WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Tuesday accused two Chinese hackers of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of trade secrets from companies across the world and more recently targeting firms developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. The indictment, which officials expected to discuss at a news conference, says the hackers...
Burger King in China Apologizes After State TV Criticism
BEIJING — Burger King's China unit has issued a public apology and promised to cooperate with a government investigation after state TV reported one of the U.S. fast food giant's outlets used expired ingredients. The Burger King in the southern city of Nanchang was criticized Thursday on an annual consumer...
US to Hit Huawei Employees With Visa Bans for Rights Abuses
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Wednesday it will impose travel bans on employees of the Chinese technology giant Huawei and other Chinese companies the U.S. determines are assisting authoritarian governments in cracking down on human rights, including in China's western Xinjiang province. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said...
US Grapples With Pandemic as Its Origins Are Traced in China
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — The United States was grappling with the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world on Monday, as Florida shattered the national record for a state’s largest single-day increase in new confirmed cases and the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic is worsening globally and that “there...
Twitter Removes China-Linked Accounts Spreading False News
LONDON — Twitter has removed a vast network of accounts that it says is linked to the Chinese government and was pushing false information favorable to the country's communist rulers. Beijing denied involvement Friday and said the company should instead take down accounts smearing China. The U.S. social media company...
DHS Report: China Hid Virus’ Severity to Hoard Supplies
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show. Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January, according...
US Intel: Coronavirus Not Manmade, Still Studying Lab Theory
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the new coronavirus was “not manmade or genetically modified" but say they are still examining whether the origins of the pandemic trace to contact with infected animals or an accident at a Chinese lab. The statement from the Office of the Director of National...
Nations, US States Each Chart Their Own Path on Reopening
LONDON — A thinner-looking British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work Monday after a bout with the coronavirus and warned strongly against easing the country's lockdown, even as other European countries and U.S. states began lifting restrictions to get their economies going again. The shutdowns are being eased piecemeal,...
Virus-Fueled Conspiracy Theories Take Aim at Hospitals
WASHINGTON — China is pushing back against President Donald Trump and some of his officials, who’ve flirted in recent days with an outlier theory that the coronavirus was set loose by a Chinese lab that let it escape. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday accused the U.S. administration of attempting to...
Wuhan Ends Lockdown as Health Workers Buckle Under Strain
LONDON — After 76 days in lockdown, the Chinese city at the heart of the global pandemic reopened Wednesday, and tens of thousands immediately hopped on trains and planes to leave. Elsewhere, the economic, political and psychological toll of fighting the virus grew increasingly clear and more difficult to bear....