Text messaging scammers stole $2m in cryptocurrency from victims, says NY lawsuit

Text messaging scammers stole $2m in cryptocurrency from victims, says NY lawsuit
Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference at the offices of the Attorney General in New York City. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Updated 11 January 2025
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Text messaging scammers stole $2m in cryptocurrency from victims, says NY lawsuit

Text messaging scammers stole $2m in cryptocurrency from victims, says NY lawsuit
  • Scammers used unsolicited text messages to target people looking for remote work
  • Victims were told to review products online in order to help generate “market data”

NEW YORK: Scammers stole millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from people seeking remote work opportunities as part of an elaborate scheme, according to New York’s attorney general.

Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday that she’s filed a lawsuit in order to recover more than $2 million that she said was stolen from New Yorkers and others around the country.

James said the unknown network of scammers used unsolicited text messages to target people looking for remote work.

They told victims that the job involved reviewing products online in order to help generate “market data,” James’ office said. But in order to begin earning money, victims were told they had to open cryptocurrency accounts and had to maintain a balance equal to, or greater than, the price of the products they were reviewing.

The victims were assured they would get their investments back plus commission, but the funds simply went into the scammers’ crypto wallets, James’ office said. The product reviews were also conducted on a website set up as part of the scheme.

The suit cites seven victims, identified by pseudonyms, residing in New York, Virginia and Florida. One New York victim lost over $100,000, according to the suit. A Florida woman lost over $300,000.

“Deceiving New Yorkers looking to take on remote work and earn money to support their families is cruel and unacceptable,” she said in a statement. “Scammers sent text messages to New Yorkers promising them good-paying, flexible jobs only to trick them into purchasing cryptocurrency and then stealing it from them.”

James’ suit seeks to return the stolen funds.

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said her office’s cryptocurrency unit traced over $2 million in stolen crypto and identified the digital wallets where the coins were being held. Then, working with James’ office, they were able to have the currency frozen until they could be returned to victims.

“Work scams that prey on those seeking legitimate employment not only rob victims of their hard-earned money but also shatter their trust in the job market,” she added.


Bangladesh dengue deaths top 100, August could be worse

Updated 16 sec ago
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Bangladesh dengue deaths top 100, August could be worse

Bangladesh dengue deaths top 100, August could be worse
DHAKA: Bangladesh is experiencing a surge in dengue cases and deaths, with health experts warning that August could bring an even more severe outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease if urgent action is not taken.
Dengue has killed 101 people and infected 24,183 so far this year, official data showed, placing a severe strain on the country’s already overstretched health care system.
A sharp rise in fatalities has accompanied the spike in cases. Nineteen people have already died of dengue so far in August, following 41 deaths in July — more than double June’s 19 fatalities.
“The situation is critical. The virus is already widespread across the country, and without aggressive intervention, hospitals will be overwhelmed,” said Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist at Jahangirnagar University.
“August could see at least three times as many cases as July, with numbers potentially peaking in September.”
Health officials are urging people to use mosquito repellents, sleep under nets, and eliminate stagnant water where mosquitoes breed.
“We need coordinated spraying and community clean-up drives, especially in high-risk zones,” Bashar said.
Experts say climate change, along with warm, humid weather and intermittent rain, has created ideal breeding conditions for Aedes mosquitoes, the carriers of the dengue virus.
While Dhaka remains a major hotspot, dengue is peaking across the country. Large numbers of infections are being reported from outside the capital, adding pressure to rural health care facilities with limited capacity to treat severe cases.
Doctors warn that early medical attention is critical. Severe abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding, or extreme fatigue should prompt immediate hospital visits to reduce the risk of complications or death.
With the peak dengue season still ahead, health experts have stressed that community participation, alongside government-led mosquito control, will be critical in preventing what could become one of Bangladesh’s worst outbreaks in years. The deadliest year on record was 2023, with 1,705 deaths and more than 321,000 infections reported.

Australia plans to recognize Palestinian state within days, Sydney Morning Herald reports

Australia plans to recognize Palestinian state within days, Sydney Morning Herald reports
Updated 11 August 2025
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Australia plans to recognize Palestinian state within days, Sydney Morning Herald reports

Australia plans to recognize Palestinian state within days, Sydney Morning Herald reports
  • France and Canada last month said it planned to recognize a Palestinian state
  • Britain has said it would follow suit unless Israel addresses the humanitarian crisis in Palestine and reaches a ceasefire

SYDNEY: Australia plans to recognize a Palestinian state as early as Monday following similar moves by France, Britain and Canada, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could sign off on the move after a regular cabinet meeting on Monday, the SMH reported, citing unidentified sources.

