Hackers steal phone calls, text recording of 'almost all' AT&T customers – National & International News – FRI Jul 12, 2024 –

Hackers steal phone calls, text records of “almost all” AT&T customers.

The white supremacist who held the black woman as a sex slave accused of murdering another.

Biden doubles candidacy, escalation of Ukraine at NATO summit.

NATIONAL NEWS

Hackers steal phone calls, text records of “almost all” AT&T customers

AT&T has revealed that a data breach compromised over 6 months of phone and text records for nearly all of its customers. The data ranged from approximately May 1 and October 31, 2022, and data from January 2, 2023 was also stolen. The company says the content of calls and messages has not been compromised. What the hackers obtained is known as metadata, essentially records of phone numbers that made or received calls or messages and at what time and for how long the phone calls were made.

AT&T says the breach did not involve names or other identifying information associated with numbers, but that hackers could match names to numbers through publicly available sources.

The FBI is investigating the breach and the potential threat it may pose. AT&T disclosed the breach in April, but investigators requested a delay in announcing the attack publicly because of national security implications. At least one person has been arrested in connection with the vendetta.

What's more troubling is that earlier in March, the customer names of approximately 7.6 million current AT&T customers were compromised. The data, which dated back to before 2019, was available on the dark web. Currently, no reports suggest that the same perpetrators were behind the two breaches. However, if the authors of the May and June hacks had access to that data, they could put names to those customer numbers in the metadata they collected.

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White Missouri Man Who Imprisoned Black Woman in Basement Accused of Murdering Another

In October 2022, a young black woman, identified in court documents as TJ, escaped after a hellish month of captivity during which her captor, a white man, repeatedly whipped and raped her in a purpose-built sex dungeon in his basement. TJ managed to escape from the home of Timothy Haslett, 39 at the time, while Haslett took his child to school. She ran to the home of Haslett's neighbor, who described TJ as emaciated and nearly naked except for some latex underwear.

TJ's escape from her home in a Kansas City suburb followed months of calls by local black community leaders for a police investigation into the disappearance of several young black women. These calls remained unheeded until TJ's escape. The Kansas City Defender, a local black-owned newspaper, dug into Haslett's social media history and found that Haslett subscribed to a white supremacist ideology.

When TJ escaped, she told investigators that Haslett had told her that he had previously killed two other women he had imprisoned. One, Haslett told him, was killed with a gas mask and the other died of electrocution during a sexual act. TJ said Haslett had threatened to kill her and put her in a barrel “like the rest of them” if she didn't cooperate.

In July 2023, the remains of another black woman named Jayne Crosdale were found inside a blue plastic barrel floating in the Missouri River. The barrel was similar to the barrel found in Haslett's home. Investigators believe Crosdale was killed between June 6, 2022 and October 7, 2022. Images on Haslett's phone showed Crosdale in his basement. Haslett has now been charged with first-degree murder in Crosdale's death.

There is no public information yet regarding an investigation into the second possible murder alluded to in TJ's account.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Biden doubles candidacy, escalation of Ukraine at NATO summit

Over a dozen congressional Democrats have so far called on President Biden to end his re-election bid after last month's disastrous debate with Donald Trump. Last night, he held a much-anticipated “big boy” press conference aimed at allaying fears about his ability to win the race and carry out his duties.

Overall, he was a lot more with it than he was during the debate, although there were some major gaffes. He also rambled a few times and lost his train of thought a few times, trailing off with “well, anyway…”. The most notable sound byte was when he called his vice president Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” while answering the first question from the press.

It seems that this The conference was not successful ending the growing push for him to end his campaign. In fact, even before the press conference, members of Congress told CBS as much dozens of Democrats are ready to come forward with statements over the next few days, regardless of how the press conference went. Despite this, Biden continues to make campaign appearances, appearing today in Michigan.

Biden intensifies NATO presence in Europe, provides more aid to Ukraine

As it happens, even before the conference, Biden had another seriously embarrassing gaffe at the NATO summit when heintroduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”.

However, there have been far more worrying developments in terms of rising tensions in Europe. First, President Zelensky called on the assembled NATO leaders to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strikes on Russian military bases deep inside Russia. Such an escalation would surely trigger a much harsher response from Russia.

President Putin has already threatened to retaliate against Western targets after Biden authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range weapons systems against targets in Russia, but only in the region bordering Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Later in the conference, Biden indicated that the current restrictions would remain in place. It is worth considering that Biden had previously, the dispatch of fighter jets was excluded in Ukraine. Now, 18 months later, there are dozens of US-made F-16s due to arrival in Ukraine until the end of this year.

Even more disturbing was the announcement that The US will deploy long-range missiles in Germany starting in 2026. This is the first time there has been such a deployment since the Cold War. Predictably, the announcement sparked outrage in Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov promised a “military response to the new threat”.