Business
Amazon blocks 1,800 job applications from suspected North Korean agents
A top Amazon executive has said the US technology giant has blocked more than 1,800 job applications from suspected North Korean agents.
North Koreans tried to apply for remote working IT jobs using stolen or fake identities, Amazon’s chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said in a LinkedIn post.
“Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime’s weapons programs,” he said, adding that this trend is likely to be happening at scale across the industry, especially in the US.
Authorities in the US and South Korea have warned about Pyongyang’s operatives carrying out online scams.
Amazon has seen a nearly one-third increase in job applications from North Koreans in the past year, said Mr Schmidt in his post.
He said the operatives typically work with people managing “laptop farms” – referring to computers based in the US that are run remotely from outside of the country.
The firm used a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and verification by its staff to screen job applications, he said.
The strategies used by such fraudsters have become more sophisticated, Mr Schmidt said.
Bad actors are hijacking dormant LinkedIn accounts using leaked credentials to gain verification. They target genuine software engineers to appear credible, he said, urging firms to report suspicious job applications to the authorities.
Mr Schmidt warned employers to look out for indicators of fraudulent North Korean job applications, including incorrectly formatted phone numbers and mismatched education histories.
In June, the US government said it had uncovered 29 “laptop farms” that were being operated illegally across the country by North Korean IT workers.
They used stolen or forged identities of Americans to help North Korean nationals get jobs in the US, said the Department of Justice (DOJ).
It also indicted US brokers who had helped secure jobs for the North Korean operatives.
In July, a woman from Arizona was sentenced to more than eight years in jail for running a laptop farm to help North Korean IT workers secure remote jobs at more than 300 US companies.
The DOJ said the scheme generated more than $17m (£12.6m) in illicit gains for her and Pyongyang.
Business
Can Income Tax Department Access Your Social Media, Emails, Other Digital Platforms From 1 April 2026? Heres All You Want To Know
New Delhi: A social media post is going viral that claims, from 1st April 2026, the Income Tax Department will have the authority to access your social media, emails, and other digital platforms to curb tax evasion.
A post is being circulated by an X handle IndianTechGuide. Fact-checking agency PIB has refuted the social media claim. PIB has stated that the claim being made in this post is misleading.
Can Income Tax Department Access Your Social Media, Emails, Other Digital Platforms?
PIB further explained, the provisions of section 247 of the Income Tax Act 2025 are strictly limited to Search and Survey operations. Unless a taxpayer is undergoing a formal search operation due to evidence of significant tax evasion, the department has no power to access their private digital spaces.
A post by @IndianTechGuide claims that from April 1, 2026, the Income Tax Department will have the ‘authority’ to access your social media, emails, and other digital platforms to curb tax evasion.#PIBFactCheck
_The claim being made in this post is #misleading! Here’s the real_ pic.twitter.com/hIyPPcvALF
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) December 22, 2025
It added, the powers cannot be used for routine information gathering/processing, or even for cases under scrutiny assessment. These measures are specifically designed to target black money and large-scale evasion during search and survey, not the everyday law-abiding citizen
PIB said that the power to seize documents and evidence during search and survey operations has existed since the 1961 Act.
How to get messages fact-checked by PIB
If you get any such suspicious message, you can always know its authenticity and check if the news is for real or it is a fake news. For that, you need to send the message to https://factcheck.pib.gov.in. Alternatively you can send a WhatsApp message to +918799711259 for fact check. You can also send your message to pibfactcheck@gmail.com. The fact check information is also available on https://pib.gov.in.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a pill version of the weight-loss drug Wegovy, according to pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk.
It is the first pill of its kind to receive approval from the regulator, marking a new era for weight-loss drugs.
Wegovy’s Danish makers Novo Nordisk said the once-daily pill was a “convenient option” to the injectable and would provide the same weight loss as the shot. It comes after Wegovy was approved by the FDA specifically for weight loss.
Others like Ozempic, which has similar weight-loss effects, were primarily approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
The BBC has contacted the FDA for comment.
The Wegovy pill showed an average weight loss of 16.6% during Novo Nordisk’s trials, the firm said on Monday.
