, while a total of at least 176 people remain accounted for. Belgium accounts for 32 deaths and 18 missing, according to its national crisis center.

In Germany, the hardest-hit country, entire towns were inundated by water, while train lines and roads were swept away by the flash floods, claiming at least 173 lives.

Germany’s federal disaster relief organization said it was very unlikely that any more survivors would be found. Rescue services have continued to comb through towns ravaged by the floods in search for potential survivors.

The vice president of Germany’s federal agency for technical relief, Sabine Lackner, also told CNN Thursday that she did not expect emergency workers to find anymore survivors.

“The search for missing people continues to move forward, but due to the damage scenario and the time that has now passed, there is little hope that missing people will be found at this time,” Lackner said in a statement.

In the city of Koblenz, in the badly hit western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, police said at least 125 people were now confirmed to have died. ”There are still 155 people unaccounted for,” police spokeswoman Verena Scheurer told CNN Thursday, adding that “therefore, we presume at this stage that the number of deaths could still rise"


For weeks now, forest fires have been burning across Brazil’s Amazon rainforest—generally a normal situation in the dry season, but the fires are much worse than normal this year. Brazil’s official numbers now tally more than 79,500 fires this year—more than half of those in the Amazon, making this the “most active fire year in that region since 2010.” The majority of these fires are intentional, set by farmers and ranchers to clear fields and open up land for grazing. The government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who promised to relax environmental protections, faces growing criticism in Brazil and abroad as the Amazon burns. Gathered here, images from Brazil taken over the past few days. Editor’s note: A government handout photo of an aircraft dropping water was removed from this story, after it was discovered to have been taken years earlier.

1. A laborer stares at a fire that spread to the farm he worked on next to a highway in Nova Santa Helena municipality in northern Mato Grosso state, in the Amazon basin in Brazil, on August 23, 2019.

2. An aerial picture shows a fire on a piece of land in the Amazon rainforest, about 65 km from Porto Velho, in Brazil's Rondonia state, on August 23, 2019.

3. A burned section of the Amazon rainforest, photographed near Abuna, Rondonia state, Brazil, on August 24, 2019.

Farmers and ranchers want to clear fields and open up land for grazing.

International pressure may be the only way to stop the Brazilian government from taking a “suicide” path in the Amazon, one of the country’s most respected scientists has said, as the world’s biggest rainforest continues to be ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires.

The large number of conflagrations – set illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – has prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency, created giant smoke clouds that have drifted hundreds of miles, and sparked international concerns about the destruction of an essential carbon sink.

“Our house is burning,” tweeted the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who called for emergency talks on the subject at this week’s G7 summit. But the response to the crisis has been mixed: while Norway and Germany have halted donations to the Brazilian government’s Amazon fund, the EU has recently signed a trade deal with South America, and the UK spent this week focusing on post-Brexit business with Brazil.

On Wednesday, the UK trade minister Conor Burns was shaking hands with his counterparts in Brasilia and declaring a desire to “deepen relations”. Asked about the fires, he declined to comment but reportedly said Bolsonaro’s government had “legitimate ambitions to bring prosperity to its people”.

Scientists say the ongoing destruction will have dire consequences for Brazil and the world.

Thousands of deliberate fires are ravaging the Amazon rainforest.


Fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest are proliferating at an alarming rate.

That's the gist of an announcement this week by the country's National Institute for Space Research, or INPE. According to the agency, there have been 74,155 fires in Brazil so far this year — most of which erupted in the Amazon. That represents an astonishing leap of more than 80% over last year and by far the most that the agency has recorded since it began compiling this data in 2013.

About half those fires, or nearly 36,000 of them, have ignited in just the past month. That's nearly as many as in all of 2018. Smoke from the fires has darkened the skies over major Brazilian cities, such as São Paulo.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signaled unconcern about the situation. The far-right leader, who took office in January, has repeatedly lambasted Brazil's environmental regulations as an impediment to economic development, and under his tenure environmental agencies have seen diminished staff and funding. That includes INPE itself, whose leader, Ricardo Magnus Osório Galvão, was canned this month because — according to Galvão — he questioned how Bolsonaro was using his agency's data.

Asked about the fires by local media, Bolsonaro baselessly suggested that nongovernmental organizations have been setting the fires themselves as retaliation for the scaling back of Brazil's usual funding support for them.

