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Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen, who reportedly earns over $1 million a year, used pirate streaming site MethStreams to watch his own team play. This revelation came from Woolen's Instagram story, where he shared an image clearly displaying the site's URL. While Woolen seemed unconcerned when the news reached him, the NFL, which actively combats piracy, will likely take a different view.

nfl logoLast year, the NFL asked the U.S. Government’s Patent and Trademark Office to help tackle live-streaming piracy.

Together with the NBA and UFC, the football league asked the government to make DMCA takedown requests more effective.

NFL argued that when it comes to live sports streaming, long delays render takedown requests practically useless, as most of the value of live sports content lies in its real-time nature.

Ideally, online services should be required by law to remove infringing content “instantaneously or near-instantaneously”, the sports companies argued. This includes social media platforms, where pirate streams are often openly advertised.

“Pirates have shown increasing sophistication in terms of the quality of their livestreams and now display livestreams in a way that often renders the final product indistinguishable from the legitimate feed,” NFL, NBA, and UFC explained.

“To garner maximum viewership of the pirated content, enterprising pirates will post ‘advertisements’ on major social media platforms that drive traffic to off-platform sites where people can watch unlawful livestreams of live sports event content without paying a dime.”

The sports leagues stressed that widespread piracy hurts their revenues. This impacts everyone involved in the sport, including the highest-paid athletes. However, that doesn’t mean that these players are unanimously rallying against piracy.

Even some of the sport’s biggest stars, including LeBron James, have reportedly used pirate streaming sites. And this weekend, another player was added to the list after the injured Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen apparently tuned in to Methstreams to watch his own team play.

This was revealed in an Instagram story where Woolen shared an image clearly displaying the streaming site’s URL.

For centuries, there was little real distinction between trade and piracy.

“European trade with Asia, Africa, and Latin America throughout the early modern period was characterized as much by plunder as by exchange,” write Pia Eberhardt and Cecilia Olivet. The methods may have changed, these corporate-watchdog researchers argue, but the relationships haven’t. The plundering continues, by means considered legal by the powers that write the laws.

“In the 18th and 19th centuries, the governments of England, Netherlands, and France were so thoroughly involved in monitoring and protecting trading ventures that they created formal colonies and imposed European laws on subjugated territories,” Eberhardt and Olivet write. “Extracting wealth, including slaves, from other nations was standard practice.”

Trade and colonization were intertwined even earlier: after 1500, these factors were united as public-private ventures. Joint-stock companies like the (British) East India Company and the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) are two of the best known. “Free trade” has always been backed by state power and the intermingling of the investor and governing classes in those states.

The state helped protect investors in the home country while projecting financial and military might far from home in the service of those investors. Those investors were, of course, typically the ruling elites themselves, who governed to protect and increase their wealth. Pace Adam Smith, there was a very visible hand of capitalism: it held a gun. The state’s gun. Usually a lot of them: “gunboat diplomacy” was another way of saying “gunboat capitalism.”

Today’s gunboat is the law. Modern pirates roam the Earth as part of the contemporary foreign investment system, extracting billions from foreign governments in claims made by transnational corporations (TNCs). This arbitration industry has, write Eberhardt and Olivet, “effectively reinstated a neocolonial regime” through the international legal system. It does so via the use of secretive legal proceedings known as investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS). Written into investment treaties—powerful states dominating weaker, or corruptly led, states—ISDS allows a corporation to blame a foreign country for their (the corporation’s) failure to extract as large a profit as anticipated in operations in that country.

“Asserting that changes in fiscal, environmental, or social policies have harmed them, TNCs have claimed that foreign governments should compensate them for the loss of potential revenues,” note Eberhardt and Olivet.

It’s an insurance system for profit, at the expense of the target country’s citizens. International investment deals challenge the ability of sovereign states to protect human rights, labor rights, public health, and the environment. In essence, the target country’s people pay twice, through “damages” to freebooting TNCs and for all the damage done to them and their future by the TNCs and the predatory financial system they represent.

ISDS cases are tried in the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID; Washington, DC); the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague); the London Court of International Arbitration; the International Chamber of Commerce (Paris); and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

By 1996, having been in existence for thirty years, the World Bank-based International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes was averaging slightly less than one case per year, write Eberhardt and Olivet. Since 2006, the ICSID has seen an average of thirty-seven cases per year (the other arbitration courts have also seen big increases). The increase is the result of two factors. First, the number of both bilateral and multilateral trade agreements have skyrocketed. There were some 400 of these in 1988; in 2016 there were more than 3,300. Second, TNCs have “become much more aggressive seeking arbitration,” with law firms, financiers, and arbitrators scouring the world looking for cases.

