China defends COVID-19 data-sharing as WHO seeks more access

 China has shared the most COVID-19 data and research results in the international community, its foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after the World Health Organization repeated its call for more information and access.

China is also the only country that organised experts to share traceability progress with the WHO on many occasions, Mao Ning, spokesperson at the foreign ministry, told a regular news conference.\

In a statement on Monday, the WHO again asked China to share data and access to assist its efforts to understand the origins of COVID-19, the first cases of which were detected in central China five years ago.

According to the WHO, over 760 million COVID-19 cases and 6.9 million deaths have been recorded worldwide. In mid-2023, it declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency but said the disease should be a permanent reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge with devastating consequences.

Data from the early days of the pandemic was uploaded by Chinese scientists to an international database in early 2023, a few months after China dismantled all its COVID-19 restrictions and reopened its borders to the rest of the world.

The data showed DNA from multiple animal species – including raccoon dogs – was present in environmental samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, suggesting that they were “the most likely conduits” of the disease, according to a team of international researchers.

In 2021, a WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan – where the first cases were detected – and said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but further research was needed.

China had said no more visits were necessary and that the search of early cases should be conducted in other countries.

“On the issue of COVID-19 traceability, China has shared the most data and research results and made the greatest contribution to global traceability research,” Mao said.

“WHO’s international experts have repeatedly said that during their visit to China, they went to all the places they wanted to go and met all the people they wanted to see.”

https://theprint.in/world/china-defends-covid-19-data-sharing-as-who-seeks-more-access/2425689/

Gazprom Says Gas Flows Via Ukraine Halted

 Russia’s gas Gazprom PJSC halted natural gas supplies through Ukraine as its five-year transit agreements expired on Jan. 1 at 8 am Moscow time.

“Due to the repeated and explicit refusal of the Ukrainian side to extend these agreements, Gazprom was deprived of the technical and legal opportunity to supply gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine from January 1, 2025,” Russian gas producer said in a Telegram post.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-01/gazprom-says-gas-flows-via-ukraine-halted

ICE ends programs to aid migrants comply with release conditions over ‘immense cost’

 Immigration and Customs Enforcement scrapped two programs for migrants over budgetary reasons in recent months, determining that the benefits were not worth the “immense cost.”

The agency notified congressional lawmakers last week that it will no longer enroll migrants in its non-detained docket in its Wraparound Stabilization Service (WSS) and Young Adult Case Management (YACMP) system. 

Both programs were launched with the goal of getting a larger percentage of the more than 7 million migrants in ICE’s non-detained docket to comply with their release conditions. 

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ICE said it cut the two programs for budgetary reasons.Getty Images

“ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations [ERO] notes the challenge with the WSS was its immense cost with little improvement,” the agency wrote in a letter to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and more than a dozen other lawmakers, obtained by Fox News.

“As a result, ERO determined WSS was not cost effective enough to continue paying for these services when they did not benefit ICE or help the agency further its mission,” the letter continued. 

WSS, started in February 2020, offered migrants released into the country access to “services that provide psychosocial and behavioral health support for vulnerable participants and their families who would benefit from additional stabilization services.”

ICE noted that the program, which stopped referrals in July, only resulted in a 2% higher compliance rate compared to those not enrolled.

The YACMP program, which offered 18- and 19-year-old migrants legal services, screenings, referrals to social service programs and human trafficking screenings in 16 cities, was also shuttered. 

“In addition to fiscal limitations, a review of the program revealed that YACMP does not align with ERO’s mission or priorities,” ICE wrote. “In short, ERO took steps to realign or stop using programs to address the budget challenges facing the agency.”

The agency said it decided in June not to renew a vendor contract YACMP, which launched in 2023. 

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The US has seen record levels of illegal border-crossings under the Biden administration.James Keivom

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The programs were intended to get more migrants to comply with release conditions.James Keivom

The letter came in response to a May request from congressional lawmakers for more information about ICE’s “Alternatives to Detention” program – a process that generally requires migrants to submit to GPS tracking or report their whereabouts on a smartphone app after they’re released into the US. 

