UniCredit Says BPM Decision In Limbo Over Government Conditions
UniCredit SpA said it can't take a final decision on its proposed takeover of Banco BPM SpA, after Italy's government imposed conditions on the deal.
UniCredit said in a statement on Tuesday that it has responded to Italian authorities, after Rome issued the conditions under the so-called 'Golden Power' rules for transactions involving strategic assets. Until it hears back, the lender said it's 'not in a position to take any conclusive decision on the way forward' for the bid.
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Forbes
7 minutes ago
- Forbes
The Best Spots In Queen's Park, According To The Founder Of Don't Tell Dad
After beginning his career as an investment banker, Daniel Land, founder of Don't Tell Dad, realized he wasn't good at it. He knew he had to figure out his next move, ultimately deciding to pursue opening Coco di Mama when he discovered a gap in London's dining scene. That opening started Land down the path of hospitality, which is how he ended up opening one of the hottest new bakeries in London, Don't Tell Dad. 'I've had an unhealthy obsession with restaurants since I was extremely young,' says Land. 'Growing up, my sister and I would get dragged to Jewish Sunday School, but then the reward was to go out for a nice lunch, often somewhere new. We went to fancy places like the Belvedere, Le Caprice, or Pont de la Tour, neighborhood spots like Lemonia, Halepi or La Sorpresa (a long-gone Italian restaurant in Hampstead), or other long-forgotten names of the London restaurant scene like Drones or Wolfe's.' Before coming up with the concept for Don't Tell Dad, Land knew he wanted to open a spot that would be the heart of the neighborhood. He didn't like how restaurants were closed for more hours than they were open and saw few spots on his travels that hit the mark on serving their communities throughout the day. In other words, he wanted to establish a place that would serve as the glue for those who live in the neighborhood. 'It took a few years and a personal tragedy for me to pluck up the courage to start it, but that's what I'm trying to create with Don't Tell Dad,' he says Don't Tell Dad is a half bakery, half restaurant on a buzzy street in Queen's Park. The bakery, which is run by head baker Keren Sternberg (who was previously the head baker at Layla), is known for seasonal pastries like a hazelnut brown butter croissant or a pistachio Danish, alongside savory danishes and freshly baked breads. On the other hand, you can expect to find head chef Luke Frankie whipping up seasonally-focused menu items like Courgette with Tomato, Pear, Lavage and Goat Curd's, or an Oxtail crumpet. Although Don't Tell Dad is the latest spot to open in the neighborhood, Land moved to Queen's Park about a decade ago."I grew up a couple of miles away in Hampstead, which had a great sense of community when I was there," he says. 'A bunch of my closest friends all moved at a similar time to me, and we've all put down deep roots in the area, which is a very happy coincidence.' Suffice to say: he's the one you want to go to when you're looking for where to pop into in Queen's Park. Ahead, the Don't Tell Dad Founder shares the best spots to eat and drink in Queen's Park. When Carmel opened a few years ago, it changed the culinary landscape in Queen's Park. 'It's grown up without being stuffy, and the team elevates the excellent Middle Eastern menu to the perfect level,' says Land. 'The mixed mezze is the stuff of dreams, and I always order it the moment I sit down so I can make relaxed menu decisions whilst snacking. The flatbreads are famous, particularly the za'atar one, and you can't go wrong with any of the big stuff on the grill - the whole bream or the urfa chilli chicken.' For a great value sushi restaurant in London, Land advises stopping into Michiko Sushino. While it's a bit nondescript when you walk past it, it comes highly recommended by the Don't Tell Dad founder. 'It's an extremely low-key setting, and not the most comfortable, but it works fo all levels of sushi purism,' he says. 'They serve a ridiculously good value lunch set for £14 - the dressing on the veggie donburi is dreamy and I always double up on the seaweed salad.' Land claims that Ida is a gem. 'As high streets get taken over by bland chains, I think it's so important to celebrate (and frequent) places like Ida, a genuinely family-run neighborhood Italian restaurant,' he says. 'The service is warm and friendly, the room is delightful and homely, and the food is generous and tasty. It's impossible to order badly there, particularly if you go for pasta. I love it so much, I had my 40th there last year!' Located in the middle of Queen's Park, you'll always find The Park Cafe filled with locals. 'In the depths of midwinter, or at the height of a heatwave, the guys in the cafe in the park are upbeat and smiling, serving an eclectic, if a little random, selection of things from tagines to toasties,' says Land. 'They are local heroes, fixing up the entire community every weekend. During the week, they offer falafel wraps and salad boxes along with loads of delicious treats. If you manage to bag yourself a quiet spot in the flower garden, you can pretend like you're not in the middle of London." Started by locals Al and Chris, The Wolfpack is another great Queen's Park hangout. It's a great place to grab a beer, watch sports or spend some time after the Sunday Farmer's Market. 'The best compliment I can pay it is that I can't imagine Queen's Park without The Wolfpack' says Land. 'I hope that people will say that about Don't Tell Dad soon too.'