“Claims of $100 million are now so commonplace as to escape notice,” write the authors, and claims surpassing $1 billion are not as unusual as they used to be. The top twelve respondent states (in 2017) were Argentina, Venezuela, the Czech Republic, Spain, Egypt, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Ecuador, Poland, India, and Ukraine.

“Governments of dozens of nations have been challenged for adopting taxes, fiscal policies, bans on harmful chemicals, bans on mining, requirements for environmental impact assessments, or regulations relating to hazardous wastes,” the authors explain. Local courts may be bypassed completely, as “arbitration panels are strongly biased in favor of private companies.”

Corporations win most of the time. Those “awards are usually paid by governments, which must pay to prevent seizure of state property, including bank accounts in other countries.” And there is no formal appeals process.

Colonialism pioneered international wealth extraction. Neocolonialism continues the process in more subtle, but just as devastating, ways.

In November, Americans will make a choice between continued democracy with a vote for Joe Biden, or an autocracy infused with Christian fundamentalist values by voting for Donald Trump. Christian nationalism – the belief that a Christian moral perspective must rule the country’s law and institutions – is a stronger force in this year’s presidential election than ever before. And while much of the focus has been on Trump’s alliance with evangelical Christians, there is another group that could be even more influential – and they might just tip the scale in his favour.

Catholic bishops lead the largest single religious group in the country, with 73 million believers, or a fifth of the population (Protestants as a whole make up a larger group but are divided among various denominations). Their influence is important: Catholics vote at a higher rate than most Americans, and since 1952, their votes have usually gone to the winner. Today, Catholic groups are increasingly working in alliance with evangelical groups, to push through laws, make political change, and throw their support behind the Republican party.

One recent example of this alliance was the scrapping of federal protection for abortion in 2022. US bishops celebrated alongside their white evangelical peers when the Supreme Court overturned the 1972 Roe vs Wade ruling. It was the culmination of a decades-long battle waged by both groups, with the election of Trump proving pivotal. Trump had impressed conservative religious voters when he promised to name anti-abortion judges to the Court – and he delivered. On a 2020 phone call with Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who gushed his support, Trump called himself the “best [president] in the history of the Catholic Church”.

Three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe vs Wade were appointed by Trump, bringing the total of judges raised Catholic to seven out of nine. Trump’s principal adviser on the nominations, his “court whisperer”, was Leonard Leo, a daily Mass-goer who controls a network of ultra-right NGOs. Leo has strong links with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the US.

The USCCB’s obsession with abortion is one of several ways it defies Pope Francis, the Argentine elected in 2013 who has become known for his outreach to the poor and migrants and to people of other faiths, for reforming antiquated Vatican structures, and for deep concern with global warming and the environment. US bishops continue to list abortion as the “pre-eminent” concern when considering candidates for public office, while Pope Francis says one pro-life issue should not take precedence over others – including capital punishment, euthanasia, care for the poor and for all of God’s “creation”.

Francis also argues against politicising faith, urging bishops to be “shepherds” by exercising “closeness, compassion and tenderness”. Yet only a dramatic last-minute intervention from the Vatican prevented the US prelates from forbidding Holy Communion to Joe Biden when he became president in 2021. Biden is a lifelong Catholic, only the second Catholic president in US history, but his defence of pro-abortion law was given as a justification for withholding the sacrament.

There is plenty of diversity and divergence within the Catholic community in the US. But it’s striking that many of the wealthiest lay Catholics support the agenda of the most conservative bishops. Take as an example Thomas Monaghan, founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain, who told a biographer: “I try to remember that my main job is to become a saint.” To that end Monaghan created Legatus, an influential association of wealthy Catholic corporate CEOs, in 1987. It has been described by Catholic TV network Eternal Word as “a sort of spiritual home-base for those Catholics who stand at the helm of America’s entrepreneurial ship”.

Besides Legatus, Monaghan also created – there is no other way to describe it – an entire Catholic-inspired Florida town, named Ave Maria, with a law school at its heart for grooming the next generation of right-wing lawyers. Its curriculum was partly designed by the late ultraconservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and its dedicatory address delivered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The pizza king also founded Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), one of several Christian advocacy law firms that “reside at the crossroads of church and state,” as another such firm described itself. “Confronting the threat of radical Islam” is one of TMLC’s declared interests. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leader among right-wing US bishops and a TMLC endorser, has said that standing against Muslim immigration is “the responsible exercise of one’s patriotism”. This aligns with the policies of Trump, who declared a “Muslim ban” against immigrants from certain countries in one of his first acts as president. The ban was overturned under Biden, but Trump says he wants to bring it back “bigger” if he wins a second presidential term.