The Brazilian President has scaled back environmental regulations and funding for environmental agencies.


At 6:20 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET) on Monday, a fire alarm rang out, interrupting mass. Security guards started to evacuate the cathedral even though they did not see any sign of a fire, a spokesman for the Paris fire brigade told CNN.
François-Xavier Lochet, a 70-year-old worshiper, said the congregation had just begun the Universal Prayer when the siren sounded. He said visitors were ushered out but those gathered for mass remained in place. Lochet said mass continued until a police officer went up and told the priest: “This is no joke. You’ve got to get out.”
Twenty-three minutes later, at 6:43 p.m. (12:43 p.m. ET), a second alarm blared and the fire was visible at that point, the fire department said.
Around 400 firefighters were deployed to the scene but were delayed slightly by rush hour traffic.
Police in Paris confirmed a fire had taken hold at Notre Dame and asked the public to avoid the area in a tweet sent at 7:20 p.m. (1:20 p.m. ET). A minute later, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo posted a tweet saying “a terrible fire is underway” with photographs taken outside the church: one of smoke billowing from near the spire and over the towers, and a second showing the fire department responders working at the scene.

Shortly before 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET), the cathedral’s famed spire burned to a blackened shell before finally toppling, as thousands of Parisians who had gathered in the streets watched in horror.

Fire visible at 6:43 p.m. and 400 firefighters deployed to the scene.


A fire that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris was brought under control by firefighters in the early hours of Tuesday morning, though officials warned there were still residual fires to put out.

Thousands of Parisians watched in horror from behind police cordons as a ferocious blaze devastated Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday night, destroying its spire and a large part of the roof.

An investigation has been opened by the prosecutor’s office, but police said it began accidentally and may be linked to building work at the cathedral. The 850-year-old gothic masterpiece had been undergoing restoration work.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, attended the scene and later gave a speech in which he vowed that the cathedral would be rebuilt, as fire crews said the landmark’s rectangular bell towers and structure of the building had been saved.
Macron said “the worst had been avoided” thanks to hundreds of brave firefighters who battled for hours and who would continue working through the night. One firefighter was severely injured but no other casualties were reported.

“What happened tonight in Paris, in this cathedral, is a terrible event,” the president said, vowing to raise funds worldwide and bring the best talents from around the world to reconstruct the building in its entirety.

“Notre Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicentre of our lives ... So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together.”

Firefighters battle for hours, one severely injured, no other casualties.


Notre Dame Cathedral, one of the world's most famous churches, erupted in flames Monday in Paris, losing its spire but remaining otherwise largely intact after firefighters worked through the night to contain the fire.

The commander of the Paris firefighter brigade, Jean-Claude Gallet, said Monday night that the cathedral's main structure and two towers of the cathedral had been saved. Firefighters said they had contained the flames by early morning local time, and the fire was entirely out by midmorning, Gallet confirmed to NPR.

Flames leaped through the roof and dark smoke billowed into the sky on Monday afternoon. Observers gasped as the spire fell. The roof collapsed shortly afterward.

"Pray," Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit wrote. "If you wish, you can ring the bells of your churches to invite prayer."

As night fell on Paris and the fire continued to burn, people knelt and sang Ave Maria as they watched the blaze.

Only one firefighter was reported to be seriously injured.

President Emmanuel Macron said, "Notre Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche" and pledged that the iconic cathedral will be rebuilt.

"Let's be proud, because we built this cathedral more than 800 years ago, we've built it and, throughout the centuries, let it grow and improved it. So I solemnly say tonight: We will rebuild it together."
The fire broke out during Holy Week for the world's Roman Catholics. At least four Masses a day take place at the cathedral.

Observers sang Ave Maria as they watched the blaze.


The devastating fire that ravaged the famed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15 prompted unsubstantiated rumors online about who or what was to blame.

By Tuesday, for example, the website of former Fox News commentator Kevin Jackson had zeroed in on a whole group of people, running a headline that reads: “Muslim Ties to Notre Dame Fire.”

We could find no credible sources to support the incendiary suggestion that Muslims were responsible.

The French government said in a press release Tuesday the cause of the fire remained unknown, and Paris public prosecutor Remy Heitz told reporters that investigators were currently eyeing it as an accident.

