Cybersecurity investigators noticed a highly unusual software crash — it was affecting a small number of smartphones belonging to people who worked in government, politics, tech and journalism. The crashes, which began late last year and carried into 2025, were the tipoff to a sophisticated cyberattack that may have allowed hackers to infiltrate a phone without a single click from the user. The attackers left no clues about their identities, but investigators at the cybersecurity firm iVerify noticed that the victims all had something in common: They worked in fields of interest to China’s government and had been targeted by Chinese hackers in the past. Foreign hackers have increasingly identified smartphones, other mobile devices and the apps they use as a weak link in U.S. cyberdefenses. Groups linked to China’s military and intelligence service have targeted the smartphones of prominent Americans and burrowed deep into telecommunication networks, according to national security and tech experts. It shows how vulnerable mobile devices and apps are and the risk that security failures could expose sensitive information or leave American interests open to cyberattack, those experts say. “The world is in a mobile security crisis right now,” said Rocky Cole, a former cybersecurity expert at the National Security Agency and Google and now chief operations officer at iVerify. “No one is watching the phones.” US zeroes in on China as a threat, and Beijing levels its own accusations U.S. authorities warned in December of a sprawling Chinese hacking campaign designed to gain access to the texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans. “They were able to listen in on phone calls in real time and able to read text messages,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. He is a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the senior Democrat on the Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, created to study the geopolitical threat from China. Chinese hackers also sought access to phones used by Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance during the 2024 campaign. The Chinese government has denied allegations of cyberespionage, and accused the U.S. of mounting its own cyberoperations. It says America cites national security as an excuse to issue sanctions against Chinese organizations and keep Chinese technology companies from the global market. “The U.S. has long been using all kinds of despicable methods to steal other countries’ secrets,” Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said at a recent press conference in response to questions about a CIA push to recruit Chinese informants. U.S. intelligence officials have said China poses a significant, persistent threat to U.S. economic and political interests, and it has harnessed the tools of digital conflict: online propaganda and disinformation, artificial intelligence and cyber surveillance and espionage designed to deliver a significant advantage in any military conflict. Mobile networks are a top concern. The U.S. and many of its closest allies have banned Chinese telecom companies from their networks. Other countries, including Germany, are phasing out Chinese involvement because of security concerns. But Chinese tech firms remain a big part of the systems in many nations, giving state-controlled companies a global footprint they could exploit for cyberattacks, experts say. Chinese telecom firms still maintain some routing and cloud storage systems in the U.S. — a growing concern to lawmakers. “The American people deserve to know if Beijing is quietly using state-owned firms to infiltrate our critical infrastructure,” U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich. and chairman of […]
A congresswoman and former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot secured the endorsement of the highest-ranking Hispanic official in her state. A mayor highlighted his arrest by immigration officials. A congressman campaigned at a Latino supermarket. And another mayor decided to put his self-taught Spanish to use on the trail. The New Jersey gubernatorial primary has emerged as a crucial test for Democrats seeking to regain Latino support nationally. It highlights the challenges in traditionally blue areas where the party’s loss of support among Hispanics in 2024 was even more pronounced than in battleground states. President Donald Trump slashed Democratic margins in New Jersey and New York, even flipping some heavily Latino towns he had lost by 30 and 50 percentage points in 2016. The Democratic primary for governor features an experienced field of current and former officeholders: U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, New Jersey Education Association president and former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney. Although Trump made closing U.S. borders a central promise of his campaign, his economic message hit home with Latinos. More Hispanics saw inflation as the most important concern last fall than white voters, AP VoteCast showed. That lesson has been taken to heart in this year’s campaign, with strategists, unions, organizers and politicians pivoting away from immigration and putting pocketbook concerns at the forefront of their appeals. “At the end of the day, if you’re worried about paying your bills and being safe at night, everything else is secondary,” Rep. Gottheimer said in an interview. “I think that is front and center in the Latino community.” Warning signs for Democrats Laura Matos, a Democratic National Committee member from New Jersey and board member of Latina Civic Action, said the party is still finding its way with Hispanic voters, warning that support can’t be taken for granted even when Democrats win most of it. While there was a big rightward swing among Hispanics in Texas and Florida in 2024, it was similarly pronounced in blue states like New Jersey and New York. Here, 43% of Latino voters supported Trump, up from 28% in 2020. In New York, 36% of Latino voters supported Trump, up from 25% in 2020, according to AP VoteCast. Understanding that all Latino voters don’t think or vote alike helps. Compared to the 2020 election, Trump gained significantly with Dominican voters, where he went from 31% to 43% of support. Of the 2 million Latinos in New Jersey, more than 375,000 are Dominican, making up the second largest Hispanic group in New Jersey, after Puerto Ricans, a group where Trump also increased his support from 31% to 39%, the survey showed. But sometimes candidates overthink such targeted appeals. “The November election results in parts of New Jersey should serve as a big warning sign that Democrats need to think about how they’re communicating with some of these voters,” Matos said. Sherrill’s campaign manager acknowledged in a memo to supporters last month that “there is a real risk of a Republican winning in November.” New Jersey tilts Democratic in presidential and Senate elections, but Republicans have won the governorship in recent decades. Focusing on the economy Strategists, organizers, union leaders and some candidates agree that what they are hearing from Latinos is consistent with the concerns of other working […]