A third of around 1,300 participants experienced 20% or greater weight loss in the same trial, it added.
The pill is expected to be launched in the US in early January 2026.
“Patients will have a convenient, once-daily pill that can help them lose as much weight as the original Wegovy injection,” said Mike Doustdar, the firm’s chief executive.
The pill version of Wegovy could give Novo Nordisk’s sales a boost after a challenging year which saw its shares slide as it warned over its profits.
The company has faced intense competition in the weight-loss market from rival drugmakers like Eli Lilly.
Novo Nordisk’s shares rose by almost 10% in after-hours trade in New York after the announcement.
The logo of pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is displayed in front of its offices in Bagsvaerd, on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, Nov. 24, 2025.
Tom Little | Reuters
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved the first-ever GLP-1 pill for obesity from Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk, a landmark decision that health experts say could open up treatment access to more patients.
Novo Nordisk said it expects to launch the pill in early 2026. The Danish drugmaker said starting in early January, the starting dose of 1.5 milligrams will be available in pharmacies and via select telehealth providers with savings offers for $149 per month.
That’s the same price that cash-paying patients can access the starting dose of the pill on President Donald Trump’s direct-to-consumer website, TrumpRx, under a deal Novo Nordisk struck with his administration last month. Trump’s site also launches in January.
Novo Nordisk did not say how much higher doses of the drug would cost, but said additional information on coverage and savings options for eligible patients will be available at that time as well.
Shares of Novo Nordisk gained roughly 9% in extended trading Monday.
The FDA’s approval also clears the pill for use to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events, such as death, heart attack or stroke, in adults with obesity and established cardiovascular disease, according to Novo Nordisk. That’s consistent with the approval label of the company’s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy, which shares the same active ingredient, semaglutide.
The move gives Novo Nordisk a head start over chief rival Eli Lilly, which is currently the dominant player in the market and is racing to launch its own obesity pill. Pills are the next battleground for the two drugmakers, which established the booming GLP-1 space that some analysts say could be worth roughly $100 billion by the 2030s.
Wall Street thinks there’s plenty of room for pills in the market, with Goldman Sachs analyst saying in August that pills could capture a 24% share — or around $22 billion — of the 2030 global weight loss drug market.
“What we’ve learned through years of research is that having an oral option really kind of opens up, activates and motivates different segments to seek treatment,” Dave Moore, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president of U.S. operations, told CNBC ahead of the approval. “To have that conversation with their doctor to see if this is something that might be right for them.”
“That’s what we’re excited about — to be able to give people an option and make sure we have access and ease of access like we have been doing with our injections,” he continued.
The approval is based on a phase three trial that followed more than 300 adults with obesity but not diabetes.
In that study, a 25-milligram dose of Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide helped patients lose up to 16.6% of their weight on average after 64 weeks, according to results from the trial presented at a medical conference in 2024. That weight loss was 13.6% when the company analyzed all patients regardless of whether they stopped the drug.
The pill appears to be slightly more effective than an experimental oral drug from Eli Lilly, which is still waiting for FDA approval.
But unlike Novo Nordisk’s pill, Eli Lilly’s treatment is not a peptide medication. That means it is absorbed more easily by the body and does not require dietary restrictions. People who take Novo Nordisk’s pill have to wait 30 minutes before eating or drinking each day.
Moore said the prices of the pill get costs closer to what some people are paying for unapproved, compounded versions of branded GLP-1s, some of which are still being illegally mass marketed and sold in the U.S.
Patients flocked to the cheaper copycats when Ozempic and Wegovy were in short supply over the last two years due to skyrocketing demand, or if they didn’t have insurance coverage for the costly treatments. During FDA-declared shortages, pharmacists can legally make compounded versions of brand-name medications. But the agency earlier this year determined that the shortage of semaglutide is over, barring the practice in most cases.
“It continues to be alarming and disturbing for us,” Moore told CNBC, referring to illegitimate ingredients that are imported into the U.S. illegally and used by some compounding pharmacies to create copycat versions of GLP-1s.
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