https://english.alarabiya.net/News/north-africa/2021/07/05/Nearly-150-people-hospitalized-in-Algeria-after-swimming-in-polluted-seawater

Nearly 150 people were hospitalized after swimming on Sunday in seawater suspected to have been polluted at Tenes in northwestern Algeria, a regional official said, quoted by local media.

Three beaches and a desalination plant have been closed and an investigation launched in Chlef, a locality that includes Tenes, the reports said.

Local government official Lakhdar Seddas told the privately owned Echourouk TV channel that “149 people suffered nausea, fever and redness of the eyes and were taken to hospital.”

Seddas said that around 50 people had since left hospital, and that polluted seawaters may have made them ill. Suspicions centred on a ship carrying livestock that had arrived recently at Tenes port, he added.

The website Ennahar Online named the ship as the Tanzanian-flagged Barhom II, and said it had arrived from the southern French port of Sete.

Twenty-eight divers and seven civil defense workers who were sent to investigate were also reported to have become unwell.

An official statement said an environment ministry team had taken air and water samples from the port at Tenes, beaches and other locations.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-man-charged-spying-china-b1879029.html

A man suspected of spying for China's secret service for nearly a decade has been arrested and indicted in Germany, authorities have said.

The prosecutor's office said on Tuesday the man is a political scientist who had been working at a Munich-based think thank.

Under German media laws, he has been identified only as Klaus L. and is understood to have been employed by the Hanns Seidel Foundation, the German public broadcaster ARD said.

According to the prosecutor's office, Chinese security agencies recruited Klaus S. while he was on a lecturing trip to Shanghai in 2010 - some 10 years after joining the think tank.

He travelled between the two countries until November 2019.

He would use his high-ranking political contacts, obtained through the think tank, to obtain information about German politics and pass it onto his Chinese handlers in exchange for money and trips to China, the prosecutor's office added.

The Hanns Seidel Foundation is associated with German chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.

https://www.fedscoop.com/darpa-makes-bug-bounty-program-open-source-fett/

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has made its hardware vulnerability disclosure platform for white-hat hackers open source.

The platform, known as Finding Exploits to Thwart Tampering (FETT), was first launched last year, and the agency hopes that moving to an open-source structure will help ethical hackers to spot flaws with chip design and aid the creation of new processor prototypes

The system virtualizes hardware and firmware, giving hackers a full range of access to chip designs before they are produced and installed into agency systems.

“We see value in making this research available to the broader [research and development] community for testing and evaluating processor designs to ensure they are robust and secure,” said Keith Rebello, the DARPA program manager leading FETT’s parent program, System Security Integration Through Hardware and firmware (SSITH).

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/san-francisco-looters-neiman-marcus-california

Looters were captured on video Monday ransacking a Neiman Marcus in San Francisco as thefts continue to plague businesses in the area.

At least nine suspects smashed display cases, snatched handbags, and jetted out of the building before law enforcement arrived to the scene at about 6 p.m., according to footage. The suspects were seen running out of the store with their hands full of merchandise before entering an apparent getaway car that sped off down a busy intersection.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/capitol-police-threats-congress-field-offices

The acting Capitol Police chief announced Tuesday that the force will be setting up field offices in California and Florida, with more locations to come, to help address the spike in threats against members of Congress.

The release, signed by acting chief Yogananda Pittman, marked the changes and improvements the force has been making on the six-month anniversary of the Capitol insurrection.

Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton testified before Congress in May that his office had been aware of the shortage in manpower to handle those lawmaker threats since at least 2020, and that the “caseload has basically exploded” since then. Capitol Police have said that in 2021 alone, threats against members were up 107 percent compared to the previous year.

Pittman added Tuesday that Capitol Police will also bulk up its protection of lawmakers while they are away from Washington D.C.

Many of the other changes center on training, an area IG Bolton consistently pointed to as lacking. In one of his reports, he revealed that Capitol Police had been training at private companies, including one that used troubling imagery on its website.

https://www.rollcall.com/2021/06/11/capitol-police-watchdog-flags-training-contractors-use-of-nazi-adjacent-symbols/

Capitol Police spent $90,075 in taxpayer dollars in 2018 and 2019 to train its specialized Containment Emergency Response Team with Northern Red Inc., a company that publicly displays symbols often associated with the white supremacist movement.

Capitol Police Inspector General Michael A. Bolton discovered the symbols as part of his review into the Jan. 6 insurrection and has recommended the department “review the appropriateness of utilizing Northern Red, Inc. for further training,” according to an advisory report shared with acting Chief Yogananda Pittman and other department officials.

Northern Red’s website and Facebook page prominently display the Devil’s Guard Patch, which stems from a 1971 novel titled “Devil’s Guard,” which has been described as “overly sympathetic to the Nazis, especially the SS.”

Northern Red’s company logo includes a combination of two Nordic runes (symbols) — Othala and Tyr — both of which are listed on the Anti-Defamation League’s website as hate symbols. Another Northern Red logo, Thor’s Hammer, is also listed as a hate symbol.

https://northernredtraining.com/about/

Every member of the Northern Red team has served multiple combat rotations with U.S. Special Forces Crisis Response Force (Formerly known as the Commander’s In-Extremis Force or CIF) or with the sole Tier 1 Unit in the Army…Delta.