ICE argued in its letter that the program was “an efficient and effective” program for keeping track of non-detained migrants and ensuring compliance. 

The agency noted that 98.6% of migrants enrolled in an ICE tracking program appeared at their court hearings overall, while 90.4% appeared for final hearings. 

ICE also informed lawmakers that in fiscal year 2024, 3,913 migrants out of the 181,000 enrolled in “Alternatives to Detention” were charged with crimes, resulting in 688 convictions – including 10 for sex offenses and two for homicide. 

https://nypost.com/2024/12/31/us-news/ice-ends-two-programs-for-migrants-over-immense-cost/

Citgo Bidding Opened to Others to Try to Top Elliott Firm

 

• US judge resets bidding process for oil refiner’s parent
• Sale aimed at generating revenue to pay Venezuela’s creditors

A US judge reset the bidding process for the parent company of Citgo Petroleum Corp. late Tuesday, a move that is poised to create competition for Elliott Investment Management’s pursuit of the oil refiner.

Judge Leonard Stark ordered the bidding for the company to be reopened, allowing for new offers to be submitted. Any proposal would have to top the $7.3 billion bid made by an affiliate of Elliott earlier this year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-01/citgo-bidding-opened-to-others-to-try-to-top-elliott-affiliate

PJM responds to Pennsylvania Governor's complaint over power market rules

 Grid operator PJM Interconnection responded on Tuesday to a complaint from Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro over power market rules, citing concerns about potential power shortages due to the fast-paced expansion of data centers.

Shapiro had filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday, arguing that the largest U.S. power grid operator needs to change its market rules to avoid a potential surge in electricity costs.

"We have been warning for over two years of the prospect that parts of our country could run short of power during high demand periods," PJM said in a statement.

"This possibility has been growing, primarily as a result of state and federal policy decisions that are pushing generators to retire prematurely, and also due to unprecedented and rapidly growing data center construction," the grid operator added.

The company has sought permission from federal regulators to lower the market price cap and has proposed faster integration of new generation projects to mitigate issues such as power deficiencies during periods of high demand.

PJM, which serves nearly 65 million people across the U.S., has faced increased public scrutiny since July when it said that its annual capacity auction would lead to record-high payments to power plants within its system.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/PJM-responds-to-Pennsylvania-Governor-s-complaint-over-power-market-rules-48669738/

Citigroup joins US lenders in exiting Net-Zero Banking Alliance

 U.S. bank Citigroup said on Tuesday it is exiting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a group of global banks that have pledged to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

This move makes Citigroup the third major U.S. lender to exit the group after Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, which both left earlier this month.

Financial firms, historically criticized for their connections to the fossil fuel industry, have made efforts to incorporate net-zero standards more prominently into their operations.

However, they have begun scaling back on some initiatives to avoid irking Republican policymakers who are opposed to limiting the financing of fossil fuels.

Citi said it had made progress towards its own net-zero goals and decided to leave the NZBA.

The NZBA aims to bring down carbon emissions from the lending and investment portfolios of its members to zero on a net basis by 2050.

Last month, BlackRock , Vanguard and State Street were sued by Texas and 10 other Republican-led states, which said the large asset managers violated antitrust law through climate activism that reduced coal production and boosted energy prices.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/CITIGROUP-INC-4818/news/Citigroup-joins-US-lenders-in-exiting-Net-Zero-Banking-Alliance-48669688/

U.S. Army Soldier Arrested in AT&T, Verizon Extortions

 Federal authorities have arrested and indicted a 20-year-old U.S. Army soldier on suspicion of being Kiberphant0m, a cybercriminal who has been selling and leaking sensitive customer call records stolen earlier this year from AT&T and Verizon. As first reported by KrebsOnSecurity last month, the accused is a communications specialist who was recently stationed in South Korea.

One of several selfies on the Facebook page of Cameron Wagenius.

Cameron John Wagenius was arrested near the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas on Dec. 20, after being indicted on two criminal counts of unlawful transfer of confidential phone records.

The sparse, two-page indictment (PDF) doesn’t reference specific victims or hacking activity, nor does it include any personal details about the accused. But a conversation with Wagenius’ mother — Minnesota native Alicia Roen — filled in the gaps.