The article on Jackson’s site, however, advances the unsupported idea of a “Muslim attack” through paragraphs of innuendo, not fact.

“Was this a true accident? Or is someone trying to send Christians a message?” the article on theblacksphere.net reads. “Many people speculate this is a Muslim attack on Christianity. In 2016, a car parked outside Notre Dame was discovered. It contained full gas tanks and documents written in Arabic. Therefore, authorities were well-aware of the threats posed against Notre Dame.”

But there is no evidence tying that 2016 episode with this week’s fire, as some news outlets worked to make clear. The U.K.’s Telegraph, which covered the 2016 incident at the time, affixed an update to its story indicating: “This story is from 2016 and unrelated to the fire at Notre-Dame on April 15 2019.”

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris suffered a devastating fire.


A little over three months after Paris' Notre Dame caught fire, French officials say the cathedral is still in a precarious state and needs to be stabilized. Ultimately, they aim to restore the monument, a process that will take years.

When that work begins, there will be a new demand for experts who have the same skills required to build Notre Dame 900 years ago. In the workshops of the Hector Guimard high school, less than three miles from the cathedral, young stone carvers are training for that task.

In an airy and light-filled workshop in the north of Paris, a handful of students chip and chisel away at heavy slabs of stone. Each works on his or her own piece, but all are sculpting the same project: the base of a Corinthian column. The students are earning a professional degree to hew the stone pieces needed to maintain and restore France's historical monuments.

Every year, about 30 new stonemasons graduate either with this degree, the professional license in stone carving for historic monuments, or a less advanced diploma in stone carving.

François Menut is one of the students working toward the professional license.

"I've always been passionate about drawing and art history, but I also wanted a job that was physical," says Menut."With stone carving, we give life to an edifice and perpetuate history. We're also creating a link with the past and transmitting values that are important to conserve in society."

The cathedral is in a precarious state and needs to be stabilized.


If you're an American with a credit history -- and at least 143 million are -- you probably already know your Equifax data, including at least your name, social security number, birthdate, and home address, may have been stolen.

Who's to blame?

According to an unsubstantiated report by equity research firm Baird, citing no evidence, the blame falls on the open-source server framework, Apache Struts. The firm's source, per one report, is believed to be Equifax.

Apache Struts is a popular open-source software programming Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for Java. It is not, as some headlines have had it, a vendor software program.

It's also not proven that Struts was the source of the hole the hackers drove through.

In fact, several headlines -- some of which have since been retracted -- all source a single quote by a non-technical analyst from an Equifax source.

Not only is that troubling journalistically, it's problematic from a technical point of view. In case you haven't noticed, Equifax appears to be utterly and completely clueless about their own technology. Equifax's own data breach detector isn't just useless: it's untrustworthy.

Adding insult to injury, the credit agency's advice and support site looks, at first glance, to be a bogus, phishing-type site: equifaxsecurity2017.com. That domain name screams fake. And what does it ask for if you go there? The last six figures of your social security number and last name. In other words, exactly the kind of information a hacker might ask for.

Equifax's technical expertise, it has been shown, is less than acceptable.

Equifax's technical expertise has been shown to be less than acceptable.

Hackers were able to access personal data of 143 million Equifax customers.
How did it happen?

Much is still unknown. But it came down to a flaw in a tool designed to build web applications, the company said in a press release this week. And Equifax admitted it was aware of the security flaw a full two months before the company says hackers first gained accessed to its data.

Some of the information hackers had access to includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver's license numbers.

The tool is called Apache Struts, and it's used by many large businesses and government organizations. Equifax used it to support its online dispute portal -- where Equifax (EFX) customers go to log issues with their credit reports. The flaw allowed hackers to take control of a website.

A cybersecurity arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, US-CERT, identified and disclosed the Apache Struts flaw in March, Equifax said in a statement.

And the company's security department "was aware of this vulnerability at that time, and took efforts to identify and to patch any vulnerable systems."

Yet, according to the company, hackers exploited the flaw months later.

Equifax has said it discovered the data breach on July 29. On Friday, it said it waited until it observed additional suspicious activity a day later to take the affected web application offline.

And on August 2 Equifax contacted Mandiant, a professional cybersecurity firm, to help the company assess what data had been compromised.