A reward for information leading to the arrest of Ruja Ignatova, known as the Missing Cryptoqueen, has been increased by US authorities to $5m (£4m).

The Bulgarian-born German woman, 44, is wanted by the FBI for orchestrating a $4.5bn cryptocurrency scam called OneCoin.

She has been missing since 2017 when US officials signed an arrest warrant and investigators began closing in on her.

Three weeks ago, a BBC podcast and documentary revealed her links to the Bulgarian underworld and the suspected mafia boss involved in her disappearance and, allegedly, her possible murder.

However authorities continue to pursue Ms Ignatova.

In 2022, the FBI added her to its top 10 most wanted list, offering a $100,000 reward, later upped to $250,000.

On Wednesday, that amount increased again twenty-fold, under the US State Department’s Transnational Organised Crime Reward Program.

"We are offering a reward up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of German national Ruja Ignatova, known as 'Cryptoqueen,' for her role in one of the largest global fraud schemes in history," said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

She is currently the only woman targeted under the US programme.

An equivalent $5m reward is on offer for information about Daniel Kinahan, named as the head of one of Europe’s biggest drug cartels.

The same amount is on offer for information about Semion Mogilevich, alleged to be a Russia-based crime boss, and Yulan Adonay Archaga Carías, known as Porky, the highest-ranking member of the MS-13 criminal gang in Honduras.

An American family is claiming more than $80,000 from NASA after a small piece of debris fell from space and smashed through the roof of their Florida home, a law firm said Friday.

The problem of space trash has risen in tandem with increased spatial traffic, and NASA's response could set a precedent for how future claims are handled, law firm Cranfill Sumner said in a statement.

On March 8, an object weighing just 700 grams hit Alejandro Otero's home in Naples, Florida, making a hole in the roof.

NASA later confirmed it was part of a cargo pallet of used batteries that was released from the International Space Station as waste in 2021.

Instead of fully disintegrating before falling to Earth, a section remained intact when it reentered the atmosphere, the US space agency said.

Otero's son was at the house at the moment of impact, according to the law firm, which said that NASA has six months to respond to its claim.

"My clients are seeking adequate compensation to account for the stress and impact that this event had on their lives," said lawyer Mica Nguyen Worthy.

"They are grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a 'near miss' situation such as this could have been catastrophic.

"There could have been serious injury or a fatality."

NASA did not immediately respond to AFP's request for a comment.

Wealth and corporate taxes remain a sticking point between countries at the United Nations negotiating the roadmap for a framework convention on tax, which could herald a radical shake-up of the global tax system.

The first round of talks to establish parameters that will guide the creation of the convention — initially opposed by wealthy countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, and some members of the European Union — concluded on May 8.

Some progress was made amid ongoing tensions between higher-income members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, and African U.N. member states, now backed by a coalition of developing countries known as the G77.

“Both the developed and developing countries agreed easily on environmental taxes but strongly disagreed on taxes for wealth,” said Abdul Chowdhary, a senior program officer for South Centre Tax Initiative, a Geneva-based think tank representing developing countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.

“The developed world took the view that the reforms to tax the world’s wealth are being addressed already by the OECD and the developing world believes that the OECD has been inadequately addressing the matter and that the U.N., too, should be able to do so,” said Chowdhary.

In November 2023, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution tabled by Nigeria calling for an inclusive U.N. forum to tackle international tax dodging, corporate tax reform, wealth taxes, environmental taxes, and more.

Such a move would shift power away from the OECD, which has shaped the global tax agenda for decades but has been described by some observers as a “rich countries’ club” that sets international tax policy behind closed doors.

Many countries that voted against a legally binding framework convention — a sort of “global constitution” under which rules, known as protocols, are set — argued for looser terms of reference that experts noted may ultimately weaken the convention.

Disagreements also emerged over the committee’s decision-making mechanism: the developing countries’ bloc favored voting by a simple majority if no consensus emerges, whereas the wealthy countries’ bloc argued for consensus-only decision-making, which could allow a minority of states to wield veto power.

A Catholic priest allegedly spent $40,000 of church money on Candy Crush and slot machine apps.

