Tag: Region US

The grey, two-storey home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came at the weekend as a glacial dam burst in Alaska’s capital, swelling the levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. The bursting of such snow-and-ice dams is…

On July 28, 2023, Weekend Australian Magazine published a bombshell report based on an exclusive interview with Dr. Robert (Bob) Kadlec, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) who served under Donald Trump. To many readers this may seem like just more Washington, DC Kabuki theater with a side order of limited hangout (much like the prior Vanity Fair article in which Kadlec provided a generous scoop of spin with a topping of CYA). Personally, I find this whole “inside…

The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses. A new cleanup effort has been ordered. The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two…

The European Commission (EC) has confirmed that it’s opening an in-depth investigation into Adobe’s proposed $20 billion bid for digital design software rival Figma. The Commission said that the acquisition “may reduce competition in the global markets for the supply of interactive product design software and for digital asset creation tools.” First announced last September, Adobe’s megabucks bid for one of its biggest competitors was always likely to attract scrutiny from regulators around the globe. The U.S. Department of Justice…

China Tuesday renewed calls for the Philippines to remove an aging ship from a reef which Manila uses to press its stake in the Spratly Islands in defiance of Beijing’s claim to nearly the entire South China Sea. The move comes after the Philippines at the weekend accused the China Coast Guard of firing water cannon against boats on a resupply mission to its garrison stationed on the grounded vessel. The BRP Sierra Madre – deliberately grounded in the late…

ASIC has banned a Sydney mortgage and finance broker for six years from engaging in credit activities after allegedly making false disclosures and mishandling home loan applications among other offences. The broker, Qingshan Yu, was also banned from controlling a credit business and performing any function in relation to carrying on a credit business while the regulator cancelled the Australian credit licence of Yu’s company, Actif Pty Ltd (Actif). Actif held a credit licence from November 9, 2010, and provided…

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…

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…

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to put Sam Bankman-Fried in jail ahead of his trial, which is scheduled to start in October. As he considers their request, the judge has imposed a broad, temporary gag order in the case. There were audible gasps in the courtroom on Wednesday when prosecutors told the judge they were seeking Bankman-Fried’s detention. His defense attorney, Mark S. Cohen, said he was only notified of the ask “one minute before court.” Bankman-Fried has been…