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Excerpt from www.techspot.com

WTF?! As awful as ransomware attacks are, perpetrators have found a way of making them even worse: psychologically attacking victims to make them hand over their money. One of these methods involves calling company executives from phone numbers belonging to their children.

Speaking at a Google Security Threat Intelligence Panel at this year’s RSA Conference in San Francisco (via The Reg), Charles Carmakal, CTO of Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant, said, “We saw situations where threat actors essentially SIM swap the phones of children of executives, and start making phone calls to executives, from the phone numbers of their children.”

Carmakal noted the psychological dilemma of seeing an incoming phone call from your child only to answer and hear a stranger’s voice. “Sometimes, it’s caller ID spoofing. Other times, we see demonstrated SIM swapping family members,” he said.

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Excerpt from www.latimes.com

Two weeks after his return to the public eye, King Charles III is said to be “very good” amid his cancer battle.

British politician Penny Mordaunt, a minister in Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, said during a Tuesday appearance on GB News that the 75-year-old monarch is happy to get back to work.

“He’s very good. And I know that he would have been so pleased to get back to public duties. He would have missed it tremendously,” the speaker of the House of Commons said, sharing details from her weekly meetings with Charles in her role as Privy Council Lord President.

 

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Excerpt from abcnews.go.com

SURREY, British Columbia — Two of the three men charged in the slaying of Canadian Sikh separatist leader Singh Nijjar in June made a brief first court appearance on Tuesday morning.

The killing of the prominent activist became the center of a diplomatic spat after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in September that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement

Canadian police said Friday they arrested the three Indian nationals in Edmonton, Alberta for shooting and killing the 45-year-old in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple over which he presided in the city of Surrey.

Kamalpreet Singh, 22, Karan Brar, 22, and Karanpreet Singh, 28, have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

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Excerpt from scitechdaily.com

 

Recent archaeological research in Arabia has unveiled significant insights into the historical and cultural evolution of the region through the study of caves and lava tubes, highlighting ancient lifestyles and the global significance of Arabia’s archaeological heritage. Credit: Green Arabia Project

Recent advancements in interdisciplinary archaeological research in Arabia have revealed new insights on the development and historical progression of regional human populations. This research has also shed light on the shifting patterns of cultural change, migration, and adaptation to environmental variations.

Despite the challenges posed by the limited preservation of archaeological assemblages and organic remains in arid environments, these discoveries are reshaping our understanding of the region’s rich cultural heritage.

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Excerpt from www.france24.com

TikTok challenges potential US ban in court  FRANCE 24 English

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Excerpt from amp.scmp.com

Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI language model large enough to compete with those from Alphabet’s Google and OpenAI, the Information reported on Monday.

The new model, internally referred to as MAI-1, is being overseen by recently hired Mustafa Suleyman, the Google DeepMind co-founder and former CEO of AI start-up Inflection, the report said, citing two Microsoft employees with knowledge of the effort.

The exact purpose of the model has not been determined yet and will depend on how well it performs. Microsoft could preview the new model as soon as its Build developer conference later this month, the report said.

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Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com

Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and Princeton University have, for the first time, employed a tool often used in geology to detect the atomic fingerprints of cancer.

In a case of medicine meets earth science, the researchers discovered that cancer cells may be made from a different assortment of hydrogen atoms than healthy tissue. The findings could give doctors new strategies for studying how cancer grows and spreads — and may even, one day, lead to new ways to spot cancer early on in the body.

The team, led by CU Boulder geochemist Ashley Maloney, will publish its findings this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This study adds a whole new layer to medicine, giving us the chance to look at cancer at the atomic level,” said Maloney, a research associate in the Department of Geological Sciences.

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Excerpt from scitechdaily.com

 

Researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich have found that a high single dose of creatine can temporarily enhance cognitive functions impaired by sleep deprivation, specifically improving processing capacity and short-term memory. The study cautions against excessive creatine intake due to potential health risks, although it suggests future potential for cognitive enhancement with lower doses.