A Pennsylvania Catholic priest was accused of stealing $40,000 from a parish and using the money to play games on his phone. According to CBS News, citing a criminal complaint and affidavit of probable cause, Lawrence Kozak allegedly spent over $214,000 on his Apple ID, with just under $44,000 of that amount charged to a credit card associated with the parish.

Authorities claim he racked-up the charges over a three year span, using the some of the cash to play games like Candy Crush Saga, Pokémon Go and virtual slot machines, according to the network.

The network noted that these apps do not award real money for wins in the game, but allow you to spend actual money to play. According to CBS, Kozak described spending money on his slot apps as "powering up" instead of gambling.

Kozak's Amazon account was also reviewed and it was found that he allegedly used the parish card to buy gifts for his goddaughter, which included a chemistry set and an Amazon Fire tablet, per the network.

According to CBS, the parish's business manager noted that it wasn't the first time there was alleged erroneous spending at the church. Per the network, Monsignor Joseph McLoone resigned from St. Joseph Church in 2018 after he was accused and later pleaded guilty to stealing thousands in parish funds to pay for a beach house at the Jersey Shore, pad his salary and send money to men.

An exceptionally rare haze of Saharan dust cloaked Switzerland and southeastern France on Saturday, sparking health warnings as a yellow hue tinged the sky.

The phenomenon, which began in Switzerland on Friday, brings with it "a very clear worsening of sunlight and visibility. Added to that is an increase in concentrations of fine particles", the MeteoSuisse weather service posted on X.

With the dust concentrated at lower than 3,000 meters (around 9,800 feet), air quality was especially affected, with Switzerland's airCHeck monitoring application flagging high levels of pollution in a corridor stretching from the southwest to the northeast.

Calculations estimate that the amount of dust reached around 180,000 tonnes, double the levels recorded during recent similar events, SRF Meteo forecaster Roman Brogli told public radio.

In neighboring France, local authorities in the southeast and south announced that the air pollution threshold was breached on Saturday, with the Herault department asking residents to avoid intense physical effort, particularly those with heart or respiratory problems.

The Sahara desert releases 60 to 200 million tonnes of mineral dust per year. While the largest particles come rapidly back down to earth, the smallest can travel thousands of kilometers.

The sand gives an orange tint to snow and can impact melting processes, notably for glaciers, which are shrinking as average temperatures rise, by reducing the ice's ability to reflect sunlight.

A former Central Valley High school teacher’s “predatory actions” stripped a student of his dreams and significantly harmed him and his family after the teacher had sex with the 17-year-old, the student’s mother told a judge Thursday.

McKenna Kindred, 25, will receive no jail time – recommended by the prosecution and defense – after she pleaded guilty Thursday to amended charges of second-degree sexual misconduct with a minor and communication with a minor for immoral purposes, both gross misdemeanors.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Dean Chuang sentenced Kindred to two years of probation and $700 in fines and fees. She must register as a sex offender for 10 years.

Students came forward in December 2022 to describe the inappropriate relationship between Kindred and her teacher’s assistant.

The teen’s classmates told school officials he was inappropriately messaging Kindred via Instagram and that he was defensive when they questioned him about the relationship, according to court documents. Kindred also reported to administration she was being harassed by someone on social media, accusing her of a sexual relationship with a student that she denied.

The teen’s mother later told law enforcement her son had a sexual relationship with Kindred, that he’d been to her house alone with her and that the two had been sharing explicit photos over Instagram, court records say. Detectives did not find photographs “that appeared overtly sexual in nature,” documents say. There were messages referencing masturbation.

The teenager was interviewed at his home and admitted he’d begun messaging Kindred in June 2022. He told police he visited Kindred’s house and that they had sex. He also admitted to sharing explicit pictures and videos with Kindred, according to court records.

Central Valley School District said last year Kindred had resigned.

The student’s mother told Chuang that Kindred’s actions were an “abuse of power” and that she started to “groom” him when he was 16.

She said her son was unable to finish high school on campus, which affected him socially, emotionally and academically. He also lost some of his youth and missed out on major milestones.

The woman said her son played soccer since he was 18 months old, but Kindred’s criminal actions forced his plans to change.

“A light he used to carry has been dimmed,” she said.

The mother said she agreed to the attorneys’ sentencing recommendations, so the case did not drag out any longer.

Homes in England are more cramped than those in New York City, according to new analysis that showed UK property offers the worst value for money in the developed world.