The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.

What do they reveal?
The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.

A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.

Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.

An offshore investment fund run by the father of British prime minister David Cameron avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents to sign its paperwork.

11.5 million files were leaked from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

David Cameron has finally admitted he benefited from a Panama-based offshore trust set up by his late father.

After three days of stalling and four partial statements issued by Downing Street he confessed that he owned shares in the tax haven fund, which he sold for £31,500 just before becoming prime minister in 2010.

In a specially arranged interview with ITV News’ Robert Peston he confirmed a direct link to his father’s UK-tax avoiding fund, details of which were exposed in the Panama Papers revelations in the Guardian this week.

Admitting it had been “a difficult few days”, the prime minister said he held the shares together with his wife, Samantha, from 1997 and during his time as leader of the opposition. They were sold in January 2010 for a profit of £19,000.

He paid income tax on the dividends but there was no capital gains tax payable and he said he sold up before entering Downing Street “because I didn’t want anyone to say you have other agendas or vested interests”.

But the interview appeared unlikely to end scrutiny of Cameron’s tax affairs.

The Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury select committee, said the prime minister should resign, claiming that Cameron had “covered up and misled”.

Cameron also admitted he did not know whether the £300,000 he inherited from his father had benefited from tax haven status due to part of his estate being based in a unit trust in Jersey.

David Cameron admits to owning shares in a Panama-based offshore trust set up by his late father.


In this article, BeInCrypto takes a look at previous bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) price movement cycles. The purpose is to try and determine if there is a significant difference in volatility between the two.

 While the 2017-2020 movements have been relatively similar, ETH has increased at a much faster rate in 2021.

Between 2017 and 2020, the movement has been relatively similar for both assets.

Measuring from the all-time high of early 2018, BTC corrected for a 363 day period, losing 84% of its value in the process. On the other hand, ETH corrected for 336 days, losing 94% of its value. Therefore, while the ETH correction was sharper and lasted for a shorter period of time, there was not a pronounced difference between the two.

Following this, BTC increased by 330% in 191 days, while ETH moved upwards by 290% in 197 days. This somewhat made up for the difference from the sharper ETH fall preceding this upward movement.

Finally, BTC decreased by 71.50% in 261 days leading up to the March 2020 bottom, while ETH decreased by 66.50% in 259 days, with very similar rates of decrease.

Unlike the 2017-2020 period, there is a significant difference in the movement of both assets in 2021.

Measuring from the March 2020 bottom, BTC increased by 1,520% in 398 days. While this is a formidable rate of increase, ETH more than doubled it by increasing 3,620% in 430 days.

In 2021, ETH has increased at a much faster rate in 2021 than bitcoin.

In 2021, BTC increased by 1,520% in 398 days, while ETH increased by 3,620% in 430 days.


November 8, 2016: Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. During his presidency, he appointed three conservative judges to the court - Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — solidifying a conservative majority.

June 27, 2016: In its strongest defense of abortion rights in 25 years, the court strikes down Texas rules forcing clinics to meet hospital-like standards and doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

December 1, 2021: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was brought to the Supreme Court, a case dealing with a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. Upholding Mississippi's ban would mean overturning Roe.

May 2, 2022: A Politico report details a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating the Court would overturn Roe v. Wade. The news set off protests and rallies across the country.

June 24, 2022: The court ruled 6-3 to uphold Mississippi's law, with the decision to overturn Roe a 5-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the conservative justices in the decision to uphold Mississippi's law, but urged a concurring opinion concerning Roe. The decision is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states in the nation.

May 2, 2022: Politico report details leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating the Court would overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday. This decision will mean laws further restricting abortion care and services will go into effect in many states. Following May's leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion in which the justices appear ready to overturn Roe, we asked you what questions you had for our experts about abortion care and access in the U.S.

Many of you wrote in wanting to know more about the impact this decision could have on hospitals, in vitro fertilization, and care for miscarriages. To answer those questions, we reached out to Kristyn Brandi, an OB-GYN and family planning doctor, who is also the board chair for Physicians for Reproductive Health, and NPR health policy correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin.

Miscarriage care is definitely going to be impacted — it's already happening in Texas.

