Category: Audio Posts: Selected Articles

On Saturday evening, when the New York Times released its explosive report that Donald Trump had claimed a $915 million loss on his 1995 taxes and possibly hadn’t paid federal taxes in the 18 years that followed, it was a clear sign that the election had entered a new phase. Though the revelation itself was astounding, the timing was anything but: Less than a day into the new month, 2016’s first “October surprise” had arrived.

Political history is littered with the charred remains of such late-in the-election bombshells that scramble political calculus just as the stakes are at their highest. An “October surprise” can be happenstance or deliberately orchestrated; international (e.g. the outbreak of war) or domestic (e.g. a massive economic rally). Sometimes it’s personal, with a long-hidden skeleton spilling out from a candidate’s closet. It can save a political campaign as quickly as it can wreck one. And occasionally, it can even decide an election and set the course of the nation.

With four weeks left in the October and one surprise down already, it’s quite possible that there will be shockers yet to come—with Russian hackers, Donald Trump’s penchant for controversy, Julian Assange on the prowl, Hillary Clinton’s missing emails and a precarious scenario in the Middle East, it is anyone’s guess.

And when the next October surprise is revealed, it will join a rich history of last-minute revelations. Some wreaked havoc on elections and upended races, others reinforced the inevitable. Some were manufactured and expertly timed, others were the product of happenstance. But hearing them is enough to sober up even the most confident election observer: an election isn’t over until it’s over.

1840: Just Another Electoral Fraud

Late into his campaign for reelection, President Martin Van Buren had a trick up his sleeve that he thought would secure him a second term in office: Federal prosecutors planned to charge top Whig politicians in New York with a “most stupendous and atrocious fraud” in which they paid Pennsylvanians to travel to New York and fraudulently vote multiple times in the state’s 1838 elections. The prosecutors, members of Van Buren’s Democratic party, did not announce the charges until mid-October, aiming to maximize the indictment’s electoral impact. Democratic newspapers jumped on the story, running sensationalist headlines like, “A Gigantic Plot to Elect Harrison By Fraud” and “Sound the Alarm. Your Liberties Are In Danger.”

At first, the Whigs denied the accusation, but then one of the voter-fraud scheme’s organizers admitted to the charges. The electorate’s reaction, however, was not as explosive as Van Buren hoped: They simply assumed that the Democrats were up to the same shenanigans, even though the Whigs were the only ones prosecuted. Van Buren lost the election by six points.

1880: A Forged Letter

On October 20, 1880, the New York Truth published a three-sentence letter purportedly written by Republican nominee James A. Garfield. The note, addressed to an H.L. Morey of Lynn, Massachusetts, voiced support for Chinese immigration to the U.S., and expressed the opinion that employers had the right “to buy labor where they can get it the cheapest.”

The published letter came in the context of widespread xenophobia among white Americans, and both the Democratic and Republican platforms—as well as Garfield himself—had endorsed restrictions on Chinese immigration. The Morey letter threatened to paint Garfield as duplicitous and jeopardized his support in western states whose white citizens were particularly fearful they would lose their jobs to Chinese immigrants.

While Democratic operatives quickly distributed half-million copies of the Morey letter, Garfield was slow to defend himself—due, in part, to the fact that he was initially unsure whether or not he had authored the letter. Penmanship experts began scrutinizing the correspondence to determine its authenticity, and reporters made their way to Massachusetts to track down the addressee, an unknown H.L. Morey of Lynn. Reporters never found Mr. Morey, and after examining the letter himself, Garfield felt confident it was not his handwriting and publicly announced that it was a fake.

Even with Garfield’s eventual denial, the scandal hurt him politically. What was supposed to be a clear Republic victory became a close race. Garfield beat his opponent by only .02 percentage points in the popular vote, and he lost California, the state most affected by Chinese immigration. After the election, the letter’s author was revealed to be Kenward Phillip, a New York Truth journalist who was later arrested and indicted for fraud.

1884: “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion”

In 1884, James G. Blaine, the Republican presidential nominee from Maine, attended a GOP meeting in October when a Presbyterian minister named Dr. Samuel Buchard accused the Democrats of representing “rum, Romanism, and rebellion” — that is, alcohol, Catholics, and the Confederacy.