Los Angeles Times
25 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
U.S.-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists, Citizen Lab finds
ROME — Spyware from a U.S.-backed Israeli company was used to target the phones of at least three prominent journalists in Europe, two of whom are editors at an investigative news site in Italy, according to digital researchers at Citizen Lab, citing new forensic evidence of the attacks. The findings come amid growing questions about what role the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may have played in spying on journalists and civil society activists critical of her leadership, and raised new concerns about the potential for abuse of commercial spyware, even in democratic countries. 'Any attempts to illegally access data of citizens, including journalists and political opponents, is unacceptable, if confirmed,' the European Commission said in a statement Wednesday in response to questions from members of parliament. 'The Commission will use all the tools at its disposal to ensure the effective application of EU law.' Meloni's office declined to comment Thursday, but a prominent member of her Cabinet has said that Italy 'rigorously respected' the law and that the government hadn't illegally spied on journalists. The company behind the hacks, Paragon Solutions, has sought to position itself as a virtuous player in the mercenary spyware industry and won U.S. government contracts, The Associated Press found. Backed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Paragon was reportedly acquired by AE Industrial Partners, a private investment firm based in Florida, in a December deal worth at least $500 million, pending regulatory approvals. AE Industrial Partners didn't directly respond to requests for comment on the deal. Paragon's spyware, Graphite, was used to target around 90 WhatsApp users from more than two dozen countries, primarily in Europe, Meta said in January. Since then, there's been a scramble to figure out who was hacked and who was responsible. 'We've seen first-hand how commercial spyware can be weaponized to target journalists and civil society, and these companies must be held accountable,' a spokesperson for WhatsApp told AP in an email. 'WhatsApp will continue to protect peoples' ability to communicate privately.' Meta said the vulnerability has been patched and they have not detected subsequent attacks. Meta also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paragon. Last month, a California court awarded Meta $168 million in damages from Israel's NSO Group, whose spyware was used to hack 1,400 WhatsApp accounts, including of journalists, activists and government officials. The Citizen Lab's findings, released today, show that the use of spyware against journalists has continued, despite the backlash against NSO Group, and establish for the first time that Paragon was able to successfully infect Apple devices. Ciro Pellegrino, who heads the Naples newsroom of an investigative news outlet called received a notice on April 29 that his iPhone had been targeted. Last year, Fanpage secretly infiltrated the youth wing of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party and filmed some of them making fascist and racist remarks. Pellegrino's colleague, Fanpage editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato, also received a notice from Meta that his Android device had been targeted by Paragon spyware, though forensic evidence that his phone was actually infected with Graphite hasn't yet surfaced, according to Citizen Lab. The Citizen Lab's report today also revealed a third case, of a 'prominent European journalist,' who asked to remain anonymous, but is connected to the Italian cluster by forensic evidence unearthed by researchers at the laboratory, which is run out of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab, which has analyzed all the devices, said the attack came via iMessage, and that Apple has patched the vulnerability. Apple did not respond immediately to requests for comment. 'Paragon is now mired in exactly the kind of abuse scandal that NSO Group is notorious for,' said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. 'This shows the industry and its way of doing business is the problem. It's not just a few bad apples.' Paragon's spyware is especially stealthy because it can compromise a device without any action from the user. Similar to the NSO Group's notorious Pegasus spyware, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. government, Graphite allows the operator to covertly access applications, including encrypted messengers like Signal and WhatsApp. 'There's no link to click, attachment to download, file to open or mistake to make,' Scott-Railton said. 