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A vote in Britain's parliament on Tuesday crushing Prime Minister May's deal to leave the European Union has made a softer, later Brexit, or even no Brexit at all, slightly more likely, Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday. "We think the prospect of a disorderly 'no deal' Brexit has faded further," Goldman Sachs' European economist Adrian Paul wrote in a note. The bank maintains its base case scenario that "a close variant" of the current Brexit deal will ultimately command a majority in the House of Commons.

Children playing Fortnite were exposed to a potential “massive invasion of privacy” thanks to an oversight in the game’s security, researchers have revealed.  The popular shooting game enjoyed by more than 80 million people around the world left users vulnerable to a flaw that if exploited, allowed hackers to steal virtual currency and read private conversations online. The bug was fixed in mid-December, according to researchers who shared their findings with Fortnite's developer, Epic Games. To take control, the researchers sent a message to their victim over social media including a malicious link.  Once clicked, the user’s Fortnite authentication token - code that confirms a user is logged in - could be captured by the attacker without the user entering their username or password.  “Fortnite is one of the most popular games played mainly by kids. These flaws provided the ability for a massive invasion of privacy,” said Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerability research for Check Point, who found they were able to access target accounts.  Fortnite | Read more It comes as the police’s fraud arm warned that scammers are using the multiplayer Battle Royale-style game to trick young players into handing over their parents’ bank details.  Criminals are increasingly targeting children on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube with adverts claiming to offer free "V-bucks", a currency used to buy extras like character outfits.  After clicking the link, victims can be asked questions about their account, which the perpetrator uses to log in, and steal credit or debit card details that are stored there. Fortnite fever has gripped the nation since it launched in July 2017, with parents growing concerned that their children have become "addicted" to the multiplayer title.  Users could protect themselves in future using  by turning on two-factor authentication which prompts the player to enter a security code sent to their email address upon logging in. Epic Games have been contacted for comment.

The senior U.S. defense intelligence official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, did not predict that China's military, known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA), would take such a step but said such a possibility was the top worry as China expands and modernizes its military capabilities. "The biggest concern is that ... they are getting to a point where the PLA leadership may actually tell Xi Jinping that they are confident in their capabilities," the official said, referring to China's president. Pressed on whether the official was referring to Chinese confidence in its capabilities to be able to successfully win a battle with Taiwan, the official said, "Well, specifically that would be the most concerning to me." Taiwan is only one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, including a trade war between the countries, U.S. sanctions on the Chinese military, and China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea.

Some 30,000 Los Angeles teachers on strike for higher pay, smaller classes and more staff walked picket lines in the rain for a second day on Tuesday as Mayor Eric Garcetti embraced their cause while trying to nudge the two sides back to the bargaining table. The walkout, with teachers garbed mostly in red braving two days of rainy weather to stage mass rallies downtown, has shattered 30 years of labor peace by Los Angeles teachers but has not completely idled schools.

Islamist terrorists detonated explosives and fired automatic weapons as they mounted a deadly attack on a hotel and business complex frequented by Westerners in Nairobi on Tuesday. Six people have been confirmed killed in the attack, while a Kenyan police officer told reporters 15 bodies had been taken to the mortuary. A mortuary worker added that identification papers indicated that 11 were Kenyan, one was American and one was British, while the other two did not have documents on them. Nationalities of the dead remain unconfirmed. Hundreds more remained trapped inside buildings  16 hours after the attack began. Local security forces freed scores of civilians as they fought their way into the grounds of 14 Riverside, a compound housing a hotel, restaurant, bars and office blocks in the city’s Westlands district.  But the reported six gunmen were still in control of parts of the five-star Dusit Hotel, part of a Thai-owned international chain that appeared to be the chief target of the attackers. The Somali militant group al-Shabaab, which has longstanding ties to al-Qaeda, claimed credit for the attack, revisiting the city in which they killed 67 people during an attack on the Westgate shopping mall in 2013. Cars are seen on fire at the scene of explosions and gunshots in Nairobi Credit: REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya Just as at Westgate, barely a mile way, this was a carefully chosen target designed to bring terror to one of the prosperous parts of an increasingly prosperous city and target Westerners and rich Kenyans alike. Several multinational firms, from America’s Colgate Palmolive to the German chemical giant BASF housed their local headquarters at 14 Riverside. Several British firms were also based there, the consultancy groups Control Risks and Adam Smith International among them. From the outset it was clear that this was a highly sophisticated attack. A suicide bomber blew himself up close to the entrance as two vehicles carrying the attackers breached a security barrier, regarded as one of the most efficient in Nairobi, at the entrance to the complex. Some of the attackers, lobbing grenades and firing automatic rifles, reportedly killed several people at the Secret Garden restaurant, a spot popular for business meetings close to the restaurant, before continuing on to the Dusit hotel.  “There was a big bang and then a lot of gunfire, up to 100 shots or more,” said Philip Coulson, a lawyer working in a nearby office block. “Later, I saw people fleeing and others being carried out with looks of pain or anguish on their face.” Terrified office workers in the complex’s five blocks, said to house more than 1,000 employees, hid under desks and barricaded doors. Others, caught in the open, ran frantically for cover.  “Run, run!” one man shouted from behind a low wall as colleagues stumbled on lawns and crawled along the ground in a desperate bid for safety as shots rang out. “Down! Down!” Extremists launched a deadly attack on a luxury hotel in Kenya's capital  Credit: AP Photo/Brian Inganga Kenya’s security forces earned an ignominious reputation during the Westgate attack, after army units were accused of opening fire on their police colleagues, killing the officer in charge and then embarking on a looting spree. But this time, the initial response appeared more professional and coordinated. Army and police units, assisted by emergency crews, were quick to seal off the perimeter and rescue people from the office blocks, at least some of which appeared to be ignored by the attackers. Many were rescued within hours, fleeing under armed guard with their hands in the air before streaming in their scores across a footbridge to the safety of a nearby university campus. Everywhere signs of extreme emotion were visible. Shaking and often weeping, some survivors — mostly Kenyan, but some Westerners too — embraced anxious relatives waiting outside the police cordon. Others sank to the ground and gave thanks to God. Security forces at the scene in Nairobi Credit: AP Photo/Ben Curtis “After the first blast, after we saw the restaurant had been blown up, we ran and hid under tables,” said Elizabeth Maina, an employee at AC Nielsen, an American global research firm housed in the Belgravia building close to the entrance. “There was shooting everywhere. We called and sent messages to the police. After an hour, we saw men in uniforms and plain clothes enter the room. They shouted ‘police, police’ and led us out.” Workers in office blocks, with plenty of hiding places and lockable doors, were always more likely to survive. Those in the hotel, whose foyer opens out onto a restaurant, bar and swimming pool, would have had much less of a chance — as their attackers surely knew. Just how high the death toll could be is unlikely to become clear until the attack is over, although witnesses said they saw at least five bodies and reported body parts strewn on the ground outside the hotel. “There was no time to count the dead but it is true that there are people who have died,” said one police officer involved in the operation. A woman is reunited with her family after her evacuation from DusitD2 compound Credit: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images Kenya has long been in al-Shabaab’s sights, even before it sent troops across the border into Somalia in 2011 in an attempt to root out the militants behind the abductions of Western tourists on the Kenyan coast, Britons among them.  In 1998, an al Qaeda attack, which involved a number of Somalis, on the American embassy in Nairobi killed more than 200 people. The number of attacks soared after 2011.  Westgate aside, 147 students were killed in an attack on a university in the northern town in Garissa in 2015 while scores more had previously died when suspected al Shabaab militants struck at villages on the northern Kenyan coast. Improved intelligence, aided by tactical and training support from Britain, has seen a halt to large-scale attacks since 2015, although often deadly ambushes on Kenyan forces near the Somali border remain frequent. Despite mounting domestic opposition and al-Shabaab attacks on their bases, Kenyan forces remain in Somalia. The attack on 14 Riverside came on the third anniversary of an al-Shabaab attack on a Kenyan military base in the Somali town of El Adde. Kenya has refused to release details of the death toll, but analysts say they believe more than 140 Kenyan soldiers were killed.

