US contractor arrested after leak of Russia hacking report
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal contractor has been arrested following the leak of a classified intelligence report that suggests Russian hackers attacked at least one U.S. voting software supplier days before last year’s presidential election.
Shortly after the release of the report by The Intercept on Monday, the Justice Department announced it had charged government contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, in Georgia with leaking a classified report containing “Top Secret level” information to an online news organization. The report the contractor allegedly leaked is dated May 5, the same date as the document The Intercept posted online.
The report suggests election-related hacking penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than previously known. A Kremlin spokesman denied the report.
The classified National Security Agency report does not say whether the hacking had any effect on election results. But it says Russian military intelligence attacked a U.S. voting software company and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials at the end of October or beginning of November.
U.S. intelligence agencies declined to comment.
London attackers were chef, clerk and ‘suspicious’ Italian
LONDON (AP) — Details emerged Tuesday of the three London Bridge attackers: a Pakistan-born failed customer service clerk with links to one of Europe’s most prolific hate preachers, a Moroccan pastry chef whose partner said he once went swimming rather than see his daughter and an Italian man who told authorities he “wanted to be a terrorist.”
At least two of the men were known to British intelligence and law enforcement officials, raising questions about whether anything could have been done to stop the attack, which began Saturday when the men drove a rented van into a crowd and then leaped out to stab people who crossed their paths. Seven were killed and nearly 50 wounded. All three of the attackers were shot dead by police.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it was fair to ask how the attackers “slipped through our net.”
Security has become a key issue in the run-up to Thursday’s general election. British security officials said none of the men was considered violent, but they acknowledged the difficulty of predicting whether extremists will turn dangerous. The assault was the third attack in three months in which most of the assailants had been on authorities’ radar at some point.
As the investigation expanded to look at how the men knew one another and whether they were part of a larger conspiracy, Pakistani intelligence authorities swooped Tuesday into the town of Jhelum, where Khurum Butt lived until the time he was 7, when he moved to Britain. His cousin, 18-year-old Bilal Dar, told The Associated Press that Butt’s uncle was taken in for questioning. It was unclear if he was detained.
China defends arrest of men probing Ivanka Trump supplier
GANZHOU, China (AP) — China’s government on Tuesday rejected a U.S. State Department call to release three activists detained while investigating a factory that produced shoes for Ivanka Trump and other brands. It sought instead to enforce a cone of silence around the men, according to a lawyer and the wife of one detainee who was interrogated for hours herself.
The U.S. State Department on Monday called on China to release the men, who were detained last week after working undercover in a Chinese factory to check into worker abuses.
“We urge China to release them immediately and otherwise afford them the judicial and fair trial protections to which they are entitled,” said Alicia Edwards, a State Department spokeswoman. She said the U.S. remains concerned about “the pattern of arrests and detentions” and noted that labor activists are instrumental in helping American companies understand conditions in their supply chains and holding Chinese manufacturers accountable under Chinese labor laws.
Deng Guilian, the wife of one of the detainees, Hua Haifeng, told The Associated Press that she had been interrogated twice by police in her hometown in central China’s Hubei province. The police pulled her in for four hours of questioning that lasted past midnight on Friday, and then called her for a further interrogation on Saturday. She said police questioned her sharply about her contacts with foreign media.
She said that on Friday four policemen sat in a close circle around her, one asking questions, one examining her phone, one taking notes and one just staring at her.
‘I was frozen’: Cosby accuser says she was drugged, groped
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Bill Cosby’s chief accuser took the stand at his sexual assault trial Tuesday to tell her story publicly for the first time, saying the comedian violated her after giving her three blue pills that left her paralyzed and helpless.
“In my head, I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move, but I was frozen,” Andrea Constand, a 44-year-old former employee of the basketball program at Temple University, said in their long-awaited courtroom confrontation. “I wasn’t able to fight in any way.”
She added: “I wanted it to stop.”
Cosby, 79, is charged with drugging and sexually abusing Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. The TV star once dubbed America’s Dad could get 10 years in prison if convicted.
His lawyers tried to poke holes in Constand’s story, citing differences between her courtroom testimony and the accounts she gave to police and in a lawsuit in 2005. The defense has argued the two had a romantic relationship, that Constand wasn’t incapacitated and that the sexual encounter was consensual.
Minnesota officer on tape: ‘I don’t know where the gun was’
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black motorist told a supervisor on the scene that he didn’t know where the motorist’s gun was, but added that he told the motorist to get his hand off the firearm, according to audio recorded after the shooting.
The audio is key evidence in the manslaughter trial of Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who shot Philando Castile last July in a St. Paul suburb. Prosecutors argue Yanez acted unreasonably; his attorneys say he feared for his life and made a split-second decision in the presence of a gun.
Yanez and another officer had stopped Castile over a broken taillight when the 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker informed Yanez he was carrying a gun. Within seconds of hearing that, Yanez fired seven shots and Castile was mortally wounded.
The shooting was one in a string involving police and black men nationally, and drew added attention because Castile’s girlfriend streamed the aftermath on Facebook as he lay dying. Castile’s family claimed he was profiled because of his race.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys have given different narratives about whether or not Yanez saw Castile’s gun.
