Day: June 4, 2024

Ransomware report finds 43% of data unrecoverable after attack  SC Media

FBI’s tech chief’s ‘scariest’ AI threat: ‘You may not even know that perhaps you were the target’  Washington Times

FBI and Gila River Police in Joint Investigation of Officer-Involved Shooting in Gila River Indian Community  Hoodline

The post Indictment alert: Trump world figures just got criminally indicted in Wisconsin over 2020 election plot first appeared on The News And Times.

Trump launches effort to promote mail voting ahead of November  The Hill

Why Trump’s Second Victory Would Be Worse  The Nation

phoenix, arizona — The first heat wave of the season is bringing triple-digit temperatures earlier than usual to much of the southwestern United States, where forecasters warned residents Tuesday to brace for “dangerously hot conditions” with highs expected to top 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) in the days ahead in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. 

By Wednesday, most of an area stretching from southeastern California to central Arizona will see “easily their hottest” weather since last September and record daily highs will be in jeopardy throughout the region, the National Weather Service said. 

Excessive heat warnings have been issued from 10 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday for parts of southern Nevada and Arizona. The unseasonably hot weather is expected to make its way into parts of the Pacific Northwest by the end of the week. 

“We’re looking at high temperatures well in the 90s and 100s, temperatures well above average for the time of year — some spots as much as 10 to 20 degrees above average,” National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Chenard said on Tuesday. 

Southeastern California, southern Nevada and much of Arizona will be affected most, he said. 

“As we go through the week, some of those higher temperatures are also going to spread north, potentially getting into portions of the Pacific Northwest as well,” Chenard said. 

“We do have several days where these temperatures will persist, and that usually adds to the impact. If there is just one day, it doesn’t tend to have as much of an impact,” he said. “But when you start getting two, three or four days, this heat and then even warm temperatures at night, you start to see the impact increase.” 

The unseasonably hot weather already has taken a toll in some areas. The U.S. Border Patrol reported on Monday that four migrants died last weekend from heat-related causes while attempting to cross the border in southeastern New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas. 

Border Patrol El Paso Sector Chief Anthony Good urged migrants not to try to cross the border in the extreme heat. 

“The desert environment is extremely unforgiving, especially during the summer months,” Good said. “We urge anyone considering crossing illegally to understand the severe risks involved.” 

Fire crews will be on high alert, especially in Arizona, where fire restrictions went into effect before Memorial Day in some areas and will be ordered by Thursday across most of the western and south-central parts of the state, authorities said. 

Fire forecasters at the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said weather in the region doesn’t typically become so hot until mid- or late June. 

“It does seem like Mother Nature is turning up the heat on us a little sooner than usual,” Tiffany Davila, spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, said Monday evening. 

“We can’t back down from a fire just because it’s pushing 113 degrees outside. But we do keep a close eye on everybody in the field. Make sure they are keeping hydrated and taking more breaks than they normally would,” she told The Associated Press. 

Highs on Monday reached 110 F (43.3 C) at Death Valley National Park in California near the Nevada line. 

In Las Vegas, Nevada, where the high topped out at 103 F (39.4 C) on Monday, temperatures will soar to 10 to 15 degrees above normal during the second half of the week — peaking at 111 (43.8 C) on Thursday. 

A high of 120 F (48.8 C) is forecast for Thursday at Furnace Creek in Death Valley. 

The current forecast of 113 F (45 C) for Phoenix on Thursday would break the daily record high of 111 F (43.8 C) set in 2016. 

Last summer, Phoenix saw a record 31 straight days of at least 110 degrees F (43.3 C), stretching from the last day of June through the entire month of July. At least 400 of the 645 heat-related deaths that occurred last year were during that monthlong period. 

PARIS — A multinational operation by Interpol and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation cracked down on attempts in Moldova to sabotage one of the international police agency’s key tools, the Red Notice system, officials said Tuesday. Four people were detained in the eastern European country.

The joint sting, which also involved cooperation with French and British authorities, uncovered an international criminal organization with ties to people in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus suspected of cybercrime, Moldova’s anticorruption chief said.

The suspected individuals “paid intermediaries and public figures in Moldova to inform wanted criminals of [their] Red Notice status,” Veronica Dragalin, the anticorruption chief, told reporters.

The notice flags people deemed fugitives to law enforcement worldwide and is one of Interpol’s most important tools. The investigation led to the detention of four people for 72 hours on suspicion of interfering with the notices, Dragalin said.

The scheme sought to have people subject to Red Notices “obtain asylum or refugee status” in Moldova and other countries “with the aim of blocking and deleting” the notices by bribing public officials, she said.

The sums of money involved, she said, amount to several million dollars.

Interpol said the operation by the international policing agency, headquartered in Lyon, France, followed the detection of attempts to “block and delete” the notices.

Moldova opened an investigation on April 2, after receiving information from France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office, and subsequently requested the assistance of the FBI.

“We are committed to fighting high-level corruption in all of its forms, particularly those schemes that put in jeopardy criminal investigations worldwide,” Dragalin said.

A statement from Interpol said the agency has taken steps to prevent further “misuse of its systems.”

“Our robust monitoring systems identified suspicious activity,” said Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock. “We took immediate action, including reporting the issue to law enforcement authorities in our host country, France.”

Stock highlighted the number of individuals subject to Red Notices — more than 70,000 people — but did not elaborate on the attempted sabotage.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Recent violence between soldiers and migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border has prompted the Polish government to increase security and reintroduce a 200-meter buffer zone this week. Poland sees the latest migrant influx from Belarus as a hybrid warfare tactic. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze visited the region and has this report. VOA footage by Daniil Batushchak.