Creatine, a widely used supplement among athletes to enhance physical performance, has been found to also temporarily boost cognitive abilities affected by sleep deprivation. This discovery was made in a scientific study conducted by researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich, with the results published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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Excerpt from www.foxnews.com

EXCLUSIVE: Rumble, a popular video-sharing and cloud service platform, has revealed a number of censorship demands it’s received from the governments of countries that may surprise many.

The major tech company shared the details of those demands with Fox News Digital, as well as CEO Chris Pavlovski’s prepared remarks for his testimony on Capitol Hill this week, which will take place at a House hearing centered on rising censorship and free speech concerns in Brazil.

“Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are the cornerstones of a democratic society,” Pavlovski is expected to tell members of the House Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations on Tuesday.

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Excerpt from www.independent.co.ug

SPECIAL REPORT | BIRD AGENCY | As unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) become increasingly critical for modern armed forces, African countries are investing in the local production of military drones.

The latest African drone procurement data shows the continent is recording ‘significant progress’ in developing indigenous drones – potentially sparking an arms race – as countries vie to gain a technological edge over their neighbours.

The data by Military Africa, an online defence industry resource, tracks up to 35 different made-in-Africa drone models – either in operation or beyond the prototype stage.

“The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been developed across seven African countries by thirteen different companies, showcasing the continent’s growing expertise and innovation in this field,” said Military Africa in the 2024 procurement data report.

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Excerpt from www.livescience.com

 

The future of cellular data transfer could lie in “curving” light beams midair to deliver 6G wireless networks with blazing-fast speeds — bypassing the need for line of sight between transmitter and receivers.

In a new study published March 30 in the journal Nature’s Communications Engineering, researchers explained how they developed a transmitter that can dynamically adjust the waves needed to support future 6G signals.

The most advanced cellular communications standard is 5G. Expected to be thousands of times faster, 6G will begin rolling out in 2030, according to the trade body GSMA. Unlike 5G, which mostly operates in bands under 6 gigahertz (GHz) in the electromagnetic spectrum, 6G is expected to operate in sub-terahertz (THz) between 100 GHz and 300 GHz, and THz bands — just below infrared. The closer this radiation is to visible light, the more prone the signals are to be blocked by physical objects. A major challenge with high-frequency 5G and future 6G is that signals need a direct line of sight between a transmitter and receiver.

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Excerpt from www.washingtonpost.com

Many political ads running on Facebook in India during its current election season are backed by organizations that hide their identity, according to civil society groups and recent studies, threatening the integrity of a process intended to enforce transparency in a system full of emotional appeals.

The world’s largest election and one of its most expensive, India’s voting season began last month and runs through June 1. Facebook has hundreds of millions of users in the country, which is the social network’s largest market, and is reaping a significant portion of an estimated $16 billion in campaign spending.

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Excerpt from apnews.com

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump’s former campaign manager looked squarely into the camera and promised his viewers they were about to witness a bold new era in politics.

“You’re going to see some of the most amazing new technology in artificial intelligence that’s going to replace polling in the future across the country,” said Brad Parscale in a dimly lit promotional video accentuated by hypnotic beats.

Parscale, the digital campaign operative who helped engineer Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, vows that his new, AI-powered platform will dramatically overhaul not just polling, but campaigning. His AI-powered tools, he has boasted, will outperform big tech companies and usher in a wave of conservative victories worldwide.

It’s not the first time Parscale has proclaimed that new technologies will boost right-wing campaigns. He was the digital guru who teamed up with scandal-plagued Cambridge Analytica and helped propel Trump to the White House eight years ago. In 2020, he had a public blowup then a private falling out with his old boss after the Capitol riot. Now he’s back, playing an under-the-radar role to help Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in his race against Democratic President Joe Biden.

