25 days ago
WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Three U.S. lawmakers have called on the American government to blacklist a set of Indian IT firms over what they describe as "more than fifteen years of targeted espionage against U.S. citizens, businesses, and the lawyers representing them."
In a letter issued Wednesday, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Republican Representative Pat Harrigan, asked the Commerce Department to add BellTroX, CyberRoot, and Sunkissed Organic Farms Pvt. Ltd. (formerly known as "Appin Technology Pvt. Ltd.") and its subsidiaries, to the Commerce Department's Entity List. Such a designation would cut them off from U.S. software, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity tools.
Sunkissed representatives, CyberRoot and the Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment. BellTroX could not be reached for comment.
All three companies have been described in media coverage and in reports published by major tech firms as being fronts for hack-for-hire activities.
In 2022, Reuters named CyberRoot and BellTroX as key players in the cybermercenary industry, saying they were frequently tapped by Western lawyers and private investigators to spy on one another during legal and business disputes. A 2023 Reuters report identified Appin as a pioneer in the field, saying the company grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe.
#three
In a letter issued Wednesday, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Republican Representative Pat Harrigan, asked the Commerce Department to add BellTroX, CyberRoot, and Sunkissed Organic Farms Pvt. Ltd. (formerly known as "Appin Technology Pvt. Ltd.") and its subsidiaries, to the Commerce Department's Entity List. Such a designation would cut them off from U.S. software, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity tools.
Sunkissed representatives, CyberRoot and the Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment. BellTroX could not be reached for comment.
All three companies have been described in media coverage and in reports published by major tech firms as being fronts for hack-for-hire activities.
In 2022, Reuters named CyberRoot and BellTroX as key players in the cybermercenary industry, saying they were frequently tapped by Western lawyers and private investigators to spy on one another during legal and business disputes. A 2023 Reuters report identified Appin as a pioneer in the field, saying the company grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe.
#three
30 days ago
Nepal is holding a day of mourning to remember those who died in the catastrophic floods that hit the country nearly two weeks ago. Meanwhile, rescuers are continuing to scour the ruins for hundreds of people still missing, including 18 Americans. It comes as a 64-year-old woman was rescued from the mud and debris alive, after being trapped below her collapsed home for ten days. NBC's Janis Mackey Frayer reports for TODAY.
#meanwhile #americans #mackey
#meanwhile #americans #mackey
1 month ago
JOHANNESBURG: A top State Department official has hit out at China for what **** ysts are calling "the China shock wave" effect now crippling African economies.
African manufacturing is reportedly being battered by a surge of Chinese imports. It's a triple whammy — China takes raw materials, including critical minerals, from the continent and floods Africa with state-subsidized products. And Beijing isn't importing anywhere near an equal amount of African products.
The China Global South Project reported that in 2025, Chinese exports to Africa hit $225 billion in value, whereas imports from Africa were roughly only half that — $123 billion.
Putin Using Africa As 'Purse' For Ukraine War While Us Faces 'Intelligence Black Hole': Commander
China's Xi Jinping with President of the Comoros Azali **** oumani (L), South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Senegalese President Macky Sall attend the China-Africa Leaders' Roundtable Dialogue on the last day of the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg on Aug.24, 2023.
#state
African manufacturing is reportedly being battered by a surge of Chinese imports. It's a triple whammy — China takes raw materials, including critical minerals, from the continent and floods Africa with state-subsidized products. And Beijing isn't importing anywhere near an equal amount of African products.
The China Global South Project reported that in 2025, Chinese exports to Africa hit $225 billion in value, whereas imports from Africa were roughly only half that — $123 billion.
Putin Using Africa As 'Purse' For Ukraine War While Us Faces 'Intelligence Black Hole': Commander
China's Xi Jinping with President of the Comoros Azali **** oumani (L), South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Senegalese President Macky Sall attend the China-Africa Leaders' Roundtable Dialogue on the last day of the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg on Aug.24, 2023.
#state
2 months ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The pilot of a speedboat that capsized during a tour around the Statue of Liberty, drowning an infant and her mother, has been arrested by U.S. immigration authorities who say he was in the country illegally.
Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana, who has a pending federal criminal case in connection with the Aug. 8 crash, lied to a border officer and falsely claimed he was a U.S. citizen when he entered the country in Texas in 2007, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.
Hernandez-Umana, 46, a citizen of El Salvador, is being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to online records. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he will eventually be deported.
Immigration authorities arrested him after he was released on bail in his criminal case, where he is charged with causing the deaths of 5-month old Antonella Garcia and 27-year-old Sara Sanchez through misconduct or neglect.