Roen said that prior to her son’s arrest he’d acknowledged being associated with Connor Riley Moucka, a.k.a. “Judische,” a prolific cybercriminal from Canada who was arrested in late October for stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that stored data at the cloud service Snowflake.

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Judische said he had no interest in selling the data he’d stolen from Snowflake customers and telecom providers, and that he preferred to outsource that to Kiberphant0m and others. Meanwhile, Kiberphant0m claimed in posts on Telegram that he was responsible for hacking into at least 15 telecommunications firms, including AT&T and Verizon.

On November 26, KrebsOnSecurity published a story that followed a trail of clues left behind by Kiberphantom indicating he was a U.S. Army soldier stationed in South Korea.

Ms. Roen said Cameron worked on radio signals and network communications at an Army base in South Korea for the past two years, returning to the United States periodically. She said Cameron was always good with computers, but that she had no idea he might have been involved in criminal hacking.

“I never was aware he was into hacking,” Roen said. “It was definitely a shock to me when we found this stuff out.”

Ms. Roen said Cameron joined the Army as soon as he was of age, following in his older brother’s footsteps.

“He and his brother when they were like 6 and 7 years old would ask for MREs from other countries,” she recalled, referring to military-issued “meals ready to eat” food rations. “They both always wanted to be in the Army. I’m not sure where things went wrong.”

Immediately after news broke of Moucka’s arrest, Kiberphant0m posted on the hacker community BreachForums what they claimed were the AT&T call logs for President-elect Donald J. Trump and for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“In the event you do not reach out to us @ATNT all presidential government call logs will be leaked,” Kiberphant0m threatened, signing their post with multiple “#FREEWAIFU” tags. “You don’t think we don’t have plans in the event of an arrest? Think again.”

Kiberphant0m posting what he claimed was a “data schema” stolen from the NSA via AT&T.

On that same day, Kiberphant0m posted what they claimed was the “data schema” from the U.S. National Security Agency.

On Nov. 5, Kiberphant0m offered call logs stolen from Verizon’s push-to-talk (PTT) customers — mainly U.S. government agencies and emergency first responders. On Nov. 9, Kiberphant0m posted a sales thread on BreachForums offering a “SIM-swapping” service targeting Verizon PTT customers. In a SIM-swap, fraudsters use credentials that are phished or stolen from mobile phone company employees to divert a target’s phone calls and text messages to a device they control.

The profile photo on Wagenius’ Facebook page was deleted within hours of my Nov. 26 story identifying Kiberphant0m as a likely U.S. Army soldier. Still, many of his original profile photos remain, including several that show Wagenius in uniform while holding various Army-issued weapons.

Several profile photos visible on the Facebook page of Cameron Wagenius.

November’s story on Kiberphant0m cited his own Telegram messages saying he maintained a large botnet that was used for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to knock websites, users and networks offline. In 2023, Kiberphant0m sold remote access credentials for a major U.S. defense contractor.

Allison Nixon, chief research officer at the New York-based cybersecurity firm Unit 221B, helped track down Kiberphant0m’s real life identity. Nixon was among several security researchers who faced harassment and specific threats of violence from Judische and his associates.

“Anonymously extorting the President and VP as a member of the military is a bad idea, but it’s an even worse idea to harass people who specialize in de-anonymizing cybercriminals,” Nixon told KrebsOnSecurity. She said the investigation into Kiberphant0m shows that law enforcement is getting better and faster at going after cybercriminals — especially those who are actually living in the United States.

“Between when we, and an anonymous colleague, found his opsec mistake on November 10th to his last Telegram activity on December 6, law enforcement set the speed record for the fastest turnaround time for an American federal cyber case that I have witnessed in my career,” she said.

Nixon asked to share a message for all the other Kiberphant0ms out there who think they can’t be found and arrested.

“I know that young people involved in cybercrime will read these articles,” Nixon said. “You need to stop doing stupid shit and get a lawyer. Law enforcement wants to put all of you in prison for a long time.”