Blaine didn’t object, a silence he later claimed was because either couldn’t hear the comment or wasn’t paying attention. But that didn’t matter: the public furor that followed cost Blaine thousands of votes from anti-prohibitionists, Roman Catholic immigrants, and southerners. The comment energized Irish voters in New York to vote against Blaine in droves, likely costing him the state—and with it, the election.

1912: A Bottomless Ticket

President William Howard Taft’s doomed 1912 reelection campaign faced difficulties from the beginning: not only did Democratic New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson represent an electoral threat, but Theodore Roosevelt, Taft’s Republican predecessor, split off from the GOP to run on the Bull-Moose ticket, splitting the allegiances of Republican voters nationwide.

One week before Election Day that November, Taft endured a final blow: His vice president, James S. Sherman, died of Bright’s disease while at home in Utica, New York. More than three million Americans ultimately voted for the deceased vice president, although it was decided beforehand that Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University, would receive the votes in Sherman’s place. In the end, it didn’t matter: The Taft-Sherman campaign would receive a mere eight electoral votes, finishing far behind both Wilson, the victor, and Roosevelt.

1920: Black Warren G. Harding and FDR’s Investigation Into Homosexuality

It seemed inevitable that Warren G. Harding would be elected president, but in the weeks before the election, his campaign was dismayed by the spread of a rumor that Harding had “Negro blood.” When Mrs. Harding heard about the rumor, she reportedly wept until she was red-eyed. The charge came from William E. Chancellor, a famously racist professor at Wooster College. Harding’s advisers were worried the falsehood would hurt their candidate among white racists in southern states, and went to great lengths to prove Harding’s European ancestry. It was, in a sense, the 1920 version of the modern “birther” conspiracy theory.

While the Harding campaign was busy trying to prove their white credentials, the Democratic ticket was embroiled in its own scandal. Before accepting the vice presidential nomination that year, Franklin Roosevelt was the assistant secretary of the Navy. In that capacity, Roosevelt had authorized an investigation of homosexuality at a naval facility in Newport, Rhode Island. The investigative unit, which directly reported to Roosevelt, told its members to participate in homosexual acts in order to gain firsthand evidence that would stand up in court.

When Roosevelt learned of the investigative unit’s methods, he canceled the operation, but when the operation’s details went public, Roosevelt came under fire as the official who authorized the unit’s mission. John Rathom, a prominent newspaper editor from Providence, led the charge against FDR, and in October, Rathom additionally alleged that Roosevelt had allowed 83 seamen convicted of “unnatural acts” to return to duty. The accusation proved baseless, but the incident did little to help the Democrats stop Harding from taking the White House in November.

1940: FDR Loses the Black Vote, Then Wins it Back

In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt was worried about holding onto the black vote as he competed for an unprecedented third term in office. As Europe descended into war, FDR came under criticism from African-American leaders for enabling the military’s continued segregation. He was facing a general-election opponent, Wendell Willkie, with a strong civil rights platform. To cap it off, less than a month before the election, an FDR press aide named Stephen Early kneed a black police officer in the groin outside of Madison Square Garden in New York City, a move seen as both an attack on a black professional and an example of the double-standard treatment afforded to Washington insiders.

To mitigate the political damage, Roosevelt responded with an October surprise of his own: Days before the election, Roosevelt promoted Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. to brigadier general — the first African American to reach that rank – and announced the creation of the Tuskegee Airmen, World War II’s famous group of African-American military pilots.

The ploy largely worked, and Roosevelt won with 55 percent of the popular vote, losing only in white-collar, Protestant communities.

1964: International Events Trump a Sex Scandal

The term “October Surprise” came into popular use in 1972, but the election of 1964 experienced one of the most surprising Octobers in electoral history. It started out on October 7, when LBJ top aide Walter Jenkins was arrested for disorderly conduct with another man in the Washington D.C. YMCA, which the Toledo Blade later described as “so notorious a gathering place of homosexuals that the District police had long since staked it out with peepholes for surveillance.” Within two days, someone in the FBI had leaked the story to the RNC. “For 24 full hours, Republicans and Democrats alike held their breath to see how the nation would react,” wrote the Toledo Blade, analyzing the election a year later. “And perhaps the most amazing of all events of the campaign of 1964 is that the nation faced the fact fully – and shrugged its shoulders.”