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Excerpt from timesofindia.indiatimes.com

 

NEW DELHI: After numerous setbacks and delays, Boeing is finally ready to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on behalf of Nasa. This marks the inaugural crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, with two Nasa pilots on board to evaluate the spacecraft during the test mission and a week-long stay at the space station.
Following the retirement of the space shuttles, Nasa turned to American companies to provide transportation for astronauts.While SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has completed nine successful crew missions for Nasa since 2020, Boeing has only managed two uncrewed test flights.
“There’s no doubt about that, but we’re here now,” acknowledged Mark Nappi, Boeing’s program manager, expressing his wish that Starliner was further along in its development.
The long-awaited crewed demonstration mission is scheduled for launch on Monday night. If the test flight goes smoothly, Nasa plans to alternate between Boeing and SpaceX for future astronaut transportation to and from the space station.

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Excerpt from alabamareflector.com

A federal judge Monday allowed a lawsuit aimed at stopping Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall from prosecuting those who help Alabamians seek out-of-state abortion care to move forward.

U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson denied Marshall’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, upholding the plaintiff’s claims of right to travel and limits on the extraterritorial application of state law.

“The claim will not be dismissed because (a) the right to travel includes the right both to move physically between states and to do what is lawful in those states, and (b) prosecuting those who facilitate lawful out-of-state abortions, as the attorney general threatens to do, would violate that right,” Thompson wrote in the ruling.

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Excerpt from www.wicz.com

The suits were brought not by women seeking an out-of-state abortion but rather by groups that intend to help them. Thompson, appointed to the bench by President Jimmy Carter, wrote that a patient’s right to travel was “inextricably bound up” with those groups. Collectively, he wrote, the groups receive as many as 95 inquiries each week asking about the availability of out-of-state abortions.

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Excerpt from www.wsiltv.com

(CNN) — A Texas man is seeking a court order so he can depose a woman he was dating who traveled to Colorado to get an abortion, in a case that may have ramifications in the ongoing legal battles over abortion rights.

Collin Davis, a resident of Brazos County, filed a legal petition in March stating that on February 20 — the day after he learned the woman intended to obtain the abortion — he retained an attorney, who sent the woman a letter requesting that she preserve all records related to her plans to terminate the pregnancy.

According to the petition, the letter warned that he “would pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child.”

Davis argues that the deposition is necessary to determine whether there was a violation of the Texas wrongful-death statute, which the petition references alongside a Texas civil code that includes among those defined as individuals “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.” His petition additionally points to Texas’ civil enforcement six-week abortion ban, known as SB 8.

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Excerpt from nationalcenter.org

Washington, D.C. – Shareholder activists with the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP) will present proposals at six shareholder meetings this week — American Express, Intel, General Electric, Progressive, Ford and Duke Energy.

On Tuesday, May 7, FEP will confront American Express, Intel and General Electric (GE) at each company’s virtual shareholder meeting.

At the American Express meeting, FEP will stand up for the rights and privacy of legal gun owners by presenting Proposal 7, which demands transparency about the company’s potential flagging of customer purchases at gun and ammunition stores.

In its supporting statement, FEP questions “whether the best choice is not to track these lawful and constitutionally protected purchases in any way, as well as the dangers associated with sharing any information gathered with government representatives whose use of the information can only be to surveil and harass those who exercise their lawful right to keep and bear Arms.”

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Excerpt from hudsonreporter.com

Roger Ver, known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus,’ has been arrested in Spain for failing to report $240 million in Bitcoin sales, evading $48 million in taxes.

He is charged with tax evasion and mail fraud, with allegations of hiding 131,000 Bitcoins.

Key Takeaways

• Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin investor, has been charged with tax evasion involving nearly $50 million following his renunciation of U.S. citizenship.
• Ver allegedly sold $240 million worth of Bitcoin in 2017, failing to report or pay taxes on the sale despite legal obligations.
• The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed an indictment and is pursuing Ver’s extradition from Spain for trial.

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Excerpt from www.chicagobusiness.com

Walmart heir’s S2G venture fund is adding outside investors in pursuit of $1B goal  Crain’s Chicago Business

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Excerpt from www.reuters.com

Exclusive: Disney and Comcast seek advisor to resolve Hulu valuation, sources say  Reuters.com