Pipeline Hackers Received $90M in Ransom From Dozens of Victims: Report

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The hackers behind the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, DarkSide, received $90 million in bitcoin ransom payments over the past nine months from dozens of online victims before shutting down last week, according to new research released Tuesday.

DarkSide is a group of organized hackers, suspected to be based in Eastern Europe, selling software hacking tools to other criminals to carry out attacks on wealthy organizations and entities. The FBI confirmed the group was responsible for the pipeline attack earlier this month that caused major oil shortages on the East Coast of the United States.

The average amount that DarkSide received from 47 online victims in the past year was approximately $1.9 million, according to British blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

“To our knowledge, this analysis includes all payments made to DarkSide, however further transactions may yet be uncovered, and the figures here should be considered a lower bound,” said Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s co-founder and chief scientist. (Read more from “Pipeline Hackers Received $90M in Ransom From Dozens of Victims: Report” HERE)

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Report: Another Bill Gates Affair With Microsoft Employee Revealed

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Bill Gates allegedly had an affair with a Microsoft employee — and the tryst was being probed by the company’s board last year when Gates stepped down, a report said Sunday.

The company’s board became aware in 2019 that a Microsoft engineer penned a letter alleging that she and Gates had a sexual relationship over the years, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The woman demanded changes to her Microsoft job and also asked that Gates’ now-estranged wife, Melinda, read her letter — though it’s unclear if that happened.

Board members hired a law firm to conduct an investigation into the relationship, the Journal said.

During the probe, some members grew concerned about the allegation and decided that Gates, who founded the tech firm in 1975, should step down as director of the board. (Read more from “Report: Another Bill Gates Affair With Microsoft Employee Revealed” HERE)

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How Facebook Uses ‘Fact-Checking’ To Suppress Scientific Truth

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At the end of a recent 800-meter race in Oregon, a high-school runner named Maggie Williams got dizzy, passed out and landed face-first just beyond the finish line. She and her coach blamed her collapse on a deficit of oxygen due to the mask she’d been forced to wear, and state officials responded to the public outcry by easing their requirements for masks during athletic events.

But long before the pandemic began, scientists had repeatedly found that wearing a mask could lead to oxygen deprivation. Why had this risk been ignored?

One reason is that a new breed of censors has been stifling scientific debate about masks on social-media platforms. When Scott Atlas, a member of the Trump White House’s coronavirus task force, questioned the efficacy of masks last year, Twitter removed his tweet. When eminent scientists from Stanford and Harvard recently told Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that children should not be forced to wear masks, YouTube removed their video discussion from its platform. These acts of censorship were widely denounced, but the social-media science police remain undeterred, as I discovered when I recently wrote about the harms to children from wearing masks.

Facebook promptly slapped a label on the article: “Partly False Information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.” City Journal appealed the ruling, a process that turned out to be both futile and revealing. Facebook refused to remove the label, which still appears whenever the article is shared, but at least we got an inside look at the tactics that social-media companies and progressive groups use to distort science and public policy.

The “independent fact-checkers” of my article are affiliated with a nonprofit group called Science Feedback, which has partnered with Facebook in what it calls a “fight against misinformation.” The group describes itself as “nonpartisan,” a claim that I would label “Mostly False” after studying dozens of its fact-checks enforcing progressive orthodoxy on climate change and public health. I didn’t see anything that would have displeased the journalists and officials promoting lockdowns and mask mandates. Nor did I see anything that would have displeased a Democrat, particularly during the last presidential campaign. In October, when former President Donald Trump was predicting that a vaccine was imminent, the group labeled that prediction “Inaccurate” and proclaimed that “widespread Covid-19 vaccination is not expected before mid-2021.” (Fact check: The vaccine rollout began in December.) (Read more from “How Facebook Uses ‘Fact-Checking’ To Suppress Scientific Truth” HERE)

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Chinese Communists Clamp Down On Christian Social Media

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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has added further restrictions on Christian content on the social media platform WeChat, the Barnabas Fund reported Monday.

WeChat has blocked Christian search words such as “Christ,” “Bible,” and “Gospel,” the Barnabas Fund noted, and searches for these terms offer no results on the platform.

The Christian persecution watchdog also reported that WeChat removed a number of Christian accounts in late April and efforts to access these pages generate a notification that the accounts have been removed from service, stemming from complaints that the account violates the “Internet User Public Account Information Services Management Provisions.”

Christian sites such as “Gospel Times,” “Gospel TV,” “Gospel League,” “WeDevote Bible,” and “Old Gospel” were permanently shut down on WeChat, probably because their names contain sensitive Christian keywords.

Other users have complained that they have been blocked from uploading Christian videos to WeChat, while some Christian playlists have been removed from other music streaming services, all of which are monitored by the CCP. (Read more from “Chinese Communists Clamp Down On Christian Social Media” HERE)

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Report: Airlines Might Weigh Passengers Before Flights Due To America’s Obesity Rates

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Airline passengers might be required to step on the scale or divulge how much they weigh before boarding an aircraft, according to a report.

The reason for this change is because the data airlines use to measure passenger weight on board to ensure safety may be outdated with an increasing obesity rate in the U.S.

Air carriers now have to update the average passenger weight, according to the airline blog “View from the Wing,” which cited data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Under the upcoming pending requirements, airlines would have to take mandatory surveys to set “standard average passenger weights” for passengers, crew, and baggage. (Read more from “Report: Airlines Might Weigh Passengers Before Flights Due To America’s Obesity Rates” HERE)

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Texas Bans Schools and Local Officials From Requiring Masks

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Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order Tuesday barring local governments and public schools from mandating facemasks.