The indictment against Wagenius was filed in Texas, but the case has been transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/12/u-s-army-soldier-arrested-in-att-verizon-extortions/

For surgeons, medical school debt outpaces salary growth

 Medical school debt has increased by 268% over the past 40 years, outpacing the increase in surgeon salaries almost 10-fold, according to a study published Dec. 11 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham analyzed data from the Medical Group Management Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges to determine if surgeon compensation has sufficiently accounted for rising medical school debt over the years. 

Here are five notes from the study:

1. In 1984, the median general surgeon salary was $111,287 and the median medical school debt was $22,000. These figures would represent an adjusted 2019-equivalent  median salary of $274,900 and median debt of $54,344, a 147% increase.
   
   
2. According to the study, the actual median general surgeon salary in 2019 was $350,000, representing a 214.5% increase since 1984, and the median medical school debt was $200,000, representing an 809% increase since 1984.
   
   
3. Comparing the reported salary and debt figures from 2019 to the adjusted 2019-equivalent figures, salaries rose 27.3% and debt rose 268%.
   
   
4. The debt-to-income ratio grew from 0.2 to 0.57 between 1984 and 2012 and has remained stable since.
   
   
5. The researchers found that while both general surgeon salaries and medical school debt have increased, debt has increased at a faster rate. 

Read the full report here. 

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/for-surgeons-medical-school-debt-outpaces-salary-growth-5-notes.html

US launches multiple strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen after terrorists targeted Israel

 US forces targeted Houthi forces in Yemen in a series of precision strikes on Monday and Tuesday after the Iran-backed terror group had launched a series of ballistic missiles at Israel in recent weeks.

American Navy ships and aircraft targeted Houthi command posts and weapons depots Monday and Tuesday, destroying the facilities that have been attacking military and merchant vessels in the region, according to US Central Command. 

The strikes were focused on the capital city of Sana’a and coastal locations around the Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, including “advanced conventional weapon (ACW) production and storage facilities.” 

The US launched multiple attacks against Houthi targets in Yemen.U.S. Central Command

“These facilities were used in Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” CENTCOM said in a statement. 

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US Navy and Air Force aircraft also destroyed a Houthi coastal radar site and seven cruise missiles, the statement added. 

CENTCOM said the strikes were part of the US military’s efforts to crack down on the Houthis’ attacks in the region, which began last year in solidarity with Hamas following Israel’s incursion in Gaza. 

The rebels have repeatedly attacked cargo and tanker ships traveling through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and have launched missiles and drones at US forces stationed in the region.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam condemned the US strikes in Sana’a, and said the rebel forces would continue to defend themselves against American forces. 

““The US aggression on Yemen is a blatant violation of the sovereignty of an independent state, and blatant support for Israel to encourage it to continue its crimes of genocide against the people of Gaza,” Abdulsalam said in a statement. 

The strikes targeted Houthi weapons depots and other hubs where they launched attacks against international shipping.U.S. Central Command
The US attacks come just days after the Israeli military launched a multi-wave attack across Yemen in retaliation for Houthi missile and drone strikes. 

After Israel has nearly destroyed Hamas in Gaza and reached a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis are the last of the three Iranian proxy groups involved in the conflict who remain posing serious risks to Israeli security.

That’s good news for Israel, an Israeli defense insider told The Post in Tel Aviv last week, as “Yemen is not as advanced as Hamas and Hezbollah were.”

“What has happened now with Iran is their safety blanket is gone,” the insider said. “They can’t tell Israel, ‘if you attack us, then Hezbollah’s 200,000 rockets are going to be pointed at you.”

Israel Defense Forces warplanes hit key infrastructure like Sana’a International Airport — which is controlled by the Iran-backed terror group — in the Yemeni capital as well as power plants in Aziz and Ras Cantib.

The strike on the airport allegedly came within “a few meters” of where World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and his team were boarding their plane, according to the WHO chief.  

The strikes came after Houthi forces have upped ballistic missile attacks on Israel — one of which on Dec. 20 slipped by Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system and injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/31/world-news/us-launches-multiple-strikes-on-houthi-targets-in-yemen/