LBJ escaped the sex scandal in part because October wasn’t yet over, and the Jenkins incident would soon be swept aside by even greater surprises—this time on a far more consequential stage. On October 14, one week after Jenkins’ arrest, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from power by his hardliner colleagues in the USSR. In the two days that followed, the United Kingdom’s Labour Party won a majority in parliament and the People’s Republic of China conducted its first nuclear weapons test. Amid international tumult, Goldwater’s inflammatory rhetoric seemed even less appealing than it already had. In November, President Johnson won in a landslide.

1968: Nixon Derails LBJ’s Vietnam Peace Talks

William Casey, a Nixon aide later credited with coining the term “October Surprise,” was suspicious that as the 1968 election raged, President Johnson would try to engineer a last-minute peace deal in Vietnam in an attempt to throw the election to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Casey was right to be suspicious—shortly before the election, LBJ announced a halt to bombing and the start of new peace talks between Saigon and the Viet Cong. In the polls, Humphrey briefly pulled ahead of Richard Nixon.

When Nixon heard of Johnson’s maneuvering, he responded by reaching out to South Vietnam’s president Nguyen Van Thieu through backchannels, encouraging him to not attend peace talks and assuring him that if Nixon won the presidency, South Vietnam could expect stronger support from his administration than it would get from Johnson or Humphrey.

It’s difficult to know if Nixon’s outreach influenced President Thieu’s decision, but Nixon got what he wanted: Three days before the election, the South Vietnamese withdrew from the peace talks, and Humphrey lost his momentum. By that point, LBJ had learned that Nixon was interfering in international affairs and had began wiretapping the Nixon campaign. Humphrey chose not make Nixon’s actions public, however, and lost to his Republican opponent on Election Day.

1972: Nixon (Prematurely) Announces Peace Agreement in Vietnam

Four years later, President Nixon still hadn’t fulfilled his campaign promise to end the Vietnam War. A timely breakthrough came on October 8, when North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris suddenly agreed to U.S. conditions for peace.

National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger rushed from Paris to Washington for a press conference scheduled for October 26. On October 22nd, things began to fall apart: South Vietnam told Kissinger they would not accept the agreement, and North Vietnam subsequently took offense to Kissinger’s request for more time to persuade Saigon and publicly accused the United States of duplicity. None of that stopped Kissinger from attending the scheduled press conference, however, and proclaiming that “peace is at hand.” The announcement pushed Nixon even further ahead in the polls, and won the election with more than 60 percent of the popular vote. The peace negotiations, however, fell apart in December 1972, and the Vietnam war would continue for another two-and-a-half years.

1980: Iran Holds Carter’s Campaign Hostage

In the Carter-Reagan election, October Surprises entered the world of conspiracy theories. As the story goes, Ronald Reagan was worried that a last-minute deal to release the American hostages in Iran would give President Jimmy Carter the support he needed to win reelection. Then, days before U.S. voters cast their ballots, Iran announced that the it would not release the hostages until after the election.

Allegations quickly took root over the cause of Iran’s statement. Jack Anderson of the Washington Post claimed that President Carter had been planning a military operation to save the hostages, hoping it would save him the election. Others alleged that Ronald Reagan had made a secret deal with the Iranians to postpone the hostage release and rob Jimmy Carter of victory.

That November, Reagan defeated Carter, and Iran continued to hold 52 Americans hostage, releasing them mere minutes after Ronald Reagan completed his inaugural address in January 1981. Political figures and hostages themselves demanded a probe into the timing of the incident, but Congress didn’t bite until later, when two congressional investigations found no evidence of a conspiracy between Reagan and Iran. Still, a few high-profile figures, including former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr, stand by the allegations of a secret Reagan-Iran deal to this day.

1992: A Poorly Timed Iran-Contra Indictment

The Iran-Contra affair, when the Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iran and used the money to fund an anti-communist militia in Nicaragua, came to light in 1987, but by the fall of 1992, it was still fresh enough to cause electoral trouble for Republicans.

Just four days before the Bush-Clinton-Perot election, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh indicted former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger for lying about his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal. Republicans fumed, accused Walsh of timing Weinberger’s indictment to damage President Bush’s re-election chances, even though Walsh himself belonged to the Republican Party. In November, Bush lost the election, but before he left the Oval Office, he pardoned Weinberger.

