Author: 5amResearch

The pervasive use of facial recognition technology across all facets of life in China has elicited both praise for its convenience and backlash around privacy concerns. The widespread adoption has also fueled the exponential growth of valuations in companies specializing in the field, such as AI giants SenseTime and Megvii. Now the industry is facing some potentially significant changes as Beijing steps up efforts to establish more defined boundaries for the technology’s usage. The move is building upon the implementation…

SAN FRANCISCO – Moody’s Investors Service lowered the credit rating of 10 small and mid-sized US banks and said it may downgrade major lenders including US Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon, State Street, and Truist Financial as part of a sweeping look at mounting pressures on the industry. Higher funding costs, potential regulatory capital weaknesses and rising risks tied to commercial real estate (CRE) loans amid weakening demand for office space are among strains prompting the review, Moody’s said…

SINGAPORE – The manager of Lendlease Global Commercial Reit (Lendlease Reit) posted a distribution per unit (DPU) of 2.25 cents for the second half of financial year 2023 ended June, down 8 per cent from 2.45 cents in the corresponding period a year earlier. Distributable income rose 21.6 per cent to $52.2 million, from $42.9 million a year earlier, while gross revenue climbed 65.1 per cent to $103.1 million over the same period. In a bourse filing on Monday, the…

This reporting is featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here. The meltdown over at Los Angeles continues as the once-esteemed magazine’s new owners cook up creative ways to stiff writers past and present, Confider has learned. Since taking over the storied publication earlier this year, celebrity attorneys Mark Geragos and Ben Meiselas and their publisher Chris Gialanella have refused to pay…

SEC Charges Recidivist and Others in Offering Fraud Scheme Lit. Release No. 25804 / August 7, 2023 Securities and Exchange Commission v. Christopher A. Slaga a/k/a Keith Renko, Q4 Capital, LLC, J4 Capital Advisors LLC, and Hayden F. Greene, No. 8:23-cv-01425 (C.D. Cal. filed August 7, 2023) The Securities and Exchange Commission filed today a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California charging Christopher Slaga and two entities he controlled, Q4 Capital, LLC and J4 Capital…

A New York City cancer doctor shot her 6-month-old baby and then turned the gun on herself, police said Saturday. Investigators provided scant detail about the tragedy involving Krystal Cascetta, 40, and her infant at the family’s home in Westchester County. But police said in a statement that “the scene is consistent with a murder/suicide.”   Cascetta was an assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai and ran the Mount Sinai Queens Infusion Center. She was an “active investigator of…

The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) discloses a massive data breach impacting students, past students, and teachers after suffering a ransomware attack in June. In a ‘Notice of Data Incident’ published on the CDHE website, the Department says they suffered a ransomware attack on June 19th, 2023. “On June 19, 2023, CDHE became aware it was the victim of a cybersecurity ransomware incident that impacted its network systems,” explains the data breach notification. “CDHE took steps to secure the…

Over the past few years, two immigrants in their mid-fifties became my friends. These guys are among the gentlest spirits that I’ve known, though one tells me he was a boxer back in the day and he works like a beast with a pick and shovel. The other man speaks five languages and knows far more about Botany than I do. While both men are delightful to interact with, each binge drinks every so often. One drinks until he passes…

Some observers who have long watched and carefully documented US government involvement in major social media platforms as well as Wikipedia itself have commented, “the CIA Is running Wikipedia, Wow, what a shocker. Sanger asserted during Greenwald’s show, “We do have evidence that, as early as 2008, that CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia,” before posing: “Do you think that they stopped doing that back then?” Getty Images Sanger explained that the intelligence agencies “pay off the…

As information started to leak out from the… everywhere about NSO Group’s secondhand contribution to surveillance abuses all over the world, the world (except for the worst of NSO’s customers) began taking action. Even the government that facilitated many of NSO’s sales to human rights violators decided it might be time to toss a few restrictions on the Israel-based malware merchant founded by former Israeli intelligence officers. The same thing happened in the United States. NSO was joined by lesser…

Fernando Perez Algaba had been staying in Argentina for a week before his alleged murder. Fernando Perez Algaba, the cryptocurrency influencer from Argentina who had been missing for more than a week, was found dead on Wednesday. Police found Mr Algaba’s remains inside a suitcase near a stream in Argentinian capital Buenos Aires, according to New York Post. The grisly case came to light after a group of children found the red suitcase filled with body parts while playing by the…

Legendary national security journalist Seymour Hersh has published a report this week alleging US intelligence helped the Ukrainians blow up the Kerch Bridge (or also, Crimean Bridge), which happened earlier this month and corresponded to President Putin refusing to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal. What’s more is that Hersh’s sources described that the US assisted in the initial, larger Kerch Bridge explosion which had initially temporarily disabled it in October 2022. “The Biden administration’s role in both attacks was…

After three decades, Florida investigators say they have found the man allegedly responsible for kidnapping and killing a 12-year-old girl as she was walking home from school—before leaving her body in a nearby orange grove. Jeffrey Norman Crum, 61, was indicted on several charges, including first-degree murder, in connection with the February 1993 death of Jennifer Odom, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday. Crum is already serving two life sentences in connection to a similar cold case a few…

Intellexa (AKA Intellexa Anonymi Etaireia), an alliance of digital intelligence firms in Greece run by an ex-Israeli intel officer, and Cytrox AD (AKA Sytrox), which produces their Predator spyware, added to U.S. ‘entity list’ which already includes Israel’s NSO and Candiru. Late last year, Citizen Lab uncovered the hacking of an Egyptian dissident’s phone. The affected device was host to two forms of malware, one created by NSO Group and the other by Cytrox. According to the Citizen Lab investigation, these infections were…

A former intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower told Congress Wednesday that top government officials have hidden a top-secret program to find and study alien UFOs — and that he fears for his life for choosing to speak out. “I’ve suffered retaliation for my decision, but I am hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency,” Air Force Maj. David Grusch told the House Oversight Committee Wednesday. Grusch claimed that a highly secret program exists to retrieve and…

A Russian fighter jet fired flares and struck another U.S. drone over Syrian airspace on Wednesday, the White House said, in a continued string of harassing maneuvers that have ratcheted up tensions between the global powers. It’s the sixth reported incident this month, and the second in the past 24 hours, in which the United States has said Russian warplanes have flown dangerously close to American manned and unmanned aircraft, putting crews and the planes at risk and raising questions as to…