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Rep. Al Green’s Probe into People’s Sexuality Mark Zuckerberg, the creator and CEO of Facebook, which currently has 2.7 billion users around the world plans to launch a digital currency and payment platform named Libra. The establishment of such a product requires consideration of multifaceted ramifications. The House Financial Services Committee is charged with investigating the potential liabilities Libra may impose on competing digital currency, the U.S. dollar and the global commercial system built around it. Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington D.C. to respond to questions about the new money. Zuckerberg delivered an opening...

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg. Your company made big headlines when it announced it would be launching a cryptocurrency called the Libra in 2020. Not surprisingly, given the nature of the times, the project has been greeted with intense criticism and skepticism. Don’t lose heart. In one sense, the idea of a company creating its own kind of money is an old one. The airlines’ frequent-flier miles are really a form of money that customers can earn and use to buy trips and various other things. Credit card companies, hotels and numerous retailers have all sorts of loyalty programs in which people...

David Marcus, the head of Facebook’s digital currency project, says during a hearing in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday that authorities in Switzerland will oversee data and privacy protections for its new cryptocurrency, Libra.But a spokesperson for the Swiss agency, the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, says it has not yet been contacted by Facebook.Several senators who questioned Marcus on Tuesday express concern over Facebook’s reputation with data privacy.  Facebook said on Tuesday that Switzerland’s data protection agency will oversee data and privacy protections for its new cryptocurrency, Libra.But Facebook hasn’t reached out to the Swiss regulator, a spokesman for the agency...

The price of bitcoin tumbled Monday after President Trump Opens a New Window. tweeted Thursday that he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies and criticized Facebook’s Opens a New Window. Libra digital currency that’s set to launch next year. Bitcoin price briefly hit below $10,000 just after midnight Monday, a two-week low for the leading digital coin, Coindesk’s data Opens a New Window. showed. The cryptocurrency appeared to rebound slightly to bring it past $10,000 as of Monday morning. It’s unclear what caused the sudden price drop, but it comes just days after Trump took to Twitter to slam cryptocurrencies....

Five Democrats, led by Congresswoman and chair of the House Financial Services Committee Maxine Walters, have issued a letter to Facebook requesting that it pause the development of its Libra cryptocurrency project. The letter argued that regulators need to examine the privacy, trading, national security, and monetary policy concerns of Libra products as they "may lend themselves to an entirely new global financial system that is based out of Switzerland and intended to rival US monetary policy and the dollar". It also argued that Facebook has not provided much information about its plans surrounding the project. "If products and services...

Last week we saw bitcoin, the great hope of cryptocurrency, skyrocket to over $13,000. It was in the vicinity of $3,200 as recently as December. Why? Maybe it was Facebook’s new venture into creating its own digital currency, Libra — although, if that were to be successful, how it would offer any type of validation of bitcoin is beyond me, and a whole lot of smart people on Wall Street. In fact, it might spell the beginning of the end for bitcoin. There are almost no major Wall Street investors of substance with meaningful track records who have invested in...

Facebook has secured the backing of over a dozen companies for its upcoming Libra cryptocurrency set to be announced next week, The Wall Street Journal reports. These companies include major financial organizations like Visa and Mastercard, and internet darlings like PayPal, Uber, Stripe, and Booking.com. Each will invest around $10 million to fund development of the currency, and will become part of the Libra Association, an independent consortium that will govern the digital coin independently of Facebook.

Explanation: Against dark rifts of interstellar dust, the ebb and flow of starlight along the Milky Way looks like waves breaking on a cosmic shore in this night skyscape. Taken with a digital camera from the dunes of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, planet Earth, the monochrome image is reminiscent of the time when sensitive black and white film was a popular choice for dimmly lit night- and astro-photography. Looking south, the bright stars of Sagittarius and Scorpius are near the center of the frame. Wandering Mars, Saturn, and Zubenelgenubi (Alpha Librae) form the compact triangle of bright celestial beacons farther...

The rights to explore Brazil's biggest oilfield have been won at an auction by a consortium led by Brazil's state-run Petrobras, backed by Total, Shell and Chinese firms. The group made the only bid in the auction, offering the minimum share of the surplus production. The Rio de Janeiro beachfront hotel, where the auction took place, was guarded by 1,100 security personnel. Earlier, striking oil workers opposed to the contest clashed with police. Eleven companies had expressed interest in the Libra oilfield, but the Spanish Repsol pulled out on Monday, leaving the five winners as the only ones to present...

Munich, April 24: An international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date. The planet has a radius only 50 percent larger than Earth and is very likely to contain liquid water on its surface. The research team used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) 3.6-m telescope to discover the super-Earth, which has a mass about five times that of the Earth and orbits a red dwarf already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet. Astronomers believe there is a strong possibility in the presence of a third planet with...