2000: George W. Bush’s DUI

George W. Bush and Al Gore were tied in national polls in the days leading up to the 2000 presidential election, but then Fox News Channel broke the biggest scandal of Bush’s campaign: 24 years earlier, Bush had been arrested for a drunk-driving in Maine.

Though the Bush campaign told reporters that the incident was so long ago that it would do little to change voters’ minds, ten years later, Bush strategist Karl Rove wrote that he believes the scandal cost Bush five states. Though many would question that math—and it’s difficult to argue with a counter-factual—Rove believes that without the DUI news, Bush would have won the popular vote and the mess in Florida would have been avoided.

2004: A New Bin Laden Video Boosts Bush

On October 27, 2004, Osama bin Laden released a video claiming responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and calling President Bush a dictator who repressed freedom by means of the Patriot Act.

The video renewed public interest in national security and aided Bush. By targeting Bush for criticism, Bin Laden cast him in the role of his enemy—a title that Americans would welcome—while reiterating criticisms of the Patriot Act that many of Bush’s domestic political opponents had made.

2008: A Market Crash Causes McCain’s Unforced Errors

In October 2008, the stock market’s decline accelerated, joblessness reached a 14-year high, and the global economy teetered on the brink of disaster. Americans were beginning to feel the effects of the Great Recession, driving up Bush’s already-high unpopularity as his tenure in the White House came to an end.

The economic downturn spelled the end of McCain’s candidacy. In the months prior, the senator had been struggling to relate to the economic grievances of voters: In an August 2008 interview with POLITICO, McCain couldn’t recall how many houses he owned, promising “I’ll have my staff get back to you.” Then in September, he paradoxically declared that “the fundamentals of our economy our strong” while simultaneously recognizing the “tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street.” In an effort to appear steady at the helm, he suspended his campaign to return to Washington to focus on the crisis — a move that backfired, making him look ineffective and unable to take on more than one task at a time.

Obama capitalized on the moment and McCain’s gaffes, propelling him through the campaign season’s final stretch and to the White House.

2012: A Secret Video Tape

Hurricane Sandy has been falsely labeled an October Surprise during the 2012 election, but it fails to qualify because it was not a human-caused event. The real surprise of that fall 2012 was the September release of a secretly recorded tape of Mitt Romney belittling nearly half of America while speaking to wealthy donors at a closed-door fundraiser.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has responsibility to care for them,” Romney said at a private, high-dollar fundraising event.

The Obama team quickly made the audio recording the center of a swing-state ad blitz that aired through October. In an interview with David Letterman shortly after the clip surfaced, President Obama quipped, “My expectation is that if you want to be president, you’ve got to work for everybody, not just for some.”

Not even Romney could deny how bad it was for his campaign. “That hurt,” Romney told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in an interview four months after the election. “There’s no question that hurt and did real damage to my campaign.”

The Secret Service is heightening security around former President Donald Trump, an agency official said Monday, following the apparent attempt on his life just two months after an assassination attempt at a campaign rally.

“Given recent events, the Secret Service is taking a heightened posture in its protection of the former president,” the official said.

The new measures appeared to be visible Monday when Trump got off his plane in Pennsylvania and a Secret Service agent followed closely behind.

Security is being increased after an incident at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. Federal prosecutors recently charged Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on Trump on Sept. 15.

Routh was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He appeared in a court in Florida on Monday and was ordered held pending trial.

A court filing Monday said Routh, who was arrested Sept. 15, dropped a letter off this month addressed to “The World” and declared, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

A civilian contacted law enforcement Wednesday, saying Routh had dropped off a box at his residence containing the letter, four phones, ammunition and other notes, according to the filing.

Routh was charged a little more than two months after a gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, shot Trump in the ear during a campaign rally.

Trump now plans to return to Butler on Oct. 5 — one month before Election Day — according to three sources familiar with the campaign’s schedule.

The House also unanimously voted to boost protection for all presidential candidates. The bill would give candidates the same level of protection as presidents.

Former President Trump on Monday accused the Justice Department and FBI of “downplaying” the second apparent assassination attempt against him this year, suggesting the case should be left to Florida authorities to handle.

