NYPD Investigating Suspicious Package Sent to N.Y. Times

An official for the NYPD said that an envelope with paper in it was delivered to the building and that an investigation is ongoing. A suspicious package sent to The New York Times' headquarters in Manhattan is currently being investigated by the New York Police Department, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed.

An official for the NYPD told THR that an envelope with paper in it was delivered to the building and that an investigation is ongoing. No further information was immediately available, but several Times editors tweeted about the incident and said that the building had not been evacuated but the NYPD was on the scene.

The building was given the all-clear late Monday evening, according to the NYPD. Just weeks ago, the New York Times building added concrete security barriers as part of increased safety measures. "They are part of our continuing efforts to enhance security at our headquarters building," a spokesperson said at the time. The package follows similar instances in which suspicious packages and mail bombs were sent to several local newspapers as well as CNN. On Oct. 24, CNN's Time Warner Center in New York was evacuated after a mail bomb was addressed to former CIA director and frequent CNN guest John Brennan.

A second bomb sent to CNN was intercepted Friday. The third package was not addressed to anyone specific, just to the CNN Center building in downtown Atlanta. On Monday, a third package sent to CNN was found and intercepted, this time in Atlanta, where the network is based.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nypd-investigating-suspicious-package-sent-new-york-times-1156175

Sayoc's attorney questions evidence against accused serial bomber

Prosecutors say they found Aventura man's fingerprints, DNA on packages

In an exclusive interview with Local 10 News, one of Cesar Sayoc's defense attorneys questioned the government's case against the accused South Florida serial bomber, saying the evidence is circumstantial. Jamie Benjamin is no stranger to Cesar Sayoc. His firm represented Sayoc on several retail theft charges in the past, the last one in 2014. "He reached out and he was just relieved that we were there to be able to counsel him," Benjamin said. "During those times of representation, he didn't exhibit anything but a polite respectful person but who knows what's happened from then till now."

Benjamin was part of the legal team in court Monday defending the 56-year-old Aventura man accused of mailing 14 bomb-like devices to CNN and prominent Democrats across the country. A new package addressed to CNN headquarters in Atlanta was discovered Monday morning. "This new bomb could mean there was a mailing that happened after he was in custody," Benjamin said. "I don't know either, but that's why we can't speculate."

However, federal officials have warned that additional devices still could be traveling through the mail system. On Monday, the FBI warned a number of additional politicians and other public figures they could become targets after agents said they found their names and addresses in Sayoc's possession.

A bodybuilder who worked as a male dancer for several years, Sayoc worked most recently as a pizza driver and an occasional bouncer and DJ at a West Palm Beach strip club. Court records show he had been arrested at least nine times on charges such as grand theft, battery, fraud and drug possession. In one notable case, Sayoc pleaded guilty to threatening an employee of Florida Power and Light in 2002, saying he would cause an explosion if the company turned off his power service. Benjamin maintains the evidence he's seen in the criminal complaint against Sayoc is thin even though investigators said they have fingerprints and DNA evidence linking Sayoc to the packages. "Just because they say this print, which hasn't been certified, and these two maybe DNA (samples). That's all they have. No pictures of him. No movies. No going to the places where they were mailed," Benjamin said.

But what of the white Dodge van that Sayoc allegedly lived in, covered in pro-Trump stickers? And his social media pages spewing hateful messages and threatening violence? "The First Amendment protects words even if they're hate words. To connect it to this, the government has a long row to hoe here," Benjamin said. Federal prosecutors want no bail for Sayoc. They said he's a flight risk and a danger to the community. A bond hearing will be held Friday. Sayoc faces up to 48 years behind bars if he is convicted.

https://www.local10.com/news/crime/sayocs-attorney-questions-evidence-against-accused-serial-bomber

>>3660390

Pretty incredible how they are trying to keep this alive..

McCaskill Missed Nearly Half of All Armed Services Hearings

Largest absences occurred while running for re-election in 2012

Democratic senator Claire McCaskill, who is engaged in a fierce re-election battle in her home state of Missouri, is touting herself as a champion of men and women in uniform, despite her congressional record. Since joining the Senate in 2007, McCaskill has served on the Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over Department of Defense funding and policies affecting U.S. military personnel. Even though the committee is recognized to be one of the most important in the Senate and certainly the most important to members of the military, McCaskill has missed nearly half of its hearings throughout her tenure in Congress.

Documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon indicate that between 2007 and September 2018, McCaskill skipped 235 out of 471 hearings held by the Armed Services Committee. The senator's absence likely resulted in missed opportunities to weigh in on strategic defense initiatives, military research and development projects, as well as pay and benefits for members of the armed forces. The senator racked up her largest number of absences during the 112th Congress, which took place between 2011 and 2012 when she was locked in a close re-election contest. During that time period, McCaskill only attended 23 out of a total of 66 hearings. McCaskill's absences on the committee far outpace those of her fellow red-state Democrats, including Sens. Joe Donnelly (Ind.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.). It is unclear why McCaskill missed the hearings or if her absences were excused. McCaskill's total number absences do not include hearings she missed while receiving treatment for breast cancer. The senator's campaign did not return requests for comment.

Despite her tenure on the Armed Services Committee, McCaskill's campaign is touting her record on the military and veterans issues this election cycle. In one recent ad, McCaskill's campaign claims she's "moved mountains" for veterans. Apart from skipped committee hearings, the senator's legislative record offers few insights into her accomplishments on behalf of those who have served. Of the six bills that McCaskill has introduced that have become law since 2007, only one dealt with veterans issues. That legislation, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, mandated that the secretary of the Army present occasional reports to Congress regarding the management of Arlington National Cemetery.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/mccaskill-missed-nearly-half-of-all-armed-services-hearings/

>>3660606

Of course not they couldn't be seen in that light, kek

Swiss Banker Sentenced To 10 Years Jail In Venezuelan Money Laundering Plot

As if the embattled government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro didn't have enough problems, a former rainmaking banker with Swiss asset manager Julius Baer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a money laundering scandal that siphoned off $1.2 billion (or 1.2 billion Swiss francs) from PDVSA, Venezuela's deteriorating state oil company, in a scandal that allegedly involved three of Maduro's stepsons, according to Swissinfo.ch and Bloomberg.