The New York lawmaker, who has become a sensation among progressives, will almost certainly join the House Financial Services Committee after a group of fellow Democrats on the party’s steering committee voted to recommend her for the panel on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. Two other recently elected progressive Democrats, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Katie Porter of California, are also likely to join the panel, said the people said, who requested anonymity because the names of the new members have not yet been announced. Tulsi Gabbard, a lawmaker from Hawaii who says she plans to run for president in 2020, is also poised to join, the people said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Pacific storm that brought fears of dangerous mudslides and a rare blizzard warning in the Sierra Nevada was less fierce than expected but hundreds of homes in fire-scarred California areas remained under evacuation orders as more rain was expected.

The American people deserve better. Only the willfully blind — or politically blinded — could fail to see the scope and scale of our border crisis.

All of his fellow Republicans supported the action – he even voted for it himself, to show his remorse – and earlier this week, the party’s leaders stripped King of his committee assignments. Several GOP members are telling him to resign. In a statement a week following the original Times report, King denied that he meant this.

Thousands of LAUSD teachers took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles for a massive demonstration on the second day of their union's strike.

Should you tip flight attendants?

President Trump considers pulling the United States out of NATO; critics respond.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles school administrators urged the union to resume bargaining as thousands of teachers walked picket lines for a second day Tuesday, joined for the first time by some of their counterparts from independent charter schools.

The Detroit auto show kicked off this week with glitzy, high-production value debuts of mostly sports cars, giant trucks and SUVs -- new versions of age-old themes. At the booth of Velodyne LiDAR, which makes laser scanning automotive eyes, a giant monitor showed the surrounding environment just as an autonomous car might see it: full of dots and circles. Something as simple as bug splatter can frustrate the laser eyes' ability to see.

Utah police say a man stabbed his girlfriend to death in a domestic violence incident and then turned himself in at a South Salt Lake hospital.

A US citizen was killed Tuesday in an attack by Islamist militants on an upmarket hotel and office complex in Nairobi, a US official said. An AFP photographer in Nairobi saw the bodies of five victims and a police source said he had seen as many as 14 dead. Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda-linked Somali group that assaulted a Nairobi shopping mall in 2013, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack on the DusitD2 compound, which includes a 101-room hotel, spa, restaurant, and offices for local and international companies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Almost a dozen Senate Republicans broke with the White House Tuesday on Russia, voting to move forward on a resolution that would maintain sanctions on companies linked to oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

BARRON, Wis. (AP) — The Latest on the kidnapping of 13-year-old Jayme Closs (all times local):

Congressional Democrats have rejected an invite from Donald Trump to attend a lunch meeting at the White House, as the president looks to build support for his border wall without Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. The White House has said no rank-and-file House Democrats will attend the lunch aimed at trying to end a record-setting partial government shutdown.

Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Nelly Jerez said that between 800 and 1,000 people were travelling together and headed towards the Agua Caliente border crossing into Guatemala. Hundreds of Honduran refugees and migrants also left a bus station in the northern city of San Pedro Sula and moved along to join the caravan. The first groups to leave included many women and children who got onto buses destined for the Guatemalan border.