Banks reach $154.3M settlement on fraud

Banks reach $154.3M settlement on fraud

WASHINGTON

Two major global banks, Barclays and Credit Suisse, are paying a combined $154.3 million to settle government investigations that they misled clients about being able to safely trade on their “dark pool” financial exchanges, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Attorney General’s office said Sunday.

The banks left their customers on these private exchanges vulnerable to “predatory, high-frequency traders” that could intercept and profit off their financial transactions, despite assurances by Barclays and Credit Suisse to the contrary, according to a statement the New York Attorney General.

“These cases mark the first major victory in the fight to combat fraud in dark pool trading,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

MIT wins contest for Musk’s Hyperloop

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS

MIT student engineers won a competition to transform SpaceX and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk’s idea into a design for a Hyperloop to move pods of people at high speed.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, based in Cambridge, Mass., was named the winner Saturday after a competition among more than 1,000 college students at Texas A&M University in College Station.

The Hyperloop is a high-speed ground transport concept proposed by Musk to transport “pods” of 20 to 30 people through a 12-foot diameter tube at speeds of roughly 700 mph.

Memorial springs up for Ore. rancher

burns, ore.

About a dozen people paid their respects Sunday afternoon at a makeshift memorial that has sprung up where rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was shot and killed by police last week on U.S. Highway 395 north of Burns.

The mourners wiped tears, prayed and laid a copy of the U.S. Constitution on a large wooden cross that has been planted at the site.

Meanwhile, the four people occupying a national wildlife refuge held their position Sunday. They have demanded that they be allowed to leave without being arrested. The group’s jailed leader, Ammon Bundy, and 10 others who were arrested last week remained in custody.

Report: About 2,300 journalists killed in the last 25 years

brussels

In the last quarter century, at least 2,297 journalists and media staff have been killed for doing nothing more than trying to inform the world on war, revolution, crime and corruption. And killers continue to act with impunity, the International Federation of Journalists announced in a new report.

The annual total stood at 40 in the federation’s first year of counting, 1990, but has not dipped under the 100-mark since 2010.

“The last ten years were the most dangerous,” said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger in an interview, with 2006 the worst year of all with 155 killed.

Oxfam: $1.9B in Ebola aid not delivered

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast

International donors have failed to deliver $1.9 billion in promised funds to help West African countries recover from the Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and decimated already weak health care systems, the U.K.-based charity Oxfam said Sunday.

The remaining $3.9 billion pledged has been difficult to track because of “scant information” and a lack of transparency, the group said.

Oxfam called on donors and the governments of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – the three hardest-hit countries – to provide detailed information on how aid is being provided.

Associated Press