According to prosecutors, Hernandez-Umana wasn't licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard, wasn't aware of basic safety rules and told investigators he'd borrowed his friend's personal vessel for the New York Harbor excursion. The boat was illegally chartered and overcrowded, prosecutors said.
#arrested
Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana, who has a pending federal criminal case in connection with the Aug. 8 crash, lied to a border officer and falsely claimed he was a U.S. citizen when he entered the country in Texas in 2007, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.
Hernandez-Umana, 46, a citizen of El Salvador, is being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to online records. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he will eventually be deported.
Immigration authorities arrested him after he was released on bail in his criminal case, where he is charged with causing the deaths of 5-month old Antonella Garcia and 27-year-old Sara Sanchez through misconduct or neglect.
According to prosecutors, Hernandez-Umana wasn't licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard, wasn't aware of basic safety rules and told investigators he'd borrowed his friend's personal vessel for the New York Harbor excursion. The boat was illegally chartered and overcrowded, prosecutors said.
#arrested
2 months ago
One year after flash flooding at Camp Mystic took 28 lives, three fathers are sharing how their young daughters' private faith continues to lift their families.
Speaking on "Saturday in America," Ryan DeWitt, Wade Lytal and Cole Naylor shared how their daughters' deep-rooted faith has sustained them through tragedy. DeWitt and Lytal said they found journals their daughters left behind filled with Bible verses, prayers and messages to God, bringing them comfort as they grieved.
"We knew that she was deeply rooted in her faith, but she wasn't outward about it or braggadocios about it. She just felt it. She felt very deeply," Ryan DeWitt said of his daughter Molly, who was 9 when she died in the floods.
"She just had the biggest heart, and we taught her as much as we could, but there was certainly something else at play, and that was her faith, and it was comforting. As difficult as those days were and still are, it's comforting to know how close she was to God."
Devastated Mother Blames Soft-on-crime Policies After Career Criminal Is Charged In Son's Death
#faith #dewitt #felt
Speaking on "Saturday in America," Ryan DeWitt, Wade Lytal and Cole Naylor shared how their daughters' deep-rooted faith has sustained them through tragedy. DeWitt and Lytal said they found journals their daughters left behind filled with Bible verses, prayers and messages to God, bringing them comfort as they grieved.
"We knew that she was deeply rooted in her faith, but she wasn't outward about it or braggadocios about it. She just felt it. She felt very deeply," Ryan DeWitt said of his daughter Molly, who was 9 when she died in the floods.
"She just had the biggest heart, and we taught her as much as we could, but there was certainly something else at play, and that was her faith, and it was comforting. As difficult as those days were and still are, it's comforting to know how close she was to God."
Devastated Mother Blames Soft-on-crime Policies After Career Criminal Is Charged In Son's Death
#faith #dewitt #felt
2 months ago
Admitted Idaho murderer Bryan Kohberger should get a new trial and face the death penalty, according to a digital forensics expert hired by the defense who says investigators missed ****** ing evidence against the 30-year-old former criminology PhD student — evidence he told Fox News Digital investigators never properly ****** yzed or incorporated into the prosecution's case.
Sy Ray is a former Arizona homicide investigator who is now an expert on digital forensics, geolocation and similar data. Kohberger's lawyers hired him as an expert witness for the defense before Kohberger pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty for the home invasion murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, also 20.
Kohberger, now serving four consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole, petitioned the court last week to withdraw his guilty plea and seek post-conviction relief, which could send the case to trial — and put the potential death penalty back in play.
Kohberger Defense Expert Wants His Lawyers Under Oath After Killer Cites Findings In Bid To Undo Guilty Plea
"Bring back the death penalty," Ray told journalist Brian Entin in a new podcast. "I am all for this."
#expert #digital #guilty
Sy Ray is a former Arizona homicide investigator who is now an expert on digital forensics, geolocation and similar data. Kohberger's lawyers hired him as an expert witness for the defense before Kohberger pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty for the home invasion murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, also 20.
Kohberger, now serving four consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole, petitioned the court last week to withdraw his guilty plea and seek post-conviction relief, which could send the case to trial — and put the potential death penalty back in play.
Kohberger Defense Expert Wants His Lawyers Under Oath After Killer Cites Findings In Bid To Undo Guilty Plea
"Bring back the death penalty," Ray told journalist Brian Entin in a new podcast. "I am all for this."
#expert #digital #guilty
2 months ago
SEATTLE (AP) — Preliminary testing showed the bullets that killed two bystanders during a shootout at a crowded Seattle food festival last weekend didn't come from the gun a 15-year-old arrested at the scene was seen firing, police said in court documents filed Wednesday.