Trump issued a lengthy statement escalating his attacks on the Justice Department and FBI, accusing the agencies of going after him for political reasons and having a conflict of interest.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July,” Trump said. “The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist. It’s no wonder, since the DOJ and FBI have been coming after me nonstop with Weaponized Lawfare since I announced my first Historic Campaign for the Presidency.”

He cited the numerous legal cases against him, including the case over his handling of classified documents, the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and charges over his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

Trump also cited cases unrelated to the Justice Department or FBI, such as his impeachments while in office and fraud charges against him in New York.

He also pointed to FBI Director Christopher Wray’s comments in late July after the first attempt on Trump’s life in which Wray left open the possibility Trump was struck by something other than a bullet. The bureau later issued a statement clarifying Trump was hit by a bullet, either fragmented or whole.

“It’s very difficult to trust the Biden/Harris DOJ/FBI to investigate the assassination attempts, due to Election Interference and the FAKE CASES brought against me, including their control over local D.A.s and A.G.s,” Trump said.

“If the DOJ and FBI cannot do their job honestly and without bias, and hold the aspiring assassin responsible to the full extent of the Law, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida have already agreed to take the lead on the investigation and prosecution,” Trump said. “Florida charges would be much more serious than the ones the FBI has announced… LET FLORIDA HANDLE THE CASE!”

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ryan Routh, 58, was charged earlier this month with two gun crimes after allegedly pushing the muzzle of a rifle through the fence along the perimeter of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course in Florida while he was there, prompting a Secret Service agent to fire at him.

Prosecutors alleged in court documents filed Monday that Routh wrote a letter detailing his plans months prior.

Routh faces charges of possessing a gun while a felon and having an illegally obliterated serial number on his firearm. Prosecutors are expected to seek an indictment from a grand jury in the coming days that could include additional charges.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced last week that the state would open a criminal investigation into the latest attempt on Trump’s life. The probe will run concurrent to the federal investigation into the incident. 

President Biden and his aides have said multiple times he has not had contact with the Justice Department about investigations into Trump as they seek to maintain the agency’s independence from political influence.

But Trump has repeatedly claimed the cases against him are politically motivated, decrying the charges against him in various jurisdictions as “lawfare” intended to hurt his chances of winning November’s election.

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With few details still known about Thomas Matthew Crooks, the would-be assassin of former President Trump, one member of the House task force probing the assassination attempt is saying the FBI has not been forthcoming with their investigation.

Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., a member of the Bipartisan Assassination Task Force, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” with fellow task force member Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., to discuss the group’s investigation into the US Secret Service’s failures during the July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Crooks fired a series of bullets from a rooftop that was left unchecked.

While Waltz and Dean both said the failures appear to rest with USSS, which has since taken full responsibility, Waltz appreciated that the agency has been forthcoming with the investigation, whereas the FBI – over two months after the assassination attempt – has not.

“The Secret Service is being forthcoming about its failures in communication guidance to locals having appropriate command posts. The FBI, on the other hand, is completely stonewalling this task force,” Waltz said. “It has not been forthcoming.”

In July, FBI Director Christopher Wray initially told House lawmakers that “there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, hit his ear.”

Two days later, the bureau issued a statement saying: “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”

Waltz said he’d like to see Wray and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas hold a press conference like the one USSS recently held.

“We still know virtually nothing about Crooks, the shooter in Butler, about his encrypted accounts, how he learned to build those IEDs,” the congressman said.

On Thursday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., ranking member of the HSGAC Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said that what few documents the FBI provided lawmakers were “heavily redacted.”

“I’ve never seen this,” Johnson told reporters of the redactions.

The July 13 Trump rally shooting has heightened scrutiny of USSS, and prompted conversations about whether elected officials are being sufficiently kept safe in today’s hyper-partisan environment.

Waltz said another point of “mounting bipartisan frustration” with the FBI involved Iran, specifically the regime’s multiple ongoing plots to kill Trump and its hacking of Trump campaign information, which it then shared with the Biden-Harris campaign.

“And when asked about it behind closed doors, the FBI would not give us any information to the Intelligence Committee,” Waltz said. “Just this week. It’s completely unacceptable and we need to issue those subpoenas.”