A lot of times people think about miscarriage as something that's spontaneous, that somebody has no control over. That can be true, but it can also be something that people have to make decisions about. The standard of care for treating a miscarriage is the same as the standard of care for providing an abortion.

The way that can play out is if somebody has a miscarriage and they need to take medication to empty the uterus so they're not at risk of infection, that same medication is what's used for medication abortion. There have already been a lot of reports of pharmacists in Texas not filling those prescriptions for people who are suffering miscarriages.

Miscarriage care already being impacted in Texas.


In the summer of 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden faced allegations of hypocrisy and flip-flopping after he strongly condemned the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and remove federal constitutional protections for abortion access.

Speaking on June 24, Biden described Roe as the correct decision as a matter of constitutional law, an application of the fundamental right to privacy and liberty in matters of family and personal autonomy, and he called the decision to overturn it a tragic error and the realization of an extreme ideology.

However, many observers — both to the left and right of Biden on the ideological spectrum — contrasted such remarks, in 2022, with what they presented as Biden's very different stance on the abortion rights landmark, four decades ago.

On June 24, one Facebook user published a viral post which contained a screenshot of an article by the London Independent, with the headline Biden voted to overturn Roe v Wade in 1982... and the caption Wonder how those protesting the Supreme Court decision feel about this. Chances are they are the same people that voted for Biden.

In recent years, the same core claim — that Biden once voted in favor of effectively overturning Roe and returning abortion policy to the states and the U.S. Congress — has featured in news articles by the The New York Times, Fox News, and the New York Post.

That claim is accurate, although Biden did vote against an identical proposal just one year later. Our rating is True.

Biden did vote in favor of effectively overturning Roe in 1982, but voted against an identical proposal one year later.

A viral Facebook post claimed that Biden voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 1982.


More than 125 million Americans are under heat warnings and advisories on Monday evening as a dangerous heat wave that began in the Southwest covers more real estate in the Central and Southern U.S.

The big picture: The National Weather Service (NWS) is warning that a dangerous combination of heat and humidity will affect the majority of the lower 48 states before the week is over, and there are few signs the heat will abate after that.

All of Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois, Iowa and Indiana are under heat warnings plus parts of at least a dozen other states.
The heat wave is courtesy of a strong area of high pressure, or heat dome, that is slowly moving east across the Central U.S.
The heat dome is likely to shift eastward during the first part of the week, but then careen back west in a see-saw pattern, setting up hotter conditions again for the Upper Plains and Central states later in the week.
Climate change is causing heat waves such as this one to be more severe, frequent and longer-lasting than just a few decades ago.

Why it matters: Heat waves are the deadliest type of severe weather hazard in the U.S., and they especially target low-income residents who may lack access to air conditioning. They are also particularly dangerous for outdoor workers.

Threat level: As of Monday morning, heat watches, advisories and warnings were in effect from the Carolinas to Texas, extending north into Wisconsin and Minnesota and south to the Gulf Coast.

Hundreds more people were evacuated from their homes as wildfires blistered land in France, Spain and Portugal on Friday, while officials in Europe issued health warnings for the heatwave in the coming days.

More than 1,000 firefighters, supported by water-bomber aircraft, have battled since Tuesday to control two blazes in southwestern France that have been fanned by scorching heat, tinder-box conditions and strong winds.

While temperatures dipped a little in Portugal, they were still expected to top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in some places, with five districts on red alert and more than 1,000 firefighters tackling 17 wildfires, authorities said.

In Spain, a new wildfire broke out in the south of the country after blazes in the west in the past week.

More than 400 people were evacuated from the hills of Mijas, a town popular with northern European tourists in the province of Malaga. Beachgoers in Torremolinos, some 20 km away, could see plumes of smoke rising above the hotels lining the coast.

Meanwhile, the worst drought in over 70 years reduced Italy's longest river, the Po, to little more than a trickle in places, with temperatures expected to rise next week.

Officials are worried about the effects on people's health and on healthcare systems already challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic as the searing heat sweeps the continent, with warnings issued for worse to come in Britain in particular.

The World Meteorological Organization said the heatwave would worsen air quality, especially in towns and cities.

A new wildfire broke out in the south of Spain.


It has created a wave of awareness and brave confrontations over sexual harassment and assault, taking down powerful men in the process. And now the #MeToo movement has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2017.