The Resolution Foundation found that the UK has the oldest properties in Europe and English homes have less floorspace than many international peers, notably Germany, France and Japan. With 38 square meters on average per person, London homes are even more cramped than those in New York City.

The findings, which also show UK housing costs are also more expensive relative to general prices than in any OECD country, underscore the scale of the housing crisis in Britain. Many younger Britons are struggling to get a foot on the property ladder due to soaring prices, and the issue is rising up the political agenda ahead of an election expected later this year.

“By looking at housing costs, floorspace and wider issues of quality, we find that the UK’s expensive, cramped and aging housing stock offers the worst value for money of any advanced economy,” said Adam Corlett, principal economist at the Resolution Foundation. “Britain’s housing crisis is decades in the making, with successive governments failing to build enough new homes and modernize our existing stock. That now has to change.”

The Resolution Foundation found that if all UK households were “exposed to the full brunt of the housing market, the UK would devote the highest share of overall spending to housing” to every OECD country except Finland.

Some 38% of UK homes were built before 1946, higher than the level of 29% in France, 24% in Germany, 21% in Italy and 11% in Spain. That means British properties by comparison are poorly insulated and come with higher energy bills.

Money is flowing out of the London equities at a faster pace than ever, despite government efforts to boost the stock market.

According to Investment Association recent figures UK savers took £14 billion out of UK equities last year, the eighth consecutive year of outflows.

New research by SCM Direct for the Evening Standard suggests this situation is getting worse rather than better despite some experts insisting London shares are now so cheap they represent a buying opportunity.

SCM looked at money flowing through Exchange Traded Funds, an increasingly popular tool for both small investors and large institutions.

Of 17 European countries, only four – Austria, Norway, Germany, Holland – have seen greater percentage outflows of money this year. The largest UK equity ETF is the iShares Core FTSE 100 ETF which has a massive £14.8 Bn invested in it – this compares with the largest US Equities ETF worldwide, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF that holds $507 Bn in assets.

Alan Miller of SCM Direct said: “Europe as a whole has seen money coming in not out. This is part of the reason for the abysmal showing of the UK market this year – the FTSE 100 is up just 0.2% vs +10.6% for the Euro Stoxx 50.”

Miller adds: “There are some underlying fundamental reasons for the poor performance of UK equities, the over-representation in the ‘old’ economy i rather than tech, together with the ongoing uncertainties surrounding Brexit and its economic implications. Political instability, including changes in leadership and policy direction, has also contributed to a lack of confidence in UK equities. But this simply does not account for the gulf in performance and valuations between the UK and its peers.”

One problem is that pension funds have just 4% of their assets in UK shares compared to 50% in 1990.

This compares with Australia & Canada, both small markets, being 22% and 9% respectively of their pension funds. In fact, the pension fund that invests on behalf of Britain’s MPs and ministers, has just 1.7% invested in UK-listed companies.

A pair of orcas working in concert have been killing great whites along a stretch of South African coastline since at least 2017, plundering the sharks’ nutrient-rich livers and discarding the rest.

Scientists have been trying to make sense of the hunting approach, which has driven the sharks away from some parts of the coast around Cape Town, and now research has revealed a startling new twist in the behavior that could offer clues on what it might mean for the wider marine ecosystem.

Scientists witnessed one of the hunters, a male orca known as Starboard, single-handedly kill a 2.5-meter (8.2-foot) juvenile white shark within a two-minute time frame last year.

“Over two decades of annual visits to South Africa, I’ve observed the profound impact these killer whales have on the local white shark population. Seeing Starboard carry a white shark’s liver past our vessel is unforgettable,” said Dr. Primo Micarelli, a marine biologist at Italy’s Sharks Studies Centre and the University of Siena who was aboard one of two vessels from which researchers observed the attack.

“Despite my awe for these predators, I’m increasingly concerned about the coastal marine ecology balance,” Micarelli said in a statement.

It’s not unprecedented for orcas, highly intelligent and social animals, to hunt large animals individually. However, it’s the first such occurrence involving what is one of the world’s largest predators — the great white shark — the researchers reported in a study published Friday in the African Journal of Marine Science.

Starboard’s kill is at odds with more widely observed cooperative hunting behavior among orcas, which can surround large prey, such as sea lions, seals and sharks, and use their combined intelligence and strength to attack, said lead author Alison Towner, a doctoral researcher at Rhodes University.

The killer orcas are scaring off great white shark populations, but researchers don’t know where the sharks are relocating. “As they relocate, they might end up overlapping with heavy commercial fisheries,” Towner added.