Dean added that it “makes sense” for the task force to investigate the second apparent assassination attempt against Trump that occurred at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, and condemned all political violence.

“I want to set a baseline, which is that political violence has no place in this country,” the congresswoman said.

LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby town, war bloggers and some media reported.

Unverified video and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame blasting into the night sky and multiple detonations thundering across a lake about 380 km (240 miles) west of Moscow.

“The enemy hit an ammunition depot in the area of Toropets,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “Everything that can burn is already burning there (and exploding).”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, hailed the outcome of the attack without referring specifically to the target.

“A very important result was achieved last night on Russian territory and such actions weaken the enemy,” Zelenskiy said. “I thank everyone involved. Such precision is truly inspiring.”

He thanked the SBU security service, the HUR intelligence service and the Special Operations Forces.

A source in Ukraine’s SBU state security service had earlier told Reuters the drone attack had destroyed a warehouse storing missiles, guided bombs and artillery ammunition.

Russian state media have in the past reported that a major arsenal for conventional weapons was located at the site of the blasts. State media, now subject to military censorship laws, was muted in its reporting on Wednesday.

Igor Rudenya, governor of the Tver region, said that Ukrainian drones had been shot down, that a fire had broken out and that some residents were being evacuated. He did not say what was burning.

One woman told Reuters that members of her family had been evacuated from Toropets.

“A fire started with explosions,” said the woman, who identified herself only as Irina.

Rudenya later said the situation in Toropets was stable as of midday local time (0900 GMT) and that evacuated residents could return. The fire had been put out and there were no recorded fatalities, he said.

Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of enemy drone attacks on their territory overnight, with Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine.

MAJOR EXPLOSION

The size of the main blast shown in the unverified social media video was consistent with 200-240 tons of high explosives detonating, said George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California.

A Toropets chatroom on the Russian social media site VK was flooded with messages of support from other parts of the country and offers of help to people fleeing the town.

Some people were asking whether buildings at specific addresses were still standing.

“People, does anyone know what’s happened to Kudino village??? They told me nothing is left of our house,” posted one woman.

Another woman replied: “It’s horror there.” Kudino is a village 4.5 km (2.8 miles) northeast of Toropets.

Some war bloggers asked how drones could trigger such large blasts at what was thought to be a highly fortified facility.

According to an RIA state news agency report from 2018, Russia was building an arsenal for the storage of missiles, ammunition and explosives in Toropets, a 1,000-year-old town, with a population of just over 11,000.

Dmitry Bulgakov, then a deputy defence minister, told RIA in 2018 that the facility could defend weapons from missiles and even a small nuclear attack. Bulgakov was arrested earlier this year on corruption charges, which he denies.

“It (the concrete facilities) ensures their reliable and safe storage, protects them from air and missile strikes and even from the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion,” RIA quoted Bulgakov as saying at the time.

Some Russians on chat groups expressed anger.

“Why wasn’t the ammunition underground?! What are you doing???? In Kudino, houses were blown away! Why is the forest burning and no one is there… What kind of negligence is this!!!!” one woman posted.

Russia reported that its air defence units had destroyed 54 drones launched against five Russian regions overnight, without mentioning Tver. Ukraine said it had shot down 46 of 52 drones launched by Moscow overnight and that Russia had used three guided air missiles which did not reach their targets.

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Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Lucy Papachristou, Mark Trevelyan and Tom Balmforth in London and Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv; Additional reporting by Gerry Doyle in Singapore; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Michael Perry, Christian Schmollinger, William Maclean, Gareth Jones, Philippa Fletcher, Ron Popeski and David Gregorio

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An influential cybersecurity policy body says that the federal government has implemented more of its recommendations in the past year but that several hard-hitting items still need completion to better protect the U.S. from nation-state hackers and cybercriminals.

According to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0 — a continuation of the recommendation body chartered by Congress in 2019 to help guide American cybersecurity policymaking — those objectives include establishing a consistent cybersecurity national guard system, codifying a real-time cyber threat sharing platform for government agencies and creating a nation-wide plan to restore critical economic functions in the event of a cyber disaster.

Another incomplete high-priority item is establishing “benefits and burdens” for systemically important entities that, if disrupted, would create significant negative impact on national security, economic activity or public health and safety if they were to malfunction or be sabotaged.

