Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
At least six government departments breached in likely Russian intelligence operation thought to have begun in March
The US government is still in the dark over how deeply Russian hackers penetrated its networks during the worst ever cyber attack on federal agencies, members of Congress warned on Friday.
At least six government departments were breached in a likely Russian intelligence operation thought to have begun in March. Although there is no evidence that classified networks were compromised, it is not known what the hackers may have stolen or how long it will take to purge them.
The US vice-president, Mike Pence, received his Covid-19 vaccine on Friday morning. Dr Anthony Fauci, who was present for the 'symbolic' inoculation, said it should serve as an example for all Americans called to do so to get vaccinated.
US deaths from coronavirus topped 3,000 for a third straight day and the country reported a record number of new infections
US president-elect can help uncover truth about Saudi journalist’s murder, says Hatice Cengiz
Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, has called on the US president-elect, Joe Biden, to release the CIA’s classified report into the Washington Post journalist’s murder once he enters the White House, a move she said would “greatly assist” in uncovering the truth.
The classified intelligence assessment has never been released but media outlets have reported, without providing more details, that it concludes with “medium to high confidence” that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the killing.
Analysis: new president must find a way to contain such hyper-aggressive behaviour from Moscow
It is Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy headache. As well as confronting the Covid pandemic, the president-elect has to deal with a more familiar problem: Russia. Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election cast a shadow over US politics for four long years.
And now the Kremlin appears to have struck again. This week details emerged of an unprecedented cyber-attack against US government departments. Beginning in March, suspected Russian hackers penetrated Washington’s signature institutions.
The United States on Thursday surpassed a total of 17m coronavirus cases, with infections rising by more than a million a week during the early winter surge – while at the start of the year it took three months for the US to accumulate its first million cases.
Nearly a quarter of a million new coronavirus infections and more than 3,600 deaths had been reported just on Wednesday, shattering previous records as the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19 began rolling out across the country this week.
To Australia (where your correspondent currently sits):
The state of Victoria has imposed a ‘traffic light’ restriction system on travellers from New South Wales from tonight.
We are very strongly advising all Victorians not to travel to Sydney. As conditions are expected to deteriorate, and you may not be able to re-enter Victoria without undertaking quarantining for 14 days.
Don’t come from Sydney if you’re planning to come to Melbourne... it won’t be a holiday. It won’t be a Christmas. It won’t be the Christmas or the holiday you were planning. The situation in NSW and Sydney is rapidly evolving.
There are no restrictions on movement in the northern beaches in Sydney, but here is an indication people are complying with requests to stay home, from the MP for Mackellar.
Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth are on trial for the death of Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome
The US student who admitted stabbing a policeman in Rome last year was shaking and crying inside a police station after learning the attack was fatal, his mother has testified at his trial.
Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 19, face life sentences for the July 2019 death of police officer Mario Cerciello Rega during a botched drug bust in Rome while they were on holiday.
US confirmed 247,403 new cases on Wednesday and 3,656 Americans died of the coronavirus in a single day
The United States on Thursday surpassed a total of 17m coronavirus cases, with infections rising by more than a million a week during the early winter surge – while at the start of the year it took three months for the US to accumulate its first million cases.
Nearly a quarter million new coronavirus infections and more than 3,600 deaths had been reported just on Wednesday, shattering previous records as the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19 began rolling out across the country this week.
‘Significant and ongoing’ cyber attack, suspected to be the work of Russia, poses a grave risk to ‘critical infrastructure entities’ as well
The US government continues to reel from a large and sophisticated hacking campaign that affected top federal agencies, including the energy department, the treasury and commerce departments, and is even said to have targeted the agency responsible for the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
Authorities expressed increasing alarm over the hack, suspected to be the work of Russia, warning that it poses “a grave risk” to federal, state and local governments, as well as “critical infrastructure entities”.
Hazardous conditions reported in multiple states as regions in Pennsylvania and New York saw accumulations in double digits
The first major snowstorm of the season left the north-east blanketed in snow, setting records in some areas.
“Williamsport regional airport made history,” the National Weather Service in State College said, reporting 24.7in of snow. Forecasters said that was the most snow in that location from a single storm on record, breaking the previous record of 24.1in set there in January 1964.
Poland will enter a national quarantine from 28 December to 17 January, during which all hotels, ski slopes and shopping malls will close, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, said on Thursday.
“I call on every Pole to be responsible for themselves and their loved ones. But I know that calls won’t help,” Niedzielski told a news conference.
One of Ukraine’s best known veteran politicians, Gennady Kernes, died in Germany early on Thursday from Covid-19 complications, local authorities and members of his family said.
Mayor of the largest eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Kernes, 61, went into politics after making his fortune in the post-communist 1990s.
President signed 1993 agreement with town that says he cannot live at the club for more than three nonconsecutive weeks in a year
Neighbors of Donald Trump’s infamous Mar-a-Lago golf club in Palm Beach, Florida are warning the president that he cannot live at the club after he leaves the White House, following an agreement he made with the town in 1993.
In a letter to the town of Palm Beach and the US Secret Service sent this week, a lawyer representing a family that lives next to Mar-a-Lago reiterated that “Mar-a-Lago is a social club, and no one may reside on the property.”
Developer says it plans to focus on using pig organs for human transplant rather than selling for meat
Genetically modified (GM) pigs have been approved for food and medical use in the US, drawing mixed reactions. The pigs are only the second GM animal to be approved for food after GM salmon in 2015.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week approved the GM pigs, which have been engineered to eliminate alpha-gal, a sugar found in pigs that can cause allergic reactions.
The FDA said it was the first time it had approved a GM animal for human food and medical use.
Fighters and coaches in mixed martial arts have propagated the popular conspiracy theory. The sport’s outsider origins may be to blame
There was anger on the streets of Huntington Beach.
At the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway near the picturesque pier, hundreds gathered on 30 November in defiance of California’s coronavirus curfew, which prohibits all “non-essential work, movement and gatherings” between 10pm and 5am until 21 December across most of the state. The so-called “curfew breakers” protest brought together a collection of coronavirus truthers, anti-maskers, and those who remain convinced that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Talks on reducing charges on items such as Scotch whisky follow UK move to drop levy on Boeing
The UK and the United States are hoping to reach an agreement on reducing trade tariffs, according to Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative in Donald Trump’s outgoing administration.
That’s all for me today. My colleague Maanvi Singh in Oakland will be keeping you updated for the rest of the day. Here’s a rundown of the day’s biggest stories so far:
The availability of intensive care unit beds in the San Francisco Bay Area fell below 15% on Tuesday, the threshold that triggers a regional stay-at-home order.
Much of the Bay Area had preemptively enacted the stay-at-home order earlier in the month, but three counties did not. They will now have to enact the stricter rules by midnight Thursday.
Intrigue surrounds what may have been exposed, from nuclear secrets to Covid vaccine data to next-generation weapons systems
Some of America’s most deeply held institutional secrets may have been stolen in a large hacking operation being blamed on elite Russian government operatives.
Intrigue surrounds what may have been exposed, from nuclear secrets to Covid-19 vaccine data to next-generation weapons systems.
Treacherous storm set to hit states from Virginia to Massachusetts today as 3,019 people die in the last 24 hours
Continued shipments of the vital coronavirus vaccine around the US face delay as a monster winter storm is set to pummel states from Virginia to Massachusetts later Wednesday, even as the US suffered its third deadliest day of the pandemic.
A total of 3,019 people died because of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the third highest total since the first cases were recorded in the US as far back as January.