Albanese’s office did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

France and Canada last month said it planned to recognize a Palestinian state, while Britain has said it would follow suit unless Israel addresses the humanitarian crisis in Palestine and reaches a ceasefire.

Israel has condemned decisions by countries to support a Palestinian state, saying it will reward Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza.

Netanyahu told reporters on Sunday that most Israeli citizens were against establishing a Palestinian state as they thought that would bring war and not peace, even as thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Tel Aviv, opposing his plan to escalate the nearly two-year war and seize Gaza City.

“To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole just like that, fall right into it ... this is disappointing and I think it’s actually shameful but it’s not going to change our position,” Netanyahu said.

Albanese has been calling for a two-state solution, with his center-left government supporting Israel’s right to exist within secure borders and Palestinians’ right to their own state.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers last month said it was “a matter of when, not if, Australia recognizes a Palestinian state.”

 


The Russian past of Alaska, where Trump and Putin will meet

The Russian past of Alaska, where Trump and Putin will meet
Updated 11 August 2025
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The Russian past of Alaska, where Trump and Putin will meet

The Russian past of Alaska, where Trump and Putin will meet
  • “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska,” Palin said

WASHINGTON: Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold a high-stakes meeting about the Ukraine war on Friday in Alaska, which the United States bought from Russia more than 150 years ago.

Russian influence still endures in parts of the remote state on the northwest edge of the North American continent, which extends just a few miles from Russia.

When Danish explorer Vitus Bering first sailed through the narrow strait that separates Asia and the Americas in 1728, it was on an expedition for Tsarist Russia.

The discovery of what is now known as the Bering Strait revealed the existence of Alaska to the West — however Indigenous people had been living there for thousands of years.

Bering’s expedition kicked off a century of Russian seal hunting, with the first colony set up on the southern Kodiak island.

In 1799, Tsar Paul I established the Russian-American Company to take advantage of the lucrative fur trade, which often involved clashes with the Indigenous inhabitants.

However the hunters overexploited the seals and sea otters, whose populations collapsed, taking with them the settlers’ economy.

The Russian empire sold the territory to Washington for $7.2 million in 1867.

The purchase of an area more than twice the size of Texas was widely criticized in the US at the time, even dubbed “Seward’s folly” after the deal’s mastermind, secretary of state William Seward.

The Russian Orthodox Church established itself in Alaska after the creation of the Russian-American Company, and remains one of the most significant remaining Russian influences in the state.

More than 35 churches, some with distinctive onion-shaped domes, dot the Alaskan coast, according to an organization dedicated to preserving the buildings.

Alaska’s Orthodox diocese says it is the oldest in North America, and even maintains a seminary on Kodiak island.

A local dialect derived from Russian mixed with Indigenous languages survived for decades in various communities — particularly near the state’s largest city Anchorage — though it has now essentially vanished.

However near the massive glaciers on the southern Kenai peninsula, the Russian language is still being taught.

A small rural school of an Orthodox community known as the “Old Believers” set up in the 1960s teaches Russian to around a hundred students.

One of the most famous statements about the proximity of Alaska and Russia was made in 2008 by Sarah Palin, the state’s then-governor — and the vice presidential pick of Republican candidate John McCain.

“They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska,” Palin said.

While it is not possible to see Russia from the Alaskan mainland, two islands facing each other in the Bering Strait are separated by just 2.5 miles (four kilometers).

Russia’s Big Diomede island is just west of the American Little Diomede island, where a few dozen people live.

Further south, two Russians landed on the remote St. Lawrence island — which is a few dozen miles from the Russian coast — in October, 2022 to seek asylum.

They fled just weeks after Putin ordered an unpopular mobilization of citizens to boost his invasion of Ukraine.

For years, the US military has said it regularly intercepts Russian aircraft that venture too close to American airspace in the region.

However Russia is ostensibly not interested in reclaiming the territory it once held, with Putin saying in 2014 that Alaska is “too cold.”