The recommendations in the annual report from CSC 2.0, stood up in late 2021 after the initial CSC mandate sunset, are aimed at cyber officials in the next presidential administration, with the U.S. guaranteed a presidential transition after President Joe Biden this summer decided to not run for a second term.

“Some of our most important [objectives] are still not done,” said Mark Montgomery, who directs CSC 2.0 with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, where the body is now housed. Montgomery said he’s been contacted by the Harris and Trump campaign’s presidential transition teams, who asked about ideas the group has put forward.

“Even though we’re at 80% moving along, three or four of our most important ones out of the  top 10 are not done,” he said in a call with reporters to preview the findings.

Since last year, there’s been a 10% increase in the implementation or near-implementation of the initial CSC March 2020 recommendations, said Jiwon Ma, a senior policy analyst at FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation who helped craft the report.

Of the 82 initial recommendations, almost 80% are either fully implemented or close to it, with an additional 12% making steady progress, she added. This trend is consistent across all 116 recommendations, including those from later recommendation papers, with 80% implemented or nearing completion and another 14% on track for completion.

CSC has been deemed a major force behind contemporary U.S. cyber policy decisions. Members of Congress in the original commission — which included then Reps. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., as well as Sen. Angus King, I-Maine — formed the backbone that created the Office of the National Cyber Director, which has helped the federal government meet various cyber priorities outlined in a sweeping strategy it unveiled last year.

One area that’s yet to be fulfilled is the creation of House and Senate select committees on cybersecurity, the report says. It’s been an inconsistent miss each year the CSC’s findings have been produced, and Montgomery said that it likely won’t move anywhere soon because there’s no motivation in either chamber or political party to do so.

“We’d have to have a dramatic ‘cyber 9/11’ event where the burning ember of blame is pointed at least partially at Congress for not doing proper oversight,” he added. “That is the only way you would get a provision like that passed.”

MIAMI (WSVN) – A 20-year-old man and his co-conspirator have been charged with conspiracy to steal and launder over $230 million in cryptocurrency, and federal authorities said the arrests are connected to an FBI raid of a mansion in Miami.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-year-old Malone Lam of Miami and Los Angeles, California, and 21-year-old Jeandiel Serrano of Los Angeles, were placed under arrest Wednesday night.

The federal indictment alleges the duo, along with others, orchestrated cryptocurrency thefts and laundered the proceeds through exchanges and mixing services.

One user on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, uncovered the moment Lam allegedly landed more than $230 million in stolen Bitcoin from a victim in Washington, D.C.

The indictment states the suspects “used the illegally obtained cryptocurrency to purchase international travel, service at nightclubs, numerous luxury automobiles, watches, jewelry, designer handbags, and to pay for rental homes in Los Angeles and Miami.”

The duo are accused of flaunting it all at parties like one recorded on video, showing off the luxury cars and designer handbags.

Lam, a Singapore citizen using the online aliases “Anne Hathaway” and “$$$,” and Serrano, who goes by “VersaceGod” and “@SkidStar,” allegedly accessed victim accounts and transferred cryptocurrency into their control, including over 4,100 Bitcoin from the victim in Washington, D.C. in August.

But it all came to a screeching halt Wednesday evening, when FBI agents busted into a mansion near Northeast 83rd Street and 12th Avenue, located near North Bayshore Drive, just south of Miami Shores.

“I heard what I thought was fireworks,” said an area resident.

Neighbors said the home is a rental property.

Thursday night, FBI officials confirmed Lam and Serrano’s arrests are connected with this raid.

Smoke poured out of the mansion as federal authorities raided during daylight hours and investigated into the night.

7News cameras captured federal agents as they combed through every inch of the property.

City of Miami Police said they assisted FBI agents with Wednesday’s raid.

For neighbors left wondering what went down, they now have their answer.

“We all walk at the same time, so tonight, it’s going to be peace for all,” said an area resident.

Lam and Serrano were set to appear in U.S. District Courts in Florida and California on Thursday.