On its cover, Time called the people behind the movement The Silence Breakers. Its story features women and men who have spoken out — including activist Tarana Burke, who started the hashtag 10 years ago.

#MeToo rose to prominence as a social media campaign in the wake of high-profile accusations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. After actress Alyssa Milano popularized the hashtag, thousands of women began sharing their stories about the pervasive damage wrought by sexual harassment and by open secrets about abuse.

The movement's empowering reach could be seen in the platform on which Time announced its choice: the Today show. It was just one week ago that NBC fired the morning program's longtime and powerful co-host, Matt Lauer, over a detailed complaint of inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.

While the most high-profile #MeToo stories have come from women and men who work in the movies and media, the Time article also features women who work hourly jobs, some of whom want to remain anonymous. The magazine's cover portrait includes strawberry picker Isabel Pascual, lobbyist Adama Iwu and former Uber engineer Susan Fowler along with Ashley Judd and Taylor Swift.

Actress Alyssa Milano popularized the hashtag #MeToo

Thousands of women shared their stories.


Thousands of women shared their stories.

It’s the hashtag that rocked the world.

Since #MeToo went viral two weeks ago in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, Twitter reports that more than 1.7 million women and men have used the hashtag in 85 countries.

In Italy, women rallied behind a version called #QuellaVoltaChe, which translates to “That time when,” while French women decided to out their harassers by name under #BalanceTonPorc, which roughly translates to “snitch out your pig.”

At least nine well-known powerful men have been accused of various forms of sexual assault, including former President George H.W. Bush, Hollywood producer James Toback and journalist and author Mark Halperin. And just last week, California Rep. Jackie Speier launched #MeTooCongress, asking Washington staffers to share their stories on harassment on the Hill.

But can a hashtag, a meme or any viral moment – no matter how widespread – really turn into a lasting movement that that will create social change and reduce sexual abuse of women?

Maybe. But experts say it’s going to take a coordinated effort between antiviolence organizations, the media and Hollywood as well as concrete actions from each and every one of us, especially men.

“I am really tired of talking about women,” said Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Association of Women. “We must focus on the men. We must be demanding that the men step forward and take responsibility, whether they think they are the good guy or not.


It’s the hashtag that rocked the world.

Since #MeToo went viral two weeks ago in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, Twitter reports that more than 1.7 million women and men have used the hashtag in 85 countries.

In Italy, women rallied behind a version called #QuellaVoltaChe, which translates to “That time when,” while French women decided to out their harassers by name under #BalanceTonPorc, which roughly translates to “snitch out your pig.”

At least nine well-known powerful men have been accused of various forms of sexual assault, including former President George H.W. Bush, Hollywood producer James Toback and journalist and author Mark Halperin. And just last week, California Rep. Jackie Speier launched #MeTooCongress, asking Washington staffers to share their stories on harassment on the Hill.

But can a hashtag, a meme or any viral moment – no matter how widespread – really turn into a lasting movement that that will create social change and reduce sexual abuse of women?

Maybe. But experts say it’s going to take a coordinated effort between antiviolence organizations, the media and Hollywood as well as concrete actions from each and every one of us, especially men.

“I am really tired of talking about women,” said Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Association of Women. “We must focus on the men. We must be demanding that the men step forward and take responsibility, whether they think they are the good guy or not.

Producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment.

Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of rape and sexual assault by courts in New York and Los Angeles.

Here is a summary of the key events that led him to court:

- Weinstein issues an apology acknowledging he has caused a lot of pain - but disputes allegations he harassed female employees over nearly three decades.

- It is announced that Harvey Weinstein has been sacked by the board of his company, with immediate effect.

- The organisation behind the Oscars votes to expel Weinstein. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says: What's at issue here is a deeply troubling problem that has no place in our society.

- Weinstein's former company files for bankruptcy, months after the Oscar-winning producer was accused of multiple sexual assaults.

- Weinstein faces fresh sexual assault charges in New York from a third woman, in a case dating back to 2006.

- After five days of deliberation, the jury finds Weinstein guilty of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape.

- Weinstein goes on trial in LA, facing 11 charges involving five alleged victims.

- Weinstein is found guilty by a Los Angeles jury of raping a woman.

Weinstein's former company files for bankruptcy.