 

 


Trump wants to evict homeless from Washington and send them ‘far from the capital’

Trump wants to evict homeless from Washington and send them ‘far from the capital’
Updated 10 August 2025
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Trump wants to evict homeless from Washington and send them ‘far from the capital’

Trump wants to evict homeless from Washington and send them ‘far from the capital’
  • White House declined to explain what legal authority Trump would use to evict people from Washington
  • On any given night there are 3,782 single persons experiencing homelessness in D.C., a city of about 700,000 people

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump pledged on Sunday to evict homeless people from the nation’s capital and jail criminals, despite Washington’s mayor arguing there is no current spike in crime.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong,” Trump posted on the Truth Social platform.

The White House declined to explain what legal authority Trump would use to evict people from Washington. The Republican president controls only federal land and buildings in the city. Trump is planning to hold a press conference on Monday to “stop violent crime in Washington, D.C.” It was not clear whether he would announce more details about his eviction plan then.

Trump’s Truth Social post included pictures of tents and D.C. streets with some garbage on them. “I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before,” he said.

According to the Community Partnership, an organization working to reduce homelessness in D.C., on any given night there are 3,782 single persons experiencing homelessness in the city of about 700,000 people.

Most of the homeless individuals are in emergency shelters or transitional housing. About 800 are considered unsheltered or “on the street,” the organization says.

A White House official said on Friday that more federal law enforcement officers were being deployed in the city following a violent attack on a young Trump administration staffer that angered the president.

The Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, said on Sunday the capital was “not experiencing a crime spike.”

“It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023,” Bowser said on MSNBC’s The Weekend. “We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.”

The city’s police department reports that violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 was down by 26 percent in D.C. compared with last year while overall crime was down about 7 percent.

Bowser said Trump is “very aware” of the city’s work with federal law enforcement after meeting with Trump several weeks ago in the Oval Office.

The US Congress has control of D.C.’s budget after the district was established in 1790 with land from neighboring Virginia and Maryland, but resident voters elect a mayor and city council.

For Trump to take over the city, Congress likely would have to pass a law revoking the law that established local elected leadership, which Trump would have to sign. Bowser on Sunday noted the president’s ability to call up the National Guard if he wanted, a tactic the administration used recently in Los Angeles after immigration protests over the objections of local officials.


Moscow strikes kill five in Ukraine, refinery hit in Russia

Moscow strikes kill five in Ukraine, refinery hit in Russia
Updated 10 August 2025
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Moscow strikes kill five in Ukraine, refinery hit in Russia

Moscow strikes kill five in Ukraine, refinery hit in Russia
  • A Russian glide bomb hit a busy bus station in the city of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday, wounding 12 people at once
  • Kyiv is trying to hamper Moscow’s ability to fund the more than three-year war of attrition by attacking its energy facilities

KYIV: A new round of Moscow’s shelling and drone attacks killed five people in Ukraine Sunday, authorities said, while Kyiv hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region.

There was no reduction in hostilities on the frontline, even as the United States and Russia agreed to hold a summit in a bid to resolve the conflict, which so far does not include Ukraine.

“Three people killed, one wounded in Zaporizhzhia region as a result of Russian shelling,” Ukraine’s national police said, adding that two more civilians died in the highly contested Donetsk region in the east.

A Russian glide bomb hit a busy bus station in the city of Zaporizhzhia in a separate afternoon strike, wounding 12 people at once, the local officials said, adding that a search and rescue operation was still ongoing.

Visuals from the site shared by the authorities showed rescuers pulling people from the rubble in the shattered central bus station building.

Three beachgoers were killed earlier in the Black Sea coastal city of Odesa, after they triggered a mine while swimming in a prohibited area which was mined.

The Ukrainian army claimed its drones had hit a large oil refinery in Russia’s western Saratov region, almost 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away from the front line.

The Saratov governor, Roman Busargin, only gave a vague comment, saying that “one of the industrial enterprises was damaged” and adding that one person died as a result of the drone attack.

Another woman died in Russia’s region of Belgorod, often under Ukrainian fire due to its proximity to the frontline, the local governor said.

Kyiv is trying to hamper Moscow’s ability to fund the more than three-year war of attrition by attacking its oil and gas facilities, the key sources fueling the state budget.

Ukraine’s military claimed to have taken back the village of Bezsalivka in the Sumy region from the Russian army, which has made significant recent gains.

The focus of the Russian offensive is on eastern Ukraine, where it has stepped up gains in recent months against its less well-equipped opponents.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet in the US state of Alaska this Friday to try to resolve the grinding conflict, despite warnings from Ukraine and Europe that Kyiv must be part of negotiations.