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The Zovighian Public Office (ZPO) has published a second edition of an open-source intelligence (OSINT) and geolocation report at the one-year mark of the military assault of Azerbaijan against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh. The report, commissioned to explore if Azerbaijan imposed a blockade on the indigenous Armenian population at the Lachin Corridor, shows how an unconventional war began in December 2022 before shifting into a conventional war in September 2023, successfully appropriating the area and expelling the community from their ancestral homeland.

Titled, “From blockade to war: The ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the OSINT study examines and refutes three consistent claims made by the Azerbaijani government during the blockade:

• Claim 1: There was no road closure and no blockade.
• Claim 2: Azerbaijan had the right to erect a checkpoint at its border with Armenia.
• Claim 3: There was no blockade because alternative roads could be used.

“It was a perfect blockade,” said ZPO Founder Lynn Zovighian, who co-authored the report. “Azerbaijan exploited geographic and geopolitical vulnerabilities, under the cover of international credibility, and successfully ethnically cleansed the historic Artsakhi Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh with no consequences.”

“One year since the people of Artsakh were forced to flee their homeland, families continue to suffer from losing their homes and livelihoods. This report painstakingly demonstrates the genocidal strategy of Azerbaijan against the Artsakhi Armenians,” said Gegham Stepanyan Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Studying the first claim, the report shows how the so-called eco-activist protest at the Lachin Corridor Road created both a physical obstruction and hostile space, barring all safe and free movement of food, medicine, and essential items from reaching the population, instigating a population-wide humanitarian disaster. A geolocation study confirmed that there were no mines in the immediate vicinity and that any protest of alleged Armenian mining activities in the region was unexplained and unjustified.

Analyzing the second claim clarified how pressure by the international community pushed Azerbaijan to replace the so-called protestors with an official checkpoint, further militarizing and institutionalizing the comprehensive siege of Nagorno-Karabakh. Insufficient efforts by the international community to stop Azerbaijan’s siege and their manipulations of sovereign rights and territorial integrity, the checkpoint effectively blocked all movement of not only residents and trade, but also humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Studying the third claim helped confirm that no viable alternative route to the Lachin Corridor existed by land between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

The report concludes that Azerbaijan was able to manipulate a confounded rhetoric to build diplomatic credibility with the international community, without needing to give away any negotiating power or backtrack on any of their positions.

“Almost two years since the illegal blockade began, this credibility remains very intact, and has been fortified by Azerbaijan’s further crimes, intentional failures to implement orders by the International Court of Justice, and the genocidal aggression and forced displacement of our people. Unfortunately, the perpetrators of the genocide have remained unpunished and have even been encouraged by the international community, winning their bid to host COP29,” explained Artak Beglaryan, Founder of Artsakh Union and former Minister of State and Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan has a history of weaponizing environmental causes and platforms, and will be hosting COP29 in November.

An expert panel will be hosted on September 30 to present key OSINT findings featured in this report with diplomats, analysts, and journalists.

“High quality evidence is essential in seeking justice and accountability for international crimes. Azerbaijan’s crimes against the Armenians of Artsakh Nagorno-Karabakh remain unpunished for now, but the collection and preservation of credible and reliable evidence will ensure that those most responsible can be held responsible at any time, and that time will surely come,” said international human rights lawyer Sheila Paylan.

This new edition is now available in the Arabic language as the Gaza War nears its one-year mark on October 7.

“Like Azerbaijan, Israel is successfully employing similar strategies in Gaza against the Palestinian people today,” explained Zovighian.

Israel and Azerbaijan have an intimate decades-long military and trade friendship based on oil, advanced military technology, and intelligence sharing.

Zovighian added, “The success of the Nagorno-Karabakh blockade and takeover by Azerbaijan taught Israel that they too could terrorize, starve, and expel an entire population with a free hand and no consequences. This is what happens when perpetrators and criminals in power are not held to account.”

The Artsakh Union, a grassroots civil society organization, was established by Artak Beglaryan following the forced displacement of the Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) after the genocidal aggression and nine-month-long blockade by Azerbaijan in 2023. Its mission is to advocate for the collective and individual rights of the Artsakh Armenians globally. It is committed to facilitating international justice and accountability and protect the right of return of the historic Armenian community to their ancestral homeland.

The Zovighian Public Office was established in 2015 to serve communities facing crises and crimes of atrocity. We are dedicated to amplifying their voices through research, culture, advocacy, and diplomacy.