Daily Archives: July 15, 2021

Iranian Hackers Target US Military, Defense Companies

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Iran appears to be intensifying its effort to exploit U.S. and Western targets in cyberspace, running a campaign aimed at manipulating American military personnel and defense companies on social media. Tehran’s latest campaign, orchestrated on Facebook by a group known as Tortoiseshell, used a series of sophisticated, fake online personas to make contact with U.S. servicemembers and employees of major defense companies in order to infect their computers with malware and extract information. “This activity had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation, while relying on relatively strong operational …

US Offering up to $10 Million for Information to Combat Overseas Ransomware Attacks

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The U.S. government said Thursday it will begin offering up to $10 million for information to identify or locate malicious cyber actors working on behalf of a foreign government that are trying to cripple the internet operations of American businesses and infrastructure.The new reward was announced as the U.S. faces a growing threat from ransomware attacks – the demand from foreign entities that U.S. corporations and institutions pay millions of dollars to unlock critical technology systems that hackers have seized. The attacks have usually originated overseas, frequently from Russia, according …

After Branson, Bezos Preps for Space Flight

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The space-tourism industry got a major boost aboard a billionaire’s rocket ship.  Plus, the EU lends Mother Earth a climate-conscious hand, and LeBron James suits-up for the big screen.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space. Produced by: Arash Arabasadi …

Study Shows Moon ‘Wobble’ Contributing to More US Coastal Flooding

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A NASA-University of Hawaii study warns that upcoming changes in the moon’s orbit coupled with higher ocean levels could lead to record coastal flooding on U.S. coasts in the next decade.The study, conducted by the NASA Sea Level Change Team at the University of Hawaii, and published last month in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change, says a regularly occurring change in the moon’s orbit around the earth will raise ocean water levels along U.S. shorelines.The NASA researchers say the so-called “wobble” in the moon’s orbit is part of an …

Indonesia Posted More than 54,000 New COVID Infections on Wednesday 

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Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest nation, is the latest hotspot for the fast-moving, highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.  The nation reported more than 54,517 new coronavirus infections Wednesday, a new single-day record, along with 991 deaths. Hospitals on Java island are overflowing with infected patients and residents scrambling to find oxygen tanks to treat family members isolating at home. Indonesia’s rising daily COVID-19 rates have begun to outstrip that of India, where the variant was first detected.  India endured a disastrous outbreak earlier this year, with a peak of more than …

Childhood Killer Diseases Soar as Pandemic Disrupts Life-saving Immunization Services

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New data by two leading U.N. agencies find the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted routine life-saving immunization services for millions of children, many of whom risk dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.The World Health Organization and U.N. Children’s Fund report 23 million children missed out last year on vaccines against killer diseases such as measles, polio, and diphtheria. They say global disruptions of immunization services caused by COVID-19 have set back progress in childhood vaccinations by a decade.They report children in the Southeastern Asian and eastern Mediterranean regions were most affected. India topped …

India Internet Law Adds to Fears Over Online Speech, Privacy

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It began in February with a tweet by pop star Rihanna that sparked widespread condemnation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handling of massive farmer protests near the capital, souring an already troubled relationship between the government and Twitter.Moving to contain the backlash, officials hit Twitter with multiple injunctions to block hundreds of tweets critical of the government. Twitter complied with some and resisted others.Relations between Twitter and Modi’s government have gone downhill ever since.At the heart of the standoff is a sweeping internet law that puts digital platforms like …

Federer Memorabilia Net $4.7 Million at Auction

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Roger Federer may have seen his dreams of Olympic gold dashed this week, but he can celebrate that t-shirts, racquets, and shoes from his trophy-laden tennis career proved a treasure trove at auction. The sports legend saw every single item that went under the hammer at a two-phased Christie’s auction sold, raking in $4.7 million.   The combined proceeds from an online and a live auction — over three times more than his 1-million target — will go to the Roger Federer Foundation, which supports educational projects in southern Africa and his native Switzerland. “I am …

‘Their Goal Is Make Me Feel Like I’m Crazy,’ Tearful Britney Spears Tells Court

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Singer Britney Spears on Wednesday won the right to choose her own lawyer to help her end a 13-year-long conservatorship and tearfully pleaded for the court to oust her father immediately from the role of controlling her business affairs.Her father, Jamie Spears, has been a major figure in the conservatorship since he set it up in 2008 when his daughter had a mental health breakdown. He is currently the sole person in charge of her $60 million estate.”You’re allowing my dad to ruin my life,” Spears told the Los Angeles …

US Drug Overdose Deaths Hit Record 93,000 Last Year

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More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, a record experts say was partly triggered by the isolation that many experienced during coronavirus-related lockdowns.   The government reported Wednesday that the 2020 total easily surpassed the previous record of about 72,000 deaths in 2019.   “This is a staggering loss of human life,” Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends, told the Associated Press. He said the United States was already faced with an overdose epidemic but that the pandemic …