Mahmoud Bassal, the spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, who has issued hundreds of false statements to international media since the war began, is an active Hamas terrorist, the IDF revealed on Sunday. The IDF confirmed the information following an analysis of intelligence documents found during operations in the Gaza Strip. Bassal, who “has served as the Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson for an extended period of time, exploits his position to spread false and unverified information to international media outlets while presenting distorted data and falsely attributing war crimes to Israel,” the IDF spokesperson stated. “This information has received worldwide media exposure and has severely distorted the reality on the ground.” “The documents reveal that Bassal is a terrorist in the Hamas terror organization, and as part of his position, he is responsible for psychological warfare and propaganda.” The IDF published a document in which Bassal is included on a list of terrorists for Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Kyiv that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Ukraine had postponed the swap. Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, as saying that Russia delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the exchange site at the border and is waiting for confirmation from the Ukrainian side, but that there are “signals” that the process of transferring the bodies will be postponed until next week. Russia and Ukraine each accused the other on Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, which was agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war. Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin aide who led the Russian delegation, said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post on Saturday, Medinsky said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came. In response, Ukraine said Russia was playing “dirty games” and manipulating facts. According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn’t correspond to agreements reached on Monday. It wasn’t immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting claims. In other developments, one person was killed and another seriously wounded in Russian aerial strikes on the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region. These strikes came after Russian attacks targeted the regional capital, also called Kharkiv, on Saturday. Regional police in Kharkiv said on Sunday that the death toll from Saturday’s attacks had increased to six people. More than two dozen others were wounded. Russia fired a total of 49 exploding drones and decoys and three missiles overnight, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday. Forty drones were shot down or electronically jammed. Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry said that its forces shot down 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, including near the capital. Two people were wounded when a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at a chemical plant in the Tula region. Russian authorities said early on Sunday that Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports, two international airports serving Moscow, temporarily suspended flights due to a Ukrainian drone attack. Later in the day, Domodedovo halted flights temporarily for a second time, along with Zhukovsky airport. (AP)
FLATBUSH: This Shabbos morning, at the Ruach HaTorah Yeshiva dormitory (1450 Ocean Ave), bochurim woke up around 6:00 AM to smoke from a fire caused by an electric scooter battery—despite it not being plugged in or charging, just sitting there. The incident highlights the serious dangers of keeping electric scooters or their batteries inside buildings. Thankfully, no one was hurt. (Video taken today by a non-Jew)
WATCH: President Trump defended the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, saying, ‘Bring him back. Show everybody how horrible this guy is’
President Donald Trump really wants to fly on an upgraded Air Force One — but making that happen could depend on whether he’s willing to cut corners with security. As government lawyers sort out the legal arrangement for accepting a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, another crucial conversation is unfolding about modifying the plane so it’s safe for the American president. Installing capabilities equivalent to the decades-old 747s now used as Air Force One would almost certainly consign the project to a similar fate as Boeing’s replacement initiative, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers Thursday that those security modifications would cost less than $400 million but provided no details. Satisfying Trump’s desire to use the new plane before the end of his term could require leaving out some of those precautions, however. A White House official said Trump wants the Qatari jet ready as soon as possible while adhering to security standards. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not provide details on equipment issues or the timeline. Trump has survived two assassination attempts, and Iran allegedly also plotted to kill him, so he’s well aware of the danger he faces. However, he seems willing to take some chances with security, particularly when it comes to communications. For example, he likes to keep his personal phone handy despite the threat of hacks. He boasted this week that the government got the jet “for free,” saying, “We need it as Air Force One until the other ones are done.” Here’s a look at what it would take to make the Qatari plane into a presidential transport: What makes a plane worthy of being Air Force One? Air Force One is the call sign for any plane that’s carrying the president. The first aircraft to get the designation was a propeller-powered C-54 Skymaster, which ferried Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in 1945. It featured a conference room with a bulletproof window. Things are a lot more complicated these days. Boeing has spent years stripping down and rebuilding two 747s to replace the versions that have carried presidents for more than three decades. The project is slated to cost more than $5.3 billion and may not be finished before Trump leaves office. A 2021 report made public through the Freedom of Information Act outlines the unclassified requirements for the replacement 747s under construction. At the top of the list — survivability and communications. The government decided more than a decade ago that the new planes had to have four engines so they could remain airborne if one or two fail, said Deborah Lee James, who was Air Force secretary at the time. That creates a challenge because 747s are no longer manufactured, which could make spare parts harder to come by. Air Force One also has to have the highest level of classified communications, anti-jamming capabilities and external protections against foreign surveillance, so the president can securely command military forces and nuclear weapons during a national emergency. It’s an extremely sensitive and complex system, including video, voice and data transmissions. James said there are anti-missile measures and shielding against radiation or an electromagnetic pulse that could be caused by a nuclear blast. “The point is, it […]
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face criminal charges months after he was deported to a prison in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia has been indicted in federal court in Tennessee on a charge related to transporting undocumented migrants within the United States. The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia and others from 2016 through 2025 “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.”
The latest on Trump’s presidency • Trump-Musk rift: President Donald Trump said Elon Musk will “pay the consequences” if he chooses to fund Democratic candidates to challenge Republicans who vote for the president’s sweeping agenda bill. • Agenda bill: GOP leaders maintain Trump’s bill is on track to land on the president’s desk by July 4, but some conservatives are warning that Musk’s opposition could have an impact. • Trade talks: US and Chinese officials will meet in London on Monday to discuss trade between the two nations, according to Trump.
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