The teen repeatedly shot an untraceable ghost gun into a crowd, police said, and the King County prosecutor's office filed charges of first-degree ****** ault with a firearm and unlawful possession of a handgun.
In a statement supporting the charges, police said preliminary testing of bullets recovered from the two bystanders killed showed they did not match that weapon.
The shooting in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle festival near the ****** e Needle left three people dead, including a 19-year-old suspect, and at least four bystanders injured, including a toddler. Police believe it was gang-related, and they continue searching for others who might have been involved.
Police Chief Shon Barnes had previously said there was possibly another person with a gunshot wound that investigators were looking to speak with, but the department said Wednesday there was no eighth victim.
#bystanders #bullets #festival
The teen repeatedly shot an untraceable ghost gun into a crowd, police said, and the King County prosecutor's office filed charges of first-degree ****** ault with a firearm and unlawful possession of a handgun.
In a statement supporting the charges, police said preliminary testing of bullets recovered from the two bystanders killed showed they did not match that weapon.
The shooting in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle festival near the ****** e Needle left three people dead, including a 19-year-old suspect, and at least four bystanders injured, including a toddler. Police believe it was gang-related, and they continue searching for others who might have been involved.
Police Chief Shon Barnes had previously said there was possibly another person with a gunshot wound that investigators were looking to speak with, but the department said Wednesday there was no eighth victim.
#bystanders #bullets #festival
3 months ago
For the second time in little more than a year, a blast tore through the Moscow suburb of Balashikha, Russia, and left a Russian military figure dead.
On June 9, explosives planted under a BMW detonated as the driver began leaving a parking lot, according to independent Russian outlet The Insider. The outlet identified the man killed as Lt. Gen. Damir Davydov, a Russian Defense Ministry official responsible for supplying missiles and artillery ammunition to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
The location was striking. The explosion occurred roughly 1,150 feet from the site where Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of Russia's General Staff, was killed in a car bombing in April 2025, according to the French newspaper Le Monde.
'Pure ******* ' In Moscow As Ukrainian Drones Strike Major Refinery Supplying Capital's Fuel Market
Months before Moskalik's death, another senior Russian officer was ******* assinated in Moscow.
On June 9, explosives planted under a BMW detonated as the driver began leaving a parking lot, according to independent Russian outlet The Insider. The outlet identified the man killed as Lt. Gen. Damir Davydov, a Russian Defense Ministry official responsible for supplying missiles and artillery ammunition to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
The location was striking. The explosion occurred roughly 1,150 feet from the site where Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of Russia's General Staff, was killed in a car bombing in April 2025, according to the French newspaper Le Monde.
'Pure ******* ' In Moscow As Ukrainian Drones Strike Major Refinery Supplying Capital's Fuel Market
Months before Moskalik's death, another senior Russian officer was ******* assinated in Moscow.
3 months ago
The 250th anniversary of America's liberation from a king kicked off with a campaign-style rally on the National Mall by President Donald Trump, whose face already stares down from banners fluttering from federal buildings across the nation's capital.
The images illustrate how the Republican president has dominated daily life since returning to power and, to some, evoke more the style of a monarch than the leader of the world's oldest democracy. But it's also how he has wielded that power that has led to comparisons of an imperial reign.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has nominated one of his personal lawyers to serve as attorney general, ordered the Department of Justice to pursue his political enemies, deployed the U.S. Marines to the nation's second largest city and leveraged the presidency to enrich himself and his family.
He has demanded that comedians who mock him be fired, has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, has pushed to seize control of elections, has filed lawsuits against news organizations whose coverage he disliked and has sued his own government seeking $10 billion in taxpayer money.
With the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding fast approaching, Trump's own celebrations have overshadowed the bipartisan, congressionally authorized commission that was supposed to coordinate events commemorating the moment. He plans to return to the National Mall on July Fourth for what he calls a "Trump rally."
The images illustrate how the Republican president has dominated daily life since returning to power and, to some, evoke more the style of a monarch than the leader of the world's oldest democracy. But it's also how he has wielded that power that has led to comparisons of an imperial reign.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has nominated one of his personal lawyers to serve as attorney general, ordered the Department of Justice to pursue his political enemies, deployed the U.S. Marines to the nation's second largest city and leveraged the presidency to enrich himself and his family.
He has demanded that comedians who mock him be fired, has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, has pushed to seize control of elections, has filed lawsuits against news organizations whose coverage he disliked and has sued his own government seeking $10 billion in taxpayer money.
With the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding fast approaching, Trump's own celebrations have overshadowed the bipartisan, congressionally authorized commission that was supposed to coordinate events commemorating the moment. He plans to return to the National Mall on July Fourth for what he calls a "Trump rally."