Matthias Krull, 45, was sentenced Monday in US federal court in Miami after entering a guilty plea on Aug. 22. As part of the plea, he admitted that he had joined a network of money launderers who used real estate and fraudulent investment schemes to conceal funds taken from Petroleos de Venezuela. According to his attorney, Krull is cooperating and his sentence could be reduced if he provides "substantial assistance" to the investigation, which could apparently give the US government justification for pressing sanctions against more members of Maduro's family, given the step-sons' involvement. None of the stepsons have been charged.

The money laundering scandal is only the latest headache for Baer in South America. According to Bloomberg, the bank is in its third year of a deferred-prosecution agreement with the DOJ after admitting two years ago that it helped thousands of Americans evade taxes, a scandal for which it paid nearly $550 million in fines and for which two bankers pleaded guilty. Another former banker at Baer pleaded guilty last year in a federal courtroom in New York for his role in funneling money from an Argentinian sports-marketing company to FIFA in part of the wide-ranging international corruption scandal that tarnished the reputation of the international sports association.

As we reported a few months back, Baer has launched an internal investigation into how billions of dollars were laundered from PDVSA. Swiss banks, which still do business with Venezuelans in defiance of US sanctions (though the Swiss government has long since cracked down on Russian depositors), are a key resource for the Venezuelan elite. Julius Baer said in a statement that Krull is no longer employed at the bank and clarified that the bank hadn't been implicated in any wrongdoing. "Mr. Krull is a former employee who has been sentenced to charges brought against him in his personal capacity - the bank is not charged of any wrongdoing," said Julius Baer spokeswoman Larissa Alghisi. "The charges brought against Mr. Krull are not related to the matters covered in the bank’s DPA, and we have no indication that these events will have any impact on the DPA."

The US District Judge who sentenced Krull also imposed a $50,000 fine and ordered Krull to forfeit $600,000, or the amount in fees that he earned for helping launder funds, as part of his punishment. However, there's still a chance that Krull could avoid his stiff sentence in a US prison: As part of his agreement, prosecutors have agreed to lessen Krull's sentence if he provides them meaningful information about his co-conspirators, including the aforementioned step sons of Maduro, who haven't been charged in the case. This suggests that the case could eventually grow to implicate more family members of Maduro, and expose what for the Venezuelan leader would probably be an uncomfortable truth: That even his own flesh and blood has seized every opportunity to steal from his government.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-29/swiss-banker-sentenced-10-years-venezuelan-money-laundering-plot

Chinese Military Scientists Have Infiltrated "Five Eyes" Western Universities

Approximately 2,500 researchers from Chinese military universities have infiltrated Western universities over the past decade, focusing on the so-called "Five Eyes" group of countries, reports the Financial Times, citing a new report from Australian government-funded think tank, the Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). According to the report, many of the Chinese researchers failed to disclose their military affiliations, while publishing a large volume of joint papers with Western scientists which can help Beijing's technological ambitions.

Over the past five years, researchers affiliated to the People’s Liberation Army published more joint papers with scientists from the UK and the US than with those of any other country. The findings will fuel the debate raging in some western capitals over how to control the flow of cutting-edge and especially dual-use technology to Beijing — one of the main fronts in their struggle to adapt to a rapidly rising China. The PLA’s international research collaboration “focuses on hard sciences, especially emerging and dual-use technologies”, said Alex Joske, author of the report that is being published by ASPI today. Dual-use technology has civilian and military applications. -Financial Times

Joske found that the most dominant areas for collaboration between Chinese and foreign researchers were navigation technology, computer science and artificial intelligence (AI). In one example, several researchers visited UK universities and are continuing joint research on topics such as combustion in scramjet engines, which could power hypersonic aircraft capable of flying at six times the speed of sound. Wang Zhenguo, deputy chief of the PLA’s scramjet programme and head of the department of postgraduate studies at the NUDT, has co-authored 18 papers with foreign scientists. -Financial Times

Another Scramjet researcher and aircraft design expert for the PLA's General Armaments Department, Huang Wei, worked on his PhD while at the University of Leeds between 2008 and 2010, according to a researcher at the UK university. Another Chinese scramjet expert, Luo Wenlei, wrote his PhD thesis on scramjet engines while at Leeds in 2014. Both Luo and Huang along with Luo's doctoral thesis supervisors have published together with Gen Wang on the scramjet technology.

One of the most commonly pushed collaborations has come from the PLA's Rocket Force - which includes Beijing's nuclear weapons and missile programs. One of the leading Chinese missile experts, Major General Hu Changhua, spent three months at Germany's University of Duisburg-Essen in 2008, while another RFEU lecturer, Zhou Zhijie, was a visiting scholar at the University of Manchester in 2009. Both Changhua and Zhijie concealed their afficilation with RFEU and instead named the Xi'an Research Institute of High Technology - which doesn't exist. The two continue to publish in English based on this falsified affiliation, according to entries in digital science publication databases. The professors in question either did not respond for comment, or denied working directly for the PLA.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-29/chinese-military-scientists-have-infiltrated-five-eyes-western-universities

>>3660771

And impoverished a country while doing it. Sad for the peoples of that country.

>>3661008

Agreed..Greed knows no bounds.