U.S. News

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4537047

Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office said on Thursday that it had arrested a US national, identified as Martin D., on suspicion of offering to spy for China.

"The accused is strongly suspected of having declared himself willing to conduct espionage agent activities to a foreign intelligence service," prosecutors said in a statement.

What are the allegations?

"Until recently, Martin D. worked for the US military services in Germany," prosecutors said. "In 2024, he contacted Chinese state officials and offered to them to forward sensitive information belonging to the US military to an intelligence service in China."

Prosecutors said he had acquired the data during his time working with the military. They did not say whether his offer had been accepted or whether he had delivered any information.

The investigations were conducted in close coordination with Germany's domestic intelligence agency, prosecutors said.

[...]

Several recent arrests on espionage allegations

German authorities last month arrested a Chinese woman, who had worked for a logistics services company at the Leipzig/Halle international airport.

She was accused of providing information obtained via her workplace to another Chinese national, Jian G., who is a former employee of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) European Parliament member Maximilian Krah.

Jian G. is accused of forwarding information to China from the European Parliament, with news of this development coming at the height of the European Parliament elections earlier this year, when Krah was the party's lead candidate.

Three German citizens were also arrested in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg in April of this year, accused of forwarding on information on military technology.

Several of the other espionage-related investigations in Germany this year pertain to alleged attempts to transfer information to Russia.

Los Angeles County announced last week that it’s suing PepsiCo and Coca-Cola over plastic pollution, arguing that the soda giants’ plastic bottles have harmed public health and the environment and that the companies knowingly misled the public about their products’ recyclability.

“Coke and Pepsi need to stop the deception and take responsibility for the plastic pollution problems your products are causing,” said Los Angeles County Board Chair Lindsey P. Horvath in a statement. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against Coca-Cola and PepsiCo’s “deceptive business practices” — their sustainability claims — plus civil penalties and restitution for consumers who were misled by those claims.

Quick reminder that this is the gold standard for election calls. The AP has a more than 99% success rate over its history.

If you need to know what's going on, this is the only sane source. PBS is relying on AP calls, but of course with a bit of a delay.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4474633

Katarzyna Calow-Jaszewska revealed late last month that four people had been arrested and authorities across Europe were investigating the incidents.

Western security officials have now told US media they believe the fires - which happened in July - were part of an orchestrated campaign by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Russia denies being behind acts of sabotage. But it is suspected to have been behind other attacks on warehouses and railway networks in EU member states this year, including in Sweden and in the Czech Republic.

Ms Calow-Jaszewska said in a statement that a group of foreign intelligence saboteurs had been involved in sending parcels containing hidden explosives and dangerous materials via courier companies. The parcels then spontaneously burst into flames or blew up.

Western officials believe the fires originated in electric massage machines containing a "magnesium-based" substance.

Magnesium-based fires are hard to put out, especially on board a plane.

The rules have not changed because of election proximity. I will not have this turning into a shitshow precisely when it doesn't need to.

Please consider this your warning. The removals will not involve further communication, and I will continue removing threads that are not appropriate for this community.

I get we're all scared. I get it. But my role is to keep standards met. You can post there.

Sure, let's just add that to the pile. It's frankly the most impactful timing the union could achieve.

Wannabe tyrant desperate.

Forecasters expected the country's gross domestic product — the total value of goods and services produced in the U.S. — to come in at 2.6% in the three-month period ended in September, according to a survey of economists by the data firm FactSet. The latest GDP figure is down slightly from the second quarter's growth of 3%.

The American economy, the world's biggest, has shown surprising resilience in the face of sharply higher borrowing rates as the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy in a bid to tame inflation. Despite widespread predictions that the economy would succumb to a recession, however, it has kept growing, with hiring and consumer spending holding steady.

Elections for state supreme courts have finally begun to receive more of the attention they deserve, but thousands of other judicial elections in the United States—which have an enormous impact on how justice is dispensed—remain largely overlooked.

Many of these races are nearly as important as those for supreme courts, particularly elections for intermediate appellate courts. These bodies, which typically sit between the trial courts where disputes are first heard and the supreme courts that hold the power of final review, collectively hear far more cases than supreme courts. In many proceedings, therefore, those intermediate courts wind up having the last word.

What is happening with editorial boards is not normal. You need to understand this first.

They are not part of the newsroom, so anyone telling you that is lying. What happened at the LAT and WaPo are the beginning. Have you not read history? They come for you. You just think it's more steps away.

More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.

A corporate spokesperson declined to comment, citing The Washington Post Co.'s status as a privately held company.

This is the craziness we face in Texas in one tidy package. There are a lot of well-meaning public servants below the state level. (And yes, I know this could easily trigger ACAB responses, but I like to reserve those for when someone is actually being a bastard. It's not like we're lacking opportunity.)

[Bexar County {home to San Antonio} Sheriff Javier] Salazar said there have been several minor incidents since early voting started in the county, including a "swatting-type call." He said he wanted to "bring down the tone of what's going on out there."

"Look, nothing here is worth getting hurt for going to jail for. This election is going to happen one way or another," Salazar said. "One side is going to win; one side is going to lose. That's just the nature of things.

"But there's no sense picking up a criminal case, picking up a criminal history -- or injuring or even killing somebody in the name of politics. It just doesn't make any sense."

Mrs. Hedge and I are trying to figure out the best way to psychologically prepare ourselves for a 2nd Trump term . . . any suggestions for this would be greatly appreciated. 😵‍💫😵‍💫

I really wish every part of this was somehow surprising.

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that NOAA is designating 4,543 square miles of coastal and offshore waters along 116 miles of California’s central coast as America’s 17th national marine sanctuary. Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary will conserve the area’s diverse range of marine life and celebrate Indigenous peoples’ connections to the region. It is the third largest sanctuary in the National Marine Sanctuary System.

“The recent decision by commissioner-appointed committee members has outraged not just our community, but the country as a whole,” said Teresa Kenney, a Montgomery County resident and founder of the Village Books store. “Nowhere in the approved policy is it under the committee’s purview to determine whose history is fact or fiction.”

At an Oct. 22 meeting, the Montgomery County Commissioners Court issued a stay against all actions of the citizens reconsideration committee since Oct. 1 and put any future decisions on hold.

The commissioners also created another committee to review and revise library policy, including the rules around the citizens reconsideration group. It will be made up of employees from different commissioners' offices and advised by the county attorney’s office.