Thousands of Israelis received threatening text messages on Wednesday, which appeared to have been sent by Hezbollah affiliates.

The messages, some of which included web links that Israeli authorities say are suspicious, came after thousands of pagers and hand-held radios used by members of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon.

However, some of the messages used incorrect Hebrew. Other used a threatening tone and some were in English.

“Say goodbye to your loved ones, but don't worry. You'll hug them in hell in a few hours,” one text read.

The message was sent by “SyHaNasrala” according to Haaretz, apparently in reference to Hezbollah’s leader, who is referred to as Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.

“If you want to live, leave. If you want to stay, go to hell,” another message read in English, the Israeli newspaper added.

Explosions apparently targeting walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah have killed at least nine people and wounded at least 300 in cities across Lebanon, a day after more than 2,800 were injured and 12 killed by exploding pagers in an attack blamed on Israel.

A source in Hezbollah confirmed that walkie-talkies used by the group were targeted in the attack. A senior security source said the individual explosions were “small in size”, similar to Tuesday’s attacks.

Several solar power systems exploded in people’s homes across Lebanon, according to the National News Agency, injuring at least one girl in the town of al-Zahrani, south Lebanon. Pictures of exploded solar panels, fingerprint readers and other devices circulated social media, though it was unclear whether they blew up by themselves or were near walkie-talkies that exploded.

Google won a legal challenge Wednesday against a €1.49 billion ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine from the European Union, while chipmaker Qualcomm failed to repeal a penalty.

The rulings underscore the mixed record of outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager in defending her crackdown on Big Tech in court. She scored two major wins last week: against Google in a separate case and against Apple’s tax deal with Irish authorities.

In a 2019 decision, the European Commission said Google, owned by Alphabet (GOOGL), had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform that provided search ads. The practices that it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016.

From New York, Munir Akram, Pakistan’s representative to the United Nations, began reporting back cables highlighting “sarcastic” comments from his Chinese counterpart, who openly tweaked Akram about Pakistan’s sudden swing toward Washington. In private conversations with their Pakistani counterparts over the past year, as reported by Pakistani diplomats, Chinese officials have expressed displeasure with Islamabad for “switching camps”—rather than merely seeking open relations with both countries.

Now, with their U.S. gamble failing to pay off, Pakistani officials have become increasingly frantic in their efforts to repair relations with China, including, as the documents reveal, by granting China approval for a military base at the port of Gwadar—a major and longstanding strategic demand of Beijing—and authorizing joint military operations inside Pakistan.

Worsening relations with China may have been a price the Pakistani military was willing to pay for the benefit of closer ties with the U.S., but those closer ties do not appear to have provided much in the way of benefit. One of the expected upsides for the government of its turn back toward the West was securing an IMF bailout loan worth $7 billion. As of early September 2024, the Pakistani government has been unable to secure the IMF’s requirements for extending the loan.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., repeatedly suggested a leading Arab American activist is a Hamas supporter when she testified Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes, and he told her she should hide her "head in a bag."

The activist, Maya Berry, said repeatedly that she did not support Hamas and was "disappointed" by the minuteslong exchange toward the end of a hearing called "A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America."

Gal Haimovich, 49, admitted to deceiving American companies about the destination of goods, including some that had missile technology applications, which he supplied to intermediaries en route to Russian customers, the US Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday.

The Israeli national hid from suppliers that he was ultimately working on behalf of Siberia Airlines, which he billed for some $2 million. He has now agreed to forfeit the money along with various aircraft parts.

Apple has rolled out macOS Sequoia as its latest software updates for supported Mac computers, along with iPadOS 18, watchOS 11 and tvOS 18. These updates introduce new features and customisation options on Apple's devices, while future updates will add support for Apple Intelligence — new features that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) on the iPhone 15 Pro models, the new iPhone 16 lineup, and select tablets and Mac models with Apple's M-series chipsets. These software updates were first shown off at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024).

Here are some of the most notable changes on macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, watchOS 11, tvOS 18, and visionOS 2. You can update eligible devices to these software versions, but it's better to back up important data before installing major operating system updates. You can also read more about Apple's iOS 18 update that is rolling out to eligible smartphones.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Intel (INTC.O) lost out on a contract to design and fabricate Sony’s PlayStation 6 chip in 2022, which dealt a significant blow to its effort to build its fledgling contract manufacturing business, according to three sources with knowledge of the events.

The effort by Intel to win out over Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O)in a competitive bidding process to supply the design for the forthcoming PlayStation 6 chip and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW) as the contract manufacturer would have amounted to billions of dollars of revenue and fabricating thousands of silicon wafers a month, two sources said.

Intel and AMD were the final two contenders in the bidding process for the contract.

Winning the Sony (6758.T) PlayStation 6 chip design business would have been a victory for Intel's design segment and would have doubled as a win for the company's contract manufacturing effort, or foundry business, which was the centerpiece of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s turnaround plan.

A 58-year-old man detained in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump has said in an interview in 2023 that he planned to recruit potential Afghan soldiers through Pakistan to fight in Ukraine against Russia.

"We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan since it's such a corrupt country," he was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

During Sunday's attack, Trump was on the course, a few hundred yards away, when Secret Service personnel spotted Routh concealed in the bushes and opened fire, law enforcement officials were quoted as saying by the New York Times.

Mark Zuckberg’s Meta is to go ahead with controversial plans to use millions of UK Facebook and Instagram posts to train its artificial intelligence (AI) technology, in a practice that is effectively outlawed under EU privacy laws.

Meta said it had “engaged positively” with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over the plan, after it paused similar proposals in June in the UK and EU. The pause came after the ICO warned tech firms to respect the privacy of users when building generative AI.

On Friday, the ICO made it clear it has not provided regulatory approval for the plan, but will instead monitor the experiment after Meta agreed changes to its approach. These include making it easier for users to opt out of allowing their posts to be processed for AI.

On Monday morning, students from various political factions arrived at the University of Haifa’s Students’ Union office. They were there to submit their candidacy for the upcoming campus election, but they hadn’t had long to get themselves organized: usually held in December, this year’s was quietly brought forward by the current administration, which had buried the announcement deep in the union’s website.

This is not, however, only the story of a corrupt student election. It also appears to have been a concerted plan to keep Palestinians out — who, despite making up around 50 percent of the University of Haifa’s student body, are not represented in the current union administration at all. Lists aligned with the Palestinian parties Balad and Hadash and the Jewish-Arab socialist movement Standing Together, as well as several independent candidates, were all denied the chance to contest a fair election.

“The announcement that the window was open for submitting lists was published at the bottom of the union’s website — we learned about it only five days before the deadline,” Udi Ghanayem, head of the Hadash student group at the university, told Local Call and +972. “We managed to assemble a list of candidates from all departments and on Monday morning we arrived at the office to register. They were surprised to see us and wouldn’t let us in.

“There were three other students in front of us, each of whom spent around an hour registering inside, even though registration shouldn’t take more than a few minutes,” he continued. “Then they told us registration was closed, despite the fact that we were already there. In every election in the world, if you arrive before the deadline, you have the right to vote or participate. Here, they refused to let us register, and brought security personnel to remove us from the building.

DNA testing giant 23andMe has agreed to pay $30 million to settle a lawsuit over a data breach that exposed the personal information of 6.4 million customers in 2023.

The proposed class action settlement, filed Thursday in a San Francisco federal court and awaiting judicial approval, includes cash payments for affected customers, which will be distributed within ten days of final approval.

"23andMe believes the settlement is fair, adequate, and reasonable," the company said in a memorandum filed Friday.