The order prevents local governments and officials from attempting to mandate mask wearing starting Friday, subjecting a fine of up to $1,000 for any person or government entity that does not comply. Public schools have through June 4 to continue mandating mask wearing, but after June 4, students, parents, teachers and other staff members will not be required to wear a mask.

“The Lone Star State continues to defeat COVID-19 through the use of widely-available vaccines, antibody therapeutic drugs, and safe practices utilized by Texans in our communities,” Abbott said in a statement.

“Texans, not government, should decide their best health practices, which is why masks will not be mandated by public school districts or government entities. We can continue to mitigate COVID-19 while defending Texans’ liberty to choose whether or not they mask up.” (Read more from “Texas Bans Schools and Local Officials From Requiring Masks” HERE)

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CNN Bashes Pro-Lifers in Crazed Abortion Rant (VIDEO)

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CNN’s Chris Cuomo bashed pro-lifers on national TV in a race-crazed rant about the newest case taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court examining if a Mississippi ban on elective abortions 15 weeks into pregnancy is unconstitutional.

“We’re about to see if Mitch McConnell’s Supreme Court mission pays off,” Cuomo said on his program Monday night. “It’s now a 6-3 decidedly conservative court, and now says the Supreme Court of the United States that it will hear a case that could remove a woman’s right to control her own body.” . . .

“Legally, the issue is fetal viability. When does what is inside a woman become a person with rights under the law? You would think we would have impaneled experts on a special commission by now to see what the science says, right? But we don’t seem to have the intellectual curiosity about this issue because it’s not really about science,” Cuomo said. “It has become a culture war. It’s a political lever to use as a distraction from policy and solving problems, to allow people to get up in their religion and their righteousness over any sense of what science suggests.” (Read more from “CNN Bashes Pro-Lifers in Crazed Abortion Rant (VIDEO)” HERE)

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Report: Toddler Shoots Both Parents in Maine Home

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A 2-year-old boy in Maine shot his parents Wednesday morning with a gun he picked up from a nightstand, a report said.

The toddler’s 25-year-old father was hit in the head, and the mother, 22, was struck in the leg in the shooting at their home in West Bath, WMTW reported, citing Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry.

The baby was injured by the recoil of the gun, authorities said. All three family members were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Merry. (Read more from “Toddler Shoots Both Parents in Maine Home” HERE)

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GOOD NEWS FOR GUN OWNERS: Supreme Court Rules on Confiscation of Legal Guns From Man’s Home

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By WND. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the generally accepted “community caretaking” responsibilities that police have, for example, to search an abandoned vehicle for dangerous weapons, does not apply to homes.

The ruling Monday came in a case brought by Edward Caniglia, a Rhode Island man, who charged that the police violated his Fourth Amendment rights by promising they would not take his guns, but then immediately searching his home and taking them.

The dispute arose because Caniglia and his wife had argued. During the course of the dispute Edward Caniglia handed his wife an unloaded gun and told her to kill him. . .

They arrived at her home together, and found Edward Caniglia on the porch. He agreed to go to a hospital for an exam on the condition officers leave his guns alone.

They promised that, but immediately reneged and he sued. (Read more from “Supremes Rule on Cops Confiscating Legal Guns From Man’s Home” HERE)

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Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Warrantless Gun Seizure

By Daily Caller. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on Monday that Rhode Island police officers acted illegally when they seized a man’s guns without a warrant.

Edward Caniglia sued the city of Cranston, Rhode Island, after police officers located and took his guns while he was in the hospital for a mental health wellness check. He argued that the seizure violated his Fourth Amendment rights, although two federal courts ruled against him. Those courts relied on a provision of the law that allows police to seize guns from drivers while on the road. . .

“The very core of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee is the right of a person to retreat into his or her home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the Court.

The police had argued that they were allowed to seize Caniglia’s guns during the wellness check because of the “community care-taking exception” to the Fourth Amendment. That exception allows police officers to conduct searches for what “may be described as community care-taking functions,” when “there is no claim of criminal liability.” (Read more from “Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Warrantless Gun Seizure” HERE)

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Maricopa County Officials Blast Election Auditors, Refuse Meeting With Arizona Senate

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The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors demanded an end to the Arizona Senate-led audit of the 2020 election in the populous county that includes Phoenix, a significant new stand by the Republican-led group against the review that former President Donald Trump and his allies have cited to further claim the contest was stolen.

Board members issued their defiant response after holding a meeting Monday afternoon to address questions raised by Senate President Karen Fann in a letter to Chairman Jack Sellers regarding the audit, which includes a review of the county’s 2.1 million ballots and election equipment, raising “serious issues” auditors claimed to have found during their work. Among them, Fann said, was the county’s failure to provide virtual copies of Wi-Fi routers and allegations that someone deleted a main database from the Election Management System.

“These accusations are false, defamatory, and beneath the dignity of the Senate,” the board wrote in a 13-page letter signed by all five members. “They are an insult to the dedicated public servants in the Maricopa County Elections Department and Office of the Recorder, who work incredibly long hours conducting the County’s elections with integrity and honor.”

Compounding the controversy surrounding Fann’s letter last week are tweets by an account for the audit, run by unnamed volunteers, which has clashed with local journalists covering the process and made serious but so far unsubstantiated allegations about the election.

(Read more from “Maricopa County Officials Blast Election Auditors, Refuse Meeting With Arizona Senate” HERE)

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