'One moment the phone is yours, and the next minute its data is streaming to an attacker.' COPASIR, the parliamentary committee overseeing the Italian secret services, took the rare step last week of making public the results of its investigation into the government's use of Paragon. The COPASIR report said that Italian intelligence services hadn't spied on Cancellato, the editor of Fanpage. The report did confirm the surveillance, with tools including Graphite, of civil society activists, but said they had been targeted legally and with government authorization — not as activists but over their work related to irregular immigration and national security. Giovanni Donzelli, vice president of COPASIR and a prominent member of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, declined further comment Thursday, saying the parliamentary report was 'more relevant than an analysis done by a privately funded Canadian laboratory.' Citizen Lab says it's 'rigorously independent,' and doesn't accept research funding from governments or companies. Italy and Paragon both say they've terminated their relationship, but offer starkly different versions of the breakup. Paragon referred questions to a statement it gave to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which the company said that it stopped providing spyware to Italy after the government declined its offer to help investigate Cancellato's case. Italian authorities, however, said they had rejected Paragon's offer over national security concerns and ended the relationship following media outcry. Paragon has been keen to deflect reputational damage that could, in theory, impact its contracts with the U.S. government. A 2023 executive order, which so far hasn't been overturned by President Trump, prohibits federal government departments and agencies from acquiring commercial spyware that has been misused by foreign governments, including to limit freedom of expression and political dissent. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Paragon a one-year, $2 million contract last September for operations and support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, public records show. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has also reportedly used the spyware. In December 2022, Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who at the time chaired the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to the administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration questioning whether the DEA's use of Graphite spyware undermined efforts to deter the 'broad proliferation of powerful surveillance capabilities to autocratic regimes and others who may misuse them.' Kinetz and Santalucia write for the Associated Press. Byron Tau in Washington, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Multiverse raises $215m to advance CompactifAI technology
Spanish quantum software startup Multiverse Computing has raised €189m ($215m) in a Series B funding round to advance its CompactifAI technology. CompactifAI, developed throughout 2024 and now rolled out to initial customers, can reduce the size of Large Language Models (LLMs) by up to 95% while preserving performance. The investment round was led by Bullhound Capital with participation from investors including HP Tech Ventures, SETT, Forgepoint Capital International, CDP Venture Capital and Santander Climate VC, as well as Quantonation, Toshiba, and Capital Riesgo de Euskadi - Grupo SPRI. Multiverse said it plans to leverage the funding to support broader adoption of CompactifAI, targeting the $106bn AI inference market. This technology is claimed to address the high costs of running LLMs, which typically require specialised cloud-based infrastructure. Multiverse Computing founder and CEO Enrique Lizaso Olmos said: 'With a unique syndicate of expert and strategic global investors on board and Bullhound Capital as lead investor, we can now further advance our laser-focused delivery of compressed AI models that offer outstanding performance with minimal infrastructure.' Unlike traditional compression methods such as quantisation and pruning, which often degrade model performance, CompactifAI maintains original accuracy, achieves 4x-12x faster processing, and cuts inference costs by 50%-80%, according to the company. CompactifAI enables compressed models to operate on cloud platforms, private data centres, or devices including PCs, phones, cars, drones, and Raspberry Pi. Compressed versions of Llama, DeepSeek, and Mistral models are available now, with more models expected soon. The technology leverages Tensor Networks, a quantum-inspired approach to neural network simplification, pioneered by Roman Orus, Multiverse's co-founder and chief scientific officer. Orus said: 'For the first time in history, we are able to profile the inner workings of a neural network to eliminate billions of spurious correlations to truly optimise all sorts of AI models.' At the end of 2024, Multiverse Computing received an investment from CDP Venture Capital, an Italian venture capital investor, as part of its Series A funding round. The investment was made through two compartments of the Corporate Partners I fund, ServiceTech and Energytech, which includes participation from major Italian corporations such as Baker Hughes, BNL BNP Paribas, Edison, GPI, Italgas, Snam, and Terna Forward. "Multiverse raises $215m to advance CompactifAI technology" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
