'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Google's Russian subsidiary plans to file for bankruptcy after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay staff and vendors, but free services including search and YouTube will keep operating, a Google spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The Alphabet Inc unit has been under pressure in Russia for months for failing to delete content Moscow deems illegal and for restricting access to some Russian media on YouTube, but the Kremlin has so far stopped short of blocking access to the company's services.
"The Russian authorities seizure of Google Russia's bank account has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations," a Google spokesperson said.
"Google Russia has published a notice of its intention to file for bankruptcy."
A TV channel owned by a sanctioned Russian businessman said in April that bailiffs had seized 1 billion rubles (US$15 million) from Google over its failure to restore access to its YouTube account, but this is the first time the U.S. tech giant has said its bank account as whole has been seized. Read full story
Google did not immediately confirm whether it was the seizure of those funds that led to its intention to file for bankruptcy, or whether other seizures had occurred.
The database of Russia's Federal Bailiffs Service listed two seizures since mid-March, without specifying the amounts, as well as other fines and enforcement fees.
The service confirmed that it had seized Google assets and property.
Google had moved many of its employees out of Russia since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. But some had remained.
A note posted on Russia's official registry Fedresurs on Wednesday said the Google subsidiary was intending to declare bankruptcy and since March 22 had foreseen an "inability to fulfill its monetary obligations," including severance pay, remuneration for current and former staff and timely mandatory payments.
Google, which has paused ad sales and most other commercial operations in Russia, said its free services, including Gmail, Maps, Android and Play, would remain available for Russian users.
Russia said on Tuesday it was not planning to block Google's YouTube, in spite of repeated threats and fines, acknowledging that such a move would likely see Russian users suffer and should therefore be avoided. Read full story
Rostelecom Chief Executive Mikhail Oseevskiy said on Wednesday that Google was operating as normal in the country, including all its servers, the TASS news agency reported.
In December, Russia handed Google a 7.2 billion ruble charge for what Moscow said was a repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based penalty of that kind of case in Russia.
That fine increased by 506 million rubles due to an enforcement fee, bailiffs data showed.
Google's Russian subsidiary's 2021 revenue was 134.3 billion rubles, Interfax news agency's Spark database of Russian companies showed.
Alphabet said last month that Russia accounted for one per cent of its revenue last year, or about US$2.6 billion.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle, Guy Faulconbridge, David Clarke and Barbara Lewis)
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.